Unique items and ascendancy classes

Can this game have unique items that actually help raise your character's overall value? Half of them just grant some meagre bonuses and the rest impose awful penalties for those meagre bonuses, so you end up just avoiding them. Same goes for a lot of ascendancy classes. Can items and classes just provide only bonuses, so you can be tempted to use them? Otherwise, what's the point of their existence? The best example is Doedre's elixir. Why would I use that in any circumstance whatsoever? Leave myself without life and energy shield for a few charges. For ascendancy classes, one example is for the Saboteur, where a notable ascendancy makes your critical chance lucky, but your damage unlucky. And I've seen worse in different versions of the skill tree. Having it like this is just stating that you didn't gain much (if anything) when it comes to damage. Maybe there are some obscure combinations which allow you to not suffer much from the unlucky damage, but why can't these things just grant bonuses and nothing more? Another example is Dead-eye, which sounds like it had a stroke and was left with just one functional eye, to deal with everything in this game. You gain gale force every time you use a skill. Cool, so far so good. Instead of losing your gale force like you'd lose charges, the next skill makes you lose all your gale force when you're hit, which is 100% of the time. Therefore, you practically have no gale force at any time whatsoever.

I've been thinking some more about the dead-eye class, and I think that in the next league it should have its name changed into dead-a*s, since it will reflect the in-game statistics better. Actually, I think that it's better to rename all the classes to include "dead" in their name, since the number of deaths that most people experience is usually greater than the number of meals they had that day. So, "deadbeat", "dead and gone", "dead as a doornail", "dead serious", "good as dead" and "dead on arrival" are all valid ascendancy class names, all that it's left is to assign each to their corresponding character, based on how quick and hilarious their deaths usually are. And just so that it won't become monotonous, names that hint towards death could be mixed with the ones mentioned earlier. From this second category, I'd propose "kicked the bucket", "on the wrong side of the grass", "six feet under", "gone to a better place", "roadkill" and "sleeping with the fishes".

There are many uniques that do exactly what you want them to do....you just need to spend more time learning how to use them.

Numerous build guides for every single class using only unique items exist, that can carry you well into the endgame. Almost all builds use at least one unique as BiS for their build (not counting the obvious mageblood). And some aren't even the rare uniques that you'll likely never see.

You just have a lack of experience right now. You're gonna need to play and think a heck of a lot more for your feedback to have meaning. I suggest posting in the gameplay help section before posting here and railing against a game system you obviously don't yet understand and haven't really even tried to.



Take your Doedre's Elixir example: a life build with 75% chaos resist basically has no downside to using this. Until you can gain charges some other way, this is a cheap and easy way to almost always be at max charges on such a build. Pair that with a high regen/recovery/leech build and the loss of life basically doesn't even happen.

Now onto your Saboteur: its pretty common for fully fleshed out crit builds to have 100% crit chance. With lucky crit, your investment to reach that is cut by like 33%. Huge huge huge win. If you never deal non-crit damage, then the unlucky damage mod yields no downside.

Deadeye Tailwind: two ways to maximize these two nodes: run an evasion-based build that avoids 95% of all hits allowing for maximum uptime of tailwind, while also gaining the "oh $" defense when you actually do get hit. Fast attack speed means you immediately regain max tailwind. 40% less damage taken unconditionally is the single greatest defense that exists in the game, especially paired with a high evasion build. If you don't want to evade, then just run a fast attacking build, and you'll instantly be at max tailwind again the second you get hit.

I'd also point out that Deadeye is one of the most popular classes being played right now. It is in the upper half of most-used ascendancies. That should tell you that there might be something that you are missing...and your judgment is flawed.

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a life build with 75% chaos resist basically has no downside to using this.

I guess that 25% damage taken is nothing, then. When you're struggling to hold onto every drop of your life, your salvation comes by draining it even more. Like, 25% damage applied to 50% of your life means almost 15%. An if you're relying on energy shield as well, 80% gone, poof. Yes, we all love risky choices for almost nothing at all. Why not just apply another effect, if it just can't come without downsides, like 50% slower movement or something, which isn't as deadly?

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Until you can gain charges some other way, this is a cheap and easy way to almost always be at max charges on such a build.

There are other ways to gain charges and, even if there weren't, the question would be WHY aren't there any other ways.

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run an evasion-based build that avoids 95% of all hits

Yeah, I played evasion-based characters in the past too. First of all, your chance to evade is decreased by the enemy's chance to hit, so it becomes lower as your enemies become stronger. Second, you forgot about spells, which always hit, unless you invest in dodge (which is costly) or have a dead-eye with a shield. Practically, when it comes to this game, you'll get hit almost all the time, so I'd just ignore that I have gale force. It should've been expended just like charges are.

Tail wind and gale force. More like flatulence against the ruthless and unbalanced nature of this game.

Dude....I am well aware of how the defenses of this game works. I'm not entirely sure you are though.

Please gain more experience before commenting further, you are opening yourself up for the brutal reality that is the PoE feedback forum.

Most deadeye builds are attacking 8-10 times a second. Unless you are running the most juiced up dense content, and standing still in the middle of mobs, you aren't going to be hit frequently at all (with maxed evasion), at which point that 10 attacks per second won't instantly recoup. And then, you can add 50% dodge attacks (and spells) on top of that to have an effective dodge rate of 98% or higher. Or you go spell suppression which most evasion characters will have capped to get an effective 90% less damage taken from spells, up nearly 100% of the time as a deadeye. Evasion builds require a playstyle that complements the "do not get hit" style, you aren't just sitting there.

If you have 5000 life, doedre costs you 2500 chaos damage. 75% resistance to that means you are taking 625 damage from using that flask. And it costs all the charges of that flask, meaning you aren't spamming it in any real timeframe. Plus, charges last 10 seconds which means you'd only need this flask for charge generation once every 10 seconds. If you aren't recovering 625 instantly, albeit over 10 seconds, then your build has a major major problem. Is it a great item? No. Is it what you describe? Also no. There are TONS of items and builds that cause self-damage which you have to mitigate, most of which are some of the strongest and most popular builds in the game. And those builds take well over 625 damage per "use".

Charges are a powerful mechanic, which is why there aren't many "gain ALL charges" mechanics like this potion. And yes, you can automate charges eventually so this flask only has usage for a limited time. There's also builds that require it because they can't generate requisite charges or baseline charges in certain conditions such as extended boss fights or specific map mods. This potion overcomes those obstacles without the need to respec an entire build or completely change skill setup.

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Dude....I am well aware of how the defenses of this game works. I'm not entirely sure you are though.

That's great for you and insignificant for me, since I've done my own research and had my own experience with this game. You and everyone else who write on the internet are simply gods who know everything and are completely right all the time, while I'm just someone who can't tie his shoe laces right. If I had a picture with all of you anonymous individuals, I'd frame it next to Jesus and the other saints. There we go, dismissed.

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Hitman473107#7521 wrote:

Can this game have unique items that actually help raise your character's overall value? Half of them just grant some meagre bonuses and the rest impose awful penalties for those meagre bonuses, so you end up just avoiding them. Same goes for a lot of ascendancy classes. Can items and classes just provide only bonuses, so you can be tempted to use them? Otherwise, what's the point of their existence? The best example is Doedre's elixir. Why would I use that in any circumstance whatsoever? Leave myself without life and energy shield for a few charges. For ascendancy classes, one example is for the Saboteur, where a notable ascendancy makes your critical chance lucky, but your damage unlucky. And I've seen worse in different versions of the skill tree. Having it like this is just stating that you didn't gain much (if anything) when it comes to damage. Maybe there are some obscure combinations which allow you to not suffer much from the unlucky damage, but why can't these things just grant bonuses and nothing more? Another example is Dead-eye, which sounds like it had a stroke and was left with just one functional eye, to deal with everything in this game. You gain gale force every time you use a skill. Cool, so far so good. Instead of losing your gale force like you'd lose charges, the next skill makes you lose all your gale force when you're hit, which is 100% of the time. Therefore, you practically have no gale force at any time whatsoever.

PoE is a complex game. As the person you "dismissed" noted, most of the uniques are designed to alter the characteristics of a skill or character mechanics. The majority are not simply "Maor powa!" like you will find in games like Diablo, Diablo II and Torchlight. This was intended by the developers, who wanted the very best items to be rare drops and player crafted gear.

Don't think of uniques as a direct ladder to more power - think of them as platforms between branches of equally tall trees which let you pursue power in interesting ways.

PoE is a Puzzle game and Economy Simulator pretending to be an AARPG. And that's a lot of it's appeal.

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Don't think of uniques as a direct ladder to more power - think of them as platforms between branches of equally tall trees which let you pursue power in interesting ways.

Or I can just as well think of (most of) them as utter trash. Diablo is vastly superior, when it comes to the skill set, the gear and especially the gameplay. I could write a novel on what this game lacks and Diablo has. The most important gear-related mechanic is +% to all resistances and this says enough, so I don't have to continue with the rest. Too bad no one decides to extend it. But that's just my opinion, try not to be bothered by it and start a long discussion like others seem to do.

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Hitman473107#7521 wrote:

"

Don't think of uniques as a direct ladder to more power - think of them as platforms between branches of equally tall trees which let you pursue power in interesting ways.

Or I can just as well think of (most of) them as utter trash. Diablo is vastly superior, when it comes to the skill set, the gear and especially the gameplay. I could write a novel on what this game lacks and Diablo has. The most important gear-related mechanic is +% to all resistances and this says enough, so I don't have to continue with the rest. Too bad no one decides to extend it. But that's just my opinion, try not to be bothered by it and start a long discussion like others seem to do.

Well, to be honest, it sounds to me like perhaps PoE is not your thing. The mechanics here are intended, and they work well for the game's target audience. There are a lot of more simplistic games out there if you want. In this one, "resist all" is not really that big of a deal, as character building is more of an artform.

Which is, honestly, the way most of the playerbase likes it.

/shrug