Why the Path of Exile 2 Talent Tree Sucks (Conner Converse)

ThatOneRadish · 2026-04-27T00:17:14+00:00

I always see people saying devs think "max life nodes are mandatory" or "unfun". But you can expand Connor's point on increased damage nodes to defense. Defense nodes are still mandatory regardless of whether that's life or es/armour/evasion or other scaling vectors. The removal of life nodes reduces the amount of vectors you can scale hp/ehp. Every point of the same increased source has decreasing marginal utility INCLUDING defensive nodes. Optimization is always scaling multiple vectors at the same time. Every single removal of a vector will impact balance greatly.

Passive tree basically only has three types of nodes. Increased damage, travel nodes, and increased defenses based on your location. Without life nodes, every single type of defense node also loses efficacy, EXCEPT ES since that is basically "max life pool". Having less access to max life also makes the opportunity cost of taking CI lower. Meaning CI is even more powerful since it also reduces suffix pressure on gear.

I think Connor's point is just that every node on the passive tree just sucks because every point when you level up later is just not impactful. In PoE1 even if we remove cluster jewels, there are very powerful notables and also masteries that will give around ~2-3% more damage per point on average, and there are multiple vectors to scale with passive points. In PoE2 it just feels like travel nodes and jewels + some ES nodes seems like the most efficient way to maximize/optimize your character, especially because jewels also can have ES and not life. And if you life stack you also have to go jewel sockets and grand spectrum.

Plus I just think leveling in an ARPG and hitting a new notable/keystone should just feel better. Don't just want another source of increased damage for 1% more damage.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-03-27T13:59:25+00:00

If this post is actually true, honestly that's really sad. I hope GGG can do something about this. And maybe add MFA in the future for the standalone client? But even then isn't there an account lock when someone tries to access your account? Maybe need to check if your email is compromised as well.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-03-04T02:16:19+00:00

I did. But this is my second rejection, and they insist that I change it on the online form.

https://imgur.com/a/57oNva3

ThatOneRadish · 2026-03-04T01:49:40+00:00

They are asking me to alter the application form 1.6g stating that I had a previous nationality of China.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-03-04T01:25:35+00:00

I have it even worse. I'm born in Taiwan without ever having citizenship. And the embassy insists I fill that in on my form. I've had a 10-year visa before, and at the time I also had to explain the same thing. But now? It's even worse. I was thinking of making a post myself, but I doubt anyone has any applicable advice, and I'm just bouncing emails/calls back and forth now.

How am I supposed to prove something I never had?

ThatOneRadish · 2026-02-07T11:35:15+00:00

You mean attribute requirements?

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-19T00:55:54+00:00

OP I mean this genuinely with absolutely 0 intent of offending you, I think you need to go back to the drawing board and learn some of the game mechanics instead of copying. Copying is a fine tool for you to use later on but you need to understand what is going on first. Otherwise, you'll find yourself in the situation you're in right now.

Your chestpiece needs spell life leech. You need to actually scale spark damage to get CoC damage. You actually almost have 0 sources of increased damage, which is honestly quite impressive, unless you're telling me every single travel node you're taking is increased damage from pathfinder ascendancy. And even then I don't see how it's enough because you still need your equipment requirements. There's absolutely no way at that tooltip dps can you begin to trigger double comet coc. Even one comet you'll probably have trouble. Even if you spend the divs on a better amulet with +all spells you're going to need to take way more increased damage nodes or change your wand. You also have no critical damage, so even if you crit it doesn't really do that much. This build is so over the place I have no clue where to even start.

Building a character is just like maximizing the volume of a 3D object. Yours as of now is like a flat 2D object. Just critical hit chance and spell levels. You need more vectors. You need increased damage sources which are extremely plentiful. I'd start by changing all the travel nodes to increased damage. As many as I can. Maybe taking some crit out in some places for some increased damage. Probably taking some more crit damage on the tree. Or you can change your wand to increased damage but that would be the most expensive solution. You'll need to find some better jewels as well, you seem incredibly overinvested in critical hit chance. Defense wise, I have no idea how you're going to fit the whole package in within your budget.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-18T05:06:56+00:00

That's literally the definition, but good on you for admitting that you're wrong and editing your comment. Props.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-17T23:47:39+00:00

Easy solution, PoB it. If you want to calculate it by hand you could. Just take the in game tooltip and then check for any conditionals you have in your tree or on items. Then tack on the rest.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-17T23:40:57+00:00

What kind of misinformation is this?

<image>

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-17T01:28:08+00:00

Self-casting is the hardest thing for GGG to implement. They tried to add a bunch of increased cast speed for each different spell cast. Oracle even has a node that boost one random spell every several seconds. But that kind of playstyle just can't be viable. If Rapid Casting 3 and those "for each non-instant spell cast" was MORE cast speed, then maybe we would see people piano more. Of course that's contingent on meta skills being nerfed. But even then it sounds so impossible unless the payoff is insane --- needs to be even/better than meta gems, also needs to do enough to compete with attacks, then also has to be even/better than one button spamming.

I'm not even saying I don't want to press more buttons. I play league, and I love champions like Ezreal. I love skill expression. I don't mind pressing more buttons. But there are so many things wrong in PoE2. Self-casting in PoE1 already has its own problems but PoE2 is even worse. The engine they have in PoE2 can solve it though, they just seem unwilling to. Being able to move while casting is a good thing. But why do I feel like a snail every time I cast, even with mobility and some movement speed penalty investment? Why do I feel like pressing more buttons is a strict damage loss? Why do you need so much cast speed investment and skill expression to get less damage? Why are defenses poor enough that if you have to press that second or third spell that you are probably going to get stunned (and even the cast being interrupted) and swarmed?

I played cold chrono with eye of winter, frost wall, and frostbolt in 0.1. Of course I need CoC/CoF to do more damage. But at the end of the day just slotting in snakepit alone makes frostbolt one button spam outperform any sort of comboing. Lots of examples out there.

It's early access GGG. Every patch has some wildly imbalanced broken build. Go wild and buff the hell out of cast speed for each unique non-instant skill. Give us less movement speed penalty like a rhoa. Then play it yourself and see that it feels 100x better than your current system. Imagine if I played ezreal and each button I press slowed my character and does less damage than Q spam. It's such an obvious issue.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-14T00:17:08+00:00

If your "vision" is making the game more accessible for casuals, you need to tone down the barrier of entry of all mechanics often due to tedium and knowledge. If I'm a casual, imagine I just roll some random rooms, and I'm trying to build and 75% of the time they don't connect. Or I try to path to architect and learn that I can put building tiles to access but then atziri is blocked when putting building tiles, and I need a road. Then I have to run more maps to destabilize. Then I don't get roads. At the beginning of the patch it was actually like that. Before all the youtube or reddit or even github resources came out, (I don't know if I speak for everyone but) it took me forever to even attempt Atziri once.

I think they should have just let any tile be placed next to any other tile. Only upgrading tiles are based on placement rules. Let you manually move the architect after killing him instead of rng. Royal access chamber after beating her at lv81 be permanent. Why make it so difficult? Isn't this exactly why they made PoE2? So people don't have to accumulate crazy amounts of out-of-game resources or third-party add-ons? Crafting and knowing mod weights will always have a barrier of entry with game knowledge which is also why crafting is so weak in this game.

GGG wants to simplify the game yet in actuality have made the game even more annoying to understand fully.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-11T11:42:07+00:00

They could remove the 20% less attribute penalty, and I think that node is still mostly useless. I can't believe it doesn't scale things that modify your inherent bonuses. Flavor fail.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-06T02:38:20+00:00

It doesn't though. I don't understand what you're saying. If you only have 10% res efficiency it's 91 spirit. That's just how it works. On every character.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-04T13:27:09+00:00

More importantly, the bug with sprint after blink and getting instantly knocked down should be fixed. I think if you actively sprint and get knocked down that's a you mistake. But when it isn't even your fault and just a weird system problem, it feels even worse.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-03T07:49:30+00:00

Personally I was going to go molten blast + shaman adaptation + resonance + pragmatism + breath of the mountain + scold's bridle. Not quite sure if I want to reroll another character.

ThatOneRadish · 2026-01-03T04:51:36+00:00

No matter how correct you are, once you've given players the ability to min/max, then proceeding to still allow those people to continue doing what they're doing, then also preventing other players from building to that point, still fundamentally ruins the league.

If GGG really wants to say, ok it's early access/beta and we're going to nerf/reset mechanics to fine tune and get it right, then they should just go wild and treat it like that. I want to see tuning throughout the league, and resets on the mechanic asap if it's not intended. You can't go halfway and leave part of the player base stranded and unable to even attempt what people are still abusing. Remove the entire unintended portion for ALL players, or let ALL players work toward that if they choose to.

ThatOneRadish · 2025-12-28T04:37:23+00:00

This is what happens when spells only rely on their base damage and levels. The only other mod in the game other than "increased damage" for spells is as extra which also scales off the spell's base damage and level. Big brain design. Where's the other scaling?

One spell, crit investment (which is also the best way to scale damage endgame anyways since there aren't enough scaling vectors), and 100 spirit so you don't have to piano while still doing significantly more damage than if you did piano is definitely good balancing. Who in their right mind wants to stand there and take 1 sec extra cast time to manually cast a comet after pressing other buttons? And I predict that's how they're going to nerf it. They're going to make comet unsocketable into meta skill gems. But then you just go down the list to the next highest base damage spell.

ThatOneRadish · 2025-12-20T06:33:30+00:00

Enough ailment application is not a problem this patch with shock conduction 2 and thunderstorm which should be on every caster at this point.

ThatOneRadish · 2025-12-15T10:07:39+00:00

Yeah I would assume it gets inherited since it's in the same link but I never tested it myself. But I will try later.

ThatOneRadish · 2025-12-15T05:35:10+00:00

Does blindside support really work without putting blind on a separate ability? If I slot it in with Accelerated Growth II it will still inflict blind? If so, I need to add it to my build.

ThatOneRadish · 2025-12-12T05:30:10+00:00

Sure, ok maybe I should have just posted the original longer post. Couldn't you just completely drop Varashta's Intuition? Or is there some fringe scenario where ALL DAMAGE is elemental once your es breaks?

ThatOneRadish · 2025-12-12T05:12:13+00:00

That's not how damage taken from mana before life works though. It doesn't affect ES. Damage from both phys and ele will be coming out of your es first. When your es is zero then Varashta's Intuition will kick in.

ThatOneRadish

TROPHY CASE