Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Padre]

LMP can hit one target at point blank range with all three arrows? And Fork is wasted if there is only one target in range.

 

[made]

Restarting as a Marauder definitely paid off. Made it to Act3 cruel with little trouble and having a blast compared to the Templar. Actually using the whole skill bar this time, including auras and buffs, although the AoE sweep is still the main damage source. In hindsight, playing the Templar as a full-out caster was probably a bad idea for a first char, as the gem selection didn't match up. Finding much more useful gems this time around. Can't wait to get gear with more sockets to try out crazy combos.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

I'm playing around with an Ice Shot Ranger. I was going to use Lesser Multiple Projectiles but then I noticed I had a Fork gem. And Fork seems like it's almost strictly superior. They both throw off two extra projectiles, they both give you a 30% damage penalty... but LMP has 150% mana cost while Fork is 125%. Am I missing something here?

Fork is mass destruction since it, well, forks. Combine Fork and LMP for even greater rape.

 

[spectre]

^you can even combine fork with split arrow for a nice cluster bomb. Not too much damage, but can be fun with bonus cold damage or chance to ignite.

For anybody starting out in PoE, I recommend running several characters concurrently, first, try to reach the Ledge, then bring them to Merville's Caverns for your first support gem.
This should net you a nice selection of basic gems. Next lap is to reach Act 2 and do the baleful gem & maligaro's spike quests to get level 19 gems and another guaranteed support gem.
Once you're there, pick the one that you have the most fun with and have him get to Cruel difficulty, he can support the other char with level 20 items that have 4 connected sockets.
In the end, this saves you quite a bit of stash space. Unused characters can be used as mules, and you can immediately give away hand-me-downs to the appropriate char. e.g. whenever I find a good enough bow, it goes to the archer char for safekeeping,
then I sort them by level range and pick the best of the bunch.

 

[Castanova]

Speaking of space, what are you guys doing with all your skill gems? I have almost an entire stash tab filled with skill gems. I feel like I should probably clean it up because most are not quality and a lot of them are very common and easily attainable through quests. Should I just bite the bullet and vendor them? It seems like there's no other way to dispose of gems besides those seemingly pointless ring vendor recipes.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Yeah, I vendored all the ones you can easily get first quests and aren't quality ones.

 

[Arkeus]

Speaking of space, what are you guys doing with all your skill gems? I have almost an entire stash tab filled with skill gems. I feel like I should probably clean it up because most are not quality and a lot of them are very common and easily attainable through quests. Should I just bite the bullet and vendor them? It seems like there's no other way to dispose of gems besides those seemingly pointless ring vendor recipes.

The onyx amulet recipe is quite useful, especially as you get a ony amulet of the itemlevel of the amulet you sell, so you can have very high itemlevel of perfect onyx amulet.

 

[dibens]

I guess what they say is true- once you go hardcore, you never come back.

 

[Livonya]

I have two hardcore characters at level 40-43 now... a shield + 1 handed melee Templar and a two handed melee Marauder... plus a hardcore shadow that I have at level 12 that has yet to spend a skill point... not sure how I want to do the shadow.

I am short on a few pieces of important equipment, and need to farm some gear before I can really move forward. I need a better selection of rare rings and amulets.

My Marauder has a great weapon, but I have been having a hard time getting enough resists. While my Templar has a crappy weapon but 75% resists in Cruel. When I killed Piety in Normal at the end of Act 3 everything played so differently. My Templar struggled to do damage to Piety (and also to General Grav - actually that general was super hard as I couldn't do enough damage with my Templar) but the Templar was never in any real danger. My Marauder on the other hand was constantly dipping into unsafe life situations, but put out 4 times as much damage so the fights with these bosses went very quick but he was definitely in real danger. Kind of cool. I guess the shield makes the biggest difference as it offers extra resists, more armor, and the blocking percentage but it really lowers my damage output.

The last time I played a Marauder to level 75 I used a shield. It is a huge difference over a two handed weapon.


I have 3 unique items now, and one was a belt so I went ahead and identified it. Pretty good.

I don't like trading, so I have hit a bit of a wall while I try to farm gear so I can safely move forward into Act 3 of Cruel.

The mid levels between level 45 and 65 are the hardest levels to gear for in my opinion because it isn't worth using crafting materials on stuff you will out grow soon, but getting usable rare drops can be hard.

I am pretty much saving all my resources until the end game, and that causes a tough patch in these mid-levels.

My Marauder is using the blood magic passive, while my Templar is using a blood magic gem. I can definitely see that it might be worth backing out of blood magic. I might do that.

Will see. Anyway, still fun. Had my first client side disconnect since open beta started this morning. But I didn't die. That was good.

That was an epic post... I woke this morning at 4 am and wasn't tired (so played PoE until time for work) but now I am tired and chatty.

 

[empi]

Yeah I use my trash gems for getting +20 onxys from the vendor and then rolling them every once in a while

And my char is now 51 and am starting to hit a bit of a wall, act 2 cruel was easy (especially vaal, stupid pushover) but i'm not sure about finishing act 3, is definitely a lot riskier. Am prepared to do a lot of merciless ledge/fellshrine grinding later, hoping to go CI so need some gears, but for now I can't really be bothered to farm city of sarn or anything, oh well

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Fellshrine grind is soul-crushingly dull.

 

[empi]

Eh I do it while watching a tv program or whatever, I find it's ok

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Supposedly Catacombs is meant to be the "grind" area for Act 3, has anybody tried it?

 

[Grunker]

I just completed Act 2 on Cruel, my body is ready for Merciless. Vaal was a pushover on Act 2 alright, but Piety gave us trouble. I'm now level 51, and I think grinding will be the way forward in all acts here. We basically didn't level because of death in the last third of Act 3.

 

[Stabwound]

I'm sitting near the act 1 of HC Cruel with a Mace/Blood Magic Marauder and I'm starting to struggle because of a lack of good equipment. I was going 2-handed mace but switched out to a shield for extra resistances and armor, and with the bonus lack of taking up any +damage nodes it's pretty slowgoing and dangerous at points. I hate grinding but I think I might have to start doing that.

On another note, I grabbed my second unique from a party member that didn't pick it up fast enough (you snooze, you lose) which was an absolutely awful no level requirement quiver.

 

[Shannow]

I've had mostly green drops. Both, with marauder and witch.

The colour of the sockets in your gear is affected by whether it's ES/dex/arm gear though ofc

Wut? Seems to pretty random to me, too.

Yes that is true and confirmed by GGG on the game page:
"The color of sockets on items is strongly biased towards the attributes that the item is aligned with. For example, a Strength/Dexterity sword is very likely to contain red or green sockets and unlikely to have blue sockets. Skill gems can only be placed in a correctly colored socket."

Yeah, somehow I read that not as "affected" but as "determined"... My bad.

On another note: I just found my first "unique" item: "Silverbranch". Seems to be the same shitty bow that somebody else mentioned previously...
Yay.

 

[made]

What's the benefit of Blood Magic for a Marauder? Seems like a recipe for suicide to me. Especially if you run auras. Hatred costs me like 60 mana, but would cut my HP by 500...

 

[Minttunator]

A typical Mara has a metric shitton of HP, HP regen, could also use a bunch of life leech, etc. - i.e. it's easier for him to amass large amounts of HP and HP regen that it is mana. Using auras that reserve a percentage isn't recommended, although ones that reserve a flat amount are fine.

EDIT: I still wouldn't recommend Blood Magic for HC.

 

[abija]

You get a lot of life and regen compared with mana costs. And not all auras are % based and you can even use 1 of those with reduced mana cost without much danger.

 

[spectre]

You need to grab troll's blood before you get Blood Magic and use Life on Hit support to get the full benefit. At 800+ HP with two troll bloods, you wont even notice mana costs under 20 allowing you to basically replace your LPM attack with, say, Heavy Strike.

I usually have three main attack skills on the blood magic marauder: lighting strike, cleave and heavy strike. Heavy Strike and Cleave are augmented with Life on Hit (which mitigates the HP casting cost at high levels, I can even use cleave to actively heal myself).
Lightning strike gets bonus elemental damage from weapon, convert physical damage to fire damage and greater multiple projectiles. The cost is pretty high (which means I have to wait 1-2 seconds between every 10 blasts or so), but it's a must have vs. the ranged elemental damage dealers. Without Blood Magic, the marauder wouldn't be able to spam a 20+ mana skill like that.

EDITH: And yes, you'll have to forego all the auras that reserve a HP percentage. You'll lose more than you gain here.

 

[made]

Well, at level 50 I have 1600hp and 200 something mana. Even spamming Sweep with 2 support gems I can easily keep up with the mana cost with potions, and you can pop a mana and hp pot at the same time. Hatred aura is 20% extra damage at basically no cost.

 

[empi]

Blood magic is very strong for HC, especially since OB. Synergises very well with other classes too, blood magic rangers with chain+life on hit are popular and strong atm. You're going to be stacking life and life regen anyway, with some life leech/life on hit, with blood magic you can focus even more on survivability without needing to worry about mana, just spam spam your attacks. People still run grace/wrath/anger etc. with blood magic if need be.

And not needing to use mana pots mean you can have more HP/granite flasks, which helps with the whole living thing.

And 1600hp at level 50 is kinda low, i'd rather much rather be blood magic with more hp ^^

 

[hoverdog]

I am still on normal (3rd act)

 

[made]

And 1600hp at level 50 is kinda low, i'd rather much rather be blood magic with more hp ^^

Yeah tell me about it. Game's been stingy with drops on Cruel. Still using mostly lvl 30 gear, apart from a decent 40ish mace. At least resists are almost maxed out so survivability is actually pretty good.

 

[Orma]

Using auras on blood magic is suicide.