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

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Saf3tyhazard wrote:

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Selfcast is not "in ruins." Check out my occultist this league. Tell me how META and gimmicky my (well not mine, it's ZApwner's) build is. It's low life ivory tower, HERESY I tell you. I don't understand why failure to play the game well results in bad faith arguments or just straight up ignorance being spouted out of a loudspeaker.

You mean the one that also has totem lightning conduit? :)

I cannot tell how large part of your dps comes from it because of never using PoB, but you do use some of standard gimmicks for current balance.

I feel like the title of this post and some of the content is misleading and/or mistaken.

For the record, I think it's a great point that you can't just simply take the tags of a skill, use those mods, and create a good build. BUT I also don't think that everything else is a "gimmick". I think they are all aspects of "builds" and creatively use the tools that the game provides to make better and better characters.

Character creation is always all about exploiting what is described as "gimmicks" in this thread: otherwise those types of builds wouldn't exist. Do we want a cookie cutter game where fire skills can ONLY do fire damage and no other mods exist? I think part of what makes the build diversity what it is in PoE is the multitude of "gimmicks" that PoE provides us with. And this is a GOOD thing. I can't really even think of any other game that has the same flexibility with skills and damage output that PoE has thanks to "exploiting" these features.

To say there are no builds just because most of the current builds do NOT focus on the original tags of the main skill is just wrong and a rather boring mindset to have in my opinion.

It's also pretty great that there exist unique items with "gimmicks" that completely change the way a skill can be played. I don't think of running a "<insert unique name> build" is an example of a LACK of builds, but rather an entirely new family of builds.

And lets be really truly real here: a build does NOT exist in any rpg that doesn't exploit some type of in-game mechanic or "gimmick". This is what makes it a build and not just a "fire damage" or "physical damage" blank slate.

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Echothesis wrote:

It is not intended because poison, and its ability to stack with itself is not present as innate skill of SRS. They were designed with Ignite, single DOT per enemy. Ability to use player-grade support gems on minions, totems, and traps is a hole in the balance, because it is not possible to even dps out between these setups and selfcasting 1 spell at a time.

About 45 million dps, I don't know if player thinks he/she needs it, but it opens up totally different gameplay: buy uberboss invitations/fragments, farm them for their unique rewards, and sell rewards for profit. This is much more time-efficient than peasant map grind for the "balanced" builds.

If there was ever a list of things intended for SRS to be built around, ignite sure wasn't on it. You're supposed to have a ton of these little guys around, each doing a fraction of the total damage, it would be like building old firestorm for ignite before it got the big meteor, obviously nobody did that. The only way you'd get a decent ignite out of those guys is by exploding them, but if we go that way, all minions are intended for ignite.

GGG rarely says 'we didn't intend you to use this skill like that', pretty much just in most serious exploit scenarios, like exploding mirror arrow clones. Hell, in some cases they even embraced the way the community uses the skill despite it not being intended, best example of that is probably RF.
If anything, finding weird shit that works is what they want us to do, it maintains the interest in the game.

Gimmicks are cool, and getting the best from what you have is also cool and natural. Yet ideally, maximum possible dps of all kinds of builds in game should be compatible, and not differ by a margin or two like it does now.

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raics wrote:

If there was ever a list of things intended for SRS to be built around, ignite sure wasn't on it. You're supposed to have a ton of these little guys around, each doing a fraction of the total damage, it would be like building old firestorm for ignite before it got the big meteor, obviously nobody did that. The only way you'd get a decent ignite out of those guys is by exploding them, but if we go that way, pretty much every minion is made for ignite.

GGG rarely says 'we didn't intend you to use this skill like that', pretty much just in most serious exploit scenarios, like exploding mirror arrow clones. Hell, in some cases they even embraced the way the community uses the skill despite it not being intended, best example of that is probably RF.
If anything, finding weird shit that works is what they want us to do, it maintains the interest in the game.

GGG has different priorities than players, they need to keep as many people addicted for as long as possible, and promoting conflict/competition triggers is an important part of this. How would majority of players feel about their spent time and effort here, is irrelevant for GGG.

Also, I never said SRS were designed for Ignite, only that they had it by default

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Echothesis wrote:

GGG has different priorities than players, they need to keep as many people addicted for as long as possible, and promoting conflict/competition triggers is an important part of this. How would majority of players feel about their spent time and effort here, is irrelevant for GGG.

I'm pretty sure they want us to have fun for as long as possible so we keep spending money for as long as possible. As weird as it sounds, we do have a common cause of sorts, the point of discord is that the players want to have all the fun right away, and GGG would prefer to stretch it out a bit.

Now, if there's something that could get improved, it's the obvious mechanics that should work but don't. For instance, someone sees cast on melee kill gem (it really exists, I shit you not), decides to make a battlemage because why would the gem be in the game if it isn't a thing, and then realizes that shit straight out doesn't work in modern PoE.
Or sees the instruments branch on Inquisitor and decides to do the same, we aren't talking some obscure unique here, it's an ascendancy branch. That one is kinda usable, but, I gave it a shot back in expedition and, as the ghazzy meme goes - "I've tried it and it plays like shit".

Ah I’m back after a long break. I see the usual forum takes are being made still 🤣

So what’s your idea then? Find a high edps or pdps weapon and then just stack that on all items and that’s it?

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raics wrote:

I'm pretty sure they want us to have fun for as long as possible so we keep spending money for as long as possible. As weird as it sounds, we do have a common cause of sorts, the point of discord is that the players want to have all the fun right away, and GGG would prefer to stretch it out a bit.

Now, if there's something that could get improved, it's the obvious mechanics that should work but don't. For instance, someone sees cast on melee kill gem (it really exists, I shit you not), decides to make a battlemage because why would the gem be in the game if it isn't a thing, and then realizes that shit straight out doesn't work in modern PoE.
Or sees the instruments branch on Inquisitor and decides to do the same, we aren't talking some obscure unique here, it's an ascendancy branch. That one is kinda usable, but, I gave it a shot back in expedition and, as the ghazzy meme goes - "I've tried it and it plays like shit".

Stretch it out a bit is not the same as knowingly keep many obvious direct builds a dead end in endgame. In their shoes, I would give up a part of current gem sockets' wild flexibility in exchange for a way to actually balance the numbers.

Specifically, make all minion skill gems only supportable by minion tag gems, so it won't be broken by adding flat damage to minions, which is then fed to "more" modifiers. Remove generic trap support, blastchain mine support, and spell totem support, instead design new totem spells that would only be found on totems. Increase cooldown of all CoC sources, right now they are basically a speedhack. Introduce aura limit similar to current curse limit, and ability to slightly raise this aura limit with passive nodes or uniques. There are other similar things to fix, you got the idea.

Not saying this will solve the balance at once, but this would be a start, instead of the current elitist mess.

I really want to return after my last return turned out to be an utter failure.
Long story short, my old beefy MS jugg couldn't even handle Sirus. I just want a fun experience levelling up a character in standard (yes I'm that kind of player that picks standard and sticks to perfecting one character) and I want to hit stuff, be it by spinning around, whacking in front of me or just plain tanking.

I tried some spectral shield throw gladiator back then but then the league was pretty much over in an instant and I dropped back to standard, people tried to urge me on to the next league to make more characters and I was just argh can't I just stick to one?

Is there *any* build that gets decent and scales into an all-clearer that doesn't revolve around running around abusing auras or spamming stuff around you or relying on summons? I've scrolled through the forums but it's all so league centered.

Just want to have a fun time making a decent character.


Oh and preferrably one that doesn't get nerfed into the ground right away.

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Echothesis wrote:

Not saying this will solve the balance at once, but this would be a start, instead of the current elitist mess.

Why did you feel the need to put that word into your sentence?

It doesnt make any sense and tells a lot about your mindset.