How is the current AoE scaling system even remotely acceptable?

There are plenty builds that simply cannot scale fast enough to keep up with story content without levelling. At area level, a damage skill gem at max. level you can have it at with a character at max. level you can have it at, in a 4-link setup, should be able to clear story content with relative ease regardless of which damage skill you use, provided you have some damage nodes in your tree and gear adequate for your level. I'm not talking hyper-niche builds like Whirling Blades or builds that require a lot of charges, those are not going to be smooth until higher level because they're not meant to do damage like that, I'm talking the actual damage skills the game gives you easy access to.

I don't really care about scaling in maps, I have fun with the builds I play and finding builds that scale very well is a big part of the challenge of creating builds. It's just not okay for main damage skills to not do well enough that you'd need exalts of gear, specific uniques or very specific jewels just to even be able to clear the story areas and kill the bosses.

/r/pathofexile Thread Parent