Is Ascendancy going D3?

Hi,

at first i was very lucky with the idea of several new class differentiations in ascendancy. After a while watching the annouced classes in videos I was asking myself, without deeper insight of course, if the new "classes" limit us in using the skilltree for alternative purposes, i.e. binding us to given skilltrees for classes?!
So does the question boils down to "Will Ascendancy reduce the build option and build diversity in PoE?"
Is that correct? I'll will later respond if i get that correctly.
"I'm going to show you pain you never knew existed, you're going to see a whole new spectrum of pain!!!!! Like a RAINBOW!"
Exactly...
Last edited by Wilmots on Feb 9, 2016, 11:39:55 AM
Hard to say, part of me feels like to be optimal I must pick X class and Ascendancy on the other hand Ascendancy opens up new possibilities...

I think it will kind of boil down to how much of a min/max guy you are
I dont see any any key!
My short answer is "No."

Now i believe that an idea is best understood by giving an example, by showing how it works in reality so i'll try to do just that. This post might be a bit long but bare with me.

So the last build i made was a life based, acro + phase acro, crit, split arrow one.
When i've decided to make it i first created a beta-tree and then i've started think which class should i use for this build. So first of all i saw taht the marauder, templar and the witch are not suitable for my future build. Their starting points are way too far away to my planned tree for me to even consider them. Then the choice was between Shadow, Scion, Duelist and Ranger. I made a quick 4 versions of my beta-tree for each of those classes to assess the differences and here are the differences:

Scion
+13% attack speed
+5 dexterity
1 Free skill point

Shadow
+54% elemental damage

Ranger
+56% projectile damage
+4% attack speed

Duelist
+20% attack speed
+12% accuracy

The differences between them, as you can see, are very small so small actually that if i pick any of those the build will still be the same build ( remember that it's important ). 4 possible classes yet 1 build made with each of them. In this case it's an illusion of diversity, if tomorrow shadow ceases to exist i will not have 1 build less, because it's the same build to begin with. ( btw i went against what's best and made a shadow just for the heck of it ). As the guy who takes care of 3 of the build lists i've noticed something interesting, many builds are playable with multiple classes, in fact those build creators want them to be listed in the lists of those classes for better visibility by the community. Note that the build is still the same, it's one build that can be created with 2-3-4 classes and if half of those classes no longer exist that build won't change, will still exist and that won't affect the total amount of possible builds that you can create.

Now how will Ascendancy affect this build, a single build that can be used by 4 different classes where the only difference between them is how your character looks and what one-liner comes out of his/her mouth every 10 minutes.
Well with the sub-classes i can actually make sub-builds of my own build. The Duelist Champion version of the build will be a vastly different with it's extra tankiness (from the permanent Fortify) compared to the Shadow assassin version which with it's crit bonuses will allow me to use different gear and to spend points in the tree for something else and still cap my crit chance.
Hell even different sub-classes of the same class will produce very different results and thus very different builds. For example the Ranger's Pathfinder will give very interesting bonuses to your flasks, it will change the way you manage them, how and when you use them and that will result in a different gameplay style even. But on the other hand the Ranger's Deadeye will allow me to loose the chain support gem and use something else, or to stack it on top of the sub-class chain passive for even more chains, it will reward me for killing things from afar thus making me play safer if i want to make a good use of it.
So the Ascendancy sub-classes will actually increase the options of this build, at worst they will create sub-builds and at best they will change it so drastically that it will start to look like a totally different build from sub-class to sub-class.
Now we don't already now what's the scion sub-class but let's say that my build won't be even playable with scion. So that cuts the possible classes with which you can do this build by 1, but after everything that i've explained so far can you say that the game will loose 1 build because of that or that it will evolve the initial build into a couple of new and different from each other versions of it? I honestly think that this question is rhetorical and the answer is clear.
In the end Ascendancy sub-classes bring not just meaning to picking a certain character but will multiply the existing builds.
"I'm going to show you pain you never knew existed, you're going to see a whole new spectrum of pain!!!!! Like a RAINBOW!"
Last edited by KorgothBG on Feb 9, 2016, 12:08:28 PM
It only lessens diversity for people with no creativity or imagination. For the rest of us, it opens up way more ways to build characters.

And how can you possibly bring D3 into this conversation? It is nothing like D3.
Guild Leader The Amazon Basin <BASIN>
Play Nice and Show Some Class www.theamazonbasin.com
D3 gives classes and skills to chose from. No complexity at all. Limiting skills to classes gives us less options to chose from and build. im curios about the linkage of classes and "open" skills.
"
Wilmots wrote:
D3 gives classes and skills to chose from. No complexity at all. Limiting skills to classes gives us less options to chose from and build. im curios about the linkage of classes and "open" skills.


you will still be able to build your character exactly the same as you would now... there are no limits
I dont see any any key!
"
Wilmots wrote:
D3 gives classes and skills to chose from. No complexity at all. Limiting skills to classes gives us less options to chose from and build. im curios about the linkage of classes and "open" skills.
Which skill gems do you think can't be used with different classes?
Guild Leader The Amazon Basin <BASIN>
Play Nice and Show Some Class www.theamazonbasin.com
well currently i am 100% doing two different builds in ascendancy. a crit caster Ranger, and a bow Shadow.

where as in every rendition of the build other than ascendancy, Shadow or Witch is 100% more efficient for the caster and Ranger is more efficient than Shadow for the bow build.

seems legit to me. this is just two options from one guy which ascendancy has shaken up to change my plans completely. so much so i've raised two characters from scratch again to make them work instead of relying on the respec on current characters that i have.

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