[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Edge-]

Its not possible because of all mana changes if spellslinger either had smaller reservation cost or you wouldn't have to pay mana to cast skill spellslinger would become unquestionable king.

Again, tweak the reservation on the skill then. It's not the strongest skill ever to begin with. Keep the multipliers where they are, drop down reservation. It still costs mana/life to cast, so you still need to manage your mana and can't reserve 99% and just fly by with a 20 mana cast of something.

What are you even saying. Those people play scuffed builds farming like crazy because they can't die, they can't trade, they can't skip A0-A8 progression, can't simply buy Shaper/elder/uber elder, atziri tickets (hell its even possible to buy awakener "ticket"). And you say you are at disadvantage? Yes they may have skill advantage but in no way shape of form they have it "easier". Still manage to finish league in couple of days.

No, I'm saying they're unarguably better than we are. But that they're outliers and not really remotely indicative of the average player and their experience. It's like comparing a bunch of kids enjoying skating at the local skate park to Tony fuckin Hawk. We're not Tony Hawk. Can you "finish" the league in a few days? Absolutely. Do the vast majority of players "finish" the league in a few days? No they fuckin don't.

Again, it's a bad strawman comparison. People have beaten Dark Souls with a fuckin DDR gamepad, that doesn't mean it's reasonable to expect it to be doable for anyone else.

Because again, its not possible to test everything. Having severe mana multiplier cost was the goal of this change, otherwise it wouldn't change anything if they only tickled values.

Except that it clearly didn't work out well and obviously could have used some testing given the quick and expansive change that resulted. It still makes mana matter more, which was the goal, it just actually benefitted form like, actual playtesting and players looking at the numbers, instead of those numbers being finalized in the days leading into launch with a, "Meh, this looks fine."

[kaminaris]

Except that when they did a 4 month cycle it was generally considered their best and most bug free league in memory (ritual).

Yeah no, ritual was bugged as hell. It was a league where my maps were loading in 2+ minutes and I saw invisible enemies (and holes in floor textures) for good minute after entering map. Actually this league is most bug free for me.

Love how you always have to jump to hyperboles and strawmans to try and prove how superior you are.

Nothing of that ever happened. It's you who jumps to hyperboles.

No one talked about testing all gems but hey, they never would have caught that Spellslinger reserving large amounts of Mana but still needing to pay for the spell might be completely broken...

That was intended. You are not suppose to use spellslinger to bypass mana costs entirely.

Sure there is a point where more testing is useless and perfection is the enemy of progress and all that but there most certainly is such a thing as not testing enough (or not testing at all).
Or do you ship code without any test at all to your customers while giggling 'lol tests make programs into tricycles for kids'?

You can make that argument even if you done extensive testing because bugs will inevitably happen.
https://medium.com/@hovm/the-law-of-...s-47dcfd713f19

In order to not have bugs your soft would need to be damn simple.

We know the mana changes were not tested because GGG said in an interview that they were barely finished in time for the patch note compilation.

But we know what they meant to do. And they did achieve that.

For a while now, we have been concerned with the power gap between support gems. There are gems that grant huge multiplicative damage bonuses and there are gems that do a bunch of stuff you don't really care about. When you're building a character, by far the correct choice is just to stack on all the multiplicative damage bonuses and ignore all the interesting utility support gems because their opportunity cost is just too high.

[Gorsameth]

Yeah no, ritual was bugged as hell. It was a league where my maps were loading in 2+ minutes and I saw invisible enemies (and holes in floor textures) for good minute after entering map. Actually this league is most bug free for me.



Nothing of that ever happened. It's you who jumps to hyperboles.



That was intended. You are not suppose to use spellslinger to bypass mana costs entirely.



You can make that argument even if you done extensive testing because bugs will inevitably happen.
https://medium.com/@hovm/the-law-of-...s-47dcfd713f19

In order to not have bugs your soft would need to be damn simple.



But we know what they meant to do. And they did achieve that.

Again, you act as if there is no world between 'no bugs' and 'all the bugs'.

And yes, spellslinger costing mana is ok but it doesn't take a 'software engineer' to figure out that if you take a skill that is balanced around reserving mana and then not costing mana to cast, increase all mana cost multipliers so that it reserves much more mana AND then make you still have to pay that increased mana cost when spellslinger triggers without adjusting the reserve cost does not make sense.

[kaminaris]

Again, tweak the reservation on the skill then. It's not the strongest skill ever to begin with. Keep the multipliers where they are, drop down reservation. It still costs mana/life to cast, so you still need to manage your mana and can't reserve 99% and just fly by with a 20 mana cast of something.

It's not the strongest skill but that is not an issue, Spellslinger was INCREDIBLY powerful for the amount of investment you had to put in.

No, I'm saying they're unarguably better than we are. But that they're outliers and not really remotely indicative of the average player and their experience. It's like comparing a bunch of kids enjoying skating at the local skate park to Tony fuckin Hawk. We're not Tony Hawk. Can you "finish" the league in a few days? Absolutely. Do the vast majority of players "finish" the league in a few days? No they fuckin don't.

Again, it's a bad strawman comparison. People have beaten Dark Souls with a fuckin DDR gamepad, that doesn't mean it's reasonable to expect it to be doable for anyone else.

That is hyperbole, not relevant. Lets calculate that, 72h to finish game for a pro. BUT they can't skip shit. You can (and a huge chunk of it). Lets assume you can skip half of that (in reality you can skip even more) but they are twice as effective as you. 72h playing ~3h a day = 24 days to finish game.

Reality is you can finish campaign playing casually in 4 days tops. After that 2-3 days to get to yellow maps. Start buying gear and watchstones. Another 2-3 days to get to red maps. 2-3 days to kill bosses and league is over. 10-15 days with ~4h a day. Simply because you can skip a lot with trading.

Except that it clearly didn't work out well and obviously could have used some testing given the quick and expansive change that resulted. It still makes mana matter more, which was the goal, it just actually benefitted form like, actual playtesting and players looking at the numbers, instead of those numbers being finalized in the days leading into launch with a, "Meh, this looks fine."

It worked fine. First of all you could pick less impactful supports if mana was the problem. Second mana reduction nodes became more important, mana leech also became better value. Was it too severe? Maybe a little. Again, not possible to check everything. Week into league and people already reaching multi milion dps.

- - - Updated - - -

Again, you act as if there is no world between 'no bugs' and 'all the bugs'.

And yes, spellslinger costing mana is ok but it doesn't take a 'software engineer' to figure out that if you take a skill that is balanced around reserving mana and then not costing mana to cast, increase all mana cost multipliers so that it reserves much more mana AND then make you still have to pay that increased mana cost when spellslinger triggers without adjusting the reserve cost does not make sense.

The amount of time needed to fix "remaining bugs" goes exponentially as time goes on. There is never going to be a "sweet spot". Spellslinger without mana cost to cast spells = instantly new meta, so it does make a lot of sense.

[Edge-]

Was it too severe? Maybe a little. Again, not possible to check everything. Week into league and people already reaching multi milion dps.

Yes, it was. Hence them quickly dropping at least 10% multiplier off pretty much every single support gem.

Did it mean people couldn't reach multi-million DPS in days? No, and I don't think anyone here has ever argued that. Top players will be top players and still break shit.

But this is more for us unibrowed knuckle draggers that aren't top players and don't know optimal farming routes and might not engage with all the rewarding mechanics because they're unfun (I don't Heist, it's stupid rewarding but it's deeply unfun content to me and I'm well past the point where I feel pressured/obligated to engage with) that aren't making 10M+ dps builds each league.

[Flame6]

I would love it if they would add a death recap. Even a simple one like WoW's old one.

I usually get to red maps before getting bored, but this season I stopped in Act 2. They really need to make the early acts easy and than ramp up the difficulty as you progress. Acts 1-3 are boring and the new season made it a slog.

[kaminaris]

Yes, it was. Hence them quickly dropping at least 10% multiplier off pretty much every single support gem.

Did it mean people couldn't reach multi-million DPS in days? No, and I don't think anyone here has ever argued that. Top players will be top players and still break shit.

But this is more for us unibrowed knuckle draggers that aren't top players and don't know optimal farming routes and might not engage with all the rewarding mechanics because they're unfun (I don't Heist, it's stupid rewarding but it's deeply unfun content to me and I'm well past the point where I feel pressured/obligated to engage with) that aren't making 10M+ dps builds each league.

What top players. You can reach that with 1c unique strength stacking zombies for example. Don't need to be top player. All it needs is a 6link. You also don't have to engage with any mechanics at all, just run maps. No need to even engage with current league mechanic. I like heist but this league im not gonna touch it, played it too much 2 previous leagues.

[bloodwulf]

What top players. You can reach that with 1c unique strength stacking zombies for example. Don't need to be top player. All it needs is a 6link. You also don't have to engage with any mechanics at all, just run maps. No need to even engage with current league mechanic. I like heist but this league im not gonna touch it, played it too much 2 previous leagues.

You keep acting like everyone can do shapers per second dps with no effort. Sure it is possible, but the thing is, in reality it doesnt happen. GGG has flat out said most players quit before maps. Of those that make it past, the majority of players don't see end game bosses. What is possible on paper, does not play out in reality most of the time. You need to realize that the majority of the players of this game don't accomplish what you seem to think is the easiest thing in reality.

I am a player that has seen all the content in the game up to this league (not played it), and have done shaper per second dps, yet i acknowledge that I am the minority. I have friends that have quit at act 5 when they couldnt get past kitava.

[kaminaris]

You keep acting like everyone can do shapers per second dps with no effort. Sure it is possible, but the thing is, in reality it doesnt happen. GGG has flat out said most players quit before maps. Of those that make it past, the majority of players don't see end game bosses. What is possible on paper, does not play out in reality most of the time. You need to realize that the majority of the players of this game don't accomplish what you seem to think is the easiest thing in reality.

I am a player that has seen all the content in the game up to this league (not played it), and have done shaper per second dps, yet i acknowledge that I am the minority. I have friends that have quit at act 5 when they couldnt get past kitava.

And you keep acting like its impossible to kill bosses without throwing hundreds of exolts into build. But the reality is, you can assemble scuffed cheap (< 50c) builds that will exactly do that = kill bosses.

If people quit before maps means they don't care, not that its impossible for them. Unless you honestly believe someone who hasn't even started playing quits before maps because of their lack of skill (which is literally contradiction).

If someone is unable to finish campaing while geniuely trying then i guess it's not a game for them. Reality is most of those never bother to even try to understand how game works.

Its not a game where skill matters (at least not a lot). Your effort is rewarded. You could make that argument against WoW where casuals are being shunned, not in PoE where you can build a GIGA CHAD without even completing a single map yourself and just flip your way to player power.

[bloodwulf]

And you keep acting like its impossible to kill bosses without throwing hundreds of exolts into build. But the reality is, you can assemble scuffed cheap (< 50c) builds that will exactly do that = kill bosses.

If people quit before maps means they don't care, not that its impossible for them. Unless you honestly believe someone who hasn't even started playing quits before maps because of their lack of skill (which is literally contradiction).

Its not a game where skill matters (at least not a lot). Your effort is rewarded. You could make that argument against WoW where casuals are being shunned, not in PoE where you can build a GIGA CHAD without even completing a single map yourself and just flip your way to player power.

You keep referring to flipping as a good method for noobs\casuals to get gear. You realize that a LOT of players have no idea how to accomplish that right? While we find it easy to turn stuff into profit, or snipe poorly priced items and resell them, a lot of people do not understand that. I have had friends that literally only got chaos from drops or doing the chaos recipe because they were afraid of getting scammed with trade. And yes, i have known 3 people to quit the game personally before finishing act 10 because they struggled to defeat the bosses or felt they screwed their build up. These are players that I have played at high levels in other games with, yet POE was too difficult for them. They have admitted as much, I offered them guides and stuff, but for some people, that external research is not how they want to play games, and there is nothing wrong with that. POE is obtuse as hell, doesn't mean everyone enjoys that.

[Edge-]

And you keep acting like its impossible to kill bosses without throwing hundreds of exolts into build. But the reality is, you can assemble scuffed cheap (< 50c) builds that will exactly do that = kill bosses.

Playing the same build 10 leagues in a row isn't what keeps most of us around. Sure there are plenty of cheaper, strong league starts. But if I wanted to keep playing the same character/build I'd just be playing standard, part of the point of a new league is to try new builds with new/existing skill gems. And I don't think he's acting like it's "impossible without throwing hundreds of ex", this is you being hyperbolic again.

Most of the strong league start builds are still the same, and at least for me a lot of them are either very uninteresting or very boring to play. Sure, I'm shooting myself in the foot a bit, but I try to have fun while playing (like I assume most folks do?) and fun is different. For my brother it's "a strong build", no matter what the build is. For me I'm fine with a slightly less strong build, but I want it to be a build I actually want to play. If I'm not having fun playing it, smashing all the content in the world won't be enjoyable.

- - - Updated - - -

You keep referring to flipping as a good method for noobs\casuals to get gear. You realize that a LOT of players have no idea how to accomplish that right?

And that trading is often a deeply unenjoyable experience (sorta by design per GGG), even if it can result in quite considerable profit. Hell, I haven't even really found anything worth selling yet this bloody league, maybe a few small 5-10c accessories but that's it.

[kaminaris]

You keep referring to flipping as a good method for noobs\casuals to get gear. You realize that a LOT of players have no idea how to accomplish that right? While we find it easy to turn stuff into profit, or snipe poorly priced items and resell them, a lot of people do not understand that. I have had friends that literally only got chaos from drops or doing the chaos recipe because they were afraid of getting scammed with trade. And yes, i have known 3 people to quit the game personally before finishing act 10 because they struggled to defeat the bosses or felt they screwed their build up. These are players that I have played at high levels in other games with, yet POE was too difficult for them. They have admitted as much, I offered them guides and stuff, but for some people, that external research is not how they want to play games, and there is nothing wrong with that. POE is obtuse as hell, doesn't mean everyone enjoys that.

No. You dont need to flip to get 50c. Read my post once again because you tried to argue about something I have never said.

- - - Updated - - -

Playing the same build 10 leagues in a row isn't what keeps most of us around. Sure there are plenty of cheaper, strong league starts. But if I wanted to keep playing the same character/build I'd just be playing standard, part of the point of a new league is to try new builds with new/existing skill gems. And I don't think he's acting like it's "impossible without throwing hundreds of ex", this is you being hyperbolic again.

You get hyperbolic response when you argue with same hyperbolic "shapers per second".

Most of the strong league start builds are still the same, and at least for me a lot of them are either very uninteresting or very boring to play. Sure, I'm shooting myself in the foot a bit, but I try to have fun while playing (like I assume most folks do?) and fun is different. For my brother it's "a strong build", no matter what the build is. For me I'm fine with a slightly less strong build, but I want it to be a build I actually want to play. If I'm not having fun playing it, smashing all the content in the world won't be enjoyable.

It's not a problem. I always start with minions. No matter what class/asendancy i chose, be it raider or duelist. Sure campaign is Bedge and all but at least i can watch something on the second screen, have easy start and can swap to something else when i get some currency. You can absolutely try new builds each league, in fact I only played same build once, every other league was something different, sometimes even as much as 2-4 builds.

And that trading is often a deeply unenjoyable experience (sorta by design per GGG), even if it can result in quite considerable profit. Hell, I haven't even really found anything worth selling yet this bloody league, maybe a few small 5-10c accessories but that's it.

That is enough to make profit, I still sell 1-3c items. Just dump em in a tab and forget.

[Edge-]

Man, even after all those buffs to Absolution, and getting a lucky awakened lightning pen support to drop off a conq, it's still just so...not good. PoB puts my 6L dudes at 40Kish dps each which is...awful. I ended up 2-linking my HoP with just minion damage and that...also does 40Kish dps...with a 2 link...with 4 minions vs. 3. Absolution has a bit of AoE, sure, but hot damn would it be easy to get that with HoP with an AoE support gem alone.

At this point I might just say fuck it and go with a boring ass 6L HoP build if I can get a circle of guilt and use Absolution to proc them. For the life of me I can't make Absolution seem to do any real damage, and it doesn't help that the AI for them likes to stand around and do nothing...a lot.

Edit: Holy hell yeah, from 40K per minion to 280K per minion without much in the way of changes outside of swapping a few passives around so I can get a minion cluster with impale on it. The damage just doesn't compare, and that's without anything too crazy like a circle of guilt or anything.

They really, really, really, really need to not add tons of useless gems in a league and instead focus on a smaller number that they actually spend time testing and ensuring have some kind of niche/role to fill and can be competitive. Plenty of gripes about how awful Reaper is as well, even after its buffs (and nerfs). Shield Crush feels like the only real "functional" skill added this league from what I can tell, and that's in part because this league is very much a Gladiator league.

Edit 2: Yeah...running out of steam. Still don't like the mechanic at all, and just thinking about the cost and time it will take to transition this build to a HoP build or figure out how to make it work is too much for a garbage existing build right now. My mistake for leaguestarting with a new skill without assuming it'd be garbage, but I'm tired of the same boring ass league starters league after league.

[NoiseTank13]

crafting a shield for my SST glad is proving to be obnoxious

wouldn't be too bad if people online were around to trade for Dread essences, but I wasted two hours to get a response and I just want to choke something

[kaminaris]

crafting a shield for my SST glad is proving to be obnoxious

wouldn't be too bad if people online were around to trade for Dread essences, but I wasted two hours to get a response and I just want to choke something

if you want to buy stuff like essences you gotta tick min stock 10 and whisper someone in the middle of the list. First are either jebaits or sold.


---

Downed A8 yesterday, its actually the fastest i have ever done so. It was also the first awekener I've done this league. Build is around 15 ex right now. Took me 2 deaths.

[Floofi]

So, I've largely slept on this game with getting my ARPG fix from Diablo 3 or more recently Grim Dawn but with the new league and with hearing about the large damage balancing that GGG was going to do with the newest patch, I thought that I'd finally give PoE a try.

I'm using a fully self built Chaos DoT Occultist, focusing mainly on Soulrend and Bane + Despair. I'm level 69 (nice) in Act 9 with ~35-40 hours played) and I've been having a blast. I feel like all the past league mechanics, currencies, and items are introduced at a nice pace so new players are not overwhelmed with the sheer number of different systems and ways to progress your character.

However, I do have some minor gripes.

1. The sheer damage that enemies can do can be a bit ridiculous; most of my deaths are me getting 1 shot seemingly out of nowhere. I can't complain too much though, as this is most likely due to my build / gear lacking in defense.
2. Lack of resources for past leagues before end game. I really like the Delve system and want to explore it some more, but I've only found like 5 nodes of sulphite since unlocking it in Act 4.
3. With everything being considered an item, additional stash tabs become almost a necessity later in the game. I tried to hold off, but after having like 1/2 of my stash filled up with various items + currencies, I broke down and bought a few.

[Edge-]

1. The sheer damage that enemies can do can be a bit ridiculous; most of my deaths are me getting 1 shot seemingly out of nowhere. I can't complain too much though, as this is most likely due to my build / gear lacking in defense.

Max ele res helps a lot, and you'll get a second -30% debuff after you clear A10. Other than that it's just finding more life on gear/in your tree and looking for more defense. Guard skills (steelskin is good for phys, arcane cloak if you're not reserving most of your mana, immortal call is a good cheap one etc.) can help as well.

But the game is pretty rippy/1-shot heavy, especially if you're not well geared and/or don't know what to look for (or can't see anything because the screen is so cluttered).

2. Lack of resources for past leagues before end game. I really like the Delve system and want to explore it some more, but I've only found like 5 nodes of sulphite since unlocking it in Act 4.

That'll come when you hit maps. As you complete maps you'll earn master missions (NPC's for old leagues) and be able to force that content into a map (i.e. guaranteed delve nodes, or einhar beasts etc.) so you'll be able to get more of that. Also as you progress your atlas and unlock Maven passives (secondary endgame progression) you'll have access to nodes in some regions of your map that will make Niko spawns more common and much more valuable in those regions.

IMO setting all this up takes much too long nowadays as it's when you have the atlas "unlocked" that things start getting really fun with layered mechanics in maps (force a Niko spawn for sulphite, find a Legion stone, find a Blight encounter etc.), but it's probably better for new players that it's slow since you'll be learning how all these mechanics work and which you like/dislike.

3. With everything being considered an item, additional stash tabs become almost a necessity later in the game. I tried to hold off, but after having like 1/2 of my stash filled up with various items + currencies, I broke down and bought a few.

Currency tab is one of the biggest QoL buffs you can have in the game. Tabs for other league mechanics (fragments, delve, blight etc.) are also nice but usually not as big of an improvement compared to currency.

IF you want to trade at all you'll need to buy a premium stash tab so you can list stuff on there for trade as well. But yeah, you can get by with the default stash tabs but...it's rough, especially if you're holding onto gear and other things you're unsure about as you learn the game.

[kaminaris]

1. The sheer damage that enemies can do can be a bit ridiculous; most of my deaths are me getting 1 shot seemingly out of nowhere. I can't complain too much though, as this is most likely due to my build / gear lacking in defense.

That is also a beaty of PoE, there is like a fluid slider of defense/offence you can build. I for once go full glass canon this league. If anything hits me, im dead. So what I do? Well I increase DPS even more so there is not much of those situations cause enemies can't kill you when they are dead 5Head.

If you wish to be more tanky there are tons of ways to do that. Evasion, dodge, block, endurance charges, fortify gimmicks, increasing hp, getting more armor, defensive auras and recently added ward.
If you die from one shots you don't have nuff EHP. Path of building calculates that and you can get a rough estimation how tanky are you versus specific type of damages.

For example this is my current build EHP:


Which is considered paper thin. On the other hand people are able to get that past 100k which is pretty much considered unkillable.

2. Lack of resources for past leagues before end game. I really like the Delve system and want to explore it some more, but I've only found like 5 nodes of sulphite since unlocking it in Act 4.

It's really hard to call maps - end game. Its literally the beginning of the game. People who are somewhat experienced do campaign in 4-5h. Speedrunners do that in 1-2h.
On maps you can buy sulphite scarabs and get almost infinite amount of that. People also do "niko rotas", cheap way to get extreme amounts of suphite.

3. With everything being considered an item, additional stash tabs become almost a necessity later in the game. I tried to hold off, but after having like 1/2 of my stash filled up with various items + currencies, I broke down and bought a few.

Yeah, its hard to play without currency/fragment/map tabs. But that is one time purchase. If you decide to play next league consider getting all special tabs.

[kail]

Snip

A lot of what u said in this post would go way over most first-time players.

[kaminaris]

A lot of what u said in this post would go way over most first-time players.

Not really, everything I said is googleable in less than 1 minute. "[insert phrase here] poe" and you will have detailed explanation if you don't know how dodge, block, ward etc. works under the hood. Don't assume that people are stupid and/or unable to use google.