u/Kanbaru-Fan

Especially the Essence buff is one of my most anticipated changes, especially as a SSF player!. That and the base type stuff will be really nice for campaign crafting!

 

• Martial Weapons and Flasks found in the campaign are now more likely to be of the highest base type available at that level.

• The overall number of Essences found in the campaign has been increased, though the proportion of these being Essences of the Infinite has been significantly decreased. This will lead to finding more useful essences as you progress.

• The amount of Armour granted by items and modifiers has been increased as you get to higher levels. At level 65, you should have approximately 33% more Armour, tapering down to 15% at level 80+.

• The amount of Evasion granted by items and modifiers has been increased as you get to higher levels. At level 65, you should have approximately 33% more evasion, tapering down to 15% at level 80+.

Since the last thread was apparently unclear:

This is not about e.g. starting a Ranger character on the left side of the tree.

For those who don't know: Despite both starting in the bottom left, Ranger and Huntress (and any other class pair) get different nodes near the starting point. Huntress gets melee and ranged damage and Parry, while Ranger gets projectile and ailment nodes.

I would love to be able and choose which version to use whenever i pick one of these classes. I don't think it would undermine class identity too much, but it would allow players to slightly customize their early game experience.

Probably as a hidden option so new players don't get confused.

Ranged vs. Melee is a contentious topic, and it's often cited as one of the main downfalls of the "Vision".

So let's analyze how things are, how they "should"/could be, and how to get there.

This is a long step-by-step post, so/but please do me the courtesy of reading it in full before commenting on specific details that you disagree with in the first few paragraphs.

 

If you only like PoE 1 zoom and care zero about somewhat meaningful combat, this is not a post for you.

While part of this is down to number balance, the root causes are in the design challenges of asymmetrical combat archetypes.
If you respond with an argument from unbalanced numbers, this is not the thread for you.

Scroll down to 3. for concrete proposals.

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#1. How things are

I'll keep this short.

To generalize a bit for the sake of brevity, currently we observe some builds exploding screens and beyond while others get swarmed and chain stunned while they try to pull off melee combos.
The former's clear speed is only gated by their movement speed and raw damage, while the latter also has to take into account the duration of combat, leading to slower clear.

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#2. How things "should"/could be, aka "The Vision"

Let's look at three basic characters as a very generalized example for demonstration, and analyze their expected "game plan":

1. An Archer using some arrow skill
2. An Spellcaster using an AoE spell
3. A Melee character using a short range AoE melee attack

The scenarios and descriptions below are how i interpret "The Vision" based on everything GGG has said and done, as well as plenty of other games.

######Damage Scaling

The Archer wants to kill enemies from afar, but they are really spread out.
So they rely on increasing the number of projectiles, using mechanics like Chain, Fork, and Herald explosions to cover as much ground as possible ground.
They also scale attack speed for that purpose, resulting in even more projectiles on the screen.
That way they can delete the trash, and then use different skills and a weapon set swap to burst down surviving and usually especially tanky monsters.

The Spellcaster scales AoE for the same purpose as the Archer - deleting most trash mobs.
For tanky targets they also want to have a single target setup.

The Melee character scales damage and AoE, but that AoE is usually centered on or close to them.
They move towards enemies and deal damage when they swarm/cluster around them.
For Tanky enemies their damage scaling might already suffice, but they probably also have another tool for more single target.

######Defense Tactics

To buy themselves time, the Archer wants to delay the enemy, knocking back, slowing or immobilizing them before they can reach them, and also moving in ways that allow them to keep distance and react to approaching threats.
They also need to keep moving to dodge ranged projectiles, but being an Evasion character they aren't too worried, and they might use Blind to complement that defense.
They might have an ES buffer on top of their life pool.
For emergencies they may use something like Escape Shot, or push enemies back and further slow/immobilise/blind them with something like Wind Dancer.
When faced with degen ground, they simply move out of it.

The Spellcaster is generally slower, but they rely on similar crowd control tools to prevent monsters from rushing.
They leverage a higher HP pool, but have to buy time to let it recover after some hits.
For this they try to build a large buffer in the form of ES and/or mana for damage taken as mana mechanics (like MoM), or full life stacking.
They use freeze, temporal chains, time freeze, or distracting minions to buy time and space, and might use Blink or Lightning Warp to get out of trouble. Projectiles are a special threat to them because these can interrupt ES recharge, and they don't have evasion.
When faced with degen ground, they simply move out of it.

The Melee character can expect to take a lot of hits.
So they need to stack mitigation like armor, deflection, damage taken as, and armor applied to elemental, and they try to avoid hits with block, evasion or active block/parry.
In combat they move generally slowly, or remain stationary.
This means they take a lot of projectiles without any real chance to actively dodge or block all but the most dangerous and telegraphed of them.
When faced with degen ground, they can't easily move out of it.
Their fastest tool to reposition is the dodge roll. Frankly, they mostly just try not to die and slug it out.

######Recovery/Sustain

(I will ignore extreme outliers like Defiance of Destiny in this section)

The Archer avoids most hits, but when they take damage their mitigation isn't great.
They rely on some regen, life on kill to leverage their good trash clear, but also make great use of the life flask to counter the rare big hits from bad luck (Evasion and maybe even Deflection rolling bad) or misplays.
They also leech, using with Fast Metabolism, Soul Tether and Ghost Shrouds to keep it topped off for the next hit, but they can only leech from elemental skills if they don't fully convert their damage, or if they play Amazon.
Most of the time they don't need any ongoing recovery because they are on full life.

The Spellcaster will take hits more often than the Archer.
For recovery they may use recoup, flasks, regen and blood remnants for life; ES recharge delay/rate/instant start for ES; mana remnants, recoup, regen, flasks for Mana.
Spell leech is rare, but it exists in small amounts for Blood Mages and using The Covenant, usually with Fast Metabolism.
Overall they often balance multiple pools, using every tool in the game to recover from the moderately frequent damage they take.

The Melee character has access to comparatively more regen and leech.
They need both of these since they are almost constantly taking hits.
For leech specifically they have to stay in the fight, as they can't leech from afar.
When moving between packs their leech might run out, and they are vulnerable.
They also use flasks and life on kill to supplement recovery, but the latter also requires being in the fray.
They slug it out, hoping recovery will outpace incoming damage.

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#3. How do we get there/what is going wrong

###A. Recovery and Leech (GGG is already mostly planning to do this)

I'll start here because it was mentioned in the recent Q&A.

The main issue was that leech infinitely scales with damage, and scales with AoE and projectile count.
They are now planning to change leech to only take into account a single source from your highest hit, and is capped in the damage that you can leech off.
Once your regular hits hit this damage threshold, the only way to further scale your leech recovery are leech affixes/nodes.

This means two things:

• Those scaling clear damage with tons of projectiles, large and/or frequent AoE damage (including Heralds), fast attack/cast speed will get far less recovery from leech than they do now. If they neglect scaling hit damage, they might not even hit the leech damage cap.
• Since leech can't be scaled with damage, merely scaling your total HP/ES pool and DPS isn't enough to scale your recovery from leech.

The main result is that large ES or mixed pools cannot quickly or instantly refill themselves with leech.
They become subject to Attrition rather than only being vulnerable to oneshots.

This reduces the importance of maxhit, and in theory allows them to balance monsters around the average dps they deal rather than having to give them massive oneshot damage spikes.

 

######Special Case - Leech and Melee vs. Ranged

In their nature of slugging it out, Leech is an inherently melee identity.

Ranged Players may frown at this, but as stated before most of the time they don't need any ongoing recovery because they are on full life.
So Leech should be powerful for those who need it, aka those in the midst of hordes of monsters.

The proposed GGG changes already help a lot with that since melee characters will deal more damage, and can scale leech much better on the tree.

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> ####Proposal 1: If that doesn't prove to be enough, i propose to explicitly buff (direct hit) melee leech over ranged/projectile/AoE leech.

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This could take many forms like adding leech onto melee nodes, buffing leech affixes on melee weapons, etc. but in the end we need to accept that Leech is allowed to be powerful for those who take the most incoming DPS because of the nature of their playstyle.

They are also adding earlier and better support for leech near the Warrior start, so i am confident they share that design philosophy.

Better leech for melee only also is the answer to the melee ground degen problem.

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> ####Proposal 2: Add melee nodes that give damage reduction against ground effects/damage over time

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Next up are the fast hitting and/or elemental melee builds. For them the answer was also mentioned in the Q&A: Life on Hit

But careful! If generic Life on Hit is added, we once again give projectile spam characters another recovery tool for almost instant heal.

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> ####Proposal 3: Add Life on Hit, but make it melee only

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Alternatively make it more effective for melee, bundle it with melee damage nodes so there is more opportunity cost for ranged characters, or make it into a rune socketable only into melee weapons.

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###B. Offscreening

Part of why screen clear is so potent is because ranged characters can hit monsters at beyond the edge of their screen at full damage.

The further this zone of engagement extends, the more screen clear builds will thrive.

There's only one solution

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> ####Proposal 4: Limit the zone of engagement by adding a maximum damage radius around the player (probably roughly screen height, maybe oval shaped), beyond which monsters gain rapidly growing damage reduction with every additional metre. Obviously monster ranged attacks should also obey this max range, so that offscreen deaths are no more.

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Such a radius has to be communicated well (hover over character -> display that radius), but it levels the playing field to where the potential clear of ranged damage cannot get completely out of control.

It allows melee monsters to actually have a chance of becoming a threat to ranged characters.

Obviously monster ranged attacks should also obey this max range, so that offscreen deaths are no more.

Determining the exact size and DR scaling of this mechanic would have to be subject to testing ofc.

But i fully believe that it is absolutely mandatory for game balance.

 

######Addition: Defensive consequences for ranged characters

With the zone of engagement thus reduced for many characters, monster speed has to be adjusted.

Additionally, tools for ranged characters really need to be good at what they do.

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> ####Proposal 5: More and better escape tools for ranged attackers and spell casters like Escape Shot, like a warp that leaves behind constricting vines, or a distracting target dummy, or a wall, or knocking back enemies. More ways to modify dodge roll like exists with Caltrops. Channeling wind skills for casters to continuously knock back nearby enemies, walls to enclose themselves inside - tons of options.

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These would need cooldowns ofc, but something like Disengage has proven to be very well designed.

Because in the end part of why screen clear feels necessary is that the active defensive tools are currently lacking, with some being slower than the monsters take to reach you again.

 

###C. Monster Design

Lastly, monsters currently offer an asymmetric challenge. Most mods like mana donut, degen ground/explosion on death overwhelmingly harm melee characters.

Proximal Tangibility is an example that ranged characters struggle with somewhat more, but that's not enough.

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> ####Proposal 6: Add more monster mods that disproportionally challenge ranged characters.

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Examples:

• Shielded enemies that take less projectile and/or AoE damage, but whose shield can be broken quickly with melee strikes (also great for hybrid builds!)
• Proximity bubble, but only for ranged monsters (melee characters already need to get inside to damage them, but now ranged characters do so as well, but they aren't screwed over by melee bubble monsters rushing them either)
• Flying enemies that take less damage from AoE, but that land once near the player character

Franky these are hard to design, but that only means that we have to make use of every workable option.

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Thank you to those who took the time to read.

I would love to discuss this topic and the solution (including my proposals) in the comments (though i might take some time to respond)!

Since this is a massive post, if you have specific feedback, please quote the proposal or claim that you are referring to.

Also since these topics tend to gather a lot of heat and vitriol, i would ask everyone to try and stay somewhat civil and assume good faith from opposing opinions.

I love Parry a lot, and it has already improved significantly since 0.2 to the point where it is more than viable imo.
But even so there are a few mechanical and balance issues that i'd like to see tweaked.

 

###1. The Biggest Issue: The Parry Hitbox

The biggest mechanical issue with Parry is that most monsters will miss you unless you stand still completely, especially once you acquire some movement speed or even less movement speed penalty from Pathfinder or Mobility support.

But as we all know, in this game you can't risk standing around, and it just feels clunky.
Bottom line: While Parrying with default movement speed melee monsters should be able to always hit you.

Solution: Increase the player hitbox while parrying. Either baseline, as a property of the Parry Range stat, or as a Keystone that significantly increases the hitbox. Since more hits = more stun build-up i think there already is a downside to this that you have to build around.

Alternative: Give us a taunt mechanic that e.g. gives monsters more action speed maybe at the cost of less damage while channeling Parry (Support gem or spirit gem).

 

###2. Parry Skill Tree progression is bad

The first Pary-related cluster that we get access to gives us Block Chance, Parry Damage, Parry Magnitude, and Parry Duration, Defenses from Shield, and Crit immunity while Parrying.

Unfortunately many of these are entirely useless at this point, especially crit immunity which only becomes relevant later in the game.
Bucklers have low block chance, so 10% Block is useless as well.

Solution: Swap this cluster with a more useful one like the Swift Interruption (AS and MS after Parrying) or Resolute Reprisal (Heavy Stun buildup recovery) cluster.

EDIT: Resolute Reprisal currently doesn't do anything for stun since the bar only empties after 4 seconds of delay. It would work if you could reduce that delay, but currently there is no way in the game to do that. Needs fixing.

 

Next we get the Counterstancing cluster, which is a bit situational but generally very useful for projectile builds. It's mainly useful for single big attacks like a frenzy-charged Explosive Spear or Spear Throw.

The melee portion is really hard to trigger from my experience, both because of the way ranged enemies are designed (very slow attacks, far away, many bosses are fully/mostly melee) and because there aren't any single attack big damage melee skills. It's mainly useful for Disengage.

Another problem is that you have to take this node with actual skill points, yet some small passives give "Stun Threshold while parrying" - useful, but more something you want to take with your weapon set passives.

Solution: Let the notable empower all melee attacks for the next 2 or so seconds, or the next 3-4 attacks instead of just 1. Or significantly up the number - 40% is a lot at this point, but if you only buff one attack it quickly becomes meh.

 

From here on out the next Parry clusters are fairly far away, but that's fine.
The Swift Interruption cluster is very out of the way unfortunately, which makes pathing there very costly.
This cluster also mixes a VERY cool and powerful notable (AS and MS after Parrying) with small passives that won't be very useful - Parry damage and stun build-up.

Once again you have a mismatch between wanting the notable on your full tree, but the small nodes only on a dedicated weapon set.

Solution: Move Swift Interruption to the first accessible cluster; change this cluster's notable into something more stun related, maybe helping with the abysmal Parry damage scaling later on.

 

After the starting clusters, the next good parry nodes are ways away, and weapon set passives are limited.

Solution: Parry stats ion Bucklers (see 3.)

 

###3. Buckler Item Progression is bad

Currently Bucklers are just stat blocks for life, EV and resists.
Bucklers should be able to roll Parry-related Affixes beyond Stun Threshold in my opinion.

Some stats i would love:

• Parried Debuff Magnitude (debatable; maybe that should stay on the tree and uniques)
• Parried Debuff Duration
• Parry Range (see 1. for context)
• Parry Damage
• Stun Buildup

That way people could get excited for the Buckler item progression, and feel motivated to use Parry even during the big gap between.

EDIT: Another thing that has come up is that passive Block is fairly useless on Bucklers. Maybe a chance to passively Parry (maybe with 50% less debuff magnitude) or Deflect would be better mechanically and thematically.

EDIT: Great suggestion by /u/thatsrealneato to add flat chance to deflect to Bucklers.
Giving them like 15-20% (could have a local affix) would allow melee players to cap Deflect almost or fully without taking Glancing Blows - or free up evasion investment if you also take GB on top of using a Buckler.

EDIT: Implicit mods for Bucklers that give Parry-related stats would be a good alternative/addition for or instead of Parry affixes.

 

###4. Lategame Scaling is (mostly) off

Parry damage and thus it's ability to stun falls off a cliff rapidly.

Item base damage from evasion scaling is very low, and you mechanically just can't scale the amount of times you hit since it is tied to the monster attack speed.
On top of that i don't think that the Parried debuff applies to the initial parry hit (might be wrong about that).

Currently in lategame Parry is only useful for the debuff, generating Frenzies, Pinning enemies (actually does that really well), and defense ofc.
Which is really good, but i wish it would remain more useful with proper investment.
It's ability to stun or break armor is almost non-existent for example, even if you anoint the Dazing Blocks (Dazes on Block) notable.

Another issue is that Parry only gets 4 support gems even with very high level Bucklers.
I'd love to see a way to get a 5th support gem.

Lastly Parry also suffers from a lack of tools for Channeling skills - Burgeon is a good support gem, and Crackling Barrier can open up the build for some Thorns shenanigans, but the Parried Debuff doesn't affect thorns, nor are thorns nodes very accessible for Evasion builds atm.

Part of this scaling issue is 5.:

 

###5. Lack of Shield Skills for Bucklers

Armored Shields have some associated skills, but Bucklers are generally excluded from most of them.

I'd love to see more shield skills that can be used with Bucklers.

Especially Spirit Gems that allow me to leverage spirit into better stunning, debuffing, and just generally payoff from Parrying.

 

###EDIT: 6. Stun Bar and Stun Threshold Clarity

Stun threshold should appear in the character stats.

Also a way to display the stun bar above your character or otherwise more visible would be amazing. Atm it blends in with the UI, which is bad for a core risk-reward mechanic.

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Thank you for reading.

 

EDIT: PS: Future Parrying mechanics on Daggers and Swords with Combo (maybe additional Combo from Parrying) or Perfect Timing shenanigans might be really cool GGG :)

Geonor: We almost kill him, but the Hooded One finishes the job

Jamanra: He hits himself, and then Asala finishes the job

Napuatzi: Yoinked by the Timeless Monolith so PoE 1 players can level to 100

Doryani: Joins us after his hover craft crashes

Benedictus: Tavakai kills him

Tavakai: Cleansed, joins us

 

A lot of these have good lore/story reasons, and/or i don't really mind them in isolation.

But ever since Act 4 launched i really started to feel annoyed that we are denied the satisfaction of actually felling the big threats ourselves, or at all.