Sorry, I’m not familiar with the lingo. So you’re saying if you level up a zombie gem three times, that’s enough to carry you through all the acts of the game, act 11 or whatever it is by now, without putting a single point into the tree?
4-link. Something like Raise Zombie->Minion Damage->Feeding Frenzy->Melee Physical Damage.
I dunno about no points at all. Minions get a ton of bonuses from a well-designed passive tree, as with any PoE build. It might be possible, but why not make your zombies all the best they can be with passive points and support gems?
fdsaion
4629
Because you can because they are that strong right now?
To be fair, you probably do want to throw in some easily accessible gear (e.g. +1 max number of zombie, +2 minion gem helmet).
Sure, sure, there’s always someone who wants to do those weird edge case builds. :)
For @Rock8man and other minion-curious folks who just want to see how well it works, though, just go ahead and do a regular build and be impressed by how much they buffed minions in the last couple of patches. I like this one, myself.
Credit where it’s due. I’ve wanted to try a summoner since running maps w/ Bob a few leagues ago. Thanks for the inspiration!
Convenient how some other game has the perfect art for this discussion. :)
Minions should be overpowered. The fun of the builds, for me, is how it makes you feel really strong. This is the case in Grim Dawn too. In Diablo 2, the minions were fine until you ran into someone like Diablo, and he would just do his ring of fire and kill them all. That was no fun. Then you had to have some alternative way of killing him or to be in a group and help them using curses, etc. But your primary means of offense was completely nullified by Diablo, and it just sucked. That’s the kind of thing I was afraid of here, because Path of Exile is a lot like Diablo 2 in some ways, so that’s the reason I’ve never tried a minion build.
There was some of that in PoE previously, certainly. Atziri was particularly bad for zombie builds. But a good minion build right now can handle just about anything, after all the buffs they’ve gotten in the last couple of major patches.
My major issues with Path of Exile right now are:
- The amount of time it takes to patch it
- Having to click the mouse constantly (hurts)
- Having to use the mouse to adjust inventory (my mouse is a Razor, so it double clicks constantly, which is really bad for dragging inventory)
I was thinking of getting that Intellimouse Pro that @robc04 pointed out was on sale. At least if it’s like my old Intellimouse, that should get rid of my third issue. Patching isn’t that big a deal since I have patience. Which leaves the constant clicking. God, I wish this game supported a controller. They already have an Xbox version, I don’t understand why they don’t bring controller support to the PC version.
FWIW, I’ve done Uber Atziri w/ this build and it was no problem. I think I missed a Convocation once and lost a third of my zombies or so to one of the big ring of fire nukes. I just shrugged and kept going. They slammed her down to size plenty quickly anyway. Regular Atziri is a “blink and you miss it” kill. For both, just make sure not to let them hit the reflection image. That hurts.
I’m using this Corsair these days, works great.
But of course, the sheer amount of clicking is an issue no matter what mouse you use.
Btw, you contributors to the Clan Stash, you guys are awesome. My current character is an archer, and I’ve never had this kind of fun with an archer before. It’s all thanks to the equipment you guys have put in the stash of the Blight server. I’ve never had an archer where I fire split arrow that fires four or five arrows, and that clears the whole screen of enemies. It’s an amazing feeling. Better than any build I’ve ever tried, and this isn’t even a build yet, it’s just a character who is decked out in incredible gear.
Bateau
4639
For me it’s the flasks, I generally don’t want to keep my left arm in a ready position at all times.
Razgon
4640
Its amazing not everyone uses the system that Grim Dawn does - hold down the button works instead of having to click a million times a second. I can´t go back to games that does this anymore after trying it out.
6-linking is my biggest gripe with the game. I used to use the recipe even though it’s a bit of a rip-off on average, but then they hid that in delve. I haven’t even found the recipe since they put it in the mines and I’m very tired of having to click 1-2000 times to get my 6-link.
And I don’t particularly want to play trade league where I could just buy a 6-link; I hate trading, at least the way it’s implemented. My playtime has gone down significantly the last couple leagues and I feel all the clicking is a major part of why. The other major part being that there are so many systems now I no longer know how to get optimal gear and I get tired of hearing of people doing 8 million dps or whatnot when I’m plodding along at 300k.
I downloaded it again on the new machine and…yeah, the same thing as always happens when I come back to look at it. Instant overload and analysis paralysis. I have no idea what anything does, etc. If I want to play any, I’ll have to research some builds and either configure my existing characters using the free respec they all have, or start anew or something. The game is sort of mind-boggling.
Oh yeah, and the fact that none of my old characters ever retain their passive tree when I come back, it means I never play my old characters. None of the their equipment works anymore since their tree has been reset and they don’t have the stats to wear anything. Heck if I remember what I was going for with those characters.
One of these days I should put aside a week or two and just go through all the characters and remove all their equipment into the stash and delete the characters, since I don’t play them anyway.
Bobtree
4644
Always take a break or stop playing if you have hand pain. Many POE players use extra keybinds for movement and primary skills to avoid endless clicking or holding down mouse buttons.
If you have persistent joint pain, I suggest looking into glucosamine and/or pantothenic acid supplements (YMMV - my parents were a wooden boat builder and a PHD nutritionist).
This can happen when they make changes to the passive tree in areas you used, so you’re forced to respec. I don’t play my old characters either, but I like to keep track of my builds.
I always use Path of Building to plan characters, and then import what I actually played to keep a backup. Below the POB tree, there is a dropdown box that says “Default”, click “manage trees” there to add another and then use the import menu. IIRC, you need to login to the POE website and make your characters public for POB to import them. You can manage ideal & actual item sets similarly (be aware the DPS sort & damage calculators only consider your currently selected “Main Skill”). You can set up multiple trees and mouse-wheel the tree dropdown to swap between them and see the effects on your DPS/stats/etc. POB is a great tool for min/maxing, but I recommend leaving the last dozen passive points or so, because it’s a waste of time on the majority of characters what won’t reach lvevel 90+.
Poe.ninja is also handy site to get quick economy info, browse top builds, and see what class/gear/skill combos are strong/popular, but I enjoy playing unusual builds too.
POE kind of does this for melee attacks now, since the 3.7 melee rework, but it’s janky and unreliable, like you have to keep the mouse pointer at just the right distance and hold it over enemies so you don’t run past them or stop and swing at nothing. They really need to fix it.
I’m tempted to try Chain Hook as a primary skill some day, because it jumps you around to nearby enemies semi-smoothly. I used it as secondary movement on an Infernal Blow berserker this league with Rage support to charge the meter quickly and to clear the solo enemies that IB explosions missed.
I have force move bound to one of the slots, so I don’t have to click to move, helps a ton on cutting down RSD. I do the same thing in Diablo, but they actually have a proper force move rebind instead of having to take up an ability slot. One of my pet peeves with POE.
