One button builds

Dear Path of Exile 2 developers,

It is concerning to see that the promise to minimize "one-button" builds and encourage the use of skill combos has not been fulfilled. Currently, these builds not only remain viable but have reached an absurd level of simplicity. A clear example is the Detonate Dead (DD) build and the Spark build. In poe1 its about smash 1 button now its about hold 1 button.

Additionally, it has become increasingly apparent that builds focused on multiple-button combos and skill rotations are less effective than those relying on a single button. The simplicity of "one-button" builds has only increased, while multi-button combos fail to deliver the same results, making the combat feel less dynamic and more about finding the simplest option rather than engaging with strategy.


Is this really the kind of experience you want to keep encouraging in poe2? Where has what you said in so many interviews gone?.

I think they leave a handful of well known skills massively OP because there is a very large crowd that just want to follow guide, trade for OP gear and press 1 button. It's the games easy mode and they've been left in PoE1 untouched for years.

I'm very surprised they launched the game with these same skills in the state they are in, it will very difficult to roll back without people crying about nerfs.

i'm sure one button builds will be nerfed soon.

In the current version of the game there is no sense to try build something that is not one-button. With the way how support gem system is set, which is one support gem per build, you can only use the "best" supports for one skill, which makes other irrelevant. Ofc that is generalizing, and you still maybe can get 2-3 sets of fully supported skills if you come up with good combination, however most of the time that will still lead to having one skill doing most of the dps and 1-2 enablers which with good gearing can be replaced. Limiting the number of unique supports you can put to 1 is doing really bad work for the build diversity they hoped for. I am not sure what is the solution here, cause enabling to have multiple same support gems will result in explosion of op builds. Maybe nerfing power of all skill across the board, enabling multiple of the same support, and focusing builds on that? So the main power of the skill is coming from the support combination. I dont know, but with the current way it is set, they will end with the endless cycle of one-button build is good, nerf it, comes another one, nerf it, and so on and so on.

I don't think I understand. Why not just play a build that isn't one button?

There's plenty of ways to design and make some and nobody is forcing you to chase meta even if the meta leans towards that as it inevitably will when people ask content creators for brain dead easy builds or the simple strong so the content creators have more happy customers and people scream at them less for failing a build that takes more than one button. Over time it's been conditioned a bit for streamers to make more simple and more safe builds to not risk outrage from their own playerbase. I don't see this immediately going away, especially with EA having limitations with the content we have.

Then if you aren't looking at meta and stuff it seems like a personal problem in perspective as there's plenty of ways to make multi button builds. It makes sense to just play the game how you want more as you aren't forced to adapt to other players and can play the whole thing SSF.

That thinking is working until you reach the endgame and start to do mapping. While I am not the best build planner myself I cannot objectively say that its harder to do those creative builds with multiple skills, from my experience the game shifts its focus from being almost "path of soulslike" in campaign to return to poe 1 early years in endgame, where everything is fast and you are slow. The mechanics taken from poe 1 which is breach, delirium, rituals and expedition are taken 1:1, the same monster density, the same swarm, the same intensity. If you have build that requires from you to for example, make a wall, shatter it, do some other cool stuff across 4 different skills, you will simply get overrun and killed midway through it. That kind of gameplay only leads to look for most efficient way to fight, which most of the time is simply focusing on one skill only.

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JabbatheHoff#1314 wrote:

I don't think I understand. Why not just play a build that isn't one button?

There's plenty of ways to design and make some and nobody is forcing you to chase meta even if the meta leans towards that as it inevitably will when people ask content creators for brain dead easy builds or the simple strong so the content creators have more happy customers and people scream at them less for failing a build that takes more than one button. Over time it's been conditioned a bit for streamers to make more simple and more safe builds to not risk outrage from their own playerbase. I don't see this immediately going away, especially with EA having limitations with the content we have.

Then if you aren't looking at meta and stuff it seems like a personal problem in perspective as there's plenty of ways to make multi button builds. It makes sense to just play the game how you want more as you aren't forced to adapt to other players and can play the whole thing SSF.

I understand your point, but it’s important to note that it was the developers themselves who repeatedly stated that one-button builds would be a thing of the past in POE2, that they would be minimal and not worth pursuing. This was emphasized in numerous interviews, where they made it clear that skill combos/rotations and more complex builds would be the focus. However, the reality is other.

It's almost like people like 1-button builds more than annoying builds so play them when they are competitively available. Who the fuck would have thought that would be the case I wonder?

And, to repeat as always, "what devs say" vs what actually happens are often incongruent. What devs say aims to paint a narrative, what actually happens depends on whether people agree with them enough to keep playing through that narrative.

I have severe carpal tunnel and play on controller so I’ll always gravitate towards the lazier builds with less APM. I’m quite sure they said we’d have righteous fire at some point but how it’ll function we don’t know. The option for more action in combat is yours, pressing more buttons gets you more damage and extra skills so that seems to even out.

There’s zero button Herald builds out there in the first game, the players will always find all kinds of fun interactions. Enjoy the game however you want but try to see things from others perspectives too.

Some good posts here, 100% agree on the 1 use only supports essentially forcing single DPS skill use in the game. I mean, tin foil hat I really doubt this game has been in dev for 5 years unless it takes that long solely for art and environments, the presence of the current meta skills to me means the skills system hasn't been rigourously looked at.

If PoE2 is supposed to be slower and more tactical, DD should have required powercharges that inherently limits the amount of corpses that can explode for example. This way a secondary skill or some rare unique providing ez uptime of charges could be implemented.

I can't see what their vision is for this game, I think they need to make major changes that will cause community backlash to really improve it honestly. You have a casual unfriendly campaign (which in my experience outside trials is reasonably well balanced). Then a more punishing and unpredictable PoE1 type endgame balanced around dodge roll.

I wish GGG/Tencent luck, and please please keep a small team working on PoE 1.