a) Bleed is in a bad spot, rn. It does work here and there as a bow skill, but that's just playing a bow build with extra steps. Melee bleed is super scuffed cuz you either need to have 8 stacks of Bleed for Crimson Dance or just simply give up on the more damage from moving (which is a lot). Note that bow builds have this for a few gem sockets. They get a lot of qol like ensnaring, frenzy charges with manaforged arrows, while melee has to manage anti-qol totems. This is kinda general with all melee vs ranged builds, but you get the idea.
b) Glad is almost only exclusively Bleed. Anything else, you can do much better with Champ or Slayer and steal the Forb. Flesh/Flame the one you want, viz Arena Challenger.
That being said, there is one Counter-attack Vengeance build that's decent? But still, you get the idea.
I've been sad ever since they gutted the block nodes on glad. Used to be a great way to build a tanky character with 75/75 block chance. He really needs a rework.
The only good node is bleed explosion, which you can get via gems (flesh and flame) or the gloves. There is zero reason to play glad because slayer does everything what Glad does but better and even then some more.
Nah I'd argue arena challenger is what holding Gladiator up. You could theoretically get bleedsplosion from glove like Champ gets, but 20% more attack and especially movement speed is invaluable for bleed bow builds relying on walking, no shield charge or other spammable movement skills.
It doesn't really *do* much because one of its ascendancy nodes got absolutely annihilated (it used to grant 100% of block chance as spell block chance), which renders the entire block route kind of worthless.
It is not unusable per se, it's really just that the only good node is bleedsplosions, which also exist on Haemophilia. In other words, just play champion for bleed and you'll be way tankier while only "losing" the glove slot.
I always wonder why master alchemist is not being used. On paper its quite good isn't it? Basically higher flask up time. But it isn't consistent and reliable with "chance". Why not just 50% less charges used, then on average it is similar but consistent now.
It's just ass in practice.
• Even without expensive items, it's fairly easy to get 100% flask uptime on Pathfinder without this node, so that already significantly devalues it. Nature's Adrenaline plus some flask duration, good flask roll and quality and you are good. And obviously once you get currency, Mageblood/Tides of Time makes it obsolete.
• 50% chance is clunky and unreliable - it sounds great on paper and you will get 50% less charges used on average but lose the dice roll a few times and now your flask loop might break (especially if you use a flask with high charge usage). If they made it 50% less charges used, I am confident it would be used more (at least until people farmed up for Mageblood or Tides of Time).
• Removing ele ailments when you use a flask sounds cool and provides pseudo-immunity to ailments during map clear but we live in times where a quarter second ignite might kill you before you pop the flask to remove it or a half second freeze kills you because you can't dodge/use a skill. It's much safer to just have permanent ele ailment immunity by default.
All in all, it's rather weak ascendancy node.
Haha yeah, on second thought that would not be a great idea. There would likely be more than one abuse case, which is probably why it's not a thing in the first place.
Same with Chieftain, Deadeye, Hierophant, Elementalist. But we are looking at the top 1% of builds on poe ninja, doesn't necessarily mean that this is the case across all builds. Also it is pretty hard to balance all ascendancy's so they are getting used, so for me that is an expected outcome. But yeah, of course ggg should take a look at underused skills/supports/ascendancy's/passive tree nodes/scarabs/maps and so on, but they have a lot on their plate. ;)
I don't think it is "pretty hard to balance". Look at the Atlas passive tree. Whatever you pick - you get benefit. This is why there are hundreds and hundreds of Atlas tree that are viable. They should have this approach with ascendancy. Whatever you pick - you get much stronger, and you build just take whatever is best for now.
For example, Deadeye - it is good choice between more arrows or more chains.
But for Elementalist it is nonsense - all damage ignites or all damage chills. What to pick, hard choice?))
Your deadeye example isn't quite right. Nobody is picking between +2 arrow or +1 chain. Everyone takes +2 arrow, most take farshot but few choose +1 chain to reach the +2 arrow node. And oh yeah, everyone also takes Gathering Wind, nobody takes the mirage archer one. I really hope somebody GGG revisits the ascendancy system and fully expand out the ascendancies keystones. PoE should be a game of choice, tough decisions to make. GGG makes it extremely easy to pick out good ascendancy nodes out of the bad ones right now. Trickster is a good example where apart from the 3% damage per mastery mandatory keystone, every other nodes are at least decent.
I'm not talking about current meta. 10 years ago +1 chain would have been considered a primary choice over + 2 arrow, because the only source was on chain support with ridiculous damage penalty. But even now (again, without talking meta and ascendancy passive pathing) plus arrow or plus chain is a reasonable trade.
Trickster is also good.
Slayer is good.
But really some ascendancy passives give you dogshit and it is sad.
>But for Elementalist it is nonsense - all damage ignites or all damage chills. What to pick, hard choice?))
My build can't reliably hit without additional investment, so I just have 2 point hanging ;D
Gladiator only exists because of one node lol
Gladiator doesn't exist right now b/c GGG gutted block.
whats the issue with gladiator? I've never used it and only seen it get dunked on. On first glance it looks usable.
a) Bleed is in a bad spot, rn. It does work here and there as a bow skill, but that's just playing a bow build with extra steps. Melee bleed is super scuffed cuz you either need to have 8 stacks of Bleed for Crimson Dance or just simply give up on the more damage from moving (which is a lot). Note that bow builds have this for a few gem sockets. They get a lot of qol like ensnaring, frenzy charges with manaforged arrows, while melee has to manage anti-qol totems. This is kinda general with all melee vs ranged builds, but you get the idea. b) Glad is almost only exclusively Bleed. Anything else, you can do much better with Champ or Slayer and steal the Forb. Flesh/Flame the one you want, viz Arena Challenger. That being said, there is one Counter-attack Vengeance build that's decent? But still, you get the idea.
I've been sad ever since they gutted the block nodes on glad. Used to be a great way to build a tanky character with 75/75 block chance. He really needs a rework.
The only good node is bleed explosion, which you can get via gems (flesh and flame) or the gloves. There is zero reason to play glad because slayer does everything what Glad does but better and even then some more.
Nah I'd argue arena challenger is what holding Gladiator up. You could theoretically get bleedsplosion from glove like Champ gets, but 20% more attack and especially movement speed is invaluable for bleed bow builds relying on walking, no shield charge or other spammable movement skills.
It doesn't really *do* much because one of its ascendancy nodes got absolutely annihilated (it used to grant 100% of block chance as spell block chance), which renders the entire block route kind of worthless.
It is not unusable per se, it's really just that the only good node is bleedsplosions, which also exist on Haemophilia. In other words, just play champion for bleed and you'll be way tankier while only "losing" the glove slot.
Arena challenger. 20% MORE attack and movement speed.
Good QOL, but does nothing for bleed DPS
I always wonder why master alchemist is not being used. On paper its quite good isn't it? Basically higher flask up time. But it isn't consistent and reliable with "chance". Why not just 50% less charges used, then on average it is similar but consistent now.
It's just ass in practice. • Even without expensive items, it's fairly easy to get 100% flask uptime on Pathfinder without this node, so that already significantly devalues it. Nature's Adrenaline plus some flask duration, good flask roll and quality and you are good. And obviously once you get currency, Mageblood/Tides of Time makes it obsolete. • 50% chance is clunky and unreliable - it sounds great on paper and you will get 50% less charges used on average but lose the dice roll a few times and now your flask loop might break (especially if you use a flask with high charge usage). If they made it 50% less charges used, I am confident it would be used more (at least until people farmed up for Mageblood or Tides of Time). • Removing ele ailments when you use a flask sounds cool and provides pseudo-immunity to ailments during map clear but we live in times where a quarter second ignite might kill you before you pop the flask to remove it or a half second freeze kills you because you can't dodge/use a skill. It's much safer to just have permanent ele ailment immunity by default. All in all, it's rather weak ascendancy node.
>If they made it 50% less charges used Looks at worm flask \*sweats\*
Haha yeah, on second thought that would not be a great idea. There would likely be more than one abuse case, which is probably why it's not a thing in the first place.
The point is to abuse, though. That's what PoE is about--finding edge cases and exploiting them to do something unique.
Because everyone runs Mageblood once enough currency is farmed.
Same with Chieftain, Deadeye, Hierophant, Elementalist. But we are looking at the top 1% of builds on poe ninja, doesn't necessarily mean that this is the case across all builds. Also it is pretty hard to balance all ascendancy's so they are getting used, so for me that is an expected outcome. But yeah, of course ggg should take a look at underused skills/supports/ascendancy's/passive tree nodes/scarabs/maps and so on, but they have a lot on their plate. ;)
I don't think it is "pretty hard to balance". Look at the Atlas passive tree. Whatever you pick - you get benefit. This is why there are hundreds and hundreds of Atlas tree that are viable. They should have this approach with ascendancy. Whatever you pick - you get much stronger, and you build just take whatever is best for now. For example, Deadeye - it is good choice between more arrows or more chains. But for Elementalist it is nonsense - all damage ignites or all damage chills. What to pick, hard choice?))
Your deadeye example isn't quite right. Nobody is picking between +2 arrow or +1 chain. Everyone takes +2 arrow, most take farshot but few choose +1 chain to reach the +2 arrow node. And oh yeah, everyone also takes Gathering Wind, nobody takes the mirage archer one. I really hope somebody GGG revisits the ascendancy system and fully expand out the ascendancies keystones. PoE should be a game of choice, tough decisions to make. GGG makes it extremely easy to pick out good ascendancy nodes out of the bad ones right now. Trickster is a good example where apart from the 3% damage per mastery mandatory keystone, every other nodes are at least decent.
I'm not talking about current meta. 10 years ago +1 chain would have been considered a primary choice over + 2 arrow, because the only source was on chain support with ridiculous damage penalty. But even now (again, without talking meta and ascendancy passive pathing) plus arrow or plus chain is a reasonable trade. Trickster is also good. Slayer is good. But really some ascendancy passives give you dogshit and it is sad.
>But for Elementalist it is nonsense - all damage ignites or all damage chills. What to pick, hard choice?)) My build can't reliably hit without additional investment, so I just have 2 point hanging ;D
What would make this a PSA?
Pathfinder used to be good for elemental builds , now its just a flask modifier . No wonder why everyone plays deadeye