Why this patch is really a killer

I dont know what the USP of this game should be anymore.

For me it is doing my own builds, trying to improve, find a endgame id like. When i didnt like the current campaign in POE1 i always could go to my standard characters and enjoy some chill farming.

While the passive tree on POE2 is massive, it is much more restricted in many ways than POE1, so i joined the mainstream archmagearcanesurgesparkarcglasscannon-community and i wont lie, the clearspeed and all was fun enough to overcome the dire endgame-content (i can respect that as it is early accsess).

So my thought before the 0.2.0 patch was coming out, already knowing things would get nerfed, ill play the new content and if it wasnt mine ill go back and try to tweak the old character back to a decent clearspeed.

Sure enough, the new content was as feared: tideous to be kind

So going back to the old character i knew that it was going to be hard to restore it to pre-patch strenght. As it turns out its impossible. Where i had 400k dps with arc and 150k with spark its now, 86k arc and around 40k for spark. With double the mana cost!!! With the restricted tree there is no seeable way to come anywhere near to the previous stats. While i can respect that the game is volatile and in constant change, taking things away, giving upsides somewhere else, this patch destroyed the character for good.

Sidenote: Besides all that there are some things not working clearly; for example a unique jewel (prism of belief) that gave "+3 arc levels" made no difference in the damagestats? Jewel not working? Numbers not adding? No clue...

As someone who has sunk thousands of hours into POE1 and 2 im disappointed in the way the game is developed; my keypoints why i play this game were already dimmed with the favouring of mainstream-builds passive tree and the now, because of that, missing options to work around the super-nerfs. Combined with a tideous, sluggish playing current campaign it kills all the fun i had previously.

My problem is I'm running a corrupt lvl 30 (with all + minion skills included) skeletal sniper. 16% attack speed to allies and +20 lightning damage + 16 fire damage to allies along with double pain offering (to buff to 67k/pc) and my Skeletons went from doing 27k unbuffed to doing 5.8k.

5.8k

So you're telling me with every minion node on the passive tree including neck enchant to pick up 1 of the two across the map, and almost best in slot for + minion skills items (+10 to gem lvl), they're going to do 5.8k ? How else are you supposed to play this class? There's no other options to improve the minions and they are garbage maxed.There's not even a neck you can use to take advantage of the passive node that makes neck affect minions..

I was JUST doing 27k per skeleton (over 1 mil dps total when buffed to 67k x 16 and factoring in shock/crit debuff etc , again not op for an endgame build in comparison to anything) and it was definitely strong, but it took me months to build up the char to be able to do this. Now in 1 day I have to sit for 5-6 seconds to watch my skeletons battle it out with a white pack? I pop my sacrifice and it's like 3-4 seconds. There's like 500 monsters on the map I'm not going to sit for 5-6 seconds every white pack.

Is there a minigame I'm supposed to be playing during this time? Is there bonuses I can click somewhere on the map while the fighting is taking place with my MAXED OUT minions?

.. and this is not just MY minions. It's everyone's. Literally no one can get specter to be worth playing right now. Arsonists cant kill anything. I am min/maxed on items and passive tree for minions. Even losing 5 skeletons I still have 13 and that's what I had before I took the time to farm age of darkness for more spirit to get more. Even with 13 fully maxed out snipers I'm sitting here bored watching them fight a white pack. This is not "current builds getting nerfed."
This is making a whole aspect of a class and build selection THEY DESIGNED unplayable for any length of time.

This is my issue.

Minions are considered "free damage" and are supposed to do next to nothing in accordance with The Vision. They tried to make minions completely worthless in PoE 1 but enough people complained that they pulled back.

Any time your character is on the screen and can be attacked you are not doing " free damage."

There's no such thing as "free damage" and anyone who plays minion will agree.

The game is based on build strategy. When you find something that works, they destroy it. Period.

This style of game would die with their level of manipulation. Good thing there are other options because if this is the direction, if you can't tell from all of the available platforms of discussion, this game is done.

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DiabloImmoral#7632 wrote:

Minions are considered "free damage" and are supposed to do next to nothing in accordance with The Vision. They tried to make minions completely worthless in PoE 1 but enough people complained that they pulled back.

This would be a viable way to treat minions if they didnt cost all the investment of gem slots, button presses, passive point investment, gear....

On poe1 I'll almost always use minions as I level because its just free damage and distractions, but i certainly dont link them or spec into them. There is no equivalent in poe2. Every skill has an opportunity cost.