Neriehem's experience and suggestions after a week of playing as a Mercenary

Hi all, I wanted to make a feedback post for a while now - I have reached "yellow" maps (currently doing T8 quest) in SC Trade as a Mercenary Witch Hunter, and I went in blind, as-in without any kind of guide, only knowing what was said in interviews leading up to the big launch. If it helps, I'm also a PoE1 player with slightly over 2k hours, and as of last couple leagues I'm reaching pinnacle bosses reliably there.

My current /played time on my Mercenary in PoE2 is 2 days, 16 hours. I'm going to express what I experienced in relevant detail, and it will be long. Given that I'm not a great writer, I shall split my summary into points for readers to hopefully better focus on.

I also want to preface it all with: I'm loving the game, can't stop thinking about just logging in and going ham at it.

So, without further ado, here's my feedback. =)

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1) First impressions

I really like WASD movement. As a keyboard and mouse gamer for over 20 years, it's very light on my hands - I have optimized my setup for this over time, which definitely helps.

Beginning screen vista is really cool!

I started out with initial thought of "I'm gonna make a crossbow/2h sword hybrid character", so Mercenary Witch Hunter seemed a no-brainer to me. Currently there are no swords, so I stayed with only a crossbow. I hope we'll get more weapon types soon, but I'm by no means hoping for a rushed product!

Movement feels pretty slow at first, but I guess players get used to it later. I would appreciate a base ~10% movement speed increase, or boots having movement speed modifier as an implicit - 20% MS seems to be a breakpoint into a "feels good" speed realm from feeling like a snail.

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2) Combat vibes

So now that "initial thoughts" part is over, I'm going to hit it right up with combat thoughts, kind of going over my journey and thoughts I've had over this past week. This will the the longest paragraph, so I will additionally split it up into sections.


a) Act 1

I was using mainly Fragmentation Rounds with combination of Armour Piercing Rounds, a full physical setup. I have dabbled into Permafrost Bolts at the point, but didn't feel like it's "the thing", it felt bad at first, and I didn't have support gems to really try it out. It was definitely hard with scaling my damage, as I used starter crossbow for longer then I should have. First few zones were fine, but from Grim Tangle fighting felt like a chore - I'm glad I found new crossbow then that was a hefty upgrade for me.

During this time I was swarmed more times then I would want to admit. This is also what instilled the playstyle of "meet a pack, shoot while moving backwards" that resulted in a very long time spent in every area, but as it was basically first time in the game I enjoyed the slow and steady experience.

Fights with nail-dude in Red Vale, Executioner, candle boss and act1 final boss was a very enjoyable experience. Especially last two: I ran out of flasks and thought I have to restart both fights, but managed to push through even with less-than-viable skill set.

Crowbell boss was very surprising with it's traversal. Awesome idea and execution.

Around the Fields/Manor area is when I think I got Gas Grenades, and was using them in combination with Incendiary Shot - I forgot I had Flame Wall and could abuse the Gas Grenade instant explosions with it, so at least I wasn't "broken" by OP interactions.

b) Act 2

Very first Hyena boss was a massive step-up in terms of difficulty. I was definitely feeling overwhelmed by both his tracking on the almost-1-shot-slam ability, and by the white mobs terribly swarming me.

I was still somewhat slowly making my way through zones using Gas Grenade and Incendiary Shot, and as soon as I could, I made the switch to Explosive Shot. Bosses were demanding, but I found a very lucky upgrade so I was still fine on the offense.

Crazy burning maniac in Mines zone was awesome - in retrospect, having a one-shot mechanic on the attacks that can only be dodged by rolling doesn't feel okay. I vibe more with making it a very heavy hit inflicting strong debuff that is guaranteed to kill player upon getting hit another time during this battle.

### Feedback point #1: The following I feel should be more widely applied - instead of making some boss attacks one-shots, make the boss apply some kind of "Vulnterabilty" stack on player along with dealing heavy damage - that stack would increase damage taken by X for remainder of the fight, so while one-shots don't one shot initially, but make remainder of the fight more difficult. Final Fantasy 14 does it well, that while you can make a mistake once or twice maximum, any more means either wipe or being a heavy burden on other teammates.

Elephant was something I dreaded, but it turned out fine after all. Dual-bosses are cool, and I'd like more of them in campaign.

Angry fire stepson was way harder then I expected, especially with constant fire dot on the 80% of the arena. It's a DPS fight, I didn't really like it, but at the same time I remember it because I almost died on my first attempt.

Colossus with it's one-shot stab feels like a bugged damage value, but it is beatable after dying a couple of times. It's a nice visually fight overall.

Final boss of act2 felt bad without any sound cue in Sandstorm phase, that I should head to my companion as she was my safe-zone during that time. Second phase's tracking feels a bit strong still, but it's also fair in that big sword and scythe attacks are not one-shots.

Oh! I almost forgot about Trial of Sekhemas - it felt very stressfull going through. Due to lack of damage I failed first time I encountered the boss. I feel like Honour damage is a bit too much, and reaching 75% resistance feels very mandratory in case I screw something up.

On the topic of trial - Witch Hunter explosions feel amazing, and they definitely carry this ascendency. Rest of notables don't feel even half as good - weapon passives might feel better once we get swords in the game however!

c) Act 3

Small monkey enemies started feelng very overwhelming. So much so, that I felt my Gas Grenade + Explosive Shot felt overwhelmingly lacking. This is when I "returned" to Fragmentation Rounds, but this time paired with Permafrost Bolts for general mob, and with Glacial Bolts supported by Scattershot heavy enemies fell down like flies - and I absolutely love it still, in my yellow maps.

### Feedback point #2: I want to kindly ask for option to remove enemy locking - I want my glacial walls to pop up exactly where I aim my mouse, not where the enemy is.

Armed with Permafrost Bolts/Fragmentation Rounds I could finally progress through new areas once again, and game felt really good.

Big White Monkey definitely seems fair in how it's one shot is telegraphed. My death there was a 100% my fault. I wonder if it was meant as a lesson to teach players to stick close to the boss once more? It feels great at doing it, at least to me!

Chimera had very interesting gimmick of destroying terrain - I didn't initally catch on to it, but when I did I was very impressed.

Trial of Chaos was way too hard, especially 3rd room - I was instantly swarmed by enemies and was always staggered and couldn't either reload or shoot. I gave up for a day after 4 tries.

Again, by this point I am freezing and shattering enemies. Two-button playstyle feels good to me, even if some packs are a little tedious - I am definitely spoiled by WH explosions by now. Heavy enemies I look out for to decimate them with Glacial Bolt equipped with Scattershot, at this time it feels almost org... okay I'll stop there. ;)

Rest of the act went relatively well. I was slowly trodding through zones, getting to know layouts and what side objectives are actually worth doing.

Lava walker boss is really, really cool. I'm glad I had enough DPS for it in hindsight.

Vaal lady boss (Viper?) is very hard. I absolutely hated that she spent seemingly 95% of latter half of the fight floating, and I think she was invulnerable at the time. I should have definitely followed the "hug the boss" lesson from White Ape, but my brainrot got the better of me.

At this point I finally finished Ultimatum trial, and it is very heavy gear check, especially on weapons. What was earlier unsurpassable for me, with 8 more levels and 40% more damage I managed to do fairly easily. I encountered I think gryphon boss? And I'll just say that tells could be better. I didn't die only because I was a tad overgeared.

Doryani boss encounter left me with mouth hanging, honest. But it definitely feels like it's a hidden choice of either:
- get 20% MS on boots
- DPS boss down before he can do his slam attack in second phase

I admit I encountered his slam only in Cruel, but as I had 0% MS boots, I could not run out of the area in time before he plopped down on me. I hope there will be some hint for players to dodge roll.

d) Cruel difficulty and maps

Because I had my chosen set of skills already equipped, all I had to do was to continue upgrading my items, and get higher level skills as I went. Overall I went through some changes, did go for armour-breaking setup.

I tried out Armour Breaking Rounds, Gas Grenade and Flash Grenade (albeit last one was brief). Gas Grenade felt the best out of all three, because it is also the most reliable. Picking up some poison nodes makes it an armour-shredding best of a skill too.

I like the interaction between Hailstorm Rounds ammo recharge and Shard Scavenger aura and Emergency Reload skill.

### Feedback point #3: Delay between firing an ammo type and changing the ammo feels much too long. Some skills lock ammo choice for much too long time, especially Hailstorm Rounds - I'd like for all attacks' animations to be in line, as it is right now 4 Hailstorm Round bolts fall down before I can switch to another ammo type. I feel it's unnecessary cluncky, and more often than not it screws up my muscle memory while I use it in-combat.

In Atlas I have finally made what feels like last modification to my setup - I started using Galvanic Shards for pack clear. Before I was using Fork on Permafrost Bolts, and pack freezing was impressive. But this skill... it changed my life - sorry, but it is full-package 1-button skill for pack clearing. And it makes me wonder, if it was designed as such.

For rares I am using freeze/shatter combo, however packs are all being cleared out by Galvanic Shards. This skill felt like cheating after I allocated Fork into it. I feel like freezing with Permafrost Bolts should be made stronger, or it should have equal spread of projectiles.

The above change also sparked a change in my playstyle - something that I had rooted in me for better part of 5 days, which is: upon encountering a pack, shoot at it while moving backwards. With Galvanic Shards I could begin to move forwards, in the pack's direciton, without being overrun to death and having to log out as much as before. This is the one single thing that enabled me to engage in Breach mechanic - before that I had to log out to avoid death by being so heavily swarmed.

As an ending thought to the section, Accuracy should be better explained. More and more I'm starting to feel like it's that hidden stat that is there to screw me over, and I have no idea what it really is.

Oh, and also: weapon swap with crossbows made me laugh out loud, I adore the two trigger skills - after some consideration, I have left Weapon Set 1 trigger on left click, while Weapon Set 2 trigger went onto right click. It's absolutely glorious and whacked. XD Makes me want to not drop second crossbow in favour of some other weapon, even if I feel like giving maces a try some time later.


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3) Terrain travelsal

Act 1 feels just right in the amount of space to go through. Some areas definitely could use some tells for where to go, so there's no much need for wall hugging in fear of missing that passage to next zone (I'm definitely looking at Clearfell section and passage to Grelwood).

Act 2 and 3 have zones that feel endless.

Infamous Dreadnought is the biggest offender (it felt like it would never end, especially on Cruel), and after looking at some videos, I do feel like it was made with movement abilities in mind. There are enemies jumping over the gaps as well.

Infested Barrens and Chimeral Wasteland feel a tad too big, especially when players are supposed to hug the outer walls too.

Passage to Jiquani's Machinarium should be better showcased that it's being open after defeating Chimera - maybe change the temple so it's facing south-east direction (stares right at the player), and is located more to the middle of the arena? I spent at least an hour looking for the entrance, before asking chat for help.

Apex of Filth and later Arrogat is maybe a bit too large.

By the way: Mushroom quest can be broken if you give at least 1 mushroom to the cauldron and either:
- leave area
- die
In Cruel I gave 2 mushrooms to the Cauldron, then went looking for boss. On the way I found last mushroom, fought the boss, died like an idiot, returned to the cauldron and despite throwing all 3 of items into it, I could not complete the quest. I had to enter new instance of the area to complete it.

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4) Endgame difficulties

Here I am, finally beating Cruel campaign. I cannot wait for real acts 4-6 to be finally available, I'm sure you are cooking something very good.

Sideways integration into unfinished campaign is interesting, I certainly didn't expect such a twist!

What does hurt is lack of available Hideout from the get-go. Loading into city hub felt too long, and placement of vendors/stash/map was steadily getting tiring. It definitely helped that there were 2 hideout nodes nearby for us to travel to.

Running maps feels kind of stressfull - I'm glad you rescinded the "dying in map means the node is bricked" decision, as it definitely can lock someone out from Atlas exploration. It does feel bad to loose complete map however.

### Feedback point #4: I propose upon death in maps to close 1-3 portals (depending on the waystone tier, so 1 portal for tiers 1-5, 2 portals for tiers 6-10, 3 portals for tiers 11-15) instead of instantly bricking the map.
To hopefully avoid any kind of abuse, I propose changing Maze area to require only tier 11+ waystones. On the other hand if it's possible to "cheat" on these "faction" bosses by using T1 waystones, then there should be no problem? I didn't path towards nearest Burning Monolith in my area yet, so I don't know if such restriction has been already put in place.

### Feedback point #5: Please, please, please add Waystone Tab in place of Map Tab as soon as possible :D I'm finding it harder and harder to keep my waystones somewhat organized (which means: some waystones I managed to single out are in right corner, while everything else just is left-clicked into it). Also waystone affinity is very, very needed.


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5) Character progression

I have touched upon this topic several times before, but now I'd like to focus on it.

As a PoE1 player, I'm not quite used to such a big focus on gear. Or maybe I am, but with current weak drops, and no way to somehow remedy it it feels like. I feel like we coud use a crafting bench in place of current runes.

### Feedback point #6: At least allow us to replace old runes with new ones - as things stand right now, fixing resistances in gear feels very limiting. It's better to not engage in runes most of the time, because decision to slot them in gear can feel very wrong with a loot at trade site following day. "Oh, I have balanced out my resistances! What do we have for a chest upgrade... a chestpiece with total 60% lightning res? It looks very good, but I would have to replace 3 of my gear pieces for fit it in... dang it, I shouldn't have put these runes in after all!"

As Kripparion mentioned in his review, overleveling does barely anything currently - it feels like progression relies 80% on gear, 10% on skills and 10% on levels. It's definitely a skill issue, and we should be comfortable to finish act3 in magic gear with some 3-mod rares. But it felt like ass to me. So definitely skill issue was at play. :)

### Feedback point #7: To ease the currency deficiency, I propose that we get 1 regal shards for rare items with 3-4 mods, 2 regal shards for 5-mod items and 3 regal shards for 6-mod items. Also 2 transmutation shards for 2-mod magic items.

### Feedback point #8: I feel like belts should have more charm slots depending on item level, and not on Suffix (!!!) mod. That pool is heavily bloated as it is.

### Feedback point #9: While on the topic of gear - I'd like it if when using Essences on items, we could see a list of mods that are able to roll - no tiers, no range, no odds. Just a list of what hides under "Fire" tag when using Essence of Flames on rings, or "Physical" when using Essence of Torment on chests. I suggest it's something that shows when pressing [Alt] key.

Attribute requirements feel very steep. It's hard to pick all passive nodes in the area at the same time as fulfilling requirements for wearing gear and skills.

Ring (resistance ones) and amulet drops feel too rare.

### Feedback point #10: It's hard to fulfill chaos res requirement with Amethyst rings giving 7-13 percent point less chaos res than in PoE1, while elemental rings retain 20-30 value. Please buff Amethyst rings back to 17-23, or lower amount of Chaos damage coming out in batches in maps. Jump from 23% to 41% chaos resistance made me feel 2x as tanky, something that armour and evasion increase (especially the biggest spike via Wind Dancer reservation skill) didn't do.


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The end, thank you for reading it!

PS. I'm sure I forgot many points I was very hyped about yesterday, and earlier, but I already spent 2 hours typing it all out, and I want to play some more before sleep. ;)