Underdeveloped Physical damage based gameplay

Hey everyone,

I will begin with a bit of personal note in that I am an old poe1 player who played since its beta, and accrued a few thousand hours on steam. 90% of my hours are playing physical damage based melee playstyle as that is what I find most appealing and thematically fulfilling.

I have racked up 40 hours on the EA for poe2 and have hit this sort of wall where I no longer feel the desire to get in there and play for a few reasons I'll be hoping to share below.

Now i'd like to preface that what I am going to touch on here is not me trying to claim everyone should feel as extremely as I - leading to putting the game down as much so to speak. I just wish to bring this to light as I have myself not seen it done so in detail & believe the game does So much right, in turn wish to see it flourish and enjoyed by all manners of people and preferences.

There are two melee weapons & two ranged weapons available in early access which have a respective skill tree. The Quarterstaff & the Mace for melee, Bow & crossbow for ranged.

The total available (active to the weapons use) skills are as follows.

Numerical order is Total - Elemental - Physical - Direct&Thematic Physical

Quarterstaff: 21 - 15 - 6 - 3
Mace : 20 - 3 - 8 - 2
Crossbow : 24 - 17 - 3 - 3
Bow : 21 - 13 - 4 - 4

We see here some disparity is visible as is. I wish to afford a perspective that hopefully people can relate with.

The largest presence we see of physical is maces, where only two of the 8 physical skills are actually hitting an enemy with your weapon. The rest thematically are actually not physical. They are magical - bending the elements (earth) in you hitting the ground and magically making spikes blow out of the earth. They are technically of magical nature and not physical like you swinging a physical weapon into an enemy and causing them damage in doing so.

This logic is also why I left the Bell skill out of the monks physical skills, Whilst you could argue that you are causing vibration that effects the enemies to a great degree which would be physical, it is still not your physical weapon directly attacking a foe dealing damage and as such I leave out of the total count.

This fact leaves us with 2, not 8 physical attack skills for maces, one of which is more of a combination that has a long animation and is not intended as a primary attack - Where as Armour breaker actually is able to function as a primary attack and looks the part as a physical attack.

And 5 for staves, where 2 are the palm strikes which are not intended as primary attacks leaving us 3 which can look the part as physical use of the weapon directly effecting an enemy (Windblast could be argued similarly to the bell but I personally find it completely believable and thematically intact)

Crossbows have it the worst with only 3, and personally I personally find the entire way crossbows have been done very unpalatable. They look and behave like a gun, the skills even say "Rounds" which is disappointing and overall isn't something I personally enjoy in this worlds setting. I am sure many people disagree and that is totally ok. But if you want guns, then put guns in. I wouldn't be for it but making a crossbow a gun is just unfaithful to the weapon.

With the more technical stuff put forward the crux of issue here is that Physical skills are overwhelmingly under represented, the feedback for melee feels best when I am physically hitting and effecting my enemies. Path of exile is strongest to sell when you go to a person who has never played and explain that any Theme you can imagine is possible to create. This was a big selling point for many people - Balance aside.

I played monk for my primary playthrough in poe2 so far and was forced to use Tempest flurry when the build I wanted to make (Leeching mind over matter physical melee character) was simply not allowing me to deal enough damage and have smooth combat experience movement or damage-wise.

Tempest flurry with no support gems was able to double my damage output with ANY of the physical staff skills running either two 35% more damage supports or One and 25% attack speed.

I had a level 11 whirling assault with two 35% more damage supports dps chart state it was Less than half of my level 10 tempest flurry. The tooltip does not even account for everything which makes this even more disappointing as when I slot in Martial tempo and Crescendo for tempest flurry the tooltip damage is larger & not including the Crescendo.

Playing and testing both proved an astronomical imbalance between these two skills, not including the fact that Tempest flurry is such a beautifully made skill in how it feels and flows. It is incredibly pleasant to use and maneuverable yet I am here wishing I could use the skill without being forced to have it be elemental. That in itself was an idea I found myself wishing the game had build upon where able. Allowing the player to choose what damage type is attached to a skill when that skills animation and behavior could actually go either ways.

All of this above experience is with All items and damage passive nodes All chosen to enhance physical damage.

If you like magic and elemental themes, the game as it is will be fantastic. But for those of us who want a more grounded and visceral physical experience there is no way to compete or feel rewarded even remotely the same. It is very on the nose to see that despite all efforts to be physical, an elemental/magical skill with no investment gives us twice the damage output or more which was visibly discernable outside of the tooltip in gameplay.

I personally was most excited for spears, mostly two handed spears with path of exile two, second to this I would always go for a sword or even a flail.

I really hope that we can see a respectable discourse about the disparity I have tried to shed light on here, and that the developers will decide to re evaluate what options we are given to allow everyone to have a great time enjoying this beautifully made game. I am really proud of what GGG has achieved in its lifetime, and hope to see them continue to rise, we know they listen to people and have been incredibly open to constructive criticism to their benefit.

My final statement would ask - Please provide more actual Physical skills that feel competitively viable and as smooth as their elemental counterparts without to much random visual effects.

If you read through the whole thing, thank you for taking the time.

Cheers.

I agree with pretty much all of this. Since it's early access I just try to keep that in mind, and be hopeful that under tuned and under represented stuff will eventually be brought in line.

I'm not saying you're wrong, especially since a physical/wind monk seems half baked, but maces have quite a few 'smack them directly' abilities. Rolling Slam, Leap, Sunder, Boneshatter. Then there's the Shield ones which are awkwardly lumped into its tree right now, giving you Shield Charge.

I've been running with a Rolling Slam warrior over a Sunder build myself because I prefer its in your face style - and it feels less janky than repeating the Sunder animation over and over again.