Many Keystone Passives are too restrictive

I'm pretty new so I don't know all the mechanics and builds but I get the impression many Keystone Passives restrict you more than they benefit you.

There are few really good Keystone Passives like Iron Grip, many don't seem that great.
It feels much more like they restrict you into a certain build rather than enabling a certain build, i.e. they might be necessary to a good [x] build but once you get them you have to get s dedicated [x] build and cannot tweak it anymore or you'll end up weaker than when you don't use them.

That is very restrictive and not very fun, greatly reducing flexibility when creating builds.
Spending skill points should be a lot of fun, especially getting important skills when getting important skills like Keystone passives.

For example Iron Reflexes converts all evasion to armor. BUT it ignores dex bonus to evasion.
What is even left? Base evasion and odds and ends cause the majority of evasion comes from gear, but if you don't care about evasion you'll go for armor / energy shield gear anyway.
So you're not just getting 10% or less extra armor out of it but at the cost of all evasion and armor doesn't protect against elemental damage, not to mention there are many nodes giving more armor boost without any side effects.
In case you're getting lots of evasion from skills it sounds needlessly roundabout to not go for armor nodes instead or like it's really niches for just a handful builds.

Or Perfect Agony is for crit builds...but the harsh 30% damage reduction makes it seem like you can only make up for the lost dps by having a dedicated crit build with almost no room for any other skills.

Or Acrobatics for example, you only gain 30% dodge but you also lose 50% armor and 50% energy shield. Not to mention the 30% reduced block chance which is crippling for any character using weapons that block or shields.
That's three major disadvantage vs one major advantage. Especially, it's less than a third of dodging so the inevitable 70% of hits that get you are REALLY hurting you now.

Or Chaos Inoculation. Life is 1. Not 10%, not 5% and not even 1%.
I understand the majority of enemies deal Chaos Damage in later difficulties but that still seems extremely risky cause not all enemy damage is chaos damage (I assume or the game sounds broken cause it would void the entire point of armor, energy shield and elemental resistance and every skill associated with it, literally making every skill point spent on these wasted) so you are extremely fragile against all enemies that can deal non chaos damage.

Really gives the impression that any build requiring such Keystone Passive isn't gonna be fun, just coercion into a specific play style cause every other option has been made too inferior to use now.

I'm not saying all disadvantages should go away but but these skills should be reworked to be more enabling and less disabling so you can use them without being forced to build around them.
It's FAR more fun if you get a skill and can play around with it, using it either as nice side boost or only one part of your build and only if you really want to you can focus on it and focus your enter build around it, instead of either a "do or don't" attitude where you either get the skill and completely roll with it or have to completely ignore it.
Most Keystone Passives are very niche because of this and feel very much wasted. Something this important should not be purely niche.

This is a really good analysis. I agree with most of the things you have said, but because we're coming from a different point of view, we reach a different conclusion.

The keystones are definitely not worth getting unless you build around them. However, I think this increases build diversity, since you actually have to build around them, and they change your gameplay style. You can't just pick up every keystone you like for added dps or survivability, you actually have to plan it out properly. If you don't find planning your build fun, then you're right, Keystones are boring, and notables are the awesome ones.

Iron grip is the (second*) worst keystone IMO, for this exact reason. It doesn't have a downside, it's just a keystone you pick up if if gives you more dps than other nearby options. It might as well just be a notable, for all of the impact it has on actual build decisions you make. It should definitely say 'instead of melee attacks'.


---------------------
* Perfect agony is the worst keystone, of course, because even if you build around it it still sucks. The numbers need tweaking quite a bit IMO.

@OP: IDK, restrictive? If you wanna talk about restrictive, I think you have to look at Life/ES nodes first.

My thought: Life nodes & ES nodes need to be less restrictive to enable shenanigans, like Lakshun said. (For the sake of a special thing that makes this game great: Unexpected, OP builds. :P)

EDIT. I have to stop the wall of text posts.
Anyway, that's certainly a way to look at it. Still I stick to my point.

The core of any rpg (especially online rpgs) is building your character, mostly with level / skills / passives / etc and secondarily with gear.
Keystones are the "most important" passives in this game but except for some niche builds most are not the core of any build.

At the moment they restrict too much and you can only get one or two, e.g. Taking Acrobatics means I need so many armor and evasion nodes I don't have the points to really get other Keystones except the 2 nodes away Phase Acrobatics.

It also means there is little diversity for builds. Cause any Blood Magic build will largely be the same as you are in dire need of as much health as you can get.

Not saying Keystone should be all pure bonus. But if for example Blood Magic added skill cost reduction in exchange for losing all your mana it would be viable-.
or if Acrobatics would be 25% dodge and only 25% evasion / armor loss it would mean you can can diversify your build.

At the moment most Keystones are restricted to niche / experimental builds and focus on one Keystone but if Keystone were more attractive you would get a huge diversity of builds player could adjust to their playing style that would make full use of the passive tree by being all over the place instead of mostly focusing on one corner because either you ignore Keystones and just spam notables or got a Keystone and now have to make up for it.

Iron reflexes used to take dex into account but it was nerfed because it was deemed too powerful. It's been a long time so maybe it's time for another balance pass of the tree.

It does seem like your feedback is centered around the Bottom Right corner of the tree.

Of the keystones you haven't mentioned: Resolute Technique, Unwavering Stance, Zealot's Oath, Ghost Reaver, Minion Instability, Elemental Equilibirum, Elemental Overload, Mind over Matter & Point Blank are all perfectly reasonable keystones to build around, and many builds will use various different combinations of these nodes. Vaal Pact & Ancestral Bond can combo with most of those too.

Pain Attunement, CI, Avatar of Fire and Conduit are more like rewards for doing a specific build, unlike other normal keystones. So if you're talking about those three, I can see they do limit diversity a bit. Conduit needs a bit of love after Guardian ascendancy changes too.

Necromantic Aegis allows for a huge range of interesting builds.

Arrow Dancing & Eldrich Battery are a bit weird, but still I don't think they need changing.

I wonder if your feedback is less "Keystones limit build diversity in general", and more "Keystones limit options for my particular generic duelist build".

Acro/phase acro are amazing if you’re pure evasion; unusable otherwise, even with the recent change. Arrow dancing is considerably less so, given how many dangerous melee enemies/bosses there are who sprint right into your face.

But yes, GGG needs to take a look at some keystones and tweak them...

"

Lakshun wrote:

I'm pretty new so I don't know all the mechanics

Exactly.

"

I get the impression many Keystone Passives restrict you more than they benefit you.

Keystones are not power fantasy. They are specialist nodes. They are the Unique Items of the passive tree: You must build your character in a clever way to make the most of its advantages, while its disadvantages you ignore, overcome, or bypass.

"

There are few really good Keystone Passives like Iron Grip, many don't seem that great.

Some downsides are not readily apparent. Sometimes they are opportunity or investment costs. High strength means less of something else, such as Dexterity -- which would cost accuracy and crit.

"

It feels much more like they restrict you into a certain build

If a Keystone doesn't look good for your build or you don't understand its value, then it is not for you. You are not restricted, you simply don't take it. Again, they are not Power Fantasy nodes.

"

rather than enabling a certain build, i.e. they might be necessary to a good [x] build but once you get them you have to get s dedicated [x] build and cannot tweak it anymore or you'll end up weaker than when you don't use them.

No. That's a failure on your part to innovate. PoE has so many moving parts, players are able to get very creative with their builds. Some builds won't work out, obviously, but that's part of the challenge behind creating any build.

"

That is very restrictive and not very fun, greatly reducing flexibility when creating builds.

No. You've come into this game with unfair expectations. You've been spoiled by Power Fantasy games that hand you power like candy at a candy factory. You can be powerful in PoE, but you've got to think.

"

Spending skill points should be a lot of fun, especially getting important skills when getting important skills like Keystone passives.

No. Your assessment is founded on a false presupposition. Keystones are not necessary for a generic build. Keystones are not what you aim for when progressing your character. They are specialist nodes that only shine when you've done well in devising your build around them.

"

For example Iron Reflexes converts all evasion to armor. BUT it ignores dex bonus to evasion.
What is even left? Base evasion and odds and ends cause the majority of evasion comes from gear, but if you don't care about evasion you'll go for armor / energy shield gear anyway.
So you're not just getting 10% or less extra armor out of it but at the cost of all evasion and armor doesn't protect against elemental damage, not to mention there are many nodes giving more armor boost without any side effects.
In case you're getting lots of evasion from skills it sounds needlessly roundabout to not go for armor nodes instead or like it's really niches for just a handful builds.

Wrong.

Evasion becomes Armor. This means Evasion is now affected by "% increased Evasion" nodes and "% increased Armor" nodes. Example:

2,000 Evasion from Grace Aura
2,000 Armor from Body Armor
50% increased Evasion from passive tree
50% increased Armor from passive tree
50% more Armor from Determination Aura
50% increased Evasion from 250 Dexterity

Without Iron Reflexes = 4,000 Evasion; 4,500 Armor
With Iron Reflexes = 10,500 Armor

This is because although Evasion lost the 50% increase from 250 Dexterity, it gained the 50% increased Armor from the passive tree and 50% more Armor from Determination. The explicit downside just means Dexterity does not increase the Armor that comes from Evasion.

The implicit downside is you no longer have any Evasion Rating and thus have only the base minimum 5% Chance to Evade. This is different from Unwavering Stance's "Cannot Evade enemy Attacks" in that you can still evade, you just don't have any Evasion Rating to boost the chance. Of note is Blind on enemies does not protect you if you have Unwavering Stance, whereas you still get full benefit from Blind if you only have Iron Reflexes.

As for Armor and elemental damage: Evasion avoids attacks, Armor protects against physical hits. There is important nuance in these words. Evasion can avoid elemental damage that is from an attack, but it cannot avoid a physical damage spell. Armor, on the other hand, will reduce physical hits from spells, but does nothing against elemental damage from attacks.

"

Or Perfect Agony is for crit builds...but the harsh 30% damage reduction makes it seem like you can only make up for the lost dps by having a dedicated crit build with almost no room for any other skills.

What in the world do you mean by "skills"? Are you talking about passive skill points? The word "skills" by itself in PoE refers to the active Skill Gems you socket into gear.

Perfect Agony is best on a pure ailment build. That is, your damage comes almost entirely from scaling an ailment like Poison, Bleed, or Ignite. This has some neat advantages: Chain and Greater Multiple Projectiles only lessen hit or projectile damage, not secondary effect damage like ailments.

"

Or Acrobatics for example, you only gain 30% dodge but you also lose 50% armor and 50% energy shield. Not to mention the 30% reduced block chance which is crippling for any character using weapons that block or shields.
That's three major disadvantage vs one major advantage. Especially, it's less than a third of dodging so the inevitable 70% of hits that get you are REALLY hurting you now.

None of those disadvantages matter if you don't have armor, ES, or block. This is what I meant by "You must build your character in a clever way to make the most of its advantages, while its disadvantages you ignore, overcome, or bypass."

My Life + Mind over Matter Necromancer with Necromantic Aegis is able to fully ignore the downsides of Acrobatics because she has negligible armor, ES, and no block chance due to Necromantic Aegis causing her shield to apply to her minions instead of her. The minions get full block chance because Acrobatics only applies to her, not them.

"

Or Chaos Inoculation. Life is 1. Not 10%, not 5% and not even 1%.
I understand the majority of enemies deal Chaos Damage in later difficulties but that still seems extremely risky cause not all enemy damage is chaos damage (I assume or the game sounds broken cause it would void the entire point of armor, energy shield and elemental resistance and every skill associated with it, literally making every skill point spent on these wasted) so you are extremely fragile against all enemies that can deal non chaos damage.

You stack Energy Shield as an alternative to life. Over 20,000 Energy Shield is possible with legacy gear.

"

Really gives the impression that any build requiring such Keystone Passive isn't gonna be fun, just coercion into a specific play style cause every other option has been made too inferior to use now.

Please stop with these loaded words. No one is coercing you to take any Keystones.

"

I'm not saying all disadvantages should go away but but these skills should be reworked to be more enabling and less disabling so you can use them without being forced to build around them.
It's FAR more fun if you get a skill and can play around with it, using it either as nice side boost or only one part of your build and only if you really want to you can focus on it and focus your enter build around it, instead of either a "do or don't" attitude where you either get the skill and completely roll with it or have to completely ignore it.
Most Keystone Passives are very niche because of this and feel very much wasted. Something this important should not be purely niche.

No. Learn more about the game before you demand it become something else entirely to suit your unjustified expectations and superficial understanding.