Path of Exile

Xevy said:

I played hardcore exclusively until I think 2.1 or 2.2 and then I just wanted to try new builds (that didn't work mostly!) and other stuff. There's no way I could see myself playing hardcore anymore EXCEPT maybe this league because they didn't add any new GIB bosses (some of the fucking T3/T4 bosses bullshit aside) and you could fix your gear without having to indulge the emaciated hardcore trade system. Definitely props to people still playing, it definitely does make the game more thrilling but I've died to enough invisible shit this league to have confirmed never again.

The best was invisible shaper clone killing me and I had no idea except I saw the failure come up in the achievement log. That's when I knew.

Chieftan Bladefall/Bladeblast Kitava's Thirst build is utterly ridiculous now. Being able to craft high-end gear for basically free is a great help. Problem is due to the "proc" mechanic I can't really estimate my dps but full-bonered (Vaal RF, flasks, lost endurance charge recently, etc) the Sirus DPS seems to be something like:

Bladefall (always going): 2.3m dps
Bladeblast: ~10 blades x (450k each) x 6.3 (bladefall cast) x 0.5(proc chance) = 14m dps

Pretty good. Deathless A8 several times now. Can instagib all A8 Conquerors. I died a bunch during my Uber Elder b/c I phased them both at the wrong times due to retarded AE size and mega damage.

PoB for those interested. My gear is pretty good but I bought most all of it for less than 0.5ex with the exception of my belt 4ex (easily crafted I was lazy) and my Unnatural Instict which I found but isn't required.

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Xevy said:

-I started off with Black Cane. It does seem good in theory, because Bladefall is just a trigger and it gets phantasms up very quickly. But the ramp time on single target super bosses can be painful and your minions die to AE's with their ~4khp. I'd rather slightly juice my Bladefall and not rely on a gimmick. The minions were dying so fast I even got the jewel to make recently created minions invulnerable. Unfortunately that investment alone is something like a jewel socket and 2-3 passives for basically no benefit. Overall if your gear is bad it's fine to start with, but like I did I bought my two weapons for 80c and 30c a week ago and that's vastly superior now. The same people who run Black Cane tend to run Elemental Overload and that's more of the same thing. It's great until you can get high end gear and with crafting this league it's a no-brainer to go crit for even more damage.

-You need 100+ cost on spell uses, so you use mostly high mana multiplier supports or else you have to use fevered mind and lose nodes elsewhere (been there, did that). Spell Echo doesn't matter when you cast 6 times per second and I face tank shit anyways because you want to be closer to the boss due to how Kitava's Thirst works. The bladeblast explosion STARTS from you, so the closer you are and the tighter your blades are the bigger the boom. Blades also last something like 7+ seconds after duration stuff which is more than enough. You'd have something like 40 chances to trigger them before the first ones disappear.

-10 blades because it seemed reasonable. I just checked and each volley actually makes something like 15-30 blades per cast so it's actually much, much more.

-Overwriting blades? Not an issue as it basically drops a billion each volley. (by my count 15-30).

-I'm working on an explode/curse/crit chest but currently my overkill is so much herald of ash annihilates anything with overkill burning damage. Porcupines are fairly annoying but with 5 end charges and almost 6khp unless they're super juiced they're not much of a problem. I will be switching to a pop chest soon and the synergy with full fire conversion + fire leech + stacked AE will make it very, very nice.

-Warcry investment? Nah. My cast time is 0.58 seconds which is not as great as instant, but there's a bunch of garbage pathing to get there and I'd rather have 2 uses. Enduring cry I pretty much use at the start of a map and on big boss fights at the beginning or if I take a big hit. I have 12 second duration on endurance charges so that's plenty of time to refresh if for some reason I need to (immortal call, no kills recently).

I'll probably stream it tonight after shooting people. I'll make a highlight if I run through the Conqs and A8 of just those.

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Xevy said:

Spell echo for blade blast? I can't because it's a triggered skill and they cannot be echo'd. If you're saying instead of for Bladefall, the only thing Bladefall is needed for on bosses is casting as many blades as fast as possible and that's what Spell Echo does better than anything else.

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import random

def blades_per_second(spell_echo, spell_cascade, woke_spell_cascade):
    casts = 1000000
    cast_time = float(casts) * (1.0 + 1.0 * spell_echo) / (1.0 + 0.7 * spell_echo)
    lingering_blades = 0
    total_blades_added = 0
    blades_per_cast = 5
    if spell_echo:
        blades_per_cast *= 2
    if spell_cascade:
        blades_per_cast *= 3
    if woke_spell_cascade:
        blades_per_cast *= 5
    for _ in xrange(casts):
        # cast bladefall
        effective_blades_added = min(lingering_blades + blades_per_cast, 40) - lingering_blades
        total_blades_added += effective_blades_added
        lingering_blades += effective_blades_added
        # maybe cast blade blast
        if random.randint(0, 100) >= 50:
            lingering_blades = 0
    return float(total_blades_added)/cast_time
print 'For simplicity, 1 cast is 1 second without spell echo'
print
print 'Gems: \t\t\t\t\tBlades/s'
print 'None: \t\t\t\t\t', blades_per_second(spell_echo=False, spell_cascade=False, woke_spell_cascade=False)
print 'Spell cascade: \t\t\t\t', blades_per_second(spell_echo=False, spell_cascade=True, woke_spell_cascade=False)
print 'Woke spell cascade: \t\t\t', blades_per_second(spell_echo=False, spell_cascade=False, woke_spell_cascade=True)
print 'Spell echo: \t\t\t\t', blades_per_second(spell_echo=True, spell_cascade=False, woke_spell_cascade=False)
print 'Spell echo, spell cascade: \t\t', blades_per_second(spell_echo=True, spell_cascade=True, woke_spell_cascade=True)
print 'Spell echo, woke spell cascade: \t', blades_per_second(spell_echo=True, spell_cascade=False, woke_spell_cascade=True)

For simplicity, 1 cast is 1 second without spell echo

Gems:                                   Blades/s
None:                                   4.98147
Spell cascade:                          12.558
Woke spell cascade:                     16.38273
Spell echo:                             7.989456
Spell echo, spell cascade:              17.18513
Spell echo, woke spell cascade:         17.205802

• Inpulsa + HoI + cold to lightning conversion + maybe Elementalist(for guaranteed shock)
• 2 Obliteration wands
• Profane bloom + global curse on hit
• Explodey chest + maybe phys conversion

• Inpulsa + Storm's Gift
• Asenath's Gentle Touch + HoA or HoI

Vorph said:

Remove non-X and slam X is useful when you can ensure the non-X is one particular thing you don't want, especially when it's something that doesn't have a tag you can normally work on (or no tag at all). You can force it to do only prefixes or only suffixes if the 'slam X' has nothing available on one or the other.

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Vorph said:

Depends on the item and the affix type(s) you're dealing with. Sometimes there's nothing you can do but gamble, sometimes you can set up a sure thing.

shows one specific example, but there's lots of ways to do it.

But yeah, annul and slam seems super common, both x/x and non-x/x, so I probably wouldn't use up a horti slot on them if there was anything more rare or valuable to put there instead.

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