To Oak or not to Oak?

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Filousov wrote:

On HC you always take +40 HP from Oak for life build unless some very very niche build.
Since you always take any 5% node easy reachable on path (even with slight detour).

There in no freedom in that.

It's not that simple. If you look at your finished planned tree at, say, level 90, you can tell yourself "at that point I will have picked all reasonably accessible life nodes on the passive tree, therefore having the +40 life from Oak will be beneficial". However, throughout most of the leveling process, you can always use +1 skill point to get one more life node.

At the same time, at level 90-ish, if built and geared properly, ~100 hitpoints shouldn't make such a big difference while you might want to squeeze one more skill point to get, for example, an additional jewel slot.

I'm one of those who always pick Oak without giving it much thought, but the more I play and get to understand the game, the more I think it's far from a clear cut answer for Hardcore and it's almost always better to pick the skill point for Softcore.

I took 60 mana this time, i might became handy later?? :D

Skill Point on softcore.
Always.
GGG will inevitably reset your tree, and then you can respec your character more freely. They may rebalance oak or life in general in the future making that "permanent" choice worse (or better.) The tree changes (slowly) over time, and completely new things show up, like jewel slots.

The only bandit case where I don't take skill points is in merc where I want the extra charge. Normal and Cruel bandit rewards are marginal effects that can be duplicated with tree nodes, whereas the skill point accelerates my tree progression.

Kraytin normal, maybe, if the build has a lot of uniques and maxing resistances will be difficult. There are Jewels that outperform Kraytin, but almost all the jewel slots require at least 2 points to access. Unless Scion, but then you have to take suboptimal tree nodes anyways.

It's a very close call, so in a larger sense of the game it wont really matter which you choose. I like the +40 HP. One skill point kind of get's lost in the shuffle.

I usually take the +40 since getting another skill point rarely feels too constricting for me.

The way I see it, until you hit about level ~90 you can always just level up to get the passive you want. And once you hit 90 you can take some time to compare if the extra 20 life is worth the skill point based on where you're at in your skill tree, since you might need it to reach for a notable.

All of my life builds take hp, cuz they never have to chose, always take all the %hp nodes in proximity. And still would take more, if i could.

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1337fun wrote:

All of my life builds take hp, cuz they never have to chose, always take all the %hp nodes in proximity. And still would take more, if i could.

ya same, to me I dont make any distinction between a hardcore and softcore build when making a character that is not a purely magic find setup. Magic Find Ill run pure dps in softcore and pure tank in hardcore, I dont consider magic find builds proper builds, theyre means to an end. Proper endgame mapping builds, for me they cant die, doesnt matter what league Im in. Sure it might happen, nothing is immortal, but I will do whatever it takes to be as close to immortal as I can be within the brief of the character I have set out with. Might be ci daggers, might be life based phys crit bows, might be life based non crit arc, whatever. Theres a concept I start with and from there I will amass every defense possible.

For me this means every life node within reach, and oak, and then me wishing I could somehow reach another life cluster that I just cant fit into the plan. Theres never enough life, never a point where I wouldnt take a life node I had direct access to, I will find a way to have that node.