League Mechanics vs Gem Balancing

I was unaware of Path of Exile and wasn't introduced to it until Affliction league. This game is so layered that I still find myself learning about all of the mechanics. The vast assortment of uniques, gems and passive distribution allows for virtually unlimited playstyles which I find appealing. As a fan of the Diablo series, I found the games to be too limiting of late, leaning toward cookie cutter builds that are mind numbingly boring.

As I previously stated, I didn't start playing until Affliction, a decade after launch. I didn't even realize that the rucksack wasn't a basic component of the game. Even now having played for a while and bought all the special stash tabs, I'd still like to have the rucksack again. As well, I'd like to have permanent mercenaries back from the previous league.

I am an altoholic, I have 21 characters that I enjoy playing. Certain league mechanics such as Necropolis or Settlers introduce event content that doesn't necessarily effect how your theorycraft your character. Leagues such as Affliction of Keepers employ stat boosting mechanics in the form of charms and grafts that require one to tailor a character for 1 season. At the time I started with Affliction, I was so behind the learning curve to really appreciate if charms were a significant boost. A lot of the Mercenaries builds that I and other people were using wouldn't be effective without the buffs supplied by the mercenary. For people who don't care about abandoning a character after a season, that's fine and feel free to criticize this post.

The purpose of this post is to pro/con a league like Keepers. Revamping the breach mechanic is fine, albeit a little tedious. There is a difference between the crafting system of Necropolis graveyard and grafts from this league. There are roughly 800 gems in this game, many of which aren't used in any viable endgame builds. Rather than a focus on rebalancing gems, developers have opted to use stat amplifying mechanics, which only make the more OP and popular builds more preferable. I am concerned that there are too many vendor trash gems and if there isn't a rebalancing, PoE could go down the same path as the Diablo series where armour set bonuses are required for endgame progression with a limited choice for playstyle.

As of now, PoE is my favorite game, forsaking all others, that I recommend to everyone. Shitposters need not respond, but I am interested to know how my fellow players feel about the current state and trajectory of the game.

P.S. "Life is pain highness, anyone who says differently is selling something"...that being said, buy my shit on trade. See you in Wraeclast.

It's somewhat inevitable that as the number of gems grows, the outliers grow more extreme.

Not every build has to be viable in the endgame (T16.5-17, Ubers) either.

Personally, I'm more annoyed at newly introduced Wall of Force being a noobtrap because projectile skills don't list their hit delay, and it's very hard for the fast ones like Frost Blades to notice that while the projectiles bounce back towards the same enemy, they do not damage it again !

Or about how seemingly Ruthless has been cut off from Trarthan gems.

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BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

Not every build has to be viable in the endgame (T16.5-17, Ubers) either.

Which build can't clear that content?

An easy (but lazy) answer would be Conversion Trap ?

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BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

An easy (but lazy) answer would be Conversion Trap ?

That's a skill, not a build.

Read the first post again.

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BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

Read the first post again.

A singular skill does not make a build. How much damage does Clarity do? Why is Clarity Berserker not a viable build choice GGG pleeeeeeeeease

This is PoE1 that we are talking about.

We could have a unique or even just a passive that adds damage, to the normal attack only, depending on how much mana you've lost (or how much you've been hit, through Mind Over Matter).

Weirder things happened.

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BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

This is PoE1 that we are talking about.

We could have a unique or even just a passive that adds damage, to the normal attack only, depending on how much mana you've lost (or how much you've been hit, through Mind Over Matter).

Weirder things happened.

We already have uniques like Manastorm which provide generic added damage based on mana sacrificed. Jousis made a build around default attack before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dosti_HS0v0

PoE2 does a better job at integrating default attack into the regular gameplay loop by allowing you to support it with support gems. If you want the same, you have to pick default attack with extra flavor such as Frenzy, which is probably the most generic strike / ranged attack in the game.

My other comment was nudging you towards understanding that not every skill is meant to be a build. Some skills are distinctly in the support category, unless miraculously someone finds a way to build around Portal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiZbHoUiXQs

There's a range of skills that are designed to be supplements to a main skill. Contagion and ED, Bear Trap and other traps, Flamewall and projectile skills. Conversion Trap was a bad example when Siphoning Trap was right there by the way.

Not everything has to be a main skill

We agree there,
(but I guess that I should have mentioned supporting skills in my first post
though they too aren't immune from the need of rebalancing from time to time),
it was Scarletsword#4354 that took my use of 'build' unnecessarily literally in the first place.

(Funny that you mention Frenzy, just this weekend I played Frenzy (of Onslaught) for the first time, with Conduit to my teammate who uses Cold Snap !)