rainbow got nerfed again?

actually shocked to see morph set and blue mask got nerfed again (reduced skill points or negative health). why is this happening. don't feel like how op rainbow build is

 

It was a pretty expected change, to be entirely honest. IMs have been pretty public about disliking SP slap.

 

When the same gear is used by 50% to 75% of the players you come across.
Something is wrong

 

This is something that my friends and I have joked about for quite some time: it's nearly always better to build rainbow. Just think about that for a minute. There are thousands of items in the game, hundreds at endgame level, and using the same half-dozen or so is nearly always going to get you a similar or better result, regardless of what playstyle you have, with the only major exception being heavy melee (in which case having rainbow skill points is still better but difficult to pull off).

Let me explain why this is the case by building a build (just in terms of skill point types used). Let's look at damage first; it is virtually always better to have both damage skills as it is incredibly difficult to stack enough damage IDs to outweigh perks of having both without seriously handicapping your build in another respect. Having points in both however massively increases your damage, without a lot of the compromises. Next up, mana sustain. Mana sustain is much easier with intel, due to the dearth of non-int spell cost and mana regen items and the fact that intel increases max mana, something int-less spell builds can't do. So we want to use intel as well. Next up, defensive ideas. Well, defense is consistent, but agility gives a massive bonus when it kicks in. Which is better? It's hard to say. But guess what, having both massively increases your ehp with the upsides of both. Well, I guess it's better to use bo- oh would you look at that we used rainbow skill points.

It's pretty obvious that this would happen; all of the skills give benefits, none reduce the effectiveness of other skills, so having all of the skills to get all of the benefits is going to give you the most benefits. The issue that is specifically being addressed is the fact that it was super easy to get a large number of skill points in everything (basically morph set on crack) while also being able to slap a large number in one or two categories, so that you could use any weapon with it. Add in the ability to use capricorn (the boots I've seen slapped the most) or epilogue, or even some mythic boots, and you've got a really strong build with almost no downsides. It's difficult to make a balanced build that's better than it in fact. Believe me, I've tried. This update finally made it difficult to get enough skill points with a full rainbow build to also be able to slap on some mythic boots or use most mythics, which I think is a good thing for game balance.

 

I mean, I get why morph (the only build mentioned I have experience with) is being nerfed, but I do feel there is a problem with nerfing a set that large amounts of the player base is using. Booting up the game and being suddenly weaker isn't a great experience. Also, as someone who has negative intuition when it comes to builds, having a strong set that isn't hard to use or requires mythics is nice. I get that morph hasn't been nerfed into the ground, but I feel other playstyles/build types should be buffed instead, because tight game balance probably shouldn't be prioritized over wider player experiences.

 

I would also like to add that design-wise, rainbow items have jack-of-all-trades stats. If you look at Morph Stardust for example, it gave 25 sp, raw hpr, mana regen, walk speed and spell damage (and melee/ele defs too). WITHOUT DOWNSIDES. And Libra, giving good hp, mana regen and elemental damage on top of an egregious amount of skill points, again with no downsides. If that is the price to pay for building rainbow there's no reason not to build it. You just get everything.

 

morph wasnt nerfed, the pieces by themselves were nerfed (reduced sp) while increasing the sp of the set, so overall full morph hasnt changed
the changes are more so to prevent people from using one piece of morph (stardust) and abusing the amount of raw stats and sp that it gives

 

The problem is that even if you buff other builds, it would be difficult to buff them to the extent that they can compete with just having more skill points, while making them inaccessible to someone who has more skill points. Every buff to an item that can be used on a rainbow build is as much a buff to rainbow builds as to whatever build it might be actually meant for. The only way to prevent this is to stop items from being used in a rainbow build, which can be accomplished in three ways (two of which are really the same way): making the requirements so high a rainbow build couldn't possibly reach them, or giving rainbow builds fewer skill points so they can't reach super far beyond an even distribution (basically making making the requirements too high for rainbow builds). They opted for the second method, which makes builds that aren't mono-elemental viable, since when you use 2-3 elements you can still invest enough into one of those to use any item but with a rainbow builds it's difficult to stretch to a non-rainbow mythic. You can also give an item negative skill points, but then you hard limit the use of the item with certain builds, which harms those more than it does rainbow builds. Hence why the quad-elemental items and hive master armours aren't nearly as popular as, say, libra.