Affliction changes from PoE 1 to 2, and spell rebalance

[dunehunter]

I saw we have some thread talking about spell is not well balanced due to Affliction changes.

 

Prone

    PoE 1: hard CC;

    PoE 2: Interruption;

 

Confused

    PoE 1: soft CC;

    PoE 2: -5 INT, friendly fire;

 

Dazed 

    PoE 1: -2 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Per, -10 Accuracy, ×0.85 Attack Speed;

    PoE 2: -5 STR, -4 Pen, disable engagement.

 

Confused is downgraded to a level 1 Affliction instead of CC.

 

Prone is Interruption instead of CC.

 

Dazed is upgraded to a level 2 Affliction, -4 Pen usually means melee damage is cut half or 3/4.

 

A lot other affliction changes, but seems to be at least in same power level. I raise this three because I feel these 3 have the biggest changes. For example, Confusion is a lvl 4 Wizard spell but Confused is badly nerfed. So how to fix the spells that are affected by the affliction changes, shall it be changed to a lower level spell?

 

Similar to Priest spell Pillar of Faith and Repulsing Seal, should it be a lower level spell, or faster cast time instead?

Edited December 23, 2017 by dunehunter

[Lamppost in Winter]

Agreed, a lot of the affliction changes have put a few spells in a weird place. It also seems that hard CC is more about just disabling the enemy rather than nuking their defenses as in PoE1 (e.g., Stun is just -5 STR and disable), while reducing defences is more the domain of dedicated abilities (Nature's Mark, Shining Beacon) and weapon modals.

[Answermancer]

Good thread, and worth discussing.

 

I think in general a lot of spells need a pass where their power level is tweaked, or their effects modified to match their expected level. At this point I imagine they're still finalizing most content before a serious rebalancing pass, so hopefully they'll do some drastic stuff here.

 

Cipher is the example that keeps coming up for something that needs a drastic rebalance and can't really ship in the state it's in, between the Res/Might split, and the ridiculously long cast times on top of focus generation.

 

By the way, I was just looking at tooltips for Charm vs. Domination... and Charm actually sounds better? I'm guessing that the tooltip is missing some crucial info but it just says Alliance flipped for Domination, while Charm has both alliance flipped AND can't use abilities? What am I missing here.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Good thread, and worth discussing.

 

I think in general a lot of spells need a pass where their power level is tweaked, or their effects modified to match their expected level. At this point I imagine they're still finalizing most content before a serious rebalancing pass, so hopefully they'll do some drastic stuff here.

 

Cipher is the example that keeps coming up for something that needs a drastic rebalance and can't really ship in the state it's in, between the Res/Might split, and the ridiculously long cast times on top of focus generation.

 

By the way, I was just looking at tooltips for Charm vs. Domination... and Charm actually sounds better? I'm guessing that the tooltip is missing some crucial info but it just says Alliance flipped for Domination, while Charm has both alliance flipped AND can't use abilities? What am I missing here.

 

A charmed enemy can't use abilities while it's fighting for you; a Dominated one can. You want it using its abilities because it's using them on your side, against the enemies.

 

I feel like they decided CC was too strong in the first game, so they cut it back in a few different ways:

 

1) The affliction system makes the debuff effect of each CC much weaker (for example, Paralyze no longer gives a deflection penalty at all, just hit to crit, and I'm not sure it Interrupts any more either).

 

2) The affliction system makes CC much easier to counter (resist Dexterity afflictions makes you paralyze-immune)

 

3) The reduction of the critical hit bonus from 50% to 25% makes for shorter-duration CC overall

 

4) Dramatically lengthened cast times not just for spells generally, but for CC specifically (whisper of treason was a "fast" cast in the old game; now it's 6 seconds, which I think is "average") without lengthening the effect or otherwise changing the spells in any way. Result is that casting a lot of cipher CC literally takes you out of the fight longer than it takes out your target, statistically ( six seconds of casting, two of recovery, ten second duration, but adjust for misses and grazes, statistically that ten drops to about six; adjust for stats helps a little but not enough). 

 

Thing is you only really needed 1 & 2. 3&4 were overkill. 

 

I saw we have some thread talking about spell is not well balanced due to Affliction changes.

 

Prone

    PoE 1: hard CC;

    PoE 2: Interruption;

 

 

Prone seems like the one ability they couldn't fit into the Affliction system, and since it didn't fit, they just made it really weak. This really hurt a lot of staple abilities and I hope they find a way to amend that.

[KDubya]

I'm finding a use for prone with regards to spamming Force of Anguish (works better with the upgrade that reduces cost to one wound)

 

Get a dual wielding (needed for the speed) Shattered Pillar (needed for generating wounds by attacking with FoA, sort of perpetual motion here). Set the Ai to use FoA as often as possible.

 

What that gets you is a prone knockback every 2 seconds or so that also interrupts. The enemy gets knocked back, runs back to you and gets knocked back, runs back to you and gets knocked back ....

 

This only works due to Monks getting unlimited number of FoA as they're based on wounds (unlike Fighters and Knockdown/Mule kick) and Shattered Pillars being able to generate wounds by causing damage which also works with ability use. I had a team of five Monk hybrids doing this in PotD and it worked well except when enemies had massive Fortitude. Was it fun, sure but five raging Barbarians all with carnage would probably have cleared the map faster.

[Answermancer]

A charmed enemy can't use abilities while it's fighting for you; a Dominated one can. You want it using its abilities because it's using them on your side, against the enemies.

That... makes perfect sense. I clearly wasn't thinking, lol. Thanks.

 

Thing is you only really needed 1 & 2. 3&4 were overkill.

Agreed.

Edited December 24, 2017 by Answermancer

[Lamppost in Winter]

 

 

 

I feel like they decided CC was too strong in the first game, so they cut it back in a few different ways:

 

1) The affliction system makes the debuff effect of each CC much weaker (for example, Paralyze no longer gives a deflection penalty at all, just hit to crit, and I'm not sure it Interrupts any more either).

 

2) The affliction system makes CC much easier to counter (resist Dexterity afflictions makes you paralyze-immune)

 

3) The reduction of the critical hit bonus from 50% to 25% makes for shorter-duration CC overall

 

4) Dramatically lengthened cast times not just for spells generally, but for CC specifically (whisper of treason was a "fast" cast in the old game; now it's 6 seconds, which I think is "average") without lengthening the effect or otherwise changing the spells in any way. Result is that casting a lot of cipher CC literally takes you out of the fight longer than it takes out your target, statistically ( six seconds of casting, two of recovery, ten second duration, but adjust for misses and grazes, statistically that ten drops to about six; adjust for stats helps a little but not enough). 

 

Thing is you only really needed 1 & 2. 3&4 were overkill. 

 

 

 

Would more easily countered afflictions not somewhat obviate the need for weaker afflictions? Also, Paralyze doesn't interrupt. Not sure any hard CC does unless the ability specifically states it.

 

Perhaps we don't need to go back to the specific numbers of PoE but it does feel bad when a hard CC'd enemy isn't any easier to hit with weapons or reflex spells. 

[KDubya]

If I were to hazard a guess as to why it was changed it'd be to stop hard CC from being an 'I win'  or an 'I lose' button.

 

How many party wipes do you think were caused by the phantoms and spectres in the Eothas temple and at Caed Nua? The reason was primarily due to stun causing the target to quickly get critted and killed with no recourse.

 

How many people hate the Lagefeth due to PTSD caused by remembering the slaughter caused by mass ranged paralysis?

 

Or for that matter, how many youtube guides/playthroughs are their detailing how to sequentially buff and cast in order to luckily land a graze of petrify on the Adra Dragon and then follow up with more and kill it before it ever gets to move again?

 

PoE played much differently if you actively pursued applying a hard CC on the enemy at every opportunity or you choose not to.

 

In DeadFire it looks like they are making afflictions helpful in taking out the enemy but not completely dominant like they were.

[MortyTheGobbo]

If I were to hazard a guess as to why it was changed it'd be to stop hard CC from being an 'I win'  or an 'I lose' button.

 

How many party wipes do you think were caused by the phantoms and spectres in the Eothas temple and at Caed Nua? The reason was primarily due to stun causing the target to quickly get critted and killed with no recourse.

 

How many people hate the Lagefeth due to PTSD caused by remembering the slaughter caused by mass ranged paralysis?

 

Or for that matter, how many youtube guides/playthroughs are their detailing how to sequentially buff and cast in order to luckily land a graze of petrify on the Adra Dragon and then follow up with more and kill it before it ever gets to move again?

 

PoE played much differently if you actively pursued applying a hard CC on the enemy at every opportunity or you choose not to.

 

In DeadFire it looks like they are making afflictions helpful in taking out the enemy but not completely dominant like they were.

 

That seems like a pretty obvious answer to me. Hard CC was usually the trump card of Pillars.

[Lamppost in Winter]

 

In DeadFire it looks like they are making afflictions helpful in taking out the enemy but not completely dominant like they were.

 

I did enjoy the debuff juggling aspect of PoE combat, getting in the smaller ones to soften them up for the big ones, but I suppose hard CC need not be that powerful. I still think some extra defensive debuffs to hard CC wouldn't be out of place, like automatically applying Flanked (as Blind also does now) to Stunned and Paralyzed.

 

On a related note, does anybody know what the Tier 3 Constitution Affliction is? I remember somebody saying it was called Enfeeble, but I haven't seen what it does.

Edited December 25, 2017 by Lamppost in Winter

[dunehunter]

 

 

In DeadFire it looks like they are making afflictions helpful in taking out the enemy but not completely dominant like they were.

 

I did enjoy the debuff juggling aspect of PoE combat, getting in the smaller ones to soften them up for the big ones, but I suppose hard CC need not be that powerful. I still think some extra defensive debuffs to hard CC wouldn't be out of place, like automatically applying Flanked (as Blind also does now) to Stunned and Paralyzed.

 

On a related note, does anybody know what the Tier 3 Constitution Affliction is? I remember somebody saying it was called Enfeeble, but I haven't seen what it does.

 

 

Same, curious about how it works, I feel Weaken and Sickened is pretty similar to each other, one is -5 Con -100% healing effect, one is -5 Con, -50% healing effect. Not many difference here.

[Answermancer]

I would also like it if it listed the tier of the affliction in the tooltip.

 

Especially while learning the game it would be nice to be able to explicitly see "by the way, this is the Tier 1 Dex affliction" in its tooltip (Hobbled? is that right?). If not then I hope it at least lists all the tiers in the Cyclopedia entry on afflictions, the same way someone listed them all out in a thread on here.

[Wormerine]

Yeah, I am super confused by afflictions right now. I am playing buffing/debuffing cipher right now, and spells don’t seem to do, what I expect them to do. Need to do some digging into mechanics.