I want to rant about Magic Finding and Item Rarity in PoE2.
This is a complicated and controversial topic, but I think it's important to voice concerns about it.
It's existence (and the context it's in) in PoE2 currently creates an unfortunate meta.
Let's dive in
1/n
What does "increased rarity of items" affect?
- More drops magic/rare drops
- Number of uniques dropped
- Increase the TIER of rares
- Improves currency drops (you might get a Exalt instead of an Augment or a Regal Orb)
Player rarity is multiplied with map/monster rarity.
2/n
Right now the balance is (and maybe more importantly players FEEL this way):
if you don't stack rarity: you lose out.
Stacking extra power doesn't help.
This leads to many players gravitating towards the best build possible to stack max rarity (usually sorc/deadeye)
3/n
PoE2's endgame difficulty balance is a pretty controversial topic right now.
It has amazing moments, but it also has some pretty serious issues.
I'd like to offer insights on the endgame after playing it intensively for several days.
Maybe @pathofexile will find it useful
1/X
For context:
- I reached level 88 on my monk-invoker
- Clearing T13-T15 maps
- Defenses: 2.5k HP, 800ES, 71%EV, 63%AR, capped resists, shrouds, freeze, enfeeble
- Tried and experimented with all kind of content
2/X
To discuss issues and the state of the game, we should consider what PoE2 WANTS to be.
It tries to be brutal. Ruthless even.
Brutal enemies, reactive combat and risky decisions.
I like the vision. You can feel it during the campaign.
Endgame though, not quite there.
3/X
I want to talk a bit about #Diablo4 Vessel of Hatred endgame.
I have finished the season journey, done all activities, fought all bosses and am comfortably zooming torment 3 on my build.
So how's the endgame?
1/n
The Good #1 - Many endgame activities
There's a lot to do: undercity, pits, whispers, troves, bossing etc. Overall there's always some next upgrade waiting or resource bottleneck and a place to farm it.
Especially the troves are imo very well designed and a fun activity.
2/n
The Good #2 - The early endgame progression.
The moment you arrive in Torment 1 and start hunting your uniques and ancestrals is great. Upgrades feel meaningful and there's a large number of different improvements to pursue.
I'd like to share my thoughts on the recombinator,
Over the past week I've been using the recombinator to destroy a large variety of items in hopes of creating valuable combinations.
I've arrived at this formula:
ANYTHING + ANYTHING => TRASH
Here's why.
1/n
The recombinator SEEMS to have a bias against rare or high tier mods.
I've fed it 4 or 5 pairs of items each with at least 1 highly rare mod and in 90% of the time the result had NEITHER of the 2 mods from the parent items.
2/n
When attempting to transfer a fractured mod from one item to another the chances of success is way less than 10% (both NEED to be fractured)
- Often result had ZERO fractures
- 50% chance to pick the wrong base
- 50% naive chance for wrong fracture
- Bias against high mods
3/n