new bloodline ascendancies: mostly garbage?

As a pleb SSF player that almost never gets to pinnacle bosses, these new ascendancies aren't really of any interest to me. Even if I could attain them, none of them seem so appealing as to sacrifice any regular ascendancy nodes.

What was wrong with following the design of the Wildwood ascendancies and allowing some additional nodes that could have been obtained by interacting with the league mechanic? Seems like a missed opportunity and yet another example of "we must do things different for the sake of doing them differently".

At this point the whole league is feeling rather "meh" for me personally and I'll probably sit it out till I can play with my Merc again. If Mercs were still available, I'd play the league just to interact with them again.

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Aldora_the_Summoner#4021 wrote:

As a pleb SSF player that almost never gets to pinnacle bosses, these new ascendancies aren't really of any interest to me. Even if I could attain them, none of them seem so appealing as to sacrifice any regular ascendancy nodes.

What was wrong with following the design of the Wildwood ascendancies and allowing some additional nodes that could have been obtained by interacting with the league mechanic? Seems like a missed opportunity and yet another example of "we must do things different for the sake of doing them differently".

At this point the whole league is feeling rather "meh" for me personally and I'll probably sit it out till I can play with my Merc again. If Mercs were still available, I'd play the league just to interact with them again.

Considering how close they mirror the POE2 philosophy with everything having an upside and downside, I suspect that that philosophy is creeping into POE1. Which makes no sense. POE2 is already becoming more like POE1 (some were much needed changes though), and now you have POE1 becoming more like POE2. Not a good thing.4

These ascendancies are only garbage if you don't really understand the game that is PoE at a base line level.

It's obvious these ascendancies weren't designed to INCREASE our power. They were designed to give us more choices in how we get that power. I don't know why it's that difficult to understand.

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Danith00#5112 wrote:

These ascendancies are only garbage if you don't really understand the game that is PoE at a base line level.

It's obvious these ascendancies weren't designed to INCREASE our power. They were designed to give us more choices in how we get that power. I don't know why it's that difficult to understand.

from a development/marketing pov, then why would players want to engage in the mechanic to begin with?

back in the day ggg tried so hard to get people into their leagues. all because they want players to engage in them.

if all you're doing is giving them options which are no better than what currently exists, then congrats, you've poured in resources into something that no players want to engage with. in a sense theyve just burnt money.

some of the new ascendencies do have uses. but i guess most of them just simply feel unappealing enough that players would just avoid entrely.

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Danith00#5112 wrote:

These ascendancies are only garbage if you don't really understand the game that is PoE at a base line level.

It's obvious these ascendancies weren't designed to INCREASE our power. They were designed to give us more choices in how we get that power. I don't know why it's that difficult to understand.

That's often the problem with a lot of PoE design though. By the time I attain the ability to swap some ascendancies, why would I bother? I already have that level of power.

I'm not necessarily saying the new ascendancies are garbage (and no doubt there's some that are good but likely don't align to my preferred playing style), but I am saying I don't find anything about them compelling.

You also can't really build around having them because you already need a character capable of some level of bossing.

Seeing as they are unlock, not available early, that makes the lack of power even more ... dead on arrival.

Perhaps a streamer will find a quirky unintended interaction with some unused unique. Failing that, not seeing the point.

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Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

im excited for feral.

playing pure spectres I believe

Me too! Farric Will (spectre aurabot) will be a good 4th ascendancy for my Bow/Wand Deadeye.

While only a few nodes might actually be questionable, it’s interesting to see how the new ascendancy classes really highlight the difference between players who follow build guides religiously and those who skip the tutorial leash and experiment on their own. These classes open up so many new possibilities for creativity, it’s almost hard to ignore if you’re the type who likes to try new things.

Players who already do their own thing and know the game inside out are usually more willing to explore, often coming up with some surprisingly creative builds using the new tools GGG has provided. On the other hand, players still tied to guides tend to stick with what they know, approaching new options cautiously, or sometimes not at all.

This is especially noticeable with newer players. Those still learning the basics, or those who prefer the safety of familiar patterns rarely approach new mechanics in a creative way, instead sticking to what’s comfortable while the rest of us get to play around.

Ironically, that’s exactly how all the builds end up getting figured out, someone comes up with an idea, plays around with it, makes a build showcase or guide, and then a content creator spots it, brings it to a broader audience, and just like that it’s suddenly popular. But sadly we’ve also seen plenty of content creators copy paste builds from the community and try to present them as their own without crediting the original creators. But aside from that, this is how builds get made and gain popularity in the first place, thanks to players willing to experiment and explore all the new toys.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

Is it just me and my lack of in-depth analysis yet

[Removed by Support]

The Nameless Bloodline alone is a massive build enabler. Allows me to trade in a detrimental staff, that literally enables my reworked CWDT build, for an Ascendancy notable that is more useful to my build than any of the other two after the severe nerfs to passives and Martyr of Innocence, plus I get the option to use another ring for a (manageable) downside. And it's not just my build, either. But yeah, a very specific use case for my very specific build.

Most of the other ones are more niche or for certain archetypes. They are more useful to builds that have otherwise wasted notable points.[Removed by Support]

One thing i think need to be kept in mind is these ascendancies are not here to outright replace the current ones, so it makes sense that they are niche and should be build-specific. The way i see it, its kinda of a way to introduce something like a build-enabling uniq that takes a different type of commitment than an item slot and its also globally available, unlike regular ascends that are class-restricted or even itens that are lightly gated by attributes and socket colors, witch i think its a cool idea

The problem i have with it is the way they are unlocked: Having to clear content that is at the bare minimum map-level(and many are T16, area level 83, level content) to open your build enabler just feels wrong to me. Its like having to create your character in a "traditional" way and then have to respec it to get to the place you actually wanted for the character
Yeah, many people already do that late respec as part of build progression, but having a mechanic that soft-forces it into you almost by design just feels wrong to me. I dont really get why the bloodlines are unlocked character-bound way instead of account-bound