OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

[LprMan]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Anyone still playing this game?

I've been tinkering with PoE for ~3 weeks. I started with a ranger, she's now lvl 54 at cruel act 3 and progressing feels rough. Only few deaths though, the bear trap guy in the beginning of act 3 normal was the first one who managed to beat me. For now I have mostly spent my time trying to learn the mechanics and skills. I have also played in some races (got the 15 point reward) and created multiple characters for trying out things (and slowly accumulating wealth in the meantime). I should start a real character soon to try out some build ideas I have... dunno if they will work at all, trial & error ftw.

All in all I like the game. Lots of options and mechanics. PoE has some rough edges (it's a small indie team after all) but huge potential. I spent ~35€ on stash tabs to support the devs, I hope they know how to put the money in good use.

 

[Kestegs]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Yea, I've been meaning to bump this thread and see how everyone is doing.

I'm still playing a lot.

I've got my tanky templar up to lvl 80 now. He's been using incinerate lately, but I think I'll try out ethereal knives soon. While the standing in one place doesn't bother me I like to be able to cast utility spells and use curses/enduring cry when I want.

My Ranger is now level 71 Abe doing pretty well, she uses chaos inoculation, Vaal pact, ghost Reaver, and does mostly physical damage with high crit chance using reason of arrows. She isn't too squishy anymore, but she really does best with something to tank.

I've got lots of builds in mind that are in the forming stages or low levels right now.

 

[coju]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Still play, but have not made it to level 80!
Tried playing some yesterday, but was laggy. Would hit a zombie, then they would explode half second later. Would shoot some skeletons, run around, then they would explode. So I played d2

 

[Moar]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

I play when I get a chance. Using hubby's comp, so I don't get much playtime. My Marauder is in merciless act 2 now and killing speed is really bad. I'm playing solo and don't trade, so I have bad gear and a lot of trouble killing stuff. It's fun though. I'll try to get past Vaal next week with my -60 chaos resist.

 

[nermind]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

I'm playing a LOT (=

....untill my monitor broke a few days ago :/ And my old monitor cannot be connected to my pc so I have to use the old pc, which runs D2 better than the new one, but wont let me past login screen in PoE. That means a couple weeks break from the game most likely.

Otherwise,my latest hardcore league character is halfway to level 83. Its a blood magic dual flame totem/ fire trap build with decent "magic find" - I'm soloing maps with ~90% item quantity and 180% item rarity on top of the map quantity bonus (which I believe is multiplicative with the others). There is still a lot of potential to increase the quantity and rarity bonuses as well as damage (the highest gems are still only level 18 and not all have quality bonus) without decreasing survivability (which ofcourse always comes first in hardcore) with the help of some very expensive and rare items, so I'm slowly working towards that. I've started levelling all the available fire skills like fireball, firestorm and incinerate to experiment with their spell totem versions and maybe even use them without spell totem support gem.This was also the first of my characters who completed the whole game solo (I was usually teaming up for some of the harder bosses and sometimes for levelling on previous characters). I can run maps with almost any affixes except "no regeneration" - because of dealing damage through totems and traps there is no way to utilise life leech, and I wouldn't risk to rely on flasks when casting a single totem costs me almost 300 life

The previous character, which hasn't died but is currently on hold was a 1h/shield ground slammer with 7 endurance charges. He is lvl 77, but his health is relatively low due to many passive points spent on endurance charge and stun passives, so I'll probably respec some of those and maybe switch to a 2h mace (finding an upgrade for his 1h mace is too hard, while there is a very powerful 2h unique that would fit the build perfectly) before taking him to maps. Overall I've learned that melees can be pretty powerful, but much like in D2 theyre very gear-dependant - without an extremely good mace that I got for him at ~lvl55 I would have struggled with dealing damage in later acts of merciless.

Its a shame I'm so busy with my main characters and inbetween them, my job and girfriend (in that order...poor girl) I dont have time to participate in the races, I know EasyG was having a lot of fun with them. Maybe I'll be more active in the next season, especially if they make the race rewards more meaningful.

 

[naranjadita]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

I'm playing the game really often.
Recently I killed Merciless Piety (who was in my opinion not even close to merciless Vaal in terms of difficulty - the effing tripod fragged me 26 times in a row before I could beat it) and was trying to derp around Eternal Laboratory.
Well, apparently, 2k hp, 13k def, 40%+ block and 1100 aoe dps is not enough to be a viable marauder.
Fellow marauders/duelists, how do I increase my HP to bizare 12k (that's what I've seen on youtube)? or 4k at least
And regarding DPS - I'm using a 160+ max dmg mace for ground slam. So is the weapon damage okay, or I should find a new one asap?

 

[Moar]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Link your build so we can have a look and comment.

 

[naranjadita]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-...EWMT2xtjQR9JN2WHkUeeR567qGO8O707yL_Pd9kj3Kw==

next point is planned to be placed in reservation reduction, so that I could level my Grace gem up.
I'm running 4 aurae ATM: Purity, Grace, Determination and Hatred. Skills used - Infernal Blow / Glacial Hammer (depending on location) (+elemental damage + blood magic) and Ground Slam (+ melee damage + added fire + faster attacks + blood magic).

Soo.. any ideas on possible improvements? I'd prefer to keep high defense and shield, if possible.

 

[nermind]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

@naranjadita: you have a lot of armor (about 4k more than my groundslammer when running grace (with iron reflexes) + determination), which makes me think youve invested quite a lot in armor passives which generally inst worth it. A few armor passives and couple granite flasks for the hard times is more than enough.

You should aim to have more than 70 (even more on chest, belt and shield) life on each of your items, and get all the life passives that aren't too far out of the way on the passive skill tree. That way you easily reach 4k+ life. The extremes like 10k+ life are only possible with godly gear like the unique chest with 1k life (but low armor and no sockets).

You should definitely buy a better mace, I used one with 240 max damage most of merciless, but good gear is scarce in hardcore and in default league you can buy much better maces than that: http://poe.xyz.is/search?league=Default&type=One+Hand+Mace&dmg_min=180&time=2013-03-25

 

[Kestegs]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Vaal is just stupidly op against any melee character. His big smash attack always his from what I've heard, so you have to manually dodge it because it will 1 shot almost any character. Shield charge can work well to quickly get away, but it's still tough.

Glad to here people are still playing!

 

[nermind]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

@naranjadita: You do not need reduced mana reservation passives unless you want to run at least 150% (before reduced mana support) total mana reservation auras. In your case its only 110% reservation so reduced mana gem will make it much less than 100% of your mana.
You can use a unique called The Covenant (which also must be cheap in default league) to run Grace as a blood magic aura using you life - you only need to use that armor as a buff item while casting grace, then switch back you real armor and youre good to play for the rest of the day

Here is a quick remake of your passive skill tree, I got rid of most damage enhancing passives and all the elemental resistances passives that only add a single reistance and some shield passives. You'll notice I've gone a long way upwards in skill tree - the 3 passives that increase your buff effectiveness (thus making auras much more powerful) is the main reason for that. There is no need to follow that build exactly, its just a general guideline, which isnt extremely far from where you are (given that you still have the free respec points from quests) - the templar life and regeneration passives as well as the buff effect passives are used by large variety of builds in PoE.

 

[Moar]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

@naranjadita: You do not need reduced mana reservation passives unless you want to run at least 150% (before reduced mana support) total mana reservation auras. In your case its only 110% reservation so reduced mana gem will make it much less than 100% of your mana.
You can use a unique called The Covenant (which also must be cheap in default league) to run Grace as a blood magic aura using you life - you only need to use that armor as a buff item while casting grace, then switch back you real armor and youre good to play for the rest of the day

Here is a quick remake of your passive skill tree, I got rid of most damage enhancing passives and all the elemental resistances passives that only add a single reistance and some shield passives. You'll notice I've gone a long way upwards in skill tree - the 3 passives that increase your buff effectiveness (thus making auras much more powerful) is the main reason for that. There is no need to follow that build exactly, its just a general guideline, which isnt extremely far from where you are (given that you still have the free respec points from quests) - the templar life and regeneration passives as well as the buff effect passives are used by large variety of builds in PoE.

I was about to post my remake of your passive tree when I saw this post. Mine was pretty much like this one. I'd go via catalyse instead of body and soul and get RT. You'd probably have problems with accuracy without and you don't have any crit nodes.

 

[LprMan]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

I'm playing solo and don't trade, so I have bad gear and a lot of trouble killing stuff. It's fun though. I'll try to get past Vaal next week with my -60 chaos resist.

That's the way I'm playing too Did you get past Vaal?

Vaal is just stupidly op against any melee character.

I tried tanking his smash attack on normal with one of my old race characters. Got oneshot with over 500hp, cannot remember what his resists were like though. Good enough indicator for me not to even try tanking that particular attack... ever.

Now I'm playing a witch, my first proper build. Currently she is lvl 65, farming act 2 merciless. Summoner is one of the more obvious choices when you take a look at the passive tree, so I picked that. I decided to hybridize the summons with fire attack, because it synergizes well with minion instability keystone and resistance reduction curse(s). Basically my idea is to curse enemies with flammability while my summons tank and kill, and then shoot a high damage fireball to ignite and burn down everything. I considered fire trap and firestorm too, but I feel fireball is better for setting stuff on fire.

Minions were really underwhelming initially, even with all the passives and support gems, but everything is better now. Hitting normal act 3 for the first time was awful, the AoE spam there wiped my summons in few seconds. If I hadn't gone for MI early, I guess I would have abandoned summons for awhile and tried to kill stuff with FB. Battlefront was the first area in act 3 where I didn't feel helpless.

I have maxed out my minion passives, not really sure what to do with rest of the points (current passive tree here). I'm going to respec the 5 stat nodes in the beginning of left side of the witch tree, I got them only to access MI as soon as I could. I might respec the 4 hp nodes far on the left too and pick similar nodes under chaos inoculation. That would grant easier access to unnatural calm (fine-tuning option really). Naturally, I'll spec some more survivability if I feel like that, everything else will go towards improving the pyromaniac side of my witch. It's just that I'm torn between straight fire/elemental damage boost, criticals and AoE boosts. Crits would help making the initial FB hit very hurty for massive burn damage, but because crits are rolled per attack instead of per target, triggering the burn might be somewhat tricky. With basic fire/elemental dmg boost and ignite support gem setting stuff on fire is much easier, because the ignite rolls are per target, but the damage would be much lower I think. AoE boosts would help with igniting and dealing damage in general, it would make curing easier and more aura radius wouln't hurt. I have also considered going for double curses, but I'm not sure if it will be worth it. Decisions, decisions...

*distant dreams of 6L Searing Touch and 20q fireball*

 

[Moar]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Yes, I got past him with only one death (I play SC since I know my limits ) to his rock phase. Wouldn't even have survived that one with a granite up.

Farming docks now to get better gear and maps. No luck on the gear yet, but maps are starting to come in at least. I'll try Piety after the next level up. I got the Lunaris waypoint, but too chicken to try her yet.

I haven't tried a witch yet, so I can't comment on your build ideas. Looked at your tree and I think you have 3 potentially wasted skill points in int nodes under the starting area. If you don't need the int, you could rather use them for somethin else (like Divine Toughness).

 

[naranjadita]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

@naranjadita: You do not need reduced mana reservation passives unless you want to run at least 150% (before reduced mana support) total mana reservation auras. In your case its only 110% reservation so reduced mana gem will make it much less than 100% of your mana.
You can use a unique called The Covenant (which also must be cheap in default league) to run Grace as a blood magic aura using you life - you only need to use that armor as a buff item while casting grace, then switch back you real armor and youre good to play for the rest of the day

Here is a quick remake of your passive skill tree, I got rid of most damage enhancing passives and all the elemental resistances passives that only add a single reistance and some shield passives. You'll notice I've gone a long way upwards in skill tree - the 3 passives that increase your buff effectiveness (thus making auras much more powerful) is the main reason for that. There is no need to follow that build exactly, its just a general guideline, which isnt extremely far from where you are (given that you still have the free respec points from quests) - the templar life and regeneration passives as well as the buff effect passives are used by large variety of builds in PoE.

O hai again!
I have a bunch of questions.

Now my marauder is doing quite ok. Not brilliant, but descent to some point.
I did consider using the Inner Force node, but I seem to not have enough medichlorians or skill points or whatever (I mean - right now, when skill points are starting to come slower and slower - I need to throw 6 or 7 skill points into plain +10 int passives just to get access to the required node).
Furthermore, Since I don't really use elemental aurae except Hatred, I don't think Inner Force is going to be a good decision damage wise (as for ~+8% cold damage I'll have to get rid of some cool damage passives like +18% mace damage or +18% one-handed damage).

I did try to use Anger and Wrath, but, taking into account large damage penalties I have on my main skill (it's Multistrike+Ground Slam), the damage added is just pathetic.

The attack speed portion added to Haste by Inner Force is just outshined by attack speed passives near Duelist starting point.

Resists bonus (as I run Purity) aren't that great, as with Purity I have slightly overstacked cold res and seriously overstacked fire and lightning res.

The only really sexy boost from IF is Defense rating, I suppose (as I use Grace, Iron reflexes and Determination). But then again, everyone says def isn't that Important, and anyway I have a good amount of it with current setup (about 18-19k without flasks).

BUT

you guys are recommending the IF so strongly, and I'm starting to doubt my conclusions and stuff.
So. Is there anything I'm missing, or Inner Force is just not worth all the skill points it requires just because you can be just as good or even better with these points invested in actual passives?


Then.
According to the info I was able to dig,
The item hunting in the game goes in two flavours: currency hunting and good ole magic find.
Which one you prefer and why?

When you do currency hunting, do you pick up all magic items to sell the for Alteration shards or just the Rares? Are magic items (not taking into account R-G-B, 6S and 5L-6L good for crafting) worth picking up in the first place?

What are good places for MFing?
I mean, I did get some uniques from Tidal Island and Ledge and even Docks, but are there any places where you can get items that are actually usable/sellable? (not just another dozen of Death Harps).


Also,
sup? Do you like the latest support and active gems?
Do you have any crazy ideas of builds based on them? (personally I tried Multistrike with Leap Slam - really funny! - Mario Style! - but all this blinking and leaping made my head hurt in, like, 10 minutes).

 

[RobbyD]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

OK, so I downloaded this and set up an account - I'm the ultimate n00b with this... but I'm going to give it a try. I'm really hoping this fills the gap that T2 didn't quite fill - but from what I've seen, I'm optimistic.

 

[Kestegs]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Welcome, Robby! Let us know if you have any questions.

O hai again!
I have a bunch of questions.

Now my marauder is doing quite ok. Not brilliant, but descent to some point.
I did consider using the Inner Force node, but I seem to not have enough medichlorians or skill points or whatever (I mean - right now, when skill points are starting to come slower and slower - I need to throw 6 or 7 skill points into plain +10 int passives just to get access to the required node).
Furthermore, Since I don't really use elemental aurae except Hatred, I don't think Inner Force is going to be a good decision damage wise (as for ~+8% cold damage I'll have to get rid of some cool damage passives like +18% mace damage or +18% one-handed damage).

I did try to use Anger and Wrath, but, taking into account large damage penalties I have on my main skill (it's Multistrike+Ground Slam), the damage added is just pathetic.

The attack speed portion added to Haste by Inner Force is just outshined by attack speed passives near Duelist starting point.

Resists bonus (as I run Purity) aren't that great, as with Purity I have slightly overstacked cold res and seriously overstacked fire and lightning res.

The only really sexy boost from IF is Defense rating, I suppose (as I use Grace, Iron reflexes and Determination). But then again, everyone says def isn't that Important, and anyway I have a good amount of it with current setup (about 18-19k without flasks).

BUT

you guys are recommending the IF so strongly, and I'm starting to doubt my conclusions and stuff.
So. Is there anything I'm missing, or Inner Force is just not worth all the skill points it requires just because you can be just as good or even better with these points invested in actual passives?


Then.
According to the info I was able to dig,
The item hunting in the game goes in two flavours: currency hunting and good ole magic find.
Which one you prefer and why?

When you do currency hunting, do you pick up all magic items to sell the for Alteration shards or just the Rares? Are magic items (not taking into account R-G-B, 6S and 5L-6L good for crafting) worth picking up in the first place?

What are good places for MFing?
I mean, I did get some uniques from Tidal Island and Ledge and even Docks, but are there any places where you can get items that are actually usable/sellable? (not just another dozen of Death Harps).


Also,
sup? Do you like the latest support and active gems?
Do you have any crazy ideas of builds based on them? (personally I tried Multistrike with Leap Slam - really funny! - Mario Style! - but all this blinking and leaping made my head hurt in, like, 10 minutes).

IF is a great skill, but you aren't that close to it, so not so sure it's really the best plan. What you really need to get is Unwavering stance. This is one of the greatest defensive skills in the game, especially since you already have iron reflexes. Basically you cannot be interrupted, besides being frozen. This includes hit recovery, blocking, and while attacking or casting a spell.

On MFing: I wrote a mini guide on a build I made over in the PoE section of this forum. You don't necessarily have to use that build, but I think it's a good proof of concept that Solaris 3 is one of the best MF spots in the game right now. They are going to completely change the area levels of act 3 in about a week though. Looks like they will boost solaris 3 up to level 63 (from 62) and that should make it even better.

I don't pick up blue items to sell, just rares. You could do currency hunting if you want, but it just seems ineffective to me.

 

[TheNix]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Ok I've been playing for a while, I have a marauder at about level 21 and I suppose things are going ok. The problem is I've got my stash full of mostly unidentified magic items that I have no idea what to do with, a left over from playing D2 I suppose. Should I just sell the lot? What mods are worth keeping? I've created two other characters (ranger and witch) to give me space in my stash, but I just keep filling up with crap.

 

[Cyrax1]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Good question Nix, that's something that i'm also still figuring out.

Played some more yesterday with my marauder. He's lvl 12 now if i'm not mistaken. Had one fight where there were some really hairy moments. Yet somehow i managed to get out in one piece. Maybe this co-op play thing isn't such a bad thing after all. :whistling:

Managed to find out how to squelch all the messages spamming my screen (they even put spamstegs to shame). What a relief to finally being able to see the screen!

After several more accidental clicks on the bar of the screen i've decided to go fullscreen before it would cause a death. Much better.

Something that amazes me is the lag. Or rather the lack of it. So far i've only experienced 2 slight moments of lag. Maybe the fact that i'm still doing it solo has something to do with that.

What did annoy me was the resetting of the areas. The idea itself i like, but it seems like i was in the next area longer than the timer is set and running back to the waypoint, the map of the previous area is gone! No more wp and filled with monsters. Can't going on defeating them, cause my backpack is already full and that way the other area is gonna reset itself.
Maybe areas should only be reset if you spend that amount of time in town or not moving at all or something, but i'd say that feature could use some tweaking.

Found out that i have a huge lack of dex and int. Plenty of strength, but i have several items that i'd like to wear but can't because i don't meet the requirements. Found the part in the passive tree that could fix that but i'm quite far away from it. Next point will go to resist all (since i was going for that and i'm only 1 point away from it). After that i'll be going for dex/int.

Some questions, maybe some are easy, but i haven't looked into all the aspects of the game yet:
- Reading TheNix' comment i'm wondering how items can be transferred between your chars. Is it a shared stash? And does it become bigger with more chars?
- Kestegs mentioned i should get on mumble. Is that used for ingame chat or is it more like hamachi is for D2?
- If you've silenced the trade channel and whatever the channel you're in is called can you still receive messages from people?
- I suppose you need to be in the same gateway and league to be able to join games with one another?

Surely there'll be more questions later, but this is enough as i'm gonna start up PoE to play some more!

 

[coju]

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

shared stash between leagues. (active gomule, i suppose)
You can still receive pm's from people, and messages from people in your party. I believe you only squelched the public chat and the trade chat.
Your last question I believe is "Yes".

Would anyone like to start a playthough? My highest is lvl 35ish, but lots between 1 and 20! I'm on the America servers. US central TZ, but pretty open schedule with college and all.