Yup but with a huge delay at every single point where I typed “Respec”, while the new spell you were trying got enough levels to reach the new nodes you were trying. A long and painful process.
The fantasy above only works as typed if you DO NOT lose any points at the places I typed ‘Respec’.Notice you’d need to level the skill a fair bit to make the observations I make at each respec point. And this was just 2 skills.
Yeah. You’re right. In my version the RESPEC part would look like:
Respec these two points as I’m level 14. Start playing game, oh gotta learn to move. Oh look at that a telegraph of a big hit, huh if I was just face tanking or one shooting everything on the screen I wouldn’t have learned that. Oh look five minutes. Got one point back. Nice. If I put it here to test out my theory. Yes. Now seeing the telegraphed shots and using this new skill route that feels pretty good. I start to see how this route fits into the combat. Oh look 10 more minutes and another point. Excellent now my two skills are right back where they were 15 minutes ago.
Yes I realize you HAAAAAAATTTTTTEEEE that 15 minutes. Which is fine. I don’t hate it in fact I think it helped me learn a little more about the synergy and the way THIS game works. To each their own.
Not 15 mins. Person I was replaying to was level 26 to 35. That quite a few point in FB, which was fully respecced to Lighting Bolt which was specced to multiple chains then completely respecced from one side of the tree to the other, where it becomes single target. Then Mana Strike was respecced to Glacier which was then completely respecced from the damage side of the tree to the mana recoup side. You grossly underestimate how long it would take for my fantasy to play out.
Your description sounds like you’re respecing on the fly though, which, IMO, would be bad. There would be no permanence, no impact of your choices, it sounds just like D3. But maybe you just skipped over the “cost” side of it for brevity.
Correct. I was respeccing on the fly. It was a fantasy. You could not do what I described with the current respec mechanics, which is what I am lamenting.
Not quite as loose as D3 in my fantasy though, I still have to earn every level in every skill I want to play with.
Plus I do not necessarily want a 100% free respec, I’m happy to pay if the cost is reasonable. My argument is currently that the cost is not reasonable, it is time (the worst currency*) and too much of it. Note in the game, my highest level char is now level 66 and I still do not have my first specialised skill (which has never been respecced) at level 20 yet.
That’s the problem, what’s ok for you will be too little for others.
Maybe the devs could make skills that have been respeced earn the xp back faster back to the original level (over and above the current effective rate due to the lower level skill requiring less xp than the higher lvl skill to reach the next level). They’d have to keep track of the maximum level earned on a skill & if the current level is less than the highest level then any xp earned is doubled/tripled/<insert multiplier here & damn the forum software for using less than/greater than for other reasons.
Edit: that way you’d still be paying the initial time cost for levelling a skill, but if you respec it to either try something different or you realise a particular node isn’t effective for your build, it’s not as “hard” to respec afterwards. And they then don’t need to add any new currency or vendors, they don’t even “need” to add any new UI elements to handle the change if they don’t want to.
Edit #2: Given the current state of gold, if respec orbs were available to buy from vendors, then you reach a point where respecs become effectively free because you’ve got enough gold such that buying new orbs is a trivial expense. Though that’s assuming they don’t add new gold sinks. Having them dropped from mobs & tradeable on the AH would lessen this to a small extent as it reduces the supply, but I imagine their “cost” would be relatively high as the higher-end players would want them most & have the funds to buy most of them.
I think my favorite of all the ARPGs so far in term of Respec is the one we currently have.
I like Grim Dawn’s way of doing it, but that is because I’m keen on trying different mechanics and skills before I build a character around it, so easy respec helps a lot.
However, I do agree that easy respec tends to make choices not matter much in terms of class and passive.
The way its handled with the current Active skill is a good compromise. Its not hard/tedious/annoying like Path of Exile, but its not easy/free like Grimdawn. The idea of releveling when you respect makes it so your progress is a bit halted, so you should still be carefull, but its not a make or break type of situation. “I tought Specters would be better, but I need the golem meat shield.”
POE logic: “Better start a new character”
Last Epoch logic: “Better switch and relevel that skill”
Again, as I already stated, and feel there is nothing more to add here for you as you’re already convinced of your point of view, TO EACH THEIR OWN. I think you grossly OVERestimate how long it takes but since this very fact boils down to how YOU define your time, there’s nothing more to discuss. You define it one way, I define it another. It’s never going to meet. I got it.
I agree with that. I dont play POE but I played Grim Dawn a lot. There are skills you get in the devotion tree that are very impactful on you build. You can respecc them, but you need to get to certain point in the game to get a potion to do so, or it costs you some ressources. After that, you have to level the new skills you choose but they level pretty fast at a rate appropriate for your actual level. You also dont lose the level of the previous skills, they stay at the level they were before, so if you want to choose them back, you dont have to relevel them anew.
Like I said, there should be a good balance to the process so that a majority is satisfied. I agree with you that right now, rescpec is a bit too punishing at low level. For higher level, I dont know, not there yet. I hope it’ true that leveling new skills is faster. And I think you should be able to save the level of the skills you drop in case you want to take them back again in the future.
The problem with this is that in Grim Dawn your skill points are TIED to your level. In LE they are not, your passives are. So essentially you already have this. Plus, Devotions in Grim Dawn work more like Skills in LE. And if you respec out of one Devotion path and pick something that has a new Celestial Ability guess what you have to do. Level it up.
EDIT for Clarification: Granted in Grim Dawn once you level a celestial power you don’t have to relevel it if you come back to it. But the structure of devotions is much different because the Celestial Powers are what you’re building to, the in-between stars in the constellations that you can respec freely are very minor boosts to your character. LE doesn’t have a specific points that are the major boosters. Everything works sort of in tandem. It’d be extremely hard to say, “Okay you leveled THIS branch of the tree so we’ll keep that and save it while you decide to level an entirely different branch.” Or what happens if you want to keep a few points in the branch you’re in but go into another branch? This is where the comparison breaks down and doesn’t work because that part of LE is vastly different then devotions in GD.
Er no. PoE logic would be “Swap the Golem gem back in. Thankfully it’s still level 10 from the last time we used it, so at least we haven’t wasted hours of our lives just for wanting to try a build experiment.”
PoE is very much in the completely free to respec your skills (not passives) camp.
EDIT: Newsflash! At level 67 my first ever specced skill finally dinged level 20. Yeah that was fast. Thank God I never dared respec it at any point while levelling is all I can say. So according to some people if I spec out of it now and then back into it it will level again in mere minutes. Riiiiight.
Exactly. I have to relevel up, and I’m pretty ok with that. I’m ok to work a bit to get to my goal, and in grim dawn, I never felt like it was too punishing of frustrating. I just hope it’s the same in LE. Like I said, I’m not high level yet. If the releveling rate of new skill is reasonable, then it’s fine.
That’s right. Just do it and see how it works out.
I really get annoyed by your continuously condescending way you doubt everything people say. Leveling at higher character levels is way easier. That’s not an assumption. That is a fact. I don’t have the exact numbers# but if you despecialise now and relevel you will have around level 10-12 after 2 max 3 runs that need 5 minutes each. If you were level 80 it would take less than 2 runs. At level 90 I have about 1 run to reach lvl 15.
It’s not 100% accurate but it gives you a hint about how much time it would approximately take.
If you would have spent your time ingame with playing the game instead of complaining about this topic with enough words to fill a book (complaining about something you did not really try yourself) you could have reached level 80 and releveled all your skills twice already.
And if playing a game - be it leveling for the first time or releveling the 100th time - is just a waste of your time you should consider doing something else instead of playing games in general.
LE is not that damn awful that it hurts every minute I play. So I don’t mind putting time in to get something in reward.
The fact that I cannot test every build with a single character within my first playthrough is the reason I am so god damn addicted to this game. There’s always something to try and I do not see the limits, yet. Just think of Rogue getting implemented and all the skills and skilltrees that are still missing. I could spent weeks playing (I can play about 2h a day) without any additional content needed. It’s fun. I like it. Many do, too!
If you see leveling/ releveling as annoying work that is no fun I just cannot help you.
Now I have to question your experience with PoE because PoE is anything but free respec. First of all, you can hardly reuse leveled gem from another character, because there are hefty level requirements. Maybe you are lucky, sometimes, but most of the time you are not.
In poe, there is no way around, you have to level up every single gem, yes after that, you can swap it in and out in that one character (not with new character), but if you level it up to level 20, congratulation, now you want to set it to level 1/20% quality and do it again. In my opinion, PoE feels much more punishing than LE - and i still like it.
Let me clarify, I should have been clearer.
A meant a Specter build and a Golem build. I wasn’t talking to skill gem specifically.
They are both Minion builds, but “player X” find out specter build is not as fun/good for him. You want to try the golem build instead. Get ready to start a new character all over again.
Compared to LE, PoE is a lot more punishing and tedious when it comes to respecting.
EDIT: In the end, I was using PoE and Grimdawn’s respect as a reference and history for my opinion about respecting. I prefer an easy to respec that is not without minor hassle. Releveling a skill is 100% the better option IMO. It doesn’t stop you from trying the stuff you like, but its not 100% free either, so there is some consequences.
oh yes. Not Rogue but as a die hard melee player I am SOOOO jelling for the Sentinel/Paladin stances. 
I really look forward to Molten Blade skilltree. I expect a massive inferno with this skill. I think I will then despecialise one of my other skills to level this one. That 30 minutes I am not afraid of😉
In Ghostlight’s defence, it seems like you either misread or misinterpreted his post. He’s not saying that you can just give a gem to an alt, he’s (IMO) clearly saying that you can pick up a partially levelled gem you were using but set aside for reasons, then continue using it at whatever level it was.
I just want Smite to work properly with ailments (& Future Strike). And the stances to get skill trees.