[Feedback] Giga-Nerf Energy Shield in Patch 0.4.0

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Oinkaments#6390 เขียน:

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Legioona#1076 เขียน:

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Oinkaments#6390 เขียน:

No it is not.

A high pick/usage rate for ES can reflect accessibility, passive-tree and item synergies, or hybrid playstyles, not automatic overpoweredness. The thread itself notes many people pick ES in hybrid setups, which skews "usage" numbers. You can’t treat raw representation as a full diagnosis.

So if 100% of players would use ES, you would not see it either as a balance problem? Instead it would reflect accessibility, passive-tree and item synergies, or hybrid playstyles?

If literally 100% of players converged on ES, then yes, that would be a balance problem.

Good - now the question is only what % is sufficient so that balancing is needed, and what should be done about it.

Personally I feel 50%+ is already enough for balancing, and balancing can be done via nerfs or buffs, and it's always quite a delicate process.

But, GGG does not publish the numbers, so we don't really know what % of players use ES -> if balancing is needed or not.

Hmm not sure I agree...Maybe a small nerf... but not a giga nerf.


I have both a ES Spark bloodmage and a Fire Titan so I can make a good comparison. With at least 3 times the ES I kind of feel as safe as with 3 times less HP with 80% armour 70% armour for elemental damage.

You need way more ES than HP with good armour to be safer so it's feels okay to me...

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hypochrist#0488 เขียน:

With at least 3 times the ES I kind of feel as safe as with 3 times less HP with 80% armour 70% armour for elemental damage.

You need way more ES than HP with good armour to be safer so it's feels okay to me...

That's fine - yet 3k hp is pretty solid already but having 10k ES is just trivial. Morealso with the ES, you'd be running the infamous chaos and bleed immunity (and if you really like corrupted blood which is nearby). CI allows to forgo all HP affixes and do whatever you please with chaos, incl keeping it negative.

With armor you need the affixes for armor itself and then another to affect the elemental damage... and then getting chaos resistance. (you can consider lack of chaos resistance as 75%+ rarity or so)

Armor and resistances don't do anything vs the abyss aura guys, either.

Wouldn't 3k+ life plus 75% phys/ele damage mitigation with armor equate to 12k EHP, making it similar in effectiveness to 10k+ ES? Not only do you get similar EHP, but life also benefits from things like leech and life flasks. If ES gets very low, you need to disengage from a fight long enough for recharge to kick in or find a way to fit in the spirit ability to immediately start recharging.

That means a sufficiently tanky life and armor build can safely dive into almost every mob pack and not have to worry.

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Pizzarugi#6258 เขียน:

Wouldn't 3k+ life plus 75% phys/ele damage mitigation with armor equate to 12k EHP, making it similar in effectiveness to 10k+ ES?

But you DO have elemental damage reduction with energy shield anyways (and again immunity to chaos which cannot be understated) - the passive tree on the caster side has access to not-so-shabby resistance nodes too. It's really only the physical =hits= that have major benefits from stacked armor.

There is convalescence as well for ES (ofc still doesn't work vs abyss shade ones, similar to flask, life regen, leech but it's way more). As for leech the "furtive wraps" (converts life leech to ES leech) are a popular choice too.

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Pizzarugi#6258 เขียน:

Wouldn't 3k+ life plus 75% phys/ele damage mitigation with armor equate to 12k EHP, making it similar in effectiveness to 10k+ ES? Not only do you get similar EHP, but life also benefits from things like leech and life flasks. If ES gets very low, you need to disengage from a fight long enough for recharge to kick in or find a way to fit in the spirit ability to immediately start recharging.

That means a sufficiently tanky life and armor build can safely dive into almost every mob pack and not have to worry.

So 3k life plus all of those you added is a pretty decent build. Especially for someone not using a shield or a warrior.

Then its a giga build (any merc build). Merc builds usually cap off at 3k life in min/max territory.


10k es is a pretty, bad ES build. Not sure why anyone would build 10k es and call it a day.

Its basically doing what I already said, taking all damage nodes, and then question mark pinging why all their ES is gone.

One of these builds is pretty complete/know what they are doing.
The other is incomplete/have no idea how to build.

Comparing the two is not reasonable.

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bestsss#7863 เขียน:

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Pizzarugi#6258 เขียน:

Wouldn't 3k+ life plus 75% phys/ele damage mitigation with armor equate to 12k EHP, making it similar in effectiveness to 10k+ ES?

But you DO have elemental damage reduction with energy shield anyways (and again immunity to chaos which cannot be understated) - the passive tree on the caster side has access to not-so-shabby resistance nodes too. It's really only the physical =hits= that have major benefits from stacked armor.

There is convalescence as well for ES (ofc still doesn't work vs abyss shade ones, similar to flask, life regen, leech but it's way more). As for leech the "furtive wraps" (converts life leech to ES leech) are a popular choice too.

Can you link where it's explained that ES has innate elemental damage reduction? I did a google search and couldn't find anything about this. If you're talking elemental resistances, this also applies to armor as well.

Also, immunity to chaos implies everyone can path towards CI which isn't the case, plus it dismisses the fact some ES builds run on low-life setups which that node would prevent from working.

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Mashgesture#2912 เขียน:

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Pizzarugi#6258 เขียน:

Wouldn't 3k+ life plus 75% phys/ele damage mitigation with armor equate to 12k EHP, making it similar in effectiveness to 10k+ ES? Not only do you get similar EHP, but life also benefits from things like leech and life flasks. If ES gets very low, you need to disengage from a fight long enough for recharge to kick in or find a way to fit in the spirit ability to immediately start recharging.

That means a sufficiently tanky life and armor build can safely dive into almost every mob pack and not have to worry.

So 3k life plus all of those you added is a pretty decent build. Especially for someone not using a shield or a warrior.

Then its a giga build (any merc build). Merc builds usually cap off at 3k life in min/max territory.


10k es is a pretty, bad ES build. Not sure why anyone would build 10k es and call it a day.

Its basically doing what I already said, taking all damage nodes, and then question mark pinging why all their ES is gone.

One of these builds is pretty complete/know what they are doing.
The other is incomplete/have no idea how to build.

Comparing the two is not reasonable.

I don't know, 10k+ ES plus lich ascendancy and Atziri's Disdain makes me feel plenty tanky since 25%+ of the damage I take is rendered null and void. I still need to disengage from some fights now and then if the density is too high in order to recover, but I'm not getting nuked either.

Granted if I had neither lich or the unique helmet, 10k ES on its own doesn't mean much especially because of how bleed and poison works.

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Pizzarugi#6258 เขียน:

Can you link where it's explained that ES has innate elemental damage reduction? I did a google search and couldn't find anything about this. If you're talking elemental resistances, this also applies to armor as well.

Also, immunity to chaos implies everyone can path towards CI which isn't the case, plus it dismisses the fact some ES builds run on low-life setups which that node would prevent from working.

Damage mitigation [0]:
Energy shield protects life by being depleted first before taking damage to life. The damage inflicted on Energy Shield is calculated after all damage mitigation factors, such as physical or elemental resistances, have been taken into account.
Damage from Bleeding and Poison bypass energy shield, damaging life directly. Certain items may also cause damage to bypass energy shield.


Yes, of course the same resistances do apply to life/armor but they do apply. Chaos damage is multiplied by two vs ES, so the CI is very common with pure ES builds (10k ES+), pretty much a mistake not to take it. Again, that frees all HP and chaos affixes.

Evasion hybrids: 2k hp/3k5 es won't take it, of course. But since we are comparing life to ES, to pure ES builds, CI is mostly a given (except infernalist).


[0]: https://www.poe2wiki.net/wiki/Energy_Shield

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bestsss#7863 เขียน:

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Pizzarugi#6258 เขียน:

Can you link where it's explained that ES has innate elemental damage reduction? I did a google search and couldn't find anything about this. If you're talking elemental resistances, this also applies to armor as well.

Also, immunity to chaos implies everyone can path towards CI which isn't the case, plus it dismisses the fact some ES builds run on low-life setups which that node would prevent from working.

Damage mitigation [0]:
Energy shield protects life by being depleted first before taking damage to life. The damage inflicted on Energy Shield is calculated after all damage mitigation factors, such as physical or elemental resistances, have been taken into account.
Damage from Bleeding and Poison bypass energy shield, damaging life directly. Certain items may also cause damage to bypass energy shield.


Yes, of course the same resistances do apply to life/armor but they do apply. Chaos damage is multiplied by two vs ES, so the CI is very common with pure ES builds (10k ES+), pretty much a mistake not to take it. Again, that frees all HP and chaos affixes.

Evasion hybrids: 2k hp/3k5 es won't take it, of course. But since we are comparing life to ES, to pure ES builds, CI is mostly a given (except infernalist).


[0]: https://www.poe2wiki.net/wiki/Energy_Shield

Then like I said, it's not really a valid argument to use against ES as resistances also apply to armor.

Life with armor:
3000 / 0.25 (elemental damage reduction from armor) = 12000 EHP
12000 / 0.25 (resistances) = 48000 EHP

ES:
10000 / 0.25 (resistances) = 40000 EHP

I'm terrible at math, plus I can never be too sure when it comes to how PoE 2 does calculations compared to some other games, but 3k life and high armor beats 10k ES the way I understand it.

And again, you're ignoring that low life builds exist for ES. You can't do low life if your HP is reduced to 1, so CI is not always a given.

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Pizzarugi#6258 เขียน:

I don't know, 10k+ ES plus lich ascendancy and Atziri's Disdain makes me feel plenty tanky since 25%+ of the damage I take is rendered null and void. I still need to disengage from some fights now and then if the density is too high in order to recover, but I'm not getting nuked either.

Granted if I had neither lich or the unique helmet, 10k ES on its own doesn't mean much especially because of how bleed and poison works.

If you have 10k es on a pure ES build, your ES is just flat out low.

I guarentee if you link your build it will be exactly what I am saying. Avoiding ES nodes and/or poor gear.


I have a hybrid build and this is my ES, with a staff.



Just a non modded focus would bring me to 10.6k




This is all with a single ES piece of gear on (helmet because of the node from the tree) and the rest being armour/ES.