ES/Int nerf good, but ES/evasion mastery node nerf, not so good.

I was listening to the interview yesterday with the developers, commenting the energy shield/ intelligence nerf, which I think was probably the best change made in the upcoming league. Andrew commented on their design philosophy with the change. Saying that, it didn't seem to make sense, that ES nodes were typically much lower in value on the tree, than amour and evasion nodes, but the attributes all giving the same value. Which I think made a lot of sense. Beyond not really needing a solid reason for a nerf to ES, that has been very strong since the new amour base tier was added.

However, I don't think this logic then tracks to lowering the evasion node value from intelligence, because evasion nodes on the tree are typically higher the ES. It could be that this is just all part of a nerfing of intelligence stacking, trickster etc., but I'm not sure this particular change is necessary. It was a pretty handy node and allowed for making some interesting build combinations with those stats.

I'm not sure how useful it will be now on the majority of builds. It's going to need double the intelligence of dexterity, just to break even for no benefit. For it to be somewhat relative in power to other mastery nodes, build would need at least another 200 intelligence on top, just to get a modest 20% increased evasion, that would be available from 100 dexterity. Seems like it will be a node now, that is only useful for builds with very high level intelligence.

Maybe it needed to be nerfed at the top end. I know it was useful, and I had been using it occasionally on some unoptimised, middle of the road builds. Around that section where I wanted evasion and just had pathed more on intelligence nodes. This makes it fairly useless now for builds that had say 100dex, 300int, and wanted a way to still spec a little bit of evasion in that area. While it doesn't completely make it unhelpful for builds stacking massive amounts of intelligence, which can still get 300%+ evasion increase from the mastery.

The nerf seems unproportionally at the bottom end, versus the top. Top end got the node 50%ish nerfed, while bottom end got it approaching 100% nerfed. In general, I think GGG need to pay more attention when nerfing, that they are nerfing the thing that is overpowered directly, and the direct cause, at the top end. Not at the bottom end, which may not have any problem at all, but cops, sometimes, as in this case, an even heavier nerf.

The ES/int nerf is a bit closer to hitting the mark, and I approve it heading in the right direct. In a somewhat timely manner (better now than in a few years). I would suggest in this case, it might be even a step closer to look at how players are getting such large intelligence values, and if the added tier of bases defense types are balanced, in the same way that has been looked at with the base attribute benefit versus tree nodes. I'm not necessarily against attribute stacking builds, or other powerful builds in the game that player can sink time/theory/currency into. I am against having things fairly unbalanced though. As well as having the base of the game altered to adjust for something that is only broken at the top. Hopeful the changes that were made, do continue to improve the game.

Good luck for the league launch. Hopefully these things can be considered. If not now, for future leagues. I'm interested to hear if anyone knows more about this than me and wants to dispute, correct or agree with anything.