Path of Exile



  • Shut up and get out of my thread, blakey. If you don't want people derailing your threads by insulting what you're doing, don't do it. Yes, I can see you typing. Stop.

    So, as all of you know, I didn't end up playing Black Desert. Maybe I should go give it another chance, but my friend and I have been heavily playing Path of Exile lately.

    My characters:

    • PaulBunyanTheThird
      • PaulIII is a duelist, level 68 or so, who I managed to ascend as a Champion with. He's really tough, with almost 3k HP now, and mostly just cyclones around (whirlwind, basically, if you play Diablo) and leeches life with 2H weapons. I finally got him an axe again, at long last. If I manage the Merciless Ascension, he'll have permanent Fortify and be several times more monstrous than he is right now.
    • WandWandityWandWand
      • I decided to play a wand build, since my friend wanted to level another Iron Commander build as a ranger instead of a scion. When he caught up this weekend, I switched back to PaulIII. She has ridiculously high damage thanks to the shotgun-nature of kinetic blast and all the power charges she gets from being an occultist, along with over a thousand life and energy shield each. Fun build, with a lot of lightning damage, though good wands are hard to find. She's still using a Twyzel past level 60 :/
    • Ruthia
      • I have had characters named Ruthia since very early on when rarity and quantity were available on the skill tree. Named after the Midkemian goddess of luck, she was very good at finding items. This time, though, I deleted my last one and had her reincarnate as a fire archer. I found a Blackgleam, a wonderful quiver that converts half of your physical damage to fire, among other things. As a Scion Ascendant, she will eventually requisition the Templar's starting area, but in any case she will have Avatar of Fire (For a combined total of 100% physical to fire conversion!), Arrow Dancing, and the already-acquired Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics. She reached act 4 normal and her first ascension yesterday.
    • IMeanArcherIGuess
      • This guy is still in his 20s, and is my first attempt at a physical damage spellcaster. Quite a fun build, it's helping me carry a friend through normal in the hope that he can eventually catch up with us.
    • NurglingCharmer
      • Like Archer, this one is a Shadow, this time focusing on dealing chaos damage over time with the new skills Contagion, Wither, and Essence Drain. Really fun build, but I didn't make him very tough, and damage over time feels almost too situational. Still, if you feel like trying something different, I definitely suggest this build. He made it to the end of Cruel, but had a hard time making it any further.

    Honestly, it's a lot of fun, with a huge amount of options and playstyles. If you feel like joining, I have a horrible guild you can join so you can get free things.



  • I feel like this should be a post in an existing thread?

    EDIT in reply to below: right, I seem to have failed to parse this thread correctly due to the first sentence. I'll edit instead of post to avoid derailings.



  • @CreatedToDislikeThis I'll have more to post as time goes on. Anyway, it's my thread, and I'll do it how I want!


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Magus said in Path of Exile:

    Anyway, it's my thread, and I'll do it how I want!

    That's the way this community rolls…


  • BINNED

    I'm running a crit Mind over Matter/Eldritch Battery Ball Lightning Templar (Inquisitor) in Perandus. I barely have time to play though, so I'm only level 63 now and I only managed to complete the Labyrinth in Normal. Holy hell that thing is tough.

    Also I really need some daggers with spell damage and crit chance - Whirling Blades would probably help a lot in the Labyrinth, and right now I still have two shitty leveling wands (Lifesprig and Reverberation Rod) which are absolutely terrible at this point.



  • @blek said in Path of Exile:

    Eldritch Battery Ball Lightning Templar (Inquisitor)

    @blek said in Path of Exile:

    only managed to complete the Labyrinth in Normal. Holy hell that thing is tough.

    I'll say! You need a good 600 life to finish it in Normal, and 1600+ for cruel. I hope you have a lot of armor. PaulIII managed to solo the cruel one after my friends died on the second fight with Izaro.

    I suggest you go with Lightning Warp, since it has a really long range. Faster casting should make it usable. It's second only to blink arrow as a movement skill, and both of those are teleports. Whirling Blades and Leap Slam still leave you vulnerable while moving, which once killed my friend in the labyrinth when he tried leaping over a blade trap. I probably have some spare daggers I could give you: my spark witch uses dual Axiom Perpetuums.



  • Agh, this thread convinced me to check what Path of Exile was, and my confused Diablo2 nostalgia upon watching a trailer convinced me to download it and check it out.
    Has been ages since I've participated in any serious online game thing, (Minefield doesn't count) so I hope I won't regret this.


  • BINNED

    @Magus
    Life isn't really a problem for me, I have over 2700. Barely any armor though (or evasion), I'm relying on Arctic Armor and Mind over Matter for mitigation (that gives me ~40% mitigation alone as long as I have mana - or energy shield actually, because of Eldritch Battery). But that doesn't really matter, I think most traps ignore armor and cause bleed damage, and I think it even scales based on your max life, so they always take the same amount of time to kill you no matter how much life you have. So mitigation and a big life pool only help with fights, but I go through those fairly easily. Getting to them is the problem.

    Or I think so - I'm not really sure how the traps work, but it seemed to me that most of them damage me at the same rate even with a way better armored character. Only dart traps are doing flat physical damage that you can block or reduce with armor, I think.

    Btw, with Lightning Warp you want Reduced Duration as a support, not Faster Casting. FC only accelerates the actual cast time by a little bit, but RD massively decreases the time between the cast and the actual teleport, which is what really matters. Still, I like Whirling Blades since it's the only movement skill that activates immediately as you press the hotkey - it's great for really fast dodging, even if it leaves you vulnerable. The only thing I don't like about it is that you can't use it to move up/down ledges and cross gaps.

    And thanks for the offer but I think I'll just buy some cheapo rare daggers somewhere, poe.trade is full of them and I'm not completely broke.


  • BINNED

    @CreatedToDislikeThis
    Enjoy. It's pretty hard to get into, the giant skilltree and the way skills work (and also the lack of gold as currency) give the game a surprisingly steep learning curve for an ARPG, but it can get pretty rewarding when your character can cover half the screen with fiery death. Or fifty minions or something.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    Shouldn't this be in the Games category? I'm not interested in game threads, but everyone posts them in General, so I cannot ignore them :/



  • @asdf The problem is that I also ignore that section, because it's mostly horrid monstrosities like Mafia, but I want to hear about non-forum games.


  • FoxDev

    @Magus Mafia is its own subcategory; you should be able to follow Games but ignore Mafia



  • @Magus we don't have a "forum games" category. We have a category for discussing games and like twenty Mafia categories.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    WandWandityWandWand is the best name ever. I'm going to start a petition to get a Star Wars character named that, and to make sure all future episodes of MST3K make at least two references to it.


  • BINNED

    I tried the game once before. Despite me not being a fan of Diablo-style hack 'n' slash games like, at all, I kinda liked PoE in short bursts at least. The problem is, the amount of time I have for gaming (read: both actual free time and any will to game when I do because of tired) is... poor. So, since this thread is here...

    1. What kind of content is there past "kill anything that moves"? Anything? Like raids and stuff?
    2. How long does it take, in gameplay hours, to get a character to a point where I can do the potential interesting stuff?
    3. Maybe the most important thing: how well can you play using "wacky" builds? As in, not look up optimal stuff online, just play around and try weird stuff? I like playing like that but many games seem to punish that.


  • @Magus said in Path of Exile:

    I have a horrible guild you can join

    I would like to join your guild, for the sole purpose of being able to say I am in a guild.

    I can't remember my account name though, will give it to you later.


  • BINNED

    @Onyx said in Path of Exile:

    1. What kind of content is there past "kill anything that moves"? Anything? Like raids and stuff?

    The latest big content patch added Labyrinths. They're very difficult and while there's still a lot of fighting, the main focus is on puzzles - they're filled with traps you have to avoid, the occasional secret or puzzle... they're semirandomly generated each day, you have to restart the entire run if you die even with a non-hardcore character, and they give opportunities for phat l00t and allow you to enchant some of your gear.

    You can also grind Forsaken Masters to level 8, but that's mostly still "kill anything that moves" with the occasional added twist like "do it faster than the Master who gave you the mission", "make sure the hostage lives", "kill this guy but keep him at <30% health for a while, etc.)". When you grind a few masters to higher levels, you can turn the game into shitty The Sims, buy a ton of decorations and build your hideout - some people spend huge amounts of time on that, just google "path of exile hideout" and see for yourself.

    Also there are Atziri runs, Atziri being a brutally hard boss outside the main storyline with some interesting mechanics (don't hit the one with the mirror!).

    Generally though... yeah, most of the game is about killing anything that moves. And no raids really, you can run maps in a party with a dedicated support character (auras everywhere) and a dedicated culler (someone who deals the last shot to bosses and has a massively increased item rarity/quantity so that everyone gets better loot), but this really isn't a raiding game.

    1. How long does it take, in gameplay hours, to get a character to a point where I can do the potential interesting stuff?

    Shittons. I've played for at least 200 hours and I never killed Atziri. Although I never got any character into really high levels; I usually play for a couple dozen hours in a league and then stop for months and start from scratch again when I came back. If I focused on a single character I could probably do it, but the problem is that every time a new league starts they rebalance half the skills so the previously decent character now feels like I'm hitting things with a wet noodle.

    1. Maybe the most important thing: how well can you play using "wacky" builds? As in, not look up optimal stuff online, just play around and try weird stuff? I like playing like that but many games seem to punish that.

    There are even some very strong builds that I'd consider "wacky" - the current meta is covering the screen with ridiculously fast lightning spiders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJnflitHG5k

    Two leagues ago the meta was summoning 50 floating skulls and letting them nibble everything to death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoNSQLenzM4

    Also I've seen a dude kill Atziri with nothing but a Flame Golem, which really is not a skill meant for dealing direct damage - people normally keep golems around for the bonuses they provide, like increased damage or accuracy/crit chance, and not for killing bosses. That was pretty wacky: https://youtu.be/wHxaO2QWkDI?t=331

    It really depends on the exact build; the problem is you might need a lot of currency to make some of the crazier builds work well (like the golem), otherwise it might be funny to build something like a Leap Slam character with ridiculously fast attack speed so it looks like you're jumping 20m into the air 5 times a second and stomping everything to death, but you'll probably get frustrated with your slow clear speed pretty soon.

    Oh and I'd definitely at least start with some premade build off the forums, so you get a feel for the game and figure out how skills combine and what's important.


  • BINNED

    @blek said in Path of Exile:

    meta

    Ugh. I loathe that word in online games. I guess it doesn't matter that much here since there's no real PvP from what I gathered, but still...

    @blek said in Path of Exile:

    Oh and I'd definitely at least start with some premade build off the forums, so you get a feel for the game and figure out how skills combine and what's important.

    Yeah, I guess that would be wise... One of the games I could have fun with while going against the meta lately was Hearthstone, but I did pick up some of the interactions from YouTube videos first, which is easy with a card game (let alone one as simple as Hearthstone) but I probably won't be able to figure out stuff here in the same way and do that within a reasonable timeframe by just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks...

    @blek said in Path of Exile:

    Shittons

    Ugh. Might be a dealbreaker then, at least for a while until I move closer to work and get rid of this exhausting commute...


  • BINNED

    @Onyx said in Path of Exile:

    @blek said in Path of Exile:

    meta

    Ugh. I loathe that word in online games. I guess it doesn't matter that much here since there's no real PvP from what I gathered, but still...

    Yeah, I'm not a huge fan either. For PVP there are a few arenas in the game but they're entirely optional - and filled with insane twinked characters. Any form of cooperation is also optional, I play alone except for the occasional trade - I'm not even in a guild.



  • @Onyx said in Path of Exile:

    1. What kind of content is there past "kill anything that moves"? Anything? Like raids and stuff?

    The endgame is primarily about running maps, which are modifiable and give more/better loot the more dangerous they are, and can only be entered by a person six times, or six people once each. But along with that, there are also various forms of PvP, and now one could in theory do Izaro runs, since the darkshrines seem to add maplike quantity mods to the entire labyrinth.

    @Onyx said in Path of Exile:

    1. How long does it take, in gameplay hours, to get a character to a point where I can do the potential interesting stuff?

    You should be able to hit level 30 around the end of act 2, which is when the support gems and uniques will start giving you more options. By 60 (which is basically twice through the game), you should have about everything you need and be just trying to become more powerful at it.

    @Onyx said in Path of Exile:

    1. Maybe the most important thing: how well can you play using "wacky" builds? As in, not look up optimal stuff online, just play around and try weird stuff? I like playing like that but many games seem to punish that.

    This game definitely punishes that. You can definitely make really insane builds work, but a lot of them are really hard to get right. If you want a basic tip to get you started, it is this: take life nodes. If you want to try melee, try a duelist, and ascend champion, going for the fortify buffs. If you want to try magic, go daggers and ice magic. Deviate from these all you want, but they're good starting points.



  • So yesterday's progress:

    I got my fire archer to around level 40, about three points away from avatar of fire. Once I get it, I can stop using burning arrow entirely, because I'll be at full conversion without it. I don't know what my single target skill will be, but I don't think burning arrow does enough damage compared to other skills, since the whole point of it is 50% conversion with chance to ignite.

    As my main area skill, I've just been using lesser multiple projectiles on another burning arrow. Now something like Blast Rain will actually work well. Very interested in seeing where this build will go.

    Then we went onward with our other characters for a bit, so I got PaulIII to the Solaris Temple. Once we grab the Infernal Talc from the Docks, we'll go back to Diala and try our first map: My friend found a Desert map, I think it was, and Diala will give each of us another. He wasn't killing things fast enough, but then we found a unique axe with culling strike, which was a direct upgrade, so he's useful again for a bit longer. I'm going to have to take a few more damage nodes.


  • BINNED

    @Magus I got through cruel Labyrinth and got the ascendancy keystone for the Inquisitor that causes critical hits to ignore elemental resistances. It's insane - you're hitting a rare mob or a boss with extra life and extra resistance for just tiny slivers of health, and then suddenly BOOM and it just melts.



  • @blek My friend was going for a witch, and managed more than 50% criitrate on freeze pulse. I can only imagine a freeze inquisitor.



  • Definite Diablo2 nostalgia from this. I'll only play through the normal game, though. Maybe see if there are doable challenges and the like but won't be doing anything random or grindy or crafty.

    My character name is Lorebore.
    Feel free to invite me to your guild, It could be nice to have somewhere to spam while I play.

    Also, since I'm also not planning to be joining any parties and since global chat is global chat, without being able to spam at some guild I'm in, my experience becomes actually indistinguishable from single player. Which might be just as well, come to think of it.



  • Wha? I just got disconnected and after reconnecting, my automap was reset?
    Does the automap really not persist between logins?
    EDIT: The map layout looks subtly different, too?!


  • BINNED

    @CreatedToDislikeThis

    I'll only play through the normal game, though.

    If by normal game you mean the main storyline on all 3 difficulties, you'll probably be staying for a while, since Malachai on Merciless (current final boss on the highest difficulty) is pretty brutal. I guess you could just corpserun him till you whittle him down but that's no fun, is it.

    Also most people seem to hit a roadblock way before that, especially on their first character where they don't have any decent gear saved from previous attempts. My stash in the Standard league has tons of uniques and currency items that really help leveling additional toons, but it's really hard the first time (e.g. when you first start in a new temporary league).

    On the other hand, if you only plan to run through the storyline once, on Normal difficulty, you won't really get to do the fun stuff that high level characters get to do with 5-linked skills and that kind of jazz.

    Regarding map resets: the first time you enter a new zone it creates a new instance, and that instance will exist for as long as someone is in it (you or a party member), and then for 8-15 minutes empty. If it remains empty for longer the server destroys it and you lose any portals connected to it. Entering the same zone again after that means you'll get a completely new one. You can also force creating a new one by Ctrl+clicking the zone entrance or waypoint and selecting New in the screen that appears, which is useful for farming. Parts of this system were in Diablo 2 as well, maps were semirandomly generated and if you exited the game and came back you'd get completely new maps - and IIRC it was way more random in Diablo, PoE zones have more fixed points.


  • BINNED

    Also btw, anyone trying the game should do a couple things:

    • Go to the login screen, open Options -> Input and make sure that the network mode is set to Lockstep, not Predictive. Predictive sucks, unless you're unable to get less than 150 ms latency to any gateway. Also obviously pick the gateway geographically closest to you - it keeps defaulting to I think Texas for me while I live in central Europe and that's no fun.

    • Get a loot filter, it's a huge quality of life improvement. I recommend this community maintained one - it hides junk, highlights items worth picking up (things like items with 6 sockets or 3 linked sockets of different colors which can be sold for useful currency, etc.) and it adjusts that depending on the zone you're currently in which is great for leveling. Setup instructions are in the link too.

    • Read at least this. More guides and resources are here if you want.



  • @blek said in Path of Exile:

    • Go to the login screen, open Options -> Input and make sure that the network mode is set to Lockstep, not Predictive.

    It seems to be defaulting to "auto" now, which I assume would select the best one automatically?

    Also, look at those people praising their then-newfound ability to play the game while being sure where their character are:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/36gv6p/cb_lockstep_experience/
    God I hate multiplayer games.


  • BINNED

    @CreatedToDislikeThis
    No, if it did that, the Predictive option wouldn't even be there :) seriously, predictive mode is horrendous, it used to be the only way to play and it drove me away from the game several times. I have no idea how this game managed to survive for several years with an always online requirement and such horrible netcode.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blek So they fixed that did they? I remember playing when things were so bad that I had to use an AutoHotkey script to spam a resync every few seconds so that I didn't end up hitting a monster for ages just to find out that it was somewhere else entirely and stabbing me in the back for free while I chopped at a wall. :facepalm:


  • BINNED

    @dkf Yeah, they finally added lockstep mode about a year ago. The /oos script was pretty much mandatory before.


  • Java Dev

    @blek said in Path of Exile:

    Parts of this system were in Diablo 2 as well, maps were semirandomly generated and if you exited the game and came back you'd get completely new maps - and IIRC it was way more random in Diablo, PoE zones have more fixed points.

    However, Diablo 2 only did this from battle.net or in multiplayer. When playing single player, it preserved your map seed, and it also cached stuff like automap contents. So if you only played local singleplayer, you never got a new map.



  • @PleegWat said in Path of Exile:

    So if you only played local singleplayer, you never got a new map.

    Unless you exited the game.


  • Java Dev

    @aliceif D2 didn't instance town separately. As long as you didn't leave game, you never got new maps.

    In local singleplayer it saved the map. Even when exiting/restarting the game. Shut down the PC today, start playing again tomorrow, get the same map.


  • BINNED

    @PleegWat Are you sure? That's not how I remember it, but it's been a while.


  • Java Dev

    @blek Yup, I'm sure.

    Note this was only in local singleplayer. LAN multiplayer, open battle.net, and closed battle.net games all started with a new seed.



  • @PleegWat I can confirm this



  • @CreatedToDislikeThis Cool, I'll add you when I get home.

    Yesterday, we made it through a couple maps, and got a rare tier 3 pyramid map, which is rather cool. Just Dominus to go, and we're through act 3 merciless.

    I also just barely started a character with my Quill Rain (might possibly switch to dual Brightbeak, but that's level 20), who I'm going to make into a cast on crit build. Should be fun.



  • @CreatedToDislikeThis said in Path of Exile:

    Also, since I'm also not planning to be joining any parties and since global chat is global chat, my experience becomes actually indistinguishable from single player.

    I forgot to account for all-too-frequent dropped connections.



  • @CreatedToDislikeThis So yeah, you've been invited to the LeagueOfMightyFriends.

    Yesterday's progress: I got SilverChariot past 20, and switched to some rings with strength so I could dual wield my brightbeaks. Eventually, I'm sure I'll end up using quill rain and doing cast on crit; but I'm putting all my points into attackspeed and crit, so using my spectral throw with increased attack speed is amazing.

    PaulBunyanTheThird and my friend did a few more maps as well, and killed the act 3 boss in merciless. We now have like 4 tier 2 maps, and a tier 3 map, so I feel like we're making progress.


  • BINNED

    @Magus attack speed ST? I just saw this on reddit the other day: https://i.imgur.com/OCzsyty.gifv



  • @blek Essentially. I'll have socket constraints if I do cast on crit, so I may have to steal tabula rasa from my summoner, but it should be fun.



  • Yesterday, I hit 38, finished act 3, and ascended as my cast on crit build. Currently I only cast Ethereal Knives and Bladefall on crit, but it's beautiful. Hoping it continues to work out.

    Another friend joined us and is where we are, as a deadeye, focusing on a strange combination of bow, totem, and summon skills. He's using animate weapon and a blast rain totem. It's fairly cool, and I hope it works well for him, but he needs more life nodes.

    The friend I've been playing it with mostly is using The Whispering Ice, which Cadiro sold us for 1600~ coins, and is loving it. Seriously, that thing is incredibly cool. At this point, he's actually playing three stat-scaling builds: The Whispering Ice, Pillar of the Caged God, and Iron Commander. Rather interesting.


  • Java Dev

    Decided to look up my old account, turns out I played for a while in late 2013 and managed to get up to level 23 on a witch. IIRC I quit because my 'do what feels right' build didn't work out and I didn't want to restart.

    Let's try a new one.

    EDIT: Windows smartscreen has prevented an unrecognized app from starting. :wtf: this shit.



  • @PleegWat said in Path of Exile:

    EDIT: Windows smartscreen has prevented an unrecognized app from starting. this shit.

    Wut.

    Overall though, the situation has improved for people playing how they want. You can easily finish the first three acts, and while the last boss of the fourth will cause you some trouble, you should be able to do it. This is partly because they rebalanced life, so you get more per level and less from the tree than previously. Taking life on the tree is still absolutely required if you want to have any luck in Cruel, but you aren't quite as dead as you used to be.

    Staying somewhat focused will help, but you can be pretty variable.


  • BINNED

    I finished Act 4 Merciless with my Inquisitor, currently at level 73. Now it's running maps till I get bored and roll something else. I still need to do Merc Labyrinth, too.

    Also I farmed Merciless Lunaris Temple lvl1 for Perandus coins a little bit, and got some awesome deals from Cadiro (10 fusings for I think 15 coins!!!) - and on top of that I dropped a Taste of Hate from a strongbox. That's at least an exalt right there, although I'll probably keep it.

    (It's funny how much unique flasks are dropping for me in Perandus, though. Before this league I think I got one drop ever, and now I got 6 in the past week or so.)



  • @blek said in Path of Exile:

    (It's funny how much unique flasks are dropping for me in Perandus, though. Before this league I think I got one drop ever, and now I got 6 in the past week or so.)

    Nice. My friend has like three, including the new one that makes you heal your mana costs while its recovering you. Cadiro keeps charging outrageous amounts for that crazy rarity one, so we don't have any of those. And all the warbands ones are 4000+, so we have none of those. But we saw at least six Axiom Perpetuums, three of which Cadiro sold us cheap.

    Might switch my cast on crit dude to daggers at some point for the crit rate. Since that also applies to spells. Hmmm...


  • BINNED

    @Magus Zerphi's Last Breath? That one dropped for me earlier this week. I saw Cadiro offer it sometime before too for some insane amount (like 3k coins), so I got excited, thinking it must be expensive as hell... and nope, lowest prices on poe.trade are listed in alt orbs.



  • @blek it's still pretty great, though.


  • Java Dev

    So, I picked a ranger and am currently up to level 14. Passives: https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAIAAAHRYlqhIqGkokCn1K_ru-PEot-Y4dv0-P66_sg=

    Main skills are shrapnel shot+multiple projectiles, burning arrow, and siege ballista. Though I'm unsure whether that last one is helping me much.

    The passive tree is going to open up more soon. Not sure what my next target will be; probably the large bow cluster on the right-hand side.


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