Feedback on Mace Skills, Bouncing Ideas off other Unga Bunga Enjoyers

This is a rather long one but I really want the Unga Bunga Archetype to suck less.
Take this clip from Monster Hunter World for example: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/06VwE2nVngw
This should be what it feels like to play a mace wielding Unga Bunga build in this game.
After playing 30 ish hours of titan, mace skills felt (and are) terrible. Rerolled a warbringer and have been blasting T16/17/18s using corrupting cry + earth shatter AWTs, even managed to throw in 100% IIR for some better loot.
Besides the obvious need for more defensive layers on the armour/life side (damage conversion, pdr, fortify, endurance charges not being useless) and adding movement into all mace skills, the only way to fix how terrible mace skills feel is to go back to the design board. Balance changes and messing with some variables won't make mace skills better, especially with the current iteration of endgame.
Embracing Clunkiness

The class identity of a mace wielder should be clunky imo, you're wearing full plate armour and weilding a massive tree trunk-like weapon, but the current iteration of mace skills move out of clunkiness and feel almost like when you have such a high equipment load in Elden Ring and your character is overloaded and cant even roll (they just do a little wiggle).

The Big Bonk

A great example of doing big bonks right are From Software games and the Monster Hunter Series. The hammer clip I included at the beginning just scratches that itch. Using any colossal weapon in Elden Ring just feels like the canonical way the Tarnished became Elden Lord.
After playing enough of the current endgame, currently, GGG isn't trying to make a slower, more strategical arpg, That's completely acceptable and preferable, I have Elden Ring and Monster Hunter World (eventually Wilds) for that. But their approach to doing big bonks works and can be used in POE2. The Stampede + HOTA and Molten Strike builds don't scratch the itch.

Weightier Stuns

In Elden Ring, every attack has a poise breaking value built in, when the value of poise damage exceeds a mobs threshold, they are stunned. This is already present in POE2, but why does it feel bad? Mace skills have little to no built in movement and monsters that are heavy stuned fall backwards out of melee range. How does that make any sense? The monster just got heavy stunned but they walk backwards? Giving each mob a heavy stunned animation along the lines of falling down would make much more sense. The reward for investing in and performing a heavy stun should never result in loosing uptime in a fight.

Attack Time

The concept makes sense but the implementation does not. We want weighty attacks, we don't want to self stun. Every mace skill should be a tap or charge. This is already done with perfect strike and supercharged slam. Tapping a skill should perform a faster, weaker version that happens instantly and charging up to the maximum attack time of the skill should increase the damage, AoE, and strike range of the skill.

Crowd Control

If mobs are 3-10 times faster than we are, we should be able to react dynamically. Instead of starting an animation, rolling mid way, starting again, rolling again, then dying because armour sucks. We should be able to crowd control and survive far better. We already sort of have a tool for this, Jagged Ground. It should do far more to slow or stun mobs.

Movement Skills

They just feel horrible. Leap Slam is a mediocre clear ability and an awful movement skill, way too slow, way to inconsistent to aim. Stampede is viable as a clear skill but the small wind up done before actually moving needs to be quickened. Shield Charge should not be stoppable by any mob smaller than the Exile. My giant tower shield im charging with at full speed should not be stopped by a cloud of mosquitos blocking a narrow corridor.

Being More Barbarian-Like

Let's take a second to consider how swinging a stick works in the real world. Pick up and swing a stick as hard as you can. Keeping your feet planted, how much power can you exert? A decent amount. Now try to use all the other muscles in your body alongside your arms and chest to swing that stick. You probably moved right?
Every single jump and throw performed in a track and field event starts with the legs. They are the biggest muscles we got and generate the most power. So why doesn't our battle hardened Exile use anything besides the upper body? Slamming the ground and creating an earthquake shouldn't feel the same as chopping fire wood does. Swinging a mace should not be the same as swinging a pool noodle.

Wrapping it Up


Mace skills don't feel like they belong in the endgame. Early acts they play well but by late game they have lost their place. Mace Skills transcend into a higher plane of clunkiness and bloat. The only thing a mace wielding titan can beat in a race is a Woolly Mammoth after it's already frozen in the ice age.
Clunkiness done write feels divine, but done wrong is completely unplayable. There is no middle ground.
Last bumped on Jan 3, 2025, 5:05:12 PM
Mace issues:
- Too long animations.
- No accessible accuracy nodes for titan (you need to go to mercenary area to pick up "unexpected finesse" is bs.
- To hight mana costs
- Resist leech stat on monsters Vs melee
- Built in temporal chains (try stampede in some ES rag and EV shield you will be stumped)
- Self stun when performing skills. (I die or monster die, start rolling they will swarm you)
- Two 2h maces are useless (with exception of weapon swap hammer of gods but than you need 3 maces and one shield lol)
- Armour is useless (better put on cloak of flame same effect for 1ex +5% movement speed "hidden")
- Life pool is useless better go to witch side of tree pick up some ES nodes equip Ghostwrithe
Tattered Robe you will get like 8k ES and 30% Chaos Res and +5% movement speed (hidden)
- Supports for 2h melee are just bad. You want damage? Sure but here is -10% reduced attack speed. You want faster swings? Nah. You want more aoe? Sure one skill only and it's from sorceress ask her for permission.
- Ascendency (I skipped both sanctum and ultimatum in PoE1 no need to ask why)
- Stun build up is good until you notice your enemies fly away from you for no apparent reason and you can't hit them with your aoe (rolling slam)
- You are blocked by literally everything during shield charge or stampede.

- When I see warrior character selection screen: "be heavy armoured warrior! With massive hp pool and big solid defence!" Like really bro? You smoke too much.

Many more issues but I don't want to write it here anymore. Just playing my pathfinder and not looking back at this clunky mess of a character called proudly TITAN.



Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info