Feedback and Suggestions - My experience with strike skill and what needs to change... (long) - Forum - Path of Exile (2024)

I have been a long time fan of strike skill, and I probably have played almost all strike skill in POE. Aside from the targeting issue that GGG has acknowledge recently, there is a bigger issue that strike skill really need improving, that is the support gems.

I think there are 3 categories of strike skills in POE.
(A) The pure auto-attack alike skills (Heavy strike, Double strike, Dual strike, etc.).
(B) Strike that proc another skill effect, this categories care about the proc effect more that the initial hit (Lightning strike, Frost blades, Wild strike, etc.).
(C) Something between A and B, it cares about initial hit but also has another effect that aids clearing (Infernal blow, Pestilence strike, Boneshatter, etc.)

Category (A) and (C) have big problem with gem swap, and this will be what I want to focus here. Gem swapping is mandatory in almost all (A),(C) strike characters. For some skills you might need to swap two gems for boss fights at some points (Melee splash, Ancestral call). This is particularly bad before you acquire 5-6L.

Here is a scenario, I wants to play double strike and I hit maps with 4L. The support gem I need to use will be Main gem -> Melee splash -> Ancestral call -> Multistrike. This means that I cannot properly scale physical damage through Brutality or Impale. Even with 5L I will still be missing a support gem to make my build properly function. Yes, there might just be very few severe cases like this, since some (A) strike skills have splash effect through jewel and some (C) type has on kill or on hit effect that can clear well if you have good damage. But I think having an architype barely playable in its early and very crucial stage, just does not make progression smooth or pleasant to play.

Some suggestion.
1) Have anyone notice there are 4 attack channeling skills in POE and there are 2 passive wheels dedicated for them? Melee strike has 10+ skills but has only One passive wheel, that is absolutely mandatory to the playstyle, and also give almost no damage (and also got some of that weak damage taken away from the node recently). May be there should be another passive wheel that gives weak splash effect or any effect that will help with clearing (and give some attack speed to Tribal fury wheel please).

2) This is what I prefer more as it feels more clever. I really like the idea of Stance skill. Alternating between clear and boss fight with one button feels really good. May be introduce another Stance skill for Melee strike, alternating between splash and another effect (maybe weapon range, or damage). Call it Wind and Tide or whatever.

A sidenote.

Boneshatter is the only strike skill GGG has release in 2 years. The last one was Pestilence strike in Blight league, which was attached to the poison architype. Pestilence strike and the previous strike skill release, which is smite, has a one year gap....

Probably the most overlooked architype in the entire game right now.

well..

I feel you, very very well. Strike skills have SO MANY issues that it is almost impossible to talk about them without being 'rambly'. There is just one 'blob of fail'

Ive done few long posts in the past (as the issues are VERY old):

2020: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2779039 Strike skills specifically.

And some older but still relevant rants.
2019: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2552778
2019: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2682596

I agree with all your observations but have some bad news: GGG has faaaar bigger problems right now and will not 'waste' resources on fixing a playstyle 50 people TOTAL plays. That was always the issue with niche/weak playstyles. not enough players to warrant improvements -> lack of improvements -> no players. vicious cycle

I skimmed through your post quickly, and it seems like I have slightly more positive opinion about the playstyle than you. May be because I have only been playing melee, so I don't have any comparison to other much faster playstyles. But I do agree with all the issue you have mentioned.

I may be a bit overly optimistic, in hoping that with the release of the new strike skill, which is moderately successful (there are a good number of people playing Boneshatter), they will pay more attention to this architype. They also have acknowledge one of the core issue you have strongly address many times in a recent post (the targeting problem). May be this time they will really take a look into this "forgotten" corner of their game.

My biggest wish for several years now is to the see the announcement of "Strike league", really hope it will happen someday.

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I read the latest post by sidtherat and the few comments and I do agree with this current thread that strike skills needs more to feel good. An identity to the meta or something. For example a fast combat flow that lets you strike through an enemy horde just by holding the attack skill button. This could be achieved with some of the following:
#1: No attacking empty air. Either there is a target in front of the attack or not.
#2: Faster base action speed to strike skills. In other words faster engage, disengage, strikes, combos
#3: Different "splashses" for different kind of skills/weapons. While the current aoe around the hit target does work, I would like to see some variation, for example splashing around the target or to strike through to the enemies behind the target or to sweep in a wider arc.
#4: 'Strike skills targets an additional time a random target with less damage' instead of 'Strike skills targets an additional target' to enhance the identity for more attacks. Heck even some of the strike skills could have additional targets built into them.

Those are very good points.

About the #2 I play the current strike skill and I feel there is something like this happening already even with slower base speed skill, if dash is incorporated in your setup. I do sometimes get stuck in animation slightly if attack speed is too slow. May be a quick short-ranged dash style movement skill with short cooldown would really make this playstyle shine.

I think strike skills doesn't need "that" much work to feel good. It just lack a little bit in too many parts, which resulted in inconsistency and frustration when played. Sometimes it feel really powerful and impactful, a lot of the times it just... not there.

Smite + ancestral call isn't exactly terrible. Just throwing that out there, though never would I use more than one of ancestral call or melee splash. I feel like multistrike sits just outside that realm but you've gotta be careful as the extra swing time can feel really bad.

Especially early on, I would wager smite feels about as good as frost blades.

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Smite + ancestral call isn't exactly terrible. Just throwing that out there, though never would I use more than one of ancestral call or melee splash. I feel like multistrike sits just outside that realm but you've gotta be careful as the extra swing time can feel really bad.

Especially early on, I would wager smite feels about as good as frost blades.

Yeah, I played Lightning strike and Frost blades and I don't have as much problem. Strike skills that I refer as type (B) in general doesn't suffer as much as (A) and (C) as they rely more on the secondary effect than actual hit.

But for me, after the melee rework, there is a big different between playing type (B) and playing type (A),(C), because of the melee splash overlap. The strike + splash combo, make the skills feels like a short range nuke, you can easily explode the whole screen, if you have good amount of ancestral attacks and the monsters are close together (blight is a good example for this, you literally delete the whole lane with one good strike).

The fact that these type of strike skill is very annoying to use, and therefore overlooked, is just a shame imo.

Smite is 'the good' strike skill:

- it can target ground, so you never whiff your swings. this is HUGE. Molten Strike USED to be the same - it was one of reasons why it was so strong
- Smile overlaps. Hydrosphere + Ancestrall Call == triple damage.
- you do not NEED extra strikes with Smite

Smite is very, very strong.

I've tried three separate strike characters this league. First was boneshatter jugg which was ok but just didn't have the area to make clearing feel good to me and was too slow to be decent at bossing even with significant defensive investment. Namelock skills will always be a fail in terms of feel.

Second was dual strike raider with bloodletters. A little faster but still too slow with the huge attack speed penalty on the skill. This is with both the onslaught and frenzy trees, darkray vectors and 8 frenzy charges. Melee splash and ancestral call gem swaps felt terrible which has already been covered. I'll never go through that again haha. Also big lack of area for any type of smooth clear which requires much more active playstyle with many more clicks and leaves lots of stragglers behind which I don't particularly like.

Third and current character is Smite raider. Started with a big ele foil then transitioned into hollow palm dex stack. Now this is a fun strike skill. No gem swaps, very fast even without faster attacks which I have to use for now due to chest colors. Easy to convert 100% to lightning. Huge boss damage so far up to T12's and pretty good clear with only tribal fury annoint. Not sure how good it would feel without an additional target....but yeah, I didn't realize 3 out of my 4 characters were strike characters this league lol.

Going forward I see no way to make namelock skills feel good without reverting some of the area nerfs from the past, plus some buffs to defensive options.