Is there ever a reason to not start with arc trap or brand?

Here is a reason - I like vaaling and doing 8-modded maps. Trapper cant do all of them, no regen is a huge no because of how insanely expensive traps are mana-wise. Blood magic totems and zombies on the other hand can do every map mod albeit at a slower pace.

Personal preference.

Trappers can do no regen no problem thats one of the reasons they are so popular, there aren't any mods a trapper can't run.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

Trappers can do no regen no problem thats one of the reasons they are so popular, there aren't any mods a trapper can't run.

Agreed. You don't even need a good Tinkerskin for it; you can either buy a cheap 1-2 socket one (arc goes in Deerstalker initially) or you can take a mana flask with you.

In fact never played Arc or Brand nor BV.
Btw I have played poison Assassin as league starter in last league:)
And reason? Hm what about having more fun ...

At league start I roll my typical self cast Arc Ele.
It's a lot of fun for me and I can level it pretty fast.
Once I've done a few maps and have some currency I'll roll the next build and have it be funded by my league starter.

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Rakiii wrote:

In fact never played Arc or Brand nor BV.
Btw I have played poison Assassin as league starter in last league:)
And reason? Hm what about having more fun ...

Then that's up to you. Nothing in this thread should impact you then.

The idea of playing a caster to grind out baseline wealth and gear before you can enjoy a semi tolerable leveling experience with a non spell caster that can actually engage with the league mechanic tuned against top tier spells is....rediculous.

With that said, the way attacks are scaled does not leave room for GGG to re scale them in a way that would change this unless they somehow added more flat damage to the tree or support skills.

I think the 1-70 process is something all archetypes should be able to do smoothly and it is absolutely beneficial for GGG to engage and keep engaged as many players as possible. Can you imagine a first time poe player trying out betrayal league as a melee or ranged attack and finding themselves absolutely shit on by syndicate? Even with 5 years of experience I still could not really engage with the league till level 50 and only after finding a tabula rasa.

It also presents another issue outside of just raw damage, the power of targeting automation of some of these new skills in particulr brands and winter orb allow you to focus solely on movement and your skill obliterates the opposition. This is particularly important vs syndicates who often spawn an army of adds and make it impossible to target with a skill like barrage or a melee skill.

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Nephalim wrote:

The idea of playing a caster to grind out baseline wealth and gear before you can enjoy a semi tolerable leveling experience with a non spell caster that can actually engage with the league mechanic tuned against top tier spells is....rediculous.

You don't have to do that though.

For all the qq the syndicate are easy during levelling and don't really start scaling hard until mid tier maps.

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daezd wrote:

dont worry GGG will look at the stats and see what builds and popular and people enjoy playing. then they will nerf them all into the ground and add more massive RNG mechanics.

Does anyone actually ENJOY playing arc traps? I only play it because it's the only fucking build left that I can do anything with, I would rather be playing literally anything else but this game is balanced around the assumption that everyone is an arc trap/MoM/Acro Saboteur.

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GloatingSwine wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

The idea of playing a caster to grind out baseline wealth and gear before you can enjoy a semi tolerable leveling experience with a non spell caster that can actually engage with the league mechanic tuned against top tier spells is....rediculous.

You don't have to do that though.

For all the qq the syndicate are easy during levelling and don't really start scaling hard until mid tier maps.

I disagree. Been oneshotted multiple times on lvls 30-60, with TWINKED characters.