Skill tree starting location

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jsuslak313 wrote:

I see it from the opposite side: the starting points are meant for "newer" players to give them an idea of what each class typically specializes in. It's really only the far more advanced players that branch very far away from these starting points.

Because of this, I don't see it at all as a type of pigeonholing, but rather as an instrument to HELP players not screw themselves over.

When it comes to the Ascendancies I've gotten used to it and they're not going anywhere. I like Trickster though Shadow's starting location might just be the worst. I also like Slayer and Inquis isn't bad. They have thematic specialization but doesn't segment your skill options.

Ones I dislike are Glad, Occultist though that's moistly because Chaos Crit is only in that part of the tree. Old Trickster with DoT Chaos. Champ is now an issue due to Fortify changes and I've ranted many times about taking that away from Shadow/Witch.

Fixing some of these issues with items is not the best design either. PoE so far can get away with it because there's still many options but games like D4 really highlight how the concept can go wrong.

^ugh....don't get me started on ascendancy changes. I hate pretty much every single one of them except elementalist. But none of the changes really made any difference to the initial justification of tree starting placements.

Gladiator was done DIRTY

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jsuslak313 wrote:

^ugh....don't get me started on ascendancy changes. I hate pretty much every single one of them except elementalist. But none of the changes really made any difference to the initial justification of tree starting placements.

Gladiator was done DIRTY

Elementalist was a good rework. I do wish they'd hide that bubble shield though.

What I look for in an Ascendancy is thematic play style while keeping options open.
Glad got nerf'd but it also wasn't great from the start due to generic bonuses. +25% more Bleed and massive block increases. Nothing really stands out.

I mentioned Slayer, not because it's the strongest but because it's thematically good. Slayer can make any weapon good. over leech, make big AoE melee even bigger. Trickster is similar, very underestimated Charge duration manipulation, a unique speed feature and leech.

Nothing about either choice forces the player into a specific skill or damage type.
Inquis is decent but generally pushed to "something" elemental.

I have no idea what they're doing with Chieftain or Sab reworks.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

^ugh....don't get me started on ascendancy changes. I hate pretty much every single one of them except elementalist. But none of the changes really made any difference to the initial justification of tree starting placements.

Gladiator was done DIRTY

+1 on this

they've completely butchered saboteur. the removal of perfect crime simply killed almost all trap builds on saboteur, because that was the main dps node on trap sabo builds and other classes have much more dps now. moreover, everything gives aoe on sabo now, and there's no reason to play with a non-aoe skill like lightning trap. even if you're going aoe, you have to take chain reaction, but it's not even that good for all builds. being unable to get traps to be triggered by enemies just sucks for stuff like tinkerskin, slavedrivers hand and charged traps

pyromaniac being gatekept by demo specialist killed all tremor rod saboteur builds, because blastchain mine doesn't have aura tag

bomb specialist is just trash. 10% more area damage and 10% less area damage taken. who cares? triggerbots builds take it because there's nothing else to take. this is probably the least interesting ascendancy node in the entire game, I could design something better than this in like 3 minutes

there's a reason 89% of saboteur players on poeninja are hexblast players, and this was anticipated by pretty much everyone except ggg. but I'm pretty sure they'll nerf hexblast next league, leave saboteur as is and no one will play saboteur except a bunch of ice trap/pyroclast mines players and some triggerbot frogs

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jsuslak313 wrote:

But I still firmly and truly believe that it would be a mistake for EVERYTHING to be possible for everyone, from anywhere, at anytime.

Very much agree with this. I also really like that the game has ascendancies. It diversifies the classes, which means that not EVERYTHING in the game will be min-maxed to the n-th degree. Each class/ascendancy still has some identity.

If everything was in reach of every possible build, then build diversity would be nerfed into the ground. Spell suppression on every build, instead of roughly just the right-side wheel builds for example.

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Xzorn wrote:

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jsuslak313 wrote:

^ugh....don't get me started on ascendancy changes. I hate pretty much every single one of them except elementalist. But none of the changes really made any difference to the initial justification of tree starting placements.

Gladiator was done DIRTY

Elementalist was a good rework. I do wish they'd hide that bubble shield though.

What I look for in an Ascendancy is thematic play style while keeping options open.
Glad got nerf'd but it also wasn't great from the start due to generic bonuses. +25% more Bleed and massive block increases. Nothing really stands out.

I mentioned Slayer, not because it's the strongest but because it's thematically good. Slayer can make any weapon good. over leech, make big AoE melee even bigger. Trickster is similar, very underestimated Charge duration manipulation, a unique speed feature and leech.

Nothing about either choice forces the player into a specific skill or damage type.
Inquis is decent but generally pushed to "something" elemental.

I have no idea what they're doing with Chieftain or Sab reworks.

it would help a lot if ascendant was changed to:
mini Ascendancy let you pick 1 node from selected Ascendancy


that will leave ascendant as the true jack of all trades with the best pathing but only able to get 1-2 big nodes.

forbidden flesh/flame when alocated will let you pick a node from selected Ascendancy

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caboom wrote:

it would help a lot if ascendant was changed to:
mini Ascendancy let you pick 1 node from selected Ascendancy


that will leave ascendant as the true jack of all trades with the best pathing but only able to get 1-2 big nodes.

forbidden flesh/flame when alocated will let you pick a node from selected Ascendancy

Honestly I don't feel like Scion has the best pathing. It's rare and if can get that. You'll need multiple jewels to make it worth while. Scion spent too much time as an Aura bot I think.

Flesh/Flame jewels have a notable balance issue too. I love the idea of grabbing a point from another Ascendancy but some can make amazing use of them and some cannot.

The Trickster I made for this league as example took the 200% Charge duration node then flesh/flame Assassin's Power Charge on hit/Cit and Endurance charge every 15 seconds. 6 Power Charges, 5 Frenzy and 3 Endurance with perma un-time. These are interaction I enjoy.

Then you reverse it like Assassin grabbing something and nothing will help. Also a lot of them don't even bother to go outside their original trees which kills the spirit of the idea to me.

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auspexa wrote:

To be fair. A small percentage played Sab since this game's creation but it was strong for those who enjoyed the play style. I've never been a "Gizmo Player" myself, hate Engineers in every game.

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Xzorn wrote:

To be fair. A small percentage played Sab since this game's creation but it was strong for those who enjoyed the play style. I've never been a "Gizmo Player" myself, hate Engineers in every game.

No way....sabo was one of THE most popular ascendancies for YEARS. Traps and mines? come on dude, they were almost THE original OP mechanics and stayed that way forever.

What we know as Deadeye / Pathfinder popularity USED to be all Sabo.

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Xzorn wrote:

To be fair. A small percentage played Sab since this game's creation but it was strong for those who enjoyed the play style. I've never been a "Gizmo Player" myself, hate Engineers in every game.

yeah, but now it's only used for hexblast, and there'll be nothing left when hexblast is nerfed next league