Feedback so far, minionless Bloodmagic Blood mage, using phys spells

Lvl 75 at the time of writing, pretty much playing SSF. Yes, the build is bad, but leech, Im trying to make it work and can't be arsed to farm for a total respec in a game that is in early access. Take that into consideration for the opinions.

Current conclusions:
Too restrictive.
Life sucks, and then you die(and roll ES).
The well is a really stupid idea.
Thank you for finally being able to log into your hideout
I miss alt orbs.


Performance (vulcan):
(played on two machines, a high spec PC (AMD) and a 2017 mid range laptop (Intel+Nvidia))
- mostly fine, hardcrashed once so far
- the loading times are rather excessive (especially the shaders)
- the shaders still loading while you can already move causes issues with invisible spells (this is nothing new), or worse: invisible indicator beam in escape trials
- fps drop hard in hub areas
- fps drop hard on layered ground effects e.g. burning ground + death of a rare in a map
- the spawning-in vortex on floor 2 hourglass trials is especially taxing (I think it's mostly the beetles), on weak machines it lags so hard the server announces the finished trail with seconds on the clock client side
- while we are at it: Dodging server side oneshots clientside adds not only latency, but also FPS concerns into the equation.
- while starting up you can already interact with the menu, even if it isn't shown yet. E.g. when the embers start falling you can hit enter+enter to directly load your last played character

The campaign and leveling:
- one of those range mobs in the first zone can oneshot a char with one salvo, if you are unlucky there are 3+ at the same time
- mob damage overall is way to spiky, especially in act 1 when your options are rather limited
- the zones are way to large for how empty they are, you could half their size and you wouldn't miss anything. Or add more things to find (Kaom's stronghold all over again)
- it's sometimes really hard to tell where you can walk and where you can't without the minimap, especially in the outdoor layouts (this issues persists through the whole game)
- there is an odd obsession with skillgems being marked as secrets on the minimap or being guarded by minibosses, while you generally have no need for more skillgems of the current tier and rather have some rare items instead
- In PoE loot dropped left right and center, and 99% was useless. Now there is 99% less loot, 99% is still useless and there is no crafting. It feels really awful. Im still wearing rings I found in normal
- Boss difficulty is all over the place, in both directions. E.g. the hyena being rather punishing for when you have to fight it, and that sun priest in act3 being a total pushover. Special mention: "I am invulnerable 90% of the time"- Chimera
- the ascendancy trials don't see to be balanced for when you encounter them for the first time. E.g. on my first trial (~lvl22) the first two set of rooms ALL had afflictions.
- being able to pick the stat you want on travel nodes is great, but you don't really have a choice during the campain if you want to use gear and skills appropriate for your level and archetype

Skills and supportgems:
- active skills bringing their own links is great
- pretty much all active skills being tied to specific weapons is AWFUL
- skillgems being upgraded by finding higher level bases which drop tied to zone levels removes the possibility of leveling up a skill to make up for lacking gear that you can't craft
- supports being restricted to one per character while there are so few good ones that don't have downsides or are highly specific kills a lot of build variants
- some supports are really specific to a point where they maybe should have been integrated into the skill itself e.g. as quality
- plus skillevel is the way to go to improve damage for most skills, tieing right into the absurd mana/life costs and stat requirements for higher levels

Skilltree:
- is a bloody mess
- different starting nodes for classes starting in the same location kills the whole "one tree for all classes" design, either let us choose, or just scrap that entirely, the tree is in dire need of a complete overhaul anyway
- those starting nodes railroad classes ab bit too much into specific builds
- there is hardly anything interesting on the tree, except for some keystones
- nodes have downsides, why?
- especially when they are so bloody weak, or mediocre at best
- there are no more life nodes on the tree, and only very weak life regen nodes...while ES has even higher % than back in PoE?
- when you pick bloodmagic you lose half of your flasks, maybe add "you can equip two life flasks, manaflasks are disabled" ?
- currently it might just be the way to get as many gemsockets as possible while picking as many statnodes as possible

Ascendancy (bloodmage):
- the duration of Life Remnants should be outright improved, or at least added to quality
- you only have 6 points to work with, since
- you are forced to waste your first two points to double the cost of your skills while enabeling health pickups close to enemies (Sanguimancy) which can stack up to double your life. Overall most likely a downgrade at that point in the game, and it kind of funnels you into melee range and critical hits. Maybe split the current cost between mana and life, instead of adding the lifecost? If you pick up blood magic you are currently paying twice the lifecost of none-bloodmages.
- Suggestion: Add the 10% life leech into Sanguimancy (drop the "Spell" restriction) and change Vitality Siphon to "you can leech up to your overlife cap". Makes the transition smoother and Vitality Siphon more interesting
- Open Sores is rather random, and I can't see anyone going through Sanguimancy just for that, especially since you are starved for points
- there is no real way to scale life right now, even if you spend 4 points on Grasping Wounds and Crimson Power and own the perfectly rolled ES chest, you'd be much better off not ascending at all
- maybe add something like an inverted Deadeye's Eagel Eyes as a new path, limited to "nearby", to allow for melee attack builds?

Trials of the Sekhemas:
- Affinity isn't working in any direction with the relic stash
- you need a random drop to even start running, and your run can be bricked by an unavoidable set of afflictions, hell, even one of them in extreme cases. This can happen at any point in the run, even when you are over 3 floors deep
- I had a rare spawn right at the chalice before I even activated it, right behind the door
- the way honour works currently, bloodmage is pretty much the worst class for this
- why are aura-rares allowed to spawn in hourglass trials
- why is the animation for the sacred water fountains and shrines so bloody long, can be animationcanceled by rolling and you have to start over again
- id be nice if enemies couldn't, under no instances, enter the maproom
- the current implementation (in both Poe and 2) is convoluted and unintuitive. Highly subjective suggestion: Change it to something more like in Sanctum league. No damage to life/es, only honour, disable all defenses. Everyone has the same honour, only modified by things from the trial itself (relics, boons, afflictions, etc), balance mob/trap damage accordingly. Remove the rares and most of the ranged mobs, add unique enemies with movesets you can learn to work around.

Trials of Chaos:
- same issue with the RNG nature of it dropping and being screwed over by choices that your build can't run, but to a much lesser degree
- the tornado bird is complete fucking bullshit
- the chimera is even more annoying than the campaign version
- there doesn't seem to be a trial for the 3rd ascendancy, or at least none ever dropped for me? The 7 room trials seem to serve no purpose

Maps/Endgame:
- I didn't do all that much there yet, I found the maps currently pretty boring
- there currently doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what mobs spawn in what map
- maps can spawn with hallways too narrow for the mobs to fit through
- they seem to have been way to cautious with the atlas tree nodes, e.g. even when you spec all the essence nodes you hardly seem any(RNG is RNG)
- the atlas seems to be able to create inaccessible nodes (or are there "cracked walls" you have to blow up?)
- I normally play HC so the 1 death per map doesn't really bother me
- Delirium mobs don't spawn corpses, rather ruining my clearspeed
- Rituals seem to be coded to spawn with the least free space available at any given location
- it's pretty hard to see where the expedition chests are
- ....do you have to meet Dannig to get access to the expedition stash, or isn't it in yet?
- you can find logbooks before you have Dannig in your hideout

+1 Great feedback.

I echo 99% of everything you listed.

I'd also add that the PoE 2 Atlas tree is very very boring choice-wise; I hope it's because it's placeholder.

(I'm still very hopeful for the potential of PoE 2 in the coming months.)

- some updates to leveling after starting a new char

+1

I don't agree with everything, but it is a great feedback-post, so giving this a like!