PoE 3.4-Character and Skill Balance

In the last news we introduced about the poe3.4-delve skill tree, you can see that GGG has made a lot of improvements in the new league. More than that, many changes to be excavated are coming to us, I will be as of the promised one by one to explain the contents of the new league of those exciting.

Character Balance

• PoE now support truly instant skills that can be cast at any time. For now, detonate mines, all of the auras, heralds, self-targeting skills like Righteous Fire, Molten Shell and others have been modified to cast instantaneously. In addition, if you have the appropriate passive skill, warcries will now be truly instant (rather than just taking zero time). Chance to Block and Chance to Block Spells have been reworked. Previously there were several different modifiers that applied in different ways but achieved the same thing. For example, Stone of Lazhwar allows a portion of your block chance to apply to spells, while Great Old One's Ward has a discreet chance to block spells. Some sources provided block chance that did not require that you have a shield equipped, while others required that you have some form of block chance for them to apply.     

• Now, there is simply Chance to Block Attack Damage and Chance to Block Spell Damage. Sources that previously caused some portion of your block chance to apply to spells now grant Chance to Block Spell Damage at a specific value (check the Item Balance section below) and do not require other sources of block. The exception to this is the Gladiator Ascendancy passive Versatile Combatant, which still sets your Chance to Block Spell Damage to be the same as your Chance to Block Attack Damage.
• Secondary damage (such as the explosive part of Explosive Arrow) can now be blocked, dodged, evaded, and spellblocked depending on its source.
• Sources of "Avoid Interruption from Stuns while Casting" no longer affect actions that are not considered casting, such as throwing a trap, laying a mine, or placing a totem.
• Repeatedly weapon-swapping is now limited to once every 250ms.
• Base Trap Throwing Time has been raised to 0.6 seconds (from 0.5).

Skill Balance

• The auto-targeting done by single-target melee attacks such as Heavy Strike or Molten Strike (ie. any attack that requires "namelocking") now targets enemies within a wider area, based on the total range of your attack. The width of this targeting area grows by 1 unit per 3 units of melee range. This should make it much easier to target enemies with these skills.
• The following melee skills now gain additional melee weapon range every 7 levels, up to +2 at level 20 (and +3 at level 21): Dual Strike, Elemental Hit, Frenzy, Glacial Hammer, Heavy Strike, Molten Strike, Puncture, Riposte, Static Strike, Viper Strike, Wild Strike, Vigilant Strike, Ancestral Protector, Dominating Blow.
• The following skills are now instant by default and can therefore be used while moving: Blood Rage, Righteous Fire, Molten Shell, Haste, Vitality, Discipline, Grace, Determination, Anger, Hatred, Wrath, Clarity, Envy, Arctic Armour, Purity of Fire, Purity of Ice, Purity of Lightning, Purity of Elements, Convocation, Herald of Ash, Herald of Ice, Herald of Thunder, Phase Run, Aspect of the Cat, Aspect of the Avian, Aspect of the Spider and Aspect of the Crab.
• All instant skills now have some sort of cooldown (typically 1 second or less).
• Instant skills cannot be supported by Spell Echo and will not be cast a second time by similar effects (such as from the Echoing Shrine).
• Vaal Soul Gain Prevention time is now modified by modifiers to skill duration and buff duration if those modifiers in some way affect the associated skill. For example, reducing the duration of Vaal Earthquake will also reduce the Vaal Soul Gain Prevention time, while increasing the duration of Vaal Haste will increase the Vaal Soul Gain Prevention time.
• Minions no longer wander around as much as they used to while you're idle.

In addition to making changes to existing skills, GGG adds some new skills to delve.

Dominating Blow

• Now when you hit an enemy with Dominating Blow, you will apply a debuff for a short duration. If a non-unique enemy dies while affected by the debuff, its corpse will be consumed, and a Sentinel of Dominance minion with the same rarity and mods will be summoned.
• You may have up to 9 Normal-rarity, 3 Magic-rarity, and 1 Rare-rarity Sentinels of Dominance.
• Attacks against Unique enemies have a 10% chance to summon a Normal-rarity Sentinel of Dominance.
• Deals 140% of base damage at gem level 1, up to 172% at gem level 20.
• Base debuff duration is 1 second and base minion duration is 20 seconds at all gem levels.

Static Strike

• Now when you hit an enemy with Static Strike, you will gain a buff which causes you to frequently hit nearby enemies with beams, dealing attack damage. The beams deal more damage while you are moving than while you are stationary. The buff can stack up to three times, increasing the frequency with which the beams strike.
• Deals 100% of base damage at gem level 1, up to 146% at gem level 20.
• Beams deal 60% less damage while stationary, and 40% less while moving. This penalty drops slightly as the gem levels.
• Beams can hit up to 4 targets at gem level 1, and up to 6 at gem level 20.
• The base buff duration is 4 seconds, and each stack increases the beam's striking frequency (which is every 0.4 seconds) by 10%.

Caustic Arrow

• Now deals damage in an area around the targeted location, before leaving a lingering patch of Caustic Ground which deals Chaos damage over time. As Caustic Ground is a ground type (akin to Burning Ground) it will not affect flying monsters such as Raging Spirits.
• Now has a base duration of 2 seconds at all levels.
• 60% of Physical Damage is now converted to Chaos Damage (previously, Caustic Arrow added extra Chaos damage based on Physical damage).
• Now deals 7 base Chaos damage per second at gem level 1, up to 1714.8 base Chaos damage per second at gem level 20.

Physical Projectile Attack/Vicious Projectiles

• Physical Projectile Attack has been renamed Vicious Projectiles.
• In addition to 30% more Physical projectile attack damage and 10% less Projectile attack speed, It now causes supported skills to deal 30% more Chaos damage over time and 30% more Physical damage over time (as opposed to more damage with Bleeding and Poison specifically) at gem level 1.

Withering Touch

• Added a new Dexterity Support Gem - Withering Touch: Supported skills gain a portion of their Physical damage as extra Chaos damage, have a chance to inflict Withered on hit. Withered lasts 2 seconds, and is the same as the debuff applied by the skill "Wither".

These new changes will help player better explore Delve and make the player experience a different adventure than before. If you want to get a good start in the delve early, try the build described here: Reclamation Build for Delve -- Arc With Spell Totem Support
With this build, player can easier to get poe currency and quick upgrades.

Other Skills

Rain of Arrows
Now includes the "Projectile" tag on the skill gem.

Fire Nova Mine

Base damage increased by 25% at all gem levels.

Fire Trap
Base damage from the initial explosion increased by 40%, and the base damage over time increased by 20% at all gem levels.

Lightning Trap
Base damage increased by 40% at all gem levels.

Ice Trap
Base damage increased by 40% at all gem levels.

Explosive Trap
Base damage increased by 40% at gem levels 4 and up. At gem levels 1 to 4, the damage has been increased, slightly more at each level up to level 4.

Frost Bomb
Now reduces Energy Shield Regeneration Rate and Recovery Rate, not just Life Regeneration Rate.

Orb of Storms
Can now be cast by mines, traps, totems, and can be triggered.

Molten Shell
Mana cost increased to 12 at gem level 1 (up from 8) up to 28 at gem level 20 (same as previously).

Earthquake and Vaal Earthquake
The aftershock now deals 70% (up from 50%) more damage with hits and ailments (as opposed to every form of damage) at all gem levels.

Vaal Righteous Fire
Now sacrifices the amount of Life and Energy Shield from Energy Shield before Life. In other words, low-life builds should not have the skill disable on use as long as they have enough Energy Shield to cover both the Life and Energy Shield costs.

Vaal Molten Shell
Now has a Soul Gain Prevention duration of 7 seconds (up from 5).

Vaal Clarity
Now has a Soul Gain Prevention duration of 14 seconds (up from 12).

Shield Charge

• Now has three distinct sections -- the start of the charge, the movement part of the charge, and the attack at the end of the charge. Your weapon's base attack time now affects the start and end, and movement speed and increases to global attack speed now affect the middle. Local attack speed modifiers no longer affect the middle movement part of the charge, whereas previously they would.
• In other words, while using Brightbeak will cause the start and end of the charge to be quicker, it will not cause you to move from point A to point B any more quickly. For that, you need to invest in global attack speed and movement speed.
• To help compensate for this loss in movement speed for most characters, Shield Charge now gains 1% increased movement speed as the gem levels up.

Flame Dash

• Base cast time lowered to 0.7 seconds (from 0.75 seconds).
• Range increased by 20%, bringing it in line with Leap Slam and Charged Dash.
• Now gains 4% increased cooldown recovery speed per gem level, up to 76% at gem level 20.
• Quality bonus now grants 1% increased cooldown recovery speed per 1% quality (was previously 1% cast speed per 2% quality).

Lightning Warp

• Base cast time lowered to 0.85 seconds (from 1 second).
• Now has 20% reduced duration at gem level 1 (from 0%), up to 39% reduced duration at gem level 20 (up from 38%).

Sunder

• Base range reduced by 20% at all levels.
• Base explosion radius reduced to 15 (from 16) at all levels. Radius now grows more slowly, gaining +1 to radius 1 gem level later than previously.

Kinetic Blast

• Now deals 35% less Area Damage (down from 25% less).
• Explosion placement has been reworked. They are now divided across 4 equal arcs (like pizza slices). In cases where there is no space in an arc that it could place an explosion, that explosion is not placed. Explosion spacing is also now more regular. The net result is that in open spaces, the area coverage will, on average, be more even, but single-target damage in tight spaces is now lower.

Support Gem Balance
Multiple Traps
Now causes supported skills to deal 50% less damage at gem level 1 (from 40%) up to 31% less damage at gem level 20 (from 21%).

Minefield
Now causes supported skills to deal 55% less Mine damage at gem level 1 (down from 40% less), up to 36% less Mine damage at gem level 20 (down from 21%).

Cluster Traps
Now causes supported skills to throw up to 2 additional traps at all levels (down from 3).

Physical Projectile Attack/Vicious Projectiles

• Physical Projectile Attack has been renamed Vicious Projectiles.
• In addition to 30% more Physical projectile attack damage and 10% less Projectile attack speed, It now causes supported skills to deal 30% more Chaos damage over time and 30% more Physical damage over time (as opposed to more damage with Bleeding and Poison specifically) at gem level 1.

The introduction of character and skill balance is here. In the next time, we will introduce other aspects of Delve. Our website will provide the fastest and best service for players. Thank you for your support!