'league starting' is the worst 'meta'

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Prizy wrote:

To be fair,

I think a "league starter" idea as a baseline for POE or any power-fantasy ARPG is bad design.

You guys seem to be bagging on the guy that made the original post, but the idea that you have to farm on a build you may or may not enjoy for a build you do enjoy is fundamentally antithetical to an ARPG where you can pick any class to use any skill to play.

I don't think the argument is that every build should be able to do Awakener 8. I agree that shouldn't be the case.

However, since most/all rewards are tied to red map content (conq, shaper, elder items), I believe it is a fair criticism that MOST skills should be able to handle T16 red maps (with reasonable modifiers) and Awakener level 4. This assumes that all the defensive check boxes and support skills are also in place to support whatever that skill is.

I don't understand how anyone can defend "league starter".

The best reply.

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oldmunchi wrote:

its not even just "league starter" its "all league"

why would you switch builds to one that does less than half the damage, takes three times longer to clear the map, etc.

back when this game with in alpha and in beta, the entire notion of the game was that you could do any class, any build, total freedom to do whatever, and the kicker is, THAT IS ALL WORKED

thats right, the original idea was that you could do any class and skill and IT WORKED.


now the game is you can pick from 3 skills per league, or suffer an immense struggle just to do the SAME EXACT THING that you could do if you just simply picked one of the 3 skills.

this is just piss poor design, and shows how shit the gaming industry is nowadays

Then what are those 3 skills?

Maybe people should list these overplayed skills more to nerf. Via a new topic. Then list the underplayed skills more to buff. Rather than just talking vaguely of build diversity, or lack of, talk of what gems would need balanced. The gems specifically.

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RuneLuthien wrote:

"

oldmunchi wrote:

its not even just "league starter" its "all league"

why would you switch builds to one that does less than half the damage, takes three times longer to clear the map, etc.

back when this game with in alpha and in beta, the entire notion of the game was that you could do any class, any build, total freedom to do whatever, and the kicker is, THAT IS ALL WORKED

thats right, the original idea was that you could do any class and skill and IT WORKED.


now the game is you can pick from 3 skills per league, or suffer an immense struggle just to do the SAME EXACT THING that you could do if you just simply picked one of the 3 skills.

this is just piss poor design, and shows how shit the gaming industry is nowadays

Then what are those 3 skills?

Maybe people should list these overplayed skills more to nerf. Via a new topic. Then list the underplayed skills more to buff. Rather than just talking vaguely of build diversity, or lack of, talk of what gems would need balanced. The gems specifically.

People don't need to list the skills to get them nerfed. GGG already knows what the 3 skills are. GGG will NOT buff underplayed skills anymore. When everything else is nerfed 0% to 50% and some skills get buffed, those buffed skills become the new meta. GGG is not going to spell out the new meta.

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Astasia wrote:

It's not as much that some skills are significantly worse than others during the early game and need to be balanced (that usually is the case to some degree but not the main factor). It's that the people who use a "league starter" build are generally skipping content and not really playing the early game at all. They usually pick a ranged AoE skill that scales mostly off gem level to level with so they can race through stages without stopping to craft or find the gear required to keep their progress going.

In other words, melee skills don't deal enough damage to make up for being melee in comparison to ranged skills, many skills lack aoe to feel good to play, and weapon-scaling skills damage is inferior to gem-level scaling skills all the way until lategame.

That's literally what balance is about.

Have you played flicker strike? The damage and clear speed is incredible if you have the necessary gear. Totally comparable to a ranged build. Other melee skills like lightning strike and cyclone (normal, chaos and cast on crit) are also comparable.

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Aynix wrote:

You want to fix... what exactly? People mentality? Because thats the only reason why people pick some low effor easy builds for the start instead struggling on their builds from the satrt beacuse they have no items.

Sheesh, I was going to ask if you've ever actually played the game but then I saw your supporter packs lol.


I dunno man, there are many many many builds that will not work without certain items that are especially expensive at league start.

My experience this league was, I found nothing of value until I was into red maps. I struggled because of this. I was in yellow maps and I'd found a total of 10 chaos orbs. At that point I realized I should be doing the chaos recipe because of how bad drops were, I wasn't even getting weak life/resist rares to equip or at least sell for a few chaos... The thing is, and this is what made me quit this league, I realized that if my main source of income was organizing rare items and selling them to Charsi then I'm not having a good time playing the game. I remember when I stopped doing the chaos recipe, it's when I considered myself "graduating" from a noob. I understood how to grind currency. I understood how to craft sought after items. So the idea that the games balance had shifted so drastically that I was being essentially forced into playing armor manager 2.0 rubbed me the wrong way. I decided I had better things to do than arrange armor sets in my stash.

Apparently those things include ranting on the forums because I still give a damn about the game.

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Xyel wrote:

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Astasia wrote:

It's not as much that some skills are significantly worse than others during the early game and need to be balanced (that usually is the case to some degree but not the main factor). It's that the people who use a "league starter" build are generally skipping content and not really playing the early game at all. They usually pick a ranged AoE skill that scales mostly off gem level to level with so they can race through stages without stopping to craft or find the gear required to keep their progress going.

In other words, melee skills don't deal enough damage to make up for being melee in comparison to ranged skills, many skills lack aoe to feel good to play, and weapon-scaling skills damage is inferior to gem-level scaling skills all the way until lategame.

That's literally what balance is about.

Wrong. Melee skills do plenty of damage, they just require a good weapon to do so and you have to upgrade that weapon along the way, it's the same for bow skills that depend on weapon damage. Spells or degen skills on the other hand are almost entirely based on gem level and you can find a +1 wand in act 1 that will last you all the way to maps. The damage of both is fine, the effort to keep gear relevant for weapon skills is higher but also fine as long as you are playing and looting. It's when you aren't engaging with game mechanics for the first 10 acts that gem based skills have an advantage.

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Astasia wrote:

Wrong. Melee skills do plenty of damage, they just require a good weapon to do so and you have to upgrade that weapon along the way, it's the same for bow skills that depend on weapon damage. Spells or degen skills on the other hand are almost entirely based on gem level and you can find a +1 wand in act 1 that will last you all the way to maps. The damage of both is fine, the effort to keep gear relevant for weapon skills is higher but also fine as long as you are playing and looting. It's when you aren't engaging with game mechanics for the first 10 acts that gem based skills have an advantage.

Its not that much harder for weapon based skill during the campaign.

A simple vendor recipe will guarantee a 50-64% inc phys dmg weapon as long as you do have a rustic sash, a shitty essence to turn it into a rare belt and a whetstone.

Thats not hard to do except maybe for the first 2 or 3 acts.

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Prizy wrote:

since most/all rewards are tied to red map content (conq, shaper, elder items), I believe it is a fair criticism that MOST skills should be able to handle T16 red maps (with reasonable modifiers) and Awakener level 4.

they can, so its not a criticism because that implies you cannot do this, which is obviously incorrect. most skills can handle t16 red maps in solo self found as a league starter. thats simply a fact.

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zakalwe55 wrote:

People don't need to list the skills to get them nerfed. GGG already knows what the 3 skills are. GGG will NOT buff underplayed skills anymore. When everything else is nerfed 0% to 50% and some skills get buffed, those buffed skills become the new meta. GGG is not going to spell out the new meta.

Maybe they should nerf those top 3 skills, than buff the underplayed skills, okay & the winning solution; not make the newly buffed skills OP.

I mean people barely main Cobra lash, Heavy Strike needs a new utility to be more different than Boneshatter, double strike needs to be more interesting to use / have more options to customize, Dual strike sfx sounds horrible like metal on metal (has no graphic effect either), all the blade skills that sound like metal sound horrible thus underplayed. Theirs tons of underplayed skills I won't list & 8/10 of the times, they do need a buff or better utility reason to play them at least.

(As for Visual Appeal of underplayed skills, Lacerate has a ugly color to it. I'm fine with purple, tho its has a weird tinge to it. Also making melee just frankly do wave range dps, is so meh.. needs better utility if anything, plus new color animations. Proferate has nice ghost kill on top effects, tho has weird shiny blood color animation. Blood is fine for a punching lifesteal monk type. Idk I just find it didn't execute the blood animation for enough players to fancy using that skill. It's also underplayed, perhaps because of that, for me, it's that. Blood animation needs to be rounded out or something, visually, till then its a niche effect that I wouldn't even want to use on Halloween. The ghosts on kill effect is nice tho.)

Their definitely shouldn't be any leveling skills that are known by streamers to use, nor top endgame dps skills known by streamers either. The definition of OP, is a narrowed path chosen by the elites.

Those should def be hit by a bat, till they don't exist anymore. " Mainstream skills " are so lame & ruin the reason most people play POE to begin with. Which is options, customization, skill choice, freedom tree, & so on.