Afraid of the new Ascendancy Classes

"

Mark_GGG wrote:

"

Deadpeng wrote:

For those of you who were not here 2 years ago, Path of Exile used to be a game whereby a witch can be a Facebreaker puncher while a Marauder can be a spellcaster.

It still is, and ascendancy classes provide powerful new options for off-class builds as well - a spellcasting marauder is now more likely to play differently than a spellcasting witch, for example, due to being able to take advantage of the extra tankiness of the Juggernaut - a class for which only one of the big nodes (Undeniable) is explicitly limited to attacks, and one other (Unyielding) is implicitly pushed towards attacks due to them being easier to get fortify on.
Every other large node on that tree (and half the small nodes) is just as effective on a tanky caster as on a tanky archer, tanky bowrauder, or tanky melee character. This is intentional.

Keep in mind as well that there are two more ascendancies yet to be revealed for the classes you mentioned.

Remember though that these new passives are so strong that ANY class combo that doesn't perfectly fit with them will be considerably more suboptimal than now.

So if i wanted to play class A with build B if there isn't a perfect fit for that with these new passives that build with that class becomes obsolete.This is what people mean when they say some-times more is less.

To be frank I like there to be less choice tbh so I know there is less chance ive made a mistake in my build but that's just me.

Quit referring to the characters as "class A" and you'll get over this change. Builds were pretty much independent of character before this change and now they're not. Doesn't change the number of builds in the game at all.

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

My real hope for the game is that after they add this stuff, they work on an entire re-balancing of the whole game... perhaps while adding act V, or expanding act IV. Dumping Cruel difficulty would be a good start.

Me too

I dont mind a little power creep here and there, stuff happens and changes have to be made to allow new mechanics to be introduced into the game. The new maiming ability for instance looks very strong and if it was introduced into the game back in 1.3 it would most likely have been seen as OP. A little power creep to allow something like that into the game while not taking away too greatly from your player bases previous efforts is fine IMO. But if a little is added each patch it will eventually compound into what diablo 3 did which was make your old "godly" characters relatively useless except for early game content.

The problem as I see it is that the brilliant players who create the builds will Min/Max them for the "Best" Ascendancy and include it in the build.

Then the masses will play that one.

Then GGG will buff/nerf whatever builds they choose to buff/nerf as part of their "refresh" between leagues, and you have to hope your build doesn't get hit by the mighty NerfHammer.

It's no biggy for those that play the Temp leagues as they are constantly rerolling, but I can see it as a road block for those playing permanent leagues.


It was nice to have the ability to respec a character around any build because you could try new things without the drudgery of levelling a new character through three difficulties when you could just grab a random unused character who happened to have a full respec available.

Classes aren't really classes currently they are just different skins to look at while playing and some of them save/cost you a few points in the Build.

It's a Shiny New Thing that will attract some attention, it will be interesting to see how it affects long term playing retention.

People complaining about this have no idea what the word "classes" mean. What we have are different 'characters', but they are far from different 'classes'.

I am glad GGG is finally giving them their real identity.

And no, it won't effect build diversity. The word you're looking for is flexibility. In fact, build diversity will be higher than ever. Already got ideas for new builds which weren't possible before.

The only concern is the power creep issue. I will trust GGG on balancing.

The notion of fear usually consist's of a lack of knowledge.
Very applicable in this particular situation :).

People complaining about build diversity seem to think off-class builds where somehow optimal or not a
snow-flake endevour? Nothing will change on this front, off-class builds will still be made, be unique and snow-flake-ish and allow fun stuff to happen.

However, just like before, they will not be optimal.(which doesn't naturally imply they are dog shit either...)

Stuff looks fun imo, obviously we don't have all the info(passive tree changes seem very important in light of this introduction for example) so it seems premature at best to already have a definite thought on the mater.

Peace,

-Boem-

Ahhh...

It's almost refreshing to see that no matter which game forum I go to, the knee-jerk shrieking about Any And Every New Thing Ever is always the same.

It's not like people already make funky, offbeat builds just because they can, right? 'Sub-optimal' in that they can't vaporize Atziri by level 55 or some such like the Perfect Builds, but still able to clear content just peachy-keen fine and do so in a novel way most folks haven't tried yet? Nah, nobody does that. And a'course we know everything there is about both the new Ascendancy classes and also the rebalanced skill tree and adjusted skillgems we'll be getting in the 2.1 update, and thus we have a perfect picture of the game's future to kvetch about.

Man. This is, liek, my tenth post in these particular game forums and I'm already sitting here going "I swear I've had this argument before..." Good to know I still fit, I suppose. I'm really digging this game, I'm excited to see what comes of both Talisman and Ascendancy, but yeesh. You'd figure a scrappy indie dev like GGG who's managed to make a Bigass Throwback Game for an audience that was all niche-y as hell before PoE would actually have at least a few players that liked them.

I'm going to repeat what I already said on Reddit: the new ascendancy classes will make the initial class choice much more meaningful. Up to this point there was very little distinction between classes, many builds spread across three or even four starting areas and getting slightly more life and defenses over slightly more damage wasn't a real choice. This lack of distinctive features between classes is now more visible than ever. With the addition of jewels around 50% of the Darkshrine ladder is playing Scion. I once said we could remove all classes and only leave out Scion and anyone would hardly notice. With the current meta being what it is my words happened to hold some truth. I'm more than happy about GGG adding some depth into classes. This way PoE is going to feel like a brand new game where every choice matters. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that the ascendancy classes will be bound to additional content that should by no means and in any degree be mandatory.

Huh? I came up with a build for using a duelist class as a bow character just 10 minutes ago. Just because they're archetypes it does not mean they're set in stone.

For example:
Using the Gladiator ascendancy class we can pick up:
Versatile Combat - 100% of block chance applied to spell block
Pain Forged - 8% Block chance when hit in the last 4 sec/ +35% increased damage if you took no damage.

Then you have a choice of either grabbing
Violent Retribution - Bonuses on Block
or
Gratuitous Violence - Bleeds + Explosion on Kill

Now here comes the actual part of the build:

By Grabbing Rearguard and The Bringer of rain while applying the bonuses from Versatile combat we have an astounding:

39/54 Block chance (69/75 with Rumi's, with a chance of keeping up 75/75 if we do get hit).
*Calculated without staff passives from lioneye's

The Bringer gives you a lot of flat damage but you sacrifice 1 socket off of your single target (which is not a big deal)

Obviously you want to pick up the lioneye's jewel and iron reflexes but you should know that already.


So in my opinion, sub-classes are not so set in stone. Just because you can't theorycraft it doesn't mean that these sub-classes will kill class fluidity.