Path of Exile 3.16 Balance - Part 2 - Core Character Defences and Recovery

Hi, long time player here! (Since 2014, wow has it been that long already?) Lots of hours in both ssfhc and sctrade.

All in all, these changes are great. Sure there's some complaints here and there, but many of the gripes I had over the years have been addressed in this.

From sustain(shadow ranger witch,) light investment in certain defense types being impactful, armor/es value buff, spell mitigation, block outside of Glad, *cough* nerfing dodge/ev/blind abuse, defensive auras, energy shield recovery, life recovery, etc.

(I know I'm probably minority here): Excited about the internal-quality on gear pieces now. The opportunity to find better bases is welcome. Although it may be more tedious, as a ssfhc player, I like that I can min max more in the solo environment.
Anyone in trade who complains about this can shut up.

Suppression looks great and fits well in the archetypal dex area. Dodge vs Suppression-on paper-seems to be a meaningful choice and both will be useful in certain situations. (Bosses: suppression, Maps: dodge...if I need to spell it out...hahah get it?)

So after praising some changes, here's one of my complaints: I am on the fence about making archetypal ascendancy notables, keystones.
Treading the line between ascendancies being archetypal and just 'where you start' should be noted. There is still differentiation between ascendancies, and its not to the 'where you start' point yet, however adding these notables as keystones is slowly creeping to that point.

Also, as an addendum, sustain for non-sabo miner/trappers is a bit on the harder side to achieve outside of uniques. Previously I thought this was intended, however after this post, perhaps it was overlooked. It will be easier with ES, but life based

Thanks again and see you in 3.16
o7 exile.

I don't like items getting an unalterable 0-10 or 0-20% bonus. It's not fun and doesn't add to the game. Increasing the quality limit by orbs to 40% or changing all defenses on base items is preferable. I like all leather tunics or what have you have identical base stats. It's one less hidden stat to have to account for.

lol did my champion build (or any champion build) got massively buffed?
can even rollback some fixes because of flesh and stone reservation

Now this is the type of changes I want to see. Making us slow is fine if we're not struggling to stay alive all the time.

******* However I do not like the idea of a random % range on base items. Please keep bases the same across all of them. That is not a positive change for drops. *******

Overall I dig it but I can't help but notice that you've removed or hard nerfed all the forms of damage negation except evasion which now requires high levels of investment to be useful.

Are you doing anything about the volume of hits coming in? Because the whole reason we moved to damage deletion mechanics was to handle the volume of hits. If you haven't fixed the volume of hits coming in then... Evasion isn't useful because you'll just get overwhelmed in a literal single second in any intense encounter and all investment is wasted by the inevitable one shot.

jeesus, you said you would fix aurabots. clearly you didn't. Also, UNNERF MANA COST!!!!

it already feels like shit with the nerf to move skills. We can't even make use of these defensive inverse buffs because we'll be investing in mana cost migitation instead. you guys suck.

>Change the Fortify mechanic so its effect is based on your melee damage

does this mean that bleed builds will get a weaker fortify too since they dont deal large on-hit damage?


also some sizable nerfs to glad. that loss of blind and spell block will definitely sting

>Versatile Combatant is now a Keystone Passive on the Passive Skill Tree: Grants +2% Chance to Block Spell Damage for each 1% Overcapped Chance to Block Attack Damage. Also grants -25% to maximum Chance to Block Attack Damage, and -25% to maximum Chance to Block Spell Damage

im sorry, what?? i can only speak for myself, but i would never take a node that cucks my block chance so significantly, especially with the changes to things like fortify and blind. i think you killed it, guys.

"This is overall a massive buff to defenses across the board."

my gladiators have no spell block :(

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Krazlam wrote:

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QQPQ wrote:

Uh... Evasion is still entropy based, right?

So, without Dodge, our only option to "skip" the guaranteed hit is block? Or, I guess, 15% chance to avoid damage with Elusive, if you have Elusive.

Wind Dancer now 100% mandatory for Evasion builds.

My reading of the manifesto is that people who never invested in Defense will be tankier than they were before, but people who did invest heavily in defense will be *far* less tanky than they were before.

I don't like that.

It reads like the 3.15 Ailment nerfs. "We found *everything* that relates to this and lowered the value. But hey, we buffed this one thing over here..." The multiplicative combination of all these nerfs to non-base defenses means that characters will be *far* less tanky than before. You would have to increase base defenses a *LOT* more than the displayed values to make up for it. Like, *at least* quadruple the effectiveness of Evasion. And *at least* double the effectiveness of Armour. Those are over the listed values.

And... non-static armour/evasion/ES rolls on bases? WTH? Now we have *even more* "well, I really want to craft this Vaal Regalia, but it dropped with a crap roll, so I guess I need to wait until I get an i86 AND a high roll on the base value".

Speaking of body armour... goodbye 6Ls? Did you all forget that quality helps us socket and link? Are you going to make linking 20% easier since you're removing our ability to craft quality?

Oh, AND it's a nerf to Harvest Enchantments. AND a nerf to various weapons (unless we can still craft quality on weapons?).

**DO NOT REMOVE THE QUALITY CRAFT** unless you're doing something to replace it for all the non-defense purposes.

For characters invested in armor or evasion, it's very likely these changes mean way more than a double effectiveness, probably close to triple effectiveness compared to current values. Removal of dodge is a undoubtedly a big hit to evasion/dodge builds and entropy will likely be a concern for evasion builds still, but it seems like it'll make the early-mid game way smoother. High end builds seem like they might suffer a bit.

Non-static base stat rolls is another layer of rng, and to that reason I can understand why people might not be happy, but it's *only a positive* roll. It doesn't have a chance to roll below, meaning you're more than likely just going to see a 10%+ increase, and that's on top of their base item changes that suggests they're raising base values across the board.

6L items have existed before quality crafts and they will be fine after its removal. Even now, I'm confident a vast majority of 6L items don't come from 48% quality bases. It would be a slight nerf to weapons, sure. Probably the smallest itemized damage nerf I've ever seen in any game.

I disagree with your assessment that 6L'ing items will be fine in 3.16. Prior to Delve and Syndicate, it would take me anywhere from 1000 to over 7000 (7159 to be exact on a Vaal Regalia) to 6L. Atm with perfect fossil and Hillock craft, I have 6L'ed items anywhere from 50 to a little over 2000 fusings.

With the removal of the Hillock quality craft, will 6Ling items still be possible? YES! but at a significantly increased investment cost. Not too much of a problem in trade leagues; but in SSF? Ouch!

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Aristarx wrote:

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This is a problem because you cannot pick up the best Energy Shield items off the ground.

Absolutely wrong thinking! When we pick up ES item off the ground we calculate how much ES would it get with 48% quality, because Hillock and 18% quality craft AVAILABLE to everyone!

Did you not read the specifics in the spoiler? It appears that in 3.16 bench crafting quality will no longer be available.

Regarding the massive list of changes; tho I am saddened by the apparent lessening of defensive layers in any particular build, I am waiting for the full patch notes and new skill tree before crying DA SKY IST FALLINGT!

With that said, one thing that concerns me greatly....ARE THESE CHANGES ACTUALLY BEING TESTED???

An alpha tester sounded surprised in this thread. Has testing even started yet? And let's not forget recent history; 3.14 launch day and the first 5 days of 3.15.....proof of inadequate testing.

"Change the Fortify mechanic so its effect is based on your melee damage."

I hope you find a way that low hit damage melee ailment builds get a similar amount of fortify as something like a slam build.

Viper Strike or Pestilent Strike builds usually don't really invest into hit damage and so they can have very little hit damage with these skills you really need damage reduction from fortify because you need to be able to tank bosses auto attacks and you are on the evasion side of the tree with almost no strength nodes and less life nodes than other areas of the tree.

When i heard about upcoming fortify changes i hoped that the effect would give less damage to none melee skills. That would be a better solution imo because it wouldn't make it hard for ailment builds to get fortify and it would prevent ranged attack/spell builds from weapon swapping to a 6l vigilant strike karui chopper.

Great changes.