Well, Innocence kicked my ass from here to Sunday. Probably 5 deaths. Shitty play and tilting on my part at the end, should have been more patient. Doesn’t help that my gear is rubbish, I suppose, and it was my first time in that fight. Bah!!
What @Romalar said. Also @stusser is a bad person who should feel bad, but that goes without saying.
Act 5 can be rough in general if you’re not prepared. Innocence for example seems a lot like Malachai in act 4 in that there’s a lot of moves you need to learn and fill much of the arena at times. It’s complicated to learn unless your character is very powerful and can brute force through most of it. I know Malachai took me a few runs through in the past before I got reasonably comfortable. I’m on 3 times (2 beta) through Innocence now and I’m starting to get it, but I the average-powered build out of the 3 which I used couldn’t get through him deathless (good thing I’m not hardcore.)
Have hit act 2 for the first time with a Templar. Enjoying sunder and thinking of picking up with a marauder instead (because of the long term prospects and I’m still so early)
How is it customizable? I got it and started using it on Normal, but it wouldn’t show the ordinary weapon drops I need for Animated Weapons. If I could customize it for my specific needs, that would be great.
Thanks, that’s perfect!
That’s how you know the game is truly successful. You don’t see sophisticated tools like that for marginal titles.
Still should add mounts, though, amirite?
I was pleasantly surprised to find that my latest Sarah made it through Innocence without any real trouble. She did die once on Kitava at the end of Act 5, but that was largely because I didn’t take the time to gear up beforehand. Still using a bunch of sub-optimal stuff in terms of available linked slots, and missing some of the key defenses (like Cast when Damage Taken-Immortal Call).
Maybe this is just the difference between a summoner vs other builds, but I didn’t feel like either Innocence or Kitava was nearly as bad as Malachai in terms of how much ability spam they crammed into a tiny space. That stupid little island in the sea of blood is ridiculous. It does seem like both of them summon more adds than Malachai did, but a horde summoner could generally care less about those.
Yeah, it’s not quite as compact most of the time. I’d say the Innocence fight is more spacious in most phases and Kitava is somewhere between him and Malachai. Later acts’ bosses are varied and have a number of other wrinkles to throw into the mix. Nothing’s ever quite so simple as act 1-3 bosses again and you can never stand still for long.
I can definitely see summoners having an easier time with most of this if you can keep some of your minions alive. I haven’t tried a summoner since 2.5 or 2.6. My totem build generally had an easier time of it than my self-caster did in beta. I’m about to try it with a Storm Burst self-caster who will have to stand still to channel and then be able to move quickly between bursts to avoid everything thrown their way, so I’ll be interested in how well that goes.
Has anyone has much luck with melee (particularly traditional up-close melee skills) on the new bosses?
I’m not currently playing a melee character, but it will probably be my second or third one in the league, if I make it that far! If I do make it, I’ll let you know
By the way, I like your playthrough narrative in that thread. I’m getting inspired to play a summoner again for one of my next builds.
Don’t know why, but my Templar felt more durable than the marauder in the act I levels and had better mana regeneration too. And finding gear I can wear is a much bigger pain because so much of it is hybrid. Not a huge deal, just something I’ve noticed.
Because classes mean nothing except where you start on the tree and what you can ascend to. In act 1 you simply wear whatever comes your way which means a large variance in how each character can feel (assuming no twink items).
On an unrelated note, I rerolled to totems (AW facebreaker zerker) because it’s been a whole since I’ve played them and I’m really enjoying this character. Already got to maps, my dps and regen are amazing and I’m basically blowing through everything. Killed Kitava in act 10 without dying!
It’s great to see Sarah’s chronicles back up again!
What would you do to get the endurance charges to power immortal call? I saw your skill tree linked on your poe forum post; my summoner is similar except that I dropped down to constitution for more life, and east for grave intentions, puppet master or death attunement .
What are your current gem links? I have summon zombie in a 4l with damage, speed, and life supports, and SRS in a 3L +1 fire wand with arcane surge and damage, flesh offering with surge and duration, and spectres with speed.
In the cold light of day, I took some time to review my load out and address the stuff I had been to lazy to fix in the lead up to Innocence.
Zombies are gone - they are OK as a meat shield, but Spark Totem is doing most of my damage and in boss fights they are toast early, which is bad news against the bosses that have adds that don’t leave corpses - I can’t replenish the zombies anyway.
Replaced zombies with a CWDT setup - Frost Wall, Enfeeble, Blind. That seems to be giving me some breathing room. Enfeeble overwrites my Conductivity curse, but the point is to get out of dodge if I get into strife. To that end I finally got around to adding reduced duration to my lightning warp, along with faster cast, so now it feels much, much nicer as a mobility tool.
Switched from Fire to Stone Golem for the life regen. He seems more survivable anyway. Supported by minion damage, fire pen and added fire.
Slotted Discipline to an extra slot for the ES boost. Was only running Clarity after picking up Ancestral Bond anyway, so I had the mana pool available.
I do think I need something for single target, particularly on bosses. My thought had been SRS as it is a minion, so will actually do damage with an AB build, but I am unsure what to support it with. Currently I have it in an offhand 3L with Elemental Focus and Life Gain on Hit. I am reading mixed reports on what works with SRS. Will passive tree elemental% affect SRS? Presumably not as only ‘minion’ nodes affect minions? Apparently the elemental damage with attacks gem now works, so that could replace my LGOH.
The other option is to drop SRS altogether and put together a secondary single target lightning totem of some sort, maybe Storm Call.
Or a trap, I suppose, Lighting or Bear would do the trick.
I don’t bother with the charges. The half-second duration of Immortal Call is terrible, sure, but it’s hopefully enough for me to hit a flask and start moving the hell out of the way.
In my next update on Sarah I’ll try to remember to post all my gear so you can see the gem setup thus far. I’m nowhere near an ideal setup, but I have the basics. Playing SSF means you make do with the sub-optimal!
I linked my Summon Raging Spirits with Spell Echo, Minion Damage, and Melee Splash. It’s not a bad idea to have something like Melee Physical Damage as an alternative to that last one if you need more single-target damage, but it’s never been an issue for me. There seem to be mixed messages on whether Elemental Damage with Attacks works or not, but if you’re running Hatred it’s kind of a moot point anyway since physical damage turns into elemental damage.
Bleh, I hate the SRS mechanic. If it were me, I’d try a more single-target lightning totem.
Spark is usually pretty effective at single-target, though. You have Faster Projectiles on it, right?
Ele Prolif and Added Lightning ATM (in a 4L).