Might be something to do with the logic; having to check to see not just if it gets triggered but if it is powered up could introduce lag, or sunspots, or something. Who knows?
Tomorrow they’re going to be releasing version 2.0.2, and the patch notes are up already. Quite a few small tweaks. I’m looking forward to seeing the new lion statues in the arena zones, and I’m happy to see they’ve finally fixed the bug where ape chieftain spectres will summon enemy apes from trees. In case you aren’t getting enough challenge out of high-level Tempest zones, there’s this little gem:
Added 1 new Tempest Suffix: of Incursion - Adds 10 Invasion Bosses.
Loot should be good, if you live!
fdsaion
1683
They should be able to be triggered if charged appropriately (or at least they used to be triggerable).
EDIT: Looks like the restriction was patched in waay back last year, in the Forsaken Masters patch. That tells you how long since I’ve attempted to trigger a Vaal skill though.
Bateau
1684
Increased the drop rate of end-game Maps to smoothen the curve into level 74-79 maps.
That’s all I needed to know.
PantsVZ
1685
I don’t see how hard it could be to check if powered=yes, then execute. I really dislike that they have all these cool possible interactions but they make up arbitrary rules as they go along. Examples; Iron will, concentrated effect, spell echo… you never really know if iron will can do anything or not until you try it and check the numbers, concentrated effect won’t concentrate minions’ AOE and tons of other stuff, spell echo won’t echo triggered spells, vaals can’t be triggered and so on and so forth…
Really wish they’d sit down and say, hey we gotta make these things work a lot more logically… and stop making up arbitrary crap whenever we don’t want some kind of interaction. Initially the possibilities seem endless but when you get down to the nitty gritty everything is locked down tight to a very boring and unimaginative extent.
Spock
1686
So I did another event; this time the “40m Descent Champions”, a 40-minute dungeon run. Really fun! I survived to level 6, enough to win me one entire reward point. Meanwhile other players made it to level 20-something. A great challenge, and short & sweet.
fdsaion
1687
But just about everything other than Vaal Gems not triggering and Spell Echo is described correctly? POE is absurdly good at doing exactly what it the mechanic description says it does. They definitely should change the descriptions of Echo and Vaal gems though.
Iron Will does exactly what it says it does. And CE does affect minion AOE damage…if they have any AOE damage. Which they won’t. Unless you give them AOE damage (either spectres with inherent AOE or you stick Melee Splash on them).
I finally gave Warbands a try today. I have to admit, seeing all these random boss enemies (sort of) in the familiar places where I’m not used to them really spices things up. Plus I hear what Adam B is saying above in that I really should play through the game at least once with a non-hardcore character. After all, even Diablo 2 required it of me before I could play Hardcore.
PantsVZ
1689
The fire elemental has inherent AOE and conc effect can’t affect it. Iron will won’t make its spells stronger…
It really isn’t that much to ask. You see people in chat all the time confused about the mechanics, people tell them; No, that can’t be triggered, only spells can be triggered. OK, so can I trigger this? - No, that’s a Vaal gem. But it’s a spell? - You can’t trigger Vaal gems. Where does it say that? - It doesn’t.
Other silly stuff as well; I take off my armor to buff it up, but then I can’t put it back on. Why not? Because it has +8 intelligence and I need that +8 intelligence to wear it because of its gems. But the armor will give me the intelligence I need? Sorry, you have to go through some bullshit now to wear the armor you were just wearing.
Romalar
1690
I’ve gotten some decent extra drops and some interesting fights from running Warbands. Lately, I’ve been mapping and sort of searching for warbands maps using http://nembibi.com/warbands/ which makes it a little more interesting. Every now and then when I follow the level 4 warbands I get tough fights with the more unique warbands bosses. I feel like I’ve gotten better unique drop rates from fighting these guys, which has helped make leveling my alts more interesting.
The Warbands gimmick seems a lot more interesting than the Tempest gimmick.
Warbands gimmick seems a lot more consistent so far too. Nearly every zone has had a pair of new bosses I haven’t encountered before, as opposed to the tempest areas, where several areas don’t have any type of tempests.
Bateau
1693
New changes to map drops seem quite noticable, I already got a few 79s, a bunch of 77s and a some 78s - most of these came from running 76 and 77 maps.
I continue my streak of incompetence, losing my 38 Templar in the Dream of some dude whose name starts with D in Act IV. Running along a line of trenches, killing mobs, when I enter what turns out to be an arena, and the gate slams shut behind me. Oops, the mobs are immune to fire, which knocks out my Flame Totem, and despite my warcries, flasks, fortify and all that, I can’t two-handed lightning staff them to death before I’m nearly instantly killed. Oy.
I shall persevere! One day I’ll finish Act IV. It’s just that getting there is so damn repetitive. I mean, this time, Dominus was a joke fight, but again crappy blues kill me.
Sorry to hear that. That dude was Daresso. I’ve never seen fire immune mobs in there (and all I’ve been doing lately are running fire dudes, either my incinerate guy or my flame totem Witch). If they were indeed immune that sucks.
That battle is pretty tough. As a melee guy, I run away when he summons those 6 ice-duplicate guys. As a ranged guy, I usually keep as far as possible from him.
He’s one of the two guys that lead up to the end of Act IV. The other is Kaom, and to get to him you have to slog through 3 or 4 meandering zones of fire-based mobs. As mean as the Daresso fight is, I prefer it to the Kaom side, since it’s so much faster to go through the Daresso side of things.
I had a lot of life and regen, and full resists, but the spike damage was just too much for me I think. If I had built around as one hand and shield maybe it would have worked better, dunno. But I liked the overall build I had.
Oh well. Time to try another approach! That’s what interests me at least about hardcore, is figuring out how to do it on my own pretty much. I do read up on stuff but I’m definitely not a min/maxer. That would be more effective I’m sure but I rather enjoy trial and error–even if it does get momentarily frustrating when I croak ignominiously.
Bateau
1697
There is no fire immunity in this game. Was there perhaps a totem (or a boss) with aura that prevents enemies from dying?
Hmm, maybe it was something fire related, but it sure seemed like it said “immune to fire.” It wasn’t the prevention of dying for sure. Either way, they both resisted my fire totem really well and hit me really hard really fast…so eh, dunno. They were blues with all sorts of affixes.
Bateau
1699
It’s possible that you ran into a combo of Resist <random element> + Resists Elemental Damage. Those are extremely annoying for casters.
Yeah, I was built around weapon elemental damage using Lightning Strike as my primary, with Glacial Hammer as my single-target go-to. I’d toss the Flame Totem, Leap Slam, warcry, Lightning Strike linked to fortify, with the occasional shock nova thingy for fun. Had Culling Strike linked int here somewhere too, along with Life Leech (though that was on the totem, and I don’t really know if that leeched life to me or the totem!). Even though my strength was high and physical damage was good, if they were resistant to elemental (I had cold with the lightning, from the weapon I think) my DPS went through the floor I bet.
