Build diversity is still terrible

It's the same situation again this league, where 90% of the players are using <10% of the skills. Hell, I can even count them with my 1 hand:
- Lightning strike
- Molten strike of the Zenith
- Ice Nova of Forstbolts
- Power siphon
- Kinetic blast of clustering

There is such a large gap in power in what are considered "meta" and what are not. Strong skills makes the game an absolute breeze and weakest ones make one's life absolutely miserable for trying to make them work.

In my opinion, difference in power of abilities is unavoidable, but the gap shouldn't be that massive. For example if the time investment for a strong Ice nova of Frostbolts build is 1, then the time required for a self cast ball lightning or glacial cascade to reach the same power level should be 1.5 max, and not 3 or 4, because you know, it is more fun if you can do whatever you want without having to pay hefty for it.

90% of that is player sheep mentality not actual imbalance. The number of people in this community who can make their own builds and aren't reliant on streamers telling them what to do is minuscule even among the so called elite with mirror tier gear. The vast majority of them are good at no lifing and farming their brains out but couldn't make a build themselves if their lives depended on it.

/edit since you probably won't believe me, spend some time on the POEBuilds subreddit. The number of "need build for t17 xxx divine budget or x mirror budget" topics there is staggering.

bro you are nuts
build diversity is the best its ever been

[Removed by Support]

I'll rather have 90% of skills being viable with a few skills being better, than having just a few skills being viable while the rest sucks.

Sure, Lightning Strike and Molten Strike (to mention a couple) are superior both when it comes to mechanics and scaling, letting you scale them to the moon and back. But it doesn't matter THAT much, when 'all' melee skills are viable enough to do most/all content.

Hell, I'm doing Ubers and T17 maps with a self-made Frenzy of Onslaught build. When that is more than possible, I don't really care if a handful of skills are doing it faster, safer and cheaper than me.

Troll post.

They've given melee so much I honestly want to give them credit.

People want to have their time investment pay off quicker, and so they choose meta skills. It's not everyone but it will always be most people.

I don't know how I'd feel if there was no meta to be mixed up every few leagues. Would it actually be better for the game and encourage retention if there was no meta? Kinda makes me think of the mass effect 3 endings all being the same and the conclusion to 7 years of gameplay feeling like all the decisions and different directions all lead to the same outcome.

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RitualMurder wrote:

bro you are nuts
build diversity is the best its ever been

if you expect that there wont be a meta at some point and that = build diversity you are actually damaged in the brain and should seek help

i think you lack the understanding of what build diversity actually means
figure that out then reconsider this post

I never said there shouldn't be a meta. If you read the part where I said "difference in power of abilities is unavoidable" and think I meant all skills should be perfectly balanced then you got a serious problem with reading comprehension.

I could make a build that kill all Ubers on 20 divs budgets using some of the meta skills. Now I give you 100 divs, can you do the same with self cast Ice nova?

That is a >5 times viability gap. If you think that is good balancing, you are the one delusional.

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hmcg020 wrote:

Troll post.

They've given melee so much I honestly want to give them credit.

People want to have their time investment pay off quicker, and so they choose meta skills. It's not everyone but it will always be most people.

I don't know how I'd feel if there was no meta to be mixed up every few leagues. Would it actually be better for the game and encourage retention if there was no meta? Kinda makes me think of the mass effect 3 endings all being the same and the conclusion to 7 years of gameplay feeling like all the decisions and different directions all lead to the same outcome.

You miss the part "at least 5 times quicker than some of the weak skills". I don't disagree that Melee skills are all fairly viable now, but there are many weak skills still in the game. Like a majority of spells is way weaker than the rest.

"

mondlicht1 wrote:

You miss the part "at least 5 times quicker than some of the weak skills". I don't disagree that Melee skills are all fairly viable now, but there are many weak skills still in the game. Like a majority of spells is way weaker than the rest.

I am not the right person to reflect on the status of non-melee skills. I know melee diversity is now more than just lightning strike and boneshatter and so I'm happy.

Calling it terrible is a stretch but self cast spells are still in a sad spot despite multiple revamps. I guess archmage is an exception but the fact mines/traps/totems become defacto best spell/ranged attack meta means something isn't quite right there.

I think PoE devs themselves have a very modest ability to predict what will be an amazing skill combo, like Frost nova of icebolts + archmage + heiro.

So they release a patch and a few skills are amazing and they didnt guess it.


Do you want them to nerf those skills into the ground?

Do you want them to instantly boost 10,000 other skill combos?

Do you want them to perfectly predict the 84,234,573,234,392 skills and talent combinations and support gems in the game?

Do you want them to cut the game down to 10 balanced skills?



What's your constructive goal here?