2h Pure Physical Heavy Strike Slayer - build review (state of melee)

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鬼殺し a écrit :

Spoiler

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raics a écrit :

The way I see it, one of the most important consequences of this particular character development model that PoE uses is the reversed thought process when building a character. In other games you usually go 'I want to play class X', then you pick a main skill (or several), with the item scope and availability of defenses usually decided or narrowed down by the choice of class.
In PoE you pick a skill, then you pick the ascendancy and item set according to their advantages and disadvantages.

So, which part of this process would actually decide you're going melee? In other games it's usually the choice of class, which would usually provide you with bonuses that would make the endeavor worthwhile, be it exceedingly high dps, mobility or durability. That's because other games recognize that fighting at close range is a disadvantage.

In PoE, it's the choice of skill that decides it, and there's only so much a skill can grant which would tempt you into accepting the disadvantage of close combat. It's usually exceedingly high damage output in the case of skills like molten strike, mobility advantage in the case of cyclone, or, in the case of blade vortex and RF, both (yes, I'm including BV and RF in close combat skills, the attack-spell choice is secondary in PoE).

Ultimately, the problem here is that PoE does a piss poor job of connecting skills with elements you use to construct an rpg archetype, because the game doesn't really provide one for you. You can see that lack of connection clearly if you don't get too hung up on the details of Sid's experiment.

Of course, there are also a ton of problems with those elements too, like the discrepancy between the cost of a strong attacker weapon versus the cost of L21 gem + caster weapon in some cases, but talking about that is a waste of time when the core system is this flawed.

Gold as usual. I've highlighted what really resonates with me. The question is twofold then. Firstly, was this deliberate on GGG's behalf, and secondly, if so, do they see it as a problem?

Because I will admit, and this probably part of why I so thoroughly suck at PoE, I approach the process as I would other games. Class, skills, items. In that order. Because isn't that the most organic method? When you load even PoE up, what's the first decision you make? Class. What's the first thing you're given? A basic weapon and a skill to use with it. What's the last thing you need to start collecting to make those tick? Better items. That is the Twilight Strand. That is act 1. By act 3, as you said, that's all topsy-turvy. Everything you thought about this game is wrong. And this is probably part of why we always tell newcomers that their first character is going to suck. It's going to be a failure. Because you're building it based on how you've built characters everywhere else. You HAVE to fail at PoE to learn how counterintuitive it is -- assuming you actually just play for yourself and don't just copy someone else.

So if you know by act 3 that your methodology of class-->skill-->items is going to crash and burn, you certainly won't do that again next time. You'll research. You'll pre-plan. And at that point, friend, you're already dangerously close to engaging with the meta.

I recognised that fairly early and resisted it. Fuck you, game, you're NOT going to tell me how to play you. I'll do what I want, and if that results in a lower ceiling, so fucking be it.

Even now, I'm pretty content to play the game that way. But as someone also fairly active in the community, I'm endlessly reminded of how badly I am gimping myself doing this. What sort of numbers and gear I am denying myself. But every time I try to play the game the way it seems meant to be played (skill-->class-->items) I end up ferociously bored. I suspect this is because I'm not playing PoE for the same reason as those who are willing to do skill-->class-->items are. I care about character identity a lot, and think every element of the build should reflect it. Class, skills, items. Even look (good thing I have pretty much every fucking mtx ever made then). Am I doing wrong? Well, as long as I enjoy it, I say not. But I'm definitely not playing the game smartly or efficiently.

I think other ARPGs have rewarded this counterintuitive approach of skill, class, items, but no ARPG until PoE has so thoroughly punished those who don't embrace it.

Very well said.

But I think that using a modicum of "common sense" (even if you're a casual n00b and you have 0%, or close to 0% experience with ARPGs, and prefer to play focused on trial and error, solving all the problems that you face), is quite intuitive in PoE. The problem is that amount of "common sense" is more powerful for the ranged/cast playstyles, (which also get to hold most, if not all, the aces in their dealt hand), than for melee.

No one can honestly say that you can't set ridiculous goals, even for your first character, and also accomplish them, as long as you learn, and keep playing, eg: with small modifications (mostly items upgrades), my main still uses my own build since 1.3.0 - with a hiatus during my time trying Cast on Death as main damage source - and I mainly read the skill description, the description of the Skilldrasil & Ascendancy nodes, and I simply used better items as I found (10% of time) or bought them (90% of time, because it wasn't so nice to meddle with crafting before).

Sure, I sunk a few thousand of hours into playing him in a suboptimal and awkward way - it uses a main skill to deal high single target damage, another secondary skill to deal with dangers at higher distance, while also getting a damage boost, a dedicated skill to keep FC and Fortify, a self cast curse and warcry, all as a goddamn RT dual wielding character that has to be in the middle of the fight to "enjoy the thrill". I still level him casually and by the end of summer I'll probably hit 100 in a way that was "fun" for me, disregarding my snail speed...

I also think it's more a problem of having skills interact with each other only at spell level at the moment. I hoped that Threshold Jewels might bring some diversity, instead of being 99% of the time mandatory band aids.

Just imagine: Static Strike gets the AoE effect back and has a nice vacuum effect on the enemies hit recently by Lightning Strike, and Lightning Strike applies a further lightning themed debuff that makes the enemies hit recently by Static Strike to always get shocked and implode on death... The possibilities would be endless, as long as each skill could get such a threshold jewel that encourages it's usage next to another (but hey, not everyone want's to use more than 2 mouse buttons for skills these days)...

A gimped player that actually succeeds in reaching a goal is more fulfilled than a meta player mindlessly running and grinding some loot pinatas. Believe me, I know first hand that you can run even suicidal map mods with the right preparation, determination and skillplay, and that makes PoE a lot more "hardcore" than simply clearing offscreen enemies.

It would be nice to have melee playstyle excel at something, anything actually, and by having that niche, to see players say: "I'm going to play melee because I want to ........". If TencentGGG manage to offer that without power creep, slapping "melee" tags on spells/ranged skills, and without balancing the melee playstyle versus ranged/cast playstyles, kudos to them. But we're far, far away from that point at the moment...

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sofocle10000 a écrit :

f TencentGGG manage to offer that without power creep,

hahahahahahahaha. good one.

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robmafia a écrit :

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sofocle10000 a écrit :

f TencentGGG manage to offer that without power creep,

hahahahahahahaha. good one.

Well they could just nerf every skill down to heavy strike level of performance

But yes, that does sound a bit like a joke with GGG doing the balancing.