Feedback (Progression, Endgame, Classes/Weapons)

So, I've been playing since the release of Early Access

Some background, I have played POE1 since the official release, though it didn't really got me until the forsaken masters update (I do not like the socket skill systems, but with this update I can tolerate it), then I played way more consistently through the leagues

Overall, having a lot of fun with the game, love the campaign, I really enjoy this endgame and actually have no plans to go back to POE1 (might do the event for the armor though, heh)

Now for more specifics

Campaign

Awesome campaign, really enjoyed the story, the environments, and most of all the bosses
Act 1. I enjoy the most, mostly since its the type of environment and themes I like the most, main boss I think is the best of the 3
Act 2 I tend to not like the dessert acts usually, but this had a lot of very varied and great environments, I liked the caravan mechanic and that we have a little choice in the order of things to an extent, the main boss was the one I struggled with the most, but now that I know the fight I don't struggle with him anymore, even if I had a subpar build at the moment
Act 3 I do like, probably the easiest boss of the 3 acts, I enjoy the massive areas here and actually exploring to get to the next area or points of interest

New Skill System

Love it, being able to actually upgrade my equipment if I find an upgrade without having to pay a tax cost in socket related orbs is so much better, this is the main reason I have no desire to go back to POE1,

current supports are interesting enough, still not 100% sold on the "can't repeat support gems" but I have definitely done a lot more variation on what I use so it doesn't seem that bad for now, and this should improve a lot the more supports are added into the game

Skill Progression

This is the one I'm not liking, act 1 skill progression is fine, but then it starts dragging on act 2, fells like it almost stops after act 3, I don't like having skills unlock at level 58? that's the end of the campaign, all skills and support should be unlocked halfway through the campaign, end of act 3 or beginning of act 4 at most.

I want to play my build on the campaign, if I can only play a build at endgame, I most likely won't play that build, this is particular to how I play, but I like playing a build during campaign and if I enjoyed the build, I'll keep playing through the endgame (if not, I create another char and build), because I enjoy the growth of the build, but for experiencing that growth I need to be able to setup the build at relatively low level.

Endgame

I am liking this endgame, I prefer waystones to maps, I like that I can get a good waystone and it doesn't have to come with a crappy map, I like that its more based on exploring, if I see a map I don't like, I can usually go around it, if not, I can use a simple low level waystone to get it over quickly, gone are the days of getting my 7th vaal city on the tier I'm trying to progress and being out of resources because I kept buying other map layouts

I also liked that on subsequent characters, I can just keep exploring or moving towards my goals, I noticed a hideout on the edge of my fog of war on the other side of a lake, I can go southwest or northwest to reach it, I don' mind realizing that it should have been the other way around, and if I get bored I can create a new character and once that reaches endgame I can continue towards that hideout

Note that I don't like to play endgame to farm, so I don't miss favored maps and I don't super optimize the maps, towers, etc, to me towers are fine I like them and I like they are the smaller maps with a clear objective to finish them, I don't unspect the local knowledge passive when I run mountain biomes

I would say map size is a bit too big right now, I like the massive maps during the campaign, but I think on endgame they should be a bit smaller than what they are right now, and would prefer that if a map has a boss, killing the boss would be the way to complete the map.

On endgame systems, its weird to have breach the way it is, and to a lesser extent ritual, waaaay to many monsters too fast and they require you to be fast to actually get rewards from them, I do feel the discrepancy here so hopefully on the next updates they get reigned down into more of a POE2 style rather than copy paste from POE1

Classes/Weapons

Lets get the easiest ones first, hehe

Monk / Quarterstaffs. Great feeling, fast, the cold skills (I always go for cold damage if possible, you'll see a pattern here) are great and compliment each other without feeling like you need to have a long setup before doing anything, shattering palm into cold strike, then bell once its charged and cold wave to retreat, very fun to play, and I even added thunderwave in case I need range for specific monsters (damn you water hags), didn't actually play endgame with this one since its a bit squishy (unless you invest into your armor items, but I went for other characters)

Sorceress / Spells. Played the mind over matter lightning sorceress, plays good, fun to use, though I would say I wish Arc wasn't split into 2 and setting its other half into mana storm, had some fun, but did not go too deep into endgame with this

Witch / Spells. One of my first characters, tried to do bloodmage, but man, that first ascendancy node felt too punishing, being my second character the build was crap, but the ascendancy felt more like a penalty, specially with bosses, blood orbs last to little, always spawn on the boss/enemy, and at most I was at max health since any cast would bring me down, never got to be at twice my max health, stopped playing at the middle of act 3

Mercenary / Crossbows. Crossbows are fun, but man, there is not a single ice related node in mercenary, yet felt like there's a LOT of different lightning related clusters, ended up using galvanic rounds with shockburst rounds, which gets very fun once you include choir of the storm and can mostly just use shockburst rounds, reached endgame and played a little in it

Warrior / Maces. Oh boy, first mace character I stopped playing around the end of act 1, I would say that during the first act, it was fun playing with maces and learning the bosses, but after a while, you get tired of every encounter being a lot of work, I can't stun too much because then I can't use bonebreaker for the payoff, if I'm surrounded by enemies, too many times using rolling slam would have my character go past those enemies and hit the horizon with me desperately trying to pivot back so I can hit something

Mace skills are too slow, and if you are going to have time added to skills that we can't reduce, then why the heck are you adding reduced attack speed to the nodes? we are already too slow!.

trying to use the skill to armor break doesn't feel good, you have to be there doing no damage while breaking armor and then you can do damage, contrast this with the monk, where you setup the bell while doing very good damage with ice strike and then you start the bell and the boss dies because you do too much damage

Now, I did try another warrior, but with a different approach, I liked the lazy pally build, so when I noticed Turtle Charm on the Warbringer I had to try

Now for this one, I went with Molten blast and Perfect strike, since they are one of the few skills to fully benefit from attack speed, I prioritized attack/skill speed on the tree and block chance, and I used the gloves to convert the fire damage to cold for extra safety

This turned out to be my most successful build, improved with Svalinn to have 65% max block chance, but since its lucky, its like 88% chance to block all damage (but DOTs), which is extremely safe, I use the 2 Skill points to get 1% damage per 1% block chance

I played the most endgame with this character, completed a couple of citadels without too much issues, I might go for some of the pinnacle bosses with this character

Still, I do find the forced movement on Molten Blast a bit annoying, specially with bosses doing safe zones etc, where you basically can't attack or you go out of the safe zone

The Warrior/Maces feel like the outlier here, and I think its not just the slow attacks, its the slow attacks and the loss of control, the monk can move while attacking with thunderwave, the warrior has to stop to attack with most of his skills, or not better, be forced to move forward while attacking, usually messing up its position or missing because you are quickly surrounded and monsters not always block your movement, at least let me be able to use rolling slam and molten blast without moving, and then if I want to move sure, move me forward, but this is currently my main issue with Mace skills, they either stop you or force you to move in a specific way, while all other (or most) weapon skills allow you to move while attacking, even cold strike which technically prevents you from moving has a small dash to a nearby enemy that makes it feel great

and finally, why do so many of the warrior zone skill points have disadvantages? you want crit chance? you get higher mana cost, want crit damage? you get reduced mana, want attack damage? reduced attack speed, oh you want life regen while standing still? you get slower move speed, then all other passives on all other classes zones don't get disadvantages for the most part or you get something like reduced mana regen while standing still with a big increase on mana regen while moving and 90% of your skills you can use while moving


Overall, I am really enjoying the game, I'll write a list of my characters so far:

- Mercenary with maces, stopped at act 1 (yeah, it wasn't a warrior I wanted a witch hunter)
- Bloodmage Witch with Arc and Bone storm, I actually used the weapon skill system on this one
- Crossbow Witchhunter (galvanic and shockburst rounds)
- Ice strike invoker
- Stormweaver Archmage (arc, etc)
- Warbringer Maxblock cold converted molten blast
- Ice strike witchhunter
- Maxblock spell warbringer
- Ice shards Witchhunter