Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Reinhardt]

So i think i'll be slayer/jugg. Too lazy for enduring cry recast.

 

[Balor]

And you are wasting one slot on Minefield support and now also dealing with mine placement and activation shit.

Actually, it is worse than that - turns out, you are sacrificing your life only, minions just get straight regen.
So just got home and tested that. Well, that sucks. I know that is not really a viable build, but it would be fun to try it out.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Sykar]

What do you guys think of a Whispering Ice/CwC Storm Burst with Herald of Ice and Thunder? Could be an interesting variant with the advantage that Storm Burst profits from all the AoE increases that Icestorm does unlike SR but you lose the 24% resistance reduction from it though you can use stronger damage boosters than Cold to Fire.

 

[Balor]

What do you guys think of a Whispering Ice/CwC Storm Burst with Herald of Ice and Thunder? Could be an interesting variant with the advantage that Storm Burst profits from all the AoE increases that Icestorm does unlike SR but you lose the 24% resistance reduction from it though you can use stronger damage boosters than Cold to Fire.

Well, there is a total lack of cold to lighting supports, so I think you are better off using Cold to Fire + avatar of fire CWC on SR. I've tried storm burst on a whim, and it felt kinda clunky and underwhelming.

 

[Hyperion]

total lack of cold to lighting supports

This is because PoE's conversion mechanics are unidirectional.

Physical → Lightning → Cold → Fire → Chaos

Unlike Grim Dawn, where conversions happen left and right, an element's conversion will never betray this order of elements. This is why Physical is the 'element' most frequently converted. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of so many sources of conversion as it tends to give phys the short end of the stick as we saw with support gems from 2.0 until 3.0. it also cheapens the concept of a conversion build when there are so many ways to do it, and kills the flavor and uniqueness of said build.

Edit / Side note: Even though I won't be playing this league on launch as I'm not a fan of the mechanics, and I'm still completely sucked into Monster Hunter, the Jugg and Champ changes are so tasty that I'm torn between the two. Both great for crit, both great lab farmers. Jugg is definitely safer, while Champ can get some beefy damage going. Slayer changes are unfortunate for Ancestral Call builds, but it really feels like they made the 'Crab Claw' ascendancy even more necessary gating both cull, and perma leech gated behind 4 points. I don't think they buffed the other 2 enough to warrant straying from that path. Gladiator bleedsplosions definitely needed to be gated behind 4 points, buuuuut I'm not sure how I feel about them basically saying, "Glad's entire left side is ONLY for max block builds now!" since the explosions are a 4 pointer, and Outmatch and Outlast is their main damage source.

 

[Balor]

Well, after thinking about it, going crit and adding appropriate supports seems an overall better option, better synergy with supports indeed... but SR feels like an awesome spell. Storm burst feels clunky. But that's my feel, yours can be very different.

 

[ArchAngel]

Patch notes are out boys: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2093500

 

[SirSingAlot]

wait no skill adjustments? no skill buffs/nerfs?
what the...i mean i get that the ascendency reworks took plenty of resources, but this is just lame

 

[Zdzisiu]

Patch notes are out boys: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2093500

They are huge, huge I tell you!

Mostly the ascendancies rework in text form.

Edit: Noice!

• You are now twice as likely to obtain maps you have not yet completed on the Atlas as maps you have. This is intended to help players who choose to play solo complete their Atlas.
• • The following Trap skills have had their base duration lowered to 4 seconds (from 16): Fire Trap, Ice Trap, Lightning Trap, Vaal Lightning Trap, Trap Support. Each of these traps will now trigger at the end of its duration.
  • • Unique items dropped by bosses in special areas such as the Apex of Sacrifice, the Shaper's Realm, and Breach Domains are now allocated to the area's creator. This also applies to Blessings dropped by Breachlords.
    • • Added two-ish new vendor recipes. Exalts and mirrors!

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Saark]

>CTRL+F
>"ignite"
>6 results
>all of them unimportant

Sad.

I do like the map-changes though, and the fact that they didn't go overboard with changes towards other parts of the game to see how exactly the ascendancy changes are gonna pan out first. I fully expect mechanics reworks with the next big league, so that taking the entire 3.X cycle completely rebalanced the game.

 

[ArchAngel]

huh? no more need for sunblast?

Only if you enjoy waiting 4s for your traps to activate if enemy is outside the small detection area ..

 

[Sykar]

What do you guys think of a Whispering Ice/CwC Storm Burst with Herald of Ice and Thunder? Could be an interesting variant with the advantage that Storm Burst profits from all the AoE increases that Icestorm does unlike SR but you lose the 24% resistance reduction from it though you can use stronger damage boosters than Cold to Fire.

Well, there is a total lack of cold to lighting supports, so I think you are better off using Cold to Fire + avatar of fire CWC on SR. I've tried storm burst on a whim, and it felt kinda clunky and underwhelming.

One could use Controlled Destruction and Elemental Focus so that would not be a problem.

Well, after thinking about it, going crit and adding appropriate supports seems an overall better option, better synergy with supports indeed... but SR feels like an awesome spell. Storm burst feels clunky. But that's my feel, yours can be very different.

Well going crit would be more suitable on an Inquisitor and I do not have one nor do I want to level a character again atm.

Patch notes are out boys: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2093500

So no changes to the Elementalist, making it one of the bottom ascendancy classes. Oh well, whatever cannot win every time.

 

[Saark]

Think I'm gonna go with a Herald of Ash/Flameblast Overkill build. Get Herald, support it with a few more multipliers, pop Wormblaster Flask, have the overkill from a big Flameblast proliferate onto the mobs that didnt survive the initial flameblast. Funnily enough Elementalist only has 25% inc herald effectiveness while Ascendant-Elementalist has 40%, so I'll either run Ascendant or go Slayer for the Overleech.

 

[T. Reich]

I'm definitely going as GC miner saboteur. Checked out all of my starter build variants, and it's the most solid choice. I'd play quill rain poison assassin, but the last thing I want in this league is the yuge unavoidable dot that messes with the pokemons.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Cyberarmy]

I was planning to pass this league but since I'm very sick I'll just play with a good'ol necro build. Maybe skeletor build.

 

[T. Reich]

Do you want BV to act purely as a vehicle to apply poison? Maybe, but probably not - it just doesn't hit as often anymore (remember - it's just one stack hitting every so often, not up to 20 stacks each hitting individually).
With quill rain you have the ability to attack a single target around 10 times/sec at range. With a properly-chosen skill each "attack" translates into several "hits", each of them applying poison.
You can push similar single-target numbers with viper strike, but then you'll be playing a namelock melee skill, so nty I guess.

 

[Sykar]

Think I'm gonna go with a Herald of Ash/Flameblast Overkill build. Get Herald, support it with a few more multipliers, pop Wormblaster Flask, have the overkill from a big Flameblast proliferate onto the mobs that didnt survive the initial flameblast. Funnily enough Elementalist only has 25% inc herald effectiveness while Ascendant-Elementalist has 40%, so I'll either run Ascendant or go Slayer for the Overleech.

Are you implying that Scion Elementalist is better than the actual Elementalist?

 

[Saark]

Are you implying that Scion Elementalist is better than the actual Elementalist?

In a way, yes. Elementalist still provides something else that Ascendant doesn't, but with the current iterations of both ascendancies Scion simply provides a large chunk of what a self-cast elementalist would, and you still get more passive points, a starting point and a second ascendancy. Basically for 1/3rd of what Ascendant has to offer, you get ~3/4th of what Elementalist offers to self-casters.

 

[Sykar]

Are you implying that Scion Elementalist is better than the actual Elementalist?

In a way, yes. Elementalist still provides something else that Ascendant doesn't, but with the current iterations of both ascendancies Scion simply provides a large chunk of what a self-cast elementalist would, and you still get more passive points, a starting point and a second ascendancy. Basically for 1/3rd of what Ascendant has to offer, you get ~3/4th of what Elementalist offers to self-casters.

I am not convinced that the Ascendant is a better Elementalist. First and foremost you get 15% more elemental penetration. I am not sure that this can be compensated by a mere 15% increased Herald effect. Extra skill points are not better than the minor nodes the Elementalist provides. In the case of the Mastermind of Discord path, you get 20% increased elemental damage and 8% cast speed on top the 75% increased damage/AoE. Good luck getting that from just 1 extra node on the skill path. The stat increase is for most intents and purposes inconsequential outside of maybe making it a little easier to level strenght and dexterity gems to a higher level if that is even needed.

As to the claim you get it for 3/4 of the Elementalist, what are you going to do with that 4th point? Get 40 attribute points. I seriously could not care less about that.

 

[Saark]

When I made the 1/3rd of Ascendant vs 3/4th of Elementalist comparison, I didn't mean it in a literal sense of comparing the strength of each ascendancy point. I was thinking more about the whole package of the Ascendancy. Ascendant basically has the most important bonuses that the new Elementalist has:
-1 Golem
-10% Penetration
-stronger Heralds (which is nice for coldbuilds who generally clear screens with HoI explosions, and the new HoA for incredibly high overkill prolif)
-Reflect Immunity
-10% more multi from Shocks

It immediately jumps to the eye that Elescendant has bonuses from more nodes than you can skill as a true Ele. You get the arguably best bonuses from Liege, Paragon, Mastermind and Beacon. A real Ele has to skip either one of the big ones (Beacon/Mastermind), or lose the two small ones (Liege/Paragon).
The nodes before Mastermind/Paragon are incredibly bad. Pendulum is a 37.5% increase to damage, and most self-casting elementalist builds aren't even using AoE. Frostbolt, Freezepulse, Spark, Arc. There are a few where AoE is used, but having too much actually becomes a detriment. VD, Firestorm, GC. Few of those are being played as self-casters, or their scaling is generally too shitty to be able to clear T15. That leaves us with a few niche-builds that may actually benefit from the entire node, but it's still not worth it because 70% aoe every few seconds isn't going to make a difference once you already got the 54% off the tree.
Conflux is near worthless on clearing because you're going to build around clearing in 1-3 skill uses already. Having big schocks/ignites/freezes doesn't help there at all. For bosses this node is really just an enabler for Beacon to reliably apply max duration 25% shocks. Ignite without investment is a non-factor, you already get the big shock thanks to Beacon and while chilling is nice when combined with tempchains/enfeeble, you're going to be hardpressed to get enough survivability without MoM.
Which leads us to the Elescendants unconditional 10% Penetration, whereas Elementalist has to actually reserve mana for a Herald. The only way you're going to get decent survivability on the top-side of the tree is by either investing almost entirely into life, MoM, or Hybrid. Playing hybrid without any sort of energy recharge/base ES/leech or regen from the Ascendancy is a no-go, so there's really only two left, and you're shooting yourself in the foot by having to reserve more mana than necessary. Lastly, penetration is highly overrated because it is so easy to get even resistant mobs/bosses to negative resistance already, at which point additional penetration becomes a linear damage increase with diminishing returns, and no longer an exponential one. While you could free up for example a flask slot, ascendancy points have by far the highest opportunity cost, so you'll more than likely sacrifice MoD instead.

Your best bet as an Elementalist right now is to go Liege+Paragon, Mastermind OR Beacon. Liege+Paragon simply provide better survivability and utility than either of the other double-notable pathings. I would argue that almost all builds will go for Beacon instead of Mastermind, except for maybe Autobombers (which are still better off going Assassin), HoA Overkill builds (which get more herald effectiveness from Ascendant or Overleech from Slayer) and freeze-builds that plan on clearing with HoI shatters (which, again, get better bonuses from Ascendant anyway). Which leads us to comparing what's actually left in favor of Elementalist.

-15% more Damage from Beacon Shock (25%, but Ascendant gets 10% too)
-40% Eledamage and 40% Damage from having 2 Golems
-18% all Res (which while nice doesn't really do anything for high-tier builds that overcap hard anyway)
-5% Freeze/Shock/Ignite Chance (ignite is useless without investment, shock will be up almost 100% thanks to conflux rotation and bosses are pretty much immune to Freeze due to their HP Pool)
-50% Golem effects - I reckon most people will be running at least a lightning golem and more than likely a chaos or stone golem for survivability, so that's a whopping 5% cast/attackspeed and ~60 liferegen
-0.5% Eleleech as Life, which while nice will not enable you to leech through bosses, and will do little on trash unless you consistently die to whitemobs for some reason
-some fancy Conflux that ultimately does nothing due to the new Beacon

So 15% more damage, 80% increased damage, 18% res, 5% ailment Chance, 5% cast/attackspeed, 60regen, 0.5% leech. Leech is nice, 80% damage is a lot, and the 15% more from applying shocks is great not only for yourself, but groupplay. But that's all there really is to this ascendancy now, generic elemental damage, some more% that applies to the whole group and a bit of lifeleech, you don't even get manaleech. The remaining bonuses aren't really worth mentioning in my opionion, because point for point they're basically the same as what you'd get from a regular node off the tree. Everything else that's fairly important to Elementalist, you get as Ascendant too. You also get 5 Passive Points, some stats (which are nice to have since witch generally struggles very hard to reach strength or dex requirements of lv21 Gems without having to pick the 30str/dex nodes, so this usually frees up at least one additional shaper/elder suffix or passive point), a free starting location and a whole 'nother friggin Ascendancy. Sorry, but except for extremely niche builds, Elementalist is just straight up worse compared to Ascendant with Ele+X. Ele+Slayer, Ele+Deadeye, Ele+Inquisitor or Ele+Hiero are all valid options, and they're all miles better than the original Ele because the tiny bit of stuff you may miss out on compared to Elementalist, you're going to more than make up for with the remaining points you invest into the Ascendant after picking up Ele.

If any of the pre-nodes to Mastermind/Beacon were actually decent, you could make a pretty good build with Liege, either Mastermind or Beacon and the pre-node to the other one, skipping the reflect-immunity because all it really does is save you a few chaos by not having to reroll reflect-maps and the leech is too low to be worth using 2 ascendancy points on. But here we are, stuck with Pendulum and Conflux. Yikes.

I was planning on still playing a Detonate Dead Elementalist, but after seeing the HoA rework and what exactly Ascendant gets from Ele, I'd be stupid not to go Ele+Slayer instead.

 

[Sykar]

Wait a second here you cannot have it both ways. First you were arguing about Scion getting 40% benefit from Heralds, then you complain about for the 25% penetration of Elementalists to take effect that you have to have Herald on. You cannot have it both ways.

I agree with people going Liege and Paragon. The boost in survivability is too good especially considering the new 0.5% leech and the immunity to reflect is welcome even though reflect is not as scary anymore as it once was.
Which leaves us Beacon vs Mastermind of which I lean towards Mastermind atm.

I agree that the Shaper and Pendulum are not very good but they are still better 99% of the time of what you get from 40 stat points and a skill point. So while you make the argument that they are not very good, none of the prerequisites to the ascendancy choices are really good either. At bst they give you a little life, armor, evasion, mana and ES. That's it though, they literally do nothing for your damage. That is 3 nodes which do absolutely nothing for your damage and very little for your defenses. You get 3 more skill points but how vaulable they are depends on what you are going to do with them and what is available. If you only get a couple of life or ES nodes for example they wont really do much certainly not more than the minor nodes an Elementalist gets.

What you get as Ascendant from Elementalist is strictly worse though. You get a combination of all the major paths but:

Paragon:
No 0.5% leech
No 8% damage reduce against an element which stacks for example Arctic Armor
No 40% extra damage after an elemental hit

Golem:
No 20% damage per golen and no improved boni from golems either. On top of that are they not elemental damage immune, making them much of a liability and forcing you to recast frequently unless you are willing to use them in conjunction with a CwDT but that means that your golems will be low level and of no use for distracting or any notable damage.

Mastermind:
15% less elemental penetration which is strictly worse than 15% increase of Herald effect.
25% more mana reserved in case you want to take advantage of it. Depending on the rest of the build that can result in dropping an aura or blasphemy curse for example which will either impact your defense or your offense noticably one way or another. And again 15% more effect from Heralds with all the other boni around is hardly something noteworthy.

Beacon:
Half the minium shock. No boni to chance to shock, chill and freeze. No elememental prolif.

So saying that you get 3/4 regardless if you meant it literally or not is a bit misleading. In fact going over this list it is not even half.

Ultimately, no I do not think that Ascendant is strictly better. I do think that certain constellations are better for Scion/Elementalist like going crit route since crit is not very valuable for Elementalist and Inquisitor is strictly better in that regard anyway.

 

[ArchAngel]

When I made the 1/3rd of Ascendant vs 3/4th of Elementalist comparison, I didn't mean it in a literal sense of comparing the strength of each ascendancy point. I was thinking more about the whole package of the Ascendancy. Ascendant basically has the most important bonuses that the new Elementalist has:
-1 Golem
-10% Penetration
-stronger Heralds (which is nice for coldbuilds who generally clear screens with HoI explosions, and the new HoA for incredibly high overkill prolif)
-Reflect Immunity
-10% more multi from Shocks

It immediately jumps to the eye that Elescendant has bonuses from more nodes than you can skill as a true Ele. You get the arguably best bonuses from Liege, Paragon, Mastermind and Beacon. A real Ele has to skip either one of the big ones (Beacon/Mastermind), or lose the two small ones (Liege/Paragon).
The nodes before Mastermind/Paragon are incredibly bad. Pendulum is a 37.5% increase to damage, and most self-casting elementalist builds aren't even using AoE. Frostbolt, Freezepulse, Spark, Arc. There are a few where AoE is used, but having too much actually becomes a detriment. VD, Firestorm, GC. Few of those are being played as self-casters, or their scaling is generally too shitty to be able to clear T15. That leaves us with a few niche-builds that may actually benefit from the entire node, but it's still not worth it because 70% aoe every few seconds isn't going to make a difference once you already got the 54% off the tree.
Conflux is near worthless on clearing because you're going to build around clearing in 1-3 skill uses already. Having big schocks/ignites/freezes doesn't help there at all. For bosses this node is really just an enabler for Beacon to reliably apply max duration 25% shocks. Ignite without investment is a non-factor, you already get the big shock thanks to Beacon and while chilling is nice when combined with tempchains/enfeeble, you're going to be hardpressed to get enough survivability without MoM.
Which leads us to the Elescendants unconditional 10% Penetration, whereas Elementalist has to actually reserve mana for a Herald. The only way you're going to get decent survivability on the top-side of the tree is by either investing almost entirely into life, MoM, or Hybrid. Playing hybrid without any sort of energy recharge/base ES/leech or regen from the Ascendancy is a no-go, so there's really only two left, and you're shooting yourself in the foot by having to reserve more mana than necessary. Lastly, penetration is highly overrated because it is so easy to get even resistant mobs/bosses to negative resistance already, at which point additional penetration becomes a linear damage increase with diminishing returns, and no longer an exponential one. While you could free up for example a flask slot, ascendancy points have by far the highest opportunity cost, so you'll more than likely sacrifice MoD instead.

Your best bet as an Elementalist right now is to go Liege+Paragon, Mastermind OR Beacon. Liege+Paragon simply provide better survivability and utility than either of the other double-notable pathings. I would argue that almost all builds will go for Beacon instead of Mastermind, except for maybe Autobombers (which are still better off going Assassin), HoA Overkill builds (which get more herald effectiveness from Ascendant or Overleech from Slayer) and freeze-builds that plan on clearing with HoI shatters (which, again, get better bonuses from Ascendant anyway). Which leads us to comparing what's actually left in favor of Elementalist.

-15% more Damage from Beacon Shock (25%, but Ascendant gets 10% too)
-40% Eledamage and 40% Damage from having 2 Golems
-18% all Res (which while nice doesn't really do anything for high-tier builds that overcap hard anyway)
-5% Freeze/Shock/Ignite Chance (ignite is useless without investment, shock will be up almost 100% thanks to conflux rotation and bosses are pretty much immune to Freeze due to their HP Pool)
-50% Golem effects - I reckon most people will be running at least a lightning golem and more than likely a chaos or stone golem for survivability, so that's a whopping 5% cast/attackspeed and ~60 liferegen
-0.5% Eleleech as Life, which while nice will not enable you to leech through bosses, and will do little on trash unless you consistently die to whitemobs for some reason
-some fancy Conflux that ultimately does nothing due to the new Beacon

So 15% more damage, 80% increased damage, 18% res, 5% ailment Chance, 5% cast/attackspeed, 60regen, 0.5% leech. Leech is nice, 80% damage is a lot, and the 15% more from applying shocks is great not only for yourself, but groupplay. But that's all there really is to this ascendancy now, generic elemental damage, some more% that applies to the whole group and a bit of lifeleech, you don't even get manaleech. The remaining bonuses aren't really worth mentioning in my opionion, because point for point they're basically the same as what you'd get from a regular node off the tree. Everything else that's fairly important to Elementalist, you get as Ascendant too. You also get 5 Passive Points, some stats (which are nice to have since witch generally struggles very hard to reach strength or dex requirements of lv21 Gems without having to pick the 30str/dex nodes, so this usually frees up at least one additional shaper/elder suffix or passive point), a free starting location and a whole 'nother friggin Ascendancy. Sorry, but except for extremely niche builds, Elementalist is just straight up worse compared to Ascendant with Ele+X. Ele+Slayer, Ele+Deadeye, Ele+Inquisitor or Ele+Hiero are all valid options, and they're all miles better than the original Ele because the tiny bit of stuff you may miss out on compared to Elementalist, you're going to more than make up for with the remaining points you invest into the Ascendant after picking up Ele.

If any of the pre-nodes to Mastermind/Beacon were actually decent, you could make a pretty good build with Liege, either Mastermind or Beacon and the pre-node to the other one, skipping the reflect-immunity because all it really does is save you a few chaos by not having to reroll reflect-maps and the leech is too low to be worth using 2 ascendancy points on. But here we are, stuck with Pendulum and Conflux. Yikes.

I was planning on still playing a Detonate Dead Elementalist, but after seeing the HoA rework and what exactly Ascendant gets from Ele, I'd be stupid not to go Ele+Slayer instead.

I would say Elementalist might be OK for Ngamahu Cyclone build, you are close to AoF and Elementalist is a nice enough non crit elemental build.