[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Edge-]

Man I hate the RNG in this game sometimes. Decided to just slam two more suffixes on my chest on SSF trapper...

Aug Lightning -> T6, 19 res

Exalt Slam -> T11 life regen, 1.5/s

I can live with the lightning roll, it's shit but it's not totally useless (I don't need the res, but it potentially lets me convert res elsewhere). But the fuckin life regen roll is killing me. Like, it just sucks to have a pretty good piece of gear and then get quite literally a worthless slam on it. I'm not expecting to slam T1's all day every day and shit, but this shit just fuckin sucks donkey balls and is the lamest shit.

[NoiseTank13]

Man I hate the RNG in this game sometimes. Decided to just slam two more suffixes on my chest on SSF trapper...

Aug Lightning -> T6, 19 res

Exalt Slam -> T11 life regen, 1.5/s

I can live with the lightning roll, it's shit but it's not totally useless (I don't need the res, but it potentially lets me convert res elsewhere). But the fuckin life regen roll is killing me. Like, it just sucks to have a pretty good piece of gear and then get quite literally a worthless slam on it. I'm not expecting to slam T1's all day every day and shit, but this shit just fuckin sucks donkey balls and is the lamest shit.

But if you got a useful mod, think how stoked you would have been! Close your eyes and slam, exile!

[unfilteredJW]

HoP Necro is fucking disgusting.

Like 1ex invested in off meta items and I went directly from Act 10 to juicey t16s.

[Fencers]

Man I hate the RNG in this game sometimes. Decided to just slam two more suffixes on my chest on SSF trapper...

Aug Lightning -> T6, 19 res

Exalt Slam -> T11 life regen, 1.5/s

I can live with the lightning roll, it's shit but it's not totally useless (I don't need the res, but it potentially lets me convert res elsewhere). But the fuckin life regen roll is killing me. Like, it just sucks to have a pretty good piece of gear and then get quite literally a worthless slam on it. I'm not expecting to slam T1's all day every day and shit, but this shit just fuckin sucks donkey balls and is the lamest shit.

I've been kinda into the movement toward deterministic item crafting in ARPGs. Or at least a way to roll back the blatant shit that can't possibly benefit you past X point.

It could be because I have been playing a cocktail of D2r, Last Epoch, and Black Desert. But I am pretty over the time-wasting RNG upgrade stuff right now.

[Coldkil]

RNG is fine when you have a limited pool of items/affixes you can roll on. In D3 it's fine because everything is fixed and it's pretty easy to target.

RNG needs to be there, in PoE you play with a loot filter because 99% of the drops is useless, you can literally waste items with a wrong roll, and basically any guide/build is based on the fact you just farm the currency needed to buy the things you want.

Fortunately PoE is great on other aspects so this isn't making it unplayable.

[Edge-]

What. The. Fuck.

Is that six elevated Maven mods? Because it looks like six elevated Maven mods (not sure about the global defense one). Recombinators are absolutely unethical.

[NoiseTank13]

hurr but harvest was too much

[Edge-]

hurr but harvest was too much

Sorta kinda?

Harvest was broken because it was too easy to target specific mods without huge investment. Recombinators still require massive investment for these items because you need to get the rolls in the first place, and then smash them together and hope it doesn't get bricked. Especially seeing how folks talk about spending multiple mirrors on crafting one of these types of items.

But I don't see recombinators going core without some serious limitations being put in place. Shit like being able to get spell suppression rolls on non-dex based gear is broken as hell.

[Fencers]

I literally had to take my glasses off, squint at the screen, then put them back on like an old lady. Wow.

[Edge-]

I literally had to take my glasses off, squint at the screen, then put them back on like an old lady. Wow.

It took me a second to figure it out since I don't think I've seen the elevated +1 stat gem mods with %stats as well. 5 elevated mods + 100% defense mod on top of the 8% defense mod enchant.

Harvest may have printed super good items and made getting specific gear with T1-2 rolls pretty easy, but Sentinel is fuckin batty and seems both more and less in line with what GGG wants out of crafting.

Good part for GGG - it requires a ton of currency to make shit like this. Recombinators can make some pretty good stuff more affordably, but projects like this are ludicrously expensive.

Bad part for GGG - the power ceiling seems to have a pretty big jump this league with the possibilities and being able to get mods on gear that you otherwise are not supposed to get (like spell suppression on non-dex bases)

I'm curious where they'll take the concept, though. Since Krangle league seems to have been a bit of a testing ground for the new exarch/eater implicits and IMO that system turned out fantastically and made a lot more bases viable to craft on. The system is still good if they can find ways to block a lot of the interactions and limit what mods can be copied over to the new base based off what can actually roll on it (so like, no spell suppression on str/int bases).

I just wish I had the brainspace and cared enough to actually keep an eye out for bases with decent mods I want to smash together when I played league. I'm back to SSF and man...I miss Sentinel as a mechanic so much. Juicing dudes to drop tons of small currencies/fragments etc. and get a bunch of extra XP and stuff is so nice. 10/10 league mechanic.

[Ripster42]

I'm curious where they'll take the concept, though. Since Krangle league seems to have been a bit of a testing ground for the new exarch/eater implicits and IMO that system turned out fantastically and made a lot more bases viable to craft on.

I haven't played since ritual, would you mind a (very brief) run through?

[Edge-]

I haven't played since ritual, would you mind a (very brief) run through?

Missed Ultimatum which was apparently like ritual, but with multiple phases so you could push further if you had a stronger build or take what you earned and leave (failure meant you got nothing I think). Didn't go core.

Expedition was fantastic, you can still interact with it and while it can be a bit rippy the logbooks can pay out big if you're lucky. Plus it has nice NPC's that sell you currency/fragments, gamble for items, or buy items that you can craft on via the NPC. Not super strong, but I like it a lot. Also introduced ward as a defensive stat, which I've never played with. 3.15 also had a lot of nerfs to support gems and stuff IIRC as part of GGG's efforts to slow down the game. Went core.

Scourge...sucked. Bad. Basically it was a new crafting system where you could toss gear into a UI window to "krangle" it, corrupt the item (and make it rare if it was white, I think) to get a potentially strong implicit that came with a negative implicit as well. Had some kind of progression via levels to give you access to higher tiers of implicits and whatnot. Basically, kill mobs to fill up a bar, when filled hit the bar and enter "alternate version" of the zone with a lot of mobs that you could kill who would progress your krangle-crafting (since you needed XP to krangle items). I don't think it ended up being super popular as a result. I believe this patch included the buffs to player defenses. It also came with the atlas passive tree, which is bloody great. Didn't go core (the mechanic, but the passive tree did).

Archnemesis was like Metamorph, but better. Basically kill enemies to get various "drops" that you put in a UI window, then find frozen monsters (like Essense) and you can slot the drops into the mob to break them free. The drops granted specific types of rewards and interactions (i.e. one would make all items drop corrupted, for example), while also giving the mob specific buffs. You could do up to 4 in a map, so you could basically make some crazy "crafts" on mobs for absurd drops. Very much a bossing league, and it was a ton of fun since you had control over how you wanted to build the encounters. I think this was the league that introduced searing exarch/eater of worlds as well, which is the new endgame influenced/boss system. Basically, just tons of free mobs spawning in your maps while you farm your way towards the miniboss/boss for each - and each drops CRAZY amulets. Ashes of the Stars and Omnicience are in super high demand now since both are very good and the droprates have been nerfed. New currency drops as a result and lets you put implicits on any non-influenced helmet/armor/gloves/boots, significantly opening up the pool of viable bases. You can get two implicits - one per influence - and reroll endlessly. Also came with some influence-based crafting currency, so you can get influenced chaos or exalts or anuls (rare drops) that interact based on the "dominant" implicit (since there are 4 tiers of currency for implicit upgrading). Basically it gives you more control over crafting, as it will only interact with prefixes or suffixes based on the dominant implicit. It's very, very nice. Didn't go core...mostly.

Sentinel is the latest, and it did a few things (beyond improvements to the atlas passive tree and adding new uber versions of Sirus/uber uber elder, and the new eater/exarch bosses). Mechanic itself is nice, basically you have a selection of 3 different types of sentinels - one buffs only rare mobs/bosses and has extremely limited charges, one buffs whatever and has a moderate amount of charges, and one is more of a "one-shot" where it buffs a ton of stuff all at once. Sentinels have their own mods and grant stuff like "drops more currency" etc., so empowered mobs are a bit harder/tankier and sometimes have a chance of dropping specific types of items randomly/influenced by the mods on the sentinel. There's a "passive tree" that came with it too, that you can level cap pretty quickly and it largely lets you build to focus on specific sentinels (or all three) or specific types of bonuses (like using the AoE sentinel twice per map vs. once).

Then there are recombinators which...yeah, they're crazy. Basically play and find recombinators, and then use them to smash gear together. Randomly selects which mods from each gear it applies to the "new" item, and has a chance at proccing some new mods (like a level 4 empower or enlighten mod on gloves). It's the source of all the STUPID items like what I linked above, since it's basically letting folks ignore base types and put whatever mods they want on gear...to a point. It's stupid expensive to do right since you're gonna brick/waste a lot of items, but it is pretty approachable and a way to make ye-basic alteration spam crafting for a few key mods a lot more viable if you're largely looking for an item with only 2-3 specific mods and the rest can be flexbile.

Oh yeah, and it got rid of the old mod system for magic/rare enemies. Donezo. They now have mods from Archnemesis league which...went spectacularly poorly initially, in part due to mobs being way overbuffed (and a lot of BRUTAL combinations at low level when you have no tools) and in part because of the way AN mods worked in general. Basically bricked a ton of builds because enemies would have something like complete immunity to cold dots, and required GGG to spend a few weeks of both blanket nerfs and more targeted nerfs. It's still deadlier than the old system, but largely once you achieve "basic T16 mapping power" you can cruise through the game more or less as you were before. It's just annoying with TONS of death-orbs following you around a lots of long lasting ground degens. It worked in AN league because you could control what you fought and avoid combinations that would thunderfuck you. Not so much with it being slapped on every magic/rare mob, lol.

I think that covers the biggest bits, though I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty of big nerfs that pissed people off and whatnot. It's a mixed bag of sorts, but overall progress forward. They didn't make any changes to skills last patch since they wanted to get more data on the mod system first, so supposedly the next patch is when the next round of skill balance will come.

[Ripster42]

block of text that was interesting to read

I just meant about krangling to use more bases. How did that affect what bases you can use? Are you still not generally looking for the right ilvl and highest tier base for that ilvl to craft with? Is that what you're talking about with recombinators, being able to use dift defensive bases to craft on? If that's the case, I think I was assuming you were talking about something a bit more complicated than that.

Thanks for the rundown though. And now that you've refreshed me, I'm realizing I also played ultimatum and quit as soon as I got to maps in archnemesis.

[Edge-]

I just meant about krangling to use more bases. How did that affect what bases you can use? Are you still not generally looking for the right ilvl and highest tier base for that ilvl to craft with? Is that what you're talking about with recombinators, being able to use dift defensive bases to craft on? If that's the case, I think I was assuming you were talking about something a bit more complicated than that.

Thanks for the rundown though. And now that you've refreshed me, I'm realizing I also played ultimatum and quit as soon as I got to maps in archnemesis.

Ah, sorry for the wall of text lol.

You still aim for high ilvl and the highest tier bases, but because bases could now get implicits no matter what the actual item there were more viable alternatives. For example while the default strength body armor is astral plate for the +12% ele res, the higher armor bases like gladiator plate and glorious plate could now roll implicit that could compete with, if not far exceed, +12% ele res. Even crusader plate is fine unless you're actually armor stacking, so what was once a single strength armor base opened up into four. It seems like this system, which folks weren't big fans of given the pure RNG nature of it, evolved into the exarch/eater system that we have now.

With recombinators though (I MAY GET THINGS WRONG I DID NOT INTERACT A LOT WITH THIS MECHANIC SINCE I AM LE DUMB), that's totally different and a brand-new crafting mechanic they've introduced. Basically, you can take two items of the same type (rings of any base, armors of any type, though I'm not sure how weapons worked outside of respecting 1h/2h options) and you can merge them together into a brand new item of one of the bases used - this item will draw mods randomly from each item and have a chance to add a new mod sometimes. Basically you can target specific rolls and have limited control over guaranteeing that the recombinated item gets certain mods from each item used. This is harder and harder as you want to keep more mods from each different item.

A way it potentially opens more base types is in gambling a bad base with good mods you want with a better base and hoping that it chooses the better base for the created item. It very much depends on your patience/investment and what you're looking to get out of it, because it's definitely not "pick up all the rares!" by any measure. Just continuing to slowly open up more gear and make crafting some types of gear more approachable.

[Ripster42]

Ah, sorry for the wall of text lol.

No need to apologize. Was nice to read a succinct overview that you did a good job on. For real, thanks, I just didn't want you to have to put that much effort into it.

NGL, I never really considered that the astral plate didn't have the highest armor values. I've almost solely run evasion, ES, or ES/Armor builds, so I've got little exp with armor stacking, and a lot of my builds have had a required chest anyway, though I'm assuming there's some similarity between that and the two-toned boots. Are there any other mods that can't be gotten on some bases like spell suppression that recombinators would allow you to migrate/transfer/whatever you want to call it?

This game snags me about once every 6mo-1yr. Might play the next season and I'm just trying to not be completely out of depth if I do.

[Edge-]

Are there any other mods that can't be gotten on some bases like spell suppression that recombinators would allow you to migrate/transfer/whatever you want to call it?

Yes, and this is what folks have been doing that's so busted. If you're lucky, you can do shit like smash T1 spell suppression from a dex item onto a pure int item that it has no business of being on. You can transfer multiple fractured mods that remain fractured on the item you've created. It's still random to a point, but you have some control over the randomness (some).

[LilSaihah]

What. The. Fuck.

Is that six elevated Maven mods? Because it looks like six elevated Maven mods (not sure about the global defense one). Recombinators are absolutely unethical.

So what's the actual level of the skill you put into this gem?
I'm counting on my fingers and it's... +5(level 4 Empower, with +1+1) and either +2 or +3? So a comfortable level 29, before any other +level?
And honestly I'm halfway thinking this wasn't really worth mirroring, considering the enchant lol

[Ashnazg]

So what's the actual level of the skill you put into this gem?
I'm counting on my fingers and it's... +5(level 4 Empower, with +1+1) and either +2 or +3? So a comfortable level 29, before any other +level?
And honestly I'm halfway thinking this wasn't really worth mirroring, considering the enchant lol

Considering the insane popularity of ward loop this league, 100% global defense by itself on a non grasping mail evasion base is worth a hundred ex, then you have 36% more omniscience through stat boosts, which again synergizes extremely well with ward loop builds, and then you have an extra +2 all skill gems on top of that. Definitely multi-mirror worthy.

[Edge-]

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3289506

3.19 timeline, TLDR

Sentinel likely ending Aug 9

3.19 likely launching Aug 12

Reveals will happen in the weak before launch as usual.

Apparently they're continuing to focus on endgame improvements that they can carry over for PoE2 which is great and this time they're doing a skill balance pass now that they've got mountains of data about the new enemy mod system. It's supposed to be bigger than sentinel.

Not sure how I feel about it being "bigger", I really liked Sentinel overall and felt like it was a good "size" for a patch. Nice new system for mapping/crafting that added plenty of player agency and depth, change to enemy mod system throughout the game, and some big improvements for the atlas passive tree including uber/uber uber bosses.

I hope it's finally boat league.

[Ripster42]

I hope it's finally boat league.

With fishing?