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Path of Exile |OT| Loot 3.0

So, new race season stuff posted:
http://www.pathofexile.com/seasons

Looks like a hot pile of garbage for anyone who isn't planning to somehow grind 250, 500, or 1000 points (when you only pick up a couple points per race!). Seems like a lot fewer short races either, and no descent champions. I was originally considering joining some races this time around now that I'm more familiar with the game, but with the available races and trash rewards, I don't think I'm going to bother.

There's a Bringer of Rain at 500! I've never had one of those.

But I hear you though. My two favorite formats were Descent Champions and One Hour Endless Ledges. I averaged 7-9 points per race, so the 100's were doable, but 500 is insane, especially with the loss of half of the things I'd do.

I'm a casual. I know that. Hour-long races are fine. 12-minute bursts are funny and interesting. Two-Four hour whatevers, yeah, for those "hardcore" folks.

Too bad too. After sitting out six whole seasons, I finally started doing events starting Season Seven and really did a lot in Eight.
 
Just thought of something along what we both said:

Season Eight: I earned 178 points and was ranked 857th.

What that means is that, with the increase in points, it's unfortunately obvious that GGG is catering more to the hardcore players. I play maybe an hour a day, most days, and I'm one of 1,000 people, tops?
 

J. Bravo

Member
How come bringer of rain is so in demand? it seems like not wearing a chest armor would suck. do the 3 extra gems (i guess effectively making it a 7link) account for missing out on 6 potential gems from the chest?
 
How come bringer of rain is so in demand? it seems like not wearing a chest armor would suck. do the 3 extra gems (i guess effectively making it a 7link) account for missing out on 6 potential gems from the chest?

You gotta think: People use Tabula Rusa (a chest with essentially no stats) to get early access to 6L, because some builds really really need it. So you got this crazy hat that does a lot of crazy stuff you want built in, and all you have to pay to make it awesome is:

10 x Jewellers = 4S
5 x Fusing = 4L
 

Zynx

Member
In addition to the pseudo 6/7-link, 15% block is pretty huge as well. If you're looking to cap block or come close, the bringer of rain can save a lot of passive points, especially if your passive tree isn't really sprawling.

You can get about 34% block from your shield if it's top-notch (crest of perandus notwithstanding), and you need another 41% to cap. There's hardly any other sources of block on gear - the anvil amulet comes with a lot of downsides (and prevents you from using the stone of lazwhar to boost spellblock, which you typically pair with block). The only thing that remains are block clusters on the tree which give you about 8% with each cluster, but the clusters are really spread apart.

15% saves you two clusters, which could be a lot of passive points depending on your build. Capping block (at 75%) means that only a quarter of attacks actually deal damage to you. That's like 4 times the survivability against attacks which aren't high-damage one-shot killers. And if you go for the stone of lazwhar/rainbowstrides/rathpith globe/etc., you can get 60-75% spell block too, which gives you that same kind of defense against spells, leaving only damage over time (like burning ground, poison gas, unrighteous fire) the only danger unmitigated.

The other stats are also pretty nice too. 25 flat physical damage is quite significant, and up to 160 life is also great. It's a piece of gear that has a lot of synergy with melee builds, which typically need the defense of block as well.

Bringer of rain also has good synergy with the Wings of Entropy unique, which comes with decent dps, built-in block and spellblock, and benefits from both dual and 2h passive nodes. Whichever supporter designed this unique really knew what they were doing, IMO.
 

TheFatOne

Member
1.3.0 announced and is launching December 12!
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1111831

Big, big changes. Damn, they know how to pull people back :)
I'll try to make new topic about this expansion, but if someone will manage to do it first, i wont complain :)

I'm excited about the changes, but I'm not excited about the new HC league. After the last few I don't think GGG knows how to correctly make a HC league. Nemesis was the only one I thought was good. Everything else was bad or meh. With that said December 12 is perfect for me. School will be over, and I'll have plenty of time to play.

Edit: Holy shit apparently I don't know how to read. The new HC is basically Nemesis 2.0 but on mobs. So disappointing. Can we get a new fun mechanic instead of the same of shit. Just want something different built for HC. Once again they are going to increase the difficulty of HC just to increase the difficulty. It's bullshit. If you increase the difficulty of the game you should increase the rewards. They clearly don't know what they are doing with the HC leagues, and before anyone says I'm being premature their track record speaks for itself. Every league has been the same shit. Increase in difficulty no increase in rewards. If the base game wasn't so damn good I wouldn't play in the HC leagues at all. Waste of time.
 
More items for SC! Now mobs will kill from off screen instead of a single rare! Progress!
I'm gonna try the new wand skill in HC.
 

syko de4d

Member
New stuff sounds good but i think i will just play a little in the next league. I played alot the last league and i dont want to get burned out till act 4 comes. And i am not very interested in PvP :D
 

Ragnaroz

Member
I'm on a break from PoE for like 2 weeks already, and I'll just be getting a single char to 30 in the 1 week races and leave the game be until the new leagues start. Really like the new SC mechanic, but sadly I simply can't enjoy the game on SC, so I'll just have to hope they introduce the mechanic to the core game after the 3 month leagues end.
 

Zynx

Member
The random prizes for the one week league are pretty good, especially if you haven't bought anything at all from GGG so far. Worth hitting level 30 for, I would say. I'm actually trying to hit 70 on HC, at 59 so far:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1110906/

Oh yeah, for those who aren't active now but do plan to play in the future, EVERY MTX IS 50% off this weekend! I don't think there's been a deal as good as this one, and it's for anything you want. I ended up buying more stash tabs though, lol.


As for the "garbage" challenge leagues, I do agree that the mechanics aren't that interesting. But it seems GGG is focusing on other things, rather than the challenge leagues. Like this time around the focus is clearly on PvP. We also get a bunch of new skills, a passive tree rework, and 25(!) new uniques, which is nice. There's also a hint at stash tab searching of some sort(!) but I have a feeling it won't be as comprehensive as we'd like it to be.

I wonder if GGG is valuing Standard players more and more, though. The Rampage/Beyond population did start strong (especially Rampage), but dropped off to a trickle by the end, but from what I can see, Standard maintains pretty much the same player population over time.

P.S. Does anyone have a shadows and dust on standard they'd be willing to sell me for a couple chaos instead of >exalt that everyone else seems to want just because rampage ended?
 

KKRT00

Member
The random prizes for the one week league are pretty good, especially if you haven't bought anything at all from GGG so far. Worth hitting level 30 for, I would say. I'm actually trying to hit 70 on HC, at 59 so far:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1110906/

Oh yeah, for those who aren't active now but do plan to play in the future, EVERY MTX IS 50% off this weekend! I don't think there's been a deal as good as this one, for anything you wanted. I ended up buying more stash tabs though, lol.


As for the "garbage" challenge leagues, I do agree that the mechanics aren't that interesting. But it seems GGG is focusing on other things, rather than the challenge leagues. Like this time around the focus is clearly on PvP. We also get a bunch of new skills, a passive tree rework, and 25(!) new uniques, which is nice. There's also a hint at stash tab searching of some sort(!) but I have a feeling it won't be as comprehensive as we'd like it to be.

I wonder if GGG is valuing Standard players more and more, though. The Rampage/Beyond population did start strong (especially Rampage), but dropped off to a trickle by the end, but from what I can see, Standard maintains pretty much the same player population over time.
Damn, thats actually nice, i would participate if i knew about it yesterday :(
 
I'm excited about the changes, but I'm not excited about the new HC league. After the last few I don't think GGG knows how to correctly make a HC league. Nemesis was the only one I thought was good. Everything else was bad or meh. With that said December 12 is perfect for me. School will be over, and I'll have plenty of time to play.

Edit: Holy shit apparently I don't know how to read. The new HC is basically Nemesis 2.0 but on mobs. So disappointing. Can we get a new fun mechanic instead of the same of shit. Just want something different built for HC. Once again they are going to increase the difficulty of HC just to increase the difficulty. It's bullshit. If you increase the difficulty of the game you should increase the rewards. They clearly don't know what they are doing with the HC leagues, and before anyone says I'm being premature their track record speaks for itself. Every league has been the same shit. Increase in difficulty no increase in rewards. If the base game wasn't so damn good I wouldn't play in the HC leagues at all. Waste of time.

I'm listening to Chris Wilson describe it and gotta disagree. State of Exile Podcast featuring Chris Wilson.

To me it sounds like they're moving in a direction many have been calling for. Typically the softcore league is essentially a loot pinata league, and that continues here: basically the league will be a more lucrative take on the treasure goblins in D3. However this time the hardcore league will actually offer good rewards by tying the challenge to blue mobs - which already give good loot. Making them more challenging and increasing their loot potential seems like a very good decision to me.

I enjoyed Nemesis and have thought for awhile that some form of it would return, since it was basically the closest GGG has gotten to a perfect HC league. My only complaint is that I'd love for the treasure goblins to be in HC as well. It sounds like both leagues would perfectly compliment each other: chase a goblin to a Bloodline blue mob and get crazy loot. It sounds like Wilson is saying both will ultimately be added to the final state of the game, whenever that happens.
 
I feel like going back to PoE but I keep remembering desync issues. :( I'll have a look at the passive tree.

edit: Uh what happened to Witch Summoner build? Minion nodes are distantly spaced.
 
I feel like going back to PoE but I keep remembering desync issues. :( I'll have a look at the passive tree.

edit: Uh what happened to Witch Summoner build? Minion nodes are distantly spaced.

It's the same as before for the most part, better then before in fact with those summoner buffs way back plus the redone witch area.
 

KKRT00

Member
I feel like going back to PoE but I keep remembering desync issues. :( I'll have a look at the passive tree.

edit: Uh what happened to Witch Summoner build? Minion nodes are distantly spaced.

You should check the skills they've added for Summoner builds, they are amazing.
 

Zynx

Member
Ripped at 65 in 1-week HC, and all completely my fault. After being wise and completely avoiding all Haku/Vagan missions, for some reason when I hit archives merciless I decided that it was time to try fighting Vagan. Oops. Was aiming for 70, but I'm happy with how it turned out, especially since I'm usually a standard player, so 1-week HC was as far from my normal experience as it possibly could be.



Summoners are in a good spot right now, with at least 3 skills that could each potentially be your main skill.

Raise zombies - with a little support, zombies can be pretty tanky, and with more gear and passive investment, can do a lot of damage, can be SUPER tanky, or both. The unique Montegruel's grasp, in particular, can do a lot for them.

Summon raging spirits - the flavor of the month (or perhaps even half a year?) - these babies can do a LOT of damage with the right setup, especially +level of gems. Having a 5/6-link staff with +2 fire gems (and +1 gems on top) really amps the damage.

Raise Spectre - undying evangelists have been nerfed, their shielding bubbles don't last close to as long and are sporadically cast now, but flame sentinels still do a lot of damage. It's still super annoying to go back to whatever zone to fetch your favorite spectres again after they die though.

There's even players making builds around other summoner skills like animate weapon, which got its own "build of the week" episode. You can also mix and match, although each aspect will be a bit weaker than if you went all-out with one. I'm trying to make a tanky zombie/damage raging spirits build work with one of my characters.

Of course 1.3.0 drops in just over a week, and it'll likely change the viability of some builds.
 

Zynx

Member
The 1.3 passive tree is available with the offline planner:
https://github.com/EmmittJ/PoESkillTree/releases/tag/2.1.0

Some major changes, while other things untouched. So far, I've noticed that blocking has been tremendously nerfed. The new templar area looks great, full of possibilities. While the passives for a physical crit bow character look pretty much the same.

I also finally got my first atziri kill, softcore. Yay.


I'm willing to work on a brand new OP for 1.3, the game deserves it. Actually I'm surprised at how inactive our thread is considering that the game seems to be attracting more and more players overall.
 

J. Bravo

Member
Yeah but is the GAF guild active? I know I haven't played recently. Last time I booted it up was a few days after the current league started up. I check the thread to see what's new but haven't seen much in interested in. I like summoner characters though, so maybe I'll try that out of I find the time.
 
Yeah but is the GAF guild active? I know I haven't played recently. Last time I booted it up was a few days after the current league started up. I check the thread to see what's new but haven't seen much in interested in. I like summoner characters though, so maybe I'll try that out of I find the time.

It's sorta active. There are a bunch of us playing, but not all at the same time.

Also, if you can help me skew the vote so the summoner vote wins (it's currently really losing), that'd be great!
 
Hmm I can understand block going, they've given the melee classes more armour/evasion to offset that.

But where did melee crit go?

I guess I'll have to see the new gems, but I was sorta planning a build using the much ignored Doubting Knight dagger, which entirely relies on lots of crit chance. Oh well.
 

Ragnaroz

Member
I'm starting Bloodlines with a Dual Flame Totem magic finder to try and get a bit rich at least once in this game. :D With the new tree, the build looks amazing.

http://poeurl.com/y7EI83o (needs offline skill tree app to open)

Obviously, the plan is to get CoD so I can have MoM, but that will depend on my resistances and whether I can keep them capped without any +res on the chest piece. I guess I could go for the Diamond skin cluster if I really need it to wear CoD, but that I'll have to see once I actually get to that point. :)
 

Zynx

Member
But where did melee crit go?

You know, I was liking all the new elemental stuff by templar, I didn't really think of the implications of the left side weapon crit clusters other than noting that going from "melee weapon" -> "melee" meant that spectral throw could no longer benefit from them. But you're right, there's a lot less crit now after being compressed into one cluster. Everything looks much better for spells and not so hot for non-ranged weapons. Even if non-dagger weapons get better nodes in general, the big gap in base crit and attack speed might still not allow them to measure up.

I wonder if a lot of spell gems are getting nerfed because the tree is a lot nicer for them in general, or it's intended for the next patch to make casters predominantly popular. There was a post by Rory that the tree was not final yet, and I'm sure he's been affected by the widespread whining over one thing or another.
 

V_Arnold

Member
Crit was not even a thing by most regular (aka not swimming in exalteds) templars.
People built never miss, never crit keystone.

So in that regard, templar build IS optimized towards that. Simple. I see shield nodes, elemental damage - if you want crit builds, go Shadow. If you want 1h+defensive/elemental stuff, go templar.
 

KKRT00

Member
Sorry for double post, but i wont be able to invite anyone to guild till about 22-24th of December.
So if someone could take over for that two weeks, it would be great.
I just wont have access to my desktop PC, it can change in few days if find a good solution, but probably wont :(
 

Zynx

Member
Hey, I would like to make a new OP for the 1.3 patch in hopes of jump-starting a more active GAF community for this game, but could use some help for banner and header images. Anyone able to help out in this manner?
 
Sorry for double post, but i wont be able to invite anyone to guild till about 22-24th of December.
So if someone could take over for that two weeks, it would be great.
I just wont have access to my desktop PC, it can change in few days if find a good solution, but probably wont :(

I'm not 100% sure if I'm playing 1.3, but I definitely keep active in this thread, so if no one else volunteers, I don't have a problem accepting invites, as long as you tell me how to manage the list (are we capped again?)
 

Zynx

Member
I don't think you necessarily need someone else to "take over" - officers can send guild invites to add players to the guild, can't they? I might as well mention that I can do this task, since as a permanent standard player, I login every day, if only to refresh my masters and see if they'll sell me a shav's. Best thing they've offered me so far:
maligaro's virtuosity
 

TheFatOne

Member
I'm almost done hell week. I most likely won't be able to play this Friday, but starting Saturday I'm going no life mode in the new HC mode. Going to make a magic find build once again. Going to have way more time to play this game then the last league.
 

Zynx

Member
Descriptions of all the new skill gems are out: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1119966

The wand AOE skill has a name now, Kinetic Blast. A movement skill for bow users, Blink Arrow, and a "fake" version of the skill, Mirror Arrow. New melee skill "Static Strike" which has a slightly delayed aoe after attacking. The three "counterattack" skills have been described: Reckoning, cone-shaped counterattack when shield block, Riposte, also a counterattack when blocking, but doesn't require a shield and gets a bonus with dual wielding, and Vengeance, chance to aoe counterattack when hit. Finally, a physical to lightning damage support gem.

Btw, I realized that my previous post could be misunderstood, so I'd like to note that I'm not currently an officer in the guild, but could handle invites if I was.

Since no one so far has volunteered to help with graphics for the new OP, I guess I'll try downloading paint.net and seeing what I can come up with. The OP might not be done in time for the 1.3 release, because I do want to highlight what makes Path of Exile great. (The versatile Skill/support gem system, free to play without pay to win, interesting loot in both rares, uniques, and crafting, and the fun of creating new builds and exploring the possible combinations of gems, gear, and passive trees.)
 

KKRT00

Member
Counter skills sounds amazing. Will be able to make finally a Reflect damage build, not it will be much easier than before.
And finally i will be using second set of weapons for a teleport, like bow on Thief in Guild Wars 2 :)

What a pity that i wont be able to play for at least 1.5 week :(
 

squadr0n

Member
Is there a US NeoGaf guild atm? I'm loving this game and at every night at work lol. If anyone wants to play sometime just let me know what I need to do to freind you. Still new, just hit 15, following this badass ranger build that ends up an industructable tank with the Demon hand attack. So much fun!

Although right now the hit lag is still an issue but seems to be a lot better lately.

I dunno if I like this or Grim Dawn more but it's a good time for this type of game.
 

KKRT00

Member
Is there a US NeoGaf guild atm? I'm loving this game and at every night at work lol. If anyone wants to play sometime just let me know what I need to do to freind you. Still new, just hit 15, following this badass ranger build that ends up an industructable tank with the Demon hand attack. So much fun!

Although right now the hit lag is still an issue but seems to be a lot better lately.

I dunno if I like this or Grim Dawn more but it's a good time for this type of game.

Game doesnt have a split between regions. Even if You play on US and friends are on EU, You are playing withing the same database. It only depends who is creating instances, because that determines latency of the rest of the people.
Yeah, its an amazing feature that should be implemented by Blizzard a long time ago and it is still not, even in Hearthstone, which is mind-boggling really.
 

squadr0n

Member
Game doesnt have a split between regions. Even if You play on US and friends are on EU, You are playing withing the same database. It only depends who is creating instances, because that determines latency of the rest of the people.
Yeah, its an amazing feature that should be implemented by Blizzard a long time ago and it is still not, even in Hearthstone, which is mind-boggling really.

Completely agree. I hope LostArk uses a similar style too.

Is there a NeoGaf guild then and if so how do I apply?
If I just need to give my char's name on here it's; Foutune

Totally wish I was paying attention before I accpted that name but I was just getting frustrated over how many names were already taken, like most MMOs
 

Kammie

Member
All my builds were affected.

One year playing now. I just don't want to deal with this anymore, every patch it's the same damn thing. Instead of adding new harder content they nerf to the ground and slowly drain the fun out of every skill.
 
All my builds were affected.

One year playing now. I just don't want to deal with this anymore, every patch it's the same damn thing. Instead of adding new harder content they nerf to the ground and slowly drain the fun out of every skill.

It's a recurring theme, but that's why you play different builds each time. If you ran last season with an unstoppable RF build, what would make you play that again? It's not a race to level 100. For you, it's not even a race to get loots. It should be to enjoy playing the game.

We play games to hopefully be entertained, not because we have to. This will be my fifth season (I think) and I'll be trying something completely new this time around. That's what separates PoE from the others for me, the myriad of possibilities this engine allows.

If you like easy loot, Blizzard has a game for you. If you like easy levels, Blizzard ... has a different game for that (you can even pay money to achieve that instantly).

I want to come up with an idea and see if my skill and creativity will make it work. I don't want to google something, have it work and trivialize everything in two weeks. Why even spend those two weeks if you already know it works? I already have very little gaming time as it is.
 

Kammie

Member
It's a recurring theme, but that's why you play different builds each time. If you ran last season with an unstoppable RF build, what would make you play that again? It's not a race to level 100. For you, it's not even a race to get loots. It should be to enjoy playing the game.
Standard. I have multiple characters. I like to keep playing and leveling those characters in order to milk every last point on the tree. Effort which is then negated when a skill is nerfed severely. Not interested in hitting 90 and then moving onto another character after a few maps.
 

Rufus

Member
You hit 90 before maps? Catabombs?

I don't think I've ever hit 90 on any character.
They mysteriously die long before. Ahem.
 
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