Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Absinthe]

ArchAngel, even in closed beta's hardcore back when the endgame was Maelstrom of Chaos and maps didn't exist yet, 5K life was considered low. 75% block is solid though.

 

[ArchAngel]

Go SSF, you cunts. I'm enjoying the brutality of lowered expectations, in terms of achievement.

Shield Crush/Shield Charge/SST are all magnificent, especially in unison. Shield Charge with Faster Attacks + Fortify into a pack, then SST if trash mobs or Shield Crush if rare/boss mobs. I'm worried about higher level mapping bosses and - obviously - endgame content, but holy shit is the gameplay rapid.

I think this shield rework might be the future of many melee strike skills, because the standard skill damage scaling from weapon thing isn't working to make melee an even remotely desirable experience.

Meanwhile, some dude in trade league made a 1-link autobomber using Crest of Desire that shits on content, LOL.

SST works until red maps where DPS drops and you get killed as a result.

And atm I am SSF as I didn't trade with anyone yet for anything. I am still doing 4L reaper and 3.5L skeletons and now entering T5 and T6 maps

 

[Lone Wolf]

SST works until red maps where DPS drops and you get killed as a result.

I'm making a conscious decision to not care about getting anywhere this league, in any sense. Just smashing whatever I can, testing out builds, trying to learn more of the game. I'm not even using a guide, I'm fucked, bruh.

 

[Ziem]

SSF

testing out builds

kek

 

[Perkel]

kek

SSF shits all over non SSF in that aspect. Because unlike just coping someone else build you have to build your own build.

That is strongest part of SSF.

 

[Ziem]

what?...
in ssf your league starter pool is limited to completely gear independent builds, while in trade it's fine to include uniques or specific affixes in your build
afterwards you're limited to whatever you dropped, while in trade you're limited by currency

 

[Jaedar]

what?...
in ssf your league starter pool is limited to completely gear independent builds, while in trade it's fine to include uniques or specific affixes in your build
afterwards you're limited to whatever you dropped, while in trade you're limited by currency

It's a different kind of building. In trade, you are a PoB warrior, looking up good rare mods and uniques, and then buying them.
In SSF, you are macgyver, trying to cobble together something that works with mostly bad parts.

Both are enjoyable in different ways. The SSF way includes playing the game more naturally, the trade way has a much bigger (reasonably reachable) option space.

Reached level 65 with my occultist, specced into CI after I got a 150 ES shield and 400 ES chest as a quest rewards. Wound up with just below 4k ES after respeccing the tree. Pretty damn squishy to be honest, but I'm so far getting close to 0 ES from helmet/boots/gloves. Also Bated Breath ftw?!

Merc Izaro was easy, I suspect Kitava will be tricksy since I'm using blade vortex.

 

[tritosine2k]

...did the Replica Rumi's and Kaom's Roots with the new orb by Absinthe 's recommendation it works as intended, thanks for the heads up.
FYI , unwavering stance trashes the evade chance if you have that from jade flask or blinding it's useless then .

If you are a caster you can get + spell block chance from spell damage large cluster , and easier to hit than blinding from disorentiating display. "1 Added Passive Skill is Conjured Wall"

Both are enjoyable in different ways. The SSF way

I think theres no SSF way, that's just a tightrope.

Barely supported by some granted results from syndicate, but I don't know yet how good 28% quality is for 6L , maybe I'm taking that for granted too much? That's my next expenditure anyhow.

Game seems much harder, I counted on 3 support auras from "march of the legion " will help my leveling minion build which it does, but so far I can't wait to spec out of minions into caster .
I even use "life from death" with animate weapons keep my slavedriver spectres alive (quite well tho)

Minions have 15% increased maximum Life
Regenerate 2% of Life per second if a Minion has Died Recently
Minions Recover 4% of Life on Minion Death

 

[Lone Wolf]

The advantage of SSF is apparent in several ways:

- No FOMO from falling behind the power curve
- No pressure to use meta builds
- No need to measure progress by currency accumulation
- Freer experimentation with builds, because specific uniques often aren't accessible

So many of these fucking guides/content videos focus on clickbaiting with '200c+ an hour farming strategy', 'How I earned my 200ex by Day 3', 'Farming a Headhunter in the first week'... Fuck off, mate. They've made the whole game about watching your currency tab accumulate numbers, in trade league. What do you play for, Exile? POE Ninja stats? Currency flexing in Global?

Now, obviously, the disadvantage of SSF is that when you inevitably hit the wall, you need to know how to get over it. That takes time and experience. I already know yellow maps won't be an issue on this build. Red maps will, without a good 6-link (my corrupted 6L is pretty basic). But it's fun and fast as fuck, so if I don't get to whack Sirus A5, or Maven, or UE/UA, who gives a shit. I can 'fix' the build in Standard, if I really want to see how far it can go.

BTW, even at lvl 63 with Shield Charge, Onslaught, Frenzy and Challenger Charges, you are moving like the fucken wind.

Also, none of the above is applicable to HC, because fuck all of that noise, in a game where you still get one shot in two frames with 7.7k life, 7 Endurance Charges and Fortify up.

 

[tritosine2k]

Well thing is, it's sure HARDER with minions yet poe.ninja says this is cold hit minion league (because triad grip gloves are top item).

SSF is fomo as hell because you can get an unique anytime you can't respec into because expenditure goes thru the roof all the time , and if you do it doesn't work , that's it .

 

[lukaszek]

ssf is about finally hitting lvl60, finding some build enabling unique and starting over with it in mind.

Alternatively you do something like archer generalist build and spec/respec slightly later on based on drops/what you end up liking most <- thats usually what I do.

Crafting new gear every 10 lvls or so is fun. Its maps when fun slowly ends as you spend way more time until new gear piece is crafted.

 

[tritosine2k]

speaking of uniques,
I needed just one unidentified weapon slot item for the 2 chaos recipe, went to quarry
and found a "belly of the beast" for my animate guardian to "respec" into , I also found its "dying breath" and "victarios flight" earlier

maybe I need a chains of command now

 

[Jason Liang]

So I've been making a killing off Heist? Not only is the chaos drop rate insane, but I just opened a shop thread and in an hour all of my Kikazaru rings sold for 3c, as well as other cheap rings like Thief's Torment and Praxis. And I can do 4 minute Heist runs:/

 

[tritosine2k]

So I've been making a killing off Heist? Not only is the chaos drop rate insane, but I just opened a shop thread and in an hour all of my Kikazaru rings sold for 3c, as well as other cheap rings like Thief's Torment and Praxis. And I can do 4 minute Heist runs:/

I found "energy from within" and a jinxed juju but crap since.

 

[Absinthe]

...did the Replica Rumi's and Kaom's Roots with the new orb by Absinthe 's recommendation it works as intended, thanks for the heads up.
FYI , unwavering stance trashes the evade chance if you have that from jade flask or blinding it's useless then .

True, but if you are using Replica Rumi's the capped block chance tends to make up for it and Kaom's Roots also gives you stun immunity and leaves you unaffected by chill and freeze (unless you have action speed boosting buffs, like Tailwind, but these are also ruined by the petrification status from Replica Rumi's Concoction) in addition to the large boost to health it gives. Downside is it has no movespeed, no sockets (which is usually not a huge deal), and Blind is worthless. If you want to avoid using Kaom's Roots, you need to either play a Juggernaut or equip Garb of the Ephemeral, but Garb of the Ephemeral has onerous stat requirements and its special ability works best when everyone in your party is equipping Garb of the Ephemeral and has Supreme Grandstanding (otherwise you only get 1 Divine Charge per second, which blows), at which point Voidfletcher quivers might also be a good idea. You could just use Animate Guardian with a Garb of the Ephemeral but then you're screwed by Replica Rumi's petrification the moment your Guardian dies or leaves range of you. If you just want to equip it without caring much about Divinity, you can just use Supreme Ostentation and ignore all attribute requirements.

 

[Jaedar]

I'm almost level 80, at 6k ES. Die a lot less now, but this build is still way more squishy than I'd like and getting more ES at this point is going to be really hard as it'll need multiple very high modifier rolls, and it doesn't seem like there's any easy way to craft them with fossils or the like.

Despite having low survivability, and mediocre dps, this build is a lot of fun though. Juggling vaal blade vortex charges together with plague bearer value makes for way more engaging gameplay than most builds and the rare occasions where I can use a full tank usually makes the dps comfortably high as well. It's a shame plague bearer won't really scale into the endgame as it caps at 120k base dps and 1 million banked damage.

 

[Jason Liang]

Update on Qinalo (my occultist). I switched from Toxic Rain to Blade Trap + Void Sphere. Toxic Rain was fine but I didn't really like how it played. Blade Trap's damage is fine for now, although I don't know how will it will scale later on without investing into trap passives. Void Sphere seems to do pretty insane damage, but the 5 seconds of cooldown is annoying. I might eventually switch to Cyclone. Would like to craft a nice Exquisite Blade, trying to get a decent 6L base for ~10c.
Still have the Reaper, damage is ok although I have to recast it pretty constantly.

 

[Jason Liang]

...

 

[Jason Liang]

Got Qinalo to maps yesterday, level 72.

So I ended up deciding to go with a Dagger+Shield set up so I could get 100% elemental affliction immunity from my tree (with Arcane Swiftness). Now on daggers, I switched from Blade Trap to Cobra Lash which felt way better. On paper traps seem to fit my playstyle better, but in practice there is just too much delay between throwing the trap, waiting for it to trigger, and waiting for the effect to resolve, whereas Cobra Lash is a fast attack, fast projectile skill with no need for aiming (due to chaining). I feel like I'm shooting Mega Man 2 Metal Blades.

Behold my shitty gear.

Decided with the tree that if I was going to go hard clockwise, I might as well make it Split Personality. 120c worth of currency went into two Split Personality jewels. We'll see how the build does into mapping, although I will be Heisting for a while first. I saw a nice Watcher's Eye for 4 ex so I want to be able to afford something like that the next time one comes to market. Will probably get a Prismatic Guardian for the shield, but we'll see.

As for the build, I like these skills, but I'm still figuring out whether or not to focus on Void Sphere or Cobra Lash. I think it makes more sense to switch Void Sphere on to Dendrobate, but the problem is it's difficult to scale Void Sphere's damage. Reaper is getting super shitty so I will probably have to give it up for Spectres soon.

 

[Sharpedge]

My character is working just fine this league.

 

[abija]

https://youtu.be/88N4s2qxRIM?t=324

Zoom forever. Backpedaling so fast he could join F1.

 

[Perkel]

https://youtu.be/88N4s2qxRIM?t=324

Zoom forever. Backpedaling so fast he could join F1.

Looks like it. But from interview they also teased 3rd mode for game called for now "hard mode" and through description it seems to be pure incline.

Basically total nuke to loot system to get it to D1 level of itemization where rare is really rare. Crafting gone, most of if not all orbs gone. I also hope it will be by default hardcore and all gems/supports are not possible to buy anymore. Kind of like POE 1.0.

 

[lukaszek]

will half of the monsters be gone too?

 

[Perkel]

Hard mode description by Chris. Basically this means that POE will be split between standard for zoomers and what they want themselves aka hard mode. It will work also as a test bed for standard.

 

[Perkel]

will half of the monsters be gone too?

They will be rebalancing monsters overall in next patches. But with hard core mode i have no doubt they will lower the fuck down amount of monsters on screen.

Loot wise it could be total game changer. For example if you can't buy gems suddenly those strongboxes everyone ignores can be incredibly rewarding with gem drops or currency drops.

Essences everyone used just to get some special mods now could be really rewarding reward for taking hard buffed monster. Getting guaranted +phys damage with say 2 extra mods could be huge difference.

Chaos which is basically worthless could also be gamechanger.

Uniques that you get showered by can also be completely different. Getting some shitty unique now could be build enabling thing

Imho the biggest problem will be how they will rebalance speed of game. Incursions for example will be basically impossible to do with timer.

I really hope this hard mode will give them look into core problems of POE.