The Problem I have isn't Difficulty, it's More Fundamental...

Let me preface this post with the statement that I have no issues with the current difficulty of the game and am happy with how it is right now. My main issue with the game is more about how the game has somehow become more 'hand-holdy' whilst also becoming more mechanically difficult.

I love Path of Exile 1 and create a lot of builds every league. I am admittedly a chronic re-roller and likely play more characters than most. I also enjoy making weird builds that are off meta because they look cool or have a neat interaction.

I feel like PoE2 fails to deliver on this.

It may be due to lack of skill variety, skills being locked behind high levels, or skills being tied to one weapon type, but I feel like there are only a few ways to play each 'archetype'. I think one of the core issues is that support gems feel like they are designed with just one or two skills in mind for each weapon type and you fundamentally can't mix and match to craft your own weird build. Each skill has very obvious things it offers mechanically and there are a lack of tools to shift skills to do different things.

To add to this I am concerned that when we play this game over a longer period, those of us who play long-term will run out of 'substantially different' feeling builds to craft. Especially if the idea is that every archetype will run 5-6 of the skills in the kit. If I want to play 4-5 builds per league, what do I do in 2-3 leagues?

Like I said, I feel like the game has promise overall, I just want to feel like I have a toolkit to craft my own cool ideas in. This was the best part of PoE1 in my opinion and right now the game does not deliver. Hopefully this will resolve over time, but I think it will require some core changes to the way skill and support gems are designed.

Thanks for reading :) Stay Sane Exiles.