Path of Exile: Ascendancy (News Coverage)

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maxor wrote:

Id very much like some-one from GGG or one of the alpha/beta testers to tell us how the Ascendency skills and levels are obtained.

will it simply be like normal exp but from all mobs in the labyrinth or is it as i fear, a set amount of exp/levels/bonus given ONLY on completion of an hour+ long no death run through the labyrinth? And if that is the case how will the balance for that be handled (will the labyrinth be balanced for having all the new passives or none)?

There's lots of information here on how the Ascendancy levels are obtained, by running the labyrinth in each difficulty. No experience required.

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roguemjb wrote:

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p0t wrote:

The free ridiculous skill points are sure to generate hype, but I think its far out weighed by how it completely limits which class can play what builds. Want to play a life based summoner and don't want to start witch because you'd be wasting the starting nodes, too bad! Want to try a bow duelist, you'll need a time machine for that. etc etc.

This seems pretty simple, all classes should be able to use any ascendancy or you're taking a step in the backwards direction (D3).

Agreed, I will have to take my crit sword duelist guide and move it to shadow :(

Hopefully the 3rd shadow ascendancy has a bow spec, so I can at least keep that...

Also, the 100% more crit chance against enemies on full life just broke pvp forever

Uh what about inquisitor ignore all resists?

Thats much more powerful for pvp.

I do not see why people are complaining about builds being dead.. or specific characters being unusable now for the game. Look.. outside of them majorly revamping the skill tree.. all builds that u currently run will still be just as powerful as they currently are. Is witch summoner still more point optimal then other builds.. absolutely. Does that mean you cant run Templar.. it does not. So unless you for some reason have to play a build 100% optimally to enjoy yourself every build you currently have still works.. Ascendance just add something else to your build.

You just get something extra on top of your existing build that can alter it in a flavorful way.. will these always mean a massive buff. No probably not, but could it translate into something very nice even when Your playing a sub optimal build. Yes yes it may. IF for some reason your running a summoning marauder.. you have already accepted that it wont do as much damage as the witch or Templar.. so you must be playing it for a reason. Survival etc. the ascendance for those classes likely just mean you will be even more survivable.

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Hallagenic wrote:

all builds that u currently run will still be just as powerful as they currently are.

You (and others) are assuming they won't buff enemies to compensate for the additional power of ascendancy skills. Others are assuming they will. Those are the two camps of thought on this.

I tend to think they will buff enemies, or else the 'more optimal' builds will just steamroll even higher content. It seems to me (and others) to be the more logical outcome that they will buff enemies.

However, I am eager to see the remainder of the ascendancy skill trees. Since we are not yet seeing a complete picture, we cannot truly measure the extent of ascendancy's impact and there may yet be bonuses that support whatever builds we play. Duelist is the only class that has their full ascendancy tree set currently released.

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Acer99 wrote:

@GGG, Will there finally be an MTX for removing the duelist red shirt so he can be bare chested for going gladiator ascension?

+1

Sounds all interesting. As i see it a duelist crit build, will be just as strong as before or even stronger, it all depends if you need even more crit now than before or if your crit build could use more defense.

The only limiting factor is the perceived power, the perception is that the shadow class is more viable, so most people would go for that, but that does not have to be true at all. Only thing to watch out for is that the extra elements, doesn't vamp up the difficulty of the game to a point they become the new must haves or the sole elements to enable builds.

One other thing I think needs to happen is the removal of some skill points and more efficient paths around the current passive tree. Getting defense through ascendancy allows you to find new paths in teh passive tree, but are those paths viable and existing to take?

This will be hard with all the new jewel/gem stuff in the passive tree also, but I think it would empower the objective GGG is trying to reach. Around beta some me included already were in favor of more class specific elements, putting more weight on your starting location.

These new powers are interesting and more powerful than I had in mind, but it seems GGG is designing them in such a way that a bow marauder is still possible, it is just now more different than a ranger bow character. Previously the difference lied mostly in how far one could reach and what the character model looked like that you are playing. This also slightly brings me back to an earlier point, the reaching limit of the passive tree should deserve some rethought and close inspection aswell now (or again).

Do you want two determining factors to be mutually exclusive? I can see the passive tree undergoing changes and I hope this will be the focus rather than tone the ascendancy nodes down (power and flavor wise).

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AbdulAlhazred wrote:

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p0t wrote:

The free ridiculous skill points are sure to generate hype, but I think its far out weighed by how it completely limits which class can play what builds. Want to play a life based summoner and don't want to start witch because you'd be wasting the starting nodes, too bad! Want to try a bow duelist, you'll need a time machine for that. etc etc.

This seems pretty simple, all classes should be able to use any ascendancy or you're taking a step in the backwards direction (D3).

I felt the same way. But consider that you can make a bow Duelist using the Champion Ascendancy class and have 20% increased fortify effect and fortify up permanently. It's impossible for archers to have fortify (it was always possible to go dagger/sceptre and whirling blades/leap slam + fortify for caster builds) so that's an incredible buff. You may not even need to go IR; just spec into heavy evasion + dodge/spell dodge and stack multiple layers of mitigation. Then you can use your last two Ascendancy points to get Inspirational, which is a permanent 30% damage and 5% MS (rare stat on the tree) bonus. Note that 30% is global, so it'll apply regardless of archer type. Ele? Phys? Mix? You want it, you got it.


In fact, if you go that route I described above, in 6 points you now have 30% global damage, 15% attack speed, 13% movement speed, permanent fortify, and 20% fortify effect (not sure what that'd turn into. 30% less damage taken, maybe?). That's pretty good for 6 points, and very useful for an archer!

This'll cover a lot of defensive nodes on your passive tree and you can allocate more points than you normally would into offensive nodes there since you are getting so much evasion (and fortify) from the Champion class.

ya I think its not quite as pinned down as people are thinking.

Some of these marauder talents are purely defensive, I mean why are you picking a marauder for a caster instead of a witch? Because of its defenses, theres nothing stopping you taking a purely defensive ascendancy tree and just speccing more jewel slots on the passive tree to buff up your spell damage. Weve not even seen the other 2 marauder or witch trees yet too.

Im more worried about the game when theres no reason to start a caster as a witch than marauder tbh. 2h melee ci witch? You just dont see that happening virtually ever because its a bad idea. Its ok that some things are a bad idea, quirky mad things, and its good that some work. Its not ok if a marauder isnt a good 2h melee, that a witch isnt a good caster, certain things have to work for the game to make sense and I feel like these sub classes actually give some strength to that.

Dagger shadow... why wouldnt you start as a ranger for life or a witch for ci? Who wants those 10% phys nodes over the life + evasion from the ranger? If you take the ranger life anyway, then why not spend 1 point to start as ranger, drop those 5 shit physical nodes in the shadow start and get yourself 2 jewel slots with way more damage or spec a proper dps wheel with a strong notable. I would never play a melee dagger shadow simply because of his start nodes, up till now. That assassin tree makes sense of a dex/int weapon like a dagger being used on the dex/int hybrid class. But its not going to stop my ranger life dagger reaver being what she is because Avatar of Onslaught is equally insane in its own way. Will my ci dagger witch survive? Will one of these 2 missing witch trees actually be good for crit int ci attacking like daggers/wanding? I hope so. If so then what may happen is that I end up with 3 characters, a ranger, a witch and a shadow, and theres a reason now to have a 3rd, they will all be doing something the others cant do.



sure theres ups and downs with the system but I think its giving a bit more identity to characters and thats a good thing. I like that the points are off in this little subtree where I dont have to weight them against simply more % life and $ damage, also I cant give any of that up to just stack all the things. Its a little set of choices in a bubble with their own pressures and freedoms. You can synergise them with your tree and gear but you dont have to compromise them for any other consideration. What really kills a lot of build diversity in this game is that a lot of cool nodes, cool mechanics, cool uniques, defensive/offensive options etc are somehow inefficient, what you sacrifice to use them isnt worth it. Example, the chest that does the consecrated ground, cool little thing that can be built around... never going to happen because your weighting that chest against a top rolled rare or a lightning coil.

Meaningful choices demand sacrifices, but Im reminded of the guy who had the fast ranger, the movespeed build with the movespeed on full es boots etc. I look at the tree and see all these movespeed nodes taken, and these life nodes not taken, then suddenly this interesting build thats chosen to be something specific looks somewhat questionable. Because I know theres a 'right' way to spend your points here and when I look at my rangers my melee rangers and bow rangers look more like each other than they do this guys bow build because essentially my tree is entirely shaped by my need to reach the duelist life and the shadow life. Too much pressure from 'right' choices like a basic balance of life + increased damage on your tree or life + resist + damage on your gear can actually force interesting choices off the table and make builds very samey. Its right that a lot of basics are demanded of a builds tree/gear but Im really happy to see this extra layer on top that is going to allow every character to make some very interesting, fun, defining choices. The nodes on the main tree have to be tamed in a way that respecs people are getting 110+ points and can stack op notables all day, so the result is that moving 6 nodes from this to that isnt really going to give you a different character in most cases. These new nodes are much more powerful yet limited, youve got a hard decision there and I can absolutely see myself making 2 different characters mostly motivated by them having 2 completely different ascendancy trees rather than any worth while difference in their regular passive trees.

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Hallagenic wrote:

I do not see why people are complaining about builds being dead.. or specific characters being unusable now for the game. Look.. outside of them majorly revamping the skill tree.. all builds that u currently run will still be just as powerful as they currently are. Is witch summoner still more point optimal then other builds.. absolutely. Does that mean you cant run Templar.. it does not. So unless you for some reason have to play a build 100% optimally to enjoy yourself every build you currently have still works.. Ascendance just add something else to your build.

You just get something extra on top of your existing build that can alter it in a flavorful way.. will these always mean a massive buff. No probably not, but could it translate into something very nice even when Your playing a sub optimal build. Yes yes it may. IF for some reason your running a summoning marauder.. you have already accepted that it wont do as much damage as the witch or Templar.. so you must be playing it for a reason. Survival etc. the ascendance for those classes likely just mean you will be even more survivable.

Absolutely. I think some of these choices fall outside of typical optimal thought too. I was talking about shadow or ranger for life based melee dagger a min ago, when you make that choice its based on the first 5 nodes, because ur tree will be within 5 points of the ranger and the shadow start no matter which you chose. Youre going to spec life, % evasion, % inc damage, % inc attackspeed, % crit chance, % crit multi. A few other things, you might go Acrobatics. But itll be the same thing with both classes, youll spec the same stats and choosing this or that start or path is all about changing your %s, lose 12% life gain 30% inc damage this way, lose 6% attack speed gain 50% crit chance going that way... its all just fine tuning of basic stats you are stacking in large amounts. No matter what perspective you come to it with, theres probably a right answer for you, where the %s are as optimally balanced as they can be within the point spend, and the difference between ranger and shadow is a few % here or there.

Now the shadow has insane crit that the ranger cant get, and the ranger has this berserk attack speed + move speed + evasion capability... thats not a straight up choice you can just math and say "this choice gets me 2% more life and 8% more damage, I wont even notice that difference but this is the 'correct' option". Theres no optimal between them its just a complete playstyle choice. I feel like it speaks more about what you care about the character being than "hey, Im the guy who chose 12% life over 25% increased damage because thats the kind of character Im building." Great, and in a situation where you were killed by a mob who had 2% life left or you were almost killed by something that left you with 112 remaining hp that choice will actually have made a difference I guess. The choice to go infusion assassin or avatar of onslaught is going to be there with you every moment as you play. You might want to make 1 of each, and youre not thinking that when choosing ranger or shadow atm, there is a right answer because its about the small math of 5 small % nodes that have very little impact but ultimately have an optimal mathematical conclusion.

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LMTR14 wrote:

I´m only willing to do the same thing so many times when it doesn´t serve a long-term end-game purpose.

and really, MORE character building options? that was the LAST thing missing from the game, OMG

You are really playing the wrong game, mate.

+1 for hype!

Can't wait for this!

Pity it's next year, december would be better ;-)