0.9.12m Patch Notes
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"Spell Totems now cost more mana to cast."
More is an understatement, 250% was overkill. I have literally hundreds of logged hours into dual totem builds. 200% would still allow most 5L setups if desired, 6L totem based spells aren't viable at this cost. 250% is a wee over the top with the multiplicative effects. What was the rationale or basis for this change? Last edited by FcknGroovin#5400 on Sep 28, 2012, 10:20:33 PM
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" 250% increase.... My skeles went from 82 to 103 mana cost. Hardly a killer, and a 20% increase overall. B. The Preceding message contains discretion.
Viewer nudity is advised. |
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To add to the "don't nerf my gs bro" noise. This is what drove me insane about D3 and eventually drove me away. It's clear the skills people are using and the ones people are avoiding. Rather than seeing what works about the popular skills and making the non-popular better, devs seem to just go to making the popular ones weaker.
Let's be clear, GS is no where near as powerful as a a crit witch. Hell, I've been running on and off with a summon witch and his freezing pulse is doing 3k DPS w/ LMP. I'm assuming he put some effort into getting that dps up but his main thing is his minions. He doesn't need nearly the EHP I do as a templar because of the minion and does twice my DPS. The reason ground slam is popular have been stated over and over again here. Nice AOE, decent damage (not great, 3k DPS with a 350 max dmg wpn isn't amazing) and stun. The combination of these things, not one by itself, makes it impossible to turn up unless you specifically want to do a different build. It's the same thing that makes freezing pulse and ice spear popular, they can perma freeze mobs. LA is popular because it can AOE a whole room. These are go to skills because it's much easier to function at a higher level with less effort. Sweep and cleave can't touch GS, not because of the damage, because with sweep and cleave you have to be in the face of danger. So you can't get as high DPS from gear, because of how high your EHP needs to be to run them effectively. Then once you plant your face into a large crowd hoping they die before you, they give nothing extra like stun does with GS. I think sweep with staffs has knockback, or staffs in general do or something between the two. If that has a higher chance of KB it would be better than GS. Leap slam into a group and sweep them away. Cleave could be good if it had something that allowed more dmg/ehp. So either a LoH, LL maybe even a small chance to get a frenzy or endurance charge, say 1% chance for every gem lvl. Nerfing into balance is always and awful idea, unless something is super OP. Again, I don't think everyone is going to GS because of it's damage, it's because of the AOE and stun. Make the melee skills that force you to get closer more rewarding and you'll see more people consider/use them. Otherwise, nerf GS by 50% and you'll still see a ton of people using it. Finished 17th in Rampage - Peaked at 11th Finished 18th in Torment/Bloodline 1mo Race - peaked at 9th Null's Inclination Build 2.1.0 - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1559063 Summon Skeleton 1.3 - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1219856 Last edited by Moosifer#0314 on Sep 29, 2012, 3:29:22 AM
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I'm entirely certain that GS is still quite a viable skill despite the nerf, what gives?
I get the impression that in general, a lot of people just want to walk over the game's content at will, people don't want balance, they don't want to be challenged. They want to always be able to pick something super effective. There is no other reason why people bitch and moan about stuff getting nerfed than affecting their comfortable builds and playstyles. If we imagined that all skills/builds were as effective as some select OP skills/builds, the game would simply be a cakewalk as a whole. To the people who think all skills should be raised to the level of where GS was, please no, I'd go play something else if I wanted casual mode filler. |
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" Well guess what, GS was super OP. |
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" As has already been stated it is no more OP than a crit FP / IS build. Or a heavy summoner build or a CI LA build. So let's just nerf every single build that is strong right now shall we?? When it comes to balancing, you don't want to ruin things that are fun to run, you want to make "more" things that are fun to run, not just nerf every single thing to the ground that it becomes a bore fest. And people keep talking about the difficulty of the game, especially when relating it to the resistance change. What part of "relative to your gear" do you not comprehend? It isn't making it more difficult, it is just making it more "gear dependent", there is a difference. Seriously, if you want to make the game harder improve enemy A.I. as someone stated already, make them use several types of methods/tactics. And again with difficulty, improve on the map system, that is the end-game after all, that is where the main challenge is meant to be. They can still add this resistance penalty, but making it this steep is ridiculous, who wants to grind every bit of resistance gear like that, it is just gear dependent, nothing else. GGG stated we want there to be more variation in gear This is actually not giving players more options or creating more variation, it is just making every single player have to stack resistance gear, meaning again they have to farm 10x as much now. The drop rate in this game has been getting dramatically worse over the last 8 weeks, so that is not exactly a nice thing to look forward to. As I said we have a real problem arising now, because they are trying to balance the game between PvP and PvE, and as I see it, it's becoming an impossible task. The changes I have seen over the last 4 weeks alone have not "increased" variation in gear or builds but have actually decreased the amount of choices one has in those areas. Last edited by Desbris#4733 on Sep 29, 2012, 6:33:10 AM
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Desbris,
By your definition, unless a skill/build is powerful to the point of making the game trivial, a person can't have fun with the game? Is it boring because you have to try a little harder, take a little longer, challenges you to use a couple of additional skills? Maybe, like many other people, you just want an easier difficulty setting, and I can't fault you for that, if you enjoy an easier game, I can respect that. But you do realize that some people think the game is far too easy in general (even disregarding what some consider OP builds)? Making it easier by raising the power of all skills to match the efficiency of those skills/builds you consider "fun", merely dilutes the experience for some other people. Almost everybody wants better encounter variety, monsters and AI, these things take time. Nerfing skills to be less effective at killing things has a direct relation to how difficult the game is. If all skills continually got buffed, we get into the situation where monsters will just get buffed to do increasingly more damage (most builds already feel really squishy, which is imo a really bad thing considering the nature of the game, online, lag, desyncs) so that it seems more difficult, and you can't just raise their HP, since that counters the buffing of those skills, pointless. I'll say again that I believe the only way to cater to everybody is with multiple difficulty settings, I have no idea if this will ever be an option (not sure why, but I doubt it), but until then, consider the middle ground. |
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" It has nothing to do with me wanting an "easier difficulty" setting. I only play HC as it is, so of course I want a challenge. I see what you are saying about the middle ground point, they cannot cater to everyone, but my issues are about what they consider as "difficulty" to what I consider just being "gear dependent" And in all fairness, the GS nerf seems to make little sense, especially when other builds are equally as strong, in terms of damage and efficiency. My problem with all these little changes, are directly affecting one thing. Time required to attain gear. This is where the real issue is coming in to play. Over the last several weeks, the game has become far more time consuming in relation to acquiring gear/materials, due to lesser drop rates or whatever. Meaning people are spending a lot more time farming now than before. And this is now going to be dramatically heightened due to various skill nerfs and the added resistance change. I have no problem with them attempting to increase what they believe is difficulty, but the real issue is how much grinding the game requires one to do. I understand grinding is a factor in this game and I know that, but all of these changes are dramatically increasing the amount of grinding needed, ten fold, and this is VERY BAD. |
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Yeah I didn't mention anything about the resistance penalties and the inevitable gear grind because it was just introduced and I don't consider the very first implementation of it with existing gear and drop rates to be indicative of what the intention is. Basically, I have no opinion on this yet.
Saying GS nerf isn't justified or doesn't make sense because of a few other really effective builds is just a bit too selective though, most skills simply weren't/aren't as effective. You don't ignore one problem on account of there being more problems. They will continue to nerf AND buff skills as they deem necessary. Their priorities aren't strictly tied to ours. |
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Like a lot of people in this thread, I used to believe that game companies should not nerf the most powerfull skills and instead should buff the weaker ones. It always seemed like a no brainer to me. I used to get so frustrated with game companies for nerfing skills.
However, Chris once explained in these forums why it's more complicated than you think to simply buff all skills that are perceived as weak. I had never looked at it from the developers perspective before that. Now I totally understand why game companies do it. Here's the gist of what he explained: ----------------------------------------------- It's been explained before why it is better to "nerf" a skill that is overpowered than to buff every other skill instead. It creates much more work in the long run and means that we would have to go through many more patches before game balance is achieved. Heres why: OPTION A: - Leave an overpowered skill as it is. - Buff all other skills in the game until they are comparable to the overpowered skill. - Once all the other skills are buffed, realize that the game has become too easy. - Overhaul all enemies in the game to make them stronger so that the game is challenging again. - Players become frustrated and complain that suddenly the game has become twice as hard overnight. OPTION B: - Slightly nerf the overpowered skill to bring it in line with the rest of the skills in the game. Anyone can see that it takes less time, less patches, and less overall impact on the playerbase if you simply go with option B. Last edited by Axebane#6055 on Sep 29, 2012, 10:27:57 AM
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