Elementalist sucks. Never pick over assassin.

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Pi2rEpsilon a écrit :

I do know that the game is largely balanced around that playstyle.

It does not logically follow that my experience is worse if I do not adopt the playstyle the game is balanced around, for the simple reason that my experience being worse by somebody else's metrics does not make it either objectively worse or worse by my own metrics; What matters to anybody when considering whether they are having a good experience is how their experience is when measured by their own metrics.

As one example, somebody who finds most fun playing summoner types in ARPGs will not necessarily have a worse experience playing a summoner type in Path of Exile than playing one of the crit variants you mention, unless the fun he gets out of the game hinges more on how swiftly he gains experience than what he does in the game to achieve it.

Your metrics for whether a player is having a good experience applies only to those who share them, and that you categorize playing what you name a fun build as something that results in a worse experience than playing the optimal one for achieving the goals of max xp/hour, ladder progression etc. is about as strong a proof as anything that the two of us use different metrics to determine whether we have a good experience when playing this game.

Which is fine. Different strokes for different folks.

What you are saying tho is quite irrelevant. There is no positive gain from keeping some playstyles artificially inferior - in essence the ideal is that most builds each are similarish in power. Some builds should be best for low gear setups, other builds better at the far end of gearing and so forth - but to keep some builds just below in all areas doesn't make sense.

If more choices were on similar power levels, it would only promote freedom to choose according to your personal tastes. That is what he is saying, he isn't saying that you can't pick a suboptimal playstyle(and not suboptimal because u dont know how to theorycraft, but because balance), it is that some things are just far more powerful than others all around, for no good reason.

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Crackmonster a écrit :

Shaper of Desolation is very powerful against all the stuff that is easiest to kill, the harder the challenge gets the worse it gets. As i said.. any serious build is a joke with on kill effects - a serious build will work against all content, not just the regular monsters and easier map bosses.

Actually, the more serious a build is prior to adding an on-kill effect, the better an on-kill effect becomes, because good builds can maintain kills against trash, and against bosses the fight is shorter so an on-kill effect is longer for a greater percentage of the fight.

It's only when builds are weak in the DPS department that you should look at on-kill effects as bad. But, if you ask me, those builds are bad anyway.

You're confusing a more difficult build, with a worse one. On-kill builds do demand their pilots to maintain momentum, forcing a fast playstyle with quickly-made decisions. But that doesn't mean thet players can't count on those on-kill effects, they'll still help a lot.

Something else:

Is it possible to change Ascendancy classes? Would try out how well Elementalist works in practice. Everything else is theory.

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ScrotieMcB a écrit :

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Crackmonster a écrit :

Shaper of Desolation is very powerful against all the stuff that is easiest to kill, the harder the challenge gets the worse it gets. As i said.. any serious build is a joke with on kill effects - a serious build will work against all content, not just the regular monsters and easier map bosses.

Actually, the more serious a build is prior to adding an on-kill effect, the better an on-kill effect becomes, because good builds can maintain kills against trash, and against bosses the fight is shorter so an on-kill effect is longer for a greater percentage of the fight.

It's only when builds are weak in the DPS department that you should look at on-kill effects as bad. But, if you ask me, those builds are bad anyway.

You're confusing a more difficult build, with a worse one. On-kill builds do demand their pilots to maintain momentum, forcing a fast playstyle with quickly-made decisions. But that doesn't mean thet players can't count on those on-kill effects, they'll still help a lot.

Well in this case you can only choose one, so if all the class really has is an on kill effect, which when active is worse than the constant effect of another - then there really is no point in taking that class.

Elementalist will probably be good for niche builds, like proliferation burns, but there is not witch class that can compete with assassin for a pure blaster build - the archecaster.

That's a problem.

Saying Shaper of Desolation can't be a top build because it requires on constant kills is a lot like saying Vaal Spark can't be a top build because it relies on constant kills.

Now that I mention it, there's one build that loves SoD: Vaal Sparkers. Run 2x CotB, get some chance to freeze (or crit), proliferate the freezes. So Elementalist is essentially 100% chance of 1.5x strength proliferated Ignite, based off Cold hits, without sacrificing freeze at all.

Oh, and when you get to the map boss, you can use the nearby mobs to proliferate Shock and Freeze onto it. So you get a window to burst it down. Although shattering might be a problem...

Is that as OP as what Assassin offers? Well, I'd say that SoD is about equivalent to Ambush in power level, which is to say: ridiculous. The question is whether the brief proliferated Shock/Freeze is enough to kill bosses, to compete with Assassin's Deadly Infusion sustain. For Vaal Spark builds, where killing bosses is either very fast or takes forever, I'd say it's too hard to tell. Maybe some shatterless version, if the proliferate is really key to boss kills; maybe Voltaxic for Poison, idk.

And that's a maybe versus Assassin. Elementalist is fine, thanks to SoD alone.

Elementalist does suck but at least casters have the option of going assassin or inquisitor or occultist which are very OP. Melee on the other hand has to contend with juggernaut or berserker or slayer which all sucks (and by melee I meant classic 2H RT melee). Marauder and Duelist might as well not exist post 2.2 except for rangers who want to get fortify or fire/totem users

Rather than start a new topic i thought i would piggy back off this one. Elementalist is one of the worst Ascendancy classes. The ascendancy nodes are situational, temporary, or require awkward use of multiple spells or specific golems to increase damage. Proc'ed spells do not trigger so CoC and Mjolner builds suck.

Overall very disappointed with elementalist which should have been more open to default spell casting as occutist is more aimed at CI/ES and necro is aimed at summoners. Elementalist should have been generic enough to fill the game.

I disagree. Go watch foxtactics stream and watch him turn arc into a aoe spell with free proliferation of all elements. One of arcs biggest weaknesses was popping a strongbox and only hitting 7 and took forever to kill them. Now its like ice nova or discharge as elementalist.

Anyway there are no right or wrong choices for many builds I'm finding. Sure some are clear cut like if you want to go traps or totems but many have good options.

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Crackmonster a écrit :

For example that 100% increased damage sometimes? nearly worthless, could be 100% more. Only really good thing is elemental conflux for shock.. but even that... not really on assassin level and again why u do this on kill thing making it useless for really serious builds that want to do things like atziri. Not that atziri could be shocked anyway, but just that on kill sucks vs special fights.

True, that 100% increased damage is pretty useless. 50% more damage would make a lot more sense.

Other than that, you can use Elementalist, it works pretty well for some builds. If you don't go crit, then Elementalist is obviously better than Asassin. Non-crit got buffed with the various "more" multipliers now available in the game.

Elementalist builds can work really nicely, but yes, they will not be ridiculously OP.

I'm not sure assassin is better than inquistor for elemental crit caster or attacker. With Assassins mark, curse or aura, its easy to get to 95% crit anyway with inquisitor who then ignores all elemental resits 95% of the time. Sheet DPS will be higher as a Shadow Assassin because of higher crit multipliers in Assassins ascendancy path however ignoring resists is huge. Especially in late maps. Obvious choice of non-crit caster is elementalist though.