Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[T. Reich]

Today was like a fucking christmas for me, only earlier and MUCH better!

During the last 2 weeks, I spent approx 100 ex in BSC on gear for my Std chars.
Today the leagues merged, and I got my shiny new toys.
And it was majestic! Equipping all that new cool strong gear and 21/20 gems and 4-mod jewels, and then cracking open some t14+ maps for quick tests, and not a single build failed my initial expectations.
And I still have 3 more days of fun like that til the new league starts.

What prevented you to equip all that on your breach characters?!

I don't have 15+ lvl90+ Breach characters.

 

[ArchAngel]

Today was like a fucking christmas for me, only earlier and MUCH better!

During the last 2 weeks, I spent approx 100 ex in BSC on gear for my Std chars.
Today the leagues merged, and I got my shiny new toys.
And it was majestic! Equipping all that new cool strong gear and 21/20 gems and 4-mod jewels, and then cracking open some t14+ maps for quick tests, and not a single build failed my initial expectations.
And I still have 3 more days of fun like that til the new league starts.

What prevented you to equip all that on your breach characters?!

I don't have 15+ lvl90+ Breach characters.

Why not? :D

 

[T. Reich]

How it will be resolved it is something that we need to wait and see.

Physicl projectile skills with poison double-dipping.

 

[Perkel]

Lightning arrow all over again lol

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Perkel]

It is beautiful..... i am currently playing in lockstep mode without any issues. What is more important since my ping is at 39ms level it feels basically like i would play offline. The moment i hit something with club is exact same moment where animation starts and sounds comes.

Previously i used lockstep a bit but my ping was 60-80ms and this always resulted in split second delay upon hitting something. Now it feels like i am playing D2 offline years ago...

Simply beautiful....

 

[Zdzisiu]

It is beautiful..... i am currently playing in lockstep mode without any issues. What is more important since my ping is at 39ms level it feels basically like i would play offline. The moment i hit something with club is exact same moment where animation starts and sounds comes.

Previously i used lockstep a bit but my ping was 60-80ms and this always resulted in split second delay upon hitting something. Now it feels like i am playing D2 offline years ago...

Simply beautiful....

Yeah, lockstep with a decent ping was one of the biggest, if not the biggest improvement for me.

Also, the reworked uniques that were revealed already seem interesting, and will make me actually identify some of the usual "God Damn, another vendor trash!" this league.

 

[T. Reich]

Gave 2.6.0 patch notes a quick read. Overall, it looks quite decent.
Sure, aoe got the hammer (probably for the best, though), but also drillneck and reach gutted (death's opus is now pretty much THE crit phys bow). No nerfs for projectile spells, though.
New zana mod model is of questionable worth, but I was never keen on using her league map mods anyway, so it doesn't affect me much.
Two major ele-to-ele conversion uniques got nerfed (call: 50 to 40 - not-a-nerf for inquisitors, but full light to fire conversion now impossible / pyre: 100 to 40 - wow! No more ez cold to fire conversion, but it's also legacy!).
A ton of leveling/trash-tier/niche uniques have been buffed, sometimes significantly. Have yet to check if we have new chase uniques as the result of those buffs, but it's exciting either way.

 

[ArchAngel]

OR 2-3x hair trigger

aoe changes do affect trigger radius. Im a bit worried about that myself. Once they roll new changes Ill have to test again if stacking trigger radius is enough to trigger cluster on single enemy

Good news, devs were thinking of you:

• Hair Trigger now has 40-60% trap trigger area, instead of 20-30% trap trigger radius.

 

[Padre]

Siosa now sells all quest reward gems. My life is complete. SSF here I come!

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Zdzisiu]

If anyone wants to dick around with the 2.6 skill tree, here is an updated build planner from Emmitt : https://github.com/EmmittJ/PoESkillTree/releases/tag/2.6.0

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[T. Reich]

Uh, the new EK "nova" threshold gem is one of the more hyped-up things from 2.6.0.

We'll see a ton of EK shadows this patch.

About your idea - forking and chaining does create new copies of the skill. However, fork mechanicaaly CAN'T hit the enemy it jit, because it shoots out from behind them. Now, chain is designed to be able to hit same enemy again - IF it hits something else first, THEN it may (or may not, if other targets are close) hit the original target.
Mixing pierce with eother of those is a bad idea. Pierce rolls first always, then fork, then chain. If you pierce an enemy, they won't get forked or chained from.
Either go 100% pierce (yes, Voidwalkers are good here; or pierce gem for 1.19x dmg multi + pierce cluster/proj weakness curse that grants another flat 50% pierce), or go 0% pierce and chain/fork.
Are you thinking roth's reach + rigwald's quills?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[T. Reich]

I see delirium + souls trike combo as better for fire-and-forget type of skills - basically ED and CA.
EK, by virtue of being a rapid-fire hit spell, is much better suited for straight dps boosters and VP for sustain. Assassin for max crit (and 1-shotting yourself on phys reflect, kek).
Trickster is a viable option, I suppose. Not necessarily crit based, but you can stack dem frenzy charges for that sick dps boost, and you'll be tankier, too.

Nova threshold gem will be an INCREDIBLE clear speed booster for EK. It's worth getting. Ek will still be pretty gud even without it, sure. I played EK before, and it's very solid.

> Due to forking 2nd row will be hit with twice as many projectiles, this time each enemy can be hit by multiple projectiles.
Nope. Ok, not entirely 100% sure, but pretty sure.
And it will strongly depend on mob density. Basically, useless vs bosses where you'd want that multi-hit thing the most. Basically, the very reason why Arc sucks ass.
And it will be pretty much an overkill anyway. A properly-built non-crit EK will 1-shot most white packs in high-tier maps. A properly-built crit EK will 1-shot everything except rares and bosses, so the only real need for forking/chaining would be to kill off stragglers that would otherwise require additional casts (or leaving them behind as per proper clear speed meta mindset).

> With reasonably low piercing chance, each projectile can reset itself starting fork+chain process anew.
Say what nigga? Only one fork + chain chance per original projectile.

No idea about Bino's question. Test it, fam.

 

[ArchAngel]

When I played my poison bladefall saboteur in Breach I tested all kind of skills as secondary so when I am waiting for Bladefall cooldown I can still kill stuff. One of those was EK. It was crap. Single EK damage is weak for poison stacks, chain and fork are not reliable and reduce base damage too much. Pierce is basically required if you want to do anything to bigger groups and you need to invest in projectile speed heavily if you want any decent AoE. Then when I coupled it with multitrap (which is normal for bladefall), other traps would fire in random directions instead of the enemy (which is not a problem for Bladefall because it is AoE centered on the trap location) making the whole thing useless.
If you want to play EK go for full elemental conversion or solo or totem casting with lots of cast speed. It is not good for traps.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[ArchAngel]

Then when I coupled it with multitrap (which is normal for bladefall), other traps would fire in random directions instead of the enemy

thats why im going with trigger radius instead

Yes you can try that but EK is still much weaker than bladefall for poison builds

 

[T. Reich]

thats what im trying to learn. From what I know on pierce projectile creates new copy. Does it mean that post pierced projectile resets chain counter and can fork again?

It doesn't. Both pierce and chain retain the projectile instance. Now, fork creates 2 new projectiles, but those projectiles can't fork themselves. They can still pierce and chain, though.

Also, I didn't realise you wanted to try EK trapper. I honestly can't recommend it. It's much better as a spammy self-cast spell. Not saying it's impossible, though.

When I played my poison bladefall saboteur in Breach I tested all kind of skills as secondary so when I am waiting for Bladefall cooldown I can still kill stuff. One of those was EK. It was crap. Single EK damage is weak for poison stacks, chain and fork are not reliable and reduce base damage too much. Pierce is basically required if you want to do anything to bigger groups and you need to invest in projectile speed heavily if you want any decent AoE. Then when I coupled it with multitrap (which is normal for bladefall), other traps would fire in random directions instead of the enemy (which is not a problem for Bladefall because it is AoE centered on the trap location) making the whole thing useless.
If you want to play EK go for full elemental conversion or solo or totem casting with lots of cast speed. It is not good for traps.

I still have a (recently updated) bladefall saboteur (non-crit). First of all, solo bladefall trap is possible, if you're economical with throwing traps. But it's still pretty annoying, I agree.

I've been using a special bear trap set-up as a backup trap. It's a 4L in the vertex with trap dmg + empower + added chaos dmg (can also use void manipulation). I'm also using bino's and southbound gloves combo to proliferate poisons.
As a result, a single bear trap heavily damages and applies a strong poison on an enemy. Enemy (often even rares) dies right away, and poison is spread to nearby enemies in a chain reaction.
Works wonderful for tightly-grouped packs and vs rares.

 

[ArchAngel]

I still have a (recently updated) bladefall saboteur (non-crit). First of all, solo bladefall trap is possible, if you're economical with throwing traps. But it's still pretty annoying, I agree.

I've been using a special bear trap set-up as a backup trap. It's a 4L in the vertex with trap dmg + empower + added chaos dmg (can also use void manipulation). I'm also using bino's and southbound gloves combo to proliferate poisons.
As a result, a single bear trap heavily damages and applies a strong poison on an enemy. Enemy (often even rares) dies right away, and poison is spread to nearby enemies in a chain reaction.
Works wonderful for tightly-grouped packs and vs rares.

I did a different build. I went all in on damage so used two Obliteration wands. And Bladefall did very well vs anything including high hp/high defense enemies. I just wanted something to clear riff-raff in large aoe and for Breaches. I tried like 20 different skills, in the end I think I used Vortex+Inc AoE or something since trap damage passives and shit double dip.

 

[Quatlo]

I feel crazy enough to try wild strike since it converts 100% of phys now. Could be fun.

 

[TOME]

That isn't nearly enough, CI will still dominate.

I was going to make elementalist lightning trapper converting all my damage to fire but they are going to change conversion numbers so now I don't know anymore. Is there a skill I could use with trap support to offscreen mobs? As far as I know traps fire in random direction when they expire (sunblast + 2cheap constructs). Lightning trap fires projectiles in a nova with good range so that's why I like it.

I was also thinking of trying EK poison traps with the new threshold jewel which makes it fire in a nova but I don't think I can get enough projectile speed to make it playable skill.

There's an interesting ele trapper spec that uses Sire of Shards staff (socketed projectile skills get +4 projectiles, projectile skills fire in a nova) with magma orb/ball lightning to achieve significant aoe coverage. Given MO/BL's respectable default travel distance, it's entirely possible to throw a cluster of traps at the edge of the screen, and then it blows up (sunblast + 2x cheaper construction OR 2-3x hair trigger), and the skill clears mobs at least another 1/2 screen away. Doesn't work nearly as well in non-open layouts, but it seems solid otherwise.

I tried this briefly but sadly my potato computer couldn't handle it.

 

[T. Reich]

I feel crazy enough to try wild strike since it converts 100% of phys now. Could be fun.

The biggest drawback of wild strike is its abysmal single target damage. I tried it back in 2.1.0, and ele weakness on blasphemy really helped.
Thankfully, it's not pre-2.2.0 anymore. We've got all sorts of power-creepiness to assist us.
I'd probably try it with crit inquisitor (doryani's catalyst or some high-ass crit weapon) to ignore enemy ele res. Or with pathfinder (got some ele penetration in ascendancy + in nearby passive tree) + ele weakness on blasphemy and whatnot.
Anyway, it can be either done by scaling phys base (remember - no "melee damage" modifiers apply to secondary effects!), or just by stacking tons of ele damage.

...Actually! You could simply grab a high lightning damage roll + crit ele foil, stack lots of flat lightning damage on top of it (added lightning damage gem, wrath, herald of thunder, 1-3x static electricity jewels in ranger-shadow area), slap lightning penetration on top of it (gem and passives around ranger-shadow area) - and you're good to go!
Due to how gem works, even "cold" projectiles and "fire" explosions will still do 95% of lightning damage this way, because your phys base will be insignificant.

Whatever you choose, using ancestral warchief as single-target assist is a must. Probably in thunderfist or wyrmsign gloves for that pseudo-5L.

 

[Jason Liang]

ugh why r they nerfing Orb of Storms