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

Nice collection of information! Thanks for taking the time. :+1:

If you want to do more work, you could do the same for the ascendancy nodes.

Thanks for the entertaining work!

"

Marxone wrote:

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.

Please realize, and I am repeating myself here, that this thread isn't precisely to compare one skill to another and to showcase which of them is stronger, but rather, to showcase a somewhat warped perception people have, in my opinion anyway, how many skills truelly are useable and functional and been built around to the endgame.

THis isn't a "ranking" either, but an effort to categorize each skill that have any implication to be built around. And it may suprise you, Wild strike actually has quite a couple of builds that are also viable !

"

krasoft wrote:

Nice collection of information! Thanks for taking the time. :+1:

If you want to do more work, you could do the same for the ascendancy nodes.

You'd have to elaborate for me on this as to what exactly are you looking for? Because putting ascendancy nodes into perspective is quite tricky.

For starters, more generic nodes from an ascendancy, such as Tailwind on Deadeye, or Arena Challenger (ACtion speed charges depending on stance), would be vastly more used than things that are more specialized / one-dimensional such as Elemancer, which is specifically for Golem-focused builds.

On top of that, I have NO idea what to look for, either. Showcase which ascendancy node is more powerful than the other? That is surrounded by so many different factors, that I mentally revolt against the idea to do research on that :D

"

Rakushi wrote:

Please realize, and I am repeating myself here, that this thread isn't precisely to compare one skill to another and to showcase which of them is stronger, but rather, to showcase a somewhat warped perception people have, in my opinion anyway, how many skills truelly are useable and functional and been built around to the endgame.

THis isn't a "ranking" either, but an effort to categorize each skill that have any implication to be built around. And it may suprise you, Wild strike actually has quite a couple of builds that are also viable !

Soo, your analysis is dumbed down, based on flawed data sets and reflecting precisely nothing but your opinion?

"Skills with minor ammount of build guides, or obscure one's, not very viable"
doesn't mean it's not viable though.

maybe try making a build with each skill then rate it? even though it still wouldn't say much though.

"

Marxone wrote:

"

Rakushi wrote:

Please realize, and I am repeating myself here, that this thread isn't precisely to compare one skill to another and to showcase which of them is stronger, but rather, to showcase a somewhat warped perception people have, in my opinion anyway, how many skills truelly are useable and functional and been built around to the endgame.

THis isn't a "ranking" either, but an effort to categorize each skill that have any implication to be built around. And it may suprise you, Wild strike actually has quite a couple of builds that are also viable !

Soo, your analysis is dumbed down, based on flawed data sets and reflecting precisely nothing but your opinion?

If that's all you seem to understand from this, then it's best you don't involve yourself further in this thread ^^; But thanks for your input ^^; As useless as it was ^^;

The analysis, dumbed down, is a reflection of the community at large, rather than a smaller fragment of it, and a showcase of how warped one's perception of the game can be vs the actual reality of it. Quite frankly, I've created this thread to show something incrediblly simple: What skills bear a status of being viable, based on build guides created and the success around them, vs skills skills that don't see much representation within build guides, or at all.

It's okay to believe, albeit wrongfully, that you are looking at categories with ranks within them, but they are viewed, dumbed down again, only trough two lenses: "Is it a viable skill to be used to do what the game has to offer" and "Is it not considered by the community at large as a viable skill, so little so, that barely, or no one, bothers creating a build guide around it".

I hope this helps you understand it a bit more, if not, I am sorry that I couldn't get to you, but thanks for trying !

"

satanttin wrote:

"Skills with minor ammount of build guides, or obscure one's, not very viable"
doesn't mean it's not viable though.

maybe try making a build with each skill then rate it? even though it still wouldn't say much though.

You're not wrong. Some skills that have judged personally to fall into this category based on observable data, could very well be also considered viable, even if only 1 guide (was the case for Ethereal knives I believe), was around that did fast speed mapping

Going about each skill personally and then trying to rate it based on that would frankly be less informative as what I've done here, which is collecting information on how much build representation a skill gem got. If it got, say, three to four in 3.13, and then a few more in 3.12 that haven't been updated to 3.13 yet, while nothing about the skill itself hasn't changed, then I've included it into the upper two categories. This is how things like Wild strike, for instance, fell into here, as an example

I also feel like I wouldn't have a lot of knowledge on a lot of spells, since this isn't something I often play personally. I've played a lot of melee, a lot of ranged attack skills, and occassionally made summoners for some good ol' DIablo 2 vibes, but not much in the category of spellcaster. But if you would like some input from me there (8k Hours of playtime into the game) on a specific skill, you are free to ask away!

"

Rakushi wrote:

"

satanttin wrote:

"Skills with minor ammount of build guides, or obscure one's, not very viable"
doesn't mean it's not viable though.

maybe try making a build with each skill then rate it? even though it still wouldn't say much though.

You're not wrong. Some skills that have judged personally to fall into this category based on observable data, could very well be also considered viable, even if only 1 guide (was the case for Ethereal knives I believe), was around that did fast speed mapping

Going about each skill personally and then trying to rate it based on that would frankly be less informative as what I've done here, which is collecting information on how much build representation a skill gem got. If it got, say, three to four in 3.13, and then a few more in 3.12 that haven't been updated to 3.13 yet, while nothing about the skill itself hasn't changed, then I've included it into the upper two categories. This is how things like Wild strike, for instance, fell into here, as an example

I also feel like I wouldn't have a lot of knowledge on a lot of spells, since this isn't something I often play personally. I've played a lot of melee, a lot of ranged attack skills, and occassionally made summoners for some good ol' DIablo 2 vibes, but not much in the category of spellcaster. But if you would like some input from me there (8k Hours of playtime into the game) on a specific skill, you are free to ask away!

mean viable could mean a couple things all depending on what your goal is tbh xd
if u don't have knowledge about it then why u post this to begin with ? :P

i have 7k so have nothing to ask you tbh xd but hey good for thinking that!

"

satanttin wrote:

I mean viable could mean a couple things all depending on what your goal is tbh xd
if u don't have knowledge about it then why u post this to begin with ? :P

i have 7k so have nothing to ask you tbh xd but hey good for thinking that!

Also not wrong ! Which I've stated that I judged viable by following two factors:

- Is it a map-oriented build that runs trough maps at mach 500 and clears them wickedly fast, while not being the smoothest bosser
- Has it killed bosses on the higher end spectrum, such as Shaper, Elder, UberElder or similiar.

I could have expanded on this a bit more by stating that viable ALSO could mean a target farmer? Such as a Labrunner, Atziri Runner, Delirium Runner, but after 11 hours of reading trough build guides before I even reached the Intelligence spectrum, I started to mentally decline and revolt as to the fact that I still had a whole Intelligence gem column to go trough.

Also, I posted this for a few reasons. Partially to humour myself because I enjoy PoE a lot and feel it doesn't deserve as much flack as it's been getting recently, but mainly because I wanted to have a viewable chart on how much truth the post, that this follow up sort of sparked, (See thread message on Page 1), where it said that 90% of the skills are garbage. And hey, would you look at that, based on my filtering, it's only roundabout 20% that are! \o/

Does that mean that skill gems still need a lot of work? Oh for sure, it would be nice to have every skill be on an equal playing field, but I understand that this isn't an easy task. It's easy to say that "Just give it 20% more multiplier", and for some skills that may work, but feels less like balancing the game and more like, randomly adjusting it on an imaginary whim. (Yes, fully aware that sometimes, GGG's changes to some skills feel exactly like that ^^;)

"

Rakushi wrote:

"

Marxone wrote:

"

Rakushi wrote:

Please realize, and I am repeating myself here, that this thread isn't precisely to compare one skill to another and to showcase which of them is stronger, but rather, to showcase a somewhat warped perception people have, in my opinion anyway, how many skills truelly are useable and functional and been built around to the endgame.

THis isn't a "ranking" either, but an effort to categorize each skill that have any implication to be built around. And it may suprise you, Wild strike actually has quite a couple of builds that are also viable !

Soo, your analysis is dumbed down, based on flawed data sets and reflecting precisely nothing but your opinion?

If that's all you seem to understand from this, then it's best you don't involve yourself further in this thread ^^; But thanks for your input ^^; As useless as it was ^^;

The analysis, dumbed down, is a reflection of the community at large, rather than a smaller fragment of it, and a showcase of how warped one's perception of the game can be vs the actual reality of it. Quite frankly, I've created this thread to show something incrediblly simple: What skills bear a status of being viable, based on build guides created and the success around them, vs skills skills that don't see much representation within build guides, or at all.

It's okay to believe, albeit wrongfully, that you are looking at categories with ranks within them, but they are viewed, dumbed down again, only trough two lenses: "Is it a viable skill to be used to do what the game has to offer" and "Is it not considered by the community at large as a viable skill, so little so, that barely, or no one, bothers creating a build guide around it".

I hope this helps you understand it a bit more, if not, I am sorry that I couldn't get to you, but thanks for trying !

The point is, I don't see any explanation of methodology (or is it hidden in the text somewhere in the original post and I missed it?
How much data did you scrape?
Forums? Or only the outdated sticky with "list of builds", mostly dating back to 3.5-3.7 version? Sorting / how "popular" those are based on number of views? Number of replies?
Or poe.ninja data? Progressing from each week ? Clearing the "evolving" characters which have prolonged history in the ladder as they change specs, ascendancies? Analysing the "performance" of the skills based on number from ninja?
PathOfExileBuilds subreddit / webpage? Youtube videos with build guides?

How deep into the rabbit hole did you actually get to build your lists?