How to make combat in endgame meaningful - suggest or improve skills for your class/spec

The goal is to encourage players to diviate from one/two-button-builds and rely on active skills instead of simple statchecks.

Ie: the tankiest build currently seems to be getting 90% elemental res
Having a 75% block chance that nullifies damage
with armor dropped fully because building evasion that nullifies incoming damage is better.
Sorry, but you cant create meaningful combat if you allow players to ignore mechanics with passive stats.

So we have passive stats stacked up to a level where dodge-roll is bad, because that time you stand up is just an invitation to be killed.
Active block? Just to get stunned? And why bother with active blocking when you have passive dmg nullifier. Btw... holding the shield actively is just wasted time that you could have nuke the enemies out of existence...

I get that arpg can be a powerfantasy wishfullfillment but you have poe1 already for this where endgame builds are walking simulators.

The game needs more crowd control builds that interact with enemy types.
Currently the only soft-cc are in use that increases damage output (extra dmg against enemies with debuff)

One Trick Pony builds shouldn't the only thing that are viable.


Current form endgame doesn't even have defensive playstyle. We don't even have good defensive skills. And whatever you consider defensive skills are technically setup for more damage or just another hp-reg.
With the exception of a few build that transfer damage to minions.

Well. yeah... shields are so overtuned you cant even walk without it.
Completely nullifying a damage is a bad decision. Or arguably the bad decision is letting players reach the level where they only get hit by 1 out of 10 attack and instantly healed up, because the game doesn't have mitigation skills, but throw so much regeneration at you that a combat needs to be sorted within a second.
That also results that combo builds arent viable either. The only challenge endgame is to oneshot the player.

Im afraid one way to give mobs more cc, but that will mean apart from the mandatory resist and hit rate you just force player to get another stat capped (ie: stun threshold of freeze resist), and that just another passive statchecker...
If you play enough the map is simply decided before you even enter.


I play a warrior, so I am more creative on this side of the skill.
Shield Wall needs to be redesigned
Currently its only a damage boost skill. You put it down so your slam can explode it into enemies face. If you want to make this your main skill, the cooldown is so short you just make a 2 skill build: something that creates aftershock like a totem, and you use sheidl wall instead of autoattack now...

Another big problem that its only good against something that isn't a problem if you have a shield. Wow... it can block projectiles? You already have a shield that does the same.

Solution:
Make it work as a wall that you can stand behind rendering aoe blasts. Well... it still has some hitpoint. Currently my Shield wall has 4k hp. So lets say the enemy casts a 10k lasorbeam, if I would put 2 wall down and stand behind it, I should only get 2k damage.
The fortress gem should be reworked. It should reduce wall hp instead of skill damage...

Earthquake
Reduces enemies attack and cast speed

Give more interaction with certain debuffs:
if enemy have fully broken armor they pulse aoe, bleed, dazed
If they're ignited aoe explosion

New skill - taunting warcry
Reduces enemies damage, but increases their attack speed.
A skill that would be amazing for thorn builds and dual wielders.

Skill - Vengeful Fury + Berzerker Spirit gem
What an absolute disappointment this skill so far. "Rage also increases armor".
If I fully stack my rage bar I don't even get an extra % of phys reduction and I combine it with Berzerker Spirit gem that gives an extra 45% of rage effect. I get 300 armor extra!

And here I am not even sure which direction should we go here.
Instead of base armour maybe it should increase the end value? (My starting armor was 6550 activating berserker spirit and start stacking up increased it to 6900 ish. Thats not a 44% increase in armor... (you get 30x 1% from rage and spirit gem increases effect by 45%)
But if it would give 45% armor that should be around 2.9k would that be even a great improvement? (simply due to how armor works) In 0.1 I had 18k armor and was still oneshotted in t14 maps...
I think this armor interaction already have plenty of discussions.

Not even sure if each 5 rage would reduce incoming damage by 1% would even be such a gamebraker. I am looking at the Vengeful Fury nodes

But here is another suggestion:
Berzerker Spirit
Passive effect would also give overheal as guard stat.

Active use: Berzker rage: "literally too angry to die"
Your health cant go under 1 until you have rage, but cant get rage until your rage bar goes 0 + 5 seconds. (just said a number because I am aware plenty of ways can reduce that time)


Reflect support gem
Could be multiple. 1 gem for projectiles, another one for spells.
As it says, could send back projectile attacks to sender.
And could be paired with following skills:
Shield wall, Rolling slam, for warriors.
I can imagine quarterstaffs, some mages with ice wall or temporal bubble could have some class identity with it.
Mercenery with a granade?


Holy Descend
Another 5% heal/second.
Just reduce incoming damage by 5% or give it as a seperate gem. Maybe we could use both.
Too op? Give it an internal cooldown.

Knockback and knockback interaction mechanics
Can be shield bash, a massive mace swing. lets say each of them could have different range. Using Dual wielder Giant blood could send even the toughest enemies to "orbital path" while a shield would be just minor distance.
The interaction would be: if enemies collide with a wall they get extra damage.
And here I am looking at merceneries with impaling crossbow skills.
And shield and ice wall suddenly looks more interactive in case you don't fancy to kite the enemy to a wall or pillar.
Giant enemies shouldn't be able to be knocked back, but impaling attacks should have extra damage against them anyway.

Not sure if it helps you specifically, but I think Tame Beast introduces some defensive capabilities that might be going unacknowledged.

A companion w/ Shroud Walker has implicit tank-like behavior; it warps immediately into new packs and draws a lot of attention. Combining this w/ Temporal Bubble, Hinder Aura, and/or elemental ground or walls has been working really well w/ my Tactician 'cause it gives me the fraction of a second I need to drop turret(s) and start firing.

The current design probably won't carry all the way through T4 pinnacle content, but I could see it becoming viable with some tweaks that give companions more survivability and give you more flexibility to mix & match modifiers and possibly upgrade them (e.g., replacing base modifiers with their empowered versions).

Would love to have an ability to customize modifiers for companions, i.e., a way to capture specific modifiers from one beast and instill them in another, maybe borrowing from the distilled emotions concept allowing players to capture distilled fragments from enemies and then recombine them as modifiers for companions.

Also, obviously we need a menagerie for Hideouts where we can make our companions fight while we watch and place bets.

First dont make a character , can one shot everything with button with 1 exalt build when other characters suffer even with +200 divine gear and still not enough.
Bring back rarirty , so whos that idea realy ,whch psy is want to delete rarirty?
Why shrines ,essences , strongboxes and spirits mechanics has to be gamble chance modifiers? So shit . Why I need to select +%40 chance contain strongbox sht???
Point ; Double time fck players chance here. Why would I take %400 chance can contain strongbox thing if strongbox doesnt fkin drop anything? rather than orb of augmentation or after each 3 days it will give just 1 divine orb. No point
Clear bots !
Check your fkin servers . How the hell can a game which scene on steam like +500k players top of time get ddos by someone :D
Play your game !

You guys can post videos " oh man I turn the gamble strongbox "

me : Wow so what ,what did you get?
- : Man I get 10 divine orbs .Omg !! OHHH
me : WOOOW. AMAZING .STRONGBOXES ARE FKIN GOOD


100 hours later ....


Look at this fkin game it drops only """" orb of augmention """".

"

Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

Not sure if it helps you specifically, but I think Tame Beast introduces some defensive capabilities that might be going unacknowledged.

A companion w/ Shroud Walker has implicit tank-like behavior; it warps immediately into new packs and draws a lot of attention. Combining this w/ Temporal Bubble, Hinder Aura, and/or elemental ground or walls has been working really well w/ my Tactician 'cause it gives me the fraction of a second I need to drop turret(s) and start firing.

The current design probably won't carry all the way through T4 pinnacle content, but I could see it becoming viable with some tweaks that give companions more survivability and give you more flexibility to mix & match modifiers and possibly upgrade them (e.g., replacing base modifiers with their empowered versions).

Would love to have an ability to customize modifiers for companions, i.e., a way to capture specific modifiers from one beast and instill them in another, maybe borrowing from the distilled emotions concept allowing players to capture distilled fragments from enemies and then recombine them as modifiers for companions.

Also, obviously we need a menagerie for Hideouts where we can make our companions fight while we watch and place bets.

Isnt that a spear based gem?
But even if it isn't, as a full str "tank" I should start stacking dex to become tankier?

But my point is to not just "here's another passive skill", but something that can interact with scenarios.
Ive just seen a "smith of Kitava" build that stacks max fire res, that applies to cold and lightning.
That means SoK don't need to collect as much stats. They have 85-90% fire res + cold = lightning, stack up chaos too, max block chance and around 40% evasion.
GG, they're unkillable. And now we can discuss how much "skill" is needed to sit in the market
or beg for RNGesus for loot if you play SSF?


I was even thinking about another wall-type ability,but I guess thematically its more of a spellcaster themes:
you raise a wall that has an "empty" hp bar that can be filled up by your enemies too. If the enemymakes the last hit, you get the wall hp with reduced damage, if you do the last hit, its an aoe cone.

And this creates an interesting decision:
a) you burst your own wall for a nuke?
b) you play thug of war and aim for the last hit?
c) the wall absorbs the damage and you mitigate potentially a oneshot ability?

This could be even a focal redirect. so you have a chance to step aside...

"

Kraivan#1745 wrote:

Isnt that a spear based gem?

Tame Beast? Nah, it's a Minion (lore-wise you're sending Azmeri wisps to capture the beast's essence I guess). It is DEX-based though.

"

But even if it isn't, as a full str "tank" I should start stacking dex to become tankier?

Probably not? I did say it might not be for you specifically. Your thread title suggested you were inviting a more general discussion of endgame skills, so I was just chipping in some insights of my own from playing w/ Tame Beast recently.

I think it's an interesting question though - I could see one potential improvement being the addition of STR-based companion options (i.e., physically dominating a companion instead of training it to obey).

Assumption: I think super meaningful combat should be reserved for Rare & Unique creatures. For "trash mobs" at most two skills are what should be used for mapping with no rares in sight -- maybe one CC / setup skill followed by another skill to wipe mobs and proceed.

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Theoretically my class & ascendancy (Mercenary & Tactician) probably is supposed to rely on hybrid Armour (phys mitigation), Res (Ele & Chaos mitigation), and Evasion (damage avoidance) as the primary defensive layers along with Life + "Life Recovery"

Moreover the class seems to have high reliance on pinning (locking down) opponents and getting large amounts of damage in while enemies are pinned??

A ranged crossbow (STR & DEX hybrid) seems like a logical weapon choice if I want to stay mobile.


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The problems I see -- and improvements needed to make the above more viable are:

1. Be able to scale life higher on my hybrid build. Perhaps a keystone in that area that allows to gain life from BOTH STR and DEX?? More Life on gear, higher percentages of passive life regen, etc. make sense.

Note: The build might depend a fair bit on burst damage so while leech is always important the passive life regen may be more important due to versatility??


2. Perhaps add a "Glancing Blows" (choose a different name) keystone in that area so that (as long as your armor & evasion are close to balanced) your evasion rating can help mitigate physical damage, lower chance to be CRITed, etc?? The current armor formula isn't very forgiving for larger hits so seeing that a hybrid build can't stack armor as high they have VERY POOR physical mitigation -- it makes sense that the keystone + Evasion can be used to help with that.


3. For combat we're probably looking at setting up some type of ailment, pinning, and anything else to weaken the boss so we can get high damage in during a damage window. Some skills that synergize grenades doing vastly more damage to pinned enemies (esp. if also blinded, maimed, shocked, ...). If we can somehow get that to payoff that would be great.

Maybe the pin time on bosses could be quite long so once they are pinned you can pile up a ton of various effects, consume ALL of those effects and chunk the boss for massive damage.

God help you balance something like that though without there being exploits large enough to drive a semi through ...

"

Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

"

Kraivan#1745 wrote:

Isnt that a spear based gem?

Tame Beast? Nah, it's a Minion (lore-wise you're sending Azmeri wisps to capture the beast's essence I guess). It is DEX-based though.

"

But even if it isn't, as a full str "tank" I should start stacking dex to become tankier?

Probably not? I did say it might not be for you specifically. Your thread title suggested you were inviting a more general discussion of endgame skills, so I was just chipping in some insights of my own from playing w/ Tame Beast recently.

I think it's an interesting question though - I could see one potential improvement being the addition of STR-based companion options (i.e., physically dominating a companion instead of training it to obey).

See... I would consider an interesting hunter style minion build if you could create a really powerful beast (either by being tanky, offensive, or supportive) while you sort of share the stats with it. Spiritual bond.
But in exchange you have to keep the pet alive.
And I am not talking about minion lich like "oh noes... my corpse party is dead, now I am useless for the next 5 seconds"
but an "if your beast dies, you lose dmg output for twice the time it respawns"

It would be an interesting minion build too (I can imagine templar going that direction) where you are a healer and your minions are the party you try to keep alive. :D

Or I liked warcraft warlock approach: minions are disposable, and I like demonology warlock conception around the Legion era:
ThaelKhielsConsumption rotation:
In a nutshell it was about consuming your minions hp for a burst damage. But over there the concept was to maximize minion count since they expired.

Here in PoE2 lets say there would be a skill gem
sacrificial blast
Transfer pain
to use minions maximum/current % of hp as a spell damage.
And now you have options to make minions tanky, beefy, do you want to transfer damage to your minions and I would give the spirit adjustment options:
Do you want more or better minions?
If I want to go more advanced: you could set up AI to be defensive, aggressive or protective? The difference would be that they try their best to step of of aoe (they could be in the way of each other if you have swarm build)
They will stand in lava (you need healers or you need to heal them)
Or protective as if stand before you to be meatshields and facecatch projectiles.

Havent played witch yet, so not sure if its even a concept here, but I assume not, if they complain about they cant control minions to avoid aoe damage.
But correct me if I'm wrong.