Thread by @NeverSinkDev

Finished 38/40 challenges in the kalandra league.

Wanted to share some gathered thoughts that I collected looking back at the progression and wishes regarding the next league.

1/x

First of all, I'd like to address the good parts.

Some QOL things were definitely the highlight. Much more comfortable trading, remembering the map craft option are all great things

I love memories and the unique twists they present (even if the kirac ones are 'meh)

2/x

Lightning conduit turned out to be a fun skill and I enjoyed playing. I've only made this one character and I took it to the very endgame and defeated all uber bosses.

The 100 reworked uniques were good and I absolutely love what they've done with the grand spectrum jewels

3/x

Now regarding the league itself:

I like the minigame, but overall kalandra was an underwhelming league mechanic.

I wish there was more depth to the kalandra-mirror aspect than "good for doryani's prototype".

4/x

It suffered due to the risk/reward being borked.

The 2x harbinger bosses were harder than some UBER bosses.

Stacking 'notched' exile/bosses was quite rewarding, but also fairly boring.

Finally the "reflecting mists" were a terrible and poor reward mechanic imo.

5/x

Personally I wouldn't be too upset if the mechanic will be removed.

If it'll stay, I hope it will be in the form of multiple unique map, with either a reflection of kalandra or a paradise tile at the end.

6/x

My general experience and main complain about the current state of the game is the deadliness of general maps.

Especially during the first days, I've been getting my ass handed to by all kind of archnemesis encounters, while facetanking guardians and map bosses.

7/x

I think the most frustrating part was:

- In many cases I did not know what exactly killed me
- The amount of dots/ground dots was very high
- Heralding minions/toxic/magma barrier all felt too fast and demanded too much attention for a grindy-style play

8/x

I think during day 3 I specced into:

-lethe shade
-ailment immunity
-100% suppression
- call of the void
- 15k+ armor/evasion

I somewhat stabilized.

feels like WAY too much investment to have a semi-comfortable playstyle for random maps (while sitting at 7M+ shaper DPS)

9/x

The game expects you to chain T14+ maps and the baby-difficulty pinnacle bosses grant you voidstones fast.

Basically the game pushes you into a playstyle that demands high defenses and constant attention just to farm "normal content"

10/x

Personal wish:

- Base damage of archnemesis monsters can go down by as much as 35%
- magma barrier/herald/toxic need to become way slower.
- Shift the difficulty to delirium orbs and maybe scarabs- - these should make the map deadlier, but also grant more rewads than now

11/x

Also I REALLY hope that GGG considers removing lingering/ground effects after the monster is dead after at most 1 second.

I sometimes had to wait 10+ seconds to interact with monoliths/metamorphs.

This is just bad design.

If I sound salty about this point: I am.

12/x

Most upsetting: the game's build diversity is suffering.

You need:
- determination+grace
- full spell suppression
- a recovery mechanic
- have a 5-6k pool
- Block/stack reduction
- max res/lethe shade
- ailment immunity

Don't have that? Your build won't feel good.

13/x

I'm definitely not the best PoE player, but with 5000++ hours, I'm feeling hesitant about making new builds right now.

Imagine how new players feel right now.

Anyway, I hope this changes. Moving on:

Loot/Rewards

14/x

I personally don't think the loot situation is terrible.

The current state seems OK to me, but is getting somewhat upset by a few outliers:

- MF-culling on spotted god-touched monsters is silly
- Some mechanics are disproportionally unrewarding
- Archnemesis is too spiky

15/x

Some context: I'm at around 1.7M kills and I found 10+ divines, aegis, multiple other T1-2 uniques such as shavs, soultakers, batteries and a whole bunch of other expensive items.

That being said, most of my currency came from bossing, so my perception might be distorted.

16/x

I believe the most interesting shift in loot balance was that fighting harder monsters is now more rewarding than fighting MORE/league monsters.

Map bosses (especially ghosted), exiles, einhar beasts, metamorphs were all decent income sources for me.

17/x

YMMV here a lot.

Personally I like what they've done with map bosses.

A lot!

I hope AN mobs get some more bite-sized rewards, but overall I think the loot is OK after all the patches.

There are also some mechanics that have become underwhelming: most notably beyond.

18/x

Over the course of the 38 challenges, I've been using different atlas trees. Most seemed quite good!

Legion, heist, blight, delirium, metamorph, exile, memories, expedition, ritual were all solid.

Didn't like harbinger/beyond.

Harvest is complicated.

19/x

This has been by far my most favorite atlas tree so far. It's great for bossing and focuses around chaining fast maps like mesas.

Still has 20 points left, that I usually put into essences.

20/x

I feel like harvest was 10 went steps into the right direction and then has set itself on fire.

A general rebalance of costs/available recipes is definitely necessary there.

It definitely feels better than old harvest, but the cost is currently too high.

21/x

I have a similar feeling about the divine/exalted orb change.

I like the unique price impact (well rolled uniques are worth a lot more now, entry level much cheaper).

But... harbnger is now the least rewarding mechanic as a result.

22/x

I definitely think we need more sources of gradual divine orb farming. Exalted orbs had divination cards and harbinger splinters.

Divine orbs... you might go on a dry streak of 10 hours and then find 3 from some mob. I don't like that.

23/x

On the bright side, I did enjoy using exalted orbs a lot.

Hitting something bad feels a lot less upsetting now and I was able to hit a few good mods occasionally. Definitely like this part of the change.

24/x

Overall, while I enjoyed lightning conduit and memories, this league leaves a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth.

I hope the next league mechanic is a bit more engaging and I also really hope that there will be a rebalance to archnemesis damage and rewards

25/x

I'm still not sure how I feel about all of this.

I don't HATE the league. I like it more than expedition and sentinel both, but there's a lot of room for improvements and many changes felt REALLY rushed and communication was poor.

Have a good weekend.

26/x

Fin.