Poe's act content needs to be dramatically rebalanced

There is currently a collosal gap between spells and non spells when it comes to progression in the initial act content which in turns affects progression all the way up to mid tier maps. I have leveled rangers for the last 5 years and it becomes more and more of trudge each time where as I leveled 3 spellcasters to 80+ recently and found the game's act content actually enjoyable.

Examples of gross imbalance and issues:
-In the time it takes for a bow or wand user just to finish A10 and be level 60 and not even have maxed resists, a spell caster would have already reached level 80+ with over 5,000 life and decent gear.
-Spell casters can instant gimp nearly every act boss in less than 4 seconds with zero gear investment. Non spell casters spend several minutes and are very reliant on rng to have a good leveling experience.
-Spell casters can take their labs underlevel where as non casters usually have to be fairly overleveled which further skews the progression balance

Why GGG should care:
-The vast majority of overall play time is spent in act content and for a new player to struggle with two of the tree archetypes but potentially steamroll with the third creates a crapshoot scenario where some players quit poe because its just not engaging or fun if they did not pick the meta chad spell builds to start off with.
-The current scaling makes it so that future league content is scaled against the most powerful spells of the meta (arc traps, BV, brands) and as such all other builds can not actually meaningful engage with the league until level 50+. GGG is essentially asking non meta builds to play standard league until they hit maps which is exactly what happened with syndicate for me.
-An example of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/aqd8cp/ranger_skills_and_gear/ The advice given to a struggling ranger is to grind currency and buy leveling uniques?

A possible solution: Reduce the health of non boss monsters in act content omewhat and reduce the health of act bosses moderately. Change the scaling of flat damage skills like spells to have a much slower rate of progression until skill gem level 12 or so at that point it quickly tapers up to current value. All skills at level 20 remain the same. This will essentially keep spells at the same maybe slightly less power level are at now but non spells will now actually have an enjoyable gaming experience with.

Does anyone else feel these woes during the leveling process or is this really actually fine?

Why are you so triggered by leveling dude lol

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Nephalim wrote:

-The vast majority of overall play time is spent in act content

Say what, now? You're telling me you got 36 challenges spending most of your time in act content? Also, it's cute whenever someone doesn't like something they suddenly become the noble champion of the "new player"

The problem isnt a problem. the only time attacks are that far behind spells when leveling is when you try to do a zone with a weapon that is massively behind the curve. Go spend 5 minutes getting a new weapon.

Notably, nobody EVER remembers this crafting recipe -

Weapon + rare rustic sash + blacksmiths whetstone === magic weapon with 50-69% increased phys damage.

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TheBagman wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

-The vast majority of overall play time is spent in act content

Say what, now? You're telling me you got 36 challenges spending most of your time in act content? Also, it's cute whenever someone doesn't like something they suddenly become the noble champion of the "new player"

He would be speaking across the player base obviously. Or at least leagues, which is something I recall GGG saying quite recently.

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TheBagman wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

-The vast majority of overall play time is spent in act content

Say what, now? You're telling me you got 36 challenges spending most of your time in act content? Also, it's cute whenever someone doesn't like something they suddenly become the noble champion of the "new player"

You should not make assumptions so quickly based on someone's character levels or challenges completed or lack of them.

I suppose you think most players in poe get to at least mid tier maps or even higher? Most players and most overall playtime is spent in act content and never most players actually get to maps at all.

It's not something I don't like, it's something GGG acknowledged and spent crazy amount of resources to fix for patch 3.0 which literally did nothing but try to attempt to smooth out the act content for new players because as CW says, as soon as players reach end game maps their wallets are tied to GGG's.

Act progression is a huge huge deal for GGG's income and to have such disparity between builds goes directly against that.

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Thror2k5 wrote:

The problem isnt a problem. the only time attacks are that far behind spells when leveling is when you try to do a zone with a weapon that is massively behind the curve. Go spend 5 minutes getting a new weapon.

Notably, nobody EVER remembers this crafting recipe -

Weapon + rare rustic sash + blacksmiths whetstone === magic weapon with 50-69% increased phys damage.

This is a great recipe but even if you could consistently find rare rustic sashes (you will need to burn alch or be very very lucky otherwise) and did it every 5 levels you are still far behind a naked spell caster caster point for point.

After having played a spellcaster as a league starter for the first time in 5 years of poe it is honestly now sickeningly painful to trudge through act content another time as a crummy bow ranger. It blows my mind more players are not concerned or affected by this gap.

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Nephalim wrote:

There is currently a collosal gap between spells and non spells when it comes to progression in the initial act content which in turns affects progression all the way up to mid tier maps.

And thats why they should rebalance "act content" instead rebelanacing spells and attacks?

10/10, would like to see you in balance team...

Whats making me laugh everytime is this 2 things:

1. caster
2. life pool

You know, cus game is so broken, whats even with intelligence char its better to go STR and life, to feel at least ok and to survive later. So INT ES "buff" is wasted big time. Its just broken. And useless.


About nonspells: use abyss jewels with flat +dmg, they are mandatory now when lvling too. Game feels now very sorry without them even in act 3 already. Also melee pretty fked up, there are plenty of feedback about this.

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Nephalim wrote:

There is currently a collosal gap between spells and non spells when it comes to progression in the initial act content which in turns affects progression all the way up to mid tier maps.

Yes, especially at league start when you havent lvled a spell caster (as everyone does and should) and you dont have actual good bows and melee weapons.

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Nephalim wrote:

A possible solution: Reduce the health of non boss monsters in act content omewhat and reduce the health of act bosses moderately.

No. Don't like it this way.
Generally i would like the non boss monsters to even have abit more life and i wouldnt touch the life of bosses in acts.
They should buff true melee skills. Not the kind of melee they push now that are just poor excuses of a melee skill but actually act more like spells.
I mean you could buff cleave 30% flat at all stages and it still wouldnt clear nearly as fast as spells because it lacks aoe and you need to run to the enemies you want to hit.

But yeah this is pretty much a dead horse by now.

They shouldnt make the act progression easier. They did that a long time ago.
What is challenging during act progression? Maybe Innocence, Kitava and grathgul or what that bear is called.

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Why are you so triggered by leveling dude lol

Mostly another QQ thread. Same as all the "melee sucks, please fix GGG" threads but with ranger bow builds.

But yes, get in line behind REAL melee players (not the quasi-melee skills but the "in your face" ones).

Chris was asked this in a podcast just before Betrayal started and he was ok with some skills being op compared to others. He (and GGG) expect/want you to play PoE a long time (forever) and thus be rotating though whatever happens to be a meta (read as viable) skill for the current expansion's mechanics. But you can hear him for yourself:

Dropped Frames #173