Claws

I like how the claw keystones were improved. You no longer need so many passive points as a shadow to wield them more effectively.

However, the point investment to wield them effectively is still sky-high.

On one hand... claws are best for leeching life, due to their base stats and passive skills.

On the other hand... claws are best wielded by shadows due to their placement.

On the third hand... shadows have trouble accumulating damage mitigation and life, making life less attractive.

On the fourth hand... getting mitigation and life is possible, but claws are dexterity/int, so you need a sufficient amount of intelligence and dexterity to wield them, so getting a lot of strength isn't that much of an option...

On the fifth hand, any skill that requires a claw, can also be used by a dagger. Daggers do everything claws do, but are more easily wielded by the shadow, or the witch.

So you see? We've too many hands. We can really only have two hands. Maybe three, if we're in a good mood.

Maybe someone has come up with a good claw build and would like to extoll the virtues of using claws, but... I don't see them. I don't think claws need significant buffing, and I don't think the passive tree needs a whole lot of changing to make claws more viable, but a few of the following things should happen before we hit release, in order to make claws a weapon someone might sanely choose over a dagger, or other melee weapon:

New Keystone:
[placed somewhere far away from the 3 major claw nodes, perhaps central to the witch]
[+]50% of life leech restores energy shield
[-]cannot leech mana from physical attacks
[-]cannot leech life from physical attacks

Since Claws give the most life leech, this would work very well with CI and evasion.

At least two new active skills that are claw-unique:
Or at least, claw/mace, or some other arrangement that doesn't make axe/sword/dagger the viable alternative. Admittedly, coming up with a claw/mace skill that would be useful for either weapon equally will require some cleverness, but the fact daggers and claws share the same skills makes the purpose of claws murky at best.

A few more node locations:
There are handful of nodes near the Ranger, the majority sit near the shadow. I would suggest putting 1 cluster of claw nodes near the marauder. This would make claws more sensible for Marauders, who might desire lots of life-restoration.

A few very powerful claw uniques:
Another strategy might be to side-step the issue of passive/active skills making a weapon ideal, but that there are a handful of very powerful/unique claw weapons available to acquire. This would make claws a more long-term focused build, with the idea of utilizing a specific weapon to its utmost. Perhaps a claw that restores energy shield and mana on attack, or a claw that grants evasion/critical strike under some exploitable circumstance, or perhaps a unique claw that gives insane amounts of life leech or just very, very good damage.

Power Charges:
This is a suggestion that may be unnecessary if you do all three of the above, but this idea might mesh more: Make a power-charge skill that requires claws. This way, witches can choose wands or claws to generate power charges with and it gives a purpose for the shadow to use claws; they can use dual wield and remain a melee class, while generating power charges.

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http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQYABzzdUB1uqOIhI8l8KhF0Zi-jDIM2uEowOdqAMkIlWQtX8ivGWSPBrVqxDsNcn2jXXrL43GPyeo9sTyBibQcS-XCreJKdZRiliAlmJfs-I6j3PG97nTC417dArbqW0RwE4MEXIMdBqpb3xWYxjg0tCuuABwKYwwj38a2M8-htrxf_c6fzxdtVQoDNN9A=

Level 35. This is where things start to get hairy. So far, this level 35 shadow has adequate defenses with his evasion+dodge+life+DW block, he also has just enough int/dex to wield claws his level, and just enough strength to justify using a melee weapon over a ranged one. But where does he go from here? He can go south, to pick up +melee damage oriented nodes, but then, in a few levels, he'll lack the necessary intelligence to wield claws. He has to go north to get intelligence (or luck out on that +100 intelligence unique amulet, which... well I'm sure everyone and their brother will be hogging; not cheap). But then he's missing out on +dual wield block, survivability nodes, and +melee damage.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQYABzzdUAvqr3MN8GAFGp1ZtBvTuL8dbqjiISPJfCoRdGYvowyDNbUq6za4SjA52oAyP55fTUIlWQtCTNa8SrZMi0z7YkFNM76rT0NZfU9pLUVX8ivGWSPBrVqxDsNcn2jXXrL43GJHuPJj8nqPbE8gYm0HEvlwq3iSnWUYpYgJZiX7PiOo9zxve50wuNe3QK26ltEcBODBFyDHQaqW98VmMY4NLQrrgAcCmMMI9_GtjPPoba8X_3On88XbVUKAzTfQljqmtMrc3BmMKoh29yMgubuM9OfIOTABnCM8rKm_B2LZCR3Z95J9zQ==

level 58~; the shadow has acquired some life, but he's had to spend a lot of points in intelligence to keep wielding claws. But now he's accumulated enough intelligence to viably keep using claws until level 100. Maybe you could take out 50-60 intelligence, saving 5-6 points, and using a +intelligence amulet, but why bother? There is a +30 str node, some okay +life nodes, and mind drinker, plus, later on, you have access to +critical strike chance or +critical strike damage if you want it. But still, we're kind of in a pickle at this stage, because we don't have much evasion or dual wield block, or that much strength even.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQYABB95Hgc83VAK_CqvC-qvcw3wYAUUiUrBGGDZSRqdWbQb07i_HIlmsR1uqOIe7wu1ISPJfCK1-s0j70isJ69fAyoRdGYsLtGHL6MMgzW1Kus2uEowOdqAMjr9uIY_nl9NQS3w9EIlWQtCTNa8RMYy6UaqDY5HPIy5SFn880q2TItM-2JBTTO-q09DWX1PaS1FT-mDIFJZeclS_IQEV_Irxlkjwa1asQ7DWuNeclxZFhhcn2jXXrL43GJHuPJjajwyY_J6j2WlMhFlp-7KbE8gYm0HEvlwI3fgcKt4knC8oL5xhCkcc77KmXfO0Ox_O29PnWUYpYgJZiX7PiOo9zxve50wuNe3QK26ltEcBODBFyDHQaqW98VmMY4NLQrrgAcCmMMI9_GtjPPoba8X_3On88XbVUKAzTfQljqmtMrc3BmMKoh29yMgubuM9OfIOTABnCM8rKm_B2LZCR3Z95J9zdz3e7DAiJLJ65jvTM2fUpma-RCluMw6quOGwCeWZrUN9AqYFJKyYrays5EDiWl-lv1oCW2F_S_8v4LxroTXHBLdI1F4wAzcYYbmhQ-uutvh

Okay, I think we're kind of okay in terms of stats. We have a decent amount of evasion and life, and have gotten an acceptable amount of +physical damage I guess. In theory anyway. I'm not sure how this build will feel in-game, with appropriate armor, but I guess what I'm saying is...

Being a Claw-wielder is asking you to have some cake and... you know what you want to do with cake. The new tree makes having your cake a fair bit more difficult; especially for other classes. I don't think claws are very viable for witches or rangers, let alone marauders, duelists or templars. There need to be more implicit or explicit bonuses to using claws, beyond what's available currently.

I'd say the simplest is to give some ES gain from claws somehow, probably in a similar way to your suggestion and adding some melee power charge options.

Though there is some *relatively* easy basic Str points available to the shadow (Fitness and a +30 Str splash node in close proximity) hardly super tough but it's also not too starved.

I'll be honest: At level 25 I'm not having any durability issues. I'm sure it's going to get harder to stay alive but I have pretty strong survival tools.

With dodge+evasion and claw leech, which you can all get before level 40 - I think you're pretty durable. My main concerns are for level 60+ and end game maps. I don't think the core shadow stuff will suffice with claws at level 60 and your build will need to be much more efficient or powerful in some manner to make the claw choice pay off, like using daggers, wands, a bow, or something + shield would. If you pit claws vs magic, there's really no comparison. I mean, making the choice between daggers and magic is pretty easy: magic. And daggers are pretty damn good as a shadow. But why use daggers when you can shield + something and just use spells? This is another fundamental question we need to address, but I think claws are easier to address at this time, as I'm sure GGG has many more melee active skills planned to make them just as viable as being a majority spellcaster.

I was also thinking, perhaps Claws could have a second implicit modifier on them? That might compensate. Perhaps they have a implicit +life on hit and +mana on hit. That might make them good enough that you don't need to do any of the other suggestions I mentioned.

There will something of interest to ES based claw users coming soon.

"

Qarl a écrit :

There will something of interest to ES based claw users coming soon.

Quoted for awesomeness.

"

Qarl a écrit :

There will something of interest to ES based claw users coming soon.

What about ES based dagger users? :3

I think a very big problem with claws is the actual lack of any good Weapon-AOE ability.
I think claws would be much much more interesting if you can use cleave with them, even the the word cleave synergizes well with a claw.
Right now , lightning strike seems to be the only semi-aoe weapon ability which can be used while carrying a claw. And of course the life leech thing gets useless with much energy shield but there is already a response there.

- Do you guys think claws should get to use a good fast aoe ability like cleave / groundslam / sweep any other weapon type -

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TPxErebus a écrit :

I think a very big problem with claws is the actual lack of any good Weapon-AOE ability.
I think claws would be much much more interesting if you can use cleave with them, even the the word cleave synergizes well with a claw.
Right now , lightning strike seems to be the only semi-aoe weapon ability which can be used while carrying a claw. And of course the life leech thing gets useless with much energy shield but there is already a response there.

- Do you guys think claws should get to use a good fast aoe ability like cleave / groundslam / sweep any other weapon type -

I'm facing much the same Problem.

Claws are nice, exspecially in your first levels, since the 3hp per hit are awesome (much more than most enemies will drain). With Double-Strike you get 6hp which is nice.

But later they lack compared to daggers and the stats are a bit odd. I sometimes find it strange, that a weapon that doesn't need Strength at all to be used scales with strength in regards to damage.

A thrusting weapon is deathly if you hit, not if you are strong, so dex-based weapons should increase with dex not with strength.

But if you really want to use claws as a weapon, you normally get some strength, since otherwise, a bow or wand would be better. Actually some of this is true for daggers as well.

I might try just for fun to build a claw-marauder (not sure if I go for any of the claw-skills or just take dw or one-handed), or maybe a claw-shadow that goes deep into marauder-territory (you could easily get about 90 Int this way).

The funny part is that a marauder has no problems getting the int for claws, since he has versatility, two dex-nodes and a 30-int node right at the start. The only question is why should you actually use claw/shield on a marauder if you have better weapons at hand... well actually the only reason is for fun, since most skills would need some dex to be used, which you might lack (well since you need a lot for the claws too, it won't be that bad).

I think now there is also a big problem after you switch from claw with life on hit to % based leech. 15 life for every target goes down to 1% physical damage. And there is now way you are dealing anywhere close to 1500 damage in mid 30's. I didn't get to use claws much but I think especialy for new players would create a very hard transition period to lvl's 40+.