Build diversity is an illusion, exile

Oh, and I totally forgot about how every time new skills gems are released they completely overshadow pretty much all the existing ones.

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Miathan51 wrote:

Well, build diversity is still there, as long as you don't care about being optimal. Build diversity is like inversely proportional to the top % of players that you want to be part of. If you wanna play up there with the 0,1% best players, be prepared to choose from a couple of builds. If you don't care, and are just here to have fun and get 24 challenges done for free weapon mtx, your possibilities are nearly limitless. It's all about what your goal is.

That said, I think your points are valid, especially about clearspeed meta and DPS supports. I have no doubt that GGG is aware though.

There are other downsides to playing sub-optimal builds. In fact, not being in some elite club is probably the least of your problems.

By their own admission, GGG balance the game around the top players who play the cheesiest builds. By playing a build that doesn't clear as fast as the current (or previous) FotM, you're forfeiting loot and XP/hour. And the bigger the gap, the less likely you are to put up with the penalty. Fun builds stop being fun when you grind the same level for days, knowing that you could complete the same content in a matter hours with a FotM build.

This is way more of a balancing and design thread more then diversity... there is tons of diversity in this game. You play the game how you want to play it. There is no way to win in Path of Exile. You can make every skill work in this game now, especially with ascendancy classes. We are at an all time high as far as power creep. We are incredibly strong compared to the enemies we run into in wraeclast.

This game isn't competitive at all. Generally speaking, being competitive means all parties have an equal or near equal chance of winning. We all know that when you race or when you "pvp" you have no choice but to use the best skills for that.

As far as balance goes, skills will always be superior at times to others. Especially in a game that releases ~new~ updates every 3 months. You can't really stop that. That being said, I do believe many skills are just downright awful and feel clunky to use. I would say this game lacks many (feel good skills).

Unfortunetly GGG hasn't exactly proved that they are capable of handling this kind of balance.

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e1337donkey wrote:

We all know that when you race or when you "pvp" you have no choice but to use the best skills for that.

the problem having skills that are so much better than others its not even a choice.

if all skills were on level of ice nova/glacial cascade/sweep/ek there'd be more choice

there are surprisingly quite many skills that are balanced well against each other. unfortunately they are labeled by everyone as 'useless' because there are skills that completely overshadow them. why use ek when bladefall is a thing ?


the #1 mistake is balancing around baseline of op. balance around the baseline of normal and then slowly balance it out. this is what GGG used to do. now they just dump new deliberately op skills every expansion and dont care about balance.

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Ceryneian wrote:

Build diversity sucks because nearly all build options have been exhausted.

PoE players are not retards, no one really has the time or effort to play weak builds.


Let's just be fucking real, at the end of the day we all know what the strong skills are and what the strongest defensive mechanics are.

There are no new interesting mechanics, old gems have become useless and are collecting dust in our stashes, and the new skill-gems we get are not even balanced correctly and 90% of the time just seem like gimmicks of already-existing skills.

I haven't even bothered playing Earthquake ONCE - didn't excite me at all - just seemed like a boring gimmick of Ice Crash with some different brown graphics.

If build diversity was better this game would have a larger, more sustainable, growing player base.

- re-balance the old gems - this will give players tons of viable skills
- give us innovative new skill gems that are balanced correctly - not gimmicks like EQ, and not OP retarded shit like Blade Vortex
- give us new defense mechanisms and damage scalers
- expand the passive tree

You're right, but the problem is GGG, even Chris himself has stated that reworking old skills is for the most part not going to happen. It disrupts too many builds people made around it, and it isn't exactly new content so it's not as exciting for the press.

I actually think a lot of people missed one of the major problems. And that is that they balance the game around permanent and temporary leagues. Both of these things are completely different entities yet they are trying to appeal to both. This is why some major shit skills never get touched, or take so long to do so.
Remember shock nova? Now shield charge. That's essentially the only skills that I can remember which have actually been reworked fundamentally.

And you're totally right again, most of the new skills are just 'improved' versions of older ones. So eventually we're just going to get a shit load of skills, and most of them will be out classes.

GGG's main philosophy has always been Quantity over Quality, and that is the truth.

If they would increase your base life/level and the ratio of ES%/Int, they could reduce the number of required nodes in the tree. This would enable wider build diversity, because those required defenses that every build has to take consumes a lot of skill points--and how can you really call it diversity if the builds look nearly identical? Just because you change a couple items or gems doesn't make it that different of a build. Skill gem choice does matter, but many skills can be played by the same tree with varying degrees of optimization. This tells me that the tree is the most fundamental point where builds truly begin. Therefore, if you want build diversity, this is where you start.

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suszterpatt wrote:

Here's an idea: let's gather all the major issues with PoE today that adversely affect build diversity!

1. It's just a side effect of issue №2 - When trash is oneshotted anyway, the build that has higher AoE and movespeed, wins. If melee gets high AoE (Earthquake), you call him "melee" no longer.

2. I agree on that, however, certain "strong combos" still work for bosses, up to oneshots (BF mines, for example). But whole meta is caused by enemies having too low HP and relatively high damage, which isnt healthy at all.

3. Actually, certain "secondary effect" supports (ones that dont add "moar damage") are kinda potent and useful. Life leech, Blood Magic, Fortify, Increased AoE - all are strong non-damage options (although meta builds often try to get rid of them). The problem is, other "secondary effect" gems are just too weak to compete with "moar damage". Gems like Frostbite, Stun and others should be DRASTICALLY buffed - and then you'll see players using them too. Damage isnt always a king, believe me (i use Fotidy in my main link, for example, and resistance gem for totem). Players just dont have a choice, often - because "other supports" are just underpowered by GGG.

4. I agree on that, spike damage can be just out of control with map mod system. That's because of nature of mods, also, there far too many "damage" mods (and they add too much damage), while "tankiness" mods are should be prevailent. Also, HP recovery in PoE can be too effectve for certain builds (Vaal Pact, Slayer+LL noded, instant flasks, Occultist, etc). And when you recover your HP in no time, you care about oneshots only.

5. I agree on that, skill balance is very poor. Even a brief look at what skills do and their numbers reveal, that some skills are very powerful while other are junk. A person, responsible for skill balance, should be fired from GGG staff immediately, and without any good commendations.

6. Actually, it's just a side effect of issues №4 and №2 (as you pointed). Also, HP (life/ES) nodes give %increase, which cant gained with items (except Int mod for ES and very few uniques, like Belly). So, players are forced to get this increase through nodes (although, with current meta, if GGG implement a %life mod for rare, that mod will inctantly became a "musthave" along with flat life, and everyone will try to use items with both AND still get as much % life from tree as possible.
But tree itself is pretty OK - there are many options available. It's just game, that forced you to pick too much HP.

7. Irrelevant, well, maybe with exception of Hatred. And still, Hatred is so great not because it "just adds damage", but because it's COLD damage, that can chill and FREEZE your enemies.
I use physical skills a lot myself. Believe me, this is NOT a problem at all, so forget it.

8. Actually, double-dipping of Poison, Ignite and Bleed IS the problem. And double-dipping of critical strike "efficiency" for CoC. And free mana cost for CoC spells too. Many (if not all) of those items are OP ONLY because of broken mechanics.
Remember, before poison change, no one gave a shit about Voltaxic (was considered near-trash bow). Same for Snakebite.
GGG should NOT fix broken content mid-league, but DONT release it at all, in first place. If GGG cant predict the power of certain items and mechanics, then they should fire their analytic, and hire the one, who knows math, statistics, and so on. It's not hard at all to calculate the "power" of item like RotC (relative to rares), and its effect.
Once again, GGG, i repeat - FIRE your staff, responsible for balancing skills/items, and hire competent person(s).

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laycast wrote:

You're right, but the problem is GGG, even Chris himself has stated that reworking old skills is for the most part not going to happen. It disrupts too many builds people made around it, and it isn't exactly new content so it's not as exciting for the press.

And they still remade Lightning Strike skill (was red - became green, also many extra projectiles added).
Players dont ask to REMAKE old skills. They ask to make those skills viable. A simple buff to skill's AoE, damage, etc. can turn a useless skill into a good one. For example, change Heavy Strike's base damage to 600% , and it's will BE used, despite "melee" and so on :).

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e1337donkey wrote:

This is way more of a balancing and design thread more then diversity... there is tons of diversity in this game. You play the game how you want to play it. There is no way to win in Path of Exile. You can make every skill work in this game now, especially with ascendancy classes. We are at an all time high as far as power creep. We are incredibly strong compared to the enemies we run into in wraeclast.

Diversity without considering the context it's in, compared to content and other builds, creates an arbitrary and meaningless comparison. The context of balance for each build in regards to other builds and the content each of those builds can complete is what defines the overall build diversity in a game.

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suszterpatt wrote:

Here's an idea: let's gather all the major issues with PoE today that adversely affect build diversity!

I'll go first, roughly in order of significance.


1. The deplorable state of melee

Everyone already knows this one, but it's still the most important because it's such a huge subset of builds. The problems are too numerous to list here, and the level of care on GGG's part is demonstrably low, so let's move on.


2. The clearspeed meta

One-shotting entire packs from range sure is fun, but then you realize that not many builds can do that. So if you care about your cleaspeed at all (and you probably do, since drop rates are adjusted to match the fastest clearers), then you won't build multi-totem, or self-cast multi-curse, or just about anything else that takes more than 2 button presses to wipe the screen. Even if you come up with a combo of 3-4 skills that in the end deal massive damage, the cast/attack time is wasted on the hordes of pushover white mobs that would go down in one hit from much weaker skills.


3. Too many DPS support gems

Also pretty obvious, since it links directly into the clearspeed meta. Supports with "more damage" are pretty universally hated, but I would also like to include supports like Faster Attacks and Faster Casting. Apart from maybe the singular exception of Faster Attacks and Earthquake, there's no reason why you wouldn't want to link these over something like Stun, Blind and Knockback. Such effects can't compete with "everything's dead and I can move on".


4. Oneshot mechanics

These are bad because they make evasion(/block/dodge) second-class citizens compared to eHP (and mitigation). All the evasion in the world won't save you from a 5k hit if you only have 4k HP, so your first priority is always to get enough eHP/mitigation to survive those. Obviously it's better to have both than just one, but if you have to choose, then eHP without evasion is always better than evasion without eHP.


5. Skill gem power creep

Adding new skills sounds like it would be great for build diversity, except when new skills completely outdo and displace old ones. Why use Cleave when Lacerate exists? Why use Rain of Arrows when Bladefall exists? Why use Heavy Strike when Earthquake exists? The list goes on.


6. Very little diversity on the passive tree

Apart from keystones and ascendancies, the overwhelming majority of the passive tree boils down to life, defenses or DPS. There's very little you can do with this. Also, the prevalence of life nodes creates a vicious circle with oneshots. The easiest way to combat oneshots is to stack more life, to which GGG reacts by making oneshots stronger, to which players react by stacking more life, to which GGG reacts by making oneshots stronger, and so on. Even now, a build can easily spend between a half to two-thirds of its skill points just pathing to life nodes to hit the magical 160-180% mark.


7. Too many ways to gain physical damage as extra elemental damage

Want to use a physical skill? Great, don't forget to add Hatred, Herald of Ash, Added Fire Damage, Phys to Lightning, and WED if it's an attack.




I used to love theorycrafting various builds. But the more I learn about the game, the more I realize just how limited my options are.

+1 and well said

So I quit PoE after Atlas came out, has anything changed since?