Why (I think) does the passive tree in PoE 2 feel worse

While I don't think that characters in poe 2 are currently underpowered, it's only a matter of some builds unfortunately. While deadeye can wipe everything from the face of the earth with nothing (almost), a blood mage / just other skills, can be feels significantly worse. In poe 1 this was largely solved with the passive skill tree, but in poe 2 the design has changed and I feel like it's significantly killed the variety and viability of many builds.

So, while it might be silly to compare both trees head-on because the games are different, the reason people feel a tree is "bad" is because we have something to compare it to. The tree from Poe 1 really has significant flexibility, which is hard to deny, so let's see why using the examples given above.

Also, I think many have already noticed that at the moment the most effective tree in PoE 2 is to take all jewel sockets in a circle. People do this for three reasons:

1. At the moment, the small passive nodes on the tree are too weak. (We will talk about this in a bit)

2. This way you get a lot of stats (dex/int/str) that are currently strictly limited, and 99% of builds do not work without them.

3. Jewels give you a lot of useful stats and also have synergies, and often have properties that are not found anywhere else on the tree.

Now, let's compare the start nodes of the monk from Poe 2 and the robber from poe 1 head-on. For what purpose - we'll discuss a little later:

Small Node:

Poe 1 - 12% increased Damage + 10 maximum energy shield
Poe 2 - 10% increased Attack Damage

Medium Node:
Poe 1 - 20% increased Damage + 20% crit chance + 10dex and 10int
Poe 2 - 5% extra damage + 30% Chance to shock


Why do nodes feel worse in Poe 2:


First of all, these are, of course, the chances of alignment and sustain. Things like mana regen and stun/threshold take up a lot of points on the tree. It's can be very useful for certain builds because the game is mana-challenged, but they also feel forced due to sustain limitations. In PoE 1, your mana issues were solved by leeching, allowing you to not invest so much in that area and make more complex builds. Builds like Cast On Crit Ice Nova are fundamentally unplayable without mana leeching in PoE 1.

In PoE 2 the resource is intentionally limited, and much more so (which fits into the design philosophy and there is no point in arguing with it) - however this also means the loss of more "interesting" nodes on the tree, and the appearance of those that people often call "useless" or "weak".

While PoE 1 has at least 4 clusters on the tree for daggers, PoE 2 has only one cluster, and the same goes for other weapon types. Although PoE 2 obviously has more weapon types - it seems like quite a lot of space on the tree is taken up by the above points.

On average, nodes in poe 2 seem to give fewer numbers and, importantly, have fewer stat lines, which feels worse even when the total benefit from the node is greater. Stats like shock/ignite chance also feel weak, because most builds either already have enough chance or would simply prefer damage.

Parameters like shock/chill duration are very abstract, and also feel useless for many builds, since most of the time you reapply these aliments and they never wear off the boss (normal enemies will die first). The same goes for the buildup - I think nodes that just give a buildup should also get at least 5% damage, so that the player feels less abstract about the benefit of using them.


Some general nerfs and no "exclusive" points:

1. In poe 1, a bow cluster gives you +1 projectile. In poe 2, it's +1 pierce, which in poe 1 would be a one small node.

2. Things like the chance to avoid aliments have been removed, which is by design, but it still makes the game less flexible. At this point in the endgame, it's already known that you can't just dodge all monsters with the spacebar, so stats like that would be useful.

3. Resistances have also been largely removed from the tree, which isn't a huge issue at the moment since items have very few suffixes without the influence mechanic, and thus you can gain resistances from items. However, this could become an issue in the future, especially if you want to use a lot of unique items that currently have almost no stats.

4. Some other mechanics, which do not yet have an analogue in PoE 2 (but I'm sure they will appear) like hit an additional enemy when hitting with a strike skills.


Conclusion: despite the change in design direction, at the moment in the endgame Poe 2 is a copy of Poe 1 with less content and the same problems. Many of these issues, such as lack of speed, lack of player resources, lack of defense/one shots - are solved in PoE 1 by a comprehensive build approach based on the passive skill tree.

In my opinion, within the genre and established gameplay, they cannot be changed by changing the mechanical gameplay, since some of the Dark Souls rules simply do not work in games similar to even PoE 2. It is enough to open a breach on a high map to understand why this is so - in Dark Souls you meet on average 1-2 opponents in clearly verified places, and you can technically defeat them while naked, because every fight on the location is calculated and directed.

In PoE 2, the density of opponents is much higher, as well as their speed, which is expected within the genre; at the moment, all (without exaggeration, all) the best builds in the game are builds that kill monsters before they kill you.

Builds that don't have such speed are physically unable / have a hard time moving beyond t7-t8, as mentioned by Kripparian, for example. In my opinion, in this situation, we should not limit strong builds, but give weak builds more opportunities to scale and develop.

I had to leave my blood mage because, contrary to the design of the Ascendancy, I couldn't scale health enough and was killing myself every time when i cast. With the big tools on the tree (regeneration, general reduction spell cost) - I could have sacrificed damage (for example) to fix this problem, but now I can't.

If this is part of the design, I fear that over time the meta will turn into the Diablo 4 meta, where there are a few incredibly strong builds that are obvious to everyone, and everything else builds is either completely unplayable, or makes no sense, or has only one use case. In my opinion, this will kill everything that made Poe 1 and any other Arpg so grate, but that's just my feedback.