Using contagion -> curse with DoT support (preferably weakness to chaos) -> essence drain, and you clear in half of the time for that frost skelly cold snap build you shown in the start. Add to it a bit of dark ritual when mobs start falling off or Chaos totem to speed up the chaos and you clear huge mobs in 2 seconds. If you want to use the totem, set it up before the contagion storm you're brewing because you wouldn't really have the time to set it up mid fight, they die too fast for that. And lo and behold, no spirit necessary!
The only problem with your build is that I don't _want_ to play that build and _wanted_ to try and push the minion build(s). That _is_ a solid build, though. Thanks though!
@stickthingvods I didn't say you should play contagion build. What I meant by it is that minion builds aren't necessarily broken. It's more so that melee is too weak compared to all other play styles. Ranged, magic and minion.
I can see my joke didn't land, my bad. I know what you meant, I just wanted to poke fun at how stubborn I was being with the minion build - I actually do like your build (remember, the ONLY problem with it is that I didn't want to play it ;) it's great otherwise), and played with it a bit in a similar form when I was trying out the rest of the spellcaster skills. I'm also glad that other people are seeing that melee really _doesn't_ seem to scale well compared to the others. For a more action-focused take on the genre, that _feels_ like a bad sign that the action-oriented additions aren't working as well as they should since, presumably, the same player skill at a sufficiently high enough level shouldn't feel _worse_ , just _harder_ .
All the ranged enemies seem to do insane damage. In town at the castle there are all those blood caster type mobs that wreck me from range. And the enemies that leave blood pools and poison pools on the ground constantly force me to just backup and wait for them to go away.
Yeah, those blood enemies are brutal. At least there the dodge roll works well, but with how many there are and how tight the spaces can be, it really starts to ramp up the difficulty in that level compared to the earlier ones (the one before it is basically an open corn field!) I'm also not a fan of the ground damage effects. They'd be more interesting if they had a smaller initial damage and ramped up over time or something and had a larger AoE but had a quarter of the duration to force interesting interesting in-combat movement, but as it is they stop me from moving forward for about ~4 seconds after I clear mobs.
@@stickthingvods I am trying merc now and holy shit what a difference. Just got galvanic shards which aoe clear so fast, fragmentation rounds for heavy boss hitting, explosive grenades with the ability that fires off multiple grenades that just chunk bosses down. Warrior feels so shit compared to this!
Getting closer to my Witch now with my Warrior, with Sunder and Perfect Strike, Warrior starts to get to something similar with the added benefit of fairly easy to reach armour nodes (which seem to scale well in the campaign at least given how often things mob and smack you), but yeah, every other class seems to do a heck of a lot better with less total investment out of the gate. Minions in particular are surprisingly solid and scale well, as they did in the first game, but I thought they were trying to make it a much more active reliant playstyle, something I don't feel at the moment. One other thing I did notice is that it seems like most other "class" archetype skills seem to be pretty usable in different scenarios whereas Warrior doesn't just have best-in-slot skill choices but worst-in-slot skill choices, too. Particularly, Rolling Slam did **not** keep up compared to Sunder + Leap Slam in terms of damage and AoE, or even the basic Mace Strike attack in terms of stun buildup efficacy (seriously, the basic Mace Strike is a ton faster and, with enough Stun Buildup, you get enough to pop even bosses quickly). One thing I will note is that the Boneshatter AoE early game combo has been the best so far in terms of overall damage compared to the other class options and actually stays real competitive as you go up through the game, but raw DPS numbers are way less compared to other classes without good stun buildup and building around the heavy stun damage nodes, especially the multiplicative ones, at least as far as I can see (though, apparently, Sunder can multihit bosses, and you can probably build it to really nuke a boss down with an empowered build). Trying out a fire Perfect Strike-based build now, hoping to see how good this thing scales with the Molten whatever move that swings lava balls.
@@stickthingvods Ok my warrior is pretty cracked now too, with 80% armor, a chest piece that recoups 50% health on what my armor blocks. Now I can focus on my 2-hander and just wipe everything out lol
Yea man your thoughts are definitely valid the point of feed back is to help shape the game in a better direction. I find most people's dick riding ggg and going out of there way to have keyboard wars with people who are frustrated with some of the design havent gotten that far into the game to see what people's issues are or arnt messing with all of the aspects of the game.
To be fair, it _does_ take awhile to get to late game - I've only _just_ made it past the canals in Act 3, and only on my Witch, so I've yet to feel more of the skill options available and see how that changes the more action-oriented Warrior gameplay, nor have I experienced the potential bad things that may exist there. Given my _very_ long streams and the realities of life, I doubt most people can dedicate that much time to the game - it _is_ recent, and it _is_ the holidays where work hours tend to be longer and overtime beforehand for a surge of income for most people. We'll get more nuanced feedback in the new year, I imagine.
@@stickthingvods very true one thing that I have experienced and can say with out a doubt is I really do not like is the support gem cap on having copy's for the whole build if they want to have restrictions there I'm OK with it but a full cap is very lame especially since with the mercenary they have shown a way to have more than one I'd personally like to see a diminishing return system instead of a out right cap
Interesting! I kind of enjoyed the cap myself. It was a bit frustrating to know I couldn't pump numbers like crazy, but I think it's more interesting to tailor skills to the strengths I want in a way that fits my playstyle as a whole set of skills instead of just pumping one skill ala PoE1 (though, admittedly, the minion build is _effectively_ this and doesn't really differ much from PoE1, but I think it stands for the Warrior at the least - TBD on the monk and ranger, gonna make those after I get to maps). I _think_ it's the better long-term decision, if only because it emphasizes the use of multiple skills to achieve the same highs as before, though I think right now the pain of little choices per archetype of skill combined with the rarity of level 2 and 3 support gems really makes it feel worse early, mattering less later and later to some degree re: build flexibility and build crafting.
@@stickthingvods definitely when alot more supports come in the cap will be less and less noticeable I'd find it interesting seeing crupt version of the support that you could stack together like the tainted mods in warframe.
I think it is challenging but I don’t think its hard especially Melee early game. I like how playing as a melee makes me strategise differently to ranged classes WHICH I should as I’m a close combat character. As you progress through the acts, you will realise how easy and fun melee actually is.
It _is_ a challenging playstyle, _especially_ compared to a typical ARPG. I'm not saying it's _bad_ - it's actually great! But it never gets easier compared to range (though it gets easier in absolutes cause of power scaling, but that's a separate issue with the game), and you probably feel it's easy because of your experience in similar types of games + probably tailoring the build. For instance, straying away from the slam and travel fantasy and going for more supportive totem action really _does_ nullify a lot of the threat, though it takes away all the fun of melee that you mention: thoughtful, tactical gameplay with some mechanical requirements from a player action perspective. As the mobs start to ramp up the lethality (almost to strange one-shot levels depending on your luck with gear) and durability (seriously, without the insane stun buildup and support gem combos to shred armor and boost DPS with extra sockets, my warrior was hitting like a wet noodle, even with matching level gear), I'm starting to worry about the rest of the game's design _in regards to_ the melee playstyle, and more largely _in relation to_ the more action-oriented playstyle - it's starting to devolve into similar enemy patterns as in PoE1 but with overall less options to match that cadence. To the above, though, the game really _does_ shine during rare mobs / bosses / uniques (I forget which terms the game uses for the yellows + named + map / act bosses), but considering it's 99% going through regular mobs to get to those interesting encounters, I'm sad it feels so sluggish. Also, specifically to the point about strategizing in fights: I'm actually finding that _less_ relevant as it goes on. Near the end of Act 2 with the warrior now, and I'm starting to focus on doing what my Witch has been doing all the way up until the ends of Act 3 as of this writing: kiting while doing tons of damage. Aside from the easily accessible stun mechanic, I'm beginning to _disengage_ with the rest of the game's mechanics sans dodge roll in order to increase my odds of survival. Why do slams when I can totem or cancel full rolling slam to get the same effect without any of the 1-shot risk due to RNG luck with gearing, and admittedly what feels like quite a lot of damage _in general_ coming out of mobs? I can't even begin to imagine how it's gonna be like with maps and their resist shreds at T7? T9? T11? I forget which ones. I'm also starting to not _bother_ with certain mechanics, like my armour breaker skill, a skill that they had to buff indirectly through the armour break duration increase - it ends up not being worth _exploring_ these tactical options that should be tailored to specific situations because it ends up being more worthwhile to just play with a smaller subset of moves that are much safer, and thus guaranteeing more uptime on DPS given how the game handles map-death respawn.
Hello highly skilled player, could you expand on how you feel with the points about the mechanical controls I brought up, particularly the animation cancelling consistency re: mouse position and back movement cancelling, both accidentally and intentionally in order to increase DPS by reducing time spent animation locked? Would you also like to talk about how the item drop variety from a currency perspective was buffed? Or are you here just to add nothing meaningful at all?
Gotcha, I see what you mean. Thanks for clarifying. I agree, though only to an extent - one point to keep in mind is that the game _is_ more complex than PoE1, so someone coming from that game and who would (typically, in my experience, but not always) be heavily into that low physical mechanics (I wish there was a good term for this, but how you control your movements to form your actions in the game), high RPG character building mechanics gameplay will absolutely run into skill issues. I think that's a fine compromise, though, given they've done a great job making it fun moment-to-moment.
i do notice that there is a slight delay and i have to double click to cast some of my monk skills after a dodge role or between casts, I just got used to the double click (pain in the ass but now second nature) act 2 final boss was a huge skill gap hurdle for me in this but once past him its like everything has clicked back into gear and i've steam rolled through every area and only taking 1-3 challenges against other bosses. we do have to remember this is "Early access" and not even 50% of the complete game that will develop over the ext 6-12months so where its at currently is an incredible place for it to be because it seems like a lot of the adjustments that need to be made arent too big or too broken that it needs to be rushed. I dont know why but my brain couldnt wrap its head around POE1 as well and efficiently it has with POE2 (call it ageing haha) you make some great points and im very glad that you are enjoying the game because its not only a great game for Early Access but its also quite a beautiful game with the amount of effort theyve put into the the unique mobs and map designs. GGG deserves all the gold for this one. blow my mind theres still 50% of a game to be released in the future
That's a good point now that you mention it, I do notice something weird causing my actions to delay after taking a roll or doing another slow cast move that can't be cancelled. I would also extend the A2 boss difficulty to that double boss fight, was surprisingly painful for both skill _and_ something else I've noticed that you touched on slightly: a _lot_ of the game feels like it's still built like PoE1, particularly the monsters and the effects that are in the game, but the game that we the players play really does feel like it's _meant_ to be something like "No Rest for the Wicked". For instance, I _still_ don't really get why both evasion and accuracy are a thing in PoE2 given the more action-oriented bend and the ability to infinitely dodge roll, nor do I get why monsters move so _fast_ and why the mob sizes are so large if we're meant to be much more tactical and methodical in how we approach combat. I do agree that it's super early to tell. As you say, it is early access, and they've got the right bones, but I do somewhat worry that they'll take a lot of what PoE1 did and just shove it into this game. Fundamentally, I think they'll have to really go back to the drawing board with how they want the combat encounters to play out and how the monsters should interact with the player if they want it to match the feeling they're aiming for. For instance, I _really_ enjoyed the hyenas in act 2 as the warrior - it made you have to watch for them as they circled around and formed a perimeter, forcing you to dance around the chargers + liches with their little bone minions that run away in order to manage aggro, all while giving the player the space and time to plan out the encounter tactically. I'm _hating_ the beginning and near the end of act 3, even as a minion witch, because it feels like a lot of the mobs are just PoE1 mobs tossed into PoE2. Even the mobs in act 1 in this game were surprisingly interesting with the way they moved around and either surrounded you or repositioned constantly, and the map felt like the right size with the right amount of interesting obstacles on the map to play around with. Contrasted with Act 3 where they all rush at you and dogpile you with a lot of speed and a lot of damage (though, admittedly, a handful of the larger ones do have a telegraphed swing that works well with the dodge, particularly the Vaal spear / blade guards and the giant exploding filth dudes with tree trunks) and I wonder where the thoughtful enemy encounter design went all of a sudden. I'm also worried, based on what I've seen of mapping + beyond act 4, that it'll simply _continue_ being PoE1 by the end - which makes me wonder what the point of splitting the game was, and why we have a dodge roll, and why we have movement while casting, and why we have an action-oriented combat framework, when it'll just devolve into the kind of player speed (and thus monster speed to counter the players) that we've known from PoE1. Again, they got quite a lot of right for the first go, but it does pose a hard question of how will it evolve. edit: also, how do you do fellow old person, I also find PoE1 at the extremes to be a little _too_ fast for me now. My eyes just can't keep up!
I don't think so, no. You know I'm at parity with both characters in end of A3, almost A4 now, right? As in, I beat the bosses and the content on both the melee and witch playstyles and am speaking from experience with a balanced view from both sides? Which you see in this video, where I beat the A1 boss in one shot? I'm not saying this mindlessly, nor am I saying it because I hate the melee playstyle - I actually really enjoy what they're doing, and was hoping for _more_ of it since I always felt ARPGs could be more like "No Rest for the Wicked" than plain old point 'n' click. Can you provide anything more meaningful and interesting to the conversation besides mindless drivel, or is that all _you're_ capable of?
Using contagion -> curse with DoT support (preferably weakness to chaos) -> essence drain, and you clear in half of the time for that frost skelly cold snap build you shown in the start. Add to it a bit of dark ritual when mobs start falling off or Chaos totem to speed up the chaos and you clear huge mobs in 2 seconds.
If you want to use the totem, set it up before the contagion storm you're brewing because you wouldn't really have the time to set it up mid fight, they die too fast for that.
And lo and behold, no spirit necessary!
The only problem with your build is that I don't _want_ to play that build and _wanted_ to try and push the minion build(s). That _is_ a solid build, though.
Thanks though!
@stickthingvods I didn't say you should play contagion build. What I meant by it is that minion builds aren't necessarily broken. It's more so that melee is too weak compared to all other play styles. Ranged, magic and minion.
I can see my joke didn't land, my bad. I know what you meant, I just wanted to poke fun at how stubborn I was being with the minion build - I actually do like your build (remember, the ONLY problem with it is that I didn't want to play it ;) it's great otherwise), and played with it a bit in a similar form when I was trying out the rest of the spellcaster skills.
I'm also glad that other people are seeing that melee really _doesn't_ seem to scale well compared to the others. For a more action-focused take on the genre, that _feels_ like a bad sign that the action-oriented additions aren't working as well as they should since, presumably, the same player skill at a sufficiently high enough level shouldn't feel _worse_ , just _harder_ .
All the ranged enemies seem to do insane damage. In town at the castle there are all those blood caster type mobs that wreck me from range.
And the enemies that leave blood pools and poison pools on the ground constantly force me to just backup and wait for them to go away.
Yeah, those blood enemies are brutal. At least there the dodge roll works well, but with how many there are and how tight the spaces can be, it really starts to ramp up the difficulty in that level compared to the earlier ones (the one before it is basically an open corn field!)
I'm also not a fan of the ground damage effects. They'd be more interesting if they had a smaller initial damage and ramped up over time or something and had a larger AoE but had a quarter of the duration to force interesting interesting in-combat movement, but as it is they stop me from moving forward for about ~4 seconds after I clear mobs.
@@stickthingvods I am trying merc now and holy shit what a difference. Just got galvanic shards which aoe clear so fast, fragmentation rounds for heavy boss hitting, explosive grenades with the ability that fires off multiple grenades that just chunk bosses down.
Warrior feels so shit compared to this!
Getting closer to my Witch now with my Warrior, with Sunder and Perfect Strike, Warrior starts to get to something similar with the added benefit of fairly easy to reach armour nodes (which seem to scale well in the campaign at least given how often things mob and smack you), but yeah, every other class seems to do a heck of a lot better with less total investment out of the gate.
Minions in particular are surprisingly solid and scale well, as they did in the first game, but I thought they were trying to make it a much more active reliant playstyle, something I don't feel at the moment.
One other thing I did notice is that it seems like most other "class" archetype skills seem to be pretty usable in different scenarios whereas Warrior doesn't just have best-in-slot skill choices but worst-in-slot skill choices, too. Particularly, Rolling Slam did **not** keep up compared to Sunder + Leap Slam in terms of damage and AoE, or even the basic Mace Strike attack in terms of stun buildup efficacy (seriously, the basic Mace Strike is a ton faster and, with enough Stun Buildup, you get enough to pop even bosses quickly).
One thing I will note is that the Boneshatter AoE early game combo has been the best so far in terms of overall damage compared to the other class options and actually stays real competitive as you go up through the game, but raw DPS numbers are way less compared to other classes without good stun buildup and building around the heavy stun damage nodes, especially the multiplicative ones, at least as far as I can see (though, apparently, Sunder can multihit bosses, and you can probably build it to really nuke a boss down with an empowered build).
Trying out a fire Perfect Strike-based build now, hoping to see how good this thing scales with the Molten whatever move that swings lava balls.
@@stickthingvods I really want to try Templar, but instead I'm building this warrior to be armor+energy shield, think that's very stupid? :D
@@stickthingvods Ok my warrior is pretty cracked now too, with 80% armor, a chest piece that recoups 50% health on what my armor blocks.
Now I can focus on my 2-hander and just wipe everything out lol
Yea man your thoughts are definitely valid the point of feed back is to help shape the game in a better direction. I find most people's dick riding ggg and going out of there way to have keyboard wars with people who are frustrated with some of the design havent gotten that far into the game to see what people's issues are or arnt messing with all of the aspects of the game.
To be fair, it _does_ take awhile to get to late game - I've only _just_ made it past the canals in Act 3, and only on my Witch, so I've yet to feel more of the skill options available and see how that changes the more action-oriented Warrior gameplay, nor have I experienced the potential bad things that may exist there.
Given my _very_ long streams and the realities of life, I doubt most people can dedicate that much time to the game - it _is_ recent, and it _is_ the holidays where work hours tend to be longer and overtime beforehand for a surge of income for most people.
We'll get more nuanced feedback in the new year, I imagine.
@@stickthingvods very true one thing that I have experienced and can say with out a doubt is I really do not like is the support gem cap on having copy's for the whole build if they want to have restrictions there I'm OK with it but a full cap is very lame especially since with the mercenary they have shown a way to have more than one I'd personally like to see a diminishing return system instead of a out right cap
Interesting! I kind of enjoyed the cap myself. It was a bit frustrating to know I couldn't pump numbers like crazy, but I think it's more interesting to tailor skills to the strengths I want in a way that fits my playstyle as a whole set of skills instead of just pumping one skill ala PoE1 (though, admittedly, the minion build is _effectively_ this and doesn't really differ much from PoE1, but I think it stands for the Warrior at the least - TBD on the monk and ranger, gonna make those after I get to maps).
I _think_ it's the better long-term decision, if only because it emphasizes the use of multiple skills to achieve the same highs as before, though I think right now the pain of little choices per archetype of skill combined with the rarity of level 2 and 3 support gems really makes it feel worse early, mattering less later and later to some degree re: build flexibility and build crafting.
@@stickthingvods definitely when alot more supports come in the cap will be less and less noticeable I'd find it interesting seeing crupt version of the support that you could stack together like the tainted mods in warframe.
I think it is challenging but I don’t think its hard especially Melee early game. I like how playing as a melee makes me strategise differently to ranged classes WHICH I should as I’m a close combat character.
As you progress through the acts, you will realise how easy and fun melee actually is.
It _is_ a challenging playstyle, _especially_ compared to a typical ARPG. I'm not saying it's _bad_ - it's actually great!
But it never gets easier compared to range (though it gets easier in absolutes cause of power scaling, but that's a separate issue with the game), and you probably feel it's easy because of your experience in similar types of games + probably tailoring the build. For instance, straying away from the slam and travel fantasy and going for more supportive totem action really _does_ nullify a lot of the threat, though it takes away all the fun of melee that you mention: thoughtful, tactical gameplay with some mechanical requirements from a player action perspective.
As the mobs start to ramp up the lethality (almost to strange one-shot levels depending on your luck with gear) and durability (seriously, without the insane stun buildup and support gem combos to shred armor and boost DPS with extra sockets, my warrior was hitting like a wet noodle, even with matching level gear), I'm starting to worry about the rest of the game's design _in regards to_ the melee playstyle, and more largely _in relation to_ the more action-oriented playstyle - it's starting to devolve into similar enemy patterns as in PoE1 but with overall less options to match that cadence.
To the above, though, the game really _does_ shine during rare mobs / bosses / uniques (I forget which terms the game uses for the yellows + named + map / act bosses), but considering it's 99% going through regular mobs to get to those interesting encounters, I'm sad it feels so sluggish.
Also, specifically to the point about strategizing in fights: I'm actually finding that _less_ relevant as it goes on. Near the end of Act 2 with the warrior now, and I'm starting to focus on doing what my Witch has been doing all the way up until the ends of Act 3 as of this writing: kiting while doing tons of damage.
Aside from the easily accessible stun mechanic, I'm beginning to _disengage_ with the rest of the game's mechanics sans dodge roll in order to increase my odds of survival. Why do slams when I can totem or cancel full rolling slam to get the same effect without any of the 1-shot risk due to RNG luck with gearing, and admittedly what feels like quite a lot of damage _in general_ coming out of mobs? I can't even begin to imagine how it's gonna be like with maps and their resist shreds at T7? T9? T11? I forget which ones.
I'm also starting to not _bother_ with certain mechanics, like my armour breaker skill, a skill that they had to buff indirectly through the armour break duration increase - it ends up not being worth _exploring_ these tactical options that should be tailored to specific situations because it ends up being more worthwhile to just play with a smaller subset of moves that are much safer, and thus guaranteeing more uptime on DPS given how the game handles map-death respawn.
ONLY issue is a skill issue!
Hello highly skilled player, could you expand on how you feel with the points about the mechanical controls I brought up, particularly the animation cancelling consistency re: mouse position and back movement cancelling, both accidentally and intentionally in order to increase DPS by reducing time spent animation locked?
Would you also like to talk about how the item drop variety from a currency perspective was buffed?
Or are you here just to add nothing meaningful at all?
apologies, the comment was open to players not understanding the mechanics.
not directed at you personally or your game play.
Gotcha, I see what you mean. Thanks for clarifying.
I agree, though only to an extent - one point to keep in mind is that the game _is_ more complex than PoE1, so someone coming from that game and who would (typically, in my experience, but not always) be heavily into that low physical mechanics (I wish there was a good term for this, but how you control your movements to form your actions in the game), high RPG character building mechanics gameplay will absolutely run into skill issues.
I think that's a fine compromise, though, given they've done a great job making it fun moment-to-moment.
i do notice that there is a slight delay and i have to double click to cast some of my monk skills after a dodge role or between casts, I just got used to the double click (pain in the ass but now second nature)
act 2 final boss was a huge skill gap hurdle for me in this but once past him its like everything has clicked back into gear and i've steam rolled through every area and only taking 1-3 challenges against other bosses.
we do have to remember this is "Early access" and not even 50% of the complete game that will develop over the ext 6-12months so where its at currently is an incredible place for it to be because it seems like a lot of the adjustments that need to be made arent too big or too broken that it needs to be rushed.
I dont know why but my brain couldnt wrap its head around POE1 as well and efficiently it has with POE2 (call it ageing haha)
you make some great points and im very glad that you are enjoying the game because its not only a great game for Early Access but its also quite a beautiful game with the amount of effort theyve put into the the unique mobs and map designs.
GGG deserves all the gold for this one.
blow my mind theres still 50% of a game to be released in the future
That's a good point now that you mention it, I do notice something weird causing my actions to delay after taking a roll or doing another slow cast move that can't be cancelled.
I would also extend the A2 boss difficulty to that double boss fight, was surprisingly painful for both skill _and_ something else I've noticed that you touched on slightly: a _lot_ of the game feels like it's still built like PoE1, particularly the monsters and the effects that are in the game, but the game that we the players play really does feel like it's _meant_ to be something like "No Rest for the Wicked". For instance, I _still_ don't really get why both evasion and accuracy are a thing in PoE2 given the more action-oriented bend and the ability to infinitely dodge roll, nor do I get why monsters move so _fast_ and why the mob sizes are so large if we're meant to be much more tactical and methodical in how we approach combat.
I do agree that it's super early to tell. As you say, it is early access, and they've got the right bones, but I do somewhat worry that they'll take a lot of what PoE1 did and just shove it into this game. Fundamentally, I think they'll have to really go back to the drawing board with how they want the combat encounters to play out and how the monsters should interact with the player if they want it to match the feeling they're aiming for.
For instance, I _really_ enjoyed the hyenas in act 2 as the warrior - it made you have to watch for them as they circled around and formed a perimeter, forcing you to dance around the chargers + liches with their little bone minions that run away in order to manage aggro, all while giving the player the space and time to plan out the encounter tactically.
I'm _hating_ the beginning and near the end of act 3, even as a minion witch, because it feels like a lot of the mobs are just PoE1 mobs tossed into PoE2. Even the mobs in act 1 in this game were surprisingly interesting with the way they moved around and either surrounded you or repositioned constantly, and the map felt like the right size with the right amount of interesting obstacles on the map to play around with. Contrasted with Act 3 where they all rush at you and dogpile you with a lot of speed and a lot of damage (though, admittedly, a handful of the larger ones do have a telegraphed swing that works well with the dodge, particularly the Vaal spear / blade guards and the giant exploding filth dudes with tree trunks) and I wonder where the thoughtful enemy encounter design went all of a sudden.
I'm also worried, based on what I've seen of mapping + beyond act 4, that it'll simply _continue_ being PoE1 by the end - which makes me wonder what the point of splitting the game was, and why we have a dodge roll, and why we have movement while casting, and why we have an action-oriented combat framework, when it'll just devolve into the kind of player speed (and thus monster speed to counter the players) that we've known from PoE1.
Again, they got quite a lot of right for the first go, but it does pose a hard question of how will it evolve.
edit: also, how do you do fellow old person, I also find PoE1 at the extremes to be a little _too_ fast for me now. My eyes just can't keep up!
think you are the issue ?
I don't think so, no.
You know I'm at parity with both characters in end of A3, almost A4 now, right? As in, I beat the bosses and the content on both the melee and witch playstyles and am speaking from experience with a balanced view from both sides? Which you see in this video, where I beat the A1 boss in one shot? I'm not saying this mindlessly, nor am I saying it because I hate the melee playstyle - I actually really enjoy what they're doing, and was hoping for _more_ of it since I always felt ARPGs could be more like "No Rest for the Wicked" than plain old point 'n' click.
Can you provide anything more meaningful and interesting to the conversation besides mindless drivel, or is that all _you're_ capable of?