5006

Specter level was lowered also (they’re now 76 at gem level 20 instead of 80). And Herald of Agony also got hit with the nerf stick.

Also the Baron helmet was blasted to bits, and they removed the ability to get +1 to minions on gloves and chests. So they also made it more difficult to pump the gem levels as much with gear.

Feeding frenzy still gives your minions 10% extra damage, speed, etc, when you get the buff, so it might be worth it.

In the end I think zombie/specter builds will survive, especially since odds are some of the 350 specter they’re allowing us to use will be OP.

5007

Hmm what happened to totem builds? Maybe I should try One of those instead. My main need in a build is not needing to aim as when things get hectic I have a hard time doing that while dodging.

5008

I hear ya, brother! That’s one reason I’m a bit cool on Essence Drain builds - you lay down the Contagion but then have to hit a mob with the Essence Drain pellet. And I am so bad at step 2, often missing!

That’s also why things like freezing pulse and arc and other things that chain and go long distances appeal to me - you just shove them out in the correct general direction and they kill stuff!

Totems got… a little extra life and a teeny delay in casting I think. Don’t recall any other changes. So I think totem builds will be just fine.

5009

Here’s an example of the change to spectres, from this thread about a Spectre build. SD below is talking about Slave Drivers, a popular Spectre.

In the end, all these changes probably won’t affect anyone too much until you get to red maps, as @ineffablebob said above.

5010

Oh geez. I somehow missed the updates to The Baron. Yeah, the change to 500 str from 300 is huge. That’s going to hurt a lot.

You’re probably right that until red maps it won’t matter much, but that’s where I spend the vast majority of my time, so that’s still pretty frustrating for me.

5011

The burning + exploding skeletons build I posted is mostly intact. I don’t have the urge to replay builds though. There are too many interesting things I want to try.

Last league I mostly played a Cleave/Impale/Fortify champion built to tank metamorphs, and then a Vortex occultist I started with friends that was super smooth and just kept scaling well.

I think a high mobility, fire & forget build like Vortex or Ball Lightning or the skeleton bombs will be good for Delirium, so you can focus on movement and defenses. A skill you don’t have to turn around for seems ideal because of how the fog spawns monsters behind you. Sire of Shards might be useful, and totems could be popular.

I’m super excited for my Delirium starter build. It’s an experiment, but I’ll report back if it works out.

5012

On the other hand, the cluster jewels have a number of new things to try out in summoner builds.

For example, you can now get impale on minions, minion crit multiplier, and minion phys to chaos conversion on cluster jewels.

5013

Good point! I wonder how many skill points it’ll take to get to a jewel node on the skill tree and how hard it will be to get the specific summoner jewel(s) you’d want.

5014

For as much as I play POE, I can’t seem to run anything other than ranged or trap builds. I seem to make a rain of arrows build every league. I’ve never liked summoner or melee builds. So is ranged getting any love in this new league?

5015

Seems like the closest path for most summoner builds on the upper-left takes you through 2 ele damage nodes, so a bit wasted. Maybe getting the mana ones on the upper-right is better if you’re nearby for curses or mana reservation nodes anyway?

The real question will be whether you can get very good combinations of notables and other passive modifiers on these clusters to make 2-3 wasted passives worth it.

For reference, here’s the example they posted. From other examples, it looks like you could get a roll which might swap out one of the notables there for other combinations of bonuses to all of the basic travel nodes on the circle.

5016

Still trying to decide between the following starter builds:

5017

I know I said I’d be doing regular physical zombies to start, but I may actually go with animate weapon instead since I’ve never seriously used the skill before. Seems like an obvious time to try it out with the new buffs.

5018

How do the various summoner options compare for ssf? All the build guides seem to assume you’ll be trading.

5019

In the guide, look in the gear options for required uniques. If there are none, it’s reasonable to play it SSF. So the Baron builds aren’t great choices, but something like the physical skeletons or animate weapon builds are likely fine.

5020

This build is a good example. It lists lots of uniques you can use but emphasizes that none of them are required (and they aren’t). Likewise there’s a ton of skill flexibility. Summoners are probably the single most SSF friendly build in the game.

5021

I played this build last league and it was incredibly strong. I’m probably going to play it again as a league starter until I decide what to play “for real” this time around.

Current thought (which changes at least once daily) is blade vortex poison. We shall see!

5022

I usually don’t get very far in the game before my hardcore characters die, so ignore my lowbie musings you veterans.

Adding onto the node tree sounds like it would make a game where it’s hard to plan out a build outside the game even harder to plan out, and make the whole thing too complicated. But I guess I’ll dip my toes in and see for myself.

5023

You’ll be able to craft those cluster jewels so maybe it’ll be possible to alt spam one to get something you want. Who knows.

5024

Thanks for the reply, but I can’t get the link to work for some reason.

5025

I used to only play hardcore but I don’t think I’ll have the patience for that this time so I’ll try to take softcore seriously.