Ascendancy classes - suggestion

^or your marauder shaman could have a sub-class which offers him great defensive attributes, allowing you to compensate the loss of "necromancer" sub-class by investing in more jewel nodes and other perks as a result.

Cementing his arch-type even greater as a fierce field combat summoner.

Which is what "identity" is.

Just saying, i find these "i cant pick the most OP looking sub-class for my off-class build" pretty poor argumentation's.
And i say "most OP looking" since we have no clue of the trade-offs that will be allowed to happen by not picking the "necromancer" sub-class.

Peace,

-Boem-

I apologize upfront to mono, since my post was a derail.

Was just trying to emphasize what the fundamental difference would be. The benefits of this are not that straightforward though, let's imagine a more resilient SRS marauder. Well one could argue he can provide more dps in battle intense situations since he doesn't have to move out of them and keep on summoning.

So while the "necromancer" provides more "on-sheet" dps value's, the resilient marauder shaman might provide more "real-time" dps.

Which is why i am cautious to already state "necromancer is OP for summoners", this will have to be determined by cross examining in-game performances of different summoner set-ups.

As for the templar inquisitor, you can easily go zealoths oath now with the sanctified ground route. Which free's up the travel cost of needing those 5% regen value's from somewhere else.(allowing more efficiency in stacking both hp/es thus making ZO more beneficial.

You could equip aegis aurora to boot, but to say templar doesn't provide options for HP/ES hybrids seems flat-out wrong.(hp/es hybrid is the fundamental build, aegis is a specific build enabler)

Further more, we don't have the other two sub-classes for templar, making your prediction presumptuous no?

Nothing detracts from going aegis/lazwar/rainbowstrides because duelist has 100% spell block. You have to view it like
"what do i gain by not going that 100% spell block route and using the items instead"

To which the answer is,

"another sub-class with other perks"

And that secound route might be more beneficial, and i say might because the lack of data makes this all very much "up there" debate wise.

I am cautiously allowing the option to speculate templar will have some life/es orientation. It wont right out state it though, just like all the revealed classes have functionality beyond the usual arch-types associated with them.

Peace,

-Boem-

Much respect to ML, but this is a Bad idea. I'm not just disagreeing with it, I'm calling it bad outright.

By making the Ascendancy options flexible, you run the risk of homogenizing the Ascendancy classes the same way the passive tree currently is. The example tree you've given is particularly illuminating, because as it happens right now, there's very little reason (outside a thematic one) to actually go Shadow over Ranger if you want a melee character using the weapons these two classes specialize in. You are more or less always better off going Ranger simply because the starting nodes are superior.

With the Ascendancies as they currently are, however, both an Assassin melee Shadow and Raider melee Ranger (never mind the choices within each of the Ascendancies for now) emerge as distinct character archetypes. This is a meaningful choice because the Ascendancies are enabled by their base classes: If you pick one, it commits you to the specific limitations of the class' passive tree starting location in a way PoE never did previously. Your suggestion will take this away -- maybe not entirely, but it's almost certain to diminish it. Both Assassins and Raiders will roll Rangers, end of story.

And sure, the passive tree can and will be rebalanced, but that should just convince you of the idea's flaws: The Ascendancy system is great because it lightens the burden of balancing the passive tree with each meta shift. Your suggestion will bring it right back.

Traveling to the starting node of another class to unlock more ascendency options is what I view as an ideal solution.

The most important thing here is fun. I think a lot of players would enjoy having that option available. Moreover I think I lot of players would be upset if that option wasn't available.

"

Vhlad wrote:

Traveling to the starting node of another class to unlock more ascendency options is what I view as an ideal solution.

The most important thing here is fun. I think a lot of players would enjoy having that option available. Moreover I think I lot of players would be upset if that option wasn't available.

The most important thing here is fun, which is why classes have to have actual meaning. I think a lot of players would be upset if the only thing differentiating classes was a voiceover.

"

Timewar9 wrote:

The most important thing here is fun, which is why classes have to have actual meaning. I think a lot of players would be upset if the only thing differentiating classes was a voiceover.

Just like a lot of players will be upset when the notion of an open and flexible passive tree gets ripped to shreds by this update, as this was one of the main offers and focal points of PoE that made it different to other games.

I wish to remind the naysayers of this thread that pathing into another class's starting nodes is often not the most efficient thing in PoE. The point cost/power ratio of most starting nodes is pretty bad compared to most clusters. This in itself automatically balances this suggestion somewhat by making it inefficient to path into off-class Ascendancies.

Moreover, there is no argument that can convince me that class locked Ascendancies will be BETTER for the game than unlockable ones. The game has progressed to where it is right now with a completely open passive tree. It has never before required class locked passives/items/rewards/whatever. Why does it suddenly require them now? Because some people are salty that their Shadow doesn't feel very "assassin-like" because other classes can do similar builds? Class identity does not intrinsically make a game better, unless you're some child with "I WANT TO BE AN ASSASSIN" written all over your forehead. In the case of PoE, it will arguably make the game WORSE, as it will introduce the rogue element of class-locking, a concept which is alien to the game at the moment. How much class locking is good? How much is bad? Are class-bound items ok? Those give class identity too, right? So what happens when you start dropping Shadow items on your Marauder? "It encourages trading" is what the GGG white knights and eulogists will say - just like it is encouraged now by dropping 99.9% useless shit? And then where does class-locking stop?

It's better if the cancer of class-locking is never allowed to infest PoE in the first place.

"

PrimordialDarkness wrote:

"

Timewar9 wrote:

The most important thing here is fun, which is why classes have to have actual meaning. I think a lot of players would be upset if the only thing differentiating classes was a voiceover.

Just like a lot of players will be upset when the notion of an open and flexible passive tree gets ripped to shreds by this update, as this was one of the main offers and focal points of PoE that made it different to other games.

I wish to remind the naysayers of this thread that pathing into another class's starting nodes is often not the most efficient thing in PoE. The point cost/power ratio of most starting nodes is pretty bad compared to most clusters. This in itself automatically balances this suggestion somewhat by making it inefficient to path into off-class Ascendancies.

Moreover, there is no argument that can convince me that class locked Ascendancies will be BETTER for the game than unlockable ones. The game has progressed to where it is right now with a completely open passive tree. It has never before required class locked passives/items/rewards/whatever. Why does it suddenly require them now? Because some people are salty that their Shadow doesn't feel very "assassin-like" because other classes can do similar builds? Class identity does not intrinsically make a game better, unless you're some child with "I WANT TO BE AN ASSASSIN" written all over your forehead. In the case of PoE, it will arguably make the game WORSE, as it will introduce the rogue element of class-locking, a concept which is alien to the game at the moment. How much class locking is good? How much is bad? Are class-bound items ok? Those give class identity too, right? So what happens when you start dropping Shadow items on your Marauder? "It encourages trading" is what the GGG white knights and eulogists will say - just like it is encouraged now by dropping 99.9% useless shit? And then where does class-locking stop?

It's better if the cancer of class-locking is never allowed to infest PoE in the first place.

I'm terribly sorry, you can't have a marauder assassin. He's just too big to sneak up on people.

Why are you so afraid of making characters actually mean something? This is a ROLEplaying game.

"

Timewar9 wrote:

I'm terribly sorry, you can't have a marauder assassin. He's just too big to sneak up on people.

Why are you so afraid of making characters actually mean something? This is a ROLEplaying game.

Thank god you're not balancing this game. Well, if you were, I wouldn't be playing it for sure.

Roleplaying has no place affecting game balance. And this is not an RPG, but an ARPG.

Class identity offers nothing except some satisfaction and excitement to a 15 year old who gets wet thinking about assassins. It is a useless concept.

Edit: To illustrate why roleplaying should not affect game balance, I will remind you that in reality, somebody wearing plate armor would literally shrug off almost all hits from a blade. He would also probably roast if he was assaulted with a massive fireball, say, from a fire hurler (since obviously magic doesn't exist in reality). Therefore, by your logic, anyone wearing plate armors in PoE should immediately get a ton of -fire resistance and become impervious to all monsters using blades (only blades though, because spears can still punch through and mauls will still be effective.)

This is the value of roleplaying from a balancer's perspective. It is worth less than a pig's fart.

"

Thank god you're not balancing this game. Well, if you were, I wouldn't be playing it for sure.

I have to say, thank god you aren't balancing the game either. To unrestrict something completely is the same as killing build diversity.

I will use Final Fantasy 5 as an example, since that is one of the better examples I can think of. If you haven't played that game before, then, you won't get the example.
Final Fantasy 5 provides a bunch of different classes and allows you to master each class. Once you master the class, you gain some perks of the class if you play your default character.
This offers a lot of flexibility, but since you are allowed to actually master all classes, it kills diversity. Because once you master them all, you are only really using 1 class.

This is the same issue with Path of Exile's skill tree. It would have been fine if each starting character has a max of 70 skill points, this limitation causes your starting location to actually matter. But they have 123 points or so to play with. This kills diversity, because every class can infringe on another class' pathing.

Or let's go to the extreme and give every character 500 skill points. More skill points = more flexibility right? Can you guess what happens if you have 500 skill points to use in the current tree? Do you understand what it means to starting classes if that happens?