Skills viability

One thing i hate about PoE 1 is that you can't really start a playthrough without selecting one of the "meta" skills which is starting to seep into PoE 2 a little with every patch.
What is nice in games like Grim Dawn, D2, Last Epoch and even D4 is that till at least end game you can play with any skill you like as all of them are equally supported by the game (gearing etc.).
Would it be possible to dedicate one patch so that more skills are viable at least through the acts?
Right now your choice of skill can put you in position of doing 5k dmg with fully geared character and fully supported skill which when changed to one of the meta skills puts you into 10x damage with no extra effort.

I pretty much never level with the meta gems and have no problem making it to end game and clearing all content with off meta build in PoE 1, really don't agree with that take.
In PoE 2 the skills are not balanced to the same extent yet though. Combined with the early acts being over tuned it makes it worse.

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I pretty much never level with the meta gems and have no problem making it to end game and clearing all content with off meta build in PoE 1, really don't agree with that take.
In PoE 2 the skills are not balanced to the same extent yet though. Combined with the early acts being over tuned it makes it worse.

Same. It's worse for new players.

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One thing i hate about PoE 1 is that you can't really start a playthrough without selecting one of the "meta" skills which is starting to seep into PoE 2 a little with every patch.

That's because PoE1 leveling meta is pretty much solved and spread around by now.

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Right now your choice of skill can put you in position of doing 5k dmg with fully geared character and fully supported skill which when changed to one of the meta skills puts you into 10x damage with no extra effort.

So in other works, we have diffrent skills for diffrent means. Is that your complaint? :? I can't help but imagine you trying to make Contagion a main damaging skill while it exists to spread around curses and Chaos DoTs.

Also, coming from Permafrost/Fragmentation Shot player: tooltip DPS is lying, PoB is lying, only boss' health going down is not lying. :)

you are entitled. give ggg more money and then we will talk

You can absolutely play non-meta builds in poe 1 all you have to do is try. i almost exclusively make my own builds in both games and if i ever start having survival or clearing issues ill look around at other peoples similar builds using poe ninja or some other sites and see what they did and i may incorporate some of their ideas, but there is a big difference in that and choosing the most op build and following it to a T because its the only thing you can do lol.

I've mentioned this with PoE1 many times when someone says 'meta builds'. There aren't any. There's just meta conditions. There's a notable difference between those two things.

I often take hipster stuff and build around it. Before the Alt Quality Wild Strike I dusted it off and had a blast during Scourge. The only bad thing was the Fortify changes at that time.

PoE2 is a different beast. There's clearly skills that are much better than others. Esp while leveling. Grenades just carry Merc with little effort into high maps. Deadeye is still kinda stuck with either Lightning or Spin Arrows. I still don't think they know what they want Infernalist to be.

Between both Sorc and Witch, Blood Mage is pretty hard to beat right now for Self Cast. That between 5 options which is pretty rough. Tactician still hold the flag on Merc though it's not as bad.

I refuse to touch Warrior until Swords or Axes come out.

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ST4H#7184 wrote:

One thing i hate about PoE 1 is that you can't really start a playthrough without selecting one of the "meta" skills which is starting to seep into PoE 2 a little with every patch.

I'll be sure to say this to myself as I league start with shield skills for the 4th league in a row

POE1 definitely has a lot more decent options for leveling.

In POE2 I find leveling with most spells kind of jank. Too many conditions/clicks to make spells good. Nothing really competes with ED+Contagion to get to maps for me.

Attack builds are kind of OK. However leveling up with Lightning arrow or Ice Strike feels much smoother than other options.

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Also, coming from Permafrost/Fragmentation Shot player: tooltip DPS is lying, PoB is lying, only boss' health going down is not lying. :)

✓✓✓✓ This exactly......

And so far Crossbow skills are making s..t damage to Bosses... while others kill them with three clicks.