The big nerf list (patch 1.2) (WIP)

[tmoji]

So many people seem to think PoE only has one difficulty setting and that balance is only about player/enemy interaction.

 

PoTD should be hard. Really hard. That will mean nerfing some interactions that are just broken and can’t reasonably be counteracted by tweaking enemy stats/numbers.

 

Player experience should also be balanced between classes for a specific difficulty setting. The game’s difficulty should not be incredibly different for two people playing at the same difficulty setting simply because they use different builds. That means some abilties will need nerfed and others buffed to get everything in line.

 

If those nerfs or buffs mean your character doesn’t feel god-like enough anymore just turn down the difficulty level. It’s that simple.

 

PotD baseline and scaling need to be set first, but it would be nice to have a discussion about what may need balanced without having to fight off all the interjections saying the game should only be remotely challenging for intentionally gimped characters.

[Zeitzbach]

I find it funny no one is talking about Arcana scrolls. Extremely cheap. Some of the T9 mats can be bought and 15 arcana isn't hard to get.

 

Also they only take like 1.5 seconds to cast a meteor storm or a maelstorm.

 

I dropped one Maelstorm for the lol with a level 15 takehu and he killed 90% of concelhaut torn banner merc before they even walk through the bridge.

 

Any spells with long cast time but op effect you want to break? Just toss the scroll.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Zeitzbach

[Climhazzard]

I find it funny no one is talking about Arcana scrolls. Extremely cheap. Some of the T9 mats can be bought and 15 arcana isn't hard to get.

 

Also they only take like 1.5 seconds to cast a meteor storm or a maelstorm.

 

I dropped one Maelstorm for the lol with a level 15 takehu and he killed 90% of concelhaut torn banner merc before they even walk through the bridge.

 

Any spells with long cast time but op effect you want to break? Just toss the scroll.

 

Personally always hated relying on consumables, I stack in some heal potions for emergencies and that's it.  Nalpazca is kinda turning out to be a headache too even if it really is the strongest monk.

[Nanomachin]

One thing I haven't heard mentioned is weapon active abilities. I think their balance is generally a bit out of whack. First off, we know reliable full attack actives are usually why dual wield ends up being strictly better than two handers (there are other factors, such as two handers not quite having the penetration one would expect from them, especially greatsword). Similarly the built-in "no recovery" that guns have is what makes them desirable for a lot of shenanigans that involve spamming skills that take your weapon into account without actually needing to ever reload your weapon. To be perfectly frank, I don't understand why that's a thing. It's fun... for a little while, because you have the satisfaction of having discovered a way to game the system, but when you start reflecting on the implication you realize it makes some entire weapon types more desirable than others for reasons that are frankly pretty stupid. The end result being, what weapon types are actually good have nothing to do with the inherent qualities of that weapon type and everything to do with how abilities behave. That's not really a good thing in my opinion.

 

The main problem with full attacks in my opinion currently is that, you only ever go through the recovery/reload of one of your weapons if you're dual wielding. This makes full attacks so much better dual wielding instead of 2handing or 1handing that the discussion pretty much ends here. There is no logical reason to not be dual wielding when you plan on using full attack actives, it's pretty much unjustifiable. My question to that is : why not actually make recovery work with full attack the way it actually should. Make the user go through the recovery of each of his active weapons after using it. Force him to reload both guns. That way, there is a cost attached. Dual wielding still amounts to more burst damage from a full attack, but is longer to recover from. 2hander does less damage, but you get to act quicker. 1hander is the quickest and has the highest accuracy, but does the least damage. Simple stuff. There's a kind of dual wield fetishism in the design of both POE games that I think is strongly hurting weapon balance and weapon choice strategy, and it's a real shame.

 

Second, stuff like evasive fire. Not having inherent weapon recovery / reload tied to it's usage makes absolutely no sense to me. It is pretty cool to have rangers teleport around shooting everything like they're Matrix stunt doubles until they run out of resources, but I can't in good faith say "this is how things should be". The skill should apply the recovery / reload of the equipped weapon imo, it's just silly not to.

[Nanomachin]

I find it funny no one is talking about Arcana scrolls. Extremely cheap. Some of the T9 mats can be bought and 15 arcana isn't hard to get.

 

Also they only take like 1.5 seconds to cast a meteor storm or a maelstorm.

 

I dropped one Maelstorm for the lol with a level 15 takehu and he killed 90% of concelhaut torn banner merc before they even walk through the bridge.

 

Any spells with long cast time but op effect you want to break? Just toss the scroll.

 

Bombs are arguably cheaper and just as strong. Items in generals scale to such heights that maxing one item skill on anyone is pretty much the way to go (but then why wouldn't you be maxing alchemy).

[Zeitzbach]

 

I find it funny no one is talking about Arcana scrolls. Extremely cheap. Some of the T9 mats can be bought and 15 arcana isn't hard to get.

 

Also they only take like 1.5 seconds to cast a meteor storm or a maelstorm.

 

I dropped one Maelstorm for the lol with a level 15 takehu and he killed 90% of concelhaut torn banner merc before they even walk through the bridge.

 

Any spells with long cast time but op effect you want to break? Just toss the scroll.

 

Bombs are arguably cheaper and just as strong. Items in generals scale to such heights that maxing one item skill on anyone is pretty much the way to go (but then why wouldn't you be maxing alchemy).

 

 

Probably because there's no reason to drink anything as enemies are too weak. I find it easier to just wipe the field in 5 seconds. That or something like bouncing arrow + ice bow easily deal 300-350 AoE per Twin shot anyway there's no need to drink the potion for overkill. You have to be at a super boss encounter to bother using it.

 

Is this really fair? Cause I don't think it is just because Monk can do it slightly better.

 

https://imgur.com/a/HDJ3vAg

Edited May 18, 2018 by Zeitzbach

[knownastherat]

 

The Caed Nua hall fight as the entry to the game world in PoE was brilliantly designed.

 

 

You'll have to explain to me what's brilliant about attaching on-hit paralysis on top of otherwise basic mooks and call it a day.

 

 

A room there is no escape from.

With environmental elements to take advantage of.

Sword with a bonus against said mooks.

Stun and drain of endurance.

 

Players could get there anywhere between level 2 and 4 and at this stage having a dragon there, for example, would create thread longer than this one. It was a well-designed and memorable encounter with epic mood which required from players use of resources gathered so far (Fan of Flames scrolls, protective cape, potions) and use of tactics. It was not a random hack and slash encounter. In the spirit of BG, it was more like a puzzle than mooks killing. 

 

If you would quote my whole post, it would be apparent I was making a comparison to PoE2 in the first place. 

 

What day do you want me to call?

[Climhazzard]

That room was the biggest culling of my Ironman attempts, lol....

[Zeitzbach]

And all the room really shows you is that "Once you know what you are doing, you pretty much beat the entire game with no effort. The only difficulty you really are facing now is the very limited amount of tools to deal with the encounters."

 

And sadly, that limitation does go poof the moment you clear Caed Nua and gain access to unlimited amount of curio supply, gems, scrolls, etc.

[aweigh0101]

I liked that encounter from PoE1 because it felt good realizing I could bunch up my party near the entrance in order to avoid getting ganked from teleports, and that to make this happen I would need to use stealth to pull.

 

[Tosho]

Oh wow the radius and damage on these concussion grenades, i never even checked.

 

Lmao what the heck.

[Zeitzbach]

It felt good on the first few times. It felt tedious and cheesy after that but you know you have to do it if you don't want to rely on diceroll to help you with the bloated stats.

 

 

Oh wow the radius and damage on these concussion grenades, i never even checked.

 

Lmao what the heck.

 

Pretty much all high damage items are busted.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Zeitzbach

[PIP-Clownboy]

Fighter

 

-Mob stance. Free heart of fury on kill is way too OP. Suggest to change to 1 free full attack against a random enemy on kill. It's still pretty much bloodthirst, a much higher PL barb ability, but at least not as broken.

 

On a related note, Barb's Heart of Fury seems very underwhelming for it's cost, which is 4 rage. I'd rather just spam Instrument of Boundless Rage which is amazing and cheaper. Even worse, since Barbaric Smash refunds on kill it makes HoF even more situational. 

[Tosho]

lol "Wall of Many Colors" doesn't break stealth and just wreaks havoc on mobs. A lot of paralysis or domination, and 30 sec of  lot of dot dmg.

 

But it puts you in combat though letting you summon things while remaining stealthed. 

Sadly Essential and Substantial Phantom do like 5 dmg and have no powers, but I've found they get the same powers you have from gear. So I have a necklace that summons dragons, the phantom dude can do the same lol.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Tosho

[JibSail]

So many people seem to think PoE only has one difficulty setting and that balance is only about player/enemy interaction.

 

PoTD should be hard. Really hard. That will mean nerfing some interactions that are just broken and can’t reasonably be counteracted by tweaking enemy stats/numbers.

 

Player experience should also be balanced between classes for a specific difficulty setting. The game’s difficulty should not be incredibly different for two people playing at the same difficulty setting simply because they use different builds. That means some abilties will need nerfed and others buffed to get everything in line.

 

If those nerfs or buffs mean your character doesn’t feel god-like enough anymore just turn down the difficulty level. It’s that simple.

 

PotD baseline and scaling need to be set first, but it would be nice to have a discussion about what may need balanced without having to fight off all the interjections saying the game should only be remotely challenging for intentionally gimped characters.

Since someone already mentioned dota here, I thought I'd ask you to tell me whether a team comp matters in that game. I mean, if it were balanced, a 5 hard carry team would have a really fun time vs a 5 support team...

 

Balance in a single player game is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

 

Your game shouldn't be difficult because your auto attacks can't pen, or because you only have a 13% change to hit, but because (someone else made this amazing suggestion) they had rouges stealthed and they took out your back line.

[Tosho]

Ok so you can cast any "Wall" type spell and it won't break stealth. Although only 1 of them does decent enough dmg.

[Nanomachin]

 

A room there is no escape from.

With environmental elements to take advantage of.

Sword with a bonus against said mooks.

Stun and drain of endurance.

 

 

Each of those elements is either incorrect, completely mundane (every other fight has it) or blown out of proportion, so I'll skip that call.

[Omeganova]

So i'm going to drop my two cents on this issue.

 

I totally agree that the argument that single player games don't need to be balanced is bollocks, and that a fundamentally unbalanced system does diminish peoples enjoyment of the game.

 

However nerfs in a vacuum with little to no nuance is also bad for a game. Take for example the Unbending/Mercy where she walked combo. Which ability is truly at fault? The aura itself is powerful for sure, but in the context of the chanter his only healing options are Ancient Memory, Old Siec, Boil Their Flesh and Sip the Marrow and Rejoice my Comrades. None of these options are particularly out of line. and Mercy is a way to increase the value on the chanters different approach to healing. And in regards to Unbending, the ability is a direct port from PoE. In regards to the OP you are asking that both abilities be nerfed because of the existence of the other? What about my Death Guard (Berath Priest/Devoted Fighter) or any fighter mix, should they lose power because of one single ability? An ability mind you may not even be present in their games?

 

Speaking of Priests, many of the suggested changes remove power from some of their only decent spells (Devotions of the Faithful again being a direct port from PoE) while suggesting nothing of substance to bring up any of their incredibly lackluster spells. I would much rather see the sub-par options brought up before hammering one of the classes defining abilities.

 

I would much prefer the PoTD difficulty to patched first as well as the bugs that currently affecting playthroughs, such as the respec bug. Then take a more methodical look at correcting some the most egregious elements after all that is said and done, instead of taking a sledgehammer to the game.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Omeganova

[MadDemiurg]

RE: Consumables. I didn't bother using them even solo cause I didn't feel the need to, but looking at them they're completely broken too.

 

RE: Stealth abuse and damage out of combat. That deserves its own entry, however fixing it would be up to Obsidian as it's a complex coding issue. I agree that it's a problem though.

 

 

So i'm going to drop my two cents on this issue.

 

I totally agree that the argument that single player games don't need to be balanced is bollocks, and that a fundamentally unbalanced system does diminish peoples enjoyment of the game.

 

However nerfs in a vacuum with little to no nuance is also bad for a game. Take for example the Unbending/Mercy where she walked combo. Which ability is truly at fault? The aura itself is powerful for sure, but in the context of the chanter his only healing options are Ancient Memory, Old Siec, Boil Their Flesh and Sip the Marrow and Rejoice my Comrades. None of these options are particularly out of line. and Mercy is a way to increase the value on the chanters different approach to healing. And in regards to Unbending, the ability is a direct port from PoE. In regards to the OP you are asking that both abilities be nerfed because of the existence of the other? What about my Death Guard (Berath Priest/Devoted Fighter) or any fighter mix, should they lose power because of one single ability? An ability mind you may not even be present in their games?

 

Speaking of Priests, many of the suggested changes remove power from some of their only decent spells (Devotions of the Faithful again being a direct port from PoE) while suggesting nothing of substance to bring up any of their incredibly lackluster spells. I would much rather see the sub-par options brought up before hammering one of the classes defining abilities.

 

I would much prefer the PoTD difficulty to patched first as well as the bugs that currently affecting playthroughs, such as the respec bug. Then take a more methodical look at correcting some the most egregious elements after all that is said and done, instead of taking a sledgehammer to the game.

 

Let's see:

 

Mercy and Kindness - +100% heal is just way too good. This is a party game in the end, the chanter can be paired with a paladin, priest or druid healer. How would you feel about +100% damage chant? It's not supposed to be a buff balanced just for Chanter's personal heals. Chanter is the easiest solo class anyway, and nerfing this won't change it. At +50% it would still be an extremely powerful chant, almost a no brainer compared to a lot of alternatives.

 

Unbending - a) I only suggested to change the upgrade, which never even existed in PoE1. b) PoE2 is a vastly different game in terms of healing because of no health, I feel like a lot of healing abilities need revision for this reason. Suggested changes are reasonable even without accounting for Mercy and Kindness combo.

 

Priest - "many of the suggested changes remove power from some of their only decent spells "  - I only suggested ONE change (devotions) and I've explicitly said I'd prefer that it comes together with buffing their trash spells. Devotions was OP in PoE1 too. In its current form it can be easily moved to PL9 if you really don't want to nerf it.

 

The only "sledgehammer" changes in the OP are for stuff that feels way out of line. Like meteor shower and inner death, but they are freaking scary. And anyway, it's up to Obsidian to decide whether they need a nerf and how much of a nerf they need. I'm just pointing out stuff that feels way too OP. Unbending would be too weak with only 50% healed back (like it was in PoE1)?  Or paladin would suddenly become trash tier with 16 instead of 21 max def from faith and conviction (pretty much the same as it was in PoE1 where palas were almost untouchable when min/maxed anyway)?

 

Speaking of combos that completely break the game, it's not too hard to come up with changes that nerf the combo without gutting the abilities.

 

E.g. let's say barring death door at 2/encounter is balanced, but we want to make it balanced with current brilliant (which deserves a huge nerfhammer for many other reasons, but let's presume not). We can make character under "Can't die" effect immune to "Can't die effects" for equal duration after it expires - no more chaining.

 

Let's say we want to balance Unbending with +100% mercy and kindness - just change unbending to 50% damage resist. It makes no sense as a heal in PoE2 with no health pool anyway. Maybe it's even a better solution. 75% would still be too strong and +100% heal chant is also still to strong tho.

Edited May 19, 2018 by MadDemiurg

[Sotnik]

Monk: Blade Turning needs a duration nerf and should not work vs a single target.

 

Rogue: Confounding Blind stacks with each projectile. Might deserve nerf/bugfix to 1 effect per attack/spell instead of each damage roll.

It is not a balance issue, more like a bug, but invisibility leads to the termination of the combat in solo. Invisibility ceases right afterwards.

[Zeitzbach]

Another way to properly tackle skills like UNbending is to make it work as a mix of instant heal and HoT.

 

Unbending: 50% of the damage received are converted into healing. Half of it will be recovered over 5 seconds.

 

So even if you stack it, if the damage is high enough, you can still die. It will also make the enemies less annoying if you don't have instant dispel.

 

And we need more reduced healing skills in the game anyway. You only see it the first few hours of the game and the next time you see it, it's all the way at Nemnok place.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Zeitzbach

[hilfazer]

-Empower. I think Empower on abilities is currently broken as it often nearly doubles the damage of powerful PL9 abilities. The problem though, is that it doesn't seem possible to balance things with how it works now as it can break even non OP abilities. A quick fix would probably be toning it down to +5 PL, however I'd rather see it either removed so you can only use empowers to restore resources or changed to do something else e.g. guarantee a hit.

Dunno, i like my enemies to hit hard.

 

-Nature godlike. +2 PL is just too big of a bonus for any power based characters. +1 should keep it useful without being as much of a must have.

It's fine as it's conditional.

 

-Mercy and kindness followed where she walked - too strong in general and breaks stuff like fighter's unbending. Nerf to 50% for now.

Dunno, i like my enemies to heal themselves better so they don't die so fast. OTOH being immortal is broken.

 

-Ascended - at higher levels, ascended power spam becomes too ridiculous. Suggest to make powers cost less when in ascended state rather than 0.

-Time parasite - should not stack, +300% action speed is bonkers. 50% should be plenty.

Dunno, i like my cipher enemies to be dangerous.

 

-Empowered strikes. Absurd buff. Nerf to +10 acc & +3 pen.

Wow, even Obsidian does not nerf by dividing by 10 or 33

Don't look at numbers, read it as "auto crit, auto overpen".

 

-Charge. Full attack on everyone in aoe is again pretty much a cheaper/much lower level heart of fury and is problematic with aoe weapons and such. Suggested to do ability damage similar to monk's flagellants path instead of a weapon attack.

Thank you but i prefer it to be interesting rather than boring.

 

 

I'll continue in my next post.

[hilfazer]

-Turning wheel. Nerf to 2.5% lash/wound. 50% "passive" lash is too massive especially considering all other buffs monks have.

Weren't wound stacking monks kicked in the balls by making Iron Wheel and Turning Wheel exclusive? That's how i understood it when reading description. No need to kick them even more.

 

-Inner death. Absurd nuke. Nerf to +250% crit damage

Knowing Obsidian they'll divide crit damage by 5. Or maybe... they'll begin a new era of balancing and divide it by 10?

Of course they won't reduce base damage. They want to bring everything closer.

 

-Faith and conviction. Nerf by about 25%, gives way too much def with maxed dispositions.

-Shieldbearers of St. Elga - Change cannot die on LoH to grant x pt damage shield. It would be better earlygame but not so abuseable.

Dunno, i like my enemies tough.

 

-Devotions of the faithful could get a nerf for a really long time, but they are not gamebreaking in a way some other abilities are and priest spell list is overall kinda lackluster so it can wait for a more fine grained rebalance.

They don't want to nerf it. I respect their decision.

 

-Missile spells. Less scaling (maybe +1 projectile per 3 or 4 PL instead of 2)

I'd rather nerf damage, many missiles are cool to watch!

 

-Meteor Shower - halve the damage.

Dunno, i like when my enemies hit hard.

 

 

Good thread. Is "The big buff list (patch 1.2) (WIP)" planned?

Edited May 19, 2018 by hilfazer

[Climhazzard]

Quite a few requests to nerf blade turning, I feel like people asking for that never tried using it.  You're basically stuck in a loop of animation and recovery, and even then hits get through during the animation...  it's not really that powerful imo and one of the only survival abilities monks get.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Climhazzard

[theBalthazar]

Personnaly in this game, I think this is a mistake to create abilities with Cost 4.

 

The majority simply not worth it.

 

3 need to be the maximum.

 

If not :

 

1) You stay with 4 ressources, and boost few of these kind of abilities (few are already broken). BUT high risk of imbalance.

2) You stay with 4 ressources, without boost. But in this case, all 1 or 2 cost abilities are often always better.

 

3 = 1 + 1 + 1 = three actions. The only reward is to do a difference faster if damage are really stronger. Not always the case.

 

We also can see that like a gift to single class. Because HoF 4 ressources...

 

-------------

 

I have suddenly an image. An idea. Why do not Brilliant (inspiration level 3) down the cost of ressources of 1 ?

 

Chanter do his chant. Briliant activated.

 

Cost 1 = Cost 0.

Cost 2 = Cost 1.

Cost 3 = Cost 2.

Cost 4 = Cost 3.

Edited May 19, 2018 by theBalthazar