Is there a poe 2 forums/discord or website?

J/W I'm super hyped for poe 2 and want to talk with other enthusiasts about build prep etc. Would be nice to find other poe 2 fans. I suppose a discord invite link from anyone here would suffice. I believe I'm in the official poe 1 discord, but theres only 1 text channel for poe2. Is this just a site ran by people who "moderate" the reddit? I'd hope theres something official and not something ran by people not even affiliated with GGG.

There's no official PoE discord ran by GGG.
I assume the forums will be up at the beta launch or a little before that.

The PoE2 Discord with the single text channel is the one the developers occasionally chatter on, so far as I'm aware. It's not run by GGG directly, but it's as close to 'Official' as it gets.

That channel is a useful resource though. I found out only recently about PoE 2 DB, which has provided me some exceptionally helpful information. I believe (hoping enough of the prospective build survives contact with launch) that I will be trying a Sorceress start, focusing on fire spells utilizing the new Summon Raging Spirits gem that passively conjures a Raging Spirit whenever you cast a fire spell.

There's a powerful mana restoration support that provides 50 flat mana when a supported minion dies, and Raging Spirits die four whole seconds after they're summoned. Combine that with Cast on Minion Death as another buff option and one can generate a pretty steady stream of both mana regen and autonomous casts. If I can get staves that provide a mana-free Fire spell - and if that Fire spell works for conjuring Raging Spirits - then the character is never more than four seconds away from fixing its mana regardless of the state of its blue flask.

Also curious to see how the Hourglass support (35% More damage, +8s cooldown) and Unleash Support interact on a skill like Firestorm that can work as a cooldown-y Big Smakka skill. Stuff like that will be important given that support gems work on the Highlander Rule now - a gem like Raging Spirits that can let you get use out of attack or minion-focused support gems, and a skill that can benefit from a different mode of casting than the usual one-button spam, will be important for getting the most out of your resources, methinks.

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1453R wrote:

The PoE2 Discord with the single text channel is the one the developers occasionally chatter on, so far as I'm aware. It's not run by GGG directly, but it's as close to 'Official' as it gets.

That channel is a useful resource though. I found out only recently about PoE 2 DB, which has provided me some exceptionally helpful information. I believe (hoping enough of the prospective build survives contact with launch) that I will be trying a Sorceress start, focusing on fire spells utilizing the new Summon Raging Spirits gem that passively conjures a Raging Spirit whenever you cast a fire spell.

There's a powerful mana restoration support that provides 50 flat mana when a supported minion dies, and Raging Spirits die four whole seconds after they're summoned. Combine that with Cast on Minion Death as another buff option and one can generate a pretty steady stream of both mana regen and autonomous casts. If I can get staves that provide a mana-free Fire spell - and if that Fire spell works for conjuring Raging Spirits - then the character is never more than four seconds away from fixing its mana regardless of the state of its blue flask.

Also curious to see how the Hourglass support (35% More damage, +8s cooldown) and Unleash Support interact on a skill like Firestorm that can work as a cooldown-y Big Smakka skill. Stuff like that will be important given that support gems work on the Highlander Rule now - a gem like Raging Spirits that can let you get use out of attack or minion-focused support gems, and a skill that can benefit from a different mode of casting than the usual one-button spam, will be important for getting the most out of your resources, methinks.

No thanks. I like ramping my SRS damage directly without any steps in between.
Also split scaling damage seems like a nightmare and this gameplay looks way more clunky.

Split damage scaling creates a forced meta, even worse than what we already have. That's what Grim Dawn struggled/struggles with. It's why, to my knowledge, there are still mobs in the game that have practical immunity to a damage type (either by default or by too much stacked res that can't realistically be countered with RR), because it's the devs' intention to make you explore other options, regardless of whether or not you like those options they pigeonhole you into.

To be fair, the current paradigm of "I am going to scale the one single thing I do all the way to the Kuiper belt" also creates a forced meta, since any build that does not do so is automatically invalid. There's not really any such thing as a valid multi-skill build in PoE1; the builds people hold up as examples of "see, this is a combo build!" are generally just builds that have multiple skills which scale the exact same way and can stack with each other, like Occultist Cold Multi-Dot or certain minion builds. Those builds aren't 'combo' builds - they just have found ways to apply what amounts to the exact same core skill multiple times.

A system which states that you fundamentally cannot place all your resources into one single thing to crank it to Neptune and back no more 'forces' a meta than a system which states that placing all your resources into a single thing is the only valid/viable choice. Each of those systems results in builds that follow the foundational paradigm of the system. Whether you prefer the system that disallows All In or the system that forces All In is a matter of preference.

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1453R wrote:

Whether you prefer the system that disallows All In or the system that forces All In is a matter of preference.

There's quite a stark difference between choosing to pour resources into one thing to push it to the limit, and being forced to fork resources into something entirely different because the game demands it.

You cannot play Grim Dawn without RR. I mean, technically you can, but you won't get far. This is because the entire game is designed around high res mobs that force you into dual damage type builds, buffs and debuffs. And the devs know that people stack RR, thus the end result in their mind was not to make players less dependent on RR, for example by hard capping enemy res to 90%, but they doubled down on it and made it even more necessary.

I'm pretty sure you've mentioned GD in such context before, unless that was some other guy, so I'm fine with using it as an example here. Thing is, you talk about not having combo skills, then immediately call skill combos not actual combos - then what are they? Ice Nova of Frostbolts and Frostbolt interaction is literally what a combo is. And in GD, this issue is amplified tenfold, as practically all you are doing is spamming the same skill rotation over and over, but primarily because you basically have to.

If I stop casting Frost Bomb for a second, I maybe lose some DPS, but the boss is still killable. In GD, this lapse of attention could mean the boss took no damage for a second and now healed back 10% of its HP. We don't have that nonsense here and we don't need it.

I do not wish for PoE 2 to make the same mistake. This type of boneheaded "purist" design is what turned me off from GD for good.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

There's quite a stark difference between choosing to pour resources into one thing to push it to the limit, and being forced to fork resources into something entirely different because the game demands it.

There is also a difference between forking resources into two different things due to negative pressure, i.e. enemies with resistances and immunities, and forking resources into two different things from positive pressure because the game offers resources that cannot be pooled into a single thing.

This is not "you have 100 units of Build resources and must split them 50/50 or the game will punish you." This is "you have 100 units of Build Resource for your main thing, and 20 additional units of Bonus Resource you can only spend on something other than Main Thing."

There is also the fact that we do not know what builds will look like in PoE2 yet, and whether it will be impossible to make the 20 Bonus Resource work with a single unified game plan or not. Hell, in the case of my Sorceress protobuild? Why can't I use my 20 Bonus Units of build resource on options that enhance my minion damage, perhaps work a golem into the build as well should golems still be a thing or use a few varieties of Skellingboi or Specter if not, and tie my two "disparate" skillsets into a single plan of attack? Who's to say there won't be any Elemental Equilibrium-like option that rewards investment into disparate elements? The developers have been ruthless in their thoughtfulness during development so far, why doubt them on this one issue?

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

You cannot play Grim Dawn without RR. I mean, technically you can, but you won't get far. This is because the entire game is designed around high res mobs that force you into dual damage type builds, buffs and debuffs. And the devs know that people stack RR, thus the end result in their mind was not to make players less dependent on RR, for example by hard capping enemy res to 90%, but they doubled down on it and made it even more necessary.

I'm pretty sure you've mentioned GD in such context before, unless that was some other guy, so I'm fine with using it as an example here.

I have never played Grim Dawn and know almost nothing about it. But this was also the case in Diablo 2, which is widely hailed as the Uncontestable Ultimate King of All ARPGs. D2 had widespread immunities requiring access to multiple types of damage. The answer was generally "do one sidebar skill designed to deal with those, then focus on your main game plan the rest of the time." I see no reason why that cannot be the case in PoE2, if the problem emerges anew.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

Thing is, you talk about not having combo skills, then immediately call skill combos not actual combos - then what are they? Ice Nova of Frostbolts and Frostbolt interaction is literally what a combo is. And in GD, this issue is amplified tenfold, as practically all you are doing is spamming the same skill rotation over and over, but primarily because you basically have to.

This is because, despite the "combo" terminology being common even with the developers, PoE2 is not necessarily reliant on combo gameplay. Skill rotations emerge as a result of cooldown-based skill usage, where you only get so many skill usages per unit of time and wringing maximum efficiency from those usages is key. PoE2 largely eschews cooldowns save when they are unavoidable - or allows you to opt into them, as per the Hourglass support.

Path of Exile 2 allows combos, but what it is actually asking you to do is be mindful during battle and use the correct skill for the situation at hand, while building a versatile kit that can handle as many situations as possible. Not through overgearing the content and simply being an invincible ultragod, but by having the correct tools for each task at hand. Certainly, being able to interweave skills together in ways that amplify the skills in question is a big deal - but it's not the only deal, or even necessarily the primary goal of the system.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

If I stop casting Frost Bomb for a second, I maybe lose some DPS, but the boss is still killable. In GD, this lapse of attention could mean the boss took no damage for a second and now healed back 10% of its HP. We don't have that nonsense here and we don't need it.

I do not wish for PoE 2 to make the same mistake. This type of boneheaded "purist" design is what turned me off from GD for good.

That is a Grim Dawn issue. PoE2 is an unreleased game none of us have played yet. Why assume the new game makes similar obvious errors to another largely unrelated game when every indication from the Grinding Gear team is they have done everything in their power to learn from their competitors in the genre? And when we have six to twelve months of planned Early Access specifically to address issues such as this one?