The Plateau is here.

When I speak of the plateau I reflect on my time in PoE, what brings me to it and what drives me away.

The plateau itself is a point in which you've fulfilled your fantasy of what you intended to do in a league. There really isn't anything else to look forward to. For me this is always premature. I should want to do red maps and end game content but I don't. The plateau is different for a lot of people. For me it's yellow maps and farming gear to get into red maps. It doesn't matter if it's trade or SSF, SC or HC. That's when I'm ready to stop for the league.

Last league it was trying to craft a reasonably good 1hs for my lacerate glad that never happened. So I went into red maps and died. This league my boneshatter zerker is super strong in SSHC but I cannot stomach the grind that is gearing him up to tackle red maps. So I think I'm done for the league.

I think there is something wrong here about where the game plateaus around 85-90 for a lot of people and it has a lot to do with the pace of crafting and the obstacles to reaching red maps. I know I can take my boneshatter zerker into deep yellow or red maps at 5.4k health now and probably take a few to die but then I'm back on the beach. I don't really feel like grinding T5 maps more than I already have but I need to in order to further perfect my gear. See the problem?

I can go days now without any upgrades. I guess this depends on your perspective. I've taken the character as far as it can go thematically and so there's no upside on my end to keep playing. I can continue farming rares, continue exchanging currencies with vendors and hope Rog stops giving me trash but then days have gone by and probably nothing has moved in a positive direction. I can fire up a brand new game right now and get my money's worth in a few hours. So why work towards entertainment I can get right away?

Maybe it's the build. Maybe Boneshatter is just not that good. I get the sense that when you play a meta build there is no 85-90 plateau. Such builds breeze right through white to yellow and red maps before they start struggling. So they entertain for far longer.

So yeah I'm at that point again where I'm thinking come back in 3.16 or 3.17 at the end of the year. It's going to be tough with other releases lining up at that time. Still, food for thought.