Chieftain is going to be better than everyone thinks, but...

Just read the edit 2 at the end.

Hi All,

This post is probably a little late and I may not be the first to comment about it so I apologize in advance if this is kind of a wasted post. TL;DR= I got my hopes up for the cool new thing that would be added to this class only to find an ascendancy that seems to promise a lot but lacks cohesion within the ascendancy choices available to deliver a satisfying result.

I have played Path of Exile for most challenge leagues since the end of 2020 (I think Ritual was the first League I ever played). I have always really liked the Marauder Class and especially like the Chieftain Class because it was the first character ascendancy class that I was able to earn Headhunter on during Sentinel League. I think that I rank above average but am by no means a power gamer. I have defeated the Maven but I do not regularly participate in Uber Uber content and have still never acquired a Mirror or a Mageblood with all my hours of game time. Therefore, I think I have a decent "average player" opinion on the game but not an exceptionally good insight into the nature of the game.

I have thought that the Chieftain is overdue for a rework for quite a while because it is not a class that players inherently want to play. This is because melee is difficult for a new player to get started with and because not having inherent ascendancy bonuses to attack/cast/movement speed or just being faster in executing commands generally makes the Chieftain Ascendancy more reliant on skill/dodge timing, skill rotation, and good positioning. This could be incorrect, but I think that the Chieftain ascendancy rework is subtly going to be really good but on paper does not look very sexy by comparison to other ascendancies- it will not draw new players or returning players to play it. Therefore, it may as well have remained the same because it is still a near dead ascendancy by community popularity.

The nodes available are really cool in a vacuum-we get a free melding of the flesh and basically a 7-link attack skill with some use interesting utility nodes to round out the build. However, the rework feels disappointing for me because the chieftain does not exist in a vacuum. The Chieftain's ascendancy nodes when compared to a different ascendancy on Marauder or a different base class + ascendancy does not feel like it would be my go to choice for the builds that the ascendancy tree is encouraging a player to choose to play.
Let me explain:
Chieftain does not have a use case scenario in which it is the better option for playing a specific skill in the game compared to a different class that could play the same skill. If I were to choose to play ignite chieftain, then why should I not just play Elementalist with 100% chance to ignite built into a single ascendancy node. Playing ignite proliferation "Hinekora Death's Fury" sounds like it would be so cool thematically however, the chance of popping the on kill explosion is too low and therefore too infrequent to be relevant to the in game experience of clearing maps or doing bosses or doing forbidden master content (except for blight). By comparison the Occultist's Profane Bloom ascendancy has a 40% chance causing an on death explosion with the one condition that the enemy is cursed. The thing is that on an Occultist build using that ascendancy node, there is never going to be a time when an enemy you kill is NOT cursed- an occultist is always cursing and therefore the downside condition is basically meaningless. Therefore, why not put a condition such as overkill damage, an enemy must have 0% fire resistance or less, or an ignited enemy you kill has a 10%-40% chance to explode with a more moderate amount of explode damage. This does not necessarily increase power creep or character power beyond what other classes already have inherently built in. Furthermore, the explode node and the "enemies have 0% fire resistance to DoT" node are counterproductive to current RF/firetrap itemization. I bring this up because it seems like that is the near singular build that these nodes were added for. For RF/Firetrap the best in slot boots item in game is Legacy of Fury-it gives both pseudo explosions and reduced fire resistance with scorch. One item confers nearly the same power that these TWO ascendancy nodes offer....
Furthermore, I might think of playing Chieftain to play slams, but then if I am playing a slam build, then why would I choose to play Chieftain instead of Berserker. With Berserker for 2 major ascendancy nodes I get 40% more damage multiplier for a slight drawback of damage taken and I get an inherent bonus to my character's power for performing warcries (the warcry node that gives or sacrifices rage). The option of playing Berserker and the nodes available on it then trivialize what is available on Chieftain (fist of war on body armour is super cool btw and is exciting to see on the ascendancy tree, but when I remove fist of war from my chest piece, there is not a skill gem that I can put into the 6 link to substitute the same power level. By comparison, Zerker gets 40% more and gets fist of war socketed into the six link. So, in reality, Berserker gets a de facto 7-link chest piece and then a 5-link in place of it's four links, and then 4-links in place of it's three links (obviously not all gems are socketed to deal damage, but that is what that node could potentially confer to the player). The benefit from playing Chieftain then becomes that I do not take 10% more damage but then I deal 10% less damage than the comparable ascendancy (Note: we do not know how tawhoa will interact here so I could be way off base).

Expanding on cohesion and choosing chieftain over a different class to play slams:
Slam builds seem to fall into three categories 1)multiple warcries+fist of war support, 2) skip warcries play with multistrike, and 3) earthbreaker support+ruthless support. I want to play a chieftain with slams so Fist of War on body armour is very exciting. However, Fist of War as an ascendancy node actually limits not expands player creativity / player choice in this scenario. Currently earthbreaker support is almost exclusively played by chieftain's. However, Tawhoa's Chosen will not be triggered by a totem and Fist of War is not able to support skills used by totems. So if I wanted to play a totemic slam build then 2 major ascendancy nodes no longer support my character. There is still a totem node on the Chieftain Ascendancy though, which could be useful because I can summon my ancestor totem and then get breathing room (haha) to warcry and then slam while enemies attack the totem. This utility is cool but does not actually feel like high synergy nodes when trying to play a totem slammer build. When we view the Berserker tree by comparison I have multiple nodes that make me want to do the skill rotation intended-seismic cry, rallying cry, and intimidating cry followed by a slam, pause for fist of war, slam, pause for fist of war and use a travel skill, slam, and then rinse and repeat. From Berserker's tree I get damage from war crying and I get bonuses to my damage from war crying (warcries generate rage and rage gives you damage, attack speed, and move speed). Therefore, on Berserker I am always going to want to warcry and the ascendancy itself has a system built into it that encourages players to play the skill rotation. By comparison, the Chieftain's tree lacks synergy that makes me excited to play the rotation. I could try to find synergy between these nodes and play ignite slams where I am trying to hit big and then ignite the target and then if I am standing still the target will have 0% fire resistance to DoT, which means it is still worthwhile for me to take fire penetration on my attack, but then also makes the enemy take increased damage while I stand still (enemies have 0% fire resistance when I am standing still should impact ignite damage separate from hits [I could be wrong here]). Furthermore, when trying to craft a passive skill tree for chieftain slams there is not enough support to play ignites on a melee build in the southwest location of the passive skill tree. I can path to ignite chance or improvements to ignites, but there is opportunity cost pathing to these nodes when I already need to path and take nodes that give bonuses to war cries- more exerted attacks, increased warcry speed, and warcry cooldown recovery- increases to attack damage, and increases to life or strength. Compared to other classes/ascendancies, Chieftain has immense skill point pressure to make a build that works for what the ascendancy nodes are encouraging players to do. This further enhances the feeling that I should just choose to play a different build or choose to play a different class/ascendancy instead of jumping through hoops to try to make an underplayed skill work. I do understand that there have been leagues where slams were very popular, but on PoENinja slams and more specifically Chieftain are nowhere near the most favored builds to get to level 100.
I understand that I may not have the best take on this because players will inevitably solve the ascendancy and make something broken, but currently it does not feel like it was given a dedicated character niche which is why it does not feel as exciting as it could have been.

I love the amount of character choice that GGG encourages players to have, which is ultimately what has kept me playing the game. However, the rework does not feel like it encourages me to play something cool nor does it encourage me to be creative when trying to plan my build. It feels like I am being told to play strength stacking self slam or play RF/firetrap. I can not figure out what else I should want to do with the structure of nodes available and that feels bad from a creativity standpoint because I have already solved what I will play before even brainstorming.

I am actually going to try playing self slams or try playing a modification of RF/Firetrap /Searing Bond and I am excited for it. I just want to feel like my character is cool without feeling the FOMO of "if only I played a berserker/occultist/slayer map blaster then I would have more currency and if I had more currency I could make my character more cool with more expensive items".

I am very excited to play the new chieftain ascendancy but do feel like I am going to miss out on what I could have done in this league on a different ascendancy. I will still have fun playing the game and still be happy with the loot I generate. I just feel a little let down for what was revealed compared to how excited I was for the rework.

Excited for PoE2 and excited for 3.22. Overall thank you for a great game that I love being able to return to and I apologize if this was a poorly expressed take.

EDIT1: Clarified the title a bit.

Edit 2: I played it. I actually like the changes a lot. I do think slams need work to flesh out the identity of normal and/or ignite slams, but I would play this 9/10 over an RF Jugg (softcore). Hinekora node is a meme but it is a fun meme and you should definitely spec it.

Give the players that have almost triple the amount of time you have in this game some credit....I'm pretty sure most of us can assess exactly how good (or bad) the new chieftain will be.

That's not to say you make good points, but you invalidate your whole post by denying "everyone" else.

Oh, my bad. I just was trying to give the post a relevant title not to go 100% against community sentiment. I think it is still a near dumpster tier ascendancy rework, but wanted to give the dev team credit that the idea was cool. The title could have been different, but the post was just to say that Chieftain should be doing it's own thing to be cool instead of being a B-tier Berserker, Elementalist, etc.

edit: After trying the changes the rework is much better than what everyone thinks. It would have been nice to still have the phys to fire conversion identity for spells and attacks. I am not changing the original post but this is definitely a good rework and I take back what I said about dumpster tier...

Your clickbait game is strong, my friend lol