Journaling My POE2

I thought it might be a good idea to journal my experience in the beta on the forum because I love POE and maybe my experiences would be useful in some way.

Launch Weekend: I took off a few hours early in the hopes that if the game launched smoothly, then I could start. Plus, I didn't want to be distracted at work so it just made sense. The server delay didn't bother me much. I thought the 2 gifted subs on twitch was a good idea.

I took a chance and decided to go Gemling Legionnaire melee. I didn't exactly know what I'd do but I thought strength stacking and doing the two two-hander build would be great. I played a lot of EQ in POE1 so big melee slams just made sense.

Act 1's area bosses were very fun. I felt a lot of impact from dodging hits. I tried using EQ, but the delay was too long so ended up using rolling slam. The areas are great, but I didn't immediately see any sort of indicators to get to waypoints, which made it feel a little too random. I didn't mind exploring, but it would've been better for me to have scenic indicators guiding me to a checkpoint more often. My last thoughts linger on the last area before the Act 1 boss which I felt like was too tight of an area. There was ground degen from the exploding minions and it made progress annoying. The boss was pretty tough. Not impossible, but this was pre patch loot and I had to go do a little farming and come back to beat him (just not enough cold resist).

Act 2 had some interesting stuff. I loved it thematically, but it felt too disjointed. A little railroading in Act 2 would be cool with me. At this point, I was trying to scale projectile to get molten blast to work, and it was fine, but not why I wanted to play a gemling. It was cool in a way, but I would've preferred molten strike rather than flinging a fireball essentially. I spent a lot of time in Act 2 gearing up and testing skills and respecing by the time I got to the boss, I just smashed him. I think I died once.

Act 3 was sooooo long. The spike in difficulty was noticeable, and I think that's due to the poison and chaos damage, paired with a lack of drops. I had no real trouble with the bosses. I was using volcanic fissure and sunder I believe. The armor break combo sunder and VF did an immense amount of damage, but it's incredibly slow so I think there's some balance there. Again, I spent so much time in Act 3 that I trivialized Doryani.

Cruel Acts: It ended being just more refinement with the build and retracing my steps making sure I didnt miss any hidden power from side bosses. It's just a holdover so I have no strong feelings about repeating the Acts.

Ascending: At this point I think the trials are unanimously disliked and I agree. I don't think they should be thrown out altogether, but they do need a serious tune-up. As slow melee, I only engaged with mobs when absolutely necessary. I only did 2 Ultimatums and I hate it so I'll just ignore it until it's tuned.

End Game: I feel hamstrung by my gear. Maybe it's just being unlucky, but getting my defenses up has been incredibly difficult. I'll get lucky one piece of gear but then I lose a key defens (like maybe gaining 20% cold and lightning res, but losing 30% fire, but I can ignore the 120hp roll so I have to use the better gear) Balancing my defenses has been tough and I feel like I cant progress until some luck comes my way. I've gotten loads of good gear, but I just think "This piece is great but this will put my resist in the negative so I can put it to the side."

TLDR

What I like: The "feel" is great. Great artistry on all things. Most skills feel like they could be useful, maybe even archetypes of their own. I really enjoy a trade-off being rewarded. I am a big slow slam build, but that hit is devastating, and that's how it should be. Big slow bosses wont stand a chance, but fast ones are tough. The mercenary's little one liners are great. Gemcutting is awesome. The UI is a definite upgrade. The game has a solid foundation.

Dislikes: Maps are big with tight corridors congesting the map (most anyway). Stampede bounces off too many tiny things. Why should stampede deflect off a jar instead of smashing it? makes no sense. Loot is not great. I think annulments and exalts should be more common. I don't want to go back to alteration spamming because that's terrible, but give me couple chances on a single base item to make something good (with the obvious risk that comes with annuls).