Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[T. Reich]

So, I started playing this game yesterday and have played it for about 19 hrs (on a break from Grim Dawn). Combat is fun but as far as the story and dialogues are concerned, this game is fucking terrible.

After so many hours, I realized I still have no idea what the fuck I am doing, why I am fighting everywhere and why these people keep sending me to kill monsters. All I know is that some woman called Piety is up to no good, since she keeps showing up in some quests, and they are experimenting on people?

It's like this game is trying way too hard to be all mysterious and cool, using made up asinine words to make the most banal shit boring plot sound interesting. I can't even recall any other character than Piety, cause everybody is so.. forgettable.

Anyway, that said, I like the combat and the music (figuring out how to rip it out of the game files) and visually the game is better than Grim Dawn (which isn't awful looking itself). But holy fuck I am not invested in this game world at all. I need to go back and review some story elements, which I don't think is possible in-game since quest log doesn't seem to exist like it normally does, else I won't be able to finish this game at all.

Also, I just found it funny that some guys in-game, with over a thousand hours, were as confused about the story as I was.


EDIT: Also, the gem/jewel system is better than Grim Dawn's.

The game takes the Dark Souls approach to the world building.

 

[T. Reich]

I just had a sudden realization.

Victario's charity's

10% chance to grant a Power Charge to nearby Allies on Kill
5% chance to grant a Frenzy Charge to nearby Allies on Hit

will be pretty insane on HoP/dom blow guardian:

Frenzy charges:

• 15% increased Attack Speed per Frenzy Charge
• 15% increased Cast Speed per Frenzy Charge
• 4% more Damage per Frenzy Charge
• 5% increased Movement Speed per Frenzy Charge

Brb, farming chance orbs.

I mean, it should work without necro aegis, right?

Yes.
Victario's been a "secret tech" for certain minion builds for quite a while now.

 

[Shadenuat]

Templar voice wasn't what I expected (warrior philosopher) but I guess some deusvult never hurts.

League quickly (level 3) teached me about trying to hit something in close combat again with regiments of archers and teleporting ranged enemies. Thankfully I am now good boi, I don't piss against meta, going for caster inquisitor. What I actually want is staff twirling helicopter who when hits enemies casts some spells, like staff twirl with cast on crit lightning, but if I fail (I will) I'll just fall back to spamming arc or other spell with leaping slam for mobility. Hey don't judge me, I never played caster or any ranged build since game released and even when I played one it was to make skeletons hit harder 5 years ago.

New music is good. I also like clearing memories during leveling (but not actual building thing).

Edit. Got to level 50, killed bosses, got back to starting village. No deaths, easily clear basic and extra content, everything dies in 1 arc, bosses get vaal storm called. Either GGG made main quest easier or one of two things. I mean, I expected caster to be easier to play but after my Reave wolverine-woman the difference is astronomical; some scrapped build and some basic items (made +56% spell damage gloves with hunter beast bro that's all my uniques) = faceroll. I can even put some points here and there and leech energy shield with spells while standing behind summons or something lol. I take it there is no reason to even bother writing something on their forums since the last patch was all about making spells better. Some of the str melee skills look like their animations were not updated in ages for comparison (dex look a bit better). What a balance.

Also some shit and amount of monsters is just too much. I don't even bother to look at what I am shooting my spells at. I am not a teenager on drugs with gallons of mountain dew acid stored under table, and would appreciate at least some tactics when fighting at very least the bosses man. Also the amount of loot (including loot for league content) is so that I don't bother sorting inventory or stash anymore I just ctrl click everything into big garbage pile and only remember about it when I need to add a mod to my items on crafting table or work with skill links a bit.

I am already bored doing same thing I will be doing for 40 more levels and want to play melee though. The league itself is some retarded tetris building shit, but there is all that other content which makes game worth playing. This shit is still addictive despite things which are simply unfun (like sex with RGB slots and loot, and chat long becoming just a selling board for chinese bots) and is best on the market. Part of me wants someone to kick PoE in its clay legs already and make something without korean design and with advanced combat, not press RMB to win. It was fun for many years but genre needs a kick in the nuts. Maybe there is some secret roguey project somewhere in the making? Hello? No? Well okay.

If nothing comes... then next time it's mara with heavy strike for me, I just want to hit monsters and feel actual feedback from the game on that.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[ArchAngel]

I only do 3 to 1 to get new maps and once I got 4 or more of same maps.
I don't chisel until red maps (and only if I feel stuck). I was able to progress to t9 and some t10 mapping ssf style.
Finding wild zana and always doing maps you don't have helps a lot.
Buy maps from zana when you can and progress your Delve. When you run into a city in Delve you will get maps.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[ArchAngel]

Enemies inside incursion can also be magical packs with mods.. including hexproof one. If you are playing a Bane character you really should be Occultist and have that ability to ignore hexproof.

 

[Jaedar]

Enemies inside incursion can also be magical packs with mods.. including hexproof one. If you are playing a Bane character you really should be Occultist and have that ability to ignore hexproof.

I'm playing bane without occultist and I'm doing fine. In fact I am breaking all my personal records (level 88 currently). Although I do have soulrend for more burst damage as backup (only use it against bosses and the rare tanky rare mob so far). I expect I will have to rely more on soulrend as I start exploring red maps though.

If you intend to use bane as main skill then I suppose you should be able to ignore hexproof, but I don't know why you would do this, unless you like a very passive playstyle (and slow boss kills).

If anyone has tips on how to sustain and not die in red maps, I'm listening.

Also, what must one do to fight "the cortex" ?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Shadenuat]

in general, you reach that one point where one can no longer be glass cannon as enemies do not die i instant anymore

impossobru
that must just mean you need more damage

 

[Jaedar]

yeah, bane is just convenient crowd clear and multi curse applicator. It can take down some yellows but I expect it wont last in red maps.

If anyone has tips on how to sustain and not die in red maps, I'm listening.

in general, you reach that one point where one can no longer be glass cannon as enemies do not die i instant anymore which can be quite a shock from game play habits.
As bland as it sounds, I usually find it enough to be constantly moving, preferably with skills. I assume you usually die because 2/3+ yellow/unique enemies managed to target you and hit at once. If you are in motion its unlikely to happen. Just time casting when at least 1 important enemy is 'recharging'

EDIT: oh and I dont know if you are ssf or not, if you have access to trade you can cheaply buy all the maps up to t10 to fill the atlas. Once its done you can sustain t12-13 without chisels. Also you can buy very cheaply corrupted high tier maps with reflects if you got a build that can handle those. One time seller was asking twice to make sure that i understand map got both phys and ele reflect, cool guy.
If you are in ssf... I'll let you know once I get there. Im having a blast right now and wonder how long it will last, how far will I reach. Currently I got 3.5k hp, 5k es, 15k ev and spike to t8. Will I ever find it worth it to switch to CI? Will I reach high tier maps? I dont know! I try to scout masters on atlas more than actually run highest tier map that I own. So far it works, there is slow but steady progress on my atlas. I dont know when it will stop, I do not really get high tier maps, just fill empty t5-6 spots that is fine for now.
Im enjoying delve but Im not getting enough torch currency to just stay there.

I am in fact entirely immune to reflects (pure chaos damage, and most of it dot to boot). I guess I should be on the lookout for such deals.

My last character died to betrayal bullshit. The other characters I've gotten far with have generally died to various boss type characters (elder and elder guardians are frequent). I do have 8.2k ehp this character (and ghost shrouds, and fortify occasionally).

 

[Shadenuat]

speaking betrayal, 40 ali baba assasins jumping out of nowhere while i was drinking tea and wanted to check my passives gangraping me in 1 lagomilisecond is something alright
I've seen some lsd triggering screen shit like delve, but syndicate is on a whole new level, I have to orient myself using minimap only becaus I don't understand anything until some dudes are kneeling waiting beheading from new waifu.

 

[User was nabbed fit]

yeah, bane is just convenient crowd clear and multi curse applicator. It can take down some yellows but I expect it wont last in red maps.

Nah, I'm absolutely destroying red maps and all their bosses too. I can run any combination of map mods and still run around insta-melting stuff, something I could never do with any previous builds... usually because of either Phys or Elem reflect. Of course, none of that is an issue with curses and chaos.

It all comes down to your build and your gear. There are ways to build a very strong Bane/Soulrend character for sure. I'll see if I can post a Path of Building thing tomorrow. There's a big difference when you build your whole character around the skill though, rather than just use the skill as a bonus to help with clearing.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Gerrard]

speaking betrayal, 40 ali baba assasins jumping out of nowhere while i was drinking tea and wanted to check my passives gangraping me in 1 lagomilisecond is something alright
I've seen some lsd triggering screen shit like delve, but syndicate is on a whole new level, I have to orient myself using minimap only becaus I don't understand anything until some dudes are kneeling waiting beheading from new waifu.

SURPRISE TEST OF STRENGTH, EXILE!

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[T. Reich]

Ok, guise, I'm out.

I've realised that for me PoE stopped being fun and became too much of a chore.
Mostly it's due to the latest few leagues (starting with Delve, I'd say) where the game became too much of a micromanagement nightmare.
Convoluted league mechanics, more and more micromanagement issues, ever-increasing complexity of a game in the genre that thrived on the "KISS" principle.
The game has too much side-content and assorted rubbish for its own good.

I'm done with feeling tired trying to keep up with content - not with other people (couldn't care less), but with the fact that I just don't feel like I'm making any sort of meaningful progress in the game. It's because I keep being distracted by annoying features (like the league mechanics), while ignoring said features makes me feel bad as well, because I feel like I'm missing out on something, and I hate that.

Going SSF wouldn't fix anything, because I like trading, and the layered RNG in PoE is too shitty.
Playing Standard wouldn't work either, because there's too much content to chew through anyway, plus the devs simply shit on Standard, sadly.
The last straw here was me realising that my hard labour at acquiring every veiled mod there is last league has been mostly undone thanks to the shitty way GGG refactored the unveiling system for the Synthesis release. Fuck them, fuck them hard.

Basically,

I'm gone at least for a couple of months. Maybe I'll be back at the end of the league to check my burn-out status, maybe I won't.

 

[Gerrard]

Fucking hell how can you even play a character with next to no armor, I'm leveling a trickster and once died to a pack of vaal constructs in Arakali tomb with 2K life and granite flask up.

 

[T. Reich]

I don't remember the last time I made a character with more than 2k armour, and I generally have 0 survivability issues on any of my builds.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[T. Reich]

T. Reich bad trade eh?

Yeah!

I feel totally scammed out my time! I was promised fun, and I'm not getting any!

 

[Shadenuat]

Lightning Spire trap effect looks like prisma tanks from Red Alert. I wish they had same mechanics as well (channeling one through another)

Fucking hell how can you even play a character with next to no armor, I'm leveling a trickster and once died to a pack of vaal constructs in Arakali tomb with 2K life and granite flask up.

dunno man, I feel like my current 75 level mage is stronger than my 90 level dodge Raider. feels bad because I invested so much time into her and I am already clearing tier 6 maps with mage almost just out of kitava's fight. the best defensive upgrade I did is getting 30% speed boots and I am using level 31 staff.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Fucking hell how can you even play a character with next to no armor, I'm leveling a trickster and once died to a pack of vaal constructs in Arakali tomb with 2K life and granite flask up.

Totems

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG