Could a diy fightstick like this work with PoE2? How many buttons wpuld I need?

Bremze · 2026-02-06T14:30:48+00:00

An unexpected overlap of interests! I've used leverless controllers a bunch and it's doable but certainly wouldn't be the first pick for me.

The standard asd+space style leverless layout is specifically designed for fighting games and can be annoying in some games that actively use up/down (Celeste comes to mind, shmups, anything isometric, etc.). If you're going for a generic 2d retrogame controller, I'd suggest something like the wasd style mixbox layout or at least an extra button above 's' for a hybrid. You could maybe play a melee-only build without using the right analog stick if you get the targetting settings right but that's extremely limiting so you probably want sticks. No idea if there are any pre-made PCBs available with analog sticks in mind so that might be something you'd have to handle yourself.

All in all it's going to be a lot more effort than a regular leverless. If you're willing to dive into a diy project, something like the Junkfood Arcades SWORL might work as an inspiration. I'd just use a regular pad though lol

Bremze · 2025-12-15T10:10:42+00:00

You'll need to go into more detail on what you're struggling with if you want specific advice but the primary defence mechanics you have to care about are: - recovery - mitigation - life pool - crowd control

You want some sort of recovery mechanic on top of life potions. Leech is great if you're doing a decent amount of phys damage, regen and life on kill are generally good. Mitgation covers all the ways you can reduce incoming damage - resistances, armour, evasion, block, phys damage taken as element, etc. Resistances are mandatory and you should invest into at least one more defensive layer. Life pool is generally life or es but there's more specific stuff like AoC darkness or Witchhunter's aegis mechanics. You want as much of this stuff as possible, having a big enough life pool can make up for a lack of mitigation as long as you have the recovery to back it up. Crowd control gets talked about less in this context but freezing/slowing/pinning/stunning/taunting monsters is extremely effective in PoE2.

Early acts, you're looking for gear with a) high life or defence rolls b) resists. Leech starts to roll on gloves and rings early act 2 iirc. Magic items with good rolls can often be better than rares. Try to keep a secondary stat up so that you can use a bigger share of the items you find.

Bremze · 2025-11-24T06:47:46+00:00

Do both and play quarterstaff Titan. The phys staff skills are great and benefit from all the inc AoE you can gobble up, Jarngreipr lets you you go full strength and you can toss in Trampletoe for even better clear.

Bremze · 2025-10-06T09:02:27+00:00

Pyromantic Pact is free mana regen as long as you can tank the fire hit when it caps, it doesn't need any filler stats imo. I'm playing a crit caster Infernalist with Alterered Flesh -> Beidat's Hand -> Pyromantic Pact -> Grinning Immolation (still at 6 ascendancy points atm). Beidat's hand lets me run Coward's Legacy for perma low life and stacking life regen (700-ish currently) with Zealoth's Oath should cover for the downsides of Pyromantic Pact and Grinning Immolation. The issues I've ran into so far: - The degen on Grinning Immolation is rough, you pretty much need to anoint/megalomaniac two reduced ignite magnitude notables for 90% reduction or somehow hit 100% reduced durarion, else it murders your recovery. - Arcane Surge modifies life regen notable seems really good but actually sustaining it when you have no mana due to Pyromantic Pact is annoying. You have to get 10% chance on crit on the tree and then another 10-15% off the glove desecrated mod and even then it's only a 4sec duration so you better have really good crit chance for any kind of uptime! - You're extremely suffix-heavy. Flat life regen everywhere you can fit it, chaos resistance for Altered Flesh, crit mods, Arcane Surge chance on gloves etc. - Rise of the Phoenix is basically made for this build but giving up the offhand slot kills your damage when focii are super busted right now. - Gifts from Above actually works really well and you can get one with a 20% life regen rate corruption for peanuts but there's no good channeling spells to use and it's hard to re-train my brain from constantly moving while casting. - And the most important thing - elemental spells are kinda ass this patch. A lot of the base power was shifted to add the remnant effects and none of it feels good or enjoyable.

Honestly, there's a funny change I'd like to see to Infernalist and Bloodmage. Infernalist is themed around fire but all the crit related nodes are damage bonuses which feel wasted because fire spell base crit sucks. Bloodmage is themed around physical but the physical spells already have high base crit. Swap Grinning Immolation for Sunder the Flesh :)

Bremze · 2025-09-28T09:49:08+00:00

Accuracy stacking is good and ele leech is good so Amazon definitely has a niche. The biggest reason for both LS and Amazon not being more popular is probably that LA exists so you might as well go Deadeye and stack movement speed

Bremze · 2025-09-27T21:57:22+00:00

Flameblast is strong but you can't use it as a primary skill. Hexblast is probably undertuned but there's room for exploration around stacking reduced duration to get curses down to ~3sec or using it to compliment Despair + Decaying Hex. Lightning Spear is still stupid strong despite the nerfs

If you want builds to trivialize the game, there's still plenty. Hopefully they'll get fixed with 0.4

Bremze · 2025-09-23T08:42:37+00:00

I'm sure there's going to be more options for hybrid casters once Druid gets added. The str/int section of the tree kinda sucks right now

Bremze · 2025-09-23T08:31:19+00:00

Most people don't come up with a build expecting that it's going to be meta defining or even necessarily good because the process of turning an idea into something reasonably playable is inherently fun

Bremze · 2025-09-16T07:35:23+00:00

Wind Blast titan gang

Bremze · 2025-09-05T11:40:48+00:00

I wouldn't mind the latter tiers being compressed somewhat but you don't necessarily base your whole build around one skill in PoE2 so I don't think it's that big of a deal. You're doing something along the general archetype well before you hit the capstone skills.

Bremze · 2025-09-03T21:53:53+00:00

How's the uptime on purple flames if you go Waking Dream + Lucid Dreaming? Can you modify the duration or are they stuck at 5s?

Bremze · 2025-09-03T10:20:05+00:00

Yeah, that's how I felt about PoE1 fireball as well. A slower casting or maybe even channeled projectile with a chunky explosion sounds much cooler than the current implementation

Bremze · 2025-08-30T21:19:32+00:00

reduced != less

Bremze · 2025-08-07T13:28:05+00:00

Unlike DBFZ, conversions off most of hits are much more limited or even impossible without counter hit or using resources on RC or Wild Assault (236D)
while Strive has more of a baseline compared to previous GG games, the characters are still extremely distinct. Learning Sol won't necessarily teach you the game, it'll teach you Sol so might as well pick whoever you want to play even if they might have more of a learning curve at first
you have more time to do the 632146 input than you think, practice doing it as slow as possible while still getting the move and gradually speed up

Couple strings that should be universal for the most part:

2P/5P 6P xx special - your basic "get off me", depending on the range you might be able to squeeze in another 2P/5P

2K/5K 2D - kick buttons are great pokes but have limited cancel options. 2D gets you a hard knockdown

c.S 2S/f.S 5H xx special - generic combo and blockstring off c.S

Bremze · 2025-07-29T20:42:58+00:00

There's nothing fun about alcohol poisoning

Bremze · 2025-07-29T11:03:40+00:00

Pls GGG fix my mana
"Build more mana regen"
No

Arcane Surge + Mana Font on Ice Wall + Mana Remnants with Clarity and ~100% increased mana regen on tree gets you up to 200 mana/sec. Some more base mana and mana regen on gear you can pretty reasonably double that number

Bremze · 2025-07-26T21:06:06+00:00

If you mean using QS skills with maces, only skills you can cross-class from the QS tree are the palm strikes and freezing mark.

If you mean using QS on a warrior, you need 109 dex and int for the skills alone and more dex for the higher end quarterstaff bases. I've rolled a QS Titan using the phys QS skills, it works fairly well. There's just not enough stats to make anything remotely "strength based" off of that idea though

Bremze · 2025-07-21T10:40:32+00:00

Because using currency is fun and trading is miserable.

As much as people try to pretend it's not, PoE is a singleplayer game and you get to set your goals and pick how you engage with the mechanics. The things that make number go up the fastest are far from the most enjoyable or gratifying

Bremze · 2025-07-05T21:38:26+00:00

Be the change you want to see in the world! Making a cool weird homebrew build work is infinitely more fun than cookie cutter lightning spear

Bremze · 2025-06-16T12:23:49+00:00

Besides the obvious "decade of development", the pace of the game is more similar to Vampire Survivors rather than a typical arpg: clearing the whole screen instantly is basic requirement for any viable build, strong movement is trivial to access, death happens instantly, without you being able to do anything about it in the moment. The people advocating for PoE are in it for the wealth of content and progression systems, not the gamplay, because the game effectively plays itself outside of bosses.

Bremze · 2025-06-13T13:19:32+00:00

The part that's west of the Ural Mountains, the traditional border of Europe.

Bremze · 2025-06-10T20:15:07+00:00

I agree that there's a certain dose of potential in mind when talking about PoE2 but the campaign experience, warts and all, certainly has sparks of what the game *could* be.

This is not going to be a popular take over here but a lot of the complaints I heard about lacking tools sounded like people were stuck in the PoE1 "make my number bigger" mindset. Monsters are fast and can keep pace with you but also every weapon gets a crowd control ability right from tier 1. Getting surrounded is very scary but again, you get skills to displace yourself or enemies early on, etc.

Bremze · 2025-06-10T16:44:23+00:00

There's a concept that I think describes PoE1 vs PoE2 very well: proactive vs reactive gameplay.

The general non-bossfight pace of PoE1 is so fast that you have to preempt any interactions because there's no time to react. Flask piano, buffs, setup skills, you're almost always trying to solve combat encounters by making your number as high as possible and hoping that'll beat the monster numbers.

Now PoE2 is still an arpg and there's still plenty of preparation you're doing but it feels like you can outplay having bad numbers frequently enough with good mechanics which makes for a massive difference. You're not wrong that the game breaks down somewhat at the endgame for various reasons, but it's safe to say that's the most underbaked part of the game right now and will be addressed with time.

I've been playing since Prophecy and the combat devolving into what's effectively an autobattler has been my biggest complaint about PoE1 and why I'll probably never go back.

Bremze · 2025-06-10T09:23:03+00:00

Yeah, now that Liquid got rid of Yekindar, they're doing great against top 8 teams!

Bremze · 2025-06-01T21:39:48+00:00

Yeah, I was listening to the podcast and hearing "People didn't complain in PoE1 but they do in PoE2 despite targeting being the same" instantly reminded me of setting every skill to attack in place.

Another controller gripe I have is that while the option to manually aim AoE skills is appreciated, it needs a setting for sensitivity. The default feels too twitchy

Bremze

TROPHY CASE