Path of Exile

Finished up the campaign and while I like Expedition thematically and even mechanically it just didn't shit out anything interesting from 1 to 70. It didn't take long before I was barely reading the signs, the content was too easy no matter how much shit I strung together and the rewards were far below Ritual or Ultimatum. I liked Ultimatum less as mapping went on but during the story part of the game it set a benchmark and rewarded you for meeting it. Ritual was less murder but it offered a ton of interesting bits and bobs from almost the word go.

With Expedition the gamble chick never gave me anything interesting. I never bought anything from regular store fatty. His store reset currency was also far more rare than anyone else meaning he had the same shit I didn't want for long stretches. Currency midget was fine. I've only played a handful of Leagues but I'd rate this one at the absolute bottom. This is the first league I've ever played where I didn't stop at the Twilight Strand in Act 6 just to farm the league mechanic.

If I didn't like the character I was playing and if I had gone super hard last League and was sorta burned out I'd probably have tapped out. Hopefully for the superstars Expedition gets really interesting with the bosses or logbooks or big juiced maps otherwise this is going to end up not really appealing to anyone.

At the rate I am playing it is going to take me a week to get to maps, this is ridiculous.

I ran 4 chars through the campaign in Ultimatum and was never once this bored.

Anyway, I am trying SST and it doesn't feel too bad. I can tell already it is going to be limited at high maps, but it's clear speed is scaling well.

GGG loves to take a loot splosion league and follow it up with a stinker. I found five 6-link chests and two 2-handers in the time I played Ult, and 6L'd another with the currency I found. I am thinking to myself that I may not even get 1 this league.

Most vendors (all of them, I think) don't reset on leveling. You have to use their currency to reroll their items. Some of them actually +lvl the item types too, so at lvl 72 I was gambling ilvl80 shit. Gamblin lady is just gambling, pure D2 style. Currency guy is like a currency Ritual. Grab what you want and reroll for moar.

Rog is god. Rog's items aren't shit, because that's not the item. I'm sure some one is putting together a Rog-Guide somewhere, but basically he's mini harvest. You grab the base item and he goes "Oh, you want better shit? I'll +2 Tiers to 3 affixes for ____ exp currency". So you either say "Yes please" and he changes it. Or "No thanks" and it gives you the next crafting option. Or you can just take the item as it is. IF you say "no thanks" but continue to Rogcraft, you HAVE to take the next craft to keep crafting. You may not skip two crafts in a row. So it gets very gambley at the end. But some of his options are very much juiced harvest stuff. Some examples

-Reroll all prefixes/suffixes
-Lucky roll prefixes/suffixes/everything
-Reroll prefixes/suffixes/everything for "better" (higher tier) affixes
-Remove suffixes/affixes
-Remove lowest tier mods (2, maybe 3 possible)
-Increase all affix levels
-Increase certain affixes (highest, lowest)

and there's probably more. So the shit item you see may infact be shit, but maybe it's got high phys roll and you go "okay." I had a Karui Maul with 140% phys and nothing else. I ended up getting 140% phys, tier 3 flat, open prefix (hits can't be evaded), Crit chance, and crit multi. Rog is like babbi's first craft practice with a LOT less concern because you're kind of playing with house money, or at least a house item. He does use different currency for the different types of crafting options, but like anything in PoE you just blast content til you go "Oh, I'll check Rog" and then spend 30-45 minutes making some great shit. It's especially awesome for SSF for stuff like belts/gloves where you just need a FEW stats and then resists because it's pretty easy to hit those.

Oh and Expedition will probably have a guide as well. I'm not sure it's as common knowledge as it should be (took me 11 hours to read the tooltip), but the effects from the shit you blow up apply to that group of mobs and any AFTER. So you want to hit your big modifiers (currency, fully linked, maps) first, then run it around to other modifiers. Basically save the shittiest mod for last because it'll only apply to that last pack of mobs. There's probably a ton about the chest types (white/yellow/red) that I don't understand and people will have a TLDR for pretty soon. My guess is it's just the type of runic mobs you get. White/blues, Rares, and Big Rares/possible bosses.

I rapidly got the yawns with the expedition and just randomly placed explosions and blew it without looking at it or reading the things. Of course I'm still very early on in the campaign and assume it gets better later on with mapping and such.

I'm dabbling with a raider SST too, but I'm curious, what are good skills to level to 28 to get there? My leveling was an absolutely slog. I tried a handful of skills and settled on 3L Split Arrow and 3L Caustic Arrow (with Mirage Archer so it's kinda like an extended duration) but I had to use Puncture on single targets because the damage was so bad, even with a decently rolled bow. I think at least a small part of this is just that the early tree is going through defensive shit, but the skills definitely sucked as well.

So basically Rog is like some weird vendor version of Last Epoch’s crafting system.

Nirgon said:

Glad I'm on PD2

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I started playing yesterday leveling a windy druid. Was never a fan of the class in D2 but playing one in PD2 is a blast. Will be playing until D2R beta starts sometimes next month.

Using caustic arrow with mirage archer early and so far it's been plenty of damage on a raider wtih a silverbranch bow I snagged out of the guild bank. Of course I'm around lvl 25. 3l and blink all the gems links I have going and it works fine.

Explosions are kind a pita in tight caves and shit. Places you can't cover the node at all.

got explosive concoction finally. probably not even going to give it a shot. was leveling spiral helix, which is quite easy to use. concoction however, seemed like a giant pita immediately. without 3 element flasks, damage was weak. losing a weapon slot gem link, and stats is a big loss. I didn't massively theorycraft gear/passives, links, etc. but early look was totally unimpressed.
(ranger)

Leave it to our resident genius to label paying for RNG crafting options both "deterministic" and "mini-Harvest".

I am loathe to take up for Xeq, but only the start of the item is RNG. Very very similar to LE crafting where you get fragments to target. Now granted I guess the Rog guy’s options are RNG. But it is deterministic in a sense. I don’t know if I’d invoke harvest since there isn’t remove adds. Or maybe there are. I’m not playing.

I found LE’s loot somewhat boring but making a perfect item was nearly impossible because items would fracture or it would take forever to drop the specific fragments you needed as forced SSF. I think LE will have to have some very hard bosses and some chase items. They really need to ramp the difficulty, and be very careful when they implement trade. Otherwise it will be some awful version of d3 where you’re done in a day instead of 2.

Caeden said:

I am loathe to take up for Xeq, but only the start of the item is RNG. Very very similar to LE crafting where you get fragments to target. Now granted I guess the Rog guy’s options are RNG. But it is deterministic in a sense. I don’t know if I’d invoke harvest since there isn’t remove adds. Or maybe there are. I’m not playing.

I found LE’s loot somewhat boring but making a perfect item was nearly impossible because items would fracture or it would take forever to drop the specific fragments you needed as forced SSF. I think LE will have to have some very hard bosses and some chase items. They really need to ramp the difficulty, and be very careful when they implement trade. Otherwise it will be some awful version of d3 where you’re done in a day instead of 2.

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It is a strictly worse crafting bench. You don't get to pick your craft nor do you have any input or visibility on any successive crafts. You also can't replace or remove any crafts through this method. It is less deterministic than the most basic crafting method that has existed in the game forever.

Also in this thread Xevy is the ridiculous shill, not Xeq.

Jesus there's some real smoothbrain action going on in this thread.

Rog is insane and if you can't see that immediately after going through a handful of items with him you have no idea how crafting in this game actually works.

and the GGG dev was in the top 10. Pretty devastating look for the 'do they play their own game' crowd.

ronne said:

Jesus there's some real smoothbrain action going on in this thread.

Rog is insane and if you can't see that immediately after going through a handful of items with him you have no idea how crafting in this game actually works.

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Fuck off. Getting RNG luck with a most-likely artificially boosted league NPC isn't some effective replacement for crafting as is being suggested by the usual faggots. Glad it is working for you, but it doesn't solve the problem of end-game gearing goals and build-diversity enablement that made Harvest popular and that encourages people to keep playing.

LiquidDeath said:

Fuck off. Getting RNG luck with a most-likely artificially boosted league NPC isn't some effective replacement for crafting as is being suggested by the usual faggots. Glad it is working for you, but it doesn't solve the problem of end-game gearing goals and build-diversity enablement that made Harvest popular and that encourages people to keep playing.

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Harvest is the worst thing they ever put in this game, precisely because this is what it has done to people. PoE existed for half a decade before harvest and was great. But now that they've opened that pandora's box of infinity free item perfection crafting nonsense everyone has turned in to a toddler that got their first taste of sugar and anything but more sugar is met with temper tantrums.

Hotfixes coming in: 4 sec flasks immunity, mana costs coming down, some other good stuff.