I think it would be better to , as others have said, rebalance starting mana in general. Nerfing the helm will, at best, kick the can down the road until someone figures it out again. Nerfing the helm will also generate a lot of complaints about used resources, a headache I’m sure you guys would rather skip.
If you just hard cap starting mana percent to some number less than 100%, it will solve the problem permanently, without the angst of yet another item nerf.
I really think just nerfing the Flametree Helm is a huge mistake and it’s just going to annoy players who have invested in the gear as other players have thoughtfully pointed out. And it’s not fixing the long-term issue. What we need is a hard cap on Starting Mana - 80% like other hard caps sounds reasonable. Just ruining a single piece of gear for all other battle modes just so it doesn’t enable T0 pvp seems like a cheap and easy half-measure.
As a player who’s been around long enough to see the devs nerf gear I spent significant time and resources to evolve (and that I didn’t just need for PVP) over and over and over again, I can attest that I’m supremely frustrated at this point!
Especially since the Flametree Helm is seasonal gear that is even harder to evolve because it uses seasonal Relics that are 100 times harder to obtain because they’re only available in a couple of ways and even more limited if players aren’t willing to shell out for seasonal passes.
The devs keep creating obstacles that are not challenging but instead maddening, like finding new and inventive ways to buff the Enemies we encounter in story mode, in Hunts, in Seasonal mode, in Daily Sieges and Event Dungeons, and so on - while mercilessly continuing to hamstring our characters by nerfing our painstakingly evolved gear.
And not giving us any way to recoup these losses of shards, runes, scrolls, Relics, or Glyphs for gear that suddenly becomes basically useless in any mode - which is just plain wrong.
ESPECIALLY since there’s still such ridiculously limited gear inventory space!!!
I’m absolutely livid.
Not much to say; I am with Sibelios here, hard cap 80% (max. 8% on 10 gear parts), all problems solved and a lot of time saved.
At this point maybe it isn’t too late keeping the new(er) playerbase away from this issue because they are still away from the point where BETAs or EAs are now.
Later this whole stuff may come up once more with much more of work to resolve all things done the wrong way before.
Hey all,
We had also passed on the feedback to consider adding a mana % cap 
Now at the end of the day all 3 tourneys are done with a 2500 score. Both dark tourneys are done with assassin probably based on dark flametree helm.
For the normal top player this means now 300 instead of 1500 gems.
This situation should be urgently improved and rebalanced! Means this should be available with upgrade to 1.3!
To exclude influence of flametree helm until improvement the next tourneys should be either light, poison or ice based.
I think best solution now is a debuff limiting starting mana for PvP working as the debuffs for the events. But I also think the starting mana values of the flametree helm should be reduced additionally.
Why? If they cap starting mana % to avoid turn 0, why would you want them to also nerf the helms? I’m sincerely asking, because maybe I am missing something.
My (possibly wrong) view is that capping the starting mana solves the problem. Nerfing the helms will just create another wave of rage quitting over time and money spent. If people having the helm prevented others from enjoying the game, I could see it.
Reducing starting mana of flametree helm is a question of gear/game balance and fairness related to the different hero classes.
At EA we had same high values for dragonguard helm and bone rings. I collected 5 of them and then starting mana was reduced to 1/2/3/4 combined with increase of mana needed for spells ( to 115 for the lowest offense spell of a paladin). We had to accept this. As a consequence this forced the mythic upgrades.
The 5/10/15/20 starting mana of flametree helm is a step back and besides PvP it also causes an unfair advantage at PvE gaming for the assassin hero class (and for red equipped heroes).
I guess I can see your point, since it only buffs two colors, not every class is really going to get a benefit from it. I still don’t see how it would matter to me if someone was using it, if start mana was capped.
We didn’t have to accept it, though. We chose to accept it. But many players chose to give up the game, instead. I, personally would accept a change to the helm. Of course that’s easy for me, since I don’t have an upgraded one and didn’t spend time, resources or money on it. I just would rather skip the part where a bunch of good players quit, and a bunch of spending players decide to go ftp over it.
Whatever they decide on the helm… 
I just hope we finally get a hard cap on starting mana.
Disclaimer: I can T0 on open only
Kinda obvious, but T0 scoring does really suck if people are doing it and you can’t.
But I like the idea of building towards a game changer. It’s just like building towards a super tanky practically infinite armor tank. Or a super critting warrior. It requires investment and it’s super cool when you can do it, but it has its pros and cons, like mana start build isn’t going to be good at ramping up over time.
Buuut, yeah, totally sucks and ruins pvp. So…
I vote for cap pvp score at 2475 and leave full mana start available.
I’d be ok with your solution, myself. I did the whole build towards the thing in earlier EA meta. I do not find that as awesome as you find it, but imho the only thing this hurts random strangers on is pvp.
However, I kinda agree with @Sibelios that start mana should be capped the way things like blocked are capped. Because if you can get 100% starting mana via gear progression, why can’t people get 100% block chance via gear progression. It’s the same sort of “game changer” only one exists and the other is hard cap impossible. The percentages can be different if balance needs that, but everything either needs to be hard capped or nothing needs to be hard capped.
@Jeto , @OminousGMan :
Please try to get an information from the devs BEFORE END OF SEASON what they are planning concerning flametree helm.
Actually I kept my dark and red helm on epic and didnt upgrade yet. Depending on their decision I will use my relics for other gear, spell, minion.
Dont nerf any one item. People have invested real money into their gear and nerfing anything will just piss people off.
Just add a hard cap of 99% of mana cap so you cant cast before the first turn.
Pvp in this game needs a revamp anyways and be more difficult for the attacker.
Hey all,
Some excellent points about Flametree Helm have been raised in this thread, so the designers will be doing a broader review of the items and spells in the game to make sure they’re balanced well for PVP.
But it will mean some experimentation and testing before these changes are able to go live.
Can you confirm whether compensation will be provided for nerfed equipment now that we are out of early access?
I think your compensation was the extra gems, maybe? Heh. Kidding. Not really extra. Because I know that you were just trying to salvage your gem earnings. This is why we need the hard cap on starting mana, not nerfs to gear. Also hard capping start mana would end the era of “this is why we can’t have nice things”
You spent time and resources on gear in good faith. If the start mana gets a cap you are still a little bit undervalued on that gear, but it would be useful for speed, so not a hard hit.
My vote is cap that mana and leave the gear alone. I say this as someone who does not have any good version of the gear.
I am with you there. A cap on mana would make my investment less valuable, but I would still have exactly what I paid for. On the other hand, a direct nerf to individual items is where compensation should be expected.
At the end of the day this is a design question that needs a final answer. They are going to keep putting out new gear and new spells, etc. etc., and if no cap is set, then 100% “empowered” spells will always be a possibility.
Do the developers want players to have 100% empowered spells? Perhaps they don’t know because they are still winging it? Ultimately though, having to take at least one gem matching move in PvE or PvP is a reasonable design “limit”. This would then allow you to pick the starting mana gear that gets you to this “limit” and then you can focus on other gear. Constantly putting us at the threshold of 100% empowered spells so that we then have this cycle of complain, then nerf is not good design and development.
Perfectly stated. As long as starting mana is not capped we are just doomed to an endless cycle of nerfs, which IMHO is just bad for the health of a game.
This game is pretty heavily monetized. I’m ok with that. But it can’t be ok to keep erasing what I’m sure some people are spending money on. Fix the actual mechanic to fix the problem. Leave the gear alone. Most people will not care if someone can do something a little bit faster. But a lot of people will care if they threw cash at something and it was worthless a month later.
I want a healthy game where people can mostly (stuff happens) depend on what they pay cash for and other people aren’t at the mercy of people who just want to see the world burn. lol
Maybe we should just have a maximum score of 24750 and then the devs don’t have to worry about powerful gear ruining the PVP experience for everyone, now and in the future.
I hope we get some communication on this soon. This mode is really not worth the time if it stays as is.