Path of Exile

I've never minded the 1-2 combo sort of gameplay. Played a ton of blade blast and detonate dead over the years. Both of those spells were propped up nearly entirely by being hilariously overtuned though, and after the various nerfs I don't think either is playble.

Is there any playable self cast build right now? I'd assume something forbidden rite works, but I can't think of a single other instance of anything being even close to good.

DD, not VD. The delay on self casting VD and the projectiles hunting things down would be pretty brutal yea lol.

I think ultimately I'm pretty down on this league after having put a pretty normal amount of time in to it for me.

The issue is that the nerfs/changes have really kneecapped the way I typically play a league. I tend to make like 4-5 builds with moderate investment, the like 10-15ex range or so, and reroll once I've cleared a bit of endgame. That kind of doesn't work anymore though? The list of skills capable of doing A8 or Maven or any of the big boy invites on a moderate budget like that is not large, and everything else really starts to fall off hard in the damage department without going to much crazier levels of investment than I'm used to. Like the end game damage exists, but it's all just walled behind stuff like multi-prop watchers eyes, phantasmal skills that cost 10ex, awakened gems, 600 dps weapons etc. Stuff that used to be perfectly playable on a normie budget suddenly isn't and it feels pretty bad.

It probably feels way less bad if you stick with a single build in to the 50+ex investment range, but I just get bored of builds long before that generally.

ronne said:

DD, not VD. The delay on self casting VD and the projectiles hunting things down would be pretty brutal yea lol.

I think ultimately I'm pretty down on this league after having put a pretty normal amount of time in to it for me.

The issue is that the nerfs/changes have really kneecapped the way I typically play a league. I tend to make like 4-5 builds with moderate investment, the like 10-15ex range or so, and reroll once I've cleared a bit of endgame. That kind of doesn't work anymore though? The list of skills capable of doing A8 or Maven or any of the big boy invites on a moderate budget like that is not large, and everything else really starts to fall off hard in the damage department without going to much crazier levels of investment than I'm used to. Like the end game damage exists, but it's all just walled behind stuff like multi-prop watchers eyes, phantasmal skills that cost 10ex, awakened gems, 600 dps weapons etc. Stuff that used to be perfectly playable on a normie budget suddenly isn't and it feels pretty bad.

It probably feels way less bad if you stick with a single build in to the 50+ex investment range, but I just get bored of builds long before that generally.

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This is how I felt after a couple of weeks. Could have stayed playing SST or FR Totems but I knew i'd have to grind currency/buy crafts etc and it just seemed like too much of a time investment. Seen a bunch of builds on reddit like CoC raiders, Occultists etc that look really fun but as you mentioned the gear investment is high at 50-200 ex and you've got to grind that shit out as trades dead etc which doesn't help matters.

Am I understanding immortal ambition correctly that it doesn't matter if I have 0 ES - it will won't remove leech at full life? It doesn't actually require me to have some nominal amount of ES does it?

Converted to accuracy stack molten strike finally last night. Gear is pretty rough but it's functional. Easy like 300% damage increase over the nebulochs. Obviously lose a bunch of mitigation, but so far it's more than made up for it in terms of just making shit dead faster and the recovery from life gain on hit and claw nodes. Long as I don't literally get one-shot my recovery is basically instant at all times.

Problems still to work out:

My level 20 immortal call plan failed badly, forgot about the insane mana multiplier on it. Maybe could fix it with a level 4 enlighten to free up enough mana?

Make real boots, ideally elusive+tailwind, as those are both huge upgrades for my current setup. This is probably project number 1, and then fix the rest of my resists around whatever the boots end up being.

Craft a new chest with +1 curse on it, since I'm like 50/50 split on fire/lightning damage being able to fit in elemental weakness would be a big upgrade.

Get a better shield, just not sure where to go with this just yet. Maybe atziris reflection? Otherwise maybe a hunter or shaper shield with +2 max res?

Get some flat -mana cost someplace to make whirling blades spam better.

Still need to test hydrosphere some more, as it's tough to tell if it's actually interacting favorably with ancestral call.

ronne said:

Am I understanding immortal ambition correctly that it doesn't matter if I have 0 ES - it will won't remove leech at full life? It doesn't actually require me to have some nominal amount of ES does it?

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Correct

edit: Why not use Nightblade? It give you elusive and 46%ish more dmg

Thregin said:

Correct

edit: Why not use Nightblade? It give you elusive and 46%ish more dmg

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Mostly cause I forgot it exists. The play is probably to annoint tribal fury then and cut ancestral call for nightblade, just need to get an amulet good enough that it can be my forever amulet.

Slaanesh69 said:

I decided to try this totem build , and as soon as I put on the Soul Mantle (5L) and got my first Ascension, the clear speed went from ugh to WEEEEEE in the Acts lol. I am actually interested to see it in mapping soonest.

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Replying to my own post, the narcissism. I was too lazy to look for Ronne's post - but MAN you were right about the lack of defense.

I admit to being a total scrub on defensive stacking, I usually "make do" but I also usually play melee builds. In early mapping gear this FR totem build with meh health, meh ES and meh general defense is made of egg shells. Definitely have at least a little min/maxing to do on the defense side.

I guess comparing it directly to the high block/armor SSD build I was running makes it especially obvious. My poor hiero is dying to the weakest shit lol. But if I slower pace it and don't get offscreened charged by rhoa's I am good.

Totem builds are plodding and you gotta rely on mom and hiding like a pantsless coward.

also hydrosphere gameplay is not fun.

I had some fondness for Ice Spear totems as those things would fucking fly off in to forever and kill shit I didn't know was there.

Swapped out multistrike for nightblade support and it feels way better. Lose attack speed obviously, but it's still like ~6.5aps with no totem so it's not like it matters. The bigger initial hits feel pretty good for map clear cause you can pretty reliably just onetap packs, and with awakened ancestral that generally means the whole screen at once. Probably swap multi back in for the really big bosses, but so far I haven't needed it at all for any conquerors.

Did an A8 sirus and the damage feels like something in the ~3m range right now, with bursts as high as ~5m depending on hydrosphere/ball overlap (bosses up next to walls for example just explode instantly cause almost all the projectiles hit them).

Most surprising part so far is how reliably tanky it is. Endurance charges/fortify/wind dancer with the jugg nodes is enough mitigation that I never really get oneshot, and the recovery is so absurd with ~70 life gain on hit + claw w/overleech + jugg regen means that anything that doesn't outright kill you basically doesn't matter. Toss in grasping vines for expedition bombs/harvest blobs/boss phases for that juicy 20% double damage and extra mitigation and you can stand in dang near anything as long as you're in attack range to keep up recovery.

Done with league , dumped a buncha stuff including 15 ex in guild bank, prolly gone by now.

mjolner with arc/ manabond was probably one of the most fun builds I ever played. Kinda sucks to have played it during such a dead trade league, took forever to get decent gear upgrades but the map clear was just so buttery, just never stop moving.

Tried icecrash hollowpalm briefly but just felt so clunky. Good boss dps but too squishy and probably not doin it again.

Yea every time I've tried a dex stacker like that it ends up the same. Damage is there, but it's just a paper tiger, and your clear is often annoying because it's some terrible strike skill or slam or whatever.

I had a Glad hollow palm cycloner which was pretty good, but if you go phase acro the block nodes get shredded. That combined with the nature of palmers being like 4.5k-5.5khp characters makes it rough. Between Raider and Glad I think Raider took less damage, but would get oneshot a lot. The Glad took more damage more often, but bosses wouldn't insta-gib it.

Berserker palmer is insta death and degens blasted it. Think Raider is the way to go and just do your best to avoid boss mechanics. The lack of a shield and lower hp makes it kinda shitty for those builds to do anything but straight up dodge.

Damn, exsang traps has blown up. Friday, before the gauntlet it was a slept-on build. Now, it's probably going to be part of the next league's leveling meta.

Deathwing said:

Unless they revert some changes, probably not going to play any builds that rely on Dash or Flame Dash outside of a starter. Attack-based movement skills are much faster and on demand, they easily make up for superior clear speed skills like Exsanguinate because they can go pack to pack faster.


Shield charge still gay.

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Whirling blades isn't? Although will admit Leap Slam felt pretty good this league but all 3 of them still fucking suck balls in tight spaces and corridors.