Path of Exile 3.0 (the other Diablo clone)

[lord_khaine]

So.. im starting on maps, and finally began getting some unique items. Recently found a rather nice helm that made me considder a fire based build. It has +40% fire damage.

But how does that stack up with everything else?

[Drasius]

So.. im starting on maps, and finally began getting some unique items. Recently found a rather nice helm that made me considder a fire based build. It has +40% fire damage.

But how does that stack up with everything else?

Generally speaking you normally have ~3-400'ish % increased damage of your prefered skill, if not more, so it's OK (about an 8-10% increase or even less dependant on how much increased you've got on the tree and other gear), but unless it's got other really good stats, probably not something to build around.

I'm guessing Hrimnor's Resolve? It's got a bit of life, a medium amount of cold resist and can't be Chilled/Frozen which is nice since it frees up a flask suffix if you're not already using Kaom's boots. Probably a decent choice for something like a molten striker maybe? Generally speaking, if you want a vauge idea if your unique is worth building around, it usually has to either have really high defence/damage or do something special that a rare can't do since a rare can/should have at least 60 life and at least 80% total resistances while a weapon is usually judged based on DPS (or spell damage/cast speed/attack speed/crit/crit multi if a caster weapon).

[Sian]

messing around with a character builder and got an idea that have absolutely no right to be good but looks hilarious enough that it just might be worth trying

Wanded Gladiator looking at using Kinetic Blast (or Barrage) for clearing and Elemental Hit for Bossing

[Siosilvar]

>28% increased maximum Life
>10% increased Energy Shield

You're not gonna be able to play the game. You can build wands, you can build wands with Duelist. You *can't* build with less than ~120% maximum life and go into a map for more than about 5 seconds without instantly dying, and 150-180% is recommended to be able to take a few hits from bosses. If you try to play that you'll spend a lot of time frustrated sitting in your hideout, even if you hit max block and successfully kite around with your range.

Physical wand builds also tend to be exorbitantly expensive to buy gear for; elemental wands are a lot cheaper. I'd drop all the %phys damage nodes and focus on generic wand damage plus a TON more life.

I'd also recommend downloading Path of Building since it's a lot more powerful a tool than any of the online builders.

[Sian]

>28% increased maximum Life
>10% increased Energy Shield

You're not gonna be able to play the game. You can build wands, you can build wands with Duelist. You *can't* build with less than ~120% maximum life and go into a map for more than about 5 seconds without instantly dying, and 150-180% is recommended to be able to take a few hits from bosses. If you try to play that you'll spend a lot of time frustrated sitting in your hideout, even if you hit max block and successfully kite around with your range.

Physical wand builds also tend to be exorbitantly expensive to buy gear for; elemental wands are a lot cheaper. I'd drop all the %phys damage nodes and focus on generic wand damage plus a TON more life.

I'd also recommend downloading Path of Building since it's a lot more powerful a tool than any of the online builders.

I Know it doesn't have enough life, it's merely an off-the-wall idea that obviously needs to be padded with life to work

[lord_khaine]

I'm guessing Hrimnor's Resolve? It's got a bit of life, a medium amount of cold resist and can't be Chilled/Frozen which is nice since it frees up a flask suffix if you're not already using Kaom's boots. Probably a decent choice for something like a molten striker maybe? Generally speaking, if you want a vauge idea if your unique is worth building around, it usually has to either have really high defence/damage or do something special that a rare can't do since a rare can/should have at least 60 life and at least 80% total resistances while a weapon is usually judged based on DPS (or spell damage/cast speed/attack speed/crit/crit multi if a caster weapon).

Wow thats kinda impressive. From only knowing it had a 40% bonus fire damage. But yes, i were uncertain about if this helmet were one of those things that did something especial, because i were not certain if +fire damage stacked addictively or multiplicatively with my increased elemental damage.

Also, im curious about how far up my first build here can get into the maps now
After having seen how specialised other builds are then im accepting it wont be enough to actually beat any optimal bosses.

[Drasius]

Wow thats kinda impressive. From only knowing it had a 40% bonus fire damage. But yes, i were uncertain about if this helmet were one of those things that did something especial, because i were not certain if +fire damage stacked addictively or multiplicatively with my increased elemental damage.

Also, im curious about how far up my first build here can get into the maps now
After having seen how specialised other builds are then im accepting it wont be enough to actually beat any optimal bosses.

Unless something says more, it's additive*.

If you can beat Kitava without dying more than 5 times, then you should be able to get to yellow maps without too much difficulty.

*Unless it's the only thing that increases damage taken (like Belt of the Deciever), then while technically also additive with itself, it also acts like a more since it's on the other side of the damage equation and it's pretty rare to have more than 1 of them.

In other news, my Frost Blade Raider got absolutely pumped against Doedre in Act 8. 15 deaths and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it as she'd basically insta-gib me on the red phase and very often 2 shot me on the green/purple phase. I have no idea WTF happened either as she's been on virtual cruise control up 'till now. Her HP isn't even terrible at ~2200 (considering she's a Raider), fortify up, a moderate amount of leech, and damage was atrocious despite a ~6k tooltip, frost bomb and Frostbite. Maybe just a combination of not having phase acro and relying on evasion up until now and I assume her spells ignore it, but I just can't figure out why her damage was so bad?

[SlyGuyMcFly]

If you can beat Kitava without dying more than 5 times, then you should be able to get to yellow maps without too much difficulty.

It is kinda wonky that the final story boss is harder than anything in the endgame until, like, Normal Atziri or some of the mid-tier bosses, isn't it?

Act 8. 15 deaths and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it as she'd basically insta-gib me on the red phase and very often 2 shot me on the green/purple phase. I have no idea WTF happened either as she's been on virtual cruise control up 'till now. Her HP isn't even terrible at ~2200 (considering she's a Raider), fortify up, a moderate amount of leech, and damage was atrocious despite a ~6k tooltip, frost bomb and Frostbite. Maybe just a combination of not having phase acro and relying on evasion up until now and I assume her spells ignore it, but I just can't figure out why her damage was so bad?

Were you hitting the valve to drop debuff stacks? Red and Purple are both really bad, I suggest extending green phases as long as possible and ending red and purple ASAP. Avoid killing the adds for as long as you can, then kill 'em for flask charges and switch phases until you get back to green ASAP. The bubbles in red phase stack +damage taken and the purple chaos DoT clouds apply a stacking slow. The green debuff is reduced damage dealt, but it's applied by the adds on death so it's (relatively) easy avoid stacking it. I think she mostly deals phys spell damage so she's basically ignoring all your defences other than raw HP. Maybe an Amethyst flask to help with purple phase and basalt to get you through red? I... don't actually know if those are available by A8, come to think of it.

[Drasius]

It is kinda wonky that the final story boss is harder than anything in the endgame until, like, Normal Atziri or some of the mid-tier bosses, isn't it?

Sort of/not really. Remember Merciless Malachai? The only reason why the forum wasn't (even more) full of complaints about him was that everyone skipped him because of the fact that you didn't need to do anything more than free Deshret for your last skillpoint and then go map your brains out. The fact that his quest reward was a rare T1 map also made it not worthwhile to go kill him. And that's after he was nerfed twice.

Were you hitting the valve to drop debuff stacks? Red and Purple are both really bad, I suggest extending green phases as long as possible and ending red and purple ASAP. Avoid killing the adds for as long as you can, then kill 'em for flask charges and switch phases until you get back to green ASAP. The bubbles in red phase stack +damage taken and the purple chaos DoT clouds apply a stacking slow. The green debuff is reduced damage dealt, but it's applied by the adds on death so it's (relatively) easy avoid stacking it. I think she mostly deals phys spell damage so she's basically ignoring all your defences other than raw HP. Maybe an Amethyst flask to help with purple phase and basalt to get you through red? I... don't actually know if those are available by A8, come to think of it.

I tried for a bit to cycle the phases, but in the end, I was so busy running around trying not to die (and failing) that I couldn't even break her energy shield. In the end, after a handful of deaths and not getting anywhere, I corpse rushed her in the green phase and just got it over with (and it still took forever). It's not like half a level of XP is that bad of a loss at lvl 53.

[N810]

"Remember Merciless Malachai?" Yep I have exactly one character who managed to beat him Solo,
it must have taken me 1/2 an hour and my average life expectancy was only a couple of seconds each try.

[Sian]

Well for what it's worth i just killed act5 Kitava with my 46 Gladiator, with 'only' 3 deaths ... all against the second add phase, since the Shamans of the Feast pretty nearly instagibbed

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Sort of/not really. Remember Merciless Malachai? The only reason why the forum wasn't (even more) full of complaints about him was that everyone skipped him because of the fact that you didn't need to do anything more than free Deshret for your last skillpoint and then go map your brains out. The fact that his quest reward was a rare T1 map also made it not worthwhile to go kill him. And that's after he was nerfed twice.

Yeah, GGG has a track record for overtuned bosses. I remember Merc Dominus was pretty ridiculous too, back when he was the last boss. Allegedly Lunaris Piety was a right terror as well, back in the day. But as you say, the situation with Malachai was such that he was little more than an optional boss you only killed to prove your build could handle him. Kitava serving as gatekeeper to the endgame makes the situation a lot less acceptable.

Nerf Kitava or buff low maps, I say.

I tried for a bit to cycle the phases, but in the end, I was so busy running around trying not to die (and failing) that I couldn't even break her energy shield. In the end, after a handful of deaths and not getting anywhere, I corpse rushed her in the green phase and just got it over with (and it still took forever). It's not like half a level of XP is that bad of a loss at lvl 53.

When in doubt, bury them with your own corpse. That was my go-to strategy for Merc Dominus, way back when.

[N810]

The other one I found crazy difficult, was ironically the act 1 boss Merveil, the Siren,
mostly on the harder difficulties.

[Astral Avenger]

I usually steamrolled merveil on cruel and merciless, it was normal that I struggled with her.

[N810]

Well she used to be easy but they made he a lot tougher this spring... or maybe it was early summer.
Gave all new attacks and everything, also she would spawn tons of nasty minions.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Unless something says more, it's additive*.

If you can beat Kitava without dying more than 5 times, then you should be able to get to yellow maps without too much difficulty.

*Unless it's the only thing that increases damage taken (like Belt of the Deciever), then while technically also additive with itself, it also acts like a more since it's on the other side of the damage equation and it's pretty rare to have more than 1 of them.

In other news, my Frost Blade Raider got absolutely pumped against Doedre in Act 8. 15 deaths and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it as she'd basically insta-gib me on the red phase and very often 2 shot me on the green/purple phase. I have no idea WTF happened either as she's been on virtual cruise control up 'till now. Her HP isn't even terrible at ~2200 (considering she's a Raider), fortify up, a moderate amount of leech, and damage was atrocious despite a ~6k tooltip, frost bomb and Frostbite. Maybe just a combination of not having phase acro and relying on evasion up until now and I assume her spells ignore it, but I just can't figure out why her damage was so bad?

What's your cold penetration? IIRC, Doedre has high resists across the board, couple that with the damage nerf debuff and I'm not surprised you were shooting cotton candy. And low DPS means low leech. Combo that with the 'take more damage' debuff, and yea... it's pretty brutal.

Not sure how to fix it, though, since I am by no means an expert on the game. Everything at that level seems to be some tradeoff or another, and tailoring gear gets exponentially more expensive at that level.

[Greg_S]

Made it to Act 9, and decided to farm a tabula rasa for my scorching ray shadow. Going from 3 supports to 5 has made a pretty big difference in the ol' DPS. I've had a pretty easy time with the act bosses, and only died once to Doedre, but I anticipate Kitava rolling me. This character really needs space to run away and lay down flammability & orb of storms to trigger EE and EO, but the available space in Act 5's Kitava fight was so small; I'd try to get away from the hordes and they'd be on top of me again.

I've got >180% life planned from this tree and I should be able to grab acrobatics & phase acrobatics, but being a DoT build means I can't take advantage of warlord's mark or leech- at least, I don't think I can. Hopefully I can do at least a little mapping before that makes it impossible to progress.

[Astral Avenger]

I decided to try a vortex berserker intending to pickup EO giving me 3 different 40% more damage multipliers. The biggest thing I still need to work out are weapon plan and helpful uniques. I'm thinking I'll probably use staves. I have a realm shaper that i can upgrade with a prophecy when i hit 40, and that should be enough to get me to 68 for a pledge of hands. Only other option I've thought of would be a divinarius, but I've mostly played melee characters before, so i dont know the spellcasting weapons well. I'll try and remember to post a tree for anyone who wants to copy my idea or fix it (halp, im trying to do a maurader caster, halp) in the morning when I'm on my computer.

[Drasius]

The other one I found crazy difficult, was ironically the act 1 boss Merveil, the Siren,
mostly on the harder difficulties.

I usually steamrolled merveil on cruel and merciless, it was normal that I struggled with her.

Well she used to be easy but they made he a lot tougher this spring... or maybe it was early summer.
Gave all new attacks and everything, also she would spawn tons of nasty minions.

Back in the day, you had to stack at least 50% cold resist in normal or she'd chain freeze you with Ice Spear, and even then it was a bit iffy. I'm not sure I remember her getting buffed recently though...

What's your cold penetration? IIRC, Doedre has high resists across the board, couple that with the damage nerf debuff and I'm not surprised you were shooting cotton candy. And low DPS means low leech. Combo that with the 'take more damage' debuff, and yea... it's pretty brutal.

Not sure how to fix it, though, since I am by no means an expert on the game. Everything at that level seems to be some tradeoff or another, and tailoring gear gets exponentially more expensive at that level.

I had both jewels, frost bomb and frostbite, so, about -94%. Should have been enough by a mile, which is why I'm not sure why she failed so hard. I didn't die even one with my stormcaller the first time though going in blind and with absolutely trash for gear, so I'm really stumped.

Made it to Act 9, and decided to farm a tabula rasa for my scorching ray shadow. Going from 3 supports to 5 has made a pretty big difference in the ol' DPS. I've had a pretty easy time with the act bosses, and only died once to Doedre, but I anticipate Kitava rolling me. This character really needs space to run away and lay down flammability & orb of storms to trigger EE and EO, but the available space in Act 5's Kitava fight was so small; I'd try to get away from the hordes and they'd be on top of me again.

I've got >180% life planned from this tree and I should be able to grab acrobatics & phase acrobatics, but being a DoT build means I can't take advantage of warlord's mark or leech- at least, I don't think I can. Hopefully I can do at least a little mapping before that makes it impossible to progress.

If you're a trickster, well, given that the first HC shaper kill ~2 days into the league was a RF/scorching ray trickster, well, I'm fairly sure you'll be fine.

I decided to try a vortex berserker intending to pickup EO giving me 3 different 40% more damage multipliers. The biggest thing I still need to work out are weapon plan and helpful uniques. I'm thinking I'll probably use staves. I have a realm shaper that i can upgrade with a prophecy when i hit 40, and that should be enough to get me to 68 for a pledge of hands. Only other option I've thought of would be a divinarius, but I've mostly played melee characters before, so i dont know the spellcasting weapons well. I'll try and remember to post a tree for anyone who wants to copy my idea or fix it (halp, im trying to do a maurader caster, halp) in the morning when I'm on my computer.

Caster Berserker is the meta because you get free leech and don't have to run warlords mark or "waste" a slot on leech gems. Have a look at the influx of Dark Pact Berserkers (which have sadly made Vortex/Shock Nova/Ice Nova nigh obsolete). Fire conversion and EE is usually the way to go for vortex since the DoT can't be changed to fire, so the burst does fire and procs EE and then they take the cold DoT at -50%. Sadly the change to ground effects for chill have lessened the defensive aspect of vortex, but I'd suggest that it's still playable.

[Sian]

found a Jewel that gives me +27% phys damage by dual wielding Daggers, and +16% poison ... what build would that be sexy in?

[Drasius]

found a Jewel that gives me +27% phys damage by dual wielding Daggers, and +16% poison ... what build would that be sexy in?

None because poison sucks and daggers are for caster mods Uh, any build that duel wields daggers and makes use of poison? To be honest, if a jewel doesn't have +[x]% life (or ES if you're one of the 3 builds where ES is better), then it's not usually "worth it". If you absolutely had to use it, some sort of blade flurry assassin build I guess? Mathil did a nice guide on a poisoner a while back but that was using a Wasp's Nest claw, but if you just trade out the claw nodes for dagger nodes, you should be able to make it work roughly the same with a Bino's or some silly high physical dagger (good luck with that).

Said guide:

Spoiler

Show

[Drasius]

Since I can't post 2 videos in 1 post:

For whomever was asking about strongboxes a while ago (and anyone else relatively new), one of the streamers has put up an updated guide:

Spoiler

Show

His comment re: Engineer orbs
"I doubt engineer's orbs are sticking around but just in case: Any box that is worth Alching or Alteration spamming is worth an 4 enginner's orbs while it's white (4 Engi on a White box = 20% quality). Arcanists, Cartos, Diviners and Jewellers in maps that drop steel/opal/crystal."

[Tome]

Just got Bitterdream as a drop. Kinda tempted to try it out, just to see if the pseudo-9 link is worth it at all. (It probably isn't with the supports being mostly level 1.)

Then again, I do keep getting these really nice spell and lightning damage shields...

[SlyGuyMcFly]

GGG have posted a bunch of stats for Harbinger League. Apparently I'm using both the 1st and 3rd most popular skills and four out of the ten most popular uniques, so you may call me a filthy meta slave.

[Tome]

It'd be nice if the super popular wise oak and devoto's devotion sold for more than 4c.

*has sold both of those*

*still needs a bunch more currency to buy her Shavronne's Wrappings*

[Drasius]

It'd be nice if the super popular wise oak and devoto's devotion sold for more than 4c.

*has sold both of those*

*still needs a bunch more currency to buy her Shavronne's Wrappings*

Be nice if either of those (or the Shav's) would drop for me.

Had a crazy idea for a Storm Burst build, so I whip out my Lightning Coil and start pumping Jewelers into it and get 6S in maybe 20 jewelers. OK, time for fusings: get a 5 link in ~10 fuses and sit there stumped as I can assuredly not get the colours I want for it any time soon (at least 4B 1G with the last probably being B or maybe G) but now I'm too scared to try for 6 links as it's already solid for a couple of other builds as a 5 link with 4R1G 1G, but they'll require a bunch of re-gearing to nullify the lightning penalty. Decided to just level with a tabula until 60 and I can worry about it then (hopefully when I have a lot more Chromes).

[Sian]

When/where do people use Silver Coins most 'efficiently'? ... as they drop?, on the highest level character?

[lord_khaine]

For whomever was asking about strongboxes a while ago (and anyone else relatively new), one of the streamers has put up an updated guide:

Thanks a lot, that was a surprisingly informative video, especially the suggestion about corrupting armor boxes. I do have a handful of Vaal orbs i were unsure what should be used for.

[Starwulf]

Interesting statistics. As usual I don't seem to match up with the most popular builds, which isn't surprising considering I still haven't decided on what I'm actually going to do with my shadow. Almost level 50 now, about to go after Kitava. Had to spend some of my currency to upgrade my gear(I've had crap luck for gear drops), went from 30ish on all resists to maxed, and from 1100 life to 1500. Only cost me 6 alch and 1 chaos to do it, so well worth it as I noticed the difference immediately. Still just running Frost blades for AoE and Viper Strike for bosses, though I did just add multi-strike to Viper and it's made a monstrous difference(wiped out Izaro in normal labyrinth pretty quickly).

If anyone has any suggestions for fun Shadow builds(Dual wield preferably, though I haven't invested to many passives in dual wield nodes yet, so it wouldn't be a huge hardship to change them), I'm open to hearing them. While Frost Blades and Viper strike is fun/fine for now, I imagine it's not going to last me into Maps(Hell, probably not even that far I imagine).

Edit: Whew, decided to buy new weapons. Went all out, ended up spending 8c, but my Frost blades went from 2400 to 4800, and my Viper Strike went from 4200 to 8900. Can't complain at all, that should last me until I start end-game honestly. Kitava better watch out, Imma whup their god booty back to wherever they came from!

[Drasius]

When/where do people use Silver Coins most 'efficiently'? ... as they drop?, on the highest level character?

Generally later (ie maps), though the way prophecies work has changed a bit since they used to be tied to the 3 difficulty settings and whichever difficulty you used them in was where they had to trigger, so everyone just waited until merciless. Now, you're still advised to wait since many prophecies are still level dependant IIRC, as well as the fact that for armour and 2 handers especially, # of sockets is limited by the level of the area they drop in, so for example, getting a belly of the beast in act4 will limit how many sockets you can get compared to getting one in maps.

There's also a bunch of common crap like read an ancient writing or improve an armour/weapon that crop up a bunch, so I tend to leave them unfinished so when I cycle the good less bad prophecies, I only waste my coins on crap 70% of the time instead of 90%.

Edit: one of the better examples is the double/triple master XP ones since a regular master mission in a level 10 area gives ~350 XP while a regular mission in a lvl 70 area gives ~7350, so you might as well wait until it's "worth" it to spend the coins for them.

Thanks a lot, that was a surprisingly informative video, especially the suggestion about corrupting armor boxes. I do have a handful of Vaal orbs i were unsure what should be used for.

One of the other main uses for Vaals is corrupting red maps if you're trying to complete your atlas (not common for most people 'cause many red maps suck and running them would interfere with their shaped drops. The other is corrupting common uniques to get special implicits, some of the more notable being +1 curse on amulets, +1 endurance charges on belts, +1 frenzy charges on boots, +1 arrow on quivers etc. A niche use is corrupting maps with multiple bosses (eg racecourse, Vaal Temple, Shipyard etc) to get more sacrifice fragments so you can run Atziri, though that's a lot less common. Oh, and of course, getting +1 gem levels or turning a gem into its Vaal counterpart if you can't seem to find/trade for one.

Keep in mind though, Vaaling stuff is usually just a good way to break whatever it was you used it on, so much like any other form of gambling, don't Vaal what you can't afford to lose.