Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Nim]

Got into the beta 2 or 3 days ago but I already lost interest in act 1 again.

 

[baturinsky]

How can I assign more spells on quck buttons (and left click)?
Also, there is three slots over QWERT slots, left of them is left click, what do two others do?

 

[Eyeball]

LMB MMB RMB.

Q W E R T

All are spell/skill slots. Left-click a slot to select a new skill for that hotkey from your equipped skill gems.

Note: skill gems must be slotted in equipped gear to be usable.

 

[T. Reich]

How can I assign more spells on quck buttons (and left click)?
Also, there is three slots over QWERT slots, left of them is left click, what do two others do?

There is a hard limit of 8 skills, limited to the 8 visible quick skill icons. You can't have more. Only very few builds use all of them, so it's not a problem really.
the LMB one is usually reserved for "move only" action, btw.
What buttons they would be, you can actually assign youself, they don't have to be the default QWERT + 3x mouse buttons.

 

[Padre]

So for far I have made 2 chars in the beta.

General impressions:
- some zones have been removed (like the Coves in Act I) and waypoints are more accessible now.
- game feels a lot harder now that physical damage of monsters has been ramped up (Rhoas hurts like hell now)
- some maps changed their basic level (Orchad went from 66 to 75, this boss is now insane)
- quest rewards are now mostly items and unique jewels (most gems can now be bought from town vendors)
- jewel system is very fun and adds a lot of customization to overall gameplay
- new weapons with interesting mods (hard to really test since I mostly play casters)
- the new golems are tanky as fuck without investing in them

So far I've made 2 chars. My SC Glacial Cascade Shadow reached maps. Damage is mostly ok with a 5link armour. Problem is, my defences sucks and I often kill myself on a reflect mob I didn't see. With 3k health and 400 ES he feels like tissue paper in maps. Died like 20 times already. Levelling a HC SRS summoner now. Was lucky enough to find Tabula Rasa around level 30 and since then it's been a constant struggle with mana regen. Right now almost lvl 62, approaching Vaal Oversoul. Will post later once I get to maps

 

[Aothan]

the jewel system is more elaborate than I first realised, after now playing for a few hours and seeing the various gems being listed in chat (by chance I left chat on for the first time).

the new Rallying Cry warcry is much better than what I assumed after first hearing of that, the increased mana regeneration is a nice touch. And speaking of mana, Mind of Matter is now very close to the Templar starting area. I completely missed that somehow but that changes everything for playstyle relying on energy shield, life and armour. Quite the incentive to try yet again with hybrid armour and even a staff.

also, this time, I figured that Cast on Melee is probably better utilised with a caster that uses spells to prepare an area of effect melee skill, at first this seemed like an approach to best use with a Shadow, but overall I still prefer the Templar's abilities and skill tree area.

also, now that I am trying a caster I wonder just how many advantages the Witch class specifically has as a pure caster compared to the Templar with numerous elemental enhancing abilities. This is also another reason I want to try a combination of spells and melee, but most of the Templar's passive skills can augment both spells and elemental based melee skills.

 

[Padre]

With the Beta Templar area has one huge benefit - mixed defensive nodes: ES and armour. Witch has mostly pure ES nodes. With this much physical damage flying around and with the nerf to CWDT you need some form of mitigation. Melee got fortify support gem. Casters have chaos golem - but 3% isn't much tbh. Had to take 3 ele resist nodes south of Scion starting area, took the jewel slot and finally have all resists capped (except for chaos of course).
All rare jewels I've found have been corrupted, with mixed results. One of them gives me combined resists of 58% which is not bad for one skill point.

Also, found Empower but the xp required for it to work is just plain silly. 200mln xp for lvl 2. Hoping to find that helm with +1 to all gems. Would be great with my zombies

 

[baturinsky]

Can I buy skill jewels from NPC, or they are from drops and quests only?

 

[Zdzisiu]

Can I buy skill jewels from NPC, or they are from drops and quests only?

You can buy some skill gems from Masters, those who you do quests for and invite them to you hideout and stuff.

You will also be able to buy gems (with experience) from regular vendors in the Awakening expansion.

 

[Absinthe]

Posting this link since it seems not too many people are aware of it:

Closed Beta Path of Exile Awakening Database

It has gems, items, uniques, quest rewards list, and a passive tree. Not all the items on the DB are in the closed beta at the moment though.

the jewel system is more elaborate than I first realised, after now playing for a few hours and seeing the various gems being listed in chat (by chance I left chat on for the first time).

There are a lot of things that are possible with just blue jewels. For instance, you can stack +16% block with 8 of those nodes, which means that the 75% block builds are back.

the new Rallying Cry warcry is much better than what I assumed after first hearing of that, the increased mana regeneration is a nice touch. And speaking of mana, Mind of Matter is now very close to the Templar starting area. I completely missed that somehow but that changes everything for playstyle relying on energy shield, life and armour.

Quite the incentive to try yet again with hybrid armour and even a staff.

Hybrid armor is not recommended because in PoE, high damage weakens your armor's damage reduction, which also makes armor vulnerable against crits. So if you don't single-mindedly stack armor, you're going to notice that the DR is much weaker than you'd expect, in addition to the gearing difficulty of getting two defenses high at the same time. I wouldn't try that without a shield because shields are a huge source of defenses.

Staves are either unique casting staves or 2H weapons in my opinion. If you need more than one 5L, I'm not sure how good your build is.

also, this time, I figured that Cast on Melee is probably better utilised with a caster that uses spells to prepare an area of effect melee skill, at first this seemed like an approach to best use with a Shadow, but overall I still prefer the Templar's abilities and skill tree area.

It's also better used by linking multiple spells to the same attack. They changed that for the other support trigger gems but Cast on Melee Kill can still be used in a 5L to drop 3 firestorms per melee kill, for instance. Unless they specifically changed it in Awakening.

also, now that I am trying a caster I wonder just how many advantages the Witch class specifically has as a pure caster compared to the Templar with numerous elemental enhancing abilities. This is also another reason I want to try a combination of spells and melee, but most of the Templar's passive skills can augment both spells and elemental based melee skills.

Her main advantages are faster casting nodes and a ridiculous amount of energy shield.

 

[baturinsky]

PoE seems to be encouraging very narrow specialisation.

 

[Aothan]

Hybrid armor is not recommended because in PoE, high damage weakens your armor's damage reduction, which also makes armor vulnerable against crits. So if you don't single-mindedly stack armor, you're going to notice that the DR is much weaker than you'd expect..

I generally agree the approach diversifies defences in such a way that it may essentially undermine both types of defence, but the Templar 'specialises' in these combinations by the array of Armour + Energy Shield nodes, as well as having various high value Armour nodes nearby. In my estimation it can work, however until now this defensive emphasis has come at the cost of useful integration of other skills (for want of skill points). Moreover, I also agree this is mostly or primarily a shield based defensive style. Yet that may have reasonable changed with the inclusion of Mind Over Matter now being readily available to the Templar class.

though most of these 'problems' relate back to a general lack of balance in end-game, it is an irony the game is designed for creativity and in theory player finesse but still reduces down, and is thus 'balanced around', simplified build designs following very limited and often monotonous playstyles.

I really did not know the same spells can be linked into Cast on Melee, that makes for a really interesting possibility.

 

[Padre]

I fucking died at lvl 69 to Temple Piety (lvl 68map - Zana's mission). I'm angry at myself because the map had +30% boss damage mod and I still attemted it. She ignored my minions and went straight for me.

Shame really, my damage was sky high due to Tabula Rasa and was quite content with my defences - 3,4k HP and 1k ES.

I guess I will wait for another wipe now.

 

[Absinthe]

AI got changed so that mobs aggro you more instead of your minions, since minion tanking made a lot of shit too easy. Also, sounds like you're playing hardcore. In that case, 4.4k ehp is laughably bad for running maps. Most HP builds will have at least 5K (preferably over 6K) in HC and on a hybrid HP+ES build you can make over 7K easy between hp and energy shield stacking (honestly you can break 14K with a lot of ES builds). Honestly having just 1K ES sounds weird as fuck since discipline alone gives you +500 ES pre-multiplier which easily turns that into another 1000. I can only assume you didn't run Discipline.

Hardcore PoE is really all about stacking defenses.

 

[T. Reich]

4.4K for low maps is totally fine for HC (IF you play decently well and don't make stupoid mistakes often). I've done well in 70-75 maps with 4K life, solo. People claiming that at least 5K life is mandatory are being silly.

PoE seems to be encouraging very narrow specialisation.

Absolutely. Generalists don't survive beyond cruel difficulty.

 

[Black_Willow]

Ok I have to ask you PoE bros something.
I've seen many builds that concentrate on having nodes for one weapon type, eg. staffs for templars. What's the point of such build? I mean, I know you can stack big damage or other usefull stats this way but on the other hand what's good about limiting yourself to one weapon type instead of going towards more general nodes?

 

[Jasede]

Trying to play this game with friends and they're getting bored by the end of Act 2 - the game starts out way too fucking easy with way too little skills. Nobody ever dies; all combat is resolved by holding down the mouse.

I am sure it gets harder at one point but come on, throw prospective new players a bone, PoE.

 

[T. Reich]

Ok I have to ask you PoE bros something.
I've seen many builds that concentrate on having nodes for one weapon type, eg. staffs for templars. What's the point of such build? I mean, I know you can stack big damage or other usefull stats this way but on the other hand what's good about limiting yourself to one weapon type instead of going towards more general nodes?

Limiting yourself to one weapon type is done because then you can stack both general melee damage passives and specific weapon type damage passives. As a generalist, you're limited only to the former.
Moreover, specific weapon type passive clusters also usually grant some unique bonuses that are unavailable to the weapon generalists.
Finally, being a weapon generalist in PoE usually means fuck all, seeing as there is almost always the best type of weapon for a given build:
1. Stuns? Maces only, 1h or 2h.
2. Crit? Daggers only.
3. Mad leech and some crit? Claws only lol, kidding, just pick daggers and use blood rage. Go low life for maximum derp.
4. Generic dual wielding? 2x 1h swords, because attack speed.
5. Generic 2h build? Axes, because if you go maces, you're better off going N1.
6. Zany 2h build? Staffs, duh.
7. Generic 1h+shield build? Swords or Soultaker (axe).
8. Ele damage build? 1h 1.95+ aps swords only, because attack speed.

2h swords suck, period. 1h maces suck, unless N1. 1h axes suck, unless Soultaker. Claws and staffs suck, unless you want to do some weird build based on that weapon type.

 

[T. Reich]

Trying to play this game with friends and they're getting bored by the end of Act 2 - the game starts out way too fucking easy with way too little skills. Nobody ever dies; all combat is resolved by holding down the mouse.

I am sure it gets harder at one point but come on, throw prospective new players a bone, PoE.

Well, these are sort of introductory acts after all. It gets more fun in act 3, with plenty of opportunities to get yourself killed fast, including the very first location and a certain unique enemy there.
Gems are sort of limited indeed if you're playing self-found for the first time, but it all has to do with the difficulty curve really.

Don't worry, if you stick around, the game will quickly pick up the pace, and you will rue your words yet, most notably starting with act 3 cruel (lvl40-45 appox). It will only get worse after.

Also, playing in a group in early game is like super-easy mode, because there is simply not enough monster damage to go around between all the players. Even early acts can get pretty hard if you play solo and are new to the game.

 

[Absinthe]

Trying to play this game with friends and they're getting bored by the end of Act 2 - the game starts out way too fucking easy with way too little skills.

When I start fresh I usually play a few other classes on the side (just to hillock and maybe brutus then entering merv cave) just for the gems.

4.4K for low maps is totally fine for HC (IF you play decently well and don't make stupoid mistakes often). I've done well in 70-75 maps with 4K life, solo. People claiming that at least 5K life is mandatory are being silly.

The whole point of hardcore and high hp builds is to survive when you do make stupid mistakes, get screwed over by lag, or run into that special bad luck combo of insanely dangerous blue mob properties + retarded auras raremob. Your build can be fine 99% of the time but that one time shit fucks up still ends your character.

Absolutely. Generalists don't survive beyond cruel difficulty.

If you do it badly, sure. But if you want a lazy generalist build stack all the fucking defense nodes then run a Tabula Rasa chestpiece and just build something stupid with your 6L. Add dual-cursing for extra measure. Also we might see more generalists with the new jewel nodes.

2h swords suck, period.

Viper Strike and Cleave. Also Puncture now that Bloodlust is getting added.

 

[baturinsky]

Any fun builds worth trying (in 1.3.1)?
Most of what I see on forums are relying on specific unique, or Static Strike, that is good, but I already have one.
My chars currently are
1. Summoner Witch - mostly ok, but a little boring, and bosses tend to wipe my entire army in a couple of area spells
2. Tornado ranger, with emphasis on criticals and mana/hp leecg. Currently my favorite build, but have problems with bosses. I have started to work on Totems to have some meat shield ersats.
3. Static Strike Mauler.
4. Just started Tank Scion (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1171890)

 

[Zdzisiu]

Any fun builds worth trying (in 1.3.1)?
Most of what I see on forums are relying on specific unique, or Static Strike, that is good, but I already have one.
My chars currently are
1. Summoner Witch - mostly ok, but a little boring, and bosses tend to wipe my entire army in a couple of area spells
2. Tornado ranger, with emphasis on criticals and mana/hp leecg. Currently my favorite build, but have problems with bosses. I have started to work on Totems to have some meat shield ersats.
3. Static Strike Mauler.
4. Just started Tank Scion (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1171890)

Maybe try incinerate witch before the nerfs in 2.0?
Also ethreal knives shadow is strong too.
For tornado ranger, use puncture with crit multi and some other supports for bosses, they melt pretty nice. Can use increased rarity for better drops too!
You could also go templar flameblast fireproliferation, but I found it to be kinda boring.

 

[baturinsky]

Builds I read recommend Puncture oo, but I don't understand why it's considered good if it's DOT does not stack.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Builds I read recommend Puncture oo, but I don't understand why it's considered good if it's DOT does not stack.

Because it does not need to stack. It gives a DOT based on the physical hit, so you need to hit the monster super hard, thats why puncture builds often use a lot of crit chance and multiplayer. You attack with puncture untile one hit crits, you watch the enemy melt. And most ranger builds attack very fast, so its not a problem to lob a few punctures until one crits.

 

[T. Reich]

Absolutely. Generalists don't survive beyond cruel difficulty.

If you do it badly, sure. But if you want a lazy generalist build stack all the fucking defense nodes then run a Tabula Rasa chestpiece and just build something stupid with your 6L. Add dual-cursing for extra measure. Also we might see more generalists with the new jewel nodes.

How about your average johnny who doesn't have access to Tabula and who deosn't even tknow that 5-links are relatively cheap and affordable?
It's easy to argue that certain things can be done if you know the game well and play accordingly. However, most people don't, so their attempts at non-specialist builds will usually blow up in their faces.

2h swords suck, period.

Viper Strike and Cleave. Also Puncture now that Bloodlust is going to be a thing.

Have they been significantly updated in the Beta to favour 2h weapons over 1h?
If not, then dual-wielding (1h swords) is still the king for cleave, because 2x 1h swords do more damage than 2h sword, do that damage much faster (both because 1h swords are faster than 2h swords, period, and the dual-wield bonus), at the same range (rapiers have the same base range of 7 as a lot of 2h weapons, swords included), plus you get to stack block and extra goodies from the dual-wield nodes, which are generally superior to 2h nodes.
Viper strike is best used with higher aps weapon to make sure you stak more of those green balls of death.
2h swords blow, pure and simple. The new maraketh 2h sword in the Beta may change that, but it's not in the main game, so I'm not interested in hypothetical discussions here.