Path of Exile

I’ve been messing with SRS, FireStorm and Magma Balls going for a fire build, and … I kind of like the Magma balls, they wreck! But no one ever mentions them in many builds. Do they not scale well or something? I am only like level 20 atm…

Interesting I could give that a try with my current gem slots.
I feel your pain on the SSF, I’m playing that way too, and I sure could use more 4r links. I’ve been using mostly caster gea so getting the red and green sockets I need has been a bit of an issue .

I was trying to throw money at Path of Exile like crazy yesterday. But the paypal link on their website wouldn’t work. I tried in 3 different browsers and kept offering to buy bigger and bigger amounts.

Thankfully, their ineptitude saved me. What the hell was I thinking? Losing a hardcore character always makes me crazy about giving them more money.

Last I checked (this was a year+ ago when I was doing a CoC Quillrain thing) Spark was better off with FP (particularly for single-target) than just about anything else, because it ends up making each enemy take more spark hits (since they move faster and end up covering more ground).

I agree! Magma Strike or whatever it is is super fun. I had a Templar built around them once upon a time. I ended up abandoning him around 50 though because the delay on the damage, between the strike and the magma balls landing, is just too irritating and slow compared to pretty much every other skill in the game.

If you’re talking about a different skill, my bad ;)

I’m talking about Magma Orb, which is like a bouncy fireball that has a fairly decent sized AOE. Maybe we are talking about the same thing? =)

I think that’s new since last I played an Elementalist, so we’re definitely talking about different things ;)

Pretty sure you mean Molten Strike, which launches three little fire orbs that land near you when you swing your weapon. That was my mainstay until I could use sunder.

Sunder seems grand. I currently have LoH and Maim supports. Having cleared the bandit quest in act 2, I now have nearly triple the mana regen I had before, so spamming is a lot easier. No real idea what I’m planning long term just yet, but for now I back that up with ancestral protector (the cast range on this makes it quite handy at times), the ST skill that gives you fortify (vigilant strike?), and leap strike.

I’m pretty sure now that the difference I was feeling in between the Templar and the marauder was in potions. Resist potions are my best friend, it seems.

Do I understand correctly, that unlike other games, physical damage remains strong in PoE and focusing on a single damage type doesn’t necessarily lead to massive problems later?

Pretty eventful day yesterday. Got my first unique (redbeak), completed my first prophecy, had my first drop accompanied by a chorus of loot filter angels (regal orb).

You are correct. Diversifying can help in certain situations, but not to the point that you need to plan your build around it. Something like a phys-to-fire or whatever alternate gem setup for a specific boss could help, but I wouldn’t worry about it.

I’m using Sunder on my marauder also, supported by phys->fire, more phys, and two phys->fire auras. So, tons of phys and fire, is what I’m getting at. In the middle of act 3 now.

Cool, thanks. Forgot to mention when I was moving gems around yesterday, it occurred to me to try melee splash support on ancestral protector. Very cool.

@stusser just curious, why the emphasis on Fire? Just felt like it or had a good drop to build around or what?

I happened to get the gems of the right color for my sockets and it all worked together.

Had a bit of playtime this afternoon so I got Sarah through the middle of Act 6, taking out Shavronne and her pet Brutus. Here’s my latest journal entry, which includes all of my current gear. Managed to get 3/4 links on everything but the silly boots, which will have to wait until I find enough orbs to reroll them. Or with luck, I might find better ones before then. I’m relying on zombies and spirits for damage, plus skeletons for utility. Spectres are really just there to look cool, don’t have room to support them enough to do real damage, and I don’t have spots for the Guardian or golem right now either. I’m actually kinda thinking about running the golem instead of the spectres, since I don’t have the links to do them justice anyway.

Gotcha. Cool.

Starting to use my orbs a little more, since I am getting more drops. Nothing fancy just alteration and augmentation, mostly. I did use one alchemy orb, just for fun.

Recently picked up herald of ash and melee damage support, and I’m annihilating everything in sight for the time being. No idea when the gloves come off, so to speak, difficulty-wise.

Although the mechanics are drastically different, in some ways, putting skills together reminds me quite a bit of Grim Dawn, but much more free-form, obviously. What I mean is you are looking for skills and supports that have interdependencies, which I enjoy. Many, many more choices here, though.

Why did you decide to start softcore? If you die in hardcore your character isn’t gone forever, it’s simply transferred to the softcore league. So there’s no really compelling reason to start out hardcore unless you already have a full stash to twink with. And you don’t have a stash in the league, 'cause it’s new.

@Misguided: Yeah herald of ash is one of my two fire support auras. Like 85% of my mana is reserved, I just have a little sliver at the bottom. But I picked the bandit with mana regen so it’s effectively infinite at this level anyway.

Yeah, I went with that bandit too, which fixed my mana issues, and gives a nice chunk of elemental resists too.

Heh, if I had started hc, I’d be in standard already. I did he when Diablo iii released, but I just don’t care at this point.

This can very much vary by build and by how much/when you buy some gear upgrades from your fellow players, but I’ve found in general that late act 3 is where things start to heat up. The closing arc of act 4 is a definite step up as well.

I’m hoping not to get involved in trading, though I didn’t make an ssf character. I’m probably only liable to mess with that if I get some kind of insane drop.

How do you know what difficulty you’re playing? Pretty sure my first character was on easy, but my second now seems to get a little harder mobs. Yet I can’t find any sign of a difficulty setting although people here seem to be talking about them.

There are no more difficulty settings. When you hit act 5 you are given the resist penalties for the first difficulty (and creature levels in early zones increment), then after act 10 you get the second set of resist penalties (and creature levels increment again).

I made my guy hardcore but went to zero effort to stay alive. He died at the first trap preparation thingie. No big deal, started right back up in regular league.

Thanks stusser. I was thinking back to '13-'14 when I last played and how I seem to recall starting anew with tougher difficulties. Maybe I was reading old posts on the official site that talked about them too. But that’s an interesting development. Explains why my [previously] strong Ranger character suddenly started getting wiped out in Act 5 lol.