A fair feedback from huntress' pov?

Hello!

I've played poe 2 0.2 patch now for almost 3 days playtime and I'd like to give some feedback, hopefully to help improve the game.

Some info about my gameplay first:
I've cleared all quests, 40/40 atlas skill points and killed all bosses at least once, I'm lvl 93 with 228k monsters killed. Got 320 ex, 3 divs, 1 perfect jew in raw currency, which seems around average what others found in global chat pilfering rings, around 1 div per 100 ex. I was playing with 96% rarity and Golden Charm. I've seen people with 400 ex and 13-14 divs though, not sure if this is just rng or I'm doing something wrong? Seems way too high of a ratio to be just rng. Found plenty of worthy items though, totally earned around 40ish div. I'm playing Amazon Lightning Spear for clear and Shockburst rounds for bosses and it melts most map bosses in few seconds. I've invested less than 20 divs into the build.

Okay lets start with levelling:

Started huntress, all spear skills low lvl sucked, didn't found out twister combo so I had zdps. Couldn't do any dmg so I swapped to crossbows since I like their playstyle. Played grenades / galvanic shards and struggles through first 2 acts with it, still zdps. After fighting titan boss for over 5 minutes and running out of flasks and dying stopped for the day. Next day heard people in chat talking rake is good, swapped to rake stomp and stomped the rest of the campaign, was around 60 when the first nerfs arrived.

So the campaign was too harsh, but it was nerfed, should be fine now. The problem is build variety at low lvl. I'm quite experienced with the games and struggled, can't imagine how someone new went through it. In my opinion a new player should be able to pick skills in the gemcutting tab and put in 2 recommended supports and with medium difficulty clear first 3 acts with these skills. It feels like there are "trap" skills and if you decide to play them you just screwed yourself over and won't have a good time. So low level balancing is an issue, all skills should be viable and around same power level at low level, maybe buff their low level power and reduce their scaling if they would become too strong high lvl?

Next the people like to craft gear, and while doing acts there were no drops of currency or yellow items. I've seen you plan to add socket orbs throughout campaign, but I think that isn't enough. You should add way more transmutes,
augments and regals throughout campaign and side quests / monsters so people can slam them on their low lvl gear, this won't impact high lvl play, but will help people learn to use them and try to get some nice gear. Also skill gems and support drop was abysmal for me, not sure how it was for others, maybe make it an algorithm that you can't get unlucky when going through campaign.

So that's in general what I would improve in campaign - balance all low level skills, more skill drops, more currency drop so people can craft gear which could get them hooked. Even I almost quit after picking a bad early skill and had a rough time with it, I imagine a lot of people quit early this patch, and it was mostly balance issue. There were skills that were strong, but far too few. Also you're very slow early and the game in general has low movement speed. Maybe increase base MS to be as if you have 10% increased MS.

Mapping:

First I hated old towers, dreaded them. Now I look forward towards them and make routes to them. They feel really good right now, adding 3 tablets feels amazing. But maybe it's too good in a sense, almost every map slot has 3-5
things on it when not traveling between towers. % More maps affected by tablets on towers seems too high?

Maps - jumping in tiers is too fast and no sustain issues at any points feels weird? Maybe make it so you can sustain only on blue maps 1-5, rare 5-10, 5 mod rares 15, or something like that?

Ailments - I didn't notice any ailment issues. Was running 2 charms thanks to passive tree, one for stun other for rarity.
Got frozen a few times by wraiths, but was mostly fair. Didn't notice any stun issues too much with the charm.

Mobs with proximity are annoying and seems like there is way too much of them? Maybe reduce to max 5% of mobs having it, feels way too much, or maybe it's because of shield mobs as well. Other mods seem fine, even immunity was ok to me. Big fire shield on rares need some visual update looks horrible to me.

Shrines - hitbox is bugged when clicking on them, died a few times clicking 10 times on the shrine and not getting it and then it froze me...

Exiles - fun, but rare and unrewarding in my experience.

Strongboxes - meh, use them, don't expect much. Unique ones are fun, scarab for jewels and ventors were great.

Ritual - feels good, found 3 invitations, boss is fun, rewards good. Takes maybe a bit too long per map compared to other mechanics? Make it max 3 at all times? One big problem with ritual is when it spawns in a narrow passage, make
it so they only spawn in open, or create a room like some mechanics in poe 1 so you are un obstructed while inside the ring so you don't get stuck and one shot by the traps. Omens that heal and reduce xp loss feel amazing and can
be quite profitable.

Expedition - a bit tedious until you get big boom. Rune mages are nuts, fast cast, insane dmg, big aoe, needs looking into and nerfing perhaps. Also half the mobs use shield, it's annoying :). Rewards also seem ok.

Breach - Can have bad spawn locations, maybe make it also spawn in better place, or increase mob density if it spawns in bad location. Unrewarding, no drops, worst mechanics right now imo. Got first breachstone on 93, maybe it's better with a lot of points invested.

Delirium - is ok. Nice bonus mobs, you get some oils that can be used on maps or sell. Splinter drop is bad, had 250 at 93, had to buy 50 to get to the boss. The duration was buffed now, but it will still be too low drop rate on splinters I think. Maybe reduce it to 100 for simulacrum? At 93 you should probably have one simulacrum farmed. The simulacrum is way harder than other mechanic boss encounters, maybe tone it down for the first difficulty. Also whoever had the idea of putting 50 mobs and 2 bosses in a narrow 2*10m canal with body blocking is a monster, let people fight bosses in a fair map size. Had way more difficulty with wave 10 bosses because of it than wave 15 bosses.

Corruption - and cleanse feels ok, bonus mob density is nice. Quest for cleansing it 15 times is repetitive and boring so change it asap, but it does seem like a placeholder.

Bosses in Maps - die too fast, around 3s with shockburst rounds, snitching on myself, but it's for the health of the game. Hopefully all builds with such boss dps get nerfed next patch.

Unique Maps - I liked the gold unique map with the pirate boss, he died in 2 seconds so I don't know what he does, but he looks cool. Boss gauntlet is also cool. Untainted paradise was meh, not that much xp and no loot. New vaults of atziri is boring, had 2 of them, no good drops, big map you run around and click chests. Make unique maps more noticeable, maybe 2 times larger circle above the map?

Citadels - found 3 citadels, 1 of each, either very lucky or designed this way, it was good. Can see citadels off screen by the light beam, probably intended. Also can see corruption on towers in fog since their tips are poking
through.

Arbiter - boss is fine, line dodging is ok, orbs falling isn't. There shouldn't be a possibility for one of the orbs to be so far away you can't get to it and it one shots you.

Trial sekhema - was a bit rough to clear all 4 floors. Getting choice between enfeeble / 50% HP on enemies etc feels awful, make lower and higher tier afflictions and add more different ones, as well as boons, but it seems to be planned for future anyway. Still feels bad on non ES build which doesn't have 15k honor.

Trial chaos - getting 4th ascendancy here seems too slow, farming it for like 10 times to get the 3 pieces you need to start the fight seems tedious. Challenges where you have to carry "orbs" and put them into the hole has long animation and you can get hit by ghost chasing you etc, doesn't feel fair.

Essence - greater essences seem fine, regular ones are too weak and barely used I feel? Maybe change here is needed or let them combine 3 into greater?

Recombinator - haven't used it once, seems fine though. You can always just change numbers around if too weak/strong.

Wisps - horrible. Tried speccing into them first and it's just awful. Slow, sometimes goes around the entire map to get to 1 rare and then nothing drops, wasted 2 mins in a map, and then it respawns and goes to the other side to 2nd rare... Not rewarding, slow, unfun. Maybe it should buff player with rarity/quant and then betray player when he comes near a rare and enter the rare buffing him instead. Needs rework imo.


Character power:

Amazon class - Crit Strike + Penetrate + Predatory Instict feel like they give way more % more dmg than any other ascendancy class, maybe check the numbers and see if it needs toning down.

Life - life feels weak compared to ES, you can get 10k es, but I don't see how to get more than 2700hp on a huntress. ES has it's own problems with ailments and stun, but still life feels way too low at high maps.

Ghost dance - keeps bothering me that I'm on 0 ES out of 725 with 5 stacks of ghost dance half the map, while every stack fully recharges it. Check if it works properly with evasion and block or maybe it just procs before the hit
itself and es it grants is instantly consumed by the incoming attack?

Lightning spear - not even using frenzies or poison and still clears amazingly. Should have gotten nerfed.

Nerfs in general - it's still and early access and we are testing it, you shouldn't feel too bad about nerfing mid league. Just give announcement few days in advance when possible so people can stack currency to swap out
if needed. Also don't just nerf it to the ground, let it be playable.

Skill gems - any reason you can't pick lower rank skill from a skill gem yet?

Herald of thunder - why is conc effect recommended for HoT, but when you socket it it's dmg doesnt go up?


Sorry for the long post, but wanted to give my feedback and hopefully some of it helps. Also feel free to comment what was your experience like and what you agree/disagree with.

Cheers!


P.S. Let us mute timing map device mtx constant ticking is driving me insane :)

New guy, eh?
I wonder what would you write if you started literally ANY other class in this league. Just so happened that you picked up the only like decently playable class. Try infernalist or better yet the chronomancer or wait I know, be the one of two people doing endgame with a blood mage. Then come back here and ask for nerfs, but something tells me you'd be willing to write on some other topic then.

It's weird that you don't like sustaining maps and want them to nerf towers when they already gutted MFing.

Otherwise, great post.

"

galloper#2354 wrote:

New guy, eh?
I wonder what would you write if you started literally ANY other class in this league. Just so happened that you picked up the only like decently playable class. Try infernalist or better yet the chronomancer or wait I know, be the one of two people doing endgame with a blood mage. Then come back here and ask for nerfs, but something tells me you'd be willing to write on some other topic then.

Hey

Was choosing between new class and bloodmage 100% crit lightning build with choir, it still seems very good.

Chronomancer was my favorite class when they released names, but never tried it, it just looks so weak or niche?

I have seen warrior builds smashing whole screens as well so there are some decent builds there.

Don't know about minions haven't seen much of those.


But I agree with you in general, I'd like to see way more build variety. I even mentioned Amazon seems too strong and that this is Amazon pov.


Also about sustaining maps / nerfing towers, I like sustaining maps, but it just feel artificial with last mob dropping them, would prefer if you just sustained by doing 5 mod maps on their own at tier 15, getting surplus if you go for 6 mod. Towers do seem a bit too strong when every map has all 5 things on it, though when we get more tablets with new mechanics that might be very necessary if you want to run 2-3 mechanics with bosses and +1 level.