Why Rip out Call To Arms Keystone?

I was fine with the addition of the Call to Arms skills because I was simply not going to use it. However taking away The Call To Arms Keystone Passive Skill is a pretty brutal hit to melees that use a WarCry.

The reason I have no interest in the new gem have been mentioned by others. The increased mana cost AND cooldown is just too much when you also need to give up a gem slot. If you are also taking away the option to bypass the gem the penalties should not be so heavy.

Please consider modifying before launch.

They also removed the ability to instantly cast with left click, which basically means more random busy work for no reason with one less button for something else.

I stopped using Warcries when they inverted Second Wind Support.

I stopped playing Melee entirely with the Fortify changes.

That Fort change was tough... agreed.

With this one, there just isn't any reason to remove the keystone. It doesn't destroy my build and make me start from scratch like the Fort change, but it does lessen it's efficiency... and it wasn't some titan to start.

This feels like a hit to the melee side of the tree and a buff to the caster side. I don't understand it. What am I missing?

Read between the lines, just play something else.

In 3.24 if you want to play berserker, use the new helmet and play spellcaster berserker.

regardless of motives, ggg will not fix melee, ever. melee in poe2 will suck as well, they simply have no experience in actually TRYING to make it good. and they build on that solid foundation while creating poe2' melee :)


at this point the best for the game would be to remove it completely (leaving cyclone for Cast on Crit) as it is just abandonware.

the warcry changes seem weird because GGG seems to never actually play melee themselves and they balance changes around imagined state of the game. or they believe that 'if STR stacking melee is good then melee is in good place' while in fact 2300 STR build + Iron Fortress etc deals ~6times more damage than mirror tier weapon. no problem here.. melee is fine, just play this one setup (or ivory tower/INT stack/energy blade)

having 2-3 warcries on auto for melee is actually good, mostly due to action bar space, but it could have been made as an UI toggle

People would have to try to reinvent the wheel with slams if they want to use cta support in this context, they also won't be able to utilize the +1 to warcries with echoes of creation because they will have to run 3 or more warcries life tap and call to arms so you will likely need a 5link minimum for war cries. You may have to drop frostblink or maim as well. You definitely wont be running both totems either, but i've settled with only having ancestral warchief only since protector isn't as big on slams as it is on strike skills. That may be different if you're running auto warcries and a bunch of tattoos. Since you will want to be using up all your intimidating cry exerts at minimum. if you could balance this efficiently.

I certainly don't expect anyone to be able to play earthshatter effectively with this setup. I don't expect ele slams to be any better. You will have to lifetap everything unless you go to precise tech. On early league start sunder may feel a little bit better than before as long as you weren't just using intimidating cry with cta. I don't expect this to make slams any better than they were last league as far as overall performance is concerned.

Ofc if you're playing on sc and don't care if you get deleted a few times a day then the sky is the limit if you just want big damage.

Also if you're doing all this and you're trying to use the heist weapon you're stuck with maces and you wont be able to find a fracture on the ground. You also wont be able to rog craft it.

This will make warcry skill usable to people that are too lazy/disabled/or lack the brain function to use play warcries in their current state.

I don't cycle through characters or play leagues very often. I play a couple characters at a time at most. Right now I am finishing my main which is a 2h sword, melee frenzy/bladestorm/splitting steel combo.