There are no builds in PoE. Everything is just exploiting, abusing, and gimmicks

It is a bit surprising you can't pick a fire skill and get fire, elemental damage, and maybe some crit, and have a functional build.

Or you can't pick an axe, and say sunder, and get +physical, attack speed, flat damage, defenses and have a functional build.


If we look at common builds, we see https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds

1 - Spark aura-stacker nebuloch abusers
2 - RF + trapper which is pretty specialized and not intuitive either
3 - Low life/defense tornado shot map clearers/sanctum runners
4 - Ice spear Heartbound loop CWDT annihilating light

The third one is kinda a normal build, but it still is paper thin and would die super fast if not run by a pro.

Overall it does seem fair to say you generally need to be exploiting a gimmick or odd/unnational interaction.

Both melee and self-cast seem to be weak and discouraged in favor of totem/trap/mine/coc/cwdt mechanics, which is slightly counterintuitive.

I am not sure whether it is intentional or not that you can't pick X skill with Fire/AoE/Ele tags, stack those attributes, and over time succeed.

Then again most other MMORPGs do let you succeed that way, so ... its just the game.

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Here is my guess, they can't find a way to make the game viable for a wide audience with 'normal' builds without vastly overpowering and therefore boring the audience that will happily play 8-12 hours a day for weeks on end.

The game balance is somewhat collateral damage from streamer-level players.

Again, just a guess, and not a criticism. If that is who is keeping the game afloat, they SHOULD balance around that.

To be fair, gimmicky builds tend to be stronger almost by default as they are often products of some very intense number crunching and min-maxing, like... that cwdt ice spear builds uses some very serious amounts of theorycraft as it aims for some very specific numbers and makes multiple mechanics interact in a quite specific way. They guy that first came up with that build had to put some serious work to figure out how to properly set the skeleton-forbidden loop that deals enough self damage to trigger the gems multiple times/sec and not risk killin yourself in the process

I do agree that the game currently is extremely punishing for more straightfoward aproaches. Indeed just picking a skill and blindly building around it and stacking defenses as much as you can often ends in a bricked character. It is indeed becoming more and more necessary to follow a guide, or at least focus on a small number of skills that are overperforming, but currently the game is very hostile to off-meta aproaches

One factor is the continuous nerfs that are not compensated by buffs, they are culling player power very consistently and not offering alternatives(or gives alternatives and cull those on the next expansion or gate behind spartan drop rates), over time it created a game where there are too many ways to play that plain dont work. The game on its base have tremendous freedom, but too many choices have a "wrong" answer. The ideal scenario is to have multiple right answers although some being more right than others, but the game is heading in a direction where we instead have tons of wrong ones

I think its pretty clear that Chris REALLY want the game to be known as a "hardcore", "true gamer"-focused experience. Something like a "dark souls of arpg". Hes not gonna get it tho... arpg is a genre that is almost pure knowledge checks with very little in the way of execution

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feike wrote:

I think its pretty clear that Chris REALLY want the game to be known as a "hardcore", "true gamer"-focused experience. Something like a "dark souls of arpg". Hes not gonna get it tho... arpg is a genre that is almost pure knowledge checks with very little in the way of execution

i think the sooner they get rid of Chris or move him to the mail room the better POE will be. this game is not dark souls, it will never be dark souls and honestly i bet most players don't WANT it to be dark souls.

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trixxar wrote:

It is a bit surprising you can't pick a fire skill and get fire, elemental damage, and maybe some crit, and have a functional build.

Or you can't pick an axe, and say sunder, and get +physical, attack speed, flat damage, defenses and have a functional build.
.

of course you can.

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Everything is so overly complicated and when you find a fun build its gone in a few leagues.

"A few leagues" seems perfectly fine, since the game is always-evolving and keeps you on your toes. If you want to play one build without any changes for all eternity PoE might be not the game for u.

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This game feels like the devs want no builds to clear all content. So when they see a build that can do everything they nuke it.

That would mean they would nuke every build, but they don´t. They nuke most likely the most famous and most played builds, not necessarily strong builds. So no, this statement is just plain wrong.

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You should be able to pick a main skill like fire ball and slowly improve your character through playing and take that skill to clear all content. But in this trash game you can't.

Why can´t u? I think this is EXACTLY what you can do on a lot of builds. But again, I see the "trash game"-claim and feel a lot of frustration. Maybe u need to take a break.

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Instead you hit a wall. Have to start over. Can't just have a simple relaxing fun build. You have to throw a bunch of skills into one, have curses, auras, and a hundred other things that takes days just to set up right before you can even play a minute.

Auras and Curses to improve the performance of your build... Oh no, the horror! If you don´t like that poe requires more than other games in terms of setup then I again end at the conclusion: Might not be the game for u.

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Games are suppose to be fun and relaxing. My issue is not being able to do some content. My issue is I can't have fun and do all the content. I have to play builds that are so stupid, I don't want to play them. And everyone is playing the same 5 builds.

While the meta surely got more dense in the last leagues due to some changes, by no means you have to play meta to succeed. I play A LOT of underplayed but still fun things and if you step further away from whats known there is even more stuff to play that works, but with limitations. I again end up at the same conclusion: You don´t enjoy the game, you need to take a break or stop it.

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Not everyone wants to be some competitive video game pro player playing the same game every day for eighteen hrs a day.

Well since u repeat your points needlessly I´ll do the same: If you don´t enjoy it, stop it.

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I came back gave the game another chance. Never played a Arpg with such boring builds. Let alone no melee. Not even going to get started how stupid no melee is.

I am playing a melee build right now which is probably faster than most ranged-builds, kills all content without dying, deathless ubers included.

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Vennto wrote:

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You should be able to pick a main skill like fire ball and slowly improve your character through playing and take that skill to clear all content. But in this trash game you can't.

Why can´t u? I think this is EXACTLY what you can do on a lot of builds.

isnt this essentially what mathil does all day every day? he just picks a skill and thinks oh, this looks like a fun skill, and just goes with it. grabs some damage, a little life, levels with the skill and probably ends up deleting the entire map system and some of the bosses with virtually everything he tries?

even if the skill 'sucks' its still usually perfectly viable, its just not as comparatively powerful and/or satisfying to play as an alternative.


you can do it, it just means you have to learn how to build basic viable characters. i see a lot of "you cant do X thing" statements recently and honestly most of them seem more like "i cant do X thing and im gonna blame the game rather than learn how to play it better"

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Id1eRace wrote:

Everything is so overly complicated and when you find a fun build its gone in a few leagues. This game feels like the devs want no builds to clear all content. So when they see a build that can do everything they nuke it. So then crazy players spend hundreds of hrs in path of building coming up with another build and everyone jumps on that train and the devs crash that train in a few leagues.

I've been completing all content with Arc for nearly 2 years now. I don't jump on bandwagons, I don't need to. Bandwagon builds are for people who can't build, or can't farm gear to completion.

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You should be able to pick a main skill like fire ball and slowly improve your character through playing and take that skill to clear all content. But in this trash game you can't.

This is essentially a criticism of the game being too complicated to finish on your first playthrough. For me, this knowledge wall is what makes PoE fun at all. I hate simpler games, IE diablo 3, which your "there are limited builds" criticism actually DOES apply to.

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Instead you hit a wall. Have to start over. Can't just have a simple relaxing fun build. You have to throw a bunch of skills into one, have curses, auras, and a hundred other things that takes days just to set up right before you can even play a minute.

Oh no, it's not diablo 3.

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Games are suppose to be fun and relaxing. My issue is not being able to do some content. My issue is I can't have fun and do all the content. I have to play builds that are so stupid, I don't want to play them. And everyone is playing the same 5 builds.

Have you tried applying yourself to learn the game instead of blindly copying streamers? You're the biggest part of your own problem here.

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Feel like I am playing Madden online and your forced to spam the same few plays all game long. It works but its boring and stupid. Again games were made to relax and have fun. Not everyone wants to be some competitive video game pro player playing the same game every day for eighteen hrs a day.

You can play PoE casually, and still clear content. There's just a tradeoff between time and knowledge. For example, an experienced player completes the campaign in under 12 hours when a new league starts, but a new player may take 2 or 3 times that long.

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I came back gave the game another chance. Never played a Arpg with such boring builds. Let alone no melee. Not even going to get started how stupid no melee is.

If you don't like the game, nobody is forcing you to play it.

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trixxar wrote:

2 - RF + trapper which is pretty specialized and not intuitive either

You do realise these are just generic RF builds right? Fire trap has been a staple way to increase their single target damage for a very long time now.

This is about as basic as it gets when it comes to build design.

Step 1 - Stack defences.
Step 2 - Stack fire damage, dot multi, & gem levels.
Step 3 - Burn things while walking.
Step 4 - Sometimes burn things a bit more while standing still.

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Cassie322 wrote:

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Instead you hit a wall. Have to start over. Can't just have a simple relaxing fun build. You have to throw a bunch of skills into one, have curses, auras, and a hundred other things that takes days just to set up right before you can even play a minute.

Oh no, it's not diablo 3.

yeah and lets be honest, even in D3 which as u say IS a simple relaxing fun build on plate game, you still have to throw a bunch of skills together.

you cant just select whirlwind at level 1 and hold left click all the way until uve cleared a GR150 solo. you have to have rend that is applied by whirlwind in a sort of 'cast on hit' abusing exploit gimmick fashion while keeping up wrath of the berserker AND warcry AND you have to have your ground stomp to trigger your band of might defensive buff...


its not 100 things that take days to figure out, and neither is it in poe, if you play either game you know all the auras, curses, shouts, ultimate forms, trigger mechanics in play off by heart and you just instinctively use them in your builds when you make them. its a few seconds of though.

ok doing a cold build i got my hatred and herald of ice and im ci so i got my discipline and im using frostbite, done, lets go champ.




its that simple. this is just how arpgs are, if youre not down for this sort of thing youre just not down for action rpgs. putting together a range of passive and active mechanics to form a build is the entire thing.

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Id1eRace wrote:

I spent over 100 hrs testing builds trying to find something fun. Everything fun was worse than my starter. I feel I am force into the handful of builds everyone is running.

Are you?
Every decent build is viable for everything to a certain degree. Some perform better in different things than other builds. Some need more investment to shine while a few reach their limites quite early.
That's just how it works since leagues.

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Id1eRace wrote:

Not doing it. I will just delete everything including my 75d and go play another game. And not play future leageus.

This is not an airport, no need to announce your departure Exile