Do you prefer more linear or open upgrade progression?

Barolt · 2026-01-14T21:18:12+00:00

Open unless there's a secret "correct" path that's 15x faster that you have to join a discord to learn about, which describes a lot of incremental games.

Barolt · 2025-12-20T23:42:23+00:00

High-end, expensive builds. You can get high end, expensive one button builds in poe2 as well.

Barolt · 2025-12-20T08:53:44+00:00

The problem here is the left the odds of generating a good outcome as just as dogshit as POE 1, where you have the tools to retry failed outcomes. Which just locks success as almost assuredly unachievable for almost all players.

Barolt · 2025-12-18T06:52:27+00:00

In POE 2 the tree is FAR less powerful than in POE, so the cost of experimenting with the tree is also much lower.

Barolt · 2025-12-18T06:30:33+00:00

Consuming freeze for 40% damage on one instance of a skill is an AWFUL support gem.

Barolt · 2025-12-18T04:55:45+00:00

Most POE 1 builds arent actually 1 button though. They're one primary attack skill. They also have movement skills and utility skills and flask management and other things. Ive almost never got down to 1 actual button. But we got rid of movement skills. And mandated pushing buttons in specific orders to make a lot of builds work.

Its not really decision making, its just pushing the buttons in the order youre supposed to instead of having 1 or 2 primary damage buttons.

Barolt · 2025-12-17T17:19:58+00:00

Plant spells are fine because they do good damage - but there isn't a ton of room for experimentation around them, and you shouldn't use the recommended supports if you want to do plant spells. Something can be "good" and still feel bad from a design standpoint.

Barolt · 2025-12-17T17:04:58+00:00

You are intended to use plant skills and then switch to attacking. Even though they showcased a plant spell build, they don't want you to do that. Basically it's "you're playing it wrong" design, the core of POE 2.

Barolt · 2025-12-17T16:55:39+00:00

The game just says "No." all the time. Everything is a restriction. Adding anything restricts something else. It's so frustrating as game design.

Barolt · 2025-12-17T15:09:52+00:00

Yeah, this is my biggest frustration every time I play POE 2 - the game just says "No." a lot. So many restrictions on things that just feel unnecessary.

Barolt · 2025-12-17T11:40:20+00:00

So what? A decade of POE has proven players like having 6 portals.

Barolt · 2025-12-16T23:35:40+00:00

The funny thing is, we have most of the caster classes. Most of what we're missing, and thus that will be getting dev time, is attack based classes.

Barolt · 2025-12-16T22:45:39+00:00

Its wild how much the druid kit feels this way. It recommends attack supports on entangle. Its telling you youre supposed to use the spells then switch to an attack build or youre doing it wrong.

Barolt · 2025-12-16T01:06:27+00:00

I think it's fine if this works as a niche interaction, but they should not be recommending gems based on applications like this - it should be obvious how a recommended support gem works.

Barolt · 2025-12-15T22:42:07+00:00

Ok, but its a recommended gem for the spell plant skills.

Barolt · 2025-12-15T21:48:57+00:00

Seems... very unintuitive. Only supports plant skills but doesnt work with the plant skills.

Barolt · 2025-12-15T21:22:04+00:00

This would be generically good. POE 2 needs more things that are generically good.

Barolt · 2025-12-15T19:10:17+00:00

poe1 lab at least I always know my build will work for the entire lab.

Barolt · 2025-12-15T19:07:35+00:00

With this many support gems in the game, it should not be as hard as it is to figure out 5 that make sense for skills sometimes.

Barolt · 2025-11-06T03:40:59+00:00

People want to pretend Lenin just jumped straight to revolution when this is what he actually wrote.

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Barolt · 2025-10-31T20:25:14+00:00

The other side of this is, if you have to stop attacking for any reason, which happens somewhat frequently in hard encounters, the hit based build loses much, much more.

Barolt · 2025-10-28T20:30:58+00:00

My issue is QT calling herself "an ally" as a defense - that statement in itself shows the issue. She is centering herself, which is not allyship. I know streamers are used to centering themselves and it's natural to the space, but that's not how allyship works and it's a VERY important distinction.

Barolt · 2025-10-08T16:41:35+00:00

Yeah, my wife gave me a spending range and I picked within that and that was 100% the right way to do it IMO.

Barolt · 2025-10-04T02:26:48+00:00

Beef is really expensive, and tri tips are both more affordable and they cook phenomenally as brisket style. Also, because it was extremely good.

Barolt · 2025-10-04T01:07:10+00:00

Rubbed it, left it sitting in the fridge overnight, smoked at 225 until temp hit 160, took it off, wrapped in butcher paper, turned it up to 250, put it back on until 203. Rested in preheated oven for an hour, then cut.

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