I have played a little of PoE in the past just basically getting up to a few levels 20 or below, never got to into the game for some reason maybe due to it’s depth. Today I started playing it again after a new install and it had me wondering why? Well yesterday I finally completed Diablo 4 100% renown again for my seasonal 1 hota barbarian, it was not fun doing it either. Now this unlocks all the extra paragon points for all my seasonal 1 characters once they hit a required level. After capping the renown I was pretty bored at level 62, but it was a bit improved because now I could just run nightmare dungeons and level up these paragon glyphs which over time can wake up the character so my next few games will be a bit better.
The thing is it takes a really long long time to get any noticeable power enhancements, really even then the experience came up short with the Sorc pre season up to level 74. Sorc is decently powerful for a D4 character, that isn’t saying much though because it should be a top damage dealer and it isn’t. Now let’s talk about PoE, started a witch and began doing the campaign and reading online more about the game. Thing is all characters are not like Diablo ones, for instance being a witch doesn’t mean you will be stuck into some set of powers. You are basically just put near a starting position on the passive skill point that works best then you can go all over to customize. This I did not know until today, that is basically the only difference in the characters.
So I spent hours and more hours playing, right at about level 18 I got some levels to some gems and selecting crit, spell damage, mana regen, energy shield, skill points and get up to level 25. The gems were giving me a teleport function, it started just doing a little damage if I hit enemies with it. Later I add support gems that added a freezing damage effect and now sometimes when I kill enemies with the teleport I get these little ghostly minions that do some damage and help draw attention to monsters. Over time I start getting some support gems where I can basically spam nearly nonstop firebolts which are nearly one shotting many normal monsters, then the teleport goes next level and starts killing mobs by itself with the fire gem aoe buff. Holy shit it’s a beautiful thing to see.
This is where I am like holy shit this is fun as hell, a mana buff and fire damage aoe buff support gems were just doing amazing things. I decided to explore more options in the game because a this point I know this game has already surpassed any version of Diablo due to it’s steady drip of increasing damage and even the effects show your increased abilities kind of putting a cherry on top visually. See these people in town with all sorts of cool looking effects so being one to support games I made some purchase and got some neat character effects which are impressive. I also bought quite a few cosmetics in D4 and they recently finally came out with some really cool things, but PoE effects are more mesmerizing.
End of the night I realized I hadn’t played D4 at all today on my days off from work, all PoE and reading online about how things work. Right now I am definitely feeling the love for PoE and got my fun back while gaming, something D4 has been touching on but not fulfilling for me. PoE is over a decade old and so deep with content vs D4 it’s no competition right now, even D2R is nowhere near as good but I expect to still play Diablo games sometimes. I love the speed of blasting through the game with fast movement speed enhancements, sort of similar to D3 in greater rifts non stop lining up of mobs.
PoE is a more fun game to me and I can’t wait to play it more. Cool effects, variety of content, custom characters, very noticeable power improvements from many sources not just your gear.
