GGG Need to Accept That Energy Shield is Not Just a Defensive Layer/Mitigation

[bladeddragonknight]

The reason ES is so OP right now and outperforming everything else is because GGG keeps sticking their heads in the sand when people bring up a simple but very important fact about energy shield that they constantly pelted them with in PoE 1...it really is just blue life or blue hit points.

They keep trying to stick with the idea that ES is the intelligence stat's defensive layer just as evasion is the dexterity defense and armour the strength defense.

The problem with this is that armour and evasion are just MITIGATION layers. They require either stacked life or STACKED ENERGY SHIELD in order to function. They CANNOT function on their own. Energy shield CAN function on its own and only gains benefits from having one of the other two mitigation defenses and/or life.

So all GGG have really done is remove "red life nodes" from the passive tree while leaving "blue life nodes" on said tree.

So they basically only have two choices...either bring back life nodes to the passive tree...OR...remove the energy shield nodes and rework how energy shield functions.

Because if things are left as they are when the game eventually leaves EA people are either going to play mostly ES builds or just quit the game.

If they want the game to be EZ for casuals then make armour, evasion, life as busted as ES. If they want to make the game for hardcore players and offer up a challenge as they SEEM to be aiming for then nerf energy shield down to the level of life and rework it as I mentioned.

As it stands now ES outperforms everything else by a solid gold mile. It says a lot when a caster is tankier than a warrior. Something needs to change.

[Fraktal]

It took GGG 12 years to overhaul melee in PoE1, still sub par ways to trade, no account identifier on the front end so people can have the same name, I can go on and on.

Let’s all hold our breath for a defensive mechanics overhaul.

[bladeddragonknight]

Originally posted by Fraktal:

It took GGG 12 years to overhaul melee in PoE1, still sub par ways to trade, no account identifier on the front end so people can have the same name, I can go on and on.

Let’s all hold our breath for a defensive mechanics overhaul.

While you are right I'm holding out hope because I believe they feel they have big money riding on this project and I want to believe that MAYBE the threat of losing said money will make them do better.

Maybe...I hope.

[Ryoga]

Not just ES is overtuned but resistances are as well, they should bring these things down alongside the damage the enemies do if they want things to at least somewhat resemble a properly balanced state.

[bladeddragonknight]

Originally posted by Ryoga:

Not just ES is overtuned but resistances are as well, they should bring these things down alongside the damage the enemies do if they want things to at least somewhat resemble a properly balanced state.

Only a few enemies need toning down...or just bugfixes.

[Vespertellino]

Maybe in poe3 they will remove ES nodes as well

[SpeedFreak3]

The current idea of energy shield is not too bad, it is meant as a buffer that has to be depleted before your health is on the line.

Universal problem is, that it is too easy to refill while in combat and thus it functions as crazy fast regenerating life bar.

To make it work like it should be they need to make it much more difficult to recharge in combat and limit the recharge speed to some extent, so you can't insta regen your whole es.

[SpottedHare]

I don't think you idea would really address the fundamental issues, you admittedly mentioned but forget by the end, you HAVE to have hp in order for Armour and evasion to work. Which brings us to the issue that unlike hp(red or blue) Armour and evasion have diminishing returns, you need ever more and more to get the same % buff resulting in you still needing hp especially with 4 other damage flavors that need defending against. With massive hp pools you can theoretical just not care about getting max resistances. Evasion is the worse in this regard as unlike the other two theirs no conversion to HP(strength gives hp and intelligence give gear with more blue-hp).

Maybe its not the pat you self on the back and virtue single over making games hardcore solution but make hp not tied to strength but just your raw stat value, as long as your getting raw stats your hp(which you need to have) will go up.

[ministrog]

Originally posted by SpottedHare:

I don't think you idea would really address the fundamental issues, you admittedly mentioned but forget by the end, you HAVE to have hp in order for Armour and evasion to work. Which brings us to the issue that unlike hp(red or blue) Armour and evasion have diminishing returns, you need ever more and more to get the same % buff resulting in you still needing hp especially with 4 other damage flavors that need defending against. With massive hp pools you can theoretical just not care about getting max resistances. Evasion is the worse in this regard as unlike the other two theirs no conversion to HP(strength gives hp and intelligence give gear with more blue-hp).

Maybe its not the pat you self on the back and virtue single over making games hardcore solution but make hp not tied to strength but just your raw stat value, as long as your getting raw stats your hp(which you need to have) will go up.

i think most people don't realise but armour gives movement penalties. also, kinda related, stun is a build up mechanic, meaning it'll eventually happen like how evasion will eventually let a hit through. the same is also applied for block, but they call it stagger meter, and it'll lead to stun once filled. if you're a armour stacking melee, and you put all those things together, it'll make you a sitting duck. you'd be forced to take very undesirable stats like stun threshold and block recovery.

ES is kinda fine, but like others have said, needs fine turning. maybe it will turn off (zero ES) when you're casting. it could return to it's previous value when you stop casting. way more tactical instead of what OP was saying, just blue life points. i will say though, if you got proxy damage and you're using that stun/recharge tech, shame on you.

[Caramel_Clown]

Reason why health tanks suffer is also critical lack of damage taken conversions. But surprise surprise - ES part of the passive tree has all the damage taken from mana conversions. So you don't just stack ES, you also have easy access to the best damage mitigating method in the game. They need to put more damage mitigation via conversions on the tree, so other classes can spec into that too.

[Sabrehawk]

ES surely aint overtuned for the plebs down in the guttters of the campaign getting 1hit by trash mobs

cant engage in crafting cause pleb campaign drops f all cuz elite mappers are swimming in Exalted so casuals have to suffer with abysmal drop rates

[thestile]

My warrior feels so backward in comparison to my Sorceress. She seems more like a low damage tank and my warrior is the DPS nuke, glass cannon.

I'm exaggerating but it's a little something like that.

I'm sure that I'm lacking knowledge in how to effectively build these classes and specs.

[bladeddragonknight]

Originally posted by Sabrehawk:

ES surely aint overtuned for the plebs down in the guttters of the campaign getting 1hit by trash mobs

cant engage in crafting cause pleb campaign drops f all cuz elite mappers are swimming in Exalted so casuals have to suffer with abysmal drop rates

You can fix this problem by making sure at least some of your equipment has "increased item rarity" on it.

In both PoE 1 and PoE 2 the NEED for magic find is ridiculous. Having it on your equipment versus not having it is like night and day.

[Wutever]

Originally posted by bladeddragonknight:

The reason ES is so OP right now and outperforming everything else is because GGG keeps sticking their heads in the sand when people bring up a simple but very important fact about energy shield that they constantly pelted them with in PoE 1...it really is just blue life or blue hit points.

They keep trying to stick with the idea that ES is the intelligence stat's defensive layer just as evasion is the dexterity defense and armour the strength defense.

The problem with this is that armour and evasion are just MITIGATION layers. They require either stacked life or STACKED ENERGY SHIELD in order to function. They CANNOT function on their own. Energy shield CAN function on its own and only gains benefits from having one of the other two mitigation defenses and/or life.

So all GGG have really done is remove "red life nodes" from the passive tree while leaving "blue life nodes" on said tree.

So they basically only have two choices...either bring back life nodes to the passive tree...OR...remove the energy shield nodes and rework how energy shield functions.

Because if things are left as they are when the game eventually leaves EA people are either going to play mostly ES builds or just quit the game.

If they want the game to be EZ for casuals then make armour, evasion, life as busted as ES. If they want to make the game for hardcore players and offer up a challenge as they SEEM to be aiming for then nerf energy shield down to the level of life and rework it as I mentioned.

As it stands now ES outperforms everything else by a solid gold mile. It says a lot when a caster is tankier than a warrior. Something needs to change.

It's not just the absence of life that's the problem.

Armour is objectively worse.
Chaos damage is off the charts with even white mobs doing absurd damage sometimes.
ES overcharging via Grim Feast and Meditate is absolutely busted.
There is no truly good physical damage conversion gear.
Many caster builds are absolutely busted (and simply use ES because that's the natural thing to do).
Committing and going into melee is suicide (so everybody plays casters / range).
Only good mobility options are for Int, which also uses ES.

We're simply in an ES meta, and I'd argue that ES isn't even to blame for it. Every other defensive option simply sucks balls.

I respecced into CI at like only 3.5k ES and I have never made a better choice in this game. Not having to worry about a random archer doing 5k chaos damage after resistances to me from off screen while I'm stuck on a bridge too narrow to dodge makes the game a hundred times better.

TL;DR: It's not really ES. The game design regarding defenses and melee is completely broken right now, making ES the only decent option.

Originally posted by bladeddragonknight:

Originally posted by Sabrehawk:

ES surely aint overtuned for the plebs down in the guttters of the campaign getting 1hit by trash mobs

cant engage in crafting cause pleb campaign drops f all cuz elite mappers are swimming in Exalted so casuals have to suffer with abysmal drop rates

You can fix this problem by making sure at least some of your equipment has "increased item rarity" on it.

In both PoE 1 and PoE 2 the NEED for magic find is ridiculous. Having it on your equipment versus not having it is like night and day.

You need only a little tho. It seems to hit massive diminishing returns at ~100%, which includes map, Atlas and tower modifiers. It's kinda dumb that you need to have MF to start getting decent drops, but at least the requirement is very low and can be obtained from sources other than gear late game.

Early game you're completely cooked tho, and that needs to be addressed by GGG.

[TrashPanda]

ES isn't OP its Grim Feast that is OP ...Grim Feast is pretty much mandatory when running full ES due to how OP it actually is.