PoE 2 Leveling: Uniques Not Breaking the Mold

In ARPGs, stumbling across a unique item can completely shift your character’s build in an exciting, unexpected way. You might start with a clear plan in mind, but a single drop can inspire you to pivot and break the grind’s monotony. After 300 hours in Path of Exile 2, I’ve yet to find a unique—especially while leveling—that sparks that kind of game-changing moment for me. For a point of reference, look at Hades—its god boons are a great example of what I mean. You’re offered three boons, and one often stands out as the best fit for your current setup, so you adapt and build around it. That’s what makes roguelites so engaging: the unpredictability forces you to rethink on the fly. I’m craving that same vibe from uniques in PoE 2. Am I off base for hoping for this?

Yeah their first go at uniques has been bad. Hopefully they fix it.

Pillar is cool, can start -> fin with it
Widowhail is cool, can start -> fin with it

Should be least 1 staff, sword, axe, mace, bow, crossbow, wand, etc that you can use in the same manner, juicy as that scales and can be given some dope corrupts.

Armor - same. Most of the stuff you level with you ditch, lots of people use ghostW but thats about it!

I just want some simple and straightforward decent waeapons rings ammys, especially for SSF - that are not designed around obscure or very situational game mechanics.

The uniques GGG design you tend to have to re-do your whole build around them.

This won't change it's very clear from the last teasers this is a design direction they're going for good or for worse.

There's bound to be some decent uniques coming

But yeah this is a massive L for me, I have collected a hundred uniques now, maybe more? There's a bunch of uniques that are usable at low level but relatively few, flexible mid/high tier uniques.

The way I would fix uniques to fit POE2's design is I would make them more like Essences. ANd then the ability to turn any normal base into a unique with the right essence, but that means you could use a "formula" on low/mid/high tier bases scaling the damage accordingly, making lots of existing uniques much more usable.

Essences and weapons in POE1 were way easier and better. I used to rip a new char thru day 1 on a league using essence and white weapons but now it's shit house in comparison

Itemization in POE2 isn't bad (esp in comparison with absolutely terrible D4) but isn't great either. 25 y.o Diablo II one is much more superior.

Level-scaling uniques are the only really bad idea here.
Other uniques are quite fun and actually can shift you build for some time