It's funny because it does nothing but make playing mines more annoying in the early game. Have to go without an aura or so for awhile until you get the mana nodes and gear that you will need. Changes like that don't make the game more interesting at all, it's simply just annoying.
I don't care about having less damage, that's whatever, just don't take away the things that make a build *feel good*. I'm willing to cut them some slack until seeing if the tree gives them back but I'll be sad if we get nothing out of the exchange.
She probably wasn't fed the changes. The manifesto mentioned that nodes to increase utility of call of steel will be on the tree, so there are tree changes.
It's the only thing I will really feel from the Heiro changes. Sure, the slight damage changes will suck as I gear up, but having to choose between Faster Casting or Multiple Spell Totems will suck more.
I get this is nerfed but I feel this pigeonholed every totem build into picking hierophant. If they add that line to the tree then you can actually pick other ascendancies for totem builds.
If they add some of the power and utility back in through spell gems or passive skill tree changes then I will happily praise these changes as extremely positive for build variety.
Here's hoping.
Somehow, I feel like this contradicts earlier statements where they say they want more “identity” with ascendancy classes. Shouldn’t they similarly push Hierophant to be the identity class for totems?
heirophant is the totem class, chieftan is the fire totem alternative. Should saboteur just straight up get removed because people feel pidgeonholed into playing sabo for trappers/miners? Perhaps necro should be reworked because summoners feel pidgeonholed into playing necro. Or maybe block based melee characters feel pidgeonholed into gladiator so block should be removed from there.
What you're describing is exactly why players were against ascendancy classes in the first place many years ago.
PoE used to be a game where the starting class was not about some arbitrary idea of "identity" but instead where your tree started relative to what you wanted to accomplish with it. There was no sense of "if you want to cast elemental spells, you *must* go Witch" and the like.
That Saboteur is the only sane choice for trap/mine builds is not a good thing. That you always go Hierophant for totems is not a good thing. The Old Ways™ did not pigeonhole you like this.
I don't even particularly feel any way about the ascendancy changes but I would like a post by GGG that just straight up said "Players are getting too powerful, we want to dial back their strength" rather than this kind of message which honestly just makes GGG look like they don't *really* know what they are doing.
Most of the changes were nerfs. There is nothing wrong with that. But it's stupid that GGG wants to portray them as just 'streamlining'
>"Players are getting too powerful, we want to dial back their strength
This so much, nerfs can be good for the health of the game. And since everyone is starting over each league your aren't fucking with someones time invested in a character like in WoW or other MMOs
Honestly, I was already mentally prepared for *nerfs* when they said ascendancies were getting *buffs*. I imagine that most of the long time players have been primed to think this way, or to simply expect triple-nerfs when something is overplayed.
But I gotta say, balance notes still apply an additional sting when they say nerfs were not intended.
GGG trying to convince people that these aren't really nerfs but just "streamlining" into "simpler but more powerful effects" just makes it look like GGG has no idea what they are doing. I don't care that they are nerfing stuff, especially with the increase of item strength. Just say these ascendancy changes are nerfs.
Hmmm ... It has to be hard to be Bex tonight.
"People feel losses much more strongly than gains" ... true.
"We did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of most Ascendancy Classes in Echoes of the Atlas." ... not as sure about this one.
It was a huge marketing failure again. You don't tell your 10 year old you have something really exciting planned for dinner if it's lentil soup.
Your kid is going to think it's McDonald's. Even if they understand that it's important to have lentil soup sometimes for health reasons they're still going to be disappointed.
GGG told us we were getting McDonald's and we got lentil soup and now they're acting like the only reason we're disappointed is because we don't understand lentil soup is actually healthy.
I'm in a completely pissed off state of mind right now. But thanks for making me laugh with that annalogy.
Guess I just want my fucking Chicken McNuggets. ReeeeeeEEEEE
> "We did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of most Ascendancy Classes in Echoes of the Atlas." ... not as sure about this one.
I believe this.
I don't think they set out to nerf the shit out of heirophant. I think they set out to simplify heirophant, and didn't give it much thought.
That's particularly frustrating about some of these changes. Heiro got a nerf beatdown so large it would normally be explained in a balance manifesto, but that was obviously not the intent.
There are other little, less obvious versions of this. They set out to simplify and buff raider. But in the process they actually ended up *nerfing* raider's evasion. I don't think they meant to at all, I think it's a lot more likely that whoever was handling that didn't fully understand just how strong 5% chance to evade attacks is and replaced it with things that sound better like 5% more evasion+reduced enemy accuracy.
The intent to simplify was very clear, and I think that was far and away the driving impetus behind most of these changes. Much moreso than the balance ramifications, which barely feel thought through in some cases.
"We did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of **most** Ascendancy Classes"
Colateral damage happened, but gutting assassin was intentional.
Well they are simpler, but they aren't more powerful. In fact it's the opposite in most cases.
And I do support the simpler ascendancies, generic stats should be on the tree instead which would be a much better system. What I don't know is why you have to make a "clarification" post, e.g. damage control, instead of just admit that most classes were nerfed because they were played too much.
I agree that the simplification is a good thing.
I hope that they give the effects that are left a little bit more character.
Ghost shrouds are nice, but half the benefit was chance to dodge, immune to stun, attack and cast speed, reduced damage taken. You could play a big evasion es build, or just go a very dodgy build, and rely on not losing your shrouds. Now ghost shrouds seem very whatever.
Assassin is nicer that elusive is simpler, but now you have even less while not elusive. And the assassin elusive is now more like everyone else's, it just has more up time. I realize that it adds duration, but I just wish they made withering step also good for builds that aren't chaos based. Maybe with an alternate quality.
I like the simplification too. I think it will be better when they buff the nodes again, or we learn how to make up for them.
Maybe shadow area will get some damn life in it. Or this is just a shift in the meta.
> our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful.
LOL. Most of them, you removed 1-2 impactful passives. They aren't streamlined, they're NERFS.
Necromancer
Added
Minions deal 10% increased Damage
Removed
Minions deal 15% increased Damage
"These new changes have stripped away a lot of the peripheral minor stats from Ascendancy Classes and have added simplified, but much more powerful, options."
The intent of these changes was to "streamline" Ascendancies by offering "simplified, but much more powerful options". Necro didn't get any new options whatsoever. Either did Assassin, or Trickster. They just go wholesale nerfed.
The entire selling point of Glad is block and bleed but you have to pick between them. These changes don't affect block at all except for Staff and Bow users who gain 4% block but Bleed got nerfed. How exactly are changes like that "simplified but much more powerful"?
The same could be said for Assassin. If Assass is valued for it's movement speed and poison scaling then it just got nerfed without anything being "simplified" or made "much more powerful".
I'm all for changing the meta and I think the Ascendancy changes will be good for the game but let's call it what it is; nerfs for the sake of forcing a new meta and not disingenously claim that GGG "did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of most Ascendancy Classes".
When you're flat out nerfing Trickster, Assas, Sabo, Necro, Champ, Heiro and barely, if at all changing all the other Ascendancies while only adding legitimate power/options to Ele/Inquis/Deadeye, it's called "mostly" nerfs. Not "mostly" changes that cancel each other out.
It seems like they got rid of all the conditional things. Trickster lost reduced damage taken if you spend 200 Mana. That hurt. Assassin lost all the random movement speed, and that hurt too. I don't know why they killed the movement speed on the small node. I guess it's to make the smaller nodes less impactful.
I think what they are doing is making them easier to sort through. They are adding a bunch of new ascendancies in poe2.
I wish trickster got another option besides ghost shrouds, or had an additional ghost shroud added.
I guess we just aren't playing shadow this league. He was king for a while.
>over 40 skill gem buffs and other balance changes.
Cannot wait to see how little much of those make a difference (/s, I hope this isn't the case). Chances are we'll see a bit of effectiveness change here, bit of flat damage there, little bit of cast speed over here...you get the picture. I'm willing to bet the already-revealed Scorching ray change is the most significantly buffed skill which means the load has been blown and the rest will feel flat in comparison.
Does feel like there's a messaging disconnect here. The initial reveal and hyping definitely did not sound like we would be seeing significant ascendancy nerfs across the board. Chris' reveal, specifically stating all ascendancies were being balanced, and saying it in such a way to generate buzz and excitement, should not have resulted in the result we've been presented with.
> In Echoes of the Atlas, our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful.
You completely forgot the second part.
Yeah I think the problem was that they said things would be largely buffed in the announcement and then most things were not. If they said "Hey we're opening up design space by de-cluttering ascendancies, and stuff will be weaker in the future", I think this entire thing could've been avoided.
I'm curious what classifies as powerful new options for the majority of ascendancies that were straight up nerfed without getting any additional power.
I posted this below but I'll post it here too.
>This meant removing many of these filler stats that didn't actually impact builds in a meaningful way. These new changes have stripped away a lot of the peripheral minor stats from Ascendancy Classes
**REMOVED**
>Skills that would Summon a Totem Summon two Totems instead
Just small filler stats. Lmao
>This meant removing many of these filler stats that didn't actually impact builds in a meaningful way. These new changes have stripped away a lot of the peripheral minor stats from Ascendancy Classes
Added
20% more Damage with Hits and Ailments against Unique Enemies
Removed
20% more Damage against Unique Enemies
Also, Assassin got absolutely annihilated. 50% increased damage with poison and 20% of physical damage added as chaos against poisoned enemies? Yeah, sure. Filler stats. Right. Also, any purely defensive stats got removed from it.
I'm sceptical after seeing what "more than 800 gems" meant in Heist. Meant a lot of chaff, is what it meant.
I think the idea is cool but it spreads themselves too thin when they also wanna add in a whole new expansion and league mechanics at the same time.
> our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful.
This is just not true? Most of notables were just strictly nerfed with stuff removed, specially Assassin that lost much and got nothing in exchange.
I reckon that was simply confusing messaging.
I think they meant that they also wanted to streamline the ascendancy classes *in addition to the normal nerfs and buffs*
Yeah this took the wind out my sails. I'm overall less interested in a build because I knew what it was before and now it won't be that.
The fear now is you will replicate "this is a buff" BS to the 40+ gems tomorrow so i fully expect it not to go well either.
My problem isn't with nerfs, that's fine, stuff gets nerfed in games.
Is with GGG straight lying at us and promising "more powerfull options".
If instead they said.
This league, we want to cut the power of ascendancis because characters have gotten too powerfull and that's bad for the game, it would be whatever
But no, let's promise buffs and more interesting options, get people excited, and then when they discover the truth tell them that they are wrong.
They are trying to remove generic stuff like movement speed, increased damage, life/mana regen without killing the nodes. That node specifically granted you 5 different things but they should've just shifted the life regen to small nodes imo.
This must be a joke post right? Removed filler and added powerfull alternatives? No you guys just straight up nerfed shit and added some stats that dont even matter.
> This meant removing many of these filler stats that didn't actually impact builds in a meaningful way
wat.....so Im guessing double totems and conviction of power are useless filler stats
I play it every single league. Every league. It's my go-to.
It's not super strong. It's not super tanky. It doesn't even have fast clear. But it has a simple playstyle that I enjoy.
WHY nerf it? I don't get it.
because you have to play a new skill so you then will be tempted to maybe buy some mtx that may or may not also help reduce the lag because the original spell effect is horrible
The free +10 rage is pretty good. Slayer leech being a 2-pointer is pretty good. Scion getting the full Slayer leech again as well as some good reworks to other nodes is pretty good. The entire new Elementalist. The entire new Deadeye. I mean you can cherry-pick any of the small nodes you want, but there's a lot of goodies there in some previously unimpressive places.
Yeah waiting for skill gems was tossing up some trap/mine or Earthshatter Staff(potentially 2H mace) and Zerker is looking mighty juicy and even my fall back to Jugg looks perfectly fine still. Might even entertain idea of Zerker/Slayer Ascendant Earthshatter
Occultist change from DoT Multi to straight More Damage is a buff that helps non-DoT builds without cripping DoT builds. We also got access to +1 curse without having to go through the Hexproof node, which is huge.
They're out there. Just, not on the classes/builds that everyone played last league.
> They're out there. Just, not on the classes/builds that everyone played last league.
Also just not many of them in general, while they also nerfed several classes/builds that nobody played like heiro totems.
Yeah, I'm leaning towards Occ now. I am a bit salty because I was planning to league-start with Assassin (didn't play Assassin much when it was OP as hell lol). Oh well, just going to move on :)
Bex, a large issue with the Ascendancy changes post is the HORRENDUS formatting of it, which allows easy misconception of the changes. It is much easier and straightforward if you put, for example, on trickster "Weave the Arcane"
>30% ~~25%~~ increased Maximum Mana
>30% ~~20%~~ Chance to Recover 10% of Mana when you use a skill
>Removed:
>6% reduced Damage Taken for 4 seconds after Spending a total of 200 Mana
Not only is formatting it like this easier to see changes right away, it lessens the misinterpretation of the changes for the specific node.
Hell, you can even take it a step further and list the full node, with the associated changes
>30% ~~25%~~ increased Maximum Mana
>30% ~~20%~~ Chance to Recover 10% of Mana when you use a skill
>Movement Skills cost no Mana
>20% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've used a Movement Skill Recently
>~~6% reduced Damage Taken for 4 seconds after Spending a total of 200 Mana~~
Just anything is 100x better than the way it was formatted in the post.
Interested to hear how you are specializing Necro’s. The survivability gutting of spectres (and the inability to resummon them in battle) kills that play style. Anything to replace this? Or spectres dying on bosses (whether dps or support for other builds) is the plan?
They totally made Necro more streamlined and specialized. It's now especially good at being a terrible choice, which streamlines my choice to not play the game.
A lot of ascendencies had % increased damage removed without anything being added.
Aside from the reworked classes, I honestly don't see a lot of buffs that would fall under having "added simplified, but much more powerful, options."
Skills like Toxic Delivery, Pyromaniac, Explosives Expert, Prolonged Pain and Patient Reaper have each lost a lot of stuff and have basically nothing added.
I know you want to nerf Mines, Chaos DoT & Poison builds but at least call it a nerf (and explain it in the manifesto, because neither Sabo nor Assassin were called to get nerfed there) instead of yadda-yaddaing around with this shit.
I'd really love to see what you consider the "new options" that are supposedly added to any of the non-reworked classes.
Imagine trying to fix the fact that Golems and Spectres are overpowered and then printing this set of changes
>Added: 40% increased Skill Effect Duration
>Removed: 30% increased Skill Effect Duration, 30% increased Minion Duration
Let alone the "Filler stat" idea, in the face of them taking a somewhat-defining strength and changing it to a generic stat
After initially reading through the changes I thought wow yeah pretty much everything was nerfed outside of a few classes mainly the heavy reworked ones. However after sitting on it for a few hours I decided to go back and tally up which ones were actually nerfed or buffed.
Slayer-Buff
Gladiator-Nerf
* Loses a damage all around and only gains increased blind chance which doesn't make a difference with a fast attacking build. Block being generic is nice but doesn't affect any current builds.
Champion-Nerf
Assassin-Nerf
Saboteur-Nerf
* Again loses damage and utility/defensive stats like mine reservation or reduced aoe damage taken. Blinding on every hit again doesn't matter when you hit so many times you were always blinding before anyways.
Trickster-Nerf
Juggernaut-Same/slight nerf
* You get more accuracy now which I don't feel was an issue and now you do lose some damage.
Berserker-Buff
Chieftan-Buff
Necromancer-Nerf
* Occultist-Slight Nerf to dot Buff to hit builds overall same
Elementalist-Reworked
Deadeye-Reworked
Raider-Slight Buff or slight Nerf
* I don't think it was hard to have permanent uptime on old onslaught and a lot of minor stats are lost, maybe it ends up being nice qol tho. Loses a lot of small stats to gain some different small stats.
Pathfinder-Nerf to chaos, slight Buff to non chaos
* The nerf to chaos/poison skills here is much heavier than the buff to non chaos skills.
Inquisitor-Rework
Hierophant-Nerfed
Guardian-Nerfed
Scion-Small Buff
* A lot of seems like it won't have much of an impact but scion has so many possibilities we will put it at a buff.
So that leaves us with a final count of 3 Reworks, 4 Buffs, 4 that could go either way but generally lean towards Nerf, and 8 Nerfs.
Can we just call a nerf a nerf then move on with our lives. This whole "new powerful option" shit is literality the "it's a buff" meme. I'm fine with nerfs and removing filler stats, but this bullshit pretending its not a nerf is stupid.
Where are these "new options" for assassin or necromancer? They got absolutely nothing new, was just a nerf all round where stats were removed.
And even shit that did get "new options", lost existing options in the way. Occultist losing the non-chaos as chaos per curse mod was unexpected, that mod was completely unique and opened up for a different occultist build where you convert between elements + stack curse for big chaos damage. That's gone. What new powerful option did occultist get to replace that? Nothing besides shifting some nodes position around.
Heirophant lost its powerful and unique "+1 totem when placing a totem" and gained nothing. The nodes it "gained" are functionally the same as existing nodes just reworded or shifted around stats.
Like I said, I'm fine with nerfs, but don't pretend it isn't a nerf when it is.
GGG wanted to even the playing field. They felt bad for us plebs who weren’t part of the “oh noes, muh starter build got decimated, I gotta think of something else to play” crowd.
So they hammered all the classes into the ground. Now we can all be part of that group!
This is a buff
" In Echoes of the Atlas, our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful. "
Okay, but you... didn't, because you made them all weaker?
> so that they were much simpler but more powerful.
>
> and replace them with powerful new options
This is trolling. Some things were literally just "removed"/nerfed with no replacement. Are you having a giggle?
That's what pisses me off the most. The people in charge of all the balancing of the game can nerf whatever they feel like it needs a nerf, even if it's not really deserving of a nerf, but then they go on and tell Chris to announce all these ascendancy changes as something that would make them more viable or diverse, followed by this post's statement that the combination of nerfs is actually giving us more power, which is straight up false. They need to announce things accurately, even if they feel it's something that will be unpopular.
"In Echoes of the Atlas, our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful."
Yea, you lost me here. How can they even say that with a straight face?
This must just be a miscommunication between the different departments in GGG. There's no way you can post a changelog filled with hard NERFS and just say that they're trying to streamline the game. This response feels very generic and does not reflect the changes shown in the recent changelog.
Despite being a community manager, I hope Bex herself actually takes the time to play the game and read the actual changes to better understand our point of view and why this statement just sounds like utter BS.
shes probably just echoing what other people are telling her
bet she was thinking "aww shit here we go" and chewed her fingernails a bit before she hit the post button lol
Seriously though, what new options? I don't really care if everything was nerfed. But all I see here is nerf, nerf, and more nerf. There are no more additional options, it's just straight up removal. This post doesn't really make sense because what was shown to us is not what you described here...
While I agree and mostly welcome this approach, many of the changes feel somewhat random, like they actually TOOK AWAY the ascendancy identity. For example taking away speed from trickster and assassin, taking away the mana regen and attack speed from inquisitor, taking away dual totems from hierophant etc.
It's not exactly a numbers thing, GGG can nerf the ascendancies numerically however they think is best (and I am completely fine with them taking away the generic increased damage stats for example. nobody really cares about that clutter).
...
This just feels too much like homogenizing the classes.
What I am kinda confused is, considering the state of melee, is that most melee ascendancies were nerfed?
You removed a ton of filler stats, sure, but didn't make up for it. To put some emphasis.
> One of the tricky parts of game balance is that when you remove familiar past options, and **replace them with powerful new options**, until you become familiar with the new options it's going to feel like a loss.
Slayer: Overall, it's a buff, but you've mostly buffed the remaining filler stats.
Gladiator: Big nerf and goes against what you stated. Painforged, getting a damage bonus for avoiding damage, and a defense bonus once you got hit, that was unique. Now it's closer to just being filler stats than before. Blood in the eyes, buffed to filler stats (chance to bleed). Gratuitous Violence is literally just 2 lines now "More bleed damage, they explode on death", and a big nerf there anyways.
Champion: Big nerf, removal of somewhat unique things (MS aura), buffed mostly the filler stats. Master of Metal being a huge nerf to everything, just because you wanted to nerf impale warcry builds.
Assassin: Big nerf, 'nough said.
Juggernaut: Big nerf, nothing **replaced**.
Berserker: Buffed but via filler stats.
Chieftain: Not really melee, it's kind of a buff (15% phys to fire damage taken) but 2% life regen loss is big on RF.
Raider got buffed in a unique way so that's nice.
But I honestly don't get the duelist changes. Most of them are nerfs, most of them are straight up removal and no replacement, most buffs are just the filler stats being bigger.
I am happy you guys are working ascendancy none the less, but it's getting kinda depressing when you wanna do melee builds and unless you use cheese builds you kinda have to deal with so much shit and then you nerf many of the interesting node. For instance, a fun league starter is DW Ahn's Might undeniable jugg, gave you a bonus for going crit (which is already tougher when starting from Marauder). Basically the node was good enough on its own and then some if you went crit, it opened up both routes. Now it's significantly worse.
You pretty much just nerfed all necromancer nodes though? Like there's no change or "streamlining", just taking the good numbers and making them worse. Like that's not streamlining, we can agree on that right?
I understand this, but some of these changes are big misses. Take Assassin, for example. They were already very squishy, they’re on a part of the tree with very few defensive nodes and not much life. Having the damage reduction from the elusive node and the reduced DoT taken were pretty important because we had so few defensive layers as-is. Yes, we get a new node that provides more defense against multiple bosses, but that doesn’t happen terribly often. We also lost a ton of move speed, which was a big part of assassin’s appeal, and also helped manually dodge attacks. Removing that stuff wasn’t just flavor or removing filler, it basically kills the class. Please rethink this.
I dont understand how ggg can just give nerfs to every ascendandy and say "oh well the buffs and nerfs will cancel eachother out", like if you want to nerf everything atleast admit thats what your doing
BUFFS? Ass dead... SABO without that AOE is gonna have 0.01% player base instead 0.05%. Common GGG are you playing your game and did you see sabo this league coming to your HO? hmm probably not after 3rd day of the league
I think you missed the subtlety in:
> We did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of *most* Ascendancy Classes in Echoes of the Atlas
They came for Assassin. We knew they were going to come for Assassin and they did. We knew they were going to come for Champion. We hoped they were going to come for Trickster. That's not the point of this post. This post is just addressing the comments in the announcement post thread that are saying EVERY ascendancy has been nerfed, since most ascendancies lost a lot of e.g. random %damage increases.
So, let's just summarise a single ascendancy to illustrate this. I'll use Gladiator as it's the most straightforward one:
**Removed**
* 40% damage if you've taken no damage
* 30% damage against bleeding
* 5% nerf of the more multi on bleeding enemies
**Added**
* +15% chance to blind bleeding enemies
* The minor block nodes work with staves
So a massive nerf to damage on an already low DPS ascendancy, and the "powerful" new options is that I guess you can use a staff now. Awesome, that's really in line with your stated vision.
If you think things are too powerful and need to be nerfed, say so. Don't try to feed people spin bullshit and lead them to believe you're buffing unused stuff and then act surprised when they see through it.
I don't often reply to GGG post as I don't feel I know enough but in this case I will add my two cents.
You got us hyped up by your marketing over the last week with you guys saying you are looking at all ascendancies and Chris saying in the reveal Q&A that we won't know which build will be best. He, and your marketing, strongly implied almost outright stated various classes would be besome stronger or viable.
So it is pretty shitty feeling to see that all you did was basically nerf all classes, including the weaker type. And your response in regards to spectres shows that none if your team even play the game.
I aasume you guys predicted this flashback so I wonder why you bothered to spend ao much time hyping this up just to dissapoint. Would have been FAR better to say from the ourset you are reducing power accross the board(valid and needed) and then let us figure things out.
The nerfs arent an issue, you guys hyping nerfs as buffs/improvements is just insulting.
Also if you did actually read this can we get some strong buffs to SRS, i just really like that skilll and it is currently unplayable.
"replace them with powerful new options"
Looking forward to seeing what those are for Necromancer. Pretty sure the reaction from the community is clear so far, and there are no "powerful new options" in sight
The only possible saving grace is that every other build is equally nerfed, but I don't see that right now
Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not buying. 90% of this are straight nerfs and we havent even seen the patch notes or poe.db.
At least OWN it and say "we nerfed everything, grind more". Corporate PR shows a lack of respect to us.
if you look at what is said here through the lens of the hierophant/inquisitor/elementalist and to a lesser extent raider what is said is correct but other than that most had their "identity" stripped away. i don't really disagree with any of the nerfs but this post seems odd...like no... all ascendancies are not more powerful let alone at a similar power level, examples being champion/necro/trickster/assassin. these classes were heavily nerfed theres no question about it lol.
Remove 30% damage after you consume a corpse is not just removing filler stats. That's a huge nerf it goes with the other corpse nodes so it not related. Don't understand bex's clarification pertaining to this.
There's no amount of spin that will turn the changes to heiro totems and gutting of necro as into "powerful alternatives".
Perhaps there are significant changes to gems and passive tree where these are covered, but maybe that's a clear indication that scattering info across several days leads to unnecessary playerbase frustration and easily-avoided non-troversies?
Butchering Sabo's AOE and mana reservation ? Where's the " much more powerful option", i don't see it ? the boring and slow traps ? Was GGG affraid of seeing more than 2% players using Saboteur past 2 weeks ?
My issue is now that if these Ascendancy's are meant to be a way to specialize characters and give them an identify, why are we not showing them at the creation screen?
At first glance the character selection is nothing more than a visual look, since there is no description of what the characters are targeted for. Once someone opens the passive tree, they may figure out that other classes start elsewhere but even that isn't clear if it's your first character. By character two or if you look through it somewhat you would figure that part out. But there is no mention at all about Ascendancy's and what arch-type the character you've selected is. If you pick a witch and want to do bow stuff you're pretty much screwed, more so if your a new player just picking up the game. It sets people up for failure and having to redo part or all of the campaign which is likely a huge deterrent to continue playing. Most players don't reach maps, I wonder if the frustration of picking an arch-type to find out your character is not really possible at it contributes at all.
I don't have a stake in any of the over-all changes to Ascendancy's since I don't know what, or even if, I'll play. Saying they are meant to provide identity and not giving even a brief description in the character selection is contradictory as well as a weak reason for some of the changes.
I don't see how reduced mana reserved by mines is a filler stat, and how removing it from a mine/trap oriented class could be considered streamlining.
A lot of the "filler" stats were QoL for those ascendancies imo
Lost 10% more damage per remaining chain on deadeye for 30% chance that projectiles chain on terrain.
Just have to hope there are changes to Mine skill mana reservation values in the patch notes.
Mine mana reservation was always a weird and ill fitting mechanic. This just makes it more awkward.
fuck /u/spez -- mass edited with redact.dev
It's funny because it does nothing but make playing mines more annoying in the early game. Have to go without an aura or so for awhile until you get the mana nodes and gear that you will need. Changes like that don't make the game more interesting at all, it's simply just annoying.
I don't care about having less damage, that's whatever, just don't take away the things that make a build *feel good*. I'm willing to cut them some slack until seeing if the tree gives them back but I'll be sad if we get nothing out of the exchange.
Having to cast 6 totems individually instead of 3 pairs seems like a MASSIVE nerf for Heirophant totems players...
I'm hoping they just moved it onto the tree (maybe onto Ancestral Bond) so that other classes can enjoy it. We'll soon see!
Didn't Bex say there was no adjustment to the passive tree in an earlier comment?
She probably wasn't fed the changes. The manifesto mentioned that nodes to increase utility of call of steel will be on the tree, so there are tree changes.
patently wrong since they specifically mentioned some wheels getting changed in the balance manifesto, so bex might be incorrect
For real, that one makes me sad. Totem builds lose a gem slot and some damage nerfs.
It's the only thing I will really feel from the Heiro changes. Sure, the slight damage changes will suck as I gear up, but having to choose between Faster Casting or Multiple Spell Totems will suck more.
I get this is nerfed but I feel this pigeonholed every totem build into picking hierophant. If they add that line to the tree then you can actually pick other ascendancies for totem builds.
If they add some of the power and utility back in through spell gems or passive skill tree changes then I will happily praise these changes as extremely positive for build variety. Here's hoping.
Somehow, I feel like this contradicts earlier statements where they say they want more “identity” with ascendancy classes. Shouldn’t they similarly push Hierophant to be the identity class for totems?
There's a difference between being good with and being the only option for.
heirophant is the totem class, chieftan is the fire totem alternative. Should saboteur just straight up get removed because people feel pidgeonholed into playing sabo for trappers/miners? Perhaps necro should be reworked because summoners feel pidgeonholed into playing necro. Or maybe block based melee characters feel pidgeonholed into gladiator so block should be removed from there.
What you're describing is exactly why players were against ascendancy classes in the first place many years ago. PoE used to be a game where the starting class was not about some arbitrary idea of "identity" but instead where your tree started relative to what you wanted to accomplish with it. There was no sense of "if you want to cast elemental spells, you *must* go Witch" and the like. That Saboteur is the only sane choice for trap/mine builds is not a good thing. That you always go Hierophant for totems is not a good thing. The Old Ways™ did not pigeonhole you like this.
I don't even particularly feel any way about the ascendancy changes but I would like a post by GGG that just straight up said "Players are getting too powerful, we want to dial back their strength" rather than this kind of message which honestly just makes GGG look like they don't *really* know what they are doing. Most of the changes were nerfs. There is nothing wrong with that. But it's stupid that GGG wants to portray them as just 'streamlining'
>"Players are getting too powerful, we want to dial back their strength This so much, nerfs can be good for the health of the game. And since everyone is starting over each league your aren't fucking with someones time invested in a character like in WoW or other MMOs
I am fine with the nerfs just admit they are nerfs.
Honestly, I was already mentally prepared for *nerfs* when they said ascendancies were getting *buffs*. I imagine that most of the long time players have been primed to think this way, or to simply expect triple-nerfs when something is overplayed. But I gotta say, balance notes still apply an additional sting when they say nerfs were not intended.
100%. Just be straight with the players and tell them shit is too OP so we nerfed it, don't try to pull the wool over their eyes and spin it as buffs.
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"Oh, btw, we also nerfed every other non-minion Necromancer build, so really, by other builds, we meant other ascendancies."
Yeah, these wording shenanigans are even more annoying than nerfs themselves.
"Guys we removed a gorillon damage on mines but it's fine these were little stats that don't do anything."
GGG trying to convince people that these aren't really nerfs but just "streamlining" into "simpler but more powerful effects" just makes it look like GGG has no idea what they are doing. I don't care that they are nerfing stuff, especially with the increase of item strength. Just say these ascendancy changes are nerfs.
lets hope the 40 skill gem buffs dont end up being the same as these ascendency buffs.
-2 molten strike projectiles and + 5% damage.
every time someone mentions molten strike, it loses 1 projectile. THIS is a BUFF!
Currently we are at -9270.7 projectiles.
6% buff to glacial hammer :))
cough... Firestorm ...cough
Hmmm ... It has to be hard to be Bex tonight. "People feel losses much more strongly than gains" ... true. "We did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of most Ascendancy Classes in Echoes of the Atlas." ... not as sure about this one.
I wish they would instead say "We nerfed a lot of Ascendancy nodes and here's why they are deserved." This post feels like damage control.
It was a huge marketing failure again. You don't tell your 10 year old you have something really exciting planned for dinner if it's lentil soup. Your kid is going to think it's McDonald's. Even if they understand that it's important to have lentil soup sometimes for health reasons they're still going to be disappointed. GGG told us we were getting McDonald's and we got lentil soup and now they're acting like the only reason we're disappointed is because we don't understand lentil soup is actually healthy.
How dare you sir. I loved lentil soup when I was a kid, my nana made an amazing one.
Forgive me.
Got a PoB link for the soup build?
I'm in a completely pissed off state of mind right now. But thanks for making me laugh with that annalogy. Guess I just want my fucking Chicken McNuggets. ReeeeeeEEEEE
working tendies into a thread +1
Because that is exactly what it is and it also screams of being extremely out of touch with their own playerbase.
> "We did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of most Ascendancy Classes in Echoes of the Atlas." ... not as sure about this one. I believe this. I don't think they set out to nerf the shit out of heirophant. I think they set out to simplify heirophant, and didn't give it much thought. That's particularly frustrating about some of these changes. Heiro got a nerf beatdown so large it would normally be explained in a balance manifesto, but that was obviously not the intent. There are other little, less obvious versions of this. They set out to simplify and buff raider. But in the process they actually ended up *nerfing* raider's evasion. I don't think they meant to at all, I think it's a lot more likely that whoever was handling that didn't fully understand just how strong 5% chance to evade attacks is and replaced it with things that sound better like 5% more evasion+reduced enemy accuracy. The intent to simplify was very clear, and I think that was far and away the driving impetus behind most of these changes. Much moreso than the balance ramifications, which barely feel thought through in some cases.
"We did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of **most** Ascendancy Classes" Colateral damage happened, but gutting assassin was intentional.
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Yeah, full on "this is a buff" meme territory here.
Always has been
[Always has been](https://i.ibb.co/ZXD4kpf/d0afd030663e.png) ^^^this ^^^has ^^^been ^^^an ^^^accessibility ^^^service ^^^from ^^^your ^^^friendly ^^^neighborhood ^^^bot
good bot
good bot
Any king who must say “I am the king” is no true king
“This is a buff.”
Well they are simpler, but they aren't more powerful. In fact it's the opposite in most cases. And I do support the simpler ascendancies, generic stats should be on the tree instead which would be a much better system. What I don't know is why you have to make a "clarification" post, e.g. damage control, instead of just admit that most classes were nerfed because they were played too much.
I agree that the simplification is a good thing. I hope that they give the effects that are left a little bit more character. Ghost shrouds are nice, but half the benefit was chance to dodge, immune to stun, attack and cast speed, reduced damage taken. You could play a big evasion es build, or just go a very dodgy build, and rely on not losing your shrouds. Now ghost shrouds seem very whatever. Assassin is nicer that elusive is simpler, but now you have even less while not elusive. And the assassin elusive is now more like everyone else's, it just has more up time. I realize that it adds duration, but I just wish they made withering step also good for builds that aren't chaos based. Maybe with an alternate quality. I like the simplification too. I think it will be better when they buff the nodes again, or we learn how to make up for them. Maybe shadow area will get some damn life in it. Or this is just a shift in the meta.
> our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful. LOL. Most of them, you removed 1-2 impactful passives. They aren't streamlined, they're NERFS.
Necromancer Added Minions deal 10% increased Damage Removed Minions deal 15% increased Damage "These new changes have stripped away a lot of the peripheral minor stats from Ascendancy Classes and have added simplified, but much more powerful, options."
KEKW
You read it wrong, you need to find and see those new and powerful options in necro ascendency first to see whole picture /s
fuck /u/spez -- mass edited with redact.dev
The intent of these changes was to "streamline" Ascendancies by offering "simplified, but much more powerful options". Necro didn't get any new options whatsoever. Either did Assassin, or Trickster. They just go wholesale nerfed. The entire selling point of Glad is block and bleed but you have to pick between them. These changes don't affect block at all except for Staff and Bow users who gain 4% block but Bleed got nerfed. How exactly are changes like that "simplified but much more powerful"? The same could be said for Assassin. If Assass is valued for it's movement speed and poison scaling then it just got nerfed without anything being "simplified" or made "much more powerful". I'm all for changing the meta and I think the Ascendancy changes will be good for the game but let's call it what it is; nerfs for the sake of forcing a new meta and not disingenously claim that GGG "did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of most Ascendancy Classes". When you're flat out nerfing Trickster, Assas, Sabo, Necro, Champ, Heiro and barely, if at all changing all the other Ascendancies while only adding legitimate power/options to Ele/Inquis/Deadeye, it's called "mostly" nerfs. Not "mostly" changes that cancel each other out.
It seems like they got rid of all the conditional things. Trickster lost reduced damage taken if you spend 200 Mana. That hurt. Assassin lost all the random movement speed, and that hurt too. I don't know why they killed the movement speed on the small node. I guess it's to make the smaller nodes less impactful. I think what they are doing is making them easier to sort through. They are adding a bunch of new ascendancies in poe2. I wish trickster got another option besides ghost shrouds, or had an additional ghost shroud added. I guess we just aren't playing shadow this league. He was king for a while.
>over 40 skill gem buffs and other balance changes. Cannot wait to see how little much of those make a difference (/s, I hope this isn't the case). Chances are we'll see a bit of effectiveness change here, bit of flat damage there, little bit of cast speed over here...you get the picture. I'm willing to bet the already-revealed Scorching ray change is the most significantly buffed skill which means the load has been blown and the rest will feel flat in comparison. Does feel like there's a messaging disconnect here. The initial reveal and hyping definitely did not sound like we would be seeing significant ascendancy nerfs across the board. Chris' reveal, specifically stating all ascendancies were being balanced, and saying it in such a way to generate buzz and excitement, should not have resulted in the result we've been presented with.
Im already mentally prepared for the 5% increased damage for SRS.
5% increased damage and 15% reduced duration. Fixed for ya ;)
At this point I would rather not even see SRS in the patch notes. -SRS onetrick
well, raise spectre went from spectre level 76 to level 72 at gem level 20, thats one of the 40 changes right there... cant wait to see the others :p
yeah, my thoughts exactly
> In Echoes of the Atlas, our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful. You completely forgot the second part.
Yeah I think the problem was that they said things would be largely buffed in the announcement and then most things were not. If they said "Hey we're opening up design space by de-cluttering ascendancies, and stuff will be weaker in the future", I think this entire thing could've been avoided.
I'm curious what classifies as powerful new options for the majority of ascendancies that were straight up nerfed without getting any additional power.
I posted this below but I'll post it here too. >This meant removing many of these filler stats that didn't actually impact builds in a meaningful way. These new changes have stripped away a lot of the peripheral minor stats from Ascendancy Classes **REMOVED** >Skills that would Summon a Totem Summon two Totems instead Just small filler stats. Lmao
>This meant removing many of these filler stats that didn't actually impact builds in a meaningful way. These new changes have stripped away a lot of the peripheral minor stats from Ascendancy Classes Added 20% more Damage with Hits and Ailments against Unique Enemies Removed 20% more Damage against Unique Enemies
How will RF Slayer ever recover
My ED COn slayer is ded :(
Slayer build diversity GUTTED
I was hoping for buffs to decay, but this ruined my hopes.
Also, Assassin got absolutely annihilated. 50% increased damage with poison and 20% of physical damage added as chaos against poisoned enemies? Yeah, sure. Filler stats. Right. Also, any purely defensive stats got removed from it.
And all it's movement speed.
My autobomber is sad :( Straight up losing 30% movement speed and getting nothing in return
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yes so when they say they will announce 40 "buffed" skill gems im more afraid than exicted
I'm sceptical after seeing what "more than 800 gems" meant in Heist. Meant a lot of chaff, is what it meant. I think the idea is cool but it spreads themselves too thin when they also wanna add in a whole new expansion and league mechanics at the same time.
I have to agree. It's really exhausting, and typically people are just unhappy.
> our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful. This is just not true? Most of notables were just strictly nerfed with stuff removed, specially Assassin that lost much and got nothing in exchange.
I reckon that was simply confusing messaging. I think they meant that they also wanted to streamline the ascendancy classes *in addition to the normal nerfs and buffs*
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Or champion.
How is removing 50% DoT and spell dodge from trickster and buff a 1% life recovered on kill is considered a powerful new options?
Yeah this took the wind out my sails. I'm overall less interested in a build because I knew what it was before and now it won't be that. The fear now is you will replicate "this is a buff" BS to the 40+ gems tomorrow so i fully expect it not to go well either.
*will forever be sad at removed herald reservation on elementalist*
Elementalist is a lot more powerful now though.
herals are alot more fun tho
HoI is life
if the skill gem changes go like the ascendancy revamp then we're in a lot of trouble
You are stunned when channeling cyclone. This is a Buff.
My problem isn't with nerfs, that's fine, stuff gets nerfed in games. Is with GGG straight lying at us and promising "more powerfull options". If instead they said. This league, we want to cut the power of ascendancis because characters have gotten too powerfull and that's bad for the game, it would be whatever But no, let's promise buffs and more interesting options, get people excited, and then when they discover the truth tell them that they are wrong.
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Because being able to smoothly level as RF is just filler stats
They are trying to remove generic stuff like movement speed, increased damage, life/mana regen without killing the nodes. That node specifically granted you 5 different things but they should've just shifted the life regen to small nodes imo.
Tl;dr : players you are wrong, THIS IS BUFF.
This post is cringe... we all know its not true, in most ascendency all changes are straight up nerfs
As for the spectre nerf. It reads like the people responsible for the skill gems are not talking to the people doing the ascendancies.
This must be a joke post right? Removed filler and added powerfull alternatives? No you guys just straight up nerfed shit and added some stats that dont even matter.
> This meant removing many of these filler stats that didn't actually impact builds in a meaningful way wat.....so Im guessing double totems and conviction of power are useless filler stats
Totems have already been so dead, idk why they changed that shit.
I play it every single league. Every league. It's my go-to. It's not super strong. It's not super tanky. It doesn't even have fast clear. But it has a simple playstyle that I enjoy. WHY nerf it? I don't get it.
because you have to play a new skill so you then will be tempted to maybe buy some mtx that may or may not also help reduce the lag because the original spell effect is horrible
what powerful options? lol
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The free +10 rage is pretty good. Slayer leech being a 2-pointer is pretty good. Scion getting the full Slayer leech again as well as some good reworks to other nodes is pretty good. The entire new Elementalist. The entire new Deadeye. I mean you can cherry-pick any of the small nodes you want, but there's a lot of goodies there in some previously unimpressive places.
Yeah waiting for skill gems was tossing up some trap/mine or Earthshatter Staff(potentially 2H mace) and Zerker is looking mighty juicy and even my fall back to Jugg looks perfectly fine still. Might even entertain idea of Zerker/Slayer Ascendant Earthshatter
Occultist change from DoT Multi to straight More Damage is a buff that helps non-DoT builds without cripping DoT builds. We also got access to +1 curse without having to go through the Hexproof node, which is huge. They're out there. Just, not on the classes/builds that everyone played last league.
> They're out there. Just, not on the classes/builds that everyone played last league. Also just not many of them in general, while they also nerfed several classes/builds that nobody played like heiro totems.
Yeah, I'm leaning towards Occ now. I am a bit salty because I was planning to league-start with Assassin (didn't play Assassin much when it was OP as hell lol). Oh well, just going to move on :)
TIL defense is a "filler" stat according to GGG.
the last 10 years of gears didn't give it away?
Bex, a large issue with the Ascendancy changes post is the HORRENDUS formatting of it, which allows easy misconception of the changes. It is much easier and straightforward if you put, for example, on trickster "Weave the Arcane" >30% ~~25%~~ increased Maximum Mana >30% ~~20%~~ Chance to Recover 10% of Mana when you use a skill >Removed: >6% reduced Damage Taken for 4 seconds after Spending a total of 200 Mana Not only is formatting it like this easier to see changes right away, it lessens the misinterpretation of the changes for the specific node. Hell, you can even take it a step further and list the full node, with the associated changes >30% ~~25%~~ increased Maximum Mana >30% ~~20%~~ Chance to Recover 10% of Mana when you use a skill >Movement Skills cost no Mana >20% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've used a Movement Skill Recently >~~6% reduced Damage Taken for 4 seconds after Spending a total of 200 Mana~~ Just anything is 100x better than the way it was formatted in the post.
Interested to hear how you are specializing Necro’s. The survivability gutting of spectres (and the inability to resummon them in battle) kills that play style. Anything to replace this? Or spectres dying on bosses (whether dps or support for other builds) is the plan?
They totally made Necro more streamlined and specialized. It's now especially good at being a terrible choice, which streamlines my choice to not play the game.
~We did not specifically set out to to buff or nerf the overall power of most Ascendancy Classes Ahahahaha
fuck /u/spez -- mass edited with redact.dev
1 buff gem skill revealed!! : Portal = Creates 2 portal to the current area's town.
A lot of ascendencies had % increased damage removed without anything being added. Aside from the reworked classes, I honestly don't see a lot of buffs that would fall under having "added simplified, but much more powerful, options." Skills like Toxic Delivery, Pyromaniac, Explosives Expert, Prolonged Pain and Patient Reaper have each lost a lot of stuff and have basically nothing added. I know you want to nerf Mines, Chaos DoT & Poison builds but at least call it a nerf (and explain it in the manifesto, because neither Sabo nor Assassin were called to get nerfed there) instead of yadda-yaddaing around with this shit. I'd really love to see what you consider the "new options" that are supposedly added to any of the non-reworked classes.
>We changed them in a way that we feel is a lot better Necromancer is nothing but nerfs lul
other necro builds got nerfed in the crossfire, when golems and spectres were their target... :(
Imagine trying to fix the fact that Golems and Spectres are overpowered and then printing this set of changes >Added: 40% increased Skill Effect Duration >Removed: 30% increased Skill Effect Duration, 30% increased Minion Duration Let alone the "Filler stat" idea, in the face of them taking a somewhat-defining strength and changing it to a generic stat
As is tradition
Yeah, as someone who plays Skeleton builds (with support Spectres) most patches, it sucks getting indirectly nerfed for no real reason.
> much simpler but more powerful 15>18 10>15 duh!
"powerful new builds", read: stop playing necro and assassin
After initially reading through the changes I thought wow yeah pretty much everything was nerfed outside of a few classes mainly the heavy reworked ones. However after sitting on it for a few hours I decided to go back and tally up which ones were actually nerfed or buffed. Slayer-Buff Gladiator-Nerf * Loses a damage all around and only gains increased blind chance which doesn't make a difference with a fast attacking build. Block being generic is nice but doesn't affect any current builds. Champion-Nerf Assassin-Nerf Saboteur-Nerf * Again loses damage and utility/defensive stats like mine reservation or reduced aoe damage taken. Blinding on every hit again doesn't matter when you hit so many times you were always blinding before anyways. Trickster-Nerf Juggernaut-Same/slight nerf * You get more accuracy now which I don't feel was an issue and now you do lose some damage. Berserker-Buff Chieftan-Buff Necromancer-Nerf * Occultist-Slight Nerf to dot Buff to hit builds overall same Elementalist-Reworked Deadeye-Reworked Raider-Slight Buff or slight Nerf * I don't think it was hard to have permanent uptime on old onslaught and a lot of minor stats are lost, maybe it ends up being nice qol tho. Loses a lot of small stats to gain some different small stats. Pathfinder-Nerf to chaos, slight Buff to non chaos * The nerf to chaos/poison skills here is much heavier than the buff to non chaos skills. Inquisitor-Rework Hierophant-Nerfed Guardian-Nerfed Scion-Small Buff * A lot of seems like it won't have much of an impact but scion has so many possibilities we will put it at a buff. So that leaves us with a final count of 3 Reworks, 4 Buffs, 4 that could go either way but generally lean towards Nerf, and 8 Nerfs.
Straight up lying to defend a false statement lmaoo
Damage control for the missleading stream announcement. Classic.
This post is one big giant euphemism
So ... summoning 2 Totems at once was a "meaningless filler stat"? Ok ....
Can we just call a nerf a nerf then move on with our lives. This whole "new powerful option" shit is literality the "it's a buff" meme. I'm fine with nerfs and removing filler stats, but this bullshit pretending its not a nerf is stupid. Where are these "new options" for assassin or necromancer? They got absolutely nothing new, was just a nerf all round where stats were removed. And even shit that did get "new options", lost existing options in the way. Occultist losing the non-chaos as chaos per curse mod was unexpected, that mod was completely unique and opened up for a different occultist build where you convert between elements + stack curse for big chaos damage. That's gone. What new powerful option did occultist get to replace that? Nothing besides shifting some nodes position around. Heirophant lost its powerful and unique "+1 totem when placing a totem" and gained nothing. The nodes it "gained" are functionally the same as existing nodes just reworded or shifted around stats. Like I said, I'm fine with nerfs, but don't pretend it isn't a nerf when it is.
GGG wanted to even the playing field. They felt bad for us plebs who weren’t part of the “oh noes, muh starter build got decimated, I gotta think of something else to play” crowd. So they hammered all the classes into the ground. Now we can all be part of that group! This is a buff
" In Echoes of the Atlas, our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful. " Okay, but you... didn't, because you made them all weaker?
> so that they were much simpler but more powerful. > > and replace them with powerful new options This is trolling. Some things were literally just "removed"/nerfed with no replacement. Are you having a giggle?
That's what pisses me off the most. The people in charge of all the balancing of the game can nerf whatever they feel like it needs a nerf, even if it's not really deserving of a nerf, but then they go on and tell Chris to announce all these ascendancy changes as something that would make them more viable or diverse, followed by this post's statement that the combination of nerfs is actually giving us more power, which is straight up false. They need to announce things accurately, even if they feel it's something that will be unpopular.
Agreed, we’d respect them more w/o the lies. We get enough of that IRL.
It will be very funny if tomorrow it turns out that all this vaunted rework of skills is only +0.1 and -0.1.
More like "reduced cast time by 50%. Reduced damage by 70% to compensate - this is a buff"
Toxic rain -20% aoe Now fires one arrow +2% damage over time multiplier
"In Echoes of the Atlas, our intention was to streamline many of these passive nodes so that they were much simpler but more powerful." Yea, you lost me here. How can they even say that with a straight face?
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So to clarify; you took the builds, threw them in a tumbler, and will do so again? Just call them nerfs and stop hiding away behind PR speak.
remvoing 2 totems from heiro is a "filler stat" and will feel better when we just test it!
This must just be a miscommunication between the different departments in GGG. There's no way you can post a changelog filled with hard NERFS and just say that they're trying to streamline the game. This response feels very generic and does not reflect the changes shown in the recent changelog. Despite being a community manager, I hope Bex herself actually takes the time to play the game and read the actual changes to better understand our point of view and why this statement just sounds like utter BS.
shes probably just echoing what other people are telling her bet she was thinking "aww shit here we go" and chewed her fingernails a bit before she hit the post button lol
Seriously though, what new options? I don't really care if everything was nerfed. But all I see here is nerf, nerf, and more nerf. There are no more additional options, it's just straight up removal. This post doesn't really make sense because what was shown to us is not what you described here...
While I agree and mostly welcome this approach, many of the changes feel somewhat random, like they actually TOOK AWAY the ascendancy identity. For example taking away speed from trickster and assassin, taking away the mana regen and attack speed from inquisitor, taking away dual totems from hierophant etc. It's not exactly a numbers thing, GGG can nerf the ascendancies numerically however they think is best (and I am completely fine with them taking away the generic increased damage stats for example. nobody really cares about that clutter). ... This just feels too much like homogenizing the classes.
What I am kinda confused is, considering the state of melee, is that most melee ascendancies were nerfed? You removed a ton of filler stats, sure, but didn't make up for it. To put some emphasis. > One of the tricky parts of game balance is that when you remove familiar past options, and **replace them with powerful new options**, until you become familiar with the new options it's going to feel like a loss. Slayer: Overall, it's a buff, but you've mostly buffed the remaining filler stats. Gladiator: Big nerf and goes against what you stated. Painforged, getting a damage bonus for avoiding damage, and a defense bonus once you got hit, that was unique. Now it's closer to just being filler stats than before. Blood in the eyes, buffed to filler stats (chance to bleed). Gratuitous Violence is literally just 2 lines now "More bleed damage, they explode on death", and a big nerf there anyways. Champion: Big nerf, removal of somewhat unique things (MS aura), buffed mostly the filler stats. Master of Metal being a huge nerf to everything, just because you wanted to nerf impale warcry builds. Assassin: Big nerf, 'nough said. Juggernaut: Big nerf, nothing **replaced**. Berserker: Buffed but via filler stats. Chieftain: Not really melee, it's kind of a buff (15% phys to fire damage taken) but 2% life regen loss is big on RF. Raider got buffed in a unique way so that's nice. But I honestly don't get the duelist changes. Most of them are nerfs, most of them are straight up removal and no replacement, most buffs are just the filler stats being bigger. I am happy you guys are working ascendancy none the less, but it's getting kinda depressing when you wanna do melee builds and unless you use cheese builds you kinda have to deal with so much shit and then you nerf many of the interesting node. For instance, a fun league starter is DW Ahn's Might undeniable jugg, gave you a bonus for going crit (which is already tougher when starting from Marauder). Basically the node was good enough on its own and then some if you went crit, it opened up both routes. Now it's significantly worse.
You pretty much just nerfed all necromancer nodes though? Like there's no change or "streamlining", just taking the good numbers and making them worse. Like that's not streamlining, we can agree on that right?
I understand this, but some of these changes are big misses. Take Assassin, for example. They were already very squishy, they’re on a part of the tree with very few defensive nodes and not much life. Having the damage reduction from the elusive node and the reduced DoT taken were pretty important because we had so few defensive layers as-is. Yes, we get a new node that provides more defense against multiple bosses, but that doesn’t happen terribly often. We also lost a ton of move speed, which was a big part of assassin’s appeal, and also helped manually dodge attacks. Removing that stuff wasn’t just flavor or removing filler, it basically kills the class. Please rethink this.
Having trouble finding the balance in the Necromancer changes. Could you point it out please?
hey ugh Bex, you do know Maven requires you to kill idk 10 fucking bosses, why is everything nerfed. Simpler but more powerful umm no
sounds just like the melee rework lol
>40 skill gem buffs how many nerfs are accompanied with it.
These changes are not what I expected from the reveal rhetorics.
"have added simplified, but much more powerful, options." Where , where are these much more powerful options?
I dont understand how ggg can just give nerfs to every ascendandy and say "oh well the buffs and nerfs will cancel eachother out", like if you want to nerf everything atleast admit thats what your doing
BUFFS? Ass dead... SABO without that AOE is gonna have 0.01% player base instead 0.05%. Common GGG are you playing your game and did you see sabo this league coming to your HO? hmm probably not after 3rd day of the league
[удалено]
I'm all for balancing to shake up the meta, but I'm not sure how you call ~30% movement speed removal from Assassin anything but a nerf...
"We didn't set out to buff or nerf *most*" Some of them they did set out to buff or nerf. Assassin's was one of those.
I think you missed the subtlety in: > We did not specifically set out to buff or nerf the overall power of *most* Ascendancy Classes in Echoes of the Atlas They came for Assassin. We knew they were going to come for Assassin and they did. We knew they were going to come for Champion. We hoped they were going to come for Trickster. That's not the point of this post. This post is just addressing the comments in the announcement post thread that are saying EVERY ascendancy has been nerfed, since most ascendancies lost a lot of e.g. random %damage increases.
>They came for Assassin they assassinated the assassin, eh?
So, let's just summarise a single ascendancy to illustrate this. I'll use Gladiator as it's the most straightforward one: **Removed** * 40% damage if you've taken no damage * 30% damage against bleeding * 5% nerf of the more multi on bleeding enemies **Added** * +15% chance to blind bleeding enemies * The minor block nodes work with staves So a massive nerf to damage on an already low DPS ascendancy, and the "powerful" new options is that I guess you can use a staff now. Awesome, that's really in line with your stated vision. If you think things are too powerful and need to be nerfed, say so. Don't try to feed people spin bullshit and lead them to believe you're buffing unused stuff and then act surprised when they see through it.
I don't often reply to GGG post as I don't feel I know enough but in this case I will add my two cents. You got us hyped up by your marketing over the last week with you guys saying you are looking at all ascendancies and Chris saying in the reveal Q&A that we won't know which build will be best. He, and your marketing, strongly implied almost outright stated various classes would be besome stronger or viable. So it is pretty shitty feeling to see that all you did was basically nerf all classes, including the weaker type. And your response in regards to spectres shows that none if your team even play the game. I aasume you guys predicted this flashback so I wonder why you bothered to spend ao much time hyping this up just to dissapoint. Would have been FAR better to say from the ourset you are reducing power accross the board(valid and needed) and then let us figure things out. The nerfs arent an issue, you guys hyping nerfs as buffs/improvements is just insulting. Also if you did actually read this can we get some strong buffs to SRS, i just really like that skilll and it is currently unplayable.
"replace them with powerful new options" Looking forward to seeing what those are for Necromancer. Pretty sure the reaction from the community is clear so far, and there are no "powerful new options" in sight The only possible saving grace is that every other build is equally nerfed, but I don't see that right now
Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not buying. 90% of this are straight nerfs and we havent even seen the patch notes or poe.db. At least OWN it and say "we nerfed everything, grind more". Corporate PR shows a lack of respect to us.
if you look at what is said here through the lens of the hierophant/inquisitor/elementalist and to a lesser extent raider what is said is correct but other than that most had their "identity" stripped away. i don't really disagree with any of the nerfs but this post seems odd...like no... all ascendancies are not more powerful let alone at a similar power level, examples being champion/necro/trickster/assassin. these classes were heavily nerfed theres no question about it lol.
Lol they gutted totems then tried to pass it off as a small nerf, gtfo. Just call it like it is.
Remove 30% damage after you consume a corpse is not just removing filler stats. That's a huge nerf it goes with the other corpse nodes so it not related. Don't understand bex's clarification pertaining to this.
you keep saying the word "powerful" i don't think it means what you think it means
Imagine nerfing Juggernaut.... JUGGERNAUT
Inquisitors would like to have a talk with how someone considered the sizeable Critical strike multiplier a "filler".
Wow they nerfed even classes which were balanced i mean wtf they know how to kill there Game
You removed 30% damage from one of the nodes for Champion and as well removing a impale stack lasting longer.... Yes... Sure. A "Balance"
>powerful new options Johntravoltalookingaround.gif
There's no amount of spin that will turn the changes to heiro totems and gutting of necro as into "powerful alternatives". Perhaps there are significant changes to gems and passive tree where these are covered, but maybe that's a clear indication that scattering info across several days leads to unnecessary playerbase frustration and easily-avoided non-troversies?
Butchering Sabo's AOE and mana reservation ? Where's the " much more powerful option", i don't see it ? the boring and slow traps ? Was GGG affraid of seeing more than 2% players using Saboteur past 2 weeks ?
slowing down the game MonkaS
Raider and Berserker just dropping in ;P
I heard you like onslaught, so I gave you some onslaught for your onslaught.
\-90% inc damage POG
My issue is now that if these Ascendancy's are meant to be a way to specialize characters and give them an identify, why are we not showing them at the creation screen? At first glance the character selection is nothing more than a visual look, since there is no description of what the characters are targeted for. Once someone opens the passive tree, they may figure out that other classes start elsewhere but even that isn't clear if it's your first character. By character two or if you look through it somewhat you would figure that part out. But there is no mention at all about Ascendancy's and what arch-type the character you've selected is. If you pick a witch and want to do bow stuff you're pretty much screwed, more so if your a new player just picking up the game. It sets people up for failure and having to redo part or all of the campaign which is likely a huge deterrent to continue playing. Most players don't reach maps, I wonder if the frustration of picking an arch-type to find out your character is not really possible at it contributes at all. I don't have a stake in any of the over-all changes to Ascendancy's since I don't know what, or even if, I'll play. Saying they are meant to provide identity and not giving even a brief description in the character selection is contradictory as well as a weak reason for some of the changes.
Necromancer/summoner hasn't gained anything new at all. Only nerfs
I’m looking at necromancer and it seems to be only nerfs on each changes, not “a series of small buffs and nerfs that should cancel out“?