new bloodline ascendancies: mostly garbage?
" splitting hairs a bit right there.....they absolutely ARE ascendancies. They take ascendancy points. They are called bloodlines but in PoE they function as ascendancies. Secondary ascendancies, but ascendancies nonetheless. The term is interchangeable. A different name doesn't change a decade of PoE design. Yes I read what you wrote. The Breach "bloodline" is used by about 60% of ALL PLAYERS that are using bloodlines at all because it is an outlier, and each one of the nodes greatly outperform many, if not most, of the other possible bloodlines across almost any build "hole" that you describe. Like the spectre nodes. And it is certainly not an accident that the breachlord bloodlines has the three most straightforward nodes in the entirety of the new system....along with zero tradeoffs on any of them. But that's an aside more about "popularity" than usefulness and good design: more people will always choose the easier, more clear option. Again.....MOST being garbage, not ALL being garbage. There are 10 bloodlines (right?), each with 3 or 4 major nodes. And currently the vast majority of the playerbase is talking about 3 of them, and within those 3...only Breach has all the nodes seeing some attention. Starting anew....with PoE 2 Last edited by cowmoo275#3095 on Nov 8, 2025, 4:46:09 PM
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" It's a relevant distinction. Interesting, so you chose to ignore it and instead claim I'm talking about something else, when you seem aware that it ties in with the point I iterated in the post before you responded to me... hard to take you as arguing in good faith while demonstrating such. None of them are just "garbage", you just haven't found a use for them yet. The difference between your perspective and mine is simply being optimistic versus... the opposite. The opposite of knowledge is not illiteracy, but the illusion of knowledge.
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" You are right, it was unfair of me to write off what you wrote is being entirely disconnected. I apologize. You made a valid point that this bloodline offered more to you than the possible other occultist one you might take. I disagree with your optimism: I am not interesting in Gerry-rigging these ascendancy points to "fit" into a build for the sake of "creativity" or simple "hole fillage". That kind of design IS garbage to me. Optimism to me is something truly NEW, such as your Death's Oath example. But your usage of Breachlord is NOT something new. It's as you said: simply a better defensive option numerically than your 4th ascendancy point. It offers nothing to suggest you are suddenly doing anything breachlord-y, or even functionally different than if you just took the 4th occultist ascendancy point. I disagree that bloodline vs. ascendancy is a "relevant distinction": when you literally have to give up ascendancy points to use them in bloodlines. Same pool. Same usage. I would only argue they are distinct if they were separate systems, which they very easily could have been (and should have been, similar to 3.23). The whole foulborn system is a great example of what the bloodlines frankly SHOULD have been: game-changing options to play with. And so very very few of them actually do anything of the sort. Starting anew....with PoE 2 Last edited by cowmoo275#3095 on Nov 8, 2025, 5:07:02 PM
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See it this way: players are given incredibly powerful tools in the form of Grafts for absolutely free (like in 3.23). They come in many variations and there's one for every build. These are the free player power this league.
Bloodlines are a new system GGG is testing out as part of the league content. It is clear to me that they built 3.27 around the reworked Breach and that it is here to stay. They'll be reviewing the stats visible to them (different from what you see on the ladder by the way which only shows the top x characters from private profiles). I should add: I do play around with otherwise underrated skills and items because it's interesting to see if you can make cool stuff happen with it, and I have learned a lot more from doing that than I would watching random youtuber xyz's build guide. Appreciate the apology by the way. Shows character! The opposite of knowledge is not illiteracy, but the illusion of knowledge.
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I am no fan of just "power": thats boring. That's why I hated mercenaries with a passion. It's why I hated (and still hate) Kingsmarch. Just straight up "More power / more loot" is lazy design.
Yes....the new bloodlines are not designed with just straight power in mind. But I STILL feel, apart from a FEW nodes, they do not succeed at EITHER point they are trying to make: new mechanical behavior OR new power. Breachlord is just straight power. That's what make it popular. Farrul is popular and actually useful because the tradeoff of going from more max spectres to less, yet more powerful unique spectres with a pretty sweet randomizer attached is actually COOL to think about. But then you have Umbral Army: a node NOT designed for anything that exists in PoE. You have the low life minion node: designed for the archetype that would benefit the most for choosing it.....yet tying a downside that completely negates its usage. The other node with the death seal that....just straight up doesn't make sense. To anyone. You have the extra ring ascendancy where you can take a node that gives you immunity to poison or bleed.....but you give up utility flasks or your freaking belt slot. Go ahead: show me where that is good design... My pessimism is not because they aren't giving us borrowed power, nor is it because there aren't powerful options available. It's because they are CLEARLY designed as ways to customize character building, just as Void and you obviously want (I do too),.... but they overwhelmingly FAIL at doing that. I have yet to SEE anything, including from within this thread on the bloodline staunch defenders, that even begins to change my mind. Instead I get blanket attacked by one who offers nothing in return, and (with respect) your example that is just kind of a better example of what makes foulborns GOOD, and not necessarily what makes bloodlines GOOD. Your example highlights why I think bloodlines AREN'T good. I will admit, and I think I did earlier in this thread, that I have basically zero experience with ward. And I've heard the ward ascendancy is STRONK. Part of that though has to be because.....there exists no ward ascendancy that it can be compared to. It is totally NEW (which is GOOD). But this is still....mainly 3 nodes pulling all the creative weight, out of 30. Starting anew....with PoE 2 Last edited by cowmoo275#3095 on Nov 8, 2025, 5:43:44 PM
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I looked at all of the posts so far, and none of them really answered the question.
Answer: yes its mostly garbage. |
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While popularity of certain nodes can be an indicator for usefulness, more often than not they are more indicative of perceived power. If a good chunk of the playerbase echoes the same opinion they heard somewhere without much thinking done on their own part, it will be represented in the statistics you now cite.
History in Path of Exile has proven time and time again that even niche uniques and ascendancies can be a lot more powerful than they are given credit for. It's no different here. Even now almost half the playerbase use a Bloodline in their builds. How bad are they really if 44% of the playerbase finds use in them? Come on now, be real. We are now 9 days into the new league. Every day people find new builds as they experiment more and more with the new content. Stay tuned, and keep an open mind. Not the first league where people cry about this and that only to be proven wrong. The opposite of knowledge is not illiteracy, but the illusion of knowledge. Last edited by ArtCrusade#4438 on Nov 8, 2025, 11:06:50 PM
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short answer: yes.
long answer: still yes. |
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" You are willfully changing the argument. And misconstruing the data you are using which I already previously explained. And you spent the two paragraphs above this one completely countering it...yet now you are presenting it as justification for what you said? Yes, 44ish% of players are using bloodlines. BUT....more than half of those bloodline users are using Breachlords specifically because they are just straight up the most powerful with zero downsides. They are more powerful than almost 80% of any existing ascendancy nodes. And ofc thats by design: we are playing a breach league after all. I never disputed that CERTAIN NODES are powerful, and popular. Nearly 30% of the rest of the bloodline users are using the same 2 other bloodlines, likely even the same nodes in those bloodlines. It's not about "how bad are they" and using one or two examples to disprove EVERYTHING negative.......in fact its quite the opposite. Its about how MOST OF THEM are garbage. And the stats STILL show that, no matter what metric they show (popularity, power, or anything in between). As to your comment about certain uniques not getting the attention they deserve: with respect, that is an EXCEEDINGLY infrequent phenomenon lol. And you certainly know that. I would ask you to name more than 5 items where this is true. Short of an exceptional niche usage, the vast majority if not ALL of uniques have always had their usage known across a wide variety of archetypes, to anyone with any sort of experience in this game. Heartbound Loop is the only example I can personally think of of a phenomenon like you describe: a ring that most thought to be useless until the person who created the first loop released their build idea. And that is a VERY NARROW niche usage. And if you want to use history of PoE to describe things......then use it fully. The vast majority of new builds, new ideas, are thought of and tested within the first week of new material being released. Even BEFORE the new material is released, nearly everything is theorycrafted and released in endless youtube videos. "Wait and see" is not a saying generally attributed to NEW PoE content....it is ruthlessly and brutally discovered days or even hours into the new existence. Again.....with few exceptions that don't necessarily disprove the rule. Starting anew....with PoE 2 Last edited by cowmoo275#3095 on Nov 9, 2025, 12:03:53 AM
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" We have countless examples where ninja use =/= if something is powerful/good or not. And you've been involved in conversations with me about something being good or not and its use rate this league... and pretty much every league prior has been less than .1% No. Not everything is theory crafted in this first week. This is ... not even remotely true. Mash the clean Last edited by Mashgesture#2912 on Nov 9, 2025, 12:23:42 AM
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