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[Rufus]

I've been using the standard IC set-up on a couple characters now and it's so useful it does indeed feel mandatory. I fully expect them to change it, but it's not like you were defenseless before, you just had to go slower. Which is very hard to give up, of course. You have to go back to playing as carefully around physical mobs as you do around elemental mobs.
The main advantage for me though is convenience. I've never liked how endurance charges are generated, how you pop immortal call, etc. which is why I've ignored them before CWDT was added.

That said, they're not actually tackling the problem with all of this, which is physical spike damage from chargers, leapers and devourers. The drop bears can hit surprisingly hard too, but the way they spawn shows that they're at least aware of the problem of an enitre pack of high phys mobs being able to crush you within a second. And you don't even have to be desynched at all for that to happen.

Btw, Cyclone is amazing with two-handers.

 

[Gaming Truth]

They were trying to solve something for a specific group of people that unfortunately was useful for everybody. Melee characters are extremely risky because they take far more damage than ranged ones. EC was extremely cumbersome to use (like Rufus, I cast EC like three times, then dropped it entirely pre-CWDT). So they came up with a system to help those poor tanks out. Unfortunately, almost everyone can use it because there were no real drawbacks to use it (if you're solo, who cares if you taunt, you're the only target!)

Mechanically, the way I'd change it is to make warcries trigger on melee hit from the player. Affix a percentage change that each melee attack made can trigger a warcry. Fixes pretty much everything. Tanks are protected the way they intended and ranged characters can't use it along with EB/AA, crazy Acrobatics, etc. to make themselves even more safe to play.

 

[Rufus]

Yeah, there needs to be a way to generate charges that doesn't stop you from moving and that's somehow tied to melee skills. Either that, or specialize the classes more so that strength characters can get charges by taking damage.

Endurance Charge on Melee Stun is one of the best ways to generate charges, but you're still giving up a slot for it and who wants to use that on their main skill? But then again, not everyone stuns reliably and who wants to use a 4link just to generate charges if you can kill the mob outright with your main skill? (Cast on Melee Kill + Enduring Cry is even worse because you give up two slots.)

So curse enemies with Warlord's Mark then. But what if you need to enfeeble, or you're playing with casters who want ele weakness? If nobody has dual (or even triple) curse it's just getting overwritten. And what if there's just one big enemy left?

 

[Kammie]

That's weird, I didn't read that the first time I read it and I still don't see that even looking for it.

Enduring Cry is going to change from being a Spell to being a Warcry. Meaning CWDT would not proc it. The entire thread I linked to is talking about it. (Edit: Hadn't noticed there was a new page on the thread)

Funny, i havent used this combo ever.

Combo is OP and it should be nerfed.

Doesn't mean because you don't use it it needs to be nerfed. Try a 100% crit pierce phys bow build, especially with a 300+ DPS bow. Nothing will save you from reflect, not evasion, dodge, armor, not Vaal Pact. You will one-shot yourself unless you have the CWDT combo to stop the damage, since it procs after you take a slight bit of damage (just enough to not die).

There are other builds affected, like my flameblaster, who depends on charging skills and doesn't have a constant influx of leech. Spike/crit damage from devourers, jumping frogs, rhoas, and the mobs that blow up into spikes... these are things that randomly and constantly kill builds (any builds).

Is CWDT good gameplay design? No. But there are a hundred flaws with the balance and damage systems in PoE, not to mention the desync, and it's the only thing that makes the game playable in many cases.

 

[Zynx]

A bit late to the discussion, but my two cents:
Builds get broken all the time, it's just part and parcel of playing an online server-based game. With that said though, if the Enduring Cry change does go through, it would be a serious nerf, both to self-casters (who often pair it with spell echo), and to cwdt users.

GGG has been nerfing a lot of things in the aftermath of Forsaken Masters, and I understand: the Forsaken Masters era was a huge boon to almost everyone, with spell echo, heralds, master crafting, and more.

As for what's hazardous in PoE, like others have said, only burst damage is a threat to careful players due to how portals and logouts function. I do wonder if this will ever change or if it's too deeply ingrained into the game now.

I also was part of the club that tried self-casting EC in the past but gave up on it. (I used EC/spell echo on an RF incinerator.) But I think the reason why is that it slows down mob killing too much in a game where mobs die very quickly. If enemies were more durable, in exchange for giving more experience and better loot per monster, I think I would be open to using a larger variety of skills. Of course, PoE's design in links still makes it likely that a player will use one or two main skills at most, which is unfortunate.

Kammie, what level are you at now, in the quest for 100? You know how the experience penalty works, right? As far as I understand, towards the very end of the push to 100, it's actually better to just run low maps very quickly rather than the more expensive high level maps.

 

[Kammie]

Kammie, what level are you at now, in the quest for 100? You know how the experience penalty works, right? As far as I understand, towards the very end of the push to 100, it's actually better to just run low maps very quickly rather than the more expensive high level maps.

I'm at lvl 98, 34%.

I tried it, but it's really not faster, or in any way better; it's just an alternative method if you're a solo player. When you run packsize/domination rots you can finish very quickly with just about most groups, 40 minutes every six maps, an hour give or take with idle time, waiting, setting the party up, etc.

Yesterday I died stupidly on a lvl 77 Piety, and it took me just three rots to make up the death. The XP penalty is pretty much a non-issue, it's just a mild inconvenience!

To put it in perspective:

Lvl 98 to 99 - 10 million XP per rot, out of 294,631,836 needed. That's around 30 rots.
Lvl 99 to 100 - 7.5 million XP per rot, out of 317,515,914 needed. That's 42 rots.

Maps are also crazy cheap. In Standard I can get 3 78s for 2 exalts. Just from stuff I've sold this month, I've got enough funds to hit 100 and still keep going on my other characters.

 

[Krassus]

Do you need currency on standard Kammie? my toons on standard are never played and I can help you with expensive items / orbs to help you buy maps.

Not to mention at least one of my standard toons if not all has a shitload of 77-78's.

 

[Kammie]

Do you need currency on standard Kammie? my toons on standard are never played and I can help you with expensive items / orbs to help you buy maps.

Not to mention at least one of my standard toons if not all has a shitload of 77-78's.

Thanks for the offer, but I'm ok! I have like a 22-tab shop and currency coming in all the time, 50 exalts just for maps, 60 77s, 10 78s... I'm sure there's other people that would actually need help more than me.

Now if you have a mirror, on the other hand....

 

[Kammie]

So yesterday I decided to take my 100% pierce crit Puncture build (single-target and LMP) and try out Split Arrow, since the Puncture nerf made LMP Puncture no longer viable even solo.

100% pierce crit SA, even with Vaal Pact, is a one-shot to reflect though. So I read around, and found this chart, and this guy's guide:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/800450

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/952208

So I tried it out. Specced into about 26000 evasion or so (65% chance to evade), then intentionally removed any accuracy from the tree or from gear, down to 1200/82%... and it works! I am now pretty much immune to reflect since I have a 95% chance to evade it.

Here is a video of this at work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRWZ9fXrj60

Amazing abuse of game mechanics. The only negative is you miss often, so the clears are slowed down a slight bit, but it's incredible how well it works.

 

[Gaming Truth]

So yesterday I decided to take my 100% pierce crit Puncture build (single-target and LMP) and try out Split Arrow, since the Puncture nerf made LMP Puncture no longer viable even solo.

100% pierce crit SA, even with Vaal Pact, is a one-shot to reflect though. So I read around, and found this chart, and this guy's guide:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/800450

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/952208

So I tried it out. Specced into about 26000 evasion or so (65% chance to evade), then intentionally removed any accuracy from the tree or from gear, down to 1200/82%... and it works! I am now pretty much immune to reflect since I have a 95% chance to evade it.

Here is a video of this at work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRWZ9fXrj60

Amazing abuse of game mechanics. The only negative is you miss often, so the clears are slowed down a slight bit, but it's incredible how well it works.

What happens when you run into that 5%? Are you geared to survive that reflect (and based on the 95% chance to avoid, it shouldn't happen back-to-backl)?

 

[Kammie]

What happens when you run into that 5%? Are you geared to survive that reflect (and based on the 95% chance to avoid, it shouldn't happen back-to-backl)?

With CWDT/Enduring Cry/Immortal Call I lose about 60% of my total life as damage, before the proc stops it.

If I didn't have this, I'd still one-shot myself.

 

[Krassus]

Give A4 news now !!!!!

 

[Gaming Truth]

Give A4 news now !!!!!

I'm assuming Act 4 launches, at the earliest, end of March or the beginning of April.

I'm also assuming that teaser information won't come out until two weeks prior to its launch.

 

[Kammie]

I'm assuming Act 4 launches, at the earliest, end of March or the beginning of April.

I'm also assuming that teaser information won't come out until two weeks prior to its launch.

Neither. The current leagues also have an unspecified duration and are not tied to 3 or 4 months.

There's no announced date. What we expect to start in April is our marketing of it - that may be what she's referring to.

Edit: This isn't us trying to be secretive for the sake of it. The scope of the expansion is huge (with large content, balance and tech changes), so we only want to start talking dates once we know we can hit them. That's why the current challenge leagues are of undecided duration (rather than us announcing an end date in advance).

http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/2wn1jq/act_4_new_leagues/

 

[psykobunny]

any neogaf poe guild would let a noob in?

 

[KKRT00]

any neogaf poe guild would let a noob in?

I can add You, but dunno if GAF guild is active.

 

[Zynx]

I can add You, but dunno if GAF guild is active.

Yeah, it's pretty damn inactive. Most of them time when I log in, I'm the only one in the guild online. But I saw Perkel online once! AFK though, or not watching guild chat.

And holy cripes it takes forever to get from level 90 to 91...lol. I'm amazed at how Kammie has it all figured out and systematically planned.

 

[Rufus]

85 is when I tap out usually. Highest I ever got was 91 or 92. Torturous.

 

[Kammie]

Yeah, it's pretty damn inactive. Most of them time when I log in, I'm the only one in the guild online. But I saw Perkel online once! AFK though, or not watching guild chat.

And holy cripes it takes forever to get from level 90 to 91...lol. I'm amazed at how Kammie has it all figured out and systematically planned.

I can get from 90 to 91 in less than four hours. lol.

The secret to leveling in this game (at least once you have one character already and have a bit of currency) is to just do 77 (packsize) or 78 (packsize+domination) rotations. Buy the maps if you have to, you'll think it may be expensive but the reality is that you're spending more otherwise rolling low level maps time and again when you die. Every rotation takes roughly one hour, since there's always idle time with people disconnecting, getting the party together, people soloing Dominus, etc. Also, rotations are nearly always very safe, since the people trying to level have really good gear. So if you sit back and don't get unlucky with desync, it's hard to die.

I'll leave you with my leveling chart for how many rots are required, and how much XP you get.

I'm at 15 or 16% through 99 at the moment. Taking it easy, will probably hit 100 in about two weeks or a little more. My next goal is buying a mirror (180 exalts, have 105 so far), and I'm kind of refusing to buy 78s, so I'm running all my 76s/77s, which slows things down significantly.

 

[psykobunny]

I can add You, but dunno if GAF guild is active.

ign:rangerpsyko Man, this game deserves more attention.

 

[Krassus]

This game will be packed when the expac hits, right now the leagues have been out for a bit.

 

[Zynx]

Well well well - end of Torment/Bloodlines announced, one-month mixed league afterwards: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1214618

So Act 4 late April at the earliest.

Thanks for the tips, Kammie. I'm not super serious about going for 91 though, it was just an off-hand observation since I noticed that I was stuck at around ~50% at 90 for a couple days now while casually doing my masters missions and a map or two. I actually die more in groups than solo because my PC performance takes a nosedive in many groups which gives me far less time to react to threats.

e: Actually, there were a bunch of people posting "Path of Exile" in that thread on gaming side about fairest F2P systems, but I don't see them posting here. Maybe we have more gaffers playing than we think but they just don't visit community.

 

[KKRT00]

ign:rangerpsyko Man, this game deserves more attention.

Ok, i'll add You today's evening

 

[Krassus]

Def going to quit Diablo for the one month now. Now I need to find something interesting to make a build for.

 

[Zynx]

1-month league info posted: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1218688

- has both torment and bloodlines features, but none of six league-specific uniques drop
- has 4 challenges - tracked separately for softcore and hardcore
- completing challenges gives you pieces of an armour MTX, looks pretty slick, actually

I was on the fence on whether to just keep playing standard (especially since I'll finally get to use my Scold's) but I think I'll give it a go, given that some of the challenges have been eased. (For some challenges, you only have to fulfill X out of Y requirements, instead of all of them.)

 

[Rufus]

Hm, that looks very doable. I might actually try to get the entire set.

 

[Krassus]

Wow the hardcore armor looks sick, guess im rolling that first

 

[Kammie]

Finally managed it!

Next up, I need about 30 or so ex to buy a mirror, and need to save up 100 more or so for a mirror fee to get a Glyph Mark. Though I probably won't buy before Act 4, as I'm afraid the Enduring Cry/warcry changes may ruin my character with regards to reflect.

 

[PhoenixDark]

1-month league info posted: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1218688

- has both torment and bloodlines features, but none of six league-specific uniques drop
- has 4 challenges - tracked separately for softcore and hardcore
- completing challenges gives you pieces of an armour MTX, looks pretty slick, actually

I was on the fence on whether to just keep playing standard (especially since I'll finally get to use my Scold's) but I think I'll give it a go, given that some of the challenges have been eased. (For some challenges, you only have to fulfill X out of Y requirements, instead of all of them.)

I'll come back for this. Initially I was just going to wait for the next league/Act IV. The hardcore league really didn't interest me, I couldn't really see the appeal or challenge of it while playing so I quit. Hopefully the next hardcore league is interesting. And of course I'm sure Act IV will be dope.

 

[Zynx]

Finally managed it!

Next up, I need about 30 or so ex to buy a mirror, and need to save up 100 more or so for a mirror fee to get a Glyph Mark. Though I probably won't buy before Act 4, as I'm afraid the Enduring Cry/warcry changes may ruin my character with regards to reflect.

Well done! And what a character name xP.

I'm also holding off on major purchases before Act 4, who knows what the game will look like. Rumors of a major weapon rebalancing to make lesser-used weapons more attractive? But with the "design notes" on abyssal cry noting that they're worried about surprising players who used to use EC as a spell, I have a feeling not as much is going to change as I expected earlier.

 

[Krassus]

HC guys, any recommendations on what to run for the 1 month for challenges?

Need something that can handle the boss challenge semi safely

 

[Zynx]

More Quality of Life stuff previewed: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1227371/page/1

Some nice stuff: Experience per hour (after some person made a third party tool for this), guild stash tab searching, life/es/mana indicators above player characters, customizing the chat box, easier itemlevel stuff, better /afk and /dnd (autoreply!)

The life/es/mana thing is actually pretty significant for me for my low life/chaos resist characters, since it's virtually impossible for me to see the rate my life is decreasing to chaos damage with my peripheral vision while paying attention to the action in the center of the screen. Right now when I see that green damage coming in I have to actually stare at my life/es globe instead of my character, which is pretty awkward.

Krassus: I don't have any suggestions since I don't have much experience HC.

 

[Pyros_Eien]

HC guys, any recommendations on what to run for the 1 month for challenges?

Need something that can handle the boss challenge semi safely

The boss challenge is gonna kinda suck regardless, but generally something that can kill Piety offscreen is your best bet, includes raging spirits, ball lightning, fireball, maybe arc(not sure what's the range on it), flameblast, various archer and wand builds. Best bet really for this challenge is getting a Zana palace mission at a low level, which makes it a ton easier.

Palace at normal range is pretty awful since a single mistake is instant death regardless of stats and you can desync if totems spawn on you or whatever which is also death generally, plus the 2nd phase is crazy if you're not super tanky, totem unique map is way too risky, Abaxoth is even worse and annoying to spawn and Atziri well, if you can do Atziri you can probably do Piety. Though I guess some builds might be better at that.

 

[Rufus]

I'm not opening another exile strongbox before I have an SSD. orz

 

[Ragnaroz]

If I ever get that lvl 80 in 1mhc I'll just buy one of the bosses. And then after I'm done with all the challenges I'll try to kill them myself, just for the hell of it.

 

[Krassus]

Used a Crit FB build I ran with back in the day to do the 4/4 on the 1m HC, Zana gave me the 77 shrine map as a daily at 69. The biggest PITA was the master mission of finding Vagan with Flicker & Toras 2 rare ones. Having AA, Cloak of Defiance, + CWDT Setup makes you pretty much a tank. Vaal skeletons for bosses & boxes is amazing too on HC.

Btw, Cyclone is amazing with two-handers.

Someone in my mapping crew is running Cyclone on HC and when we did Atziri he basically did the heavy liftning. I was impressed so I’m running with it for the SC challenges. Its amazing alright, at like 6 levels below zones I am trucking merciless. It seems pretty safe also almost like the mobs cant hit you most of the time.

 

[Rufus]

Yeah, they get stunned or die immediately. Amazing AoE, amazing single-target. If mobs wouldn't move as much they'd die even faster.
Just beware of Vaal if you ever do a maze. Desync-smash killed my Cycloner in Bloodlines. Just keep moving if he walks around, just keep moving... Sigh.

I went with crit Freeze Pulse for 1MHC as well, but then switched to Glacial Cascade. I found Cloak of Defiance before I died (it's in my stash), but all my motivation has evaporated. I'd rather play another PoE right now. But there's still well enough time to at least do the HC challenges, who knows...

 

[Krassus]

Yeah, they get stunned or die immediately. Amazing AoE, amazing single-target. If mobs wouldn't move as much they'd die even faster.
Just beware of Vaal if you ever do a maze. Desync-smash killed my Cycloner in Bloodlines. Just keep moving if he walks around, just keep moving... Sigh.

I went with crit Freeze Pulse for 1MHC as well, but then switched to Glacial Cascade. I found Cloak of Defiance before I died (it's in my stash), but all my motivation has evaporated. I'd rather play another PoE right now. But there's still well enough time to at least do the HC challenges, who knows...

It happens on HC, almost everyone on the ladder has died at this point 1-5x this league. I would for sure play again and use that CoD, that along with even a low level AA makes you almost unkillable aside from Desync.

What do you use to level your toon on HC pre Cyclone levels? I couldn't use it until 50 so was unsure what phys skill to level with. Ended up going with cleave.

 

[Rufus]

Yeah, I had three characters with Cloaks in Bloodlines, all ran Arctic Armour. AA is a-ma-zing.

I leveled with Leap Slam and Double Strike. I switched to Cyclone in Docks, not sure which difficulty. Early enough to nearly kill myself from casting it, because Blood Magic. Ahem.

 

[Zynx]

Hey, if anyone cares, there's an Apr 1 patch that makes Cats spawn with CwDT/CoMK/CoC. 24 hours only, it seems. No gameplay effect.

 

[Kammie]

Here's my Quill Rain Cats on Crit build in action:

 

[Pyros_Eien]

Yeah, they get stunned or die immediately. Amazing AoE, amazing single-target. If mobs wouldn't move as much they'd die even faster.
Just beware of Vaal if you ever do a maze. Desync-smash killed my Cycloner in Bloodlines. Just keep moving if he walks around, just keep moving... Sigh.

I went with crit Freeze Pulse for 1MHC as well, but then switched to Glacial Cascade. I found Cloak of Defiance before I died (it's in my stash), but all my motivation has evaporated. I'd rather play another PoE right now. But there's still well enough time to at least do the HC challenges, who knows...

I died at 79.5 on my summoner cause I was getting too cocky and opened an unid detonate box, which usually wouldn't matter since I flesh offering every corpses around any box just in case, but I wasn't really aware how detonate works on boxes(hadn't played since nemesis) so I ran away from the box into some corpses pretty far, and THEN it exploded the corpses. I had wrongly assumed it exploded them on opening right away and only around the box, not like one screen away, and never had an issue before since I usually clear every corpses, but not these ones.

Rerolled a tornado shot archer, now back to 67, I'm grinding slowly since it's so boring. I got helped a lot by my friend and as soon as I unlocked the map room thing I bought a piety kill for 20chaos, could have waited and found a cheaper one, but figured I'd rather buy it asap in case I die to random stupid stuff while grinding and this one was advertised like right as my friend was done opening everything in merc act3 for me.

Anyway, maybe I'll finish, maybe not, just missing the helm and it's a lot of grinding which I tend to dislike, but eh. Looking forward to act4 though, and really liked the summoner changes(or well new options), it used to be both one of my favorite spec and one that bore me the fastest due to how passive the gameplay was. This time I played with Raging spirits as my "nuke" and no spectre, and it was a ton of fun, and Flesh Offering is godlike.

 

[Krassus]

Damn that sucks dying at 79. 67-80 isn't bad at all mapping, you can knock that out in a day or two depending how much you play. Don't forget to use Global 820 for the missions, makes it much easier.

 

[MrPing1000]

Died at 77 with my blood magic cycloner Stupid death too, my last 3 high level deaths have happened in Zana maps. Was vulnerability/ele weakness gorge, got 20 stacks of corrupting blood, didn't notice, with 5k hp it drained fastttt. Was a lot of fun, will def roll him again. Might stop until Act4, not sure.

 

[Krassus]

Died at 77 with my blood magic cycloner Stupid death too, my last 3 high level deaths have happened in Zana maps. Was vulnerability/ele weakness gorge, got 20 stacks of corrupting blood, didn't notice, with 5k hp it drained fastttt. Was a lot of fun, will def roll him again. Might stop until Act4, not sure.

GD man that sucks, esp with the insane regen BM Cyclone builds have =/

 

[syko de4d]

OH MY GOD!!

THE BEST THING EVER!

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1235695

ITEM FILTER!!

this was my most wanted thing for PoE


Cant wait for act4 release to play PoE again. Half year pause to not get burned out but with the new stuff its time to jump in again.

 

[Rufus]

That's absolutely amazing.

 

[Pyros_Eien]

Damn that sucks dying at 79. 67-80 isn't bad at all mapping, you can knock that out in a day or two depending how much you play. Don't forget to use Global 820 for the missions, makes it much easier.

I had the missions done besides one which I got easily when re-leveling, it's really just the 80 thing that I need. It's not bad, but I dislike grinding. Weird considering I love playing games of this genre, but basically that's why I generally stop my chars at 60-65 or so, I love spending hours thinking of a build, working out the tree then leveling it, but as soon as I reach maps/kill piety, I get bored and generally either make another char or go play something else until new content is released.

This is actually the highest I've gotten, last one was 74 iirc, explosive arrow prolif burning witch back during release or so, before it became fotm for a while, loved the build, but yeah I have like 10ish lvl 50+ on HC and only like two higher than 65.

Surprisingly few chars on default, I think I died like, 5times now in the hundreds of hours I have played this. Twice while leveling at lower levels(fire dog in the climb and boxed by bandits+chaos snakes in black forest), one to merc piety on my summoner at release due to a weird bug or desync or whatever(piety was in fireform chasing me while shooting ice form arrows, good times) and one on merc vaal on my first explosive arrow that was too squishy, died to stun from boulder into another stun boulder into another boulder, the dream. Funny that I remember deaths from so long ago.

Anyway I'm almost done, one more day and I should be done unless I die like an idiot. Definitely looking forward to Act4 now though, new skills, new content, and that item filter is like so crazy good looking.

 

[Krassus]

That is pretty awesome, no more blues or whites unless I want them and our eyes will be saved on high end maps now with full groups. Sometimes looking through the loot on the floor takes as long as the map when you have a IIR culler.

 

[Kammie]

Had to scrounge up the last bit, but I finally made it!

Funny thing is that my Doryani's flameblast build still clears faster and better in groups.