PoE 2 early access launches 6th December

[Mummelmann]

JRPGfan said:

Mummelmann said:

Ooof, I'm a Warrior, not looking forward to this. I'm going to roll a Mercenary as well, people say it's great fun, and a lot less frustrating. I've also seen some Monk Frost builds tear it up, despite Monk being universally put down in forums.

From my understanding melee (like warrior, and monk) basically depend on status effects to a much higher degree than others to make it through combat. Like you need freeze/stun buildup nodes, like your life depends on it (from the passive tree), and need to run supports that allow for that to happend faster. While on ranged characters that's a little less needed, you can focus more on just damage.

I see rangers do crazy stuff too (probably more powerful than merc/crossbows atm imo)..... 
my run with monk was bad because I focused on passives that were evasion/energy shield, instead of going for like damage/freeze build up, and picking bad support gems.  There are high level warriors that have done these trails and gotten multiple ascendancy points, so its not like its impossible by any means.

With warrior I repeated that mistake. You cannot damage soak effectively in this game, compared to poe1 (thats basically what ruined my monk and warrior). (instead of farming new support gem drops, and respeccing with gold, I just restarted as a mercinary)

I've gone hard on Stun buildup in my tree, it's more or less my strongest point on the character. Mob clearing is pretty quick, and I haven't died to regular mobs in hours now, mostly due to them being whacked into stunned right away so I can finish them while they're immobilized. Bosses are a different story, especially the ones with high tolerance/defense against Stun. With the Giant's Blood skill, I can use a shield and still wield a 2-hander, which allows for even more Stun effects since they give a better wallop overall. I wanted to increase my AoE as well, but I couldn't afford the nodes yet, I had to focus on more damage and Stun.

From what I hear, Leeching is also less efficient in PoE2, to the point where it's not a viable route in and on itself. I haven't tested it though. Leech res is a considerable issue later on, or so they say.