jock vs smart

1.
offense ability, defense ability, neutral ability.
in dark soul, stamina is neutral ability, it force you not to defend or attack, u must sit back
and plan your next move and u cannot dodge/defend or attack/offense. it is that few second where
u sit back and slow down the pace of the game and plan your next move(offense or defense).
this is what i coined neutral ability. freezing enemy and yourself is a neutral ability.
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2.
imagine making all these decision to build defense, and then one shot u die.
none of your choices mean anything.

imagine instead if we do the same for offense?
the boss cant die for 10 minutes, and u deal zero damage, now try to dodge all his attack.

(sport)Jocks can dodge all those so no problem.
but smart people, who planned it all out for 100 decisions of mini-choices, cant dodge those
boss's attack.

this is a game designed for jocks. if u are smart, u lose.

imagine if school was like that? the only way to pass is if u can score a goal like the jocks.

beauty no longer matter, smart no longer matter.

the thing i like about arpg, is that u can overcome the challenge thru many ways. from range to
melee to minions.

right now... i am forced to learn how to become a jock if i wanna beat the game. if the end-goal
and hardest content can only be beaten using one method, then mage and warrior no longer have the
same chances. you HAVE TO BE A JOCK.
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3.
i get that the game is harder, and you designed the game so that i will die more often, but then
why is the exp lost at 10%? if poe2 is suppose to make u die more often, then 10% exp loss seem
completely soul crushing.

if you are going to make a game where i die more often, then at least re-tune it so that exp loss
is not as much.

i feel like i gotta avoid the harder content until i level up and have 0% exp.
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4.
do you guys have any active defense ability?
something that power-up your block ability, like add 200 energy shield when blocked an attack.

do u know how monster run so fast, that if u notice and u choose to defend by running away, but
then u realize your running away was meaningless? if my defense option is to run away, and i made
the correct judgment call to defend by running away, but then the monster run faster by 5x, then
all my thinking was wasted.

choosing to defend should be rewarding and possible!
the illusion of defense is when you block and get heavy stunned...
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5.
i believe you can make a slower pace game, but
a slower pace game means u level up slower, which mean less choices as often(picking passive),
which mean i am more bored since i am not constantly being bombarded with choices to choose and
decide which is better.

by slowing the game down, u also slow down the choices presented to the player as often as before.

i recommend lowering the life flask charges, and also lowering boss damage a little bit. right
now life flask charges seem meaningless until it isn't. i never had to you life flask, it is always
one shot kill.

using life and mana flask also is boring and a chore, if only you can add abilty to life flask.
the concept of dark soul, running away to heal is lost.(this is neutral ability - disengage)

i would make life flask heal the same amount, but making it heal overtime much longer.\
i would actually like to make life flask heal only ~70% of their value.
right now u cant interrupt life flask healing, incase you spam twice in a row.
it seem to always be a net good decision to heal, which isn't the case in dark soul.

i think this require too much change, and i am unsure how much slower i wanna make poe2.
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6.
trading in poe2 seem to always make you progress faster than intended, i would
like to implement a cost to trading with other player.
(a stacking 50% rarity reduction debuff for 1 day for the player receiving an item.)
(i would actually make it 3 hours of real game-play-time doing combat(to prevent afk but login).)

there is such a huge HUGE power boost thru trading, that it almost seem foolish not to trade.
treat trading like an ability that is only good if used at the right time.

(you can choose w/e numbers for rarity/etc. that seem more correct to u.)
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7.
you have such an amazing game right now, passive is boring as hell tho.
i would love to see like [10% increase in minion damage, and 10% increase in chaos damage.]

this would incentivize minion build to also have spells too. if u go chaos damage, minion damage
part is meaningless. this does not increase your overall damage. Same if u wanna go only minion.
but if you are trying a hybrid build, then for example:
spell 1 deal 100 damage.
spell 2 deal 100 damage too! this make you able to choose between using both spell 1 and spell 2.
.
if u only increase minion damage, then you would never use anything other than minion damage,
since spell 1 deal 10,000 damage, and spell 2 deal only 1,000 damage.

i really wanna play around with chaos damage and minion build, but right now, either i make minion
just a tank and go all chaos damage, or i deal so little chaos damage so that my minion can do
some real damage.

since minion auto-revive, i really just sitting around doing nothing...
i dont even summon minion anymore. i am forced to use only spells that my minion have.

i would love to see [10% increase in fire and ice, but 10% reduce in lightning].
something to make me analyze which is the better build. passive right now is so bland.
the mastery in poe1 was a head-scratcher.

there are like 15 10% increase minion damage. nothing different among them.
i feel like the passive tree is really 15x smaller than we thought, since most passive are copy
paste of 10% increase minion damage.
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thank you grinding gear game for making such an amazing game.
i only wished all the combo that was available at the start of the campaign remained viable in
end game. i had to swap out chaos-damage-cursing and minion build for a standard minion build.
that was such a moment of missing out on all the fun i used to have during campaign.

Your witch class was such an amazing concept, i still remember being jaw-dropped at all the cool
stuff during the reveal trailer.
-(2025_4_19 pm9:19)