Has Ascendancy really created diversity?

Hi, (lots of text, sorry).

I do enjoy the ascendancy classes. They are spicing up some existing gameplays, making some skill mechanics and build mechancs behave differently whicih is fun to see.

But overall, do we have an increased variety of builds now?

Think about it...(to name a few examples)

If you want to go full summoner, you roll with Witch > Necromancer and grab Flesh binder, Soul Weaver, Mistress of Sacrifice. These are a given and you really can't deviate from these three if you want to be a good summoner. Even Spirit Eater is more for DD builds, not summoner.

If you go with cyclone or some other melee build, you roll with Champion, and even GGG has said champion is the most played AC (I wonder why) you grab Unstoppable Hero and Fortitude. You don't even look at any other points because you want Fortitude. Its an automatic with a champion in most builds.

If you want to roll with RF totem, you go Chieften. You pick up Arohongui Moons presence and Tukahama War Herald. These are automatics. Making your RF totems immune to the degen of RF is far superior (obviously) than ignoring this node and picking something else.

These three playstyles used to be able to be played with a few classes.

Summoner: Witch/Scion
Cyclone: Duelist/mara/templar
RF totem: Witch/Scion/Mara/Templar

So...while the ascendancy nodes themselves really do a great job at changing up how some playstyles function, don't you think (in a way) that they pigeonholed you into a certain class and then a certain AC class while removing the option of going with a different class on the passive tree?

I honestly think that it hasnt necessarily created many more builds (maybe a few)... I think that it has taken eliminated some builds and class choices and replaced them with new ones. Instead of re-skinning builds (like ZiggyD once said), builds are now pigeonholed into one specific class and AC class. I'm not saying thats a horrible thing (maybe I am) but it does question whether or not in 1+ yr people will still consider POE to have endless build potential based on your creativity (at least compared to what it was pre-AC)

thanks for your time!

Again...not complaining, just look at it from different points of view.

You have to define what you mean by "build" and "diversity" or this is just going to become a debate on semantics.

The characters in this game are hardly "classes" in the historic use of the term. That's where the fallacy of this type of discussion usually comes in. People define diversity in terms of "class" when we don't even use the term "class" in the proper sense anymore.

You have your work cut out for you. This game has no "classes". It has no "builds". We use these terms loosely to describe things in this game, but since they're not rigorously defined we end up with simply using them to back whatever opinion we have of the game. You can argue either side of the discussion, because neither side is using the terms the same way.

In short... we've been down this road many times in the past and it gets us nowhere.

Actually I feel like it had reduced build viability by gating certain mechanics behind a class. You used to be able to make a spell casting duelist, but with the duelist ascendancies its not useful at all. I guess it was never intended to be, but at least it was an option and it wasn't as bad as it seems.

I guess what I call build diversity is freedom of choice. I suppose you can make a mara summoner, but don't expect to be anywhere near as efficient as a witch necro...right?

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thevdende wrote:

You used to be able to make a spell casting duelist, but with the duelist ascendancies its not useful at all..

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Yeah, taking 20% reduced damage at all times is pretty worthless.

A small gripe about champion: I think it's a complete waste to pick him for a melee class when you can easily apply fortify with flickerstrike, leap slam or whirling blades and he doesn't bring much else to the table. Berserker, Juggernaut, Slayer, Gladiator are IMO much better for melee builds.

Apart from that, to answer your question:

Ascendancy classes have created diversity in the sense of having more viable builds to play. A year ago there were just a few top-tier skills, a few other barely viable ones and everything else was trash. Nowadays you can pick basically any skill and make a solid build with it. Which is nice. Before the ascendancy classes, there was a point in the game where you had great freedom in choosing whether to play an incinerate witch, an incinerate shadow, an incinerate templar, an incinerate marauder or an incinerate scion. Oh, and don't let me forget the incinerate ranger.

They lessened diversity in terms of available class choices for builds. You can still pull off whacky builds like block necromancer, EK deadeye or melee elementalist but these opportunities are generally much less than before. However, I don't see a way around that. Before, classes were almost meaningless and any build could be duplicated by at least two other classes plus Scion (with the Scion usually being better). Nowadays classes have their very distinct flavour and I like that a lot.

"

thevdende wrote:

Actually I feel like it had reduced build viability by gating certain mechanics behind a class. You used to be able to make a spell casting duelist, but with the duelist ascendancies its not useful at all. I guess it was never intended to be, but at least it was an option and it wasn't as bad as it seems.

Well and thats kind of the point Im making. When you think trapper now, you think Shadow. No other class or starting point on the passive tree is considered. Shadow.

And now by saying "I guess it was never intended to be"...is sad because when I came to this game I was mesmorized by the playstyles and the creativity. Saying "it was never intended to be" is now saying that the devs have a specific direction for each 'class' or hero that they want to encourage you to play...almost as if they are saying they would rather you NOT create that spell casting duelist because it doesn't fit their vision for the class. That to me dilutes creativity when the devs are trying to encourage you to play a class a specific way.

"

Fuuljo wrote:

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thevdende wrote:

You used to be able to make a spell casting duelist, but with the duelist ascendancies its not useful at all..

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Yeah, taking 20% reduced damage at all times is pretty worthless.

Troll? or just idiot?

"

Fuuljo wrote:

"

thevdende wrote:

You used to be able to make a spell casting duelist, but with the duelist ascendancies its not useful at all..

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Yeah, taking 20% reduced damage at all times is pretty worthless.

Certainly not, but how else do the other AC nodes fit into a spell casting duelist playstyle? Is it worth going champ for JUST that for all builds? Now we are really limiting our options if we have that mind set.

"

cesmode wrote:

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Fuuljo wrote:

"

thevdende wrote:

You used to be able to make a spell casting duelist, but with the duelist ascendancies its not useful at all..

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Yeah, taking 20% reduced damage at all times is pretty worthless.

Certainly not, but how else do the other AC nodes fit into a spell casting duelist playstyle? Is it worth going champ for JUST that for all builds? Now we are really limiting our options if we have that mind set.

It's worth it in HC if your spell hits hard enough anyway. There were duelist sparkers destroying everything last league. You don't really waste too much points with the Duelist, just a few phys damage starting nodes and that's it. Completely worth it to get perma ranged fortify.