Path of Exile

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Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
First time playing league, trying a Tornado Shot using a guide from the forum.

My biggest problem is I have no idea when to spend money on trading to get a better weapon or gear. Any pointers?
When your required uniques become avaiable, or when you feel like you are clearing too slow/dying. For me personally it's leveling uniques and then around A4M Dried Lake to cap my resists for mapping and getting the biggest weapon and 5L that I can afford.
 

Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
14,425
9,803
For ST builds, should I be keeping Slower Projectile Support at level one? Being right up in a boss's shit(30% less proj speed @ 1 -> 49% less @ 20) doesn't seem worth the benefit of 9% more damage(20% more proj damage @ 1 -> 29% more prof damage @ 20).

Hell, maybe just switch GMP with Faster Attacks?
yeah, what build is saying use slower proj?

Spectral throw-wed-gmp-elem focus-lit pen-Faster attacks.

this one?
Forum - Ranger - [2.6 UPDATED] Raider Elemental Crit Spectral Throw - Shaper and t16 viable - Path of Exile

you said howa although right?


you can swap in pierce or slower proj into the gmp slot vs bosses if you wish.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
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Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
14,425
9,803
ST can only hit a single target once every 300ms. .3s. I don't think slower proj actually slows it enough to hit 3 times, even in the pause before return.
yes, I would definitely say, its not worth it.
Pierce is even "19% more damage."
 

Zog

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,715
2,227
I killed Uber Atziri and Shaper on SSF with fireball sir within one week, as in plain old level 1 fireball. Normal Uber and Atziri do not ignite but they don't need to, the split with the spear ignites and that's the dangerous phase you need to one shot and run. Its very easy to do Uber Atziri with Fireball and the amount of damage it's explosions do is insane. The explosions overlap and are tagged "AoE" so you can use conc effect just like on arctic breath etc and hit 4-5 at once. I was lucky enough to find 1 rolling flames on SSF and with it I got sometimes 6-7 explosions if I was far enough away.

As for shock being nerfed I think you might be confusing double dipping. Shock is a status ailment which has already been nerfed to the ground. Doing a critical hit with lightning only shocks to make them take increased damage and doesn't have a secondary damage effect. Lightning or elemental damage don't add any bonus to shock. They aren't going to remove chill, freeze, and shock.

Shock increases damage by 50% and is guaranteed with vinktars, critical multi in the 500% range + a poison/ignite to double dip with generic increased damage is what I'm talking about. Without shock double dipping isn't too bad but with it, you're easily in the 4-5 million DPS range.

My ele wander is doing 660k DPS for instance and I don't double dip but it's already in the 15ex range while I can make an ek Nova poison build for less than 1ex and do 10x the damage.
 

Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
I mean just for bosses. Being that close seems detrimental and doesn't seem to grant that much extra damage over other gems. Though, it does seem to ensure that the boss will get hit more than 2 times by one ST projectile since they will likely be in range of the part where it slows down.

I'm running this build:

Forum - Ranger - [2.6] CRIT HoWA BF/ST Raider [13k ES, 60k BF tooltip/200k ST DPS, Stun-immune] [4 sec Chayula kill] - Path of Exile

You only really want to swap in slower proj for dangerous bosses, high hp ones, or ones with immunities or high resistances etc. With HoWA really that's Uber Atziri, Shaper, Rigwald, 4 Guardians, and Rift Lords. What it does is gets rid of the less damage from GMP and adds a more multiplier from slower projectiles. Notice how your tooltip DPS and lightning damage go up by around 56%, that's a huge gain and unparalleled by pretty much anything else in the game.

TLDR gem swapping is huge and gives you some of the largest DPS gains needed for end game bosses. On maps even up to T15 maps you don't need to do any swapping but its up to you. It is pretty much impossible to kill most of those bosses I mentioned without some type of single target swap because of enrage mechanics, resistances, or immunities.

The PoE Wiki is amazing, here is information on how DPS modifiers work - Modifiers - Official Path of Exile Wiki

Zog Zog I got you, I was thinking you meant take away shock which has been killed so many times since beta as it is.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,316
7,317
So, probably a silly idea, but is there any merit to playing Frost Blades the "wrong way" in order to somewhat fix its single target damage? Essentially, take a standard HoWA build but use Frost Blades instead of ST or BF. All the added damage from HoWA basically brute forces FB's single target DPS into manageable levels.

Basically trade an even worse single target DPS for even better AOE clear speed.
 

Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
14,425
9,803
sure why not? Varunastra also would make FB dps great. How is HoWA doing it wrong?
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,316
7,317
Almost all your damage would be lightning instead of cold, seems counter intuitive. But I can't get a properly specced cold FB even within half the damage a lazily converted HoWA ST spec I just did now.

How does Varunastra help? You can go into each weapon wheel? I'm not sure that would help as much as HoWA would since those are percent modifiers instead of just tons of damage add like HoWA.
 

Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
14,425
9,803
with Varunastra, you can grab fatalblade AND claws of the pride, AND deadly dilettante.

ewar's is mostly lit.
most of the nodes you take are "elemental" not expressly cold, even in a standard build.
 

Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
Accuracy is something you have to pay attention to also DW, as HoWA you want to aim for around 90% on the character sheet when you highlight your skill.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,316
7,317
Getting echoes of old D3 in my PoE and I don't like it :( I feel like I spend more time deciding what to pick up, IDing gear, deciding if it's worth wearing, deciding if it's worth selling, looking up prices on poe.trade, and trading than I actually do killing monsters. Feels like the D3 Auction House all over again.

Yes, I could play SSF, but then I couldn't play a not insignificant amount of builds. I doubt I could SSF two HOWA claws. It's nice that PoE has an economy, but I think it's too big of a factor for the game. I'd prefer something like current WoW where it's a distraction and doesn't impede gear progression.
 

LiquidDeath

Magnus Deadlift the Fucktiger
4,829
11,118
You guys are going to hate me.

I've been playing in the SC legacy league for about a week and a half and several days ago I dropped an item that said I had to use the map device to use it. I was like lvl 30 or so and just stashed it.

Today I find out it is an ancient reliquary key and it is far and away the best thing I've ever dropped.

Best thing to do with it having 1 character at lvl 57 and just into Merciless?
 

Caliane

Golden Baronet of the Realm
14,425
9,803
its not that big of a deal. its this leagues secondary focus.
I've had 3 keys drop so far. And I am not remotely the most hardcore player here. level 70 and 82 chars.

what to do with it is up to you. if you trade at all, it is easily tradeable for consistent value. If, you want to play the RNG game, keep it, and as noted, when you get to act 3 merc, and unlock the map device, use it in the map device.
It will open a portal to the chest room, with a Relic in it.

99% of relics are total garbage. This is important to understand. The vast majority of relic uniques were BUFFED, not nerfed. Power creep. old underpowered ones were all buffed. Then, that is also applied to the fact a great many uniques are awful leveling items at best in the first place. so using the key is playing the lottery AGAIN.

The caveat is, exclusive fancy foil effect on the items icon. Chaos will come and go. Foil effect will stay. /shrug. I used all my keys for the silly collectors philosophy. the foils in my standard tab is more fun then the hundreds upon hundreds of chaos.
 

Zog

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,715
2,227
I'm late to this convo but, you want slower projectiles on howa st if you take the point blank keystone, it keeps the projectile within the range for 50% *more* damage on its return hit.
 

Harfle

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,055
69
Getting echoes of old D3 in my PoE and I don't like it :( I feel like I spend more time deciding what to pick up, IDing gear, deciding if it's worth wearing, deciding if it's worth selling, looking up prices on poe.trade, and trading than I actually do killing monsters. Feels like the D3 Auction House all over again.

Yes, I could play SSF, but then I couldn't play a not insignificant amount of builds. I doubt I could SSF two HOWA claws. It's nice that PoE has an economy, but I think it's too big of a factor for the game. I'd prefer something like current WoW where it's a distraction and doesn't impede gear progression.
 

Kiroy

Marine Biologist
<Bronze Donator>
34,563
99,750

Ya you ahould be able to finish a high quantity map without tping home to id. I only pick up jewlry and some es gear. You also want to find a good equilibrium for picking up scrolls, like i only pick up about half of all armour/weapon scraps (for wisdom) and a quarter of all portal scrolls.
 

Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
Getting echoes of old D3 in my PoE and I don't like it :( I feel like I spend more time deciding what to pick up, IDing gear, deciding if it's worth wearing, deciding if it's worth selling, looking up prices on poe.trade, and trading than I actually do killing monsters. Feels like the D3 Auction House all over again.

Yes, I could play SSF, but then I couldn't play a not insignificant amount of builds. I doubt I could SSF two HOWA claws. It's nice that PoE has an economy, but I think it's too big of a factor for the game. I'd prefer something like current WoW where it's a distraction and doesn't impede gear progression.

You're picking up too much probably and only want to pick up good bases once youre mapping or items you need. I would up the level on the filter if youre using Neversinks to strict since its really not strict but eliminates bad base items showing as rares.

You also don't "need" HoWA to make a blade flurry or even spec throw build work with lightning. If you get a level 7 Vagan master he sells daggers with the prefix "hits cannot be evaded" and can make some really OP builds that aren't in the meta or posted. Just by using one of those daggers made rare with a slot open for added lightning damage craft, along with Wrath aura, Lightning damage on NE and N part of tree, and then finally an added lightning damage gem to attacks makes a 13k dps Blade Flurry lightning build that uses a dagger and decimates the hardest bosses in the game with 0 uniques and meta items.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,316
7,317
This fucking game sometimes. Was bored and steamrolling T6 maps on my cyclone slayer, so I gave a T9 map a try with breach, beyond, and warband stones. I can't remember the name, but it's the unique one where the undead come back to life until you defeat the end bosses. No problem, steam rolled everything. So I thought I'd give another T9 unique map a try, Mao Kun, with the same stones. Get my fucking ass handed to me constantly.

This game does a terrible job normalizing difficulty. And on top of that, it doesn't do well at giving you the tools to deal with difficult situations that may arise. Every time I died, I thought what piece of gear or stats that could overcome this. I was at 4.5k HP and my endgame goal is 6.5k. With how fast my HP was lowered, no way that extra HP would have mattered. Resists were maxed, no elemental status ailments. Damage in was too high and was particularly hard to avoid because melee and the game's combat engine is clunky.

But here's the part that really bothers me: death penalties. This actively discourages trying hard content and learning from it because 1 death in merciless is not an insignificant amount of time lost.

I really wish D3 was more actively developed so that it could encourage some competition. There are a lot of things from D3 that I'd like in PoE and vice versa.