It’s the rippiest league I can remember since possibly Invasion. Invasion was quite a while ago but I remember thinking that was quite nasty at the time. This might be worse, and I’m loving it. I started in softcore and am actually considering a switch back to hardcore for the heck of it.
Maybe a little later in the league, after I’ve gotten a few more good builds in as I might not even reach maps in hc and definitely won’t make it to red maps. It won’t be with the tier 2 and tier 3 skills I tend to play though; I’ll go mines or traps (and probably arc) if I go back to hc.
Questions about Cold Snap for people like @inactive_user : I’ve never used it before, so I’m trying to get familiar with its behavior. I’m pretty spammy with my attacks and a spell like this is a bit frustrating to use due to the cooldown. I understand you can expend a frenzy charge to get around that, so is that one of the big mechanics that makes this build click? Will the addition of Ice Bite to the spell going to be the switch that lets me spam it?
I’m only level 25, and don’t have access to Ice Bite or Vortex yet, so I’m still using a linked up Freezing Pulse as my main spell, with Cold Snap applied whenever possible.
I’m also chronically short on mana. I do run a Clarity (and Herald of Ice). Do I solve that just by getting more mana on gear?
Even though I’ve played PoE a ton, I always feel like I need the baby explanation when I hit a new build. :(
Also, I believe I read on the boards that Elemental Focus only removes the chance to freeze on the initial hit.
Sorry to reply to my own post but I can’t figure out what jewel this is. I don’t see it in your tree (maybe I’m blind).
Bateau
4369
Cold Snap isn’t all that effective until it’s one-shotting or nearly one-shotting trash mobs. That solves the cool down issue neatly ;)
I didn’t use it as my primary clearing skill until I had it 4 linked with non trivial damage on my tree. I primarily used Frostbolt until probably act 4? Maybe late act 3.
Elemental Overload is crucial as well. That 40 percent more buff should be up most of the time. Storm Prison wand is your friend for leveling until you get the occultist keystone or the threshold jewel.
Thanks for the explanations. Plus, I didn’t know Threshold was an actual category of jewel.
It’s not a term used in the ui, so you wouldn’t know unless you’ve been reading up outside the game. Sorry for the jargon ;)
I also totally skipped over leveling in my post, because this thread has mostly been pretty grizzled vets for a while. Happy to answer anything I can! The short answer to caster leveling in general is “lifesprig x2, wanderlust and/or nomic’s storm, murder everything instantly until at least act 3 and probably second half of act 4”.
peacedog
4373
I really don’t know why I try to make Mind of Matter work anymore. I am not good enough at the game for it to be a good defensive strategy.
Gear for mana, and possibly Blood Magic on your movement skill. I’ve screwed myself with it before too, but it’s gone well on the vortex occultist so far.
Ultrazen
4375
It works well for builds that don’t have mana intensive skill sets. Totem builds are particularly great with it, because you’re almost always sitting at full mana. It also helps to have a build that doesn’t have a bunch of mana reserved, as your pool will be very small.
3.5d patch notes. Highlights:
They’re enabling new veiled modifiers for amulets and also “+1 curse” for idk what.
RIP inception (which doesn’t matter nearly so much in the new system, but still).
Patch might drop tomorrow. Reddit had been calling for Suplhite/Azurite tweaks since basically day 3 or so. And I think eveyrone agrees Syndicate members are a little too punchy.
Sounds good! All those changes are pretty much in line with my wants.
My personal experience is that Syndicate has gotten way less insane as I’ve gotten my chaos resistance up. At 30% now with 4.4k life + 1.2k ES + 1.2k mana (MoM) and I don’t feel too explody in yellow maps.
Rocking a Winter Orb Occultllist at 74 or so. Was going ok, great levelling skill, deleted Kitava deathless in a 4L - GMP, conc effect, ice bite - which is rare for me as I just usually rush to end game content. Since then, got it in a 5L with life leech for survivability with Ghost Reaver and building out ES gear. Damn is good ES gear still expensive!
Haven’t been able to test it too far as for the life of me, I can’t get damn maps to drop past the odd T2/3. It clears really well, but not tremendous on bosses. But I was always planning on shifting to a CWC build, so I threw it together when I had a Tabula drop this arvo.
Winter Orb, CWC, GMP, Frostbolt, Vortex, Ice Bite. Oh yeah, now we’re cooking! Frostbolt helps heaps with single target and freezing tougher mobs and general cold dots everywhere from vortex spam is wiping everything.
I really want to drop this in a 6L Whispering Ice or a 6L elder/shaper crit staff with PCOC or CWC affix.
I have also found the league content a tad overtuned, to the point I have not really engaged with it. It helps to keep the peeps rank down as that keeps their toughness down as well, but I still tend to die to them if not really careful.
My tree is also a bit shit at the moment as I am working towards respeccing to CI and ran out of Regrets. Currently around 3k/3k HP/ES.
I paused my Dom Blow melee Guardian in Act 8 when I had enough currency to start a Skeletal Mage summoner. Both are really fun and effective through the chapters. My SM summoner is rocking the vaal skellies in a Tabula Rasa with GMP, Pierce, Minion Damage, Controlled Destruction and…not sure of the efficacy of this…Summon Phant on Kill. Whether it’s the best choice or not, the fireworks display is heavenly with the mages taking care of the color and the Phantasms providing the “smoke” trails. Also have 3 Solar Guard Spectres for ST. And zombies for extra damage-absorbing meat.
PoE has improved SO much over the years. It’s now my favorite ARPG.
Shara, are you using a guide as a template? If so, which one?
Negative, Ghost Rider, this is my own build. That said, coincidentally mine is a very, very similar tree to this build, particularly as I move to re-spec to CI/ES based, rather than hybrid.
If I move to Whispering Ice though (and I’d only do so with a 6L so all spells benefit from supports), I’d need to re-spec for more Int to scale the Icestorm. PCOC/CWC 6L crit staff would probably get by with this tree, though.
I like the new patch already. Did a Moon Temple map and damn near died to a triple Syndicate attack supported by a ridiculous number of rare spawns. Including one with that terrible vines mod that slows you down. I’m confident that spawn would have crushed me yesterday.
I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m getting some extra maps and dropped a bunch in the guild stash. Mostly whites thus far, but there’s a fair few yellows.
I have long since resigned myself to buying maps from players as I get to mid-whites. Tends to get sustainable after that, like there’s an inflection point around t4. Spending 5-10 alch on maps to fill out my atlas and get over that hump is well worth it, especially considering how little I care about 5-10 alch at that point.
I’ve mostly been lucky on the white level, but I definitely have to start buying in the yellow range. If it wasn’t such a pain to trade I’d do it more often - seems like 3 out of 4 requests either get no answer or whatever you were trying to buy already sold. I put up with that for stuff I really need, but if I have another map I could run instead…I usually just won’t bother. Only if it’s necessary for Zana’s mission or something.
Bateau
4385
New zana is also a godsend for unlocking atlas. Fwiw, things really opened up for me after I completed most t1 to t5 maps, so 30 or 40 maps total. Was a major pain to progress before that point.
