Why did I never think of this, molten strike just never quite clicked with me. I’m on a PoE hiatus at the moment but I may give molten strike another shot next time around.
Gotcha. Arctic was fine when I installed it but it might have leveled and then out leveled the CoDT gem; I’ll have to look. I guess the thing I was looking at about warcries in CoDT was pre-2.0. Bummer. Might just find another offensive thing to put in there then. For giggles, I did put in summon skellies. It worked but was pretty useless.
Anyone have any idea of the math on keeping a blue +1 to fire gems wand vs. a rare or unique without the +1? Obviously it depends on the stats of the items but in general, do I gain more from that +1 to fire gems on average than I would if I used an objectively better wand or scepter? Because if I ditch the wand I could go to a shield, which I might do anyhow for Mr. Totem to get more defense in cruel.
Yes, warcries used to be spells. The typical cwdt setup was level 5 cwdt, level 7 endurying cry, level 7 immortal call, increased duration (max). Typically enough to get you out of a jam, as they triggered in the right order (sockets trigger starting at top left and then reading like a book in the United States, right and then down).
Of course, you also used to be able to pull of 10 second + invulnerability via Immortal Call (quality, quality increased duration, certain nodes on the tree that no longer exist in the same form, 6 endurance charges). Echo-Enduring cry to quickly reach max stacks and then physical damage goes away for a little while. By the time IC has run out, you’re at max stacks and ready to cast again!
The basic cwdt setup was ubiquitous, though, and GGG frequently like to shake things up when that stuff happens.
It’s finally time to take another break from Sarah. She hasn’t died yet, and I love my zombies and all, but 82 levels is a good long run and it’s time to switch things up. Just got the last bit of level 82 tonight. Been running maps since about level 70, with only a couple of short forays into Act 4. I was pleased to find that I never really ran out of maps, though the 72+ population is pretty low. I did find a few that I just couldn’t handle, which is to be expected playing solo with self-found gear, but it was still annoying. The Phantasmagoria map (based on the Belly of the Beast) was especially bad. Maybe I’ll go back and try it again at some point, and there’s still the rest of Act 4, but for now, time for a break. I might pull my fire totem marauder off the shelf, or try out this counter duelist build.
Wow, that is more or less an identical build to my L30 Duelist I have been leveling in Warbands.
I saw a guy on twitch running dual incinerate totems. That looked crazy. Not sure what I’ll play after my latest incinerate guy dies though. He’s level 44-ish and working A2C right now. One reason I keep coming back to the Tempest league is that I have so many more levels in the masters in this league than anywhere else. It’s so handy being able to craft that one resist you’re missing (or the 10 dex you desperately need) on some gear. I guess I’ll have to eventually level up masters in a non-hardcore league someday though.
I decided to run mine in Warbands, too. Partly because I figure a guy who wants to be up close and personal is more likely to die a few times, partly because I want to see the Warband dudes some more, partly because I’m sick of random tempests causing me grief.
Also for the persons of relative newness. . .
When the current challenge leagues end, your masters all revert back to Strandard/Hard core. Next time we do a challenge league, the masters in that league will add their favor totals to those already in the appropriate permanent league, which means that you’ll eventually have all 8s even if you never level a guy to 8 in a league. The exception is any league that’s a “void” league. But there aren’t many of those that aren’t race leagues.
fdsaion
1829
Cast on Crit is amazing fun. First time trying that type of build out. It definitely requires some setup though. I was lucky to have a wild exalt drop which I used to put a bunch of items together.
I totally sold out my defenses in order to go COC this early though (started 40ish, now 50ish and just murdered Cruel Malachai), so there have been a few deaths. And a few deaths that shouldn’t happen if the game was more optimized…COC can be a serious FPS murderer (enjoy your 1FPS for a second or two!). Also…I really need life gain on hit or life leech. That would help a great deal.
I don’t think thats the case. IIRC the highest XP is kept, and not added together.
Poe Forum: what happens at the end of the Rampage and Beyond challenge leagues?
Note: that’s back when masters got introduced, and those were the challenge leagues.
Relevant quotes:
When the leagues end, there will briefly be a period of downtime while we merge Challenge League Hideout and Master progress with the Standard and Hardcore leagues. When the merge occurs, the following rules are applied separately for the Rampage->Standard and Beyond->Hardcore transfers:
- The highest reputation master of each type is retained.
- For each master, your challenge league and permanent league favour totals are summed.
- The hideout with the most decorations is retained.
- The others are returned to your Hideout Stash.
- Items inside crafting benches are stored per-character so will still be there.
Bullet points 1 and 2 do not contradict. When stuff like masters get introduced, they get introduced into the permanent leagues (Standard and Hardcore) and the new Challenge leagues (which was Rampage/Beyond). There are people who will still adventure in the permanent leagues while challenge leagues are on going.
So it takes the highest specific master it can find from either league, and then sums the favor level with any matching master from the “other” league. I don’t believe they changed this practice since. There’s no functional difference with which master “copy” you start with there, either. Because the laws of physics or whatever.
It takes a lot of favor to get to level 8. So merging even a level 5 master with a level 7 doesn’t help that much. E.g. a level 7 Perm Cat might have 300k favor (not far north of what you need to hit level 7). The challenge league might add a newly minted level 5 (~79k favor). But she needs 670k more favor to get to level 8, so the player just knocked ~1/8th of that off.
fdsaion
1831
Favor != Reputation (XP). XP is what determines master level. Favor is just for decorations, I believe.
Been playing my Warbands counter duelist quite a bit in the last couple of days. Speeding through Normal, aided by a few uniques and decent-for-their-level rares out of the stash. He’s at something like 1900 DPS at level 37 with Molten Strike, so he kinda just mows down anything he hits. At least, until…
I didn’t have any trouble with the Grove on Sarah, but with this guy I got this same crash. My portal was gone when I logged back in, too, so it apparently crashes the zone instance as well as the game client. I wonder if it’s related to which player skills are used or something. This PoE forum thread talks about crashes in the Kaom zones, and GGG says they’ve got a fix coming in the next patch, so hopefully it won’t be around much longer.
Also, I learned that Leap Slam can dodge big attacks like Dominus’ Touch of God beatdown, even if you don’t actually jump out of the attack area. That’s probably been obvious to everyone else forever, but it was new to me! Been spending too much time on characters that stay out of melee range, I guess. Still a bit of a crap shoot if you’re using any other skills, since you might not get an activation due to other animations going on, but when it works it’s great.
I was wondering if Leap Slam could be used to live in situations like that. For every Barbarian me and my friends made in Diablo 2, (we never played Softcore after Hardcore became unlocked), we always took Leap Attack and used it excessively and it saved many a Barbarian for long periods.
Ultimately one of my Barbarians even beat Diablo on Hell difficulty. Alas he couldn’t survive Nilathak’s area in Hell difficulty in Act V.
Oh man, Hell Nilathak. That guy.
Because 100% of a dead enemy’s GODDAMN JILLION hit points is a GODDAMN JILLION. And he casts Corpse Explosion at level FOURTEEN GADRILLION. So uh don’t be within 3 screens of him and a corpse.
Hell Nilathak, whee!
The worst part was when I found out afterward that the Nilathak quest is option. I had no idea. I about lost my mind.
YOU MEAN TO TELL ME WE LOST ALL OUR CHARACTERS ON AN OPTIONAL QUEST?!? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!
All for what? The ability to name an item after your character? I don’t even use that quest reward on any of my characters.
Ahem, anyway, back to Path of Exile.
My flame totem Witch in Warbands still hasn’t died and is two nodes away from the Dual Totem node. I’m very nervous about taking that node. So far, I’m having a hell of a good time mowing down enemies with Flame totem and power siphon enhanced with cold damage, and a badass fire trap, and a super powerful cold pulse thingie. Once I take that dual totem node, I’ll no longer be able to do damage with my spells and will have to rely solely on totems to do damage. I’m kind of nervous that this won’t be as fun.
NIHLATHAAAAAAAAAKKKKKK!!!
Anyway.
You can’t trap with dual totems?
I don’t think so. Technically, the description in the passive skill tree reads:
“Ancestral Bond.
You can’t deal Damage with your Skills yourself
Can Summon up to 1 additional totem”
To me that sounds like I might be able to do damage via regular attacks maybe? But not anything involving skills, which include spells and traps, I would think.
Traps and minions still work, as well as totems. But you’ll have to give up on your Freezing Pulse.
They’ll pry my Freezing Pulse from my cold dead hands.
Maybe I can put it on a totem instead. I’ll try it out soon.
Update: Freezing Pulse is nice on a totem, but it’s a shadow of what it was in my hands. I lose the +1 to cold from my wand, the spell totem reduces damage by 30%, and it just doesn’t have the same oomph anymore compared to when I cast it. One more level left to Ancestral Bond. I really need to get used to the idea of using just totems and traps.
You can definitely throw down traps or mines after you take Ancestral Bond. However, once you get dual traps you might want to perfect your running in a circle technique instead! I never felt the need to do any DPS once I had dual totems. I do understand the feeling though (“I should be doing SOMETHING, right?”) and you can definitely throw down traps, but it’s not necessary. The dual flame totems are pretty good at mowing down stuff. You could throw down flammability if you want.
