Warrior Players Ridiculed for "Crawling Like a Slug" Despite Our Effort

Poor Gameplay Feel & Balance are Punishing Warrior Builds and Their Creators

While issues like party loot this league or the Temple's high yield (maybe removal next league) are important, I believe a more fundamental problem lies in class and build balance. Currently, there exists a vast and unacceptable disparity between different classes and skills in terms of "Movement Speed" and "Gameplay Feel."

Why do classes and builds primarily on the right side of the tree—spellcasters and archers—get to have it all? They can move while casting, achieve high mobility, maintain strong defenses (especially Energy Shield), and often enjoy smooth, one-button playstyles for mapping.

Meanwhile, the warrior archetype (left side) is saddled with a painful combination: slow movement, skills that root you in place, a dearth of viable one-button builds, and the extreme fragility of the Life/Armour defensive style. While warriors can technically use Energy Shield, the investment required is in a completely different league compared to right-side classes. As "defensive" stats, Energy Shield is overwhelmingly superior to Armour and Evasion. I understand Armour excels against rapid, small hits, but it often feels useless against large bursts of damage, leading to frequent one-shots. Energy Shield, however, directly raises the "one-shot threshold," making it the most effective way to reduce deaths while mapping.


I am a community guide creator, and since Beta 0.3, I have been sharing my favorite Shield Wall warrior build. The base feel of this skill is inherently clunky, even though I have pushed its attack speed to 0.55 seconds.
Compared to one-button mapping builds, it requires you to place a wall and then use another skill to "detonate" it.

Lately, my guides have been flooded with dismissive and toxic comments: "Your clear speed is like a slug," "Why would you even share such a clunky skill?," "All your effort is worthless compared to mapping efficiency."


I play a warrior because I enjoy the fantasy of being a warrior. I should not be made to feel like I'm "crawling like a slug," nor should my time and effort invested in theorycrafting be met with ridicule.

The common retort is "play what you like, it's a solo game." However, the reality is that choosing anything other than a T0 build in terms of power and efficiency feels like willingly choosing to be a second-class citizen. This game heavily promotes "diverse build creation," yet its core "free trade" economy inherently forces player optimization and competition. If your build has low clear speed, you cannot keep up with the game's economic inflation. Not everyone can play all day. With limited time, inefficient farming essentially guarantees you'll fall further and further behind.

This is not an isolated incident. Across forums and in-game global chat, it's common to see a player happily sharing a fun, thematic build they've discovered, only to be met with a dismissive "Why bother when you could just play Blood Mage CoC?"

From Beta 0.2 to 0.4, each patch has featured at least one build whose power and efficiency dwarf all others by a significant margin. In the face of these T0 options, the joy of discovery, the fun of experimentation, and the richness of community-created builds feel devalued. I play a warrior because I love the archetype. I should not be subjected to the cycle of "investing hope and effort into a build, sharing it, and then being insulted for not being 'meta'."

If the game's core selling point is Build Diversity, but its free-trade foundation relentlessly pushes players toward the single most optimal (or near-optimal) build, then balance—especially regarding 'feel' and 'speed'—becomes absolutely critical. Without it, the promise of "diversity" rings hollow.

Players who buy into the "BD diversity" dream and are willing to experiment with off-meta ideas should not be punished by an economy that leaves them hopelessly behind due to lower farming efficiency.

First time?

You get used to it. POE's community is among the most toxic in gaming, and GGG loves it that way.

I support this. I hope they can balance the intensity among different professions and optimize the economic system


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lupasvasile#5385 wrote:

First time?

You get used to it. POE's community is among the most toxic in gaming, and GGG loves it that way.

sad hearing this
Still hope GGG hears the community’s voice and steers the game in a better direction.

as a warrior player I don’t agree with much of this post

Guarantee I make more than 99.99999% of people who whine about the temple, in trial of the sekhemas

And survive all the things people complain that one shot them on an armour life character

Geonor, digsite boss, monkey(pre nerf), abyss mobs etc…


Community sentiment on armour is just plain wrong when it comes to the forums sadly. None of them know how to build it is the issue.

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Anmiee#6681 wrote:

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lupasvasile#5385 wrote:

First time?

You get used to it. POE's community is among the most toxic in gaming, and GGG loves it that way.

sad hearing this
Still hope GGG hears the community’s voice and steers the game in a better direction.

I've joined this forum in 2011, and been playing POE 1 since I got access to Closed Beta. The community was nice at first, but slowly devolved into what it is today, and I see it only worsening. Tbh, I have no idea what could fix it, if it's fixable even.

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Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

as a warrior player I don’t agree with much of this post

Guarantee I make more than 99.99999% of people who whine about the temple, in trial of the sekhemas

And survive all the things people complain that one shot them on an armour life character

Geonor, digsite boss, monkey(pre nerf), abyss mobs etc…


Community sentiment on armour is just plain wrong when it comes to the forums sadly. None of them know how to build it is the issue.

I agree with your points. In fact, what I wanted to express is not that warriors are inherently weak — on the contrary, damage mitigation like armor plays a significant role in specific scenarios. For example, a warrior with 2000 life and 20,000 armor can stumble while charging and get swarmed by mobs without much consequence, whereas a mage with 1 life and 10,000 energy shield might not even survive long enough to stand back up.

What I'm trying to highlight is that, under GGG’s design approach, the community has developed a stereotype toward warriors: fragile, slow as a slug, with terrible mapping feel. This is largely because many players haven’t delved deeply into the game’s mechanics or pushed certain stats to the point where they become truly effective. And this perception directly affects the motivation of guide creators like myself.

On the other hand, regarding rewards — both you and I know that Trials offer high returns, and warriors excel in that case. However, most viewers who watch guides or videos are casual players. They prefer mapping and hope to find satisfaction there. When they don’t explore builds in depth, or misunderstand the builds they try to copy, it often leads to strong negative experiences.

But players and viewers of bow or blood mage builds rarely face this kind of frustration.

I just wish they'd get rid of the hidden, implicit move speed reduction for wearing "heavy" armor. When asked about it they just said "We like the flavor of it" lol okay.

I legit think 99% of the design decisions people complain about they just are copying from Diablo 2 without understanding them and are afraid of not being like Diablo 2 even when they're clearly disliked by most players.

I’d really wish op

That you’d use your own words though


Using gpt heavily is pretty obvious in both your reply to me and your original post



20k armour is nothing and is nowhere in the same universe as investment or even reality when comparing to a CI character with 10k ES


Both of the examples of 2k life and 20k armour for warrior. Are horrendous numbers. You may as well have 0 defense if this is what you build a character with. Youd have to acitevely avoid every % armour node, ascendancy, and even wearing piece of armour gear to hit this low of a number.



For reference here is what is possible with some investment as a warrior, and what is completely NOT necessary for the game but something I did this league.