Poor Build Variety

Please, even though POE/POE 2 can learn a lot from Last epoch, it at least provides a TON of build options compared to LA. I love last epoch and i wish we had 10 times the build options.

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When you talk about build options, do you mean builds that can kill Uber Aberroth?
If that’s the case then I can kinda understand… but otherwise there are A TON of builds that can do 1000 corruption.

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A ton of builds with differences in 1-2 items and 1-2 support skills? It’s not a ton of builds, it’s their variants.

If you are comparing build variety to PoE/Poe2 and think they have the better balance, i’m not sure how to help you since all it takes is looking at a certain lastepochtools website to get a ton of builds compared to PoE.

If you really want to nitpick, lets say T15 maps is your ā€œendgameā€ and 1000 corruption is LE’s endgame. Is there really a difference?
Every game, doesn’t matter what, is going to have very specific builds that can push far into the end game content. If you think one game is going to rise above simple math and change that, you need to abandon hope.

Because here’s the thing, if every skill or combo can match another class, what is the reason for the other class? No game will ever have true balance, because if they did, things would end in a stalemate.
I’m going to play a rogue because X skill + Y Skill = 1,000 damage
Buff to any other class X skill + Y Skill = 1,000 damage
Cool, so why the need to change classes?

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PoE, in theory, has a higher number of possible combinations, but that doesn’t mean it has a higher number of builds, because most of those combinations are useless and don’t work.

I’d say both games are close in actual real build diversity, looking at both poe.ninja and LETools.

Go home Jonathan

LE has great build variety, especially comapred to PoE. In PoE the same skill can only we put into so many directions, that are all very similar with some mild differences.

In LE the same skill can be put into vastly different build directiosn and even archetypes.

PoE has a lot of theoretical buidl diversity, but a lot of the combinations don’t make sense or don’t make at all.

When we are talking about powerful builds, I can see why you think LE is lacking in this area and I agree.

I think once all masteries and skill spec trees that are pretty old have seen a revamp we will get more powerful buidls across classes and masteries.

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I think you are confusing builds with viable builds. I do not know when was the last time I literally had a viable build in PoE 1 that could get to red maps and kill bosses and it was not like one of the 20 actual skill gems that work and I do not have to be Mathil1 to make it work with a 50k hours of game knowledge. It is the same for every game in this genre imo. All spells can be used in builds. Not all spells will be as good as the others or even good overall but they can be used and have builds around them especially if you know how to build and what. For example I recently tried to build a Harvest Lich. Completely blew ass. No clue what I was doing and I was not dealing any damage then completely scrapped it. That does not mean there are no builds who use the spell Harvest out there.

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Let me give you an example. Lets say i want to play a guy that does a lot of things with lighting, something like an autobomber. yes there are autobomber builds but i would like it to be a spellcaster with tons of aoe, i dont want to play a rune or a melee that does lighting i want to play a caster, i light lighting strikes so an ability that does something like that would be great, I want a way to automate the build and i want the lighting flashes to kill the entire screen,… u see where i am going with this? some people want the freedom to be very specific with their character and the way they play it. while I can pick from the pool of classes and their abilities in last epoch it still is just a small pool without too much depth. I don’t think thats an unreasonable observation.

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Did i say i want to turn into a bear? you’re not getting my point. i dont wanna play a druid lol

No, I clearly am not. Because there are many ways to auto-trigger lightning skills. Primalist has a bunch of them, Mage does too…

You seem to imply that PoE lets you be very specific with what you want for your build and LE doesn’t when that isn’t the case.
For example, in PoE there is no option to turn normal skills into a channeled skill. There is no option to turn a DPS skill into a movement skill. Which you can in LE.

In fact, other than turning the skill into a totem/mine/trap, pretty much all support gems are more/less projectiles, more/less speed, more/less damage.
Not only that, but class is mostly meaningless. Builds don’t really change with a different class, they just get more/less tanky, more/less DPS, etc.

The main issue with PoE diversity is that since, in theory, all support gems work on all skill gems (other than the ones that are restricted by tag), you can’t have many transformative ones because that would be a nightmare to balance.
Whereas in LE, where you have the skill tree (specialized support gems, if you will), you can make wild transformations to the skill because it’s balanced around that skill alone.

In LE there are restrictions that are class based because the theme is very important in this game (which it isn’t at all in PoE). Mages can’t have minions and stuff like that.
But to imply that LE has poor build variety when it’s on par with PoE is disingenuous at best. Or maybe you just didn’t bother actually looking.

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I guess that depends on what you think I meant by a ton :smiley: :smiley:

Sites like Maxroll or actionrpg have quite a few builds and Maxroll guys claim all of theirs can be brought to 1000 corruption. Not to mention if you go lower… say 300 corruption. You can play with a lot of different skills in LE at that stage.

I wonder how many builds roughly do you think are in LE? Because you didn’t specify what you consider a build… does it need to do Uber Aberroth? Does it need to go 1000 corruption?

Comparing to POE 1/2 I’d say POE 1 has a decade of development behind it and POE 2 definitely doesn’t have a big number of late endgame viable builds.

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Saying there are not many builds is not an observation, it is a personal feeling, and I agree it is not unreasonable at all. It is absolutely fine (even encouraged) to express what you feel, but you have to accept that a lot of people (including me) feel differently.

Your example, on the other hand, IS entirely unreasonable.
You’re trying to create an archetype from the top of your head without taking into account the game’s environment, classes and skills. It is like saying Red Dead Redemption 2 sucks because it won’t let you play a space-pirate with a jet pack, a kevlar armour and a laser sword.
No game lets you create any skill you can think of without restriction, this is simply impossible.

It was a huge credit to LE’s build diversity that someone took your random ideas and actually managed to find a matching build.

Well, It all depends on your expectative.

What’s a viable build?

1- Clearing 200-250 corruption with good gear and eventually clearing normal aberroth?
2- Clearing 300 corruption easily and managing 500+ corruption and normal abberroth?
3- Clearing 1000 corruption and having chances at uber aberroth?
4- Casually clearing 1.5k-3k corruption and obliterating uber aberroth?

Probably most people will fall under 2 or 3. I personally thing 3 is the place where a build is in good enough state to say is a solid endgame build.

Most builds are viable and somewhat scalable until empowered monos. Then enemies hit harder and certain playstiles are very very limited, champions and bosses have some health and you need todo some decent damage.

All of the sudden, like half of the skills are borderline useless, some don’t get enough damage no matter what, others don’t get enough support ability to justify the slot, others are too clunky or require you to stay still or perform any combo or shenanigans that will get you killed. The way to build your passives start to be limiting.

Then as you climb up, less and less skills are ā€œviableā€, and the way to build your pasives is quite limiting with 75% of the tree decided already if you know what you’re doing. This changes wildly between classes, say: sentinel right now have plenty of options because the game is designed centered towards him (half of the uniques and great passives, skills and idols to play with), while mage must rely on gimmicks and the few power spikes available that didn’t get nerfed to the ground, 90% of the possible builds are just not viable for high corruption, building the things around the few things that works after 200 corruption.

Then we have the usual bugged mechanics (falconeer) out/performers (sentinel) that tend to get nerfed into unplayable state, the ignored due to snapshotting carrying them, that will be also get nerfed into unplayable, and the few reliable under the radar skills that any day could be nerfed into the ground. Everything is being capped eventually, and so many nerfs in the wrong things, had left a trail of once shiny builds now being memes.

Personally I think the game balance is in a terrible state, because I want to play builds that can eventually (with more or less gear investment) clear 1k corruption. Anything below is not worth my time. There are practically no builds that could steal the performance spot with incredible gear, because skills and character passives determine a huge part of your character power.

And I don’t think there’s a good direction in the balancing process. All we see is busted classes that get nerfed in the wrong places and left unplayable.

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