Put in 40-50 hours into it so far. Seems like if you don't buy items, don't use/know overpowered combo/skills, the difficulty is probably around that of POE1. I wish I had read this thread before starting or actually read obsidian post on this issue since I don't mind waiting for a patch, but since I didn't know, I kept expecting it to be harder as the game progressed.
All that being said. Obsidian if you guys are reading this, should take a look at empowered spells, they shouldn't be able to 1 shot entire groups on potd. Empowered melee looks fine, but melee in general seems over tuned. It is possible to kill most things with 1-2 full attack on most monk and rogue builds. The monk/rogue build I used did 170 dmg-ish on a full attack non crit at lvl 10-12, but even Eder can do like 60-70.
Think it has to do with:
1. Armor working they way it does. (Probably can't change that?)
2. Enemy doesn't have enough defense and doesn't hit hard enough to punish glass cannon melee.
3. Nature God-like empowers both unarmed and sneak attack dmg. (Works on other combos as well.)
4. Lightning strikes damage is multiplicative. This seems over tuned for monk multi-class combos. Quick napkin math here: Say nature -godlike monk rogue at lvl 20 with sneak attack + deathblows. Monkfist (70%)+ rogue passive (120%) + might and thundering blows (30-40%) = 220-230% additional base damage. 30% of and attack that is 330% base damage is a lot.
