Path of Exile: Ascendancy (News Coverage)

After lots of consideration, theory crafting with information currently available, and reading comments here I felt like I should say something.

While I still believe for the majority of the playerbase Ascendancy will have players choosing character classes based off of their ascension classes instead of skill tree location (this doesn't destroy diversity/prevent off brand builds - I don't believe I said it did, maybe it was inferred, in which case I'll specify here I didn't mean to imply that specifically), I see now that this will also promote diversity at the same time.

True, it's going to be painful for some builds to relinquish certain notable points in the ascension classes, but there is more reason now to spec into off brand characters for certain builds than before.

If I started a panic (I see after my OP there was a lot of similar posts in the same vein) I apologize. I should mention in the OP that I said I wasn't sure if I was for or against the Ascendancy classes, and I hadn't had much time to process it all either.

Approaching it now after having slept on it, I see this as a good thing. If you want to hyper specialize then sure, you are limited to choices like "I need to be a Witch for this Necromancer bonus" or "I need to be a Duelist to take advantage of these amazing block and spell block bonuses", but instead of specializing you can move elsewhere and cover weaknesses/create new strengths your specialization otherwise had/would not have had.


TL;DR
Spoiler
I still think players will choose character class based off of Ascendancy classes available to them, as stated before. I no longer see this as a bad thing.
Bring back race seasons.
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drake1666 wrote:
Won't the ascendancy classes kill build diversity to an extent? The nodes are pretty powerful, thus the trees almost force you to make a stereotypical build like arrow slinging ranger, summoning witch, etc. I'm not sure about that idea... I hope we will at least have the option to take regular skill points instead.

Also, this 4 seconds stuff... just no. Penalize people for stopping to pick up and identify an item? in an ARPG?

The rest looks very nice, especially the enchantments.

Personally I'm not that concerned just yet. It's still work in progress and we still don't have all the specializations.
Also, just because you can make a duelist spell caster it doesn't make it nearly as good as other classes that have easier access to int/spell related nodes. Ascendancy just emphasizes that, based on immediate node pools.
One could argue that it kills build diversity because the only good crit build will be shadow build with specific ascendance, but on the other hand it's most likely that you have already chose shadow because of nearby crit node availability. Same can be said about other classes. Can you make a evasion/dodge based Templar? Sure you can, but will it be as efficient as say Ranger? Most likely not. Same goes to ascendancy specializations.
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laminarija wrote:
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drake1666 wrote:
Won't the ascendancy classes kill build diversity to an extent? The nodes are pretty powerful, thus the trees almost force you to make a stereotypical build like arrow slinging ranger, summoning witch, etc. I'm not sure about that idea... I hope we will at least have the option to take regular skill points instead.

Also, this 4 seconds stuff... just no. Penalize people for stopping to pick up and identify an item? in an ARPG?

The rest looks very nice, especially the enchantments.

Personally I'm not that concerned just yet. It's still work in progress and we still don't have all the specializations.
Also, just because you can make a duelist spell caster it doesn't make it nearly as good as other classes that have easier access to int/spell related nodes. Ascendancy just emphasizes that, based on immediate node pools.
One could argue that it kills build diversity because the only good crit build will be shadow build with specific ascendance, but on the other hand it's most likely that you have already chose shadow because of nearby crit node availability. Same can be said about other classes. Can you make a evasion/dodge based Templar? Sure you can, but will it be as efficient as say Ranger? Most likely not. Same goes to ascendancy specializations.


Exactly. Marauder NEVER can be as good as witch in spells anymore. The gap between classes rapidly increased = much less diversity of builds.
The free ridiculous skill points are sure to generate hype, but I think its far out weighed by how it completely limits which class can play what builds. Want to play a life based summoner and don't want to start witch because you'd be wasting the starting nodes, too bad! Want to try a bow duelist, you'll need a time machine for that. etc etc.

This seems pretty simple, all classes should be able to use any ascendancy or you're taking a step in the backwards direction (D3).




Buy the ticket, take the ride.
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p0t wrote:
The free ridiculous skill points are sure to generate hype, but I think its far out weighed by how it completely limits which class can play what builds. Want to play a life based summoner and don't want to start witch because you'd be wasting the starting nodes, too bad! Want to try a bow duelist, you'll need a time machine for that. etc etc.

This seems pretty simple, all classes should be able to use any ascendancy or you're taking a step in the backwards direction (D3).






Agreed, I will have to take my crit sword duelist guide and move it to shadow :(

Hopefully the 3rd shadow ascendancy has a bow spec, so I can at least keep that...

Also, the 100% more crit chance against enemies on full life just broke pvp forever
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p0t wrote:
The free ridiculous skill points are sure to generate hype, but I think its far out weighed by how it completely limits which class can play what builds. Want to play a life based summoner and don't want to start witch because you'd be wasting the starting nodes, too bad! Want to try a bow duelist, you'll need a time machine for that. etc etc.

This seems pretty simple, all classes should be able to use any ascendancy or you're taking a step in the backwards direction (D3).





But do you see the irony here? You have already discarded Witch because of several wasted points, yet you argue that ascendancy limits build diversity.
Just because Witch is the only class able to access Necromancer specialization doesn't mean that other nearby class will not have anything of their own to support minion based builds.
I want to know what this channelled chaos aoe skill is. https://youtu.be/vwCGT8ttfWE?t=85
Class optimization ment there was never all that much cross spec class diversity... meh

Rock on GGG
SSF since ~OB
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KorgothBG wrote:
I've spotted a darkshrine! :P

In the got game video, they talk about how they've implemented darkshrines into the game. They now just give a random effect without the need for a sacrifice.
"Alas, the one-man crusade of Torr Olgosso comes to an end. May his fervor for vengeance at being imprisoned inside of small boxes be remembered for all of time."
- Xedralya
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p0t wrote:
The free ridiculous skill points are sure to generate hype, but I think its far out weighed by how it completely limits which class can play what builds. Want to play a life based summoner and don't want to start witch because you'd be wasting the starting nodes, too bad! Want to try a bow duelist, you'll need a time machine for that. etc etc.

This seems pretty simple, all classes should be able to use any ascendancy or you're taking a step in the backwards direction (D3).








I felt the same way. But consider that you can make a bow Duelist using the Champion Ascendancy class and have 20% increased fortify effect and fortify up permanently. It's impossible for archers to have fortify (it was always possible to go dagger/sceptre and whirling blades/leap slam + fortify for caster builds) so that's an incredible buff. You may not even need to go IR; just spec into heavy evasion + dodge/spell dodge and stack multiple layers of mitigation. Then you can use your last two Ascendancy points to get Inspirational, which is a permanent 30% damage and 5% MS (rare stat on the tree) bonus. Note that 30% is global, so it'll apply regardless of archer type. Ele? Phys? Mix? You want it, you got it.


In fact, if you go that route I described above, in 6 points you now have 30% global damage, 15% attack speed, 13% movement speed, permanent fortify, and 20% fortify effect (not sure what that'd turn into. 30% less damage taken, maybe?). That's pretty good for 6 points, and very useful for an archer!

This'll cover a lot of defensive nodes on your passive tree and you can allocate more points than you normally would into offensive nodes there since you are getting so much evasion (and fortify) from the Champion class.
Bring back race seasons.
Last edited by AbdulAlhazred on Nov 21, 2015, 3:30:03 PM

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