+Levels Hot Take and Solution

If you want the solution I thought up and don't want to read my crying about the reasons why +Levels should be changed or removed. Scroll down to the asterisks (****). Also I have pictures.

Anyway as with the title I'm going to throw out something I have come across that I just need to get off my chest.

The suffix affix +# to all skills or +# to X skills.(Cold, Fire, Lightning, Chaos)

This affix is simply too powerful and needs either revision of removal from the suffix pool for weapons.

I know that I am not alone in this opinion but I realize that it is a hot take and a lot of people probably will argue the point. But with this affix being a thing on crafted weapons immediately makes all unique weapons worthless. Making viable builds using Uniques irrelevant. There are a LOT of neat looking Uniques out there, a lot of which I wish GGG would scale to endgame levels or at least make it so having +levels isn't a death sentence to the Uniques. Some examples of these Uniques that I personally would like to see being used in endgame are:

Earthbound-Staff
Doomfletch-Bow
Olrovasara-1H Mace
Spire of Ire-Spear
The Empty Roar-2H Mace
The Sentry-Quarterstaff

Talismans are too new for me to judge. And Wands just don't really have anything worthwhile at all for Uniques besides Adonia's Ego. Lifesprig maybe but then again it comes down to how much you AREN'T getting by having so much damage and +levels on wands.

I get that Mr. Rogers wanted +levels to be the way to scale damage in the game but I honestly feel like it is doing more damage than good. When I look at games like PoE and PoE2 I personally feel like damage from the interaction of things is the most fun part about them, and I will always, given the choice, take an interesting interaction over the "number go up" approach with + to skill levels.

I don't know... Maybe it's just me but I definitely feel that PoE2 has a LOT of untapped potential with Uniques in the game that just aren't ever used due to scaling reasons. Be it flat damage values or +to levels values.


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My suggestion BESIDES having them completely removed.
Put +Level nodes in the Passive Tree. Starting on the 7th passive node assuming you followed only the attribute nodes from your first point. This should take you to a three-way intersection. From this point on every other passive node along the MAIN pathway will be a +Level node. With it being every other node it fits perfectly in the tree. It doesn't screw up sockets and it fits all the way around the outside ring. I will attach an image to help present this suggestion. BUT in so doing this will solve the issue of +Levels being a must have on weapons and would allow unique weapons to ACTUALLY have a fighting chance to be used. Wands and staffs will still have all the "Gain as Extra" and flat "Spell Damage" rolls that some Uniques don't, BUT with the +Levels in the passive tree, it will be a LOT easier for GGG to fix the Uniques that don't have any damage rolls on them. Looking at you Lifesprig.

In total there will be 48 +Level passive nodes. Sounds like a lot. And it is, HOWEVER there is no reason to grab all of them because the cap skill level is 40, you get 21 from the skill gems alone already. You CAN get +Level from your Amulet but let's face it. You won't bother with it and can finally get something else on the Amulet OR even better, ACTUALLY be able to use a UNIQUE Amulet, which is a HUGE deal since there are a LOT of interested Amulets but no one can use them because we need +Levels. Needless to say, this opens up a LOT of potential.

This first picture is a close up of where the +Level nodes will start and leads to the edge of the passive tree.


This second picture is the whole tree where you can see how PERFECTLY it fits.