Yeah, the skeletons are boss killers but even with Melee Splash and Minion Speed they’re mediocre at chasing things down. I’ve hedged my bets by running skeletons as my main skill but also using a 4-link for Solar Guard spectres. No zombies at all. I might have switch things around if I try to take her into the end-game, but up into tier 12-13 maps it’s been working great. The spectres wipe out most of the trash, the skeletons clean up, and bosses just melt with Vaal Summon Skeletons.
I haven’t tried it in a couple leagues but the skeleton mages used to be pretty decent clear. You lose your bossing then though, would need some kind of boss spectre if Vaal Skeles aren’t enough. TVs? I’ve only ever done one spectre build and that was solar guards.
Regular skeletons are great for incursions with good movement speed. I had trouble with SRS but I was only splashing it.
Skeletons can chase pretty well given a setup with this:
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Bone_Sculptor (+100% speed)
and/or this:
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Queen's_Escape (+80-100% speed)
So, This is the first season where I’ve really made a dent in Maps. I usually loose interest by this time, but I’m having a lot of fun with temples, and now pushing my atlas. I wish I had picked up the map stash when it was on sale this weekend. My stash box is quickly filling up with T1-3 maps that I think I wanna hold onto? I’ve been reading about Atlas strategies and they usually revolve around shaping your atlas with your favorite maps or specific maps for drops, and not filling out your atlas. But I am under the impression that if you don’t fill out your Atlas then your Quality % doesn’t go up, and you never chase down the shaper and elder. Is this right? As a first timer should I be worrying about this shaper stuff (I don’t even have one orb yet) or should I just be trying to get to the higher tiers?
The internet is confusing on this topic =)
Each map you complete, fulfilling the bonus condition (kill boss of magic for T1-5, rare for t6-10, rare corrupted for t11+; and just finishing uniques with boss kills) gives you a 1% chance for a given map drop to roll +1 tier. It’s a nice bonus, but it’s not world altering.
As for strategy. . . the shaper will randomly start, uh, “whatevering” maps (when they appear on the atlas covered by “universe!”). The more maps you unlock, it’s true, the better your odds of running shaper-touched maps. This becomes a bigger deal once the elder comes into play. Whereas the shaper just sort of randomly faffs about, the elder will hit a cluster of linked maps and as you do stuff the areas that are elder influenced can grow, potentially very large. Again, the more maps you have accessed the better chances of running these areas.
OTOH, if you are more picky about it you control what maps drop. There’s duds out there, no question, and you can avoid them. You’ll still get to run shaper/elder touched maps, perhaps not as many.
There’s no definitive strategy, IMO. I didn’t get serious with the Atlas until last league and I went for “unlock everything” and one day I would like to complete the Atlas. Shaper/elder items can sell for a lot of currency, potentially, so I like having shots at them. I will be repeating this strategy this league. Also, if you like seeing different stuff, you may want to go for “run everything” just for variety/etcs sake.
YEA BOI!
Uber elder down.
My trapper is now a certified nicebuild™.
Congrats @Bateau ! One of those things I’ll probably never have the patience to finish, but I’m glad someone does :)
Maybe an obvious thing, but if you have a lot of extra low/white maps make sure you know the vendor recipes for map tier upgrades and chisels.
3 of same Tier Z map => 1x random Tier Z+1 map (same rarity)
Hammer (20% quality) + any map => 1 chisel
Thanks! It’s a pretty crazy fight, but surprisingly straightforward once you learn the mechanics. There’s so much shit in the arena though, it’s easy to overlook something (for me it was those dark patches on the ground). And you pretty much have to be able to dance around Shaper with your eyes closed so you can focus on the fight in its entirety.
Massive dps is a requirement too I’d say.
And Inventory issue solved! I did not know this recipe. I really need to spend some time looking at recipes and what else is available
You could also buy a map stash tab, it’s a great investment.
I just dropped $80 on tabs and such during the sale (High Council supporter + First Blood). It was never necessary before because I never really got into maps, but now like @Fozzle I am having a go of it and liking it. The meta progression of unlocking all the maps is much more interesting than D3’s rift running.
If you are going to buy just one tab make it the Currency then Maps then Quad. Largest quality of life improvements for me. The rest are nice but have considerably less of an impact.
I think I am just going to unlock everything as well with the maps, too confusing otherwise. Though I do see the appeal of just running the maps optimized for your build.
For the most part I just unlock everything, except for maybe at one tier. For example, I’ve never had a Shavronne’s Wrappings so some leagues (like this one) I try to only unlock Scriptorium for my tier 9 so any t9 that drops has to be that or connected to whatever map I’m running at the moment.
Generally have to buy one of each of the t10 maps then, and if I’m in SSF then I have to use the “uncomplete a map” vendor recipe to get rid of the t9s I had to open on the way which gets fairly expensive, but I don’t really use sextants much anyway so at least that’s some use I got out of them.
God yes. The map, fragments, essence, divination card and currency tabs are qualify of life changing things.
Thirding the special tabs. Currency is a must, and the others are real damn nice.
Yep I bought the currency and shard ones a while back,well worth it to me and I wanted to put some money into GGG.
Despite my earlier comment I’m still playing. I’ve played off and on since 2013, and apparently unique strongboxes go back to version 2.0 in 2015, but I don’t recall finding one before- just ran into a “Strange barrel” and it gave me a dendrobate jacket, which is the first “threshold item” I’ve seen. It is level 59 so 14 levels higher than my character and not right for a summoner. It’s evasion and energy shield so I guess made for a trapper? what is good poison trapper build and are those good enough to be worth planning a character around?
I should add that I found this jacket in ssf hc, so i would like a build that doesn’t require specific other items, has high inherent defense ( in this case life and ES) and doesn’t need a risky plastyle. I guess it neednt be trap based but some kind of shadow makes sense as the thresholds are 300 dex and 150 int.
It’s good on poison obviously, but I don’t know how easy it would be to set stuff up in SSF.
I quite like this Engineering Eternity Qull Rain Poison build. You don’t need the quill rain (although it’s great for the build; you do need a lot of attack speed to make it work well though. Tougher will be the Added Chaos Damage support, which is not sold by any vendor and is a major part of the damage. Also, the fifth link is super useful: mirage archer. Once you shoot you can run around and still get poison stacks.
Working on a self cast ARC build, take a look at this tree and see if I missed something, of if there is some pathing waste!
My arc totem build is so good, I’m curious to see how far I can push a pure arc caster. It’s a mind over matter build, with both decent life and mana reserve, and still quite a bit of + lightning and spell damage. I built this with solo self find in mind.
If you have excess maps, don’t forget to throw a few in the guild stash. Far easier to expand your atlas when you can exploit rng across multiple players.