Both are perfectly good systems, but neither has the raw potential of Path of Exile's approach to progression POE currency trade . Here, skills are unbound from character classes, instead based around gems that you plug into items, letting you mix and match to create whatever ability loadout you fancy. Meanwhile, stat upgrades are based around the game's enormous passive ability tree, which is shared across starting classes. This means you can carve out an entirely unique destiny for your character, moving away from their intended pathways and creating Marauders that rely on summoning or Duellists who can avoid direct conflict entirely.

Winner: Path of Exile

(Image credit: Blizzard)Loot
No ARPG is complete without loot. While your character may be on a quest to save the world or kick God into a bin, the player's goal in most ARPGs is to net the sweetest swag in the realm. The promise of a better sword or a snazzier pair of pants is what pulls you through the game, whether that's for the stats or to dress your hero up in flash new kit. Either way, the design of an ARPG's loot system can have a significant impact on the core experience.

There's greater spread between the games in this category. At the bottom of the golden pile is Lost Ark, where loot is scarce and predictable. You'll very rarely pick up items outside of quest rewards, and these rewards rarely provide anything other than incremental stat upgrades. The best loot is locked away behind the more multiplayer-centric elements of the game, such as raids and zone bosses. Which is fine for the most part—it is an MMO, after all. But the game would certainly benefit from sprinkling some more eye-catching gear across its central questline, if only to make you actually look at your equipment stats once in a while.

Diablo 3 has the best presentation of loot. The way you rummage through bookshelves, turn over corpses, and open chests that vomit coins at you like broken slot machines is all very satisfying. As for the actual quality of loot, it's decent enough during levelling, although it revolves largely around incremental stat upgrades. But it comes into its own in the endgame, which puts much greater emphasis on finding kickass gear.

Overall, Path of Exile does the best job of providing a constant flow of interesting loot. This is partly down to the gem system. Since each piece of loot has a different number and combination of slots for inserting gems, it means that every loot item, no matter how basic otherwise, is potentially interesting in terms of how it can help you build your character. Add to that all the more typical ARPG stat boosts from individual items, and you've got a loot system that constantly has you thinking about how best to outfit your character cheap POE currency .