Path of Exile

And you’re not going to tell us what it was? :) Details, man!

It was one of the uber elder unique jewels (watcher’s eye) with triple aura mod. I forgot exactly what it was but I think it had 30% life recovery for vitality, freeze immunity with purity of ice and 10% physical dmg taken as cold when using purity of elements.

Huh, never even thought about those being crazy expensive. We peons still messing around in red maps have no such concerns. :-) still, congrats on a nice payday!

17 exalts is an amount of currency that I’m pretty sure doesn’t actually exist.

You’d be shocked if you knew how much currency top traders get each league. Even if I liquidated all my league assets right now (probably ~80 exalts) I doubt I’d have 5% of what those guys have.

There are a lot of players from SE asian countries that make pretty decent living with RMT. As in, they make more playing PoE and selling currency than they would with regular work.

I am aware of these things and also a concept called “hyperbole” ;)

So, I got a drop playing solo self found, that I can build a cyclone character around and wow…trying to level a melee character in SSF is really horrible feeling. After leveling blade vortex, arc trap, and arc totem builds, it just feels like pulling teeth to try and level this guy. There is such a ridiculous disparity the first 50-60 levels or so when it comes to spell based vs melee leveling in SSF.

You can equip blade vortex, chuck on a couple of random wands, and level naked to mapping. My melee character has a tabula, some other various low tier/mid tier uniques, and still feels like I’m in slow mo.

I’ve tried every skill there is, as far as I can figure, and they all just feel like crap while leveling. Maybe I’m missing something. Granted, I have a lot more experience leveling casters, as that’s my usual go to for SSF, but jeez…the difference here is just mind boggling.

On a side note, cyclone is a great example of what Blizzard gets right, that POE tends to miss a lot, and that’s feel. Cyclone has a duration that is uninterruptible…that’s really…really annoying. That’s a skill that by its very nature should only channel when you are holding down the key. Having a fixed duration really makes this skill feel clunky. I find a lot of the skills in POE to have this same basic problem, and it’s one of the reasons that it always ends up frustrating me. It’s inherently a great game, but the…“everything is fine, and now you’re one shot” combined with the often clunky mechanics keep this from being a 10/10 for me, and that’s really frustrating, because I love the game in a lot of ways.

Sorry for the ramble, but I’ve been trying to figure out how to make decent SSF melee builds for a very long time now, and I always end up frustrated by them. I’ve stuck with this one for way longer than I’ve wanted to, and at various levels it’s been “ok”…but never great. It’s hard to go back to the farm once you’ve seen the lights of Paris.

Is is a damage output problem? Melee Attack skills will scale from your weapon, probably more-so than gem level and it can be harder in POE keep up with the curve in regards to your equipped weapon, particularly in SSF when you may be needed a couple of affixes (ie elemental damage) for a weapon to even suit your build.

That’s the entire problem, melee in general is so dependent on weapon for damage. There’s a reason I always play spell based characters in SSF, but I’ve been really trying to make a go of a melee character. It’s one of those things about POE that sort of drives me nuts, the variables are just so huge. It’s pervasive in every aspect of the game, from the spikey damage, to the wildly variable nature of how effective skills are.

Shouldn’t you have weapons stashed from leveling your other chars? Also, if your league starter on SSF is melee, go for a tanky/shield build with vengeance/riposte/reckoning which should make the content up to level 70 much easier.

It helps if every 5 levels or so, you use the weapon (generally the fastest available) plus whetstone plus blue/rare rustic sash recipe to get a new physical damage weapon. It won’t be anything special but it only has to last a few levels before you do it again.

I don’t think I’ll get a double implicit before the league ends at this rate. This is the second 6L Tinkerskin that went all white, along with 3 other items that went all white and a couple that disappeared (fortunately nothing too valuable lol).

Yeesh. Makes me kinda glad I’m not really chasing challenges this league. I’m having a lot of fun, but haven’t gotten too serious about anything this time around. Haven’t bought maps for atlas, etc…

Really, really loving the trapper, though. I’d never played one before, and holy moly, stuff just melts.

I actually checked your profile earlier when I saw you online and playing a saboteur - is there a reason you’re not using Eldritch Battery? It would completely solve your mana problems. With Tinkerskin you basically get free casting.

Not a good reason, no. ;)

I will try that when I get home from work this evening. Thanks!

Don’t forget that you can reserve 100% of your mana then - I’m using wrath + herald of ice + herald of thunder but you can easily replace any of these with other auras of your choice (like grace), including blasphemy if you happen to luck into an enchant that lowers mana reservation.

Looks like I may make it to maps for the first time, and I have some questions about that.

  1. I know I’m not going to make it to Elder, shaper , or Uber lab. Is there a good intermediate goal I could shoot for instead?
  2. how does the difficulty of a map that’s level 66 or 67 compare to that of a zone of the same level? Is it roughly comprable or is it more like incursion which sea much tougher
  3. I have 6 Tier 1 Maps, should I plan on running them as is or should I upgrade some of them to magic or rare first?
    Thanks!
  1. red maps (t11+), try to get at least 12 challenges done - doable for most players. For 24 you’ll have to invest yourself a little, 36+ is more or less reserved for people who can reliably farm all content. Other minor goals would be to defeat any breachlord, normal Atziri, Uber Izaro and get a 5 link for your main skill.

  2. It really depends (mob types, mods). Personally I find t1-t5 maps easier than act 10.

  3. t1-t5 - run magic, t6-10 - run rare (alch&go), t11+ run rare + vaal to unlock map bonus, after that run them rare. I don’t chisel anything except t15 and t16, but ymmv on this.

What @Bateau was trying to say was:

Yeah homie, murder everything. Put your shit in the device, go to wherever, and kill the shit out of things.

You have a million xmutes and alts, right? White maps (< tier 8 or 9 or whatever when they turn yellow) should always be blue (xmuted). Reflect or whatever shit you don’t want to deal with? Alt! Who gives a fuck, you’ll get a million more.

Past this you might need to give more of a fuck. But until you get to tier whatever, you’re fine, just go murder shit.

Thanks! Yes I have lots of mutes and alts. So it sounds like I should xmute and run some maps before trying Kitava. I still havent done merciless lab but since I’ve done all but the final quest in A10 maybe I don’t need to do that before trying a map, nice!