Labyrinth is one of the best additions PoE ever had

If he does that, he proves that spending skill points is not mandatory. He never said skill points were not mandatory.

He said ascending is not mandatory. That that is true has been proven by literally tens of thousands of people beating Merciless Dominus without ascending last league. They have even beaten twinned T15 core, or Uber Atziri, without ascending.

BTW I am pretty sure that beating Merciless Dominus without spending a single skill point is possible, it is just incredibly tedious (and probably a stupid idea).

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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mynameisonlyforthegods wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

None of the content in the game has a role which requires Ascendancy points to attempt and complete. None, zero, zilch, nada. Ascendancy points are not mandatory in any way.

Kay. You're saying skill points aren't mandatory. Run a character to merc and kill Dominus without spending any skill points and then I'll admit being wrong.

Oh, so I get to actually gain levels to meet the level requirements of gear? Well then, that's no problem at all. Seriously, if you have any Standard League characters that are still in Tree Reset Mode and a little bit of decent gear, it's very doable.

I said "run to merc", not "take a respec and kill domi without speccing any points". For someone who so enthusiastically calls for, uh, "proper word usage", you're fast to drop the ball on doing that when it's beneficial for you.

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Char1983 wrote:

If he does that, he proves that spending skill points is not mandatory. He never said skill points were not mandatory.

He said ascending is not mandatory. That that is true has been proven by literally tens of thousands of people beating Merciless Dominus without ascending last league. They have even beaten twinned T15 core, or Uber Atziri, without ascending.

BTW I am pretty sure that beating Merciless Dominus without spending a single skill point is possible, it is just incredibly tedious (and probably a stupid idea).

Are you fucking high or something? Ascendancy points are SKILL POINTS. You're arguing that set A skill points are mandatory while set B skill points aren't. SKILL POINTS ARE MANDATORY.

Unless ofc you can run to merc and kill merc Domi without ever taking skill points.

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mynameisonlyforthegods wrote:

Are you fucking high or something?

Do you actually know what "mandatory" means?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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mynameisonlyforthegods wrote:

Are you fucking high or something?

Do you actually know what "mandatory" means?

Do you actually know what "Skill points" are?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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mynameisonlyforthegods wrote:

Are you fucking high or something?

Do you actually know what "mandatory" means?

Arguing semantics for the sake of semantics doesn't make you look any better.


You can play the entire game with a single target ability and zero AoE, that doesn't mean it's smart or even fun. You know exactly what he's talking about; he may be exaggerating but his point is that playing without Ascendancies is the equivalent of theorycrafting around 4 links and not 5 or 6. It's highly inefficient and pretty much stupid to do so. You're only handicapping yourself to a massive degree for no real reason at all.


And considering the seesaw balancing that GGG has, since they've introduced so much power to the player, pretty much next league they'll release some shit that will likely insta kill most Ascendancy characters, or at the bare minimum be extremely dangerous to them. They may not be 'mandatory' now, but they will very likely be mandatory in the future.

ugh this pointless mandatory discussion again. Were on 1 side you have people that think they are smart because they love the lab and want to keep it at all costs, and the other side the people that don't believe sub obtimal is something good in an ARPG. Jeez can you guys just stop it and realize mandatory might be different for someone else. If you wanna play without ascendancy points feel free to do so, most people won't. It's dumb to constantly throw the same empty argument around that if you don't want them then don't get them. Maximizing your char's potential is a huge part of this game.

I'm just using semantics to argue semantics. I quite enjoy such debates; unfortunately Scrotie is clearly not used to having his semantics be countered by semantics :P


If you want me to bring up a serious and realistic argument... An old build of mine, one that I'd half-shelved due to performance issues after whatever changes took place while I had a good 6 months+ off of PoE, more than doubled its DPS with the changes that Ascendancy points allowed me to make on my gear, gems and skill tree. It went from "well, I can clear yellow maps without dying much" to "I can now faceroll red maps".

Here's a question about "mandatory": if a build previously had a high chance of dying in red maps, and can easily clear them without dying after spending Ascendancy points, does that make Ascendancy points mandatory for the build? I'm super interested in seeing you turn this one around.

RF totem *or* +1/2 bow with caustic arrow.

Equip stat gear so you can level up the gems. EG Astramentis.

Kill everything with damage over time as you run around. Skill points just speed up the process.

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mynameisonlyforthegods wrote:

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Char1983 wrote:

If he does that, he proves that spending skill points is not mandatory. He never said skill points were not mandatory.

He said ascending is not mandatory. That that is true has been proven by literally tens of thousands of people beating Merciless Dominus without ascending last league. They have even beaten twinned T15 core, or Uber Atziri, without ascending.

BTW I am pretty sure that beating Merciless Dominus without spending a single skill point is possible, it is just incredibly tedious (and probably a stupid idea).

Are you fucking high or something? Ascendancy points are SKILL POINTS. You're arguing that set A skill points are mandatory while set B skill points aren't. SKILL POINTS ARE MANDATORY.

Unless ofc you can run to merc and kill merc Domi without ever taking skill points.

No, Sir. Skill Points are Skill Points, Ascendancy Points are Ascendancy Points.

Can you spend Skill Points to gain Ascendancy passives? No.
Can you spend Ascendancy to gain Skill Tree Passives? No. (No, Scion does not count, don't you even try)

Stop trying to prove that black is white.

Lastly - I say it again - if you insist on Ascendancy being mandatory, because it give your character power, Uber Atziri is also Mandatory, because she drops items, that grants some builds immense power boost. (Disfavor, Acuity, for example).

Pick one. Both are mandatory, or none are mandatory.

If you refuse to pick, it will simply mean you shape the definitions to meet your agenda. And at that point, these terms mean nothing - you simply want to be right.

Os. Also, I've been asking for no negativity here, so please, respect that. Thanks. (This applies to everyone, not only mynameisonlyforthegods - I want one civilized thread to exist.)