Need bigger distinction between AOE and single target DPS

I know a lot of people have an issue with the current state of the game, in that it allows one skill to be your jack-of-all-trades. If there was a larger distinction between the damage that area of effect skills do, and the single target skills, it would cause players to have to put more thought into diversifying their build.

What I'm proposing:
Damage modification
Increase the damage of single target skills, whilst decreasing the damage of all AOE skills. I shouldn't be able to take on bosses using cleave/ice nova/firestorm. Skills like double strike and ice spear should do considerably more damage.

Increase mob density
AOE skills should be equally important though. Crowd control is not something you should be able to achieve using your single target damage. I think the regular mobs need a HP boost as well, but that's probably another issue.

Increase the HP of bosses dramatically, whilst slightly decreasing their damage
This one probably depends more on the person playing, but boss fights are over far too quickly in my opinion. Either you kill them in 10 seconds, or they kill you in 3. This is also to balance the increased single target damage.

Remove the support gem daisy chaining
I'll definitely cop a lot of hate for this, but I do need to voice my opinion. 1 skill with 5 supports is ridiculous, it is what causes the majority of the gameplay imbalances. It allows for too many synergies that break the limits of the game, creating a massive gap between builds. Consider the effect of making support gems only work on skills they are directly in contact with.

-No more ridiculously OP skills, so there is a purpose to having a skill for different situations.

-Balancing actually becomes possible, as the multiplicative nature of multiple support linking is gone.

-6 link items are still hugely valuable, as they allow for optimising the number of skills that are supported.

You make some good points.

I am seeing a change in PoE's system:

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Chris escreveu:

0.9.11: (...) It will include the ability to swap between weapon sets.

These will sum 6 sockets to the already small 8 skills bar.
So a new hotkey system will be needed, either in a MMO way (with tabs) or a diablo way (a set hotkey replaces the skill in a set position).

If not, it will definetly mean the devs do want the game to have a small set of spammable skills for each build.

Regarding target VS AoE I wish they were balanced, but it won't happen until we meet a fair balance between skill gems X passive tree X Item mods.

I definitaly agree about removing the dasey chaining of support gems because it definitaly causes imbalances. The swappable gear is going to be awesome. Can't wait to see it in effect (:

I dont really agree with this.

the more supports you place on a skill gem, the more mana (hp if you blood magic) it uses, which leads to other problems that you have to solve in order to use the supports. This helps keep the mechanics balanced.
Not to mention getting a 6 link is next to impossible..

@Amarena:
I dont think much modifications were needed to the hotkey system, as it already remembers what slots what skills go into, even if you switch gems in and out.

I've made similar points before about single target vs AoE damage. Seems like you only ever really use single target skills to save mana, not to do more damage.

The problem with buffing something like ice spear is that it is an AoE skill (it can pierce and damge many targets). You can put a multiple projectiles gem on it, giving it even more AoE.


But I agree with your main point that single target should be stronger, and AoE weaker, relative to each other.

Single target skills are still useful though, there are many occasions (like archers) where enemies are spread out, making AoE less useful. And single target skills do tend to do more damage than the AoE equivalents, but it's only ever worth using them against lone enemies - as soon as you can hit more than one thing at a time (which is a lot of the time) the AoE becomes superior.


Not sure that I agree on the support gem thing though

Just have to choose a baseline damage and then 'how many enemies an aoe should hit before equivalency'.

I have no idea what those types of numbers come out to be atm though.

It should probably be somewhere along the lines of 20-25%... maybe even less.

The supports thing is a non-issue. The rarity of a 5 or 6 slot combined with the increased cost of sustaining a 4-5 support skill should be relegated to the top tiers of play... if it's not, then it's simply not balanced correctly.

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zeto escreveu:

Just have to choose a baseline damage and then 'how many enemies an aoe should hit before equivalency'.

I have no idea what those types of numbers come out to be atm though.

It's roughly 2

I assumed support gems only worked with directly connected skills.


A complaint I have is the quantity gem, since I link it to a skill I need to use that skill as a finisher, which I think is counterintuitive for this kinda gem.

Could some supportgems just add an overall ability, so I can do whatever move I want to?
Suppose it's ok since I can chainlink it.


Another complaint is what others point out vividly, there's too few skills needed to play.
Although I try and use every utility I can, mostly mobility skills, but also I try and use coldspells to slow and firetrap or firestorm to do dps.

It's usually wishful thinking, normally I'm better off just doing damage with one skill than trying fancy tricks. Perhaps it's cause I'm pretty slow.. I'm definately grateful I can mash double attack and cleave and still be pretty deadly if I place myself well.
But I do have a craving for something more tactical.

I'm sure skilled and fast players feel this moreso than I do.

I really don't agree with this overall. Started off with a reasonable point, but all teh suggestions don't really work. Personally I still use a different skill for single target. But to keep it higher dps than your aoe you need a 4 link, and currently my bow characters single target is awful because of my spec, bosses take a long time to kill, but i invested some money into 4 linking a single target up it could be good, problem is i lost the expensive gems when the character first died.

A little tweaking to a single targets dps can make it then their only skill used, so be careful.