Character Balance in Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra

Wonder how they'll run aurastackers now...

Pretty tame and ResidentSleeper manifesto ngl. After nothing last league and almost nothing the league before that, i was hoping for some major carnage and reworks. Reading "so we noticed mana builds are trash... funny thing that ... maybe something will be done about it 2052... " Is not the hype building balance i was expecting tbh.

What else ?

Some reshuffling of power in minion builds that probably amounts to a zero sum game in most cases + deleting unnatural strength for a equally uninspired only 50x worse node.

For defense all the same shit will be used, its only slightly worse now, the "new options" are pretty lackluster.

Some numerical buffed skills are nice to see; would have been awesome to use some of the melee skills among them on a majorly reworked Juggernaut or chieftain but i guess those ascendancies still only exist to feed one of their nodes to zerker via flesh and flame and be ignored otherwise.

all in all this reads like 3.18.5 , i don´t think the meta will change much at all tbh. All my hype hopium is now on the trickster rework and possible new skills, if that flops this might be an actual skip patch.

Thank you for giving Reddit so much fuel to cry about. These weeks until release are going to be a source of so much entertainment.

Excited for all the changes, except for maybe going back to spamming flask the old way, with a nerf. I don't feel like 3 charges per hit taken will be used a much.

Amazing how people are saying this is a minion survi nerf. Taking away 30% increased life but giving them 20% more life, looks like a buff.

New wands/shields/rings with minion stats. +2 all mininon skills on helmet pretty much means every ascendancy is necro. We can now make +4 gloves/boots (delve+corrupt). +4 body in some cases +3 in most.
If you include the +2 from helmet thats kind of +6 body now for duration minions with +2 minion +2 duration (double corrupt) and +2 all (helmet).
Or +8 skin of the loyal? +2 minion corupt, +1 socketed corrupt (+2 with empower), +1 socketed included with skin (+2 with empower), +2 all (helmet).

Finally crit nodes for minions on the tree. I just hope those will be significant enough to overcome the power charge nerf.

Fixing power/frenzy charges for minions is kind of the biggest nerf here but it was long overdue and it will widen the build diversity as nearly all minion builds were forced to use monkeys.

Wish ice golems had a flame golem damage touch up and their icicle barrage skill reworked or converted into an attack as this spell completely bricks them when you get too much cooldown recovery.

Not sure how people can say this is a minion nerf. Looks to me like a minion league.

Problem: Passive skills that grant blind effect do not adequately reward investment in them.

Solution: Increase the values of blind effect found on the passive tree.

Details:
Spoiler
The Silent Steps Notable Passive Skill now grants 40% increased Blind Effect (previously 30%). The small Passive Skills in this cluster that provide Evasion Rating and Blind Effect now grant 15% Blind Effect (previously 10%).
The Blind Mastery that grants increased Blind Effect now has a value of 40% (previously 30%).


Aren't you guys forgetting Dazziling Strikes Notable Passive Skill and its cluster?

i guess it's time for some WOTLK

Ehh, i don't like this changes... to many nerfs without good damage buffs. We have really tanky uber bosses and it requires a ton of investment just to kill them (not even farm). We have really strong yellow mobs that push you to be more tanky and have more damage just to farm maps comfortable. I think im not gonna kill feared in this new league and wont even bother with uber bosses. Again. Kinda sad for me. But its fine. I can watch some streamers do it, right? Like im not complaining about this game being "hard", dont get me wrong. Im just saying that we should have more damage for "harder" content. But in previous patch you added new "tier" of content, but didn't make our damage higher. Well... i mean you did in some way (with new craft possibilities), but recombinators gone so...anyway, im waiting for new league and im gonna play it and have fun for sure.

It is very disappointing to see this character balancing sheet. Many players don't like minion build to begin with, and some players like me love minion build and it looks like Necro and minion build was bombed with atomic bomb. I don't know what to play for 3.19 or completely skip the new coming league. I have to see manifesto or whatever you call it.

I love all those nerfs... (sarcasm).
POE is becoming more and more aimed at those 1% streamers/peoplethatdocontentinaweek

If you see the numbers, almost 99% of all players barely reaches 20-30 challenges... if this is not hard, what is?

When GGG stops caring only about those hardcore players, then maybe this will be really balanced.