End game t15 confusion

Ive been playing slower than most, today i did my first T15 map and absolutely destroyed it.
i dont have 4th ascendancy yet, my gear is all up about 15 ex orbs i just looked for cheap 2nd hand gear people were palming off.
ive yet to see a single div orb drop yet. my maps quest is at t6+(2/8)

8K ES with meditate up, res capped, 14k DPS on tempest flurry. my IRL mate got lucky and had the polcirkeln ring drop and gifted it to me. i just exploded everything with Travics guides

ive reforged all the runes i got to make the t15 and didnt get a waystone drop in it so now ive got 1 t5 map i purchased from Doryani. i even had a waystone 20% buff from a tower buff precursor tablet, it was on a boss map...yet no drop
(jamanra in the first play through was by far the biggest challenge this game had)

im just confused as to what is the point of people playing this for 12+ hours a day farming and people buying things from the Chinese bot seller websites when it really wasnt that hard to just get good deals for the ex orbs i got to drop, plus the lucky ring gift (worth 1 div orb)

whats the point in getting better gear when the stuff i used to smash t15 was so easy?
whats the point in having a 4th ascendancy when all the other content isnt a challenge and the 4th ascendancy isnt needed?
i have an ultimatum lvl 10 and havent tried it yet... ive heard its harder than t15 and i should save it until i have some better gear but now im back to a t5 map and the grind to go up maps isnt fun after such bad luck and after doing the top stuff its kinda boring 1 shotting everything

have i missed something, is there more progression?
i know the early access characters will be gone after the release, or benched for most for the fresh start?
why would people play season after season, when as a dad with only a few hours a day at best, and some days (multiple in a row) im unable to play at all, yet ive cleared the highest level tier from simply trading?

can someone explain why im wrong please? surely this cant be it?
why are div orbs so sought after? they arent needed at all. perfect gear isnt needed at all. im just really confused now

i never played poe1, i just been watching (mainly listening along while at work) to youtube vids to get info on ways to be efficient with the limited time i have to play.

id love to know what ive missed

TL:DR what do you do in endgame>?

1. find citadels
2. kill last boss
3. maaaaybe get better gear

repeat 1,2,3

Doing a plain T15 is not an endgame. Doing T15 / T16 with modifiers that punish you + buffs the monsters, adding Breach and Delirium which add even more monsters that can hit you from Brazil or push you back from Canada all the way to Venezuela, and in return giving you "more" loot, is one of the endgame.

Then you have pinnacle bosses that can be scaled up to give the bosses more HP and damage, which in return unlocks a certain unique drop requirement.

Then you have optimizing your build to be able to kill said bosses / clear said waystones safer, faster, even safer and even faster, and eventually you they become cakewalk.

Also, the reason you can do T15 easily is because you most likely don't craft your gear, you buy them. Try to earn your gear by yourself, and you'll see the progression.

And regarding the 4th ascendancy is actually on point and have problems. IF the 4th ascendancy doesn't give that much of power spike, then why gating it behind pinnacle content ? IF the 4th ascendancy tailored around people that on mid to endgame progression, then why the power is not that powerful compared to the efforts ? Why the design of ascendancies was made to have 8 points instead of 6 or 4 or 10 or 12 ?

I agree. I think that game system is horribly wrong if random item for 1ex is much better than anything you ever find on the ground. Loot needs to be much much better than current one, because it's damn useless. The only exciting thing that ever drop is exalt, nothing else. Rarely you might see higher upper cut gem for skill, and maybe jewell for higher link, that's all. Uniques are trash, rares are trash, no base because there's no proper crafting in this game.

For example Diablo 2 from over 20 years ago had: runes, charms, bases, etheral bases for merc, actually good uniques, sets and jewels.

Currently endgame is not finished, it's more like placeholder than actual endgame, that's why there's nothing to do. It's just plain boring, especially towers and rarity of Citadels or lack of pinnacle bosses achievable for most people, without spending hundred hours to just find one, die once and gg. I got bored with end game very quickly and most people have same experience, they will just drop this game and wait for balance patches. Currently even skills are not that exciting, most are useless, builds are focused around just one or two broken ones, while others suck hard.

In PoE1 you had map, you could easily use alchemy and have fun, here alchemy orbs are scarce, you are too poor to use precious exalts on map, it's just not worth it. Nothing is balanced, nothing is fun, just punishing and boring, big maps with ton of backtracking. Crap level design taken from Diablo 4.

I didn't even reach t15, never dropped for me, highest was t13, it wasn't any different than t1 to be honest. Problem is that you drop map mods, not the map itself like in PoE1, so you are forced by atlas to repeat same boring layouts. In PoE1 you could just use Ledge and have fun, here you have claustrophobic narrow horribly design Crypts and Vaults, or bugged maps you can't finish like that lava boss.

if you dont enjoy minmaxing your dps , making your gear top tier , and always finding that one thing that could make your build even better.

you will never truly enjoy POE , at the end of the day , that is what POE is about.

as for the argument game is not hard enough for your build , its not true .
you are just taking baby steps .

use your deli currency to juice the maps , exalt and vaal them .
and take the points that can give you 10 breaches in a map.
then tell me again if its not hard enough.

Ok so i guess maybe this game just isnt for me long term, its dead already IMO

i absolutely loved the idea behind the challenge Jamanra gave me on my first playthrough, maybe they could buff the hell out of the loot in SSF mode and i could just play at my own pace.

My biggest issue with the end game is losing the waystone after a single failure
Mobs can 1 hit you or you 1 hit them, this is just plain old bad game design, no skill required, the dodge roll is hardly used. its just D3/4 all over again

I compared the Jamanra fight to a souls/wukong like type of boss fight where you had to learn the mechanics, lots of attempts, knowing its possible, but its a skill issue. its so rewarding when you finally kill it. massive dopamine hit and sense of accomplishment/achievement

If all the top tier bosses are locked behind "you have 1 attempt or you failed" this isnt fun for anyone. you either outgear it or just lose. no skill required, nothing to learn, forced to watch others failures as a guide to know what youre up against instead of figuring it out through trial and error

With multiple attempts you can take your time, learn it, rage and fail, take a break, come back fresh with new ideas or strats you come up with out of game. This is the pinnacle of any game play. If skill isnt what makes the deciding factor and it just comes down to get XY pixel to make damage XY number and win...who enjoys this? its just brain dead and a treadmill with ridiculous RNG.

The trading market has gimped the game, it completely discourages using the items themselves when for some reason they have more value for a set piece of gear than using it and hoping you get the lucky roll. I havent seen an uppercut skillgem yet either, and the content is a breeze with just 3 support gems on skills. The drop rates are backwards, they could just remove currency altogether and increase the drop rate of 6 stat rares and be done with it. I really dont understand the devs logic behind any of this

I dunno...atleast up until this point its been fun

Reply-

"as for the argument game is not hard enough for your build , its not true .
you are just taking baby steps .

use your deli currency to juice the maps , exalt and vaal them .
and take the points that can give you 10 breaches in a map.
then tell me again if its not hard enough."

again, it isnt about skill, its just making the numbers work so you blow it all up or dont. why anyone finds this fun is just bad at other games.

people say MMOs are for skilless people, this takes it to a whole new level

Maps are a steamroll until double corrupt. Difference between a double corrupt t15 and an alched t15 is significantly greater than t1 to t15.

After double corrupt you start throwing delerium orbs on and thats all you can really do. Delerium is more of a dps check than anything.

It is kinda funny seeing builds on youtube saying they smash t15 or whatever clickbait.

"

BossOfThisGym#2062 wrote:

Maps are a steamroll until double corrupt. Difference between a double corrupt t15 and an alched t15 is significantly greater than t1 to t15.

After double corrupt you start throwing delerium orbs on and thats all you can really do. Delerium is more of a dps check than anything.

It is kinda funny seeing builds on youtube saying they smash t15 or whatever clickbait.

I'm doing that for a while, have 0 issues with difficulty, don't care about map mods, but kinda' lost my motivation to continue. This endless atlas becomes boring when all your upgrades are 10+ divines and you get bad layout every second map.

Map bosses can be juiced up far more than the standard lvl 79 version fount in a t15.

Corrupt maps to get a T16 map, put in a zone that is both irradiated and corrupted, have 8/10 boss killing points assigned in the atlas and that boss is now scaled to lvl 86~