Path of Exile

Xevy

Log Wizard
8,622
3,832
The fire golem they added is super interesting. It comes down as a meteor when summoned so I think they want people to instability with them so you're constantly resummoning them. I was thinking they just wanted to make single golems you could use as effective damage minions with mix and match Elementalist, but I don't think that's what's going on. The hordes are good but a lot of people are missing that they have no buffs for the player so they're purely for Golemancer. The chaos degen one is interesting and we'd have to see PoEDB numbers to see if it's any good, but if you can stack multiple and toss in Sentinel of Radiance and you've got some really good passive damage for clear or whittling bosses.

Skelly Archers traditionally sucked, but with the new Dead Reckoning adding flat poison based off your shield ES to skellies could make them an option for poison that isn't SRS. Skelly mages being prismatic means you can focus 1 or 2 elements on them and forego Fleshcrafter by just stacking double curse or dumping a big exposure. Potentially makes Guardian worse as an option because you're probably getting much less benefit out of 1-2 of the free auras from relics.

Mega SRS are just all around amazing. I'm not sure regular SRS has a point now except as a better poison application setup because there are so many. Guaranteed crit on a skill that can scale off phys is just ASKING you to cold convert and freeze everything all the time. The 6 count is great because you can drop unleash and just manually summon. A longer duration would've been really nice like 10 seconds instead of 5, but with only 6 resummoning will just be what you do with downtime.

The soul wick Spectre sounds really cool, but it won't be. The problem lies within links. You'd have to use general minion links because a random mob being spectred that's ranged attack vs melee attack vs spell casting fucks it up for things like WED and spell echo and GMP. You could just drop minion speed, minion damage, and fresh meat (huge uptime) and lettem fly. This is actually probably the way to do it and just goof with them during early mapping/leveling.

New Zombie is old zombie. Slams are decent, but even Baron builds suck. Montreguls and zombies are great for clear if you're highly single target, but you'll never boss with them beyond the easiest of pinnacles. Falling zombie scaling is still ????. It scales the minions attack but it's a spell and it won't benefit from attack speed. So...what? Also spell tagged gem so you can just generally buff it with minion gems and spell gems like controlled destruction or spell echo.

Wild strike is... wild. Great skill except that it costs mana/life/es. Managing two of those is possible with some leech shit and/or conc ground, but all three gets more complicated. You can go bloodmagic/Warlock to get rid of mana costs, but it'll still take ES and life. Can take EB probably and it'll just double the ES cost and still cost life. That's probably the best option. Obviously the best ascendancy here is going to be Polymath Trickster as you'll get more than enough of each on clearing and on bosses you'll have built in ES leech from Ascendancy and life leech from tree. Can always scale down mana costs the regular way (Inspiration, rings, tree). Polymath + Spectre Curse from Warlock may be really good if the mobs die quickly as you'll just be constantly slurping 10%+ ES/Life/Mana per kill. We don't know the numbers on those phantasms yet so they could be tankier than we think, but I'd doubt it.

Next batch assuredly has RF, Tornado Shot, Lightning Arrow, etc. Probably taking so long because these top meta skills are already powerful as fuck for a reason so they've got to make sure they make alternate versions and not gooder versions. I'd love to see something cool like cold RF with cold damage over time to replace the insta cast Vortex, but I doubt we'll get anything so clever. Or a reverse RF that you hit and charges up damage based on your life/regen until you hit low life then turns off. Make RF a true regen stacker again.

Really funny that there's two days and some shit isn't release and all these build guides are just going to have to use OG skills because all the bigguns are probably coming at the end.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
19,848
13,362
Re: New wild strike. Wouldn't you just go EB and use a Gemini claw to solve the skill costs?

EDIT: Or I guess you could even go Ghost Reaver with claw?
 
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Xevy

Log Wizard
8,622
3,832
Gemini's work and you wouldn't need EB. Could go EB with an Imperial though and bypass the need for mana. There's ways to fix it for sure. A simple claw + trickster leech might be enough. Could be like the ol' Lightning Strike League from 4-5 leagues ago where everyone's just blasting essences on claws for a 300+ edps claw and they're set to go.

Also a bunch of much more convoluted ways to solve it but you're probably right. Gemini base or Imp Claw + EB will fix most all of the headache.

I was hoping that the attached costs were based on element and you'd be able to say Combat Focus block out fire and then you'd have no life cost. That'd be pretty cool so you could have pure lightning only costing ES or pure fire being Blood magic etc.. It may in fact work like that, but if it does I'd be surprised if it was intentional.

Trickster Trans Ele Focus probably an S tier starter build for mapping and early bossing then.
 

Pasteton

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,608
1,718
I don’t understand what’s difficult with the wild strike costs. Just go lifetap or blood magic or whatever and with the instant leech mastery won’t that fix any issues?

I would love to see someone do the exploding golems from the sky on a cwdt loop
 

Behemoth

Trakanon Raider
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Bleedrosphere
 
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Pasteton

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,608
1,718
Hm maybe a soul tether plus lifetap with instant leech mastery? Not sure if that would work, the es cost makes it wonky
 

Pasteton

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,608
1,718
I think pathfinder with master surgeon + supreme decadence jewel and lifetap support to get rid of mana would work without needing a claw or leech shenanigans unless im missing something
 

Xevy

Log Wizard
8,622
3,832
Just realized the new Spectre gem is actually kind of great because you can slot Phantasms in and there's a high chance they're going to gain the 1000% increased critical strike chance (phantasm support "steals" mods from its base gem). They also do proj and phys based spell so again Hatred and other phys scaling shit will go big. Thinking instead of the pussy support spectres for frenzy/power charges for SRS/skellies you just go nutso Unending Hunger 4 link spectres with phantasm, minion damage, and fresh meat with the Phantasm curse to feed their Soul Eater.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,063
2,264
There is a new curse thing that spawns mobs when you attack the target in the new ascendency things which could help arakaali a lot, granted that means you have to pick that one and it kinda looked pretty meh compared to the other 2 when I gave it a quick look.

A lot of the "new" gems seem like just nerfed versions of the old gems in endgame setups(like once you had a lab enchant+alternate quality gem) but some are quite nice, if I wasn't playing anything I would maybe give it a try, but just the idea of having to level again makes it pretty unappealing. I haven't played for like, 2 years or something, and I still can't get over the idea of leveling another char. As nice as the announcement of 10 acts and all that shit was, I really wish they'd streamline the process a lot.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
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Penance Mark leaving corpses would break so much shit for the same reason worms don't leave corpses. But, they've done stupider, 3.21 VC...Ideally, it's on-kill generator during boss fights.
 

Aazrael

Golden Baronet of the Realm
2,553
9,044
Guess I'll have to do Lightning Arrow this League. I'm really sick of the Old Dude character and totems as I said earlier. I did really enjoy the new Lightning Gem a few Leagues ago but not seeing many builds for that now.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
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That particular version of it removes the clunk and need for blades.
Lingering blades? Yes. (Re)summoning your animated weapons(which I think what I meant in my original post, but I dont remember)? No. Note that it has less than half the duration but also a lower weapon limit. So, idk how exactly to rate the clunk on the transfigured version.