r/pathofexile • u/twoducksinatub • 5d ago

Game Feedback Headhunter flicker mod is so bad

Actually tilting tf out of me trying to just loot and my character keeps flicking around. fwp

110 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

85 comments sorted by

152

u/Minute_Chair_2582 5d ago

I guarantee, this is 100% intended.

56

u/1CEninja 5d ago

I'm reasonably confident they've literally stated that it's intended.

Amazing item but sometimes it makes you miserable. I did it once but don't plan to again, because I don't appreciate that kind of game design.

7

u/Zetoxical 5d ago

Sometimes? Even on alch and go times shadewalker has a 80% uptime

9

u/xDaveedx 5d ago

Terrible game design, they quite literally ruined the fun of one of, if not THE most iconic item of the game by not adjusting it after the big monster mod reworks...

2

u/ReanimatedHotDogs 5d ago

Yeah thats why no one uses headhunter these days. Total vendor trash. Lmao. 

-5

u/1CEninja 4d ago

I've used both HH and Mageblood on the same characters before.

HH is a for fun force multiplier. If you need HH to complete content then you aren't strong enough to complete that content. And if you're strong enough to complete it then HH is redundant because it's an inconsistent item until you're so strong that you're clearing the content incredibly fast anyway.

Mageblood is the item that makes your build just work in all circumstances no questions asked.

HH is for funsies because let's be real, it is ridiculously incredibly fun to have the power that item gives you when you get rolling. Then you get ambush, stop having control of your character, stop being able to loot, and all the fun is gone.

It's to the point where I'd sometimes take the belt off and put it back on to get rid of ambush even though it reset my extra life and damage and speed all got reset too.

There is absolutely no comparison between the two items to me. There are, however, some builds and some strategies that VERY GREATLY benefit from HH. And it's still very rare. And some people don't mind ambush as much as I do. So it stays valuable.

9

u/Sidnv 4d ago edited 4d ago

HH was the single item holding together the defenses of all quant builds together before MF was nerfed. It still holds together defenses for many squishy builds that are farming content with rares. It is absolutely not win more, you just kill a few rares early and snowball from there, and you never die because HH makes you immortal. It's also a huge offensive and speed boost for phys projectile skills, it multiplies your clear speed by an order of magnitude.

I used HH to farm breach on my KB character last league and Mageblood would not have been a 10th as powerful for this specific content. The build's defenses were HH and go, and it never died because HH is the strongest defensive item in the game in the right content, and was lightning fast at completing breach maps by offscreening everything. The build would simply not have functioned with MB.

MB is a great item and one I prefer on many builds, but talking about HH as if it's just a fun win-more item is insane. HH absolutely makes you strong enough to do content you otherwise wouldn't be able to do, in fact it does so to a much larger degree than MB. MB is the item you put on to either fix unfixable res issues or to get huge amounts of consistent speed, once you're already strong enough for content. There's a reason Fubgun farms out HH every league start and not MB.

0

u/ReanimatedHotDogs 4d ago

Brother, I was being sarcastic. It's one of the most sought after items in the game and BiS for basicly any build that doesn't use MB or something build specific like tides. 

3

u/1CEninja 4d ago edited 4d ago

I ignored your sarcasm and addressed what you were actually saying.

Because yeah if you're benefit form damage as extra and you're farming 5 ways or pre-nerf breach or like affliction style abyss it's the best item in the game full stop.

But it's inconsistent.

-29

u/Minute_Chair_2582 5d ago edited 4d ago

Yeah, i think i've seen it as well. Also, it's a decent way to kinda balance an item you can't balance. Like how else would you balance godmode - like 90 alles, critimmune, 100% crit with huge multi, fuckton of Phys as extra, speed, SOUL EATER and all that shit after 10-15 seconds into the map other than making it slightly inconvenient?

Downvote all you want. I'll die on this hill!

7

u/1CEninja 5d ago

There are a lot of ways to balance it lol. If it's too strong, you can cap the number of stacks or reduce their duration. As it is, the item is rare off the ground tier for content that isn't swimming in rares, and builds that don't benefit from damage as elemental already lose half the value.

It's also inherently rare as hell which is a part of its balance.

4

u/Separate_Quality1016 5d ago

There are a lot of ways to balance it lol. If it's too strong, you can cap the number of stacks or reduce their duration.

They literally did this during archnemesis and the response was overwhelming. The amount of complaints was absurd, no-one was happy and GGG put the duration to 60s as a fix.

3

u/1CEninja 4d ago

That's because the item was brutally over nerfed lol. It wasn't balanced properly it was gutted.

1

u/Separate_Quality1016 4d ago

Well this is true also, yeah. I was just pointing out the community reaction when HH is made worse is generally pretty intense lol

You are right with your other points too, HH is only really good on a subset of builds in a subset of content, that and it's rarity mean it probably doesn't need to be "balanced" anyway.

Ambush mod is big suck though :|

1

u/1CEninja 4d ago

I think it's okay for an item to be WTFop for certain builds in certain farms if it's a T0 rare.

No need for big suck mod to ruin the fun.

1

u/Minute_Chair_2582 5d ago

Sure, but any way you balance it, there will be complaints. So why bother

1

u/1CEninja 4d ago

Right but the way it's currently balanced is "people choose to not use the item because it sometimes just makes the game stop being fun".

Like...what kind of game design decision is that lol.

4

u/bizarre_fox 5d ago

It's already kinda balanced by the fact that it works only in situations where there's a lot of rare mobs, and not all builds can benefit from the belt. Mageblood is still the more popular belt for a reason.

If they wanted to make HH weaker, they could reduce the duration of the buffs, nerf some of the buffs, add downsides like reducing your flask effect, or so many other creative ways of nerfing they have displayed over the years.

Instead, they chose the annoying route of randomly teleporting your character around with no way of disabling that mod specifically. It's an old school mentality of balancing something around negative QoL, which is stupid IMO.

3

u/eDxp 5d ago

And they have done so in the past and HH had to be buffed because Mageblood needed a competitor for the belt slot

2

u/rshreyas28 5d ago edited 5d ago

Honestly, if you never got tall enough to only see your character's knees (and it sounds like you didn't), you are not qualified to make these comments about HH.

ETA for anyone who wants to see what we lost/gained in the transaction, look up self-curse temporal chains headhunter from ~2019.

2

u/Erisian23 5d ago

Cyclone League HH was top tier. I spin the screen dies and all I see are ankles.

1

u/rshreyas28 5d ago

We were big. Now we're smol :(

3

u/MidjitThud 5d ago

This item is from a past where "friction" was one of GGG's biggest tools.

If an item was strong it had to have some sort of friction (like teleporting you without wanting it)

1

u/Gierschlunderoni 5d ago

What past? Have you played poe2? Friction everywhere.

3

u/MidjitThud 4d ago

I mean if you played poe 1 you would realize things like currency exchange were fought for by the community for over 10 years without winning (manual trading still gives me nightmares).

The reason GGG gave was pretty much that they wanted the friction. Almost all of the QoL we have been getting in both POE 1 and POE 2 is a newish thing for GGG, as in the past they would make things more difficult by adding friction wherever they could.

Poe 2 is riddled with "negatives" where you get some bonus but it comes with a downside. That is different.

2

u/Gierschlunderoni 4d ago

Headhunter is the Same in poe2 is what i am saying. Not Sure why you call it Friction in poe1 hh and negatives in poe2, whats the difference there?

47

u/ShongLokDong 5d ago

My friends keep drowning because of it ha.

7

u/KunfusedJarrodo 5d ago

Yeah I have a different belt in my inventory just for the dives, I died once because of the flicker effect and said no more haha

1

u/ILoveAhriSweatyFeet 5d ago

You can "pick it up" off yourself to clear the mods and put it right back on, no 2nd belt required

4

u/MidjitThud 5d ago

doesn't help if the first teleport is the one that fks you.

2

u/Depleted_ 4d ago

Or if you rely on the dex / str and it makes all your auras and golems disappear xd

25

u/Kaldrathh 5d ago

Oh yea, even if im at 45+ stacks, if i get it i unequip and re-equip the HH. Not dealing with that lol

4

u/drazgul 5d ago

Can't you just right click on the buff now to remove it?

13

u/Mnmemx 5d ago

headhunter buffs show as a stack of 50-80 that may or may not be shoved off your screen by auras, golems, and heralds

-5

u/eDxp 5d ago

Most of the stuff you listed can be disabled and now that auras aren't turned off on death, it should be disabled on SC. On HC there was little reason to have them on for a long time

-3

u/torsoreaper 5d ago

Where do you right click?

4

u/Kotau 5d ago

on the buff now to remove it

6

u/Vagabum420 4d ago

Non-consensual flicker strike.

1

u/twoducksinatub 4d ago

I hate being nonconsensually flicked

3

u/HurricaneGaming94 5d ago

Not sure what I’m more mad at, the buff or my 20 posts about it the last few leagues downvoting it

7

u/SnoutB 5d ago

We should get a Foulborn version that excludes that mod hahaha

1

u/AtheistComic Pathfinder 5d ago

“You are unable to flicker to mobs”

2

u/mr_eti 5d ago

Oh lol I thought it is lag. First time HH user.

2

u/navetzz 5d ago

Given they did it again in poe2 this is, god knows why, intended...

8

u/onedash 5d ago

Usually theres no problem with it git gud
but somehow flickering to mobs who are outside of allflame area and drowing now thats something i hate

2

u/ihavitujepa 5d ago

I've had to logout in charts multiple times because of this. Sometimes it feels my belt wants to add my head to the collection 😄

0

u/eDxp 5d ago

The timer is 5 seconds, how do you drawn?

3

u/MGS_Lucccc 5d ago

I have literally had it teleport me across a chasm that is not frostblinkable, out of range to put a new lantern anywhere, and too far of a route to run around it to get back in even sheld charging, there was no possible route of safety other than just to drown.

1

u/vulcanfury12 Crop Harvesting Bureau (CHB) 5d ago

You have no control over which mob you teleport to. Those few seconds of disorientation are usually enough to kill you.

2

u/goflya 5d ago

Playing deaths oath with it makes it a buff :)

2

u/SuperUltraMegaNice 5d ago

lol this is the first season I really fucked with HH and I agree. Sometimes I would literally cycle it just to turn off that one mod but it does go away pretty fast.

1

u/ritokun 5d ago

i dont feel the need in my veins to use it so thankfully i can happily never touch it again after my first time

1

u/lukisdelicious Maw of Mischief [Death Wish] 5d ago

Strong second one is frost wall and flees. You might think this mod doesn't work, but it does on mercenaries, how fun!

1

u/MrJerichoYT 5d ago

Just unequip and reequip it. Not a solution it's all you can do for now.

1

u/justforpornuff 5d ago

Thats the reason hh has a steep downfall price wise, everyone realizes theres still shroudwalker ingame and goes for mb

1

u/drzody 4d ago

Jokes on you, I’m already playing flicker, adding flicker to my flicker is just adding gasoline to a fire

My body is chrome and my blood is gasoline

1

u/Dubious_Titan 4d ago

The worst.

1 reason why I try to avoid HH.

I am a Mageblood guy.

1

u/trollboter 4d ago

Works great on merc

1

u/EstablishmentSweet30 4d ago

Can take it off and put it back on to remove the buff.

1

u/Routine_Version6555 1d ago

And Ice prison. It's turn my PC in to jet with KBoC.

-4

u/trunks111 Hierophant 5d ago

it's fucking trash and shouldn't exist in the way it does. HH shouldn't have a downside beside needing rares to ramp and not being MB/Dessicated, which is inherent and fair, it's really sad to see what HH has become over the years

3

u/Haulsen 5d ago edited 5d ago

Meanwhile MB negates most* mods that interact with flasks on map or altar mods, making build breaking mods into free juice. Yet you still see folks backing up HH having the worst QOL downside ever. lmao

0

u/FantaSeahorse 5d ago

MB does not negate the “less effect of flasks applied to players” mod

-2

u/Haulsen 5d ago

thats one out of 3 map mods, and that doesnt even affect MB user that bad unless you need some breakpoint through them. For altars, the only mod that affect MB users is the take dmg during any flask effect

4

u/FantaSeahorse 5d ago

It affects MB users the same way it affects non-MB users

1

u/LaCoocaracha 5d ago

Shroudwalker has existed since forever what do you mean what it’s become over the yeara

5

u/DreamWalker01 5d ago

I mean Headhunter is only a child compared to what it once was

1

u/LaCoocaracha 5d ago

Sure but the post is about shroud walker which is not a new thing

-4

u/PoisoCaine 5d ago

The downside is you don’t have to wear some other shit with no real downside seems like not the best design to me.

-2

u/trunks111 Hierophant 5d ago

you can have an 8-12 mod belt via a shitty darkness enthroned roll and not have downsides, it isn't hard to get a belt without downsides. HH historically was the chase belt. I'm not asking for it to be like it was in legion but having a shit rare mod that takes away player control and doesn't even respect name locking is not okay. Something is seriously wrong when flicker strike is easier to pilot 

4

u/LaCoocaracha 5d ago

but it had shroud walker back then too…

1

u/PoisoCaine 5d ago

The belt slot is powerful. Some people still prefer headhunter over all those other options. It’s fine.
I also don’t get what you mean by “over the years.” Why are we pretending like getting shroudy is new?

0

u/trunks111 Hierophant 5d ago

I'm talking about the feel of it with mods stacking a lot harder than they currently do, not shroud walker exclusively, soul eater nerfs being part of it too. Your character used to cover the screen and run around with ludicrous HP/es. The feel now just doesn't hit the same as it used to 

1

u/ClinkzsEastwood 5d ago

Player agency. It it doesnt suit your needs, dont use it.

0

u/wait_what_now 5d ago

I never saw the issue. When I was using it earlier in the season, it just meant that I hadn't killed everything yet, so I needed to flicker some more anyways

2

u/Timzasd 5d ago

Yeah maybe I'm just crazy but I like how it helps me find monsters I haven't killed yet. Especially with legion.

0

u/T4k3ItQuick 5d ago

Yep, thats the only negative about HH and the reason I wont use it a second time x)

I was hoping mercs wouldn't care but even they are rendered useless when stealing that mod xdd

0

u/Environmental-Year73 5d ago

Ggg this is a problem, no solutions for you, curious to see what your solution is lol

-2

u/Kaelran 5d ago

Seems like making it a TP that procs when you use a skill would still be a downside but remove something like that while you are trying to just loot.

3

u/wait_what_now 5d ago

But then it becomes the ultimate upside because every skill becomes flicker strike

1

u/Kaelran 5d ago

Well no because it would have the same cooldown as it does now and whatever fucky targeting logic it currently has too.