Big Ducks killing it on whats wrong with the game and how to fix it.

I think that their needs to be some pretty big changes to increase build diversity. First of all I think everyone should be able to reasonably get to the pinnacle bosses within like two months of playing four hours a week. So that would be like 30ish hours in the league. That probably means like ten or twenty divine budget. And for the sake of it, assume very little trading to earn currency, because they aren't online all the time.

With smart play and really careful optimization this isn't too unreasonable. Most people overdps the bosses anyway. But what I am talking about is taking a good five or ten minutes just fighting the boss. This would mean that the ground effects can't overtake the arena that hard.

Getting this to happen would require a hell ton of buffs to almost every skill. Many passive notables would need to increase in value. I also think that some combination of skills need really specific nerfs, like RF and fire trap, seismic and poison, doryani's prototype, etc. Aegis Aurora needs a real downside. Self cast, slams, and strike skills need a huge jump in damage and speed to be more usable.

Needing some arcane weird combination of near perfect rolls on gear and jewels really kills peoples motivation for playing. Some people may never find the combination of rolls they want or need.

I have done challenges where I do not invest a single passive point, and it got pretty far. The tree needs something to change, maybe POE2 will buff it?

I also hate the many different ailment resistance and immunity mods that can roll on gear. It kills a lot of good items when you overcap or don't get the one you need. Items would roll much better if some of them were removed or combined. I actually think they just need a ailment endurance stat that fits in this design space.in my opinion ailment immunity is lazy. It makes the game feel awful if you are susceptible to ailments. Requiring players to be immune to almost everything really stifles build creativity.

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wizardlulz wrote:

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auspexa wrote:

There are literally hundreds of melee builds on poe.ninja who seem to be doing extremely well. And yes, I'm talking about real melee skills, not op shit like LS. There are some underpowered melee skills, I would agree with that but it doesn't mean that melee sucks in general.

as someone who is the top wild striker on hc ssf kalandra
i will tell you its very fun and not very viable unless you like to be punished

stopped playing about month ago and still no one has surpassed me

it seriously shows the state of melee
sure a streamer could surpass my position if they wanted

also none of your characters in your character pool are geared for melee. try melee strike a non-bonshatter or LS and you will see your progress is slower, clunky, and put into the center of danger with no upside

Because I've played with almost all melee skills in the game during past leagues. This league I've used a hit based point blank exp conc scion build to grind to level 100 for the first time, which is basically worse than most melee skills and plays like melee.

Wild Strike is still one of the best melee skills if you go for lightning or cold route and build around nightblade, it being strong isn't really something to argue because all melee skills that are usable with claws are very strong right now. This includes LS, wild strike, molten strike, flicker strike, venom gyre, frost blades and many more.

So what's left? Shield Crush, Shield Charge and SST are already good. You can play pretty much any class with them, either dot based or not dot based, anything works.

Slams are fine as long as you're building around warcries, they're not the strongest but can clear the whole content with some investment.

There are some skills which are neither a slam nor a strike that's usable with claws, such as glacial hammer, infernal blow and smite. But most of these are also perfectly fine, in fact there's a heatshiver build with glacial hammer which is insanely powerful and can freeze pretty much every boss in the game. Smite is already a thing for aura stackers. Infernal Blow is difficult to get going but it's one of the best melee skills with some investment due to its inherent clear speed potential.

Pestilent Strike and Viper Strike have always been viable, as poison has never been bad.

Lacerate and Bladestorm are in a bad position, but this isn't because melee is bad, it's because bleed as an archetype sucks atm. Mechanically there's nothing wrong with these skills.

So what's left? Sweep, Cleave and some shit no one has ever used on any build? C'mon bro. Some builds are way too strong and this is why they are popular, but this doesn't mean that you can't do any content with others.

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TemjinGold wrote:

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grybranix wrote:

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auspexa wrote:

I killed multiple ubers this league on explosive concoction scion and lightning trap elementalist

you have standard trap gear and ashes with spell suppress and evasion and your build is entirely unremarkable. Every build has either your exact defensive setup or an Aegis Aurora for max block or a Squire and glancing blows unless it's a ward build. You have the same build everyone else has my dude.

Sounds like my Hiero this league is what you are looking for then. I have no defenses. I have very little eHP for someone with no defenses. Pretty much no one is playing my build and you'd be hard pressed to show how my build is the same build as everyone else's. But my guy rarely dies and I have over 40MM udps (not sdps). I've killed every uber on it. The upside to all of this? My build even in final form is laughably cheap since no one plays it.

Last league when I went and made a build like this (with a different skill) I pushed to 100. Didn't feel like it this league and stopped at 98 cuz I wanted to try other builds. Build diversity is there, you just need to know how to make builds that work for your own playstyle.

You have to be trolling right? The weapon alone is close to not recreatable. That Amulet and those Gloves most definitely are expensive as hell too. The suffixes alone on those gloves cost you a fortune. The body also doesn´t seem cheap. I haven´t checked but those forbidden jewels probably cost a liver too.
So, No, your build is the opposite of cheap.

BTW, it´s not hard to pay for level 98.

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koskesh539 wrote:

You have to be trolling right? The weapon alone is close to not recreatable. That Amulet and those Gloves most definitely are expensive as hell too. The suffixes alone on those gloves cost you a fortune. The body also doesn´t seem cheap. I haven´t checked but those forbidden jewels probably cost a liver too.
So, No, your build is the opposite of cheap.

BTW, it´s not hard to pay for level 98.

I'm pretty sure you can replicate his build with about 50 divs. It's not an expensive build.

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auspexa wrote:

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grybranix wrote:

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auspexa wrote:

I killed multiple ubers this league on explosive concoction scion and lightning trap elementalist

you have standard trap gear and ashes with spell suppress and evasion and your build is entirely unremarkable. Every build has either your exact defensive setup or an Aegis Aurora for max block or a Squire and glancing blows unless it's a ward build. You have the same build everyone else has my dude.

of course I'm using suppression and evasion as a trapper, what the fuck am I supposed to use if not these? you want me to play a mom build or an armour stacker as a trapper? what does the thread have anything to do with defensive layers? melee builds have access to even more defensive layers, so I don't understand what point you're trying to make here.

"the same build everyone else"

meanwhile literally zero player on poe.ninja with a similar build, including the daily build section.

There is no point to be made. You can say something is viable and they’ll just move the goalpost even further. Well it can get all normal bosses but can it do Uber ones? It can get to end game but can it do sim 30? Ect.

These players don’t actually have an original thought of their own, they just repeat what is said by someone else with very little investigating. Or take things completely out of context when listening to streamers like Zizaran.

“Well he said build diversity sucks so it must suck I’m just gonna ignore the fact that he plays ssfhc and his perspective is based on that”

They even ignore the fact that Mathil comes up with some of the wierdest/‘strangest builds and still pushes them to endgame.

Players just refuse to accept they don’t know much about making builds and so when they make a build and it goes wrong it must be the games fault and not them.

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Chickenwink wrote:

There is no point to be made. You can say something is viable and they’ll just move the goalpost even further. Well it can get all normal bosses but can it do Uber ones? It can get to end game but can it do sim 30? Ect.

These players don’t actually have an original thought of their own, they just repeat what is said by someone else with very little investigating. Or take things completely out of context when listening to streamers like Zizaran.

“Well he said build diversity sucks so it must suck I’m just gonna ignore the fact that he plays ssfhc and his perspective is based on that”

They even ignore the fact that Mathil comes up with some of the wierdest/‘strangest builds and still pushes them to endgame.

Players just refuse to accept they don’t know much about making builds and so when they make a build and it goes wrong it must be the games fault and not them.

I talk about my build, which is a golemancer trap build and is basically non existent anywhere on the internet and he saya "lol bro the same build as everyone", only because I'm using evasion and suppression. Well sorry dude, I also have some life in my build, guess that means I'm playing the same build as everyone who has some hp. That's the logic of these people.

And shit like this in return causes people to become copy pasta andies who can only copy whatever their streamer plays. Shockwave totem with astral projector has always been incredibly powerful, there are multiple guide threads for it on the forums, which are very old, but somehow the ring's price increases by 2000% when mathil plays it, even though that build has been the same for years. Why? Because the majority of path of exile players don't know anything about the game, don't want to learn anything, don't want to try anything new and can't come up with their own build.

These are the same fucking people who complain about build diversity. Ubers can be killed with almost ANY build in the game, if you build your character properly and correctly. If you don't understand how the game works, obviously you'll only be able to do stuff by copying people on poe.ninja.

This has been and will always be the case. And GGG won't be able to change this no matter what they do, because copy pasters will keep copy pasting whatever their streamers play, so 80% of the people on poe.ninja are bound to play whatever is popular at that moment. When melee is buffed, half the builds on poe.ninja will be some op melee shit and people will still be complaining about build diversity. I've never seen a league where people weren't complaining about it.

So guys, shut the fuck up about build diversity and keep copying what your streamer does, until you finally start to understand how the game works.

auspexa you walk the walk but you shouldn't just tell people to fuck off that don't agree with you :p

You telling me you wouldn't prefer more underpowered skills to be better? That is basically all it means.

You've always been able to gear past deficiencies in PoE as gear is where a majority of power is at but that doesn't mean diversity is the best ever it just means you know how to work around it which you clearly do.

Also explosive concoction not even close to as bad as melee come on, massive base damage and free extra scaler from overlap isn't that bad at all. Its good enough that I played it on HC as some nutty mom hiero hybrid and killed everything (pre ubers) that just makes it a sleeper skill rather than straight bad.

I've played some top tier weird shit in my time which is how I know diversity is down, I have to work harder or take more risks to achieve the same things that's all it means.

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koskesh539 wrote:

You have to be trolling right? The weapon alone is close to not recreatable. That Amulet and those Gloves most definitely are expensive as hell too. The suffixes alone on those gloves cost you a fortune. The body also doesn´t seem cheap. I haven´t checked but those forbidden jewels probably cost a liver too.
So, No, your build is the opposite of cheap.

BTW, it´s not hard to pay for level 98.

Err... what?

Weapon - I literally paid 3 divines for it as is. They aren't even perfect tiers or anything. And only +1. If you think a weapon like this is so omg one of a kind, I'm not sure what to tell you here.

Amulet - This was 100c when I bought it. It's a lake product that the guy was selling for days before I bought it. The downsides probably kept people from buying it.

Gloves - I bought it with just the 3 suffixes, which is not expensive at all (paid less than 1 divine for the base) and finished it myself (not hard at all).

Chest - I bought it unlinked for 3 divines very early league. Paid to link it myself. For quite a while after, there were several similar chests for at most 10 divines + what it costs to link. You think this chest would be hella expensive and it SHOULD be. But almost NO ONE is playing it, that's why I can get it for next to nothing.

Forbidden Jewels - I bought these when they were 1 divine each. They were at that price for quite a bit before magically shooting up in price for some reason (not sure what build started using them). I actually missed the absolute bottom (was watching them all league) because one of the two hit 80c this one day. I got greedy and that price didn't last.

The entire build literally cost me less than 40 divines to put together. Now if you consider that crazy expensive, I can't argue there. But I consider it cheap because I actually carried uber kills with this build.

And yes, you can pay for L98. A lot of people can. I play totem builds a ton because I like the playstyle and have gotten to the point where I rarely get hit with this kind of build specifically precisely because I don't need to be "there" to do the damage. That's why I don't need defenses. I doubt you'll believe me when I said I didn't pay to level because clearly, to you, anyone who can make a build like this work must've. So if believing that makes you feel better about yourself, go ahead knock yourself out.

I'm not posting my build to brag, far from it because if it gains too much publicity, the stuff for this kind of build won't be cheap anymore in future leagues. I saw how much publicity mathil gave shockwave totem recently. That build has a fraction of the power that mine does at higher cost. I'm posting it because it's an example of how knowing how to make a build that plays to the strengths of your playstyle can allow you to make something really strong (because you don't need to invest in aspects that are irrelevant to you) for very little without needing to copy anyone's build.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

auspexa you walk the walk but you shouldn't just tell people to fuck off that don't agree with you :p

You telling me you wouldn't prefer more underpowered skills to be better? That is basically all it means.

You've always been able to gear past deficiencies in PoE as gear is where a majority of power is at but that doesn't mean diversity is the best ever it just means you know how to work around it which you clearly do.

Also explosive concoction not even close to as bad as melee come on, massive base damage and free extra scaler from overlap isn't that bad at all. Its good enough that I played it on HC as some nutty mom hiero hybrid and killed everything (pre ubers) that just makes it a sleeper skill rather than straight bad.

I've played some top tier weird shit in my time which is how I know diversity is down, I have to work harder or take more risks to achieve the same things that's all it means.

which skill would you like to see buffed? imo there are only a few underpowered skills in the game, rest are simply sleeping because streamers aren't playing them(yet).

honestly, a stickman can kill everything pre-ubers and this doesn't mean much. sorry if that indicates elitism but it is what it is. I played two non-meta builds this league and both of them were able to kill non-uber pinnacles in like 10 seconds at most, while killing conquerors in about 2-3 seconds. I'm pretty sure you can kill everything pre-ubers with ANY skill in the game.

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I have to work harder or take more risks to achieve the same things that's all it means.

this isn't about build diversity though, this is about the game being way harder than it used to be. in older leagues I'd play 1m dps builds and still crap on everything, now 1m dps isnt even enough for t10 maps

A stickman can't kill everything on HC pre ubers, its fine on SC because all a skill being underpowered does is raise the threshold you have to gear or outplay it and you can always cut life.

That gradient for gearing/outskill/cutting is exactly where the diversity debate rages though, you think its fine because your willing to do any or all.

Most aren't, and if you limit yourself on SSF or HC you can't either.

Its like this, make me a pestilent strike build for HC that is viable you are going to struggle, really struggle. Now make me one for Poison Concoction you really won't struggle at all.

This is because Pconc is simply a superior skill there is no other way to write it.

Your argument is they can both do everything so its fine, the argument of the non streamer slaves is that the work required to make pestilent strike match up to a better skill makes it not viable.

The viability list is what defines diversity for most of us, not the fact you can kill Ubers with chainhook and while viability changes from case to case if you have your own metric more builds will have fallen out of that list than have been added back in.

That's all i've got to say about it, while I disagree with you at least you are playing fruity shit its rare to get someone on your side of this particular discussion that isn't just playing meta shit like everyone else so respect there.