new bloodline ascendancies: mostly garbage?

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

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.

What exactly about Nameless Bloodline is enabling your CWDT build? Life cost is not the same as damage received. If you have something else in mind, I'm always keen on tweaking my unconventional CWDT build.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

Oh, crap. Actually, big thanks for making me check. I was tired as fuck when I read the Bloodlines and should have read it again. I thought it had the same mod as the Ritual staff, but it's actually 20% of Life Cost, not max Life.

._. Whoops. Gotta crack open PoB again, I guess. Thanks, man. I, uh, should do a double check next time. My god...

Much better to check now than kill King of the Mist and be punched hard in the face when you realize what happened. I don't know how many times I've had the "perfect build" after spending hours theory crafting that fell flat on it's face due to a single overlooked mechanic.

I actually was completely unaware that Burden of Shadows had any interaction with CWDT. Is it just that having a large flat damage added makes certain low level skills viable? You could pair that with Stasis Prison to offset the life degen on a loop build, bypassing Ward altogether. It's an interesting concept.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

I'm just a touch annoyed that I lost a huge chunk of damage from no longer having my Merc. She was the only source of Zealotry for my character.

If you're going with the traditional reduced Skelly duration for wardloop, you can always do what I do (which is quite unconventional).

I have a 4 link setup:

• Animate Guardian
• Raise Spectre
• Empower
• Meat Shield

I spec into Death Attunement for +1 Spectre and either Golem Commander or Sacrifice in order to pick up the Mastery "minions recover 5% life on minion death." That's 5% life per skeleton per trigger. Golem Commander got much more powerful with your Stone Golem granting 20% increased defenses a few leagues ago. That's an extra 40% increased defenses with the passives and gem quality. You also get 4 Spectres and an AG. Most you're minions are extremely tanky once fully invested, and now you only have to replace your AG if he dies.

Perfect Pain Artist is on the squishier end of the Spectres, but it will give you "Zealotry":

• 11.7% more spell damage
• 27.65% increased spell crit
• 30% increased crit damage

You then have 3 more Spectres and an AG to buff you. Furthermore, it lets you go into the Catarina Bloodline for 48% increased defenses if you wish.

Playing a lightning build I end up with about 3x damage from the whole setup as well as a few defensive buffs. Chaos damage isn't supported quite as well, but Perfect Spider Matriarch will net a 10% increased effect of withered to you.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

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Aldonés#1294 wrote:

If you're going with the traditional reduced Skelly duration for wardloop

Mine's not classic Ward Loop, more like Cast on Ignite, as we used to call it, and every single spell slot I lose can potentially mess up the loop. It's not as sensitive as Ward Loop, but it has its own drawbacks. Your setup wouldn't work with my build, but I appreciate the thought.

I'm looking at it, at it seems interesting enough. I might make a concept around it though but still using the traditional skelly loop and Stasis Prison. I know for certain your build would melt my PC.

I'd have to play test to see if ~150% damage taken recouped as life over 3 seconds would be enough to prevent you from dying upon activation. However, once that happens I could easily design the rest of the build to work around it.

For Withered debuff I'd probably go with The Balance of Terror jewel and Witchfire Brew flask. That's assuming the combination works as I think it would. However, that's probably no bueno if you're not stacking flask modifiers.

edit: Even manually activating the flask does nothing. You'll have to manually maintain the curse by casting it yourself.

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jdp29#1389 wrote:

There's an issue there, not all players who experiment have game knowledge.

I’m talking about players who have a basic understanding of the game and some grasp of how to create a build, not those who skip the fundamentals, mix things together that don’t really work, or make obvious mistakes by approaching things in the wrong or even counterproductive way, only to realize that the build they are working on is not performing as good as they expect. Using build guides should have taught them more about core interactions. A lot of the game isn’t rocket science anymore, so it’s a bit surprising to see lack of basic knowledge in some instances.

Yes, there are players who stick to guides because they never fully learned the basics at all. That’s where takes like “bloodlines are bad” come from, or when people point fingers at abilities that supposedly can’t work. Meanwhile, you see others making those same “unplayable” abilities work perfectly fine.

It’s totally fine to copy something from a build guide, but we shouldn’t get confused every time GGG releases new toys that don’t appear on guides yet, pointing at them and calling them bad just because we don’t know how to use them yet. The key is to think smarter, not harder.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

I'm just a touch annoyed that I lost a huge chunk of damage from no longer having my Merc. She was the only source of Zealotry for my character. My build lost around 30% total DPS from the Assassin change and loss of Zealotry. It's not the endgame stage that is the problem, but the constant nerfs makes getting to endgame an utter nuisance, as the game starts to massively lag the longer enemies take to die. And the early damage just isn't good until you get the staff. It's frustrating the hell out of me.

I think if a build falls behind simply because it’s missing Zealotry from a merc, that really highlights some of its core weaknesses. The bonus is mostly crit and spell damage, something that can usually be incorporated in other ways.
Alternatively, with a bit more investment, or making different choices, you could run the aura yourself.
Both approaches are realistic and offer flexibility.

If a build is lacking damage even at an early stage, that’s an obvious signal to step back and rethink the concept, or to see how others approach the same idea. For example, players who focus on life stacking actually commit to it, scaling their damage through meaningful investment, rather than barely touching it and hoping it’s enough.
Even the original Wardloop concept is still viable today, despite all the scary nerfs and changes over the years if you need some inspiration of what works. :)

I too, am underwhelmed and don't plan on using any of the new ascendancies.

I am looking forward to testing spark with the living lightning ^^ see what i can build of that, some sort of spark, summoner,lightning something something. i dont even know. and with the new things, i dont even know more. and that feels like a great thing.

I havent feelt like this since , well, closed beta times, i dont know how or what. just that i want to make many characters and test strange things :)

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

Yes, there are players who stick to guides because they never fully learned the basics at all. That’s where takes like “bloodlines are bad” come from, or when people point fingers at abilities that supposedly can’t work. Meanwhile, you see others making those same “unplayable” abilities work perfectly fine.

I take some pretty strong offense to this broad overstatement. It is a shockingly narrow view of players with game knowledge.

Not everyone is a meme build creator, experimenting with weird mechanics and weird uniques and combining things in strange ways to create something viable that no one has ever done. That is probably more like a unicorn player among the masses, rather than the AVERAGE "experienced" player that you describe.

I can make builds. I have made thousands of builds, across 18000+ hours of game time over the last 13 years. I have no idea how long you have been playing or how many builds you have personally created that are "unique" to you....nor does that really matter here. But I can all but guarantee you that I KNOW the vast majority of the mechanics of this game, and I have created and tweaked many builds to the point of having near-unique versions of builds for every class of skill and classes themselves.

NONE OF THAT means I am interested in making barely functional experimental builds. NONE OF THAT means I can't read a bloodline and determine that there is absolutely nothing I want to make with it, just for the sheer sake of making an off-version of something else that may be comparable in power, or worse in power.....just to experience something new. To me, that is a waste of my time.


I created this thread, with the very first line ADMITTING that perhaps I haven't looked hard enough....and sure there were a FEW ideas (like...three) that came up in this entire thread that I hadn't considered at all. Great. I love to read that. And the first few pages had some decent conversation. And then your post comes in to do what exactly? Explain how great you are for creating niche builds?

" 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"

really? do they ACTUALLY open up so many new possibilities? What are they? You offered none. Not that you really needed to, but if you are going to come in here and make a sweeping judgment on anyone who criticizes these niche, oddly designed ascendancy "replacements"......then put your money where your mouth is. Prove me wrong that they aren't "mostly" garbage. Because right now, PoE ninja and nearly everything I've seen and read on these forums and elsewhere have confirmed that....they are almost ALL garbage. A few good options exist, but I never really said they didn't.

Seeing many claim that only popular builds are viable really shows how watered down the mindset of the community has become. You can make practically anything work, and even turn it into something genuinely impressive if you actually understand what you’re doing. It’s not about creating something entirely new that’s never been done before, it’s about recognizing a use case, understanding its purpose, and knowing how to make it work rather than dismissing it outright as garbage. Popularity has simply shifted the spotlight onto a select few options, while a lack of knowledge leaves gaps, confusion, and misplaced judgments about what’s actually viable. The same goes for the new Bloodlines, each one can absolutely be used effectively in some way. Saying “I’m not sure how to use the new Bloodline yet” would be a far better take than “They’re garbage, I only play popular builds because everything else is trash cause nobody taught me anything about the unpopular nodes.”

Yup, there genuinely are some amazing builds not yet discovered simply because people don't even attempt to play around and theorycraft.

Like, I got this ring from my last Breach boss encounter:



Immediately, I was thinking about how best to utilize it, and checking other items I already found, well...



Death's Oath grants an Aura that scales with aura effect (essentially a more damage multiplier for the skill) and chaos damage, but not spell damage. I can get up to 240% chaos damage from dual-weilding those, which is then turned into aura effect for Death's Oath (with a better roll and catalysts it's 18% of chaos damage as aura effect).

So I started cooking some more. I now have a WIP PoB for a Chaos RF Occultist where the aura itself has over 2 million DPS with explosions.

This chest has been dead for so long because it had just fallen behind in the race for more DPS, but this league it has actually become viable again.

I don't have a great use for my last 2 ascendancy points on Occultist, so I am choosing "Otherworldly Appendages" from the Breachlord bloodline to fix up my physical resistance some more (grants me 15% less phys and fire damage taken) which rounds out my build.

Point is: think outside the box. Don't blindly follow creator's for your builds. And don't let your memes be dreams, they may just fly