Grinding Gear Games just dropped their 'Balance Manifesto' of upcoming character balance changes coming to Path of Exile in the 3.19 update, Lake of Kalandra, launching August 19th. These aren't all the details of the new expansion, which will be revealed at the upcoming August 11th livestream, but what's been revealed has not been well-received by the PoE community. So, in this article, we'll explain the Path of Exile Lake of Kalandra 3.19 reveal and why fans are upset.
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Nerfs, Nerfs, and Nerfs in Path of Exile 3.19
What's coming in 3.19, big picture? Well, the short answer is nerfs. Nerfs are coming, and we don't know really know about much else. You'll have to read over the balance changes post in full yourself if you want all the specific details, but in general, lots of skills and builds have received significant nerfs.
Many of these nerfs, like the wide-reaching nerfs to minions and minion builds, were expected, considering the state of the meta of PoE for months and months, but there hasn't been much in the way of new options and builds given to characters and players. Rather, it feels more like what was once powerful in 3.17 and 3.18 is still going to be largely the same in 3.19, just with less power and more limited build variety.
Defenses, in general, are getting decreased for builds across the board generally, which is again not particularly unexpected nor especially loved, while the removal of a mana efficiency passive mastery is also going to effectively nerf quite a lot of builds, requiring players get that effect from their gear instead, which will inevitably cost currency.
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Once again, in general, the spirit of the changes coming to Path of Exile, at least those that have been announced, is that lower-cost builds are going to be less effective and less powerful, while more expensive builds that require more investment will function similarly or get minor buffs. This, to many fans, is the wrong direction, considering most PoE players don't have the time to amass tons of currency, even across a whole League.
Some fans are happy that overpowered skills and builds are getting the nerfs they've been owed, but the general sentiment, even among those fans, is the idea that even if the nerfs doled out are okay, playing Path of Exile with the same meta it's had for a while just with fewer options and builds that are generally less powerful doesn't sound especially fun.
Are These Changes Really All That Bad?
Well, it depends. Big picture, it's definitely positive, to most people, that builds that are much more powerful than the average build, especially really cheap ones, are getting nerfed. Generally, it doesn't feel good if one particular build that exploits an unintended mechanical synergy you can only find through a build guide vastly outpowers everybody else not playing that.
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This is an especially bad problem when you have cheap builds that can outperform a lot more expensive builds because it devalues player time and doesn't incentivize players to get better gear, since they could just exploit scaling in a clever way instead. That's not particularly healthy for a game all about gear and loot.
However, while players generally want balance in the sense that they want most builds to roughly have a similar power level if you build your character in a reasonably intelligent way, they don't want the bar for the average build to be at to be one where characters are weak. everything could be balanced and basically all but the most expensive min-max builds could be weak, which would still make players unhappy with the game's balance.
In general, players want builds to be balanced, but players also want to be able to create characters, with a lot of build variety, that they can take to endgame without having to spend countless hours grinding and making multiple characters. Oftentimes, these desires conflict with one another.
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Is Path of Exile 3.19 Going to Fail?
It's just too early to say, right now. No, the nerfs, to many, aren't particularly encouraging, but these are just character balance changes. More changes can and will be coming in 3.19 that go beyond just changes to passive skills and gems. For example, defenses are, in general, lower in 3.19, considering the nerfs.
But what if GGG lowered mob damage to compensate, particularly in maps and later game content? Melee hasn't been meaningfully buffed in terms of character and gem changes, but what if a series of powerful new melee skill gems are being added in 3.19 that reinvigorate the build? These are all possibilities for the upcoming update.
Then, of course, there's the League mechanic, which we don't know anything about. It's also entirely possible that the League mechanic is going to be really involved and extremely powerful, so these buffs are necessary to make players feel powerful but not gamebreakingly strong. Again, we just don't know for sure, yet.
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So, in general, it's best to wait and see. In the coming weeks, more information will be revealed, and of course, GGG might make changes to their proposed balance updates before 3.19 drops based off of the community's reaction, too. This all adds up to the fact that a lot of things can change or be coming, but we just don't know for sure yet, so we'll all have to stay tuned.
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