PoE2 Currently Lacks a Sense of Character Progression... These Reasons May Be Why.

In this thread, I want to focus on a couple of things that I haven't heard other players talk about too much...

So after finishing Act 3 on a summoner Witch (Blood Mage) that mostly did damage with Bonestorm, I wanted to share how I felt about the character progression and what I believe may be the problems with it...

That being first the skill tree and second support gems.

The skill tree may be too big. I always felt like there was way too much traveling to get out of the Witch start and get to any relevant nodes (like five or so points between clusters, which is rather crazy, not to mention the points dedicated to actually getting the power). That feels really bad in a slower-paced game like PoE2 and also leads to less over-all player power. Players should feel that they are making good progress at each level, not five levels down the line. We aren't progressing like PoE 1 anymore, which is fine as far as pacing goes, but it has to be more impactful.

Support gems in PoE2 have a couple of things going on with them that bother me... First of all, the tiers: Gating some support gems at very high levels means less options for players while early leveling, which means less power. My character didn't even start to feel decent until I was able to get tier 2 support gems, which was probably late act 2 or early act 3. That's too long of a wait to start feeling better about your build, now that acts are much longer. Secondly, while the limit of one support gem of a kind per character is kind of interesting, it also leads to less options to strengthen your character due to a lack of total available support gems. Finally, sockets... Where are the Jeweller's Orbs? I found one in my entire play-through at the end of Act 2. Didn't use it because it felt so rare.

There are many, many more issues I have with PoE2 that others have already gone into that really need to be addressed, but in general, I'm having fun with it so far.

Thanks for reading.

The skill tree is the exact definition of an inch deep and a mile wide.

It's WAY too big with WAY too many skill nodes, and most of them are utter trash, bad, not good, and far too niche/odd to be useful. They also have DOWNSIDES to some of them.

I am currently in the process of reconfiguring the entire skill tree to be more in line with PoE1, and have actually power spikes, chase clusters, and good nodes.

So far I have removed 247 nodes in total and I am barely done with half of the tree. By the time I finish I imagine there will be about 500-600 removed entirely.

That is nearly 1/3 the entire tree completely gone.

I am also increasing a lot of the potency of small nodes and most notables while removing their downsides. Why? Because I can't stomach looking at the disaster that is the current poe2 skill tree that's why

Skill tree is okay for me. Love the new "skill speed" stat (basically action speed, toned down). Love how classes start really close to each others beginnings so you can dip into all the early game stuff really easily. Like how they made alternate elements/ ailments available close together in a lot of places so you can make powerful weapon sets of different types.

For gems, I think they should offer a trade with The Hooded One. Your Skill for his Uncut Gem (of the same type and level). People need flexibility in the campaign to try stuff out, or everyone will be doing the same cookie-cutter playthrough offered by a guide to save currency and time.

skill tree is not impactful enough. considering how much time needed to level up one level and how much one node even notables are laughably insignificant. I can level up a whole cluster or multiple clusters then progress to the next map and still feels like just started the game. A lot of travel and nothing impactful.

i m a titan with 2 handed mace focusing on brute force and there is basically no good strike skill or damaging single target skills. every skill comes later is a jumping monkey slam so the skills I use is basically still the skills i started the game.

story is barely there but actually most part is filled with exhausting and boring map clearing that is super not fun.

boss design is trash. move set are very very very very simple and few but mixed a ton of hostility by the means of random aura or casual aoe that fill the whole screen and a extremely spongy hp bar that dwarfs even souls game.


The whole shit combine is a very very very repetitive, grindy and non-rewarding game. I had enough.