Path of Exile - upcoming F2P Daiablo clone

[frunk]

No one here is the target audience for PoE. The target audience plays for thousands of hours and spends thousands of dollars. If they run out of content, they leave. And money runs out with them. To avoid that everything is gated behind rng and grind.
It's the same thing with most contemporary game publishers.

It's not quite true that we aren't the target audience.  Part of the appeal of these types of games is making sure there's a lot of interest to keep the twitch streamers and youtubers in traffic (and showing off MTXs).  So they don't want it to be exclusively about the whales, but have widespread draw.

[frunk]

I find annoying how flasks are established in game. Instead of being a situational boost, the standard is that you're expected to have 3-5 flask effects up at all times in end game. At that point, why not just switch them over to passive effects, similar to jewels, or at least allow them to auto-trigger? It's unnecessary and cumbersome busy work.

I'd be onboard with changing them so that press and holding the flask buttons would change them from press to activate to auto-activate when last activation finished (and below some threshold for life/mana flasks).

[Iormlund]

The piano flask thing is a common gripe. I'd rather have them become either permanent or powerful CDs.

[Iormlund]

I rolled an exploding Raging Spirits necro. Still doing white maps, but damage seems pretty good so far. I've got some Tukohama's Vanguard spectres* as added single target damage, though so far it's not really needed.

For defense I went with Fortify, Bone Armor and MoM (without EB). It should give me about 10k combined effective HP. For mitigation I'm getting some armor and thinking of adding some block via Mistress of Sacrifice, perhaps with the Legion timeless jewel if they are affordable. Life regen could be an issue, since Necros don't really leech (except The Baron).



* The ones that cast Scorching Ray totems.

This is now my most developed build ever. Level 90.

Main DPS courtesy of exploding Raging Spirits. Working on a 6 link for my Scorching Ray totem Spectres. All in all, that would put me comfortably over 1m shaper DPS (depending on how many totems are around).

Defensively I have:

• Boosted MoM with about 8k combined life and mana pools, plus 2k more from the Necro Steelskin analogue.
• 78% elemental and 30% chaos resistance.
• Fortify on Shield Charge.
• Mistress of Sacrifice leading to around 60% Attack & 40% Spell block.
• Timeless jewel that transfers 20% mana to life per sec, fed with one of those chaining mana flasks and a 20% damage taken gained as mana Watcher's Eye. That's about 1k life and 850 mana regen per sec, before taking into account the mana gained from damage taken.
• Four utility flasks (Basalt, Quicksilver, Sulphur and Granite), though I will probably put an Aquamarine for Elder.
• Stone Golem taunt.

I could min-max it even more, but I fail to see the purpose. I could buy lvl 21 gems, a 5-10 exalt Watcher's Eye and a pseudo 7-link bone helmet, but having spent maybe 1 exalt at most I cruise through red maps half afk. Doesn't matter what boss, Syndicate member or Beast is around. I can face tank it and kill it in seconds.

I do have a tier 11 Blight map I'm really looking forward to do. I do those with my two newbie mates, working as the tower builder/pump guardian (one is a Divine Ire ignite AoE monster and the other a cyclone/Viper strike poison boss-shredder).

[frunk]

Nice Build.  I have an exploding Skely build I should get back to.

I've been having fun with a goofy dual wield Deadeye Cobra Lash leveraging Icefang Orbit and Touch of Anguish.  70% more damage due to 7 chains is pretty nice.  I'd love to get a Gloomfang right now.

[frunk]

Ludicrous Speed Build, with thrilling Race.

[Iormlund]

 

Missed opportunity to use Chariots of Fire.

[Iormlund]

The new mission system is really extending the life of the league for me. I usually play less than 1 hour per day so it's ideal. Whenever I feel like it I run some Delve, since I have more than enough Nico missions. I've also got quite a few recipes unlocked from Syndicate.

But the best one is Zana: using those with a couple of mates and the map drop is insane compared to previous leagues. I'm getting over half a dozen red maps per Zana'd red map. Without chisels or anything, just alched/vaaled.

We killed our first Elder yesterday and one of the Synthesis bosses today. Got also an Abyss dude who dropped a Tombfist.

[frunk]

The new mission system is really extending the life of the league for me. I usually play less than 1 hour per day so it's ideal. Whenever I feel like it I run some Delve, since I have more than enough Nico missions. I've also got quite a few recipes unlocked from Syndicate.

But the best one is Zana: using those with a couple of mates and the map drop is insane compared to previous leagues. I'm getting over half a dozen red maps per Zana'd red map. Without chisels or anything, just alched/vaaled.

We killed our first Elder yesterday and one of the Synthesis bosses today. Got also an Abyss dude who dropped a Tombfist.

I agree.  I can Run Jun until I get the Mastermind and then save it for when I feel like running a character to beat it.  I can run Nico on one character that I'm leveling up then Delve with another that's better at it.  Collect a bunch of Einhar then plow through them all at once.  It's been great. 

[frunk]

So I get the Lapidary Lens set up at just the right time for when my Cobra Lash gets to level 20 with 20% quality.  Predictably it drops the quality to 14 and the level to 19.  Twice as good as a normal Vaal Orb!

[Iormlund]

 

I've never successfully corrupted a gem, though I got a couple 21-23 gems dropped from legion chests.


Got a red Elder to spawn and will kill him when my mates are on this week, then start working on completing the Atlas to maybe do Shaper as the league finale.

Already looking for builds for next league. Maybe something with Raider, the QoL of permanent phasing and onslaught seem nice.
For my mates I think something like Jugg and Cobra Lash Assassin.

[frunk]

I've made some level 21 gems, but never gotten the quality above 20.

[frunk]

So my latest build is terrible for this league but I'm having a blast with it.  It's level 77 and I can cruise through tier 10 maps.  Blights are another story.  If the Blight has one main path it's trivial.  In fact I can press and hold one attack for the whole Blight.  Two paths I can handle.  3 paths are trouble and 4 is very difficult.

The build?  Charged Dash with Hand of Wisdom and Action.  I have to build in circles, and if I screw up the position too badly it's difficult to get back where I need to be.  I've realized what Charged Dash needs to improve the QoL immeasurably.  If you hold shift when you release the attack instead of jumping forward you stay where you are.  Giving the choice of where you end up would make it an excellent skill.

[Syt]

Path of Exile 2 announced ("4.0"). It will be a new campaign, but otherwise be integrated to the existing content, with the same end game content etc. So you have two ways of leveling to the endgame.

Skill gems will be completely redone. Items have a fixed set of skill gem slots and colors. Each skill gem that is slotted in an item can be turned into a six-link. There's also "meta skills" like Cast When Damage Taken which allows to slot active skills. Should lead to more variety in skill usage, and less worrying about ruining an item by re-rolling the links. Switching out items requires no re-slotting of gems, since slots will be identical (if you switch bow vs bow; obviously bow vs sword would be different).

The old campaign will be kept up to date with the new mechanics, and they will fold in new stuff as appropriate before 4.0 launch.

Release date: beta at earliest in a year (after 3.10, 3.11, 3.12 for sure).

3.9 will overhaul the Atlas. Maps can be upgraded atlas-wide to all be 14-16 Tier. New end bosses. Also: Metamorphosis challenge league. Collect green goo from enemies and assemble them into a metamorphing enemy that uses skills of the various enemies. Harder enemies/bosses elements will probably yield better rewards? New bow skills coming.

[Iormlund]

The most hilarious part was the PoE Mobile trailer and Chris Wilson's face.