new bloodline ascendancies: mostly garbage?

I was hoping they would be less niche overall -- at least have a few of them more broadly applicable so you might consider it over ascendancy. They still seem like they're useful in creating a few new builds, which I guess is good.

There is still one out there that isn't revealed and I would guess it's attached to the league mechanic somehow.

That being said, I'll probably only do the bloodlines for any challenges that require them. I don't see using them outside of that, which is perfectly fine btw.

I do think they should find a way to make them available before your character is ready for end game. If they are to remain end game boss unlocked by each character, they need more power. The necessity to be able to kill them only to get a relatively underwhelming bloodline doesn't feel very fluid in terms of character growth. Using a boss carry doesn't feel great and you can't carry yourself with one of your already made characters.

My spider sense triggered on seemingly garbage node which gives faster 20% ward recovery for each hit recently, and then my math brain if you get more hits you get faster recovery which should have asymptote to some constant number. So I opened excel, thrown in some basic numbers: with 75% chance to block ward downtime approaches around 38% which then after block you end up taking only 9.5% of damage, numbers improve with higher chance to block. This is actually really really good, it will be possible to play ward on every character and that unique ward shield or any other unique item will not be required.

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Well here's the weird thing though.....most of the minion nodes seem designed to try and imply a hybrid minion / melee fighter. Which is ridiculous.

POE1 is an endgame of hyper specialization. You get very good at doing one specific thing offensively with (optionally) a set of defensive layers or you simply don't progress anymore.

I'll care about "hybrid" builds when GGG magically gives me an additional 20-30 skill points.

Unless there's hidden mechanics I am missing, most of these nodes look terrible. GGG isn't going to convince the "average" player to kill some boss they probably have never heard of when the reward looks so bad.

some more thoughts on other nodes.

chaos- corruption's embrace seems pretty good on inquisitor since you get that +5% all max res and you retain regeneration which previously you didnt have because of that shield forced mods. With more items it may offer that blood barrier.
Blood barrier first i thought it could be really cool for those situations when something says "you have zero es" or "all es is converted to something" and still you get "red es" so maybe something low life could be done, but alas, it only works on full life. Not many interesting things can be done here besides you now have more hitpoints.

+1 ring slot can be very handy. I had many situations when i could not complete build because it needed two "call of the brotherhood" or "pyre" rings and also needed "winterweave" or "call of the void" or some combination. There might appear new unique builds because of extra ring.

that shizo node which delays 40% of damage can be interesting with the use of eternal youth and energy_shield/ward, which makes life recharge not interrupt able, might as well add "demon stitcher gloves", i have tried doing some similar build in the past, but i believe it just too much of the opportunity cost to fully fledge out something working.

for blood barrier and shizo node dissolution of flesh can also be used to some extent.

most other stuff looks like "you get bigger numbers" things.


edit: can you multiple bloodlines at the same time??

Bloodlines are a new Core Mechanic, so they start slow/weak is my guess and adept in time.

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Andrius319#4787 wrote:

+1 ring slot can be very handy. I had many situations when i could not complete build because it needed two "call of the brotherhood" or "pyre" rings and also needed "winterweave" or "call of the void" or some combination. There might appear new unique builds because of extra ring.

I can't think of a single build in the history of PoE that would willingly give up an amulet, belt, or utility flasks for a ring. Belts and amulets are far too powerful, and utility flasks offer just too much (remember, this includes unique flasks too). Even an extra mirror-tier ring wouldn't likely compensate.

Here's a question though: how does Kalandra ring work in that scenario?

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

[...]Here's a question though: how does Kalandra ring work in that scenario?

Sources that specified "other" rings have been changed to clarify they work with the "opposite" ring instead.

Kalandra ignores the ascendency ring.

tbh, seeing that they require us to first be ascended THEN need to clear a pinnacle boss, makes it feel like it should actually be PREMIUM ascendencies that are powerful which heavily incentivizes us to actually grab 1-2 of their notables.

currently i dont feel that. vibe. its more of, "hey you unlocked something, go check it out"

funnily the lycia 50% ele to chaos node made me realize i have an original sin on standard that i should actually utilize one day

The only thing I can think of is some hidden power creep we dont know about yet but atm I think most of them are not worth a ascendancy point at all and either need be straight buffs with no cost or a huge buff to make the choice hard