Main issues being addressed
- Potion mods being very common on a lot of slots feels bad when a lot of the time you want your items to be providing you with stats that are less temporary.
- Equipping a few potion health affixes very quickly gets you to a point where potions nearly always heal you to full, rendering further potion health affixes useless.
- Potions feel like a very unreliable defense as there are boss fights where they don’t drop due to a lack of adds.
- Potions only feel worth using if you’re missing a fair amount of health. This means that they’re competing directly with more reliable forms of health recovery and it feels like a waste if you use them just for buffs when you’re at full health, even when it’s an efficient thing to do.
How these issues are being addressed in 0.7.4
Overhauled Potion Mods
- Most of the common potion affixes now relate to ward rather than health, while rarer ones are more powerful and only roll on belts.
- Even the common potion affixes are much rarer and roll on fewer slots than the old potion health affixes.
- Overall this will result in potion affixes showing up less than half as often as they did before.
Buffed Base Potion Health
- Base potion health will be increased. By default potions will now heal 50 + 4 x your character level (up from 50 + 2 x your character level). This is an 80% increase in potion healing at max level.
Bosses Drop Potions When Hit
- Bosses will now occasionally drop potions when hit, allowing you to sustain your potion pool in all fights, even if those without adds.
- The rate that potions will drop from bosses is not a fixed chance. It is designed to avoid disparity between fast hitting builds and slow hitting builds. It will also work with skills that don’t technically hit like Aura of Decay.
Full list of affix changes
Added potion affixes
2 ward related affixes to replace the potion health affixes
- Ward Gain on Potion Use - new prefix for helmets, belts, gloves, and amulet
- Potion Health Converted to Ward - new prefix for belts, gloves, relics, and rings
The potion ward affixes have been added to give potions a niche as a way to mitigate incoming damage even if you’re at or close to full health. They also reduces the extent to which potions compete with other forms of recovery, making them fit more naturally into a build that also has high health regen or leech.
These mods are less common than the old potion health affixes and roll on fewer slots.
3 rare belt specific prefixes
- Extra Potion Slot and Added Potion Health - new
- Ignite Chance on Potion use - new
- Dodge Rating on Potion use - less common than before, but much more powerful (4x effect)
These affixes are rare, even for slot specific affixes, and meant to provide interesting ways to augment your potions, without showing up frequently when you don’t want them.
Removed potion affixes
- Added Potion Health - removed
- Increased Potion Health - removed
- Health Regen on Potion Use - removed
- Stun Avoidance on Potion Use - removed
- Spell Damage on Potion use - removed
Other affix changes
- Chance to find potions - less common than before and can no longer roll on gloves or body armour
How does this affect old items that had some of the affixes that have been removed?
- Old potion affixes will mostly change to new potion affixes
- The only exception is Spell Damage on Potion Use, which will change to the new Increased Spell Crit Chance prefix which is unrelated to potions.
We will be closely monitoring how potion affixes feel after 0.7.4 goes live. They will likely undergo further changes in future and we value your feedback on the topic.