For me, Archmage kills caster- and Warcries kill melee-diversity.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

as far as being forced into specific gearing options...that is literally the staple of ALL rpg games. Your build is based on your gear and your gear is based on your build.

Don't wanna play melee with swords? Pick up axe nodes and accuracy. Just as much or comparable dps, just a different tree. Don't wanna play axe or sword, pick up staff nodes. So many different ways to utilize different gear just as effectively.

sword nodes and sword implicits are numericaly and strictly BETTER. options that are not comparable create FAUX choices. then there is the issue of actually rolling proper weapon. staves are unpopular because rolling them is a nightmare and the benefits are.. not there

not to mention: if you roll a staff.. then you roll Slam build because why not?

you act as if the difference are ~10% or so. they arent. there is a reason why call of grand slam is popular. it does 4-5 times more damage than regular Ground Slam build. why would anyone pick the lesser option if the effort required to get the real deal is minimal?

The truth is for melee that slam skills seem so good because all melee Strike Skills suck in comparison.
Obviously there is always a slack jawed yokel come to defend Strike Skills because he knows someone that knows someone who got it to "work" in map content from 2017 therefore its "viable" but not played simply as other options like Cyclone or Slams are stronger. Much stronger.

As for spells: Im doing low life builds successfully for years without mana tank build. Obviously mana tanks are a very strong choice and can be build properly to not rely on mana potion 100% of the time. Other ways exist that guarantee to have mana pitions availavle for use 100% of the time which makes mana tanks a top choice for HC or simply for people who dont like to rip and know how to build it properly

The impression you got is right though nontheless. Even though probably every skill can clear the game and kill the bosses and do non delirium content there are a handful of skills per archetype that do everything significantly better.

About Aura Stackers: The bets are already made for its nerf coming 100% its the same lame bullcrap as Herald Stackers.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

They may not have the same max numbers as the next melee build but who the fuck cares when the difference is killing shaper in 5 seconds vs 2 seconds?

So, you're pretty much saying that it's all good because the game balance is wack? But what if it was 50 minutes vs 20 minutes? What if tomorrow, in poe2, they took away all the go-to crutches we use to make shit work now? Ok, fat chance for that, but what if?

In the end, we have good skills and crap skills that kinda work because whatever-who-cares-game-broken. Making skills that work and feel good to use isn't rocket science, half the people here that have any idea about how the game works could fix some of them, that's how bad they are. Yet somehow, we're supposed to buy that people who make a living out of it can't and that things have to be this way.

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IonDrako wrote:

Bow characters (unless they're bleed or poison) usually just have a clear setup and a single target setup with barrage since they have two 6-links.

But the issues I was complaining about is that those melee strike skills needing help to clear from some sort of utility for clear and then needing to gem swap for bosses like you mentioned is something things like slams don't have.

Sorry but i don't get how it's totally fine for bowskills requiring either 2 x 6 links to sport both clear and single target set up while it's completely unacceptable to have to gem swap on a melee skill. Some skills excel in clear, some in single target, some are decent at both. The clutch about building is try and compensate for their respective weaknesses. Yes, Double Strike is bad at clear without support but at the same time, Frost blades or Lightning Strike have amazing clear, way better than even Cyclone, most slams and even many ranged skills. Btw, you can also just do what bow builds do. Get some Elder rare with Multistrike/Brutality on it and or some other sort of pseudo six link and use that along with a good clear skill like flicker while using double strike against bosses. You have so many options available in this game to make things work well, just use them. Sure they might require a bit more brains than just going 1 click button no brain cyclone but if you are the type of guy who thinks that brain dead 1 button builds are good and every skill should be like them it's probably better we stop talking here.


@Sidtherat please do both of us a favor and stop quoting or responding to my posts, best thing would be if you just stopped reading them at all like i do with yours. I don't want to talk or argue with you, i am sick of it. I'd rather smash my face bloody on a steel wall, it's a much better use of my time. So please, just leave me alone and forget that i exist, thanks.

First of all, I delete all my former builds because I don't play Standard anymore. I have been playing since the beta and have made at least 100 if not multiple hundred different characters. I usually make about 10 builds each league.

I play a reckoning build every single league including this one and I easily get 10-20 million dps in a good reckoning specific build. Plus you can pair reckoning with flicker, cyclone, double strike, etc. Yes, its basically only usable as a Gladiator skill. Unkillable, lazy, and amazing still in 3.12.

Dual strike was maybe a poor example now, but I have played a dual strike build with great success. I tend to create my own builds or modify existing trees for different skills.

What I'm saying is not that the different dps isn't huge, I'm saying the noticeable difference in actual gameplay trails off. Hitting for 25 million dps and hitting for 150 million is a huge difference in dps, but 25 million can easily clear even the most difficult t19 full delirious maps in a matter of minutes.

The one thing I will say is that I am not obsessed with speed speed speed anymore. So what works for me, might be too slow for you. A good 25 million dps build lets me finish a 100% delirious map in about 10-15 minutes with my abysmally slow loot pickup. That's plenty fast for me. Are there builds that can do it in under 10 minutes, sure. Are there builds that can do it in 5 minutes, again yes. But saying that a skill or build is busted because it takes a couple extra minutes is nonsense to me.

You say "what if it was 50 minutes vs 20 minutes?", well thats a completely different story. That just isn't the case in PoE right now. The differences are in single digit minutes or even seconds. I don't know of ANY content beyond phased bosses and t19 delirious maps that can take longer 2-3 minutes to complete with a well constructed build using maybe 65-75% of the skills currently in the game.

@raics: I wholeheartedly agree that GGG needs to look at all the skills and THROW OUT the skills that are total garbage like cleave/sweep and other skills that just have never been touched and do nothing in the game. I am not saying there aren't skills like this! I'm only saying there are far more options than people tend to try because they follow the top builds on poe ninja or streams.


Skills and balance are NOT perfect, I am not claiming they are. I am saying that just because the numbers aren't equal doesn't mean that skills/items/builds aren't usable. @sidtherat, you asked "why would anyone pick the lesser option". Well then, why wouldn't everyone in the game play a single build type all the time? There are those players that start playing golem or spectre builds and NEVER even try a melee build. Just because they feel that one or the other is "inferior" when in actual practice it really isn't. It's just different. You might think everyone is playing the same build when looking at the top 5 on poe ninja or top dps numbers, but in reality that just isn't the case. People are creative, people play many different builds not just the ones with the tippy top dps.

As far as cost of items (rolling a good staff), there might be some builds you don't create until you are rolling in exalts and want to experiment. This might be the case for builds like stave-melee characters however I did build a melee stave cycloner that kicked ass. It had nearly max block without using glancing blows or gladiator ascendancy and still pumped out 20-30 million dps. You can't do the same with a sword and sword nodes.

There will never be a game like this where every skill is perfectly balanced. There will ALWAYS be skills that do the job better in one way or another. That isn't something that will ever be fixed.

Even the pro streamers who play 24 hours a day are CONSTANTLY pushing out new builds and new skill uses. New item usage and play styles. And they play WAY more than I do. Some perform better than others, but they all perform well and generally fast.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

Sorry but i don't get how it's totally fine for bowskills requiring either 2 x 6 links to sport both clear and single target set up while it's completely unacceptable to have to gem swap on a melee skill.

Bows do it because they have 2 six links, I never said it was amazing and personally I feel like bows also suck compared to a lot of the game. But you know what also has 2 six links and doesn't need to use 2 setups for clear and bossing? Slams. And it was nothing about being unacceptable with gem swaps but it isn't fun, it's annoying to do constantly. And better skills don't have to do that. If you need to do something like gem swapping to make a skill function or feel even remotely good while there are other skills that feel great without doing those things then something is wrong. I honestly can't believe there are people that don't see the issue with all the crap skills in the game and would defend them to the death despite there really being no reason to even play most of them compared to the good skills since the good skills feel good and aren't clunky to play. But there are people defending cyberpunk and people defending fallout 76 in the world so I don't know what I expected...

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

What I'm saying is not that the different dps isn't huge, I'm saying the noticeable difference in actual gameplay trails off. Hitting for 25 million dps and hitting for 150 million is a huge difference in dps, but 25 million can easily clear even the most difficult t19 full delirious maps in a matter of minutes.

im talking about more realistic builds that are in 1-5m span. im very fine with doing content on 3 or 5m, no problem. im not in a hurry. heck, i play searing bond now.. so go figure

problem is. some builds (or setups, or skills) can reach the same 3m on 50% budget (currency, passives, gear slots). so they can either get 6m for the same cost OR stay at 3m level and get more 'misc' stuff. defences, utility, ease-of-play etc

difference between good and bad builds is not always the damage. it is how much you need to do to get it. my 2h earthshatter took few crit nodes, few slam nodes and.. thats f.. it. all other passives went into nodes a meh build 'cannot afford' because you need the damage first, mist stuff second.

in the old days we had incinerate. skill that dealt the most absurd damage from gem levels alone (and we had no easy +gem scaling). it was so absurd that it reached the second best' damage on FIVE damage passives. everything else went into defences.

you can get dual strike to deal 10m dps. but youll have to use abyssus and you hardly shock anyone with HP pool. slam build gets these 10m on half of the 'build budget'. thus it is safer, smoother. the damage difference - as you soundly pointed out yourself - is meaningless at some point. but you can still spend the excess elsewhere. and thats why some - in theory - glasscannons like mine archers or summoners are in fact very, very tanky

the resources that dont need to go into damage got invested into survivability..

"

IonDrako wrote:

I honestly can't believe there are people that don't see the issue with all the crap skills in the game and would defend them to the death despite there really being no reason to even play most of them compared to the good skills since the good skills feel good and aren't clunky to play. But there are people defending cyberpunk and people defending fallout 76 in the world so I don't know what I expected...

There is a reason to play them, because it's fun to play with them. Big news incoming but fun is highly subjective. If you enjoy Cyclone and Lacerate and find that Strikeskills suck/don't feel good that's fine, i can't argue with that. But matter of fact is i enjoy both my Viper Strike build and my Double Striker a hell of a lot more than my Cyclone build. And as for Lacerate, i changed my Gladiator back to his SST version yesterday because i literally didn't touch this char for half a year since changing him to Lacerate. That skill just plain sucks in my opinion, no fun what so ever.

If you aren't playing this game to maximize your EX/hour ratio then there is very little reason to use a skill just because they have superior stats. I found it much more fun and engaging to get my HoWa Lightning Strike Ascendant to the point where it can do AL8 Sirus then i ever enjoyed my Cyclone or Lacerate builds. Those skills are just lame and boring as far as i am concerned from the making all the way to playing them. Making overpowered shit work isn't interesting or fun for me, just boring. Only thing worse are minion builds as far as i am concerned. If i want to watch things happen without me interacting at all i watch Netflix and don't play POE.

Getting my Ascendant to that point was really hard as the build ultimately isn't really good, i could improve it by a mile by just using jugg instead but i don't want to. When i started with it, it felt so bad that i thought i would never make it work to the point where it can run tier 16 maps deathless but i managed after weeks of experimenting and finetuning. That's where the fun is to me. At the same time what's there to do to make a Cyclone build? "Uh lets see, take a Starforge and this Cyclone gem and slap them on any ascendancy along with some other random stuff and it does all content just fine." Yeah that's interesting...

You people are right from a competitive point of view. If you want to compete there is 1 skill and 1 skill only every league that's viable. The rest is just plain shit. That's the nature of competition, you have 1 winner and lots of losers. I don't want to play this game from that perspective though, would just drain the fun out of it.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

There is a reason to play them, because it's fun to play with them.

This is just wrong, its not fun. They either feel bad, are clunky, are punishing or are bland to use. They aren't interesting in their mechanics or are they interesting to theory craft around because other skills do what those skills can do better and feel better while doing them. It isn't fun if you have to use twink gear while leveling these skills just to have the same fun as a skill that feels great without gear from the get go and the cost to make them function at the high tier isn't fun either and they still end up feeling meh compared to other better options.

It's not about the competitive nature of the skills, I don't race or anything. Like I said before I purely theory craft and make alt characters without hitting much if any end game grind stuff and even theory crafting these skills makes you think the whole time "well I could use insert variety of better skills here and do better damage and it'd cost less and feel better to play" and if you do follow through and make a build then you play it and wish you played something else most of the time spent leveling/playing said build.

And GGG even dumpsters these under used skills on occasion like how they changed dual strikes threshold gem to be garbage now so older builds that made it work without too much trouble are gimped.