Honest review from SSF player

The games balance is in shambles. I am not being mean im being honest. This league i have done HCSSF up to pinnacle bosses, and reset my progress and beat the atlas 3 times in regular SSF. I have well over 3000 hours total since i started playing in 2020.

Lets start with the god forsaken skill gems. SO many skill gems .... none of them actually do damage. WHY? You can grab fire trap at level 12 and beat the maven in 2 days with absolute garbage gear. Wanna play something fun? You need to grind for 1000 hours hoping for that perfect cluster jewel, perfect watchers eye. Or you join trade league where you can mindlessly brute force your way through the game simply by having a solid trading strategy.
Gems are totally useless too many nerfs and no power upgrades...
Fireball - uselss unless used with mines......
Flame wall - useless
holy flame totem - useless
Arc - good with boat loads of investment, single target DPS is abyssal
spectral helix - a once great now utterly useless skill
hexblast - useless
venom gyre - fun but totally unrealistic for boss damage
i could go on and on for days.... with the nerfs nerfs nerfs u are left with
Absolution / fire trap / reap / slams / boneshatter / righteous fire.
its fucking crazy.. i wanna try new stuff... i do... but noone of it works.

I dont play fire trap becuase its fun. I play it becuase its one of the only gems that still fucking get the job done.......

You cant balance an ARPG around trade and no life streamers. Trade isnt good for ARPGS instead you could have - Beat the pinnacle Boss choose one upgrade.... or something like this. Right now the game feels incredible up to maven and uber elder and then... it becomes an endless grind to upgrade gear. Imagine if kiling a uber boss or pinnacle boss unlocked a specific upgrade to your specific ascendancy or something instead of relying on stupid RNG or trading.


Secondly..... The ascendnacys. What the hell... "lets buff elementalist" it was already arguably the best class in the game......
Yet no love for sabotuer, ascendant...... Assassin is still very mediocre. Inquisitor is now left in the dark.....

Last but not least...
Tougher enemies need to drop LOOT if im fighting a rare juiced up expedition monster that is way stronger than pinnacle bosses.. for 5 minutes... it should drop something.... always..


At the end of the day I actually think you would sell more suppporter packs if you addressed these issues instead of balancing the game as fun but also a ball busting chore... Forcing us into grinding for 1000 hours doesnt make me wanna buy a supporter pack it makes me wanna quit playing.