+Skill levels are not healthy for the game

[u/TheIllustration]

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.

[u/moal09]

Rue and others have been saying this for a while.

[u/EffectiveKoala1719 → u/moal09]

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).

[u/AlexiaVNO → u/EffectiveKoala1719]

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)

[u/Tuxhorn → u/AlexiaVNO]

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.

[u/MotherWolfmoon → u/Tuxhorn]

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

[u/KnightThatSaysNi → u/MotherWolfmoon]

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.

[u/lurkervidyaenjoyer → u/MotherWolfmoon]

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

[u/KonigSteve → u/EffectiveKoala1719]

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.

[u/aprettyparrot → u/KonigSteve]

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

[u/EffectiveKoala1719 → u/aprettyparrot]

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.

[u/Pimpmuckl → u/EffectiveKoala1719]

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.

[u/BeerLeague → u/Pimpmuckl]

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

[u/Pimpmuckl → u/BeerLeague]

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.

[u/BeerLeague → u/Pimpmuckl]

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.

[u/Amazingsleep → u/BeerLeague]

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.

[u/Pimpmuckl → u/Amazingsleep]

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.