Path of Exile - upcoming F2P Daiablo clone

[FunkMonk]

Slowly going through the story with my own Cyclone CwC Firestorm Chieftain build. Started out slow, as most attack-based builds go at league start, but it's now working out really smoothly after I switched from basic cyclone to cast while channeling. plus it looks badass to see giant meteors slam into the ground while I'm spinning to win

[frunk]

Have you dug into Heist at all yet?  Am I missing something or is it just bland?

[Iormlund]

It doesn't seem to be well thought out at all. The optimal strategy is to just run with the sentries in tow ala Benny Hill, since only killing them increases the alert level.

I've died twice to something in the automata-themed ones. One-shot when there was nothing around. An on-kill effect, I guess. The second time I had a six-link and a Jeweller's touch prophecy. 

[Iormlund]

... Cyclone CwC Firestorm Chieftain build.

Doesn't the new Firestorm have a instance limit? 

[Syt]

Have you dug into Heist at all yet?  Am I missing something or is it just bland?

I haven't done any grand heists yet, but the vanilla ones are meh so far (though I'm only up to level 40-something; re-rolled with a new char; toxic rain/caustic arrrow is just more fun than strombrand ).

The way the play out for me is:
- clear way to the final chamber
- see how much alert is raised by killing all those unavoidable guards
- backtrack through the map, open some extra chests
- get the main loot
- GTFO

Some of the loot is quite ok, but it's not particularly amazing at the moment.

Harvest was all right, though I didn't really bother with Tier 3 seeds. Delirium was ok. The last league I really enjoyed a lot was Metamorph, and before that Legion and Incursion (Incursion was the first league I played). I guess I like my leagues not overly involved/complicated

[FunkMonk]

... Cyclone CwC Firestorm Chieftain build.

Doesn't the new Firestorm have a instance limit? 

Yeah 3 storms at most but there are still 3 giants meteors flying in a second and since it has a large aoe it just destroys everything that's not a rare.

I'm only level 53 now though so who knows if it will scale well enough into maps. Scaling fire of course along with physical because of conversion.

[Syt]

So reading a bit more about heists, it seems they become more interesting and involved in late game, when you've leveled your rogues, and have equipped them with gear.

Seems a bit counter to previous leagues where you had less of a ramp up (though the toughest challenges still waited in end game).

[Syt]

Some hotfixes have come in. Two of the biggest changes are that killing guards in heists doesn't increase the alarm level any more, and they increased the drop rate for equipment for your rogues (and also made it so you can get low level gear drops for them; I had gotten two level 5 drops before the patch, got a level 2 today).

[frunk]

I just got killed in two contracts in a row by the most vicious enemy, computer lag.  I guess I'll skip upper level contracts if they are going to overtax my two year old computer like that.

One of the many reasons why I dislike all or nothing mechanics like Heist or Labyrinth (which was made barely tolerable by rock solid stability and performance).

[Syt]

What level was that at? I'm doing contracts in the 50s, and things are smooth so far (running toxic rain).

[frunk]

What level was that at? I'm doing contracts in the 50s, and things are smooth so far (running toxic rain).

On my first character I got a 6 link Silverbranch so I created an Elemental Hit character.  Now I'm running through silver hoping I get the Silverbough prophecy.  Still clearing fine but single target is definitely lagging.

Generally it's fine until all of a sudden it freezes up.  Both contracts were in the low 60s.  In both cases it was on the return leg and it seems like there was some minion generator pumping them out.  In the first case I was killing them fine, and in fact sat for a while just killing them earning xp/loot.  I decided to advance and that's when it froze up.  In the second I stopped to clear space for a 6 socket item when suddenly a bunch of them showed up at once and it froze before I could react.

[Syt]

I find that if the gameplay becomes choppy or laggy, then it's often due to my connection. I was getting that a lot with the Frankfurt server, the Milan one seems to be working a lot better for me. However, sometimes my ISP has issues, and then the game can become unplayable.

[Iormlund]

FPS issues have basically disappeared for me since I switched to Vulkan.

[Iormlund]

I'm finding early endgame a lot more unfocused than usual. I have a ton of Heists and have been running Delve as well. Which means I have almost no maps and my highest was a tier 6. No conquerors defeated yet.

Finally went with a Winter Orb totem build. I spent a day or two creating a build that could start relatively strong and reach pretty stupid damage numbers if I decide to keep playing. Mitigation courtesy of MoM and Glancing Blows.

I tend to six-link stuff myself. But this league I invested instead my early fortune on a six-linked Soul Mantle. Add a Light of Lunaris and some cheap stuff and I'm doing almost 1 million DPS with buffs on.

Still have a gaping hole on my cold and chaos resists, though. And need at least 1k more life. The build is eminently defensive, though, so usually I just jump around cursing, triggering Arcane Cloak and lobbing Frost Bombs while the totems do their thing.

[Syt]

Finally finished the campaign - did a fair amount of heisting, though grand heists are bloody expensive.

Still, I don't recall the last time I got to maps with my resistances and defenses looking so good (though life is a tad low), much less on a Shadow.