Path of Exile 2 | The Good, The Bad & The Meh | From PoE 1 Vet

[@Evil_Deadite]

The only Warframe I sub too is now doing poe2 content. I appreciate it, especially as you are the only person that is basically going through every Warframe weapon to make builds on. I hope you are stoked for tomorrow!

[@chaosgyro]

I doubt he'll do PoE2 content. He did a small number of PoE videos back years ago, but wanted to keep that game separate from KZbin so that he could enjoy it without feeling like needing to play as a "content creator". I could be wrong about his plans for PoE2, but don't get your hopes up.

[@DarthChimera]

Completely agnostic of whatever game you're playing, but one-shot kill mechanics combined with a "lose access on death"-mechanic is just a combination that needs to be entirely removed from anything other than maybe roguelikes.

[@TheNumbersPerson]

PoE2 content from mister youtube man would make me a very happy man. I'm over 70 hours into the game right now and loving it just like when I first got into Warframe. 1999 is going to end up waiting for a while for me.

[@EmpyreanDreamer]

Nice to see someone mention performance. It is early access but regarless way too many people skip over performance. The game runs incredibly well for me 90% of the time but there's definitely a few spots which tank fps like the caravan in act 2 and some of the last few zones in act 3. I also got some crazy stuttering in waterways. Those aside I think the game is great and its a really impressive foundation to start with.

[@monkeyjamzter]

Gotta love when someone doesnt just seat here and glaze the devs and actually gives valuable criticism

[@CrowQQ]

Like stuff like this is the reason why I'm just letting poe2 cook longer before even thinking about jumping into EA.

[@ggslushy]

I told my friend 2 reasons I'm not buying poe2 EA. 1. No idea how much I'll like the game in this type of open beta testing phase with all the changes and unfinished mechanics 2. The game will be free when this ends, so why should I buy it?

[@Sagittari9999]

@@ggslushy I thought the same, then I decided to buy it simply because of the coins you get with the EA bundle. I was planning to make a small purchase to buy stashtabs so I see no loss in money, only positive - I can play the game early.

[@MrKbytes]

I've lost count on how many time I watched your ruthless playlist, glad to see you still play poe from time to time.

[@chezpizza3869]

I agree with your comments. I’m running a Frost Monk build, and the passive nodes and gems aren’t that exciting. I hope for more options and customization like the first game, but hopefully not as confusing. Luckily I can re-spec with gold instead of hunting for orb of regrets.

[@wailfulcrab]

If you loose your map in one death that can be through any bs Poe 1 was known for (Betrayal spawns, Devourers, something exploding on death, random twig doing some lucky roll on crit damage) then I'm going back to Last Epoch. Sanctum and Ultimatum as Ascendancy trials also irk me in the wrong way. Lab was iconic and pretty well designed content.

[@randomguy3869]

100% agree with your statements as a fellow minion player. I absolutely hate that they get stuck on literally every corner of the maze-like layout every map has now

[@astromoe1]

Watching you dive into PoE2 feels like seeing a Tenno pick up a bow for the first time-precision, chaos, and endless possibilities ahead. Can't wait to see what builds you craft; maybe channel some Warframe energy and make a Minion-Mancer that feels like summoning absurdly op Sentinels? Keep slashing through that content and I hope you find comfort at doing endgame stuff :)

[@osamely_varan]

yep, looking forward to skeleton mage build. still not in the maps yet. and yep, ascendancy trials are big mistery. someone designed it, someone tested it and they both thought: yep, it is good. !?!?!?!?! so far, I am ignoring ascendancy and playing without it.

[@NyancyCat]

I'm glad folks are enjoying POE2. I've been turned off of POE1 for quite some time now - honestly since the Maven was introduced, if not longer - and I can't see myself going back to try POE2, but it's good that GGG doesnt seem to have gotten complacent.

[@Shadowskul33]

Preach king! Was waiting for you to come out with a POE2 video. Really hope they fix a lot of these things and we see more videos on it.

[@Capitan_Captain]

I was waiting for this review

[@DoctorPotassium]

I was waiting to hear your thoughts on poe2 I gotta say I agree. But only time will I suppose

[@nextgen3ric]

Ironically, what the passive tree lacks is solutions to problems that come up during gameplay that aren't caused by the passive tree itself. Removing life may have made the game easier to balance, but it also removed 99% of the incentive to not fully invest in damage nodes. Couple that with the tree actively creating problems by having notables be intrinsically a downside and an upside, and it just feels incredibly sluggish and non-responsive, because it only interacts with itself. The skill system is exactly the same way: supports introduce problems that you have to fix with support gems, given how punishingly often everything has a more and less multiplier, instead of reductions and increases. It just makes it uninteresting that the only solution for a vast majority of clear skills is to shackle them to martial/arcane tempo because almost every support that increases clear kills cast and attack speed. Generally the balance of every single system feels incredibly self-contained and uninteractive with the rest of the systems. Funnily enough, that was precisely why I dropped Warframe shortly after Fortuna, because it was yet another content island. PoE 1 has major fundamental faults, but one thing it doesn't do is guard rail you into specifics. Yes, there's build checklists for defense and offense, but you have a variety of solutions to pick from across all the different base systems, and multiple approaches to attempt those fixes via adjacent supporting systems. PoE 2 currently doesn't feel like it honours that flexibility and freedom. I'm almost certain that will be what the game evolves into, but it hurts a bit that the early access release is this constrained.

[@maxborek1035]

Love your POE content! I hope you make more POE2 videos in the future!

[@undeadadventurer6301]

Personally i would really appreciate you making a series on poe2. Ive always wanted to get into 1 but its very intimidating and the campaign esrly on wasnt engaging enough difficulty wise. Now here you are throwing around terms that leave me confused about a game im anticipating lnao

[@arthanor9631]

As a low-20s cold sorceress, the ascendence trial was _ok_, but I finished with 27 honor despite recovering some during the run, because of a few stray hits during the boss fight. Can't imagine on a melee class... and yeah, loot through the campaign is lacking. I'm still keeping some of my first slottable items, especially jewelery and belts, because I haven't found another one.

[@simpson6700]

i have not played PoE2 yet, but i absolutely hated sanctum and ultimatum in PoE1. this was one of the things that i was worried about when they showed it off.

[@greenflyer2288]

Looking forward to this, I’d wondered what you made of it.

[@nobodyimportant4055]

I've spent over 7000 hours in poe1, SSF, hc, HCSSF, hcssfR, and now 100 hours in poe2 (ssf). Melee feels awful - Sanctum is damn near impossible, ultimatum heavily punishes standing in place for big slams and mapping with a 1h+shield feels anemic as fuck. Melee minions feel decent so far. Also spending literal hours farming areas for regal shards just to get +max mana on the item you're crafting (blood magic melee says hi) is less fun than any ruthless crafting I've ever done. However, I'll keep playing, mainly because I like figuring stuff out - maybe there's some way to make my slam titan feel better.

[@CriticalFeline]

I agree with pretty much everything in this video (except performance, it's been perfect for me). I personally really like the game, despite its flaws, and I hope we can get some more PoE content on the channel going forward ❤

[@MrFirsito]

he might be making the comparisson against poe1 which is incredible good at performance my performance was good as well, there are worse "finished" games that i am having problem with performance: D4 is terrible, unless you have a nasa computer to render HD models... another example is marvel rivals, low quality and ultra quaility is pretty much the same, so if you have a mid laptop, for instance, it wont matter how hard youre going, either you run it or dont run the game haha

[@sebbeth2122]

I'm also playing a minion build and never touched sanctum in PoE1 but I have really enjoyed it as the way to ascend. It felt like I was actually having to work to get my points instead of just opening poelab and trying to go as fast as possible through the Lab

[@lightworker2956]

Same here.

[@Mandurath]

Was hoping for a PoE2 update. Been playing myself, and yup, my least favorite part is getting nuked by bosses. Hopefully some build guides will be coming. PoE2 dropping, and Warframes big update coming, good times!

[@Reaper18490]

ill still play it early access but it definitely needs to be more refined in a lot of areas

[@niton6474]

Wow my fav Poe creator talking about Poe2!

[@Necromediancer]

Funny I was actually thinking of getting into this game despite never playing a Diablo-like kinda game

[@Navonex]

I hope you make more poe video's again, I got into it watching your videos. I'm 2,518.4 hours into the game, beat all the ubers and still learning it while playing poe 2, and having a blast. I hope you decide to make more poe 2 videos going forward .

[@Kacperskid]

I 100% agree with passive skill tree argument. I play physical spells + skeletal archers and passives for them are so boring and do like nothing for the build it's driving me crazy. I just went ahead and started grabbing a lot of crit nodes on the sides that are also just more crit. I thought that they said they removed masteries because they wanted to big passives nodes to be like them. But when i look at some of them it's like just generic stuff and then there is like 1 node wthich is really cool.. Also the support gems for minions suck.

[@Spcell90]

I was hoping you to make this video and strongly agree with your points. I would add one point, they absolutely need to remove the XP loss death penalty, for this game it feels completely out of place and time.

[@ArcDragoon]

I too dislike the squiggliness of the skill tree. I mean, I get why it is an aesthetic choice, but the major clusters already look like objects. The center of the tree each branching off to look like something familiar in that class is too much. If you pay attention, they do look like something, but it is overkill in design. Also, about minion nodes. I'm playing a Gemling. At first, I thought I would use the minion nodes down on the Mercenary portion. Because I thought it would emphasize "allies" nodes. But there aren't enough there to justify a minion build. There are two minion clusters in the Mercenary portion of the skill tree. And there are three "allies" nodes. And if you choose the "allies" nodes you're giving up a lot of power, because only the notables apply to allies. The only good one is the one that shares a portion of your healing per second. So, I decided to path up to the Witch tree. And where is Spiritual Aid?

[@humu39]

I'm using ranger and yeah the skills are kinda wacky as well as the skill tree is just damage and poison duration. I want like random elements being proced something.

[@Mr30Louzi]

Was waiting for this one, love your POE videos! I love this game already... yes, it have some problems, but all I know is GGG will fix or change then into something interesting at least. The game is out in EA for just a weak and already fells better to play. I think by the time the game full release come, this will be incredible!!

[@gerskunk]

Pretty much the same way, i feel about POE atm.

[@seanisanalien]

Please do a playthrough/walkthrough series 🙏

[@arivin7956]

Good video, at least it's level headed and goes into what you like and dislike. It's actually refreshing after seeing the subreddit devolve into a constant "poe2 bad, poe1 GOAT", with barely any constructive criticism.

[@SwedetasticGames]

Also, the minions getting stuck everywhere and dying instead of teleporting when you get too far away is infuriating. Tower maps, The Dreadnaught during campaign, Augory maps, Sump maps... 5x slower and more annoying just due to this.

[@wraithlord1444]

Fun stuff indeed.

[@esquillo3708]

I agree it most thing you pointed in this review. Altough i'm still having so much fun, and I think with valid feedback their are already fixing things too fast and improving the game. I hope poe2 does not become poe1, and I have lots of expectations for when the game is really launched. The things that bothers me the most were most the same as in PoE1, the complete lack of target farming, they should've learned it from last epoch, which is the only ARPG where I play SSF withouth being restricted for just a few build cuz i can't target farm a unique item. The crafting is really lacking and boring. It's too hard for new players to overfarm to get through someplace they're hardstuck on the campaign and the runes and artificers don't drop enough to fix noobs necessities. Skill tree does feel boring (masteries should be back). Overall I have really high expectations and hope they keep the good work, these are the bones of possibly the best ARPG ever. AND PLEASE MAKE MELEE GREAT, SHIELD RAISE LATE GAME IS GARBAGE JUST LIKE SANCTUM

[@WumboDrebin]

I was playing the CoF Comet and after it got nuked, I started Ice Strike. Now I see ppl make videos about it. Time for a 2 day break to see if it will get nuked next, Ball Lightning surely will.

[@troll5262]

One major complaint from me is the multiplayer. Been doing coop with a friend and the revive system is really rough. Takes too long with how fast bosses attack. Most of them have no openings where you can actually revive unless they got a phase shift coming up. Maps are even worse because if you die, you are out. Just like if solo but now you either gotta wait for your pal to finish or they kill themselves so you can play again. No idea why you can just respawn and use the portals. It's so infuriating. Oh, and only the host gets map progression on the atlas.

[@spookmineer]

Have you seen Upper Echelon's vid? Is there any merit to his thoughts? Maybe it doesn't affect you at all, and you don't want to get into drama (which I understand). Maybe best to just ignore it ;) but I didn't even know it was a thing.

[@Narks-]

Horribly disappointed in PoE2 The entire sentiment of "We can't wait to see what you do and all the creative things you come up with" which was swiftly received with multiple "but not like that" nerfs is disappointing and really sets the tone for the future of this game in the short term.

[@EmpyreanDreamer]

I'm not sure its fair to say you're disappointed with the game based on some nerfs. This is ultimately what early access is for. I will agree those nerfs went way too hard and I did have to change my build but at the same time they've been making frequent changes and immediately responded to loot, dodgeroll and checkpoint feedback. I think that sets a great tone for the future and heavily outways the annoyance of a few overly zealous nerfs.

[@hieracon475]

do you have a guide for the build in this video?

[@Akirathedon92]

I love both PoE1 and PoE2 dearly. But Im at the point in PoE2 where its "Early Access" woes are showing through the cracks a bit too much for me to want to continue playing as feverishly as I did the first few days. Its an incredible foundation for a game with a bright future, but its missing out in too many of the things that PoE1 has which drew me in. Build diversity/creativity is sorely lacking. This is likely just due to how only half or so of the skills are in the game and how lackluster the skill tree is at the moment. There is no loot dopamine. I understand they dont want it to be loot vomit like in PoE1, but there has to be a happy middle ground. The solution to "too much loot" Is NOT "no loot". I really hope GGG doesnt go down the route of trying to hyper balance the game in attempt to prevent things from getting too crazy. Thats part of what made PoE1 so fun.

[@Zerli]

True. I have some more feedbacks as a POE1 Vet. I bounced off and dropped the game due to following: - no way of power up when you face unbeatable challenge (Im act 3) - I couldn't beat the boss nor do the 2nd ascendancy (blood mage) - GGG bricked my build which wasn't even that powerfull - I dont have money to respec, but if I did still I have no idea what to build that would make sense to beat the challenge - Boring crafting - Game is ruthless... - Im 32h in the game and Im in 3 act, my god I don't have willpower to spend another 10-20h just to finish campaign and taste the endgame.... - 0 replayability for me ( I don't want to play campaign over and over again with each character nor every new league)

[@lightworker2956]

Way to power up: grind, check vendors, gamble items, try out new skills and new supports and passives. Trade. Group up with other people. The game is one week old. Obviously we don't know the best builds yet. One week in you should be open-mindedly experimenting with builds, not expecting to be easily able to crush the game. I'm having a pretty easy time in act 3 with Mathil's monk build right now. I'm also loving the game, I'd give it a 9/10. But yes, it's not PoE1. It's challenging (in a fun way), it's not zoom-zoom. And as you'll get better at the game and as more good builds become available, the game will become a bit easier. Plus, loot just got buffed. If you go into PoE1 with pretty much zero knowledge and no premade build (like you went into PoE2), you'll probably run into a wall on your first char too. That's part of Path of Exile -- you just happen to be an expert in PoE1, but not yet in PoE2.

[@quantumhawk806]

agree, it will only get worse in maps

[@EmpyreanDreamer]

You can't have played much POE1 if you get discouraged this easily. In PoE1 everything was a gear and build check. In this game there is at least an element of skill expression to pick up the slack. If you check vendors frequently and pick up any weapons with a good base you'll eventually end up with something decent. Hell I had some weapons I bought at the start of an act which lasted me the entire act and half of the next one and I was still killing bosses ridiclously fast. I could kill some of them in one stun. I recently went back and did act 1 on a warrior making an effort to use weak items and not upgrade them. Even though it took 6-7 minutes to kill the last boss I still managed and warrior is the only class that gets to complain really. It feels very behind the others and MUCH more gear dependant, that said the fact that I managed to do this says a lot. The game isn't hard people just have the wrong mindset. My monk is almost done with cruel and I've yet to die to any boss. I've died a few times to getting blocked by mobs and I failed the trials a few times but I've 1 shot every single boss on that character all because I invested in a weapon, made sure to use runes etc and took a lot of defensive passives.

[@jimbodee4043]

Hey hope you reported the skeletal mages arc vs damage bug.

[@SwedetasticGames]

Waystone droprates, currency droprates, and visuall clarity of enemy spells/floorcreep all need alot of tuning. Espescially spell effects and floorcreep. Creep being same color and nearly same texture as the floor you're on, while covered in foliage, and it ticks you for 800 damage 3x a second, is god-awefull and has no real counterplay. Most enemy grenade type abilities, such as from the Mawdun Mines bombchuckers, have a 80% transparent soft-orange outline that blends in anywhere, and they do obsurd damage. I have died more times to things I had no ability to see in this Early Access test than I have in my entire 300h of PoE 1, and that is saying alot as PoE 1 has some famously bad telegraphs ans visuall overlaps.

[@igornevsky8504]

And there is a big enough chance, that the third Ascendancy trial will be TotA. Why, GGG, just... why?

[@SwordQuake2]

Well there's no minion ascendancy yet. Hopefully they'll touch up the main tree when they add it.

[@monkeyjamzter]

That's by design they don't wanna make necromancer, infernalist is probably as close as we will get

[@goldenhate6649]

The passive tree is too dispersed and yeah, the squiggles are terrible

[@DeWhiskeys]

I hate Sanctum and Ultimatum so much that I completed the campaign without ascendancy on a minion arsonist build. I've no idea how they will sort out the trials, but if they don't I'll just have thrown 30 pounds down the drain.

[@goldenhate6649]

Go back and do them, they don’t scale (at least the sanctum doesn’t, dono about ultimatum but don’t know why it would be different), making the trials incredibly easy after awhile

[@DayXwolfXl]

I've not been a huge fan of PoE2 so far. I feel like having to play a hybrid build just to do anything story wise is not fun. I'm not dropping ANYTHING of note so it's just a slog right now. :C

[@dreameater2661]

Finally are you going to do poe build again?

[@Dmitry-m4z]

After Warframe, PoE is the game I most played in the last decade. I refunded PoE2 in a couple of hours. I prefer the original PoE 100%. Boss fight being 99% of time just rolling was probably the biggest turn off. I will try the game when it fully releases tough. Until then it's a waste of time with nerfs, fixes, etc.

[@petar.stoyanov]

Thanks mate! You saved me from buying this game, I was really considering it. Edit: Lol, I made that decision (and comment) before even getting to the "meh" part :D

[@lightworker2956]

Game's a 9/10 to me right now. I'm loving it. The thing is, the majority who loves the game is playing it. And the minority who hates the game is loudly complaining about it. Hence all the negative discourse. But that doesn't mean the game is actually bad. On steam the game's 83% upvoted, clearly it's good.

[@monkeyjamzter]

​@lightworker2956 I'm enjoying the game too but "negative discourse" shouldn't be confused with criticism and feedback. Sure there are people that are just hating to hate but I would say there's alot of problems with the game atm

[@petar.stoyanov]

@@lightworker2956 I never said the game is bad. I've just heard enough to know the game won't be good *for me*.

[@wolfynightwolf]

Thx

[@RX69420XT]

got 100 hour on poe2, right now on a lvl 47 ranger, on act 1 ruthless, the only thing that i think is bad on the game really is the crafting, its the worst ive ever seen in any game, its not actually crafting, its just gambling and its a bad one, not even gonna tell how i have 100 hours and just 4 exalted orbs but 103 of the first and 173 of the second orb (forget their names)

[@rubencp93]

Question: does this game still rely too much on trading to get a decent build? This is the reason I never enjoyed PoE. I want to play an RPG where I farm my way to max level, then farm for my gear to do end game content. I don't want to spend hours levelling to reach end game, and then play a trading simulator to then play end game.

[@lightworker2956]

The game is one week old, no one's an expert yet. But personally the way it looks to me is: if you have a mediocre build you need to grind or trade, but if you have a good build then you don't. I'm currently having a pretty easy time in the midgame and I never grouped, traded or grinded (other than full-clearing maps -- it's PoE2, that's how you're supposed to play).

[@rubencp93]

​@@lightworker2956 I see. Well, if I can grind for my stuff, then I'll probably enjoy it. The thing that made me give up PoE was that everywhere I looked I was told to trade for the stuff I needed for my build, without telling me WHY I needed those things, and why I had to trade. Thank you for taking the time to respond. Much appreciated!

[@NWOslave]

i think the population will die rather quickly after release of the official game. if they dont fix the rng or gold drops people will nope out.

[@sportschool3537]

Well, let's put it this way... I quit on Act 2 after being one shot by the stupid fire giant boss 3-4 times in a row by his non-telegraphed attack while also my damage despite having a bow with 6 more than half-decent affixes AND 2 sockets which I spent a lot of resources on I was doing ABYSMAL damage... and no, it's not my build... that same build was annihilating mobs and elite monsters... The boss fights are not fun... sorry, I STRONGLY disagree... they're artificial challenges... making the boss the most gigantic damage sponge someone can think of doesn't make it hard, it makes it tedious and annoying... the devs just think I'm a brainless bot that when he dies will say "oh god, I suck so bad... I need to git gud" Well, sorry but I'm NOT a brainless bot and I understand ARPGs because I've played a fuckton of them and this one is BY FAR the worst... and yes, it's even worse than D4 because somehow GGG managed to fuck up THAT bad... No, it's not worse than D4 in terms of gameplay... but this game has so many mechanics that are designed with the sole purpose of making me want to pull my eyes out of their sockets and eat them because they're tedious bullshit that want to waste my time and suck every ounce of fun out of the game that I can say that I've NEVER EVER... EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVER played a more annoying and bullshit infested ARPG!!! Not to mention that if Raxx, Ziz and Kipparrian are struggling at gameplay (meaning No-life PoE nutcases) and say that the maps are brutal when these same people were some of the best in the world at PoE1 Ruthless then WHY IN GOD'S SHITTY UNDERPANTS should a normal person with a job that wants to play for fun play this stupid game??? The devs are simply moronic divas that think they needed to make a game "for real gamers"... well, as Mr. MCGamer knows very well, real gamers aren't "git gud" bots... Warframe is THE EASIEST GAME I've ever played... and yet people play it because it's good FUN!!! Whatever... PoE1 is harder than PoE2 anyway because PoE2 depends solely on stupid dodge roll mechanics while PoE1 you need to have a big fucking brain to make a working build without a guide... the excitement comes from SUCCEEDING in making that build... not from pressing space 150 times in a row without mistiming it once... that's for DUMB, low IQ people that think Souls games are the pinnacle of gaming... newsflash, they're NOT!!! They're not even the best games in their own fucking genre (meaning dodge roll heavy ARPGs) since Monster Hunter is 100 times more polished, more fair, more fun and more rewarding... Anyway... Path of Elden Ring will be dead very soon and I hope GGG devs end up unemployed for at least a decade because they committed the cardinal sin of game development... they flipped off their 10 year long fanbase that has been paying their bills for a VERY long time, waaaaay before Tencent and their big money bought them just to bring in the hype zombies of the "git gud" armies... So there... PoE2 is pathetically bad as it is now because it's simply NOT PLAYABLE at a casual fun level and certainly NOT ENJOYABLE as an experience at any level...

[@monkeyjamzter]

The crafting is horrible, its just slamming and praying

[@dankolord]

Tbh I don't care how good any of the Path of Exile games are. Warframe has shown me enough about MMOs, even though it has the least amount of bullshit in MMOs, so I won't play another one ever again.

[@LGkojin]

Finally someone call-out GGG for the bull 💩 that is the ascending trials for choosing the Worst systems for them . Hell the labyrinth with it's flow's is much better system as you(not the only reason) look for the layout of the lab every day and not total random Bull💩 that can oneshot you just for shit and giggles

[@Qneoneone]

yeah skilltree is very boring, skills feel like they are missing options but they are litherally missing options and crafting well I wouldnt call it crafting any more by far the thing they gutted the most. but all in all I'm enjoying my time with poe2 and am hopefull that it'll become great till full release. But to be honest I had way more fun last league in poe1 then this EA but that was kinda expected as this is not done. So hear is hoping poe1 goes back to normal soon so we can enjoy that till they add all the goodness into poe2.