Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Sykar]

Inquisitor:

Seems to stay mostly the same.

Saboteur:

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[T. Reich]

Personal opinions on the last batch of changes:
Duelist - stealth nerf, but actually a VERY good change in terms of build variety. Previously you'd pick bleedsplosions, spell-block and then either flavour of "extra damage", no variance. Now, you have two very different branches: full-on block, or full-on bleed bonanza plus either more damage or some decent amount of block.
Inquisitor - lol, buffed. Safe 100% success pick if you want to play elemental + crit. Dropping some direct damage in favour of sacred ground sustain is much more viable than before thanks to bossing buff. And is probably the better choice now.
Necro - am disappoint. Not because of 50% self-offering nerf - that was an expected and welcome chance, since it was ridiculously OP. Disappointed that necro is now a 100% summoner ascendancy - the non-minion-specific notables simply don't give that much to warrant a non-summoner necro character. Thanks again, Saark , at least I had my fill of fun with maxblock necro before it went "legacy". On the other hand, pure summoners have virtually no reason to pick any ascendancy but necro, which is also kinda disappointing.
Saboteur - <3. Sure, le Reddit may be super-salty with "muh trap QoL" sentiment, but they can go fuck themselves. Pyromaniac alone is worth so much in terms of miner/trapper QoL, ebcause it adds a shitton of sustain and survivability. Born in the shadows with its auto-blind is pretty damn awesome, too.

 

[Balor]

Necro - am disappoint. Not because of 50% self-offering nerf - that was an expected and welcome chance, since it was ridiculously OP. Disappointed that necro is now a 100% summoner ascendancy - the non-minion-specific notables simply don't give that much to warrant a non-summoner necro character. Thanks again, Saark , at least I had my fill of fun with maxblock necro before it went "legacy". On the other hand, pure summoners have virtually no reason to pick any ascendancy but necro, which is also kinda disappointing.

I agree that bone offering was OP for sure (you can facetank most bosses and red maps with impunity, given a better shield), but other offerings were kinda meh even with 100% effect. Oh well.
But as for 'necro being THE ascendancy for pure summoners'... I think that's the whole point.

What I *REALLY* didn't like is that it forces you to take superbly shitty Invoker to get to good nodes.
Though 'improved profane bloom' on Zombie death seems like an interesting thing to build around (talking of 'Allahu Akbar minions').

 

[thesheeep]

So, for the first time I actually managed to play a character longer than lvl 30 (without being bored out of my mind by the jungle chapter) and am now trying to stick with it to the end.

What surprised me is how the game difficulty ramps up significantly at around level 40 and later. Without guides, and really well working synergies on your gems and passives, you'll really have a hard time.
Kinda forces you to dig into the meta to get at least a somewhat decent build together.

Still, my Templar build that is supposed to dish out cold like Mr. Freeze while his ES keeps him alive is just getting killed in seconds against some bosses/enemies. Abysses are especially funny, basically certain death if those scorpions are around.
Besides me being inexperienced in the meta, I blame the early game.
I put all my points into offensive passives, completely neglecting any defense since it simply didn't seem required early on.
Now I have to carry that mid-level paper cannon (it's not even glass) until I leveled up enough to get Zealot's Oath, Ghost Reaver (which is hideously far away) and pump ES in general.
Until that all comes together, I'll just be "Awesome! I only died like 5 times to this boss!"...

At least popping my frost bolts with vortexes is incredibly satisfying. Only took me like 20 levels to understand that - I had previously misread Frost Bolt for Frost Bomb in the Vortex description and was completely confused at how it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.

 

[Balor]

What surprised me is how the game difficulty ramps up significantly at around level 40 and later.

IF you think this is hard, try getting into red maps.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Yeah, pre-endgame concent suck balls and you had to endure though this to get juice parts.
Biggest issue are resistances, back then when I couldn't arse myself to upgrage my gear for long time.

im thinking another variation of allah akbar minions.


I hate myself

Isn't there miner build that's one of the safest HoGM farming build? Not much to hate here for me...

 

[T. Reich]

Necro - am disappoint. Not because of 50% self-offering nerf - that was an expected and welcome chance, since it was ridiculously OP. Disappointed that necro is now a 100% summoner ascendancy - the non-minion-specific notables simply don't give that much to warrant a non-summoner necro character. Thanks again, Saark , at least I had my fill of fun with maxblock necro before it went "legacy". On the other hand, pure summoners have virtually no reason to pick any ascendancy but necro, which is also kinda disappointing.

I agree that bone offering was OP for sure (you can facetank most bosses and red maps with impunity, given a better shield), but other offerings were kinda meh even with 100% effect. Oh well.
But as for 'necro being THE ascendancy for pure summoners'... I think that's the whole point.

What I *REALLY* didn't like is that it forces you to take superbly shitty Invoker to get to good nodes.
Though 'improved profane bloom' on Zombie death seems like an interesting thing to build around (talking of 'Allahu Akbar minions').

Flesh offering = a much-better perma vaal haste.
Spirit offering = guess you haven't seen the spirit offering RF build?

 

[Balor]

Talking of Invoker - they really should have made it a targeted spell with it. Now THAT wold be fun.

 

[ArchAngel]

So, for the first time I actually managed to play a character longer than lvl 30 (without being bored out of my mind by the jungle chapter) and am now trying to stick with it to the end.

What surprised me is how the game difficulty ramps up significantly at around level 40 and later. Without guides, and really well working synergies on your gems and passives, you'll really have a hard time.
Kinda forces you to dig into the meta to get at least a somewhat decent build together.

Still, my Templar build that is supposed to dish out cold like Mr. Freeze while his ES keeps him alive is just getting killed in seconds against some bosses/enemies. Abysses are especially funny, basically certain death if those scorpions are around.
Besides me being inexperienced in the meta, I blame the early game.
I put all my points into offensive passives, completely neglecting any defense since it simply didn't seem required early on.
Now I have to carry that mid-level paper cannon (it's not even glass) until I leveled up enough to get Zealot's Oath, Ghost Reaver (which is hideously far away) and pump ES in general.
Until that all comes together, I'll just be "Awesome! I only died like 5 times to this boss!"...

At least popping my frost bolts with vortexes is incredibly satisfying. Only took me like 20 levels to understand that - I had previously misread Frost Bolt for Frost Bomb in the Vortex description and was completely confused at how it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.

I am sorry to tell you but ES is a noob trap. ES only kind of works if you got high level knowledge of the game and even then nobody levels as ES character, you level as life character and respec when you get access to very good ES items.
Switch to maxing life, use healing potions and you will no longer die.

 

[Reinhardt]

So scion will be the last.

 

[Balor]

Flesh offering = a much-better perma vaal haste.

True, but it hardly merit picking a necro for THAT.

Spirit offering = guess you haven't seen the spirit offering RF build?

No, I didn't. Well, it kind of makes sense now.

 

[Balor]

Skeletomancers incoming!!

Well, skeletons seems viable now - Bone sculptor is like 3 rares combined + hits cannot be evaded!
Funny thing is, due to removal of void beacon skeleton/DP combo seems even LESS viable now, however, and I've had high hopes.

Well, let's see what Ascendant will bring to the table.

 

[ArchAngel]

Skeletomancers incoming!!

Well, skeletons seems viable now - Bone sculptor is like 3 rares combined + hits cannot be evaded!
Funny thing is, due to removal of void beacon skeleton/DP combo seems even LESS viable now, however, and I've had high hopes.

Well, let's see what Ascendant will bring to the table.

Skeleton mages were viable and strong ever since the jewel was introduced. This might make melee skeletons useful.

 

[Balor]

This might make melee skeletons useful.

Yea, that's what I've meant. Ok, due to much faster skeletons DP/Skeletons QoL is indeed higher because they would tend to stick to enemies better, but that was actually never a problem for me.

 

[thesheeep]

I am sorry to tell you but ES is a noob trap. ES only kind of works if you got high level knowledge of the game and even then nobody levels as ES character, you level as life character and respec when you get access to very good ES items.
Switch to maxing life, use healing potions and you will no longer die.

Bit late for that for my character - already used many respec points once I finally decided on a single element to use and where I actually want to go with it.
But I'll likely do it like that for new chars - well, if I want to use ES with those new chars.

 

[Balor]

Unrelated question:

SR deal 420% more damage at max stacks, right? That translates to 4.2 times more damage, if my 2nd grade math is correct.
I've recently discovered 'Balefire' unique and like it a lot, but:

A character build around burning damage with balefire or 6-link is about 25k dps on stage one. That translates to, like, ~110k dps stage 8.
People been claiming that the have killed Shaper with it. Is it really possible? I've heard that below one mill DPS makes killing shaper very difficult - especially with a channelling spell that locks you in place!

Am I missing something here? I'd love to play around with SR, but is seems totally underwhelming for end-game content.

 

[ArchAngel]

I am sorry to tell you but ES is a noob trap. ES only kind of works if you got high level knowledge of the game and even then nobody levels as ES character, you level as life character and respec when you get access to very good ES items.
Switch to maxing life, use healing potions and you will no longer die.

Bit late for that for my character - already used many respec points once I finally decided on a single element to use and where I actually want to go with it.
But I'll likely do it like that for new chars - well, if I want to use ES with those new chars.

It is never too late. You can use Regret Orb to get respec points, and if you got none, you can use a magic shopkeeper to buy them with Scouring Orbs. Just grab 10 or so nearby life nodes and your will notice a big difference already.

 

[Sykar]

So, for the first time I actually managed to play a character longer than lvl 30 (without being bored out of my mind by the jungle chapter) and am now trying to stick with it to the end.

What surprised me is how the game difficulty ramps up significantly at around level 40 and later. Without guides, and really well working synergies on your gems and passives, you'll really have a hard time.
Kinda forces you to dig into the meta to get at least a somewhat decent build together.

Still, my Templar build that is supposed to dish out cold like Mr. Freeze while his ES keeps him alive is just getting killed in seconds against some bosses/enemies. Abysses are especially funny, basically certain death if those scorpions are around.
Besides me being inexperienced in the meta, I blame the early game.
I put all my points into offensive passives, completely neglecting any defense since it simply didn't seem required early on.
Now I have to carry that mid-level paper cannon (it's not even glass) until I leveled up enough to get Zealot's Oath, Ghost Reaver (which is hideously far away) and pump ES in general.
Until that all comes together, I'll just be "Awesome! I only died like 5 times to this boss!"...

At least popping my frost bolts with vortexes is incredibly satisfying. Only took me like 20 levels to understand that - I had previously misread Frost Bolt for Frost Bomb in the Vortex description and was completely confused at how it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.

I am sorry to tell you but ES is a noob trap. ES only kind of works if you got high level knowledge of the game and even then nobody levels as ES character, you level as life character and respec when you get access to very good ES items.
Switch to maxing life, use healing potions and you will no longer die.

That applies to CI only. Hybrid levels just fine.

 

[Saark]

Unrelated question:

SR deal 420% more damage at max stacks, right? That translates to 4.2 times more damage, if my 2nd grade math is correct.
I've recently discovered 'Balefire' unique and like it a lot, but:

A character build around burning damage with balefire or 6-link is about 25k dps on stage one. That translates to, like, ~110k dps stage 8.
People been claiming that the have killed Shaper with it. Is it really possible? I've heard that below one mill DPS makes killing shaper very difficult - especially with a channelling spell that locks you in place!

Am I missing something here? I'd love to play around with SR, but is seems totally underwhelming for end-game content.

Balefire is only good as a starter weapon until you get a 5L chest and switch into a doryanis or rare scepter with >120% damage. I've been playing a lowlife RF/SR Trickster, and was farming both Uber-Lab and Shaper pretty early into the league. 110k DPS baseline seems incredibly low to me, when I started farming Shaper I was doing about 500k SR DPS and while it did take a bit of time to actually kill the boss, you're playing an incredibly tanky build that only needs to dps a few seconds at a time.

SR works like this: You stack up SR until the debuff reaches max-stacks, and from then on out you only ever have to refresh it by recasting SR onto the boss for a microsecond. SR stacks don't have an individual duration, so by recasting just for a little bit, you refresh all 8 stacks with the full duration. Between reapplications you can move around freely. You also don't have to invest heavily into DPS, since only a few burning damage/damage over time nodes are sufficient to get to 300% increased damage.

So yeah, SR is extremely good at killing shaper, simply because most SR builds have 10-15% life/es-regen, extremely high health/ES pools and only need to cast once in a while to keep their peak-DPS up.

 

[T. Reich]

Unrelated question:

SR deal 420% more damage at max stacks, right? That translates to 4.2 times more damage, if my 2nd grade math is correct.
I've recently discovered 'Balefire' unique and like it a lot, but:

A character build around burning damage with balefire or 6-link is about 25k dps on stage one. That translates to, like, ~110k dps stage 8.
People been claiming that the have killed Shaper with it. Is it really possible? I've heard that below one mill DPS makes killing shaper very difficult - especially with a channelling spell that locks you in place!

Am I missing something here? I'd love to play around with SR, but is seems totally underwhelming for end-game content.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2011665

SR RF trickster guide I've been eyeing as a started for this league (keep in mind that the cited numbers are PRE 3.2.0 trickster buff, and what a buff it is!). There is a Shaper kill video; as you will be able to see yourself, the sub-1mil dot on SR is still quite competent.
Here's the PoB pastebin of my take on this build - with Kaom's and Balefire - SR with Balefire does less, but still quite respectable single target damage, while Kaom-ed RF burns much harder. Saark , I'd be grateful if you took a bit of time to glance over my PoB and possibly point out any glaring errors I possibly made. Btw, I'm really banking on stacking that % life/mana on kill from both Balefire and the revamped trickster for some beautiful mapping sustain.

P.S.: In my experience, you don't need 1 mil to do Shaper comfortably - 500k+ "sustainable" "true" dps (as in, no tooltip warrior shenanigans, just honest raw damage output that you can sustain at your skill level) is already enough for that. You can do with less than that, but it stops being "comfortable".

 

[ArchAngel]

So, for the first time I actually managed to play a character longer than lvl 30 (without being bored out of my mind by the jungle chapter) and am now trying to stick with it to the end.

What surprised me is how the game difficulty ramps up significantly at around level 40 and later. Without guides, and really well working synergies on your gems and passives, you'll really have a hard time.
Kinda forces you to dig into the meta to get at least a somewhat decent build together.

Still, my Templar build that is supposed to dish out cold like Mr. Freeze while his ES keeps him alive is just getting killed in seconds against some bosses/enemies. Abysses are especially funny, basically certain death if those scorpions are around.
Besides me being inexperienced in the meta, I blame the early game.
I put all my points into offensive passives, completely neglecting any defense since it simply didn't seem required early on.
Now I have to carry that mid-level paper cannon (it's not even glass) until I leveled up enough to get Zealot's Oath, Ghost Reaver (which is hideously far away) and pump ES in general.
Until that all comes together, I'll just be "Awesome! I only died like 5 times to this boss!"...

At least popping my frost bolts with vortexes is incredibly satisfying. Only took me like 20 levels to understand that - I had previously misread Frost Bolt for Frost Bomb in the Vortex description and was completely confused at how it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.

I am sorry to tell you but ES is a noob trap. ES only kind of works if you got high level knowledge of the game and even then nobody levels as ES character, you level as life character and respec when you get access to very good ES items.
Switch to maxing life, use healing potions and you will no longer die.

That applies to CI only. Hybrid levels just fine.

It does.. if you put most points into life and a bit into ES. Not if you try to play it like a low level CI.

 

[ArchAngel]

Unrelated question:

SR deal 420% more damage at max stacks, right? That translates to 4.2 times more damage, if my 2nd grade math is correct.
I've recently discovered 'Balefire' unique and like it a lot, but:

A character build around burning damage with balefire or 6-link is about 25k dps on stage one. That translates to, like, ~110k dps stage 8.
People been claiming that the have killed Shaper with it. Is it really possible? I've heard that below one mill DPS makes killing shaper very difficult - especially with a channelling spell that locks you in place!

Am I missing something here? I'd love to play around with SR, but is seems totally underwhelming for end-game content.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2011665

SR RF trickster guide I've been eyeing as a started for this league (keep in mind that the cited numbers are PRE 3.2.0 trickster buff, and what a buff it is!). There is a Shaper kill video; as you will be able to see yourself, the sub-1mil dot on SR is still quite competent.
Here's the PoB pastebin of my take on this build - with Kaom's and Balefire - SR with Balefire does less, but still quite respectable single target damage, while Kaom-ed RF burns much harder. Saark , I'd be grateful if you took a bit of time to glance over my PoB and possibly point out any glaring errors I possibly made. Btw, I'm really banking on stacking that % life/mana on kill from both Balefire and the revamped trickster for some beautiful mapping sustain.

P.S.: In my experience, you don't need 1 mil to do Shaper comfortably - 500k+ "sustainable" "true" dps (as in, no tooltip warrior shenanigans, just honest raw damage output that you can sustain at your skill level) is already enough for that. You can do with less than that, but it stops being "comfortable".

Instead of Balefire you get Essence crafted gloves. You put SR in it and now it is pseudo 5L. And then you get a proper Scepter and your overall DPS will be much better.

EDIT: Also why a lvl 100 character?
Always plan lvl 90 characters, those will need to be able to do any tier red maps or you will be dying a lot and leaving HC league or not leveling to 100.

EDIT2: Your physical defenses are non existent and it is going to hurt a lot to fight such packs. And due to terrible balance of life vs mana and due to MoM, you are going to be without mana most of the time and that pretty bad mana regen value is not going to help.
EDIT3: As a league starter character you also want to reduce all that godly gear to some poor level because you are poor at start. And you are not going to afford all those items by lvl 90 with first character unless you plan to become rich by flipping and not by playing.

EDIT4: And now I noticed I am on his ignore list :D :D
Well his loss, all my advice is logical and sound. let him learn his mistakes alone.

 

[Balor]

You put SR in it and now it is pseudo 5L

As I understand from the numbers, 25 level SR is like 100% MORE damage compared to 20 level and is already a '4-link'. So you really need a 'true' 6-link to compete.

 

[ArchAngel]

You put SR in it and now it is pseudo 5L

As I understand from the numbers, 25 level SR is like 100% MORE damage compared to 20 level and is already a '4-link'. So you really need a 'true' 6-link to compete.

You are right, it is a big boost, not 100% but still pretty big. Also the 16% cast speed on it is a nice boost (although Doryani also gets you cast speed). I would have to run it through PoB to make sure. Also a proper weapon also boosts RF damage. Also the really rich people can corrupt the gloves to give +1 to gems mod which will boost the damage nicely.