Problem with Vaal Pact in new tree

I actually like the overall concept of the changes to Vaal Pact, but I do see one small problem with it. At least from what I've seen so far of the tree(and yes, I know it hasn't been officially released yet and is subject to change), it looks like it will be fairly hard to move around the tree, especially getting a decent amount of +life % nodes WITHOUT having to go through any life regen nodes as well.

Obviously life regen nodes will be wasted with Vaal Pack, so you'd want to avoid them if possible, but it seems hard to find a direct path through a lot of the life clusters without taking them. For example, from the duelist start, you would want to go through the 2 melee damage nodes and then the life nodes, but first there's a life regen node. From the marauder start, you can go through the armor/life path, but then you run into Warrior's blood.

So Vaal Pact costs you two nodes instead of one.

This isn't the end of the world.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

This isn't the end of the world.

I never said it was. I just think it's a flaw in the design of the tree if every single build that could possibly use VP is going to have to go through a node that it can't use.

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Hodari wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

This isn't the end of the world.

I never said it was. I just think it's a flaw in the design of the tree if every single build that could possibly use VP is going to have to go through a node that it can't use.

You could, in theory, go around the regen node. Every class has an option to take +10 attribute nodes on the way out. You could look at it as a +20 in this case, since the first one is free.

Not saying that's viable, just saying it is slightly more appealing than it was before.

IMHO the duelist is the only one with the problem of a possibly wasted node - Warrior bood is still 20 str, which is better than a 10 str node, so it is not completely wasted and it gives you a quite nice regen for the time until you take Vaal Pact.
And even on the duelist you can go around over the +10 str nodes - basically it is your choise, if you rather spend one completely useless node or go around spending more skill points, but all nodes have at least some effect (but sadly only +10 str).

A more annoying issue is that Vaal Pact is pretty much mandatory for endgame now.

It's more like, there should be 3 or 8 or 20 locations on the tree where you can pick it up since it's so central.

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LimitedRooster wrote:

A more annoying issue is that Vaal Pact is pretty much mandatory for endgame now.

It's more like, there should be 3 or 8 or 20 locations on the tree where you can pick it up since it's so central.

Or it could just be the basic functionality of leech.

There need to be more passive tree options for powering up your leeching, and not just for physical attack builds. The situation with mana leech is even worse.