Character Balance in Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra

Seismic trap will still be all we will be watching in Gauntlet.

The cooldown nerfs aren't enough it still covers Maven's whole Arena.

With the blade trap tech. They will just throw blade trap slightly more often.

So after buffing bosses and introducing more debufs come player defense nerfs?

Atm I see 2 ways to play:
- 100 million dps and 0 defense to kill everything in 2 screen radius per second. Whats dead can't hurt you.
- Juggernaut

No place for fun, average builds. Average defense/ dps = not able to do content and die a lot.

The little stationary buff seems a little odd... does anyone even use stationary skills past white t10 maps?

Ah be abi

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The Necromancer's Unnatural Strength Notable Ascendancy Passive Skill no longer provides +2 to Level of all Minion Skill Gems. Instead, it now grants Minions Unholy Might.

Is this really how you see a fix to this? I see no problem with Necromancer ascendancy, the one that is iconic for minions (i.e. summoning things), to be the best for minion builds. In my eyes, if the summoner ascendancy isn't the best at summoning things then you're doing something wrong. There SHOULD be a blanket boost to minion skills from a minion ascendancy, like +levels to minions skills. Things like this allow reaching gem level breakpoints etc. easier/only possible for the ascendancy. We need more things like this, not less.

I have a feeling you're so hung up on "diversity" that it must be possible for any class to play any style and still be competitive or something, but that's just not possible. The whole point of an ascendancy (or class if you will) is to SPECIALISE in something. If it's just minor increased damage here or decreased mana there, sure it makes it more in line with other ascendancies possibly wanting to play the same thing, but that's not the point. Why have an ascendancy for minions if they don't generically benefits minions (in a substantial way)?

Like Saboteur, it's identity is traps and mines, if traps and mines are best played on another ascendancy I think something is wrong. It also shouldn't be just "traps deal more damage" either, there should be iconic things that actually enhance or modify the way the skills are used. If that was the case then sure, other ascendancies could compete with the same skills damage wise but you would choosing the ascendancy based on QoL or playstyle choices.

When someone sees the list of ascendancies, is choosing which one to play, I'm sure they're simultaniously thinking what skill/playstyle they want too, as I'm implying they go hand in hand, where choosing an ascendancy is basically choosing a play style. Where unfortunately I don't think you can get away with ascendancies not pigeon holing you into certain playstyles. If it's not the playstyle you want then you've chosen the wrong ascendancy, otherwise what's the point in them in the first place?

My take on a "as diverse as you get" ascendancy package:
I would like a world where ascendancies offer no increase in damage, or even potentially no increase in defences (obviously sometimes there would be some cool clever things you could do there though), offer no blanket +x to y stats, but offer build defining or playstyle modifying choices. For example I could play traps on Inquisitor and do potentially the same damage as Saboteur, but the Saboteur feels smoother from gaining multiple traps, or movement speed after throwing traps, or traps gain AoE per Frenzy charge, you know things that FEEL different. Just like where +2 level to minions skills is one of those cases where it offers potential no other ascendancy does due to the way minions scale...

P.S. I hate how you've been moving all the interesting nodes out of ascendancies onto the passive tree or items. Just like most recently Occultist and Trickster, you're taking away their iconic most powerful ascendancy node (+level minion gems), and offering it to all other classes on a helmet slot!? I think it's insanity. I think you should move back all those keystones onto ascendancies so there's reason to play them again! If you keep removing the only interesting ascendancy nodes so every class can have access to them, why have ascendancies at all? Ascendancies SHOULD BE DEFINING in some way.

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Problem: Skills that cause corpse explosions derive much of their damage scaling from increased maximum corpse life, mostly from skills on the passive skill tree. This pressures builds utilising these skills to choose the Necromancer ascendancy class as it provides a large value of this stat, and means that corpses of enemies you kill are not useful for damage compared to corpses you spawn yourself. Additionally, since the percentage of corpse life dealt as damage by these skills does not scale with skill levels, there is not sufficient incentive to level them up (especially for builds scaling ignite damage).

Solution: Remove the increased maximum corpse life stat from the Necromancer ascendancy and reduce the values available elsewhere. Increase the percentage of corpse life dealt as damage for all corpse explosion skills to offset this substantial damage loss, and have this percentage scale with the level of the skill.

If you don't want player created corpses to do more damage than a slain monsters corpse then why have ANY form of increased corpse spawning maximum life? I really don't understand this change.

Why not make desecrate corpse's just all have the same maximum life value regardless of what creature they are? Why take away more of the identity of the Necromancer and it's corpse modifying nodes?

I really don't think you should be balancing ascendancies around how viable a certain skill is compared to using the same skill on another ascendancy. You're just removing more and more from ascendancies what actually makes ascendancies cool! :(

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Problem: Cooldown-based traps are balanced around being mostly a single target damage supplement, with potential to use them more frequently for builds heavily invested in doing so. However, trap builds currently have extremely efficient access to increased trap cooldown recovery rate and increased trap duration, making it easier than intended to rely on these traps as a main source of damage and making their damage uptime over a long-duration fight very high. This issue is most obvious with Seismic Trap in the current state of the game, but also applies to other cooldown trap skills.

Solution: Trim the availability of trap cooldown and duration. Compensate the damage of cooldown trap skills that are underperforming as a result.

So you don't want investing into Trap CDR to be a viable playstyle? You ONLY want cooldown traps to be used as supplimental damage to a player already invested into traps?

I can understand you may not want it be so easy to reach these CDR numbers but removing the possibility completely doesn't feel like the right move. If particular skills or combos of skills are a problem, perhaps address them? instead of changing an entire build choice/passive skills? Maybe move where the CDR nodes are, or reduce the numbers there and add another cluster with more?

The MoM changes don't do anything to actually buff MoM though, apart from opening up a gear affix slot? It pulls more power to the keystone which wasn't an issue with MoM - the lack of mana regen / regen scalability was.

I'm confused about the minion life & ignite changes.

does

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Minions no longer have hidden penalties to Bleeding, Ignite, and Poison damage. Summon Reaper no longer has a hidden bonus to Bleeding damage that counteracted this penalty. As a result, minions now deal approximately twice as much Poison damage, three and a half times as much Ignite damage, and seven times as much Bleeding damage.

only apply to minions applying ignites themselves, or also to ignites generated by the player blowing minions up (i.e. via death wish)?

looks like lightning strike will still be more than 2x stronger than most other strikes. thats kinda disappointing. That skill has been one of the best or the best strike since ultimatum for both single target and clear speed. And other strikes only have been nerfed even more with the hydrosphere changes.
I was hoping for some meta changes so that lesser used strikes (like double strike, glacial hammer or heavy strike) would become the best option for single target and its not just one or two strikes that are the best at everything.
Or if that is too hard to do you could have at least made a different strike be the best at everything so the game would feel fresh again.

Nothing new.

[sarcasm] hey, instead of buff something different, lets nerf what is fun[/sarcasm]

Ill keep skiping till the game get more interesting or die, wich come first.

Back to THAT game everyone have in backup from PoE KEKW...

As a midlevel gamer that has trouble getting the needed items for a build, saying your shifting more toward having magebloods and Ashes of Stars and buying our way to BIS is bitterly disappointing. Our minions already die, we can't beat end game bosses and there are penalties for trying to group and have fun. Sorry there are elite that crush the meta, but your killing your player base by trying to run the game from the meta aspect. Making the game harder on average players will reflect in your bottom line and player base.

Crankin' up the Twisted Sister, "No, we're not going to take it."

Please add quality of life changes to strike skills. On the Tree by life wheel would be good place? Ty.

Hmmm starting to feel like an extra 20 skill points wouldn't go amiss.