Are spells just bad right now?
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I've played a couple of ethical spellcasters now and they are mostly kind of bad. I've avoided doing things that are obviously overpowered right now, like archmage. I played a chaos infernalist with hexblast + despair + contagion and it is just extremely underwhelming when running demon form with the 10 stack limit.
I played a Chronomancer with pure fire spells and it was just awful, easily the worst build so far. Flameblast and Ember Fusillade were the best spell by far, but Flameblast is so ridiculously clunky and you get it so late you have to beat the entire game with Fusillade. Solar Orb does literally zero damage, and Flamewall does no damage. I tried converting it to use arc, comet, ball lightning, and firestorm and the only spell that makes a dent is comet. I also made a Stormweaver based on exposure which has been quite good on the other hand. I am playing frost bomb, ball lightning, and solar orb, and with the exposure even the Ball Lightning does decent damage and the Elemental Storms do pretty well. But so far anything I have tried that doesn't rely on some trick like exposure acendancies seem extremely underwhelming. Are spells just really that underwhelming now without doing archmage or being carried by raging spirits etc? I feel like until you get at least a +4-6 spell skill staff/wand+focus it's almost unplayable. Last bumped on Jan 7, 2025, 6:15:55 AM
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Currently using Spark + Orb of Storms + Mana Tempest to melt everything on my Infernalist and that isnt even the bast class or ascendancy for it. Also ive seen some videos of some crazy fireball and comet builds. + to spells is important but i definitely wouldn't say its unplayable without +4-6 even though i have found quite a few + to skill items in the shops as i was leveling. but who am i to say why dont you try leveling the warrior for a while to gain some new perspective.
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Literring + to gems levels like candy makes no sense and forces them to balance around it.
Any wand staff focus amulet etc that can roll it and doesnt is instantly garbage. Guess it makes price checking easy. They removed so much power from the tree and slapped it on gear its honestly insane. Took life off tree and let gear roll nearly 200. |
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Lotta spells do seem pretty mid or worse no matter what I've tried. The game's limits can make it difficult to get any power out of many of them.
My main is a 10-stack infernalist with sparks/flame wall/raging spirits. Stacked shock magnitude and added fire/lightning exposure. Seems pretty good so far at t6-7 maps. Certainly not overpowered. RS only serves to add fire exposure and keep ignite up. I get 51% shock and it hasn't ended up being nearly as good as I thought it would be. Everything else I've tried has been very bad and/or not fun. Fireball with Wildshards and Unleash is insane when Wildshards procs but it drops my fps to like 3 for several seconds while the screen fills with fireballs lol. Damage is only good because of the sheer number of projectiles if there are a lot of walls nearby. Otherwise Fireball has been mostly dogwater. |
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This has been my experience too, I badly want spell options that can compete besides frostwall abuse and archmage spark spam.
The idea that fireball or ember fusillade should hit like a spell 10 levels lower is insane. If fireball actually designed to be the primary way to interact with frostwall then its just confusing. I get the semi-viable flameblast can work, but its soooo clunky and still hits for 1/20th its peers at the same gear levels. Ignite as a whole (so bad compared to the power it has in poe1) with flameblast needs some dream-logic to achieve worthwhile dots including some funky mechanics making orbs do zero damage and mobs to be otherwise untouched. I get its EA - but come on, all the other classes have multiple viable endgame choices and solid interactions. Chronomancer can't even abuse extra exposure and double shocks to pad those atrocious numbers. |
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try leveling a warrior solo for the first time without buying any equipment or following any build guides then you'll gain some perspective.
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No, your build is just bad.
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" Warrior is a lot better baseline than spells are. Spells are only good if you have some kind of trick to make them good, like mana tempest, exposure stacking, or archmage. |
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" What can you do to really push it?! Mana stacking with archmage sure, Fireball rng-shotgun and stuff like that. It is something at least. But compared what to you can pull off with really cracked weapons, spells seem to be rather limited for the most part. If they were to give cast on x another balance-pass more spell builds could get better power scaling - i think. I made my fire based build (Incinerate) work pretty well with "only" +7 to spells (dual wield with sceptre). But it is by no means amazing - compared to what other builds can pull off. It is a shame, since i really like the playstyle though. Last edited by Alopex81#5818 on Jan 6, 2025, 5:49:55 AM
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" I dunno, i pull of some pretty crazy stuff with my incinerate build. Even after the meta-gem nerf i have to be careful it doesnt consume 6x my mana pool in a second and kill me from infernal flame. It's definitely no archmage, but clears a t15 juiced breech very nicely. "Beidat honored the pact, though Mancy wouldn't take off Doryani’s prototype."
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