Path Of Exile

Think I have gotten a few ideas now about builds I might end up aiming for. Thanks for mentioning DD. Not a build I had on my radar really at all. I didn't realise it was an ignite build and I've always fancied playing ignite so that seems like a solid choice. Probably something I play late on once people who league start it get bored and start to sell off their equipment. Then I can use that as my boss killer for the league.

I'm probably going to try another groundslam character. This time a duelist rather than a scion and using the new helmet with more damage per warcry used to exert attacks. This rules out the Blunderbore + Gull combo I used last league but I would prefer to change the build up somewhat anyways. The new version should still be relatively tanky although relying more on armour and evasion stacking than raw health that the last one had. I'll start with a good old skelly and zombie summoner and look to transition into carrion golems once I have the minimum level of gear required.

After seeing a few more people talk about Sentinel feeling a little more optimistic about it now. I doubt I'll spend a load of time optimising and crafting sentinels but just adding one of each per map should make them a little more rewarding as the maps already have decent density overall without having to stop and micromanage 4 archnemesis mobs per map. I don't expect the mechanic to be "amazing" and I'm fairly certain already that it won't be going core but I'm hoping to be nicely surprised. Seems like for party mappers juicing maps it's going to be pretty nice though so it might end up being a rich get richer kinda deal which might have an effect on the economy as a whole. Usually I manage to sidestep this by never really going for "great" items and making do with good "value" items which tend to be much less sought after.

Anyway, bit of a long weeks wait now. Cleaned out my archnemesis league stash yesterday so ready for everything to transfer over to Standard. Looking forward to seeing the new atlas skill tree to try and work out how I'll build it this time round. I expect it will be fairly similar to last time though. Probably dropping the shrine stuff and Beyond stuff to grab the wheels where you can skip various league mechanics. :smashin:
 
I'm in the "standard league". Played about 3 hours so far and not really enjoying it.

What league does everyone play in? Is there a regular get together?

For a PVE there don't seem to be many other players on the map? Maybe I've got some settings wrong or in the wrong league.
 
Hey @Discombobulate

There are basically two leagues going on at all times. One is a permanent league referred to as Standard. The other are temporary leagues which run for around 3 months. The temporary leagues are MUCH more popular than the permanent Standard league. That being said it's a bit of a weird time right now in that the current temporary league called Arch Nemesis will be finishing in a couple of days so it's not really worth starting a new character in that league. If you wait till this weekend coming though the new temporary league called Sentinel will start and there will be an abundance of players looking to level new characters.

Also just to confirm that PoE only allows you to see other players that are in your party unless you are in a town hub. So if you aren't seeing players in combat areas and aren't in a party that will be the reason. Also if you have somehow opted into the Solo Self Found mode that effectively prohibits you from joining a party and I believe you also will have the town hubs to yourself as well.

If you decide to start a new character in the upcoming Sentinel league then once you enter the first town hub called Lioneye's Watch there should be a noticeboard somewhere in there which will have posts from people looking to party up and level together. That's likely to be your best bet if you just want to join a group of players to experience the levelling process together. Most players at the start of the league though will likely want to go as quickly as possible through the campaign and so won't be looking to go slowly and fully investigate each area. If you are looking for a slower pace of levelling you might be best to look out for other new players or to leave a post on the noticeboard saying you would like a party that wants to level at a slower pace.

There are 4 different modes for each league. The first two are softcore and hardcore. Softcore allows your character to have multiple deaths and lets you pick up where you left off. In hardcore once that character dies you are effectively blocked from playing them anymore and all the equipment on the character is lost. Softcore is by far the more popular of the two and what I would recommend for someone looking to learn the game. Then each mode is split in two again, one being Solo Self Found and the other being the "default" mode where you can party up with players as well as trade with them. Again, for you I would skip Solo Self Found (SSF) mode initially and stick with the default "trade" league.

As far as enjoyment goes PoE is what I would consider the "Dark Souls" of ARPG's in that it is really punishing if you don't know what you are doing. It also doesn't do a great job of holding your hand and explaining what you need to do to succeed. The help / tutorial sections are definitely worth a look though. If you aren't enjoying it because you find it brutally punishing then we can probably give tips and advice along with some good build recommendations suitable for newer players that might make the game a bit easier. If you just don't like the style of combat then it will get better as you level up and get better gear. This usually means it essentially get's much faster. Otherwise if you are new to the ARPG genre and want to play something more friendly to newer players then Diablo 3 is likely a good bet. It's much more forgiving early on and the levelling process will be much smoother.
 
I'm in the "standard league". Played about 3 hours so far and not really enjoying it.

What league does everyone play in? Is there a regular get together?

For a PVE there don't seem to be many other players on the map? Maybe I've got some settings wrong or in the wrong league.
In addition to what @DrHarvey12 says Ziz has put this together a new players guide which you may find very useful.



This will talk you through the leveling process going through each area and what stuff does. I would wait until the Sentinel league to take on the game properly but if you have time carry on with Standard league so you can understand the game a bit more. Will make things easier for you once the new league starts.

If you're not following a guide (which I recommend) your first character is going to be terrible. It can be very off putting for new players but there is a wealth of information out there.

Ziz has also done a vid about following a guide too.


Good luck. Happy to answer any questions you've got!
 
Thanks both for the response. Really helpful.
 
ahh booo, it's a 9.00pm start for Sentinel. Archnemesis started at 8.00pm so I don't think I'll have much game time today. Going to start with a Spark Inquisitor never played one and seen a few guides/vids. Looks interesting but I need to grab a Pierce gem from a duelist or ranger to get going so I could be queuing for a long time tonight.
 
Hey Turps,

How did you find the league last night?

I wasn't able to get on myself unfortunately but should have most of today free. See quite a few people complaining about early difficulty levels with the new rare and magic monsters so hoping I don't find it too bad!
 
Hey Turps,

How did you find the league last night?

I wasn't able to get on myself unfortunately but should have most of today free. See quite a few people complaining about early difficulty levels with the new rare and magic monsters so hoping I don't find it too bad!
Got to level 26 and in summary, I think I need to watch a video on the how league mechanic works. I socket things and then I have to press F2 in every area I join. Monsters get buffed and this coupled with Archnemesis mods make some rares stupid without the Archnemesis rewards.

Will hop on in a minute to carry on leveling.
 
Yeah, I had one buff a red beast as well as the surrounding magic mobs it kept spawning. That was a very LONG fight! :facepalm:

My damage seems to be getting better now I have both my skeletons and zombie on their own 4-links so buffing rares isn't such an issue. I tend to skip zones where beast's spawn though.

Out of interest are you struggling to find essences? I usually expect to see 3 or 4 per act but I think I've barely found 3 in the entirety of act 1 - 5 :(
 
Sigh......now I can't access any of my steam games for some reason. Only lets me login in offline mode :(

Well, no idea really what to do about it. It was fine this morning. Guess I'll try resetting the router and hope that magically fixes it otherwise RIP league.
 
All in all very frustrating. Seems to be a very few reports of issues of people having issues but very few and far between. So pretty much writing off today I guess at this point. If it's not working tomorrow I'll be really annoyed. Can't even uninstall the game atm to try and use the standalone client. :facepalm:
 
Well, bit of a panic over nothing really. Ended up just being Steam login servers having issues. Really unfortunate timing but there we go. I did end up un-installing and re-installing Steam anyway which apparently removed all my games. Once I figured that out there wasn't an issue installing PoE via the standalone client at which point as you would guess Steam was back up and running anyway! :facepalm:

Oh well, at least going forward not having to rely on Steam for access might be useful just in case the issue crops up again.

Just about to go and Kill Kitava so not too far behind where I would want to be at this point. Was able to buy a tabula so just a few more basic bits to get before I can dump this character and switch to a carrion golem build.

I see that GGG have significantly scaled back the rare monster arch nemesis mods and damage. How were you finding them overall? I didn't actually think it was too big of an issue but then I did have a wall of zombies and skeletons between me and them so wasn't really getting hit too much anyway.
 
Well, bit of a panic over nothing really. Ended up just being Steam login servers having issues. Really unfortunate timing but there we go. I did end up un-installing and re-installing Steam anyway which apparently removed all my games. Once I figured that out there wasn't an issue installing PoE via the standalone client at which point as you would guess Steam was back up and running anyway! :facepalm:

Oh well, at least going forward not having to rely on Steam for access might be useful just in case the issue crops up again.

Just about to go and Kill Kitava so not too far behind where I would want to be at this point. Was able to buy a tabula so just a few more basic bits to get before I can dump this character and switch to a carrion golem build.

I see that GGG have significantly scaled back the rare monster arch nemesis mods and damage. How were you finding them overall? I didn't actually think it was too big of an issue but then I did have a wall of zombies and skeletons between me and them so wasn't really getting hit too much anyway.
Glad that steam issue got sorted! I've had a lot more insta-RIPs levelling than normal which is fine but I don't want that theme to continue once I hit maps and get that exp hit. I hear they've tuned things down a bit which is thankful.

I've found some essences in areas but the vast majority for me are dropping from rares and also when some get zapped by the sentinel.

Feel sorry for hardcore players though. I see reddit has gone into meltdown. I don't mind tough rares if the loot is worth it but some of the fights are anti-climatic.

On a positive note, I really love Spark! Made it to Act 10, I just hope mapping is fun.
 
I think the spark spider MTX was the first skill MTX I ever bought. Weirdly I have never made a spark build and so haven't ever used it! :facepalm: Be interested to see how you get on with it though as might be something I look at doing later on in the league if it's fun.

Just finishing off levelling the carrion golemancer. Didn't actually need to get my first character into maps as I had enough for a tabula, clayshaper, goldrim & 5 of the cheap primordial jewels which was enough to start it. Had a pair of wanderlust and the Karui ward amulet drop off the sentinel unique rewards. :smashin:

[Edit: Yeah, this run I'm swimming in essences......just had an unlucky run last time I guess!!!]
 
Well, having played the league a bit more now feels a bit of a mixed bag. I am actually enjoying Sentinel more than I thought. Just using the red and golden ones as I didn't really like the idea of trying to time the blue ones right but so far they always feel impactful and seem to buff the drop rates quite a lot. Better than Archnemesis for me.

My damage is still kinda meh atm so progressing the Atlas is a little slow. Plus the rare / magic monster rework has made them significantly more tanky. I had a metamorph encounter in a white map that took me about 5 minutes to kill it. If it had of had any form of life regeneration it likely would have been flat out impossible. So not at all sold on the re-work yet. Some of the mods are super annoying to deal with. Seems like they have been doing some balancing of them so hoping things do start to feel a little better.

How are you finding things so far Turps? Your gear looks really solid. :smashin:
 
Well, having played the league a bit more now feels a bit of a mixed bag. I am actually enjoying Sentinel more than I thought. Just using the red and golden ones as I didn't really like the idea of trying to time the blue ones right but so far they always feel impactful and seem to buff the drop rates quite a lot. Better than Archnemesis for me.

My damage is still kinda meh atm so progressing the Atlas is a little slow. Plus the rare / magic monster rework has made them significantly more tanky. I had a metamorph encounter in a white map that took me about 5 minutes to kill it. If it had of had any form of life regeneration it likely would have been flat out impossible. So not at all sold on the re-work yet. Some of the mods are super annoying to deal with. Seems like they have been doing some balancing of them so hoping things do start to feel a little better.

How are you finding things so far Turps? Your gear looks really solid. :smashin:
I am having fun. When I worked out that to upgrade the sentinel tree you click the links and not the nodes that made a nice change!:facepalm: After that bombshell moment, Sentinel is not too bad overall :rotfl:

Having to change my mind set a little with some of these super tanky rares. Knowing that they drop rubbish I'm learning to ignore the fight. If they dropped something of worth I'd probably take on the challenge. The tune down of baddies has helped but like yourself it's still a mixed bag.

Got lucky with cast speed gear and learning a bit more on making use of harvests and which items to pick up to craft. Will probably swap out conductivity for a snipers mark but I need a re-shuffle of socket colours that I can't afford at present.

Managed to do uber lab last thing yesterday which provides a massive DPS boost so I'll see how that plays out. Spark is good, loads of auras, buffs and utility. Close to 5 casts a second now so it's a lot of fun. Got really good life regen and that auto energy shield regen is really decent for survivability. Also got lucky with a pot that provides pretty much perma phasing in maps.

I'm enjoying it because the Atlas passives make a world of difference to mapping so it's not so much of a chore (for the time being). Now they've fixed blight I'm hoping I can get those oils I want now. It was so annoying getting a tanky one walk straight up and smash the pump. Hope your golems get some more umph soon!
 
Hey Turps,

I managed to buy the two expensive primordial jewels which took me from 3 to 5 Carrion golems (plus a stone and chaos golem) as well as allowing me to go to a true 6-link rather than having to run feeding frenzy in the links (which now goes to the zombies to proc instead). Damage definitely feels much better now but even now essences and empowered bosses take a while. Stopped doing Mirrors of delirium, blight, ritual, beyond and harvest except in lower tier maps and will probably end up removing them eventually. Speaking of which have you tried the new Atlas passives nodes to remove content? If so do they seem to make a noticeable difference to other types of content showing up?

Currently looking to remove my starter gear on my carrion golemancer and replace with better gear to allow me to hopefully progress through and complete red maps reliably and least once. Ideally try and knock out some of the Maven invitations and the first two bosses down the searing exarch and eater of worlds questlines. It's really weird though, I seem to unlock the first pinnacle boss questline really easily and then the second one never seems to show up. No idea if it's supposed to be completely RNG or what.......:confused:
 
Hey Turps,

I managed to buy the two expensive primordial jewels which took me from 3 to 5 Carrion golems (plus a stone and chaos golem) as well as allowing me to go to a true 6-link rather than having to run feeding frenzy in the links (which now goes to the zombies to proc instead). Damage definitely feels much better now but even now essences and empowered bosses take a while. Stopped doing Mirrors of delirium, blight, ritual, beyond and harvest except in lower tier maps and will probably end up removing them eventually. Speaking of which have you tried the new Atlas passives nodes to remove content? If so do they seem to make a noticeable difference to other types of content showing up?

Currently looking to remove my starter gear on my carrion golemancer and replace with better gear to allow me to hopefully progress through and complete red maps reliably and least once. Ideally try and knock out some of the Maven invitations and the first two bosses down the searing exarch and eater of worlds questlines. It's really weird though, I seem to unlock the first pinnacle boss questline really easily and then the second one never seems to show up. No idea if it's supposed to be completely RNG or what.......:confused:
Glad you've got your golems on cruise control now! I've used the atlas passive to remove metamorph but that's the only thing I've removed. I seem to be finding enough stuff in maps anyway so I may just add it back in.

I've specced into harbringers, essence, strongboxes, shrines and that niko node that gives you a buff on each vein you open in a map. Going to work on harvest next.

I've not chased the eater of worlds or maven yet as I've been running as many new maps as I can first to fill my atlas passives out. Not sure if you've got a case of bad RNG on those bosses.

One thing I did learn yesterday, I had not found any divine vessels so I asked in chat. They said the drop rate is bad but if I did a divine orb and 5 potions recipe you get 5 x vessels! I didn't know that existed. I was so pleased!!
 
That vendor recipe is news to me. I swear the drop rate on divine vessels must have changed at some point as I used to be swimming in them and now I barely see 10 all league! Do the 5 potions need to be specific ones or just anything?
 
That vendor recipe is news to me. I swear the drop rate on divine vessels must have changed at some point as I used to be swimming in them and now I barely see 10 all league! Do the 5 potions need to be specific ones or just anything?
I did 5 random pots a mixture of mana and health. Does not matter what tier either.
 
I've hit 94 on a Spark 5link. Still finding archnem annoying even with the patches but I am enjoying Sentinel for the currency drops. It's all those flipping ice prisons or the green balls of doom that keep chasing you all over the place! I still cannot get a 6l despite all the harvest and fusing spams. Got 5 exalts from a Brothers Stash div card via Sentinels!

Really want to see what Spark is like on a 6l as it's carried me so well on 5. I've had a load of fun but I feel I need a 6l to push the bosses.

It's the atlas perks keeping me going, the shrine buffs and the tons of essences I'm getting is keeping it fun for now. Atlas is at 107/115. Want to stick with the league but Sniper Elite 5 is great fun and I also want to check out v-rising as it looks promising and at £15 will hit the playtime/£ ratio!
 
Congrats on hitting 94!!! :smashin:

I noticed you got there last night I think. My character is level 93 but not making too much progress towards 94 on account of running a lot of tier 5 to tier 6 maps atm. This character should eventually become a tanky DD Necro though so hopefully I can push on to 94 and beyond once it transitions albeit that will likely be very late on in the league. Still working on the gear for my Champion GS character. Hoping to get that levelling next weekend. Then I am REALLY tempted to try out spark because of how you seem to have gotten on with it. Just have a few questions if I may:

1. I think you just have 4 pierce from the pierce support gem. Did you feel that 4 was enough or would more have been better? I'm just trying to work out if I can get to 4 or so without needing that support.

2. How much does proj speed matter? Is it always more is better or did you feel at a certain amount that it felt "good enough"? If so where was that level?

3. How much life / ES regen felt good? Did you have any form of ES or life leech?

4. Was the shield mostly a stat stick or did you invest into block from it? Just trying to work out if dual wielding wands would be ok or not. I'm really only needing it to farm high tier yellows so neither damage nor tankiness need to be insane. Ideally just "feeling good" for that level of content.

5. Any cool tips or tricks you found out along the way?

Cheers Turps; hope you enjoy whatever you play next. That V Rising does look interesting so I'd be like to hear how you get on with it if you give it a go. I'll likely be playing quite a bit more of the league; hopefully waiting for prices to come down to get some good upgrades across all my characters as they progress!
 
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Congrats on hitting 94!!! :smashin:

I noticed you got there last night I think. My character is level 93 but not making too much progress towards 94 on account of running a lot of tier 5 to tier 6 maps atm. This character should eventually become a tanky DD Necro though so hopefully I can push on to 94 and beyond once it transitions albeit that will likely be very late on in the league. Still working on the gear for my Champion GS character. Hoping to get that levelling next weekend. Then I am REALLY tempted to try out spark because of how you seem to have gotten on with it. Just have a few questions if I may:

1. I think you just have 4 pierce from the pierce support gem. Did you feel that 4 was enough or would more have been better? I'm just trying to work out if I can get to 4 or so without needing that support.

2. How much does proj speed matter? Is it always more is better or did you feel at a certain amount that it felt "good enough"? If so where was that level?

3. How much life / ES regen felt good? Did you have any form of ES or life leech?

4. Was the shield mostly a stat stick or did you invest into block from it? Just trying to work out if dual wielding wands would be ok or not. I'm really only needing it to farm high tier yellows so neither damage nor tankiness need to be insane. Ideally just "feeling good" for that level of content.

5. Any cool tips or tricks you found out along the way?

Cheers Turps; hope you enjoy whatever you play next. That V Rising does look interesting so I'd be like to hear how you get on with it if you give it a go. I'll likely be playing quite a bit more of the league; hopefully waiting for prices to come down to get some good upgrades across all the character as they progress!
Oooh, let me know how you get on with the GS Champ. Certainly off meta. I've got a rather nice 2 handed vaal axe with bleed modifiers so was thinking about maybe making a melee toon next.

To answer your questions....

1. More pierce is better I would say. +1 pierce gloves would make a difference on dense mobs and enclosed areas. 7 sparks hitting 4 times or 5 times, you're getting a nice DPS boost. I'm having to opt for more damage to compensate for the 5l and the lack of finding pierce gloves! You've got me thinking should I craft Piercing shots on my amu or will I lose too much mana regen, hmmm.

2. Proj speed is really helpful as not only does it hit baddies quicker it makes the sparks travel further. For instance in a particular nasty vaal side area I can move and cast, move and cast and not see any monsters as they get wrecked off screen. So get enough so you can off screen things.

3. As soon as you get Pious Path your set. My ES regens constantly at about 950 a second for me. There's no delay. You can get pretty tanky and even breaking away from a fight for a few seconds your capped again. No leech needed. Makes a very nice lab runner too.

4. I usually take the Brine King for the block and stun recovery as well as freeze immunity. Those archenms can hit hard. Again I'm using the +1 light skills shield to mitigate the damage loss for the 5l so feel free to see what works for you. Level with dual wands but I would use a shield when you hit maps.

5. I don't think I'm playing the proper Spark meta as I'm also using HoT, Precision and Vitality but it's working for me. Vortex on left click and Arcane surge means I'm slowing down anyone chasing me whilst having surge up. It's also pretty respectable DPS on its own. Tornado is pretty neat on bosses for an extra DPS boost.

I've had a lot of fun because it made a great league starter as you have you main skills from the get go. It's very good for heist and delve.

I would like to have 2nd Wind on my Flame Dash but I've not got enough open gem slots. It's really all about the cast speed. When you hit a speed shrine it's insane!

Finally my gear is no way best in class although I'm happy with the wand and my cast/lightning ring. I really should level up a vaal spark too as I'm not even using that, it would make a nice panic button. I'm only running red maps now T11-14 are a breeze just need to be more careful in 15/16. Just need that 6l......
 
V Rising is quite differnet from PoE. If you ever palyed or know of games like Rust or Valhiem it's like them, survival games.
There is no story to V Rising, your basically farming resources and building stuff.
You can do it solo but that might be a tad boring on the whole, it's def kinda game you want to chill with some mates.
For me so far i've found it to be worth the £15, I'd suggest watching some gameplay vids(i didn't used to be into twitch but i've found it's actually good for finding out if a game is worth a go or not)
 
Wow Turps - thank you for your in depth reply! :smashin: That's been incredibly useful.

I was having another look at your character last night and wondered if you ever thought about using Divine Blessing + Lifetap + Wrath / Zealotry? That would allow you to have either of those aura's up pretty much permanently and probably be as much extra damage as a 6th link. The downside is that you would have to push the button to activate it every 20 seconds (given the skill effect scaling you already pickup) and it would chunk your life by around 2.5k I would guess but given your regen and assuming you lifepot immediately afterwards that shouldn't be too noticeable. Anyway, might be something you could play around with if you wanted to but I'll be trying it out just to see how well it works or if it feels too clunky / rippy!

@BontaKun3000

Thx - I was never too attracted to games like Valhiem so maybe V-Rising isn't for me. I'll check out some gameplay vids though as you suggest.
 

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