Are damage nodes an intentional trap?

No. And yes.

A few months ago, they were really bad, seldom worth taking. But the journey is not what you're after, it's the destination.

Dagger weapon passives are almost universally worth taking, because not only do they increase physical damage, attack speed or accuracy, they give great critical strike bonuses -- they're a must-have for dagger users, though you usually can't afford to buy all of them, so you need to be careful not to get too greedy.

The same goes for claw passives and bow passives. The bow critical nodes are stellar.

Some of the staff nodes are worth every penny - +block on your staff is a big deal, especially if it comes with a lot of damage.

It's not worth it to get lots and lots of damage increases though, as they don't generally stack in your favor. There are execeptions to this though -- Facebreakers and elemental weapon damage builds benefit A LOT from +increases (because there are generally a lot of potential for MORE multipliers from gems or uniques to apply and greatly empower your +increases from your passives).

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAP0DlgdjCPQK_w0CDlwQdBGWFLAVIBjbGYYZihqPHNwelCCcJDwnqSpNLOktHy9vMYg3ijgbOVI6MDsoRX5FlkZxSVFKfUtJTLNObVAwUUxWLVcrWAdabVs9W69dCV8qYENnoGwWbRluPW-ecLtzU3RVdPF4unkDfM59W35Zf8aDCYPbhTKHdpLzkyebtZ2jn3uio6dcrD-sR6x_tAy8N8AZwfPDOspKznHZE9te3FfdDeKA6yzr5PF29tr7CfxL_Kv8xQ==

Here is my MoM melee witch. I prioritized life, mana, evasion, attack speed, and auras. Why? Because there aren't many weapon nodes I can take as a witch and they aren't worth trekking off my path to the Duelist. Attack speed scales weapons really well, even two-handed weapons, which I use.

Dual curse means I can run temporal chains and enfeeble, drastically increasing my survivability. I'm also not locked into any single weapon type, which helps a lot when item-hunting. Because I'm evasion, I can also run blind for extra defense.

There aren't any notable uniques that would make this build better, so there aren't any specific weapon or offensive passives that even are attractive to me.

It's worth pointing out that mana tends to give the most DPS in this game, because the more mana you have, the better mana regeneration is -- allowing you to stack support gems and auras to the ceiling. Support gems provide MORE effects, which greatly outweigh the effects of even a lot of increased modifiers.

But, like, if you're a Marauder? There are good weapon passives to get.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAecCcQSzDnIUIBRNFHEYkRkuGjgn7TGeMgk1kjboOtg64UE_QapN2E3jUEdQUFHmVElXDVhjWK9Z818_ah5sRnJscql4DXzZgW-I8Yx2jM-QVZHOnjyezZ_LogCmV6cwp4SoGKloqW6sWayqtC-18rndwBrG2NIh2WHelt7B37_kredS52PsOO8O8B_yL_JF8932SPe-_gr-jw==

Berserking is amazing. Lots and lots of easy attack speed.
Skull Cracking is great - 16% increased armor ain't bad, plus you get 10% reduced threshold, which is only 2% less than if you'd gone down the bone breaker path for 3 points. You might wonder if stun threshold reduction matters, but it can be really useful for dealing with certain scary foes - being able to stunlock them is critical sometimes. Though I do admit, the stat is sometimes outshined by faster kill speeds from other classes.

If you're going RT already, 3 points is nothing for a good amount of increased physical damage and stun threshold reduction.

That's the key - defense is what lets you keep playing this game without losing experience or dropping into 'scrubcore'. You need defense, defense is your priority. But offensive nodes are at a point where they are fine to take if they are along the way to defensive nodes -- they are ESPECIALLY fine to take if they provide notable bonuses; stats which are hard to come by on items. It's important to weigh your options and say, "Does 5 points in this weapon cluster get me closer to some critical defense node?" If it's unlikely 5 to 20 points will significantly increase your defense, get some offensive notables or keystones.

It's hard to say in your case if they're a trap. Do you take too many offensive nodes? I think the passive tree gets blamed for a lot of bad player behavior - it's not like 8% life or 12% IPD% is going to save you from desync or stupid decisions, even when multiplied by ten. Yesterday, I lost my 63 scion to a pack of dumb snakes, because I wasn't careful when I entered a room. It wouldn't have mattered, probably, if I'd spend all my points in defense or not. Sometimes, building super defensively will save your life, but is it worth it if you aren't having fun? Probably not. In most cases though, I don't think the passive tree is the problem.

You need to get flat life and resistances from gear. That's where 40% of your character's power comes from. The other 40% is support gems, skills, and maybe your weapon. Maybe 10-20% of your power comes from your passives and keystones.

Everybody has 100..200% increased damage. They're only a "trap" if extend a backbone solely and exclusively for them.

Path of Evasion, Path of life, Path of ES

That's all that exists. If you can fit some damage nodes in some kind of way, it's an absolute miracle.

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jaceofmen wrote:

Path of Evasion, Path of life, Path of ES

That's all that exists. If you can fit some damage nodes in some kind of way, it's an absolute miracle.

I have more than four times the amount of DPS nodes than HP nodes.

Echoing anubite's post, plain increased % damage nodes do seem like a bit of a trap. However, other DPS nodes stack better and can be viable to aim for. Examples:

-Crit nodes are viable due to multiplicative stacking and can reach such massive DPS that it's worth skimping on health nodes a bit. There are viable builds based around taking lots of crit nodes.
-Stun threshold nodes stack well with each other, though there aren't enough of them to take up the majority of your points themselves. Permastun builds obv. take as many stun threshold nodes as they can.

However, there aren't many (if any at all) popular builds that stack lots of plain increased % damage nodes. A handful may be useful if you don't have many other increased % damage sources, but very rarely whole clusters for the sake of only increased % damage.