I disagree with this on principle. IMO there should be early game lower power versions to enable the builds.
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I would agree with this in principle (because I like to start playing my build as soon as possible, even when it’s very slow and hurts, like playing reflect spriggan at level 25-ish 
), but I guess some items would be too powerful at a lower level, like Aaron’s chest, and some would be useless because they require a skill that you only get much later on (like Ravager’s dart which uses Heartseeker, which you can’t start using until level 50-ish anyway).
1-shots are frustrating experience. Mechanics that are hard to avoid is also frustrating experience.
I’ve picked cold cyclones on a beast evolve in campaign and had to kite it all the time, waiting for my crows+raptor to put it down. Because if I ever try to melee him and he casts a cyclone on me, there’s an 80% chance I’ll die. 20% I dodge close to death drinking my potions. And it spawns it like every 1-2 seconds.
I have strong doubts about whether they tested these abilities. Melee is not viable half of the fights.
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Yeah, if there’s a skill that’s not available till later (& the earliest you could get Heartseeker is 35-40, because passives rewards from quests) then uniques that affect it don’t need to be useable before then.
Hence the “lower power versions”.
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You shouldn’t need a good build to beat the campaign. You should be able to beat the campaign with any skill or build, progress as you learn the game and figure out builds.
Also I do have experience since I’ve done the campaign and progressed into End Game 100’s of times and this time was the most miserable experience to start this season.
I remember when I started LE in early access just before launch playing a Pally not knowing anything and using Rebuke as I was leveling. Didn’t know it was a bad ability but it worked. Telling my friend you would like this game you can just put a build together and learn it and play how you want. (I feel we are constantly moving away from that feeling)
Now with increase difficulty some classes and some abilities just arent’ viable at all or are terrible to play without having gear first. Since they don’t have enough core defenses in the Class kit to feel good.
Hence a League starter is more important now than ever and build diversity is going backwards not fowards. Due to the higher base level of content standards.
I’m trying to have a birds eye view of this situation and not look at it just through the lens of my experience but a new player trying to play Last Epoch for the first time. Which is important for Last Epoch to grow.
I feel like new players now should “look up build guides before playing” which is a problem other ARPGs have like PoE and it’s a bad thing. You should play the game first be able to figure it out, have fun and then when you want to know more about builds or ideas for YOUR build look up guides.
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The game is designed around 300 corruption, as confirmed by Mike
Well then they should stop designing the game around 1k corruption if he wants to make that statement. His words contradict the actual design.
The rewards/oot for being in 1k corruption are exponentially better and there are tons of spreadsheets and it’s well documented (frozen sentinel has great info on this).
On top of that you need at least 500 corruption just to attempt Uber Abby. Realistically you need to be farming 1k corruption attaining great gear then doing Uber Abby which they said you likely will need to be in or around a build of 700-1000 corruption to defeat her.
So the facts are the current design is 100% based on 1k+ corruption because that is where the rewards and loot are. This is a loot based game.
This is why infinite scaling is the bane of modern ARPGs it’s because it’s where the rewards also are and it’s annoying because at it’s core it hurts build diversity, fun and player agency. Which goes into my other point corruption should just be capped at 500 or 300 if they Devs want to consider that a good build.
- Just cap ALL the rewards at 300 corruption. Full stop! Problem solved.
Now if players want to go beyond 300 corruption and test a build or if EHG ever does a corruption ladder then have at it.
However if the rewards are now capped at 300 corruption the standard for a good build is 300 corruption. Instead of the standard of 1k+ corrution.
That is a very outdated take, though. Also, Mike never said that 300c was the balance goal. He said that a build was successful if it reached 300c. Meaning one that didn’t wasn’t successful, thus 300c is the floor, not the average.
But they have since introduced Uby, which deliberately can’t be completed unless you can farm 1k+, so we can say that this stance has shifted.
Pretty much any build can do 300c now. Most can even do 500-700c.
Their balance goals changed. Which is why they haven’t said anything about 1k+ corruption being a mistake for a long time.
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It is 100% not and I highlighted that above. He can’t say that when the game design contradicts his statements. When they design the game around 300 corruption he can make that claim.
Also you are kinda twisting his words a little and it’s a very old statement.
Yeah, that’s fair. I don’t think I’m as far into the “campaign must be trivial” camp as you appear to be. On the one hand I agree that being able to get through the campaign with (almost) any random selection of skills is good (since it would be good for inexperienced players to not feel that they must use a build guide), but if you subscribe to that viewpoint then hitting “endgame” (ie, monos) would/should then come as a rude awakening.
And I’m definitely of the opinion that the campaign should have a smooth increase in difficulty to “endgame”.
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We don’t have a newer one and only talk about the last information on the topic that still stands. If EHG wants to enlighten us about their balancing plans and goals I’m all for it. Heck even if thes say “We don’t give a shit!” I would at least know where I stand and able to make up my mind.
Balance history was so far: 300C = endgame → 300C is a good working build → if players reach 4 digit corruption we (the devs) messed up → no more news and mentioning about balancing and balance goals.
I don’t get it why people defend it but most likely I’m wierd 
.
You have the facts, though.
If someone tells you they would never kill anyone and a year later they kill someone, do you go “No, they said they would never kill someone and that’s the last information we have on it”?
They added content that requires 1k corruption to complete, at minimum. That is a clear statement that “Oops, 1k bad” is no longer appliable.
And here I wondered why I’m dying on lich so much.
There are damage spikes that straight one shots me, like I barely survived lagon’s claw attack at just 100 corruption with 2K HP and 10% dmg redirected to DoT, some ward and full resists.
I couldn’t outleech the rift beast cold cyclone and what I’m reading it I’m positive it’s overtuned. Some other rift beasts attacks as well like tongue slap too dealt like 2K dmg, despite there are no indicator of it comming because I can’t see through explosions on screen.
Started out as lich, despite being “veteran” since EA I noticed such damage spikes that I get simply offed instantly - leech/no leech. Fire breath attack of draal larvas was not nerved at all, even buffed if possile cuz they shred me in like 1 second if I stay in it. At 0 corruption.
Tried to tank emperor of corpses blast with death seal - at 0 corruption I barely outleeched the DoT that resulted from it. Can’t imagine using the method at 100 corruption or higher.
Boosting damage was definetly NOT the way, I don’t play dark souls games, and I never clicked with PoE despite trying it for numerous times since synthensis league.
So far my best ARPG remains grim dawn. It was pretty 50:50 with LE last league, but these damage spikes brought it down the scales a lot.
I can’t comment on rift beasts yet. just hit empowered today and somehow it feels like they vanished, barely find any and it seems I will start avoid the cold cyclone and poison pool altogether if possible.
Just got to empowered a couple hours ago on Necro and those dang ballista dudes with necro fire lol, didn’t see them off screen. I gotta buff my armor and searching for some better gear.
This is the rippiest LE patch that I can remember. I am fine with being on my toes, but being one-clapped becomes boring. I wanted to play Lich but gave up and back to Warllock. Still, at mere 100 I die to a sneeze (like the flock of birds that appear and dive on you in the “protect the beasts” woven echo)., I am glad to not lose XP on death but it is getting a bit too much.
I hear you. Next time you are at the evolve screen, you can terminate the line before evolving it all the way. Cut your losses and net on the beast beast.
Was your Lich melee by chance? Ive been having a blast so far playing cold flay crit. Maybe looking at my tree could help you? Here is where I am at now:
https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/oy5MNe9o
I’ve just got to the point where I can face tank basically all of the T4 dungeon boss attacks and 250 corruption has been pretty easy so far. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have my 3 farming monos all set up at 300.
My biggest defensive leaps were definitely after getting Foot of the Mountain for full hp as endurance threshold and 60% endurance. Reaper Form can also be a nice defensive tool as it lets your intellect scale your armor. I also scale necro resist into ward per second.
You would be quite correct.
to recount my lived experience as a decently built Primalist druid:
during season 2 at 500 corruption as I was comfortable being able to do that, I have had no problem surviving quite a lot of strong attacks from a majority of enemies & bosses, I could even go toe to toe with standard abberoth and defeat 'em. And sure I would extremely rarely get killed by a group of goldthread apostles or big groups of dangerous enemies if I got a little bit complacent, or even clapped by abberoth if I didn’t play ball with the bosses mechanics, hence being able to defeat him a few times in the process as a result in following the mechanics since knowing is half the battle. & I am very quick to pick up on boss fight mechanics over time.
now enter season 3 with the enemy “balance changes”: now suddenly even stray attacks one would normally survive are now instantly just killing my druid from out of the blue despite having 60% endurance (with 1700+ endurance threshold as I use it as a primary form of defense) high resistances above 70%, 1-2 red rings of atlaria, less DoT damage taken via inheritance of the erased necklace & dedication of an erased primalist, damage reduction from ursine strength & cornered beast, 10000+ armor, 100% reduced bonus damage taken from critical strikes, etc.
here is my current live build for season 3 right now, still needs work, feel free to roast it for all I know: https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/BaePyzaB
I kid you not, more attacks from the shades of orobyss (especially the fire based one) are one-shotting even moderately built travelers at high levels of corruption & I can already imagine how near impossible it is already going to be for me to deal with abberoth, & forget me trying to do threshold of eternity, If I thought I was ever going to be able to do it now, forget about it. early to mid-level players just practically got gatekept out of doing high corruption monoliths as the “balance changes” to enemies, was really & indirectly just a nerf to almost every viable defensive build, which in turn, ended up invalidating a fair chunk of already existing defensive options within last epoch essentially making the game less fun not just for me, but possibly for others wanting to give it a fair go.
Am I missing anything?
I do. I take people by their word. If what EHG devs say aren’t the facts something is completely wrong. We can simply agree to disagree because you start to sound like a broken record, for a lack of a better word, defending the void blance is in LE.
Don’t sweat I was oneshot by a random champion in normal monos while my defences were fine. Now I scrambled my whole gear with some updates and have no more defence left or hp/ward to write home about while taking the node that caps these stats at half and I run through the game with no more oneshots.
On the other hand I play a Sentinel and everything that gave me a “hard” time leveling my Lich is a non issue on the Sentinel. Balancing is just a mess 
.
Gotta say, game is pretty much cooked. This game used to be fun, where you could try interesting build and gear combos, meme builds, ect and have alot of fun. Now its just a slog, a second difficulty increase and purchase by Krafton only leads me to believe that this game will go F2p and things like stash tabs are gonna get monetized.
The entire campaign is just a slog now, even with a decent build, and fighting champs, nem during campaign is a miserable experience. After 900 hours, if they dont decide to reverse course this is the end for me.