"How many skills get little-to-no use" - A follow-up analysis

DISCLAIMER: This is a follow up on this thread: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3072599
THe basic just of it is that the OP, and a handful others, complained that a majority of the skills are UNuseable in the game. Since my following investigation on this, rather than relying on a gut feeling, I went on to follow this up with this thread.

@benjaminbona: You know, after reading this post for a bit longer I was wondering about your words a bit more and all the numbers being thrown around and was wondering how much truth they held. So, I went on and looked trough every skill that the wiki has to offer at the moment and isn't considered more of a supportive nature (Such as Auras, Curses, Portal, Detonate Mines, Desecrete, etc) and then followed this up by googling if a build exists on that matter and wether people have done significant things with it (Such as, T16, Elder/Shaper, Awakaner on higher levels etc), OR it fulfills a role of just a super speed mapper.

Then I went on and split them in the following categories:
- Overwhelming ammount of builds / Meta builds
- Skills with mediocre / limited build guides but viable
- Skills with minor ammount of build guides, or obscure one's, not very viable
[Obscure in a sense that it feels a bit, too bizarre but I'll go into detail individually]
- Skills with no viable representation / not the main focus, and deemed unworthy to everyone.

Finally, I will go at the order that the wiki https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Skill_gem#Active_Skills portrays them as. Meaning that I will start with the Dexterity skills, then Strength skills, then Intelligence skills, in alphabetic order.

Also note that I took into account builds that haven't been updated to 3.13, but also haven't seen a nerf in 3.13 (so builds of 3.12 I considered eligble for this, if they haven't been massively shafted into 3.13)

A DISCLAIMER ON THE META BUILD CATEGORY: Please be aware that yes, some skills may fall into this category that, shockingly to me, might not be something you would consider meta. But the just of it is, that there are a lot of build guides around it. So, take this with a grain of salt: If you find a skill that isn't meta, please be aware this category also encompasses skills that see a lot of focus points within different guides / players, which is why they'll be listed in there, too.

Dexterity skills



Strength Skills



Intelligence Skills



Final Word


Do you enjoy this kind of threads?

very, very important part of this should be a hands-on experience or at least numerical analysis (in some cases it is possible to STRICTLY compare skills). my take on it - if two skills pretty much play the same, gear the same, look the same etc - then it would make sense for them to deal similar damage/area damage. yet.. there are quite staggering differences


on the other hand, popularity of some skills might come from other sources - hello Archmage/mana stacking promoting one-cast-for-a-prolonged-effect skills like brands or nukes requiring only one cast. Archmage/mana stacking is WAY too strong compared to alternatives so either you nerf it or you have to significantly buff skills that do not benefit from it. neither have happened.


you put Cleave into 'good' tier, my take on it - it is PURE GARBAGE. ive played it 3 times in high end content, 3 different builds. all of them get automatically better if i switch to BladeStorm. 1:1 gem swap, instant much better performance

Cleave lacks coverage AND damage at the same time. you wont know it without playing it

(one of these guides might even be mine... this skill is truly a garbage)

on the other hand - Glacial Hammer is meme but it deals damage and can do bad things to bosses. Its problem is Ice Crash being much easier to build for, being a slam and not requiring gem swaps or multi-ex investment into +strikes. but you can reliable shutter-freeze end-endgmae bosses with it


the last part - i bet it will be discussed much more heavily:

skill is not truly viable if you need a swap to other skill to kill bosses. thats the problem of wand/bow builds when you pretty much need two completely separate setups or hideous gem/weapon swap routine. as much as i love lightning arrow, turning it into single target skill.. failed HORRIBLY despite throwing legacy dex stacking bow and stuff at it. it might be cool to have an OPTION like that, but being expected, forced even, into gem/weapon swapping is pretty bad. my latest build was a Galvanic Arrow (JUST a GA, no secondary setup) and while it deals damage, clearing with it, despite 150%+ proj speed + mirage archer node was horrible. Youll see GA in pretty much every bow build as a single target skill, beacuse it does single target, but i do not recommend using it for clear (with barrage support - still talking about no-gem-swap here)

the last-last part:
some skills completely shut other choices unless you want to gimp yourself on purpose. Toxic Rain, BB/BF combo, Carrion Golems. for each of these you have alternatives but they SUCK comparatively. Animate Weapons might be cool, deal damage, clear stuff - but Carrion Golems wipe the floor with them - no matter what category you pick. these outliers need to die and quickly. Toxic Rain is the most abhorrent example of giving a skill twice the damage it deserves and not seeing a problem for years. it deals ENOUGH damage with white weapon and garbage rares in all slots ffs..


NOTE: dont you enjoy how neglected the STR part of the game is? 28 skills vs 50+? same applies to support gems and passive tree. heck, even 'red' cluster jewel types/nodes are pretty meh.

I don't really see much value in this thread if you have skills like Ice Trap categorised as metabuilds / overwhelming representation compared to skills like split arrow / puncture, i.e. bleed bow gladiator, one of the most popular league-start builds. At the same time, I don't think this distinction even matters, as the focus should be on which skills are not viable, and why.

Some people on here a bit dramatic, I don't really understand why. There are more than enough viable skills in any given league, at least for me, to care too much if there a handful of shit skills. It would be good for them to get buffed down the line, and I'm sure many will, but its obviously not a priority, nor should it be.

"

sidtherat wrote:

very, very important part of this should be a hands-on experience or at least numerical analysis (in some cases it is possible to STRICTLY compare skills). my take on it - if two skills pretty much play the same, gear the same, look the same etc - then it would make sense for them to deal similar damage/area damage. yet.. there are quite staggering differences

Agree with the first part. Hands on experience and numerical analysis important, but it also needs to be a holistic review. I think comparisons with other skills aren't great because each skill should have its own identity. If they are similar as you are suggesting, then I don't see it as a numerical or mechanical issue. Players can just pick the better skill and the weaker one that plays the same and uses the same gear can either be removed or reworked later on.

"

sidtherat wrote:

skill is not truly viable if you need a swap to other skill to kill bosses. thats the problem of wand/bow builds when you pretty much need two completely separate setups or hideous gem/weapon swap routine. as much as i love lightning arrow, turning it into single target skill.. failed HORRIBLY despite throwing legacy dex stacking bow and stuff at it. it might be cool to have an OPTION like that, but being expected, forced even, into gem/weapon swapping is pretty bad. my latest build was a Galvanic Arrow (JUST a GA, no secondary setup) and while it deals damage, clearing with it, despite 150%+ proj speed + mirage archer node was horrible. Youll see GA in pretty much every bow build as a single target skill, beacuse it does single target, but i do not recommend using it for clear (with barrage support - still talking about no-gem-swap here)

I don't agree with any of this. I think if we had it your way mate, every skill would end up being the same. Generally speaking, skills like Lightning Arrow are able to achieve top tier clear speeds at the expense of tankiness and bossing ability.

If skills like LA retained their clear speed ability and could effectively boss as well within a reasonable budget, it would be quite silly. I know that skills like Toxic Rain and BV exist, but neither has the clear speed that bow skills offer without additional investment (and both should be nerfed).

"

he last-last part:
some skills completely shut other choices unless you want to gimp yourself on purpose. Toxic Rain, BB/BF combo, Carrion Golems. for each of these you have alternatives but they SUCK comparatively. Animate Weapons might be cool, deal damage, clear stuff - but Carrion Golems wipe the floor with them - no matter what category you pick. these outliers need to die and quickly. Toxic Rain is the most abhorrent example of giving a skill twice the damage it deserves and not seeing a problem for years. it deals ENOUGH damage with white weapon and garbage rares in all slots ffs..

Whilst I agree that BF/BB, Carrion Golems and TR (in addition to mines, berserk, archmage and BV) should be nerfed, again its a completely different discussion. Whether or not these skills are OP is not relevant. This is a PVE game, its not a race to generate currency or beat other players.

The focus, and your attention should be on which skills are not viable and why. A skill does not become any less viable because another skill is overpowered.

Also agree with your comments on Cleave. Its shit. I don't know anyone that has played it and liked it, most end up switching to Sweep and sticking with that.

"

BrettLee wrote:

I don't really see much value in this thread if you have skills like Ice Trap categorised as metabuilds / overwhelming representation compared to skills like split arrow / puncture, i.e. bleed bow gladiator, one of the most popular league-start builds. At the same time, I don't think this distinction even matters, as the focus should be on which skills are not viable, and why.

Some people on here a bit dramatic, I don't really understand why. There are more than enough viable skills in any given league, at least for me, to care too much if there a handful of shit skills. It would be good for them to get buffed down the line, and I'm sure many will, but its obviously not a priority, nor should it be.

"

sidtherat wrote:

very, very important part of this should be a hands-on experience or at least numerical analysis (in some cases it is possible to STRICTLY compare skills). my take on it - if two skills pretty much play the same, gear the same, look the same etc - then it would make sense for them to deal similar damage/area damage. yet.. there are quite staggering differences

Agree with the first part. Hands on experience and numerical analysis important, but it also needs to be a holistic review. I think comparisons with other skills aren't great because each skill should have its own identity. If they are similar as you are suggesting, then I don't see it as a numerical or mechanical issue. Players can just pick the better skill and the weaker one that plays the same and uses the same gear can either be removed or reworked later on.

"

sidtherat wrote:

skill is not truly viable if you need a swap to other skill to kill bosses. thats the problem of wand/bow builds when you pretty much need two completely separate setups or hideous gem/weapon swap routine. as much as i love lightning arrow, turning it into single target skill.. failed HORRIBLY despite throwing legacy dex stacking bow and stuff at it. it might be cool to have an OPTION like that, but being expected, forced even, into gem/weapon swapping is pretty bad. my latest build was a Galvanic Arrow (JUST a GA, no secondary setup) and while it deals damage, clearing with it, despite 150%+ proj speed + mirage archer node was horrible. Youll see GA in pretty much every bow build as a single target skill, beacuse it does single target, but i do not recommend using it for clear (with barrage support - still talking about no-gem-swap here)

I don't agree with any of this. I think if we had it your way mate, every skill would end up being the same. Generally speaking, skills like Lightning Arrow are able to achieve top tier clear speeds at the expense of tankiness and bossing ability.

If skills like LA retained their clear speed ability and could effectively boss as well within a reasonable budget, it would be quite silly. I know that skills like Toxic Rain and BV exist, but neither has the clear speed that bow skills offer without additional investment (and both should be nerfed).

"

he last-last part:
some skills completely shut other choices unless you want to gimp yourself on purpose. Toxic Rain, BB/BF combo, Carrion Golems. for each of these you have alternatives but they SUCK comparatively. Animate Weapons might be cool, deal damage, clear stuff - but Carrion Golems wipe the floor with them - no matter what category you pick. these outliers need to die and quickly. Toxic Rain is the most abhorrent example of giving a skill twice the damage it deserves and not seeing a problem for years. it deals ENOUGH damage with white weapon and garbage rares in all slots ffs..

Whilst I agree that BF/BB, Carrion Golems and TR (in addition to mines, berserk, archmage and BV) should be nerfed, again its a completely different discussion. Whether or not these skills are OP is not relevant. This is a PVE game, its not a race to generate currency or beat other players.

The focus, and your attention should be on which skills are not viable and why. A skill does not become any less viable because another skill is overpowered.

Also agree with your comments on Cleave. Its shit. I don't know anyone that has played it and liked it, most end up switching to Sweep and sticking with that.

You're probably vaguely aware of it by now but i'll point it out anyway, you are talking to a wall. I've had these discussions like a million times with him, it's a completely futile effort to even respond, he won't listen to anything you write and just make the next rage post.

Does a skill need to be viable in end-game in order for it to have a place in the game? I notice that Holy Flame Totem is in the 'Useless' category for Str skills. Sure, maybe later on. But for the first two Acts, it's my go-to skill for every character who has access to it - and even many who don't.

Equally, I notice that Storm Burst is in the 'Useless' section of Int skills. Esoro has a guide on it although that may be outdated now. However, one has to ask whether damage alone is what makes a skill viable. I'd argue that it isn't.

In Storm Burst's case, I use it for casters who aren't aiming to do damage themselves but who use attack skills to summon or buff their minions. The first application is Agony Crawler builds. People recommend Storm Brand to build up Virulence stacks. In my experience, no other skill comes even close to Storm Burst for this. Let rip and it maxes out your Virulence in literally one second. Hold down the RMB and sweep the mouse left or right and you can poison every mob on the screen, in a 360-degree field, in the blink of an eye.

The second application is casters who want to use Desecrate/Bone Offering while channeling to buff their minions/themselves. Most choose Cyclone for this. I use Storm Burst. As a channeling skill, it will do the same as Cyclone but you can do it at extreme range (edge of the screen and beyond). Is it as good overall as Cyclone? I don't know. But it's certainly an alternative option for a different playstyle and experience.

The other useful aspect of Storm Burst is that, unlike Cyclone, you can use it to guide your minions. I used it in the Soulwrest Phantasm build, which masses Phantasms as the main damage dealers. Using Cyclone, the Phantasms would follow me. Using Storm Burst, the Phantasms follow the Storm Burst. So if I want my Phantasms up in the top left corner of the screen, I simply aim Storm Burst there and they all rush to that spot. Again, it's maybe not better than Cyclone. But it's different and offers different utility and tactical options. I certainly think it has a place in the game, even if not as an end-game boss killer per se.

Storm Burst as a standalone skill plays like Divine Ire, yet the playstyle has little to no place in the current game state.
It requires prolonged stand-in-place to maximize damage, while Divine Ire supports charge and move playstyle which is much safer (and arguably more enjoyable) - with coverage by default.
Sure, you can scale your gear and let everything be carried by Explody Chest, but that's just shows how the Explody Chest is overpowered regardless of skill you use.

Anything around Herald of Agony is built around amount of hits per second. Storm Burst ain't even that good when compared with Ball Lightning in comparison. And Storm Brand does damage while you can move, so again ... you can play Storm Burst but if you want performance, there are better choices.

It's like - I like walking, so I will walk to town for 500 miles, instead of taking a train or a plane, because I like to walk.. Ok, sure.

I like Storm Burst, but it plays like ass and there are better skills, that scales the same, plays the same and look better.

@BrettLee (About the value of this thread)

The value on this thread is to put an emphasis on this, seemingly at least, warped idea that the overwhelming ammount of skills within the Path of Exile universe are considered garbage, while the opposite can be said after digging around in the ammount of build guides it has.

As to the difference between "Overwhelmingly represented" and "Limited represented" was purely by the ammount of differenct builds I've seen utilizing this skill. Granted given the absolute sheer ammount of guides I had to siphon trough, I probably didn't spend nearly as much time on it. You are right that the distinction in itself doesn't matter in the end, as it should be "Viable vs NonViable", but hey, it humoured me more to do it this way.



@porous (About what is considered viable and the place of a skill)

It's true that there are a lot of skills that shine more in the leveling process, rather than their ability to tackle the game, but I wanted to emphasis on that because the thinking of the majority, so it seemed to me anyway, is that a skill is trash if it feels bad enough for build-guide-makers to not make a build surrounding it.

In Storm burst's cases, the reason why I've included it here is because the gem indicates, sort of, that it isn't something for utility but rather, used as a main form of damage output. It's not, say, like frostblink, to which you can be certain that THAT one isn't used for it's damage part, rather than it's utility part (although people, again, have been tinkering with just that).

This would fall under the category that I didn't consider, and mentioned at the end: "Ease of use" or "Investment required". If I had to account for that, too, then this list would be a lot more stuffed with words and a lot more comparisons, which isn't the intention here. I am not trying to put down which skills are better than others, but rather, which one's can be played all the way to the end, or fulfill within the end that people played it for that reason. Holy flame totem, Stormburst and a few others, weren't seen in either of those cases (indicated usually by heavily outdated builds)


@sidtherat (About cleave and perspective)

This is important to understand. This isn't a post that has my opinion in it about each skill individually, but rather, how many build guides are out there that consider cleave as a replacement within their setups, or use it as a main skill troughout to tackle the endgame. And in that sense, enough have been found that I deemed cleave "good enough" to be viable.

Does it PALE in comparison to other skills? Sure, but, that wasn't the point I was making. I am not comparing which skills are stronger than others, that's an entirely different discussion, but rather, which ones are viable to be used. On a personal take here, I played cleave in 3.13 (As a gladiator and speed mapper) and died around 94 with it. But the combination of whirling blade into cleave a pack made the skills a potent speed mapper.

On the take of strength gems, it should be noted that these are "strength" gems. I didn't distinguish between Ranged Attacks, Ranged Spells and Melee Attacks, as this would have been more time consuming to do. My personal take about the underpresentation of strength skills: A lot of them are guard skills, auras or buffs (Blood and Sand, Heralds, Banners etc), Warcries or similiar utility skill gems.

Storm Burst.. used to be very cool, with unique scaling and pretty fun playstyle

then they butchered it, made it phys-to-lightning (noone asked for it) and FORCED you into heavily risky playstyle of STANDING IN PLACE in a considerably more dangerous game. POE in 2021 is ALL about damage on the move. thats the reason DoTs, Cyclone, BV, minions and any skill with lingering effect (cremation, ball lightning etc) > everything else

Storm Burst is terrible (despite having good numbers) because you just risk too much and gain barely anything. and no, poisoning with it is TERRIBLE idea and noone does that. for a reason.

same with other examples. yes, skill needs to have an end-game use to see a use. Holy Flame Totem - is endgame viable. it lacks scaling possibilities (and Hiero change actually hurt it a lot) but it deals damage, clears stuff. it is ok albeit if you want to go phys-converted totems - divine ire totems are just.. better in every way imaginable

there is much truth in the statement that similar skills should have been removed long time ago. sadly, GGG sees the 'spam more, even mediocre skills' a stronger option than 'actually fix stuff' and we end up with 150 active skills, with a lof of them being simply a no-use fillers. then they make the matters worse adding easily obtainable and highly desirable Explody chest that homogenized gameplay to the point pretty much all endgame builds using EChest play exactly the same. it is borrrrrring


part of the skill non-use issue is 'elemental variants'. Ice Trap vs Explosive Trap. ofc they scale differently but the playstyle is 1:1 identical. the only reason Ice Trap exists is because seemingly all 'skill types' need to have all elements covered. with how prolific elemental conversion is (and stacking flat added usually can exceed 'natural' damage - Cremation is mostly lightning nowadays) - it is pretty meh reason for a skill to exist. Ice Trap (it deals damage, quite good damage actually) just will never match Explosive Trap due to starting later in damage conversion chain and having less tags


but if GGG insists on keeping these copies around - just ffs fix their numbers. Starting with Cleave and Dual Strike ok?

"

The value on this thread is to put an emphasis on this, seemingly at least, warped idea that the overwhelming ammount of skills within the Path of Exile universe are considered garbage, while the opposite can be said after digging around in the ammount of build guides it has.

if skill A and skill B have the same performance but skill A requires half the investment then skill B is garbage.. powercreep gave us so much power that we can make anything into maven farmer. take harvest away and youll see the difference between A and B much, much clearer

"

sidtherat wrote:

Storm Burst.. used to be very cool, with unique scaling and pretty fun playstyle

then they butchered it, made it phys-to-lightning (noone asked for it) and FORCED you into heavily risky playstyle of STANDING IN PLACE in a considerably more dangerous game. POE in 2021 is ALL about damage on the move. thats the reason DoTs, Cyclone, BV, minions and any skill with lingering effect (cremation, ball lightning etc) > everything else

Storm Burst is terrible (despite having good numbers) because you just risk too much and gain barely anything. and no, poisoning with it is TERRIBLE idea and noone does that. for a reason.

same with other examples. yes, skill needs to have an end-game use to see a use. Holy Flame Totem - is endgame viable. it lacks scaling possibilities (and Hiero change actually hurt it a lot) but it deals damage, clears stuff. it is ok albeit if you want to go phys-converted totems - divine ire totems are just.. better in every way imaginable

there is much truth in the statement that similar skills should have been removed long time ago. sadly, GGG sees the 'spam more, even mediocre skills' a stronger option than 'actually fix stuff' and we end up with 150 active skills, with a lof of them being simply a no-use fillers. then they make the matters worse adding easily obtainable and highly desirable Explody chest that homogenized gameplay to the point pretty much all endgame builds using EChest play exactly the same. it is borrrrrring


part of the skill non-use issue is 'elemental variants'. Ice Trap vs Explosive Trap. ofc they scale differently but the playstyle is 1:1 identical. the only reason Ice Trap exists is because seemingly all 'skill types' need to have all elements covered. with how prolific elemental conversion is (and stacking flat added usually can exceed 'natural' damage - Cremation is mostly lightning nowadays) - it is pretty meh reason for a skill to exist. Ice Trap (it deals damage, quite good damage actually) just will never match Explosive Trap due to starting later in damage conversion chain and having less tags


but if GGG insists on keeping these copies around - just ffs fix their numbers. Starting with Cleave and Dual Strike ok?

"

The value on this thread is to put an emphasis on this, seemingly at least, warped idea that the overwhelming ammount of skills within the Path of Exile universe are considered garbage, while the opposite can be said after digging around in the ammount of build guides it has.

if skill A and skill B have the same performance but skill A requires half the investment then skill B is garbage.. powercreep gave us so much power that we can make anything into maven farmer. take harvest away and youll see the difference between A and B much, much clearer

You're digressing quite a bit away from the topic. The goal of this thread wasn't to put into contrast on HOW one skill is viable, but wether IF.

"if skill A and skill B have the same performance but skill A requires half the investment then skill B is garbage.." that's fundamentally a wrong way to approach the game, because in that context you might as well play Cyclone, and only cyclone, because it takes less investment than, say, ToxicRain for instance.

You need to stop taking this thread as "What is better than others", and rather look at it as "What skills did the community make work within reason (THis is why "Obscure category" was a thing by the way). And this is the list of it. Please refrain from discussing an entirely different topic here, no offence.

I went over the str gems

- Glacial hammer
Oh, I cannot disagree more with marking Glacial Hammer as hopeless, as it is "better" than any namelock melee skill in the game.

Comparably Cleave is a total shit vs Glacial Hammer. But I guess in STR category it is on par with Infernal Blow.
But I guess it suffers by the archetype of being namelock as Ice Crash is more or less better version of Glacial Hammer, but it has breakdowns - with Awakened Ancestral Call Support on something very fast like Gladiator / Berserk , it can be better and more fun to play compared with Ice Crash.

in Dex gems - Elemental Hit - that is pretty much meta skill still. Despite the hurdles added to conversion, it is T1 skill that is fairly easy to scale, multiple applications (both ranged and melee).
Being in the same ranking as Wild Strike is a disgrace.