Soooooo BA jewel is limited to one. Wellllllp.
After getting to do another temple run or two I’ve decided this is my favorite league ever. I can’t see this getting stale; there’s enough room variety in the “building” aspect and I love them just dumping the incursion loot at my feet so I can ignore looting until the very end and not have to backtrack the whole map.
I didn’t buy a supporter pack last league, and maybe not the one before it either. I’d been feeling like maybe PoE was starting to fade but they’ve hit it out of the park with this league as far as I’m concerned so I guess that’s another supporter pack I’ll have to shell out for.
Though I am certainly terrible at this game–never done a map, highest ever character is like, um, mid-forties or fifties, maybe?–I really like the mechanics and dynamics. Yes, it’s kind of ugly in a lot of spots, particularly the whole first act, but it’s so intricate and really nifty.
Came back a day early as I’m under the weather.
My very first temple I was able to open a path to the Omnitect and even upgrade two rooms.
Since then, I am something like 1/19 on incursions in actually either (1) upgrading a room or (2) opening a door. It’s mostly the latter (I’ve gone for two upgrades and gotten one; was close on the other). I’ve seen two portal stones in that time. I usually beline for the door I want to open, kill everything on tghe way, don’t see a portal stone, and then end dejectedly.
Lately - I’m about to kill Piety - I can’t even make the door. I just went to 4l on sunder with FA, and forgot to try and swap in Brutality for Ruthless so I will do that. I have decent weapons (I am dual wielding) but maybe need to try and target an upgrade or two. But sheesh, it’s been a bit frustrating.
The mechanic is amazing, though.
Yeah, same here. I’ve never managed to finish the campaign after they added all those acts to it. And in the older days, I didn’t make it very far in the second difficulty playthrough.
I do like the game, but … it’s too hard in hardcore, and in softcore I always just lose motivation to keep playing eventually.
That’s pretty much my exact reaction to the incursions thus far. Love the concept, very frustrating so far trying to actually do it. My summoner is finally doing fast enough damage that the 10-second limit isn’t a major problem…only comes into play now if the mobs are spread out so much that I have to run around a lot. Even so, I’ll still have times when no stone drops when I need it, or it drops on the opposite corner from where I need it and I run out of time trying to get to the door.
The most important thing I’ve learned thus far - Explosives Room is your bestest friend in the world. Kill the dude that says the room gets an explosives charge, and then when running the temple you’ll get an item that opens a closed doorway during the run. I’ve used it a couple of times now to fill in a gap that I couldn’t get during the incursions phase.
I learned today that the bar at the bottom has nothing to do with stone drops. It just fills up as you kill stuff, giving you an idea of how many mobs are left. If you fill it completely you’ll get an achievement, but that’s all.
Was able to link one in my first temple but failed four attempts at doing one in the next :/ But I agree they’re super awesome and worth an upgrade if you get the chance (especially if you already have a route to get to one; at least I assume upgrades = more explosives).
I’ve gotten off to a good start on temple #4 so here’s hoping. I couldn’t get to the end of temple 3 but I did open a tunnel to an explosives room on my last try and used that to get to a vault (as opposed to opening the way to the Omnitech). One great thing is that one room can really make a temple run in terms of being the reason to go in. Especially if the room has been upgraded. I just upgraded a. . . shit I can’t recall (2 incursions in and I’ve connected some stuff and done this upgrade). But it looked worthwhile! I’n oggling a gemcutter room next.
Edit: oh a Barracks. I wonder if the increased monster size impacts the temple in the past at all? thinking no bug shrug
I I could get someone to respond to a tell I am probably going to buy a brightbeak to off hand with this screaming eagle. Just got my first Ascendancy points so damage is in a solid place.
In unrelated news I just found out the librarian is a one stop gem shop for all available gems for your class through act 3. After you do the library quest, I assume. Or maybe finish the act.
Bateau
3931
Incursions are easy once you can reliably oneshot packs. I frequently end the incursion with 2 doors unlocked, architect dead and 20+ seconds left on the timer. I haven’t even made it to maps yet.
I fiddled around with a SRS Witch but did t like it at all. Granted, she’s only 24 but it just takes sooooo long to get going. And incursions suck.
Then I started messing with a trapper. And hoo boy do they kill stuff fast! I love it.
I feel like I’ve got about a 90% success rate on killing one architect and opening one door, with the occasional second door. In general, I rarely get an early stone so I’ve found the best way to do it is to head straight to whichever architect I want to kill, kill them, then start killing around the room in the direction away from the door I want to open.
There are enough mobs that as long as I keep moving I can keep the timer around 10 seconds the whole time; once a key drops then I beeline for the door I want and hopefully a second key drops from the mobs in front of that door and maybe I’ve got just enough time to make it to a second door.
Exactly this. I basically always play SSF so my gear is pretty bad and I am nowhere NEAR being able to “reliably oneshot packs”. It is about all I can do to kill enough to keep the timer from expiring a few extra seconds while staying alive. I believe I am 2 for ~44 tries finding a stone and actually opening a door (why doesn’t the game tell you how to do this?), and I think I have killed maybe 4 architects, but it’s hard to tell. Honestly going into this league blind I am surprised how hard it was (for me anyhow) to pick up what was happening, what she wanted me to do, and how to tell if I was even doing something useful during the incursions. Why does she always say “Good job exile”?! I thought this was actual feedback and the game was telling me I was doing something right, but nope, I was getting nothing done. Stupid liar.
I haven’t been been able to see more than a few rooms during a temple run, some of which had rares with ‘extra life’ and ‘allies regenerate life’, who were literally regenerating faster than I was putting out single target damage. I could tank them, but they could tank me too. So overall, this league mechanic is pretty blah so far. Maybe when I get better gear and lrn2play into some damage I will find some reason to get in there, but for now I may as well ignore her.
I’m finding the incursion mechanic to be a lot of fun now that my toon is in the 50s, what used to be Cruel difficulty. I suspect that’s going to be true for a lot of characters. Some will get there earlier if they have really strong AoE damage that requires no build-up time, some may take longer if they’re undergeared or lacking in AoE.
It’s unfortunate that GGG didn’t do a better job of scaling the mechanic down for the earlier levels, or at least providing more feedback. But it’s not surprising on either count - in-game information is regularly lacking on all fronts (thus my heavily-used PoE Wiki bookmark), and other mechanics have been overpowered in early levels too (Invasion bosses come to mind).
I won’t be surprised to see some changes in the next week or so as the first couple of 3.3.x patches come out. But I doubt they’ll completely address the issues, especially the feedback part.
Yeah, that’s a lot of my problem. My AoE is currently bow puncture (volley + pierce) , so it takes a while for bleed to work. It’s not a quick killer.
Put me in the camp that hates incursions. Being pulled out of fights, mid cast/swing, is incredibly frustrating. They keep adding all these timing things, in a game that just isn’t that precise. I will never hate anything as much as I hate the lab, but this is close.
They’ve managed to create a game mode that is highly prejudicial to damage type, playstyle, and SSF or not. It’s not the first time, this game is almost entirely based around alpha strike, fast damage, there are so many situations in the game already that favor and rely on spike damage, this just cements it.
/shrug, anything that ramps up or relies on a combo is fubar in this patch, at least as far as incursions go. As I love to play DoT/combo builds, it’s not that much fun. I can roll through these with a blade vortex build…/golf clap, but trying to do this as ED or something, and self found? lol…you can’t even get the first pack of mobs dead before the timer runs out. I guess the real problem here, is the disparity between skills, and how long it takes to kill things. It’s fine to have something powerful that takes longer to implement, but not when you make an entire patch and game mode built around how fast you can alpha strike things.
I guess you just hop on the meta train for all these patches, I just find it takes build diversity away, and forces me into a certain playstyle, and one that I generally don’t enjoy as much.
Bateau
3938
New saboteur passives and traps are so amazing. With Born in the Shadows and Pyromaniac I’ve got amazing sustain and decent avoidance, and because there’s so much trap trigger area on the tree itself I skipped Chain Reaction which makes the bonuses from Tinkerskin even more amazing. I can basically throw traps forever because I specced into Eldritch Battery.
Nevermind, RIP to Innocence beam @lvl48/28hrs. I am so bad at this… My hand got off by one on the keyboard and I had a bit of a panic and used all my flasks… then I couldn’t avoid the beam.
Spect
3940
This pretty well sums up how I feel about this league too. I’ve never been a min/maxer with this game, and have almost always just played SSF even before it was a thing. I think in all my time I traded once and I’ve never grouped up with others.
It’s odd to me that while on one had, GGG understands their market and implemented SSF as an official play style, but on the other hand, created this Incursion system that almost demands you min/max or group play,
That seems dramatically overstated. I’ve made two (cheap) purchases this league, and while one was high value (screaming eagle), I could still be rolling vendor weapons to use and doing ok (sunder). It’s hard on low levels, no question. I got lucky on my first temple (I think because a 3l handles things fine until you hit the teens), struggled on the next couple, but am doing much better since.
Even SSF, you’ll hit a point where you can do meaningful temple runs (even if you can’t kill the boss). And the loot in the temple is a boon for SSF.
Fozzle
3942
I am playing SSF and I feel like the Incursion stuff is awesome. I’ve only been to the top of the pyramid once, but have had a few temples that have had tier 3 loot in them, and I keep getting better at it as I go. I have to think this is working as intended. You don’t want to get the perfect temple right out of the chute. You want to keep learning the ropes, getting better at alignment, and feel the satisfaction of your player growth. I’m at level 50 now, and have completed a handful of temples, only the last two was I happy with but the whole process of figuring it all out, getting the timing down, getting better at the clear, it’s been a good progression.
Full Disclosure: I am working off someone else’s build I found int he forums because there are just way too many choices in this game, and I’m a filthy casual who doesn’t know any better. I found a build that fit my play style and have been working from that template. I wouldn’t say my gear is anywhere near min/max =)
