Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Kjaska]

Some initial impressions so far:

I've managed to clear up to floor 3 so far.

Sanctum feels unfinished and bad to play unless you're cheesing it or getting super lucky on your rooms. You're constantly clenching, because every enemy hit counts. This amount of effort is then still wasted, because room RNG loves to spam you with debuffs. Buffs are only available at the merchant and good luck getting there with enough coins to get something. Restorative effects for Resolve are very weak, so your only real option is to not get hit entirely.

Unless GGG changes something, I feel like this will quickly devolve into off-screening/totems/minions fiesta and/or simply giga-dpsing everything down before it can attack. Where instead of "enjoying" this meaningful combat, you're trying to circumvent it entirely.

Rewards feel paltry as well. Best I got was an Orb of Binding. Wao. No Essences, no Uniques, no interesting new mods on gear, nothing that can actually make your leveling any easier. The Lore even starts at Act2, but you're just doing the league mechanic as early as The Coast for no reason.

Archnemesis feels the same so far. The aids mods are still there and are still aids.

 

[Kjaska]

Okay, I just opened the Atlas and even if the Sanctum turns out to be fully gay, the juice that they put on it is going to carry the entire league by itself. Feels like I'm Harry, the balancing team are the Dursleys, the guy who made the Sanctum is Voldemort and Dumbledore just snuck in some juice via the Atlas for my Christmas.

 

[Grunker]

I like almost everything about sanctum but so far the Resolve mechanic totally kills it for me. Who the fuck wants to spend their PoE-time minding every single monster auto?

 

[Jaedar]

Unless GGG changes something, I feel like this will quickly devolve into off-screening/totems/minions fiesta and/or simply giga-dpsing everything down before it can attack. Where instead of "enjoying" this meaningful combat, you're trying to circumvent it entirely.

I'm starting to come to this conclusion as well: PoE does not have the control scheme, graphics or mechanics suited to making split second dodges of slightly telegraphed enemy attacks. So while you can dodge most attacks, dodging all of them seems optimistic because if the boss/enemy goes offscreen for a second you're now blind.

The first floor boss is kicking my ass so far. His flamethrower has deceptively long and wide range, does 360 degree damage up close, and his meteors just fire randomly and so require split second dodging. Maybe it will get better with higher base movement speed, but so far it feels like my progress is based more on luck from dodging enemy attacks from offscreen than anything else.

I like almost everything about sanctum but so far the Resolve mechanic totally kills it for me. Who the fuck wants to spend their PoE-time minding every single monster auto?

:raises hand:
It would be a nice change of pace, if nothing else. But the rewards are far too shit so far to make it worthwhile, I just rush the boss in every room and even then it feels kinda like a waste of time. Hopefully there's a good reward if you beat a floor completely, but I kinda doubt it.

 

[lukaszek]

actually, gem rewards appear to be gone
EDIT: if you want to go with witch, do yourself a favor and focus on minions and srs... So far I didnt get a single suport gem, picking blight was a huge mistake.
No movement skills either

So you play ruthless? I kinda don't see the point. It just cranks the grind to 11.

only if you think in terms of mapping. I often was losing interest after reaching white maps.
Now its a struggle. Finished yesterday siren and it was a haaaard. Also took a while. Imagine: no resistances, single blue item, no support gems, movement skill etc.
Im basically seeing how far will I go and Im fine with it.

As a witch I'm grabbing all flat es nodes to help with survival. So far doing dot and grabbed zombies to have extra meat shields... Basically my idea so far is to have a bunch of lingering skills, hence zombies + ice dots

Sanctum is no go basically, unless you want to spend 5+ min on single room that doesnt give you anything

 

[Grunker]

I like almost everything about sanctum but so far the Resolve mechanic totally kills it for me. Who the fuck wants to spend their PoE-time minding every single monster auto?

:raises hand:

urgh

But the rewards are far too shit so far to make it worthwhile

The rewards I've seen so far have seemed *excellent*

 

[Kjaska]

Even the super deferred options don't excite me. 5 Chaos for 32 rooms? Wao. And I feel like it isn't even an SSF issue. I can't imagine trade cucks finding the rewards even remotely adequate, especially with the newly giga-juiced Atlas.

 

[Jaedar]

The rewards I've seen so far have seemed *excellent*

So far my total haul is like 1 alch and 2 orbs of binding. I've only gotten through a full level once, but that's still really not a lot.

There's basically 0 drops from the regular content, and the currency rewards from currency rooms feel like they don't even compare favorably to a single heist currency chest, even though the latter are arguably more common and far less risky.

 

[tritosine2k]

Almost as good minion leveling as spectres were, even 1-2 link works

 

[Perkel]

Doing no skill run in ruthless. I will see how far i can go. Doing scion for that ele resists and close life nodes.

 

[Kjaska]

Unique drop chance feels very increased.

 

[lukaszek]

so I had a peek at ninja to see how top people in ssf r are doing.
Well, they have like 3 skills more than I do at lvls 60+ and only 1 of them being supported(with one! gem).

You know what, I dont feel like doing it any more

 

[Peachcurl]

so I had a peek at ninja to see how top people in ssf r are doing.
Well, they have like 3 skills more than I do at lvls 60+ and only 1 of them being supported(with one! gem).

You know what, I dont feel like doing it any more

If you're already at 60, you might as well go to 68 when the ruthless exp gain limit kicks in.

 

[lukaszek]

If you're already at 60, you might as well go to 68 when the ruthless exp gain limit kicks in.

Starting pure ssf now, made it to a3.
What killed it for me in the end was lack of gems. Everything else makes decent experience actually. Hope they iterate on it in right direction. Limited vendor and a bit less stingy gem rewards would go far. As it stands it limits what play style is available

 

[Zurat-Yarkuch]

Haven't played this since Betrayal league. I heard at one point GGG pissed off the community and streamers by nerfing drops or something. How are things going with the current league?

 

[Jaedar]

Haven't played this since Betrayal league. I heard at one point GGG pissed off the community and streamers by nerfing drops or something. How are things going with the current league?

Well, I'm seriously considering dropping it on day 3.... so not great.

Otoh, I think the base game content got some good tuning this patch, so if you haven't played since Betrayal you could probably go in and have some good fun with the atlas tree and new mob modifiers.

 

[Grunker]

Haven't played this since Betrayal league. I heard at one point GGG pissed off the community and streamers by nerfing drops or something. How are things going with the current league?

It’s a weird one. On the one hand, the core design is one of the best they’ve ever done, but on the other, this is the first league mechanic ever that I have decided to completely ignorere for the rest of the league (which is probably going to mean I won’t be playing for long).

Essentially due to how resolve has been implemented, the *only* way to succeed at the league is avoiding damage altogether. In other words, a) your defenses literally stop mattering *completely* the moment you set foot in sanctum and b) if you are in any way a build that needs to be close to enemies, you may as well not bother.

This completely destroys the league for me regardless of whatever merits it may have.

Ironically, GGG said this league would be more Hardcore-friendly, which I find to be baffling. I think it’s the most Hardcore-adverse league they’ve ever made. Sure it doesn’t kill you, but that 90% of your character you invested into defense? It doesn’t matter, so your character may as well be bricked as far the content is concerned.

 

[Jaedar]

Ironically, GGG said this league would be more Hardcore-friendly, which I find to be baffling. I think it’s the most Hardcore-adverse league they’ve ever made. Sure it doesn’t kill you, but that 90% of your character you invested into defense? It doesn’t matter, so your character may as well be bricked as far the content is concerned.

I mean, you *could* run separate gem setups for your mana reservation, maybe swap a shield for an extra wand while sanctuming. And it is risk free xp/loot.

But for sure the correct character for sanctum is a glass cannon that can offscreen or preferably be somewhere else (like totems or minions).

 

[Grunker]

Ironically, GGG said this league would be more Hardcore-friendly, which I find to be baffling. I think it’s the most Hardcore-adverse league they’ve ever made. Sure it doesn’t kill you, but that 90% of your character you invested into defense? It doesn’t matter, so your character may as well be bricked as far the content is concerned.

And it is risk free xp/loot.

"The market coordinates time with interest", to quote a wise man. Or in other words: if you do sanctum as a tanky and/or close range character, you are leaving currency on the floor (since literally almost any other activity will yield much, MUCH more loot, faster).

But for sure the correct character for sanctum is a glass cannon that can offscreen or preferably be somewhere else (like totems or minions).

This is a misrepresentation of how stark the contrast actually is. It's not like usual leagues that favor certain styles or push out certain builds entirely - say, Legion, for instance. It's a case where a big segment of grouped styles (and essentially most Hardcore players) will be shooting themselves in the foot if they do the content.

 

[Jaedar]

if you do sanctum you are leaving currency on the floor (since literally almost any other activity will yield much, MUCH more loot, faster).

Why use so many words when few words do just as well?

 

[lukaszek]

couldnt be bothered to get new loot filter so I came back to ssf r, this time with trapper. Explosive trap + 30 life on trigger made act1 a breeze.

 

[lukaszek]

found my end game item in a3: crest of perandus!

 

[Kjaska]

I almost got to the 3rd floor boss today. Maybe I'll get a little more progress in tomorrow, since I have a whole 3(!) Relics now. This is the first ever league mechanic I actively starting to hate. I didn't even mind Kalandra that much since building the lake itself was fun, but this just grinds away at my Resolve IRL. I'm trying to farm it in white maps now, where my damage is strong enough to quickly dispatch the guards. This way I hope to grind away at it and get lucky with the offers from the Merchant and just get as many Relics as I can. Starting Cold Dot was a mistake for this mechanic. Way too many buttons to press before the damage starts pumping and as soon as the enemy moves out of your cold zones, you have to start over again. Should have bitten the bullet and rolled Seismic again.

 

[lukaszek]

siosa gives now a red currency thingy that can be exchanged with her for a single, any active gem.

I guess you can run bane as 4L since it allows you setup made of only active gems?

 

[Kjaska]

exchanged with her

How dare you misgender that fine gentleman