Culling Strike on the skeletons is about the big stuff (bosses, rares, high-health blue packs). Those live long enough that a skeleton almost always will get the killing hit in, since that last 10% of their life won’t disappear instantly from zombie/spectre/spirit attacks. It really doesn’t do much against weaker blues or normal monsters. As for the Item Rarity, well, with the RNG that you get in PoE, you kinda have to take it on faith that it actually does something.
What do IIR and IIQ stand for?
Increased Item Rarity and Increased Item Quantity.
As to the former, it does what you think it does; it increases the chance that any drop is magic, rare, or unique (in order of “more likely” to “more likely but still unlikely”). RNG plays a huge roll, as does POE’s many drop tables. It’s possible to get really shitty farming streaks with decent IIR. But over time, you’ll get more good stuff. Also, all uniques slide into one of four tiers. When you roll a unique you then get a “tier check” before determining what it is.
IIQ does in fact increase the # of items dropped, which works nicely with IIR as you’ve already surmised. All it does is impact the # of drops.
IIRC when a drop is rolled first there’s a determination to see if it’s currency or an item. IIR does nothing for currency. When you out-level areas, a penalty is applied to currency drop chance (starting at a difference of greater than 2 levels and going up each level). So you cannot farm really low level areas absurdly rapidly with your zone wide aoe and rack up currency. However, this effect is “capped” when your character reaches level 68 and you never ever experience any penalties in any area with a monster level greater than 66 as a result. I do not believe this was changed in 2.0.
Maps have their own weird drop rules.
I’m still addicted here, and for some reason I’m obsessing with trying to level a dual-totem witch. I’m on my 3rd hardcore one :/ … they keep dying in the mid 30s. The first one died in the Apex of God due to insufficient Lightning resist (got snuffed by those guys who cast Lightning Nova on the way up). The second one died to a named machine-gun shootingworm in Kaom’s Dream. I was so mad because it was so dumb! That was Saturday evening. So I started over and by Sunday night I had the next one up to level 39. So I guess I’m getting the hang of it! The second death took my leveling wand into Standard but on the 3rd I found a cool totem-oriented shield, Trolltimber Spire which I immediately started using. I’ve also got Wanderlustshoes which I use when leveling (though I’m just about to swap them out for something with resists and more sockets).
I’ve also got my Lazy Pally, which is an Static Shock guy with maxed block and defense, who feels a little slow but is quite tanky. He’s up to 55 or so; he’s like the Energizer bunny, he just keeps going and going and doesn’t stop for anything. It takes him a while to kill bosses, though; my Dominus kill in Cruel took a while since I had to keep running away from all the messy effects. And to top all that off, right after the kill I was disconnected before unlocking the exit to Act 4 so I had to kill him a second time!
Still having fun, though.
I assume that’s dual Flame Totems? I played one of those a bit, although I started as a Marauder, and it seems crazy strong. I can see why Flame Totem is considered a FOTM build. Even without any special gear, it just mows through almost everything. My guy is in A3C, though I’m taking a break for now to work on the next Sarah. That shield looks pretty neat, although I don’t think the area bit works with the Flame Totems since they’re not tagged as AoE.
Oh, those disconnects after bosses suck! I remember something similar happening to me pre-Awakening. Fortunately it’s pretty rare, at least in my experience.
I’ve started Tempest-league incarnation #2 for Sarah. Playing her as a Scion this time. Just made it into A3N today.
Anyone playing the league matches?
I traveled for a week and a bit so could not play much and of late many of the leagues have not been at an ideal time for me (trying to go to bed earlier, so the 12am starts are a bit annoying.
I managed to get through another 40 minute descent and two 12 minutes solos (though I died on both of those). Got to level 5 on the second 12 minute solo then threw myself against the necromancer, forgetting I had to actually survive to get points.
Anyway, holy crap - the winners of the 12 minute solos typically reach level 9 or so. Jebus! Apparently the strategy is to run straight to The Ledge, stopping for as little as possible unless it involves quickly taking out a towed pack. Farm Ledge until time runs out, where XP gain is boosted and mobs come in nice sized packs.
I wish they’d so some longer Descent leagues though, they are awesome.
My Bowazon is into A3N now, at level 32-ish? Split Arrow, Burning Arrow, Typhoon Arrow, Blink Arrow, Puncture, Decoy, whatever the curse is that makes you vulnerable to bows. Full evasion build. Biggest scares so far were in the Lunaris Temple I think where that big boss (name starts with a K maybe, four letters, big honking melee attack) nearly one shotted me. I can kill things pretty fast but the control lag that’s always been a part of PoE (unlike DIII, here, you have to let up pushing on a button before you can trigger another button, and it slows things down in crucial moments) makes getting out of bad situations occasionally touchy. I usually toss a decoy in, curse, then spray and pray until things are dead. Puncture works for bosses usually.
Right now I only have links for added cold and I’m swapping in added physical damage for the added accuracy I’ve been using (for the single target stuff). I need something to mitigate spike damage though, that’s my big need. My resists are at 75% except for Chaos of course.
I played a couple a few weeks back, but that was about it. I’m just not any good at the race stuff. But I play Descent whenever I see one running during a time I’m online. Easily the most fun of the league events.
Sadly, the options for that are limited, especially playing a primarily evasion build. You could go down the tree to get Iron Reflexes, no more evasion but drastically reduces your physical damage taken. Swapping to a defensive curse like Enfeeble could help, but of course that slows your damage, plus it only works if you actually get the curse out before the attack comes. There’s Enduring Cry, which gives you endurance charges that mitigate damage, but they’re a pain to keep active and can take attention away from your decoy. The best option is probably Cast When Damage Taken, a gem you can link to Enduring Cry and Immortal Call to have them automatically cast when you take enough damage. I think you can buy one of those from the Act 4 vendor, but only after killing Malachai.
Bowazons are usually my first characters in all these types of games, starting with Diablo 1. I think you’ve pinpointed well the frustration I have with Bowazons and Witches who play like Bowazons that I have created in this game. There’s just something off about the controls.
Bateau
1571
This is the first time I’m hearing of this control lag. The only thing that comes to mind is that you have to wait for the attack animation to finish. Is D3 different? I don’t remember if it has animation cancelling or not.
Come to think of it, you’re probably right that the shield doesn’t affect the Flame Totems. Looking through the wiki quickly, I guess it would only work on Shockwave Totem or maybe an AOE spell attached to a spell totem (ball lightning, firestorm perhaps?) I guess. I wonder how a ball lightning or firestorm totem would do? Hmmm, that might be interesting to try out.
Spelltotem builds are considered strong right now, especially Ball Lightning. Maybe not as strong as flame totem.
It may be the animation. Whatever it is, my mind is saying “push Flame Dash NOW!” but the game is saying “nope, gotta finish whatever you’re doing first!”. Diablo, I think, cuts off the animation for one thing when you command something else, leading to more instantaneous responses. At least, it FEELS that way. I have no idea how any of this actually works.
I know what you mean with the control lag. I’ll often have to hit a button a couple of times before I see the action fire off. Things happen fast enough that it’s hard to say exactly what’s going on, but I’d believe animation is part of it. For instance, if I’m casting Raging Spirits and try to cast Temporal Chains, often nothing happens on the first press…which might be because my character is finishing up the “toss a flaming skull” animation from the spirits. When I hit the button again, it works.
Exactly. And with squishy toons, it’s a sphincter-tightening experience.
Bateau
1577
I just took my lvl 65 reaver (non-crit claw) with decent gear and a 275 pdps claw to a white level 72 map and demolished it like nobody’s business. Probably my favorite spec so far, Vaal Reave is absolutely insane and trying to keep the stacks up is right up my alley when it comes to playstyle. The only downside is that it doesn’t leave any time for looting.
I have that laggy control issue when I have Multistrike socketed on my Static Strike character. I usually have to hit his Leap Slam button a couple of times for it to ‘take’ since I’m sure the first time I do it he’s still animating his multistrike. Even though I accept this in my head, it’s still annoying to endure. Fortunately, he’s pretty tanky, so I don’t worry about him getting squished before he leaps around.
@Bateau: that’s cool to hear he did so well. I hope someday I make it to maps!
fdsaion
1579
Yes, in POE there is no animation canceling. You have to finish your current action before a new one. Not sure if there is an action queue, since you’re usually spamming the thing you want to cast.
This also makes spell echo and multistrike more dangerous if you use them - that second cast/second & third attack are fast, they still do play out. Also why lightning tendrils is dangerous, since it locks you in place for its full cast animation.
This is particularly annoying with warcrys now that they moved them from the spells category to their own warcry category so that they do not work with cast when damage taken. You really have to spam that button to get them to fire reliably if you’re in the middle of holding down whatever attack button you have. And then you aren’t attacking for the 1/3 of a second its casting for. Really wish they would make them instant. I mean, I guess if they did, there would be zero reason not to use them 24/7, but it’s just a major pain in the ass right now. Just like with fortify.
It’s particularly hard on hardcore players, because it restricts the sorts of builds you can realistically take deep into the game. I suspect it’s pretty deeply embedded in their engine tech though; it’s probably not something they could easily fix. As much as I like PoE, GGG sure isn’t Blizzard.
