I'm comfortable asserting that early-game difficulty is being greatly exaggerated

I'm not claiming the game is perfect, nor do I think my build is particularly clever or efficient. I'm not even confident my current setup will remain viable through T7 and beyond.

What I am very confident saying at this point is that many of the claims regarding the difficulty of the campaign and low-tier maps are being greatly exaggerated, in some cases by people who aren't actually struggling with the difficulty but are instead trying to amplify complaints because they're just generally unhappy with the direction GGG is taking with the game.



I'm not LS and I didn't refer to any guides or videos. I don't think my build would even be considered "viable" by most people. I've just been playing it by ear - investing in a little more defense every time I feel like I have a close call and otherwise trying to keep up with monster health.

If it wasn't for all of the "noise" here and on Reddit I don't think I would have even noticed that the campaign was more difficult. It definitely didn't take me much longer to complete than it did in 0.1.

My current strategy revolves around Right Where We Want Them to keep as many enemies as possible locked down entirely; Watchtowers gives me 2x Ripwire Ballistae and I run a Companion: Adorned Scarab who has Shroud Walker + Magma Barrier + Armoured. He doesn't do much damage, but man he does a great job distracting anything that I haven't pinned yet until I have a chance to pin it.

As far as build diversity goes, I'm guessing not a lot of people are running this setup and I'm having the most fun I've ever had with PoE hands down.

My grenadier in the 70s has 81 deaths; though, like 20 of them are to jamanra on release, maybe 10 or 15 from doing maps mostly because it's difficult for me to see ground effect spells and exploding corpses/on death effects when Cluster Bombs are going off. The silly thing is that changing my build and buying an upgrade or 2 with the exalts I had at the time isn't what actually allowed me to beat Jamanra....it was just spamming iceshard bolt at him. Many of the bosses were rough for a bit because they tend to move around so often that it's difficult to even get grenades to hit them for a majority of the fight.

I assume you're not relying on anything you mentioned for damage, what bolts are you using for damage?

Here's some footage of Norbert (that's my scarab) and I clearing a T5 Ritual. I took some damage here which is pretty unusual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4-8A3PCiI8

I 100% agree with you, even before the nerfs to monster life they did.

I will say if you played ice strike monk in 0.1 you probably had a much easier time than then but that was clearly trivializing the game and especially the bosses too much. The freeze nerfs were good.

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in some cases by people who aren't actually struggling with the difficulty but are instead trying to amplify complaints because they're just generally unhappy with the direction GGG is taking with the game.

I also think it's a psychological effect of all the content creators declaring that "every build was nerfed to the ground". I see so many people saying that same point but I REALLY doubt that any of those people have actually tried playing multiple builds to endgame in two weeks of the patch coming out. If you look at the HC SSF Dawn of the Hunt poe2.ninja stats (https://poe2.ninja/builds/dawnhcssf) you can clearly see that all the ascendancies are still completely playable and people are still coming up with builds for different skills.

They parrot their favorite influencers which do it for clicks.
Anyone (like a certain streamer) who found the wolves in the 2nd zone 'too hard' should really question their playstyle (are they pulling way too many mobs? etc.). I found this patch all of Act 1 was far easier than 0.1, and thinking those wolves are hard is laughable. I haven't even been one shotted by the crone's circles in the 1st zone that people are talking about (unless wasn't at full health) so I am not sure what that was on about either.

I'll also add that I played recently in Phrecia and the mudflats for a beginning character (with all the Rhoas) is far more difficult of a zone and I haven't heard anyone complaining about it (tho to be fair, when that zone first got updated many leagues ago - there were many complaints about the new difficulty of act1... but now no one is complaining anymore)

The problem isn't difficulty, its the rewards. I can easily do what you do but is it worth it? It's not. Maybe for you, but not for everyone. So enjoy the game, we'll be in last epoch.

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Lord Pinkleton#8277 wrote:

I assume you're not relying on anything you mentioned for damage, what bolts are you using for damage?

Mostly explosive grenades, ignited oil, and regular 'ole crossbow shot for now. Here's my PoB breakdown: https://i.imgur.com/2xn9voh.png

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RusinaRange#6285 wrote:

I REALLY doubt that any of those people have actually tried playing multiple builds to endgame in two weeks of the patch coming out.

Right. Even a week ago people were posting about how there's "only one viable build," but when your definition of viability is that there must exist no other build that is in the slightest measure more powerful or efficient than all others, then I think that's basically always going to be true. In a game with this much flexibility and variety in skills and builds I just personally think it's unreasonable to expect a design team to achieve that level of precise balance even in a stable production build let alone during EA when new stuff is going in constantly.

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Galyan#8109 wrote:

The problem isn't difficulty, its the rewards. I can easily do what you do

I think if you read my post again you will see that we agree.

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is it worth it? It's not. Maybe for you, but not for everyone.

"Maybe for you, but not for everyone," indeed. A statement that can be made with confidence about every video game ever made and also every song, book, film, TV show, diet, exercise routine, and sexual position. In all of human history I think the only things that have reliably been for everyone are breathing oxygen and converting protein into muscle energy.

Well if you have not been 1 shotted by a Crone in .02 because you failed to dodge in time because of lag or just visually not seeing the hex circle because 15 other mobs rushed you, then you clearly were lucky or not playing a Witch or Sorcerer.

Just because it didn't happen to you..doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Does that mean the game is to hard? No not really...should people be getting one shotted before they are even Lvl 5 by trash mobs because there are ZERO resists for the damage type...hmm....I dunno but it sure ain't fun.

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BellatorMonk#4008 wrote:

No not really...should people be getting one shotted before they are even Lvl 5 by trash mobs because there are ZERO resists for the damage type...hmm....I dunno but it sure ain't fun.

Why should mobs even exist for if they're immediately labelled "trash".

White mobs are a light obstacle, many white mobs like ranged mobs is a legit obstacle. What kind of creature just wants to completely disregard the games light difficulty? Simply use the infinite dodge rolling available and apply a little bit of mechanical thought...what kind of fun is it to butt heads with literal trash? We've got to apply some WASD movement on an early game herd of "trash mobs" in the game Vampire Survivor's but no ones throwing their toys out the pram saying its anti fun.

It's a complete bias, from pretty much all of the complainers.