Ascendancy kinda sucks

Putting aside my hatred towards indestructible enemies.......who the hell came up with the idea of locking classes for Ascendancy?

I love playing elemental bow shadow, something slightly unorthodox. Looking at the shadow's choices they seem dagger, trap and chaos based. So if I want to play my elemental bow I have to

1. Go with something else like ranger which supports it better
2. Waste my points on nodes which increase things I don't need

I am basically shafted, what I like to play has been made weaker because of class specialization.

HOW IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE: Don't lock ascendancy classes to your initial choice of a class, let every class benefit from every ascendancy class they desire.

I love how many options we have already, why lock them behind stupid archetypes?

You are not necessarily weaker in ascendancy as a bow shadow. It might not be as effective any longer though as compared to a ranger or a duelist for that matter.

Looking at the shadow ascendancy classes i can see some builds being as strong or even stronger as a shadow, while some builds might be a bit inferior to their ranger counterpart. Shadow as a class has in no way become weaker concidering what we know as of now.

It maybe so if it wasn't for the stupid nodes which give a bonus to a certain weapon. The way I see it either remove them, make them more general or once again - make the ascendancy classes free for everyone.

Is there any reason to lock them to your initial class other than making the game generally easier for new players?

It's one of my concerns, too, just regarding existing characters. For temporary league play it doesn't make a huge difference, but if you have long-term goals (say, 100 in Standard SC or HC) and you're at 90+ with gear, particularly if self-found, and your build may suddenly get massively hit because you have no access to some of the über-skills in another class's Ascendancy sub-tree, you may indeed get the shaft.

This made me wonder if I shouldn't just level one of each class to 90 (or a few anyway) before Ascendancy, and only then decide which to take further. Might also give me an excuse to play the March league if I have a couple classes left that might need leveling, though there's still the Masters issues with leagues.

I hope the Q&A will touch on these concerns.

Does it actually make any difference at all ?

Let's imagine for a second that instead of ascendency classes, you add those nodes to the passive tree, connected to the start of the corresponding classes. That would somehow make sense, right ? Every class can get to any one of those areas, but since the skills are still a bit oriented, they should be closer to the relevant class.

But then, if you, say, start as a Shadow, and want to get to the elemental-oriented section (Duelist? or perhaps Witch?), you have to get to the corresponding starting area, so you might just as well have started with a character of that class. The only difference is the inherent attributes, but that's easily dealt with.

Overall, Ascendency classes give a bit of identity to the classes, which they lacked, without hurting build diversity, quite the opposite.

Edit: I agree with the point for Standard, but that won't be taken into account. Standard is never a priority.

Why do you need identity for classes? Isn't the whole point of this gigantic passive tree freedom and not getting locked because of the class you decided to pick? I don't understand why GGG are completely contradicting their initial design.

And for the love of god try to understand my point of view:

It is about the small nodes between the big ones in the ascendancy trees and how they are tailored towards a specific playstyle, which means if I want to play a bow shadow I will end up picking nodes which give me precisely 0 benefits.

"

Johny_Snow a écrit :

Looking at the shadow's choices they seem dagger, trap and chaos based.

Where'd you get the dagger shadow from?
I only thought we had information about two of the Shadow Ascendancies.

It's kinda like my frost blades/shield block ranger.
She won't have the duelist blocking ascendancy, but there are still other options for her.

In your case, you can go with the critical strike boosting portion of the Assassin Ascendancy, unless the third Shadow Ascendancy turns out better suited.

I don't need the love of god, but I'll settle for yours. Point of view understood.

But these small nodes have roughly the amplitude of a so-so jewel or notable node. I don't think the effectiveness of a build will be hurt significantly.

On the other hand, I do agree that things could go horribly wrong if those constrained builds get too powerful compared to the more original ones, and then GGG have to balance the game around the former, which would completely kill the latter.

But right now I couldn't tell how likely that would be.

So elemental bow shadow, and you cant see how anything on the shadow ascendancy classes would benefit it?...really?

Assassin.

Ambush = massive crit chance and multi on full life monsters...no restrictions.

Assassinate = Culling strike, increased damage on low life monsters, more crit chance vs lowlife monsters, no restrictions

Unstable infusion = 10% chance to get a power charge on non crits (no specification on if thats 10% chance on cast or per monster hit)...no restriction

Deadly infusion = 10% increased crit multi per power charge and and 0.5% base crit per power charge...no restrictions

And none of that would benefit an ele bow build?

Oh look... this thread again.

Some people like the differentiation of the characters... some don't. Get over it. Make your elemental bow user. Make it a Ranger this time and compare your experience. It wont be all that different.