Too many 'filler' nodes; Revised Skill Tree

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KoTao wrote:

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taekvideo wrote:

Guess u never played a mara.
Middle is completely useless for us -,-

I have yet to make a marauder that didnt utilize the middle area. Around half of them used more than one cluster there.

If I were to guess, it's just be the HP cluster and Life regen in the center, no?

Middle area has regen and buff duration, both are extremely useful for mara tanks. Regen is useful all around.

But it's just that. You guys take the regen in the middle because your builds require as much regen and hp as possible. I really can't think of ANY build that absolutely requires non-keystone passives in the center. Maybe the weapon elemental because there are so few? Other than those though... the benefit to the middle nodes rarely offsets the cost.

GGG already have made the travel pathes shorter and easier... you're not meaned to be able to take lots of keystones "only" for your build, it should not be so easy to reach the stronger ones, especially if more far away from your starting point....

So, to remove (more) stat nodes, the placement of the keystones would have to be adjusted (again) - possible ofc, but worth the effort?

I don't think it's worth the effort. Sure, it's not exactly fun having to spend 1/3 of your points, sometimes, on attribute nodes, but that engenders strategy. If we can reach every node on the tree with ease, then navigating the tree is no longer a game; too many builds become easily viable.

Interesting to see what other people consider valuable or not.
I personally haven't yet made a single build that utilized the middle; Even when making a strength archer, I rather took an Iron Grip gem instead of spending 6-7 passive points just to get the keystone.

The first build where I considered the middle is my Caster Marauder, which uses Iron will, thus suddenly making it interesting to spend 4 points on 10str nodes just to get that 30 str node in the middle (that's 14% spell damage, 50 hp, a decent deal compared to just ele damage nodes.

Even when planning a health regen marauder, I never considered going for the middle.

Still, I agree with the argument that things shouldn't be too accessible. Though leaving your starting area really is pretty hard, especially when doing a build that doesn't really benefit from any of the starting areas; I mean, where would you start?^^

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UnDeaD_CyBorG wrote:

Though leaving your starting area really is pretty hard, especially when doing a build that doesn't really benefit from any of the starting areas; I mean, where would you start?^^

One could argue what you're playing the wrong class when that's the case >< But ppl like their caster marauders or 2h witches ground slammer... so strange...

Well, first of, everyone can make a caster witch and 2h marauder.
That's just poor, why go to the effort of planning a char that dozens of other people did already? You might just look theirs up.

But you missed the actual point, which is, what do you do when you want to do a character centered around passives that aren't close to ANY starting area?

Say, I want to do a battlefield control type character.
Best starts are probably templar or shadow; I need increased duration, all trap and totem passives, and then maybe a bit of survivability.
No matter where I start, I really just try to get out of there. This is obviously only an example and I suppose Templar is a decent start, still, one could argue that spending a single point less to get out there is nice to have. Of course, one can also argue that a single point really makes no difference.

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UnDeaD_CyBorG wrote:

But you missed the actual point, which is, what do you do when you want to do a character centered around passives that aren't close to ANY starting area?

*snip snip*

Spoiler

Say, I want to do a battlefield control type character.
Best starts are probably templar or shadow; I need increased duration, all trap and totem passives, and then maybe a bit of survivability.
No matter where I start, I really just try to get out of there. This is obviously only an example and I suppose Templar is a decent start, still, one could argue that spending a single point less to get out there is nice to have. Of course, one can also argue that a single point really makes no difference.

Good points, agreed.
Even though it takes a lot of initial investment to get to the centre of the tree (10+ stat nodes), once you're there everything is connected, with very little prerequisites. It suppose it makes a character focusing only on mid area stall for a long time, until suddenly his build converges very quickly over a few levels.

I think a better approach to the tree would have been quicker access to middle area (more than your tree revision, even though I think you did a good job), then have a web of stat nodes and clusters (like the rest of the tree, but mode spider web-like). So you would spend stat nodes prerequisite to navigate between clusters you need, instead of having to go through clusters you might not need like it is now. This way builds made around center keystone(s) could converge in a more linear way.

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UnDeaD_CyBorG wrote:

Interesting to see what other people consider valuable or not.
I personally haven't yet made a single build that utilized the middle; Even when making a strength archer, I rather took an Iron Grip gem instead of spending 6-7 passive points just to get the keystone.

that feature is called "build diversity" - there are different ways to build up chars that work similar ;)

and, this only works if you are not intended (nor forced) to catch every node in the tree that is related to your skills.