Ascension perk rework when?

[Doug Dimmadong]

About time they have a work over, is it?

Lord of War: Eh.
One Vision: Pretty good.
Technological Ascendancy: Pretty good.
Enigmatic Engineering: Trash.
Executive Vigor: Trash.
Interstellar Dominion: Trash.
Transcendent Learning: Trash.
Imperial Prerogative: Eh. I choose this a lot simply because it's better than what else is available.
Mastery of Nature: Pretty meh.
Shared Destiny: Trash.
Consecrated Worlds: Only for RP purposes. Simply a worse version of One Vision.
Eternal Vigilance: Good if you're turtling.
Nihilistic Acquisition: Decent if you're running a slaver empire theme. Otherwise useless.
Mechromancy: Cool theme.
Archaeo-Engineers: Trash. You can't reasonably run fleets of archaeo tech, it's just too expensive.
Hydrocentric: Cool with aquatic build themes.
Voidborne: Decent, though I've not run a void empire for a while.
Galactic Wonders: Autopick. Who doesn't want mega structures?
Grasp the Void: Trash.
World Shaper: Meh.
Galactic Force Projection: Good.
Hive Worlds: Good.
Machine Worlds: Good.
Master Builders: Eh, decent effects but feels like a waste. I never feel as if I need extra build speed or capacity.
Defender of the Galaxy: Goated. Makes the entire galaxy love you and gives extra damage to crisis.
Galactic Contender: Pretty decent but again, only really something I take because other options aren't as good.
Colossus Project: Something I rarely take but it's cool.
Synthetic and biological ascension paths: All of them just absolutely goated. So strong and adds extra flavour into your empires.
Galactic Nemesis: It's a cool theme but man does the final stage take forever. You end up already wiping out half the galaxy just harvesting stars for antimatter in order to build the engine. If the costs were reduced so you could do it a bit faster, it would be a lot better.
Cosmogenesis: Very cool to become a fallen empire and very strong.

Any others I haven't used because I don't own their respective DLCs. Most of the picks are just bad and some of the ones I always pick, I do just because the other options are worse. I hope we get a patch in the future reworking some of these, bringing them up to standard. I feel as though picking an ascension perk should really offer a strong effect that gives a big boost or changes your empire.

[Half Phased]

Grasp the void is actually better than you think, it’s +180 naval capacity, before modifiers. But it’s better than that, it’s also +50 food, resource capacity or bastions where you need them. It’s 5 more deep space black sites, it’s black hole observatories. It’s a very flexible perk with a lot of powerful effects.

Transcendent learning is basically an autopick for any leader focused empire.

Galactic force projection is actually trash. +200 naval capacity flat may sound better than grasp the voids +180, but it’s inflexible and can’t get you the effects of starbase buildings, which are what makes grasp the void good. Fleet size is meh.

Hive and Machine worlds are top tier for their empires, there’s no other way for these empires to stand toe to toe with the economic output of ecumenopoli at the time that Arcology project becomes available.

Speaking of which, you say you don’t have all the DLC, but Arcology project belongs on that list.

Technological ascendancy is an automatic first pick and basically deserves top tier just for that.

But a good number of perks do need buffs.

[ABoxFullOfKittens]

Hopefully no sooner than necessary. I agree with half that grasp is better than you give it credit, albeit I don't pick it presently. Forced projection makes fleets much bigger... which can mean only running 30ish instead of 40ish for the same late game fleet cap, which helps given how limited admirals are now. Shared destiny is underrated. I think it depends on how many vassals you have. Atm I have 6 and I get them happy with better terms for huge savings (with it), which is worth it's weight in gold. Some of these depend on how you play.

[argrond]

World Shaper: must have. The best perk ever. Resolves a whole bunch of pops problems.
Interstellar Dominion: must have. Early game cheat expansion perk.
Transcendent Learning: cool perk endgame, when you need additional leader and they (especially scientists) do nothing actively, so their exp grows slowly. +25% is great addition to all leaders' growth.
Imperial Prerogative: decent one, too bad I do not have slot for it in my build.
Mastery of Nature: +2 districts to almost every planet. Very cool planetry boost, especially considering most of economics are produced by planets.

You may argue they are worse than some DLC perks, but calling them trash is extremely subjective, to say the least.

[RCMidas]

The general consensus is that World Shaper would be a must-pick if Gaia Worlds were at least good as or better than Ecumenopoli, but since they aren't, World Shaper loses its place at the top of the tier list. Personally I prefer this suboptimal pick anyway, but that's not really the point.

Admittedly, a small Gaia World is generally a better investment than a small Ecumenopolis - you can at least turn the former into an Agri-World to feed your world-cities.

[Kufesska]

Originally posted by argrond:

World Shaper: must have. The best perk ever. Resolves a whole bunch of pops problems.

trash, compared with Arcology Project/Hive Worlds/Machine Worlds

Originally posted by argrond:

Interstellar Dominion: must have. Early game cheat expansion perk.

nice for big galaxies with reduced amount of enemies if you are going wide
may be useful early game and thats it
you can gain more effect by spending only one ethic point on xenophobe
kinda trash too

Originally posted by argrond:

Transcendent Learning: cool perk endgame, when you need additional leader and they (especially scientists) do nothing actively, so their exp grows slowly. +25% is great addition to all leaders' growth.

+25% is not much(and absolutely useless if you get that bonus late), there are differnt ways to get more +exp%, and +2 scientists may be nice early when you try to expoler as much as you can
but why do you need a lot of them late, if they do nothing actively? for governing? create sector with ringworlds or habitats and put 1 good scientist as a sector governor, so he can affect all colonies in that sector, maybe create 2 or 3 sectors, don't think you need more
nice early game trait, but yet not strong enough

Originally posted by argrond:

Imperial Prerogative: decent one, too bad I do not have slot for it in my build.

kinda agreed, sometimes pick it sometimes not

Originally posted by argrond:

Mastery of Nature: +2 districts to almost every planet. Very cool planetry boost, especially considering most of economics are produced by planets.

i pick it sometimes when i play as individualist empire if i want to make my wide empire taller and have all perks i wanted, mostly for +50% Max Resource Districts bonus, so i can stack more basic resource districts on one planet, while producing research on ringworlds and alloys on ecus

Originally posted by argrond:

You may argue they are worse than some DLC perks, but calling them trash is extremely subjective, to say the least.

well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

edit: to be fair, if you don't have DLCs for Arcology Project/Hive Worlds/Machine Worlds World Shaper is good for your empire

[Nordos/atord]

I do tend to pick only a few ascenion perks.
Nearly always, my first choice is the Tech Ascendancy one, simply because I really need some research early on to get quite useful stuff. Its bonus falls off later on very hard, but it still pulls its weight when picked as the first slot.
Now comes the .... things I am not married to. One Vision can be nice. But then, maybe I am playing Machine Intelligence, so I can't pick it. I even got Wonder Architect as a second pick once, with the Arc Welder origin and a lucky precursoer giving me access to an early Ring World (won't recommend)1.
Third perk is most always an asdency one, because they are so damn powerful.
Fourth perk .... well. I ... like Cosmogenesis. Damn strong effects. even if you don't lean into it - just getting some of the Fallen Empire stuff is simply insanely good.

That said, I am a pretty novice player, so my picks my be unoptimized. I often forget to upgrade more Starbases to fill out my cap, for example, or easily overshoot my naval cap, etc.

But yes, I feel like a lot of the perks are simply .... too unimpactful. More Edict fund? Wow. Amazing. And its totally not way worse than One Vision that gives way more Unity than 50, which you can spend on way more stuff, etc.

As a sidenote, if I go Digitalizing, Mastery of Nature goes way up in my ranking - since I am working with just a limited amount of planets, I need to maximize their effectiveness.

[MeniliteZ]

Grasp the Void: Trash???
It's kinda mandatory for wide empires. You need all the Starbase capacity you can get.
And it seems no one has thought of the techs it improves the chances of. Like Hyper Relays.


And Archaeo-Engineers is needed for lots of tech you can't get without it, I believe.



Galactic Wonders: Autopick, yes. But when? The longest-running game I have still can't select it because I need a fully-upgraded megastructure. I'm leaving a slot open for it though! Maybe a tweak to its requirements is in order.

[Doug Dimmadong]

Originally posted by MeniliteZ:

Grasp the Void: Trash???
It's kinda mandatory for wide empires. You need all the Starbase capacity you can get.
And it seems no one has thought of the techs it improves the chances of. Like Hyper Relays.

You get 4 starbase capacity just for taking Unyielding, on top of reducing upkeep, increasing health, damage and health of defence platforms and all the other perks it gives. And I've never had any trouble getting Hyper Relays.

And Archaeo-Engineers doesn't give you any more techs, just gives archaeo techs some extra effects.

[Kufesska]

*keep giving my unnecessary opinion wherever i can*

Originally posted by MeniliteZ:

Grasp the Void: Trash???
It's kinda mandatory for wide empires. You need all the Starbase capacity you can get.
And it seems no one has thought of the techs it improves the chances of. Like Hyper Relays.

wouldn't say it's entirely trash, but i rarely would recommend someone to pick it
wide empires already have tens of starbases, an you need only few of them as defence if you plan your borders right - stop expanse and build defences at chokepoints, leaving only few bordering systems in your whole empire
and bonus that increase chance of one tech type is more like a joke than ascension perk bonus, meh

Originally posted by MeniliteZ:

And Archaeo-Engineers is needed for lots of tech you can't get without it, I believe.

it does not open any new tech, however it greatly improves all archaeo and precursor buildings, ship components, starbase modules and buildings(extremely good for Zroni Stormacster)
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Ascension_perks#Archaeo-Engineers
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/archaeo-engineers-effects-list.1725591/
but building average-big fleets filled with archaeo weapons/components is extrememly expensive in terms of minor artifacts, except if you go Galactic Nemesis path(that way you don't need any minor artifacts at all, to build menace ships, only minerals), so the main bonus here are buildings' buffs
i'd recommend to pick it only for Zroni precursor and some specific builds

Originally posted by MeniliteZ:

Galactic Wonders: Autopick, yes. But when? The longest-running game I have still can't select it because I need a fully-upgraded megastructure. I'm leaving a slot open for it though! Maybe a tweak to its requirements is in order.

yeah, longest ascension perk to have, i think i always pick it last
but it is possible to have it by year 2300 withh good build and some game experience
not hard at all to get by year 2350 i think
do you have problems with rolling mega-engineering? and probably you have low research production, but that comes with experience(or with watching builds and gameplay on youyube)

[xycotta]

you lost me at Interstellar Dominion being trash

[Half Phased]

Originally posted by Doug Dimmadong:

Originally posted by MeniliteZ:

Grasp the Void: Trash???
It's kinda mandatory for wide empires. You need all the Starbase capacity you can get.
And it seems no one has thought of the techs it improves the chances of. Like Hyper Relays.

You get 4 starbase capacity just for taking Unyielding, on top of reducing upkeep, increasing health, damage and health of defence platforms and all the other perks it gives. And I've never had any trouble getting Hyper Relays.

And with Grasp the Void you now 9 extra starbases over an empire that didn’t take either the tree or the perk, all of which have more hull, are cheaper and have more and better defense platforms.

It’s almost like the perk synergies with Unyielding.

[RCMidas]

Hydrocentric is fun just for the ability to give every planet +3 Size. And you don't even need to keep your main species Aquatic if you're willing to engage in some creativity. Either have a colony ship or a non-owned planet of your main species without the Aquatic trait, then get rid of all your main species pops with Aquatic by whatever means you choose, and finally settle a planet with that colony ship or annex the planet.

If you have a Colossus, outfit with the Deluge Machine to be able to boost the size of even non-terraformable worlds (Relic, Machine, etc) and then return or upgrade them to whatever condition you prefer. Of COURSE it's not meta or efficient, but that's not what I'm looking for with semi-janky fun times.

[Ryika]

There are very few Ascension Perks that don't have a niche at all. They're not all equally strong, but as long as you're not hyper-minmaxing, there are a ton of Ascension Perks that you can choose from. If you always take the same, that's a sign that you're probably just settled into a set of perks that works for you.

I think the main issue with Ascension Perks is that so many of them are just boring and don't really change much about how the game plays out, which contributes to the same-y feeling of playthroughs. They don't need to be perfectly balanced, they need to offer new gameplay.

[Doug Dimmadong]

Originally posted by Half Phased:

And with Grasp the Void you now 9 extra starbases over an empire that didn’t take either the tree or the perk, all of which have more hull, are cheaper and have more and better defense platforms.

It’s almost like the perk synergies with Unyielding.

Right, so you can get 5 extra starbases or another perk that has far better effects. It's a clear winner for me. Also, if you're playing wide you're gonna get extra starbase capacity just naturally owning systems.

[mss73055]

Gestalt, Unyielding, Grasp the Void.
Especially with machine gestalt, using energy for food. And a perk for 50% more star bases.

For starters this turns your home sector into a solar farm. Add hydroponics and nebula mining to flavour.