I'm still mindblown of the changes, these guys are really doing their job right. I wonder how long it will last before they run out of ideas.

hopefully forever, i keep giving them my money.

and I'm terrified of the concept of Nemesis mods and random bosses, holy hell it will be intense.

me too, from what I gathered from the notes, each area will have a boss in it....

Yeh, I think you can tell they're really fans of this type of game. I don't think they're going to run out of ideas, but I think they're going to run out of publicity or possibly money. I've spent more on this than I have a regular game, but I know I'm kind of weird that way. I think their average value per user must be down in the single digit dollars.

I imagine they're working on a sequel already, in which case we need them to keep coming up with ideas for another four years....

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/810698

Patch notes for 1.1.0

Also, is there anyone posting here who isn't in the guild? Feel free to post your name and one of us can add you.

(I now have Friday off but working late on Thursday... half way success at least)

I didn't realise this was in:

Given that I never played that league I have no idea how they work. These are the things that buff nearby enemies and give you a reward? So you can get a shrine/nemesis mod/invading boss?

So maybe ST isn't the best way to level. I think I'll just do reave due to **** it.

Tho that'll change a reave build a bit.

OK, maybe need a new build idea. Suggestions anyone? Is it possible to do some kind of flicker build with block?

And that'll change practically every other build a bit.

I guess the question of what type of char to build depends on which skills have vaal versions.

shrines have swarm of monsters around and you need to click the shrine to steal the buff from them and get it yourself - will be interesting.

Back to ele cleave? Ele cleave + block seems quite a sensible first char build - doesn't need much in the way of gear to get to early maps, assuming the new content isn't utterly impossible.

I'm not sure I can go back to a char with sub 75% block. 75% block and Ondar's Guile was going to be my main target.

Just under 33 hours! I think I am going to go with an ill conceived shadow claw ST build.

I was thinking about going with something like EK with AA but now you reminded me about my max block templar which I had in sc, I think this should be still okay considering toughness of the new content. Might be slow to level though. It's just that IB is scary against reflect.

has AA not been nerfed at all?

To be honest I'm a bit surprised as well but I didn't see any changes to it.

They really know how game design changes influence what they can develop in the future. So, for instance, they developed Vaal Orbs/corruption because they didn't want people to have to get all new items very frequently. When they run out of ideas in that vein I'm sure they'll start changing items.

As far as money goes, I'm pretty sure the game is actually very profitable. Their user base is incredibly dedicated. They had those pets they sold for $1,000 and sold out. They can always release supporter packs and other vanity items for big bucks.

EK was a fun and safe build. You might want to look into using witch this time around since they're buffing spell damage nodes and nerfing scion start area.

Yes, that's true - they're doing a lot more to leverage the really dedicated (and/or rich) than I've seen in any other microtransaction games.

I wonder if they need anyone to do CRM for them (I've seen almost nothing via email for example). Maybe I'll spam them with my CV once Unibet Poker have taken over the world. They seem like a pretty good place to work.

Hm, seems like the nerf to ST isn't that bad imo, but the nerf to Scion will be pretty brutal from what it sounds like. The life circle was really helpful but most of all those quick passive nodes made scion really OP in races.

Maybe I'll go ST duelist? Idk.

I never realized how OP AA was because I never bothered to use it... Then I watched a video on it... wow.

AA vs. the docks dogs is quite funny - you can just go AFK against multi-proj added damage ones and nothing happens. Big hits still hurt you though.

I think I'd have to go max block or AA in any build now (or some kind of acrobatics build?). The problem with all of them is that you still die to the big single hits though.

I wonder how the game changes when you can theoretically get level 30 gems? EK becomes viable in the ultra-end-game seems likely to be one of them.

So by theoretically that means that the gems can be raised to level 30 by mods that 'raise x gem y levels', but not by leveling them up, right?

Yeh, you can still get to 20 normally, then you have +level items, +level gems, and it looks like corruption can raise levels too (or vaal gems are allowed to get > 20 some other way).

I don't think there're any items that do more than +2 gem level, and empower does another 2.

Right now, ST "deals 60% of base damage" at every level. If I'm understanding this correctly, "weapon damage" is the same as "base damage" and that's not a change. Perhaps they're moving to this terminology to make the damage mechanism more clear. I'm curious whether the gem text itself will change to say "weapon damage" rather than "base damage".

The projectile damage modifier-by-gem-level appears unchanged.

ST "base damage" works like this:

Fake Sword does 120 phys, 30 fire, 12 elemental on hit

That means ST does 120(.6) + 30(.6) + 12(.6) = 72 + 18 + 11.4 = 101.4 on hit

In real time weapons have damage ranges, which means that the calculation above is different for every hit. Your 190-220 sword does one of 190-220 every time it hits, but it can't be calculated as just ((220+190)/2)(.6) for ST because that result is your expected damage per hit, useful in calculating DPS but incorrect for every case except the one where you roll a hit worth exactly 205.

The nerf means ST is worse through gem level 15, which is significant. But from gem level 16-20 it's superior to old ST.

The low level nerf isn't even that brutal, as the gem is gaining 1% per gem level through to level 15 (where it gets from 46% to 60%).

That means level 5 ST does 120(.5) + 30(.5) + 12(.5) = 60 + 15 + 6 = 81 on hit (80% of previous ST).

It's just not a big deal. I think it's designed to make racers use other builds. The answer for grinding is to spec into ST and level it in the swap slot.

Wasn't the ranger always the best char for spectral throw ? In late game it doesnt matter but in the early-mid the ranger does way more dps from my experience.

Big wall of text. It sounds more like (to me) that it is weapon damage only and physical damage nodes won't affect it. Projectile damage may not affect it.

At least that's my interpretation.

That would have to be made explicitly clear and I reallllllllly doubt that, because that would mean that multiplicative modifiers simply don't apply to ST at all. That's not how the game works though.

Bet you an alch, hu4alchz yo

EDIT: PoE forums seem to agree with me. If it was what you're saying that would nerf ST straight into the ground.