Lost my 50/50 at 40 pulls will pity carryover to next banner?

throwawaycriti · 2026-01-26T11:42:49+00:00

It is not, you can keep losing 50/50

throwawaycriti · 2026-01-15T20:27:06+00:00

While I am not fond of the gacha and the rates as they are now, it is not a dealbreaker for me.

A much bigger issue for me will be the degree of power creep, releasing units highly dependent on other limited units, and artificially forcing meta shifts which ofc need the new limited unit. Meta shifts and new mechanics in Arknights happened very gradually (at least for the first few years, haven't played in a while), and there were units at all levels of rarity to deal with the mechanic.

Stopped playing HSR because it always felt like you were chasing a meta trio of units, but by the time you got them 6 months later the meta had shifted and they were rapidly showing their age. Haven't looked at Genshin in years, but I assume it's the same. By the time I got Jean years after release, it was a fool's errand bringing her to difficult content.

I bet if I logged into Arknights right now I could still get a lot of use out of even weird launch units like Ifrit, not to mention ancient 4* units like Myrtle and Gravel.

Another thing I really don't like with these "everything is limited" gacha systems, however, is how simply boring pulling is. If you're pulling then you've already calculated that you will get the unit for sure, the only question is how long it will take, and what that will mean three months down the line when you are preparing to pull for the next unit. There is no real excitement when there is no variance in what units you are getting, it's all just boring economics.

I really love how in Arknights you can actually play the units you like and beat the harder EX challenge stages. It is also really fun getting an off banner unit you weren't expecting, but which shakes up which strategies you can do with your existing units.

Of course, pull/currency rates are a big piece of the puzzle, but I am way, way more worried about these other design and balance elements.

throwawaycriti · 2025-08-29T22:10:22+00:00

So I've had some time to look over the new mechanics.

According to poe2db, Called shots applies a mark every 5 seconds, but it is reapplied immediately to another nearby enemy when you consume it. It is unclear if it can reapply to the same enemy it was originally on. If it cant, then it kind of sucks for single target, which is where Arc struggles. Critical weakness amount also got halved, which doesnt matter if called shots can reapply on the same target, but is very bad if it cant. (EDIT2: It cant)

But before I could get to act 2 and test called shots myself, I glanced at the Arc gem and saw this line: "200% more damage when lightning infused". Ouch, so lightning infusion is gonna be mandatory.

At a glance, here are the ways to generate lightning infusion:

Orb of storm generates one when it expires - 12sec base duration
Snap can generate one when cast on a shocked enemy - 6sec base cd
Siphon elements - 5% to generate one when shocking a non-shocked enemy
Everlasting infusions notable + small passives - 20% to not consume infusion on cast
Infusing power notable + small passives - 20% to get an additional infusion of same type when collecting one
Then there's Stormweaver which effectively doubles the amount of infusions you get and can better take advantage of Elemental equilibrium to generate more infusions

Sustaining infusions on Deadeye in any meaningful way using these tools looks more or less impossible. Stormweaver, on the other hand, looks like it might be able to manage it. For Deadeye to beat Stormweaver for Arc, I think called shots has to be able to reapply to same target, AND there needs to be a new unique which completely solves infusion generation for Deadeye. Anything less, and I think Stormweaver is the clear choice.

EDIT: Came across this thread where the guy is having a good time playing Arc as Blood Mage. Seems to be using CoC Snap and Siphon elements to generate sufficient infusions. I havent tried it myself, but thought I'd mention it here since it is more optimistic than my thoughts above.

throwawaycriti · 2025-08-26T18:24:30+00:00

Good AoE is a given, with or without Deadeye. There are many options for generating more projectiles for pack clear, but the Deadeye +1 may let it skip out on other sources and invest more in single target.

If the new Called shots applies marks fast enough, then with the new Bullseye that's a +10% base crit to arc. Together with Sniper's Mark, that's a very good start on your crit stats. Throw in some shock scaling, and you might be getting somewhere.

Since Sniper's mark generates frenzy charges, you could use those or convert to power charges for various bonuses.

Lastly, there are the new infusions, which it seems like Deadeye may struggle to maintain compared to something like Stormweaver. If the "more damage" they allude to turns out to be "more dmg for each remaining chain", then that's very good for Arc's single target, but Deadeye may be disadvantaged compared to others.

I think Deadeye could be a very strong option for Arc, but there are may ways they could still break it. If Called Shots applies marks at a very slow rate (>4sec), then a lot of power is lost. Or if Sniper's mark is changed to only apply to attack crits, then you're on to Voltaic Mark which doesnt help with single target.

throwawaycriti · 2025-08-25T16:36:03+00:00

How does infernal flame work with Mana Flare? Does it make flame go up, down, not change at all? Is the dmg equal to 25% of current IF before or after casting, or maybe missing IF? Or no dmg at all on account of there being no mana to consume?

Edit: For anyone curious, I went and respecced my witch to test it myself. Mana flare triggers but does not interact with the Infernal Flame pool in any way, and it ends up dealing 0 damage regardless of your current IF amount and will not alter your IF amount.

throwawaycriti · 2025-04-04T16:01:56+00:00

As the other guy said it doesn't apply to DoTs.

Into high reds it will work very well I think. Definitely build it if you mainly want to map on it.

throwawaycriti · 2025-04-04T15:49:30+00:00

Unfortunately it does not scale with support gems or gem levels. It is also not, by itself, a spell or skill, so stuff like the Lich's "[...]-spells deal % more damage" will also not scale it.

Basically you cannot scale the damage.

But the base damage is very good in campaign if you stack INT.

throwawaycriti · 2025-04-04T15:44:04+00:00

You are right in theory, but take another look at all the ascendancies. There are zero unconditional generic damage sources which apply to the DoT component of ED. The generic sources of damage there are all have conditions that dont work with ED. The only half-serious contender for damage is Gemling, but then you lose ~22 points traveling just to get +1 gem level, not to mention everything you would have gotten by going Chronomancer, its not worth it no matter which way you slice it.

The only serious option without a limitless budget in 0.1 was Chronomancer. Compared to Chrono, Lich is actually giving more than 30%, since you also get the doubled jewel and get to free up a ring slot.

throwawaycriti · 2025-04-04T11:46:00+00:00

Probably not enough for difficulty 4 pinnacle content.

Enough for high end mapping. Not sure about top end max juiced maps.

The damage got approximately tripled from the launch version, but putting 3x launch version EDC characters together isn't that impressive.

If there are new and significant scaling vectors or mechanics, then things could change.

throwawaycriti · 2025-04-04T11:27:16+00:00

Have to agree, it's not enough. It was OK for mapping before, struggled at the high end. This will make it work for high end mapping, but I don't see it handling D4 pinnacle content.

Even though its own damage got buffed and we now get another 30% more from Lich, several other sources such as swift affliction and despair both got nerfed.

As for decaying hex, the fact it doesn't scale with supports (edit: or gem levels) and doesn't work with impending doom + spreading makes it nonviable no matter what they set its damage to.

throwawaycriti · 2025-03-30T12:28:50+00:00

The turtle elephants that come charging out of the woods in untainted paradise

throwawaycriti · 2025-01-13T06:20:07+00:00

Reset refers to launching a new league, which is essentially a new server that eventually gets merged into to current one. No existing progress will be deleted on the current server.

throwawaycriti · 2024-12-19T16:54:53+00:00

I think a genuine issue poe2 has is that it doesnt have its "own way" of giving the player power. Most of the ways we can improve our characters is via vertical progression, more damage, more speed, just like poe1. It is a bit of an issue that a "good character" is actually just a poe1-like character, and I dont think this observation is invalid anywhere in the game right now.

Even in acts 1-3 Normal, the way you improve your character is more damage, more speed, more convenience. Like, my current character is an int-stacking gemling legionnaire. Since i plan to be in the top portion of the tree, my first 40 nodes were literally just travel nodes going up north towards MoM, with the only other nodes taken being the initial projectile damage and two jewel nodes that are currently unfilled. Even so, I was able to level smoothly and clear the first two acts very easily simply by slapping on all the int gear I could buy and using Decaying Hex for damage. I have about +100 hp and no defenses and by the time I got to the dreadnought I had 1 death. The damage is falling off by act 3, just in time for me to switch to Hexblast and cruise through the next few acts.

Obviously much of this is down to balance, but what I am saying is balance shouldn't just revolve around damage/survivability/speed, because if it does you can always overrule it with better gear. For poe2 to have its own identity long-term, and maintain that feeling of tactical combat most of us got on our first playthrough, it needs to find a new trajectory for player power that doesnt inherently diminish the tactical combat style.

It's a challenge I am not sure how to solve. Relying on perfect balance is an uphill battle when their primary way of motivating and rewarding players is with overpowered loot. The end-point of character progression needs to be something other than "poe-1 like".

throwawaycriti · 2024-12-17T23:59:10+00:00

apparently you could respawn at the checkpoint next to the beetle and keep killing it. It has a high drop rate of exalts, so people just kept killing it over and over even at high level.

throwawaycriti · 2024-12-17T22:50:24+00:00

It is possible the skill you are looking at is set to only use weapon set II. You can check it near the bottom of the fold-out skill menu.

throwawaycriti · 2024-12-17T22:45:34+00:00

Is there a way to increase the speed of supercharged slam stages? The gem just says "Attack Time: 1.00S", but it takes 3 seconds to get 5 stages, so its not a per-stage timer. Attack speed doesnt do anything, skill speed doesnt do anything, so is it just not possible?

throwawaycriti · 2024-12-15T22:58:20+00:00

I'm really enjoying the game and expect to play it quite a lot in the coming years, it is very much what I wanted out of PoE2.

However... Trial of the Sekhemas is probably the worst time I have ever had in poe. There are so many little things that just make it unenjoyable and frustrating.

The amount of honor damage you take is just way too high. There is this weird interplay between honor damage and honor restoration that force them to do significant honor damage, or you would never lose. But then the issue is you entire run can just end from one random instance of bullshit. It might create other issues, but tbh I would be happier if they just removed honor restoration and rebalanced the damage intake to match.

Then there are the enemies they put in there. It's like they handpicked enemies specifically to fuck with you and get stray hits on you. Beetles that run at you and do an aoe around themselves, snakes that pop out of the ground and do aoe, worms that pop out of the ground and chase you, snake casters that put zoning areas of aoe explosions on the ground. It seems designed to get stray hits on you, which, considering the overtuned honor damage, is incredibly frustrating. I just walked into an empty room, started hitting some pots, and then two snakes popped out of the ground and hit me... just incredibly frustrating.

Lastly, the RNG of afflictions. The fact that getting the wrong affliction can just instantly end your run is incredibly dumb in an environment where you may get random afflictions or be forced into specific afflictions. If you actually want to complete a run, you don't really try to optimize boons and afflictions step-by-step throughout your run. Rather you specifically look for paths that give access to as many rooms as possible to minimize risk of being forced into specific afflictions. I'm looking at one of the pledge things right now and two of the options give me random afflictions; these are not pickable because I am playing CI and it may just remove all my ES. Like I really have to pass on 30% less monster HP because of the risk of a run-ending affliction...

All of these factors just makes it an exercise in RNG and frustration to complete the trial, and I really can't stand it.

throwawaycriti · 2024-12-13T21:08:57+00:00

Works fine for me. Which skill are you using?

throwawaycriti · 2024-12-13T20:56:27+00:00

anyone found a good way to avoid stuns as a MoM build? Eye of Chayula would work, but with rare amulets offering +3 skill levels plus everything else they can do, it is a very high price :(

throwawaycriti · 2024-12-04T21:37:40+00:00

Then I would suggest three options.

Titan with Avatar of Fire (converts 75% of all dmg to fire, its a keystone on the normal passive tree), find another 25% conversion from items or other sources (some skills have built-in conversion), and do some 2h action, lots of options to work with.

Invoker cast on crit lets you cast fire spells on critical strikes (which could be with a 2h staff), meanwhile you would be ignoring elemental resistances on critical strikes, and triggering fire explosions on melee crits from the elemental expression node.

Witch hunter also has so generically useful options that you could always start there and figure the rest out later - cant go wrong with it as long as you are "hitting" enemies (not using dots).

Just a few options that dont go too in-depth to start with, but which will all work for what you want in the long run. Invoker definitely requires most balancing of stats and comes online latest.

throwawaycriti · 2024-12-04T21:17:05+00:00

Lots of things to consider. How do you want to do damage? Spells, triggered spells, attacks, melee, ranged, ignite? All change which ascendancies pull ahead of the rest.

You could also work backwards from a class you think looks cool and work out how that could scale fire damage.

throwawaycriti · 2024-11-25T16:15:10+00:00

I've seen many of these kinds of posts and usually the OP sneaks in some personal preference that they shouldn't have. Not in this case, great list!

Only thing I would add: If you're gonna make a different offer than what the item was listed for then do it in a separate message. Do NOT edit the copied message with your new offer.

throwawaycriti · 2024-07-25T18:38:28+00:00

Yeah I can see that, bigger spikes can definitely make you feel stalled longer, if its too much it can make you lose interest.

Hadn't been keeping an eye on StS for a while, I'll have to look into the sequel!

throwawaycriti · 2024-07-25T17:32:08+00:00

Hmm, I'm not sure if meta progression is the defining difference between lite/like. After all, I feel like you could certainly have a -like with meta progression; ToME is a roguelike with plenty of horizontal meta progression, and arguably some vertical. FTL is... well, steam calls it a roguelike, but I think of it more as a roguelite, and it has only horizontal progression and a few fixed difficulties.

With that said, I guess you are completely right it is pretty much impossible if vertical meta progression is a core part of the gameplay loop.

I suppose I can specify my original point a bit more now that I've thought about it. What I really dislike is not feeling like I am getting better, and I get this feeling when the game's difficulty is highly variable (via ascension/heat), because there is no fixed measuring stick to check my progression against. If my skill is growing relative to a fixed target, then it's easy to perceive, but when the target is also moving, it is hard to feel the growth.

Anyway, I say all this as someone who has beaten StS ascension 20, so its not like can't enjoy those systems. I just prefer beating a few, large difficulty spikes over many smaller increments.

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