List 10 or 20 of the weakest skills or least played

The fact that someone put up frost wall...

For me, ARealLife hit the nail on the head. In this discussion the actual question is not about strenght/weakness, it goes beyond that and asks "what makes a gem strong", and damage is only one component to it.

Take siphoning trap for example: it has ease of use like other traps, AOE, crowd control with chill, a defensive component with the ES-leech...
But the numbers are utter garbage. Just buff them and u suddenly get a really strong nieche-support-gem.

But things like Searing Bond as well as formerly mentioned a lot of the current strike skills have too many disadvantages, starting with being melee in the first place, having to invest into AS to be fluent enough to move around over the splash- and additional-strike problems. Dmg wise melee is not nearly as bad as people paint it to be, but if you're only able to apply 30-50% of that damage it becomes a problem.

A lot of that could be fixed if they would finally manage to fix fortify or replace that with something else. Diablo 3 went with melee characters get an additional 30% dmg reduction and while obviously this wouldn't work in PoE, something in that regard would instantly bring melee back. All u gotta do is adjust one of the investment-areas, be it Defense, QoL or Damage.

In regards to other skills: far more than people think have its uses, for example cobra lash as a delivery of projectiles for on-hit with stat stacking, many things can be turned into traps, totems or mines. If I think of horrible skills those are just mechanically so clunky its just not fun to even try to make them work, those are

-1st by far: runebind
- lightning storm
- Lightning tendrils
- and that one channelling fire aoe spell.

"

Vennto wrote:

- lightning storm

storm call maybe ? Lightning storm doesnt exist :p

"

Vennto wrote:

- and that one channelling fire aoe spell.

Flameblast ?


Some spells/skills are used for leveling but doesnt scale very well so they are not used for endgame and some are not good to level with and shine when they have already some lvls and supports. its just sad that only few skills can reach the endgame without heavy investment.

Vigilant Strike
Bodyswap
Bear Trap
Incinerate
Conversion Trap
Rejuvenation Totem
Searing Bond
Devouring Totem

i will give a honorable mention to void sphere.

spell looks great and has some interesting mechanics but the damage is garbage, the damage effectiveness is low and the cooldown is simply put atrocious.
Having to buy an Anomalous version should not be the only way to make it usable

They should try to change all skills' playing styles instead of adding new skills.

Only one movement in a skill is quite old-schooled game style. For a recent game, it should have multiple movements in a skill and even can do combo with different skills.

For example, make Sweep become like these movements, it'll be much better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHfphploEJU

"

Vennto wrote:

For me, ARealLife hit the nail on the head. In this discussion the actual question is not about strenght/weakness, it goes beyond that and asks "what makes a gem strong", and damage is only one component to it.

Take siphoning trap for example: it has ease of use like other traps, AOE, crowd control with chill, a defensive component with the ES-leech...
But the numbers are utter garbage. Just buff them and u suddenly get a really strong nieche-support-gem.

But things like Searing Bond as well as formerly mentioned a lot of the current strike skills have too many disadvantages, starting with being melee in the first place, having to invest into AS to be fluent enough to move around over the splash- and additional-strike problems. Dmg wise melee is not nearly as bad as people paint it to be, but if you're only able to apply 30-50% of that damage it becomes a problem.

A lot of that could be fixed if they would finally manage to fix fortify or replace that with something else. Diablo 3 went with melee characters get an additional 30% dmg reduction and while obviously this wouldn't work in PoE, something in that regard would instantly bring melee back. All u gotta do is adjust one of the investment-areas, be it Defense, QoL or Damage.

In regards to other skills: far more than people think have its uses, for example cobra lash as a delivery of projectiles for on-hit with stat stacking, many things can be turned into traps, totems or mines. If I think of horrible skills those are just mechanically so clunky its just not fun to even try to make them work, those are

-1st by far: runebind
- lightning storm
- Lightning tendrils
- and that one channelling fire aoe spell.

The defenses/general scaling accessibility to different skills is imo the main issue - right now, the top 2 archetypes are:
1) Max block with ES/HP gain on block
2) Omniscience (so much dmg that defenses don't matter)

Any skill that can't really be built (doesn't reach enough damage/doesn't mechanically work with) into one of those two archetypes is kind of weak, and it isn't even all that much about the skill itself - whether the maxblock + gain on block is played with RF, skeleton mages, absolution, or shr doesn't really make much difference. Or whether omniscience is run with LS, TS, LA, or any other bow/elemental skill - in the end, it's the same archetype with a very similar tree.

Cobra lash is a good example of this - it combos with assassin, who starts too far from shield nodes, and it isn't compatible with omniscience, so tough luck. If CL did elemental, rather than poison damage, it would be viable.

I did not read the whole posts and therefor make a statement that already might have been considered or said in another post.

But have you considered that not all gems are and should be endgame viable? Like there are different gems for different parts of the game.

One that might be good during the leveling phase should be less viable in the endgame where you usually transition to your endgame build.

Take Righteouse Fire for example. Try sustaining it the moment you have access to it. Good luck.

It nice that you have gems (active skill gems and support gems) that you can use the whole time, but spreading it to all of them would be the downfall of the acts.

"

SenchuTen wrote:

I did not read the whole posts and therefor make a statement that already might have been considered or said in another post.

But have you considered that not all gems are and should be endgame viable? Like there are different gems for different parts of the game.

One that might be good during the leveling phase should be less viable in the endgame where you usually transition to your endgame build.

Take Righteouse Fire for example. Try sustaining it the moment you have access to it. Good luck.

It nice that you have gems (active skill gems and support gems) that you can use the whole time, but spreading it to all of them would be the downfall of the acts.

I wouldn't suggest " Act tier " gems. Like " this skill is good for leveling, but not good afterwards". *Or this skill gets replaced by a better version diff titled skill* Not a fan of either. One of the 2 hand melee gems works like that, a "replacement skill" that sucks compared to a similar 2 hand melee skill, forgot the name. I'd rather have every skill endgame viable. Even if some gems like RF don't ramp till later, that's fine. Tho starter zone gems? no thanks. Starter zone gems are wasted potential. No pokemon evolved gems either. Just make everything have a ailment or unique utility use for all stages.

More often than not tho, they didn't buff lesser played skills out of laziness. Rather than wanting Act progress skills. TBH POE has like 200 active gems, which sounds like a lot on paper. Tho testing it's not enough. So I wouldn't divide any gems to leveling gems. If anything POE needs like 10 more new physical melee gemes as poe lacks trendy melee regular skills. As most of poe's regular melee from a new players perspective; seems only like poe has cyclone & double strike yet barely any normal melee skills that are trendy or good for new players to see. Poe needs like 20 new non elemental melee skills. Regular physical. Ye the melee non elemental gems are either too simple or too elemental with projectiles flying all over, or you got a slam skill.

So suggestively more regular 1vs1 melee non ele skills, that aren't some aoe slam? No this game has nothing of amusement for that area. Needs WAY trendier non ele regular melee attack skills. For example duel strike sounds horrible & has no animation. Double strike sounds ok as a sound, tho is too loud once you gain attack speed and also too basic of animation. So the only decent 1vs1 melee skill is shield crush, animation wise, & that gets too loud with attack speed too, & isn't really 1vs1 oriented either. Most skills aren't 1vs1, which makes no sense, POE is WAY too aoe focused & way to mob mowwer focused. Needs tons of alternative strategies & combos. Less mobb rundown aoe, more boss 1vs1 mechanics with healer gems.

Also new lightning & ice totems, new lightning & ice melee skills, some healer active gems (that are active not passive links), gems to make necro less passive more active so active strat summoning skills, gems that don't sound like metal hitting metal like dual strike or the blade gems need sfx reworked entirely, gems that don't look like cranberry ugly animations like Lacerate or Perforate have ugly crimson color blood animations suggest they edit that color of animation. & more active gems overall to make the game less about maxing 1 skill & more about using 4 to 8 active skills over time to POE 2 standards. Than they should nerf 1 skill boosters for POE 2 & make the game more about 4 to 8 active skills. & make 1 skill boosters a thing of the past or only for niche builds not mainstream anymore.

Then there's the meta of streamers who spam the same leveling skill every league to race to maps, like some type of mine spam for quest zoomers. So whatever lvling meta skill streamers use, needs to be hit with the nerf bat. Even if they don't use that skill after lvling. Pretty much most of streamer meta needs to be hit with the nerfbat. I'd delete mageblood too. Delete auto bombers also. Then rid the entire mainstream meta & buff everything thats underused. If anything they should not listen to all the streamers & start listening to threads like this. Everyone wants lower tier skills buffed, literal threads about this 4 years ago, wth are they doing when they talk to streamers for 1 hour? Obviously not buffing low tier skills.

Most of POE's skill dev direction is about AOE & Passive buffs entirely. So that needs to be the opposite: 1vs1 skills & larger utility belt for active skills. Honestly I don't know how they are ever going to improve the strategy of POE when most gems are for AOE Zoomers. 2 things that should not exist at endgame for any rpg, zoomers & aoe as a multi class priority. People shouldn't be racing ever in a strategy rpg (this isn't need for speed) & aoe skills shouldn't play more important than 1vs1 skills.

A gem shouldn't need some niche item to make it viable either. Above average skill on its own.

Static Strike
https://youtu.be/BgprYD7PdgA