Sometimes balancing an MMO is a matter of twisting a few different knobs and realigning certain metrics, but sometimes balance comes down to changing one specific item. That latter one is the case for Path of Exile, which is going to be making one small adjustment to one little item that could have a significant impact across the OARPG.
The item being tweaked is the Sap of the Seasons tincture, which by Grinding Gear Games’ reckoning has turned into a required item for players who are using a specific build that also requires those players to be in a party to even use, to say nothing of the fact that the tincture’s damage multiplier makes content trivial.
With those caveats in mind, GGG is going to add a new effect to the Sap of the Seasons that caps its melee damage penetration at 200%, where previously there was no such cap on the item’s effect. Internal testing is being done to ensure this adjustment is “powerful but not absolutely broken,” after which it should be patched into the game in a couple of days.