1701

You were using about 5 skills too many :). Not to mention that your element types were all over the place. I strongly advise you to read up on the game a bit and maybe follow someone’s guide to get a grasp on the mechanics. General rule of thumb is that you want to stick to one attack spell, two at most if your primary sucks for single target. But you must take passive tree synergies into account otherwise you won’t get anywhere. Sure, you can complete normal pretty much naked and with barely any skills slotted but once you hit Cruel your build should slowly start coming together.

PoE is NOT like other arpgs (Torchlight etc) where you can slot skills randomly and do fairly well. People in this game make elaborate builds that look fairly strong on paper and they still run into walls later in the game when mob hp and damage go up and the gimmick their build relied on suddenly doesn’t work anymore. Or they join a party and experience the same.

1702

Yeah, I’m beginning to think you’re right :). My playstyle is that I like simple builds, ideally, one AoE and one single-target attack. But there are so many toys to play with…

I’m not sure whether that made much difference in this case though. I was primarily spamming Lightning Strike, and my passives were almost all in life and melee damage. So it was mainly a two-handed thwacking build. Obviously I did something wrong.

I do read up on things, but I find virtually all the build guides terribly confusing. I have a real hard time discerning what to do early on, from these guides, because they all seem focused on how to put together five-links and end-game uniques, and high-level passives. I’m dying in my 30s all the time. This Templar I thought I had figured out decently, in that he had lots of life and regen, zero mana problems even running the added lightning damage aura, and about 50% physical damage mitigation with 75% elemental resists. But I guess not :).

1703

What did you link to lightning strike?

Damage conversion can be a trisky beast, Lightning Strike is moreso. Because Lightning strike has 3 damage components: “leftover phys”, converted lightning (from phys), and projectile lightning damage. Many of the methods that scale your phys has no effect on projectiles and the tooltip DPS is misleading. Essentially Melee Physical Damage support, and increased melee damage nodes won’t help the projectiles. But nodes that increase weapon damage will. It probably requires some extra care to layout a passive tree for.

1704

Good to know. I’ll have to check what I had linked, but I’ll pay more attention in the future to all the details if I can. Though it’s one of the things about the game that makes it interesting I suppose, all the details.

1705

Oh sure. Linking becomes really important as you climb difficulties and act. 4L gems are a force multiplier, typically. I would guess that lightning strike would go for a combo of attack speed (maybe multistrike, maybe not; some builds use MS and FA together, too) and possibly weapon elemental damage (do % more elemental damage, one of the rare sources for “more”, which is an actual multiplier as opposed to “increases” which is additive).

A skill like Infernal Blow (except don’t do an IB character) or Ice Crash is a little more straight forward, as there’s just the single conversion and two damage components (though ice crash has a thing where he aoe does less damage farther out or something).

Another thing to pay attention to is e.g. Ice Crash, if used dual wielded, only uses the main hand weapon. That can be an advantage, it allows you to use an offhand with specific benefits. E.g. attack speed, resists, etc. Essentially the offhand is a glorified accessory.

1706

As I read the build guides I find online, even those that specify low-level passives generally say something like “use whatever to level to X, then…” But “X” is often after the point where I croak, heh. So what I’m really needing is solid guidance on finishing Act IV in normal, without gimping further progress I guess. Right now I can usually get through to Dominus with no issues, but it’s there or after that I start having issues. It’s usually in the form of sudden spike damage or super-fast mobs that burn me down before I can react, too.

1707

You seem to be ok level wise at this point, so you might consider running past mobs in the Scepter of God and looking for stairs.

Let’s talk flasks.

At this point you should be running:

  1. 2-3 health flasks, best you can get. You might consider enchanting them to get some additional stuffs out of using them (e.g. condition removal/immunity, increased healing). Don’t go overboard. For Dominous, fire, lightning, and bleeding can be a problem as you have no doubt witnessed. This is really the first time that these things are scary in the game (welll. . . Vaal Oversoul’s beam can be an issue). Flasks that dispel shocked, burning, and bleeding can be helpful in this fight.

  2. A quicksilver flask. There’s one given as a quest reward. Helps with the finding of the stairs. Vroom Vroom.

  3. Whatever else you need.

That might be mana at this point. If you have a pesky resist, you can go for a resist flask of that element but one might not have dropped. Likewise a Granite (+ armor) or Jade (+evade) flask might be worthwhile.

I like to keep to 3 healing flasks + quicksilver, though. You do know you can upgrade flasks by vendoring? 3 flasks of the same type/tier vendor for 1 of the next tier up. You may be getting the bestish flasks from drops no problem, if so great.

What is your typical life total for this fight? 1k is considered the “new to path of exile guidelines” recommended minimum for the fight.

Outside of that, you typically want to find a 3L or better 4L to run your main skill and then force multiply like a boss (which 2.0 makes easier to do than ever). Next time you get a character there let’s take a look at your defenses and gear before you engage.

1708

I used to be the same. And this is honestly one of the worst things about the game, early stages of leveling process are simply shit for a lot of builds. This is mainly true for skills that have a level requirement around 30, such as cyclone or Explosive Arrow (I’m doing this one now and it’s a blast :^)), but there are also some very very strong skills like Flame Totem which you can use from lvl 4 onward. If you want you can check out LiftingNerdBro’s guide, his videos are mainly aimed at new players and he’s one of the few people who post guides on the forum that actually know the meaning of the words ‘newbie friendly’ and ‘budget’. This build in particular has a lot of wiggle room when it comes to gearing, you don’t need any expensive uniques to get started. It’s also a very safe playstyle while still being very strong - I actually use a dual totem templar to clear some tough map bosses that can kill my reaver (my main mapper char atm) easily. I think it’s the second most represented build in the top 100 on the tempest ladder.

1709

Thanks for the advice. I’ve found a couple of interesting builds–https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1304510 and https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1347222 that I might try too.

With my late, lamented Templar, I had over 1.2k life when I hit Act IV. With full resists. I had two no-bleed flasks, one health, one mana. I do have a stash full of the other flasks, but I’m only now realizing that, duh, I should use them rather than simply only using health and mana. For instance, on my Templar, I never ran out of mana, so certainly did not need two mana flasks.

OTOH, the complexity of the game makes it more interesting than many others in a lot of ways. Certainly one of the best F2P experiences out there.

1710

Yea, my flask setup is always health anti bleed, instant or at least bubbling health anti-shock, granite, low charge (4 or 5 charges used) mana flask with anti freeze which I can basically keep up all the time to limit chill effects as well, and the 5th is usually quicksilver unless I can run whirling blades in which case who needs a movement flask? Or even boot speed? Man I love whirling blades. I try to fit anti-curse onto one of the flasks as well.

Making sure the second health flask is seething or at least bubbling has been key to my survival many times, hit that while bravely running away.

1711

I beat the Warden.

So far I’m finding this first Warbands character to be a blast. I’m almost constantly being almost killed because of the unpredictable Warband boss characters that show up everywhere, and yet, most importantly, I haven’t actually died yet. It’s just exciting. Plus since this is my first Warbands character, it’s much harder going through with nothing in the stash to help out.

I did find some unique gloves. But they reduce my mana and they give me “Conduit” (which is a node on the passive tree that lets you share your power, endurance and frenzy nodes with people in your party). Of course, as far as I can tell, Conduit gives me nothing as a single player character. So those gloves will likely come off very soon.

1712

I’ve used those gloves on almost all my twinks thus far in tempest, found 'em early and the +attack/cast speed is a nice buff. Indeed, I’m using them right now to start re-leveling a SRS character since I just ripped my triple totem soul mantle guy, though at least I managed to get the 3 totem achievement first!

Just wasn’t used to the gameplay of soul mantle and I don’t think I was clearing curses fast enough; I had the flask setup for it but I wasn’t doing it often enough I think and got creamed by a ghosted buffed pack + a shock nova shrine which I stupidly stood in the radius of as I’m used to just ignoring shrines. Also, I went soul mantle before I got the 40% totem duration which I was a few points off and having to re-cast the lightning warps so often was distracting me. Next time I’ll make sure I have those before I try it.

1713

What kind of build are you playing? I could probably hook you up with some uniques to help you get started.

1714

Well RIP 2nd Incinerate Templar. I was trying to rush through the end of A4N and I managed to run through the big red beam of Piety not once, not twice, but three times in the space of about a second (note to self: when she starts swinging that beam, run left, NOT away from her!). Sad thing is, I took the 2 things I use to level fast with (a unique wand and my Wanderlust boots) with me. Oh well, that’s the breaks.

Decided to change it up and go back to a dual flame totem Witch. Workin’ my way back through the levels. Probably going to trade for a Lifesprig and a Wanderlust so I can speed up the leveling train.

1715

Another thing a lot of people like is a seething or bubbling flask for insta healing. It’s sort of the “oh shit” flask. Note that you can still get the status ailment cures on it, but I think you do loose the “immune to said status ailment” benefit as it’s effects are instantaneous (I don’t have any such flasks right now and can’t check).

Def ditch the second mana flask.

1716

In economy news, there were a couple of curious developments apparently. Firstly, the Chaos:Exalt ratio in Warbands has hit 70:1, which is unheard of (it typically stays beloe 50:1 and I’ve seen it stay in the 30s). Then a group of like minded players posted news that they had made 72 Mirrors of Kalindra via crafting via some very specific methods (this involves certain level 8 master crafting mods being added at specific steps and then later removed, this basically allows one to force how properties roll at different steps). There was a minor uproar.

It was all bullshit. Not the actual crafting aspect, and these players have accumulated a lot of wealth in this league (possibly in both the SC and HC leagues). But Chris went looking and he says he only found 8 mirrors in stashes ATM (thinks he could have missed a few, but not that many). Several redditors pointed out the image of the stash with 72 mirrors had clear photoshop aspects. A player from the original group confirmed the photo was faked.

The crafting method is detailed here. This also explains the C:Ex ration; exalts are flying out of the economy as people are buying them up to do similar types of crafting.

Also, some new vendor recipes have appeared but don’t be in a rush to go try them. It involves the selling of 3 of the exact same type of item. If the items are rare and 20% quality, they vendor for 1 regal. It’s lesser currency as other conditions fall off (e.g. magic versus rare, no quality).

1717

I assume my newbish level 12 Witch shouldn’t worry about crafting for a long time. I’m not using armourer’s scrap or whetstones for now.

Question: I have two characters who died in races, and I guess the rules were permadeath. They now show up as greyed-out avatars on my login screen. One has a name I’d sort of like to reuse. Should I delete it? Any reason to keep the characters around?

1718

Depends on the race. For example, if it was a descent, then the character is removed from play (live or die), as you start with uniques at the entrance. Usually the race rules will tell you what happens to a character if they die or after the race.

Only reason to keep (the playable ones), is if you think you will go back and continue with them. Maybe you got some nice drops or something. Otherwise strip them of currency and move on.

1719

Nor should you. Gear will be replaced. Though you should accumulate those currencies at a rate that you can afford to quality mid-level gear. If you pick up all the ones you come across, that is. Mid level is way higher than 12, of course. The exception would be if you find a handy leveling unique and are using it. May as well. . .

The crafting you want to target is basically something along the lines of:

  1. Linking a nice 3s or 4s item with fusing orbs. Skill gems get their most important scaling from being linked to support gems. You are not quite at the point where you can do it meaningfully (but for now you can e.g. throw added elemental damage gems on for a little extra oompf).

That point, incidentally, is A2N once you do the quest that rewards support gems, including Faster Casting and Faster Attacks. Every class gets those gems for sale at the vendors after that quest, too. These are super efficient ways to boost most builds (but not all!). By the end of act 2 you can easily do things like [Melee Gem] + faster attacks + melee physical damage OR weapon elemental damage, depending on the gem. Or [Spell gem] + faster casting + [elemental penetration]. Though I think those still come in act 3.

Of course you may not need to do this. You might find a good 3l or 4l. Or you might have good enough gear that you can afford to run a white 4l in a slot just to get your main skill going big time.

  1. Chroming items from category #1 to get the colors you need.

  2. Transmutation orbs to turn nice white items into magic

  3. Augmentation orbs to add a mod to any nice magic item you find that only has 1 affix (non-intrinsic property; e.g; Ruby Ring’s fire resistance is intrinstic). Because you never know, you might add something good.

Say a 30% ruby ring drops for you early in a new league. Transmute it and then augment it (note: transmutation sometimes gives two properties). You aren’t looking to hit a homerun. Because the item will have a low ilevel it can’t roll amazing mods. But starting out, no mod hurts and some mods can still help. More resists, mana regen, health, etc. Don’t spend a lot of currency doing this. Just do it until you get your resists where they need to be and be satisfied. If you happen to find nice uniques/rares/blues that fulfill your needs then this isn’t necessary. If you are in need of an upgrade, though, this is how you do it on the cheap.

That’s all you need for now.

Oh, one thing we should be talking about repeatedly for all the new people: there’s a couple of awesome vnedor recipes to be aware of.

iron ring + any skill gem = resist ring of the aligned element. That is, a blue gem gives a lightning resist ring, a red fire, and a green cold. This is a deterministic process; Ring#1 + Fireball #1 will always give you the same Ruby Ring. If you use a different iron ring, or a different skill gem, that could yield a better ring. So collect extra gems early and don’t be afraid to play with this when you need cold resist to kill Merveil.

The second thing is that all you spell users out there should consider picking up +1 to level of element skills wands/scepter:

[ul]
[li]Magic (blue) wand or scepter[/li][li]Ruby ring (+1 fire) OR Topaz (+1 lightning) OR Sapphire (+1 cold)[/li][li]1x orb of alteration[/li][/ul]

Yields the wand or scepter with +1 to level of skill gems of that type. For casters, gem level is a more significant portion of their damage than say melee or ranged gem users. This is a great way to give yourself a nice leveling boost with say flame totem, and then later with whatever you are planning on using as your main skill.

1720

So I’m trying an Incinerate Templar, following a build I found in the PoE forums pretty religiously. So far so good, though I don’t have Incinerate yet; it’s more of a Frozen Pulse Templar at the moment! It’s kind of fun to follow a pre-selected path, something I haven’t really done before.