General Feedback - campaign/mapping/witchunter

Hi,

Time for some feedback, since this time is most likely changes to happen before full release. I will give a feedback based on my 140hrs played since the launch and reaching level90. I played as witch hunter so it may be skewed towards the class balance (more about it later) and campaign progression might not be the case anymore due to changes.



Campaign.
-One word: Painful. This most likely is not the case anymore due to some changes in drop rates. But lets go anyway. The areas are too big and without movement speed it takes too long. Most of the time is just walking then killing, extending the required time disproportionately. Boots with movement speed just didn't exist. I only got a 10% with mediocre stats by the end of the act 3 normal.

-Additionally almost no rare gear dropped, or tools to make them (alchs and regals), this means you also severally undercap in resists for the whole campaign, meaning is just one shot fiesta in some cases, making you walk even more. Runes are suppose to fix that, however gear with sockets (in order to dismantle) didnt drop at all. I think i manage to make 1 artificer orb by the end of act2.

-Regarding to damage, on Witchunter/mercenary use the basic crossbow shot was a bigger dps than any other skill mercenary had for some reason. Gold drops are not enough to buy gear from NPC.

-Icons in the global map are too faint, in some case it mask with the background. Find the main city location is not visually marking (specially on act 2 which keeps moving)

-Waypoints are not properly balanced around the map. In one case I found 2 next to each other.

Crafting.
-The current state of crafting is: there is no crafting. You are forced to indentify hundreds of rare bases in the hopes you get something good then slam exalts. Maybe use a chaos orbs for trying again (often resunting in a brick of the item).

-Essence crafting is a two step process, however you cant sufficiently farm greater essences to have any practical applications. And since it can roll any tier of the mod, it just not worth the cost of them (maybe slightly increase the drop rate). I loved the concept of the vaal orbs in poe2, as they have way better odds than poe1, and resulting in 3socket weapon can lead to huge improvement in damage. It also removes bases from the game, which is good for the economy. It also creates the possibly of items better than "mirror tier" ones.

Endgame mapping.
- In the begining it was nice. However as you approach the higher tier maps you start to become waystone starved. The only way to sustain is chassing boss nodes. But sometimes you would drop to t12 maps, because you just didnt drop any higher tier maps. And this just feels bad ( i had the my atlas speced for waystones drops + rares, and was just not enough). The effect of dying in any map is extremelly punishing, specially if happens ealier, as you also lose the potential of any other waystones to drop in order to sustain mapping.

- Watchstowers are a waste of waystone. you are better of just putting a tier 1 map there, since they dont have the same ammount of monsters, meanting reduced chance to drop another waystone. Reducing waystone sustain. Also why i have to enter it blind eveysingle room? If i was not range i would just die, but at least i can stay in the back and home that the shots that go through kill the mobs?

- After you clear the map you more often than not trying to find that stray rare that is hidden in the corner. This feels extremelly bad when is a linear map, making you waste 2min just walking. Maybe create a system where the rare teleports in the vicinity of the player (maybe 2-3screen away) when there is less than 50 mobs in the screen?

- The concept of +1 tier of maps bosses is interesting. However it creates some problems, specially the mod gain life as es, which for some reason, similarly to poe1 it gets scales by defense. This create a extremelly taking boss. Maybe turn it down this mod? Additionlly if the boss have invurability phases and you cant break the ES before thoose phases happens means you just cant kill it, and just a bricked fight.

- Ground effects are huge problem, and for some reason there are more grounds effects in poe2 than on poe1. Additionlly the visibility work on them poe1 was not done in poe2. Some of them do not have sounds or are extremelly hard to see.

- The ilumination system of the game is amazing, however it does bring some problems regarding playability. For example in Decay map, you cant not see monsters that are far away from your character. This leads to situations where you do not have enough reaction time to dodge some abilities from monsters. I often had to increase the brightness to max in those maps in order to properly see what is happening and not die.

- Regarding dodging monsters abilities, some are extremelly overtuned. For example the monsters with crossbows. If you are not constantly moving you will get hit and just die. Another example is vulture jump-slamming you outside of screen. This attack is aoe meaning that you can hardly dodge, which leads to stun, giving for the other vultures in the pack to kill you.

-The map variaty isnt great. It feels you are often repeating the same 10-12 maps over and over again. The special maps are located near the stone/copper/iron citadels and bring a fresh air to the mapping experience. However they are just too rare to create the variety.

-The experience penality between player level and area level is too abrupt. Running a T15(+1) and T14(+1) at lvl 90 felt like to harsh since when at lvl 89 it felt about the same ammount of experience

Now about endgame mechanics:

-Expedition, no problem with that since it allows a methodical use of explosives which is good on poe2. However logbooks imo are rare.

-Ritual: death machine. Due to maps being more intricate, it leads to situations where you dont have to run. And since the respaw rate of monsters appears to equal to poe 1 you just die. Also it heavily chaos based. So if you dont have chaos resist you just die.

-Breach: Same as poe1, getting swarmed by mobds. If cant clear 2 screens away, you are surronded and stun locked to death.

-Delirium: Same as poe1. My only problem is the mirror: why the mobs have to push you back everytime?



Passive tree.

-At least in the mercenary area it felt it extremlly weak when compared to ranger side. The nodes for crossbows / grenades are manly used to fix the class deficiencies.

-Regarding damage there is alot of generic damage scalling for projectiles, which is good. My grievence is regarding the defensive aspect of it.
-Why ES builds get nodes with 40% increased ES, and life based builds get only one node with 3% increase?

-Regarding armour/evasion nodes: the small nodes are better than the notables, since they give unconditional armour/evasion increase. While notables give stuff like when on "low life". Meanwhile ranger side get 30% increase evasion notables + additional effects? The same problem happens with only armour nodes, which are conditional.

-There is close to none life regeration on the tree, and the ones that exist are so small that you can even sustain burning ground. I am not asking to be able to afk a boss fights. But at least let me recover life between each pack of monsters without using a flask. (which ES builds can do since recovery exist)

-Leech is a problem, since it sonely for physical damage, it means that any inate converrsion on the skill itself means its a nerf to leech. Investing on it do not look great either.

-Attribute starving is nice, since on poe1 is not a problem. But here you have to plan around it.


Trials.
-Ascending the 3rd and 4th time is painful.

-The 3rd time will be most likely be fixed with the release of the missing acts. However the 4th is the worse one

-Sekema means you have get a full relic set in order to even have chance to reach the final boss. The final boss is problem. If you dont have the 40% movement speed boon and 30% boon you are not clearing the one shot mechanic.

-Blink, helps there, but since it has a high int requirement, means it cant be use by the lower part of the tree classes.

-Additionally the boss have too much hp when compared to bosses from previous floors.

-Ultimatum is not even worth trying since you have to collect all fragments, in order to have a chance the fight the trial master


Mercenary skills.

-Crossbows skills are severly problematic.

-Grenades sounds great on paper however, due to its delayed damage it makes them impractical during mapping. Flash grenade was better clearing tool then explosive grendade due to the shorter fusing time. The bosses move too much since they chase you (since you have to move in order to not get damage) . Which cause the grenades to miss. This lead to a situation where you can only reliable use them when the enemy was stunned. Also why they have to fall off on bridges? Thematically is a nice physical concept, but in practice is just dps loss?

-Ballistas are useless. Their basic life and resists are too low. They basicly get one shot by eveything single aoe boss attack. For some reason drawn so much more agroo then the player.

-Reload is interessting mechanic, however have to be improved. It has to reload while dodge rolling. Passive tree has to give way bigger values of faster reload. Even at 0.5s it feel bad. Additionally it should cancel when you get stunned (which is quite often), which could lead to situations where you are stun locked in a reload animation, unable to attack, while other enemies are attacking you.

-Lack of offhand similar to bows. The crossbows have a similar dps than two handed melee weapons. However this is due to inflated attack speed value. Which is almost meaningless when using grenades, due to fuse time, and for bolt attacks it has to not consider the reload time. Idea of offhand: a poacher to increase the effects of grenades / bolts, giving reduce fuse time or increased reload speed?


More specific details
-Armour piercing rounds: gas grenade with corrosion is just better.

-Fragmentation rounds: you are not freezing bosses, and no cold scaling in the bottom part of the tree

-Permafrost Bolts: No cold scalling near the tree,

-Explosive grenade, fuse time too long. Cluster Bomb notable in grenade builds. which makes them even worse.

-High velocity rounds: No point in using outside of broken armour. And even during broken armour is just 2x multiplier

-Incendiary rounds: why it even exist?

-Flash grenade: good

-Rapid shot: It takes too long start firing. And the heat decrease rate is too fast. You lose 3-4 while firing a grenade.

-Galvanic shards: good because you can travel ranger side of the tree for lightning scaling.

-Ripwire balista: doesnt pin enemies fast enough to be used before being surrounded

-Explosive bolt: can be used as main skill since explosion can kd enemies and one shot packs.

-Glacial bolt: no cold scalling

-Artillaly ballista: will miss any target that moves.

-Stormblast bolds. Takes too long to set up during mapping. Getting 9 bolts off before triggerign takes too long due to the 50% less reload speed.

-Oil grenade. Not usefull during mapping, since scaling burning damage is hard on bottom half the tree. Slowing isnt good when you can just stun with flash grenades

-Hailstorm Rounds: again no cold scaling on the tree.

-Shockburst: good scaling on damage setup (requiring enemy to be shocked)

-Emergy reload: CD too high. Would be interesting if also increased the clip size.

-Siege cascade: the damage scaling on conditional is too low. Also in the preview video is missing to hit the slow moving zombies. It will never hit a faster moveable target.

-Plasma blast: being impossible to reduce the 2s charging time with attack speed just feels bad. It should be 100% conversion instead instead of 70%

-Cluster grenade: takes too long to trigger secondary explosions. Damage too low.


Whichhunter - Ascendecy nodes.

-Pitless Killer - revert the decision on cull about being checked before the hit. On unique monsters is only 5%, however here you do enough hits that you dont feel the impact. However in white mobs is basicly useless, since its 30% there. In white mobs you either one shot or two hits. Meaning that the cull hardly takes effect.

-Judge, Jury, Executioner - No comments here. It delivers what it promises

-Zealous Inquisition - It feels great when it happens. However is that chance to occur is really low. I personally would rather have a lower %life damage and %higher proc. A 30% chance to proc with 25% of life damage would feel better (despite lower combined damage from 10% to 7.5%). Also it appears it doesnt scale with AoE modifiers.

-Obsessive Rituals - 50% penality is too harsh. Specially it affects the value the shield will have. I had rather have a lower penally and a lower %amour/evasion contribute to shield value. Otherwise you just destroy any mitigation against physical damage and multiple attacks.

-Cerimonial Ablution - No comments. Maybe buff it by giving more armour/evasion instead Ward effect, to compensate the 50% less from previous node, that way you dont need to give Ward effect directly, because of oppurtunity cost with the other 4pointer passives.

-Weapon Master - There is almost no situation where you use it, due to the way damage is scaling. You want focus on 1 damage type. Being on south side of the passive tree means you have access to lightning and fire damage. Meaning that scaling cold damage is out of question. Armour doesnt interact any way with fire or lightning damage. Same for Ligthing damage. Maybe in the future with the release of other weapon types and skill (such as spear) make it better.