Path of Exile

What are you running for defenses? Decoy Totem, man, Decoy Totem. And I don’t think I could survive without a CWDT setup on a caster. Eww. On a summoner, my preference is for CWDT + Tempest Shield + Arctic Breath + IC. But you could do without the Arctic Breath and throw it on a weapon/shield, if you just don’t have the 4L space.

I realized that I had totally overlooked two incredibly important thing on my Inquisitor: Ghost Reaver (Leech goes to Energy Shield instead of Life) and dropping Clarity for Arctic Armour. Those two together have made a significant improvement to my tankability.

FWIW, also, I really dislike the 2.6 life/ES tree in the guide I got the basic idea from. It goes down to the Wheel o’ Life, but wastes like 8 travel nodes to get there. Sad! Much better to pick up the excellent life clusters like Purity of Flesh and whatnot that are much closer.

Feeling pretty happy with my tree at this point. I’m at the point where I’m smooshing low-tier maps and just kinda waiting/grinding for better map drops to push deeper into the Atlas.

In a game that forces you to build in a “kill them before they can kill you” way to survive much of the content, putting reflect mobs in the game is just horrible game design. It’s absolutely stock that players are going to have way more DPS than they have defense, it’s just the way the game is designed. It’s one of the many choices they make that ultimately kill the game for me. It’s a great foundation, but there are so many things just like this that add up to make the game more frustrating in the long run than it is fun. Bonus points for putting reflect mobs off screen that can one shot you. Sort of infuriating really.

Been leveling my latest Sarah over the last few days, and I found what may be my favorite unique yet. The Gull has the cool ability of occasionally spawning mini-shrines for you, and also increases the effects of any shrine you touch. I’ve had times when I’m running around with three different shrine effects for 30 seconds or so, and once a double speed effect (a normal one plus mini version) that made me so fast I was afraid to move lest I run into enemies before the display caught up. Once I find a good +2 minion gems helm I’ll probably have to drop it, but man, it’s a great item for leveling.

Nice! I just swore off this league after getting two-shotted from offscreen the third time, because GGG hates you and wants you to suffer.

I’ve been leveling a marauder to create a lazy man’s build that uses tons of ignites. Unfortunately it doesn’t come together until you hit 68, so I’m leveling using a Facebreaker and Ancestral Warchief. Only 25 levels to go (to hit 68).

L35 Firestorm Witch so far after firing it up a few days ago. Following a FS build with zombies as primary distraction. Crappest gear ever (though resist is pretty good), but FS just wrecks shit. Not used a leaguestone yet…should probably get to that.

Definitely use leaguestones! You should pretty much always have plenty, you don’t need to worry about running out really.

Also low level leaguestones have a restricted (area) level range, so definitely use them.

Haven’t played at all since the first week (I got up to L88 then), but probably will return. I have a really fun character, just needs better gear, and I recently just thought up a feasible upgrade for single target damage.

Lost my latest Sarah at 80, which is probably where I’ll leave the Legacy league. For a while, anyway. I like PoE, but the time investment is so high. Playing SSF-HC is a good way to limit myself.

I haven’t been playing much recently, because, as you mention, the time investment for PoE is so high, but you might have inspired me to roll a SSF HC character just for the heck of it. A summoner seems like a reasonable choice since it offers a fair bit of safety.

Edit to add: early going was rough (heck, I almost died to that firestorm NPC you run into in the second zone!) but once you get SRS things get a whole lot easier.

I may do SSF summoner for Oriath. Minion changes sound promising, and I haven’t played summoner in quite a while.

Man, anyone that can play HC in POE… I literally wouldn’t do that if you payed me lol. Maybe you guys should start a masochists club or something…sell T-shirts maybe…

Safety from the game, yes, to the extent that’s possible. Safety from your own stupidity, not at all. Reference Legacy Sarah numbers one and two. :)

You’re not wrong! Sometimes I’ll play softcore for the first couple of characters in a league so I can scout out the new dangers. But I like having that extra dangerous edge of the hardcore mentality, even if it is masochistic.

Unfortunately (for me!) I read the bios of your first two characters. I cannot tell you how mad I get, and how often I die, to traps in the Labyrinth on normal. I usually psych myself up by thinking “it’s normal it can’t be that bad” and then I run alongside a roomba or stick myself on a rotating spike log and die. I have to say without a doubt the Labyrinth is my least favorite part of the game.

Well that didn’t last long. My HC SSF Summoner died doing a Tora quest to a mob that had Arsonist’s Grip. I’m not too upset since I hadn’t really found much in the way of decent gear. When it started doing those Fire Novas I shoulda run, but I kept thinking “I can do this” and then all of a sudden I died. RIP!

That’s a great line, the PoE HC experience in a nutshell!

Yah my problem with hardcore in PoE is how spiky the damage is, but that’s not the worst of it. It’s the (&)(*& reflect mobs that can one shot you from offscreen. Horrible game design.

After revisiting Pillars of Eternity recently, I seem to be continuing a spree with “RPG-related games I should have played earlier in which one looks down upon little characters moving around in lush environments.” (Grim Dawn is probably going to be next down the pipe.)

This one’s pretty darned addictive, isn’t it? Fascinating build system with the gems and the passive tree and all that, quite a clever system. Also the economy is interesting in its RMT-avoiding cleverness too.

I’m following an established Ranger build and I just can’t seem to stop playing the bloody thing atm. Somebody peel me off, I can feel my life ebbing away!

Just remind yourself that the whole game is getting a huge improvement across the board in a few months ;)

Well lookie here, someone must have listened to all the bitching about the Labyrinth! (For the record, I count myself among those complainers.)

[quote]Much of the feedback we’ve received since the Labyrinth was added focused on the length and difficulty of the Labyrinth itself, so for the first Labyrinth we are removing some of the areas in the leadup to each fight with Izaro. You will still fight Izaro three times, but the time between each fight will be significantly shorter. This also means that a failed run will generally feel less bad, since you’ll be able to regain lost ground more quickly. We will also be looking at ways to simplify certain mechanics in the earliest Labyrinth.

To summarise: though the moment-to-moment Labyrinth gameplay will be much the same in 3.0.0, the amount of time you spend accessing and running through the early labyrinths will be significantly shorter, simpler, and you’ll be able to access all versions of the Labyrinth from the Aspirants’ Plaza.[/quote]
Another thing to look forward to in 3.0.0!