Passive Tree Center

I apologize if this has been hashed out before but I have been wondering about this for awhile.


Does anyone know of any good builds that travel through the center of the skill tree? I have tried to experiment with this and it always seems to work out that the center has a nice variety of passives but there are a couple major problems that keep the build from being optimal.

#1 almost all of the items are on the lower end of bonus and by going around the edge of the tree you can pick up greater bonuses to the same abilities per point spent.

#2 The travel distance in nodes used is not really any better due to the congestion in the center of the tree. This results in taking the same number of skill node points to reach passives in another classes portion of the tree.

This seems to always make the center of the tree a undesired option when trying to traverse from class area to class area.

I would like if someone can provide an example that proves my ideas wrong if possible I could be missing something.

If GGG reads this I would be curious to know what kind of feedback the center of the tree has and if there is any consideration to shaking things up a bit

As I know it, the center of the passive skill tree is merely there to supplement a build in some particular area it may be lacking. It is mainly used when traveling from one character's area to the other and is not a main source of passive skills. It merely gives the possibility of picking up some extra benefit along the way to another portion of the skill tree.

Example:

I want to make a monk-type ranger with evasion, Acrobatics, and using a staff (strange I know). I would have to travel to the templar's side of the skill tree using the middle area.

It would look something like this.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAAnEEswW1CC4UTRUgGS4Zjho4I_YkiyftKQcpLilPKk0s6TBxMHwzQDWGNZI6QjqzOtg64TwtPQ8-zz8nQ3lFjkouSn1LeE7IUUdUSVb6WkhfP2MLZ5tnoGwWbqpyqXRBd9d6uHy7fNl_K4Pbh3aI8Y2_kAqQVZLNkwebjZ2qogCmV6eEp6WpaKxHrKquk7UEtz63crlDuc253b05vebEFcT2xYrGosauyWfOcdN-1CPUj9WL1ordDd2o4oDkIudS52PrFOw47YPuDu8O7_DwH_Iv8kX8S_zF_go=

I pick up life nodes through the middle to make the travel worthwhile, otherwise its just a lot of stat points going from one area to the other. You just have to be creative, think of pros/cons to get from point A to point B. It is sometimes a puzzle in and of itself to achieve what build you want to play based off of where nodes are placed on the skill tree.

I understand what your saying but even looking at your sample build it appears you arent avoiding having to pick up a bunch of stats going through the middle because the main branch in any direction is stat points including the middle.

By going around the edge of the tree there are far more powerful supplementary passives than what is available through the middle.

I can understand the sacrifice being worth it if the route was a bit shorter but I bet if you count up the nodes needed to travel from area to area the number of points spent in either direction seems comparable.

Looking at your build it appears workable but I guess my point is that it seems you would be better off starting as a dualist if you want to use acrobatics and staves. This would allow you to optimize the stats by not forcing you to go through the center and allowing you to pick up the two handed perks around the edges.

I think there is some danger in putting powerful nodes in the middle of the tree. This is the only place where Str Dex and Int come together. If you have too many powerful nodes in there, than it becomes THE place to go.

With that in mind, I do find the centre of the tree quite lackluster. It would be interesting if they were to supplement it with more nodes that COULD appeal to anyone, but not be overpowered. Conduit can be great for anyone, because every player can use charges, but powerful projectile nodes or something, wouldn't be useful.

I also agree that the nodes should be beefed up a little bit if not reduced in number.

Vaal Pact is awesome and lots of builds get that.

Conduit is awesome.

The 6/6/10 life nodes made it a really appealing way to get from templar/maraduer to duelist/ranger or vice-versa, especially if you would benefit from Iron Grip.

There are three 4% AoE nodes there.

The minion buffs and nearby ES clusters make it an appealing way to go for summoner builds, even those who aren't getting Necromantic Aegis.

I think the center of the tree is specifically designed to be really painful to move through because of issues that would arise if it wasn't. Namely, if a build could easily get from start through the center, that would reduce the value in choosing your start point. Having it be difficult to go from the Dex/Str side to the Int side helps to create class identity, and prevents popular keystones from being a given on every build.

For some reason the passive skill planner shows the center like a connecting spoke where the character icon is sitting on the live skilltree:


It seems like the logic to have them connected is there but the live build is blocking them.

I don't know if GGG wants to leave that generic character icon in place or introduce a 7th character class 'Generalist', at some point.

Ideally, they could do that. Or remove the icon and connect the center part with a +20 to Str, Dex, Int supernode.

The way it looks at the moment is irritating since it can fool players into thinking there is another character class implemented, but not unlocked from the get-go.

The strength side of the middle is strong, lots of life, life regen and 18% resist nodes are great. The buff duration nodes are weak and the 6% melee damage nodes are laughably outdated. The int side has some sort of rare nodes but most of them are nodes that aren't that useful without a noteable. The dex side is similar, except they're not even rarer nodes.

I'll be really surprised if there isn't a new middle section in 1.0.0. It's an extremely outdated part of the tree.

"

Wooser69 wrote:

the 6% melee damage nodes are laughably outdated.

Facebreaker says hi. Getting 6%-6%-15% is like 9% average per node, and they're super rare so that's not too bad. Worth it if you're nearby and a facebreaker build IMO. Those three nodes alone might be the equivalent of 10-15% more dmg.

Okay this is going to look very different soon ...

Nice to see how GGG decided to add a prestige class!

Not sure if I like how the middle part is broken up now :S
Have to rebuild my bowrauder as a scion and summoners needs a complete new pathing around the edge (or rebuild as scion).
Let's hope they don't add more highway nodes to rebuild our old builds.