284 Mana Cost & 4.8s Duration: Why Lvl 32 Siege Ballista feels broken in PoE 2 (Lvl 90 Veteran Feedback)

Account SixFeetUnder1988#3728
Character Plato Granger Tactician Lvl 90
League Fate of the Vaal

Introduction
I have been playing Siege Ballista since Patch 0.2. In PoE 2 it feels like a constant fight against the skill own mechanics rather than the monsters. I have pushed the limits with a Level 32 corrupted gem and an Ulaman plus 1 Ballista prefix crossbow. The result is mathematically unplayable.

The Core Issues

Issue 1 The Mana and Duration Trap
Playing this build feels like a mana flask simulator rather than an actual ARPG. My Lvl 32 Ballista costs 284 Mana per cast. With Overabundance II the duration is only 4.8s. Even with Spirit Bond on my amulet it only reaches 6.24s. Spending an entire amulet slot for a mere 1.4s of uptime is a disastrous trade-off.

Issue 2 Damage Dilution
Splitting damage between Hit and Explosion and Ignite results in zero actual DPS. The base Hit is too low to scale even with near-perfect gear and jewels.

Issue 3 Broken Synergy
The Twin Crossbow base still ignores Ballistas. Plus 1 bolt does not work. Furthermore scaling Area of Effect for quality ruins the Explosion Overlap needed for single-target damage.

Issue 4 Cannons Ready
Forcing a 2k HP character to stand still and attack just to trigger the ballistas is a death sentence in T16 maps. It kills the defensive utility of the totem playstyle.

Proposed Changes

Remove the Attack when you attack restriction from Cannons Ready
Fix projectile scaling from bases and suffixes
Buff base duration or reduce the penalty on Overabundance II
Fix the extreme mana scaling at high gem levels

I invite the developers to inspect my character internally. When a fully optimized build with Ulaman crafting feels this clunky the core mechanics need an urgent rework.

Comments

K1eptomaniaK•5 months ago•2

I still don't understand how targeting works with the skill. Sometimes it just fires off and lands too far from any target; I couldn't find anything to confirm or deny, but it feels like it deliberately tries not to target the same enemy, even if there's no other targets nearby

With how often you're resummong, you'd get better mileage from just using mortars since they actually shotgun consistently...

DRSapca•5 months ago•2

First thing GGG needs to do is...

Remove or vastly reduce +Skill level mods. These are so silly and it's clear since 0.2 scaling (and mana cost) is broken past 20.

"Oh look item with 6xT1, no +skills, trash." <--- as long as this is true, you can't balance anything else and expect it to hold after some day you fix this.

As for AB / Xbow.

All totems and grenades have insane mana cost. And it starts earlier than 30. Playing Merc is having to listen to 'out of mana' 24/7.
Cannons Ready is bad and more importantly... boring passive.

Annarchy89•5 months ago•1

They dont want you to play it like poe 1 where you have one skill. Casue They want you to press 5 buttons to kill a pack of white mobs. Thats the "vision" they have for the game, like poe1 a sandbox game where your fantasy is the stop and play how you like, poe 2 is the reverse you play how we "ggg" want. Everything is so restrictive its insane

HoldMySoda•5 months ago•1

I vastly prefer the Totems in PoE 1. There's just not enough in the game right now, plus the ones that do exist feel like shit. I really love meme builds with Quill Rain. Having 5 or more Totems out and shooting over 1000 projectiles per second is hilarious. There's nothing remotely like this in PoE 2. Some will say that's a good thing, I say stuff like this is what made PoE so great.

adratlas•4 months ago•1

I was talking with a friend about something similar. How the + to skills stat breaks the game and forces people to play temu blood mage to sustain.

I really hope they remove this stat so other classes and builds can shine as well.

averbeg•5 months ago•1

I think this is lowkey a great post. A lot of people complain about off-meta progression, but then they have no real feedback on how particular skills should be better. They just point at community meme skills and go "there's my argument".

Hope devs take a look and you can play your Siege Ballista build someday my guy.

Prestigious-Room5180•5 months ago•OP•1

I’ve also posted a more technical and detailed version of this feedback on the official Path of Exile forums for the developers to review. You can find it here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3912846

284 Mana Cost & 4.8s Duration: Why Lvl 32 Siege Ballista feels broken in PoE 2 (Lvl 90 Veteran Feedback)

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