witch nerf coming in next patch

[Todokoro]

well I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Arsonist build is no longer viable unless you already have full ascendancy and 500 spirit on standby. Time to look into a new class I guess. Thanks GGG - Really appreciate it.

[thawn4444]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mad Marduk:

All of these problems would be solved by cheap/free respecs. Then people would find builds that they like and nerfs wouldn't be such an issue.

did you miss the part where they are effectively halving respec cost at high levels?

cause it looks like you did. . .

[Bacon Overlord®]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย thawn4444:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mad Marduk:

All of these problems would be solved by cheap/free respecs. Then people would find builds that they like and nerfs wouldn't be such an issue.

did you miss the part where they are effectively halving respec cost at high levels?

cause it looks like you did. . .

:exalted:

Halving?

So it's only going to cost more than most people make the entire time they've played the game instead of double it?

OH BOY!



No, it's still going to be like 200K to respec at high levels. Why are we even paying to do that in the first place?

[Brian9824]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Bacon Overlord®:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย thawn4444:

did you miss the part where they are effectively halving respec cost at high levels?

cause it looks like you did. . .

:exalted:

Halving?

So it's only going to cost more than most people make the entire time they've played the game instead of double it?

OH BOY!

:rfacepalm:

No, it's still going to be like 200K to respec at high levels. Why are we even paying to do that in the first place?

I mean 200k at higher levels isn't THAT much for a complete full respec. I get at least 10-15k just in gold per map, not counting the drops.

[Mad Marduk]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย thawn4444:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mad Marduk:

All of these problems would be solved by cheap/free respecs. Then people would find builds that they like and nerfs wouldn't be such an issue.

did you miss the part where they are effectively halving respec cost at high levels?

cause it looks like you did. . .

:exalted:

Halving the respec cost at high levels still is neither cheap nor free. It shouldn't be expensive at all. Lack of being able to readily respec in POE1 was GGG shooting themselves in the foot as it was. It's going to be a problem again if they don't fix it here and with the attention the game is getting right now failing to address this issue is letting the lightning out of the bottle.

[Bacon Overlord®]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Brian9824:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Bacon Overlord®:

Halving?

So it's only going to cost more than most people make the entire time they've played the game instead of double it?

OH BOY!



No, it's still going to be like 200K to respec at high levels. Why are we even paying to do that in the first place?

I mean 200k at higher levels isn't THAT much for a complete full respec. I get at least 10-15k just in gold per map, not counting the drops.

Diablo 4 is taking away the cost of respeccing entirely and adding mutliple profiles so you can easily switch between builds, lol.

If BLIZ of all people can figure that out...

I mean... GGG has zero excuses.

[ZoroGilla]

Diablo IV › Initial release date 5 June 2023

[StarGazer]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Vyss A'lare:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Tikigod:

It's not a nerf to minions.

They're simply making the Arsonist cost the same spirit upkeep as all the other mage skeletons.

That's all.

Some people will just exaggerate the change as a massive nerf to everything because all they're doing is copying and pasting the latest OP meme build they pulled off Reddit and Streamers.

If you don't use Arsonists in your witch build, then literally nothing is being nerfed for you. In fact if you read the rest of the pre-patch note announcement you'll see they mention they're actually buffing certain aspects that will apply to the Witch pretty well.



My already very viable ED/Contagion minion Witch build for example is likely to become a little stronger from the upcoming changes, though how much of a change I'll see with my particular build we'll have to see the patch notes to tell.

But of course, dramallamas don't want to think "Hey maybe other builds can be better now" all they see is "The build I'm ripping off from Reddit won't be so idiot proof now and I might have to wait for someone to post a new build for me copy, so I'm going to cry out that GGG just nerfed the Witch as a entire class".

Mate it's like a 40% nerf to the damage of the only truly viable minion. That's a pretty huge nerf and people are right to be pissed about it when arsonist clear speed is pretty ♥♥♥♥ on anything but open maps of which there are few.

Too many low tier players commenting on people annoyed by the nerf is my take. Like the guy saying he's 60+ lol. Until you're doing endgame maps and see how absolutely awful pet AI/Pathing can be on these maps you're just talking out of your ass. Any decent build clears at least as fast as arsonists and probably twice as fast in the crap layouts. Any I'm pretty sure 99% of builds have more visual clarity to avoid the ground effect shotgun deaths.

That said I'd happily trade a few less arsonists (I have 490 spirit and run 13 + 2 clerics, grim feast and blink) for some bloody minion QoL. Less getting stuck on doors, a bit more movement speed so they aren't perpetually left behind. Less arsonists bombs hitting random ass scenery and doing 0 damage. Sadly we're getting none of that and just taking a massive damage loss.

The map designers obviously were going for realistic designs instead of ARPG viable ones since every damn map has chokepoints and tight corridors. The infernal dog can't even get through a ton of the doors and you end up leaving your entire minion army behind because the devs decided it's better to kill the minions and invoke the respawn delay than to give us convocate,

I cant tell you more on how correct you are.
Its kinda depressing though, or like why not play around with the spirit cost instead of butchering the only viable skeleton for tier 15 play.
I think many issues at the moment come from a perspective and the moment someone else doesnt WANT to understand or are either have the autistic spectrum ♥♥♥♥ wont get done.

I also dont want to think that most of these people watch a video killing a single rare mob outside of a new checkpoint system but whatever.

There are actually alot of moments in the game where the instant minion teleport is fine and then suddenly is not. Its a weird thing to experience in practice.

[Tikigod]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Vyss A'lare:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Tikigod:

It's not a nerf to minions.

They're simply making the Arsonist cost the same spirit upkeep as all the other mage skeletons.

That's all.

Some people will just exaggerate the change as a massive nerf to everything because all they're doing is copying and pasting the latest OP meme build they pulled off Reddit and Streamers.

If you don't use Arsonists in your witch build, then literally nothing is being nerfed for you. In fact if you read the rest of the pre-patch note announcement you'll see they mention they're actually buffing certain aspects that will apply to the Witch pretty well.



My already very viable ED/Contagion minion Witch build for example is likely to become a little stronger from the upcoming changes, though how much of a change I'll see with my particular build we'll have to see the patch notes to tell.

But of course, dramallamas don't want to think "Hey maybe other builds can be better now" all they see is "The build I'm ripping off from Reddit won't be so idiot proof now and I might have to wait for someone to post a new build for me copy, so I'm going to cry out that GGG just nerfed the Witch as a entire class".

Mate it's like a 40% nerf to the damage of the only truly viable minion. That's a pretty huge nerf and people are right to be pissed about it when arsonist clear speed is pretty ♥♥♥♥ on anything but open maps of which there are few.

Too many low tier players commenting on people annoyed by the nerf is my take. Like the guy saying he's 60+ lol. Until you're doing endgame maps and see how absolutely awful pet AI/Pathing can be on these maps you're just talking out of your ass. Any decent build clears at least as fast as arsonists and probably twice as fast in the crap layouts. Any I'm pretty sure 99% of builds have more visual clarity to avoid the ground effect shotgun deaths.

<Snipped the side rant about Minion logic>

That's the thing though, the people that actually drafted up the core principle of the build and then made variations of it on Streams and such are typically all looking at the change, doing the rough estimated math and going "Yeah, that's fine. The change makes sense and was kind of needed and it won't stop the build being strong and viable".

The ones screaming that the build is now dead are those that just copy and pasted what they were seeing from others.


When you have the people that formulated the core principles behind the build saying yeah the build will still hold solid and be effective for high end maps and the change was necessary.

And then you have the people just copying the build blindly because they don't want to actually figure out these kinds of things out for themselves are shouting that it's the end of world and that their supposed "Only real viable build" is now dead.


Guess which ones are actually more informed and basing their conclusions on rational thought and the realities of the game. And which ones are just being emotional knee jerk reaction dramallamas that don't understand or even know the numbers involved and just see the bullet point "Maybe up to a xxx% reduction" and then shut off their thought process there and double down on their outrage.

I get it though. the Reddit-crowd is angry, scared and emotional and are fuelling each others validation to be emotional.

But then, when isn't that the case over pretty much anything?

[Lumifel]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Bacon Overlord®:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Brian9824:

I mean 200k at higher levels isn't THAT much for a complete full respec. I get at least 10-15k just in gold per map, not counting the drops.

Diablo 4 is taking away the cost of respeccing entirely and adding mutliple profiles so you can easily switch between builds, lol.

If BLIZ of all people can figure that out...

I mean... GGG has zero excuses.

Investing in build is a core aspect of PoE. D4 build are a bit of a joke in comparison

[Sloop]

Can't afk farm, waah

have to look at the screen now, waah

[Blacksnake]

Here is the issue: if you were at the end game, this is a minor setback that puts your character in line with other builds. If you were mid-game, your run is basically bricked. You dont have enough passive nodes or crafting mats to switch to a more viable leveling build.

[Tikigod]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Blacksnake:

Here is the issue: if you were at the end game, this is a minor setback that puts your character in line with other builds. If you were mid-game, your run is basically bricked. You dont have enough passive nodes or crafting mats to switch to a more viable leveling build.

Except it likely will still be perfectly viable for that part of the game, as the spirit increase only kicks in from level 5 of the skill gem. Levels 1-4 still require the exact same spirit as they did before the change.

Now the significant damage reduction % some are expecting is a figure based on a end-game high tier map running state of the build.

The actual impact the change will have is much less significant for most not running at the end game state of the game, as the change is a straight forward n*x change.

Where n is the number of arsonists you ran before the patch multiplied by x, the change in spirit cost.... so to use purely hypothetical numbers for the point of example... if you were running 5 arsonists and after the change your arsonists cost 10 spirit more each, then you're looking at 5*10 higher spirit upkeep.

Which is about the cost of 1 arsonist, so the impact on your build would be you lose a single arsonist. Not the 40% of all your damage, like some would like people to believe is the case that applies for everyone.

The reason the change is needed is because most properly done variants of the build are running a silly number of arsonists by the time they were further into end game maps, which means even a slight spirit cost of say 10 extra spirit would result in a significant upkeep increase because the n*10 increase impact scales with the number of arsonists already presently being used.

This is why some people are throwing around much higher doom prediction figures on the damage loss on such builds. Not because everyone using the build will losing that much damage output.

But because the fringe extreme build cases that were heavily utilising Arsonists to operate two dozen or more of them at time, will have a significantly higher scaling impact from even tiny spirit increases due to the sheer number of Arsonists they were running with.

At most many people will probably see a 5-10% damage reduction compared to what they were doing previously by Act 3 or Act 1 Cruel.

People before that point will likely see next to no change at all to their build performance.

[Tikigod]

And for those that missed it, here's the part of the patch notes that cover the skill changes:

<snip>

Skill Balance

Rolling Slam's Second Slam now deals 50% more Damage to Heavy Stunned Enemies

Ice Shot Shards (Secondary) now gains additional Projectiles as it Levels up

Ice Shot Shards now targets within 90 Degree Cone

Ice Shot Shards now travel further base (200ms, from 100ms), to be tested & iterated.

Ice Shot Arrow & Projectiles are now smaller and are the same size as other arrows.

Electrocuting Arrow Base Duration to 25 seconds (from 12), Doubling Quality Bonus also.

Barrage now has 25% Less damage on Barraged Attacks [From 60% Less] at Level 1, same Scaling Per Level.

Barrage now has +2 Repeats base, from +1.

Shockchain Arrow's Shockwaves now deal 100% more Damage.

Sniper's Mark cooldown reduced from 6 seconds to 2 seconds at all Levels.

Combat Frenzy now can now gain a Frenzy Charge no more than every 3 seconds (from 7 seconds) at Level 1, to approximately 1.5 seconds at Level 20.

Stormcaller Arrow's Bolt now gains additional Impact Radius as it Levels.

Vine Arrow's Damage over Time has been adjusted, it is now slightly higher at Lower Levels, and substantially lower at Higher Levels. The intention of this ability was that you poison it to spread poisons, as opposed to the vine itself dealing immense amounts of Damage.

Tornado Shot's Damage over Time has been adjusted, it is now slightly higher at Lower Levels, and substantially lower at Higher Levels. The intention of this ability was to propagate your other Bow skills, as opposed to doing an immense amount of damage itself.

Magnetic Salvo can now only use your stuck Lightning Arrows as opposed to those created by your Party Members.

Increased the damage growth per level on Unearth (non-Minion component), Bonestorm, Bone Cage, Bone Blast (Wand Skill) and Power Siphon (Wand Skill). Results in approximately 50% more damage at Gem Level 25.

Increased the damage growth per level on Essence Drain, Contagion, Profane Ritual and Chaos Bolt (Wand Skill). Results in approximately 33% more damage at Gem Level 25.

Bone Cage base Critical Strike Chance has been increased to 15% (from 13%).

Skeleton Arsonists' Spirit Costs now match Frost and Ice Mages from Level 5 onwards, making them more expensive while keeping their costs early-game the same.

Bone Offering Explosions now have 15% Critical Strike Chance (from 13%).

Resonating Shield, Shield Charge and Shield Wall now have 6-8 added Physical Damage per 15 Armour on your Shield at all Levels.

Resonating Shield radius increased to 2.3 metres (from 1.8 metres).

Shield Wall explosions increased to 4 metres (from 2 metres).

Shield Wall now can create a maximum of 2 walls (from 1 wall).

Siege Cascade now has an Attack Time of 75% (from 55%).

Siege Cascade now searches for targets in a 3.5 metre radius (from 2.5 metres)

Siege Cascade now has 50% more Damage against Immobilized Enemies (from 200%)

Siege Cascade's Explosion now deals 167% more Damage (accounting for the decrease in damage against Immobilized Enemies).

Siege Cascade now has 30% less Reload Speed (from 50% less).

Siege Cascade's Quality is now 2% Damage against Immobilized Enemy per Quality (from 4%).

Stormblast Bolts now has a maximum of 30 active Bolts (from 9).

Stormblast Bolts now has 5 Bolts in the Clip (from 3).

Stormblast Bolts now has 30% less Reload Speed (from 50% less).

Plasma Blast now has 47% more Damage with its Initial Hit and 25% less Damage with its Explosion, causing it to rely less on colliding with walls to deal enough damage.

Artillery Ballista's explosion radius increased to 1.8 metres (from 1.4 metres).

Artillery Ballista's Damage increased by approximately 21%.

Gathering Storm's Perfect Dash now deals 53% more Damage.

Wave of Frost now has 275% more Freeze Buildup at all Levels (from 150% scaling up over levels).

Staggering Palm's duration now scales with levels. It has 6 second duration at Level 1, scaling up by 0.2 seconds per Level (from 6 seconds at all Levels).

Staggering Palm's Projectiles now deal 20% more Damage at all Levels.

Concoction skills from the Pathfinder Ascendancy Class now consume 3 charges from Mana Flasks (from 5). Their damage has been increased and deal approximately 66% more Damage when the skill is Level 20. In addition the base added damage has been increased by at least 50% for all Concoction skills, with Poisonous and Bleeding Concoction receiving greater damage buffs. Fulminating Concoction now has a Critical Strike Chance of 8% (from 6%), Shattering Concoction now has a Critical Strike Chance of 11% (from 7%), Explosive Concoction now has 100% more chance to Ignite Enemies and 100% more magnitude of Ignites inflicted, Fulminating Concoction now has 100% more chance to inflict Shock and Shattering Concoction now has 100% more Freeze Buildup.

The Hunter's Talisman passive skill Notable now grants +1 Charm Slot. The small passive skills leading up to it now grant the stat it formerly gave. The Charm helper text has been updated to indicate that you cannot have more than three Charm Slots unlocked, so that we can add more sources of it in the future.

Added a new Lightning Damage and Electrocute Cluster to the passive tree in between the Ranger and Monk sections.

The Heavy Frost Notable Passive Skill now causes Hits to only ignore Enemy Resistances of Frozen Enemies if their resistance values were positive.

Supercharged Slam now builds up stages slower but gains 40% more Damage per Stage now (from 20%). This may display as 20% still incorrectly until a later patch.

Electrocute is now 25% harder to Buildup. (But the Damage Penalty has been removed from the Support Gem)

It is now more difficult to chain-freeze enemies, by reducing the amount of Freeze Buildup applied after a Freeze has been applied.

Added a marker effect to Ember Fusillade's preferred target.

Support Balance

Added the Tremors Support Gem. Which can be used to give up to multiple more Aftershocks to Skills, with a damage penalty.

Added the Bidding Support Gem. Which can be used to give more damage to the Command Skills of Supported Minions.

The Fire Exposure, Lightning Exposure and Cold Exposure Support Gems no longer penalize Damage of Supported Skills. They now have a Mana Cost Multiplier of 120%.

The Electrocute Support no longer penalizes Damage. Instead it now prevents the Supported Skill from being able to Shock.

The Lacerate Support now grants 50% chance to Bleed (from 30%).

The Envenom Support now grants 50% chance to Poison (from 60%).

The Impact Shockwave Support now has an aftershock radius of 2 metres (from 1.4 metres).

The Bidding Support now grants 30% more Damage to Minion Command Skills (from 20%).

The Considered Casting Support now only supports Spells you cast yourself. It also now grants 40% more Spell Damage (from 25%) and 15% less Cast Speed (from 10%).

The Aftershock Support now has 25% chance to cause an Aftershock (from 20%).

The Mobility Support no longer has a Damage Penalty, but applies 30% less Movement Speed Penalty (from 40%).

The Execrate Support now has 100% chance to inflict Ailments (from 50%).

The Ricochet Support now has 40% chance to Chain from Terrain (from 20%).

The Withering Touch Support now has 25% less Damage (from 50%).

The Ferocity Support now has 40% more Skill Speed when consuming a Frenzy Charge (from 30%).

Changed the Wildshards Support Gem to fire projectiles in a Circle instead of a Spiral pattern.

The Decaying Hex Support now deals 60% of Intelligence as Chaos Damage per Second (from 30%).

The Stomping Ground Support's Shockwave now deals 80% to 120% of your Strength as Physical Damage (from 20 to 30%).
<snip>

I've put the most direct generic Witch-build impacting changes in bold for those that struggle with long text.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1hgnevz/010e_patch_notes/

[Dwane Dibbley]

^ so most broken things unchanged. Still can 1button maps on 4 characters.

[Nemo]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย TyresTyco:

Yeah no longer viable by having 1-2 less arsonists .. rofl. Such a drama queen. I wont change anything with that build and I will be fine grinding t10+ maps. Dmg still will be absolutely fine.

1-2? I have 5 less arsonists