Please rethink the Champion changes

With how the ascendancy is now according to patch notes it's totally busted. You rightfully nerfed the perma fortify to 15 in the past because 20 was already abused to hell and back despite it not being scalable and now you are giving that back while still allowing it to be scaled even further AND slapping defense and offense scaling on top for free. It's beyond crazy and if you don't fix it beforehand you'll just have to next league and the entire community will be whining because "Champion op!!!!!!!!"


My suggestion:

Make it two mutually exclusive avenues to choose from. Either 15 perma fortify from Fortification OR the Fortify scaling options from Unstoppable Hero.
The latter will likely still end up being too strong but at least people won't be able to freely benefit from it on bow and caster builds.

that one node is pretty scary

first of all, Champion summoners were already doable, with this change they seem to be the obvious choice for skills where you do not need something very specific from Necro. travel to minion nodes is not that expensive for what you get (and tattoos help to recoup at least part of that cost)

Animate Guardian change -> no risk Kingmaker -> +10 fortify
Replica Brotherhood Badge -> +3 or more fortify
Celestial Brace -> up to +10

+6 from passives

so what we get with some investment is 50 PERMANENT fortify stacks, it is absolutely crazy (and you get ailment immunity from mastery btw)



there were better and much safer Phrecia nodes to include here, this one is reckless

(but the equilibrium is reached, Berserker changes are so sad. Blitz path replaced with complete turds, sad days)

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sidtherat#1310 wrote:

that one node is pretty scary

first of all, Champion summoners were already doable, with this change they seem to be the obvious choice for skills where you do not need something very specific from Necro. travel to minion nodes is not that expensive for what you get (and tattoos help to recoup at least part of that cost)

Animate Guardian change -> no risk Kingmaker -> +10 fortify
Replica Brotherhood Badge -> +3 or more fortify
Celestial Brace -> up to +10

+6 from passives

so what we get with some investment is 50 PERMANENT fortify stacks, it is absolutely crazy (and you get ailment immunity from mastery btw)



there were better and much safer Phrecia nodes to include here, this one is reckless

(but the equilibrium is reached, Berserker changes are so sad. Blitz path replaced with complete turds, sad days)

Wrong on Kingmaker. It doesn't add MAXIMUM fortify. I bet some of the others also don't add MAXIMUM fortify. The new scaling doesn't say "overcapped fortify", it says "fortify above 20". Still....lots of power there.

Celestial Brace, though.....its now damn near mandatory. 30% attack speed + 10% inherent attack speed, 30% MORE armour and evasion (basically can be combined for MORE armour), in one item. Oof. Haste, Determination, AND Grace....all without any mana reservation. And also....10% less damage taken.

Much like many of the former duelist ascendancy changes...this one is probably going to be nerfed on release. I can see them removing evasion and/or armour, as well as 1% to both.

Right, Summoners will love it as well. Honestly, if this goes through unchecked then i am really curious to see how much usage Champion will get. Like, it's going to be the best melee class by far, not even close. It will also be great for tanky bowbuilds, anyone remember that toxic rain champion Ben played years ago? This is going to be so much worse.
Summoners will benefit as well.
Not sure if i wanted to play it on a caster build but can't rule it out either with the massiv defensive benefits it brings.

Another possible nerf I can see is they revert the "You have maximum fortification" back to +15, forcing you to "gain" the additional fortification beyond 20 thereby removing the "always on" nature it currently provides for ALL types of builds.

I mean....like OP mentioned, they changed this way back BECAUSE it was such a problem already and they reintroduce it with insane buffs within the context of the new sources of max fortify in the game?!

Hell....this node was the reason the entirety of fortify was reworked in the first place. And they just undid EVERYTHING.

I agree its probably a bit busted as i'm immediately looking at it for league start which means it grabbed my attention for HC, I'm a little dubious about how hot it is!

Do I want them to preemptively nerf it? ehhhhhhhhhhh I won't be unhappy if they do, i won't be unhappy if they don't I guess but it probably can't last more than 1 league regardless

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sidtherat#1310 wrote:

that one node is pretty scary

first of all, Champion summoners were already doable, with this change they seem to be the obvious choice for skills where you do not need something very specific from Necro. travel to minion nodes is not that expensive for what you get (and tattoos help to recoup at least part of that cost)

Animate Guardian change -> no risk Kingmaker -> +10 fortify
Replica Brotherhood Badge -> +3 or more fortify
Celestial Brace -> up to +10

+6 from passives

so what we get with some investment is 50 PERMANENT fortify stacks, it is absolutely crazy (and you get ailment immunity from mastery btw)



there were better and much safer Phrecia nodes to include here, this one is reckless

(but the equilibrium is reached, Berserker changes are so sad. Blitz path replaced with complete turds, sad days)

if i'm not mistaken, we can also get +1 maximum fortify with lethal pride

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suriuken#0100 wrote:

if i'm not mistaken, we can also get +1 maximum fortify with lethal pride

havent done it, but wiki says +7 (although probably SUPER inefficient)

Lethal Pride
15613 socketed​ near Measured Fury, 10690 near Wind Dancer, or 14780 near Hex Master

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suriuken#0100 wrote:

if i'm not mistaken, we can also get +1 maximum fortify with lethal pride

in a theory craft i'm doing i managed to get +5 in iron reflexes, since if i do make this build this league i plan to use perseverance and armour+evasion without conversion, losing iron reflexes its not a problem

I don't see the problem with it. Why can't it have something good in an ascendancy.

To me it appears people are used to seeing poe2 ascendancies and this just looks broken. There are people that have tried to convince me aspect of carnage shouldn't exist. There are way more broken things. +4 min charges is pretty strong for a 1 lab.

Ascendancies are supposed to be exciting. Not like in poe2 where they're for the most part just notables.

As sid pointed out, if you're a strike zerker enjoyer blitz being removed is a worse change than the buffs to champion (which were warranted) The only reason champion needed nerfed is because casters/minion/bow players were using it. It wasn't broken for the archetypes that fit the champion fantasy. Its just the inherent power of having fortify without using melee skills.

Let champion have its power again. Vengeant cascade got to live its league, ghost wand enchants, sst shield, omni for several leagues.

Why complain when GGG gives us power. This kind of thing is confusing to me. There is nothing annoying like when they almost gave us stance dance for permanant adrenaline. That made sense to remove. This doesn't. Some melee players are probably excited right now (not me ill start zerker like a real idiot regardless). Don't ruin it for them because minion players and casters are excited too.

Stacking all of this fortify has a lot of opportunity cost also. If you use the gloves from Uber exarch (probably wont even exist in hc for 99.99999999999% of players) you cant get strike 2 additional targets, if you aren't melee you cant get rage on hit unless you get it on the same timeless jewel, you lose a lot of hp/res. Replica badge makes you give up amulet slot so a lot of life and res potentially. Lethal pride will make you give up other notables or keystones you want. Might I also add these theoretical timeless jewels will never exist in hc.
you will have to path over to steadfast which will be very inefficient unless you're playing melee or bleed bow.

This stuff is interesting to think about what COULD happen. The reality is for most players this is all just fairytale land. I'm sure there will be some broken armour stackers but if GGG cared about that they would nerf scion or mana reservation small clusters.

The reality is, people will be making perseverance champion builds again that are pretty good but aren't going to be broken because grace/determ was already nerfed. Perseverance champion builds are some of my favorite builds to hit 1-2m dps in hcssf but it still takes quite a bit of work to get them to crazy levels you see in sctrade like in crucible league with the shield.

The one im interested in is worthy foe. You actually have a choice that doesn't make you feel bad about not weapon swapping and hitting cf for adrenaline. Which I never did in hc because i wanted the fallback. You could also drop the fortify node if you were mapping and take both of them (worthy foe and first to strike) assuming you're playing a melee character.

In my eyes, I cant see any reason to play champion over berserker on league start. But that is my perspective and ill most likely play tried and true berserker slams. I just don't know if early weapon crafting is going to suck without the chosen prefix.