I’m playing Ritual league more than I expected. Started out with a Reckoning Gladiator and got him into maps, then couldn’t resist the lure of the summoner any more and started a infernal legion skelemancer. The ritual mechanic seems fine, something to do occasionally when leveling and a source of extra drops on maps. Haven’t hit the Maven yet, maybe never will depending on how much I like this summoner, but that wouldn’t bother me much as fighting yet more map bosses is of little interest.
I think in like 9 years or however long this thread has gone that this is the first time I’ve seen you talk about a non-summoner ;)
I looked at a few builds, and I’m trying a summoner first; it’s this skellemancer , though the build guide is kind of vague. I also will probably try yet another iteration of the Enki arc witch, because it is very solid. I also found a Shadow build that ultimately is supposed to use Poet’s Pen and Blade Blast, but mostly uses BV for much of the game; it also seemed it might be ok for a try.
But I usually just get confused.
I have to remind myself occasionally that there are other archetypes. :P I’ve done the odd trapper or high-block dude, and once even went so far as to run an Arc witch! I can’t remember a league when I didn’t roll a summoner of some variety, though!
Happy to answer any questions if you have them! Angry_Roleplayer writes decent guides but he does assume a lot of PoE experience, so it can be hard to fill in the gaps where he assumes you know stuff that he takes for granted.
Mostly it’s the PoB stuff, where what he says does not at all match what is in the latest pastebin link. For instance, in the video he goes for Grave Pact/Grave Intentions, which are on opposite sides off the starting point, but in the PoB those nodes aren’t selected. As he reiterates getting those, I figured I’d lop off some points from the far reaches of the tree and make sure I got those. But I prefer builds where the skill progression is mapped out ruthlessly and clearly with no assumptions along the way.
EDIT: Found this build, by Navandis Gaming, that seems clear and simple, and the video is top notch. No text build, but the PoB notes are useful.
I suspect the problem with the inconsistencies is that the guide was written many patches ago, and hasn’t been kept up to date. The PoB has, though, so they don’t agree any more. Glad you found one that is easier to follow!
Of course, for these pro players, the Acts are like the warmup. I’ve only gotten into maps once, over the entire life of this game, heh.
Ossoboom (exploding skeleton necro) is into the 80s now and doing mid-level maps. Which means I’ve enjoyed the build enough to get to the new end-game content, the Maven - a creepy floating lady who likes to watch you fight.
Easy enough to start with, toggle a button on the map device and it captures that map’s boss for later. Except - the damn toggle is not very clear. It’s either bluish or reddish and I can’t see any indicator of which one is “on” and which is “off”. By trial and error I found that red=on, but man, they really could use a UI update there.
Anyway, once I beat the UI challenge, it was pretty simple, and after 3 maps you get to go fight all 3 of the captured bosses, which again was pretty easy. Apparently you can go up to 10 of them, though, and I fully expect that I’ll die at higher boss numbers simply due to the insane number of effects…either I’ll lag out or I’ll miss some key telegraph animation in the noise and get one-shot.
After beating the boss challenge you get to put points in the Atlas region skill tree, which I’m sure has some crazy min-max strategy to it, but I’m just kinda randomly picking the type of fights I like. First up, Invasion bosses, because who doesn’t like good old Invasion league?
I am enjoying the league so far as well as the blade blast chieftain build. Will see if interest lasts past yellow maps. I had been saving rituals until beating the map boss, but this bugs out the final ritual to not give tribute. It impacted almost all of of the maps I ran this morning, but switching it up later by fighting rituals as soon as I could eliminated the issue.
My skellemancer is in the early 20s now, finishing up Act II. Only a handful of undead minions, but pretty much I just refresh the skeletons, hit the “consume a corpse to go fast” button, hit Descrate, and spam frost whatever and things die. My health bar hasn’t moved in ages I don’t think. Kind of boring though.
The danger of playing a decent build. :) You can always make it more interesting by going faster! I often get two Quicksilver Flasks and just tear through the easy-to-navigate zones, only stopping if I need to kill things to refill the flasks. Means you get higher level baddies sooner, making it a bit more challenging, and of course you’re moving along the story faster too.
Heh, I think I’m already moving fast enough that I have to pause to summon the skeles. The zombies haven’t died in ages. I’m actually fine with the build right now; it’s not something I’ve done before.
This is the way.
I still have yet to break my lawn-mowering habit, of having to break every urn and hit every chest. Even though 90% off the time it’s crap. I also have a hard time not stopping to hoover up scrolls. But really I should just blitz most of the Act stuff I guess.
EDIT: Breezed through Dominus faster than I’ve ever done it. It’s weird not having an offense direct-cast spell or ability; I just spam skellies when needed and Flame Dash out of trouble, using Convocation to group the minions if necessary and occasionally popping a Spirit Offering or whatever. Very odd; I’m so used to things like an Arc Witch where you spam your ability.
So killed Kitava and into the endgame/maps. I’m 75 ish. Sort of at an impasse though. I mean, the build is working, but I really need two six-links (weapon and armor) in order to fit all the bits and pieces to take it from ok to really good. For instance, I can’t fit Predator (which the build calls Death Mark, I guess that was its old name) in, nor can I really have my skellies do their full damage because I’m running them on a four link at the moment, with the meatshield zombs on thee five link I have. And I have zero mana after everything is reserved; I think that improves with more passives maybe, have to check.
I have never used the trading system to buy gear, but I think I will have to. I only have enough orbs to get the weapon (Queen’s whatzit, the higher level one); the Rotting Legion armor is going for something ludicrous like five or six Exalted. My attempts at propitiating the RNG gods and using Orbs of Fusing have proven fruitless, as usual.
Congrats! Now the game starts. :) But seriously, it’s an accomplishment getting through there for the first time in a league. Always feels good to get past the big bully.
As for the gear, feel free to check the guild stash first, I’ve dropped some stuff in there that might be helpful. The last tab especially, been putting my older items there as I upgrade. Not sure if there’s a 6 link anything, but I know there’s some useful rings and boots.
Feel free to post a link to your build if you’d like me to take a look at it, be happy to make some suggestions. Either use Path of Building or a link to your characters on the PoE forums (as described here).
Thanks. I’ve been rummaging in the guild stash (Queen’s Decree, for one) and I think I took everything that could help, which wasn’t that much–I think you are doing a summoner as well, so the stuff we are both tossing in the stash tends to be stuff neither can really use. But it has been a nice help for sure.
I’ve bombed out on the third Lab about four times now though. Just cannot live through it, and it doesn’t help that the game zeroes out my Vaal Skeletons when I face Izaro, so my get out of jail free card doesn’t work…
I have been enjoying the league enough to reroll. The bladefall/bladeblast chieftain was good for clearing, but wasn’t cutting it on bosses and didn’t want to drop 6 exalt on upgrades. Started a bleed earthquake gladiator and enjoying it so far. I just dropped 500 fusings trying to 6-link a chest and hiding out now after liquidating some other currency for more fusings. I had to turn on /dnd from the spam as trade API seems to be lagging worse than normal.
You should do the third lab before killing Act 10 Kitava, because ending Act 10 lowers your elemental resists and raises the death XP penalty. Don’t assume you need 6-link gear right away, focus on defensive layers first. Try to get your life up, elemental resists capped, and ailment removal on flasks. Despite the green effects, Izaro’s attacks do physical damage.
Yeah, the lab can be a real pain. @Bobtree is right that it’s best to do it pre-Kitava, but of course that doesn’t help you right now. Your best bet is to get as much life as you can and make sure your resists are maxed, and also hit the Darkshrines (see POELab to find them) to try to get some help via shrine effects or disabling of traps. And if you see me online, don’t hesitate to ask, I’d be happy to help!