Marauder Start Area Feedback

In one of the upcoming updates we will be reworking the Marauder start area. We will also change nearby areas if needed.

Now is an excellent time to provide feedback. If its feedback you have already provided, feel free to compile it here, or point to feedback in other places.

This may involve respecs if we change the trees layout.

The early tree needs to be useful for (1) new players, easy to understand and direct them in good directions, (2) support good mid game play, and (3) have some good nodes for end game players to start with, or dip into from neighbouring classes. As well as pure builds, we will also consider how these nodes work for characters that combine Templar and Marauder starting areas, and Duelist and Marauder areas.

-The two 15% life flasks path I don't really recall every going through, not worth the 2 points.
-There are several clusters all around the Marauder area that have no notable passive, giving next to no incentive to dip into them.
-Except for the 5% reduced mana cost to skills on the 2 accuracy nodes, Marauder gets access to no early mana passives compared to every other class.

- You're often more or less forced to pass through the Enemy Critical Strike Multiplier Reduction (ECSMR) passives, but this is an incredibly niche stat to have in PvE. Against a standard monster, we're talking about reducing crit damage from 130% to 121%. On the main path, I'd much rather have some nodes that increased my character's resilience to elemental status ailments. Maybe there could be some ECSMR nodes somewhere, but as they are so specialised, they should be stronger and off on a cluster so you are not forced to take them.

- The 10% damage nodes in the lower half of the Marauder start are sub-par (I'd say the standard now is 12%), and 12% accuracy nodes are too niche as many Marauders will end up taking Resolute Technique anyway. These nodes make the whole area feel a bit weak in terms of reward per skill point, I would instead have some nodes that give 12% damage and 12% accuracy. That way, if you go for a Resolute Technique setup, you are getting on-par damage nodes, but if you decide not to take Resolute Technique, it doesn't feel like you have to make too much of a sacrifice to get Accuracy (which is difficult enough as it is for low-Dex melee characters). Either that, or redesign it completely - at the moment, it looks a lot like the lower Templar start, only with more padding, which is not especially appealing.

- The Purity of Essence cluster feels underpowered (with the possible exception of the 1% life leech node, which is probably about right for a non-notable). Purity of Essence itself is useless outside of PvP, as far as I can tell, whilst the other nodes there seem like stats you'd be far better off getting from items, especially +2 life on hit.

- Going away from the Marauder start, there's a bit of a dead zone between Iron Grip and Vaal Pact. Lots of weapon clusters, which pretty much by definition means that only a few of them will be relevant to any given character, and none of them are especially strong, with a number of subpar nodes such as '3% attack speed with <weapon type>'. The addition of life to a few nodes here is welcome, but it doesn't really do enough to make them enticing.

I actually think that the Marauder area was one of the best ones at the start of open beta (probably a draw with Templar).

Life nodes (with leech not too far off), Melee / weapon nodes, blood magic for initial mana issues, ele resists + ele adaptation, reduced damage on crit (great for status ailments) and RT for accuracy issues.

It also possesses an interesting choice of 3 routes into duelist (via that big circle of life nodes, blood drinker or blood magic) which then offers even more melee and life nodes, unwavering stance and iron reflexes. Access to Templar is easy as well via ele adaptation or ancestral bond routes.

The only issue I may have with the starting area is that the life branch is always the de facto branch to go. Perhaps adding some life into the other branch nodes would give users more of a choice.

I do think the classes that need more of a rethink are the Shadow and Witch classes. Their popularity during races should give an indication of how strong (or weak, rather) their starting areas are...

EDIT: SHOULDN'T YOU GUYS BE TAKING A BREAK?! FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!!

I never considered taking the second lower path. All my marauders build go for the life and resistance node then go away.

Damages nodes are not enough interesting because they take too much skill points to go for the notable and then go out. The only way out are : the near starting point side branching path, or the stun nodes, or the shield nodes.
In contrast, life and resistance are greatly needed for endgame, get you nearer the elemental adaptation / resolute technique node and not that far away from the path to duellist.
Also, only 3 shield nodes in the entire marauder area ?

The link between the middle circle and the outer circle (where charges are) is silly. Endurance charge is linked with cruelty, Fending with Sword nodes (that is less silly, but really too specific) and 2 handed with life on hit (that is useless in endgame because it's flat). So there is only 2 way to outer circle : up or down. Not through.

And this is why all my marauders are the same. It's getting boring.

The idea of adding life to specific melee weapon node was great and encourage people to take them.

Mara not Witch?

Upper Path:
10 more Str on Heart of the Gladiator. The Mara is the only 1 Stat glass getting problems to wear a Sledgehammer without certain STR eq on upper path builds.

Armor Mastery isn't attractive at all. It should give 30% like Steel skin and remove Movement Penalty like leather and steel(the old penalty removement node got implemented into leather and steel)

All the resistance nodes must connect to a STR node. You don't have to be forced to take Fire Resist to take a Path.

The Flask Life nodes aren't attractive either. Either they need to be far stronger or offer something like +10 life.


Lower Path:
The 1h weapon speed path is a maze. You have to take shield nodes(no dualwield support) or stun nodes(not effective)


General issues:
With the exception of the Witchtree all other non prestige trees offer an interection between the the 2 paths. The mara still uses the 2 Path no interaction structure.

The mara is far weaker than other characters in many aspects.

He lacks Attackspeed, you either have to enter the Scion/Duelist area.
He doesn't need attack speed if the damage nodes get heavily boosted and are 2-3 times more effective than Duelist nodes. I would suggest something like 12% attack speed in the upper path so the Templar can reach some Attackspeed too.

The Duelist is on 57 ED quiet fast and has a massive advantage in Attackspeed and more interesting nodes(43% attack speed)
The Mara reaches 65 ED on the straight forward way. Taking longer way doesn't offer any advantage.
The Templar reaches 60ED and has access to WED 40% nodes.

Lack of Notables on the upper escape path
The Templar starter Area is surrounded by Notables.
Staff Damage and Accuracy
1 handed nodes.
The notables are concentrated on the outher paths.

The connection between Cruelty and EC nod is great but sadly the Mara lacks Crit nodes such as Deadly Precision for 1h weapons.

The mara has some great ideas in connectivity but sadly it's not viable to sacrifice 10 points.
For example Purity of Essence and Cranium Crusher sarcifice many nodes without being too interesting or not effective anymore.

And it seems mobs have such big mana pools anymore you don't see them being unable to use skills anymore. The only exception was the old Tunnel/Torture Chamber boss.

And this is where it would get interesting. What if you could create a build which is draining enemies mana based on fire damage/melee stun(could be used like burning ailment on mana, once stunned it loses for example 1/10 of your damage as mana over 4 seconds)

And additional Keystone like "Monsters die if they run out of mana instead of life" at the Ranger/Shadow Melee zones would make it really interesting.

The idea would be to take a longer path to the highway(nodes reworked on maces more stunbased) The 2h nodecluster gets moved close to Deadly Precision.
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAxthYY1BQjM_2SF8_VEnnUu8Oud3UjxkuNrrynAsobpeU-6kaG1JEsnbuVR33MoEr37KUh1g9nsVyqayqUea0L0E_

This would offer a new kind of build. Avatar of Fire, drought(enemies die on zero mana) and the Manaburn keystone.

The alternative would be an ability to create a charges which increase spellcosts.

This would be really interesting on melee builds suffering reflect from Lightning thorns, which couldn't be cast by enemies anymore.

Especially PVP would be interesting if you have a low damage build but it's able to burn mana(scalded down)/increase manacosts(lifeburn is puncture in some way).


Another big issue of the Mara edge of the tree is the massive lack of life nodes.
For example between Riddle of steel and arcane efficiency could be some life nodes.
Close to zealots oath could be some life nodes too.

The Mara part of the tree is still too similar too CB, when Life Regeneration was extremly powerful and Regen of 12% wasn't a problem.
The alternative would be to go back to 0,8% 1,5% 3% Regen nodes only at the mara area.


Also Ancestralbond should allow you to do melee damage.
This way you can use 2 Shockwavetotems and Groundslam for example and only Lightning Strike would be affected.
It's always bugging me why are traps such as BT allowed but Melee skills are not?


Issues with 1.0:

The Auras became too expensive if you use them on mana. Especially early on you won't be able to use more than 1-2 on linked skills if you use 60% aura.
Either there has to be a notable which heavily reduces mana reservation costs to 40-50%(other classes will go there) Or there has to be a big flat mana node of +50 2x+10 10% regen.

Or all Aura Gems need level 31 to be used and are first to be rewarded in Act2 Cruel. This would shift the problem to Cruel.

Currently Mara start feels like a very haphazard collection of decent-ish nodes placed in awkward positions and with too many small nodes, bad clusters in between. The famed life nodes in their starting path are actually kind of lacklustre and on the whole it doesn't really feel very efficient, I don't think there's a single melee build I would prefer Mara for over Duelist for example, which has a diverse but efficient start with decent life nodes and point-efficient ways of getting onto the "highways" connecting classes.

In the starting path most people take (the "life path") out of Mara starting area, there are quite a few nodes that I don't think anyone would otherwise take, such as Crit Damage reduction, the 0.4% life regen node (0.4% is awful, nobody would voluntarily take a node that bad if they could avoid it really - Troll's Blood a bit further on is far nicer). The armour nodes are pretty cool but they lead nowhere and are not an efficient way out of mara tree. The life recovery from flasks nodes are another couple of nodes nobody ever takes, with good reason. Between crit reduction and that, crit reduction is the lesser of two evils if you just want to get out of that early tree.

An issue with the armour path (that would otherwise allow you to circumvent the cluster of useless +10 nodes and general chaos that ensues after you get the diamond skin and try to head out) is that there are literally 4 more nodes (2 str, 2 int) until you can get onto the "highway" proper. Most people then would rather take the life path, lacklustre as it is, and head straight to RT and Templar area or Scion life wheel picking up the still decent Elemental Adaptation on the way.

As for "the way down" that is not through the outer (RT) path but which starts between the 3 shield nodes and the endurance charge - there are too many "fluff" nodes here, too many +10s, too many far too inefficient clusters of DPS nodes. Going down that road means my build is desperate indeed, I have in fact never done it. I always go along the outside or better still through the scion circle (previously the also excellent 3x3 cluster of life nodes - this is nothing new). Along this long, long way down to Unwavering Stance in what should be the "pure strength" and thus life-based area of the tree there are only 2! proper life nodes, which are the (excellent) 2x 10% nodes by the phys leech (another nice node) and fire damage node. This path has potential, but currently it is outweighed by far better options on all fronts. Better to get to Unwavering through taking the Scion middle path and Berserking cluster, then back up to the edge of Duelist and from there take US and move right into Duelist imo.

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Qarl написал:

The early tree needs to be useful for (1) new players, easy to understand and direct them in good directions, (2) support good mid game play, and (3) have some good nodes for end game players to start with, or dip into from neighbouring classes. As well as pure builds, we will also consider how these nodes work for characters that combine Templar and Marauder starting areas, and Duelist and Marauder areas.

I'm not a skill tree expert like some, but i've made 450 race Marauders, so i'm sure i can come up with something useful. Disclosure of other biases: i almost exclusively play solo, hardcore only, and have rarely passed level 60. Highest character ever = 70.


The two defensive lines are very unappealing. On both of them some half the nodes or more you usually don't want to touch. You could branch things out into several paths, rather than funnel everything, so that you are choosing what you want, rather than being forced to take nodes you don't want.

Nodes that should be branched out/optional:
- 0.4% Life Regeneration (this one just kills that line currently.)
- Troll's Blood (add another 10str at the least, preferably add life. I really don't like this node. I was dumbfounded when it didn't at least get the same +10str that Raw Power and Butchery got in 1.0.0.)
- 2x Enemy Critical Strike Multiplier Reduction.
- 2x 15%/10% Armor nodes (you never want these on a new character, you're at the mercy of whatever random rares drop, which on average will contribute only 33% armor, the rest EVA/ES.)
- 2x Flask Life (i'd guess 1 out of every 10,000 Marauders take these nodes, and that may be optimistic!)

That's 8/11 of the nodes in the 2 defensive lines! Wow, that's worse than i thought. No wonder i never go there anymore. You'd rather just go up and take the 3/5 strength nodes to connect, and that's sad.


The offensive direction has much of the same problems (funnelled into very few options), but the nodes are way, way better. Because of that, i'm guessing after this pass on Marauder, the defensive area will be great and the offensive area will start to show some cracks, unless it gets some branching love as well.

The two gatekeeper "12% Accuracy" nodes after 10% melee damage are complete duds. For them to have any effect, you would have to actively not get any dexterity/accuracy anywhere on the tree nor on gear. So both of those paths are blocked off from viability, neaning you have to go through the center 100% of the time if you want to be efficient.


In general, any node with Stun or Stun Duration on it ruins that path. Stun nodes should be treated like Accuracy nodes, optionally branching off into dead ends so that we can take them if we want to for our build, but never forced to take them on a path to something else.

Exiting out of the defensive area is a bit painful, taking 5 nodes to get to Resolute Techniques. Late game it's fine since you want Elemental Adaptation too, but then again late game i don't want to be in the Marauder defensive start area in the first place.

The 2x +10 Life Gain on Killing Blow and 1% life leech exit is pretty ugly, i've only ever exited that way in like my first couple races. :P That cluster could be made much more appealing, especially if it's gonna be used as an exit from the defensive area. Give each node 1% life leech, +10hp on KB, +2 Life On Hit. Now we're talkin. Maybe not even that is enough.

Stamina is much too far away from everything.

Why do the 15 cold resist and 15 lightning resist paths lead to dead ends? They should link to something useful so that you could get there from either side.


Basically exiting anywhere out of Marauder is awkward and convoluted. New players must have a hell of a time with it, since i still can't figure out any good way to do it. :P

Exiting out of the better, offensive direction is painful. There's nowhere to go. After you take all the early damage nodes, you have to take 5 blank attribute nodes to get to Axes, or Berserker cluster; or 6 blank nodes to get to the Life wheel; or 7 blank nodes to get to Duelist offensive nodes. That is a hell of a lot of points to waste at such a low level. This might actually be moot once the defensive area is improved.

Exiting the offensive area as maces works slightly better now, as i see some life was added to 2 of the 3 Armor nodes on the way to Maces. However, once you've taken the 4 non-accuracy mace nodes there, you're pretty much at a dead end. The closest mace-applicable node is pure two handed stun! You could/should link into the Smashing Blows cluster from the top, i think. It's quite inaccessible currently, having to come around from the bottom or the side through Bloodless (ouch).


Even mid-late game i totally ignore the Marauder start area. Most other classes i'll circle around to from a neigboring class, depending on my class/build, but i won't touch the Marauder area even if i'm passing by for Resolute Techniques & Elemental Adaptation (similarly i don't touch Witch start area from other classes, it's just too niche to get in there).

- The armor nodes given need to be tied in with damage or life.

- Stun nodes in general need to be reworked to include either damage in them. I've still never seen a stun focused build come out, even with the new cast on melee stun gem in the game. I also think the base stun length should be moved up to 0.5S

- Crit damage reduction nodes should be removed, or severely buffed into something viable, even if it's just for PVP.

- We need a way to be able to more freely move from the top nodes to the bottom, without having to go all the way around, or through 6 different types of nodes like 2H and shield. This has been done well with the duelist and ranger revamps.
- Currently there is only a total of 1.9 life regen in the Mara area of the tree, where the duelist has 2.5, the Scion has 2.2, and even the ranger now has a full 1% in a single node instead of 2.

- There is a 1% life leech node gated behind a +10 life on kill node on either side that is considered useless past level 30 or so, yet there is a 2% life leech node gated behind nothing at all. I also find it strange that the notable there is that enemies cannot leech mana from you, when there is a perfectly acceptable enemies cannot leech life from you notable to the south. I think there should be 1-2 node circles for life on hit and life leech (gated behind something else,) that provide a good amount of leech and on-hit life. You can get 44 LGoH from a single gem, and upwards to 10 from some items, +2 hardly seems worth it. You can also get almost 9% life leech from a single gem, and 2-5% on a single weapon, and 2-5% on single items, and 10% from blood rage, whereas only 3% total is available in the tree at all.

- I feel a new marauder tree would be an excellent place to put some strong Chaos resistance nodes. The new nodes "purity of flesh" and "life and chaos resistance" are very powerful, but require a voyage for all classes to get, so maybe lesser versions of these kinds of nodes, or Chaos resistance bundled up with life regen?

- When I think marauder I think giant 2-handed weapons dealing massive damage, however it seems that the Templar has easier access to most of the best 2-handed nodes instead of the Marauder. We need more powerful 2H nodes over there, especially generic 2H damage as apposed to axe/sword/mace specifics for early game where you don't always know what type of weapon you will be running, especially when so many marauder-focused skills let you use a wide variety of weapons.

- The lower-left-handed side of the tree could use some critical strike chance. Currently you can only get crit strike chance by going north-north-west a minimum of 13/20 points, and crit multiplier 12 points south. I understand that crit is meant to be highest on the shadow/ranger side of the tree, but a few more crit chance/multi nodes shouldn't upset the balance all that much.

- The versatility node section of accuracy + stats, and now 10% mana reduction added is perfect, and should remain exactly how it is. However there are a lot of nodes that provide damage in the mara area that also provide accuracy, and RT is right there which many people do take. When I think of the Marauder, I don't exactly expect him to be striking that accurately (without RT.) I think Versatility is enough accuracy to last you until mid-game, and there doesn't need to be as much tied into other nodes, especially with Skill of the Ancestors only 12 points away below the Templar area.