The Energy Blade Doube Tap (quadruple nerf)

We start with a double nerf since it's getting hit from both the int stacking and quality change.

I'm hoping that the change to Energy Blade gets re-assessed. I know there are likely some very powerful builds that needed to be trimmed, but the quality change hit all builds that use energy blade resulting in less build diversity. While I look at build guides to learn, I've never followed one, so I have no understanding of top tier builds even after years of playing. Maybe some other folks can offer better input on what might be a more targeted solution. I've given my input below.

The hit is doubled again since you lose a big chunk of both offense and defense for a 4x nerf.

Perhaps the quality change can stay, but the base energy shield reduction could change to 45% rather than 50%. Another option would be to make two handed EB take less of your ES since one-handed with a shield has a substantial offense/defense balance advantage over two handed. This would allow for more build diversity, but also trim some of the over powered builds.

Can any more skilled players offer any insight on what the intended target was? Offense, defense, spell interaction with spellblade, totems, animate weapon, traps etc.

Minor Note: Enhance Support (added quality) was one of the only supports that worked well with EB. It's now substantially less meaningful and rewarding to acquire and level.

the target was probably even lower than it is today

EB is still a viable option, not just an auto-pick no-brainer easily beating every other alternative

it was completely dumb pre-nerf. Rathpith Globe is next in line

So was the target all aspects of EB? If it was OP across many different builds, I was unaware of that. Keepers had it at 3% use rate. Looking at it as a weapon option, since it's not a main skill, that doesn't seem high.

I had an arc ignite build that was near dot cap last league using energy blades as the base damage. It was hilariously broken and needed the nerfs.

Energy Blade had too many things going for it:

it had great synergy with already broken INT stacking
it scales offence from defence - its numbers were not adjusted when we got 1100ES chests
it scales GREAT with SpellBlade/Battlemage

due to multi-vector scaling it scales explosively with investment


also: foubourn Ghostwrithe is a thing that pretty much circumvents the entire nerf so here is that. add Rathpith and you have a no-chance-to-fail setup that is pretty much impossible to beat with regular builds on a similar budget

EB was and still is a balancing nightmare