Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Okkes]

28 minutes ago, SenSx said:

Hello Elric,

thanks for the update, do I need to make nay kind of translation for the french version ?

I think I saw some translation mistakes and will try to correct them.

 

By the way, I have a question about the cipher ability Borrowed Instinct.

It seems that the ability still works even after the target with the debuff is dead.

I don't know if it is supposed to work like that, and your mod propably don't alter this spell, so I don't know what causes this issue, if it is indeed one.

 

Wasn't that always the case, even in vanilla game?

[Elric Galad]

59 minutes ago, SenSx said:

Hello Elric,

thanks for the update, do I need to make nay kind of translation for the french version ?

I have done the translation myself for new modifications. 

I can maintain French version even if the initial effort was a bit too much. 

59 minutes ago, SenSx said:

I think I saw some translation mistakes and will try to correct them.

You can, but restart from this version. 

59 minutes ago, SenSx said:

By the way, I have a question about the cipher ability Borrowed Instinct.

It seems that the ability still works even after the target with the debuff is dead.

I don't know if it is supposed to work like that, and your mod propably don't alter this spell, so I don't know what causes this issue, if it is indeed one.

 

 

30 minutes ago, Okkes said:

Wasn't that always the case, even in vanilla game?

Yes, always the case. 

Already destroyed corpsea ceased to provide the bonus. 

That's why it is useful to turn off exploding gore effects.

[SenSx]

Oh ok I did not remember it was alwready like that in vanilla.

[Elric Galad]

I have tweaked Into the frail upgrade a bit further than BPM into the frail (almost no damages but 1 Discipline). 

These are somewhat situational so I wanted spending 2 ability points to provide... Less situationalality. 

 

Out of the Fire range was tweaked up to 8m (already the most flexible, wanted to emphasize it) 

 

Lower their guard dazed was set to 10s (-10 AR is cute for 1 attack it won't do that much). Lower their guard should be somewhat spammable now. 

 

This is also a way to emphasize Fighter Tanking gameplay. 

[Elric Galad]

Cleaving Stance may not provide enough reliable benefit compared to other stances after 1.1 nerf. It is basically a very underwhelming version of Blood thirst. 

Guardian Stance is a direct concurrent when facing a mob. 

I might change it to proc when anything is killed in melee range. Or something this style. 

Edited September 3 by Elric Galad

[Bosmer]

Nice idea. By doing so you would allow it to work with kills by soul annihilation or carnage. 

[yorname]

I wonder if there's a minimal interval between ticks of DoT?

I'm playing a party with many summons + Spark the Souls of the Righteous. I tried to add the nerfed Combusting Wounds on top, I can't tell if CW ticks with every Spark, or can't keep up with the speed, only triggering once or twice whenever it's hit with 10+ Sparks.

But either way I think currently CW is not broken anymore, theoretically it's 1/6 (or 1/7.2 ?) as powerful as before when abused.

[yorname]

Currently the +% speed of Bonded Fury and inspirations from Vengeful Grief shows a duration of 15s, maybe because descriptions are auto-generated?

Also can stag pet's carnage crit like barbs?

Edit: tested, it can also crit and can even hit the original target. Seems to be a good choice for SC ranger.

Edited September 4 by yorname

[Elric Galad]

7 hours ago, yorname said:

I wonder if there's a minimal interval between ticks of DoT?

I'm playing a party with many summons + Spark the Souls of the Righteous. I tried to add the nerfed Combusting Wounds on top, I can't tell if CW ticks with every Spark, or can't keep up with the speed, only triggering once or twice whenever it's hit with 10+ Sparks.

But either way I think currently CW is not broken anymore, theoretically it's 1/6 (or 1/7.2 ?) as powerful as before when abused.

I don't think so but I'm not sure. Arterial strike is 0.33 tick, which is the minimum I know. I would not go lower.

1s seems satisfying. Theoritically, it should be 5/12 of the previous power when abused. I think it's enough.

2 hours ago, yorname said:

Currently the +% speed of Bonded Fury

It's an oversight. The ability is unfortunately not working as intended. It should be corrected.

2 hours ago, yorname said:

and inspirations from Vengeful Grief shows a duration of 15s, maybe because descriptions are auto-generated?

It seems a display bug.

2 hours ago, yorname said:

Also can stag pet's carnage crit like barbs?

Edit: tested, it can also crit and can even hit the original target. Seems to be a good choice for SC ranger.

Yep. A bit like BPM Stag form is a good choice for SC Druid with BPM Entropy. 

[Elric Galad]

12 hours ago, Bosmer said:

Nice idea. By doing so you would allow it to work with kills by soul annihilation or carnage. 

I think I will go for :

- Instant melee attack on any kills from the Fighter. At leats it would avoid having your kill stolen by your own DoT. On Kill effect are already a bit luck-sensitive, so avoiding this restriction would help a lot. Quite some MC potential, albeit not as much as Blood Thirst.
- +10% Melee Weapon Crit damages per threatened target (count threatened targets as Mob Stance). (restriction to mele weapon because damages bonuses are more beneficial to spell and this is a melee stance after all). Crit damages are quite useful versus trash foe mobs, so I guess it would fit. 

This would still be inferior to uber versatile Warrior/Conquerer stances vs single target (and crit damages aren't very reliable), probably around equal vs 2 targets until the extra attack happen (if it does).

The current description is wrong anyway as it is.

Edited September 4 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

How do you guys would feel about removing Poison KW from Toxic Strike ? The ability text doesn't even speak about poison.

Poison/Disease are annoying keywords because they don't have many positive interactions and they are often resisted.

Withering Strikes and Persisting Strike don't have Poison KW. Baiscally one shoots oneslef in the foot by picking Toxic Strike, which renders even Withering Strike unusable vs a rather wide range of foes.

They said, Toxic Strike is a strong ability (BPM Persisting Strike is better than in vanilla). I fear that it could become too much of an universal solution to all fights. What mitigates the issue is that it has Acid KW in BPM,  so there are still a couple of foes that would be totally insensitive to it (or just Corrode resistant).

 

Similar case for "Their Putrid Stench Waffs Across". It adds disease KW, making its unupgrade version useful against more targets.

I'm pretty decided about this one to remove Disease KW, since it is already a bit situational (need a corpse, only provide benefit vs non CON resistant foes).

 

Also the Dank Spore summons. I think both the Charm ability and the ultimate explosion are Poison/Disease KW, altough the issue is somewhat lesser since even the base ability has a drawback.

I think the upgrade is rarely great (even after BPM Summon Rebalance) cause concurrence of all Chanter summons, require 2 ability points from only SC chanter. Infinite Sickened isn't bad but does nothing vs many foes.  

I have to think about a better On Death effect, maybe a poison raw DoT, maybe even an infinite one. 

Don't hesistate if you have a cool idea (but I think I should keep the exploision On Death).

Edited September 4 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

16 hours ago, yorname said:

 inspirations from Vengeful Grief shows a duration of 15s

I think it was the bug, limitating the duration to 15s on the animal companion (when ranger is downed).

Granted that it is probably not the most frequent case, but still.

Corrected.

5 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

How do you guys would feel about removing Poison KW from Toxic Strike ? The ability text doesn't even speak about poison.

Poison/Disease are annoying keywords because they don't have many positive interactions and they are often resisted.

Withering Strikes and Persisting Strike don't have Poison KW. Baiscally one shoots oneslef in the foot by picking Toxic Strike, which renders even Withering Strike unusable vs a rather wide range of foes.

They said, Toxic Strike is a strong ability (BPM Persisting Strike is better than in vanilla). I fear that it could become too much of an universal solution to all fights. What mitigates the issue is that it has Acid KW in BPM,  so there are still a couple of foes that would be totally insensitive to it (or just Corrode resistant).

 

OK, I tried a little thing that worked with Toxic Strike : I have put the Poison KW on the corrode DoT only.

(This tweak is very technical and will not work to put a Poison/Disease KW on an affliction only ; this works only when the subsequent effect has not a distinct roll. Afflictions tend to have distinct roll - Plague of Insects, Vole Thorn, etc...).

Now Toxic Strike does work on Poison Immune target, but only for the attack and Weakened parts. The DoT still does not work. I think this is a good compromise because it will be identical to Withering Strike vs Poison Immune targets. You're not "loosing an ability" by picking the upgrade (you just have 1 useless upgrade for a specific battle). This won't make Toxic Strike too universally powerful.

 

Also, about Crushing Blow :

Barbaric Blow & upgrades :
Removed the PR and Damages bonus to make the ability more focused.
Now Barbaric Blow & Upgrades do :
- 75% Hit to Crit chances 
- +75% Crit damages bonus (note : Crushing Blow do get this bonus, even if it does not get Crit Damages Bonus in the base game due to a bug)
- +200% Carnage AoE (soroughly 2.5m radius instead of 1.5m)
- Barbaric Smash : no refund, but cost reduced to 1 Rage
- Crushing Blow : no recovery (not conditional anymore)

I think this change was good, but Crushing blow with no recovery costs twice as much as Barbaric Smah, making it overall much more situational. I might add some simple buff to it (maybe +15 Accuracy since you really want your 2 rage ability to connect...)

[yorname]

I don't know if this matches your intended purpose for these 2 upgrades: if one is unconditionally cheap and one is unconditionally without recovery, I'd pick the first for more conservative uses and the other one to quickly burst down weaker targets.

I think you can push the burst damage idea further: if I want to use a more expensive version to get rid of recovery, it means I really want to be able to quickly kill some weak to mediocre enemies. So you can just give refund to Crushing Blow: it's always worse against tanky enemies, but it shines when you can use it 2 or 3 times to quickly kill someone without costing too much.

Thematically, attacking faster and having more accuracy at the same time seems wrong to me.

[Elric Galad]

4 hours ago, yorname said:

I don't know if this matches your intended purpose for these 2 upgrades: if one is unconditionally cheap and one is unconditionally without recovery, I'd pick the first for more conservative uses and the other one to quickly burst down weaker targets.

I think you can push the burst damage idea further: if I want to use a more expensive version to get rid of recovery, it means I really want to be able to quickly kill some weak to mediocre enemies. So you can just give refund to Crushing Blow: it's always worse against tanky enemies, but it shines when you can use it 2 or 3 times to quickly kill someone without costing too much.

This would work but this is kind of redundant with Blood Thirst. If you time your normal attack for the kill, you already can get a no-recovery free killing attack.

4 hours ago, yorname said:

Thematically, attacking faster and having more accuracy at the same time seems wrong to me.

Agreed.

 

Part of the issue comes from Barbaric Blow being so lame on its own, even with BPM version which is more crit focused.

I'm thinking about adding 75% Crit chance and +75% Crit damages also to Barbaric Blow carnage part (which is already increased in AoE). This would result in much better interraction with Blood Frenzy and Interrupting Blows.

Crushing Blow could be given an additional Carnage bonus of some sort (or just better carnage numbers), in a way that "instresically works better with instant attacks".

Maybe even bigger AoE (not sure how it would "instresically work better with instant attacks" though).

I fear that buffing the single target damage part won't make the ability buildable around.

 

Also I'm thinking about Eliminating Blow. I get the intention, but the AoE Tier 1 affliction isn't super satisfying for party building. Main target should stay unaffected to be keep the vibe though. Maybe an enormous AoE would fit ?  

EDIT : maybe I'm overthinkng it. The AoE (2,5 radius) is big enough, and it's still an almost free debuff that synergizes OK with new attack cycle. It's just not easy fitting among all RES Affliction debuff, but when used it's good enough. Maybe I can tweak up duration a bit.

Edited September 5 by Elric Galad

[yorname]

But waiting for the right time is contrary to the purpose of killing the target fast, since barbarian class doesn't add much to a normal hit, you almost need to hold your hand to get the kill. If you get refund on kill with Crushing Blow, you can just queue up multiple uses and almost be sure you get the killing blow and for free.

About the purpose of the ability, I think no-recovery at least is unique, and offers some multiclassing potential, like barb/rogue now can kill normal enemies really fast. In comparison 1-Rage Barbaric Smash is sort of awkward as just another martial ability with no clear purpose. Maybe it's personal preference, but I always feel bad when spending resources on martial abilities that only makes a harder hit, like crippling strike or wounding shot. But Barbaric Smash just doesn't have any unique function.

 

 

Or maybe you can partially revert to the original design: one upgreade has no recovery but no refund, to quickly kill an enemy from full to 0; the other with refund so you only use it as a way to always get the killing blow.

[yorname]

The power of Eliminating Blow itself is fine, but getting the upgrade only gets an Tier-1 affliction, that's a bit disappointing, especially because it's an ability you have to wait for the right time to use.

My proposition is to change from shaken on hit to frightened + sickened on killing blow. Makes more sense that way and feels a little better to invest.

Edited September 5 by yorname

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, yorname said:

But waiting for the right time is contrary to the purpose of killing the target fast, since barbarian class doesn't add much to a normal hit, you almost need to hold your hand to get the kill. If you get refund on kill with Crushing Blow, you can just queue up multiple uses and almost be sure you get the killing blow and for free.

I know, but I'm not super convinced. Maybe because it would make the upgrade concurrent.

Granted that an effect On-Kill that won't be concurrent with Blood Thirst could be a good idea.

Giving the refund on kill to the base ability is also a possibility. It would make it better, and Barbaric Smash less impactful. A chore to implement though, especially because of Corpse Eater.

1 hour ago, yorname said:

About the purpose of the ability, I think no-recovery at least is unique, and offers some multiclassing potential, like barb/rogue now can kill normal enemies really fast. In comparison 1-Rage Barbaric Smash is sort of awkward as just another martial ability with no clear purpose. Maybe it's personal preference, but I always feel bad when spending resources on martial abilities that only makes a harder hit, like crippling strike or wounding shot. But Barbaric Smash just doesn't have any unique function.

This is not entirely true.

BPM changes made it way more crit focused. It's arguably the best ability to get crits (bar Gambit), which combines well with Interrupting Blow, Blood Frenzy, Skald and a wide range of unique weapons. My favorite might be Beza's Toothed Blade. BS can be used to enforce its stacking -2 AR debuff. 

Also BPM gave it a much bigger Carnage area. BPM added a lots of synergy to carnage, enabling Interrupt throw Interrupting Blow and applying Blood Frenzy and Spirit Frenzy side effects. (That's why I'm thinking about giving it 75% Hit to Crit/+75% crit damages also to carnage.)

Yes, it's a very bread and butter damages stuff, but it has a good amount of synergies. Of course, Crushing Blow feels more unique.   

1 hour ago, yorname said:

 

Or maybe you can partially revert to the original design: one upgreade has no recovery but no refund, to quickly kill an enemy from full to 0; the other with refund so you only use it as a way to always get the killing blow.

Barbarian sort of needed a brainless attack ability though. That's why BS is this way.

1 hour ago, yorname said:

The power of Eliminating Blow itself is fine, but getting the upgrade only gets an Tier-1 affliction, that's a bit disappointing, especially because it's an ability you have to wait for the right time to use.

Yes. It's not even that it is weak. It is just so common.

1 hour ago, yorname said:

My proposition is to change from shaken on hit to frightened + sickened on killing blow. Makes more sense that way and feels a little better to invest.

The normal part is fine, really I'm only speaking about the upgrade. I get why Killing blow stuff would fit thematically, but restricting its power to killing blow would often result in overkilling from the damage part. CON Debuff is Withering Strike stuff though. The unupgraded part feels meh enough as it is to introduce further contest. 

The vanilla game ability description does speak about Frightened. Maybe they tried it at some point and it felt too strong ? Frightened is a good debuff. That said, BPM Rogue gets Frightened under the Single Class restriction through Perplexing Sap. A silencing strike might feel a bit strong for MC. Or just I would prefer SC Rogue to keep its stuff.

[yorname]

I see. I often see non-berserker-barbarian as the class that makes use of crit chance (instead of providing it) but I get your point.

I guess I'm feeling BS as normal martial ability is a little bit unfocused because hit-to-crit doesn't help with graze or miss (is that correct?), and works best when you already have high accuracy. Like if my accuracy equals enemy defense, using BS means I have ~60% chance to get at least one crit, only 37.5% for a specific weapon crit. It's a huge boost from 0%, but it's still unreliable if the on-crit effect is what I'm paying for. So I still feel the overall damage boost is the main deal.

 

I didn't pay attention to the Sap change before, but why did you give it resolve affliction though. I get that now rogue has all unconditional tier-1 afflictions, but Sap causing shaken, especially an ability called Perplexing Sap causing frightened feels really weird.

My proposition was to change only the upgrade.

I don't think overkill is a big issue, by design you either hit earlier and deal less damage, or hit later for more damage and waste part of it. It's not like fixed damage that wasting always equals worse.

Edited September 5 by yorname

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, yorname said:

I see. I often see non-berserker-barbarian as the class that makes use of crit chance (instead of providing it) but I get your point.

I guess I'm feeling BS as normal martial ability is a little bit unfocused because hit-to-crit doesn't help with graze or miss (is that correct?), and works best when you already have high accuracy. Like if my accuracy equals enemy defense, using BS means I have ~60% chance to get at least one crit, only 37.5% for a specific weapon crit. It's a huge boost from 0%, but it's still unreliable if the on-crit effect is what I'm paying for. So I still feel the overall damage boost is the main deal.

Yeah, Hit to Crit only applies to Hit.

Still, other abilities give their effect only 75% of time since miss does not count. BB line gives a Crit 50% of non-miss. And this is a rather defavorable scenario. Of course, it is expected to pick the right multiclassing if specifically building for it. 

Also dual wielding gives you 2 chances to connect.

That said, I agree, it is mainly a damage focused ability. On an equal acc/def footing, Hits represents 80% of the damages. So boosting only this part of the roll should work.

Also, do not forget Carnage AoE extension. 

Let's say it is a damages focused ability with benefits. 

1 hour ago, yorname said:

I didn't pay attention to th e Sap change before, but why did you give it resolve affliction though. I get that now rogue has all unconditional tier-1 afflictions, but Sap causing shaken, especially an ability called Perplexing Sap causing frightened feels really weird.

Well, the idea is that it attacks the brain, and the upgrade has a silencing effect (plus loosing concentration).

1 hour ago, yorname said:

My proposition was to change only the upgrade.

Nope  EDIT : I thought you were speaking about Sap. If not, yeah, only eliminating blow should be changed.

1 hour ago, yorname said:

I don't think overkill is a big issue, by design you either hit earlier and deal less damage, or hit later for more damage and waste part of it. It's not like fixed damage that wasting always equals worse.

Sure, sure, I will think about it. But Frightened and Shaken are a bit out of the picture.

Maybe a simple AoE Interrupt vs Will could work. Like allies shocked. Conditional or not, that's the question.

Or a hard Will debuff. But this one does not have big synergies with Rogue.

EDIT : OR maybe a 6s Frightened would be better than a 12s Shaken. This solution has the advantage of being extremely easy to implement  

It's rather complementary with the single target long duration 30s Frightened from BPM Perplexing Sap.

Edited September 5 by Elric Galad

[yorname]

Yeah I was talking about Eliminating Blow. Sap doesn't really need any more change I guess.

[yorname]

I'm wondering is there any way to make use of carnage crit, besides crit interrupt and Blood Frenzy? I looked at the character creation screen for a long time and couldn't think of synergetic abilities from other classes. The best I could find was the high INT/MIG from Helwalker.

AOE melee weapons only trigger carnage once I believe?

[L4wlight]

20 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Giving the refund on kill to the base ability is also a possibility. It would make it better, and Barbaric Smash less impactful. A chore to implement though, especially because of Corpse Eater.

Yeah, pls bring the refund back. I always found the "fishing for kills" part of Barbaric Smash to be one of the more fun and interactive features of the barbarian class.

[Elric Galad]

5 hours ago, yorname said:

I'm wondering is there any way to make use of carnage crit, besides crit interrupt and Blood Frenzy? I looked at the character creation screen for a long time and couldn't think of synergetic abilities from other classes. The best I could find was the high INT/MIG from Helwalker.

AOE melee weapons only trigger carnage once I believe?

Energized of course, but this is basically Interrupting Blows on steroids. 

I guess crit damages talent does help a bit for the damages part. 

Lord Dalryn Voulge would trigger its electric damages earlier. With addition of 75% hit to crit for carnage, you will have access to reliable Disoriented. Ultimately not much better. 

Related to carnage but not crit, Combusting Wounds and Crushing Blows is a fun combo. 

 

BB, BS and CB will get 75% hit to crit and +75% crit damages also with carnage according to my plan. 

I've reduced BB and BS carnage AoE buff to +100% to avoid too much power creeping. 

I've increased CB carnage AoE to +300% (X2 RADIUS). CB will be the one to spread Blood and spirit frenzy the best. Also CB could be used to proc interrupt quickly in an AoE. It's not reliable but repeatable until it works. Barbarian vibe here, "smash until they stop whispering their foul magic words"

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, L4wlight said:

Yeah, pls bring the refund back. I always found the "fishing for kills" part of Barbaric Smash to be one of the more fun and interactive features of the barbarian class.

The thing is... I don't like On Kill effects too much (they rely too much on encounter design) and they are quite tedious to implement (even to implement back).

 

But the specific reason here is that I don't like On Kill effects that have an additional condition. I don't like double conditional stuff. Bood lust and Blood Thirst don't have this issue, but having to kill with a specific ability, or even with a weapon add a tedious luck factor. As I declared sooner, you may have your kill "stolen" by your own DoT (Deep Wounds, Bleeding Cuts, various weapon effects...). 

BPM Barbarian design emphasizes a lot Carnage synergies, since Carnage has been the big looser from PoE1 design.

I haven't completely forgotten On Kill strategies though, Bloody Slaughter adding +100% carnage damages vs Near death targets is basically about farming low health targets into kills.

[Kvellen]

Hey Elric, noticed the output_log is displaying an issue with "gn.encounter_scaling_fix.gamedatabundle" and "gn.sepulcher_scaling_fix.gamedatabundle" from the BalancePolishingModBuffs.
Seems an extra {"GameDataObjects":[]} accidently got into those files.