Get the 2nd curse and add enfeeble, then pretty much nothing is a threat anymore unless you're like not using any health items. Enfeeble makes Vaal's punch tankable on cruel pretty easily too(on merci you need fairly insane stats to tank it though, when it hits in its high range).Got one shottesd by cruel vaal's hammer on my 50 templar. Underestimated its range. 2100 life and good resists and armor, sort of surprised. Just got eldritch battery too; definitely dissapointing.
Btw, temporal chains + unlimited curse is so OP. The unlimited curse is literally that; even if you leave a game and come back, the shit is still cursed.
Not sure if this directly relates to your build, but I've heard Kripp say that Wand Templar is one of the hardest builds in the game because it is so gear-dependent. On the other hand, it is an extremely strong end-game group build when you finally do "get there".I rolled up a caster-centric templar just because i had no idea what i was doing. I'm feeling pretty papery in A3 and am a bit at a loss on how to up my damage output. everything resists most my spells and i just feel like the mob health has scaled dramatically faster than my dmg output. Had my first headache on the A2 boss, and then the first time you run into piety. Basically couldn't survive enough hits and had to corpse hump my way through. Not sure what i need to be doing but all i've found for DD spells is Fireball and Spark. I have Firestorm, Ice Nova for AOE's.
Get in a group -- preferably a full one and play frogger. If there's another summoner there you should be ok. Skeleton totems really come in handy, same with temp chains and/or enfeeble like Pyros mentioned before.Reduced Mana is pretty expensive, I think I sold all of the ones I picked up from leveling for a couple of Chaos each, maybe more sometimes. Lightning Warp you can probably get for next to nothing I'm sure.
So right now I'm still stuck on Merciless Vaal. I ran up there early on, maybe around level 63 and tried him and decided it was best to wait after that attempt so I went to grind more levels, then I did the same thing at around level 67, now I'm level 70 and just tried him again. My minions are still getting rocked, they are even weaker than they were in my first attempt just higher level. Everytime rocks come I have to Granite, or go to town, when my Granites run out I have to recharge them, if I lag and get hit by lightning it has taken over half of my health even using Purity and having 77 Lightning Resist. It's ridiculous. This is with pretty good gear also, I don't have much Armor but my resists are all maxed and I have over 3000 Life and pretty good damage with wands and minions (when they aren't dead...).
I'm not sure what to do at this point, I guess just make a new character.
How did you guys not die to Merciless Vaal? I've come so close to dying simply from rocks that it's ridiculous.
Yeah a group would definitely make things easier, the main difficulty is that I'm the only target lots of times considering how squishy the minions are. I think I'm going to spec into more life and run more Armor then try again. I have about 6 Life nodes in fairly easy reach atm I believe.Get in a group -- preferably a full one and play frogger. If there's another summoner there you should be ok. Skeleton totems really come in handy, same with temp chains and/or enfeeble like Pyros mentioned before.
Try standing on top of a portal when rocks start and pray you can click pots/the TP before you get hit by a 2nd or 3rd.
Yeah Piety is pretty stupid too I assume, I haven't actually got a char to her yet, my explo arrow died on vaal and I can't be bothered progressing on my dagger melee witch anymore. Her Ice arrow hurt like a bitch even on cruel though, I guess because it's part physical and part cold so you need to granite AND sapphire for safety, they're avoidable most of the time but if she lightning warps right before running into a cold portal she can move while shooting arrows and the angle shift can be quite dangerous. Worst case scenario though you can contact morsexier and pay a GCP(I think it is) to get him and Kripp to kill it for you without her doing anything. Check the hardcore forums for that.I have a question... not that Vaal Oversoul is easy but... people seem to have a lot of trouble with him in Merciless. Does anyone even attempt/kill Piety in Merciless in HC? She is way more brutal than Vaal in my opinion. And Lunaris Temple level 3 absolutely sucks.
Just posting this link in case you haven't seen it, or maybe this will help another person.http://www.poeex.info/Trading in softcore is a hassle and a half. So many people trying to buy stuff for absurdly low amounts. Had a guy offer 3 chromatic for a 8% qual LMP. When I said 2 low he said 1 chaos take it or leave it... then 2 more people tried to offer 1 chaos each and laughed and said GL when I told them too low. Sheesh. I thought it would be easier to sell these qual gems that are used in so many good builds.
Are there any good pricing guides anywhere?
On HC a GMP is worth 2-3GCP, with no qual. With 8% it'd probably be worth an exalted. Maybe softcore prices are lower or maybe you're just not finding the right people I don't know. Friend of mine who plays softcore seems to be getting a lot of really good deals though so I think it's just way more clueless people on softcore. He bought a 17% freezing pulse for 1GCP. He told me that and I was like, you mean 7% right, but nope he got a 17%, and FP is hardly a niche spell or anything, I got a 18% dominating blow for a single GCP for example but that's because who the fuck wants dominating blow to begin with so the guy was probably happy to sell it at all.Thanks Kem, that's perfect.
Also, I meant to say GMP not LMP. I know it's gotta be worth quite a bit more than 1 chaos even without qual.