IMHO it’s not enough that they merely work, they also have to be competitive in terms of ROI on time/energy/skill. DA happens to have excellent ROI on time/energy/skill. Therefore, either nerfing DA or buffing underperforming alternative methods is necessary for those methods to be more competitive. And Zantai mentioned before that it is easier to nerf one thing than it is to buff multiple things.
I just don’t like Zantai’s way of doing it. What happens is that DA’s ROI is sky-high for awhile then drops almost straight to zero. Something more gradual is preferable, but alas it’s nigh-impossible to do with the current engine in a highly elegant way.
I have to agree with you there. But, what will be “just the right defence?” If it’s equivalent to DA in the range of 3500 to 3900, then we’re essentially in the same situation as before.
If the aim of this specific approach is to promote build diversity, then balance attempts are going in entirely the wrong direction. There are only so many defensive options to choose from, and they vary greatly from mastery to mastery. As it stands, itemization is a massive issue when it comes to build diversity.
Hard capping PTH to 60% also hard caps the incoming damage to 85.7% and no lower. This is a big deal for low HP, DA stacking builds that rely on the damage reduction against spells. On top of that, melee damage reduction remains important. You take that away, and what remains?
Armor is almost completely gear-dependent, and excessively difficult to accrue for most builds. Physical damage cookie cutter builds can do it, retaliation builds get it automatically, plenty of fire builds can do it because item support for demo greatly favors armor. Okay, what about the others?
Heals? Health regen? Few items have effective heals on them, many of them niche. Stacking health regen up to relevant amounts is difficult, especially if you don’t have a mastery that already provides massive amounts of it. Absorption (see: Arcane Barrier, Stone Form)? Any form of HP increase, whether raw +health, health regen per second, or absorption buffers, become exponentially more effective the greater your damage mitigation, whether through % absorption, DA stacking, or % reduced enemy damage.
With DA stacking no longer being reliable, you add in % absorption, then? Occultist does it okay with the Dark One set, Arcanist has that, but unfortunately barely any other relevant defenses, and… Soldier. That one mastery with the easiest time stacking armor, access to a rather reliable 12%+ damage absorption, and effective immunity to DoTs just through Overguard. With possibly the most extensive item support and thus no difficulty still dealing relevant damage while being nigh invulnerable. And if this wasn’t ridiculous enough already, throw some spare points in Menhir’s Will for 2 and a half lives if you have enough +% regen.
But it’s not all bad, right? Because Aura of Censure also has an absurd 20% damage reduction at 14/12, a stat which it never needed in the first place because Aura of Conviction was barely competitive in terms of effectiveness anyway.
But what does all of this mean? Surely I’m not just rambling without reason?
Take DA away, and most builds’ reliance on sets will increase once again. As far as increasing diversity is concerned, hard limiting it by the availability of sets achieves the opposite. Add to that the fact that a lot of sets are just straight up underwhelming, and the builds they promote very questionable, and matters just get worse. And this change doesn’t even fix the good builds that already have easy access to DA either!
At the end of the day, my Death Knight will still have over 4.4k DA, potentially more, plus OA reduction, making even most Nemesis miss 40% of the time, and cutting their damage by 15%. then another 14% through Bulwark, while forcing them to try and damage me through a near constant 500 flat absorption and 3k armor. On a character with massive resist reduction, competitive crit rate through DA reduction, and no need for attack speed to deal stupid amounts of damage because I can throw out 2x90k Blitzes on a 2.4s cooldown, massively damaging mass resist reducing Kriegs’ Wrath stomps, throw in a Siphon Souls for good measure, and double everything up with a Time Dilation. Skills ever go on cooldown? Mark of Torment makes me practically untouchable for 5 seconds, more than long enough for Menhir’s Will to keep me alive. I can do all of these and still have 60% PTH from nemesis bosses!
So where are you putting the measuring stick? How much is too much?
I agree that DA should be nerfed, but I don’t think the proposed nerf has any positive impact on build diversity and balance in general. Yes, it becomes impossible to make a character literally invincible by stacking a single stat, but it does more harm in crippling builds that need it, especially casters that want to tank. Meanwhile, already traditionally tanky builds are unaffected, shifting the balance back in their favor – and we’re back to the Soldier/DK meta.
I’m saying this from a perspective of a hardcore only player, with multiple character builds that were explicitly enabled primarily by stacking DA. Builds that don’t use sets and break other conventions. Builds that date back to late 2017 and went unshared because I feared exactly this would happen: Potential overnerfing of the mechanic I rely upon, and effectively gutting those builds entirely. I was pretty happy when I saw that the Chinese community had figured out exactly what I had independently. Props to them for sharing it, but it’s unfortunately now led to this.
Change the DA formula! Change how PTH and damage reduction interact. Remove the dodging aspect, keep the damage reduction intact? Fix increasing returns. No, a 3600 to 3900 jump is not relevant. I’m playing with values between 4000-5400 on most builds. The higher you get, the stupider it gets, which is what primarily needs to be fixed.
But again, capping it at 60% still heavily favors everything Soldier does.
There is more than just one problem, regarding balance, and I won’t claim to know how to fix them all, or even DA alone. But you have to be careful with how you approach DA, because removing it as a reliable defensive choice will absolutely limit builds even further. This will affect some builds outside of Crucible, for sure. Yes, I have read the Crucible changes, and I still disagree with the current DA numbers.
In closing,
I believe itemization, overpowered specific skills, and overpowered sets being used as the baseline for balance is a greater issue than “abusive” use of DA stacking could ever be, because the latter immensely promoted diversity, contrary to what the vocal opposition seems to believe.
And as far as “nerfs and bandages” being a dead horse, I’d challenge you to take a close look at shield block as a mechanic, the big overnerf it received many-a-patch ago, and the uselessness of block as a stat on anything that isn’t Soldier. Look at Boar devotion doing absolutely nothing, yet getting nerfed for no tangible reason. In the meantime, optimizing for block is hideously inefficient and does not at all compare to basically every other option. Markovian set is the only thing that does it halfway decently, and that’s exclusively for the cooldown reduction.
What you’re saying is true if there are no other changes that happen, but looking at the other changes, you can clearly see that Crate is working so that we won’t need that DA to clear crucible. Zantai already pointed this out in the same post you quoted.
The cap, as I see it, is to prevent people from still using DA builds even if the crucible becomes too easy. This does not affect campaign much anyway. at 3.6k DA, you can already facetank almost everyone in the main campaign.
Aye, what you’re saying is mostly true, but I hadn’t missed what Zantai said. The changes will still affect DA stacking builds that, for example, rely on completely evading things like Shar’Zul’s resist reduction, and/or literally have no other choice but to stand still in order for their core skills to even function effectively (see: Mortar Trap, Runes). I do not have faith that these specific kinds of builds will receive buffs that end up being relevant enough. It’s a complicated problem, and I can understand why nerfing DA like this is attractive and probably the easy way out, but it just creates a lot more problems in the long run (as far as build diversity is concerned in the higher end of build performance) unless deeper running issues get fixed.
On top of which, high armor & absorb builds that alreadydon’t surpass 4k DA are practically unaffected (even after nerfs to Stalwart & co, there are other very strong options to manipulate OA/DA), because they’re already at the 60% sweet spot against Nemesis, while non-Nemesis can’t chew through their armor and whatever other layered defenses anyway. Which, again, shifts the balance in their favor, because alternative builds suddenly hold a lot less leverage on the scale.
This is a sentiment that pops up from time to time. If you don’t engage in the discussion on the forum regarding builds, then accept whatever happens. No broken mechanic stays untouched forever.
DA stacking is not some top secret nobody wanted the devs to know about. It’s always been a potential concern. A single stat that effectively negates most game mechanics once you accrue enough of it? If you could reach 99% to all resists, we’d be having the same discussion, but somehow DA stacking is ok because somebody used it for a build.
But, as has happened before, the “meta” to stack DA has swept the community again, mostly since the max difficulty has gone up with 151-170 waves, and the issue can no longer be ignored. Instead, you are getting a Crucible that’s going to be far less punishing to most playstyles in general, and Crucible blessings that alleviate many of the reasons why DA stacking was so popular to begin with.
With the 60% PTH cap, DA stops being useful in the Crucible at around 3890, which I’d say is pretty high. And at 60% PTH you’re looking at 40% Evasion to Everything AND 14.3% damage reduction to anything that does get through.
So how about instead of arguing over keeping a broken mechanic, let’s point out and fix the issues why the mechanic became popular to begin with? That seems like a far more effective use of everybody’s time.
Let me point your attention to one thing, I think it never mentioned here. Gladiator/170 is currently the only way to get fresh high-level blueprints.
According to my observations, completion of 150 gives me 0 blueprints, while completion of 170 with the same character gives at least 1, or even 2-3 blueprints. Grinding treasure chests stopped working long time ago.
That’s why I stopped relaxing in 150.
Tested this behavior using 3 last characters in last 2-3 months of gameplay. Maybe I’m just unlucky? :eek:
It affects only blueprints, legendaries drop as intended.
Your sample size is far too small, but I can tell you right now that you have only a very marginally higher chance of getting a blueprint at 170 than at 150. Loot at 170 in general is only a little better than at 150.
The cap, as I see it, is to prevent people from still using DA builds even if the crucible becomes too easy.
I beg to differ. Look at my latest post. When it is easier to breathe in Crucible, no sensible mind would go for extra DA, but rather more damage to clear faster, unless the brain is …
So how about instead of arguing over keeping a broken mechanic, let’s point out and fix the issues why the mechanic became popular to begin with? That seems like a far more effective use of everybody’s time.
No doubt DA meta should be nerfed, but unless there is another options or 2 to levitate the defence of non-Soldier/DK, non-TD builds (which are actually a lot), it’s much better to wait until dev team and the community can agree upon formula to buff defense without DA reliance. Right now, the nerf to DA mechanism is too hard when comparing with the buffs to other defense + Crucible nerfs. I hope the next patch should be able to address both DA meta as well as including other defense options, and not just the former part addressed to please a certain group of people, while hurting others.
Besides DA meta, non-meta builds mainly suffer from lack of armor, damage absorption or TD skills. Besides lowering the difficulty for W150-170, these issues need some close inspection also. I can suggest some, although some of these may sound quite stupid, thus need people with more expert knowledge to improve:
Heavy/Normal/Caster armor. While most of them offer the same level of offense buff (usually 70-100% damage to a certain element), the armor gap is there, and there is nothing to address this gap. Class combinations that possess heavy armor sets are at a clear advantage. If the armor rating is lower, please rebalance the loss by adding something else, be it more offense or a compensation by adding another layer of defense. Make it fair. As of now, many builds strictly rely on Caster sets.
Why Arcanist class is the most broken? Because it has both damage absorption and Mirror, while other classes only have 1 of these, not to mention Arcanist also possesses Nullification. That is 1 extra devotion compared to others. To make it worse, the class has 10% OA and 25% Crit damage perma on. Best of both worlds. If this is not broken, what is? But I don’t know how to fix this class, really!
Is it possible to grant non TD-skill builds some minor kind of TD? As of now, Mark of Divinity seems to be the only option. Why not granting non TD-skill item sets a TD skill, be it passive (activate at 30% HP) or active, but they have a CD of 30s (or 60s, whichever is more suitable). Or if you think it is too big, may as well grant a 3s duration/30s CD proc skill (at 30% HP) that absorbs 75% damage (basically a reusable Aether Cluster). Since these item sets are only available for non TD-skill builds, it will not strengthen what are already strong, but just turn the weak into somewhat survivable.
Unrelated to the primary topic, but you can bind Giant’s Blood, Nature’s Guardians, etc. to a Prismatic Diamond on just about any character. It doesn’t solve the problem, and not every character might want to take either of those devotions, but it can (and probably will) save your life.
Heavy/Normal/Caster armor. While most of them offer the same level of offense buff (usually 70-100% damage to a certain element), the armor gap is there, and there is nothing to address this gap. Class combinations that possess heavy armor sets are at a clear advantage. If the armor rating is lower, please rebalance the loss by adding something else, be it more offense or a compensation by adding another layer of defense. Make it fair. As of now, many builds strictly rely on Caster sets.
The amount of dmg at high waves make minor armor difference meaningless. 1500 armor from caster armor or 2k from heavy barely do anything. The gap increases when +%Armor modifiers come in play, but , unless you are soldier or wear specific sets(Justicar, I’m looking at you), it dosent matter.
Why Arcanist class is the most broken? Because it has both damage absorption and Mirror, while other classes only have 1 of these, not to mention Arcanist also possesses Nullification. That is 1 extra devotion compared to others. To make it worse, the class has 10% OA and 25% Crit damage perma on. Best of both worlds. If this is not broken, what is? But I don’t know how to fix this class, really!
Dmg absorbtion is as good as extra HP. Sphere is not that different from Military conditioning or Hearth of Oak. Nullification is nice and stuff, but most stuff debuff you all the time, so it barely do anything at 150+. Mirror alone wont cary you trough 150+.
What matter is secondary resistance from Conversion and combination of Mirror+TD+ something else to keep you alive before you can recast 2 mirrors.
I don’t even want to comment about 10% OA and 25% crit(for 8+ points, lol) Any RR source from others masteries beat such pathetic dmg increase.
Well if we add lifesteal in calculation, then yes, absorption is better. BTW 50% Absorption mean +100% HP. And 75% Absorption mean +400% HP.So, 22% absorption from sphere is equal to ~128% HP. Not stellar and inferior to both Military conditioning and Oak. Even capped sphere provide only ~134% effective HP.
I’m shit at math but 10K hp goes down in a second in crucible but with 50% absorb you tank insurmountable odds.
It’s even better with lifesteal. Life you get back while absorbing has better “quality”. I would not want uroboruuk build to have 100% more hp rather than absorb
And with 20K you feel like you have a permanent MoT :D(JK) BTW the difference between 10/10 MoT +100% EHP and 20/10 ~155% EHP is bigger that it look. :roll: So if someone keep MoT at 10/10 he is doing it wrong.
