Last Epoch Asks Feedback On What Skills Should Be Nerfed In Its Mid-Season Patch

Eleventh Hour Games is currently putting together a mid-season patch for Last Epoch and its asking players to help them decide which builds, skills, and items will be getting the nerf hammer. The studio is gathering feedback through a survey where they’ll rate certain things on how much they should be nerfed on a scale of one to five.

The mid-season patch will be the team’s first opportunity to fix glaring issues and tune down over-powered skills since the game’s launch in February. Unfortunately, they could also ruin entire builds and gear loadouts. According to the devs, their initial plan was to err on the side of caution and leave off drastic changes until the end of the season.

“Previously, our decision on the topic of mid-cycle balance has been to avoid adjustments to skills and items that are over-performing but are not bugs and to avoid fixing bugs that result in those skills becoming significantly weaker,” the studio said. “The exceptions here are bugs that cause server stability issues.” The community, however, begs to disagree.

Most of the community believes that bugs should be fixed regardless of their effect on a build, even popular ones like the Warlock. It’s currently one of the most popular and overpowered masteries in the multiplayer ARPG thanks to a bug that inadvertently buffed its passive skill to grant a 40% shield on top of its health instead of just 4%, making Warlocks virtually unkillable.

“I fully appreciate that nerfing anything mid-cycle, for any reason, is going to cause short-term pain for players that are relying on it,” wrote one Reddit user. “However, I think it's a vital move for the long-term integrity of the game to fix bugged interactions, so that players making good, informed decisions can get rewarded.”

A developer clarified their stand on mid-season bug fixes in a response to a separate post, saying, “We aren't staunchly against fixing bugs that impact player power mid-cycle. We're currently just trying to avoid mid-cycle changes that could hurt existing character builds, especially if the player may not even be aware their power is coming from a bug.”

Whether Eleventh Hour will fix the Warlock bug and any other meta-defining bugs remains to be seen. If you rolled a Warlock though, I’d suggest that you make the most of the bug as it looks like the survey won’t be going your way.

🗳️ We want to hear from you!

Collaboration with our community directly is an important part of thr Eleventh Hour Games mission. Take a look at our Mid-Cycle Build Balance survey.

Link to Forum: https://t.co/vvqEgH98n6 pic.twitter.com/1oWeCLwWPH

— Last Epoch (@LastEpoch) March 8, 2024