I've been playing this game A LOT. and I've tested and created a lot of builds. I've been studying every part of the game since it came out and I can tell you that I know a lot about the game.



Let's start off by the advantages of Life:



-HP Potion(OH SHIT button)

-Life Regen

-Being able to cast high mana cost spells

-Resistant to status elements





Now the advantages of CI:



-Insane effective HP

-Vaal Pact with no downsides

-Energy Shield still regen in no regen maps

-The only real way to counter Reflect

-More damage(because you can counter reflect)

-Immune to chaos damage

-Gets a lot of Armor and Evasion % just by taking ES nodes

-Scales WAY higher in late game gear



Now let's go with the disavantages of Life:



1.Cannot go vaal pact without losing half the advantages of life

2.Has limited damage output because of reflect

3.Low effective life compared to CI

4.Chaos Resist is really hard to get

5.No regen affects you more than CI

6.Need more passive skill point invested in life than with CI

7.Limited by gear



Now the disavantages of CI:



1.Vulnerable to status elements

2.Can be stunned easily

3.No OH SHIT buttons





Sooooo, now that you see that CI has WAY fewer disavantages... let's see ways you can counter them:



Life:

1-2.No real way to counter reflect(except by limiting your damage).........

3.You can stack life nodes in the tree and get no damage(still won't be able to match CI effective HP).

4.Can get Chaos resist (lost nothing to get it)

5.Life leech

6.No way to counter that

7.No way to counter that(it's really hard to use any uniques bcause you lose a little bit of your very limited base life)



CI:

1.Dream Fragment(lose almost nothing by using it), Flasks(lost almost nothing by using it)

2.Unwavering Stance(The points that you save by needing less ES nodes than life are going there)

3.Vaal Pact + Life Leech (few points to get there)



THERE YOU GO NO MORE DOWNSIDES FOR CI !!! still a lot left for life.







The only real way to survive in hardcore is by having A HUGE HP pool to survive big burst damage.(like 20 goatman jumping on you at the same time off screen).



Right now... there's only 1 reason to go life... having a spell that require a retarded amount of mana regen so that you HAVE to go blood magic. that is it. GGG really needs to do something with life. Right now there's no one that is going life in end game on Onslaught(or atleast 99% of the population). I don't know what to say... Kaoms was the only reason why life was viable at all... Now that they nerfed life(by WAY WAY more than CI) and disabled kaoms, CI is WAYYYYY better for ALMOST every build.



I tried really really hard making a viable life build and in every way... CI is better.



This is only my opinion on the matter of CI vs Life on ONSLAUGHT right now. I'm pretty sure I missed some things in there but most of it should be there.



EDIT: Nerfing CI doesn't make Life more viable .....

Last edited by FleepQc on Jul 17, 2013, 11:36:50 PM Posted by

FleepQc

on on Quote this Post

sticky plx http://www.twitch.tv/rhoxxx



follow the stream :) Posted by

RhoxPOE

on on Quote this Post

I totally agree CI is the only option now its kind of sad as it usually goes a long with a casting build which is fine...except I want to melee =( A disease that eats men's brains that's why they call me Mad Cow. Posted by

TheMadCow

on on Quote this Post





The problem is that many 0.11 changes accentuate positives of ES without appropriate compensations to life: Intelligence bonus was unaffected, while all % life and most % ES nodes were nerfed. Since ES builds aren't nearly as reliant on ES nodes as life builds are reliant on life nodes, this was a lopsided adjustment which obviously encourages ES builds.

Reflected damage was reduced 10%, from 20% to 18%. The extent of the life nerf was such that almost every life build lost more than 10% raw life, more often closer to 20% raw life. This means that reflected damage has a real effect even stronger than it used to be, which encourages ES builds.

Many physical damage nodes were increased. This means that reflected damage has a real effect even stronger than it used to be, which encourages ES builds.

If you take something that's teetering on balance, and then amplify its disadvantages, the result is something being clearly underpowered relative to its alternative. And that's what has happened here.



Post-0.11, however, Fleep's assessment is accurate: If you don't have Kaom's, there's no reason to be going with a life build. Considering that in some leagues Kaom's is downright impossible, that's a big balance problem. The only part of the OP I strongly disagree with is the concept that Kaom's was needed for life builds to merely keep up. Non-Kaom's life and ES builds were relatively balanced, although I would consider non-Kaom's life to be slightly underpowered pre-0.11 (and Kaom's life very overpowered pre-0.11). Slightly underpowered is still close enough to balanced, though.The problem is that many 0.11 changes accentuate positives of ES without appropriate compensations to life:If you take something that's teetering on balance, and then amplify its disadvantages, the result is something being clearly underpowered relative to its alternative. And that's what has happened here.Post-0.11, however, Fleep's assessment is accurate: If you don't have Kaom's, there's no reason to be going with a life build. Considering that in some leagues Kaom's is downright impossible, that's a big balance problem. A shining light in a sea of stagnant bong water.



Last edited by Rachel_GGG on Sep 31, 2018 0:61:72 PM Last edited by ScrotieMcB on Jun 29, 2013, 1:12:31 AM Posted by

ScrotieMcB

on on Quote this Post

If there wasn't reflect, the effective hp of life builds could get close to that of CI builds by using instant pots and regen...but then we have some sort of spike damage (Kole smash, extra damage + extra crit golem, etc) and both +points health had on it's side in terms of effective hp just vanish. And that is without considering reflect, which essentially is spike damage if you didn't notice it in time. :P Posted by

Lord_of_Error

on on Quote this Post





"



Brian Weissman: This trend is much more common in Hardcore, where it makes perfect sense. In Hardcore, your #1 priority is survival, which guides not only your choice of passive skills, but your gear choices as well. A player might opt to go spinning around with Cyclone using a big powerful 2-handed weapon in Default, but in Hardcore, that same player would likely prefer a 1-handed weapon and a shield.



Life nodes are meant to be plentiful, and obviously super attractive to Hardcore players. Believe it or not, the game went through a long period where people eschewed life nodes almost entirely, partly because Energy Shield was too strong, and partly because monsters just weren’t dangerous enough. We adjusted the difficulty and damage of the game because of this, which accomplished the goal of making life nodes very tempting.



We have no immediate plans to devalue life nodes. We want players to have to make the choice between higher damage and higher survivability. That’s a quandary that has always existed in ARPGs. True, there may be more build diversity in Default, but that’s pretty much intentional. We want players to experiment with wacky, esoteric builds. Hardcore just isn’t the place for that sort of thing, it’s about survival.



Instead of making life nodes worse or less attractive, what we’d ultimately like is to have a wide enough range of skills in the game that people feel there are other ways to survive hard content. That’s the ultimate goal. We’re also looking into ways that we can improve the Armour and Evasion systems. One of the most defining features of Path of Exile is its immense skill tree. That said, many are currently opting to go full HP, which ultimately destroys the concept of versatility. Do you plan on changing this trend? If so then how are you going to incorporate the new changes in the skill tree?Brian Weissman: This trend is much more common in Hardcore, where it makes perfect sense. In Hardcore, your #1 priority is survival, which guides not only your choice of passive skills, but your gear choices as well. A player might opt to go spinning around with Cyclone using a big powerful 2-handed weapon in Default, but in Hardcore, that same player would likely prefer a 1-handed weapon and a shield.Life nodes are meant to be plentiful, and obviously super attractive to Hardcore players. Believe it or not, the game went through a long period where people eschewed life nodes almost entirely, partly because Energy Shield was too strong, and partly because monsters just weren’t dangerous enough. We adjusted the difficulty and damage of the game because of this, which accomplished the goal of making life nodes very tempting.We have no immediate plans to devalue life nodes. We want players to have to make the choice between higher damage and higher survivability. That’s a quandary that has always existed in ARPGs. True, there may be more build diversity in Default, but that’s pretty much intentional. We want players to experiment with wacky, esoteric builds. Hardcore just isn’t the place for that sort of thing, it’s about survival.Instead of making life nodes worse or less attractive, what we’d ultimately like is to have a wide enough range of skills in the game that people feel there are other ways to survive hard content. That’s the ultimate goal. We’re also looking into ways that we can improve the Armour and Evasion systems.



So what happened between the end of March & the "awesome" balance patch we got a few weeks ago?



We were told that 0.11.0 would lessen the dependence on life nodes, make armour more viable, create greater build diversity, go some ways to bridge the divide between ranged & melee but it seems like they took 1 step forward & 2 steps back. Here is an interview from March 21 (before the health node nerf)...So what happened between the end of March & the "awesome" balance patch we got a few weeks ago?We were told that 0.11.0 would lessen the dependence on life nodes, make armour more viable, create greater build diversity, go some ways to bridge the divide between ranged & melee but it seems like they took 1 step forward & 2 steps back. Posted by

lethal_papercut

on on Quote this Post

Remmember when GGG made Chaos Inoculation so that Chaos damage is aplied to energy shield instead of life?.. Maybe they should consider this Again... I mean consider the fact that their pool is higher than life and they dont have to bother with resists against it is really op imo. So instead of Chaos resists they just stack EVEN MORE ES... Posted by

Deleted

on on