Feedback: Most combos are just not that fun

So GGG has been pretty clear that they rather not see us using 1 button builds and instead use a different set of skills for solving different situations.

I get the Idea and correctly applied, it could be a fun differentiation to POE1's more zoomy and simplistic 1 button style.

The Problem is just this. Most Combos in POE2 are either really clunky/hard to use, look underwhelming or are just not that fun to pull off.

Let's look at some examples.

- Spear improved twisters:

On paper, a decently good combo. You create whirlwinds by using the whirling slash or the whirlwind lance, stand in the whirlwind, optionally create elemental ground (e.g. by using frost bolt) and then use twister (optionally with the barrage buff) to create a lot of elementally charged twisters that demolish your enemies.

In practice, this means using whirling slash 3 times while awkwardly trying to dodge enemy attacks, using frost bolt, using barrage and the firing of twisters. 6 Skills for a decently strong combo where only the last skill actually deals any meaningful damage and the rest is just setup. Strong? Yeah, maybe. Fun? That's up for debate.

- Spear Rapid Assault:

You use rapid assault to stick spears in your target that cause bleeding and then have to use a detonator to explode them for a bleeding explosion with a small radius that most of the time you just can't see because of the detonator animation. The concept is cool, but the result lacks any satisfaction. On top of that, the most convenient detonators are exploding spear that has a separate detonation delay (a Detonator with a delay? Really? It's detonating arrow all over again) or thunderous leap where you have to awkwardly jump in place because rapid assault is a melee skill and thunderous leap is a well leap. Combos are more fun when they are thematic. Let me detonate the spears with a skill that looks like it belongs (e.g. disengange which would result in a fun play style of spearing enemies, exploding spears with disengage and then finishing of the rest with a blood hunt. Just a thought.)

- Coldsnap combos

Again, on paper, a simple combo. You freeze things, you snap them = damage. In practice, it's a miniscule AOE and let's say you want to use it for a single target, it requires a freeze to deal DMG. What are the things you can't freeze often? Oh yeah, bosses where single target DMG matters. Then you have the frost bolt explosion, which is better yes, but with an AOE that is so small it barely gets used because the result is just a little bit underwhelming when there is an other way to explode frost bolt (snakepit). And just a question: why change cold snap from the poe1 skill. Let it create a big area of frost dot if you snap a frozen monster or a frost bolt.

Those are just a few examples, but i think most combos either lack power (DMG, AOE, other benefits) or are just too clunky to use and take too long to set up. There are good examples for combos as well. Grenades and explosive shot work just fine. Ball lightning and Lightning warp are what frost bolt + cold snap wish to be, and contagion + essence drain is just satisfying to use.

I don't think players are averse to combos. Some combos in Poe1 were really popular (detonate dead play stile, frost dot play stile, chaos dot play stile Frost bolt + ice nova just to name a few). But they all had a few things in common. They looked powerful, most of the time they were actually powerful for the added effort needed, and felt a lot smoother to play than 90% of the poe2 combos.