Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Blaine]

Supreme faggots Ismaul and ArchAngel have somehow gotten me playing this nonsense again, despite the fact that I was arguing for the merits of Grim Dawn vs. the merits of Path of Exile.

I'm a closed beta supporter. Notable differences in the new character experience compared to ages ago are strongboxes, master quests, more lore crap, and leaguestone spam. Also, I'm able to get cheap tri-color linked gear off of vendors to trade for Chromatic Orbs pretty much constantly. Seems to me that was a lot less frequent back in the day.

 

[ArchAngel]

Supreme faggots Ismaul and ArchAngel have somehow gotten me playing this nonsense again, despite the fact that I was arguing for the merits of Grim Dawn vs. the merits of Path of Exile.

I'm a closed beta supporter. Notable differences in the new character experience compared to ages ago are strongboxes, master quests, more lore crap, and leaguestone spam. Also, I'm able to get cheap tri-color linked gear off of vendors to trade for Chromatic Orbs pretty much constantly. Seems to me that was a lot less frequent back in the day.

You forgot Prophecies you get by trading Silver Coins to Navali

 

[Ismaul]

Also, I'm able to get cheap tri-color linked gear off of vendors to trade for Chromatic Orbs pretty much constantly. Seems to me that was a lot less frequent back in the day.

Everything looks like it got easier, drop rates have been greatly increased across the board, which is great for a casual like me.

 

[Blaine]

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

In all seriousness though, between the strongboxes and this type of shit, good loot actually does drop occasionally now. I can't use 99% of it (nor am I crazy enough to try to save it for alts, with few exceptions, because that would quickly become insufferably tedious), and the inventory is still tiny and further cramped by the need to carry quest items everywhere, but I can certainly rack up orbs.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Blaine]

you want item filter and pick up only stuff that can be an upgrade

What am I, rich? Unless a Mirror of Kalandra pops out from beneath a boulder, I need those Orbs of Alteration and Chromatic Orbs. My inventory's full of only blues and up in the screenshot.

Main reason I haven't messed with the filters yet is just to get over my annoyance with the loot system. At some point I'll set up custom filters.

 

[Nim]

Once you are in maps you won't have the portals to pick up blues anyway, at that point getting out all the rares can be a challenge.

 

[Jason Liang]

I'm still farming Dried Lake, but With Wondertrap active the only rares I automatically pick up are amulets, rings and belts (for chaoses). Or else I'd need to make 5 trips each run.

 

[T. Reich]

Starting from act 3 normal, even picking up all rares for vendoring can be a chore. It gets much worse further on.

Gotta be a special person to even care about the blues :D.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I'm using a good loot filter now and thankfully I don't have to visit "town" before completing a map unless I'm really lucky with 6 socketed drops.
Atlas maps combined with Ambush, Breach and radiant/corrupting/transmogrifying tempest are all you need if you are a dirty, currency liking bitch like me.

 

[Quatlo]

Starting from act 3 normal, even picking up all rares for vendoring can be a chore. It gets much worse further on.

Gotta be a special person to even care about the blues :D.

Yeah, you need probably around ~6 scrolls to identify enough blue trash toget one orb, and even if you sell that orb for scrolls you are still losing scrolls.
Totally not worth the time.

 

[Blaine]

Probably not, but bear in mind I'm reading all of the story bits (including all of the town NPC dialogue), exploring every area, and doing every sidequest. I'm not rushing through the first playthrough.

Also, I'm running the bog-standard Witch-Minions-Firestorm meme and going self-found until I have my legs under me, so scrimping helps. I may fire up poe.trade later on in an attempt to get reasonably ideal but cheap gear if a bit of farming and minimal currency expenditure can't get me there.

MINIONS

 

[SirSingAlot]

leveling gear is super cheap, you should 100% visit poetrade if it doesnt fuck up your "must use what is self found or i am a dirty cheater myself" atmosphere

 

[Blaine]

leveling gear is super cheap, you should 100% visit poetrade if it doesnt fuck up your "must use what is self found or i am a dirty cheater myself" atmosphere

I don't care about that, legit trades are fine.

It is one of the qualms I have with PoE's economic model, though. As I was saying in the Grim Dawn thread, I can acquire great gear through drops and augmentation without any need to trade (though that is an option), and without fucking myself over. In PoE though, I can no doubt buy shit people don't want for a handful of orbs, whereas if I tried to drop/orb it myself, I'd probably waste far more time and currency and possibly end up with shit.

Virtually all currency items are only to be used on actual end-build stuff, because otherwise you're just wasting them on leveling gear. So it's basically 50+ hours of just whatever garbage you can round up until you hit endgame. Grim Dawn is quite the opposite; there are socket gems, augmentations, unique faction gear and so on for low and middle levels of play, too.

This mindset—scrimp and save everything as you level, rely on the market, don't do anything major until endgame—is extremely World of Warcraftian and I'm not too fond of it. I'm enjoying myself so far, though.

 

[SirSingAlot]

good leveling gear can take you to the endgame faster.

the time you invest to get there depends on what gaming exp you want.
some guys complete the 3 difficulties in under 10hours with ease.
than you can either start mapping or just do some dried lake runs to level, but that the endgame starts right after you finish the core game (merciless malachai) isnt a stretch.

some gear pieces can be obtained and equipped early and will last like forever though

after all, you should enjoy your game/ game style as thats all that matters.
after all its a video game

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Blaine]

summoner is fine for self found.

As for using currency... Money you save while lvling to maps is almost nothing. In practice you dont lose much by using/spending it.
Id argue that its better investment to spend it if it will let you reach maps faster.

Either stay self found forever or stop bothering. There are some fine uniques that will boost you zombies nicely even on early lvls.

Also, in case you havent found yet: summoners are boring and gay

I'd estimate I have roughly 10-12 Chaos Orbs' worth of currency saved up altogether, going by the typical exchange rates on currency.poe.trade, but for all I know that's probably just a drop in the bucket. Since I'm going slow, doing all the quests, and reading all the NPC dialogue right now, clearing speed isn't as much of an issue because it'll be slow as fuck regardless. At the moment, Firestorm kills things extremely quickly anyway.

Yeah, minion spam (it's this build; minions as meat shield, Firestorm for clearing) is a bit boring, but starting out I lacked the knowledge and familiarity (and possibly currency) to freestyle my own build, especially one that's gear-dependent. Using faceroll newb meme allows me to gain familiarity without dying or getting frustrated by gear. It's been a lot of years since I last played.

Regarding those uniques, if you are in softcore I can log in and drop some unique summoner gear for you into guild chest

That's generous of you. Wiki indicates I have to be a member of your guild to access the stash. I changed my account name to Cruciverbalist. Character name is TinyMcSlimsmall.

btw, why do your zombies have chaos aura?

They aren't all mine, I went around collecting a bunch for Catarina's quest just so I could get a shot of tons of zombies.

 

[ArchAngel]

Leveling gear is supercheap (1 chaos or less). One of the best leveling gear items is Tabula Rasa which is around 10c. Tabula Rasa can also be used for farming Dried Lake on merciless while collecting currency for better gear.

 

[Blaine]

Don't worry folks, I'm getting used to not picking up loot.

It's not just white loot you don't pick up in this game. It's not even just magic loot. Hell, before the end of Normal you'll even be leaving some of the rare loot behind, and before the endgame you'll be leaving most of the rare loot behind, too.

Leveling gear is supercheap (1 chaos or less). One of the best leveling gear items is Tabula Rasa which is around 10c. Tabula Rasa can also be used for farming Dried Lake on merciless while collecting currency for better gear.

Ah, that explains why I see so many people wearing that retarded white shirt.

I finished Normal difficulty last night, read all the lore and story, and am now prepared for full-on cheesomancer speeding around, farming, and trading. I died twice total, once versus Dominus when he had .004 HP left, and again in Labyrinth. I think it was T. Reich who said he'd bet 10c I wouldn't finish my first Labyrinth run? Well, you would have won that bet. I died on the third stage of the boss fight. However, I'd forgotten to get all the health nodes for my build when I should have and had continued on toward more damage first instead, and I think I would have had a chance if I'd gotten the health nodes first.

 

[Jason Liang]

The servers have been unstable the past few days. If you get an amazing drop, pick it up and immediately log out. Yesterday I found and lost an Ancient Reliquary key in Fellshrine Ruins. I picked it up and was about to link it to chat when the server lost connection to the realm. When I logged back in, my character had been rolled back, the key was gone and the map instance was gone. So if you find a key or a mirror, log out.

I'd be pissed but a similar thing also happened to me in Diablo 2. I gambled TWO SoJs off the same merchant, was amazed, and then the server crashed. When I logged back in the SoJs were gone.

 

[ArchAngel]

Don't worry folks, I'm getting used to not picking up loot.

It's not just white loot you don't pick up in this game. It's not even just magic loot. Hell, before the end of Normal you'll even be leaving some of the rare loot behind, and before the endgame you'll be leaving most of the rare loot behind, too.

Leveling gear is supercheap (1 chaos or less). One of the best leveling gear items is Tabula Rasa which is around 10c. Tabula Rasa can also be used for farming Dried Lake on merciless while collecting currency for better gear.

Ah, that explains why I see so many people wearing that retarded white shirt.

I finished Normal difficulty last night, read all the lore and story, and am now prepared for full-on cheesomancer speeding around, farming, and trading. I died twice total, once versus Dominus when he had .004 HP left, and again in Labyrinth. I think it was T. Reich who said he'd bet 10c I wouldn't finish my first Labyrinth run? Well, you would have won that bet. I died on the third stage of the boss fight. However, I'd forgotten to get all the health nodes for my build when I should have and had continued on toward more damage first instead, and I think I would have had a chance if I'd gotten the health nodes first.

I also stop picking up magic items in Grim Dawn as well somewhere in Act 2.

As for deaths, personally I find Dominus much easier than boss of act 4. But again when fighting first time, the blood rain and needing to hide from it next to Dominus might not be clear to everyone in time.

 

[Jason Liang]

I've never found Malachai that difficult. His attacks are slow aren't hard to avoid, they don't do crazy damage like Dominus or Piety, and his mobs are controllable. I am always comfortably safe against Malachai, running around to regenerate ES, whereas with Dominus I feel like he can one shot me at any moment (at least on Merciless) and with Piety you can't slip up when running around her laser, and I find Piety's mobs the worst to deal with as well. It's a pity to die on Dominus' one-winged-angel form though. On HC, Piety is the worst, closely followed by Dominus. Strangely enough, this league playing SC, I found cruel Dominus really wimpy (I could actually tank his OHK attack reasonably well), and cruel Piety was really wimpy as well (to Storm Call Spell Totem). Merciless Dominus still destroyed me out of nowhere and merciless Piety a real bitch. Fuck her assrape laser.

What I hate most is one of the Essence mods (I think it's Doubt?) that spawns flicker-strike/ venom strike spiders. Also I got an Eater of Souls Knitted Horror with life regen that was impossible. It would OHK me through 5k ES, even when I took off low life.

 

[Blaine]

As for deaths, personally I find Dominus much easier than boss of act 4. But again when fighting first time, the blood rain and needing to hide from it next to Dominus might not be clear to everyone in time.

See, I beat Malachai the first time, and I'd say it was because I was keeping a close eye out for effects on the floor and always moving, as well as having the reflexes to instantly focus-fire Piety as soon as the VA told me to.

On Izaro I had burning ground + sawblades, which caused me to end up standing still too long and I got rekked.

 

[ArchAngel]

As for deaths, personally I find Dominus much easier than boss of act 4. But again when fighting first time, the blood rain and needing to hide from it next to Dominus might not be clear to everyone in time.

See, I beat Malachai the first time, and I'd say it was because I was keeping a close eye out for effects on the floor and always moving, as well as having the reflexes to instantly focus-fire Piety as soon as the VA told me to.

On Izaro I had burning ground + sawblades, which caused me to end up standing still too long and I got rekked.

Well on Normal difficulty none of them should be hard. Malachai on Merciless difficulty is super hard. His hits do multiple 1000s of damage.