Path of Exile: Ascendancy (News Coverage)

I am really not sure what to think about this.
So far every news of expansions have been very exciting and I've been very eager to get to try them out. Now I'm not even sure if I ever want to see the ascendancy classes.

I mean sure, they seem great and more end game content is certainly welcome, but one of the key strong points of Path of Exile for me has been the sheer variety of possible outcomes for your character. I really don't like that the GGG is now saying "No, you cannot have a summoner Marauder, your summoner should ALWAYS be a witch". I also hate the idea that I cannot make a necromancer out of my templar or that for some builds it is just a must to take a certain character since the Ascendancy class for that is really great for that. I mean shadow is good for traps but heck, I might like a Ranger with traps too, so why take that away? I don't really want to play Witch, I enjoy Templar and Shadow because of their character, but I suppose I have to since Necromancer sounded the most interesting option.

Suppose what I'm saying is that I'm hoping that all of the classes would be open for all of the characters, since that's pretty much the way that it has always been for PoE, starting character has only minor effect on gameplay. I do enjoy making a sneaky templar at times that goes for the crit but at the same time runs around without pants. Now The inquisitor really seemed to be dependant on attacking once in a while. I mean sure, it's easy to abuse and enhances templar play, but I'm just not too excited about the classes.

I really hope that this expansion does not break the freedom that PoE offers over character customization since that certainly seemed to be doing that somewhat.

I was really really looking forward to the 2.1. on december, but for some reason this at the same time made me think "hey, maybe I should wait for that expansion instead" and at the same time "Maybe I don't want to play PoE at all now".

"

laminarija wrote:

"

SerahWint wrote:

I guess its a matter of degree then. Does that make sense?
This expansion changes the focus of the game away from that flexibility we are all so used to. And some of us love to bits. Its been that way from its inception.

Before all this we could do silly things in the game and still push that to end game most of the time.
It was fine if Atziri and some other content where excluded from us. It was a choice as you say.
But these new classes are so powerful, that they are inevitably going to be forced to be balanced around. And that really puts a hamper on things if you want to get creative in other ways than pure numbers.

Try to see it like this. Before we could both have our way.
After this change... maybe not so much.

You assume too much. Honestly.
From what you have seen so far, can you tell me what makes you think that it limits your creativity? Let's take a look at initial Duelist ascendance classes, because he's the only with all classes revealed. By looking at those, could you tell what are current builds that you would like to try, that are no longer viable because of ascendance?
Let's say summoner Duelist. Creative and quite possibly unpopular idea. No real support from nearby passive tree nodes makes this not as efficient as other summoners, wouldn't you agree? Let's take a look at ascendance classes. We can see that Champion gives us Fortify, that will benefit our survivability and some aura nodes that will support us and our allies. So with these nodes we get a buff that will quite likely allow us to be just as capable in post expansion as we were before. Wouldn't you agree?
Of course you're still not as efficient as other summoners, but who cares? We're not looking to minmax stuff here.

Your Scion summnoner build not having access to Fortify, but having access to other defensive abilities that we have yet to see, does not make it less creative or less capable (one could argue that Scion summoner is a creative idea :)).

To me it makes little sense if any to give something like Necromancer access to say Ranger when Ranger is that far away from any zombie/specter/skeleton nodes that could make use of it. Even if you push your creativity to limits, Necromancer class alone won't make your undead summoning Ranger nearly as good as any other class that have easier access to those nodes.

I will see if I can unpack my argument a little further.
Lets assume that all the ascendance are on an equal level in what they can do, power wise.
I don't think thats an unreasonable assumption.

What happens around end game if those are in play? Project TP touched on this in his video.
Either you balance the game so that you don't have to minmax and use these classes to reach that last 10-15% of the content in the game. And thus making it ridiculously easy to do it if you do minmax.

Or you balance the game around these new classes, and punish people who don't. In which way you severely limit the amount choices you have for build ideas.

Case and point. Is anyone doing a build around dodge in HC? No, because you get one hit killed by a lot of things.
Thats a large portion of possible builds out the window.

Thats only one example of many, btw.
Its about having viable options in the game. And they could have added a lot of new mechanics into the game without going this route.

"

SerahWint wrote:

I will see if I can unpack my argument a little further.
Lets assume that all the ascendance are on an equal level in what they can do, power wise.
I don't think thats an unreasonable assumption.

What happens around end game if those are in play? Project TP touched on this in his video.
Either you balance the game so that you don't have to minmax and use these classes to reach that last 10-15% of the content in the game. And thus making it ridiculously easy to do it if you do minmax.

Or you balance the game around these new classes, and punish people who don't. In which way you severely limit the amount choices you have for build ideas.

Case and point. Is anyone doing a build around dodge in HC? No, because you get one hit killed by a lot of things.
Thats a large portion of possible builds out the window.

Thats only one example of many, btw.
Its about having viable options in the game. And they could have added a lot of new mechanics into the game without going this route.

Before I answer your post. Can you elaborate more on what you meant with this? You don't want to use ascendance classes? If so, then how this has anything to do with whether you have access to all ascendancies or not?

"

laminarija wrote:

"

SerahWint wrote:

I will see if I can unpack my argument a little further.
Lets assume that all the ascendance are on an equal level in what they can do, power wise.
I don't think thats an unreasonable assumption.

What happens around end game if those are in play? Project TP touched on this in his video.
Either you balance the game so that you don't have to minmax and use these classes to reach that last 10-15% of the content in the game. And thus making it ridiculously easy to do it if you do minmax.

Or you balance the game around these new classes, and punish people who don't. In which way you severely limit the amount choices you have for build ideas.

Case and point. Is anyone doing a build around dodge in HC? No, because you get one hit killed by a lot of things.
Thats a large portion of possible builds out the window.

Thats only one example of many, btw.
Its about having viable options in the game. And they could have added a lot of new mechanics into the game without going this route.

Before I answer your post. Can you elaborate more on what you meant with this? You don't want to use ascendance classes? If so, then how this has anything to do with whether you have access to all ascendancies or not?

Pardon. What I meant to say is that players who don't maximize the usage of these new classes get punished.

"

SerahWint wrote:

Pardon. What I meant to say is that players who don't maximize the usage of these new classes get punished.

Ah, ok.
First let me say that I only play HC, so opinion is only based on HC.
With that being said, even now we have content that not all builds are capable of clearing, even if you minmax them. While you could try to zerg highest tier maps or Uber Atziri in softcore, you'll most likely run out of portals before you complete those maps if you're not running "proper" build. So having ascendance class, and content balance around those, doesn't change anything, especially when we don't know all the classes, all the possible options they bring.

We'll have 19 classes, and correct me if I'm wrong, you can only spend 6 points (2 for each difficulty) in selected class. This makes 38 or more variations, depending on whether your going to pick entire path or not, on top of number of builds already being used specific classes.

Further more, if you have watched Ziggys comments, or looked at those classes yourself, you would notice that a lot of those nodes are not tied to specific skill or weapon type, which further suggest flexibility instead of restriction.

It is easy to get afraid when there is so little information available, but we're still 3 to 4 months away from release and with more information on it's way we'll see if these fears are justified.

I'm just really hoping that Scion has access to every Class.

this all looks amazing... i cant believe you're making me wait like 4 more months for it!

GGG is Evil...

such teasing

I agree with those saying ascendancy classes pigeon hole builds with what's been spoiled so far. Would a witch summoner always be greater than a non witch summoner because of ascendancy? Would there be a point in a str based iron will marauder caster? I am excited to see what the witch spell damage ascendancy class is though

According to the trailer - this will be the complete end for all casters, and ES walkers.
Thanks GGG - You are really about to kill witches, and bring dead end to this awesome adventure which was once before - before 2.0. :(

"

laminarija wrote:

"

SerahWint wrote:

Pardon. What I meant to say is that players who don't maximize the usage of these new classes get punished.

Ah, ok.
First let me say that I only play HC, so opinion is only based on HC.
With that being said, even now we have content that not all builds are capable of clearing, even if you minmax them. While you could try to zerg highest tier maps or Uber Atziri in softcore, you'll most likely run out of portals before you complete those maps if you're not running "proper" build. So having ascendance class, and content balance around those, doesn't change anything, especially when we don't know all the classes, all the possible options they bring.

We'll have 19 classes, and correct me if I'm wrong, you can only spend 6 points (2 for each difficulty) in selected class. This makes 38 or more variations, depending on whether your going to pick entire path or not, on top of number of builds already being used specific classes.

Further more, if you have watched Ziggys comments, or looked at those classes yourself, you would notice that a lot of those nodes are not tied to specific skill or weapon type, which further suggest flexibility instead of restriction.

It is easy to get afraid when there is so little information available, but we're still 3 to 4 months away from release and with more information on it's way we'll see if these fears are justified.

Yea, me and some buddies of mine have been going over all the material we have so far.
And I sort of agree with you, that its too early to call doom and gloom over all this.
I'm really skeptical, I will say that much.

As for pointing out the flaws we have already with not many builds being endgame viable in any practical sense.. Yea, thats a real problem. And GGG seem very reluctant/clueless as to how to handle that particular problem. Sadly :/
Not that its easy by any means. But it would add a lot to the game if they managed to make a lot more builds viable. And thats with already existing content in the game.

Anyway, back on topic. In the end we will have to wait and see. The scion class might do something really interesting and alleviate some of my worries.

Been a pleasure talking with you. Most I've been trying to reason with so far have not been very receptive, and some downright rude.