Path of Exile (Diablo 2's real sequel)

Necronic · Feb 27, 2013

Damnit...ok you got me.

But I still stand by that point to a degree. Here's why, I said MOST. One of the big reasons to take a maurader is early/easy access to Relentless Strikes or whatever it is. You can't miss, but you can't crit either. The intrinsic property of a sword is increased accuracy. So, if you did a sword maurader you wouldn't be taking relentless strikes, which implies a non-obvious build.

But here's where the synergy of the tree starts being awesome. If you don't get relentless strikes then you will need dex and accuracy nodes to prevent misses, and you might as well start building crit up as well. Well, guess where the good place to do that is? Over in the duelist tree. So by running your marauder skills through the duelist tree you start seriously optimizing swords. But you also get the added advantage of some great early life and resist nodes, plus easier access to blood magic.

So you can totally do this and it makes sense.

Gared · Feb 28, 2013

Yeah... turns out that build is not viable. I made it as far as the Cavern of Anger, where I was rather quickly killed by a roving band of exploding spawn. I suppose the build might still be somewhat viable, in that I could have farmed some of the lower areas to get more levels before going to CoA, but as it was, not viable in HC - not enough survivability.

CynicismKills · Feb 28, 2013

I think exploding mobs do a bit too much damage anyway for how much health they seem to have. Made the Siren ridiculously hard to kill on my Duelist.

GasBandit · Feb 28, 2013

I'm beginning to think NerfNow was right.

Guide for picking passives:
1) Find a passive
2) Does it increase health?
Yes: GET IT
No: Find a different Passive, goto 2.

Necronic · Feb 28, 2013

I think I finally have a viable build for HC now. I finally made it into cruel difficulty with it. It's basically a lightning strike Templar that has dual specters with LMP. The lightning shocks and improves dmg for the specters/minions. We'll see how it goes.

GasBandit · Feb 28, 2013

My sword testing is really running into difficulty because my level 15 yellow stone hammer is astonishingly overpowered. It hits harder than the level 20 war sword. And those purple assholes in the western forest have to die fast before they splode.

Frank · Feb 28, 2013

Yeah, my level 25 marauder is still using a yellow tribal club because the fucking thing had like 2 elemental damage stats and an 80% damage boosts. Nothing at 25 comes close in damage.

CynicismKills · Feb 28, 2013

GasBandit said:
I'm beginning to think NerfNow was right.

Guide for picking passives:
1) Find a passive
2) Does it increase health?
Yes: GET IT
No: Find a different Passive, goto 2.

Everywhere I've looked and the few convos I've had in global all say health > all in terms of survivability. Armor isn't even worth taking save for maybe one node if you need to get to something past it.

GasBandit · Feb 28, 2013

CynicismKills said:
Everywhere I've looked and the few convos I've had in global all say health > all in terms of survivability. Armor isn't even worth taking save for maybe one node if you need to get to something past it.

I'm starting to see that as well. My armor rating is going up hugely with some upgraded gear, but I seem to be taking even more comparative damage as if I had less. I switched from chainmail, which had a mixture of armor and energy shield to superior copper plate which had more than triple the armor but no energy shield... and I think I was doing better with the chainmail, as energy shield is kinda like extra health.

As the game is in beta... I wonder if there will be a "passive shake up" in the future if armor gets retooled to be more useful, throwing everyone's builds into turmoil.

Gared · Feb 28, 2013

GasBandit said:
I'm starting to see that as well. My armor rating is going up hugely with some upgraded gear, but I seem to be taking even more comparative damage as if I had less. I switched from chainmail, which had a mixture of armor and energy shield to superior copper plate which had more than triple the armor but no energy shield... and I think I was doing better with the chainmail, as energy shield is kinda like extra health.

As the game is in beta... I wonder if there will be a "passive shake up" in the future if armor gets retooled to be more useful, throwing everyone's builds into turmoil.

Quite possibly. I know they already adjusted armor numbers in an earlier patch to make the numbers for armor bonuses fall more inline with the numbers for ES or EV bonuses. Pretty much, even though they've said there's not going to be any more character or account wipes between now and when the game actually launches, I wouldn't count on any specific character and/or build to survive the rest of the beta.

Necronic · Feb 28, 2013

Honestly the passive tree needs some serious re-tooling. There are simply too many passives that are just not worth taking at the moment. Lots of those generic +8% whatever nodes that don't lead to a bigger node. You will almost never take these (except for life nodes). Although....I am taking +2 block nodes I probably would never have considered taking before. Maybe it's just super build dependant.

Bowielee · Feb 28, 2013

Necronic said:
Honestly the passive tree needs some serious re-tooling. There are simply too many passives that are just not worth taking at the moment. Lots of those generic +8% whatever nodes that don't lead to a bigger node. You will almost never take these (except for life nodes). Although....I am taking +2 block nodes I probably would never have considered taking before. Maybe it's just super build dependant.

Wait, you're questioning the perfection of the skill system?

Gared · Feb 28, 2013

Necronic said:
Honestly the passive tree needs some serious re-tooling. There are simply too many passives that are just not worth taking at the moment. Lots of those generic +8% whatever nodes that don't lead to a bigger node. You will almost never take these (except for life nodes). Although....I am taking +2 block nodes I probably would never have considered taking before. Maybe it's just super build dependant.

I think my favorite node type for needing re-tooling is the +x% to various elemental resistances. Unless it's the Diamond Skin (+15% to all elements) or the exceedingly rare +x% to chaos resistance, it's really not worth it. You can stack so much resistance from gear that there's really no point, unless you're really struggling for +stats or early in the game you're struggling with your mana and health levels and want to use coral and paua rings, you're most likely going to be running with rare prismatic rings that you've hopefully saved up plenty of chaos orbs for in order to get the best stat rolls possible on them, or even rare topaz/sapphire/ruby rings.

Also, the -5% mana cost nodes. Unless you're really going to load up on them, why drop a point into something that's going to shave very little mana cost off of an ability when you could put those points in either +INT or +x% Maximum Mana, or even some mana regen nodes?

Necronic · Feb 28, 2013

Absolutely. I never said it was perfect, i just felt that the complaints around swords were founded in a complete lack of understanding of the game. It's like saying that the partisan politics of Washington are problematic, while dismissing claims that the government is run by a secret illuminati of Jews as ridiculOus.

GasBandit · Feb 28, 2013

I also figured out I think I probably made a very newbish, boneheaded trade earlier in the week... one of the early quests gave me a level 11 orange ring that made you immune to freezing and had high cold damage resist. I traded it for a level 27 orange sword... that I didn't look very closely at. I don't think I could even offload this in trade for anything else... I mean how many 2-hand sword-using witches do you think there are?

Gared · Feb 28, 2013

GasBandit said:
I also figured out I think I probably made a very newbish, boneheaded trade earlier in the week... one of the early quests gave me a level 11 orange ring that made you immune to freezing and had high cold damage resist. I traded it for a level 27 orange sword... that I didn't look very closely at. I don't think I could even offload this in trade for anything else... I mean how many 2-hand sword-using witches do you think there are?

Witches? Don't know. Summoner rangers? Maybe you could find someone there. I wouldn't necessarily mind playing a bow ranger with minions to take care of those damn purple bastards in act 2 or the exploding spawn in Act 1.

Necronic · Feb 28, 2013

That sword is fucking amazing

Ed: I will give you something for that

Ed2: I WANT THAT SWORD

Ed3: Oh wait it's 2h.....could still use it, just not with this build.

GasBandit · Feb 28, 2013

Yeah, a 2 handed minion sword. I'll let it go for a marauder orange. Heck, maybe even a pretty good yellow.

PatrThom · Feb 28, 2013

GasBandit said:
I mean how many 2-hand sword-using witches do you think there are?

A better question might be…how many Shadow/Templars are there who went summoner?

--Patrick

Gared · Feb 28, 2013

GasBandit said:
Yeah, a 2 handed minion sword. I'll let it go for a marauder orange. Heck, maybe even a pretty good yellow.

Sadly, the only Marauder orange I have is Limbsplit, and there's no way I'm giving that up.

Necronic · Feb 28, 2013

I need to find out how much that one is worth, I may offer a GCP for it

GasBandit · Feb 28, 2013

Well just to illustrate my newbishness, the item I traded for it was a Dream Fragments

Which to me, seems like a whole lot more useful to a whole lot more people.

Necronic · Feb 28, 2013

No you got completely trade raped, let me be clear. That is worth ~15 GCPs.

GasBandit · Feb 28, 2013

Necronic said:
No you got completely trade raped, let me be clear. That is worth ~15 GCPs.

Yeah, I had that feeling. I was barely 12 and still hadn't gotten a handle on what was worth something and what wasn't, and I just wanted a sword. I figured an orange ring for an orange sword was probably in the neighborhood. Hoooo boy.

I hadn't yet figured out the whole marauder-sword thing yet, and was blissfully unaware of how many ways this game invites you to go fuck yourself, item and stat wise.

Necronic · Feb 28, 2013

Yep. True enough it does. Hold onto the sword though, there's some cool stuff you can do with it (that said I checked the price with a friend and he was going to the me his for like 1-2 chaos, so it's not 15 times more valuable, it's more like 30-45.).

CynicismKills · Mar 1, 2013

Got my Templar to Cruel difficulty, going to let him rest a bit and goof around with other classes. Got a Duelist at 26 or so, almost done with A2. Trying to build him as a dual-wield beast, hopefully with a focus on swords once I find some good ones to Orb. My stash is filling up with good Rares, so I've got plenty of options for every class. Hoping to work out a Claw Shadow, a cast and blast Witch, and a plain old Bow Ranger. The issue is figuring out who is okay to use Evasion, and who needs to just stack armor or take the Evasion -> Armor conversion passive (took it on the Duelist and he takes hits like a champ).

Gared · Mar 1, 2013

CynicismKills said:
Got my Templar to Cruel difficulty, going to let him rest a bit and goof around with other classes. Got a Duelist at 26 or so, almost done with A2. Trying to build him as a dual-wield beast, hopefully with a focus on swords once I find some good ones to Orb. My stash is filling up with good Rares, so I've got plenty of options for every class. Hoping to work out a Claw Shadow, a cast and blast Witch, and a plain old Bow Ranger. The issue is figuring out who is okay to use Evasion, and who needs to just stack armor or take the Evasion -> Armor conversion passive (took it on the Duelist and he takes hits like a champ).

I have a bow ranger about 1/3 of the way through Act 2 cruel that made it through Act 1 cruel just fine with just evasion, but really needed to take the Evasion -> Armor conversion passive because she was getting her ass kicked.

CynicismKills · Mar 1, 2013

Gared said:
I have a bow ranger about 1/3 of the way through Act 2 cruel that made it through Act 1 cruel just fine with just evasion, but really needed to take the Evasion -> Armor conversion passive because she was getting her ass kicked.

Yeah, I've been noticing on my little Shadow that you can't depend on Evasion much. He's got a ton, maybe 60% or so, but one good hit from any Extra Damage monster and he's in trouble. I guess I should look into getting some more ES gear to compensate for his lack of health.

Necronic · Mar 1, 2013

Blerg, my summoner Templar is hitting a bit of a wall. It's not that the build doesn't work, it just needs some better socketed gear. I was doing good with a DW Shadow for a bit until I realized I needed to go ES/dagger instead of BM/claw. Got a great DW dagger though so I may respec him. The shadow tree in general needs a bit of love though. Just not enough resist nodes anywhere near him. Think I may go back to my bow duelist for the time being.

CynicismKills · Mar 1, 2013

I think Shadow's issue is having all those evade nodes when evade isn't a very strong stat past like the midway point of Act 2, when things start hitting really hard. One borked evade and you're down most of your ES, if not all of it and some life to boot.

GasBandit · Mar 1, 2013

I "downgraded" to ringmail (low armor, +energy shield) from plate (high armor) and suddenly everything got way easier. Like, effortless.

Gared · Mar 1, 2013

Yeah, they're going to need to do some serious retooling work on the defensive stat system. Right now evasion is only good though about Act 2 Cruel before you have to take the passive that converts evasion to armor because you can't evade all of the hits anymore and two hits kill you, and armor is only really good for a short time more, if that, because energy shield is a lot more useful than just straight armor. Hell, I'm running a marauder in HC right now that almost never takes any damage (still in Act 1 normal) because he has 26 points of ES that I picked up from rings or his belt or some such.

PatrThom · Mar 1, 2013

Anyone know whether armor/resist will reduce incoming damage before it is applied to your ES? 'Cuz that sounds like some tasty double-dippin' right there.

--Patrick

Necronic · Mar 1, 2013

It does. It's just hard to get armor and ES.

CynicismKills · Mar 1, 2013

You'd have to find the chain-type armor and, at least so far for me, I don't see much of it. I mainly seem to get full evasion and full armor types.