Does Vaal Pact need a change?

I'm really torn on how I feel about this. I understand that GGG has plans to adjust it so it doesn't work with ES anymore, but is it still overpowered on life builds?

It seems like it's another one of those keystones which allows any build with at least 5-6k to face tank everything up to Shaper. Should facetanking really be allowed for boss fights of that tier? Maybe Jugg with 8-9k life but not every build running VP.

However, it seems like defeating some bosses without VP would be nearly impossible for some melee builds. I think it was the Terrace boss that's a prime example, where if you take a break from inflicting damage on it, it'll just start devouring corpses and regen a huge chunk of his life. Without VP, this would be VERY tough for a melee build because they'd need to back off if their leech isn't applying quick enough or if their life regen isn't high enough.

Meta aside, what is your opinion on VP? I want YOUR opinion, not Mathil's opinion that you're voicing because it's cool.

I think the general problem here is that too many builds are significantly better than average. That means they have to introduce content that the average build hasn't got a chance with.

The other side of that coin is that if they make all the builds balanced there is no longer any sense of accomplishment when you play. You feel you just were handed a victory.

So, there's no solution to the problem. That's ok. Most problems don't have solutions. Younger students are given this belief that all problems can be solved, and the answer is usually c. In the real world it's not like that at all.

Is there a problem with VP? Yep. It replaces the role of life gain on hit and does a better job of it... making life gain on hit "worthless". The whole leech system needs reworking. Life gain needs its place. Leech needs its place. They had a good start when they did the "leech nerf", but really should have looked at VP at that time.

Can be very good focused on specific bosses (probably hardest ones).. always that you have an insane damage and enough defensive tools that prevent you getting 1shot'd. But having non life regen limits you in certain way (uber lab) just an example i can imagine.

Leech, even if not instant, is always going to be very powerful in games were you deal way more damage than you have life. It allows you to increase survivability by stacking more damage and attack speed. So if you improve your defences, you only improve your defences. If you improve your damage output, with leech you also improve your defences.

Bear in mind, the game (or at least the end game) seems to be designed around fast clear speed; the more damage you have and the faster you are, the better. Examples? Breach timers, shaper fight (with the arena becoming unmanageable overtime). Even some map bosses have pretty nasty abilities that can screw you over... unless you destroy the boss in seconds, at which point it doesn't matter anymore.

Removing VP won't solve anything, since the root of the problem will remain. If VP is gone, items like atziri acuity will become even more op, plus you will still have slayers with their almost instant leech and berserkers with their overall high leech. If you remove all sources of instant leech and nerf slayer and berserker, people will switch to super regen builds or high block, and continue to facetank bosses. Meanwhile, totem/projectile/trap players would be just laughing at all this while trivializing most of the game's content, since they don't need to facetank anything.

For life VP works just fine - for the typical player 5k is doing good. Only the deep pocket farmers can easily afford pieces that put them above 6k.

The problem with CI and, again, with deep pockets was that the numbers it could reach simply got absolutely silly. And since leach was based off of total EHP and damage done VP/GR allowed them to recoup more in a single second than a life based player had in total.

Honestly they didn't really have to take ES away from VP... just have CI do to ES what Acrobatics did to armor - reduce it considerably. Yes, top tier ES would still be above 10k, but the average joe would be limited to about 8. Still better leach than life builds but not so insane.

IMO, CI would simply fade into memory if they put more methods of chaos mitigation/resistance in the game.

Yes, as above poster mentions VP works fine for life. It has a distinct opportunity cost (its far away from the highest HP area, life based that take it also have lots of regen available that they lose access too)

for ES though its just too close and getting lots of regen isn't really feasible outside of specific builds so it doesn't have a drawback other than the X points of travel. Whats more in games where leech values are enormous the only threats become mechanics that one shot you, which is exactly what ES is best at. It just synergizes too well with ES.

I'm actually surprised they didn't just do their VP/GR changes as the only changes to ES in isolation first as its very rare to see ES not coupled with both (or zealots oath).

Now that I consider it...

Zealot's Oath should be moved to VP's current location and VP should be moved over toward the left side - or to where Elemental Equilibrium is currently.

That way Oath would apply in an area where it needs to be - since it relates solely to ES. Though, honestly, why anyone would go Oath is questionable. Since all of the regen nodes are in the middle of the life area getting enough ES to make it useful is a pointless exercise.

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UglyStru a écrit :

Meta aside, what is your opinion on VP?

I could go either way on this. Certainly VP will still allow you to recover any amount of damage instantly, up to the size of your lifepool. Yeah, that could be a bit too powerful.

Now, at least since life pools have a lower ceiling, you're going to have to invest at least a little bit in defense. Ok, step in the right direction.

I'm not sure. Even though I rarely pick up VP on life builds, I hate to see GGG nerf something so severely that it never gets used. (Arrow Dancing)

My problem is "layered defense" never work. No matter how much armor/ evade you have, without a huge ehp pool, you will get 1-hit from most of the end game bosses. So people have to rely on huge dmg and instant leech cope with 10k es or 7k life on average to reach the end.

Now, I don't want GGG to introduce "damage reduction" stuff like D3, it even break the game further.

That said, GGG have to fix the current state of defense wise stat before they attempt to nerf VP, otherwise, regen build is the way to go =/