i love new arctic armour as long as...

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Ludvator написал:

for example Ive made FB IB build focusing on exlosions damage and huge AoE. Huge AoE overlap creates insane amounts of hits. Old AA covered that (reflect), now Im left with Vaal Pact (far away from the path) or stacking fire res near to 100%.. similar with some Exlp arrow or (Vaal) DD builds...

With the way reflect is in beta I don't think you will need to do anything.

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raics написал:

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Ludvator написал:

for example Ive made FB IB build focusing on exlosions damage and huge AoE. Huge AoE overlap creates insane amounts of hits. Old AA covered that (reflect), now Im left with Vaal Pact (far away from the path) or stacking fire res near to 100%.. similar with some Exlp arrow or (Vaal) DD builds...

With the way reflect is in beta I don't think you will need to do anything.

perhaps I shouldnt be making conclusions without knowing how is stuff going to work. Although I cant imagine how I could be fine. The total damage occurring in the moment when everything explodes can count in millions:)

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Ludvator написал:

perhaps I shouldnt be making conclusions without knowing how is stuff going to work. Although I cant imagine how I could be fine. The total damage occurring in the moment when everything explodes can count in millions:)

There's a new line on the gem description:
"The damage from this explosion cannot be reflected"
Seems that the corpse is the source of damage now :)

I don't think skills like incinerate will have too much problems with it either, it's not an aura anymore and projectiles can't shotgun so you're getting 1 hit back from a reflect rare and 5-6 if it's bloodline reflect. Non-crit flameblast probably won't instagib itself on a bloodline pack either.

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raics написал:

There's a new line on the gem description:
"The damage from this explosion cannot be reflected"

big buff for this build. AA needed lot of gear/passive/gems investment

how about explosive arrow? (also secondary damage) This was also a build that was using AA frequently

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Ludvator написал:

Well, Ive made dozens builds and theorycrafted hundreds and honestly, I can see no reason why I would want to use this with any of them. I doubt that 12% less damage taken solves anything

I feel the same, but I also feel that this is the point of the change, the effect they are hoping to have. AA was shit, they nerfed it into the ground, but because spells base damage comes from gem level and not item rng like attack builds, people still preferred to roll spell builds. This means their server stats show too many people using AA as its a spell defence and spells are popular becuas eof their offense, their goal is not to make a good gem, a gem that makes sense, theyre not trying to make the game better, to balance AA, their only goal is to make that server stat show very few people are using AA, thats all. They dont know what to do with it, they just want to make it something that sort of deserves a place in the game, that some people will use, but ultimately make it something that is too shit for most builds to bother with.

Same with EB, they said their reason for the change was mom aa being too strong, their reason for thinking this was not because it actually was too strong compared to armour, evasion, block, coil etc, it was shit compared to those things already. They think this because server stats show too many people using it. When they made the EB change they said they knew it was incomplete, that they were not sure how exactly they were going to 'fix' the way they had broken it, maybe with an extra node behind EB that effected es regen, maybe by changing energy shield mechanics, but they wanted to see how people used it in its broken state on the beta before they worked out what they wanted to do with it. So they didnt know how their change was going to work, they knew that it didnt really work properly 'as is', but they were already 100% certain the change was going to be made regardless and 100% sure it 'fixed' the mom aa popularity 'problem' that caused the change. How? Because the fact that the new EB didnt really work that well, that there was very limited reason to even use it, the fact that it basically destroyed most builds that were built around the old EB meant that they had destroyed most builds that used mom aa, and that was the goal. Not to make a new, good EB that makes sense, the goal was destruction to force people to play something else because the only thing they cared about was looking at the server stats and seeing mom aa go from a very popular setup to something virtually no one played.

thats how they work now, search out things in their game that work and are useful, then intentionally destroy them and turn them into something dogshit that people look at and can barely see themselves using again. Thats what they did to EB, to AA, to MoM, to Ondars, that is how they design now. Its not 'balance', its not making the game 'better', its not making things 'make sense', its not 'tuning', not even 'nerfing', its destruction for the sake of destruction, to force players away from things that worked and they enjoyed into something new simply for its own sake even if it makes the game less balanced, diverse, tuned, makes less sense than before.

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Ludvator написал:

how about explosive arrow? (also secondary damage) This was also a build that was using AA frequently

Well, if you take the view on corpse being the damage source you could justify the reflect removal on corpse explosion skills, but it would be kinda hard for explosive arrow. I'd say it would be fine anyway with general changes to reflect if you aren't playing an extremely reckless game.

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Snorkle_uk написал:

its destruction for the sake of destruction, to force players away from things that worked and they enjoyed into something new simply for its own sake even if it makes the game less balanced, diverse, tuned, makes less sense than before.

It's not really destruction, it's just shuffling the deck. We can't possibly keep advising every newcomer around here to play an Arc witch with EB, AA and cloak of defiance and every would-be Atziri farmer to grab Incinerate until kingdom come, that would be boring. There's nothing to worry about, I don't think that advice will ever be 'doesn't matter, anything goes', not sure they could do that even if they wanted to, something will always suck and something will always lead the pack. The game is too complex to make every possible combination equally strong.

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Snorkle_uk написал:

their goal is not to make a good gem, a gem that makes sense, theyre not trying to make the game better, to balance AA, their only goal is to make that server stat show very few people are using AA, thats all.

I understand you're disappointed but now you're just being unfair.

I suspect they were not satisfied with the mechanics of AA. Not only the flat reduction with its problems that was discussed earlier, but also the mana drain mechanic.
I think this skill must be very confusing for new players, especially for a go-to defense option. "Why can't I cast anything anymore? Oh, I'm out of mana again. How am I supposed to sustain this? Where's my AA now? Oh, I switched zones so it's gone again." And so on.

While I agree the result is pretty disappointing, I'm not going to believe they want to destroy anything that is popular without the intent of making the game better.

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Zed_ написал:

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Snorkle_uk написал:

their goal is not to make a good gem, a gem that makes sense, theyre not trying to make the game better, to balance AA, their only goal is to make that server stat show very few people are using AA, thats all.

I understand you're disappointed but now you're just being unfair.

I suspect they were not satisfied with the mechanics of AA.

there is nothing to suspect, they flat out said the way AA was run was not the intention of the skill when it came out.

AA, Qarl said straight up on SoE stream, was meant to be a short-term buff (and so was RF for that matter). The huge mana drain was to make it impossible to sustain long-term. of course, players quickly found a way around that.

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raics написал:

It's not really destruction, it's just shuffling the deck. We can't possibly keep advising every newcomer around here to play an Arc witch with EB, AA and cloak of defiance and every would-be Atziri farmer to grab Incinerate until kingdom come, that would be boring. There's nothing to worry about, I don't think that advice will ever be 'doesn't matter, anything goes', not sure they could do that even if they wanted to, something will always suck and something will always lead the pack. The game is too complex to make every possible combination equally strong.

shuffling through destruction. Theyre not just nerfing stuff thats too strong and buffing stuff thats too weak and hence giving rise to a clever meta shift, theyre carpet bombing massive far reaching parts of their game and saying "oh look at the fun mess we are making, change is so great, long live change!". Meanwhile half the builds they are obliterating are already under used builds they should be buffing, but doing that while dealing with the over powered problems would involve understanding their game on a level which they simply do not any more.

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grepman написал:

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Zed_ написал:

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Snorkle_uk написал:

their goal is not to make a good gem, a gem that makes sense, theyre not trying to make the game better, to balance AA, their only goal is to make that server stat show very few people are using AA, thats all.

I understand you're disappointed but now you're just being unfair.

I suspect they were not satisfied with the mechanics of AA.

there is nothing to suspect, they flat out said the way AA was run was not the intention of the skill when it came out.

AA, Qarl said straight up on SoE stream, was meant to be a short-term buff (and so was RF for that matter). The huge mana drain was to make it impossible to sustain long-term. of course, players quickly found a way around that.

I heard him say that, and its a stupid idea. Did any good player use AA like that? As a temp buff? The option was there, people who could have made use of a maxed AA but couldnt sustain it could have used it as a temp buff... but I never saw it once, ever, and I watch every good streamer, play with many good players, have made more good builds than I can even remember, Ive never seen it. The game is too fast, stop to turn it on in a moment of danger like that and youll die, kite away to turn it on in safety then move back into battle... move... with an overleveled AA... welcome to having no mana by the time you are back in battle and you will die. It just doesnt work.

So explain to me how the new 25% aura that AA has become now fits this dream of theirs for AA to be a temp buff? The old AA you could use in that fashion, it was a stupid idea and thats why no one did it, but the option was there. The new AA? No, that option is entirely removed, either you have the spare mana to have it on always or you dont, there is now no way to use it as a temp buff. So are you telling me this change was to make AA what they wanted it to be?

No, it is not, they are not making AA into what they always wanted it to be, in fact entirely the opposite, they are taking it further away from what they 'wanted' it to be that it has ever been before. They also said back when AA was released that they wanted a way for people who gave up their es to have mana to have a way to get some defense from their excessive mana regen, that original design is now also destroyed along with the temp buff idea. This change isnt about 'fixing' how people use it to get it to back to its original intended purpose, its about sweeping it under the carpet where very few people will use it. They dont know what they want to do with it, be honest, thats not unfair thats the truth, all they know is that they want it to be something rather crap that will not be very popular, so thats what they have done in the name of meta shift from a position of not really understanding why the caster meta is so popular.

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Snorkle_uk написал:

No, it is not, they are not making AA into what they always wanted it to be, in fact entirely the opposite, they are taking it further away from what they 'wanted' it to be that it has ever been before.

Yes, you're perfectly right, it seems they finally realized that resource management in their game is a load of crap. My only hope is they won't attempt to make a skill around it ever again :)

About the mass destruction part, dunno, they buffed a bunch of skills rarely used. Shock Nova got a rework, Ball Lightning is among the strongest spells in Beta, spell totems are worthwhile again, Sweep is pretty great, Cascade got a utility boost, also Firestorm, Lightning Trap, Elemental Hit (still not enough), Ethereal Knives, Storm Call, Split Arrow, Rain of Arrows, Lighting Arrow...

And they also improved a bunch of rarely used supports like Minion Speed and Slower Projectiles.