{
"post": {
"title": "Path of Exile 2 - Ascendancy Classes in Early Access",
"selftext": "",
"url": "https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1h68801"
},
"comments": [
{
"body": "I don't know enough about poe that looking at this tells me much in terms of builds and potential.\n\nI'm gonna go Chronomancer and build the hourglass shape. LOGIN",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Think of it in terms of what sounds interesting to you. Don't get caught up in the min max meta delusions. Once something gets declared strong, even without comprehensive testing, a large percent of the population will just assume everything else is inferior and complain that they HAVE to play x. \n\nEverything will be viable. Use your creativity and have fun. Failure is how you evolve your build making prowess. I took too much dmg there. Ok by this point I need more resist or health etc.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Common sense 😍\nThankyou for this i cannot stand meta"
},
{
"body": "Yeah I mean we are all gonna have scuffed builds. I can't wait",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "True. People get to caught in what is meta. Even in PoE pretty much any skill is viable to play. Some scale differently and take more investment to take off. But streamers and the players that follow them just want whatever is going to be the fastest, tankiest, most damaging, etc\n\nI'm always of the mind that you should just find something you enjoy and figure out how to make it work."
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I was thinking of a chrono build where you get the conditional more cast speed, then set up the mobs/boss in the downtime and as soon as you get the buff, use comet linked with hourglass support and second wind/spell echo and then use time snap and repeat, and if you get a free CD another comet.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "The problem is, how good will the build feel when everything is on CD for a long period of time?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Exactly, running simulator"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I'm saving Chronomancer for when we get mines. Stopping time and then the monsters seeing a stack of explosives appear from nowhere at their feet will be hilarious."
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Damn, Elemental monk looking good. Extra spirit and damage resistance from evasion? That's huge",
"replies": [
{
"body": "don't forget that crit ignores elemental resistances, and sends out a shock wave.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'm thinking that new meta for a lot of damage would be stacking as many \"gain damage as extra\" as you can get, because while we lost conversion it's still %more damage. I was going to do a Gemling, but now I want to try elemental monk with both \"Gain as extra damage\" nodes (if it possible, of course) + full spirit branch",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Try it all",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Definitely, just not the first character. Want to try melee Gemling with full str for a lot of hp but need to get a feeling of the game before trying experimenting with non- traditional things",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Thats a good idea."
},
{}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Nah it's not % more damage, but it is another multiplier vector."
},
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Invoker being squish was my biggest worry, but thats a shit ton of physical dmg reduction. Evasion + Armor was always insanely strong and you get that from this one node. Now you just need to figure out some nice ele damage resist and youre good.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Elemental monk. LOG IN. Also 100 videos \"What ascendancy is the best\" incoming. Guys, just pick what you thematically like and enjoy. There will be time for an overoptimizaion.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "This guy gets it. Imagine just looking at the choices and deciding what sounds good to you, vs having to listen to Mr. Streamer Man tell me what to play",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "But I like too many things!\nMonk Invoker, Sorc Chronomancer, Sorc Storm, Merc Witch Hunter, Merc Gemling, Ranger Deadeye, they all look great to play. ",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'm going to roll a dice and let RNGesus decide my fate this first playthrough"
},
{
"body": "Sounds like you’ve got a lot of characters to play then"
},
{
"body": "I'm seeing a disturbing lack of smashy boys.",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Sanguinancy idgaf if it’s good there is not enough blood magic in games and it’s always so cool (I’m looking at you dragon age origins)",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That's exactly why I'm playing it too! I loved blood magic in Dragon Age!",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Time you say? Chronomancer it is then!"
},
{
"body": "Everything looks fun to me, how do I decide???",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Rather than a \"what is best\" just and explanation of how ascendancies work with skills and potential outcomes would be nice as a newer player.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I'm in for invoker!\n\nWas thinking chonk on announce, but now I'm excited to spam trigger effects left right and centre!"
},
{
"body": "I am autistic and my thematic preference is big numbers"
},
{
"body": "I already know, love at first sight of Bloodmage 😄"
},
{
"body": "Rule of cool as they say. Also gonna go invoker but I will be experimenting with a daze + stun build and max phys damage basically ignoring all the elemental stuff for the invoker (taking nodes: 1,2,3 and 7). I think it's gonna be shit but I'm hoping it'll work. I'm guessing monk will get a physical based ascendancy as its third one."
},
{
"body": "Invoker Monk and Titan Warrior for me. Can't wait to cast on freeze stuff and lay down some YUUUGE SLAMZ"
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "So Stormweaver is absolutely the Archmage ascendancy. Better Shocks and scaling Arcane Surge effect with max mana. I like it.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I can see gemling legionnaire as archmage. Double bonus from int. Gaining a lot of mana from your int. And than get spell damage from int.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Yeah but you start on the wrong side of tree. Most spell and mana nodes will be in upper and upper left corner of passive tree. Correct me if im wrong. If you go archmage i think you also want to go with mind over matter, and traveling from bottom tree to upper part just because of double stats bonus won't pay off",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "So, for the Titan behind the free rucksack notable, they're giving him a 50% increased effect of Small Passive skills? Isn't this potentially insane? I need somebody smarter than me and who has looked through the currently revealed passive skill tree to tell me.\n\nEdit: Yea, thinking about it I can see why they locked this behind the quality-of-life node, cause you can possibly get a lot of value out of this, damn.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "[Called it](https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1gye2s4/rutsack_titan_accendancy_node_in_poe_2/lypppec/) when we first got to see the rucksack. They wanted to make something so good, that it basically needed to be a 4 cost ascendency, so they put some candy in the middle so people wouldn't feel robbed.\n\nFeeling good about my game design instincts right now.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "LISAN AL-GAIB!"
},
{
"body": "I remember reading that post. Good call."
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Yeah it's insane. It'll also help a lot in getting the Strength for Giant's Blood dual wielding",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Do we know if the attribute travel nodes count as \"Small Passive Skills\"? That would be interesting for attribute stacking.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "They do in PoE1",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I would assume so. They count as \"passive skills\" by things like timeless jewels and light of meaning. Could be changed for PoE2 though, so I guess we'll have to see."
},
{
"body": "They do in poe1 (might of the meek boosts them afaik), so I'd imagine so."
},
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "It's pretty strong, but balanced by the fact that it's essentially a 4 point investment.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "dont forget now that jewels have the effect on putting more effects on small passives. Just something like 2% more curse effect will be 3%. I dont know if there is other broken affixes on jewels.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "This guy gets it",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Hey! Love your videos about different interaction:D keep em comming"
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Sounds really, really strong."
},
{
"body": "You'd probably need a very specific build (str stacker comes to mind) for 50% small passives to ourweigh 2 other full ascendancy notables.\n\nIt's interesting for sure but there's a reason it's locked behind rucksack which gives 0 player power.\n\nWithout PoB this choice will be even harder to test...",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Totally disagree tbh, you neither need PoB to see this is totally busted nor does this need any specific build, because there is probably no other ascendency node which is more generic good than this. Imagine at least half if your passive skill points get affected by the 50% increase, which would mean you get like additional 30 small passive skill points of power. Compare this to the Ranger node which grants 5 additional skill points….\n\nI would say even 15% is really really strong.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "> Compare this to the Ranger node which grants 5 additional skill points….\n\nTrue, but the 5 additional skill points node has its own benefits, reaching actual notables while also only costing you 2 ascendancy points rather than 4. There's a reason 1-passive voices are so expensive when it only saves you on 1 passive point.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I mean, I think it'll be absurdly strong just in general.\n\n \nJust did a count of a random Boneshatter build guide from POE1 at early end game, and you have 79 small passive skill points allocated.\n\n \nThat's essentially 40 skill points.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "> That's essentially 40 skill points.\n\nNot exactly, since skill points can be put in notables or keystones.\n\nBut... I don't say that to dismiss the power of 50% increased effect of small passive. It feels absurdly strong. I'm not sure it'll survive early access with this value.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "More accurate would be to calculate how much power a level 100 gets from their small passives vs everything else. If it's 50/50, the ascendancy node is essentially worth (112\\*0.5\\*0.5=) 28 passives. Even if only 20% of your power comes from small passives, it's still (112\\*0.2\\*0.5=) 11.2 passives. Pathfinder has a 2 cost node that gives 5 passives, so even then it's a strong node."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "It's basically a \"I win more\" ascendancy, for if you don't need any special gimmicks. It will also make the 1-handing a 2-handed weapon easier to do. Personally, I'm going to use it and the extra attributes it gives to be a bit more flexible with my weapon swap, going for both a bow and hammer on a stun build.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "There are SO many cases in which that node gets busted. Paired with the new \"meek-mimic\" jewels, we'll see all sorts of interesting breakpoints that can be hit in various places. \n\nHonestly, even just 30 pathing Str nodes would give you an extra 120 life from this. \n\nI'm so mentally committed to starting Archmage, but I'm almost certainly going to hard pivot into the Titan at the creation screen so I can abuse the combination of Hulking Form and Surprising Strength as a grenadier. There's so much screen coverage we can get with grenades, and we can use them to easily stun bosses. The combination of punishing Heavy Stun plus oodles of utility and flexibility from +50% small passive effect is wild. Paired with the weapon-swap passive shenanigans that we can get up to, I think Titan is probably the biggest sleeper of the launch. Almost every ascendancy we've seen has very obvious ways to break them, but Titan, Witch Hunter with the 20 extra swappables, and possibly the Gemling are going to require some really intense theorycrafting to really shine. I think these three, especially, really epitomize what makes PoE special, and is really a cornerstone of excellent ARPG design: Have very clearly defined rules, then give players tools to break them."
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "light sorc in the house!",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Seems like the double shock/ all hits nodes + arcane nodes with some mana stacking make lightning go brrrrrrrrppttt",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Sorc looks pretty strong."
},
{
"body": "Enki's arc sorc when?"
}
]
},
{
"body": "how many points do we get ?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "8",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "8. Just like PoE1",
"replies": [
{
"body": "[I love reddit formatting.](https://i.imgur.com/KBzQCKs.png)"
},
{
"body": "> 1. Just like PoE1\n\nDamn, PoE1 be different that I last remember from a week ago"
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Premium question in a world where new players overlap old players by far"
}
]
},
{
"body": "Two-Handed Boneshatter giants blood str stacking"
},
{
"body": "Warbringer is looking interesting for totems. Wooden Wall is obviously great, but I am still skeptical about the spirits. Do minions now scale with normal damage increases or do you still need “minion” damage? Either way though, the armor break nodes sound great for melee totems, and all the other nodes are good general options.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Corrupting Cry without cooldown too",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I think Str/Int Totem Warbringer will be an interesting choice, grabbing spirit buffs... a new take on PoE1 Chiefian and possibly Hierophant Templar",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That’s what I’m trying first too. It will be interesting to see what kind of skills work well for totems. Will we have one for packs and one for single target? Or multiple kinds that work with each other? Being able to still deal damage ourselves will be a new twist too",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I am very curious about the spirits but in the teaser the AI seemed to be a bit off. \n\nI wonder if Spiritual Aid(increases to minion damage increase your damage) is in poe2 because that would make dual investing damage less painful.\n\nI wonder about the armor break nodes because it depends on how much armor the enemies have yeah?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "> I wonder if Spiritual Aid(increases to minion damage increase your damage) is in poe2\n\nMy bet is that it will be attached to one of the STR/INT Ascendancies.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Yeah it was said in an interview that they rushed the video out the night before, and would of really liked a better shot of the spirits... instead of it just running into a wall"
}
]
},
{
"body": ">Do minions now scale with normal damage increases or do you still need “minion” damage?\n\nI thought I heard a line in one of the previews about needing minion damage still. But I could be wrong.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I am fairly certain we have seen minion damage as prefix on a wand recently. And there are some minion dmg clusters top left of the tree as well. So high chance it is a normal minion stat thing."
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I thougt seeing all the ascendencies would help me decide on my starting class, but it actually made it harder. So many potential interesting build ideas",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "wow monk ascendencies are looking good! Even meditate, which I initially thought was DoA, is interesting now that I see what it actually does",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I don't understand what looks good for meditate? Like I don't want to spend 2 second channeling after everytime I get hit. Is there something I don't understand?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "The only use I can really see is between packs in juiced maps, or when there's downtime for bosses. Keep in mind it can be supported by support gems which makes it better. Not sure if it's worth 2 ascendancy points though.\n\nES recharge is much slower and takes longer (8 seconds by default now) in PoE2 so I can see it being useful just to have a big eHP pool before getting to new packs.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Like if it was a random skill MAYBE I would use it. It costing 2 ascendancy point is what makes me question if I'm not missing something. Maybe some spell or legendary scaling with the ES?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Honestly I can see it, with us only having one portal now, getting DOUBLE your ES on pinnacle boss fights can potentially save you from one-shots, depends how quickly you can channel it, using it during big telegraphed attacks or immunity phases to get back up *can* be good, it's difficult to say, I think it's weak on the surface but I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually good.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Can't you slap some \"cast while channeling\" spells on it, so you basically get to do damage while regaining your ES.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "You should be able to, since CWC isn't a support anymore but an aura that reserves spirit and triggers on any channel.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That's a really interesting change with the trigger gems. Makes me wonder if you could make a build around this skill actually. Tho the channeling might be too short for a main damage skill, but something i'm gonna test.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Shouldn't be too short, as far as I can tell from the tooltip it should generate energy based on channel time, not breakpoints like current CWC. It says 60 energy per second of channeling, and that triggered spells give it a maximum energy of 100x the base cast time, triggering when they reach max (so for a spell like Spark, it gets 70 max energy, meaning 1.167 sec of channeling will trigger it).\n\nMy understanding is that if a skill has 0.5 sec channel time, it'll generate 30 energy, not 0 (like current), and as long as you keep casting it it'll keep generating.\n\nProblem with it being a main damage skill would be more that it itself does no damage, so while your CWC can do damage, you'd be missing out on the damage a skill like Flameblast could be doing instead.\n\nMaybe if Energy Blade (and Battlemage) was a thing?",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "> depends how quickly you can channel it\n\nit says it recharges your ES, so if you're going for a recharge based build anyways then the recharge rate nodes you grab will speed it up"
},
{}
]
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Meditate will allow you to overflow ES, and thus tank boss hits that would normally kill you.\n\nAlso regaining ES is much harder and slower in PoE 2, with especially recharge significantly lowered compared to PoE 1. On demand recharge is super good, especially when you can't leech because of invulnerability phases, or when you are slowly dying to a DoT.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Does not work against DoT because damage cancels it. I'm wondering if there is a cooldown after being cancelled or if you can just restart it after a hit.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "BEHOLD THE COCKWEAVER\n\nhttps://preview.redd.it/377ph79ztr4e1.png?width=793&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfd2b0d966867dcc0e43240351210ee5d1204e10",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Mine hangs to the right…",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That is to the right from their perspective."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Wait till Asmongold finds out we have transgender in this game 😁 cockweaver",
"replies": [
{
"body": "AND trans gems in poe1. Asmons stream chat in shambles, 6 months of content and 900 videos incoming"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "omg invoker has the equivalent of Inevitable Judgement...",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Kinda like Inevitable Judgement 2.0, because it doesn't fuck you over, if resistances are already negative.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Unless you we're playing in a party, you'd never invest in lowering monster resistances anyway if you picked that node, so I don't think it makes any considerable difference.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Even besides party play (which seems a lot more viable in PoE2) I think this at least opens up some options that weren't even worth considering previously. Can't say what it will be in PoE2 because we don't know all passives, uniques, item mods, but just one example in poe1 terms of the top of my head:\nEE or \"treat resistances as inverted\" on builds with multiple elements. \n\nIt's not a huge change, but it's definitely an improvement and I'm sure we'll see use cases for it eventually.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Yeah, I think it's specifically made that way to encourage party play :)"
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Really wish cooldowns were shown on the skills.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "The leak posts show CDs on the skills.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Can you pls link it? Can't find it, did it get deleted?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "[https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile2builds/comments/1h62e6f/all\\_ascendancies/](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile2builds/comments/1h62e6f/all_ascendancies/)"
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I'm guessing they didn't include them because those kinds of numbers change a lot on the days leading up to launch. I wouldn't be surprised if the leaked images are like 20% stronger than what we see."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Based devs"
},
{
"body": "i think 50% increase effect for small pasive its so strong",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Dark Kermit in my corner telling me to go STR stack on my first ever poe2 experience lmao"
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "On the Infernalist’s tree , does the damage taken on full infernal bar count as a “hit” ?",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Elemental monk was already my choice but damn... I'm going for a crit build.. ignoring resistances and sending out shock waves just seems like a total map stomper, no?",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": ">Targets can be affected by two of your Chills at the same time\n\n>Your Chills can reduce Action Speed by up to a maximum of 35%\n\nDoes this mean that the sum of the two chills is 35% less action speed, or that each chill can grant 35% less action speed, for ~58% total less action speed?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "my guess: it just makes achieving a higher chill value easier. lets say youre doing constant, flat damage which chills a boss for 15% reduced action speed. that would be it normally, you'd never chill for more than 15%. but if you take this notable you could chill 2 times so you would achieve 30% reduced action speed"
},
{
"body": "My assumption is that chills could be 35% individually, but the sum is still capped to 35%.\n\nAlso, I don't know if it has changed, but in PoE1 chill grants *reduced* action speed, not less."
},
{
"body": "I assume the latter. Otherwise it's pretty weak",
"replies": [
{
"body": "definetly the first, in poe1 even 20% chill is massive against any boss, 35% total from both chills will be extremely good in poe2"
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "So does chalumpa monk work the way I think it does? The purple flames seem to give 7 as extra chaos damage, stacking 10 times. So 140% as extra chaos if you take both nodes and crucially IF you can maintain max stacks. Will depend a lot on the proc rate of the purple flames. But that looks gigga broke.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Idk gameplay wise if you have to run to flame and on a bad proc losing 140% damage it feels very bad. definitely not for me, I'd rather go mana leech into full darkness if I chose this.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Darkness seems so meh. At best it's 30% extra damage as chaos and 600 bonus life for investing 4 ascendancy points (at level 100), or 1200 life for an extra 2 points bringing you to 6 out of your 8, and if you actually are taking any of that damage then you lose your damage buff\n\nAnd on top of that you, you can't use auras or trigger gems because you have no spirit. If spirit gems can reserve darkness then I guess it's a bigger spirit pool?",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I'd personally go Embrace the Darkness, Grasp of the Void, Waking Dream and Ravenous Doubts.\n\nI'm hoping you can support Into the Breach with inc duration so you can get a bit more uptime without having to sacrifice two more ascendancy points"
},
{
"body": "Darkness seems like strictly downside no upside unless there exists some way to use darkness in place of spirit for reservation. You get hit by literally anything and you lose half of your ascendancy for 10 seconds. And the 50% reduced reservation time is SO bad. At best it reads \"Recover 600 Life every 5 seconds\". IMO it'd be bad even at 90% reduced reservation duration. \n\nEven if you could reserve darkness instead of spirit, losing it 1:1 when taking damage makes it pretty questionable IMO. 600 damage is like a rat's fart.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Yeah seems that way. It looks annoying to maintain though, and the rest of the ascendancy is very questionable.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "The wording on purple flames is kinda odd: \"granting 7% of damage as Chaos damage for 5 seconds and stacks up to 10 times\". Does \"Granting 7% of damage as Chaos damage\" mean \"gaining 7% of damage as Extra Chaos damage\"?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Yeah that confuses me also"
}
]
},
{
"body": "> IF you can maintain max stacks.\n\nUnlike say, Tailwind, it does not say that the buff refreshes stacks. So it seems unlikely that you'll be near 10 stacks outside of possibly some unique item shenanigans."
},
{
"body": "5 sec uptime though will feel quite bad if you just get a little unlucky, from the gameplay we saw, it didn't seem like flames will spawn super fast aswell. \nwhile it stacks up to 10, if it stays like in the presentation i wouldn't expect to get more than 2 stacks basically ever.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Double that 5 sec to 10 with the node and possibly longer if its supportable by more duration support",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "As a noob to PoE how do these trees work? You get a limited amount of points? Do you have to start at a certain point?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "You always start at the small diamond symbol (see at the very top for the Bloodmage).\n\nYou get 8 points, 2 for each time you complete a trial (presumably getting harder each time).\n\nApart from the big nodes listed here you can also see small nodes connecting them. \nThese give raw stat bonuses, like 8% increased life or 10% increased damage, or 2% Mana leech; just stats that complement the theme of the ascendancy class.\n\nSo with these in mind, your 8 points will result in you getting 4 of the major nodes (the ones listed here). They need to be connected to the start, so if you play a Bloodmage and want Sunder the Flesh (6), you need Sanguimancy (1) and Gore Spike (5) first.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That’s amazing, thanks. Lots of variety but pretty easy to understand! I wasn’t going to do any build planning on my plaything but think I’ll take a look through these then and see which i like the most. \n\nMy only other question would be, are these completely build defining and you should ideally pick before you build?\n\nAppreciate the help!",
"replies": [
{
"body": "It depends, some ascendencies like the gemling should be good with pretty much anything, some like infernalist or chayula clearly want you to play a specific type of skills (fire or chaos).\n\n \nBut as always in PoE, there will be ways to make something completely different with the right uniques (like an item that transforms all elemental damage to chaos would then turn an elemental ascendancy into a chaos one, so you could play elemental skills to actually play a chaos build). That's what fun, take something counter intuitive into a viable build!",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Thanks man, thats what I wanted to hear! Sounds really flexible. I’m mostly going in blind and creating my own spec, but think its worth reading some of these to give me a little direction. I’m fairly happy ‘ruining’ a character or starting again.",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
},
{}
]
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Not as much minion nodes as I would've hoped, but I wanna see what skills and supports there are for minions now before taking a hard stance.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Looks like Infernalist with the life reservation for spirit and mana (mom) and the hellhound could work, it reserves 50% of your life, but would allow you to focus stacking hp for a lot of spirit. 250 extra spirit at 6k hp (unsure how attainable getting 6k hp will be on a class), and 1000 increased mana which with increases on tree could go quite high up to offset the life reservation (if we can get % increased mana on the passive tree). Could just be me, but spirit seems to be a more multiplier for me when it comes to minions as it can grant +1 / +2 / +3 extra minions which is kind of a more multiplier.\n\nSay even if it was reduced, 3k hp - 125 extra spirit, 500 flat increase to mana. It would still likely be a chunky bonus.\n\nDue to taking Phys as Chaos, I doubt taking the es increase will be too smart, but I could be mistaken.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I think they wanted minions to be ascendancy agnostic"
},
{
"body": "Not 100% sure i'm understanding you, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the witch's minion abilities for example are more in her default kit than her ascendancies, though I could see a more minion-focused build perhaps being her third ascendancy. Are any of the other early access classes really meant as minion classes anyway?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I think they specifically said they don't want minion-focused ascendancies and want all ascendancies to be somewhat viable for it, they don't want to pigeonhole them like in PoE1.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "The problem with that argument is that summoner is an entire playstyle, a peer of spellcaster or melee. Other playstyles are explicitly supported by different ascendancies, but minions are expected to just make do with incidental buffs. It's as though Deadeye was the only option that supported ranged attacks, so it was removed \"to allow more variety of builds.\" \n\nThe logical conclusion of that rationale is that every ascendancy should remove all of its archetype-specific buffs; no slam support, no spellcasting support, no ailment support. Only subtle, generic buffs for all ascendancies, so you have maximal options. That would make ascendancies incredibly boring though, so obviously they're not going to do that. Only minions get left out in the cold, with no support beyond the gems themselves. \n\nMaybe this will change with later ascendancies, but I'm not hopeful considering they've specifically said they intended it to be the way it currently is.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "A big issue is that people are misremembering or forgetting crucial details about what GGG said about minion ascendancies. They said that they wanted there to be no one single ascendency for minions but also said this created a design issue where they would need to give a \"variety\" for ascendancies reasons to pick for a minion build. But then Jonathan stated \"there just was a shelving of like we're having trouble solving this problem we'll just go with these two for now.\"\n\nTo me it sounds like they were at first designing around the idea of a necromancer ascendency (Blood Made and Infernalist both not being designed much for minion support) but ended up canning it when they decided on this new approach. But then they weren't able to get this new approach working in time for EA so now minions are suffering for ascendency support.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "The ironic thing about that is that Necromancer got nerfed so hard I started going Elementalist for the Golem stuff on my zoo summoners."
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "There's no such thing as a \"default kit\" in PoE2 - any class can play any skills",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": ">it seems like the witch's minion abilities for example are more in her default kit\n\nSo... minion skills and supports...?"
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Hulking Form is real?! That is insane.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Did they change Legionnaire max res per 3 to 4? :(",
"replies": [
{
"body": "And 10% quality instead of 12",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I expect significantly more balance changes over the entirety of Early Access",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Oh yeah, absolutely"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Also titans 20% more life was changed to 15"
},
{
"body": "still strong, you get baseline 9 skills with 5 supports each. \nlegionnaire gets 3 additional skills + you can get additional skills from weapons or uniques. \nyou could easily get 15 skills with a combined 75 support gems for a combined 18% max res, distributed based on the color of the supports. \ncombine that with +1 level and +10% quality on everything ... should be quite tanky and a decent dmg boost aswell",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Might get changed from 3 to 5 or 3 to 1 before EA is up. Don’t get attached to anything."
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Pathfinder looks really cohesive, 5A > 3 > 4 > 1 seems solid. My build hipster spider sense tells me pathfinder won't be a popular choice, though deadeye might be. I wonder if concotions will trigger on flask use abilities?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Most people will look at Pathfinder for the concotion, and a poison build is very much there for that, however I'm here for anti slow+movement while using skill\n\nthe Concoction IS a skill, it will become your main ability, much like how it worked in PoE1... where you didn't even need a main weapon, you just ran around throwing flasks as ground AOEs... and it was pretty good",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I think you might want to combine poison with something that explodes it. So like have an aoe poison bow skill with explosive concoction maybe, or poison conc with an explosive skill on weapon. I mean in general poe2 seems to be pushing people into comboing stuff to get the most out of them.",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I think lots of noobs are going to brick their build with Sanguimancy",
"replies": [
{
"body": "yeah you really gotta make sure your life sustain is online BEFORE you ascend, especially against single target since good crit usually isn't online until later"
},
{
"body": "Noobs will brick their builds with Infernal Flame. If Sanguimancy is a problem, a noob can cut a cheaper skill."
},
{
"body": "> I think lots of noobs are going to brick their build with Sanguimancy\n\nI have no idea how leveling works in POE but can't you amass first enough points for your Ascendancy before you spend them so you make sure you grab that 10% Leech?",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I gotta say, all of these look really fun. I wasn't super convinced by the trailer but seeing every node, theres a lot of variety."
},
{
"body": "am wondering if the Contagious Contamination from Pathfinder stacks with the spread from herald of plague. Seems like that notable is just a weaker version of \"gain 30 spirit and a skill slot\""
},
{
"body": "Before this my top 3 choices were Slam Titan, Archmage Stormweaver and Poison PF. Having read all of these now, i think Archmage is calling to me. Arcane Surge scaling with mana is so nice. I'll probably get double shock and either better exposure or recouping ele damage as ES in addition to the Arcane Surge nodes.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I think archmage gemling is a nice one. Makes mana from int much better. But we don't know yet. 🤔"
}
]
},
{
"body": "Interesting that Elemental Expression does Lightning with Dex and Cold with Int, when it's usually the other way around.\n\nAlso, you can socket Ascendancy-granted abilities, right? With no repeats allowed, I wonder whether a Chronomancer that takes all the spell options would straight up run out of support gem options.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "> Interesting that Elemental Expression does Lightning with Dex and Cold with Int, when it's usually the other way around.\n\nThey changed it for the gems as well."
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "When all trials are completed how many ascendancy points will we have? 8 total?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Yes 6 in campaign two more in endgame.",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "After seeing this, I think I'll try something other than Minion Witch afterall. Sorceress it is I guess.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Seems to me like they don't want people playing pure minion builds"
},
{
"body": "Summoner looks super fun since you can experiment with Spectres a ton and never be bored, but in the end i think i just want to test something melee first.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I thought Encased in Jade was press for as long as you wanted instead of for a set duration. The way I heard it in interviews sounded like that.\n\nMaybe they were still balancing it, but oh well.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I think you can press to break your encasement. So, if you have a lot of stacks u can just sit in stasis for a long time. Perhaps if you have strong ancestral spirits you can set your totems then hang out in jade form until they clean it all up.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "As in, I thought it was press for however many seconds you want and release key if you want to stop being in Jade form (provided you have resources).\n\nLike a raise/lower shield thing instead of an Immortal Call type of consume all endurance charge for X duration.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "i would assume it still works that way, there just is also a max duration you can hold it for"
},
{}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "I'll play Blood Mage until Assassin is released and I can finally play traps/mines.\n\nThat or Ember Fusillade Stormweaver"
},
{
"body": "I wonder how prevalent enemies are that cause slow. If its not that many then Pathfinders slow immunity seems like a very average skill.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Depending on the definition of 'slow' chill could be a slow so that would be very prevalent. Would need a hover on the 'Slow' tooltip to know. May also invalidate enemy temp chains too."
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Avatar Monk looks so good tbh. Lightning Monk I'm comin"
},
{
"body": "Chayula monk! Sounds fun to me."
},
{
"body": "Witch Hunter looks so good",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "My brain always tells me to try and pick an ascendancy and pair it with a weapon that you would not associate with that class / ascendancy.\n\nFor now my brain tells me sorc(storm weaver) + bow, because staff would be too simple",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Gore Spike nerfed by 50% from 20 to 40.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "we are eating goooddd"
},
{
"body": "The chronomancer might be the 2nd class I play after Merc. She sounds strong af",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "So what's the best path for a \"top down shooter experience\"?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Witchhunter, I'd say\n\nPitiless Killer\n\nJudge, Jury, Executioner\n\nZealous Inquisition.\n\nYou basically treat white mobs as if they have 60% less HP from Culling Strike and Decimating Strike and also they explode when you kill them.\n\nAfter that, whatever looks good, Sorcery Ward seems like a good way to mitigate ranged spell damage.\n\nCrossbows are basically guns, you start with a shotgun skill and later get an assault rifle, sniper rifle, grenades, etc.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Nah I'd say Deadeye or Pathfinder depending on the 'gun fanasty'\n\nWitch hunter has ZERO incentive to use a bow or crossbow, outside of starting in Merc, and I'd suggest Gemling before Witchhunter\n\nDeadeye is better for Sniper or Shotgun gameplay (Far Shot for Sniper, Point Blank for Shotgun) \nPathfinder is better for Run and Gun Gameplay (Anti Slow, Movement Speed while shooting)\n\nThere is no ascension that effects grenades, so if that's an interest it appears you'll jsut have to make your way over to the Merc side of the tree, which doesn't seem difficult\n\nI also see Warcaller being an interesting choice for an Armor Piercing+Totem concept",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "is it me or is grasping wounds just insane?",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "I usually love the idea or warriors in these games, but I hate the notion of totems. Are warriors more or less forced to use totems? Asking out of sheer ignorance",
"replies": [
{
"body": "No... Titan is Slams/Stuns \nYou can make a Warcaller that has nothing to do with Totems\n\nbut in the EA at this current time, Warcaller is the 'totem' ascension\n\nfeel free to be different, Warcaller is also Block/Armor Break/War Cry, so feel free to do something with that instead"
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "They already nerfed warbringer. Damn! Turtle charm without penalty and block chance at base 50 was so good and obvious."
},
{
"body": "As I am new to all of this, what’s the one with the most dots. I love dots. More dots.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Pathfinder. The concoction skills can each be made into DoT tools, and there's explicit poison synergy."
}
]
},
{
"body": "I think I moistured myself a little"
},
{
"body": "witchhunter 70% of the playerbase lol"
},
{
"body": "Does. Gemling reduced cost apply to spirit costs? If so, holy crap the minion army is real",
"replies": [
{
"body": "No. Costs and reservations are separate things.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Minion army already sounds like a massive thing, with the Infernalist (Beidat's Will. +1 Spirit per 25 Max Life).\n\nJust gotta stack that life.",
"replies": [
{}
]
},
{}
]
},
{
"body": "Awesome"
},
{
"body": "good shit lets read!"
},
{
"body": "I really just want to be a 2H melee that isn’t a STR stacking warrior…thinking a melee blood mage or a melee witch hunter??? Or maybe there’s some other str/int build with stormweaver? Idk I’m new to POE - just excited to make up a weird build and experience the game",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Melee Witchhunter looks fun as a Slayer meets Magekiller concept\n\nshame we don't have Huntress or I'd suggest spears or quarter staff"
},
{}
]
},
{}
]
}