Path of Exile

joeboo_sl said:

That's one of my big issues. I've never had a CWDT gem, can't get to late Act 3 merciless alive to get one from the quest.

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Vagan sells it for a regal, can buy it from a noob for 2-3c

joeboo_sl said:

That's one of my big issues. I've never had a CWDT gem, can't get to late Act 3 merciless alive to get one from the quest.

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Well, you're dying before you actually need one. And it sounds like your deaths are from losing focus, not from an unavoidable massive physical hit. Do you play solo self-found because you can't be arsed to trade? Or is it a personal goal? Would it break your "rules" if you duoed with me or my friend that play Beyond and swapped gear with us?

Vitality_sl said:

Vagan sells it for a regal, can buy it from a noob for 2-3c

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He said earlier in the thread that he plays solo self-found. Vagan selling CWDT is RNG and hes ripping too fast to get a higher level Vagan lol.

Oh, solo self-found isn't a hard and fast rule, it's just that my play time with a 1-year old in the house is completely sporadic, so I really can't plan much ahead of time. I jump on when I can, sometimes it ends up being for 2 hours, sometimes it's for 10 minutes. I just don't want to commit to a group and inconvenience others with my odd play times. Kindof the same deal with buying/selling/trading, I can rarely commit to being online at any certain time with advance notice.

He said earlier in the thread that he plays solo self-found. Vagan selling CWDT is RNG and hes ripping too fast to get a higher level Vagan lol.

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Yeah, all my damn vendors are roughly level 5. Haven't spent enough time lvl 60 and above on any character to get them much past that. While re-leveling a character, you don't get crap for experience doing low-level quests as you find masters out in the world.

You deserve to rip if you're pushing a solo self found that hard. Especially in Beyond.

Plenty of dudes in guild will pass you CWDT - I've got 2

You don't need to commit to anything to trade. Use poe.xyz.is and search only for people online with buyouts listed. Now, you shouldn't really need that much until late game but grabbing a goldrim for a few chaos takes less than 5 minutes. There are a handful of cheap uniques that make leveling a breeze.

Trading for specific gear takes a bit more research later on when you need to balance resists and link setups against what you can afford, but the actual process is still as simple as sending a whisper saying you'll pay their buyout. You don't need to coordinate anything, just limit your searches to who is online with a buyout. If you're lvl 80+ looking to buy super expensive shit you may want to be more discerning.... But that's far off.

Vitality_sl said:

You deserve to rip if you're pushing a solo self found that hard. Especially in Beyond.

Plenty of dudes in guild will pass you CWDT - I've got 2

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You mean level-wise? I generally try to stay about 8-ish levels above content to be safe. I shoot for finishing Cruel at level 60, then Merciless zones start out at level 52-53ish. I've been skipping the level 57-58 side zones until I get more like level 64-65. Should I be staying double-digit levels above zones?

joeboo_sl said:

You mean level-wise? I generally try to stay about 8-ish levels above content to be safe. I shoot for finishing Cruel at level 60, then Merciless zones start out at level 52-53ish. I've been skipping the level 57-58 side zones until I get more like level 64-65. Should I be staying double-digit levels above zones?

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That's pretty conservative.

joeboo_sl said:

You mean level-wise? I generally try to stay about 8-ish levels above content to be safe. I shoot for finishing Cruel at level 60, then Merciless zones start out at level 52-53ish. I've been skipping the level 57-58 side zones until I get more like level 64-65. Should I be staying double-digit levels above zones?

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If you're self found and likely not maxed resists in Merciless, you shouldn't leave lunaris 3 until 80 rofl.

Even still, lunaris 3 without somewhat optimal gear gets pretty sketch with the vuln curses.

It's not about levels at all - it's about resists/armor/defensive passives and life totals.

crafting made max resists cake.

I guess in the future, I'll just not touch corpse-explosion boxes once I get to Merciless difficulty. Max resists, 62% evasion, 40% dodge, 30% spell dodge, 2900 HP, killed me instantly. Up until that death, I really hadn't even had any close calls at any point, I was just plowing through content pretty easily. Killed Cruel Dominus shortly before that without even having to use a single flask at any point, he couldn't touch me to apply the bleed at all.

I was feeling a little squishy at 2900 HP with no ES. I generally like to be around ~3500 combined HP/ES when I'm doing armor-based builds by the beginning of Merciless, but the amount of HP nodes over in the Shadow area is a little thin for my liking. I was about 2 levels from hitting the huge Scion-are HP circle, was going to spend quite a few points there from level 65-75 ish

2900hp in Beyond Merciless is 700hp too little to be toying with any chest with a damage mod or any zone above merc docks.

At the very least, with that dodge build, CWDT is an absolute priority.

Also just because Acrobatics cuts your armor in half doesn't mean it's a wasted stat. armor/ev gear with acro is still very good.

Vitality_sl said:

2900hp in Beyond Merciless is 700hp too little to be toying with any chest with a damage mod or any zone above merc docks.

At the very least, with that dodge build, CWDT is an absolute priority.

Also just because Acrobatics cuts your armor in half doesn't mean it's a wasted stat. armor/ev gear with acro is still very good.

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Agreed.

Joe,

Add me #eidal12345

I'm totally down to help you with your next Beyond guy. If you want, I"ll even pick you out a build and tell you line by line where to put points. I'll grab you some easy leveling uniques and once you finish farming Cruel Docks I'll help you unfuck any weaknesses in your gearing. I think you'd be amazed with how easy it is for someone to patch up a hole in their gear with some expedient and cheap trades.

Obviously, merciless is a bit harder but I think with careful play and a calculated character with proper gear, you'll be fine to early maps.

Vitality_sl said:

2900hp in Beyond Merciless is 700hp too little to be toying with any chest with a damage mod or any zone above merc docks.

At the very least, with that dodge build, CWDT is an absolute priority.

Also just because Acrobatics cuts your armor in half doesn't mean it's a wasted stat. armor/ev gear with acro is still very good.

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I have 2700 hps farming Piety and doing maps now (I still don't want to test my build vs dominus tho).

Another option for getting away from boxes is having a nicely leveled lightning warp + faster cast + reduced duration. I immediately warp away from boxes when I trigger them (have to mash my unfreeze flask if it's a freeze on open). I'm at my destination before the mobs show up on my screen 99% of the time. Still don't have my CWDT+EC+IC setup yet, working on that next. Debating using EC + echo seperate and only doing CWDT + IC + ID.

joeboo_sl said:

I guess in the future, I'll just not touch corpse-explosion boxes once I get to Merciless difficulty.

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For boxes in general I don't open any past normal without a pre-cast lightning warp, smoke mine, whirling blades, quartz flask or similar. It's simply just a matter of time before you get stuck in mobs if you try to walk away from boxes.

I have like 4 CwDTs in my stash, so just yell at me next time you see me on and I'll drop you one.

Dominus runs with an MF culler are amazing. I play a srs witch at 75 who can summon 22 spirits at the same time now self-buffed. If i get a haste or echo shrine that amount doubles. With that in mind, I melt bosses soooo quickly and I run a skeletal totem for added survivability. Now, my friend plays a flame totem + mf + culling build, and we farm dominus together, usually with one more guy as well. 4 out of 5 runs drops a unique (I got a rise of the phoenix yesterday, for example) usually between 20-40 rare items. This is just running up to the dominus area and skipping everything beforehand. With 3 runners we can do 3 boss kills back to back and it's just incredible. Definitely recommend for anyone trying to gear up or just make that sweet sweet currency

At another note, I decided to start a veeeeeeery gear-dependant character. My build requires me to get an Aegis Aurora, a Soul Taker axe, an Alpha's howl and a very high armor/es chest. Basically I'm going to do a block / CI / cyclone build which looks immensely fun. Playing it truly hardcore as well as I haven't taken any lifenodes (300 hp at level 20, what up) yet. Tons of fun, but scary as well. Only thing now is to figure out where to get 30 exalts but that's for tomorrow!

Alphas are down to 1ex, Soul Takers 7ish EX if you are on Rampage.

For those of you that play casters, what weapon setup do you prefer(assuming you aren't using specific uniques). Do you go wand/shield, double wand for generally more DPS, or 2H staff for the extra item that can possibly be 5L or 6L?

I've always been a wand/shield user for most of my builds (arc builds, freezing pulse builds, flameblast builds, even summoner builds), but I'm kind of coming around on scepters for that additional 20% elemental damage(that seems to be much easier to find than innate 20% spell damage wands before additional mods, especially at lower levels)

And those of you that use some combo of 1h + shield, do you tend to prefer the ES shields with spell damage, or the + innate resist shields?

2h Staff for most fire based builds - think searing touch - including Summon raging spirits

1h Scepter with +2lightning +1all gems for Arc - I feel like elemental dmg on weapons scales spells better than spell dmg considering how much spell dmg is available on the tree. (looking for lightning dmg + spell dmg + cast speed on these for that GG item)

Moonsorrow + Saffels frame (necromantic aegis) for spectre/zomb summoner

not sure about freeze pulse builds, pretty sure people try and get crit dmg mods on a spelldmg dagger with high global crit.

joeboo_sl said:

For those of you that play casters, what weapon setup do you prefer(assuming you aren't using specific uniques). Do you go wand/shield, double wand for generally more DPS, or 2H staff for the extra item that can possibly be 5L or 6L?

I've always been a wand/shield user for most of my builds (arc builds, freezing pulse builds, flameblast builds, even summoner builds), but I'm kind of coming around on scepters for that additional 20% elemental damage(that seems to be much easier to find than innate 20% spell damage wands before additional mods, especially at lower levels)

And those of you that use some combo of 1h + shield, do you tend to prefer the ES shields with spell damage, or the + innate resist shields?

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My Arc toon had 0 defense so it had to have arctic armour, making EB a must and having to use a 400ES shield.