Feedback after multiple (trade) characters

Hey,

Might be a long and boring read, my apologies.

I've made multiple (trade) characters, namely:

Witchhunter 80 (Explosions)
Deadeye 86 (LA + Heralds)
Infernalist 86 (Minions)
Pathfinder 75 (Poison Concoctions)
Pathfinder 93 (Ice Concoctions)

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"

Campaign:

I had a lot of fun during the campaign. I enjoyed all three acts, but Act 1 by far is the most fun one for me. The Executioner scene alone with the chopping block caused quite the stir. Very well executed. The art, graphics, music and sounds were very pleasing. Act 2 was a little confusing on my first character, and being told to use the 'map' and being thrown around to visit areas through that wagon was a little odd. After my first play-through it was no longer an issue, you get a routine. As for Act 3, I enjoyed it, but some areas felt like they were way too long. Some zones felt like they never ended, and in some zones you felt they were way too short.

One issue I do experience, is that while doing the campaign after the first play-through gets a lot easier when you have some loot for your alts, but if you do it fresh, the exalts you find are nearly never worth it to actually craft with. You basically trade for upgrades instead. You don't find that many upgrades yourself during the campaign. Perhaps there's a way to reward people with a random weapon for their class every X levels to some of the campaign quests to fix their luck some. Doesn't have to be amazing, but sometimes even the vendor doesn't have anything meaningful.

"

Leveling:

Early
Leveling is made a little too easy for people who just grab a random bow and spam Lightning Rod up to level 40+. Whether you roll a Deadeye, Infernalist, Stormweaver or even a Warcrybaby, the speed at which a Lightning Rod spammer can clear the campaign is quite laughable - up to the point where there's no reason not to do this.

Late
Once you enter Maps, whether that is at 50 or 70, the pacing feels fairly okay. The Atlas tree, while a little buggy at times (zooming, pathing), is a fun idea. Once you hit level 90 and up, you start having to take more risks, and deaths become very punishing. The exp becomes a true grind. I think most would stop at 90-95. More on that punishment later.

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Trials / Ascension:

I didn't quite like the Trials myself, but I understand many do. I feel the honor system is a little too punishing early on, yet once you get the Relics (+honor resistance) it becomes a walk in the park.

Gatekeeping something so essential as picking your sub-class behind these Trials feels very punishing and often unrewarding when you fail them. I'd love for the loot to be the main goal of these Trials, for those who wish to target farm or just in general enjoy these challenges, and not having Ascensions being locked by them. Often the random afflictions and boons feel fairly punishing, reminiscent of a Rogue-like but without the benefit of growth or rewards after you fail. Some of these afflictions outright brick your try too, for some builds.

Right now, there's even a whole economy about 'boosting' people for say 1 Divine to rush them through their 4 Ascension points. This feels a little off. I hope GGG has data on that, to see if people are really able to get through their Trials or if they are buying their way through. As a result, it's possible many new players or more casual players aren't able to Ascend through the normal method and just buy the '1 Divine tax' away.

"

Withchunter:

A fun class, although I see it as a weaker Ranger (the reason I started a Deadeye, and a Pathfinder). As I think most people know, Armor feels very weak, so having an Evasion-Armor hybrid feels a little off.

There's a lot to be said about the Crossbow playstyle, and while it's certainly a fun idea, with ways to greatly improve it, it's riddled with bugs. Being unable to reload while dodging, it randomly locking up, bolts outright reloading half your reserve somehow, and it feeling quite clunky takes away from a lot of that. The grenadier type of Witchhunter is certainly my favorite, as a result of this. Then again, it feels like the grenades of the Witchhunter feels like a worse version of Concoctions. It's also a little odd that there are no Grenade ascension perks in the Witchhunter tree. Not that the tree is weak, in fact it's quite strong, but would a +1 grenade projectiles perk be too much to ask?

"

Infernalist:

Minions are a lot of fun, yet it's fairly difficult to scale the minions up properly. Many maps with corridors greatly reduce the efficacy of a minion build. Many Sceptre types seemingly get ignored by people, as most prefer a +Skeletal Warrior Sceptre, instead of opting in for something like an Aura Sceptre. People seem to favor spamming Firewall and Skeletal Arsonist, up to the point where Infernalists in groups get banned for 'causing lag' or for hiding the famous on-death effects on the ground.

"

Deadeye:

Not much to be said here. It plays like any typical Archer arch-type. Hopefully we get some more interesting skills, perhaps more fire builds. So far I mostly see lightning arrow spammers with dual-Herald, clearing the entire screen. I was able to do this as well, and it quickly made the play-style boring, resulting in me rolling a Pathfinder instead. Likely one of the easiest classes to perform well with, but I haven't played a Monk or Sorceress yet. Grab a good bow, spec double Herald, and you can clear the screen.

"

Pathfinder (Concoctions):

I rolled two Pathfinders, reason being that much of the needed loot can be shared that way, and any upgrade I find I can give to both characters. I have a poison Concoctions build for mapping, and an ice Concoctions build for bossing. Time investment aside, they play wildly different.

As we use 'flask charges' as our main cost to use Concoctions, the item variety is forced upon the user quite a bit. You're automatically leaning more towards flask upgrades. I wish there were more ways to obtain different flasks mid-game, for example by having more modifiers on them, or allowing us to upgrade them via Regals and Exalts. More often than not, I use +flask charges" on bosses, and "+flask regen 0.25" on maps. That's about all the creativity I find within flasks. There's a multitude of flask passive talents out there, but some might be a little bugged. For example picking "reduced flask charges used" from Warding Potions doesn't seem to update the tooltip. Aggregate Bleeding seems to either not function, or the calculation is off.

When it comes to using Concoctions, I could write a full thread, but I'll keep it simple. Concoctions are an Unarmed Attack - note, ATTACK. Passives that add to 'X while Unarmed' does not work e.g. the passive talent 'Flurry'. So 'Increased Area of Effect while Unarmed' does not work at all. In other cases, for example via Quivers, you benefit from the modifier 'Increased Damage with Bow Skills'. I thought we were using Unarmed Attacks? We're Bow Attacks now? Is this a bug? Intentional? You tell me. Widowhail, every Concoctions user uses this. Nearly triples (or more) your Quiver effects, including "Increased Bow Damage". The thing is, if you remove this bow, you now broke the entire Concoctions play-style. Clunky

"

Armor:
Very weak, but I assume it gets buffed. I feel bad for Warriors

Evasion:
Has more utility and passives control than armor, but pales in comparison to Energy Shield.

Survivability as a whole greatly benefits casters with ES and Grim. Rangers and Warriors running around in caster gear is funny. Where are our HP nodes? Many want ES nerfed, but I rather have more options available in general.

Energy Shield / Grim Feast / Ghostwrithe:

Everyone and their mom and cat runs this combo.

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Passives:
It feels like there are many talents for non-casters that have downsides in addition to upsides. This feels very punishing. Yet whenever you steer into the north and north-east of the passives tree, you see caster goodness just about everywhere with zero downsides.

For example:
Flurry - increases our attack speed by 20%, yet reduces our damage by 25%, why?

There are many more examples like these, but you get the point. In some cases you could say you sacrifice something to gain a bit of something else, aka build variety, but the sacrifice often just isn't worth it. I can't even imagine how a melee char feels (Warriors, mainly) where many things are sacrificed for little to zero benefits.

"

Heralds:

Thunder-Ice combo needs to be tweaked, but I think most people agree on that already, I won't repeat it here. What isn't often mentioned is Herald of Plague. The radius is abysmal in such a way where it's pointless taking it. Not many support gems fit in it either, making it quite bad in general. Unless you REALLY enjoy playing a poison archtype for roleplaying purposes, this isn't it. It could help to buff the radius a tiny bit, or add some other smaller utility.

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Gems:

Many gems have outrageous mana costs when increasing their level, for little to no real benefit. Some gems (Detonate Death, for example) people just use for the utility, and they keep it at like level 7 as increasing it doesn't increase the relative 20% HP damage, it only increases the mana cost by a large amount with a tiny bit of (neglible) extra absolute fire damage. Please allow uncut gems to stack.

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Crafting:

I spam regals, exalts and vaals. I don't use the rest, I rather trade. Essences (Omens) are too rare to bother with. We need more options. I haven't found a single greater or perfect jeweler's orb, yet I am buying them with the divines I find. Something is off there, or I'm playing the wrong maps.

"

Atlas:

Feels fun, but pathing has a few bugs with people getting bricked atlas worlds. I assume that gets fixed. I do hope we'll be allowed to 'specialize' into specific maps or map types like we can in PoE1 by blacklisting some of the zones we really dislike.

Citadels are impossible to find, but I'm sure most agree.

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Atlas Tree:

I feel like I receive more Waystones picking whatever atlas points that buffs +rarity / density in maps, than I do picking actual +Waystone atlas points. This seems a little off, or perhaps it's just my playstyle

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Breaches:

I found it fairly frustrating to get started. Early on it's quite a task to find enough breach splinters to even start up the Breaches tree, to get a buff that significantly increases the amount of breach splinters dropped. Like, give us a small quest or something to get going. There's a floor-ceiling progression issue here I feel. Maybe extend the size of the breach-tree, but with smaller milestones in-between?

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Rituals:

Hate them, avoiding them. Half the time I'm stuck in some rock with a tornado destroying me with no way out, bricking my map. If we weren't stuck it'd be more fun.

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Logbooks:

Can hardly get any to get started, rewards feel lame. I rather spam bosses, maps and breaches.

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UI/UX:

Add alternatives to binding the keyboard for ctrl-clicking items in our inventory. Allow us to pick shift-click, cmd-click, win-clcik, or really anything.

Map stash please. It's coming I hope.
Gem stash needs better ways of organizing gems. Uncut gems should stack. It's too cluttered right now. Or allow us to trade uncut gems via the currency exchange in-game. If it's too easy to progress skills this way, just put in a level requirement or something.

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On-death effects:

Too punishing / hard to see.

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1 portal per map:

I'd prefer this being changed, but I also understand if people prefer a 1 life approach to the game. Things can be said about both choices. It feels very bad now to lose a Citadel, Breachstone, and so on to a random on-death effect or lag, etc.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for making a great game. My apologies for the chaos in writing. Too many flasks lately.

Edit: fixed some stuff.

That's great proper feedbacks!!

Love your format, please allow me to steal it :).

RE: Witchhunter - or Merc in general - I've seen so, SO many posts regarding the reload/dodging issue, I even made a video here (the bug is evident at 30s): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90yhqZiefH0

I've yet to see GGG comment unfortunately - you literally can see me holding R2 (on PS5) to fire, and it takes up to 5 seconds to do something afterwards.
Note I'm also not convinced on the reload times mentioned on the crossbows - feels far, far longer and like that is bugged in itself.

On WH I've died to it multiple times, because in this game, every second does count - so I don't understand why it's not even being acknowledged, never mind addressed.

Also - I'm playing Gemling right now (lvl 70) and compared to my WH (lvl 89), the class is so, so much more robust. WH is, to be perfectly honest, a joke. Sorcery Ward is worthless - why it penalizes you for 50% defenses (I'm not aware of any other class having that especially when you consider Mind over Matter on LITERALLY THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TREE), why they only include elemental resistances and not chaos - it's literally called "Sorcery Ward" and for a class called "Witchhunter", like what else would you even expect? It'd be as well being called "bubble wrap" all it does.

Gemling plays really good all around, I have to admit - the reason I rolled one was because I finally got fed up getting one-shotted in maps that were 9 levels less than me. Gemling can take some punches, even at lvl 70 I have 2300hp - my lvl 89 WH has barely 2k (!). Zealous Inquisition is very nice, and I do think DPS-wise overall it feels good - but the rest of it is, sorry to be blunt, like someone was just being absolutely stupid with this. If a dev is reading this I'm sorry, but this is the single handed worst underbalance I've ever seen for a class since I've been gaming. Even Blizzard get it a bit better on WoW, and that's saying something.