Path of Exile

Zaphid · Feb 3, 2015

So I finally managed to get a character to merciless after screwing around since beta and never making it past a2 cruel. Tornado shot ranger isn't exactly the most unique build, but I have a few questions:

Leveling - is it a big deal, are there are any drawbacks for killing shit that is too high level or something ? Killed Piety at 63, should I just gun straight for Dominus and then maps or should I grind out docks or something for the next few levels and hopefully some upgrades ? I died once or twice on the way to Piety, which isn't that much of a deal, since I'm playing on Torment, but the xp loss is something I'd rather avoid.

Maps - should I just solo them, group up and is there a risk of running out ? I got only like 1-2 and another 5 that dropped out of some strongbox, all 66, so I guess they are technically doable for me right now, but I don't want to waste them. All are white.

Gearing up - I'm mostly solo player, but holy fuck is socketing decent gear a pain in the ass, I have like 3 Chaos orbs lying around, should I just blow them on upgrades or try to roll something myself ?

Items - I'm vendoring all the rares I'm not using unless they roll like 2x 30% resist and other nice stats, but I have no idea if they are worth anything. Same goes for skill gems, being cheapskate, my stash is getting full of them, so far I have been throwing away only those that can be obtained at low lvl like cleave or dual strike, can I do anything with those besides throwing them at vendors ?

IGN Zachodka

Vitality · Feb 3, 2015

Zaphid_sl said:
So I finally managed to get a character to merciless after screwing around since beta and never making it past a2 cruel. Tornado shot ranger isn't exactly the most unique build, but I have a few questions:

Leveling - is it a big deal, are there are any drawbacks for killing shit that is too high level or something ? Killed Piety at 63, should I just gun straight for Dominus and then maps or should I grind out docks or something for the next few levels and hopefully some upgrades ? I died once or twice on the way to Piety, which isn't that much of a deal, since I'm playing on Torment, but the xp loss is something I'd rather avoid.

In Hardcore most people don't even do dominus in merciless, most people farm docks/piety until 70+ and then map the rest of the way. Technically you can get away with doing docks piety until 80 with some success.LINKto experience breakouts based on zone level

Maps - should I just solo them, group up and is there a risk of running out ? I got only like 1-2 and another 5 that dropped out of some strongbox, all 66, so I guess they are technically doable for me right now, but I don't want to waste them. All are white.

- I solo maps most of the time, grouping in maps increases drop rates but doesn't increase map drop rates if I recall. The main benefit to grouping in maps is to have someone bring their maps too and that way you can have a more extended session with better rolls on maps (because two people getting pack size magic monster beyond style maps is better than one)Link to map guide

Gearing up - I'm mostly solo player, but holy fuck is socketing decent gear a pain in the ass, I have like 3 Chaos orbs lying around, should I just blow them on upgrades or try to roll something myself ?

- Chaos are better used to trade for gear onpoe.trademarketplace. Search for an item you need (hp double resists max sockets) and make sure to select buyout only and online only at the bottom, then just copy paste their name into the in game chat box and say you want to buy the tiem.

- Make sure to level up vorici (shadow master), you can 4 link an item for like 5 fuse or something cheap. Make sure you sell your shitty six socket items to vendors for 7 jewelers and you can convert 4 jewelers into 1 fuse (which is about as good as selling your jewelers for chaos at a rate of 7:1)

Items - I'm vendoring all the rares I'm not using unless they roll like 2x 30% resist and other nice stats, but I have no idea if they are worth anything. Same goes for skill gems, being cheapskate, my stash is getting full of them, so far I have been throwing away only those that can be obtained at low lvl like cleave or dual strike, can I do anything with those besides throwing them at vendors ?

- You can check prices on poe.trade and use procurement to automatically list items on the marketplace based on your stash tabs with sought after stats. Almost always a dual resist life piece over 30% will sell for a chaos orb unless it has more notable stats like attack speed or good armor/es rolls etc which it will then go for a larger amount (which you will have to source on poe.trade) -Procurement Guide

- As a general rule of thumb I put most support gems in a 1alch tab and most dual resist life gear in a 1 chaos tab in my stash for people browsing poe.trade to buy (things like spell echo and multistrike go in 5c tabs) learning the prices comes with time and research

IGN Zachodka

Answered inline ?

Aevian · Feb 3, 2015

Zaphid_sl said:
So I finally managed to get a character to merciless after screwing around since beta and never making it past a2 cruel. Tornado shot ranger isn't exactly the most unique build, but I have a few questions:

Leveling - is it a big deal, are there are any drawbacks for killing shit that is too high level or something ? Killed Piety at 63, should I just gun straight for Dominus and then maps or should I grind out docks or something for the next few levels and hopefully some upgrades ? I died once or twice on the way to Piety, which isn't that much of a deal, since I'm playing on Torment, but the xp loss is something I'd rather avoid.

Maps - should I just solo them, group up and is there a risk of running out ? I got only like 1-2 and another 5 that dropped out of some strongbox, all 66, so I guess they are technically doable for me right now, but I don't want to waste them. All are white.

Gearing up - I'm mostly solo player, but holy fuck is socketing decent gear a pain in the ass, I have like 3 Chaos orbs lying around, should I just blow them on upgrades or try to roll something myself ?

Items - I'm vendoring all the rares I'm not using unless they roll like 2x 30% resist and other nice stats, but I have no idea if they are worth anything. Same goes for skill gems, being cheapskate, my stash is getting full of them, so far I have been throwing away only those that can be obtained at low lvl like cleave or dual strike, can I do anything with those besides throwing them at vendors ?

IGN Zachodka

Leveling - Yeah on merciless, there really isn't a huge reason to do Dominus outside of Dom farming. XP isn't worth it, people do it for drops. You can start doing maps.

Maps - Yeah, what Vitality mentioned is good. If you haven't already done so, try to locate zana, should be good for free map each day.

Gearing up - I don't know what the economy is like on torment/standard, but generally speaking it is much easier to socket good gear than to chaos a 4L item to something good. Exception is that it's common to get a decent item level 5link and spam a couple of chaos to it to make it usable.

Items - Yeah, you'll end up vendoring a good amount of items. I do recommend doing the chaos recipe though. You can look it up on the path of exile gamewiki. How it works is you vendor items dropped in a high level zone. You vendor 1 of each slot so 2 rings, helm, amulet, chest, gloves, boots, belt, and weapon set. I usually just do a 2 hander. If you vendor them identified you get 1 chaos, vendoring them unidentified you get 2 chaos. Decent way to get some currency while you farm docks and lower level maps. You'll get bottlenecked by the rings/amu/belt slots so I would only recommend keeping 1 of the other slots at a time.

Hope that helps.

Vitality · Feb 4, 2015

If you're going the chaos recipe route don't forget all the items need to be above ilvl 60.

Unidentified sets give 2 chaos
Identified sets give 1 chaos

I usually pre-arrange sets in 2 tabs for chaos recipe. most of time they bottleneck on amulets as you can imagine.

A lot of the time I'll pick up perfectly rolled base stat white jewelery in lvl 68 maps and alch them. Made a few exalts this way and it helps move chaos recipes along.

I almost never do the unidentified recipes because of the alched items making it work.

I almost always use two handed weapons for the chaos recipe as it takes less organization and I sell the onehanded rares to the vendor if they don't roll well.

Above ilvl 75 the chaos recipe instead gives a regal recipe.

(I can fit 4 pre-arranged sets of gear in 1 stash tab as reference)

Fogel · Feb 4, 2015

Yup, pretty much only do the 2 chaos recipe when you get a rare amu/ring with a shitty base like iron rings and coral amulets. Same with belts, Id good bases like heavy/leather/rustic and use studded/cloth for unId recipe.

Vitality · Feb 4, 2015

Essentially an optimized unidentified 2 chaos recipe would be:

2h weapon
Low base type armor/es/ev armor set
Iron/Pua ring x2
Coral/Low base rolled gold amulet
Studded/Cloth belt

Zaphid · Feb 4, 2015

Yeah, I just started doing that, I'm a packrat when it comes to jewelry, so I have a few stashed away. Shame I just found out about the recipe, I'd have bought the extra stash tabs when they were on sale during the weekend

Fogel · Feb 4, 2015

They do the stash tab sale like every other weekend or once a month, it'll be back

Joeboo · Feb 9, 2015

Trying out a Glacial Cascade build, really liking it so far. It basically acts like a harder-hitting freeze pulse, with a slightly shorter range but the damage doesn't decrease at range either, so that's a plus.

All of the build templates that I see online use a Carcass Jack and unique daggers that add to AOE range as well, so hopefully the build isn't completely gimped without those since I won't be finding those in the Bloodlines league, that's an added 30% AE range. I might just have to do without using concentrated effect to offset that, as CE is -30%, so those all negate each other (but CE is such huge damage, hopefully DPS doesn't blow at high levels without it).

And I have no idea why I never though to link herald of thunder/ice with curse on hit for applying my curses. Those passive auras spread curses around really well as long as you have a minimal amount of chance to crit(the effects on both auras that will trigger curse on hit are triggered off of crits, the lightning strikes with thunder, and the added freeze proliferation on ice.)

Vitality · Feb 9, 2015

Keep in mind Conc Effect is 30% Less (not reduced) multiplicitive not additive.

So things like increased AE are only .7 (down from 1) effective as a result of the conc effect calculation.

I run rime gaze flame sentinels (lvl 15 conc effect passively in the helm) with LMP Spell Echo Fire pen as a point of reference.

Byr · Feb 10, 2015

If you like glacial cascade, give ball lightning a try. Basically the same spell but better.

Zehnpai · Feb 11, 2015

Picked this up. Anything I should be painfully aware of early on or is it okay to just fuck around for several hours before I have to start giving a shit that I may be screwing something up?

Ryanz · Feb 11, 2015

You're going to fuck things up for several weeks. Just dive in and have fun.

Onoes · Feb 12, 2015

Bummed out, started playing a few days ago on the hardcore tournament server thing. Just died at lvl 36, went to use my skill point and something just wrecked me. My own fault!

I was going ranger, mainly used rain of arrows and poison arrow. Any suggestions on what to try next? I enjoyed that, but maybe switch it up....

Vitality · Feb 12, 2015

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:
Picked this up. Anything I should be painfully aware of early on or is it okay to just fuck around for several hours before I have to start giving a shit that I may be screwing something up?

Definitely get to merciless in one of the non hardcore leagues first just to get a feel for the game.

Prioritize HP pool and Resists as much as possible.

Get accustomed to browsingpoe.tradefor upgrades when you get to the point that you need some of them. *Can pick up some pretty good leveling uniques like Fairgraves Tricorn and Crest of Perandus shield for a chaos or two on non hardcore leagues.

Don't buy stash tabs until they go on sale (usually on sale once a month)

Once you get to 58+ level zones start accumulating full sets of rares (Helm/chest/belt/gloves/boots/2h weap/2 rings/amulet) that are ilvl 60+ (** can check an items ilvl by typing /itemlevel after you pick an item up with your cursor *) Can sell a full set of ilvl 60 gear to a vendor for a chaos orb in return.

Good leveling abilities right off the bat:

-- Lightning Tendrils (any int or int hybrid starting class)
-- Poison Arrow (Tidal Island mission lvl 2 dex classes) **doesn't require any passive tree investment to take you to 60** I use this one the most with a silverbranch for +1 bow gems as it adds tons of dmg to the ability.
-- Leapslam (Level 10 brutus quest reward for strength classes)

Joeboo · Feb 12, 2015

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:
Picked this up. Anything I should be painfully aware of early on or is it okay to just fuck around for several hours before I have to start giving a shit that I may be screwing something up?

Keep in mind that your offensive capability scales pretty well just based off your weapon(if you are melee) or your spell gem(if you are a caster), but most of your defense(other than resists) is going to come from the passive skill tree. The skill tree is where you will pick up added life, regen, mana regen, additional dodge, block, + flask effectiveness, etc.

So don't worry too much about piling all of your skill points into offense, you're better off(especially as a newer player) putting the points into less sexy things like health and mitigation/avoidance.

Also, don't spend ANY currency that you collect with your first couple of characters. Bank it all for later, even as tempting as it might be to use it on gear. Don't waste a couple alchs trying to make a good level 30 weapon, you'll outgrow it too fast anyways.

And just probably accept the fact that your first character or two are probably going to be completely jacked up once you get higher level, you'll discover a glaring weakness in your build that makes is near impossible to progress further, and you'll have to start over. You'll get all pissed and feel like you wasted a bunch of time, but you didnt. You collected gear and currency that can be used to make your next character stronger. And even they might fail at some point and you have to start over again, but then that next character will be even MORE powerful with a better variety of banked gear and currency to draw on. It's a building process.

Vitality · Feb 12, 2015

To echo points in Joeboo's post, Save up currency and if you find yourself needing it spend some of it later on items you know you'll use on Poe.Trade

Some of the uniques on there are usable on multiple characters throughout the leveling experience: Fairgraves Tricorn - Aursieze - Crest of Perandus etc.

Zehnpai · Feb 12, 2015

Thanks guys. That's really helpful. I tried asking on some PoE forum, probably the official one and all I got was "Just have fun!" Fucking hate people like that. No offense Ryanz of course.

What's used as currency then? Basically anything with the word orb in it?

Vitality · Feb 12, 2015

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:
Thanks guys. That's really helpful. I tried asking on some PoE forum, probably the official one and all I got was "Just have fun!" Fucking hate people like that. No offense Ryanz of course.

What's used as currency then? Basically anything with the word orb in it?

More or less yes:

Chaos Orbs are the most commonly accepted currency for trades.

Here are some rough valuations in order of rarity (Ratios are unit:chaos orb)

Wisdom Scrolls: 160:1
Portal Scrolls: 80:1
Armorers Scrap: 80:1 (I think)
Blacksmith Whet: 40:1 (I think)
Transmute: 40:1
Augment: 30:1
Alteration: ~16:1 (fluctuates from league to league)
Chance: 8:1 (Sometimes 10:1)
Jewelers: 7:1
Fusings: 2:1
Scours: 2:1
Alch Orbs: 2:1
Regrets: 1:1 (hotly contested valuation here sometimes they're 1.5:1 but never 2:1)
Blessed: 1:1.5 (Hard one to valuate)
Regal: 1:1.5
Gemcutter: 1:2
Vaal Orb: 2:1 (sometimes 1:1, haven't traded many of these)
Divine orb: 1:8 (sometimes 1:6, varies)
Exalted: 1:36 (at the start of a league this dips down as low as 1:20)
Eternal: 1:some amount of exalts (I think)
Mirror: 1:BlowJob (this is a blank check a lot of the time, depends on the league)

Harfle · Feb 12, 2015

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:
Thanks guys. That's really helpful. I tried asking on some PoE forum, probably the official one and all I got was "Just have fun!" Fucking hate people like that. No offense Ryanz of course.

What's used as currency then? Basically anything with the word orb in it?

are you in the guild ding and I play ding more then I at the momement waiting on the next league

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