Joeyjoejoe1708: Thanks to influential streamers like Fubgun the most played class switched from blue arrow to green arrow.

Ahzumer: i am getting very tired of the one-shot simulator. the game devolves into: instakill everyting or get ready to lose your mind and be punished heavily.

GreenStreetSlim: An interesting data point would be the # of melee builds compared to range builds each patch.

I find them to be completely 2 different experiences.

ydoumus: "Meta redefined"

ES: "okay, buddy"

Heelydon77: I have to say I disagree with some of the conclusions here. I think that quite obviously, the picture we see is remarkably similar if we simply consider the context of the things added in 0.4 compared to before.

For starters: the shift from Deadeye to Pathfinder, if we simply observe the usage of their points, to be primarily about speed. Roah mount was lost and deadeye lost some power in that area, so pathfinders unaffected by slow on top of being unable to be stunned out of your sprint, allows for some of the new fastest gameplay available.

Beyond that: Druid's split has between ascendancies has largely far more to do with the fact that there wasn't any obviously broken things pushing any players towards A or B, so players naturally went more into both camps when testing out things. This also goes hand in hand with how druid ascendancies are less obvious in terms of the power they add.

Lastly: Similarly we will see a larger split of skills used naturally, by the design of how the shapeshifting skills work. I cannot for instance realistically play a werewolf build at the endgame and only use two of my skills, because the kit is designed around all being used together and otherwise being heavily restricted in what it can do. This is also why if you look at werewolf builds currently, you will find that almost all of them use the exact same 5 skill with the one exception being Artic howl, since it is less good for non-wolf minion builds. The same applies for Bear in terms of how it utilizes a set of skills combined. That inherently will never end up pointing towards an overrepresentation of any single skill or 2 button combo as we've often seen in the past.

I think the conclusion is still that pathfinder is an indication of the past meta being the same: Speed is king and pathfinder offers the best options for speed now, and Druid is saving this from being overwhelmingly a pathfinder league like we have seen in the past with deadeye.

Also happy holidays to you.

paulc5389: People are massively sleeping on chonk. With the new remnant passive nodes you can easily get 100% uptime on full flame stacks for 100% extra damage as chaos. You can also choose to leech both mana and life from it and 2 of the remnant nodes give you 3% life and mana back every time you pick one up, which you'll do standing still.

Not to mention easy chaos resistance early on.

There is a lot of streamer bias included in these stats. No one's playing chonk because no one's playing chonk. Conversely, Fubgun started pathfinder.

GeraldHarnack-x4t: Sick of the power charges.

We already have mana, cooldowns, etc. We do not need stupid ass charge infusions. It is boring and needlessly complicated.

z3r0pointflux: I'm having a blast with my Firestorm Storm Weaver now. I just wish I didn't punished so bad in the campaign for experimenting with different things. Lack of skill/support gems is so daunting when trying different things out. About to start working on my spell totem build. All in all the league is good. 0.5 is going to be a banger. Mark eluded to the endgame changes being similar to POE1 endgame but better. I'm excited for the future of the game.

InnerExile_92: This patch has been great imo. The temple isn't the best but it's at least fun to play the game overall. Just posted my vid on my Plant Bloodmage, which has felt so great. Nothing insane but fun and efficient. Great breakdown on the meta, I think people aren't testing stuff enough though, there maybe some unique stuff out there still. I think that maybe why meta trends look as skewed as they do. One or two top build creators play something and people flock to play that thing instead of trying stuff out themselves more. Which means the meta doesn't equal strength of the ascendancy. People just haven't made anything crazy publicly yet. I feel like people should really only use build vids as a learning tool, maybe take a few ideas if it works but make your own setups. Trying to come up with a way to build that kind of community. Gonna keep trying some weird ideas for a bit myself. Got a very interesting take on the Werewolf on an Amazon in the works. Utilizing some Companion and flask stuff. Very cool and can't wait to share that! Hope your league has gone well and been fun!

DPFTIERHJB: Merry Christmas, mate. You're a great content creator and I hope you have a good one.

etyriel: I think looking at these numbers purely from a buff/nerf perspective doesn't paint the whole and true picture. I would actually argue that the majority of these numbers are represented by people who play the "flavour of the month" so to speak, heavily influenced by streamers such as Fubgun and the like. In other words not representing how good/bad an ascendancy might be.

I'd bet my lowest hanging nut that if you did a "social experiment" with some of the streamers who you consider to have the biggest influence on the game and have them chose a random class and ascendancy, you'd see that pretty high on this list, regardless of buffs and nurfs and how good/bad it is.

The discussion might end up being how big an influence do the streamers actually have on this game, and if so, why is that the case?

Underlining a bit what someone else mentioned below here. Most people most likely aren't setting up their own builds, but rather follow someone else's.

Just some thoughts, don't hold them against me, I love my nut...

vanadyan1674: I think the Acolyte of Chayula could actually be pretty good in its current form, we just need some decent chaos quarterstaff skills to work with.

肉絲蛋炒飯-b4y: I just hope they don’t nerf shield wall because it’s already slower than stampede build.

Just let warriors have some fun…

Primaeva: FIRST HELL YEAH

Reliquarium: I'm really hoping that Pounce is GGG realizing that accessible, balanced movement skills make ARPGs better, not worse.

snoozejuicer: Crazy to see abyssal lich that low. Any one seen pradas build? Thats some poe1 shit lol

thermatico2980: It's almost as if people prefer to play classes that have movement speed available... between the lack of movement speed and movement speed/ms penalty nerfs, and the refusal to make maps smaller this trend of high play rate for "faster" classes will continue.

ramschasar7654: Chayula is fine if daggers come with some synergies.

Tha said, the second darkness mod is somewhat boring. Would be nice if they added something like "You can impale with chaos damage" or something like that behind darkness to give it more meaningfull new ways to play instead of just an defensive layer.

disposableheero: I'm still playing minions this patch. It is still the only archetype with a healthy balance between power on the tree and power on items (i.e. it can run smoothly on shit gear), can easily fit rarity mods (i.e. it doesn't have overwhelming suffix pressure), and can scale well on both clear and single target. I am playing Shaman, using the empty charm spirit notable, and the rage notables along with the notables that allow allies in presence to gain rage when you do (warlord berserker) and get minion damage and attack speed from rage (commanding rage).

What has been different for me this patch from what I've settled on in previous patches though, is this time I didn't click CI. I'm actually much happier with defenses this league. I am running hybrid Armour/ES with life, and mind over matter. The combination of Life, Mana, and some ES as pool options let me his a respectable 10k pool (2.5k life, 1.5k mana, 6k ES), I get to benefit from the ES bypass node, and the convert max life to ES nodes which are very strong and close to the prime minion pathing, I get to have a layer of hit pool that regenerates very easily through Laviagna's Flask and mana from Flask scaling, and I get excellent mitigation from armour. I think the biggest contributor to this setup feeling good is the Runic Helm notable. It has small notables that give ES scaling and Armour applies to ele which are very strong, and the notable itself lets me very effectively use a pure armour helm, rare helmet being a crucial slot for minions with both 2 minion skills, and spirit reservation efficiency of skills on a desecrated suffix. Pure armour bases are vastly cheaper than equivalent ES bases, and I was able to buy 10 blues with T1 life and 2 minion skills on T1 armour helmets for less than a divine early on in the league allowing me to craft T1 life 1000 armour minion skills spirit reservation efficiency much earlier on than I would have been able to with an ES helmet, and its going to reduce my cost a lot in the future when I go to make a 2 socket version of that same helmet and try to double corrupt it for third socket and 30 spirit implicit.

I think the fact that there are off meta ways to build defenses now in the Str/Int area that are distinct and both feel solid is very good because it means you can pivot to what is available economically and you can choose different options for becoming tanky, where previously, I would have dismissed anything but CI as being a worthwhile way to build defenses for my character.

spaceghost8891: I believe that if defences where a bit more generous we could have even more variety of builds. The big investment needed for armour, life and evasion when compared to ES is a factor that also still plays a big part into build variety since 0.1

ColTTTi: patfinder being at 18% is pretty much only because fubgoon is playing it , without him it would be around 5-7%

yasha2033: Playing off meta builds is extremely punishing. You must play meta builds that 1 shot everything.

4funMORKY: Sadly after patch 0.4/b/c i cant play at all. Something changed. GPU usage goes beyond 100% same with CPU and game freezes. Drivers get time-out. After reading steam discusions, poe forums, reddit aswell. Plenty of people experiencing same issue. GGG sayin its AMD problem, but no other game i play does this. well its dota2 for me until it get fixed. I really hoped to see dem atziri bobas. shame :(

csimmeri: If people aren’t having fun playing the new updates then maybe stop playing? This game is in alpha. It’s not complete until 1.0. Go play something else and quit whining.

BasedAlarak: Happy holidays, everyone. I hope you're all doing fine for 0.4

sombrego2260: I genuinely think that acolyte of chayula is crazy strong right now and people don't give it enough credit. Darkness is not a meme at all and might be one of the best defensive node in the same, granted sacrificing all spirit is a huge cost, but still. And every other of its nodes can be super useful with the right build. You can easily get 85% chaos res, a really solid aoe on dodge, some extra damage as chaos.

Same goes for gemling it's not that bad. It has a few nodes really undertuned and it really could use defensive nodes but offensively it's really strong in a lot of builds. I feel it's just a bit awkward for him to be placed in the strength/dex section it's a really strange spot where many builds can't sustain mana unless they play attack. I guess it will become a lot stronger when swords,axes and daggers are eventually added.

Dec 24 2025

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