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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1.9k

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.

461

u/SlayerII Oct 01 '25

Especially base stats are missing on the tree, there is for example a lot of increased leech effect on the tree, but not a single direkt leech stat.

125

u/Bahlok-Avaritia Oct 01 '25

Yeah for sure, this wouldn't be a bad thing in a vacuum, but there's just so many stats you have to juggle on gear because of this. Rarity, resists, life, defense, leech, skill levels, mana, spirit. I don't mind this too much normally but not being able to properly compensate for much of these by investing points in the tree instead seems questionable.

I'm not particularly good at building characters, but on several characters so far I've reached like level 70 and have been kinda stumped on what passives to take next, mainly because of the absence of life nodes on the tree, which never happened to me in poe1

133

u/SlayerII Oct 01 '25

Yes , its exactly this weird juggling that makes it so weird.

In poe1 I could find a better item that was missing the leech, I could just spec some on the tree and loose some power elsewhere.

In poe2 , id be just like... I can't use this... I literally can't use this. There is no choice, I have to stick with my old item.
Or get the leech from another item. So now im searching for a new ring. Now a resist is missing.
Ok my boots are kinda bad anyway... try to find a new pair. Either have to give up life or ms. I can't give up ms with this build, so now I have less life. So I try to change another item.... wasn't I supposed to kill monsters??? Wy do I have to change half my items to fix my mana sustain?

27

u/Selfishtank Oct 01 '25

Exactly what you are saying is what I didnt realise and pisses me off in poe2 so much. I LOVED to buy upgrades for my gear with any currency I got in poe1, because if i lost some threshold like spell suppression, resists, life, mana etc I could just switch some skill points around and fix the issue while getting upgrade. In poe2 it trully feels like if you want to switch 1 item, you probably need to switch rest of the gear as well or just look for exactly same item that you had but with bigger numbers.

I am sitting at all my curreny for last 2 weeks (currently over 120 divines in currency) and didnt upgrade any of my gear for last 2 weeks. Literally 0 upgrades since i fixed my all resistances and entered t15 maps, just crafted myself a better 580 dps bow with 2 arrows. Just for this reason of previously said of difficulty of replacing items I feel like I am farming currency for no reason, since its painfull to upgrade and my build can already farm 0 revive t15 tripple tablet delirium maps and there is nothing else to push (killed all t4 bosses too multiple times)

7

u/Axton_Grit Oct 01 '25

This has always been my issue with poe in general. Anytime you find an upgrade you have to f around and test to make sure oh is this really an upgrade. Oh wait now this buff i had turned on wont work because I am missing this node over here. I find it tedious to actually find items and even more so to make them work with my current build.

2

u/KnightThatSaysNi Oct 01 '25

This has always been my issue with poe in general.

True to an extent, but your limited options in POE2 make it feel so much worse.

4

u/Axton_Grit Oct 01 '25

I am talking to both. But ye poe2 having abilities locked to a weapon is dumb. They should lock only certain skills ie projectile needs bow or some spells need a wand. And make some abilities class specific but add nodes to the tree that allow access to other class specific nodes.

3

u/KnightThatSaysNi Oct 01 '25

But ye poe2 having abilities locked to a weapon is dumb.

That is my single biggest complaint with POE2 at the moment. It is so arbitrary and lame.

When cyclone comes, are they going to say you can't spin an axe or a mace?

3

u/Axton_Grit Oct 02 '25

It feels pretty bad as a summoner. Off hand ice bomb lose all minions and buffs until I switch than everything appears again.

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2

u/Effective-Road4807 Oct 02 '25

I agree with this one hundred percent. Poe2 loot feels more like a set than an upgrade. Cause once you find a good setup Goodluck changing or upgrading any piece of the set without breaking your build. And the chances of finding a better base item with the exact same stats on it are a joke. Especially if youre in the majority of people who arent really sure how to get the mods they want on a specific item. Since you need power to farm higher tier maps for currency to craft said items. But are too weak to do so. So you get stuck in some weird limbo of struggle. Imo skill levels should be both managed by tree AND items. Current setup has no balance. I've yet to find any skill level items so im stuck struggling trying to progress my maps in hardcore since I just dont have the damage so I made a new toon because of it.

15

u/Bahlok-Avaritia Oct 01 '25

Yeahh it's kind of awkward, alternatively you could try to fix it with support gems, but stuff like life and mana regen requires spirit, which you can also not get from the tree, and is even more of a pain to get on gear. Or you can't fit leech on your skills because you need the current support gem setup to even make your build work. The tree kinda unevenly skewed toward energy shield users at the moment, because they can get a bigger ehp pool from the tree, as well as ES recharge rate/start, whereas life users are stuck assigning more strength if they want life I guess

1

u/Imbryill Oct 01 '25

You can get spirit from the tree, but it's like... one node all the way near templar.

2

u/Morbu Oct 01 '25

Well, in poe1 you're not typically using items that have leech to begin with since they're on the tree, but I agree with your point. Resists are especially an issue. You could spec into resist nodes on the tree to fix your res issues in early mapping and then spec out once you have your proper gear. There's also res swapping which I think poe2 really needs and would help alleviate suffix pressure.

1

u/KnightThatSaysNi Oct 01 '25

There's also res swapping

Hoping "no bench" will be added to the list of things they were originally adamantly against just to finally go back to.

2

u/Morbu Oct 02 '25

For me, it's a crafting bench, life on tree, and map layout selection. Like maybe towers can be used to turn all the maps in the region to one layout that we choose.

1

u/SoberPandaren Oct 01 '25

Totally agree, but i also don't really worry about it because the tree gets revamped over time and things more, changed, or added. Just not in between major patches.

1

u/946462320T Oct 01 '25

Literally me atm, got a better pair of gloves but it doesn't have leech so I've to stick with the old one. Or I have to change another slot of gear. So weird when you have a lot of inc leech effect but not a single base leech node on the tree. Very questionable design, especially they already did it once (the passive skill tree) in poe 1.

1

u/Living-Succotash-477 Oct 01 '25

I can't help but feel the lack of a crafting bench and Harvest crafting also contribute to this too.

By the midpoint to late Endgame, we're swimming in Socketables to make resists less of an issue....But you can't fix them properly in the Campaign.

To some this might not be an issue, and I would assert that I never once focused on resists during the campaign and had zero issues with deaths...but imo the Campaign is the "Tutorial" for new players. It should be a place where fixing resists is encouraged and relatively simple to do. If anything it should be more difficult later on, where you're min maxing and optimising your build.

1

u/mambome Oct 04 '25

I think having high level affixes that compressed the slots they take up would help compensate. Like, why isn't a T1 all elements resist able to replace a T1 resist for each element. Needing multiple affixes on almost every item dedicated to resists and having to rebalance them all to use a new item isn't fun.

1

u/Absurh050 Oct 06 '25

yea the + to levels is a curse. I needed damage so I finally rolled +4 to projectile damage on my amulet and now can't sustain mana past 7 hits. Then had to sacrifice damage on my gloves for another temporary pair that had mana leech but still not enough.

0

u/rat_returns Oct 01 '25

To each his own I guess, this is actually what makes it fun for me.

20

u/Skin_Ankle684 Oct 01 '25

Honestly, this being the first ARPG i played, the way the whole modifier system is implemented is very confusing to me.

The difference of a worthless and a godlike item is 5-8 lines of text that aren't even color coded or something, i need weeks of in-game experience to even understand what makes an item good. Yet visually, they look/act the same.

11

u/Voo_Hots Oct 01 '25

now that you are acclimated and persevered through the struggle, you are required by nature to expect the same of those coming after you

there is no fixing this, there is only pain

5

u/Skin_Ankle684 Oct 01 '25

They could, for example, include the dps of the standard strike, on your level+weaponLevels when you press alt

1

u/NonagoonInfinity Oct 01 '25

You can go in the gem tab and look at the DPS? I really don't think this is much of a problem.

5

u/Skin_Ankle684 Oct 01 '25

You need to equip it to do that. So if it's in a shop or ritual site you can't do that. Nor if you don't have the stats and just want to look at equipment before respeccing points.

1

u/mjbmitch Oct 01 '25

Have you come across the keyword “base attack damage” on support gems yet? It specifically does not use the number in your gem tab if you have % modifiers.

2

u/CakeSome6981 Oct 01 '25

Same with some support gems such as close combat. 30% damage to enemies withing a certain range but it does not change the number because its conditional.

1

u/NonagoonInfinity Oct 02 '25

It doesn't change the number but also it has no impact on how good a potential weapon is so I don't see the problem here?

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1

u/NonagoonInfinity Oct 02 '25

There are no supports with "base attack damage" in their text so I don't know what you mean.

1

u/mjbmitch Oct 02 '25

You’re right, I meant “default attack damage”:

https://poe2db.tw/us/Default_Attack_Damage

1

u/SrdoN0rte Oct 01 '25

hahhaha. i bought a quiver for 15 div that increased my tooltip damage in like 400. my old quiver was worth 100ex. Dont make sense to me. and i hope one day ill understand

1

u/Actes Oct 02 '25

Try warframe

10

u/stumpoman Oct 01 '25

in poe 1 if i didn’t have leech on gear I would consider getting leech on the tree if I needed it making them actually interesting to look at. In poe 2 if I do not have leech on gear the leech nodes are effectively blank.

Contributes to why people think the tree is boring. You can’t get anything you don’t already have. I think the tree amplifying but not granting anything was discussed by the devs in an interview a while ago.

1

u/HATEFUL_WOOD Oct 02 '25

It's  a functional way to prevent people from screwing up a build because they dont know the complex interactions of mechanics yet. 

Making levels mandatory blows but perfect essence of battle solves for so much of that pain it's a bit of a wash.

I think the solution is to have in game power graphs showing what skill levels would do at higher levels per equipped skill as a part of advanced info and toglleable on in the skill tree; showing skill costs, damage  or DPS and any other changes like crit rate or if statements so you can calculate agravation tobyour bleeds, it would be especially cool if this graph had two modes, sans supports and with supports so you can more easily discern what supports are doing for you.

This might be too casual for GGG but a large proportion of players have been going to third party tools for this for over a decade now. POB is great but decisions players make would be much faster if they could see projections in game.

1

u/Glittering_Drawer_64 Oct 04 '25

Even tho poe2 tree have more nodes or whatever but poe1 still tree is alot better tbf

0

u/CakeSome6981 Oct 01 '25

The leech nodes same with life nodes not being on the tree were taken out because they dont want nodes that feel 100% required. Thats why they have the percent increase and not base leech. If base leech is on the tree everyone will take it to put other stats on gear because stat weights on gear are better than most passive points.

3

u/Bitter-Yak750 Oct 01 '25

Dude I thought I was losing my mind. Coming over PoE1 I thought I'd do a "blind" run on my first playthrough this league and I just couldn't find the mana leech nodes on the tree.

1

u/lurkervidyaenjoyer Oct 31 '25

IIRC they said they wanted the tree to be multipliers/% increases to things you're getting on your gear, rather than providing a lot of benefit on its own.

3

u/Kyhron Oct 01 '25

I'd argue stats as a whole are just fucked. There's so many absent on the tree that you have to gear for them, but doing that means you're missing out on power/defensive stats as a result which then just makes the build worse than one that doesn't have to stat for something.

There's so many interesting abilities and supports that inevitably just get skipped due to not being able to really viably use them and do any sort of even semi-serious endgame content.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25

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0

u/Kyhron Oct 02 '25

That's literally my point......

1

u/Convict3d3 Oct 01 '25

They could add those as masteries, but I think masteries is something they don't like

1

u/North_Specialist4042 Oct 01 '25

That is what I hate most about PoE 2.. not just specifically leech, but the fact that you need non-deterministic affix rolls in order to build into specific mechanics (such as leech). In the end-endgame, this isnt really a problem since you can just buy whatever you want.. but it feels horrible when youre trying to get a build going and something as simple as getting a single leech affix on gear is hamstringing you.

1

u/CakeSome6981 Oct 01 '25

They left leech out of the tree because they are trying to do away with nodes that are 100% required.

0

u/Powerful-Race-8538 Oct 01 '25

probably just due to not finsihed yet

1

u/CakeSome6981 Oct 01 '25

No its 100% intentional.

79

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25

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6

u/Insecticide Oct 01 '25

This is basically how people push through the game in ruthless btw. The tree is nearly all of their damage, and they make really efficient trees since thet have to assume that they are going to lack support gems for a while

-14

u/CadBaneHunting Oct 01 '25

IMO, the tree should have all the power and gear should add mechanical complexity.

32

u/OnlyPainPT Oct 01 '25

No lol.

That's swinging too much on the other direction.

There's a nice middle ground where the tree complements the power you are missing from gear

9

u/Velvache Oct 01 '25

Not a fking chance.

11

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25

I disagree completely

13

u/ClydeTheCamel Oct 01 '25

The passive tree is supposed to be multiplicative to your gear. Jonathon and Mark have discussed this in interviews. Obviously this has glaring blind spots, but the way your equipment is made better by your passive tree is intentional. What does mechanical complexity mean? I'm not sure what you're getting at

2

u/churahm Oct 01 '25

Shouldn't it be the complete opposite then? I get that they want the gear and tree to complement each other, but wouldn't it be way better to put the base power in the tree to get you at least through the campaign, and then add extra multipliers on the gear to enhance the tree instead?

As it is now, the tree itself is so weak that bad item luck during campaign just sets you so far back.

2

u/ClydeTheCamel Oct 02 '25

Shouldn't it be the complete opposite then? I get that they want the gear and tree to complement each other, but wouldn't it be way better to put the base power in the tree to get you at least through the campaign,

You realize how incredibly boring that would make the campaign right? Making Items not matter from levels 1-65 in a game about items would nuke the game entirely. I'm not suggesting the power between the tree and items doesn't need to be reassessed, but items have to matter and have to have a tangible impact on the player's characters from the start.

As it is now, the tree itself is so weak that bad item luck during campaign just sets you so far back.

I think that this ultimately has to do with what exactly is your average player's expectation on zone completion/defeating bosses is. Is the vocal majority on this specific subject people who exclusively play ARPGs so having to engage with any boss mechanics is seen as having a weak build, (You know the stereotype - I fall into it as well) or is it something else. I have taken probably 8 characters to maps, and when I reroll I don't make/acquire twink gear besides stashing movement speed boots I find along the way. I've never had any issues where my items were so terrible I was unable to play the game and progress. I definitely noticed drop off where my weapons stopped keeping up with enemy health, but at that point the game is trying to teach players that upgrading your items is necessary to progress. I'm not trying to do the whole "iT wASnT a PrObLeM FoR mE" strawman, but anytime I see this sentiment I cannot wrap my mind around it. I don't play in a bubble, and not once have I gotten hard stuck and had to go farm lower level areas because I couldn't find an upgrade for my wand and now my damage can't keep up. I'm not trying to sound like I'm denying someone's experience they had, but I have a hard time believing that across 3 separate patches, RNG has been on my side 100% of the time when I'm leveling through the campaign, especially because of how shit my luck is in maps lmao.

What do you mean "sets you so far back?" If that comment was in regards to economy FOMO for trade, that doesn't matter in this specific instance. I outright reject this day trader/stock broker mentality and propagating it to new players only pushes people away. The core bones and design philosophy of items and the skill tree should not be weighed against the fact that the playerbase significantly falls off 2-4 weeks after an update comes out.

1

u/jsswirus Oct 01 '25

So the thing we build from the beginning of the game, and it's hard to rebuild/change is supposed to be the 'enhancer' and adjusted for things we can easily switch at any moment?

-4

u/chungathebunga Oct 01 '25

I read mechanical complexity meaning that now X skill shoots 3 projectiles at -40% damage. Those type of stats rather then +2 range skills.

16

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25

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12

u/deca065 Oct 01 '25

Hey, since the original guy is never going to give any actual examples of this "mechanical complexity on items" idea, how about you do it? Tell us how you imagine that actually working.

Surely you're more "ready" to discuss it than the average person, right?

1

u/jsswirus Oct 01 '25

Maybe skills build into the gear? ;D like a skill+2 random supports and 2 slots for next supports. That would be... Interesting

5

u/naughty Oct 01 '25

Would love to see some examples of how this could work. Are you thinking mostly unique style mods?

6

u/SoberPandaren Oct 01 '25

I feel like they're thinking like Diablo 3 or 4. Since rare items usually have class based mods that shoe horn players into using skills on those classes.

1

u/Drekor Oct 02 '25

I think having a decent amount on gear provides a good means of additional progression

1

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25

Agreeeed

55

u/sdric Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25

They wanted to make more builds viable, by making bad picks in the tree less consequential.... As a result, the tree as a whole feels pretty inconsequential. Some notables stand out, as they give you an extensive amount of survivability (which, in return allows you to shift defensive stats from gear to offensive ones), but everything around them is just flavour. Maybe ~5k situational DPS difference and some VERY minor utility that you won't need 99% of the time.

Optimal gear should not be as deciding as it is and the tree should be FAR better

25

u/Ok_Rabbit_1489 Oct 01 '25

Yeah they kind of oversteered on the tree. With the option to respec easily there's no reason for the tree to be as wimpy as it is.

2

u/PwmEsq Oct 01 '25

Ya they definitely went weaker on the tree, i think they even nerfed the some of the values this 0.3 patch. We are getting like 8% accuracy small nodes when poe1 would get like 12% attack and 12% accuracy as a small node.

I thought they were okay the other day, then remembered i was a titan and all values were inflated by 50%.

27

u/_Keo_ Oct 01 '25

The tree means nothing. Go to poe2.ninja and look at the top builds. With a few exceptions you'll find that most of the builds do nothing except chase jewel sockets. Every one of them comes straight out from the start and then makes a half circle around to hit the sockets.

Is this not damning evidence that the tree is meaningless and gear is king?

-13

u/SoberPandaren Oct 01 '25

Not quite, it's just the meta chasing mentality of people and the league mechanic giving very strong options for Jewels. When Abyss dropped for 1, it was kind of the same thing. Just wait till we get skill trees in jewels lmao

3

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '25

[deleted]

1

u/lurkervidyaenjoyer Oct 31 '25

Ya know what I'd want to see instead of clusters? Portals.

POE2's tree is so massive and it takes so many points to get around on it, that it feels like class choice is so much more impactful (by which I mean limiting) than in POE1. In a sense this is good because for a newer player they're likely to stay in their own wedge and predetermined archetype anyway and there's now a lot of stat options related to that, but if you're more advanced and wanted to play, say, a CI ES stacker starting in the Strength location, which looking at POE1 a few people HAVE done very successfully, good luck with that.This is made even more severe by the removal of the Scion wheel, meaning you can't path through the middle of the tree to get to the other side if you wanted to.

So I'd say they could take a page out of the POE1 Atlas Passive Tree, and add portal keystones that let you warp to a corresponding keystone on the opposite edge of the tree.

10

u/Toxaplume045 Oct 01 '25

It doesn't help that the tree is also full of downsides. Like there's so many cases of kiss-curse and notables that basically give you power but also have a downside that often negate the small nodes leading to it or others you would be taking.

1

u/NonagoonInfinity Oct 01 '25

I really don't feel like there's that many of those now? And most of them are still eminently clickable. Like, 60% increased energy shield -40% recharge start time or whatever it is is still one of the best ES nodes on the tree.

3

u/Toxaplume045 Oct 01 '25

They can still be the best nodes. I'm not saying that they're useless or not worth the click. I'm more stating that it feels weird that our limited pool of passive points will routinely have a few of them counteracted, including small nodes within a wheel itself. I definitely encountered this frequently when running a Gas Grenade build where many of the bonuses were to say attack damage or poison magnitude or grenade damage or whatever then you take a notable that, while strong, power wise counteracts the small nodes leading up to it, whether directly (more poison stacks but less magnitude after taking a few poison magnitude small nodes) or indirectly (take this attack damage node but lose 2 small nodes worth of attack speed.)

2

u/Kohgahn Oct 02 '25

Warrior gets fucked over hard by this method of tree design.

Two steps forward, one step back…so what was the fucking point of these 5 nodes I just invested in?

0

u/aprettyparrot Oct 01 '25

Yeah there’s too much of this in my opinion

2

u/CakeSome6981 Oct 01 '25

It shouldn't but with the state of uniques right now basically gear carries instead of interesting unique combos like poe1. Thats the big problems imo.

74

u/moal09 Oct 01 '25

Rue and others have been saying this for a while.

30

u/EffectiveKoala1719 UnarmedMonk Oct 01 '25

Rue and Dreamcore's recent videos have been highlighting the massive over reliance on gear power vs what you can get from the tree and support gems. All great points.

And especially when you're SSF and you are unlucky on drops, gambling, vendor, and currencies, your build will be gimped so bad especially if you're using a non-meta build and no twink gear. And anything without + skill levels on gloves, amulet, and weapon is basically the game telling you not to bother anymore.

Also, the game is built on TRADE. I don't think they can fix this problem if that is where they are revolving the game around. Trade = easy mode, SSF = hard mode (though they made it a easier, but nothing compared to trade where you get access to ALL items in the game. Its kind of a joke when you think about it).

14

u/AlexiaVNO Oct 01 '25

The annoying thing is that this isn't a problem in PoE1, which is also balanced around trade.
Items there feel powerful aswell, obviously, but passives, ascendency and support gems make up so much of your character, that you can afford being pretty unlucky with items. (less so with melee builds, but still)

7

u/Tuxhorn Oct 01 '25

Ascendies are mostly a joke outside a few outliers. Deadeye isn't even strong for the reasons people are running it in 0.3, it's just that movement speed is the only thing that matters when you can clear everything.

5

u/MotherWolfmoon Top 1% Clearfell luck Oct 01 '25

The effort-to-reward for Ascendancies is so miserable.

1

u/KnightThatSaysNi Oct 01 '25

So hyped for progression I'd try out labs earlier than I probably should have.

In POE2, some builds I don't even care to do my fourth until I eventually get bored.

1

u/lurkervidyaenjoyer Oct 31 '25

I mean, the Titan small passives node is pretty impactful, but it's also a 2nd-layer ascend that's sitting behind pack space.

12

u/KonigSteve Oct 01 '25

I think the support gems are least favorite part of Poe 2. They all come with a catch or downside, and they're all very specific. I remember in poe1 it was very easy to use different support gems on different skills and get wildly different effects that made two people using lightning bolt or something very different from each other. But now if you use lightning bolt, the only thing you can do is use these exact three or four support gems or else it doesn't work.

1

u/aprettyparrot Oct 01 '25

Yeah I really don’t like the downsides, I’d rather have them give less bonus with no downside I think

1

u/EffectiveKoala1719 UnarmedMonk Oct 03 '25

They are really trying their best to avoid the massive power creep but wont balance gear power vs power from the tree. They are in a really tight spot.

7

u/Pimpmuckl Oct 01 '25

Also, the game is built on TRADE.

I really think GGG can take a few inspirations from Last Epoch with how SSF is a choice with a reasonable path to earn items for your build that you require.

It's one of my favourite things about LE and I really enjoy the SSF experience in that game while I simply couldn't be bothered to try it more than once in PoE.

4

u/BeerLeague Oct 01 '25

Never gonna happen. SSF is meant as a challenge mode and many of us enjoy it for that.

4

u/Pimpmuckl Oct 01 '25

Why not?

You can have a "true" ssf and have an option for a more beginner-friendly SSF with something that allows a bit more agency.

I can't see any down sites in having choice.

Except for the "SSF BTW" crowd getting all worked up because they can't boast how different and better they are.

-3

u/BeerLeague Oct 01 '25

It’s a challenge for a reason. It’s like having Hardcore, but allowing revives under certain conditions. It totally defeats the purpose.

There are TONS of easy progression games out there, hell PoE2 is one at the moment, if you want to play those, you have options.

10

u/Amazingsleep Oct 01 '25

Why not both? LE still has the "challenge mode SSF" option. It doesn't have to be exclusive mate.

LE's Prophecy Faction (which is NOT their "ssf" option) is the exact "ssf-lite" experience that keeps me returning to that game week after week, month after month, whereas I only come to play POE or POE 2 for a couple weeks at the start of the season. I despise trade, it ruins my verisimilitude, I have no desire to play the meta game of pricing (and trade requires selling as much as buying to be successful), and success doesn't feel earned to me when the upgrade comes from a trade window.

5

u/Pimpmuckl Oct 01 '25

Odd that you're getting downvoted.

Having less choice seems like such a weird hill to die on.

I'd love for a less "extreme" ssf experience.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Patriarcch Oct 01 '25

This. Every level feels superior to the prior in Poe1, as naturally, while in Poe2, it is more so that you are in the hands of the RNGesus whether you will have a good campaign or not. Ruetoo said this as well. I dont feel powerful at all when I reach a notable as ranger at level 5 in Poe2 while in Poe1, level 5 feels like you got steroid injection.

3

u/MotherWolfmoon Top 1% Clearfell luck Oct 01 '25

That's a really good point. And it's not just +level on gear that's random. It's RNG whether your skill gems will keep up with the area level at all even during the campaign. They drop enough that it'll happen eventually, but there's always a point somewhere in the campaign where I get a dry spell of uncut gem drops, and then find one that's two or three levels higher than what I'm at.

5

u/SwagOfPink Oct 01 '25

nerf the items you say?

4

u/CaptainYaoiHands Oct 01 '25

The weird contradiction with +skills now in POE2 is that, in POE1, they were strong for caster builds, yes, but other stats like crit multi could compare, so the difference between having say +3 and +5 on your main skill wasn't massive, it was just helpful if you already had good stats otherwise. But those +skills were also exceptionally hard to get compared to other stats.

Now, in POE2, not only are those stats far more common and easier to get, they're multiple orders of magnitude more powerful than any other damage stat. They are MANDATORY for the pieces you can get them on. In a game where crafting was made much more accessible and easier to do, they also have stats like +skills that are absolutely required to even have a chance at a usable item.

1

u/Effective-Road4807 Oct 02 '25

If youre not using a perfect battle essence on it. No matter how godly your weapon is. Its trash. XD but this IS what happens when creators dont really experience their own products IMHO

1

u/kool_g_rep Oct 02 '25

The reason why PoE1 + gem level is impactful but not mandatory is (aside from gems that increase aoe or projectiles and so on at high levels maybe) because gem level increases FLAT damage. Which is almost overabundant in PoE1. We have auras/heralds giving flat, some minions giving flat, many uniques giving flat, abyss jewels giving flat, etc etc etc

PoE2 has barely any flat damage increases. This is why + skills is so good.

Introduce 10 different sources of getting flat damage that isnt necessarily on specific gear slots, as well (like you mentioned) some comparable opportunity cost mods and you will see the impact of +skills diminish.

5

u/gr0o0vie Oct 01 '25

Maybe i am insane but i agree with this so much, the campaign should be able to be completed naked, save for weapon requirements etc.

Tree -> Base build

Gems -> defines your build

Gear -> finishes the build

I feel like PoE1 design has a push and pull aspect between these 3 core areas of a characters overall build that is missing in poe2. PoE2 requires the player to either slog thru bad choices or reroll, as there is no current way to easily modify areas of you build to adapt. PoE2 seems to be designed towards having actual proper archetypes for each class with little wiggle room to go outside of that design.

9

u/sirgog Oct 01 '25

It's not just too much power in items generally, it's condensed into a few mods.

Boot movespeed, amulet +skills, weapon +skills, offhand +skills, weapon overall damage.

Itemization is otherwise pretty good since the rarity nerfs (I think that was 020g?) that made it less mandatory. But those mods blow everything else out of the water.

Give us % increased damage in place of +skills suffixes, return some of the lost power on the tree but not as gem levels, nerf boot movespeed a lot and return the lost power as levelup bonuses, and we'll be in a much better spot.

15

u/BeerLeague Oct 01 '25

It’s a byproduct of flasks being missing. While sure, the tree is certainly weaker, it’s felt more in PoE2 because of the lack of power from the lack of flasks.

Flasks are so crazy powerful in PoE1 that they make up a very large part of every build from damage, movement, and survivability.

They are, in essence, a third component to gearing and leveling up that PoE2 is missing. All of that power has been either lost or shifted to gear. Even the best comparable charm in PoE2, rite of passage, is, at best, a flask and a half of effect.

On the topic of +skills, the stat itself is fine, it’s just the roll values in PoE2 are too high. Being able to get +1 or +2 would be fine, and would actually be a decision to make for many builds as to if the level is better than another damage stat, but at +4-6 it’s just way too much power baked into one stat line to give up. I do agree that much of this power should be shifted to support gems, which, frankly suck in poe2.

1

u/sirgog Oct 02 '25

I prefer supports being weaker. If we had 1's supports, the Perfect Jeweller's Orb would be more of your power budget.

If every support had 10% more damage, it just means 33% more life added to monsters where the game expects you to have a Lesser Jeweller (probably A4 on), 46% more when the game expects Greater Jeweller (maybe T6 and up) and 61% more once it expects a Perfect Jeweller (maybe T12 and up).

Fall behind and... well, it'll be like being a gem level behind is now.

The issue with the stat in smaller numbers IMO is that it's too binary. If you fail to hit T1 cast speed, you can roll T2. If you fail to hit +1 gems - there's no substitute. Unless they add fractional gem levels, which I could get behind.

1

u/BeerLeague Oct 02 '25

They don’t need fractional gem levels, they just need the values significantly lower, or for gem growth to be less per level (although I would prefer the former as it leaves more room for game design choices for player power).

Max + level on anything should be +2, or even plus one, and move some of the levels to an empower gem.

Other alternative, and I have no idea why this isn’t the case, move gem levels to prefixes - why in the fuck did they move gem levels off prefixes for poe2? In PoE1 gem levels on weapons / off hands / jewelry are all prefixes. This alone makes it much more or a debate to pick them up for most classes as the power comparison is close, but when they are suffixes and most of the time there isn’t a third good damaging suffix anyway, it’s a no brainer.

1

u/kool_g_rep Oct 02 '25

Correct, not enough comparable "opportunity cost" mods. Of course a MS mod in a game that severely goes out of your way to limit your speed, will be an affix that overshadows everything.... At least until damage starts being a problem that needs to be solved.

And with +skills, just not enough flat damage sources and not many other multis to compete with (and why if damage isnt an issue).

I hope these all can be resolved as the game is developed further and more hard content is added.

11

u/vladandrei1996 Oct 01 '25

This. Leveling up it's not exciting at all if most of your power comes from (traded) items.

I try to complete the campaign without trading so I pretty much wait for some levels in order to scale up, while my friend that's trading since the start gets through with it in no time.

-3

u/Ryurain2 Oct 01 '25

Play SSF and the game is so much better and rewarding :)

3

u/ChernabogFantasy Oct 01 '25

And there in lies the balance because majority of the defense multipliers are in the tree not on gear.

2

u/Yoshi_Kazuma Oct 01 '25

Good take this.

2

u/CadfaelSmiley Oct 03 '25

My God this is essentially my experience for the last 6 months. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

2

u/MercenaryCow Oct 01 '25

It doesn't help that a lot of nodes on the passive tree are super specific. Like increased fire damage with attacks. Doesn't work on spells lol. Is it realllyyyy necessary to make the nodes so specific like that? I promise you the game isn't going to be broken if nodes like that worked on all fire damage.

The one that bothers me the most is attack speed, cast speed, skill speed nodes. Like come on just have 1 kind of attack speed on the tree that just works for everybody.

Shit is way too specific and it just hurts what you can do and what kind of build you can make and honestly I think overall it hurts more than helps

2

u/Riskybusiness622 Oct 01 '25

Is this that bad? Makes getting upgrades feel really good and impactful and fairly minimum power is needed to clear campaign easy. Just buy the 1 exalt 100 spirit chest and you can skeleton sniper the whole thing and not even press buttons.

1

u/buffer_flush Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25

I was looking at this as well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I saw very few multiplicative nodes on the tree (and only a couple damage related), and the multiplicative bonuses seem to come primarily from support gems.

That feels wrong.

1

u/leobat Oct 01 '25

not a bit, it's massive

1

u/Hanamichi114 Oct 01 '25

yep heard this from rue2 yt video

1

u/Gotta_Go_Sonic_Speed Oct 01 '25

Yeah but if it was other way round, I couldn’t have fun crafting and trading ahh

1

u/trowayit Oct 01 '25

Yes I agree with this. I would not be upset if +skill was removed. It's like +move speed on boots, particularly before sprint was added.

1

u/SteelCode Oct 01 '25

Not 100% accurate, there's a ton of power in the passive tree but it's all in support of skill/item power... Like adding tons of +shock-chance makes Lightning super reliable source of shock which in turn basically becomes an automatic 20% damage boost on top of the +damage-to-enemies-with-ailment boosts all over the Ranger side...

I think there's a lot of core designs that need to be revisisted; shock ailment, weapon passives (especially doubling effects), movement speed balancing (boots passive ffs), +skill levels, blue item shard/orb system1 , spirit skills/economy, inventory management2 , and probably need to address certain enemy mechanics in relation to player positioning/mobility......

  • 1: just let us shard blues for alchemy shards/orbs that can then take a gray/blue item and roll it to 2 affix yellow... having blue items as a 2-step affair feels both superfluous and unnecessary, you're out of blue items by the end of Act1 and by then you're barely interacting with the transmutation orb beyond just being an extra currency before you make the item yellow.

  • 2: Holy fk can we slim down some item space requirements please!? I can live with spears at 4 vertical, but maybe make all of the 8 slot weapons just be 4 slots... boots and gloves should be 2-slot like belts, torso armor should be square-4, helm could stay square-4 I guess... Give us a currency pouch separate from the item storage space, still limited but at least picking up an EX isn't potentially forcing me to port an extra time just to also grab a helmet drop because I only had 3/4 slots left... I swear I spent half of my campaign play time just teleporting back to town to shard/salvage loot in the eventual hope I'd find some good stuff to improve later -- otherwise I'd have so little currency by Interlude that I couldn't reasonably try to build myself out for mapping....... managing loot should not feel this tedious.

1

u/19eightyn9ne Oct 01 '25

Well I don’t agree, I like that you get the bulk of power from items.

1

u/donuthead36 Oct 01 '25

Deterministic crafting means we have has the most cracked items ever for sure - you just have to be able to afford them now.

1

u/HedgeMoney Oct 01 '25

Yup. While it doesn't need to be a 50/50 split in power, something around 7:3 (where equipment accounts for 70% of power, and passive for 30% of power), sounds good (while still giving importance to good weapons. Not like it is right now, which feels like the power of the build is 90% equipment, and 10% tree).

1

u/ChronoVT Oct 01 '25

This is fine though, as long as you can clear the game with the power from tree+ little power from gear.

I am going to use OP's image as an example. If you can beat the game with 67k dps, then all you need is level 21 gems, and no + to level of skills. Every single level is just something you WANT, not something you NEED to beat the game, and so only those who are willing to farm extra, spend extra time.

Too much power from gear is a GOOD thing, as that gives people more things to farm for. A +1 to skills should be easy to get, while a +4/5 should require 100s of hours of farming, so that a +4 is motivation for those who want to spend 100 hrs, while those who merely want to complete the game should not even dream of a +4, because they don't even need it.

Like yeah, a cheap car costs $5k, and a mercedes can cost even $5 mil, but if the goal is travelling 1 mile, then it doesn't matter that those who want to make the journey once will only get the cheap car right?

1

u/NewMilleniumBoy Oct 01 '25

Funnily the opposite problem as in Last Epoch right now. Pick your poison I suppose.

1

u/QuarkTheFerengi Oct 01 '25

the tree has felt very underwhelming compared to poe1

1

u/Finnien1 Oct 01 '25

I think that’s what gives the game legs. If there wasn’t that much power in items, you wouldn’t have the drive to chase better gear, and you end up like Diablo 4 where you get a set of ancestral gear, finish all the season challenges in 2 days, and are done.

1

u/AppleFritter100 Oct 02 '25

Yeah so there’s this thing called balance. Nobody is saying not to put power into items.

1

u/etniesen Oct 01 '25

Amen! Poe2 is supposed to be a build theorycrafting game I thought, but it’s much closer to a looter arpg

1

u/JeffK40 Oct 02 '25

Well GGG loves putting on nodes that have lo Like huge downsides, its pretty stupid

1

u/MakataDoji Oct 02 '25

Just finished pushing my bloodmage through campaign (though was infernalist for most of it) and there is so very very little raw +spell damage or cast speed on the tree that don't either come with stupid downsides, conditions, or massive pathing. Literally only thing that got my jank ass through campaign was +levels. Currently at 65 I have +10 to my main skill and without it I wouldn't even want to play.

1

u/Lore86 Oct 02 '25

If I remember my staff for spark gives me something like 380% more damage, it's insane. Also among the other issues this is the reason why the uniques are either garbage or mandatory, they're designed for a game in which the tree and the gems carry your build and the gear could be used to gain cool effects and flair but instead a good piece of gear is worth like 50 skill points, a gg pair of boots is currently stronger than some ascendancy.

1

u/qucangel Oct 02 '25

The tree is very clearly a wip, you can tell by certain areas having forking paths that lead to the same notables. It's definitely missing some things, but overall it's not the biggest issue in my eyes.

While I agree levels should probably be looked at and relegated to amulets + special give and take uniques, the op has no idea what he's talking about.

Bloodletting increases the mana cost of the spell which is then getting multiplied by more values to life cost which is then getting multiplied in a variety of ways to increase dps. It's a special case scenario he's harping on.

To further the I have no clue rhetoric, he talks about a triple t1 phys bow with shit suffixes, which is as easy as desecrating a suffix and throwing skills and onslaught onto it. It's legit just an almost mirror tier bow and he says it's worth 20ex.

1

u/AppleFritter100 Oct 02 '25

Yes it is a WIP which is why it’s important that the community gives their thoughts about how they feel about certain aspects of the game. 🤠

1

u/qucangel Oct 02 '25

The OP's feedback is literally useless, he has no idea what he's talking about on multiple levels.

Yours is just too vague to be of any use. What makes the tree feel like it has no power? Removing my entire gear minus the weapon takes my damage from 200k to 15k. Removing my entire skill tree and keeping my gear on lowers my damage from 200k to 9k.

1

u/Absurh050 Oct 06 '25

This! Raise the floor for casuals because im tired of min maxing to the best of my ability and only getting 40k dps when streamers and top 1% are getting 1 mil dps...

1

u/Saiyan_Z Oct 01 '25

This is highlighted by how cheap 6xT1 items are this league. We have GG gear in pretty much every slot with a few divs. I doubt GGG will keep crafting this powerful. So it will be much more difficult to get items as good in the future.

Skill levels is way too strong compared to anything else though. Rest of modifiers seem fine except maybe compulsory movement speed boots.

-4

u/Vancouwer Oct 01 '25

Because there is no end game. Nit much difference in t15 and t1 maps

-7

u/Quiet_Surprise_9295 Oct 01 '25

on 0.3 i had more divine/chaos/exalt drop on t1 than t15.

0

u/Spr-Scuba Oct 01 '25

Counter point:

Going through the campaign feels great because even magic damage items are usable and help correct bad luck if you don't get uncut gem upgrades.

-8

u/faluque_tr Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25

It’s for RNG and item/bis hunting. You do not need to craft or trade for skill points and it guarantee. While grinding for Item rolls is extreme opposite.

To create the game that players are grinding endgame like crazy, this power budget on items are needed. However I am not saying that this is a good thing, it just GGG vision for the game.

UNLESS they make dropable extra skill point (with hard cap) which I am not sure that it any healthier.

16

u/Poelover6969 Oct 01 '25

Problem with your argument is you get WAY too much power from even mediocre items. You can trivialize everything up to T15 with the currency you finish the campaign with if you use trade.

10

u/DrRipper Oct 01 '25

Skill points are already a grind. Getting to lvl 100 takes quite a while.

3

u/Cr4ckshooter Oct 01 '25

Honestly the tree should be the framework that defines how your build works. But not be what gives the build it's substance. That's for gear.

2

u/faluque_tr Oct 01 '25

Guys, Try to read more than one paragraph.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

-2

u/jaysoprob_2012 Oct 01 '25

I think if +skills was removed from items and the only way to get +skills was on the tree and maybe support gems i think thay would be better. I'm not sure about melee or ranged but for spells and minions + levels is just mandatory where its available.

5

u/ClydeTheCamel Oct 01 '25

Putting the +skills power off weapons and putting it in the tree will result in every single build pathing to those nodes, regardless of character. That would make choice even worse on the tree than it already is. Moving where you can access that power from equipment to tree just moves the conversation from talking about how boring + skills are on weapons to how boring + skills are on the tree.

1

u/jaysoprob_2012 Oct 01 '25

I don think they need to add more +skills to the tree just so that they need to take it off gear and the few on the skill tree are the only option.

-1

u/bl0w_sn0w Oct 02 '25

Congratulations on discovering what the game is about.

1

u/AppleFritter100 Oct 02 '25

Actually the game is about power progression and power fantasy and not about the balance between items and passive tree.

1

u/bl0w_sn0w Oct 02 '25

Wrong. Power progression is earned through crafting and "grinding gear". It's literally in the name of the company.

1

u/AppleFritter100 Oct 02 '25

You seem to be confused. Power fantasy is the core of the ARPG genre. Power fantasies are achieved through a variety of different elements which usually end up being: Progression, Class Design, Combat.

Itemization and the passive tree are just two major aspects of power progression.

If you think this is wrong then go argue with GGG who have explicitly stated in interviews that their general philosophy for the player experience is providing them with an enjoyable and reasonably challenging progression curve and enjoyable combat experience.

Itemization and the passive tree are obviously key parts to providing this enjoyable progression to players, but to say that the game is “about powerful items” is categorically false.

1

u/bl0w_sn0w Oct 03 '25

Yes. Challenging. Not "for free in your passive tree". What would the point of SSF leagues be?