Path of Exile

Selix_sl said:

I'm not sure what your experience background is with POE but you probably shouldn't play hardcore with lots of exiles until you can recognize which ones will OHKO you and you should run screaming in the other direction. Most exiles aren't to dangerous and some are dangerous depending on your setup but there are a few who will straight fuck you up, rip your head off and shit down the throat of your thrice raped corpse.

The ground slam exile was able to OHKO me off screen. I think he was affected by a massive shrine.

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I know the exiles, it was more the whole twenty of them per zone that I didn't really have any idea of how would be.

And Xandro is annoying as all hell.

Eidal_sl said:

Anyone got any extra beta keys? Got friends who are tempted to try again but I don't want them to play 1.3; 2.0 is so much better.

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Honestly I find the beta to be a step backwards in PoE. Back in an interview the skill designer gave with Ziggy (forgot which one he is), he said he kept new skills simple so its easier to balance and its really easy to see in the new skills added and reworks of old skills. Everything scaling in the same 2-3 ways just isnt interesting at all. Any unique method of scaling skills is basically gone or hit with a hard nerf. PoEs strength was build diversity but thats basically completely gone now. You can interchange most melee skills in a melee build changing less than 10 skill points. Casters have been that way ever since they changed around the skill tree the last time and that hasnt changed at all in the beta either.

Edit:Note -- I play PoE pretty casually... I never really end up doing "end-game" content that long. I play the HC challenge league for 4-6 weeks then lose interest and come back next cycle.

I've been following PoE since early 2012, Byr -- time is a flat circle. I've heard that sameexact variationof a gripe every time GGG shakes up the current meta. There are a lot of people that are hugely resistant to change, and theyalwaysrun the sky is falling routine.

With reference to "unique method of scaling skill", you can only be talking about AA, right? And how was that "unique" -- it was so fucking overpowered that everyone used it, and it just meant get some mana regen on gear and be OP. When using language like that, you make it sound like its some brilliant combination that took careful consideration and research... but, come on, you really felt AA/EB/MOM wasn't stupid?

2.0 feels more fun to me; I like the streamlined zones, I like the tuning tweaks. I know a lot of poopsockers are cranky for a bunch of reasons; the map issues seem valid, but I dunno... people like to complain their heads off when things get harder. And 1.3 had a lot of dumb fucking shit that needed to be made harder: see, EB/AA/MOM, CWDT/EC/IC or 78 packsize mapping.

Byr_sl said:

Honestly I find the beta to be a step backwards in PoE. Back in an interview the skill designer gave with Ziggy (forgot which one he is), he said he kept new skills simple so its easier to balance and its really easy to see in the new skills added and reworks of old skills. Everything scaling in the same 2-3 ways just isnt interesting at all. Any unique method of scaling skills is basically gone or hit with a hard nerf. PoEs strength was build diversity but thats basically completely gone now. You can interchange most melee skills in a melee build changing less than 10 skill points. Casters have been that way ever since they changed around the skill tree the last time and that hasnt changed at all in the beta either.

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Hrm. Not so sure I agree with you. How do you keep a Lightning Strike Build, CoC Cyclone build, Reave build, Ground Slam Build, Flicker Strike, Static Strike build all within 10 skill points of change? The variation of changewithin each buildis more then 10 points just on values like physical or elemental? Crit or not? (except for CoC cyclone obviously), Low Life? CI? Life? Some of these are profound enough to change the character you start with.

I think my biggest complaint is how the best way to play is to just grab a build from the forums and join the crowd, but I have no idea how to fix or if it's actually something that needs fixing in the end. Getting to the final form has been satisfying enough for me so far. D3 lets you rearrange your build almost on the fly and everybody still runs the same 1-2 builds anyway.

Zaphid, that might be the most expedient way to play... but specifically for the reasons you just outlined, it does have its drawbacks. That's how I did it for a while; just google some vetted build and follow it to the letter. Got strong results.

On the other hand, I've been having fun in 2.0 just playing oddball stuff; figuring my own way through problems, etc etc. It's absolutely made me a better player: mechanically; using flasks properly, shoot and move micro, recognizing in-combat threats... and knowledge; understanding why popular builds do x and y, understanding where builds can vary and tradeoff's and potential ways to use the passive tree to shore up gear deficiencies and vice versa.

The exile race has been the best race GGG put out since forever.

Selix_sl said:

Hrm. Not so sure I agree with you. How do you keep a Lightning Strike Build, CoC Cyclone build, Reave build, Ground Slam Build, Flicker Strike, Static Strike build all within 10 skill points of change? The variation of changewithin each buildis more then 10 points just on values like physical or elemental? Crit or not? (except for CoC cyclone obviously), Low Life? CI? Life? Some of these are profound enough to change the character you start with.

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Looking at this, lightning strike doesnt get played in any reasonable way so who cares. Ground slam and Static Strike are literally the same build, so much so that if they use the same weapon the build would be 100% the same which just goes to show the problem. Its 100x worse in spell caster builds too.

Byr_sl said:

Looking at this, lightning strike doesnt get played in any reasonable way so who cares. Ground slam and Static Strike are literally the same build, so much so that if they use the same weapon the build would be 100% the same which just goes to show the problem. Its 100x worse in spell caster builds too.

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Well you are just wrong onLightning Strike.

Also I think I see where you might be getting hung up. You can certainly make a generic tree that will work for X builds for melee, 2H, 1H, low-life, caster, etc. etc. builds. That does not mean the generic tree is the best option or even your preferred option for your playstyle. For example you can make a SS CoC build which you aren't going to do for ground slam. You can make a crit GS build (not sure why but this is PoE so do whatever makes you happy!).

Another thing Static Strike is lightning damage while ground slam is physical. Sure they both scale off of physical but when it comes to defense planning for Static strike you may (depending on personal preference) want to use LR purity gem which could translate into even more path divergence (reserved value and gem maximization).

Lastly Static Strike shocks while Ground Slam stuns. How you build your tree could diverge drastically if you want to take advantage of these innate gem abilities. Even more so if you start planning around uniques that are beneficial to those innate effects.


TL;DR So sure you can use any generic build to poop sock your way up in levels the beauty of PoE is that you can go off the beaten path and even more effective albeit specialized builds that are highly divergent from one another.

Did you really just link a build that uses the exact same passive tree for lightning strike and static strike? I mean ... seriously?

Eidal_sl said:

Zaphid, that might be the most expedient way to play... but specifically for the reasons you just outlined, it does have its drawbacks. That's how I did it for a while; just google some vetted build and follow it to the letter. Got strong results.

On the other hand, I've been having fun in 2.0 just playing oddball stuff; figuring my own way through problems, etc etc. It's absolutely made me a better player: mechanically; using flasks properly, shoot and move micro, recognizing in-combat threats... and knowledge; understanding why popular builds do x and y, understanding where builds can vary and tradeoff's and potential ways to use the passive tree to shore up gear deficiencies and vice versa.

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I suppose that makes sense, since I don't have much time to play and going through failures that you realize after 10+ hours would be too frustrating

Zaphid_sl said:

I suppose that makes sense, since I don't have much time to play and going through failures that you realize after 10+ hours would be too frustrating

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That's how I felt initially when I started playing PoE. There was no time for experimentation because I felt so strongly that any 'wasted time' was to be avoided. So I ended up with an EA marauder in 2012, some EK build in 2013, and 2014 I played snoring bond. All copied and vetted builds. It's not a bad way to play; and any issues I'm having can usually be answered easily enough with a reddit/forum post.

I realized, recently, however... what's the hurry? I'm not trying to compete for ladder slots, I don't particularly care about my epeen. It's not like I have to keep up with a static group -- if I want to hit the drawing board, it took my solo self-found archer 23 hours to go 1-70.

I'm not a huge fan of rolling up new characters willy-nilly, either... but at least I can file it under the "learning something new" category. Just playing Searing Bond and MFing for a month in a new league won't teach me anything new at this point.

Byr_sl said:

Did you really just link a build that uses the exact same passive tree for lightning strike and static strike? I mean ... seriously?

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Can you seriously not tell the difference between a Ground Slam build and a Lightning Strike CoC build that also utilizes SS as a secondary skill? You did say ground slam and static strike use the same builds.

Selix_sl said:

Can you seriously not tell the difference between a Ground Slam build and a Lightning Strike CoC build that also utilizes SS as a secondary skill? You did say ground slam and static strike use the same builds.

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Ya and thats a shitty static strike build which is also using the old passive tree which ultimately goes to prove what I was saying. Also goes to show that noone plays that build since its a 6 month old thread with basically no replies. Its all in all a great example for me. Thanks.

Bullshit Byr you are way beyond stretching when you say most melee/caster builds are within 10pt variations of each other but why do I bother arguing when you could just present your "default" melee or caster build that fits your statement and prove your point? Because it's bullshit that doesn't stand up if you actually try it.
https://youtu.be/W0I6-a0fOK4

Video of the "shitty" LS build

You don't have to like the game or even play it but if you have played

First thing first, 10 points is an obvious hyperbole but it is true that builds follow generic skill trees now just because all the nodes for scaling are so localized. If youre playing a caster, your optimal build is in shadow templar and witch. If youre playing a melee, your optimal build is probably in marauder duelist with a sprinkling of templar or ranger. That will only change for dagger and claw builds which basically just trade over to the right side of the tree. The difference between these builds are all very small once you get there unless you want to add some bullshit flavor that will just make your character weaker ... like using lightning strike to deliver CoC.

Dont get me wrong, Im talking about competitive builds. If you want to gear up to the nines like that video and go into a map thats at best 17 levels lower than his character, at worst and probable 20 levels lower, and show your stuff killing white mobs in a solo instance, any build with any skill will make you look great. Im more interested in builds that will carry their weight in high leveled maps with parties.

And the backtracking begins. It's fine to say you don't like the game. Even ok to say you just don't understand why people would play builds you don't identify with (or as you might see it.. sub-optimal). But the complexity is certainly there and is one of the biggest selling points in favor of POE. I can certainly identify generic builds like summoner for example. Start at witch and going in a circle grab all of the summoning nodes. And while it may not seem like there is a lot of variation to be had there, there actually is. SRS takes a completely different path then the standard circle. Melee summoner potentially starts off at any of 3 or 4 other locations. Zombie Horde vs Spectral specialization is another new direction and path.

Yet in all of those examples every one of them COULD take the generic witch path and just grab all summoning nodes. The beauty of PoE is that you can take "sub-optimal" builds and still be viable with them if you enjoy them and there could be really good reasons for using your build over the one that seems better.

To be totally fair Byr I would agree that sub level 30 or 40 you could make an argument for very little variation in in the top 15-20 leveling builds but above that when you really start to pick up the keystones of your build, build defining uniques, secondary and tertiary primary skills ... well the divergence will become greater and greater then.

This is exactly what Im saying, everything scales the same couple ways. Any summoner could be run off the same build and still be viable, so much so that you only need to swap a handful of points between the builds.

There are all kinds of viable builds. Even if you fix one ability like Static strike alone, you still have evasion versions, armor versions, crit or resolute technique. These have far more than a handful of talent point differences.

If youre playing an armor version of anything, youre doing it wrong. Same thing with crit. Very few skills scale well without going crit.