Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Blaine]

Between the Merciless Act 4 spawn rate, triple Leaguestones, and my build (Firestorm, Herald of Thunder, 7 zombies, 11 skeletons, 2 golems, 1 totem, and curse/charge/trigger procs), the sheer noise and spectacle of combat in my game is beyond belief.

As I told Lazing Dirk earlier, it looks and sounds like someone dropped a burning zoo into a Chinese fireworks megafactory.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

Yes what hello? I do believe that was indeed said.

I just completed normal last night, so I guess I'll soon start to discover just how fucked my first character is.

 

[Jason Liang]

Does anyone have lvl 8 Vorici in Legacy yet? I need to punch some holes in a corrupted Rime Gaze.

 

[SirSingAlot]

uhm, my laptop cant handle beyond+3x breaches+pack size +27% on a dense map.

also shouldnt have shut off the loot filter for funzies. i am blind now that the frozen screen cam back

 

[Blaine]

As I told Lazing Dirk earlier, it looks and sounds like someone dropped a burning zoo into a Chinese fireworks megafactory.

http://youtubedoubler.com/kLXd

 

[T. Reich]

Does anyone have lvl 8 Vorici in Legacy yet? I need to punch some holes in a corrupted Rime Gaze.

I do. @Colour_Haze

 

[Jason Liang]

Does anyone have lvl 8 Vorici in Legacy yet? I need to punch some holes in a corrupted Rime Gaze.

I do. @Colour_Haze

Thanks! But I just rolled up a nice chest and spent all my jewelled orbs trying to 6L it. Also I forgot the Vaal cost to Vorici, not sure if it's worth 19 vaals to mod the Rime into a 4L with 1 R.

 

[Blaine]

 

[Blaine]

Also, T. Reich told me this was valuable when I mentioned dropping it, but WHAAAT?

x2

Do you guys think I'd be better served trying to speed my way to endgame to farm min-maxed twink exploiter gear and flasks to sell like everyone else, or just play many characters this league? Money isn't everything, and I have more than enough net worth now to buy tons of cheap but good skrub gear for whatever characters I want.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Also, T. Reich told me this was valuable when I mentioned dropping it, but WHAAAT?

x2

Do you guys think I'd be better served trying to speed my way to endgame to farm min-maxed twink exploiter gear and flasks to sell like everyone else, or just play many characters this league? Money isn't everything, and I have more than enough net worth now to buy tons of cheap but good skrub gear for whatever characters I want.

I would say, playing many different characters would be both more enjoyable and profitable in terms of experience and knowledge gained.
The min-max twink gear character should come later when you both understands what makes him the OP beast that he will be, and can appreciate the level of power as compared to your other characters etc.

Just get your current dude to like level 80, maybe 85. Run some tier maps, maybe some red maps if you drop any and want to see the difficulty level on those. And then find a skill, or a build that seems interesting. Maybe one that you already have some key pieces of gear for and level this new char. You will notice the huge improvement in leveling speed now that you know what to expect, when, and how to deal with it.

 

[SirSingAlot]

lol, right after i read how lucky Blaine got, i had two drops in one map.

Shavronne's Wrapping and Sin's Rebirth

i cannot remember finding one Tier 1 Unique ever, now two in one map.

 

[Blaine]

That means I'm good luck.

To increase luck bonus, donate Chaos Orbs.

 

[Emmanuel2]

Seeing someone got lucky after seeing this, maybe I'll finally get my first exalt orb drop after 1.5k hours since first playing in Ambush.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Blaine]

you guys r missing a point.

gz Blaine on getting a loot filter!

Yeah, I gave up on making my own (for now) when I realized that I still didn't know jack shit about loot except a few obvious things. In recent days though, the awareness has been pouring in, getting a decent idea of what stats are good and what are shit through looking at hundreds of rares, poe.trade, and the Wiki.

The filter has helped draw my attention to things I otherwise wouldn't have noticed, like Chisel recipe, base -> unique Chance possibilities and various Uniques in general.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Blaine]

Lazing Dirk and I finished Merciless Malachai and Labyrinth together.

Campaign complete.

He also got a Divine Orb drop, not bad.

The endless river of almost entirely worthless shit until literally the highest-end portion of the game when you can start dropping Twinktars and enchanting shit in Uber Lab gets on my nerves. Ideally, I'd prefer to take the time to enjoy the entire progression of a character rather than rush to the end.

Still and all, if you don't care about being super-rich and only want to level various characters with decent gear, the game supports that, too.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

Yeah, went pretty well. Didn't die to either of them (unlike a certain someone). Not bad for a first character and a made up build.

Time to grind maps for 50 hours, then get bored around level 85 and do it all again with a new character!

 

[Blaine]

Yeah, went pretty well. Didn't die to either of them (unlike a certain someone). Not bad for a first character and a made up build.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BABYSIT A FLOCK OF USELESS RETARDS!!

 

[Lazing Dirk]

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BABYSIT A FLOCK OF USELESS RETARDS!!

- Unnamed Codex mod, 2017

 

[Blaine]

Adding to the above, it's cool that there are so many possible builds in PoE and so much freedom to tinker with them, but there are just a couple of little niggles that aren't on the recruiting poster:

Freedom or no, the vast majority of viable/effective builds use just one single attack ability constantly. The rest are mobility skills, auras, triggered defensive abilities, and occasionally support abilities like totems or minions. Anyone can look through the builds on the forum and see this as plain as day, and the culprit is the skill gems system. While the skill gem system offers freedom on the one hand, it greatly restricts on the other. At most you can have two 5- or 6-link skill chains equipped on a character; inevitably, at least one of these will be used for the main offensive ability, and it therefore makes more sense to devote the second 5- or 6-link (if any) to something passive, defensive, and/or aura related. You can put two different active-use spells in one 5- or 6-link, but they're then both gimped by that spot being occupied by another spell.

Other aRPGs I've played allow for a wider and more diverse range of active-use abilities without gimping the character. In my opinion, there should be a modal function of some sort allowing for several offensive spells in the same slot on a 5- or 6-L chain, and not just weapon-swapping (although that does slightly ameliorate the lack of active skill diversity).

Also, while it's possible to mostly or even entirely respec, this is prohibitively expensive for players who aren't rich. I absolutely don't feel free to respec and try different things, because once my free quest points are gone, it costs 1.4 Chaos Orbs to refund one passive skill point. It's far better to plan ahead and changing things up completely is heavily disincentivized.

 

[Jason Liang]

I would use more skills if the game gave me 10 hotkeys instead of 5. But the limited amount of hotkeys means you have to sacrifice some luxuries.

3 mouse buttons, 5 hotkeys, 5 potion keys and weapon swap is all you get...

Where the game excels is providing you with tons of useful utility skills like Frost Wall, Orb of Storms, utility Totems, Enduring Cry, Whirl, curses, golems, guardian, etc...

I suppose main skill variety isn't terrible either, but some skills blow others out of the water.

A cwc setup basically allows you to use two main skills at the same time, at the cost of some mobility, assuming they are complementary (share support gems). Also some uniques and corrupt implicits give you free skills making them pseudo 5L, 6L or 7L. For example, Amplification Rod is effectively a 6L wand.

You can wait for free respecs that usually happen before the start of a new league. You get 2-4 free respecs every year so far...

 

[Zdzisiu]

I would use more skills if the game gave me 10 hotkeys instead of 5. But the limited amount of hotkeys means you have to sacrifice some luxuries.

3 mouse buttons, 5 hotkeys, 5 potion keys and weapon swap is all you get...

Where the game excels is providing you with tons of useful utility skills like Frost Wall, Orb of Storms, utility Totems, Enduring Cry, Whirl, curses, golems, guardian, etc...

I suppose main skill variety isn't terrible either, but some skills blow others out of the water.

A cwc setup basically allows you to use two main skills at the same time, at the cost of some mobility, assuming they are complementary (share support gems). Also some uniques and corrupt implicits give you free skills making them pseudo 5L, 6L or 7L. For example, Amplification Rod is effectively a 6L wand.

You can wait for free respecs that usually happen before the start of a new league. You get 2-4 free respecs every year so far...

You will be happy to hear that there are talks to allow a second skill bar, accessible with shift. It might happen as soon as 3.0

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Blaine]

Yes, I gathered that GGG are developing the game for Xbox One now, too. Just hope that they get their consolebux without compromising the game's technical capabilities, gameplay, or control scheme too much.

Digital Extremes promised that their console version of Warframe would have no impact on the PC version, yet all the advanced particle and PhysX effects from 2013 mysteriously vanished somewhere along the line—just one example off the top of my head.