Many of the updated potion modifiers increase defensiveness. I don’t mind having a wide range of defensive modifiers at all, but what about offensive ones?
Sanguinis was replaced for a defensive modifier. Amplicorum’s duration has been nerfed hard. I believe, in softcore, for people/vets with endgame builds and know enemy patterns, Amp is now basically a 7s spam at best, except probably for celestial fights and high SR. So for most typical endgame Cairn farming, it’s decent piano to refresh duration every mid/fights.
Personally, I felt like Amplicorum was the perfect glass cannon modifier Crate had in mind: deal more dmg at the expense of being squishier. But limiting it to just 5s now kinda ruins the spirit in comparison to the 15-120s defensive modifiers.
Also what about other offensive choices, like increased %max attack speed+%attack speed, decreased enemy %res for x seconds, %increased crit damage for x seconds etc…
Are Grim Dawners not interested in more offensive modifiers, to complement the current range of defensive ones?
I know most speedrunners would abuse offensive modifiers to shave a few seconds off the Ravager, but is that really how most people play the game though.
Part of what i like about expulsimum and potentis is them being attack skills too, gives that neat “offensive” feel, but they’re both semi defensive still in debuff effect.
DA shred wouldn’t be as absurd as dmg increase buff, and a lot of builds are already getting it too, so likely wouldn’t be a default replacement even for celestial targeting.
Meanwhile it could be a fun dmg skill that gives some attack value aside from non busted/non mandatory debuff
The nonstacking sort of DA shred would be acceptable here with the right tuning as a budget source, similar to how attuned lodestone provides %DR. Good call…? (or does this make it auto include)
Pure offensive potions are a balancing nightmare in ARPGs.
The moment you add raw % Total Damage, -% RR, or crit damage onto a consumable button, it stops being an ‘optional choice for glass cannons’ and instantly becomes mandatory piano maintenance for every single endgame build. It completely skews speedrun benchmarks, turns Celestial fights into 5-second burst cheese, and invalidates gear optimization.
If a potion is going to have offensive presence, it should come in the form of an active utility skill—like a flat, non-stacking DA shred, a blind, or minor crowd control. That rewards timing and positioning without injecting raw damage multipliers that break character sheets.
Newer players will appreciate defensive potions to survive longer. Veterans will likely shy away from potion spam, just like how we started doing naked crucible runs. And the l33t builders don’t need help killing ravager in 5 seconds. Everyone wins!
It’s a bit rough. Part of why you saw so many complaints about the game’s difficulty and one-shots is that high-end builders already are very reluctant to take any defenses if they could instead be a DPS/speed gain. Almost every build that just explodes can solve a bunch of defensive issues by just using their jewellery/weapon augments for defenses or pathing devotions that way, but then the build’s slower than an “optimal” one.
I’m in the minority that basically views this as a psychological skill issue, but you can’t pretend it’s an issue that doesn’t exist for a pretty decent chunk of the community.
It might be interesting to see more flat damage options in potions or something like that, so they’re pretty irrelevant to optimized DPS builds but can serve as a bit more catchup for casual ones, but at the same time that seems like a pain to tune, given people will explode their builds for pretty much any gain at all.
Second comment (here is the first one) you are just throwing shade at “high-end builders” implying that they are playing glassy builds and complaining. And then you suggesting that problems can be solved by doing different augments or devotions. Absolutely ill-informed and dare I say ignorant take. Let’s see your “HC builds” that solved “exploding” by changing “augments”.
Oh, I think it’s just adjustment pain and will get there – ideal balance from FG gets you one-shot more in FOA, etc. Problems can be “solved” by giving away damage, which nobody optimizing builds really wants to do, so there’s plenty of friction along the way to finding the new balance.
I just derive plenty of amusement from the sense of playing a different game from consensus by people who are by all metrics a lot better at that same game, and it’s fun enough that I’ve started posting around for kicks.
That said! I don’t play HC much because I’m a coward (I have a warder for all the achievements that’s done a couple celestials and has seen little play since FoA), it’s more that I don’t enjoy playing any build with a level of survivability less than would be played in HC.
It is, however, kind of a plain point that people at the high-end don’t want to give up damage – TDM potion mods can’t be “mandatory” in the same world in which people are willing to sacrifice large amounts of damage or speed for survivability.
There is a difference between what people LIKE to play, and what people are WILLING to play when testing things out.
Some people like this game for the ambiance, others for the gameplay, others for the power fantasy, others yet for the challenge.
I personally tend to make builds with fewer buttons, and tend to like safer choices.
But at the same time, if asked to weight in on how a given build PERFORMS, I would be hard pressed to give you good accuracy as to what it COULD accomplish if I didn’t tailor it to my personal tastes.
That’s where people like @mad_lee and @banana_peel come in.
They seem to derive more fun from the game by breaking it open and pushing the limits of what can be done. Which is entirely valid! Whatever floats your boat is fine.
But that makes them uniquely suited for a specific type of feedback: spotting outliers in power level that can trivialize content. And being better pilots than the average players, it also gives them a more even testing ground, since human error is less of a factor in assessing a build’s potential.
So, while their feedback might look like it comes from aliens, like saying that killing Ravager in 30 seconds is slow, don’t forget that in THEIR context, those things make sense. Zantai and crew are able to discern what is elite player whining, and what is legitimate criticism.
Crate has been tweaking the game for years, and I’ve seen firsthand how they go about it, trying to make things that can appeal to most players, no matter what drew them to the game in the first place. I have seen some of my feedback applied, and it was not that kind of feedback you’re describing.
They also listen to min-maxer feedback of course, but just like yours or mine, it has to be taken into its proper context to have meaning and value. In short: it’s not that they are not willing to give up damage… it’s that doing so invalidates what they are trying to accomplish in the first place, which is to figure out the maximum potential of everything, so that true outliers are spotted.
Oh, I’m not too worried about these things influencing the game’s direction one way or another – Crate seems to have a pretty level-headed handle on things, and I generally prefer when game devs do as they see fit anyways. Being catered to as an audience turns me off a game weirdly fast lol
I like ARPGs as problem-solving exercises, it’s just that my speed requirements before being too slow is a problem are, uh, much lower than any TDM-potion-mandating world. Crucible 180-200 naked, for example, was pretty comfortable from the onset! At the low, low cost of being at least twice as slow as you’ll see any time posted by one of those posters. Conversely, dying randomly is a problem I have a pretty low tolerance for, so I’ll give up damage just to fix one or two cases where a build implodes.
(One of the problems to solve is that I’m a terrible pilot, and thus something like Uber Nerf has to account for getting hit by mechanics sometimes or failing enrage timer).
And yes, all I can tell you about the performance of a build is how it does for me. Some of my builds are stronger, squishier, faster, slower than others, etc. Somebody with a better head for numbers could almost certainly improve them by a pretty wide margin.
I think Crate’s general approach has held up pretty well. The game is probably the least balanced it’s been for a long time thanks to the wealth of new content… and rather than panicking or gutting things outright, they’re steadily adjusting it no matter how hyperbolic discourse can sometimes get.
