How many skills get little-to-no usage

Its another league coming up
Another chance for GGG to finally buff or change mechanics on skills that get no love and try to give them a place in the game

OR

GGG will continue to ignore em and let em remain as skills that never get used zzzzz..

The list is SO massive when it comes to skills below 1% usage

There are about 40 skills that get used and have builds on poe.ninja that exist with them

The rest are so low and there is a MASSIVE list of skills with 0.0% usage

Meaning that none of the players on poe.ninja who are in the highest lvls are using them... like... at all

Please GGG make an effort this league and buff idk a majority of the 100 skills that get no play or usage

This is a good business decision as well if you wanna sell MTX

Considering that people love buying skill effect mtx, so the more skills that are viable in your game.. the more skill mtx's people would be interested in buying...

or dont

Its been years and this has remained the same

Years of having over 60% of the skills in the game be considered useless and not viable

Im still waiting to see even a tiny effort in skill rebalance

"

benjaminbona wrote:

Its another league coming up
Another chance for GGG to finally buff or change mechanics on skills that get no love and try to give them a place in the game

OR

GGG will continue to ignore em and let em remain as skills that never get used zzzzz..

The list is SO massive when it comes to skills below 1% usage

There are about 40 skills that get used and have builds on poe.ninja that exist with them

The rest are so low and there is a MASSIVE list of skills with 0.0% usage

Meaning that none of the players on poe.ninja who are in the highest lvls are using them... like... at all

Please GGG make an effort this league and buff idk a majority of the 100 skills that get no play or usage

This is a good business decision as well if you wanna sell MTX

Considering that people love buying skill effect mtx, so the more skills that are viable in your game.. the more skill mtx's people would be interested in buying...

or dont

Its been years and this has remained the same

Years of having over 60% of the skills in the game be considered useless and not viable

Im still waiting to see even a tiny effort in skill rebalance

It bothers me so, greatly to see your short-sightedness, especially given the fact that you have been playing this game (based on your account, really) for so long, and yet, you seem so stuck from a month to month basis, no offence, honestly.

Let's talk balance. Or rather, how utterly, hilariously, difficult it is to balance skills in a game that has so many different ways to play the game. And I mean you have multiple thousand ways to do so. Especially if you throw in alternate quality in the mix, the insane ammount of support combinations you technically could play, and so on and so on. So you'll have to excuse if GGG only improves the skill of a "a few" each league, albeit that the mentioned few, looking back at the patchnotes of 3.13 is actually still quite a bit.

But hey, IF you don't wanna take my word for it, let's make you recap the ACTUAL game, starting from roughly when you started (incidently is similiar to my time-line), and walk you trough it.

Remember how useless summoner was? Every kind? Except SrS when it came out?

Remember how "bow builds" really were just Tornado shot and a decision between elemental or physical?

Remember when melee was ACTUALLY not played at all?

Remember when caster was only like, 5 skills that were played, at most? While the rest was figuratively trash?
____________________________________________

I do remember all of it, and nowadays? We do have quite a lot of variety that is all playable !

I'd argue that 90% of the skills that we have, used as your main skill, are completly viable, and useable, to make a build with, but they won't outshine the top end due to various reasons, and that is not a LACK of damage, but a lack of convenience or quality of life.

Let me explain by comparing skills that function similiarly, but one would see a lot more play than the other.

Viper Strike and Heavy Strike: One locks you in place and applies a degen that ramps up over time, the other can be used to stunlock enemies. Even if we would put both on similiar level of strength, you'd see the other use more.

Firestorm and Winterorb: You channel your skill up and walk away, as stuff rains down on your enemy. But Winter orb is played more often, because it can chill, freeze, and takes less charge up time for potential. Also, less visual clutter.

Lacerate and Cleave: Fightingstyle wise they are identical, you go towards an enemy, and a close-mid range, you swipe at them. But cleave sort of fell out of favour, while Lacerate still see's play. Why? Small bit of extra range. No, really, that's the only thing I can think of.

What do those skills not have in common? Quality of Life. People will always play Cyclone over ground slam, because it's so easy to play it, unless you like ground slam, then you play that!

I hate the fact you mentioned poe.ninja for the builds, because you can google any skill or mechanic and find someone who made a build on it.

In an ideal world, every skill is equal in powerlevel, regardless of investment, but that's an inhumane request to be granted, and you know that, too. But I'd argue that GGG is getting closer that you have more and more builds that can be played on upper levels.

I don't really get your point with 0% usage on the highest level. What that essentially means is saying that some skills are stronger than others. Shocking, to noone. But that doesn't make other skills underwhelming, rather than underutilized due to multiple reasons. I made a bladestorm character in HCRitual. Died, noticed I could farm shaper with it in standard for a while out of curiousity, and did so rather effortlessly. And many skills can do the highest content. But the one's that can do it the fastest, will always be preferred.

Overall this seems like a short-minded rant with no substance, but I hope my input was viewable trough your enraged goggles <3

poe.ninja is not a good indicator of build diversity or viability. It is a snapshot of the highest level players which is skewed toward meta mapping builds.

Just because a build has 0.0% usage on poe.ninja does not mean that is weak, nor does it mean that it is not viable. Skills such as Explosive Trap and Armageddon Brand have like 0.2% usage, yet they can easily take on substantially all content in the game, and are far superior to some of the more popular skills at most budgets.

Edit: And these kinds of games never strive for 'balance', its just not possible. And there will always be meta skills, even if they are just marginally better than other options.

There are definitely some skills that need buffs, and others that need nerfs (BV, Carrion Golem, TR - self-poison, archmage, berserk, mines); but you aren't restricted in terms of build choice when it comes to anything short of 100% delirious maps.

"

BrettLee wrote:

poe.ninja is not a good indicator of build diversity or viability. It is a snapshot of the highest level players which is skewed toward meta mapping builds.

Indeed. Sometimes I do wish poe.ninja will show a larger spectrum of character levels, so we get to see more diversified builds and ideas.

Another thing is when popular streamers release a build, suddenly you have like 1000+ fellas playing that skill. In a way, POE might be more fun if internet technology were not that advanced, and every player only has a small light radius, trying things on their own.
Just a thought.

"

Rakushi wrote:

I'd argue that 90% of the skills that we have, used as your main skill, are completly viable, and useable, to make a build with, but they won't outshine the top end due to various reasons, and that is not a LACK of damage, but a lack of convenience or quality of life.

Let me explain by comparing skills that function similiarly, but one would see a lot more play than the other.

Viper Strike and Heavy Strike: One locks you in place and applies a degen that ramps up over time, the other can be used to stunlock enemies. Even if we would put both on similiar level of strength, you'd see the other use more.

Firestorm and Winterorb: You channel your skill up and walk away, as stuff rains down on your enemy. But Winter orb is played more often, because it can chill, freeze, and takes less charge up time for potential. Also, less visual clutter.

Lacerate and Cleave: Fightingstyle wise they are identical, you go towards an enemy, and a close-mid range, you swipe at them. But cleave sort of fell out of favour, while Lacerate still see's play. Why? Small bit of extra range. No, really, that's the only thing I can think of.

i cut the rest, but:

it is about the damage. Blade Flurry deals like thrice the damage of alternatives - oh look, it gets usage. Earthshatter deals thrice the damage of Sunder? oh look, it gets usage.

your examples.. Viper Strike has a damage built in, deals the most potent damage type (dot) and in general has great numbers. Heavy Strike 'can stun' and thats it. Heavy Strike deals comparable damage to Ground Slam or Earth Shatter yet it is a strike skill without any extra damage scaling unlike slams.

Firestorm.. have you actually played it? this skill has been changed and you no longer 'channel it in place'. like a year ago or something

Lacerate/Cleave - have you actually played them? you see no other reason why Lacerate is used? read the gem description. ill give you a hint:
90% MORE damage with bleeding

the list goes on and on. it is mostly about the damage and/or area.

- lightning tendrils? good damage, very small starting AOE
- cleave? bad damage, bad aoe
- sunder? ok damage, terrible area (missing moving enemies)
- heavy strike? bad area you fix by making your damage bad. it should have 300% effectiveness to be usefull, not 250%
- spectral throw? bad damage or bad area. forced gem swap
- venom gyre? bad damage (the only chaos/dot skill that has no flat damage, requires completely different and much more expensive weapon type)
- dual strike? bad damage, bad area (with a TERRIBLE threshold jewel, skill identity and pretty much everything about this skill is bad)


skills that have biggest mechanical problem/qol:
- chain hook.
- any skill you can cancel out of (barraged galvanic arrow with 12 arrows plays like shit 'thanks' to animation cancelling)


and then there are skills that have bonkers damage and bonkers area and auto-aim, and scale from gem levels etc. that last group you can see on the ninja because these are the best (recently new power category has been added: 'scaling compatibility with explody chest')


there are always going to be 'best' choices, noone expects otherwise

but it is simply a lie to say that current power disparities are 'cool' and cannot be fixed. another lie is that 'number changes are not enough'. while in practice it is exactly the other way around: most skills require simple damage updates and recent ones simply werent enough. you wont fix a skill dealing 50% damage of an alternative by increasing the damage by 6%. you buff it by 80% and see what happens. there is no mystic sh.. going around here, you have single target damage and you have area coverage. in most cases unused skills are those that lack in endgame damage area (or require sick investment to reach satisfying levels of it)

note: this ignores the 'fun' aspect. i like playing Cleave, i find it entertaining mechanically. ive done all content with various Cleave builds. but sorry, it deals HALF the damage skill with its AREA and playstyle should deal. it is simple as that. it deals HALF the damage it needs. it has no slam scaling, it has terrible aps penalty, tiny area and requires up and personal combat. and yet deals less damage than significantly better Ground Slam

so stop with 'it cannot be fixed' bollocks. it is untrue and the argumentation boils down to 'muh complex' when in fact is is (in most cases) very, very simple

"

sidtherat wrote:

i cut the rest, but:

it is about the damage. Blade Flurry deals like thrice the damage of alternatives - oh look, it gets usage. Earthshatter deals thrice the damage of Sunder? oh look, it gets usage.

your examples.. Viper Strike has a damage built in, deals the most potent damage type (dot) and in general has great numbers. Heavy Strike 'can stun' and thats it. Heavy Strike deals comparable damage to Ground Slam or Earth Shatter yet it is a strike skill without any extra damage scaling unlike slams.

Firestorm.. have you actually played it? this skill has been changed and you no longer 'channel it in place'. like a year ago or something

Lacerate/Cleave - have you actually played them? you see no other reason why Lacerate is used? read the gem description. ill give you a hint:
90% MORE damage with bleeding

the list goes on and on. it is mostly about the damage and/or area.

- lightning tendrils? good damage, very small starting AOE
- cleave? bad damage, bad aoe
- sunder? ok damage, terrible area (missing moving enemies)
- heavy strike? bad area you fix by making your damage bad. it should have 300% effectiveness to be usefull, not 250%
- spectral throw? bad damage or bad area. forced gem swap
- venom gyre? bad damage (the only chaos/dot skill that has no flat damage, requires completely different and much more expensive weapon type)
- dual strike? bad damage, bad area (with a TERRIBLE threshold jewel, skill identity and pretty much everything about this skill is bad)


skills that have biggest mechanical problem/qol:
- chain hook.
- any skill you can cancel out of (barraged galvanic arrow with 12 arrows plays like shit 'thanks' to animation cancelling)


and then there are skills that have bonkers damage and bonkers area and auto-aim, and scale from gem levels etc. that last group you can see on the ninja because these are the best (recently new power category has been added: 'scaling compatibility with explody chest')


there are always going to be 'best' choices, noone expects otherwise

but it is simply a lie to say that current power disparities are 'cool' and cannot be fixed. another lie is that 'number changes are not enough'. while in practice it is exactly the other way around: most skills require simple damage updates and recent ones simply werent enough. you wont fix a skill dealing 50% damage of an alternative by increasing the damage by 6%. you buff it by 80% and see what happens. there is no mystic sh.. going around here, you have single target damage and you have area coverage. in most cases unused skills are those that lack in endgame damage area (or require sick investment to reach satisfying levels of it)

note: this ignores the 'fun' aspect. i like playing Cleave, i find it entertaining mechanically. ive done all content with various Cleave builds. but sorry, it deals HALF the damage skill with its AREA and playstyle should deal. it is simple as that. it deals HALF the damage it needs. it has no slam scaling, it has terrible aps penalty, tiny area and requires up and personal combat. and yet deals less damage than significantly better Ground Slam

so stop with 'it cannot be fixed' bollocks. it is untrue and the argumentation boils down to 'muh complex' when in fact is is (in most cases) very, very simple

The reason I've listed these skills personally is because, yes, I did play them, so I felt I could get a more appropriate stance on this.

Of course it is about the damage, and we know both that but let's be real, even if Viper strike would deal 3x damage than it does now, it wouldn't see more play on the higher ends.

Firestorm never was a channeling skill, but the playstyle can be played fairly similiarly. You "cast it" and it creates an area where it gets shot at. And the more you cast the skill, the better it is.

Yes, Lacerate has more damage while bleeding. Meanwhile lacerate also has 122% at lvl 20, while cleave has 170. So I feel this does balance it out. (I only put this in here because you seem nitpicky on this topic alone, without taking everything in)

I've played a Cleave jugg with Ichimonji's, designed to be a phys and elemental tank (I had purities running on him) and guess what? I grinded Elder with it, and I grinded UberUberLab (Dedication / Gifts etc) for the fun of it. I still have the tree in my PoB. Is Cyclone better? Sure. Does that make Cleave automatically bad? Nope.

What's funny to me is that in your first post you said that nothing ever changes, but then you talk about number changes on gems. So you acknowledge that change is being done, while also saying that there isn't any done? Amusing.

"so stop with 'it cannot be fixed' bollocks. it is untrue and the argumentation boils down to 'muh complex' when in fact is is (in most cases) very, very simple"

- Stop quoting people when you don't even plan to use the full message behind it, or please read more toroughly. Stuff has been actively worked on to be useable, and this is the point I am trying to drive home: Majority of the skills are useable and viable. You don't want a "fix" you want a "power balance" update. I get it, you would like your skills to be more powerful, all fair and valid, but doesn't mean the skill itself is in a bad state.

The whole sentiment that GGG isn't updating old skills is just, wrong. A look into wiki would tell you that, or looking over skill gems in every patchnote work, too.

Eh, but I am rambling. To be fair I didn't even want to involve myself in this thread, as it is built on a wrong perspective and showcases incredible denial

"

Rakushi wrote:

Of course it is about the damage, and we know both that but let's be real, even if Viper strike would deal 3x damage than it does now, it wouldn't see more play on the higher ends.

Firestorm never was a channeling skill, but the playstyle can be played fairly similiarly. You "cast it" and it creates an area where it gets shot at. And the more you cast the skill, the better it is.

lol wut?

viper strike is the highest damage potential attack poison skill in the game. any pestilent strike build can swap it for bosses (and most mid-geared builds DO swap it. the damage it gives is well worth the swap)

and firestorm does not 'stack' anymore. it has a limit of 3 and you play it just like any other skill - with cast speed to spam big meteors or scaling the big hit

im not sure if you are aware that both these statements of yours kinda make everything else youve said bit.. questionable

"

sidtherat wrote:

"

Rakushi wrote:

Of course it is about the damage, and we know both that but let's be real, even if Viper strike would deal 3x damage than it does now, it wouldn't see more play on the higher ends.

Firestorm never was a channeling skill, but the playstyle can be played fairly similiarly. You "cast it" and it creates an area where it gets shot at. And the more you cast the skill, the better it is.

lol wut?

viper strike is the highest damage potential attack poison skill in the game. any pestilent strike build can swap it for bosses

and firestorm does not 'stack' anymore. it has a limit of 3 and you play it just like any other skill - with cast speed to spam big meteors or scaling the big hit

im not sure if you are aware that both these statements of yours kinda make everything else youve said bit.. questionable

Probably shouldn't attempt to write when I've only woken up recently (Fluff)

To emphasize the original point I tried to make in a summarized form:

There are always going to be skills that do the hack and slash and destroy better than others or in a faster manner.

But that doesn't discredit all the other skills. If you like to, you can use them and play them and it feels just fine.

To everything else, GGG has been working on active skill gem balance. But there are simplly too many to all take into account for. Ideally every melee skill would reach the same power level as cyclone does, but I don't see that happening, simplly because that's too much to ask, personally speaking.

"

Rakushi wrote:

To everything else, GGG has been working on active skill gem balance. But there are simplly too many to all take into account for. Ideally every melee skill would reach the same power level as cyclone does, but I don't see that happening, simplly because that's too much to ask, personally speaking.

They aren't two guys in a garage for quite a while now so I'm pretty confident they have someone on hand that could be tasked with that, all they need is a guy who plays the game a lot to tell them what needs fixing and where. I'll be realistic and assume that very few on their staff seriously play it anymore, after all these years most of them are probably in "I'll puke if I see another rhoa" mode. But, that's an excuse that works for two guys in a garage that can't afford a burger to split, not a 100-strong company that obviously has no problem keeping out of the red.

That said, some of the numbers in there are so wrong you don't even have to play the game to see it.

There are skills that aren't the absolute best or mediocre or need more items to make a good build with, but I can say 100% that sites like poe.ninja are a terrible resource to get an idea of how much regular skills are being used. They snapshot the high level players and leave out the lower percentages. People look at those builds and stick with the meta since it's easier.

Another thing is that there are less build guides for the "worse" skills which further increases the divide. Many people stick to a build guide and will not make their own for whatever reason. Such is life