No fun allowed (unless you're a deadeye or amazon)

I don't know what happened at one moment and why every time different developers start to get sick with a disease in which they maniacally want to rid players of any entertainment in the game.

The most notorious example is the recent Helldivers 2, where the developers simply killed all the fun in the game, turning the game into a stuffy throwing of corpses in co-op with terribly nerfed guns.

Right now, everything in the game just loses its meaning because there is only 1 class in the game that is also played through a unique gear, making almost any other things in the game useless and worthless. Any pinnacle content is simply not needed because everything from it is nerfed and is practically not used by anyone, again because there is only 1 class that is enjoyable to play.

In the previous patch, which for some reason the developers didn't like, there were stormweaver and invoker, gemling, infernalist. Only warrior and witchhunter suffered quite a lot compared to the others.

It made sense to look at the loot and stats for each class, they played on them, but now in the game there is only deadeye who runs with 60 MS, killing 2 screens with one spear and one-shots any boss in the game through wind serpent's fury.

For some reason, the developer who called himself Grinding Gear Games simply made any grinding in the game practically useless and unrewarding.

Either let everyone run at 60 MS and clear 2 screens with one button and bosses in 0.1 seconds or let no one run since you want to nerf and slow everything down and prohibit further fun on any class in the game.

It's just not funny that the developer talks about how he wanted to level everyone and nerf builds with uniq for 1 exalt while releasing a patch where Deadeye still exists with a spear, which is literally an order better than every class in the game and still hasn't been nerfed. Or other classes not buffed to a "fun" state where they can also run around the map with good mobility and it makes sense for them to invest further in their build because they will be able to kill, for example, a T4 boss not in 1 minute but in 10 or 5 seconds.

Now even if all other classes invest several mirrors in the build, earned by a terrible amount of time in the game where nothing has meaning and value except for a few things. They will receive only regret and complete frustration.

Oh, the previous patch was pretty bad too. Screen exploding, mana and stat stacking to the roof. It was dominated by a few OP as shit ways to play with no room for anything else. The balance has always been horrible, its just that in 0.2 it somehow got worse

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I don't know what happened at one moment and why every time different developers start to get sick with a disease in which they maniacally want to rid players of any entertainment in the game.

This kind of talk is very unhelpful and unconstructive. I think you need to chill out a little bit.

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Either let everyone run at 60 MS and clear 2 screens with one button and bosses in 0.1 seconds or let no one run since you want to nerf and slow everything down and prohibit further fun on any class in the game.

I don't think GGGs goal is to not let anyone clear screenfulls of enemies. I don't think "meaningful combat" is tied to the speed of the gameplay in any way and lightning spear builds are much more engaging than herald stacking builds were in 0.1 even though they can both clear a screenfull of enemies. I wrote a huge post about it here so I'm just gonna link that: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3767401

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It made sense to look at the loot and stats for each class, they played on them, but now in the game there is only deadeye who runs with 60 MS, killing 2 screens with one spear and one-shots any boss in the game through wind serpent's fury.

Huntress is the most played class because it was the only new class marketed. The league is literally called Dawn of the Hunt, the reveal trailer was completely focused around the huntress and even the new mechanic "Azmeri wisps" had it's background tied to the huntress. Lightning spear just happened to be the most popular build for huntress that's why it's so heavily played in softcore.

If you look at the Dawn of the Hunt HC SSF leaderboards on poe2ninja (https://poe2.ninja/builds/dawnhcssf) you can see that all the ascendancies have players in the 90s playing all sorts of different skills. The class variety is much better there too. It's not only one class that is viable.

Here are also some videos of different builds just deleting T15 bosses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFkd_85iCC4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvXRkKPC1zg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDNX-KkD9ms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx-uyfvH2FY

You haven't heard of these builds because most of the content creators were also playing huntress because they knew they would get the most clicks that way as it was the most anticipated class (can't blame them for that). But that doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of smaller creators going around trying crazy stuff and coming up with builds that are also highly competitive.

Honestly this clip from Math1l really sums up really well how I feel about this topic: https://www.twitch.tv/mathil1/clip/DreamySolidFlamingoCharlieBitMe-HN4rPZUeOJe7dTcY?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time

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RusinaRange#6285 wrote:

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I don't know what happened at one moment and why every time different developers start to get sick with a disease in which they maniacally want to rid players of any entertainment in the game.

This kind of talk is very unhelpful and unconstructive. I think you need to chill out a little bit.

"

Either let everyone run at 60 MS and clear 2 screens with one button and bosses in 0.1 seconds or let no one run since you want to nerf and slow everything down and prohibit further fun on any class in the game.

I don't think GGGs goal is to not let anyone clear screenfulls of enemies. I don't think "meaningful combat" is tied to the speed of the gameplay in any way and lightning spear builds are much more engaging than herald stacking builds were in 0.1 even though they can both clear a screenfull of enemies. I wrote a huge post about it here so I'm just gonna link that: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3767401

"

It made sense to look at the loot and stats for each class, they played on them, but now in the game there is only deadeye who runs with 60 MS, killing 2 screens with one spear and one-shots any boss in the game through wind serpent's fury.

Huntress is the most played class because it was the only new class marketed. The league is literally called Dawn of the Hunt, the reveal trailer was completely focused around the huntress and even the new mechanic "Azmeri wisps" had it's background tied to the huntress. Lightning spear just happened to be the most popular build for huntress that's why it's so heavily played in softcore.

If you look at the Dawn of the Hunt HC SSF leaderboards on poe2ninja (https://poe2.ninja/builds/dawnhcssf) you can see that all the ascendancies have players in the 90s playing all sorts of different skills. The class variety is much better there too. It's not only one class that is viable.

Here are also some videos of different builds just deleting T15 bosses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFkd_85iCC4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvXRkKPC1zg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDNX-KkD9ms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx-uyfvH2FY

You haven't heard of these builds because most of the content creators were also playing huntress because they knew they would get the most clicks that way as it was the most anticipated class (can't blame them for that). But that doesn't mean that there aren't a ton of smaller creators going around trying crazy stuff and coming up with builds that are also highly competitive.

Honestly this clip from Math1l really sums up really well how I feel about this topic: https://www.twitch.tv/mathil1/clip/DreamySolidFlamingoCharlieBitMe-HN4rPZUeOJe7dTcY?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time

Hi, I've read everything you wrote. In general, I understand where the misunderstanding came from.
I'm currently playing one of the builds from the video you linked, Lich dark effigy. It also cleans entire maps, although overall it's quite comfortable. It's also much more resilient than Huntress.

In general, Huntress is a good character and the problem is not specifically in her but in the build that uses "Tangletongue Forked Spear" which is not some kind of rare unique and simply makes an entire type of spears practically useless at the moment.

Also, the paragraph that I wrote about the mobility of 60% MS and one-shot of any content was about Deadeye. It just looks like it should not exist now.

This ascendancy can literally just destroy content with a budget of 1 divine.
There is too strong synergy between Thrilling Chase and Wind Seprent's Fury which practically one-shots for free or kills T4 bosses in 2 casts + the highest mobility in the game is also free. You don't need expensive gear for this, you don't need gear at all in general. Also Lighting Spear and Tangletongue Forked Spear work better on Deadeye. The developer completely ignores this.
In my understanding, there should not be a build that does everything better than every other build in the game without investments (literally random items from acts, a unique spear and that's it).

I really just feel frustration that I invest a lot of time in the build to comfortably go through all the content when the game has Deadeye who makes everything better but he only needs 1 divine from the map to become so much better that I will never achieve this on my build. It is at this moment when the developer assures and tells that this will not be in the game and completely ignores the existence of this.

I generally like the idea of ​​slowing down the progression, but the big problem is that now, due to the strong nerf of jewels and sockets, as well as uniques with pinnacle content, they simply stopped being used and are worth absolutely nothing.

In short, most diamonds are all just generally meaningless because now everyone has 3-4 sockets for jewels.
meta uniques even corrupted or with enchantment from pinnacles have become much worse that the regular versions are sometimes just better.
They just made pinnacle content so unrewarding that it makes much more sense to go to the regular atlas.

I disagree that there's only 1 viable/fun class,

I'm having fun remaking my infernalist build from 0.1, its defense was nerfed but it got a nice damage boost as well. Still working on finding citadels/logbooks, but it killed t4 Xesht/KoM first try. And thanks to everyone playing huntress I got a near BiS weapon for 2ex.

But I think you have a point that some viable builds simply suck to play because they can't get extra movement speed.

OP don't worry amazon and deadeye aren't fun either.

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Hi, I've read everything you wrote. In general, I understand where the misunderstanding came from.
I'm currently playing one of the builds from the video you linked, Lich dark effigy. It also cleans entire maps, although overall it's quite comfortable. It's also much more resilient than Huntress.

Thank you for reading everything and for your very well thought out response!

The forums definitely need more good discussion, especially when people don't see eye to eye. Though I do think we agree on a lot of things!

"

This ascendancy can literally just destroy content with a budget of 1 divine.
There is too strong synergy between Thrilling Chase and Wind Seprent's Fury which practically one-shots for free or kills T4 bosses in 2 casts + the highest mobility in the game is also free. You don't need expensive gear for this, you don't need gear at all in general. Also Lighting Spear and Tangletongue Forked Spear work better on Deadeye. The developer completely ignores this.
In my understanding, there should not be a build that does everything better than every other build in the game without investments (literally random items from acts, a unique spear and that's it).

I 1000% agree with you. My very long post was about huntress and how lightning spear is more engaging than herald stacking. I think the floor of that skill is probably still too high but the high end is probably fine. My original response to OP was much more about build diversity being gone now (which it isn't).

Wind serpent's fury on deadeye seems absolutely busted, it's much closer to 0.1 herald stacking / spark builds and I would say you're right in all your criticism of it. It's definitely not engaging gameplay when you can just press the skill twice to kill any end game boss in seconds. I do think they will address this in 0.3.

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I really just feel frustration that I invest a lot of time in the build to comfortably go through all the content when the game has Deadeye who makes everything better but he only needs 1 divine from the map to become so much better that I will never achieve this on my build.

(Genuine question) Are you still having fun with the game or are the deadeye builds affecting your fun?

I personally saw fubguns deadeye build and I thought it was absolutely insane that he got the character to level 90 in 7 hours and that he could kill bosses in two clicks but I didn't personally really feel like I was missing out because I've been trying to do my own build without looking up guides or trading too much and I've still been having fun myself.

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It is at this moment when the developer assures and tells that this will not be in the game and completely ignores the existence of this.

This is the only thing I actually disagree with you on. The developers have been very strongly saying the opposite in all the interviews they've been doing. I can go back and look up time codes for you if you want but they very clearly were indicating that they know somebody is going to break the game like this. I don't remember the exact quote but Mark said something along the lines that 0.1 had 100 000 issues, 0.2 is going to have 50 000 issues and 0.3 is going to have 25 000 and they are going to keep tackling those until they only have a few thousand issues on the full release.

The game is still on the first real patch of early access, eventually there are going to be less and less of these issues and the game's only going to get better from here.

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RusinaRange#6285 wrote:

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(Genuine question) Are you still having fun with the game or are the deadeye builds affecting your fun?

I personally saw fubguns deadeye build and I thought it was absolutely insane that he got the character to level 90 in 7 hours and that he could kill bosses in two clicks but I didn't personally really feel like I was missing out because I've been trying to do my own build without looking up guides or trading too much and I've still been having fun myself.

Deadeye rather caused a feeling of a missed opportunity, because I like to optimize and speed up the build for farming as much as possible.
I really liked the lich build with totems in general, I enjoy it. A very thick shield + automatic damage is almost the same as playing with minions, which now look much worse.
I see Deadeye on my friends, but I don’t even want to level it because I’m so used to the lich.

It's been a few days since my first message, and I was generally wrong: there is much more than one "fun" build.

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Xeira#4338 wrote:

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RusinaRange#6285 wrote:

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(Genuine question) Are you still having fun with the game or are the deadeye builds affecting your fun?

I personally saw fubguns deadeye build and I thought it was absolutely insane that he got the character to level 90 in 7 hours and that he could kill bosses in two clicks but I didn't personally really feel like I was missing out because I've been trying to do my own build without looking up guides or trading too much and I've still been having fun myself.

Deadeye rather caused a feeling of a missed opportunity, because I like to optimize and speed up the build for farming as much as possible.
I really liked the lich build with totems in general, I enjoy it. A very thick shield + automatic damage is almost the same as playing with minions, which now look much worse.
I see Deadeye on my friends, but I don’t even want to level it because I’m so used to the lich.

It's been a few days since my first message, and I was generally wrong: there is much more than one "fun" build.

You had such a different tone on your second message that I didn't realize you were the OP, my bad!

It seems like you're having more fun now so I'm glad for you.

I do think 0.2g is going to be great so that maxing out your atlas passive tree points is going to be much faster and hopefully there's good updates to the loot. I haven't personally felt a decrease in loot (it was also bad for me in 0.1 until I started tower stacking at T16) but I think it's because I was running what seems to be the optimal loot setup now also in 0.1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OWvCQkJhGI)

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In general, Huntress is a good character and the problem is not specifically in her but in the build that uses "Tangletongue Forked Spear" which is not some kind of rare unique and simply makes an entire type of spears practically useless at the moment.

I have to respectfully agree in part but disagree as a whole. Tangletongue is great for getting your build online. It certainly can be a map clearing monster but not by itself. It does require a build on the passive tree, flat damage items which cost godly amounts, it has terrible survivability in tough high monster life maps (although if you can kill things quicker you survive better), it's damage ranges fluctuate so rely on the crit/CDB to do any damage at all and forces a single target option. It also negates one of the best passives on the amazon tree which adds flat phys dmg based on weapon accuracy.

The Tangletongue can easily be replaced at higher levels by an albeit expensive chase item of a spear with accuracy and high phys rolls. This gives the damage ranges of lightning better use overall in tougher maps and pack based encounters.

The problem really is down to how the average person creates a character in POE2. A huge percentage of people simply make a build by typing "best poe2 build" into youtube and seeing what floats the top results. This season it has been Lightning Spear all the way due to commonality of streamers producing the guides.
Lots of people used Fubgun's LS guide for example, then argue regular spears are practically useless. Yet failed to notice Fubgun, himself, uses a regular spear over T-T. This is not the fault of the people using the guides, but it is the reason the general consensus is regular spears were made useless by the OP nature of the T-T crit builds.

When it comes down to it survivability trumps damage, but when damage is your survivability and it's over-tuned for the character progression, making the game easy and boring, people will do it and find nothing else that interests them and quit. This is definitely an issue that will be fixed next league with the huge Huntress rebalancing that will occur around T-T and it's effectiveness in scaling through to tier 15s.