Zero New Skill Gems in 2.6

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Obbu wrote:

There's also no channeled ice/lightning spells or bow abilities to hook into the cast while channeling stuff.

hm a type of channeled shock nova actually sounds a bit neat. not actually shock nova, but more like a storm that slowly grown in aoe, up to the point of say an ice nova without modifiers.

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merdakai wrote:

hm a type of channeled shock nova actually sounds a bit neat. not actually shock nova, but more like a storm that slowly grown in aoe, up to the point of say an ice nova without modifiers.

A channeled storm cloud that pew pews downward might be cool :P

A fat tendril of electricity that whips around between you and a locked-target dealing secondary damage to those between would also rock.

Some kind of cumulatively chilling/hindering ice spell would be cool and thematic. A movement-style deal that drifted cold mist aoe behind you (something in between cyclone, ice nova and arctic armour).

But yeah: right now you look at your cast while channeling options, and you can only do certain damage/weapon types as your main attack (outside of conversion), and that makes the system feel like it needs to be rounded out.

More multi phase skills like blade flurry would exponentially increase the diversity and depth of the skill gem system.

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Nephalim wrote:

More multi phase skills like blade flurry would exponentially increase the diversity and depth of the skill gem system.

Agreed!

2.5 Did come with new "Skills" Just that these skills were gated behind Uniques with Expensive Prices (Ngamahu's Flame) at the start or Rarity (Abberath's Hooves)

Blade Flurry, Blight & Scorching ray came out about 1.5 months before the current (breach) league, in 2.4.2, with the balance changes in 2.5 landing about a month or so before breach hit, also coming in with cast-while-channeling (which ties in with the 3 gems neatly).

Considering we're now 2 weeks out from legacy: it doesn't look like they'll be trying to do the same thing, at this stage: which is a shame.

Hopefully we'll see some fresh active skills in time for FoO.

Note:

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Timeline_of_skill_gems

If you look at the release date of various actives, it's a pretty inconsistent release rate: sometimes they bring out absolute tonnes of gems, and then theres a 7 month drought. Sometimes they hit you with two big releases with only 3 months apart.

It's been nearly 12 months since we got a massive release of new gems:

• 19 in July 2015
• 13 in december 2015
• 11 in march 2016
• 1 in april 2016
• 5 in june 2016
• 3 in november 2016
• 2 in december 2016

Whether or not that actually means anything is anyone's guess.

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Erasculio wrote:

For 2.5, all we got, skill gem-wise, was a single support skill gem.

Now, for 2,6, we get... Nothing at all. No new skill gems, support or otherwise.

Fret not, new skills are due with the release of 3.0.

Personally, I think there are enough skills in the game already that could be reworked, instead of creating new (broken) skills, that become the meta for some time and then get nerfed - possibly along with some collateral damage to existing skills/ builds.

However, GGG will keep adding skills, but now that they have a base of 30+ of them probably at a slower pace.

Do people not understand that this is a flashback league? We get these leagues as filler because the expansions and big content updates that take over a year to develop don't always line-up or release on schedule right after the planned leagues.

For example development Talisman took longer because it was introducing a dozen skill/support gems, threshold jeweles, vinktar, skyforth, etc... and so to hold players over we got the Darkshrine events, which was awesome.

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Aynix wrote:

Maybe they finally stopped listening to people like you aka "more is better" and realized that they have like 20+ useless skill gems in the game and it's time to rework/buff them instead of making new ones?

Sure, just like in 2.5, when they didn't add any new active skill gem but reworked a lot of skills?

Only, you know, NOT?

2.5 had only a few balance changes. It was far from a rework to the "20+ useless skill gems" in the game - which is kinda obvious, otherwise they wouldn't still be useless before 2.6 - despite how it didn't add almost any new skill gem.

Meanwhile, update 2.1 had a lot more balance changes, AND it introduced threshold jewels AND it introduced 13 new skill gems, including ones which massive gameplay impact like Blasphemy.

Your argument of "less is better" is not only ridiculous, it can objectively be proved to be wrong. GGG should not aim to please only players who are happy with anything, they should have better standards than that.

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Nephalim wrote:

The new threshold gems for EK and FP are vastly more exciting than some woefully under powered or overpowered fotm gem.

Threshold jewels are the worst of both words. They keep the original skills weak, and require them to continue that way (otherwise the combination of skill gem + threshold jewel would be overpowered), while they are too rare to allow a build to be designed around them. GGG is basically breaking the system they fixed by allowing vendors to sell skill gems.

The new skill gem section is usually the only one I care about in patch notes, and it has been a bit disappointing for a while. The competitive nature of the game and the complaints to balance things in an environment where that is essentially impossible has likely been choking the skill design process. Too many people whining about skills being useless because they aren't the strongest skill in the game currently, the devs could buff and nerf endlessly and those people would never be happy. I just want more fun skills to play with, I don't care if they are "top tier" or whatever BS.