The problem with combos is actually caused by enemy AI and how encounters are designed

Instant weapon swap and no limit for support gems will make combat more diverse and fun there's no doubt about that, but the real problem is how you engage with enemies in poe 2. And that's one of the reasons why campaign and endgame feel so different from each other but not in a good way

Players gravitate towards 1 button skills bcs poe 2 is trying to replicate the gameplay and feel of poe 1 instead of being its own thing

To do combos you need 3 things:

You need good visibility/clarity to react accordingly to the situation
You need time to do your sequence of abilities
You need to feel rewarded after finishing your combo

And guess what? You don't get any that in poe 2.

By the time you spend doing a combo you can press the same skill multiple times or even one shot an enemy, one shot feels more rewarding than doing a combo, and using a single skill multiple times is easier to do, and is probably faster too

Visual clarity is nonexistent in poe, and that's caused by the sheer number of deadly monsters and effects in endgame, which leads to you not having time to do any of your combos, bcs you'll end up dying pretty fast

In the end there's only 2 ways to address this problem, you either drop the whole combo idea, or you make fundamental changes to how players interact with the combat

I agree on overall with you. Endgame loses the visual cohesion and clarity of the campaign making the gameplay chaotic and pushing the player into simplier solution.. i.e spam one thing.

I really think endgame packs must be smaller, but with stronger monsters so the number of effects and things on screen is kept where the game mechanics work

yes. Many times yes.

1. We need single strong monsters with good translated animations, not instant one-shots.
And using dodge, hexes, strong singletarget combos while learning their animations and patterns of attacks whould be nice combat experience!

2. We also fine to fight packs of 4-8 monsters if they are not super speedy and/or overwhelming you with lost of mechanics.
Maybe singetarget skills/combos, maybe some aoe combos, maneuvering around/between pack members - nice to have experience time at time.

3. We also fine to fight waves of monsters - for aoe them.
if they are squishy/slow/have other heavy disadvantege the player can overcome them w/o combos, but just right aoe targeting, dodging.

But currently we have a salad of rare/white/blue monsters having lots of mechanics and haste/damage/other mods on maps making it impossible to actually do anything besides spam'n'run.

I would also point aoe-skills in the game are too strong and effective, 99% builds use aoe skills to fight single target bosses. Overshadowing singe-target skills even in their niche. So massive domination of aoe-skills allows developers just spam hoards of monsters in every mechanic instead of providing interesting solutions to combat.

Out of curiosity, have you played V Rising or No Rest for the Wicked? I pretty much agree with your points. I think those games do a better job at that part, but they're not very successfully comparatively. I wonder why. I either want a brain off zoom zoom 0 button arpg, or a more complex combat experience. But there's only one of those two categories I've played thousands of hours of.

You're 100% correct. There is also another problem. Loot. The type of combat that you're suggesting doesn't work with RNG loot. What you're describing is a game where challenging combat situations are the reason you play. Something like Hades. However, I don't think that type of combat can come about unless you can really balance the scenarios. And you can't really balance them if you can't accurately predict how powerful a player is going to be when they attempt it.

Maybe this will change with the new trade system. But it seems like the devs are leaning towards more flashy sounds and skins in order to keep us playing. That's how slot machines work. Combat is just how we pull the crank.

good post, i agree and hope they take this suggestion seriously

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Vyend#2601 wrote:

To do combos you need 3 things:

You need good visibility/clarity to react accordingly to the situation
You need time to do your sequence of abilities
You need to feel rewarded after finishing your combo

And guess what? You don't get any that in poe 2.

Essentially a highly controlled and curated environment is needed to make that happen.

This is very unlikely given that PoE is a liveservice game and GGGs businessmodel isnt promoting stability either. Its more like controlled chaos as a consequence of introducing new toys all the time.

Which is why this does pretty much only work for act1, maybe act2 too, but thats pretty much when its getting way too chaotic and other than that its limited to bossfights.


I never understood why GGG was and still is pushing this as an USP for PoE2.
Its destined to fail simply because it doesnt fit the nature of live game nor their businesmodel at all.
For a boxed with one DLC being released per year or every other year, this could work out just fine but I cant see it happening here.

Im curious to see, if they are willing to give it up eventually or trying to crowbar it into the game with brute force.

I mostly agree and I think there are 2 obvious changes that could make combo game-play better.

Enemy speed modifiers should all be removed. Out of all the difficulty modifiers enemies/maps can roll, speed modifiers are the ones that make doing combos feel the worst. PoE2 just doesn't feel designed for enemies to randomly have sped up animations.

There is also too much enemy density compared to enemy life. 1 button builds will always reign supreme if every encounter is a swarm of glass cannons charging at the player. Obviously, item drops would have to be adjusted if enemy density is changed.