1 year later - the game is so shallow when it comes to build variety

Despite constantly churning out new support gems the build variety in Path of Exile 2 is knee-deep. There aren't many builds, it's a fact. And the issues are deep, very deep.

First and foremost locking skills behind weapon types is very bad. There aren't many archetypes inside if you think about out. 2,3, maybe 4? Monk staffs for example - the big difference is whether you want to go cold or lightning. Maybe physical staff is also a thing now, idk, but if we assume that it is - this is a total of 3 builds for an entire weapon type. And it's been like this for an year! It's no wonder that the other Ascendancy, the Acolyte or whatever based on chaos damage, feels so awkward to play.

Even Hollow Palm, something also niche in the previous game, simply switches your staff for fists, the gameplay is literally the same. I don't like bringing PoE 1 much, but there you have a choice between a slam skill like Volcanic Fissure and Cyclone among other things.

Some people are angry with the way Sorceress plays - why we need to collect crap off the ground like we are D3? But think about it - what else the developers can do to support some sort of build variety? What a pure lighting Sorceress would look like? Is there going to be any diversity in how she is built? Probably not, there are so few skills to work with there is no choice but to infuse them with crap from the ground to actually use multiple ones and call it build diversity.

And, of course, the biggest offender - the Druid. The "hyped" one. His weapon skills (I know his spells don't require the same weapon type as his shapeshifts, is GGG actually realizing how bad locking skills behind weapon types actually is?) have to accommodate 4 different playstyles - 3 shapeshifts and 1 spell. If you think about it - once you choose your style there is so little choice when it comes to skills the builds basically blur together. And not to mention that the styles themselves aren't very unique to begin with. I played with werewolf for a bit and, like someone else pointed out, it is literally cold monk but you are now a wolf - wooow, so cool! (a pun, heh, couldn't resist)

And, of course, the lack of different builds is exacerbated by the combo gameplay that is being forced on us. To get the maximum damage our skills can offer we need to use multiple ones. In Sorceress' case this means shoving frost bombs and orbs of storm everywhere. Talking about Sorceress - I noticed the new ascendancy has a bunch of its own unique skills. Why is that? Because the developers are desperate to get some build diversity in and this is one of the few ways they can do that. Of course, they are limited by how trash the ascendancy trials are......but this is yet another can of worms that can be discussed at length.

Different weapon passive skill trees do not help. I imagine "The Vision" was something like using different weapon skills on swap. No such thing. They are used almost exclusively for utility, like better curses or warcries.



And one more thing - so many people are complaining about campaign length. Why is that, you think? Because if we want to experience something new we kinda have to create new characters. And the lack of movement speed/skills, access to weapon skills at the start, extremely annoying campaign layouts combined with how big they are.........this is not good for experimenting. Or fun.

I've been saying the game is rotten at its core and, unfortunately, I don't see a way for it to become anything different if its core is not changed.