For the record, I play Masochist mode, because I find standard far too forgiving and non-engaging, but I genuinely want to know what is expected of me with this patch in situations like which spawned this post.
With capped resists, Lagon monolith boss’s claws rarely did more than half my health last patch, and I had less health. He’s now one shotting 29%(upwards of almost 50% depending on procs) armor and 75 physical resist with 1576 health. I think I fought him last patch with more mods active, too. This run around it was only 7% damage/health from corruption. And the claws are one shotting. Those are very difficult to avoid without a move skill and cooldowns can be rough to deal with especially during second phase with the waves. Bad luck my dodge and glancing blow didn’t trigger, sure (46% prior to various procs, and 53% prior to various procs respectively both approaching 70 with procs) but god damn.
I also was in Ending the Storm mono and got one shot from full by a shield charge from a chapter 9 unique, same stats. There was definitely an overtuning here. I can’t do level 90 monoliths now, either. Everything got way over tuned. My damage is worse, my survivability is worse, and I can’t increase it without 10 hours grind for barely a boost. Every new mob has too much health and damage on top of it compared to any other mobs. This is turning into PoE’s frustrating end game at this rate of impossible to avoid relentless enemy spam where the only hope is instant screen clear.
I’ve been thinking maso is just a bit too much more enemy damage/health and reduced player damage for a while now, but once kitted out it has felt pretty solid with every class I’ve leveled with it and things mostly made sense outside of edge cases. As long as I’m capping resists and have enough layered defenses and sustain, maso feels like the “true” Last Epoch experience. Now? I’d rather not have to re-level through standard just to play end game. If the current state is considered a balanced state, then Maso needs a look at because now we’re in dangerously near unplayable territory. I don’t even want to know what empowered monos feel like.
I don’t understand your complaint. The game was never intended to be balanced around maso. In fact, devs have said they aren’t decided if they are keeping it for release.
If you think maso is too much now, and standard may in fact be “correctly balanced” for engagement, what is wrong with playing standard?
You can convert your character to a non-masochist one so you wouldn’t have to re-level it to get to monoliths. If you go to settings, the last tab allows you to (permanently) change the character back to standard.
But yeah, I’m with Jerle, I don’t see them rebalancing things so people don’t feel quite so… brutalised, in masochist mode. That’s the entire point behind it. The clue is kinda in the name.
I hope they keep Maso. Once they feel Standard is at a good level of balance, I hope they find a good point of increased enemy damage et al to make things feel risky and require more skill and strategy. Unfortunately, the recent changes have made Maso feel like a chore rather than a challenge. One of the reasons I keep losing interest in PoE (other than the fact solo self found requires hundreds of hours of grinding per league if you want to play more than one build because of how little deterministic gearing there is) is there’s an eventual wall that requires absolute perfect rolls to eke out the defenses necessary to buffer you against some of the BS deaths you run into, especially red maps. I’d actually love it if PoE introduced something similar, or at least tweak the end game so casual players can reliably gear red maps and dedicated players can push limits.
It’s pretty clear, at least, they’re trying to get things more challenging. Chapter 9 concerns me with how horde like the beefy enemies are. I don’t want to see this game become a DPS race where chasing clear speed is the only viable playstyle like PoE. Balance problems for standard are felt many times over more in masochist. Prior to this patch, I could always put it down to inadequate stats if I had trouble, and with some more defenses the content become doable. There’s not a whole lot I can min-max on my most kitted out character without burning 100s of shards and items for a smidge more dodge, armor, and health or spending hours grinding for the perfect purples. There’s an upper limit, but enemies with this buff only get stronger.
I’ll level my masochist characters casually and spend more time on my one standard for a while, then. Let’s hope for smoother balance in the future.
