Path of Exile

Tormented Spirits, Schmormented Spirits, what’s the diff? They were tough, that’s the point!

There’s one that gives everything it touches a Silence aura. So no spells can be cast within X meters.

I have a special something for the designer who thought that was a good fucking idea.

The Silence one is my least favorite. Other sources of Silence in the game are fine since they either are temporary (initial opening of some hexed strongboxes) or cycle through other curses (Hexfont Nemesis rares.) It reminds me of the old Phylacteral Link Bloodlines modifier they removed.

I do like to have a totem around for this reason though, so there’s SOME tactical reason for it to exist in some form.

I mean, if it were like 10 meters or whatever, sure.

This shit was very nearly “you can’t cast spells if these assholes are on the screen.”

I’m sorry, but fuck you, designer.

So that’s how that stupid thing works. I’ve died to that a couple times and nearly died a dozen more when I couldn’t get rid of a silence and couldn’t figure out why.

It’s the fucking worst.

Silence is a perfect example of the ‘all or nothing’ design that sort of ruins this game for me. It’s one of these games where the variables are just too variable. You can go from cruising through stuff with absolutely no danger to your character, to one shot from off screen. It gets incredibly tiring after a while, at least it did for me. There are rarely any fights that are actual wars of attrition, it’s just ok ok ok ok …dead.

I love character building games, and I’ve certainly put a lot of hours into POE, I just get tired of blink and your dead mechanics, or mechanics that just completely shut down specific builds. Nothing in a game like this should be 100% anything.

It’s not a radius/aura. It’s curse on hit silence. Still very difficult to deal with for spell casters since “not getting hit” usually doesn’t work when there’s usually a ton of mobs, with anything ranged shutting you down.

It is a curse so it is shut down by warding flasks (curse removal/immunity), but most don’t carry that flask type around.

I suppose it’s possible some mapmod was giving these guys an aura that was counting as “hitting” me, thus applying the curse.

That’s less awful, and just the dice all coming up ones, which will happen from time to time in the many-layered RNG burrito that is Path of Exile.

I duly apologize to the anonymous designer upon whose honor I cast aspersions upthread.

For clarity (and as mentioned recently), we’re internally targeting the first week of August for the 3.0.0 release. A firm release date will be announced in a couple of weeks.

Bugger, I thought Oriath was coming in July.

Mayhem league goes 6 more days. One really nice thing about this league is that because of the high density of rare mobs, you get uniques and currency at an amazing rate. I’ve not only gotten a ton of uniques but I’ve somehow gotten a bunch of really good uniques for my specific build (physical damage tanky guy). It’s been a real change of pace from my usual loot progression.

So I found out what it means when they say a league will be ‘voided’ - it means when the league is over you lose access to your characters and stash from that league. Turns out the Mayhem league was voided (I assume because there was just too…much…loot). Oh well.

GGG is doing one last 2-week league before Oriath launches; it’s a “Turmoil” league. It’s like the Mayhem league in that each zone will have multiple “things” in it - stuff like Tormented Spirits, Rogue Exiles, or Breaches - but the number of things per zone is 5 (unlike Mayhem, which was 20). The good news is that this league isn’t going to be voided, so when the league finishes you’ll be able to migrate your loot to a more permanent league. The three varieties are Softcore, Hardcore, and Hardcore SSF (solo self found, i.e., no trading or grouping). The league starts arount 4/5 PM EST July 14.

Have they tweaked SSF yet for higher drop rates? Not sure they are actually planning to, but it would be nice.

Unlikely, I would think, unless they make it so you can’t un-SSF a character, which I think you can do currently?

Yeah, they’ve said that they don’t intend to up the drop rates for SSF. They think of it as something they provide players who really want to compete with an extra challenge, like Hardcore. You only climb the SSF ladder up to the point where you decide to revert to the base league. Then you get merged in with any characters you have on the base league like when a seasonal league ends and merges you back into Standard except that you have control over the timing.

I enjoy SSF and really wish there was a mode with more drops as I never play standard. Every couple leagues I might pop into standard, see all the stash tabs waiting to be sorted from previous league merges and maybe sort one or two tabs before I just quit.

Mayhem however was far and away the best SSF experience, and Turmoil will be better than normal. The mechanics of the races basically act as a currency buff anyway and the ability to farm strongboxes in maps for diviner’s boxes or rogue exiles for just tons of equipment made it great for SSF. I especially liked the box maps myself, I do like rolling for those divination cards.


Pretty decent article with some nice things to say about the game in general. Not news to anyone who’s played it, but good info if anyone that hasn’t played it is curious.

Looks like 3.0 is slated for Aug 4

Woo! I wonder if Nessa will offer me what little help she can.