Right now it’s relatively easy. You have builds that run well without LL items that have high health and can obtain high ward. You have ward builds that are strong because you can still get Xtimes more Ward then HP with ease. Then you have LL builds with the items used that give you at least twice your hp without any ward retention. If you have a good plan for a ward builds it’s simply X times stronger then non ward builds and everyone who isn’t getting that lives in Deluluvill population you.
Life builds can get stuff done as well but they need to be minmaxed far more then slapping on 3-4 items and call it a day.
I don’t know if this is actually the perfect balance, but I will say, as a ward player who uses non-broken ward mechanics, I find a balance between ward, health, and mitigation, combined with a little player skill, to be the most satisfying way to play the game. I also think it’s a lot closer to how the game was meant to be played, and how it should be balanced.
This is also why I don’t want to see ward nerfed into the ground when it’s build/skill interactions that need to be addressed.
This is actually factored in, as is the 9% more damage taken from dual-wielding AND 20% less damage taken while moving, since this build looks like it barely ever stands still. If I take this out, I would have to remove “close to an enemy for the druid, too”. It’s kind of a best-case scenario I went with.
But builds that actually focus on ward are a solid mechanical alternative. 1k life, 4k ward sounds reasonable for some classes. 1k health + 20k ward… well… that feels like it’s too much.
I’m not that big of a fan of the low-life ward mechanic. The asymmetric design of that unique acolyte armour could help to fix the problem. You simply get much less % missing health as ward/s per item, so it doesn’t grow to 3-4 times your considerable health-pool.
The problem that most of you aren’t grasping is that no game can survive any class/builds being meta to the point that it affects leaderboards/online posts about it. It happened with Diablo 4, it happened with Lost Ark, it happens with every single game like this with a meta. The drop-off for Diablo 4 after launch because of the absurdity of OP’ness of the Barbarians and Druids was significant. Their inability to keep things balanced only added to the dwindling numbers.
TL;DR: Nobody but sweats want games with metas. Nobody wants to feel inferior. Nobody wants to have their end game be 300-500 while Ward builds’ end games are 1000+. If you don’t see the problem, you’re part of it.
Learn to play. Ward isn’t even that great. I actually switched from a Ward based sorcerer build to an endurance and damage to mana based build…and it’s even tankier with better survivability.
The whole point of Last Epoch is learning about the synergies of various classes, skills, affixes and uniques to empower yourself.
Pre-release and for most of beta Life was king and ward was “meh” at best. What you are seeing are the ward buffs that they needed but they came in to strong. Balance is a process not a quick fix.
I am glad ward is viable now as it was struggling before, but it definitely needs an adjustment. Just wait until next season and I’m sure life will be king again.
So, you aren’t talking about ward then you are talking about the bug in Profane veil which is confirmed to be fixed next season (the other two ward stacking bugs were fixed).
Really? Path of Exile, Diablo 4, and Last Epoch all have the stance that they want to avoid making balance changes during a season. Profane veil is actually not a bug it’s an accident. Instead of %4 its coded as %40. The skill is working as programmed by the developers and they don’t want to penalize builds for their mistake.
Perhaps adjustments regarding philosophy fit into this stance. But not from crucial bugs.
League of Legends launched the new season on January 9th.
On the 11th there was already a patch correcting several changes, not only balancing but also bugs.
This is how the most played game behaves.
Diablo 4, which is in decline, made extremely drastic changes and was scared by the reception, so they don’t intend to nerf it during the seasons.
The drastic change was a mistake.
The decision not to change during a season is another mistake, which is why the game is in decline.
Things don’t work like 8 or 80.
Either everything changes or nothing changes.
You are comparing a competitive MOBA that has an e-sport scene to a non-competitive ARPG that just released. Thats really all I have to say about that Bubba.
1- The game has a ladderboard, so it is competitive
2- Nerfs and buffs are premised on changing the competitiveness between X and Y
3- A car and a motorcycle are not the same thing, they are different, but they both need fuel.
Yes, ARPG is not the same genre as LoL, but both need to keep their players. A game more balanced objectively retain more players than a less balanced game.
Lol tooks 2 days to fix unbalance.
Last Epoch needs a cycle to change a game breaking bug.
If you can’t accept that for 3 months something may be overpowered, I would suggest you play LoL then. Even though when new champions are released, they are often overpowered and banned from official tournaments.
Outshines in survivability maybe. But that is only one facet of a character. In Ladder (or HC) you must NOT die, so survivability trumps everything else. In non-Ladder (Monos) death is a 10 second inconvenience and a minor reward loss, nothing more. Survivability is not so important really. Clearing the echo fast and bossing efficiently and quickly is all that matters. Dedicating equip choices and affix slots to survivability stuff is inefficient if being killed occasionally doesn’t matter one bit. And that includes ward. Consider just how bad a 0LP Exsanguinous is as a chest item; other than its ward gen affix, it’s pure garbage compared to what you could be wearing) .
So to say a ward version strictly outshine a non-ward version for every build is to simply not understand the game and the different motivation of the playerbase and the activities they engage in or care about.
He didn’t say every build, he said most builds. I’m sure you putting words in his/her mouth was a mistake that you will correct. Also, I haven’t ever created a glass cannon build in this game that I didn’t find torture to play, can you point me to one? I probably don’t have the reflexes to pilot it, but I’m curious.
Disclaimer; I have no dog in this hunt. I’ll play what makes the most sense to me for a given build I’m making. Currently it’s easier for the builds I’m interested in to spec/gear for ward to hit the ‘is survivable enough’ box. Imo, whether that is a problem or not is for EHG to decide. If they do anything, I’ll adjust. If they don’t, I’ll have a lot of ward builds.
