henrikswanstrom9218: Can't gloss over the inherent problem with Energy Shield itself here.

There probably is a world where Ephemeral Edge and it's numbers can be balanced. But when builds push 30-40k ES it almost doesn't matter what numbers Ephemeral Edge has in it's added lightning scaling.

The absolutely ludicrous amounts of ES you're able to get probably is what needs to be looked at. Just like in PoE2 and it's first patch, the entire endgame is entirely shaped around Energy Shield scaling because it just is broken compared to scaling life.

Iwo142: The problem is that you can stack about 7-10k hp at best but you can get up to 40k es. It's just completly out of touch

robertrose9307: The simple fact that Ephemeral Edge is still super meta after getting nerfed is pretty crazy.

phorr: FYI: It is likely that its drop rate was nerfed. Poeladder has it listed as a T2 unique now. Anecdotally I have not yet seen it magic finding in SSF while I have seen most T3 uniques multiple times.

Eas_Planeswalker: As someone who tried his first ES build this league instead of life. It's not the sword, it's ES scaling

vyntarus9618: I don't think EE is what needs a nerf. How easy it is to scale absurd ES values is the issue.

uncledeath2246: The problem imo isnt the item or the classes but rather that the builds that farm T17s are not "strong" builds in the traditional ARPG sense where you keep getting upgrades to your character. Instead what constitutes strong in the current PoE endgame is "Can I ignore this annoying/debilitating/*LETHAL* thing in the game?" and if you cannot your build is considerably weaker or sometimes outright forbidden from running certain content.

Anything from DPS checks from the bosses (the triad boss is so horrible with lifebar replenish the boss ghosts) to mods that target specifically you isnt challenging if your build cant ignore it, it just makes you go "Okay, I have to skip this" or your map is bricked in case you corrupt it or such.

Its especially bad when no two builds have the same access to solutions to problems as others: I was playing chains of command and despite having awakened ele dmg in my chest, i needed an extra copy on my AG to make him also immune to reflect, or drop a unique accessory (i was using penance curse for sustain) or sometimes i didnt even have ROOM to fit the reflect mod into my build. Meanwhile all attack builds stop at awakened ele dmg with attacks.

And T17s force you to account for much more

honeyroux: Because life evasions builds are not fitting current mapping vs so many things going on, the problem is on ggg’s designing end game difficulty, not the item

nekocat34: Life of meaning gets 3%ES but only 5 flat life, for some reason ES just gets way more tools than life to scale

user-baev: EE is not a problem. The problem is energy shield, map mods, chaos damage everywhere nowadays. It is not item that is bad. It is a failure of design and direction of the game.

Tier 17 maps, stupid mods, stupid mobs, stupid bosses.

hootietheowl7067: One of the main reasons ES builds are so viable in the Gauntlet now is because of how easy it is to craft strong ES gear using Recombinators. Without Recombs, players like Lighty wouldn’t have been able to achieve the kind of high-end ES setups we saw in the last Gauntlet. He even talked about it in the last gauntlet.

TooNice2BeMe: idk if the problem is with ES or more with CI

if CI would split chaos dmg into phys & elemental and not just remove it we would see way less CI

ES isnt the problem, its the complete removal of chaos dmg with CI

life builds dont focus on stacking as much life as possible most of the time, they focus on a chaos res first and life is more or less a thing to min/ max

disposableheero: GGG largely Whiffed on this issue in the 3.25 patch notes by only scaling up the flat life rolls on body armour, rather than addressing life rolls on all gear pieces and potentially also on the tree, but I do think the resolution here should be to holistically address life scaling and leave ES scaling largely alone. I think ES and defense scaling increasing the match the more challenging endgame meta was correct, and the problem is not that ES is out of control, but more realistically that life scaling has not kept up. I think the same problem currently exists in POE2. Life scaling does not keep up with damage in the endgame, and ES scaling does, so ES based defensive setups dominate the meta. In that game, I believe the choice to remove life scaling from the passive tree was a significant mistake.

steamh4mmer264: Meanwhile 2% bloodthirst support...

wig-mania: Fingers crossed for Static Strike to finally rise up to it's rightful place on top of the meta after Smite gets nerfed to oblibion next league * ^ *

weiwang9622: I think it has something to do with lack of accessible defences. I never had a good experience of my 6k hours play time when scaling offence and defense independently. It is just not enough. I'm not saying there is no good option to be tannky, I'm saying the options are often too costly to be implemented. Either expensive or restricted to certain building. The game demands too much but offers too little.

hrodwulf172: Honestly the only reason that EE is OP and not just pretty decent this league is because of mercs. Without mercs, EE would have 10x less damage and not be considered a premier build for end game as it would really struggle to kill stuff, especially in 4 risk maps.

Moesbi689: It would be a funny future if next league we're all running around with 25k life blowing ourselves up with Dark Pact or some shit

tryplee8570: as a life player who play melee phys build i feed like ggg doesen't even care about us, every fking league is just stacking es and shooting lightning

TIHPtwitch: ES seems to follow a sine graph where it becomes utterly OP every few years and has to be re-re-re-nerfed back down to keep life builds competitive. And here I am, playing my Grug Mode hold-RMB-and-wait Tainted Pact Self-poison Viper Strike Slayer for the Nth league in a row (on vanilla 3.26, that is, not Gauntlet).

carl3133: Agree. I put around 100div into a CI forbidden rite occultist and with about 20k es it’s the best I’ve ever felt defensively and offensively.

Then I put 150k Div plus mageblood into a strength stacker and it doesn’t feel anywhere near as good

TheLivingProofMusic: 100% agree, i know it doesnt affect me but it does feel lame when every single streamer except mathil is stacking ES with EE

kernstein: Agreed with most comments. Its not EE but ES scaling is just clearly the way to gear end game atm. Trickster nerf wasn’t enough but then again as you said some other ascendancy would just fill in. Even if you remove EE entirely there’s still energy blade and you make up for EE defense some other way. Tbh tho it doesn’t bother me that much. Content got harder as well so having good ES scaling to deal with that especially in SSF or HC.

Namarot: If it was properly balanced you basically wouldn't see anyone use EE over Energy Blade in softcore.

nathanfay1988: As an armourstacker I hope they dont nerf Smite because of EE builds. We would just be collateral damage. I think the most fair solution would be to gut EE and give a small buff to Energy Blade. EBlade has a big downside of reduced ES pool, but if this is reduced from 50% to 40% less ES it would feel better. At good ES pool sizes and with quality, you'll still have like 10-15k ES with EBlade instead of 20-25k with EE

mediapathic: Looks like I picked the right league to try my first ES stacking CI build.

Jul 31 2025

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