Disciple of Varashta feels absolutely terrible

Just a quick note also if anyone actually reads and wants to prove me wrong:

Please do. Actually. I would LOVE to see an actually working awesome build that scales and works in end-game.

So i managed to level my varashta into endgame and this has been my experience:

Pros:
Epic abilities, when they are usable they are quite satisfying to use.
In theory - lots of variety and usability in skills.
Really like the "build your own summoner" archetype.

Cons: Too many to count.

Scaling issues, they effectively scale only from spell damage but they have some weird restrictions in both amount of support gems and what can be used. Hell, i thought that these djinns scale from spell power also but i guess not.

Since the abilities are shared under 1 djinn, you can't even "build" them correctly. The skills aren't significantly stronger or even better in ANY WAY when compared to base sorc abilities or other sets that other ascendancies have.

Long cooldowns and cast times on abilities while the mobs are still going turboSPEED while everything in the "djinn-kit" needs, what is basically, a setup.

We're meant to use a staff but at the same time our djinns ONLY scale off minion stats? Which do not exist on staffs? What is this? Like, what the actual hell is this? WHERE IS THE SYNERGY IN THIS ASCENDANCY!? Do you want us to use sceptres from djinns abilities? I just fail to see how this was tested of meant to be played... :D

The cooldowns are jarring even with 160% COOLDOWN RECOVERY RATE like what _IS_ this, actually? Why can't i just use my djinn abilities like they were spells? Why can't i be and actual summoner? HELP ME UNDERSTAND!?

- Ruzhan needs a setup for both traps and the slam. Altho the slam is quite easy to hit.

- Navira needs chilling ground.

- Kelaris abilities are just... why? Channel to do an "okay" amount of damage once in a while? Really GGG?

I've also been checking some builds in poe ninja to see what people are playing and oh my god, it's either only Navira shatter OR 0 djinn build which is HILARIOUS considering "we have a build your own summoner" while players literally just forgo the entire damn ascendancy mechanic. ":D"


Fixes i'd personally like to see:
- Split the damn skills and give us freedom to use whatever support gem we want in whatever spell we want separately. This is ridiculous.

- For the love of god do something about the cooldowns. Even with 160% CDRecovery i have 5+ second cooldowns. And the cast times are GOD awful. Seriously, the only way to hit Ruzhan's Fury is if the enemy is in a goddamn coma.

- On the topic of Ruzhan: 4 second cooldown on an ability you need to use another ability to cast? Really? How about this: Make it separate and spammable yourself. Give it support gems. Make it into our own unique "fireball" because if it stays like this, it's one of the worst abilities in the actual game. Seriously was this even tested?

- Maybe just allow to link some of these abilities into other abilities? You honestly expect people to press actively 4+ buttons if they want to full djinn? Have you even seen your end-game?

- Since these djinns use "spell damage", how about we make them scale off player spell damage also? Make them a hybrid or something?

- If the idea is for them to be "pure minion", how about not , again, having the longest cooldowns in any spell ever? They can't tank, they don't take agro are in essence floating spellbooks you pull spells out of.

- Minion + Spell damage nodes IF you want to handle djinns only as minions. We have exactly 3 of these nodes.


In all honesty i feel like this sort of archetype, as it is now, would fit a melee playstyle so much better. Something that can fight WITH these djinns, so Ruzhan as an example doesn't randomly swing a wall when i'm using my firestorm.


I have to say, i do not understand what GGG is so afraid to go a little ham. Why does this have a 4-second cooldown right off the bat on the Ruzhans ability? You need to use a spell to trigger it anyways and you're basically a minion build - you don't even WANT to use abilities.


All that being said, i really enjoy the "potential" and idea behind this ascendancy but oh my god did it need more time in the oven and actual thought put into testing it. This will 100% be a BRUTAL awakening to players, especially since the djinns are literally unusable in endgame. D:

I'm so disappointed in this ascendancy it's actually just ridding my entire motivation to play this season. D: Maybe i'll continue on my druid and go stomp as a bear.



Ps & Off-topic: For the love of god, stop trying to make Disciple of Chauylas darkness work, it's garbage. It always will be garbage. It will never, ever compete with a double defense spirit gems setup as a defense layer. Ever. Delete it and rework it.

I need to bump this up. althou maybe a bit to harsh review, but this ascendency needs attention from developers. Really great concept and I want it to work properly

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S1avaK#7916 wrote:

I need to bump this up. althou maybe a bit to harsh review, but this ascendency needs attention from developers. Really great concept and I want it to work properly

Glad you think so :D

I mean i was coming off a little from:

Very strong first impressions and the more I played the more i realized the MULTITUDE of issues with it. Like, to a point where i actually think this wasn't properly tested and thought through.

This feels like it needed some time to iron out how to actually make this ascendancy worth playing around.

The issues i see with the ascendancy are so glaring, so "staring-in-your-face" that in no way i see that GGG missed these issues. No way. These are not even issues that are very hard to fix.

They INSIST on these giga fast mobs but at the same time give these djinns intricate epic animations while the mobs just.... walk past them. Try to hit the Ruzhan barrage, it will miss even the slowest boss walking towards you. :D

I cannot stress how many issues there are with these, it tilts me to no end to see experienced devs to do something like.... this. From the base-design perspective this feels actually horrible withing the context of their own game.

bump, is exactly what i want to say

I don't really know what you are talking about. I switched onto full Djinn-only after the second ascendancy and it went smooth easy.

I didn't even use a Scepter and instead used a Staff till endgame.

There are some points you are right about. Primarily the splitting of skills. At least if it isn't intended for them to be clumped up. If it is, that's fine too. You can go phys for the Sand and fire/cold for the other respectively.

The only thing I'd like to see is that they balance out the dmg on them a little. The fire Djinn is a little undertuned and the sand one a little overtuned. And the beetles from the sand Djinn are pretty useless. So just balancing numbers would fix it.

Yes the cooldowns from the fire Djinn are pretty high, but then again, i got them down to like 3-5 sec with support gems and passive.

I am pretty sure, if you want to play Djinn focused you are supposed to go scepter and not staff, since they scale with minion lvl. And I think that's pretty fine. I had no problem when taking minion passive points and +minion skills. The scaling is not the best but good enough.

I think its fine they work differently, i don't think you need to change much. They seem to be for combining or using different playstyles.

You take the fire one when you want a hybrid "I deal dmg with spells and have support" and you take the sand one when you want the minion to deal all the dmg. or you go both and go all in on minion.
The water is for defense mostly and cold support.

Hybrid is a bit harsh atm, since without minion scaling, the Djinns wont do that much dmg, and you yourself a lot more, so there has to be work done on that part, but I am guessing a lot of support gems and uniques and even maybe passive notes are not yet in the game to support the ascendency, since it was a last second addition.

Overall I am pretty pleased with it. Right now I switched off of minions to test the Staff+Focus with Comet and it works just fine. Probably not as good as Chrono for that, but it works.

the problem is only sand is viable end-game and it feels a bit clunky. Also it does not scale. Some scaling issues include:

cooldowns and number of stacks.
Locked into maxing minion skills.
Little build variety for the skills.
mobility and cast time.
Hybridisation, such as fracturing skill. How am I supposed to create a chilled ground if my entire focus needs to be on minions/def?
The number of combos to use. I don't want to rock up to a screen, hit 50 spells to clear, then move on. Other classes just run through the maps.


One sad aspect I've come to realise about this build and others is that there's a "hello fresh" style of building. You're not given options but to just follow the carefully curated design of the skills/tree. It feels so contstrained/controlled. You can only add minion damage, you can only add nodes in energy shield recharge/faster start. Here's the only things to click so click em. There's nothing interesting about builds anymore and the more things are restricted/constrained the more boring it is.

I think it reflects a broader problem with poe2 skill tree and how singular nodes are. Minions, companions, offerings, temporary minions, spells, commands, blah blah. "You can only get more damage if the enemy is frozen and signing a song whilst they're inflicted with [element] exposure and are not chilled but ignite-chilled." There's too much specificty. I get it's done to cap potentially broken builds but guess what, PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO MAKE BROKEN BUILDS.

Open up the potential options and not make everything super constrained because it's too boring. Make the start of the wheel restrictive but the edge nodes more generalised.

"

MRXass#2413 wrote:

I don't really know what you are talking about. I switched onto full Djinn-only after the second ascendancy and it went smooth easy.

I didn't even use a Scepter and instead used a Staff till endgame.

There are some points you are right about. Primarily the splitting of skills. At least if it isn't intended for them to be clumped up. If it is, that's fine too. You can go phys for the Sand and fire/cold for the other respectively.

The only thing I'd like to see is that they balance out the dmg on them a little. The fire Djinn is a little undertuned and the sand one a little overtuned. And the beetles from the sand Djinn are pretty useless. So just balancing numbers would fix it.

Yes the cooldowns from the fire Djinn are pretty high, but then again, i got them down to like 3-5 sec with support gems and passive.

I am pretty sure, if you want to play Djinn focused you are supposed to go scepter and not staff, since they scale with minion lvl. And I think that's pretty fine. I had no problem when taking minion passive points and +minion skills. The scaling is not the best but good enough.

I think its fine they work differently, i don't think you need to change much. They seem to be for combining or using different playstyles.

You take the fire one when you want a hybrid "I deal dmg with spells and have support" and you take the sand one when you want the minion to deal all the dmg. or you go both and go all in on minion.
The water is for defense mostly and cold support.

Hybrid is a bit harsh atm, since without minion scaling, the Djinns wont do that much dmg, and you yourself a lot more, so there has to be work done on that part, but I am guessing a lot of support gems and uniques and even maybe passive notes are not yet in the game to support the ascendency, since it was a last second addition.

Overall I am pretty pleased with it. Right now I switched off of minions to test the Staff+Focus with Comet and it works just fine. Probably not as good as Chrono for that, but it works.

I'm sorry but i sincerely _do not_ believe you. :D Full djinn-only? Tell me, did you only use djinn spells? Or were you, in fact, using poorly optimized sorc spells because you had to take minions nodes?

Those djinn spells quite literally do close-to nothing if you just go full-on sorc. As I said; the most optimized way - as far as i know - is to play shatter ice djinn OR no djinn _at all_.

And i got those cooldowns to that same place.

Do you know which spells do not have cooldowns?

Literally not any other spell on sorc has a cooldown unless you put a support gem into it

"But Torr" i expect to hear you say.
"Djinns use command abilities and they are minions!" you might continue.

Are they?

Let's note what a "minion" is and/or usually does.

Splits / takes agro.
Blocks creeps.
Get blocked by doors lmao.
Has a presence.
Is active without you doing anything.

Now let's compare them to djinns.

- Does none of the above.
- Are basically just spells / skills on your hotbar that have cooldowns.
- Except they have cooldowns. All of them have cooldowns.

I've now cleared some maps, done some content and all i can say that playing djinn only is so goddamn awful with those cooldowns it's not even funny. It's actually borderline unplayable or at the very least just feels like dogshit.

They don't tank. Their spells are slow. They have cooldowns.

They are quite literally just worse feeling spells.

Their damage-per-cast is pretty much fine. But everything else just FEELS BAD.

I promise that if you go into maps as a pure-djinn, you will get overrun so fast it aint even funny. You will 90% of the time rely on your "normal" sorc spells and djinns are there ONLY to press occasionally because "might aswell".

They are not build defining, they are just... there. They might aswell be on autocast in how impactful they feel to me. :D

I don't understand what GGG is afraid of. As the comment above said that broken builds already exist. And they keep nerfing the builds that are not broken.

It's getting actually ridiculous, they cannot keep a handle on these things at all. They are WAY TOO AFRAID of "letting it loose".

Make Ruzhan 2 sec baseline and allow it to scale off CDR. Why not? 0.7 second ruzhan spam? SIGN ME UP. Make the spells be autocast, let us link them into other spells.


Imagine using firewall and getting ruzhan slam/traps there at the same time. Or make him automatically use barrage there.

Make physical djinn throw daggers on enemies that are immobilized automatically.

Give us "tactical" choices in how to utilize these intuitive ways. Not... limit in how you builds and go about it. People should be hyped about a new class / ascendancy when it comes out.

Getting this to endgame feels like i stepped dogshit and kept telling myself "it aint so bad"