My Frustrating Morning Testing That Nerf
Man, I woke up excited to run my usual setup today, coffee in hand, ready to crush some maps. Jumped straight into my character tab, slotted in my trusty Facet of Command jewel like always… and instantly felt something was way off. My damage numbers looked like someone kicked them in the teeth. Barely tickling the white mobs! What the heck happened?
Turns out, last night’s patch hit Facet of Command with the nerf bat. Hard. That beautiful “increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments” boost got chopped down big time. Suddenly, my whole character felt weak, sluggish. Like running through molasses. I was genuinely annoyed. Spent all that time min-maxing, you know?
The Scramble for Answers (and Replacements)
Alright, no time for whining. Grabbed my second coffee – this called for reinforcements. Needed to find a substitute, fast.
- Checked the stash first. Dug through my pile of jewels hoping for a miracle. Found a few generic “increased Damage” jewels, slapped them in. Meh. It was… okay-ish? Maybe 70% of my old power. Felt like putting a band-aid on a broken leg. Not good enough.
- Hit the forums. Scrolled through endless posts of other players crying about the same thing. Lots of suggestions flying around. Saw folks talking about switching entire builds! No way, I’m not re-rolling this late in the league. Focused on jewel replacements people mentioned:
- Those big “Crit Multi” jewels: Sounded promising! Bought a decent one with some life. Slotted it in. Damage spiked up nice… on crits. But my build wasn’t pure crit! Felt inconsistent. Sometimes stuff exploded, sometimes it just… didn’t. Too unreliable for my liking.
- Tried stacking more “Curse Effect” jewels: Figured if the ailment boost is gone, maybe curses can pick up the slack? Got a few with “increased Effect of Curses”. Needed to swap a skill gem or two to fit it. Chaos ensued. Died three times in a row to blue packs. Nope, nope, nope. Felt way too squishy, and the damage payoff wasn’t even that amazing. Big mess.
- Experimented with specific ailment jewels: You know, the ones that boost Shock or Chill effect specifically. Found one good for Shock. Damage against shocked enemies felt better, actually close to pre-nerf levels… BUT only if they were shocked! Against bosses or tough rares where shock effect is lower, it dropped off again. Frustrating. Like having power with an asterisk.
What Actually Stuck
After burning through way too much currency testing crap, here’s what actually ended up kinda working for me, based on my specific jank:
- The Boring But Effective Route: Swapped the nerfed Facet for two well-rolled Rare Jewels. Nothing fancy, just pure stats: % Maximum Life, % increased Damage, and some Resistances to fix my now-messed-up gear. Feels solid, maybe 85% as powerful as before, but consistent. Doesn’t rely on anything fancy. Just works.
- The Small Clusters Gamble: I had a medium cluster jewel socket free. Took a chance and specced into it. Scooped up a cheap small cluster jewel with “Aspect of the Spider” stuff (non-damaging ailment!) and some generic damage nodes. Combined with one of the rare jewels above? Okay, this felt better. Pushed me closer to 90% maybe? Still not the glory days, but way less painful than this morning.
So yeah, major letdown overall. That Facet nerf gutted my playstyle. There’s no single magic bullet replacement jewel that perfectly fills the hole it left, at least not for my mess of a build. It’s about patching the gaps as best you can now – usually with boring-but-steady rare jewels or tweaking other parts of your tree/skills to compensate. Feels like putting lipstick on a pig, honestly. But hey, we adapt. Or rage quit. One or the other!
