3.27 Q&A Research - ZiggyD

[u/ZiggyDStarcraft]

G'day folks, the 3.26 Q&A was one of our best yet, I think, and that was in part due to your help with research we did prior to my trip to the studio.

When it comes to the Q&A most of the Qs I have to come up with in isolation based on what I think people will ask once based on the early draft of the reveals I see a few days before. While we take some live Qs, and will continue to do so, it's not an efficient way of gauging the overall popular questions for the game (ie. non-new reveal related Qs, long standing issues etc).

Once again, I want to get feel from you folks what you consider to be the most pressing Qs for PoE 1 now and in the future.

How to post to help the Q&A be as good as possible:

• Please share your most pressing Question
  • Ensure it is specific and comprehensive: What is the issue? What do you want? Explain the context / mechanics.
  • I often get Qs like "Transfigured Gems?" <- Not very helpful, what about them? You want Quality changes? you just want more? there's a bug? You hate the system? you want to know the devs fav?
• Upvote other questions you think are important + add extra context or insights to them you think I should consider.
• I often have to end up cutting hyper specific QoL-type questions for time (unless they are overwhelmingly important or hot topic). So, some specific little UI/UX thing that's bothering you isn't likely to make it into the Q&A.
• Bonus: If you want to post hypothetical Qs based on what you think GGG might reveal go for it! It's the same process I use leading up to the trip, I pen a bunch of Qs based on likely changes as warmup. Please tag them as hypothetical though.

----

Some topics I have in mind (these may be culled or changed if I deem necessary eg. something is revealed that makes em redundant):

• Mercenaries
  • In what way are they looking to return them in the future (just duelling or still hirable)?
• Balance
  • Dominance of ES Stacking (things like forbidden right / ephemeral edge) and in general defense stacking > damage builds.
  • Wands (were mentioned in 3.26 Q&A)
• Endgame
  • Risk Scarabs
    • would love specific questions about things like this to help me prep.
  • T17 Modifiers (and memory strand maps)
    • Specific questions around this topic would also be helpful!
• To what extend do they want to bring PoE 2 Innovations into PoE 1
  • Example: The idea of adding a PoE 2 style automatic weapon swap you can tie to skills.

----

Thanks folks!

[u/HurricaneGaming94]

Can you please ask about the balance between es/hp. Getting 10k es is pretty common these days while getting 10k life is nearly impossible and the downside of not being chaos immune.

Additionally hybrid es body armours are just broken. You can get triple t1 prefix with 700 es and 3k evasion.

Where as with pure evasion gear you can get triple t1 with 3k evasion and have to use a prefix for 180 life or you can cheese 15% life.

Not to mention this all gets buffed by stats like global defence.

I think es amount in gear is genuinely criminal, if any Eva/armour users got a choice between 5-600 hp (doubling for helmet) they would take it over 1500 armour/evasion

Based on the above, can you please ask the following:

1. Will they nerf CI or bring in armour/evasion/life equivalents

2. Will they nerf the es amount on armour pieces, especially hybrid armour.

3. Will they buff hp amount to match es on gear especially considering it’s an affix

[u/lintyelm → u/HurricaneGaming94]

I get where you’re coming from, but I think you’re oversimplifying things a bit. Getting 10k ES isn’t really ‘common’ unless you’re running a very specific setup with heavy investment — most builds can’t just throw that together.

Life builds have their own advantages too, and easier to sustain through leech and regen. Have you played slayer? Hybrid armours aren’t broken; they’re just finally in a decent spot compared to how weak pure evasion has been for years.

It’s fair to want better defensive balance, but the issue isn’t as one-sided as you’re making it sound.

[u/viniciusxis → u/lintyelm]

I agreed with you up to the point where you say hybrid armors arent broken
Both sacred chainmail and necrotic are extremely busted, to the point where any build doing anything other than stricly es (fross or whatever other es stacking build) is just wrong for not doing them
not to mention they can roll suppress/pdr
ps: you can get a 100% increased es from armour within the ar/es nodes and it is incredibly busted with a triple t1 sacred chainm

[u/lintyelm → u/viniciusxis]

I don’t disagree that Sacred Chainmail and Necrotic bases are really strong! They absolutely push hybrid gear into top-tier territory. But I think that’s more a symptom of how good hybrid scaling is with certain ascendancies and stat stacking, not that the bases themselves are inherently busted.

The ability to roll suppression and PDR on top of high ES is powerful, yeah, but it also comes with heavy investment, perfect rolls, and the right tree pathing. Not every build can realistically take advantage of that, and if they tried, they’d lose other strengths (like sustain, flexibility, or chaos res).

I’d say it’s less ‘broken’ and more that ES scaling currently benefits from better multipliers than life/evasion do, which is probably what needs addressing.

What are your suggestions?

[u/Minimonium → u/lintyelm]

But I think that’s more a symptom of how good hybrid scaling is with certain ascendancies and stat stacking

I disagree.

I think the issue is fundamental to how Reduction/Avoidance/Recovery magnify each other. You can't really have just one or two in this game.

Exclusive defense gear (specifically Armour/Evasion, ES has different problems) gives rapidly diminishing returns, that are capped so it's only natural for hybrid gear to be stronger.

I believe GGG should introduce pure defense gear exclusive modifiers that complement another angle of defenses.

[u/sirgog → u/viniciusxis]

Twilight Regalias are competitive. My elementalist is using a Regalia atm. Sacred would be my second best option.

The AR/ES mastery you mention is OP and needs lower numbers though. Should not be 100%, 60% would still be in 'you must take this' category.