My Observations of POE2 reveals that makes me super hyped

1. MELEE LOOKS SO FUCKING GOOOOOOOOD FUUUUUUCK FUCKING HELL IT LOOKS AND FEELS GOOD

2. Melee feels more "melee" and fits the archtype of what a melee should and could be.

- CQC, will come with aoes generous enough to feel like youre actually doing damage to multiple enemies that are closeby (absolute failure in POE1 where the natural weapon swing feels puny)

- Mid range combat/huge aoes come with a cost/cooldown. this is true with other classes too and i feel this can help prevent 1 button builds as players would be encouraged to spare their aoe for the most opportune moment rather than spamming it non stop.

3. seeing how melee functions it can be fast to use melee to engage and clear enemies fast due to their new tools. i can see why the devs mention they would want to buff ranged damage. it looks like ranged attacks are tickling the enemy when compared to melee. they cant afford to make melee too good that everyone just ups and plays melee as melee becomes the meta.

4. Cleaner/tight passive tree

for starters ascendant was ripped out of the game. poofed. exiled. this allowed the devs to remove the ascendant starting area. you can see more of the tree as a result

5. double edged sword of removing health nodes on tree

this could force players to HIGHLY VALUE all gear with life/ES and any gear without such rolls might be considered trash.

but on the flipside, we are now able to actually BUILD OUR CLASS the way we want. IMHO, the life nodes on our passive tree are not a bonus to player power. in fact is an indirect penalty. in POE1 life builds are recommended to take AT LEAST 150% increased life. this translates to roughly 20-30 passive points dedicated to life. if you include pathing to the nodes it could be even more.

in a sense, even tho we can get 121 passive points, 30 of them are "taxed" so we're left with 90 actual skill points to actually use.

but overall THIS IS A PLUS. players do not need to feel forced to path into life nodes. in fact I RESENT life nodes. they're a build tax as simple as that. YOU HAVE to get them in most cases.

the existence of life nodes are also indirectly the reason why NEWER PLAYERS END UP WITH BRICKED CHARACTERS. damage nodes are interesting but can prove to be a noob trap. newer players see damage and are attracted to the nodes. when they finally try and fix their build and check builds/guides/ask others for advise, they will suddenly realize how important it is to "pay the tax". but usually this would involve them abandoning their current and getting a new character.

6. monster life to balance team play.

i've always bitched about team play being superior than single player. it still is and would always be superior as each player can fulfill different roles or bring in different effects, and gives enemies more targets thus indirectly you take less damage.

POE1 arguably is the same, BUT with added MF for additional advantage. i dont really see players being given this "party bonus" in poe2 gameplay (i might be wrong or missing this).

i would say this would help lessen the gap between single player vs multiplayer. without party MF bonus, party play is not given a huge advantage over singleplayers. SP's can also enjoy killing enemies quickly since the monster life would be less. is POE1 like this yes, albeit with a party MF bonus.

cant wait for poe2 to be released. hype hype! choo choo!!

in other words.