A little feedback about archetypes and lack thereof
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+1 Nice suggestions.
I agree about skills relying too much on their element, and in my opinion that's the problem with skills in general in poe 2. It's almost like variety doesn't really exist. Like, if you remove the element or specific interactions, you'll notice that at least 80% of the skills have basically the same animation and behavior, which means that they're essentially the same skill, just with a different flavor. Take crossbows or bows for example: Armor Piercing Rounds, Shock Bursting Rounds and the one with fire (i forgot what it's called). They're basically the same skills in the way they behave, in this case, shoot multiple projectiles in a line really fast. Thats what support gems should be fixing in my opinion, you socket a support that changes certain characteristic about the skills like the element or behavior like chain for example. But what we got instead is a system that rewards stacking multipliers on top of each other, with support gems like Brutality, Heft, Longshot, etc. You're just stacking generic and uninteresting effects made for maximizing the damage on top of each other. That's what the skill tree should be about in my opinion, it would be much more intuitive this way too, as 2 separates and distinct ways to diversify your build. We may have way less skills in this system, but at least they would be way more unique and interesting. Also, support gems are kind of problematic right now, there are too many of them, we have things like bleed 1, 2 3 and 4, there's literally no need for that, that's just a bad and lazy design. Navigating the support gem menu with a controller is a nightmare. I understand that poe 2 is primarily a pc game, but at least they could have learned a thing or 2 with diablo 3 and 4 about controller UX/UI. Last edited by Vyend#2601 on Mar 20, 2026, 10:33:15 PM
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" Tbh the archetype fantasy in poe 2 sucks for a lot of classes right now. It's especially true for pure melee builds and the 'elemental' fantasy in general as well. I wouldn't be surprised if the Templar gets a lot of blue lightning skills when he gets implemented, GGG is addicted to this element for some reason. Which btw is something that the archetype isn't commonly known for or associated with. I hope i'm wrong about this. Last edited by Vyend#2601 on Mar 20, 2026, 10:50:44 PM
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I made a similar post critiquing the sorceress,
It's based on thematics and being able to express yourself through the character you want to play essentially. The problem I had with sorceress was, even at the very start I wanted to be a pure lightning sorc, but the incentive to also use flame wall with spark is too great to ignore. Plus the added benefits of mixing elemental infusions. I see the benefit in using it, but that's not the type of character I wanted to build originally. For stuff like druid and even the necromancy minions, -A solution I can think of is- Using special support gems to determine what type of on hit damage the skill would do, with a correlating animation. For example if there was a wolf skill to pounce and do something like a double strike, You could put a poison damage support gem to alter the skill. Or put a cold damage support gem to freeze. for example the mage minions for necromancy, Instead of the mages having a predetermined element, you can basically anoint which element you want with a support gem. -Another interesting method would be to make an ascendency determine the archetype- for example, if you want to be like Thor god of thunder, there could be a warrior ascendency that gives you a lot of new lightning skill options. (that would be a lot harder to balance since the passive tree already leans on fire damage) I agree that lightning is over-used and I didn't like to see it on the huntress at all. Even though the animations are really cool, it's fun to play and it performs well, It just nullified build diversity for me while min maxing, so I was limited to a third of the huntress skill tree. Last edited by TwitchGLHFsport#2155 on Mar 22, 2026, 2:44:34 PM
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" This is exactly what i meant when i wanted to separate content clearing abilities vs keeping up with meta pace. No matter how viable/expensive build is, it will always feel handicaped vs top meta. There are plenty of viable, not so expensive or complicated builds feeling trash to poison bow or any coc comet out there. That`s a trap for our fun. Even tho devs mission is to balance things out, there will always be meta and as long as we don`t sweat a season we shouldn`t focus on this aspect too much. ------ That`s why i think content clearing abilities should be more important for majority of us. You said that gearless monk is exception not rule but i have more. Shiwngy fang of frost chrono mentioned earlier -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLac8n8iBeA DM doing t3 sim with afk build - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1tSA7YGl1w Angormus speedrunning arbiter hcssf <24h in private league - no vid but can check ladder here https://www.pathofexile.com/private-leagues/league/Krwawe+Jag%C3%B3dki+Nadina, probably trackable on his twitch or sth. My main this league was chrono with lightning bolt as main single target. Did i struggle at times? Yes. Did i feel handicapped vs pathfinder or coc comets? Yes, i felt handicapped even vs non meta builds. Did i clear whole content? Yes(except for t3 sim). Did i have fun? Fuck yeah. - https://poe.ninja/poe2/profile/SalamiHaze-9389/character/SeksiKamilka (disclaimer - don`t mind bricked eq parts after i finished season). ------ So meta pace -> fun trap that gatekeeps most of "viable" builds. content clearing -> better approach imo. |
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" I don't exactly agree with the EA thing. Missing skills and content, sure. But the core mechanic designs of the game are really bad. It seems they copied things from PoE1 without asking themselves what the design purpose of those mechanics are and if they actually need them. It would take a whole other post to explain my views on the core design but that's something which should be in place by closed beta. Let alone when you open your game to the public. I used to be a paid beta tester for Tiberon Entertainment (which I hated) and then ran my own RPG-Haven.com website which got me into a lot of closed betas like EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot. Those games didn't change their core designs at all because they were setup right from the start. They didn't add Deflection, Elemental DR to Armor or Infusions halfway through. It really seems like they have ideas but no actual plans in place for this game. No one goes launches a game with +14 all skill levels and says "Seems fine". _____________________________________________________________ The rest of my post was just glancing over sad truths of the situation. I hate presets myself and I personally do combo systems BUT when I do them they have a nice payoff that feels worth it and they go from 2 layer to 10 layers deep. Always reward player effort in combat. If a player wants to ride on a simple 2 block combo and work to keep it functioning that's fine but the trick is making them WANT to add into it when they have an opening/opportunity to do so. I feel they think combos don't work unless they enforce this preset situation which isn't true. There's a few reasons they weren't working but the two main reasons are we simply do too much damage and the payoff wasn't worth it or not needed. "Never trust floating women." -Officer Kirac
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" Just to be clear, I mention poison bow not for the fact it is OP (it is a solid build, mind you), but for the fact it feels complete. You have several clearing and bossing skills, two poison auras scaling on Dex, and all of these were designed to interact together... it was made to be made. Now if you try to make a poison shred build, you’ll quickly realize the devs did not intend for you to do that, and that’s where build diversity dies imo. GGG flexes the biggest passive tree and skill combination in the genre and cannot give us a system that enables classic archetypes. For now, we still kinda play what they want us to play. Last edited by Kaozium#2036 on Mar 21, 2026, 10:05:17 AM
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" That is very true. "I can’t wait to see my build evolve with that perfect jeweler orb! ... +30% phys dmg" |
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Fun fact op rapid shot use to be good it gave increased bolt and grenade damage from the heat and never had the 10 seconds to just die attached to the skill. Never required spaming grenades either. They ruined the skill in .2 and seem hell bent on not fixing it either. Why i will no longer play gemling spaming grenades was never fun
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" I mean poe 2 changed a lot already, i still remember the mercenary walkthrough video and how different the game was compared to poe 1, and then in 2024 or 2025 they showed some co-op gameplay and the game was again different from what they showed before with the mercenary, it was pretty similar to what we have now. I think they'll do a big overhaul to combat once all weapons get released, it may take 2, 3 or 5 years but i think it's possible. The problem is that a lot of the problems with skills are tangled with other design pillars like monster modifiers, animations, game mechanics, etc. For GGG's i bet revisiting that is too risky and too much work, that's why i think that eventually the game will become an exact copy of poe 1 just with better graphics, because that's the path of least resistance for them. I used to think that "Poe 2 should be its own thing!" but now i'm not so sure anymore. I'm starting to doubt their vision of engaging combat. They really don’t seem willing to make concessions, especially when it comes to melee. |
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" A quick youtube search with the keywords "poe2 op build" will evaporate this notion in an instant. Engaging combat is for the campaign only I’m afraid. 100% agree that PoE2 will likely be a PoE1 clone if GGG doesn’t have the spine to act. |
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