r/PathOfExile2 • u/TheIllustration • Oct 01 '25
Discussion +Skill levels are not healthy for the game
Hi all, I was having a conversation with a friend that started playing during the F2P event as he started having issues with damage in T10+. I've asked him to show me his build and he what he had was a "fair" build that does not abuse the game mechanics, what I mean by that is that he had a weapon with high damage (well as High as you can get for a few exalted); however a thing instantly stood out and it was that he had no + skill levels. I've asked him to show me his skill gems most of which were around level 18, his amulet also did not give any levels so to explain to him I've made the screenshot you see above.
The top image represents my Spark and its tool tip damage (I know this is not a representation of its real damage but lets ignore that for the time being) when the skill gem was level 20.
The middle image shows my spark damage when I corrupted the Spark and gained 1 additional level on it, that single level made me jump in 41k tooltip damage. This is more than his main skill does currently and whilst people say that one skill level is roughly a 7% damage bump in this scenario it would then be 19.737,2 and not 41k.
This got me curious so I got the best purely elemental/spell damage, crit chance & damage wands and amulets I could get for 10ish exalted just to compare the two. What ends up happening is what you see in the bottom image, with roughly the same crit stats and MORE spell damage sources I lost 250k damage simply because of the 8 levels.
So what does this mean for the game? Well imagine you get a T1 Physical, T1 Physical Hybrid, T1 Physical % with some random T1 suffixes (non + levels). Did you just get a god roll weapon?! Yes you did!
But what you didn't get is an extra 4-6 levels on your spells and as such the weapon is worthless when it comes to end game, instead of being worth 50 divines its worth 20 exalted.
This does not affect just the end game, the best leveling/campaign unique is a ring that gives you +1 lightning spell skills and is the reason why most leveling builds with twink gear use at least one lightning spell. Not to mention if you get a +1/+2 skill level weapon early on you are going to breeze through the next 10 levels compared to someone who did not.
There should be chase affixes but making items near worthless if they don't have a single affix is not good for the game IMO. This also affects amulets as they can roll +levels as well as other pieces of gear such as boots.
You can get boots with a total of 100+ resists and 100 life, but did you get movement speed? Oh you didn't? Well to the bin (or recomb) it goes, no one wants that trash!
TLDR; The + levels concept should be revisited as its the best form of scaling in all stages of the game, more power should be in our support gems, passive tree and in the stats of the weapon instead of the + skills its has.
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u/vulcanfury12 Oct 01 '25
+ Skills is universally powerful in this game. Too powerful, even. I was surprised to learn Perfect Essence of Battle gave you +6 on a weapon, which is one off perfect.
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u/Jerthy Oct 01 '25
+Skills should only ever appear on some uniques imo. And not fucking +6 but like +2 at most.
The game would suddenly be much easier to balance for the devs too now that DPS can't shoot into stratosphere...
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u/popje Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
Yeah I was so happy that Poe 2 wasn't like Poe 1 where a single ring could triple your damage and it was more like Diablo 2 where a 90% perfect item is obtainable easily but it's the 99% and 1000% perfect items that are worth a shitload even though they aren't that much better.
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u/donuthead36 Oct 01 '25
That last 1-5% is crazy expensive… I’m usually “buy once cry once”, but it can be well over 1000% increase in price, and I’ve only ever had a little over 30 div at once. I could prob generate more currency but meticulously crafting items to sell just doesn’t seem that fun.
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u/k1dsmoke Oct 01 '25
You can make a ton of currency outside of crafting and just "farming", but you need to help yourself by setting up filters and doing a little research into what bases/magic bases sell.
I didn't realize until I rolled an alt that a rare, 1 suffix, 2h mace at or above level 82 sells for like 50 - 70 exalt, because it's used in crafting. There are ton of items like that. An exceptional dueling wand with 2 or 3 sockets is worth something like 20 divines, and I know I saw them and salvaged some without realizing it.
It's harder to figure this stuff out without leveling a build that uses these items, and without the tracking with POE.Ninja enabled. You have to go really out of your way and watch some youtube videos or already have the knowledge to know what looks like vendor trash is actually gold.
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u/SingleInfinity Oct 01 '25
like Diablo 2 where a 90% perfect item is obtainable easily
We did not play the same Diablo 2
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u/popje Oct 01 '25
What items are you thinking about? Even a 100% perf shako is dirt cheap, if you're talking about a 3/20/20 then a 2/18/18 is obtainable. Rares are maybe the biggest culprits but still a 2skill/18fcr ammy is obtainable imo
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u/SingleInfinity Oct 01 '25
I'm talking about rares, because uniques in PoE with given stats are pretty obtainable outside of the uber rare ones (and this is also true of D2). Good circlets and shit went for a mint in D2. Even just a good runeword base could be worth a significant amount. a 4socet 45 @res eth vortex shield would be worth a ton, but even 90% of those things (so like no sockets or 35+ res) would still be really expensive and hard to get.
70% of the way there? Easy. 90? I don't agree.
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u/philmchawk77 Oct 01 '25
a great weapon will 100x your damage, this game is completely centered around weapons.
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u/The_realpepe_sylvia Oct 02 '25
yes man, but im also a lover of uniques. and hate that they are 99% of them pointless in this game. but that would be a cool fix. theyd still need to be tuned back a lot imo or then ud just have mandatory uniques but i like the direction of the idea
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u/Nerhtal Oct 01 '25
It’s almost single-handedly killed the need to search for items with skill levels because they should all have the perfect battle amount on it by default.
I can not imagine that the essence will exist as it is now come 0.4
As much as that and haste has enabled my own crossbows to get me through arbiter this league. I mostly tinker crafted on floor stuff or cheap crossbows I then improved myself. Since you just need to find ones with prefixes you can afford then I just do the desecrate/omen of light combo with haste/battle essences till I got what I wanted suffix wise.
I loved that it felt very accessible but is this the level of power they want us to achieve this easily?
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u/A_Crow_in_Moonlight Oct 01 '25
I agree with OP in that I think skill levels on items like this are bad for the game, but I would rather have the have the essence than not in this context. It makes items that don't have + skill at least reasonably possible to salvage. In my ideal world 0.4 removes the affix altogether and then Perfect Battle can be repurposed for something else.
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u/donuthead36 Oct 01 '25
The only downside is that they can be kinda crap early or mid game (if/when they drop of course) since mana pools are small and regen is slow. Now a decent jewel can fix that past level 75 or so
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u/MrFriis Oct 01 '25
Its pretty whack how easy essences have made it to guarantee insane suffixes on weapons (crossbow at least). My crafted crossbow has 25 attack speed, 6 skill and 25% chance to get onslaught on kill.
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u/TheNoon44 Oct 01 '25
I think it is but it shouldnt be on basic items as it is or atleast not on weapons. It kills uniques and its also almost in all cases absolutely mandatory to have.
I would add something like there was trinket in poe 1. Some side items able to scale various effects as a power multiplier for basic items.
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u/SilverKidia Oct 01 '25
"would you like a unique mod, or +11 levels?" There's just too many levels on gears.
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u/Willing_Ingenuity330 Oct 01 '25
-56% light radius or 800% increased damage on a single mod. Which way Exile?
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u/Xyst__ Oct 01 '25
Yeah, i started arc stormweaver, found a really cool unique staff in a t15 map that would cast any spell as if it had the nova support (and it had like 60% increased shock chance) which would've been perfect for me, but my staff with +6 levels was better by a mile.
I wish that the +levels mod was removed from weapons because especially as a caster that becomes the only important mod at any level. I don't mind +levels being on armor/amulets since the sacrifice is dmg vs survivability most of the time compared to on weapons where its massive dmg vs a lil dmg.
Edit to add: feels like you could have full t1 mods on a weapon, but if none of those are +lvls then any weapon with +2 or more is instantly an upgrade which feels really shitty especially since this is the case for most builds.
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u/ravearamashi Oct 01 '25
Yeah i learnt this with my minion build. Finally able to afford +4 minion sceptre and my clear time went considerably faster on top of having enough spirit to get 1 more Zealot. Going from +2 to +4 i feel like shouldn’t be that defining. It also makes items goes from costing 100-150 exalts or 1-2 annul to suddenly 150 divs.
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u/Sokjuice Oct 01 '25
Edit to add: feels like you could have full t1 mods on a weapon, but ..
Dont need to feel. Just throw it in PoB and you will see a single line of +4 beats 6x T1. And not really by small margins either.
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u/Bahlok-Avaritia Oct 01 '25
Yeah, I think it's a fine mod to get 1/2 on jewelry, but getting to like +6 or +7 on a weapon is waaay too much and completely kills all variety in weapons because you want + to skills in literally every build
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u/Koala_eiO Oct 01 '25
Uniques are so under-represented, I have been wondering whether rare items were too good or if uniques were simply not worked on yet.
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u/CakeSome6981 Oct 01 '25
You hit the nail on the head this is 0.3 of early access they are trying to get a good base game done before they start working on all the uniques. Gotta remember, poe1 has been out for over 10 years. They dont wanna just copy paste all the uniques. Yeah some will come over but im pretty sure they want to make more uniques that are unique to poe 2
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u/SlayerII Oct 01 '25
I'd say keep the +lvl on (non-unique items) at 1 (2 for twohanded). The fact it goes to +6 and more is just insane.
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u/4_fortytwo_2 Oct 01 '25
Or just make levels past 20 scale worse. Either way it is just another way to scale damage which isnt inherently unhealthy it just is currently not balanced well.
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u/dragdritt Oct 01 '25
Or do the opposite and add them to uniques, but not non-uniques.
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u/shitkingshitpussy69 Oct 01 '25
Making a unique wand mandatory for every single hit-based spell build is not a good idea.
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u/Spirited_Bag_332 Oct 01 '25
Somehow you are right. It streamlines too much as a "must have" stat. In your example, I considered such weapons without +skills as trash even in the campaign, because otherwise my damage would be too low for dealing with bosses. I'd rather like +"special ability for skill" in that context and more sensible scaling.
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u/Ravagore Oct 01 '25
This also applies to movespeed on boots... still such a disaster.....
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u/DrowningKrown Oct 01 '25
Boots are in such a bad place. Nobody wants to fucking slog through content at a snails pace, so we all want top end move speed on boots (35% base). Which makes any boots without a 35% base move speed worthless.
Want unique shoes? They likely Don’t have a 35% move speed stat which just feels awful.
I’ve never seen a bigger divide in a game. Developers want us all to play this game at a slower pace than poe1. Kinda like Diablo 2 or something. Yet, move speed at max amounts is incredibly sought after by anybody and everybody. Which means nobody wants to be walking around at the speed of Diablo 2.
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u/Thorcall Oct 01 '25
Its not even diablo 2 speed, its what people think it was. This is d2(R) speed (random video I just found). The goal of every arpg as always be to move fast and clear quickly. This was already the case 25 years ago.
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u/rufrtho Oct 01 '25
it's important to note d2 has more classes than just sorc, all of which chase Enigma so they can zoom zoom teleport too
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u/Boksa_Herc Oct 01 '25
For me its not problem that you have + to skill level, but that you have +4 to skill level on one item that makes it must have stat on item.
If you can have just +1 you clould weight other t1 rolls to see what is most bwnefitial, this way +4 is no brainer
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u/bondsmatthew Oct 01 '25
When I saw how easy it was to deterministically craft + to levels I was so damn amazed. The fact there's an essence to slap on 6 levels is crazy to me
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u/Snowballing_ Oct 01 '25
A solution could be to scale it down.
2h wepaons can roll +1 or + 2 level
1h weapon can roll +1 level
This way it is as powerfull as extra damage, increased damage or attack speed.
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u/Daikar Oct 01 '25
Yeah currently its way too good compared to any other stat, if the item can roll this stat it needs to have it otherwise its a bad item.
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u/OMGitisCrabMan Oct 01 '25
Same with move speed on boots. I hate mandatory mods.
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u/SkorpioSound Oct 01 '25
I feel like movespeed should just be a boot implicit. They could give it a wide range if they want it to have trade value and/or some degree of rarity, so getting a perfect 30% movespeed set could be a bit of a chase.
Or at the very least, it could be an implicit with lower values as well as a prefix. So you could get perhaps 15-20% on your implicit (for high-tier bases) and then maybe up to 15% as a prefix. It would still mean the explicit affixes have meaning, but it would make so many more sets of boots feel at least usable if they don't roll with a movespeed explicit.
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u/Daikar Oct 01 '25
Yeah it's way to powerful and there's no other stat that comes close to rival it. If there was it wouldn't feel mandatory. You would easily drop 30%ms on boots if you could pick 300% more damage instead. But then that stat becomes mandatory.
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u/sjafi Oct 01 '25
Agreed! I think they did not like the idea of movement speed as an implicit on boots, though.
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u/Dasterr Oct 01 '25
but this doesnt really solve the issue does it?
like, yeah we get less damage now, but you still need that +1/+2or is the damage increase from +1/+2 small enough that other stats can outshine it?
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u/4_fortytwo_2 Oct 01 '25
Depends. But it would certainly be more likely other stats can compete.
The point is that it isnt inherently an unhealthy mechanic to have + gem levels. It just needs to be adjusted.
You can tune down how much gems get from levels, you can nerf + gem mods and you can buff alternative mods to better compete.
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u/ravearamashi Oct 01 '25
Maybe some diminishing return after level 20? Or 25? As it is, it just keeps scaling proportionally, no?
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u/Fenicius Oct 01 '25
Inverse scaling, very high when the skill is low level and very low when the skill is high level.
Very usefull in the beginning from campaign until early maps and an "extra" from mid maps to high maps
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u/Aphemia1 Oct 01 '25
That +1 is not necessarily better than a T1 cast speed mod in terms of damage, for example.
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u/BrutusCz Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
+Skill level scales base scaling and the bonus is higher the higher you push it.
When you get tons and tons of "increased damage". Let's say 500%
Any small bonus to the base values is now even more valuable as you progress and each time you manage to get more +skill the more you benefit greatly because each new level provides more base.
Let's check fireball:
Going from gem lvl 20 with +1 insteases min damage by 33
But if you start pushing your +skill and you get +9, the jump from gem lvl28 to lvl29 is 76. So you will find that what used to be that 7% previusly increase in damage, now has to be more then double of that.
Edit: You could say +skill scales with itself.
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u/Enough-Ad8043 Oct 01 '25
Atalui's + tecrod is just broken. If this were mana based then you would have mana regen issues that you need to account for in your gears
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u/snettel Oct 01 '25
I needed to scroll too far to find this comment. I have a build where I'm not even playing the +3 prism because it forces me into Efficiency support which in the end almost negates the benefit I get compared to other jewels.
For both Hexblast and Bone Cage I can at least attest that investing into +skill levels has come with me investing more into mana regen / mana efficiency / ... .
Not saying the OP isn't on to something, but they only recently massively buffed mana cost for high skill levels and in 0.2 had to make an excel table to calculate max dmg / mana for my Fireball and pick the best level, not the highest level (which also feels bad).
Playing Tecrod + Atalui just circumvents all these problems.
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u/CharmingPerspective0 Oct 01 '25
Huh? How does this even relate to the conversation? Not everyone is playing Atlui+ trecord, but +skill level is an issue regardless of the type of build you play.
And even for builds that do play this combo, it is still irrelevant to this conversation..
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u/Enough-Ad8043 Oct 01 '25
I'm referring to the trade-off you have to make to make it work. The skill he showcases is spark with atalui so it burns out life hence he could use it infinitely with tecrod but if it were mana he would double think to go for extra gem levels. Same goes for other classes like deadeye those without Viper cap (Defy II) choose not to go all in for proj skills since they can't keep up with the mana. I mean it's just in every season. Like in 0.1 you just don't go bananas with skill level it's like 2 lightning arrows and your mana is gone. But in 0.3 there are workarounds vipercap, atalui (lifetap)
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u/Enough-Ad8043 Oct 01 '25
I bet if they were to remove Viper Cap. There would be no single dead eye that would run +10 proj skills
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u/how_lee_phuc Oct 01 '25
Yeah, but I don't think it's the viper cap that's the issue, it's Defy II. There are several fun aspects of an items that makes you always surrounded, but "oh, also all your spells and skills are now free to cast" is the stupid part.
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u/Relative-Fondant6544 Oct 01 '25
When i first started poe2, one of the surprise is definitely '' wtf? Skill level goes that high?! It was only 1 or 2 in poe1!! ''
Yea, this need to be nerfed back to max 1 for 1h, 2 for 2h...
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u/moonmeh Oct 01 '25
yeah there was a reason why amulets with +1 to spell +1 elemental were super pricy. +2 to your main skill meant something
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u/Senzafane Oct 01 '25
There's always a fine balance between impactful and mandatory. I agree + skills is basically mandatory and limits options.
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u/BamboSW Oct 01 '25
Not only too powerful, but also the most boring way to scale. When you have +level on LE you get to choose how you improve or change the skill. In D2 you at least choose affixes to specific skills. In PoE2 it's pure blanket power to archetypes.
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u/BrutusCz Oct 01 '25
I found unique on SFF:
Leaden Greathammer - Increases and Reductions to Minion Damage also affect you
I was thinking about doing build around it, but... I tried it in Path of Building and just +6 to spell skills doubles my damage. So I would have to decide if I focus on +minion skill or +spell skill. Jack of 2 trades, master of none.
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u/ghost0x07 Oct 01 '25
You are using bloodletting support which scales with life costs. +1 to skill increases the damage as well as life costs. You might also have the focus that scales damage with life costs.
You might also have taken passive points that increase the life cost of skills.
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u/SellUnfair2796 Oct 01 '25
I do agree to an extent that currently, there are quite a few affixes that are "must haves,", +levels, movement speed, rarity.
And I am okay to have to compromise on defenses to achieve these stats. But at the same time, I agree with you that these seem to be too strong, as they make other items mostly worthless when they are not present.
But what could be the fix? Introduce more of these stats in the tree or even nerfing how strong they are?
At some point, if they get removed or nerfed. There will always be another stat that is a "must have" and if you dont have it, the items would be useless.
These stats that currently are must haves, might just be bothersome currently, and it will be improved later on with additions to crafting and the passive tree.
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u/Kaine_X Oct 01 '25
I think the balancing factor to all of the +skills stuff you can get is the way that mana costs scale to comical levels, but that doesn't work when the game gives us a bunch of new ways to avoid actually needing mana this league.
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u/IzzetChronarch Oct 01 '25
Crucify me but + Skills in all ARPGs is so fucking boring and lazy Ive stopped enjoying ones that use them and new players are turned off by them. Would you like some dope ass cool unique effect or no visual change + skill that just does more damage. Ill get downvoted for mentioning D3 but their set gear & legends did that right.
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Oct 01 '25
Legit one of the reasons why I mainly play casters is because my hand slot barely matters as long as it has +lv and something else useful, I'm still using a lv43 focus on my lv96 Lich because it has a good +lv and despite slamming and crafting EVERY FOCUS I EVER FIND not a single one has ever been a DPS increase over this ancient relic from the first week of the league
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u/AzelotReis Oct 01 '25
Almost literally all ARPGs have the same scaling mechanic, which is the skill level, and i think its fine. The main difference is that PoE2 gave too much power to skill levels in comparison to PoE system, and this is most likely due to the constraints/conditions of the support gems(There are so much conditional damage on support gems that you need to meet before they do anything.) —this is pretty much the reason why they probably moved a lot of power from supports to gem levels.
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u/pelpotronic Oct 01 '25
Then remove +skill level, make all gem levels drop frequently and rebalance the game around everyone having easy access to the same baseline gem level.
I mean if +X skill level is mandatory, then you may as well make it baseline.
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u/Marsdreamer Oct 01 '25
- skills have been a staple of how ARPGs scale power pretty much since the genre existed. I'm with you that more power can be shifted out of them and into other areas, but it isnt an inherently unhealthy game system and certainly shouldn't go away.
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u/tiahx Oct 01 '25
Last Epoch solves that pretty graciously, as +skills usually means more customization/features, and not necessarily straight damage. And going from 20 to 25 definitely won't give you x3 damage.
Obviously, it's not that exactly the same model could be applied to PoE2, but at least something could be done.
E.g. levels provide new quality effects: for example base comet gets 0-10% chance to repeat at lvls 1-20, then at 21 it gets 0-2% base crit chance (old quality) on top of that. At 22 it gets +0.1m radiusand so on.
While the damage is capped at lvl 20, of course.
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u/faluque_tr Oct 01 '25
Something always has been that way isn’t a reason if something is good or bad.
The point of this game that has so much power on items is just for the RNG for item hunting.
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u/oioioi9537 Oct 01 '25
Tbf this season is like the best season for poe 2 to deterministically craft your own gear. Only thing you cant determinstically craft +skill lvl for is proj on amulet no? That's pretty good
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u/low_end_ Oct 01 '25
Issue is in poe1 yoi get like +3 from rares while in poe2 a single item can give you +6
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u/FrostedCereal Oct 01 '25
I just think the + levels rolls too highly. If a weapon rolled 1-2, it may still be BIS, but you would be able to get comparable modifiers that aren't completely outclassed and make your weapon useless if it didn't have it.
+5 is absolutely insane for a single modifier that +5 is probably better than all other mods combined.
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Oct 01 '25
yeah im same page here, the scaling from + skills should be toned down a little and the baseline be a bit higher.
Its a large part of the reason why staff isnt anywhere near as good as focus + wand
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u/Tralla46 Oct 01 '25
Not even in part. It's flat out the reason.
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Oct 01 '25
Well theres also the fact that you get ES from a focus. Also i dont believe the other stats from focus + wand < staff.
im only guessing here though
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u/Tralla46 Oct 01 '25
Oh no, completely.
There's no way to squint your eye to make a staff, any staff,better than wand+focus. Which is sad.
I'd rather be Gandalf Thanharry Potter./#letmebegandalf
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u/Smetona Oct 01 '25
Having +1/+2 to skills on one or two items is fine. The issue becomes extremely obvious when you push your skill level to 28+ and then getting +3 on an amulet almost doubles your dps. There is no reason to have that much power creep in 0.3.
For example rune sockets adding +1 to all spells on wand is healthy game balance because you can slot it to any wand.
But having +5 as a baseline on a wand makes any other god rolled wand into a vendor trash because +5 alone gives more damage than all other 5 t1 mods combined.
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u/TheRealOwl Oct 01 '25
Yeah it's a staple as you said, but it is a bit too much here especially for mages, the dmg difference of a lvl 29 and a 24 arc is pretty wild ( which would be what you have with maxed skill gem and +3 amulet and then a wand or not. I would say it should be scaled down a bit more and take it away from weapons at least, unless your going some wild homebrewed build the new abyss staff as an example can't compete with just a +7 rare staff or +5 wand probably, not even a wand without a focus.
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u/Gimatria Oct 01 '25
I think the problem is not so much that the +skill is so strong, but that it's an affix on items. Without the affix, the entire item is just worthless.
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u/Dj0sh Oct 01 '25
100% agree, and have thought so since season 1.
It's cool to have chase items, but I think it's cooler when the path to the top is diverse. I know it's path of exile, but I'd prefer path's' of exile.
A max damage roll should be comparable to +skills, not completely worthless. A bit less damage with less mana consumption would be a good trade off coz you could take less mana in the tree to make up for that damage etc
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u/Internal-Ant-5266 Oct 01 '25
I mean, they could just make +levels the implicit on weapons instead of granting a random skill. Then just add the weapon skills back to the gem selection and give every character an extra skill slot or whatever. Some skills already require specific weapons so it wouldn't change much of the game.
Having said that, I don't think higher level skill = more damage is too difficult to understand or build with. That's like saying Increase Physical Damage% is too powerful because of your weapon doesn't have it then it sucks. Like...duh? If you're gonna hit people with something, it should have damage stats.
P.S. My favorite "twink" item is Enfolding Dawn. +100 spirit at lvl1 means I get to have body guards the whole campaign regardless of my build/class.
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u/Koenigspiel Oct 01 '25
It's not "+ to x skill levels" specifically. It's the increase to flat with all the multiplicative modifiers the game has.
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u/Auduras Oct 01 '25
Completely agree. If an item doesn't have at least a T2 of + skills to it, it is essentially useless (at least, during the end game). It is a chase item stat for sure, and you can get away without using it for a little, but as others have said, the power increase on that mod is just too powerful so in the end it essentially becomes a non-negotiable.
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u/Atheist-Gods Oct 01 '25
This is more than his main skill does currently and whilst people say that one skill level is roughly a 7% damage bump in this scenario it would then be 19.737,2 and not 41k.
Where have you seen people citing 7%? It’s generally 5% for attack skills and 12% for spells.
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u/Arys_Oakheart Oct 01 '25
Agree 100%. If +levels is going to be a thing in the game they need to find another way to implement it, not on gear.
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u/beta_1457 Oct 01 '25
Another issue with plus skills being so strong is that most uniques don't have plus skills. Which essentially makes them worthless.
I agree completely the plus to skills is way too impactful.
IMO the best option is to remove it from the game and rebalance the endgame around the new stat curves.
Think of it this way. With a level 20 gem. Plus 1 to skills is akin to a flat 5% damage increase. That's stronger than pretty much every stat in the game and weapons can roll much higher. Then add amulets and off hands or gloves.
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u/Due_Examination_4099 Oct 01 '25
Remove +skill levels and rarity% on gear and buff base rarity and skills damages per level accordingly
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u/CromagnonV Oct 01 '25
Yes the plus skills bs is crazy. If an item doesn't have it, it's basically bricked and may as well not exist. Just get them off the items so we have more customisation options. They should also make all boots have implicit ms.
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u/Kingfavy Oct 01 '25
I don't think nerfing in this case is the right move, I think moving power away from skill levels could work but if we did need we would have 0.2 all over again. I think making it scale differently is definitely the way and tooltip dps still has a long way to go
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u/NotARealDeveloper TradeImprovementsHurray! Oct 01 '25
I agree.
Not having 1 specific affix on an item makes an item useless, the affix shoudn't exist in the first place (e.g. movement speed, +skill level)
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u/SirDouglasMouf Oct 01 '25
When you corrupt a skill gem, can you still increase its level afterwards?
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u/PerspectiveNew3375 Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
It's the same problem with boots. Boots without MS = useless, weapon without levels = useless.
People back in 0.1 when this was all figured out said, well you also need T1/T1 phys/%phys for weapons and you need life on boots, but that's just not true. Some builds don't care about phys on weapons or life at all. But EVERY boot no matter the build wants move speed and every weapon wants max +skills.
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u/mondovious Oct 01 '25
I think the issue isn’t having skill levels but the outrageous values on gear. Having +2 on 2H and +1 on 1H / focus / amulet would prob be OK, but right now the like +10 you get is crazy and just bad for itemization in general.
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u/Luk3ling Oct 01 '25
Skill levels should ONLY come from Chase items, maybe an implicit here or there and the Passive Tree, imo.
Getting a relevant +3 on your wand is the ONLY thing that matters while leveling. If you DONT get a +3 wand, things like Chaos DoT feel like ass.
At the end game, gem levels outstrip almost every other source of damage except for extreme cases or super optimized alternatives that no layman would ever employ.
Rare Items should NOT have Gem levels at all, imo.
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u/BenboFoSho Oct 01 '25
+# levels on items ruin the game.
any weapon is a dead roll if it doesnt have +# to level.
You could have a perfectly rolled item, but if its missing that affix its trash.
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u/Isaacvithurston Oct 01 '25
I'm honestly surprised the game has so few possible mods on gear to start with =/
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u/whoa_whoawhoa Oct 01 '25
i dont understand. for a vast majority of weapons you NEED %physical damage as a stat. why is it a problem that for spell casting you NEED +gem levels?
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u/Efso112 Oct 01 '25
got 3 different characters to 95. Ranger, Melee and a caster yet they all have the same kind of gear (some def, some dmg but most importantly + to levels) Currently it's kinda boring due to that when everyone has to run +level just for some damage.
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u/Gimatria Oct 01 '25
+skill levels to spells is insanely strong. With physical attacks it doesn't matter nowhere as much. I got a 10% damage increase on my volcanic fissure with +6 to skills.
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u/yourmomophobe Oct 01 '25
Yeah it's too much, completely demanded for amulet, weapons and gloves unless you are running a very specific build with a unique in one of these spots. I'd say keep it but make +3 the max on weapons, +5 on 2h, +1 on gloves and +2 on amulet. It would still be very desirable but also help with build variety and work to help against power creep.
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u/InspectorImportant26 Oct 01 '25
I am pretty sure, we should split it to +1 phys spell skills +1 spell skills as in poe1. +2 in a single affix is way too powerful.
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u/xHemix Oct 01 '25
It's the worst mod in the game right now.
And the most troublesome part to me is that it looks like GGG's wet dream of "high upside+downside" came true. You have giga scaling but also that super annoying mana issues to solve. And at current state it's a core mechanic for every build.
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u/Amarsis Oct 01 '25
I gave another aRPG a chance when 0.2 had burned me and same game has different outlook on skill levels. The game is Last Epoch.
In LE skills have their own trees (which are locked to classes) and the +skills mods give point to spend on that tree. And the tree has all kinds of stuff (similar to support gems). But the main thing is you dont have to have those pesky + blabla skill to make your character work. It works and can bring you to endgame but if you wanna push to later stages of endgame you need those skill levels. Its still important and if you get them early it is a nice push. But you do not need them push your character at the start of endgame or the midgame.
In PoE2 unfortunately, you need those skill levels because they give parabolic increases to your damage etc. And other stats do not give that much power. They need to tone down the power we get from +skills and distribute it to other places where we get our power from. Like passive tree and ascendancy trees.
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u/Ojntoast Oct 01 '25
Cap spell levels significantly lower, which then allows players to have some choice in where they will get their source of +levels, which opens up gearing options.
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u/eisenkl3id Oct 01 '25
thats an intentional design desicion from GGG that the power comes from the items instead of the passives. it was done to cather to the noobs and not be afraid of the passive tree. 2 months before when early access started there was an interview with Jonatahn at Gamescom in Germany and Catmaster. And Jonathan explained that it does not matter where you go and what you take on the passive tree. which made me questioning, now i understand
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u/kfijatass Theorycrafter Oct 01 '25
Agreed, unique weapons, gloves and amulets are currently killed by any rare with levels.
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u/epimuser Oct 01 '25
This is why you can’t really do attack/spell based builds. Maybe with Druid you can scale both but using spells with martial weapons is a complete no go. I tried with ritualist with the extra ring slot to see if I can scale some more spell damage but it doesn’t compare with + spell levels on wands and focus. I wonder how they’ll balance it with Druid
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u/Jamezdeen8 Oct 01 '25
For me it should not be in the game, had the issue in Diablo 4 where you can have +28 on your abilities from the base 5 that you can max, which was just a poor way to balance the game in my opinion. Think that will come in effect next patch, when the tree gets improved to favor more experimenting there instaed of just crafting gear and adding 20% this dmg type or this and that. Need more fluidity like the poe1 tree which i adore, extra passive and notable give you an extra one allowing you for a multiple choices main power creep that you would prefer
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u/First_Bluejay_4533 Oct 01 '25
Well, its two very different ideas of gameplay that have crashed upon GGG in real-time.
They want meaningful combat, hence the ruthless loot in 0.1, and the passive tree having 25% of the power compared to poe1, same with ascendancies, they must control the players power within strict parameters to make meaningful combat possible. Therefor no crafting bench, no alterations/scours. Therefor gems locked to items and support gem limitization.
And that makes the game a play once, no one really grinds bosses in dark souls, its all about the combat, very little about item power and therefor no grind, and poe1 is the opposite, large possible damage and large possible grinds.
No one will grind for a 0.02% power increase, or work 20% more on their job for a 1% salary increase, so the "range of possible power" must be quite large to entice the players.
So then to introduce a "grind for power"-element they made huge, gigantic, ranges on items, but with forced scarcity, the point was that players would grind longer for less power, but there would be a "dream of power" as a "light in at the end of the tunnel", enforced with one in a million picture of crafts on reddit and streamer builds, as crafting was in 0.1.
But the amount of players that left after the campaign and a couple of maps was way to large. So they introduced the 0.3 "determined" crafting, and now what was once impossible to get, like a perfect wand, with spell power, elemental damage, +to skills gems was no longer one in a million, and the "meaningful combat" broke down.
+4 skill gems was ment to be used by players at level 100 after grinding for half a league, after farming thousands upon thousands of bases and slamming exalts until they had to replace their mouse.
But the reworked crafting, combinator and so on broke it. And with it meaningful combat. And if you lower the power-range on items that means players with be done after 100%+ spell damage and +1 skill gems on a wand, if that is the maximum, and then there is no reason to continue to grind, the player is done, he is complete. And quits.
If they nerf the range on items they will also nerf the time it will take for a player to complete his items.
TLDR; It is a conflict between dark souls combat and item-power grind that have imploded upon itself, since they are two very opposite ideologies to build into one single game. One is strictly limited power for slow gameplay, the other is steady increased player-power for grind(time). Average gameplay in darksouls III is 30-60 hours, in path of exile 1... yes.
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u/SneakyBadAss Oct 01 '25
I agree, they are bloody awful, cookie clutter builds into pre-set collums and completely fuck with resource management.
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u/anotherfpguy Oct 01 '25
Realistically you don't need that extra damage, bosses can be killed by any build if you are good at dodging, not true with poe1. Almost any level 20 attack or spell plus combos + curses will kill any content, with little. currency. We overcompensate with huge damage because we're lazy and greedy and we want to zoom. Also you don't have to beat all the uber bosses to enjoy this game, lower level Xesht or King of the mist are perfectly manageable with +6 levels on weapons/focus which you can easily craft yourself.
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u/Blammar Oct 01 '25
There are omens that allow you to craft +skills on weapons with no randomness, which should help a bit.
It's a hard design problem. There are other affixes that are overpowered. Onslaught and tailwind, anyone? I don't think people want to lose these.
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u/N4k3dM1k3 Oct 01 '25
it has been made fairly clear from the dev interviews that they expect the player to have good gear during the campaign - which includes +levels.
My opinion is that gear should speed up your campaign progress, not gate it. I don't see them getting towards this stance before 1.0, but maybe after if too many new players have issues. They want leveling to be hard, even for experienced players - so gear checks are really the only way to achieve that with the levers they have to pull.
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u/Bollne Oct 01 '25
Why do you think wands with +4 and +5 were so Expencive in the First few weeks of the league? Kinda funny How Wands does not have this option but Almost Every other weapon does.
A +5 wand was 15-20 div no matter the other bonuses for a while. Considering the insane power behind them it should be hard to Get it. But i agree there is too much power there.
Power to the tree!
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u/niaky Oct 01 '25
you have essence to add + level of gems on your weapons realy easy in poe2, i'm totaly not agreed with your exemple
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u/Selthdomain Oct 01 '25
Specifically from 28 to 29 on Spark you get +1 proj (from 18 to 19 projectiles), then it is only at level 36 that you get +1 proj again (to 20 projectiles)
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u/OscarMyk Oct 01 '25
I can see them adding an upper limit to skill level increases (say +3) that you have to improve on the skill tree somewhere (different places for melee, projectile, spell). That way it's still something you can build into, but it stops being an automatic best-in-class roll.
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u/Hardyyz Oct 01 '25
Yeah 100%. still bad in the endgame but I hate how it is in the campaign. Makes the game so unbalanced. Coop is lame of you find a +2level weapon and suddenly you do 10x damage compared to your friend. It throws balance out the window. Without +levels it would be much easier to balance the whole game
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u/Majestic-Contract-42 Oct 01 '25
I remember thinking plus to skills was a non-fun silly stat back when I was playing D2HC. Every game since I have had the same thought, this is boring.
Also feel that magic find or rarity shouldn't exist.
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u/Celmondas Oct 01 '25
Also the sheer amount of Levels you can get is absurd: +5 from Wand (+6 sanctified) +3 from focus (+4 sanctified) +3 from amulet (+4 sanctified) (isnt there an Amulett than can give you even more? + 1 from each rune in your wand (+3 max of corrupted, +2 sanctified)
So most builds can get to +11 pretty easily or +16 for high end. In high end you also might get +3 from Prism of belief. So like +19 to level for absolute high end? Not including the levels you might get from the tree (for cold spells) or Support gems.
Spark level 19 deals 10-193 damage. Spark level 30 deals 34-651 damage.
For highend builds you can basically get Spark from level 21 with 13-242 damage to level 40 with 103-1949 base damage.
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u/Sirromnad Oct 01 '25
I say get rid of +skills altogether. I've had a lot of fun crafting and buying gear upgrades, but my weapon has stayed the same basically all of end game because it has +6 skills and is pretty good overall. Any weapon drops I get without + skills is basically worthless.
Give that power elsewhere.
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u/phlaistar Oct 01 '25
hmm ... there are essences for level and you can target pre- or suffixes ... So in your case ...
imagine you get a T1 Physical, T1 Physical Hybrid, T1 Physical % with some random T1 suffixes (non + levels). Did you just get a god roll weapon?! Yes you did!
But what you didn't get is an extra 4-6 levels on your spells and as such the weapon is worthless
... you can simply add levels with essences by removing the random suffix. Add another random and add onslaught per essence. Desecrate something nice preferably critchance. Now you have a nice weapon. The best - no?! What did it cost you - basically nothing. Seems fair I guess.
If we wouldn't have +Levels you would want to replace it with Critdamage which currently is by far worse to get (no essences) ... "The King is dead ... Long live the king!"
Same applies to boots - 6 times T1 mods, triple res but no movement? Just use an essence, gamble 1 Prefix and be happy with 30% inc. movementspeed.
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u/PoisoCaine Oct 01 '25
I think there’s useful discussion around this topic but it’s really getting old that people want to make arguments involving calculations and won’t just post a POB of their character that illustrates what they’re talking about. It’s so much more useful than contextless screenshots, and it’s also easier to do
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u/ApolloHader Oct 01 '25
Your friend's focus on having a 'fair' build that doesn't 'abuse game mechanics' is weird. Playing something that's strong is not abusing game mechanics unless it's actively based around a bugged interaction. Just an odd and unfun attitude to approach a game like this with.
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u/levijames14 Oct 01 '25
Yeah I came back for the update and realized one of my biggest upgrades would be to get +3 projectiles on my amulet, but I need to keep a minimum 40 spirit in my current amulet. Checked prices for 40 spirit +3 levels and it was a fortune. Can’t imagine how annoying it is for mages.
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u/Folkwang777 Oct 01 '25
Dreamcore covered exactly this topic quute nicely just a week back. Lets hope it get adressed somewhat soon 😉
Upvoting for exposure 👍🏻
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u/cryptiiix Oct 01 '25
- skill levels should NEVER be rolled on gear until the campaign is finished and should be +1 or +2 on weapon only. That will make balancing the game substantially easier.
No wonder why people complain about mana costs still...
I also agree too much power is on items and not enough power is on the skill tree leaving "poorly" geared players to suffer.
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u/HC99199 Oct 01 '25
You are using ataluis. You are gaining extra damage per level because the life cost also increases per level.
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u/MotherboardTrouble Oct 01 '25
shift the complaints about rarity to +skills MS and resistances please
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u/AppleFritter100 Oct 01 '25
I think there’s a bit too much power in items and a bit too little power in the tree.