Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah, given the way crits work in PoE, it's really an all or nothing affair. To make matters worse, they're not really worth pursuing unless you're already obscenely wealthy/powerful. So resolute technique is pretty much a no-brainer for anyone that can reach it.

It's a bit different for an elemental build, since the crit itself can be of use by applying a debuff instead of the damage multiplier being the only difference. Maybe if they added something like that, some sort of effect on physical crits.

 

[made]

Every physical build is also an elemental build due to the auras you invariably end up using.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah but if the elemental damage you're doing is like 20% ice and 25% fire and 15% shock, none of those effects matter because they'll either wear off instantly or they'll be happening to something that won't live long enough for them to matter. The elemental crit effects really only matter when you're spamming single elements so you can freeze shit 50% of the time or triple shock it or set a whole pack on fire with a burning dot that does more than half a dozen normal hits.

 

[made]

Cold & fire were based on a percentage of your phys damage; with, say, a top-end crit bow they definitely mattered. I haven't played in a few months though, I understand there have been several nerfs in the meantime to crits and weapon for that very reason. No more triple-shock either IIRC, there's just one stack now.

 

[Carceri]

I still mourn my elemental wander. Applying all three elemental effects simultaneously while facerolling maps was quite a sight. But this was a 100% ele build.
I agree with made, they did matter even on a physical build. An end game tier weapon(an entry level one was enough) and a high amount of crit multiplier made most of the elemental status effects reliable enough.

 

[T. Reich]

Not necessarily true.

Low-ish but decent amounts of ele damage all have their uses:
-Shock doesn't triple-stack anymore, for a while. And single stack that lasts even a fraction of a second is usually enough given that your average endgame char's attacks are really fast.
-Chill and freeze in even microscopic durations (multiplied by your fast attack speed) means that mobs are that much less dangerous.
-Burn proc from mediocre fire damage is pretty useless, but if you have that, chances are you're using Herald Of Ash, and it provides another, much better source of ignite.

On a crit build with well-stacked multiplier, even small amount of added ele damage would be enough to proc ele status effects for a noticeable duration.

 

[Aothan]

I've started in the five day hardcore league, although more for the sake of testing another facet of the early Templar tree, here namely the physical dimensions of armour and life. I know that sounds like the most basic and even default approach but for me it will be a novel change compared to my usual interest in energy shield and armour.

also I'm really trying to keep things simple this time with basic melee skills, armour and life, but already I begin to consider the possibility of transitioning to a spellcaster style character that specialises in Storm Call. It would seem this skill has a lot of latent potential that can be fully actualised across the Templar and adjacent skill pathways, it is very effective at the start and with increased speed and area abilities I imagine it would be capable across most if not all level ranges.

 

[Padre]

I've just reached Act II Merciless in Beta.

Playing as a pure summoner. Zombies and Chaos Golem as meat shields, Lampbearers as aoe dmg dealers. Arc coupled with Curse on hit - Temporal chains. Have almost all minion nodes, some hp passives, one jewel socket and a few aura nodes. Pretty funny since I haven't been able to find Hatred yet. Minions seem buffed - at around lvl 60 my zombies have nearly 7k hp. Chaos golem at 12k. Merciless Merveil didn't even kill one of them. Those spectres one shot white mobs, 2-3 shot blue mobs. Everything else gets pummeled by zombies. Enemy AI seems a little different. They would sometimes ignore my minions and go straight for me. Having 2k hp hurts but changes to energy shield (faster start of recharge - around 3s ) somewhat makes up for this.

Found some uniques, most for melee physical dealers so I'm pretty fucked.

Gem rewards are pretty fucked too, drops haven't been spectacular either.

Now about Act IV if anybody is interested

Spoiler

- Only three bosses for now - Voll, Kaom, Daresso. Especially Kaom fight is pretty hectic, with multiple enemies and many things you need to dodge. His leap slam takes out most of my hp in one shot. Daresso's area is pretty straight forward but his voice is well done and tbh I'm a sucker for PoE's lore. His notes about Merveil and arena life are good. Also, he is the only one with a full voice over for now.
- After killing Dominus you travel to next city hub - Highgate. From there you can visit several locations. All are quite nice. Music especially.
- New mobs are quite fun. Some of them serve as a good replacement for Evangelists as spectres. Not quite good at defence, but a lot more powerful damage wise.
- Have 3 unique jewels, all of them pretty useless for my class. One of them is good for a spell caster granting flat +3mana/sec and 10% ele dmg. Found a rare one with boni to one handed sword damage, speed, crit etc. All low values though. Lvl req is around 30-35.
- They have changed how Eldrich battery works. Now, ES value protects mana instead being added to it. It works as a buffer for your mana pool. With proper passive nodes and gear you can reserve all of your mana for auras and just cast spells off your energy shield.
- Spell shotgunning is gone. Freezing pulse is dead because of that. Glacial cascade now travels thru obstacles and is quite effective from what I have seen.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Who would classify Path of Exile as grindy or not challenging? Do you just use hte same abilities all the time? All the fights the same? Is wining/losing about some random critical or you misjudging the linear power of the enemy, rather than about some tactic or something legitimately intriguing? Is it just a game of increasing your numbers, but little else?

I'm in another thread the a player in POE who reached max level apparently says the game has no challenge. I'm coming here to see if that's a widespread feeling or just a minority viewpoint. I myself haven't plaeyd PoE.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Who would classify Path of Exile as grindy or not challenging? Do you just use hte same abilities all the time? All the fights the same? Is wining/losing about some random critical or you misjudging the linear power of the enemy, rather than about some tactic or something legitimately intriguing? Is it just a game of increasing your numbers, but little else?

I'm in another thread the a player in POE who reached max level apparently says the game has no challenge. I'm coming here to see if that's a widespread feeling or just a minority viewpoint. I myself haven't plaeyd PoE.

Grindy? To some degree, more if you insist on playing only with the items you find yourself and not trade with anyone. Then it takes time to find some really good items (Not that you need them, you can access most of the end game content with just good items).
As for the skills, at the endgame you tend to use maybe one skill that hits a single target hard, one that hits a group of monsters, a curse to make monsters weaker and some kind of mobility skill like lightning warp, ground slam or something similar. There are also some minor considerations like a skill linked with increased item rarity that you use to finish rare mobs and bosses to get better items.
Yes, there are builds that only use one skill and a curse, like Arc builds or flameblast fire prolif builds, but there are also other builds that utilise more skills, to for example generate different charges.
Winning/losing is more about knowing what a mob can do, if it has any nasty modifiers like damage reflect or powerfull criticals. The tactics aspect comes more into play when fighting bosses that have special attacks and different abilities that you should either try to evade or deal with in another way. I would not say that you just need to increase number and it will be a smooth sailing throughout the whole game, merciless difficulty will very quickly show you where you are lacking both in your build and the knowledge.

And I would definitly not say that the game has no challange. Sure, if you are level 100, optimised build with great items then only a couple of things like reflect (If you didnt build a countermeasure) or corrupted blood can kill you, but very few players ever get to that point, and we still see people on levels 90+ dying so the game is plenty challenging.
I would agree that for an experienced aRPG player, normal difficulty will be quite easy, and maybe only the act Bosses will be of any problem, but that is more due to the player being good and making sensible choices as I've seen shitload of new players struggling even on normal.

But for an experienced player, the endgame maps, Atzire runs and ultimately Uber Atzire are where the real challenge is.

 

[T. Reich]

The game IS grindy. To clarify - getting through "normal", non-endgame playthrough doesn't take grinding - if you didn't fuck up your character progression, you will be able get through all the 3 difficulties (up to char lvl 65-70) with next to no grinding, just by playing the locations through. But to get beyond that, in endgame maps, you will have to do what is technically grinding - running maps of similar layout over and over again. Getting to lvl80-85 is not that hard, after lvl85 it gets somewhat annoying unless you know the tricks. After lvl90 it gets super-grindy, but very few players (relative to the overall playerbase) get to that stage anyway.

Someone who has reached lvl100 in PoE has no business saying that the game has no challenge. AFAIR there are less than 50 chars total who got to lvl100, and some of those are just alts of players who have a few lvl100's. Compare that to the active playerbase (regular and regular-ish players) of 100k+ people.

Yes, you just use the same set of active abilities all the time. The game doesn't use cooldown mechanic, it uses replenishing resources (mana usually) to have you manage your active skills. Plus, given the support gem system and difficulty curve, you're forced to limit your chars to usually 1 (max 2) active damaging attacks/spells if you want them do do noticeable damage. The rest of skills serve as buffs/debuffs/movement and other similar utility. So, in essence, you are using only one attack all the time, with a number of support skills.

The fights are not the same, unless your build is so stupidly strong (uncommon but possible, and almost always extremely expensive in terms of ingame resources) that you can just brute-force them. Different mob types depending on their relative strength can force you to fight them differently than just "click to kill". Major area/map bosses more so.

There is not much "intriguing" in the combat in PoE, with few notable exceptions. Most fights are first and foremost aabout the power parity (so, yes, the numbers game aspect is very important), but after that it's all about the sound judgement of an enemy and knowing how to play around the relative weaknesses/strength of the encounter. Most deaths are the result of player error - being too daring versus a stronger enemy, or overestimating your own capabilities, etc. A careful player who knows when to escape unfair fights doesn't really die.

 

[Aothan]

answers are going to vary around what explanations are provided, in the scheme of things it is possible to use a single active skill and more or the less the same tactic (Arc for instance) to obviate much of the game's design. This becomes somewhat more complex with different types of skills and more rather the combination of support gems, passive skill selections and items to produce an effective character at later levels.

even so, it is far from necessary, as the game allows for a myriad number of skill combinations and playstyles and other preferences, which are all reasonably valid depending on the motivation of the player. Of course for the 'power gamers' (or howsoever they might be termed) there are various examples of character designs and abilities which would bring into question where balance begins and what type of gameplay is mostly promoted.

I wouldn't say this is an issue limited to any one game, there is some degree of onus on the player in many games to ensure challenge or or an engaging playstyle is maintained.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Gerrard]

Man, last time I was playing the summoner was pretty shit and I remember all off my minions getting wiped out by a bunch of lightning archers in the Chambers of Sin on normal. Now I'm facerolling through cruel with no problems, feels way closer to 1.10+ Necro from D2.

 

[Padre]

Be sure to try zombies+bloodlust gem. It's a huge dps boost. You just need a source of bleed damage but raising Kmitted Horrors from first area of Act 4 helps. Right now this combo outperforms evangelists for me because of a much more aggressive pet AI

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

Best free to play. Only dislike is finnicky collision detection on containers, and non-emphatic sound effects on the same.

 

[Eyeball]

So, I've got a hankering to try a Harry Pottery wandslinger type character, but the wand skills seem fairly underwhelming and also appear to lack AOE, at least they did when I last played this fucking thing.

Are there any tips on playing wandmaster? Start with shadow or witch, go for mainly ranged damage attack and physical damage? What skills should I use for wandzapping? Expeliarmus? Avada Kadavra?

 

[Radech]

So, I've got a hankering to try a Harry Pottery wandslinger type character, but the wand skills seem fairly underwhelming and also appear to lack AOE, at least they did when I last played this fucking thing.

Are there any tips on playing wandmaster? Start with shadow or witch, go for mainly ranged damage attack and physical damage? What skills should I use for wandzapping? Expeliarmus? Avada Kadavra?

Kinetic blast was added recently - haven't used it personally but it seems to be the way to go



One of the few skill that will still shotgun in the awakening expansion(they removed it from projectiles, but not explosions)

other than that barrage also works for wands, but as badly as for bows - though a dualwielding wand barrager at leasts looks cool especially if you get hold of two of the new +1 projectile wands and add in gmp+lmp - gatling gun :D

 

[Aothan]

the combination of league, and seemingly map mod properties, in act areas is making Path of Exile extremely challenging for my character, it was surreptitious to change from Disciple to Grace just before starting today.

 

[DawnrazorDCLXVI]

Anyone have a favorite intro class? Makes little difference, but I've considered a replay with a Duelist or Rogue, simply because my build with the Templar dude is not suiting me. You'll have to forgive my lack of class names, it's been almost 8 months, and I took a safari to play a few other games, including Grim Dawn, but you're right--the lack of spellcaster support, and reliance upon gems, is disgruntling.

If they would fix Vaal, the sound effects, add better collision for smashing and opening crates, and perhaps even a slightly larger hit radius--or auto targetting when holding down alt and surrounded by Daikatana-type enemies, I would be mightily pleased. Playing a smaller character gives me an unfair advantage at PvP, thanks to the finnicky collision detection, while larger targets are easier to mouse-over and take down. This is a balancing issue.

One easily fixed, and might even optimize the game better, sadly.

As for the lack of BOOMSTICK! on spellcasters, I barely noticed, but you are correct. Squishy casters need AoE and range, rather than reliance on collision detection, which puts glass-cannons at risk. Staying in one spot is terrible in PvP, when you are trying to mouse-over an opponent with a gemmed weapon, rather than simply sweeping the area like a tornado, to protect your fragile avatar. This is just my take, as I've bothered to play melee, but even a bow rigged with explosives requires targeting, meaning you are generally stuck in one spot while mousing over, targeting.

If someone wants to correct me, this could be do to my lack of knowledge on Witchy classes, but it seems aiming would be a detriment to someone with fragility, especially since it takes a minute to target something, during which movement can throw your aim with the finicky auto-target (or lack thereof.) Thoughts?

PS: I am in full approval of the barter system. Best innovation, IMO, besides gem synergy.

 

[Aothan]

by Rogue you likely would mean Shadow, which is a close enough approximation, although the Shadow would be any comparison across rpg frameworks be more innately magically inclined than a rogue class. As to spellcasters, I think the point previously made was the limited range of skills for wands, i.e. the projectiles from wands, not the spells that a caster can cast (with or without a wand).

Aiming does not seem too difficult in this game, to be honest, besides the constructs (large snakes) that used to wind towards the character but that may have since been 'fixed'.

Barter system is quite good until the market in a league polarises and everything requires 10 or more Chaos orbs. On the other hand I am still managing to buy a few of my preferred items at inexpensive prices, such as the Broken Crown unique, which no one except for myself seems to think of as particular useful.

 

[bloodlover]

Does this game still run like shit in rainy areas? Also, what is FOTM now? I really wanna try a lightning sorc witch.

 

[Icewater]

Anyone happen to get into the beta for The Awakening?

 

[Aothan]

I've been so interested in the recent leagues that I did not check my account to find beta access. But having just checked it would seem this closed beta could close sometime "early June" so it may not be the best time to start.

 

[T. Reich]

Closed beta would not end until early July at the very least, according to the devs' last estimates.

And I still haven't gotten a beta key. I'd rage hard on that, but it has given me tons of free time to waste on other things, so it's all good.