Early Endgame feedback - Solo and Duo

I finally got to the endgame and I am enjoying it. I won't comment on Cruel difficulty as it is not to stay, I'll only say it felt a full staircase down difficulty-wise compared to the first playthrough.

Important note
I did not use trade, I know it exist but... right now it feels clunky (I only have one screen, I have to parse through a list and also then cannot actually use the orbs to craft, which I am enjoying so far as it feels way more rewarding than buying "into" an upgrade) and I am enjoying the game enough that I don't want to interrupt my session.

How am I faring in the endgame?
I ran a little over 70 maps. Now in Tier 7-8 and working my way to a pool of Tier 9. Warbringer lvl 79.

Discrepancy campaign-endgame
Am I enjoying the Atlas as much as the campaign? Yes and no. The campaign (A1-3 first difficulty, at least) made me feel rewarded with great bosses, tough fights. Some fights are unfair (I hate that drowning bubble), but 90% of the time, I liked being engaged in a fight and having to think about how to approach a situation.
In the Atlas, I started mashing keys (mostly one) without thinking much, with my good gear from level 35 or so and a few pieces from higher levels... and had few to no problems in lower Tier maps. I feel powerful and that's great, but I seldom feel challenged.
Weirdly enough, there were very few bosses in maps. Like super few. And whenever I encounter bosses it feels... less "on the edge" than in the campaign? I mean, I appreciate the feeling of power that I have but overall I feel less rewarded by bosses. Less rewarded in my mind (this one was easier than I remembered during the campaign kind of feeling, but not because my knowledge of the game and boss mechanics went up, just because my numbers went up) and less rewarded than killing tons of rare in terms of loot (more on that later)

The one button build meme - thoughts over the skills
Am I playing a one button build? No. Should I? Yes.
- Shockwave totems could tear all content for me. Pretty much. They can generate their own Jagged Ground for some reason and that... makes comboing not such a mandatory thing?
They allow me to play "melee" without taking any risk, tank for me and provide buffs with the Warbringer ascendancy, break armour, stun... They feel amazing.
Now, why am I going in melee range myself with other skills? Because it feels good. It is most likely suboptimal but as I said in a previous post: I enjoy the dual specialisation and getting to have totems AND fight myself feels awesome.
- I easily use Earthquake, it creates Jagged Ground for the first totem slam and offers a good layer of complementary damage, especially in Rituals or with Essences. Earthquake feels good and I like the delay on it. It makes it feel like it has weight. Although, I am wondering how to use the 4 Jagged ground patches from the skill. I got up to 3 and they cover the entire screen, pretty much (cannot put down the 4th in time). Fine... but quality adds up to +2, and putting 6 patches down when they cannot overlap seems difficult. Needless to say, this quality modifier did not make me want to level up Earthquake's quality. Should there be a build that ever achieves this, I would bet it'd still be not so useful.
- The almighty Boneshatter. Click it when a head glows: clears a pack (provided one uses "Impact shockwave" with it). As simple as that. No need to even multiply its damage that much. I like that it has this really strong condition to it being so powerful. One weird effect of scaling stun/getting more damage as one levels up is that it gets trickier to use Boneshatter as monsters get stunned so fast. Still useful and great to get away from those horde monster types.
- Stampede feels great and clunky at the same time. I like charging in and I use it to build a nice stun meter when entering (plus erupting its Jagged Ground from time to time with the SW totems). One weird thing: the Jagged ground erupts after the landing (as it should be) and disappears (despite stating it stays 6 seconds). I need to do some more testing on this...
One silly thing. I cannot jump above enemies with this? Really? Also I am getting blocked or sidetracked by the tiniest of obstacles or monsters, which makes it feel way less powerful than it looks. Great for traversal of chilled ground as its speed is affected only by the ground it started on and is not affected by the chilled ground during its run phase (in case it's not supposed to work like that, now you know). If started on chilled ground, it's chilled for the whole duration of the run... which is not fun (roll out of it, I know).
- Armour Breaker is my go to "I won't use it myself" skill. Mind you, it breaks a ton of armour and that's why it's on my Ancestral totem. Using it myself though? It feels clunky. Click, do not fully break the armour and... repeat like I am hammering nails into this ONE monster (that's literally what the animation feels like, which is a great animation for a single blow, but not when repeated over and over). Also the knockback, although it can be useful, does not feel great with this repetitive striking. Have to try this skill with the "Cultist greathammer" though. Wondering how the splash does with it.
- Do I need to specify anything about Ancestral Warrior Totem? It is a great "Armour Breaker" carrying whatchamacallit. I tried with Earthquake (you know, creating Jagged Ground aplenty) but it did NOT feel good. Anyway, great totem, not as good as my 360° bestie shockwave totem.
- Not forgetting the Mace Strike (2-handed). Throwing in 2-3 of those to get the rage up feels nice. Compared to all the fissures, slams, eruptions and things that tear the ground apart... it is a drop of calm in an ocean of ruckus and that feels relaxing to just swing from time to time.
- I gave up on Perfect Strike despite liking it a lot. Going for physical damage all the way, so had to let go of it. Sometimes I missed despite my mouse hovering over the monster I wanted to hit - by missed, I don't mean the monster evaded (not like they could), I mean my character did the strike next to the monster, air-swinging if you will. Not often but it happened enough that I noticed it.
- Replaced by Hammer of the Gods and... it looks great, sounds great and for all that wind up... does a good amount of damage but that somehow feels underwhelming. I know it's with just 3 supports now so it's bound to get better, but hey... just telling you it feels like for such a hefty hammer it seems to only tickle the HP bar of rare monsters.
- Almost forgot! Seismic cry. I deal enough damage that it feels more like a tool to knockback by now than to actually up my damage. I don't really feel like I need it and actually barely use it. Sometimes, I'll see a stunned target and use it but does it help with my DPS? At least it does not feel like it makes a huge difference. But maybe it is because I have yet to double the tickles of the Hammer of the Gods.

The great
- I love exploring the Atlas. Seeing, the fog lift after a tower completion, trying to find a "juiced" way into extremely juiced maps (i.e. with many modifiers).
Sparking curiosity whenever I see something I have not seen before. I remember my first Spider Woods and it feels a bit special.
- The Atlas tree is easy to understand and not overwhelming. That feels so great!
Getting the most out of the maps does not feel so difficult: put a tablet, try to overlap them a few times, traverse with a good waystone where the list of modifiers goes on and on.
- I have more time to cap my resistances than in PoE1.
- There are stakes for dying (more on that later).
- I have a great friend, so I have a great time. Although we did not plan for it at all, we still managed to have a few combos together (mostly based around armour break). Team play feels nice and we find ourselves enjoying the duo action... more on that later though.
- The Delirium / Expedition / Ritual and Breach encounters are nice.
- Visuals and ambiance are top notch.

The frustrations of coop play
- One of us dies... I knew before starting the Atlas one could not be revived in maps BUT... it sucks. I am here to play with my friend and sitting there doing nothing is NOT playing with my friend. As mentioned above: I love the consequences, the stakes. Why can't you put consequences to reviving a mate in maps? It feels bad abandoning a team mate but it feels bad giving up on a map while your character is still alive. The worst solution to that you could come up with is kicking out all characters whenever one dies, so please don't do that =)
I left PoE1 because coop was subpar there and I'd like for PoE2 to have a much better experience in this regard. If I want to play alone, I'll play a solo game.
- When I choose a map on my Atlas, my friend has no clue where we're going nor what my Atlas looks like. We cannot look at the Atlas together to decide what to do next. Sitting in the hideout waiting to be told: "we go there" is not really the best experience ever.
- Visual clutter is bonkers. My totems make the entire screen go "boom" every second or less. So yes... we die to things we did not see coming from time to time. And that gets worse with the elemental skills (rerolling with that to get that campaign feeling again).
- Only the party host can open a map in the guild hideout. It's quick to change, I know, but still annoys me. Restrictions in a personal hideout... fine. In a guild hideout for guild members? Including officers? and the guild master?
- Maybe just a feeling but it has now been several times that my friend and I realise we drop more waystones when going in solo. I have not made stats on this so I cannot back this claim.
- Ascension trials are not thought out for coop play at all. Host dies? Done. You may still be alive and well, but you cannot continue.
Also the character that launches the Sekhema's trial looses honour when their team-mates loose honour? That seems weird to me. Maybe that has been fixed but we decided not to run the trials as a group. Good thing there though: we can see what options are available to the host, contrary to the Atlas. Different builds have different needs and that makes it really difficult in some cases to choose modifiers (especially the Sekhema ones that deny one defense type - armour or evasion). I don't know whether I like this or not.

Things that get boring after a while
Sadly, yes.
- Number 1, by far: the Towers. I did this layout with NOTHING in it ten times or more and will do so far more often than I'd like if it stays in its current state. A bit more variety would be welcome.
- Way less of a hassle but it's always "kill all rares + boss". Since failing a map is not an option anymore, could there be a way to up the stakes of a map by taking more difficult completion tasks?
- Maps, maps, maps... 1 logbook. Baryas and Ultimatums do not count. I like maps, I really do, but I am not sure I'll get to the end if I have to do only maps before I get to something else.
- Map variety. There are plenty of map types, rest assured, but getting 3 Savannah maps in a row that I want to run, not because it is Savannah but because they have received tablets aplenty... I know I could do a different one with... little to no modifiers. Or the juicy Savannah... Pick your poison. I already feel like I have seen too many times the same maps. Augury, Savannah, Vaal Factory, Blooming Fields. Finding a new map type appears to be a rare event. I need to grind through 4-5 maps that I know to get to that "Decay" map that I've never done. And then again, it'd be a vanilla "Decay".

Bits and pieces on difficulty among other things
- Maps are easier than I thought they would be. I barely need to approach monsters carefully.
- My flasks are always full. I have no nodes linked to flasks on my passive tree soooo... I feel like something is wrong? I know there were big changes on flasks (from 5 to 2 and that's great) but... I just don't feel like there really is a "pressure" on flask charges. Maybe in some boss fights? But I never struggled (apart from the flask charge drain mod).
- Maps are huge and feel "empty". There are monster packs, sure. But if I do not have an "activity" on top of it (Ritual / Expedition / Delirium...) I seldom encounter a thing that sparks a "something happened" moment.
- I am 10 levels over the trials and still am having trouble running them. I get that having my 5th and 6th ascendancy points would give me a lot of power (not that I feel like I need it though) but... wow sekhema's is brutal (although I did not try with adjustments made in 0.1.0d). By the way... why do Sekhema's offer points way before Chaos' (in endgame that is)?
- I feel like Evasion characters are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to defense. Everything is fine for them until it isn't. And I know there must be ways to circumvent this problem but still, I see my friend's character getting OSd quite often whenever a phys hit comes through.
- One map boss ruins my day every single day: Savannah boss. It's a OneShot machine. All others I have done, I have been fine with but this hyena is killing me over and over. There is definitely a skill issue on my side, I could dodge the big hits better... But there is a Oneshot issue as well? I'll let you be the judge of that.
- Physical corpse explosion from the "Mastodon plains" casters is brutal. Fine for a beefy boy with armour but the Evasion sprout is not taking it so easily.

Loot, rewards, craft vs. just buy stuff
My personal tastes lean more towards a "Guild self found" type of gameplay. I like exchanging stuff from time to time to really cover a need for a build. But I wanted to experience a bit of "self found" (just not solo =p).
- Crafting is good during the campaign and gets less so in early endgame. Why? I know the options for crafting exists (essences, omens) but I lack them. So I go blindfolded with old school orbs and... well you know how it goes: bad. I started integrating some essences as they are quite easy to come by. It's not even like I ditch items when they aren't top tier. I am not looking for perfection, I am looking 10-20% better than my current gear.
- Ritual, Delirium, Expedition, Bosses and Breach feel lackluster. The encounters are great, that I already said, but the rewards are... frustrating? Once more, I am not looking for perfection. I am just looking for that 10-20% upgrade or even potential upgrade... after all, using Exalts is now a thing we can do.
Ritual: there are item bases there I have given up on 20 levels ago. I did find my +4 to melee gems there for my totem setup though... so it gets the least frustration.
Delirium: how much "Ire" is there in Wraeclast for it to total more drops than all other emotions combined? I also downed "fear incarnate" and that did nothing?
Breach: are there drops specific to this? Ah yes! The quality thing for rings... That's fine, I guess. I have done a few and the xp is good at least.
Expedition: the drops are fine when it comes down to the amount of artifacts. What I can buy with those artifacts, though... it never really tickled my crave for crafting.
Bosses: nothing specific to them and things do drop... but for an event so rare (having a boss on a map), no drops from a boss ever caught my attention. I got more Tier 3 items from rares than bosses, more tablets, more waystones... something seems wrong.
- Crafting over buying: the choice boils down to that. I should have stashed all those exalts and bought a better weapon. That would have been more efficient than wasting what must be 20+ exalts on (endgame) crafts by now. Why do I do it? It feels more rewarding to me. Buying an upgrade would be like arriving at destination without having journeyed.
- I enjoy the flow of crafting. Magic with 2 good / OK mods, then regal. A bad regal? You could Chaos, but is the item worth it? Good regal? then Exalt. Simple and efficient.
- The weird non-adaptibility of runes. I thought they were to cover for weaknesses in one's build and yet we cannot change them (even at a price or with an orb or whatever). I'd understand for soul cores, as they're thematically corrupted so... well makes sense not to be able to remove them.

Conclusion
I have mixed feelings about the endgame. I enjoy it but at the same time, I realise it is already slightly getting on my nerves. I think about the fact that I'll have my umpteenth tower, that I want to go to a map I have not done 10 times over, but for that I have to do maps I have actually done 10 times over.
Also there is a gap in gameplay between the campaign and the Atlas and I kinda preferred the more methodical gameplay of the campaign. The maps feel more hazy, quick and not prone to thoughtfulness. I feel powerful and I like it but when I look at my gear I see room from improvements, even slight ones. I am making efforts to craft that improvement, but I'd like to have more tools to help at an earlier stage.
I'll try and get to those pinnacle bosses though. For once I feel like I can do it.

An idea for coop play, do what you will with it:
A guild shared Atlas that could be accessible only via the guild hideout. I have not thought of all the problems this could bring with it... but I still think it would make the coop people like me much more inclined to play your game.
Also... guild stuff =) This is not like 'guild exclusive content' as it would be the exact same Atlas everyone has.