Poe 2 From an ssf viewpoint

This is a summary of my experience with poe 2 from an ssf standpoint, I'll preface this by saying I was the top ranked pathfinder in ssf last season as well as 31st on the ladder and I'm currently top 30 and playing Disciple of Varashta so keep that in mind when looking at my opinions.

Overall GGG has done a good job on poe 2 and I'm hoping the continue to deliver going forward as I am a big arpg fan and I believe between poe 1 and 2 they are doing it the best currently so I'll break this down into the pros and cons from my experience thus far.

Pros:

Campaign isn't a complete joke like poe 1 relating to providing any sort of challenge and has a good pace to it.

The game looks and feels great.

Combo gameplay is actually rewarding and feels good though I know most people likely don't enjoy this style of play.

The Abyss tree is actually good and is probably the most fun and challenging mechanic currently so I hope they get the other mechanics there eventually.

The atlas overview looks great and has huge potential as a game mechanic if they get it there.

Getting to arbiter is easy now with the last patch in .3

Splinters for pinnacles is a great system and very farmable.

Crafting is in a decent state but can be improved.

4 mod tablets are a great change.

Cons:

For most players not myself support gems and skill gems don't drop enough during the campaign which hinders people trying different things as they discover character identity.

Once you get to the second half of the campaign and into early endgame the gear progression snowballs a little too fast.

You don't need even remotely good gear to do all the pinnacles at the highest level of difficulty and outside of uber arbiter the other top end bosses feel weak and not very challenging.

Gear power is really op compared to poe 1 and the tree doesn't feel as impactful as it is in poe 1.

Atlas tree needs a rework.

Passive tree has a lot of tradeoff nodes which I'm not a huge fan of.

Support gems can feel lackluster with certain archetypes but I'm sure this will improve over time.

Not enough major endgame bosses that provide real difficulty Arbiter is the only one and the rest are pushovers.

Most content is easy and the gear grind ends too fast even in ssf. I find myself grinding towards gear I don't need very often because I'll be all content viable within 2-3 days usually and the level 100 grind is a long one even if you don't die much.

Would like some stretch goal content eventually like deep delve or real ubers that provide a challenge.

Abyss and simulacrum are the only remotely challenging content in the game once you have decent gear outside of uber arbiter. Simulacrum not providing exp makes it feel bad to do.

Amelioration omens are a crutch mechanic, undermine competitive integrity and should be removed from the game and I know most of you probably disagree.

most endgame content feels unrewarding especially wisps, rogue exiles and powerful map bosses even fully juiced.

Not being able to have some sort of favoured map system is annoying because certain maps like sun temple, forge, mire and some others are very annoying and feel bad to run.

In conclusion I think we have the start of something special here and with time it'll get better but I do worry that the game will be too easy and won't provide someone like me with more challenging content because they will likely balance around the average players but hopefully there will be things to do for top players that isn't tied to progression and isn't considered necessary for player power. In poe 1 deep delve and some of the more juiced map strats like rogue exiles and blight at the ultra top end would be examples.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I won't engage with comments as this is meant for ggg mainly because I felt like I'd regret it if I didn't at least give my feedback and there didn't appear to be an option to email directly relating to feedback.

Happy hunting exiles may rng be in your favor.