Path of Exile - upcoming F2P Daiablo clone

[frunk]

I think I've finally found a minion build I'm really enjoying.  Last league I ran a Golem build that was neat but died in the endgame.  Now I'm doing a Dominating Blow/Herald of Purity Guardian with Auras out the wazoo (Haste, Discipline, Wrath, Hatred plus 2 Heralds and a War Banner) that is quite fun.

I'm leveling a Minion Guardian now.

I'm finding Dominating Blow really clunky. It's got almost no range and it is really hard to tag stuff before it dies. The attack itself does so little damage compared to the minions that I can't keep up my Herald of Purity sentinels unless I use some other skill to deal the final blow.

I was using Smite before, which was much more usable. However, the buff it gives has really poor scaling.   

Number 1, make sure you put a melee splash support on it.  It's tricky to use, you need fast movement/movement skills to get ahead of your minions to tag fresh victims, then sag back into their protection when you encounter anything beefy.  Being a heavy aura build helped a lot with that.

[frunk]

Thinking about the future of PoE, they need to change the way they integrate old content.  Right now when you get to maps you get dailies for Incursion, Bestiary, Betrayal, Zana and Delve.  It's tough to focus on one but easy to do a bit of everything.  You can theoretically concentrate on one if you work Betrayal to get Scarabs that increase the return on maps, but now it is significantly tougher to focus on Betrayal.  I'm assuming it's also easier to focus if you party up, but since I always do SSF I'm not sure what that's like.

The net result is that attention is spread thin across very deep content.  I'm not sure I'll ever get to the Mastermind from Betrayal again.  I don't think I'll ever get to a Delve boss again.  As it was I only got to one after playing Delve and Betrayal heavily, and not even the main one.  I've never gotten (and probably never will) to the Bestiary bosses as I mostly skipped the league.  Incursion boss is easier to get to, but a lot of room effects I'll probably never see again.  Zana and Elder/Shaper are different since that can be advanced through all maps.  I'm not planning to play much of Synthesis so I doubt I'll get to any boss fights.  If I don't do it now my chances of getting to it later are minimal.

I think it would be better if we could choose to focus on particular content easier.  If I want to spend most of my time collecting Sulphite and Delving, let me.  Why can't I just do maps with Incursions and Temples?  You should be able to squeeze the Syndicate for all it's worth if that's all you want to do.  Not being able to do this makes casual play more frustrating since you can only get a superficial interaction with a bunch of content, particularly if you do this league after league.  I suppose it argues for just doing Standard, but it still spreads attention even though I suppose it would let me get there over the long term.

[crazy canuck]

I agree.  I only spend an hour or two on this game a week, if I play it at all.  The side content is an annoying distraction.

[Iormlund]

I got a Dancing Dervish drop, so I bought a cheap Facebreaker to go with it. Consecrated ground takes care of movement and helps keep the Sentinels of Purity and rampage up. All I'm missing are some Holy skins for my zombie meatshields.

[Syt]

I was checking out Enki's updated arc witch build. I'm not enjoying it as much as the 3.5 version. He switched shield charge with whirling blades which I don't like much. He also added Lightning Spire Trap for boss encounters, and Lightning brand for triggering buffs.

Biggest change is putting the energy shield on the mana, and use it for instead of mana, with various leeches and recharges to keep the pool replenished.

As a result I feel very squishy during leveling (and I've been unlucky with rolling an anti-poison flask for far). Later you switch to 30% of damage coming out of mana (=shield), but that's a long ways and many HP off.

[frunk]

Lightning Brand makes a lot of sense for buffs/cursing.  Haven't tried it yet but sounds quite viable.

Mind over Matter has long been popular, it's not surprising that Eldritch Battery is now being used so you can get full mana reservation (and so every hit takes advantage of MoM).  I'm going CI this league so none of that is available to me.

[crazy canuck]

I was checking out Enki's updated arc witch build. I'm not enjoying it as much as the 3.5 version. He switched shield charge with whirling blades which I don't like much. He also added Lightning Spire Trap for boss encounters, and Lightning brand for triggering buffs.

Biggest change is putting the energy shield on the mana, and use it for instead of mana, with various leeches and recharges to keep the pool replenished.

As a result I feel very squishy during leveling (and I've been unlucky with rolling an anti-poison flask for far). Later you switch to 30% of damage coming out of mana (=shield), but that's a long ways and many HP off.

you should go to MoM right away.  just keep pushing your mana flask button.  You are killing so fast that it stays permanently full and as Frunk said you get MoM on every hit.  You will notice a big difference in survivability.

My Purifying Flame/herald of Purity build is a lot of fun.  Everyone should be getting the minion damage passives along with the keystone that lets you share in the damage increases for minions.  Makes the Purifying Flame build that much more powerful.  My purity minions are up all the time because the Flame kills so quickly and so they are around if something a bit more tough comes along.

Going to try out Ire, but I am not sure it will register as a "hit" so I might have to give up on my herald minions when casting that.

[frunk]

you should go to MoM right away.  just keep pushing your mana flask button.  You are killing so fast that it stays permanently full and as Frunk said you get MoM on every hit.  You will notice a big difference in survivability.

Going down Syt's path is difficult though, as it's specifically designed around having a small Mana pool that gets reserved.  Linking MoM early doesn't really help survivability much.  He could beef up the Mana pool but then he'd have to respec out of it later.

[Syt]

FWIW the guide is here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1147951

[crazy canuck]

you should go to MoM right away.  just keep pushing your mana flask button.  You are killing so fast that it stays permanently full and as Frunk said you get MoM on every hit.  You will notice a big difference in survivability.

Going down Syt's path is difficult though, as it's specifically designed around having a small Mana pool that gets reserved.  Linking MoM early doesn't really help survivability much.  He could beef up the Mana pool but then he'd have to respec out of it later.

I had no problem with it.  Just need to keep the mana filling with the flasks.  If your mana is too low take off one of your auras.  That is much better than being too squishy because you are not using MoM.

In other news I am happy to report Ire does register as a "hit" and so the herald of purity minions are constantly up.  This build is the most powerful I have ever played.  Mobs melt while I channel and die before I can even discharge the bolt.  When you have a unique just target, channel, melt away the mobs, summoning the minions and discharge - rinse and repeat.

[frunk]

Ideally you want your free mana pool to be ~40% of your life for MoM.  Much less than that and you'll be getting zeroed out on mana too often and too much of the damage will bounce back to life.

[crazy canuck]

Ideally you want your free mana pool to be ~40% of your life for MoM.  Much less than that and you'll be getting zeroed out on mana too often and too much of the damage will bounce back to life.

But if you have no MoM up then all damage will always go to life.  I don't really understand the downside, unless the player doesn't want to use flasks.

[FunkMonk]

Just do EB MoM and reserve all your mana 

[crazy canuck]

Just do EB MoM and reserve all your mana 

Agreed, that is a good way to go 

[frunk]

But if you have no MoM up then all damage will always go to life.  I don't really understand the downside, unless the player doesn't want to use flasks.

It's giving up reserved mana and a flask spot, which could be used for defensive auras, defensive flasks and the passive skill.  The build eventually goes there with both, but taken at the wrong time it can screw things up.