So, an hour of research and I can get it enough to make a build my own?
Absolutely not. I meant it might take an hour to find a decent build guide (maybe less if you are willing to wing it with the first thing you find, but I’m assuming you’d search for a few build guides and skim them to see how much recognizable information there is, i.e. how newbie friendly they are). If you want to improvise with your own build, you pretty much have to take the most obvious option at each step (like, play a sorceress and take all the recommended lightning gems with the recommended supports and get straightforwardly good spellcasting gear and passive tree nodes). Trying to make something weird like a minion based warrior is just gonna result in getting stuck in the first two acts of the campaign unless you really know what you’re doing.
Generally my problem with the big skill trees is there’s only ever a handful of “optimal” routes that you should take otherwise you’ll be underpowered and that always felt especially unintuitive (afaik, PoE1 was like that).
I think this is isn’t really true. In PoE1 as long as you keep a good balance of % life, % damage, and the other stats that you need for your build (could be attack speed, crit chance and multi, dot multi, penetration, specific defenses) you could usually path in a few different ways. As your build reached higher investment it usually would become optimal to start shifting your tree around to grab more jewel sockets and fewer damage nodes (because you’re getting sources of increased damage elsewhere). So there really isn’t a simple way to determine what the absolute best skill tree for a build is going to be. You usually have a general shape that’s determined by mandatory nodes for the build, but everything else is variable and experienced players will know when it makes sense to switch up their tree to improve a build.
In PoE2 this is still more or less true. PoE2 doesn’t have life nodes on the tree, so there’s less pressure to path in any particular way because the number of mandatory nodes for a certain archetype is lower. High end builds also will typically use a Megalomaniac jewel which is a randomly generated jewel that gives 3 random notable nodes; you can find a good one that someone happened to get, it will almost certainly change your skill tree a good amount when you grab it because it might save you pathing to nodes you’re currently grabbing, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll have anyone else’s tree as a reference to know what to do because these jewels are unique. There’s definitely always going to be an element of figuring it out yourself in the lategame. On the other hand, earlier in the game’s progression there’s less freedom than PoE1 because pathing to different regions in the tree is costlier. This practically means builds in the same class that are using similar skills will tend to have pretty similar skill trees because wandering is more expensive. It also means you tend to be locked to the defenses associated with the side of the tree you’re starting in, because getting support for defences associated to other parts of the tree will cost a ton of passive points. In PoE2 builds tend to feel more cookie cutter, especially in the <80 divine investment zone, than PoE1. I think this issue will probably improve over time as they flesh out more classes and add more unique items (different defensive archetypes mostly come from unique items in PoE1).
Absolutely not. I meant it might take an hour to find a decent build guide (maybe less if you are willing to wing it with the first thing you find, but I’m assuming you’d search for a few build guides and skim them to see how much recognizable information there is, i.e. how newbie friendly they are). If you want to improvise with your own build, you pretty much have to take the most obvious option at each step (like, play a sorceress and take all the recommended lightning gems with the recommended supports and get straightforwardly good spellcasting gear and passive tree nodes). Trying to make something weird like a minion based warrior is just gonna result in getting stuck in the first two acts of the campaign unless you really know what you’re doing.
I think this is isn’t really true. In PoE1 as long as you keep a good balance of % life, % damage, and the other stats that you need for your build (could be attack speed, crit chance and multi, dot multi, penetration, specific defenses) you could usually path in a few different ways. As your build reached higher investment it usually would become optimal to start shifting your tree around to grab more jewel sockets and fewer damage nodes (because you’re getting sources of increased damage elsewhere). So there really isn’t a simple way to determine what the absolute best skill tree for a build is going to be. You usually have a general shape that’s determined by mandatory nodes for the build, but everything else is variable and experienced players will know when it makes sense to switch up their tree to improve a build.
In PoE2 this is still more or less true. PoE2 doesn’t have life nodes on the tree, so there’s less pressure to path in any particular way because the number of mandatory nodes for a certain archetype is lower. High end builds also will typically use a Megalomaniac jewel which is a randomly generated jewel that gives 3 random notable nodes; you can find a good one that someone happened to get, it will almost certainly change your skill tree a good amount when you grab it because it might save you pathing to nodes you’re currently grabbing, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll have anyone else’s tree as a reference to know what to do because these jewels are unique. There’s definitely always going to be an element of figuring it out yourself in the lategame. On the other hand, earlier in the game’s progression there’s less freedom than PoE1 because pathing to different regions in the tree is costlier. This practically means builds in the same class that are using similar skills will tend to have pretty similar skill trees because wandering is more expensive. It also means you tend to be locked to the defenses associated with the side of the tree you’re starting in, because getting support for defences associated to other parts of the tree will cost a ton of passive points. In PoE2 builds tend to feel more cookie cutter, especially in the <80 divine investment zone, than PoE1. I think this issue will probably improve over time as they flesh out more classes and add more unique items (different defensive archetypes mostly come from unique items in PoE1).