Thanks, that’s what it was. I guess the first time I saw a breach hand and didn’t activate the breach, and the second time I did. I don’t remember running into breaches before - I don’t know if I played in the leagues that had them occurring before maps, and I haven’t done maps before. The wiki says they are pretty random and dangerous, so maybe I should consider skipping them?
My usual breach strategy is to skip it at first, while I clear a nice wide area around it. Maybe the whole map, depending on exactly where it’s located. (Also a good idea for abysses.) Then trigger the breach by walking over it, and keep my toon just outside the expanding perimeter. That lets you fight the mobs spawning in the breach without being surrounded and overwhelmed. Later, if you’re confident in your ability to clear quickly, you can try staying in the center of the breach - lots more mobs, but much higher chance of Bad Things® happening.
Sounds like a good strategy for me too, thanks! and breaches are another thing I haven’t encountered before- the wiki says they have a chance to start spawning from A6 on so maybe I overlooked some.
I had my first meetup with the Shaper, much harder to miss than those breach hands :-). And i was pretty scared when my screen froze up and turned dark, thinking that either i had just rip’d or was about to. But the shaper items seem pretty cool, one has is a wand with lots of +damage that might be good for an arcwitch and the othet a chest with level 10 rarity and +9% uniques from unique monsters. Of course most uniques dont seem that good except for twinks…
For SSF, you are absolutely right. Can’t rely on getting specific unique items, so you can’t build around them. But in trade leagues, many unique items, especially higher level ones, are very useful since you can base a whole build around them.
@Bateau, are you reselling those 6L white tinkerskins? Assuming so (if the going rate is something I can afford), I’d be interested next time you have one. I’d rather toss currency towards a fellow Qt3er rather than some random if I have a choice. :)
I’ve already sold them, usually within minutes of corrupting, but if I get any more I’ll let you know. The going rate is ~6-7 exalts for mid tier rolls - right now there’s one 88 life, 14% inc cooldown recovery being sold for 7 exa (http://poe.trade/search/agoranobanosit), if you feel like buying it. Alternatively, if you don’t need white sockets just buy the cheapest 6L non-corrupted (~4.5 exa) and throw a few divines at it until you get a decent roll.
My next steps are to get 6L for spire and arc trap. I’m figuring it’ll be easier to get white sockets than the exact color combo I want. Could be wrong. Going to keep perusing the market and see what’s available. I’m in no huge rush. Just enjoying melting maps at the moment.
I don’t suppose there’s really anything to realistically be done for how squishy the toon is? Not usually a problem, but I do get one shot periodically or burst down by big groups of ranged attackers with bad mods.
Tinkerskin is eva/es so it’s very easy to hit any combination of blue and green sockets, with one or two reds if necessary.
As for squishines - I’m using acrobatics, phase acro, blind ascendancy and Atziri boots and it feels great. That said, cwdt+Immortal call is a must, especially vs Ancient Constructs in the incursions that can delete you in less than a second.
Other than that, try to get enough life - my trapper has ~5.8k hp at 96 and I could get to almost 6k if I divined my jewels to 7% life. Feels very safe to play, far safer than any caster I’ve played to date. Link to character if you want to look it up - https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Bawtzki/characters
That combo right there is golden.
For the first time ever I made a proper MF character. Have a 6linked QotF, windripper, and well rolled gear in all the other slots including good ventors. Unfortunately I don’t have any skill so I promptly ripped it in a t1 breach by standing on several lightning balls. Definitely the most expensive rip I’ve ever had.
Now I’m down to just a 6 linked belly for major gear so I’m leveling a vaal double striker. Once I manage to rip that maybe I’ll play standard for a while as I was enjoying that MFer but I need practice moving at that ridiculous speed.
Woot! Ran into an Embezzler on a random map and finally knocked off that challenge. Yeesh, those guys are rare.
F
I actually thought about making a hc char this league once I hit 40/40 but it looks like it will take longer than exepcted, so I don’t know what will happen. I used to play hardcore exclusively before 2.0 (Ascendancy) and I kinda miss the tension of going into maps, not knowing if you were gonna come out alive. On the other hand, trading stays active in standard temp leagues much longer than on hc :(.
Y’all that play HC impress me, but you’re also a bit nuts. ;)
I made a go of playing HC for a while (ages ago) back in a couple of D2 ladder seasons. I enjoyed the sense of accomplishment more, but the downs of RIPing characters and losing all the gear were just too much stress.
I’ll probably do a little bit in HC standard or something at some point in PoE to knock out some of the HC achievements, but I can’t imagine doing it full time.
I don’t do it full time myself, though it is my preferred version. If they release endgame content in a league I’ll run standard instead because I’m simply not capable of reaching something like Shaper or Uber Atziri in hardcore. No matter how strong a character you give me I’ll eventually find a way to do something stupid like stand on top of 4 lightning balls.
HC is all about risk mitigation (and playing Path of Life Nodes). If you want to experience this just try leveling to 95+ on softcore, you’re guaranteed to fall into same patterns that HC players go through. Personally I find the risk mitigation in PoE boring - running safe maps, safe mods, and even chaining the same maps over and over gets extremely boring extremely quick. Most HC players that push for high levels also use logout scripts - unfortunately the game is balanced around this which is why its infested with various oneshot mechanics. I leveled to 96 this time and I wanted to gouge my eyes out by the time I was done, it’s hard for me to go for extended stretches without doing shaper or similar content a few times.
Rares I’m getting from Uber Elder are better than most uniques I’ve looted:
It seems the chests at least are heavily weighted towards life + at least one res.
80 jewellers and 80 fuses later.
Honestly not sure what to do with this. I’m a little tempted to try it out in a Baron build but apparently there are better chest options available for that.
Nice gear!
I had forgotten that only one character per account has to run the trials. Is the Atllas tied to characters or the account?
Characters. But shared stash helps to fill the atlas on alts.