melee trans gems - first impressions

to preface it all: i reiterate that 3.23 is one of the largest nerf patches in POE's history. people completely underestimate how much power and flexibility has been taken away and replaced with beefed up quality and trans gems

having said that, lets move on

so, Ive tried quite a few gems and I have to say.. they are fun. i make mostly janky builds, forcing concepts that should make sense (because why not) but game kinda disapproves. these gems.. kinda fix that



trans tectonic slam fits into my tidebreaker, end charge stacking character like a glove. changing nothing my build got 10 times more fun and at least twice as powerful

cons path - same story, it just cliked.

cleave.. oh my, the radius change is amazing. the damage still makes no sense, but the AOE is good enough. cleave of rage is ultra fun and powerful as well

dual strike of ambidexterity - spent 30 mins pobing it. it isnt as good as i thought but entire premise of building gavel+foil character is fun enough

double strike of impale - damage kinda sucks even with Watchers Eye+champion and ~130 impale effect. phys reduction has to be allowed to go into negatives, without it phys damage is garbage. the clear explosion is cool but.. melee splash does the same job. there is very narrow scope of mob HP where it actually works great

old sunder - magic, its revertedsunder. wonder why it took them 5 years to keep this hidden and force on us skill nobody likes

ground slam - meh effect, bad numbers
molten strike - meh effect, neutral numbers, 2h only. this one is a dud, dont tell me anyone shoul go ignite with it
glacial hammer, blade flurry - meh, numbers might ok but the idea is boring

dominating blow - like WTF. 250% effect on a character with 4 80% minion damage nodes.. i know 3 sentinels less but it does not matter

perforate (bleeding) and perforate (change stances) - fun. i actually used perforate the bleeding way so the gem just clicked and multiplied the damage. the change stance offering creates form of FOMO so it might actually by unhealthy for some

earthshatters - tried briefly, i still like the basic playstyle the most

earthquake - the big mystery that ill investigate is - is there a limit to this madness


steel skills.. dont understand the changes, never liked them. and i think some are heavily bugged (interaction with Fury Valve seems to be unintended)


in all, while melee is still a laughing stock at least some of the gems (good part of them to be honest) fills a valid niche. niche far from meta and most people never touched it but still a valid niche.

Highlights:
- Cleave of Rage - for valid reason to stack 120+rage and outregen Berserk while cleaving bosses away
- RevertedSunder - for how buttery smooth it is
- Dominating Blow - this one is absurdly strong if you get good timeless jewel)
- Tectonic Slam of Cataclysm - with 9 charges, Fist of War and Seismic Cry, the explosion go 2 screens away from you. it kills all dinosaurs btw.

Criticism:
- several of gems force cross-weapon dual wielding while entire game asks you to not do that ever. these gems need to be REAL busted to be usable, most of them arent. same with forced 2h but these at least make more sense

- some long standing nonsensical numbers on some skills could have been fixed this patch but werent. there is still no reason to ever play Heavy Strike, hardly any reason (besides Voidforge) to play Sweep, lacerate (all versions are very weak), Infernal Blow has no single target and many, still dont get why Perforate is a 'slam' and many more

how do you generate end charges for tec slam, i thought it looked really fun, do you have constant uptime or

my build uses fist of war (so i attack slowly), end.charge.on.stun (from Tidebreaker) and jugg end charge passives

vs bosses Enduring Cry seems to be enough to keep you going.

the biggest part people should understand - world wont end if you attack with 3/9 charges from time to time.. seriously, it is still nice damage