Path of Exile

  • Guest, it's time once again for the hotly contested and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and fill out your bracket!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Once again, only you can decide!

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
26,803
70,700
Playing my first season ever, pretty late into starting a first play through . Having a good time, any recommendations on armor level 30-60? Just game pickups? Or am I meant to trade into my build? Doing witch golemancy

The Ultimatums shit out some really good stuff during the entire story section of the game.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users

ronne

Nǐ hǎo, yǒu jīn zi ma?
7,832
6,947
Took exsanguinate about as far as I'm willing to I think. Killed sirus, did a bunch of guardians etc.

Overall I think it's probably one of the better league starters - right up there with ED in terms of clear speed and ease of transitioning in to maps. I went scion gladiator/necro and ran a full block setup, then eventually tried out some petrified blood low-life nonsense near the end. Ultimately though it scales very similar to ED and the top end really plateaus eventually. I'm sure there's more to be extracted from it with another like 20ex of cluster jewels, but I can't be arsed to roll them for to gain another ~30% damage and still be in a kinda bleh spot.

Petrified blood though, hoooboy is it a weird one. It's definitely interesting in that it lets you grab pain attunement without having to run a full ES build, which is a pretty fair chunk of damage for a lot of builds. Other interesting little perks are:
  • Taking the life flask pantheon for 60% increased flask heal on low life, which is always, meaning your flask is basically a complete heal button
  • Overleech/slayer leech assuming you only reserve 49% of your life pool (I ended up bailing on leech entirely cause the hit portion of exsanguinate is so bleh)
  • Life% on block seems to still operate off your actual max life, meaning you get "double" the relative value out of it
Even still I don't think it's worth it, not without some kind of heavy investment in to fortify or other flat damage reduction. You get oneshot bigly sometimes even with the 40% reduction, and ground degens or clouds like the chaos shit in ultimatum or influenced storms are fucking nightmarish to deal with. I had like ~700-1000 regen and still would get completely assfucked by shit like hunter snake degens/poisons, veritina frost storms etc.

Maybe it works better on something like champion with some omega levels of fortify scaling, and then dancing in and out of low life to keep adrenaline up all the time? Maybe I'll mess around with that some next. That % max life as added phys gem looks pretty baller at around 7k life.

 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users

Caeden

Silver Baronet of the Realm
7,340
11,820
Took exsanguinate about as far as I'm willing to I think. Killed sirus, did a bunch of guardians etc.

Overall I think it's probably one of the better league starters - right up there with ED in terms of clear speed and ease of transitioning in to maps. I went scion gladiator/necro and ran a full block setup, then eventually tried out some petrified blood low-life nonsense near the end. Ultimately though it scales very similar to ED and the top end really plateaus eventually. I'm sure there's more to be extracted from it with another like 20ex of cluster jewels, but I can't be arsed to roll them for to gain another ~30% damage and still be in a kinda bleh spot.

Petrified blood though, hoooboy is it a weird one. It's definitely interesting in that it lets you grab pain attunement without having to run a full ES build, which is a pretty fair chunk of damage for a lot of builds. Other interesting little perks are:
  • Taking the life flask pantheon for 60% increased flask heal on low life, which is always, meaning your flask is basically a complete heal button
  • Overleech/slayer leech assuming you only reserve 49% of your life pool (I ended up bailing on leech entirely cause the hit portion of exsanguinate is so bleh)
  • Life% on block seems to still operate off your actual max life, meaning you get "double" the relative value out of it
Even still I don't think it's worth it, not without some kind of heavy investment in to fortify or other flat damage reduction. You get oneshot bigly sometimes even with the 40% reduction, and ground degens or clouds like the chaos shit in ultimatum or influenced storms are fucking nightmarish to deal with. I had like ~700-1000 regen and still would get completely assfucked by shit like hunter snake degens/poisons, veritina frost storms etc.

Maybe it works better on something like champion with some omega levels of fortify scaling, and then dancing in and out of low life to keep adrenaline up all the time? Maybe I'll mess around with that some next. That % max life as added phys gem looks pretty baller at around 7k life.

Literally the way I built it pre-league. Thanks for making sure I didn’t have to play it.
 

Caeden

Silver Baronet of the Realm
7,340
11,820
I cannot get into this league at all x.x;; VGS is fun but.. ugh, I just probably wont play till later and pick uip some ex from some bros and just do 24 challenges rq or something
So, this is coming from the perspective of a skilled but casual player in terms of time. I usually clear A8 Sirus about 2-3 weeks after most and usually finish 24 challenges. Maybe that’s not casual
I’m about in the same boat.

I’ve used the leapfrog progression approach all but the first conqueror league. And the white map grind for sustain is starting to be a bit too transparent. Maybe it was this bad during War for the Atlas, but it sure as fuck didn’t feel like it. Also the people bitching about sustain are probably the ones that finally caught on to leapfrogging and are unaware of the side-effect that is purely cognitive. You were doing the same grind as before; it was just less obvious cause you took forever to taste reds.


The nerfs to harvest I disagreed with or at least felt they used a sledgehammer where they needed a scalpel, but the nerfs to the craft bench crafts kinda gave one more fuck you to casual players.

The meta is boring to me. I regret not trying the BV shit last league. Maybe swapping over to the archmage raider bf/BV would be more fun? Shouldn’t be unless it’s OP

also the endgame grind on maven and conqs is starting to feel like WoW’s daily grind each patch from MoP onward. I forget who said it, but I truly think PoE cannot be a main game without this hitting you In the face some.

The league mechanic seems boring to me. And the rewards cratered in maps at least for me. Yet at times it’s exciting. I’m out on it, but the challenge awards this time are utter shit except the portal so I don’t feel motivated.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,316
7,317
Took exsanguinate about as far as I'm willing to I think. Killed sirus, did a bunch of guardians etc.

Overall I think it's probably one of the better league starters - right up there with ED in terms of clear speed and ease of transitioning in to maps. I went scion gladiator/necro and ran a full block setup, then eventually tried out some petrified blood low-life nonsense near the end. Ultimately though it scales very similar to ED and the top end really plateaus eventually. I'm sure there's more to be extracted from it with another like 20ex of cluster jewels, but I can't be arsed to roll them for to gain another ~30% damage and still be in a kinda bleh spot.

Petrified blood though, hoooboy is it a weird one. It's definitely interesting in that it lets you grab pain attunement without having to run a full ES build, which is a pretty fair chunk of damage for a lot of builds. Other interesting little perks are:
  • Taking the life flask pantheon for 60% increased flask heal on low life, which is always, meaning your flask is basically a complete heal button
  • Overleech/slayer leech assuming you only reserve 49% of your life pool (I ended up bailing on leech entirely cause the hit portion of exsanguinate is so bleh)
  • Life% on block seems to still operate off your actual max life, meaning you get "double" the relative value out of it
Even still I don't think it's worth it, not without some kind of heavy investment in to fortify or other flat damage reduction. You get oneshot bigly sometimes even with the 40% reduction, and ground degens or clouds like the chaos shit in ultimatum or influenced storms are fucking nightmarish to deal with. I had like ~700-1000 regen and still would get completely assfucked by shit like hunter snake degens/poisons, veritina frost storms etc.

Maybe it works better on something like champion with some omega levels of fortify scaling, and then dancing in and out of low life to keep adrenaline up all the time? Maybe I'll mess around with that some next. That % max life as added phys gem looks pretty baller at around 7k life.

This looks a bit above starter gear, but not too much. PoB says you have ~2.8M DPS. Giving your cast time and duration of Exsanguinate, I would take ~50% of that as your actual dps. I usually try to hit 1M shaper dps in that level of gear, so we're above that target.

So, I guess the question is what kind of build were you wanting where the next level of investment is cheaper or gets you more?
 

AladainAF

Best Rabbit
<Gold Donor>
12,847
30,788
So, this is coming from the perspective of a skilled but casual player in terms of time. I usually clear A8 Sirus about 2-3 weeks after most and usually finish 24 challenges. Maybe that’s not casual
I’m about in the same boat.

I’ve used the leapfrog progression approach all but the first conqueror league. And the white map grind for sustain is starting to be a bit too transparent. Maybe it was this bad during War for the Atlas, but it sure as fuck didn’t feel like it. Also the people bitching about sustain are probably the ones that finally caught on to leapfrogging and are unaware of the side-effect that is purely cognitive. You were doing the same grind as before; it was just less obvious cause you took forever to taste reds.


The nerfs to harvest I disagreed with or at least felt they used a sledgehammer where they needed a scalpel, but the nerfs to the craft bench crafts kinda gave one more fuck you to casual players.

The meta is boring to me. I regret not trying the BV shit last league. Maybe swapping over to the archmage raider bf/BV would be more fun? Shouldn’t be unless it’s OP

also the endgame grind on maven and conqs is starting to feel like WoW’s daily grind each patch from MoP onward. I forget who said it, but I truly think PoE cannot be a main game without this hitting you In the face some.

The league mechanic seems boring to me. And the rewards cratered in maps at least for me. Yet at times it’s exciting. I’m out on it, but the challenge awards this time are utter shit except the portal so I don’t feel motivated.

Well said pretty much. I'm normally grinding t16s by now but I'm still in white maps bored to tears.

This league mechanic is hit or miss but overall I find it extremely underrewarding for the effort. Ritual was considerably better on a risk vs reward standpoint and I hate things where you lose a fight you lose your loot.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Caeden

Silver Baronet of the Realm
7,340
11,820
Well said pretty much. I'm normally grinding t16s by now but I'm still in white maps bored to tears.

This league mechanic is hit or miss but overall I find it extremely underrewarding for the effort. Ritual was considerably better on a risk vs reward standpoint and I hate things where you lose a fight you lose your loot.
I think my approach this league is just to try a bunch of builds. That’s been more fun than the actual endgame.
 
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 1 user

AladainAF

Best Rabbit
<Gold Donor>
12,847
30,788
I think my approach this league is just to try a bunch of builds. That’s been more fun than the actual endgame.

Yeah I should do that too. I really love the game, I just am not feeling it this league. Might have been because I went so hard during ritual.
 

Janx

<Silver Donator>
6,224
16,601
Playing my first season ever, pretty late into starting a first play through . Having a good time, any recommendations on armor level 30-60? Just game pickups? Or am I meant to trade into my build? Doing witch golemancy
Golemancy will be hard just due to the cost of some of the gems (unless you get lucky drops)
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

ronne

Nǐ hǎo, yǒu jīn zi ma?
7,832
6,947
This looks a bit above starter gear, but not too much. PoB says you have ~2.8M DPS. Giving your cast time and duration of Exsanguinate, I would take ~50% of that as your actual dps. I usually try to hit 1M shaper dps in that level of gear, so we're above that target.

So, I guess the question is what kind of build were you wanting where the next level of investment is cheaper or gets you more?

Yea the cast speed is definitely a thing. You can fudge it a bit with skill duration in a few places so the actual dot component lasts closer to like 2-2.5 seconds, but there are definitely situations where keeping up all 3 stacks is a problem.

Your target isn't really off in that ~1m boss dps is plenty to feel good during sirus and friends, the issue only really comes up with the Maven content. She's significantly tankier than sirus or shaper with even less damage uptime, and the longer the fight goes the more fucked you are due to the permanent degens that make the arena impossible. That's not even counting the feared or any of that nonsense, which require DPS somewhere north of 10m it feels like to be even semi-reasonable to clear.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,316
7,317
Yea the cast speed is definitely a thing. You can fudge it a bit with skill duration in a few places so the actual dot component lasts closer to like 2-2.5 seconds, but there are definitely situations where keeping up all 3 stacks is a problem.

Your target isn't really off in that ~1m boss dps is plenty to feel good during sirus and friends, the issue only really comes up with the Maven content. She's significantly tankier than sirus or shaper with even less damage uptime, and the longer the fight goes the more fucked you are due to the permanent degens that make the arena impossible. That's not even counting the feared or any of that nonsense, which require DPS somewhere north of 10m it feels like to be even semi-reasonable to clear.
This is what I slapped together after my last post. A few of the pieces might be unreasonably expensive. Like maybe the weapon and/or shield will have to drop an affix. Shadowstitch with just the Duration corruption is 20ex right now, but I'm willing to bet that comes down in price quickly as there is a delay in its entry into the market. Medium clusters will probably stay expensive. The idiots nuked Harvest and then forgot how much other shit they adjusted for full power Harvest(LIKE CLUSTER JEWELS).

I tend to shoot a bit higher in my endgame PoBs, kinda like stretch goals. I think even half the sheet dps will be fine for all endgame content.

 

Thregin

Blackwing Lair Raider
735
224
The meta is boring to me. I regret not trying the BV shit last league. Maybe swapping over to the archmage raider bf/BV would be more fun? Shouldn’t be unless it’s OP

Explode chest BV was great last league you really missed out.
My 1 build this league is Bf bv archmage raider and it isn't the most fun to play imo...The boss dps isnt crazy and the map clear is annoying...
Its survivable so can do ultimatums atleast.
 

Caeden

Silver Baronet of the Realm
7,340
11,820
Explode chest BV was great last league you really missed out.
My 1 build this league is Bf bv archmage raider and it isn't the most fun to play imo...The boss dps isnt crazy and the map clear is annoying...
Its survivable so can do ultimatums atleast.
Sounds like I’m getting my fix with bf/BV inquisitor. I went glancing blows. About to grab a life on block shield.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,316
7,317
Speaking of life on block...if offerings affect you, do you get the life on block from bone offering? I would assume so, but I can't find a stat in PoB to confirm. And PoB is NOT adding the cast speed from quality to my character.
 

ronne

Nǐ hǎo, yǒu jīn zi ma?
7,832
6,947
This is what I slapped together after my last post. A few of the pieces might be unreasonably expensive. Like maybe the weapon and/or shield will have to drop an affix. Shadowstitch with just the Duration corruption is 20ex right now, but I'm willing to bet that comes down in price quickly as there is a delay in its entry into the market. Medium clusters will probably stay expensive. The idiots nuked Harvest and then forgot how much other shit they adjusted for full power Harvest(LIKE CLUSTER JEWELS).

I tend to shoot a bit higher in my endgame PoBs, kinda like stretch goals. I think even half the sheet dps will be fine for all endgame content.


Yea I've been running live searches on shadowstich all week now heh, either for +2 duration or +1 socketed gems due to empower scaling, and they are just absurdly expensive. I think a +1 curse chest would be a reasonable alternative, I just haven't been able to get one to roll due to how balls expensive fossils are still.

I think if you really wanna go for endgame DPS with it a skin of the loyal with +1 gems corrupt may be it, both for scaling empower and for scaling an awakened brutality as it picks up gem levels at level 6+ as well.
 

Xevy

Log Wizard
8,537
3,772
Speaking of life on block...if offerings affect you, do you get the life on block from bone offering? I would assume so, but I can't find a stat in PoB to confirm. And PoB is NOT adding the cast speed from quality to my character.
Yes you do. Paired with a life on block shield it's absolutely insane vs stuff like incursions or titty bitches. I think you can get up to like 600+hp each block fairly easily and it makes only degens a threat anymore.
 

ronne

Nǐ hǎo, yǒu jīn zi ma?
7,832
6,947
This is what I slapped together after my last post. A few of the pieces might be unreasonably expensive. Like maybe the weapon and/or shield will have to drop an affix. Shadowstitch with just the Duration corruption is 20ex right now, but I'm willing to bet that comes down in price quickly as there is a delay in its entry into the market. Medium clusters will probably stay expensive. The idiots nuked Harvest and then forgot how much other shit they adjusted for full power Harvest(LIKE CLUSTER JEWELS).

I tend to shoot a bit higher in my endgame PoBs, kinda like stretch goals. I think even half the sheet dps will be fine for all endgame content.


Alright I actually had time to look at this PoB, and your gear seems uh, ambitious at best lol.

The shadowstich is like 70ex alone, and I'm not sure you can even buy a wand like that currently.

But yea tree-wise I think at least this cluster setup is worth doing as it's just strict damage upgrades over the regular tree.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,316
7,317
Alright I actually had time to look at this PoB, and your gear seems uh, ambitious at best lol.

The shadowstich is like 70ex alone, and I'm not sure you can even buy a wand like that currently.

But yea tree-wise I think at least this cluster setup is worth doing as it's just strict damage upgrades over the regular tree.
That's why I mentioned stretch goals. I use my PoBs as notes of sorts. I'd rather record useful items and affixes(note the main 6L has disabled supports) now while working on the build then try to remember them when I actually get to the point of incorporating them into my build. If I find an item too expensive, drop the weakest affix or dial them all down a tier. The DPS certainly has some wiggle room.

What other items are too ambitious? Not saying you're wrong, genuinely curious. This circles back to my original question: if this build is too expensive(and it might be), what were you expecting in terms of investment to reach "smash the endgame"?