Incline Path of Exile 2 - now available on Early Access

[ArchAngel]

Thought Sorcs go for the CI + MoM + ES combo

That is trade league after you spent 10 divines on gear. Also you cannot go mom + archmage until you have that 10 divine gear as you do not have that 4000 mana pool.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Nobody likes slow combat as shown by people saying Mace/Warrior is trash.

 

[sebas]

This balance is completely busted, white maps in PoE1 are nothing like this.

It's all down to Chaos Resist, you need to prioritize it above anything else.

 

[abija]

Nobody likes slow combat as shown by people saying Mace/Warrior is trash.

By slow(er) combat people mean a bit of interaction with the enemies. Not watching pointless 2s animations before you blow shit up. They even have the game setup with small, normal, big, very big enemies and magic/rare on top. At the optimal farm point for a build let's say you should blow up small, fight a bit with normal and so on, up to 20-30s with rares, 1-2 mins with bosses. They should drop loot accordingly and upping difficulty should always be more rewarding than lowering to quick clear with 1shots.

 

[TedNugent]

I just want Duelist and Huntress man... give me Melee Dexterity stuff...

Melee dexterity weapons, you mean. Its all tied to the weapons.

Once they launch you could use it on a warrior or a merc if you wanted and probably barely be able to tell the diff.

Mostly mace just sucks dicks. Or at least just not my taste as far as the play style, frankly.

I just want sword and axe and see what they're all about. Spear could be neat, too.

Isn't quarterstaff dex/int?

Actually, what would be REALLY sick is a full dex weapon that you can use on a hybrid ranged melee build with 2 weapon sets, and if they paired active skill gems to weapon sets so you could actually run the build in earnest (even if it required an ascendancy spec to do it).

 

[TedNugent]

... if only melee would be good anime weapon would be good

2h mace is an anime weapon, including collecting rocks to boom-boom and fire wave attacks, etc homosexual fantasy nonsense. I want European great sword sexy attacks from Count of Ogham.

Quarterstaff is also similar homosexual anime nonsense with ice and fire attacks like weeb Avatar Airbender and weird bell thing that is apparently mandatory to do any kind of damage in groups.

Armor aesthetics are mostly good for full plate and iron plate, looks tasteful until Act 3 Mayan fantasy clown circus armor. Hopefully it doesn't further degrade in acts 4-6 with clown suits with feathers and other World of Warcraft tier cartoon fantasy designs.

You can get easy eastern and exotic sets of armor with Hussar or plate mail type suits, brigandine and so forth, I don't know why they always have to default to weird designs. Shit, imagine if they had a samurai style silk platelet set of armor with a kabuto and facemask, people would be all over it.

 

[ArchAngel]

Nobody likes slow combat as shown by people saying Mace/Warrior is trash.

By slow(er) combat people mean a bit of interaction with the enemies. Not watching pointless 2s animations before you blow shit up. They even have the game setup with small, normal, big, very big enemies and magic/rare on top. At the optimal farm point for a build let's say you should blow up small, fight a bit with normal and so on, up to 20-30s with rares, 1-2 mins with bosses. They should drop loot accordingly and upping difficulty should always be more rewarding than lowering to quick clear with 1shots.

There are some really cool enemies in the game. Big shield charging ones that take almost no damage until you drop their life to half and they drop the shield, or big guys with clubs that do a big attack and good boom after you kill them, or quadrilla gorilla that does a leap slam attack or even irritating shades that go invisible and try to charge up frost attacks that freeze you but none of that matters when maps are full of other super fast and super fast hitting enemies that just do lots of damage with no counterplay or you are swarmed by so many enemies at same time you just have no chance to engage some of them so you only optio is to find builds like in PoE1 that just blow up the screen asap.
I was again basically one shot by a small group of blowdart ranged white enemies before I could do anything, this part is not fun.

 

[frajaq]

I just want Duelist and Huntress man... give me Melee Dexterity stuff...

Melee dexterity weapons, you mean. Its all tied to the weapons.

Once they launch you could use it on a warrior or a merc if you wanted and probably barely be able to tell the diff.

Mostly mace just sucks dicks. Or at least just not my taste as far as the play style, frankly.

I just want sword and axe and see what they're all about. Spear could be neat, too.

Isn't quarterstaff dex/int?

And also the 3 Duelist and 3 Hunteress ascendancies obviously. Quarterstaff is Dex but damn I'm not a fan of Ice/Lightning stuff plus dont like the Monk character itself, I like some of the abilities tho

 

[tritosine2k]

Anime weapon is shorthand for animate weapon minion skill. It used to be good (fast) from act5. It flies like SRS and expires slow.

Now if there would be rules to melee combat AW would be similarly interesting wrt feel.

 

[frajaq]

Also how do we feel about the current charm system?

 

[Shuricain]

Also how do we feel about the current charm system?

Hard to access since it's gated behind a coveted suffix slot on rare belts (and on like 0 unique belts).
They should make it easier to access, like have it roll as an enchant on belts or unlock the slots through quests.
Otherwise I just run the Golden Charm for extra MF and tank the rest of the ailments.

 

[ArchAngel]

So I tried a tier 3 map and got one shot by a leaping rare (through 2800+ total life/ES and 51 fire, 70 cold and 59 lightning res). He jumped so fast through effects from edge of screen there was no way to react to this shit.. ok mapping is even worse then I previously thought.. this is more damage then some boss fight big attacks.. I am not sure why am I even doing this to myself, SSF endgame was I guess not meant for all characters.. it is not like I can buy myself a good wand to replace a staff I found and buy a best block shield I can find. This character is effectively bricked with how this shit is designed.

 

[TedNugent]

I mean, fundamentally the next question is what kind of attack, if it was physical, obviously the next question is how much armor you have.

 

[ArchAngel]

I mean, fundamentally the next question is what kind of attack, if it was physical, obviously the next question is how much armor you have.

How much armor is supposed to have a lvl 70 sorceress with campaign gear that has no armor nodes in its are of the tree and does not have access to armor gear due to not having enough attribute points for high lvl int spells and strength on a blue t3 map?
Is this a serius question?
I've even started spamming ice walls now due to being too tired of dying to 4 white ranged mobs but this rare jumped over that wall lol

 

[sebas]

Armor is useless, pump ES and resists.

 

[Caim]

Started playing as a Witch. Good fun so far even though I've only barely started to prod at the surface (just made it through the cementary level and the catacombs). Throwing large numbers of minions at my enemies is a ton of fun, but I'm looking how to get more out of my scepters. So far I steadily keep finding higher level ones but they lack an increase to the two basic skeletons I keep getting. The skill gem that gives me skeletons allows me to upgrade the number of skeletons I get to summon because their Spirit cost goes down, but without any significant increase in Spirit the increase is going to slow down eventually. I did manage to find one scepter with a base Spirit value of over 100, but that one is stuck at level 3 skeletons and I'm not sure if I can upgrade that skill and get more skeletons that way. And if I end up replacing the scepter later down the line it'd be a waste of upgrade materials anyway. Any tips for this, or do I just need to wait for later in the game to gain access to scepters with more Spirit bonuses?

 

[Artyoan]

I got through acts 1-3 as a sorceress and enjoyed it a lot. It did feel slower and tactical. Then got through act 1-3 as a ranger and it was entertaining still but no longer tactical. I was destroying everything with ease.

To be fair, I had the resources that the sorceress had accumulated and some hand-me-down items so it wasn't an entirely fair comparison. Think I'll continue with the Ranger but I'm eager to try the Druid when that arrives. Still haven't gotten to maps and whatever other endgame stuff is there. Doubt I'll play that to any lengthy degree, if at all.

 

[ArchAngel]

I got through acts 1-3 as a sorceress and enjoyed it a lot. It did feel slower and tactical. Then got through act 1-3 as a ranger and it was entertaining still but no longer tactical. I was destroying everything with ease.

To be fair, I had the resources that the sorceress had accumulated and some hand-me-down items so it wasn't an entirely fair comparison. Think I'll continue with the Ranger but I'm eager to try the Druid when that arrives. Still haven't gotten to maps and whatever other endgame stuff is there. Doubt I'll play that to any lengthy degree, if at all.

Ranger and monk skills seem to be most powerful, then mana stacking sorcerers with spark and archmage and then minion focused infernalists

 

[ArchAngel]

Started playing as a Witch. Good fun so far even though I've only barely started to prod at the surface (just made it through the cementary level and the catacombs). Throwing large numbers of minions at my enemies is a ton of fun, but I'm looking how to get more out of my scepters. So far I steadily keep finding higher level ones but they lack an increase to the two basic skeletons I keep getting. The skill gem that gives me skeletons allows me to upgrade the number of skeletons I get to summon because their Spirit cost goes down, but without any significant increase in Spirit the increase is going to slow down eventually. I did manage to find one scepter with a base Spirit value of over 100, but that one is stuck at level 3 skeletons and I'm not sure if I can upgrade that skill and get more skeletons that way. And if I end up replacing the scepter later down the line it'd be a waste of upgrade materials anyway. Any tips for this, or do I just need to wait for later in the game to gain access to scepters with more Spirit bonuses?

Scepters are biggest source of extra spirit and there is a mod on it that gives you even more. You can also get spirit on body armor, amulet and some shields. I think some other items as well but these are easiest to get spirit.
As you level up try to always get higher level skeleton scepters with more spirit mod and if possible +X to minion levels.
Those 2 skeleton from scepter are only two melee you need, for your own take ranged summons

 

[Peachcurl]

So I tried a tier 3 map and got one shot by a leaping rare (through 2800+ total life/ES and 51 fire, 70 cold and 59 lightning res). He jumped so fast through effects from edge of screen there was no way to react to this shit.. ok mapping is even worse then I previously thought.. this is more damage then some boss fight big attacks.. I am not sure why am I even doing this to myself, SSF endgame was I guess not meant for all characters.. it is not like I can buy myself a good wand to replace a staff I found and buy a best block shield I can find. This character is effectively bricked with how this shit is designed.

A leap is likely using physical damage, at least for its base damage. Probably also not blockable or evadable (unless with acrobatics, or that warbringer node for block). So the only defense against this is a larger life/es pool and maybe some armor.

 

[ArchAngel]

So I tried a tier 3 map and got one shot by a leaping rare (through 2800+ total life/ES and 51 fire, 70 cold and 59 lightning res). He jumped so fast through effects from edge of screen there was no way to react to this shit.. ok mapping is even worse then I previously thought.. this is more damage then some boss fight big attacks.. I am not sure why am I even doing this to myself, SSF endgame was I guess not meant for all characters.. it is not like I can buy myself a good wand to replace a staff I found and buy a best block shield I can find. This character is effectively bricked with how this shit is designed.

A leap is likely using physical damage, at least for its base damage. Probably also not blockable or evadable (unless with acrobatics, or that warbringer node for block). So the only defense against this is a larger life/es pool and maybe some armor.

Cool, why is it doing more damage in t1 map on a rare than big slam attacks did on bosses at end of act6? I had less total life/es and survived big attacks by that filth big naked boss in act 6. And boss attack was telegraphed

 

[abija]

Cruel is very obviously undertuned?

 

[blessed king of longing]

I view what players are doing with ES as a kind of loophole where the developers forgot to close, which was exacerbated by bad itemization.

It might as well be the VISION, who knows, but it's definitely not freeform gameplay that POE1 provides, where you can be both a zhp zoom-zoom character or uber tank that is essentially unkillable by almost every attack (i.e. my https://pobb.in/ZtpEcuNOb5k2 latest SSF character). It was one of the biggest allures of PoE1 as compared to D3 or some other games - 'play as you want instead of play as we want'. Also, the trade will always push the community towards zoom-zoom, "press one button, whole screen dies" builds because they allow you to farm the maximum amount of currency / gear (and in poe2 this is compounded by the fact how rarity works atm).

Its a bit tricky because high percentage reduction actually gets increasing returns from a lot of damage, and you get higher returns the closer you are to hardcap

I'd say they just mindlessly copied the old poe1 formula without taking into account that you have more% aura in poe1 (which was nerfed recently) and the other defensive layers that are dependant or tied to armour (molten armour, aegis procs or other things).

They did the same thing in PoE 1. Life sucked, ES was OP. It took them like 6~ years to finally fix it. And they didn't do so by buffing life, for the most part. In fact, things like original Kaom's were nerfed for giving too much life.

I think they just like it; like all their dumb design decisions that keep re-emerging despite them making a big fuss about "learning" and "fixing" them. On-death explosions, volatiles, melee being garbage, etc.

Melee isn't garbage, monk invoker is one of the 3 top characters. It is just warrior mace skills that suck.

monk is far from melee, its more like short range caster, almost (and you can turn it into long range). ive only really used ice strike but its teleporting me where i want to go almost like flicker strike (this alone makes it automatically dodge most hits), freezing even bosses in a single combo while simultaneously shocking and applying heavy cold debuff. charge staff also rapes just on its own. if you removed all of those, then you could call it melee but melee it is not.

 

[ArchAngel]

Cruel is very obviously undertuned?

Compared to Act 1 to 3 it is noticeable easier. But some classes/weapon groups like Monk already come online by that time and for them it is super easy. For summoners too.
But your point was that maps are more like early game than that point is not true. Endgame has lots more fast hard hitting enemies than maps and they swarm in much larger numbers.

I view what players are doing with ES as a kind of loophole where the developers forgot to close, which was exacerbated by bad itemization.

It might as well be the VISION, who knows, but it's definitely not freeform gameplay that POE1 provides, where you can be both a zhp zoom-zoom character or uber tank that is essentially unkillable by almost every attack (i.e. my https://pobb.in/ZtpEcuNOb5k2 latest SSF character). It was one of the biggest allures of PoE1 as compared to D3 or some other games - 'play as you want instead of play as we want'. Also, the trade will always push the community towards zoom-zoom, "press one button, whole screen dies" builds because they allow you to farm the maximum amount of currency / gear (and in poe2 this is compounded by the fact how rarity works atm).

Its a bit tricky because high percentage reduction actually gets increasing returns from a lot of damage, and you get higher returns the closer you are to hardcap

I'd say they just mindlessly copied the old poe1 formula without taking into account that you have more% aura in poe1 (which was nerfed recently) and the other defensive layers that are dependant or tied to armour (molten armour, aegis procs or other things).

They did the same thing in PoE 1. Life sucked, ES was OP. It took them like 6~ years to finally fix it. And they didn't do so by buffing life, for the most part. In fact, things like original Kaom's were nerfed for giving too much life.

I think they just like it; like all their dumb design decisions that keep re-emerging despite them making a big fuss about "learning" and "fixing" them. On-death explosions, volatiles, melee being garbage, etc.

Melee isn't garbage, monk invoker is one of the 3 top characters. It is just warrior mace skills that suck.

monk is far from melee, its more like short range caster, almost (and you can turn it into long range). ive only really used ice strike but its teleporting me where i want to go almost like flicker strike (this alone makes it automatically dodge most hits), freezing even bosses in a single combo while simultaneously shocking and applying heavy cold debuff. charge staff also rapes just on its own. if you removed all of those, then you could call it melee but melee it is not.

Monks seem be be badly balanced compared with other classes, they probably become powerful earlier than anyone, maybe even faster than bow Deadeye. They are still melee but will need some fine tuning or most other classes will need to be brought to their level if GGG gave up on making PoE2 play different than PoE1 in endgame

 

[ArchAngel]

BTW, I gave up on Frost Sorceress that was made like GGG wanted and decided to just make SSF Infernalist Summoner meta build and actually try to see more of endgame (I had unique shield drop that is used in these builds). Hopefully one day GGG either nerfs all meta builds all buffs all bad builds and I can try to come back to experimenting with random skills.