OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

@Kestegs: I'd probably pick up some +life passives and make sure elemental resistances are capped through gear, and go from there.
Also, despite what EasyG says, from my experience its not such a bad idea to farm a lower level area, iirc the penaties are pretty low (like 2% per level, after the area is out of a cerain level range - its unlikely that you'd get more than 10% penalty), so the added clearing speed and safety can easily make up for that.

I've been solo farming with my cold caster shadow today - first the Ledge in Cruel act1 and then Fellshrine in act2 - by far some of the easiest areas (I'm so cheap I know:p), up to lvl 49 which is my highest now in open beta. Still in Cruel difficulty, haven't even done the bandits, thinking about teaming up for them since I have no idea how hard they really are on Cruel. But that is for another day to decide.

I've been trying to trade for some gear, but I find trade channel quite hard to use, looking at all the posted items (most of which are bad) takes so much time or distracts from the game often, and when I just post my requests noone bothers contacting me (= Might just try my luck with crafting, since most of the gear is more than 20 levels behind now.
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

For some reason (other than the complete lack of monster AI and no chaos damage, iirc), people seem to like Shrine Farming. I didn't check it, but it seems that place has decent drops as well (maybe is just RNG).

On trading: I leave the thing on and see what happens, to learn about trading. Since I don't have Exalted Orbs or GCP (gem cutting prism), I don't try to trade anymore. I found lots of items just by running some areas lots of times by accident (DCs, crashes, etc). I'm at the shrine, cruel. I'm honestly considering stacking lots of currency and deal with what I got. I believe this game is a lot more flexible than it seems on softcore. Once you get some tips and crash a character or two due to poor choices, you just have to manage stuff. There's optimal, but the "viable spectrum" doesn't fell that slim on softcore (until now).

As long as you're packing resources and having fun, I don't consider a big deal trying stuff and seeing what it happens. My only regret so far with this game is wasting alchemy orbs and a couple chaos orbs on gear that I used for a couple hours or so.I have close to no, but inspired, experience with this game. It's ok to try whatever you want, however you want.

If you are afraid to be "wasting time" with a leap of faith build, I suggest:

- Don't spend chaos orbs/alchemy orbs - or any orbs other than transmutation. It looks like you need a lot of them later;
- Vendoring a complete unindentified rare set (enough items to fill all "character equip slots") nets you chaos orbs. The trick is - at this point, it's hard to sell low end gear. Also, you seldom find good rares and buyers for them. Based on that, I sell everything I don't need at the moment, unindentified.
- If a gem has "% quality", it's a quality gem and people pay a lot for them, since they essentially will save GCPs. Don't you know why quality on gems is that important? Me neither, but it seems to be. That's enough for now.
- Don't level up gems like crazy just for the sake of levelling them. Your alternates will be thankful.
- If you find an item with RGB linked slots, they trade for chromatic orb, that you can use to change the colors of the sockets.
- Have an idea of which gems are garbage (i.e. gems that you can get via quest rewards on normal) and experiment with them.

(The suggestions are based on what a saw around the interwebs, I don't have a lot of experience with game, other than a couple facepalm moments).

Essentially, when you find a character/build and reach endgame, you'll probably want to pick your hard-earned 6-link bow, use tons of blacksmith stuff to raise its quality, use tons of alchemy shards to get the right colors, then a few orbs of fusing to get the right links, then orb of alchemy and tons of chaos orbs to get the right mods - or something else that eats tons of resources, like gem cutting.

Right now I'm considering doing a gem checklist, see what is missing, roll alternates as necessary and gather resources as I see what happens. Keep in mind that my definition of fun in games is having lots of stuff to the point they own me, to the point of being afraid to use the items I have. I kinda use games to focus my greed and ambition. Maybe that's why my RL sucks... Should I be using people and stockpiling resources like a crazy person instead of drinking beer :scratchhead:. World is a hard place to live for honest humble red dragons.:coffee:

Tl,dr: Save orbs. Low level crafting (or even trading) is kinda useless, but having tons of alternates/character rerolling isn't - even if the game seems to suggest the opposite.
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

"A few hundred", then? :)

I plan to look for bases with links already in place. They are usually offered on trade threads/forums (I need a RRGGG armor after getting Chain and a RRGG something). Its very likely I'll end up looking for the white bases, use shards and reroll then with a "few" chaos orbs.

By the way, another good thing about that skill that transforms evasion into armor is that it helps immensely on the search for bases (essentially, you want any high level item without energy shield). The odds get higher - instead of looking for "armor", you want "armor + evasion" or "evasion" too. Since energy shield stuff usually has blue sockets, you end up looking for colors/links.

About farming places - not sure if I'm mad, but I'm starting to believe that coves are good places to look for currency. I'm rolling rangers to take their gems. Plus, I got an alchemy orb there with every character I rolled so far that reached that spot. Since it's a bow-friendly place, I plan to do some runs and test the theory.

I don't know if my mind is tricking me, but I would really love to "run place X for Y" instead of "running somewhere for something" - or "act 3 for something". Right now, I think (without scientific basis):

Act 2 Ruins: gems
Act 3 Docks: xp
Act 1 Cove: currency
Act 1 Ledge: xp
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

My Ranger is now level 18 (flying along, I know). Decided to go for an avoid damage build (focussing on Evasion and the dodge passives Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics, which remove energy shield and armour in exchange for a chance to dodge physical and spell damage), with as many bow-enhancing skills as possible. Build link thingy. Insults and advice welcome (in that order).
 
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Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

@Jason - your colon is missing.

I've read that builds should top out at 70-80 points with the rest coming at levels where you are grinding for exp. I don't know if this is true as I've put the game on hold for a few weeks but in that spirit I modified your build a bit:

Build

A couple changes to point out:
In the lower left portion just past Fury Bolts you went up a 'projectile damage' path, I wondered if it wouldn't make more sense to jump across the two life nodes and a life regen nodes to grab the +30 strength as you're using Iron Grip (apply strength damage modifier to ranged attacks). I don't know the math so it may not make sense.

Did you consider Vaal Pact? It would only take 3 more skill points (to the left of Iron Grip). Vaal Pact instantly applies leech at the expense of eliminating flasks and regen. Not sure if that's a good skill or not but sounds like it could benefit an evasive/ranged build. I didn't include it in the build link above...

Otherwise just removed a few ancillary nodes which you could certainly add back after getting your 83 points spent :)

As for me, as I said I've put the game on hold for about another week as I finish reading A Memory of Light. I left off at the Ledge in act 1 with some sort of cold/summoner/bow Templar. Still thinking some kind of frost zealot could work but haven't taken time to dig through the skill tree. It would be nice if the tree builder showed you your Str/Dex/Int as you select skills...
 
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Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

hi jason, your link isnt working. There is 1 problem with the evasion defense, especially with acrobatics. My character has about 10.000 defense with determination aura and molten shell buff, even more when I drink my flask since it adds 90% armor. Still some monsters, especially bosses are able to hit/crit me for like 500-1000 physical damage. 10k armor gives about 65% damage reduction, so without armor they might crit you for 2-3k damage. So if you go for evasion defense, you are going to need very much hitpoints. If you get 80-100 hp at all your armor items, which is not very realistic "self found" and get a lot of life nodes then you might get about 4k hitpoints, but it is more realistic that you will be with 1200-2000 hitpoints.

You might evade 80% of their attacks, once they crit you, you die which might get very frustrating.

My progress in merciless goes nicely ledge is far behind me and fel shrines became more and mroe easy aswell. Fell shrine is a lvl 59 area, while most of the better items are lvl 60+, so as a sheep i tried to farm the docks since everyone does so. And I died over and over again :). Even with 75% elemental resistance, a tank like build is not able to deal with elemental damage. A multiple projectile ice dog killed my 1800 hitpoints in about 0.5-1.0 seconds. So I started to look for alternative areas to farm. After testing them all, I must conclude that the solaris temple lvl 3 is awesome 90% physical damage and 10% fire and also allmost all of them are melee. My molten shell got absurd strong dealing 2-3k damage 1 hitting the weak monsters in solaris temple. So im farming here incredible fast for a tanky build and dropped much nice loot. Including a fantastic rare scepter, a 6socketed (2-4 linked) lvl 59 heavy armor, a lvl 62 perfect rolled heavy armor and my first map.

I do want to reroll, I have a great tank/caster build in my mind, which will deal triple damage as my current chart and will be quadruple more tanky :P, but i need aegis aurora shield for it, which is one of the most expensive/rare uniques in the game. I found the lvl 62 shield twice in its white shape and tryed my luck with orb of chance.

edit:
now i can see bob's build and i will add my suggestions.
-Iron grip is pretty useless with your low amount of str, its more for marauder archers.
-I added soem hitpoints, removed the evasion at the top since it was so far away and added evasion and mana at the bottom. link

edit2:
sorry for the misinformation, I read about it once but forgot it. Armor works very strange in path of exile. basically armor works very good vs weak monsters and very bd vs strong monsters/hits. The highlghted line from me is a wrong conclusion and your build will just wor fine with 1500 health. Here is some more information abour armor: link
 
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Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

I really enjoy this game. I am rather clueless though. Tried rejuvenation totem just now and it doesn't seem to work as I expected it to work. And I don't understand the endurance charge system at all. I'm playing a 2h mace Marauder who is in Act3 Battlefield now and I'm usually running like a girl from things that really really want to kill me. That's wrong, I know. 5 more levels til I can start taking the Duelist health nodes and then Blood Magic. I don't feel comfortable right now with 700 life as I often nearly die, but the out of mana issue is quite annoying. Guess I'll figure it our sooner or later. :)

I've never played MP before, but here I would like to if I could find a friendly person to patiently introduce me to it.
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

On the last link I think there's a misspent small dex node right after the start of damage progression (down from first evasion node). Also, what about adding celerity or diamond skin? (I believe it's a gear dependant choice, depending on how much +life).

As for active skills, besides the whole physial bow agenda (rain of arrows or split arrow for groups, frenzy for single targets, faster projectiles, life on hit, etc.), I would consider a totem for crowd controlling, to give you a 2 second window to run (pretty much like D2 amazon decoy).
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

@Moar: I've got blood magic on act 3 normal with my marauder, with ~700 life and one of the life gain on hit gems. If your skill isn't mana hungry, it's very doable and the gameplay becomes a lot more fluid - but I'm playing with a bow. Also, I gave up on rejuvenation totem, since it doesn't work that well.

One of the things with marauder is that you can't really escape from blood magic + life on hit + resolute technique combo (you always hit, so the life loss becomes hard to notice). If you add iron defenses to the mix (which is good, to make more items viable), dex becomes something you want just to level up gems or equip stuff.

Also, melee is hard imo. My duelist reached act 3 due to some sort of miracle, abusing of fire trap. (It's like having meteor dot from D2 while you try to hit stuff at melee range). Decoy totem was helpful, as well.
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

I have LOH on both attacks which are currently Heavy Strike and Sweep. I love Sweep, but I think Ground Slam might be better. I'll try that out tomorrow and see if I get hit less. Resolute Technique was the first I got, then made my way to BM and now on my way to more health nodes. Read about that build on the forums as newbie friendly. And a newbie I am.

Can anybody explain how to use Enduring Cry correctly and what it actually does? And why it is good using it?
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

It is true this game is very melee unfriendly. All of the ranged skills in this game are skillshots, which means ranged players can evade them. As melee char you are so close to the enemy that there is no time to dodge and you will take a lot of free damage. Another point as fighter compared to nuker is that you are very weapon dependant, which is a bad thing for a new player. The difference between a good weapon and a mediocre weapon is massive. You will not only kill faster but also leech life faster, take less damage.
Until lvl 59 I used life on hit support gem, but since then I discovered it is more usefull to kill faster and keep my hp up with flasks, if you kill faster your flasks also refill faster.

Some monsters will just instakill you if you go melee into them and you dont kill/stun them immediatly. Especially for example the act 2 boss or very large monsters packs, you want some ranged skill so you can evade their damage. Ground slam is a typical marauder semi ranged skill, and lightning strike a typical elemenal melee ranged skill, like my templar.
You can use these skills in range by holding shift while using them, when you have shift holded your character will not move and make his attack while standing. Persoanlly I find it unpleasant to hold shift so i reconfigured that to alt, and have items on ground allways shown by toggling z.
Once you get used of it, you will do use shift/alt more often then not. Archers use it also all the time. it is much mroe easy to spawm your arrows in an area holding shift, as trying to target each mobs individually and accidently walking to them when you misstarget.

enduring cry is an aoe aggro, which makes all monsters attack you for a short period. On top of that you get 1 or more endurance charges. At lvl 1 you get 1 charge for each 14 enemies around you with a minimum of 1. Each endurance charge gives you 5% resistance and 5% physical damage reduction.
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Is there any way to stop my scroll wheel from zooming every time I try and use my middle button skill (which I do frequently)?
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

im lvl 67 now and allrdy solo'd a few maps, allthough i lose just as much exp in them as I gained :P, found my first usefull legendary: lioneye's paws. And suddenly im tired of being melee. Im going to give priker a break, here are hi final stats:
-skilltree (maybe lvl 91 is max lvl since im lvl 67 and skilltree says 24 points left)
-75 resist all, 11456 defense (35000 with granite flask), 51% block, 6% evasion, 25 life regen, 46 mana regen, 2287 hitpoints.
-2267 DPS with lightning strike-weapon elemental damage-added fire damage-melee physical damage
-1800-2700 damage with molten shell-iron will-increase quantity
-allways 6 active auras, thanks to my massive mana pool and 2 reduce mana support gems.
-shield charge-faster attacks as utility skill.

Now it i time to start my caster tank, she will start of as a nuker and later will slowly tranform in an immortal tank. endgame she will have 74% chance to block attacks and 47% chance to block spells and heal 400 energy shield on each succesfull block. If needed I will give molten shell a lifeleech support gem to heal even more when taking damage to become truly immortal. Besides of that she will also have a lot of damage, I think molten shell will do about 4k damage and my secondary skill will likely be firestorm, maybe cold nova with cold to fire gem. She will use 2 uniques: aegis aurora and stone of lazhwar, which I will both ahve to trade for. The shield is worth way more as I have with all my items together so dont know yet how to get it.

If anyone wants to chat, trade or quest together with me then add me ingame as friend, my charname is: copia, I would rly like to quest together.

I still have a 6 socketed bow and evasion armor for anyone who wants to have either.
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

@EasyG: That is a decent level there. Although I know how the system works, I've never actually done a map, back when I played they weren't in the game yet - instead they had kind of an endless random dungeon thing as engame (Torchlight style).
Well, since youre making an immortal character migh as well play HC? ;) I'm up for starting new characters anytime since I roll them often enough anyway, and I'm saving all the skill gems so have plenty to give away, except some rare ones. The worse that can happen is that you get transferred to default (= Edit: I added you to friends ingame, but if HC just isn't your thing that is completely fine - chat still works across leagues as I found out recently.

Talking of new characters, I've not rolled one for a while, instead I kept playing the shadow. Up to lvl 56 in Cruel act3 now, with only the last boss left to be done. I've been trying to play it as safe as I can and despite a couple near-deaths its been going good enough for a not-so-tanky chracter. I partied up for one of the bandits but seeing how it didn't do nearly as much damage as I expected, I soloed the other one and helped the third one (for 4% cast speed bonus since I'm getting the cast speed passives anyway). I also teamed up for Vaal and the first Piety ecounter in act3 but everything else has been solo play - full party usually lags me too much :(

Unlike the trade chat, I found trade forums to be pretty useful - people post good items more often than not and bump their posts when theyre online - often you can get a deal instantly. Thanks to that and a bit of luck with crafting I actually have a few items that are not bad :D

Here is the build so far. Right now I'm getting the mana passives at the top of the skill tree, going for freeze duration increase nearby after that. Mana is the biggest issue of the build, cant seem to get enough mana regen and quantity (running Clarity aura for mana regen, but would like to run at least Grace -for extra evasion - too), while keeping resistances/life where they need to be. Otherwise I'm concetrating on life, cast speed and crit chance/multiplier, got some evasion/energy shield passives too since they looked like a good deal. Mostly looking for life, mana and resistances on gear.
The main killer : [Freezing Pulse - Lesser Multiple Projectiles - Projectile Speed - Added Cold Damage] does ~2.1k aoe dps - while the skill popup says 700 dps, there are actually 3 wide "projectiles" and damage of all them stacks up. I use Frostbite to lower resistances often, sometimes a spell totem with Ice Spear-Lesser Multiple Projectiles for extra freezing and damage.

Might give the shadow a little rest now and roll something new for a change.
 
Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Hey nermind, allthough starting in hardcwould be fun , I did start n default yesterday allready. Also my playstyle is rather uncarefull trying to get molten shell to explode without having the patience for energyshield to be back up before:P

I find it very awesome that you allmost finished cruel on hardcore. thumbs up.

One thing that I wodner is why you dont just get eldritch battery. you have lots of int and nullification to boost your ES, with discipline aura you will get a massive mana pool. That is what I did with my templar, You only need to invest 1 passive point for it, while you invested like 10 points at mana right now. As you see in my build, except for eldritch battery I didnt take any mana at all, and still had enough mana for 6 auras and 46 mana regen. I kept clarity at lvl 3 since it takes much more mana for each lvl up. Oops I just realize i also had inner force, which makes clarity/discipline and all other buffs way more stronger, so i actually invested quit a lot at them. Inner force is kinda far away for you.
If you dont go eldritch battery you might consider going towards the witch for your mana instead of that circle in the southmiddle. you will get for 8 points:
-28% increased mana 60% mana reg, 8% es and 20% es cooldown + 3 lifenodes for grabs
in the middle you get for 6 points
-24% increased mana 40% mana reg and 10 int.

ah now i look at it, it is not significant better. I just like exploiting the strong starter area passives.

edit: kripparian is a the moment also planning a freezing pulse char, currently discussing it at his stream. I believe he goes with added lightning damage isntead of cold damage and picking up the static blows. Also you forgot doomcast, for 2 points you get 10 int and 60% crit, while just below that you took 60% crit without 10 int for 2 points.
His build looked like this
 
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Re: OT: The SPF Path of Exile Thread

Were getting into some serious theorycrafting here :yes:

As I told you ingame those are good tips. I've still got a lot to learn about building passive skills effectively, and eldrich battery is something I'm planning to try out on my summoner witch when I get her levelling again (lvl 31 now). When I feel more comfortable with giving up my energy shield I might try it on a character that has no minions to hide behind (=

I do like the idea of going halfway around the passive tree to pick up skills in several different starting areas, even if that is only achievable at a high level (that I'm not likely to reach on HC but hey - hope is not a bad thing right? ;)). Something to think about! (=
 
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