Obligatory look at the new league thread.

So normally this is the part where I usually go around saying that this is yet another incredibly disappointing league with a couple cool things but overall a nothing burger and the things I really wanted addressed keep getting ignored for years.

For once, only a small part is true and for once I am just a little bit hyped for the new league strangely enough.

They changed the map system to be what I have been saying for YEARS. Just a tier and you pick the map on the atlas. God it was about time and I feel vindicated that they finally realized this is the way forwards. Not that garbage of PoE 2 where you can't even chose the map, not what we had before where we have to farm /buy the right map but instead just tiers and we get to pick the map. Thank you, it was obvious how a good mapping system should work.

A bunch of QoL stuff that I don't thing is important to mention individually but all of them nice none the less.

Scion finally has an alternative, it was about time I've said for again YEARS that it needs it's own archetype or at worse let player pick 1 or 2 full nodes from other archetypes instead of what GGG put on it which was half good, half trash and certainly never enough to make it worth. Now, do I believe that the antiquarian is the answer? Maybe, I can see the potential but I also think it's a little uninspired.

Imbuing skills looks like a solid alternative to normal means of corrupting gems. Still RNG but I like the idea. I am less happy that they are level 1 supports though because they will make the skill cost more mana to cast, potentially have the downsides of a level 1 gem in certain cases like for example LMP (or just MP after the name change) where it gives a damage penalty that normally gets lower the higher the gem level. Still I do like the idea and in some cases it's just a straight up positive.

I really like the holy skills and how one of the holy skills is a rework preexisting skill to make it usable. I am severely disappointed that there was no spells as holy skills. At least nothing I'd consider a dedicated spell cause it could have had totem potential.

Speaking of totems, this is again and has been for the last 5 years at least my most disappointing thing with PoE. Why do you keep treating spell totems like garbage or totems in general like garbage? You destroyed melee totems when they just needed a tiny rework to remove the melee buffs they gave. You have kept spell totems unplayable for the last 5 or so years. Ballistas are kinda playable I suppose. Only works with a very small fraction of skills but at least it still works. I just don't understand the hate. Mark, you keep saying you will address the less played archetypes but please, address the least played styles too! Look at the horrible state of spell totems and how not even 1% of the player base plays it, probably not even 0.1%.

Speaking of totems, the new shockwave gem was disappointing. Easy to make I suppose but people don't play totems to get in the fact of the enemies, they play totems to stay the hell away from them so that kinda defeats the purpose, even more so when totems playstyle is very squishy because they already struggle with having enough damage. Holy Flame Totem was also buffed but it was a nothing burger here. We get more AoE or better coverage or probably a little bit of both. We also get to scale with AoE thanks to it having the tag so we can get more range on it and potentially more damage too but here's the issue. The problem of HFT was never a lack of coverage or the ability to clear since it already had decent coverage and range. The problem is the same problem that every single spell totem in existence has. It lacks damage. In the early game it's pretty decent but it falls off very fast and that wasn't addressed. It needs a huge damage buff.

Last but not least, adding longer distance for channeling skills on totems is cool and all but it's not sufficient. Let's say I want to use winter orb on totems. It is unusable because so long as the enemy steps away it stops channeling and this is a skill that only works on totems if it permanently keeps channeling. Some skills need specific interaction changes.

After all is said and done, I am unhappy about the totems but many of the changes, especially the map changes make me happy. Sad that it's going to be yet another RF league for me because playing spell totems is not allowed (unless that new shock nova gem actually has totem potential but I'll let tatiantel figure that out) but at least many much needed improvements happened.

EDIT: Because I'm scatter brained. It's also great they are finally addressing base drops.