Path of Exile
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Why you should play this game

Path of Exile offers a mature, complex, challenging gameplay and is highly recommended for those who enjoy the Action RPG genre. The game is a labeled as "ethical free to play" meaning in-game purchases are aesthetic or do not offer any kind of gameplay advantage. They are very generous with free features, such as giving you access to over 20 free character slots. It's important to note this game is online only, so it's suggested you have a decent internet connection to prevent lag that will lead to character deaths and frustrations.

I've been playing Path of Exile heavily and there's a lot of exciting reasons to make this your go to Action RPG. The game is extremely complex. There's a lot of advanced mechanics and gameplay systems, so it can seem daunting at first but it'll keep you engaged for many months by constantly learning how the various gameplay mechanics, skills, and items work.

PoE is a constantly evolving game. The developers release frequent updates by adding several new unique items, skills, or gameplay features. It's incredibly exciting reading all these updates. Each new skill or item can vastly change how existing builds work. There are four Acts in the current build and several more planned to be released during the game's estimated ten year life cycle. This is one of the best selling points that keeps me wanting to play Path of Exile, it's a game that I can devote time to and enjoy the rewards from it for many years to come.

There are various leagues or game modes that you can create and play your character in that offer different gameplay experiences. By default there is Normal League and Hardcore League. If you choose to play Hardcore and your chatacter dies, you'll be moved to the Normal league, with no opportunity to return to Hardcore league on that character. There are race leagues that last anywhere from one hour to over eight, and prizes are rewarded based on how high level you reach or by reaching certain goals or conditions. There are also temporary leagues that last several months, which are a lot of fun for players who enjoy having an economy and personal inventory reset.

Reasons you should not play this game

Many call this game "Path of Gambling" as the method used to improve your items is extremely random in outcome. There are usable items that exist to improve your gear by generating random attributes (life, mana, armor, etc). The problem with this is that you can spend weeks saving up these items to try and improve your gear, only to never get that modification or high number roll. I've personally farmed for over a month to try and improve an item that was worth improving, but had no luck after using currency to try and improve it.

Getting Started

There's seven Classes in Path of Exile to choose from: the Witch, Shadow, Ranger, Deulist, Marauder, Templar, or Scion. The biggest difference between each class is where you start off in the gigantic skill tree. Now the skill tree can seem intimidating at first, but if you don't feel like investing too much time reading and planning your build, don't worry about it. Just pick whatever sounds useful, such as more health, more strength, or more damage. Your opinion on what passive skills are best to pick will change based on your play experiences, so it's not worth trying to perfect your build right away. It's worth noting that you do get items or quest rewards that let you re-pick a limited amount of passive skills.

The Witch starts off with some amazing Mana support, which can be crucial for your build. The amount of mana and mana regeneration directly ties into how many skills you can use. You may think mana support will just mean you'll have to chug potions less, but that's not true. Not too far into the game you'll have access to skills, supporting skills, and auras, but will not be able to use them all due to mana constraints. The Witch also has great access to Minion buffs, Energy Shield, and spell damage passives.

The Shadow class has amazing critical strike passives. So much so that any build centered around critical strikes will certainly end up in the Shadow's skill tree. Aside from doing more damage, critical strikes from an elemental source will also have a chance to apply a status effect on your target. Cold has a chance to freeze, lightning issues a shock debuff which amplies the damage the target takes, and fire can make the target burn for damage over time. The Shadow's skill tree tends to focus on a mix of Energy Shield and Evasion defenses.

The Ranger is a fantastic starting class for Bow or Projectile attacks, or classes utilizing Evasion and Life. A physical based bow build is a very strong reason to pick the Ranger.

The Duelist class is a very strong choice for life based Melee or Bow/Projectile builds. It has fantastic life regen nodes available, strong damage passives, good armor or evasion- basically anything you would want for a Melee or Bow build. It also has quick access to the major keystones Iron Reflexes, Iron Grip, and Unwavering Stance. On top of the above benefits, they have quick access to the Marauder, Ranger, or Scion class tree.

The Marauder is one of the most popular starting classes for a reason. Health. Lots of health and resistances are available immediately. They also have fast access to the passive keystone “Resolute Technique”. This passive makes it so all of your hits never miss, but in turn can't deal critical strikes. The Marauder also has quick access to the “Blood Magic” keystone, which fully depletes your mana pool and allows you to cast spells using life instead of mana. This is amazing if you've picked up a lot of life nodes and prefer not to use separate mana potions on your limited potion bar. It's important to note that I believe the recent patch has nerfed Blood Magic significantly as certain Auras such as Grace, Wrath, and Anger are now percentage based.

The Templar has an incredible starting area for melee and magic users. You'll have access to good damage and life talents almost immediately. It also has a very natural and quick progression to the Marauder or Witch areas. The only downside I could see is that it takes a bit longer to go to some of the major keystones (Resolute Technique, Blood Magic, Iron Reflexes, and Eldritch Battery). Otherwise it's a very strong class to use for Strength based Melee users, or Spellcasters, especially Fire damage ones.

The Scion is the newest class introduced with the release version of the game. It's available to play only after you've completed the main quest line in Act 3. Located in the center of Path of Exile's massive skill tree, it has the ability to reach opposite ends of the skill web. This is useful for some advanced builds, such as Energy Shield Spellcasters who want to use Ghost Reaver and Vaal Pact. But it's also very good for basic builds, as it contains in abundance most everything you need near-by: Life, Energy Shield, Evasion, Physical Damage, Projectile Damage, and Spelldamage.

For further details regarding the basics of the game, I suggest reading the official website's game section and forums. If anyone has any specific questions I'd be happy to answer them. I'll try to keep this thread updated. Feel free to suggest useful links or anything else.
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#2
Good post. Cool
Lochnar[ITB]
Freshman Diablo

[Image: jsoho8.png][Image: 10gmtrs.png]

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."
"You don't know how strong you can be until strong is the only option."
"Think deeply, speak gently, love much, laugh loudly, give freely, be kind."
"Talk, Laugh, Love."
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#3
Excellent Post. Great guide Mr. MonTy. You can add me to the new Anarchy league as well. i'm not sure how much I'm going to play it, but it REALLY intrigues me.
nobody ever slaughtered an entire school with a smart phone and a twitter account – they have, however, toppled governments. - Jim Wright
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#4
Quote:It's important to note this game is online only, so it's suggested you have a decent internet connection to prevent lag that will lead to character deaths and frustrations.

A note on this: Latency is a lot more important than connection speed. I was playing for most of this week on capped speeds and it had no effect on playability at all. Prior to the introduction of the Australian server however, when I could never get a ping under 300ms, even at full speed the game was often completely unplayable.
"What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?"

-W.C. Fields
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#5
(06-04-2013, 06:29 AM)LennyLen Wrote:
Quote:It's important to note this game is online only, so it's suggested you have a decent internet connection to prevent lag that will lead to character deaths and frustrations.

A note on this: Latency is a lot more important than connection speed. I was playing for most of this week on capped speeds and it had no effect on playability at all. Prior to the introduction of the Australian server however, when I could never get a ping under 300ms, even at full speed the game was often completely unplayable.

I play as well, but mostly on my own. And not too often because I have two small kids walking around. And I think my laptop is not new enough (RAM) so the game crashes often in certain areas. GGG says they will look into this (because many people suffer from this).

Anyway, thanks for all those links. I remember that when in 2003 a friend gave me a link to some sites (among which was the LL) about Diablo 2 that I started understanding the game a bit more.
(compared to most people here I play these games on much lower level I think).
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#6
Oh, Eppie's post reminded me of a big reason I enjoy this game as much as I do and it might be good to note as a selling point.

I also play pretty much on my own. I do so partly because I'm sure I would embarrass myself Undecided but also because I am up and down a lot, usually fairly urgently. I am never sure how quickly I will get back to the game, so I love the fact that the game doesn't have an idle timeout. As long as your toon is parked in a safe spot, so a wandering mob doesn't have free shots at her, the game is likely to still be where you left it, even hours later. I've actually had a game sit idle for the better part of 2 days. As long as your connection holds, and they don't take the servers down for patching or maintenance, your current zone stays just as you left it, even loot on the ground. Of course, the 8/15 minute rule still holds for previously visited zones
Lochnar[ITB]
Freshman Diablo

[Image: jsoho8.png][Image: 10gmtrs.png]

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."
"You don't know how strong you can be until strong is the only option."
"Think deeply, speak gently, love much, laugh loudly, give freely, be kind."
"Talk, Laugh, Love."
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#7
Great post!

This should be stickied in the POE forums here on the LL Tongue I particularly like the links. Thanks MonTy.
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#8
Thanks for the comments all.

I'm excited for the new patch. Have two builds planned out for Anarchy. Not sure if I'll do Onslaught, as a harder Hardcore makes me just want to run a defensive or cookie cutter build. But a fresh Hardcore Economy is very fun to play in. Everyone is trading rares that would be sold to the vendor in Softcore.

My first planned build will be a Cyclone Duelist, who will specialize in elemental damage, fast attacks, and crits. I'm hoping the Cyclone strikes will hit and crit enough for elemental effects (shock/burn/freeze). I'll have to keep my eye on Accuracy and Elemental Resistances.

My second build is an Evasion Physical Ranger, and I'm pretty excited to try it out. I'll be using Split Arrow and Frenzy. Split Arrow is really an amazing skill, at higher levels it shoots five arrows, which should allow me to AoE without Chain. I'll be picking up the passives Acrobatics, King of the Hill, and Piercing Shot.

If I play Onslaught I may try a Summoner, Ethereal Knives build, or a Cold Caster (Freezing Pulse/Ice Spear).

So yea, anyone have some builds planned or how are your current characters doing?
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#9
(06-05-2013, 03:07 AM)MonTy Wrote: So yea, anyone have some builds planned or how are your current characters doing?

I started a ranger, but I'm not sure where she's headed. She's benched right now for the marauder I also started. He's going to be 2 hand mace, resolute technique and blood magic using sweep, leap slam and some ground slam and fire trap. He hasn't gotten to either of the keystones yet so I really don't know how far I'm gonna go with him.
Lochnar[ITB]
Freshman Diablo

[Image: jsoho8.png][Image: 10gmtrs.png]

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."
"You don't know how strong you can be until strong is the only option."
"Think deeply, speak gently, love much, laugh loudly, give freely, be kind."
"Talk, Laugh, Love."
Reply
#10
I have been thinking about porting my Physical Ranger build over to the Anarchy league, even though it's becoming less physical restrictive, and more just a ranger that uses frenzy.

I also my try some sort of Elemental Templar thing I just haven't put much research into it yet. I just look at the templar starting area, and it screams out to me to make something elemental. I had thought about trying to make an elemental Bow Templar, but that's going to take some serious gear I think.
nobody ever slaughtered an entire school with a smart phone and a twitter account – they have, however, toppled governments. - Jim Wright
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#11
(06-05-2013, 11:46 AM)shoju Wrote: I had thought about trying to make an elemental Bow Templar, but that's going to take some serious gear I think.

I don't think it's that bad to gear if you go Elemental Rain of Arrows, which is perfect for the Templar. He has the Amplify/+AoE and Catalyse passives right there, and quick access to Static Blows and Inner Force. Most of your damage will come from Elemental Sources, so Inner Force will boost damage from Wrath, Anger, and Hatred. Here's a passive tree I just drew up. You'll need Dex badly with this char, which is why I like to zoom over to the Ranger side ASAP (before Innfer Force/Static Blows).
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#12
Quote:So yea, anyone have some builds planned or how are your current characters doing?

Since OB started I've been trying to build up a pool of mid level characters, so once I'd finished Act 3 on Cruel, I'd start another one. I decided to take a break from this though and continue leveling my Summoner. So last night, I played for hours and did all of Act I and went from clvl 55 to clvl 60. Hopefully I should have another day or two in the week coming up where I can sit down and play and push through to maps.
"What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?"

-W.C. Fields
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#13
Finally won a demigod by getting first of my class in a race. Feels good, been trying for a while with some close calls and last minute deaths.

I notice many Lurkers don't play races, which can be understandable due to their time constraint. But I'd recommend to play a few, even if you only get the lowest reward tier (for instance, getting to level four in a one hour party race). Doing this you'll get enough reward points for a unique or two, and each race you'll get entered into a random drawing for various unique items (as long as you meet the lowest tier reward and keep your character alive).
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#14
Congrats on the demigod! I've tried races a few times, but I seem to always fall just short of the lowest tier. Lern2play, I guess.

In a related note, I used the free 0.11 respec to completely hose up my lv55 ranger - I tried moving from cookie-cutter, BM/IR, elemental chain/LMP/leech/[Ice Shot instead of LA because my drops suck] over to a physical/crit, evasion-based build... now I have serious mana issues, and my evasion rate is somewhere well south of 50%.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill...T4-Vb5Y_7I

Clearly, I overdid damage at the cost of survivability. I've been eyeing Acrobatics as a quick fix, but I'm not sure it's worth the 50% hit to everything else. I also need to dip into more life nodes.. Any suggestions?
Welcome to the Lounge. Hope you brought your portable bomb shelter. - Roland
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#15
(06-06-2013, 12:05 PM)Brimstone Wrote: Clearly, I overdid damage at the cost of survivability...Any suggestions?

Hey Brimstone,

Unfortunately the link is not working. I learned LL has trouble linking skill trees, so I copy/paste into goo.gl and use that as the insert hyperlink. Once you fix the link I'll take a look and offer some comments. You may need to include mana leech or blood magic support gem into your skill link, but I know that's not fun.

I must say, I think overall people were mislead by the "reduced monster damage" changes in the patch. With the new changes, if anything else, I want health more now than ever! Partly because of reflect. I now do over 11K damage so if I get a reflect pack I'm almost always near death. Combine that with Life Leech now being less effective, I'm having a harder time staying at high health, which is making fights unnerving.

Before I didn't feel like I needed Koams, now I feel like it would made my character several times better. Prior to this patch I was taking more damage, but I had a larger life pool, so it felt like I had more of a cushion. Now my life drops to 1-2k health fast, and I'm doing the five finger slam on my potion bar.
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#16
Ah, gotcha. Try this: http://goo.gl/fuauo

Mostly, I just think I overreached, especially considering the wholesale change in build. I'm having trouble in the Lunaris temple, especially with the miscreations who shoot rapid-fire at you - if I'm not careful, I get stunlocked and it's sayonara. (We won't mention what Piety did to me, as it's not fit for polite company.)

At this point I think I'd be better off dropping down a monster level or two and leveling up some new skill gems; I'll have to take a look at my stash and see what looks like it might help.
Welcome to the Lounge. Hope you brought your portable bomb shelter. - Roland
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#17
(06-06-2013, 03:36 PM)Brimstone Wrote: Mostly, I just think I overreached, especially considering the wholesale change in build.

That's exactly it. You need to get more health passives before taking all those juicy crit skills. Thankfully you have a ton (11) health passives that are available for the taking. So yea, maybe if you drop down from Lunaris, do a few easy map or dock runs to gain some levels and invest in HP, and you should be ok.

In general, any fast attacking creature (monkeys, miscreations) will give evasion based characters problems, so granites are always needed for those encounters.

If you ever need help with a map or run feel free to ask me in-game. In general I really like your build and plan on playing something similar, once the new leagues start up.
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#18
Your build isn't loading in the talent cal. I found one of the problems with that is that the url is just too long. I use bit.ly to shorten mine.

Well, my ranger isn't that high in level. But I'm doing a Frenzy Build with Evasion, and Acrobatics. I had been going this way before the change to acrobatics, so my plan has been to just keep cruising in full Evasion gear, unless something truly amazing drops

My Build

I'm sitting right around 50% evasion, and then the dodge on top of that. My next 4 points are going to get the next Frenzy charge, and duration boost, and then from there, I'm fleshing out the life, and evasion of the build. I'm not sure how "good" my build will be later on, but I'm in Cruel now, and the only death I've had since A2 Normal was me being goofy last night, and killing myself trying out Life on Hit on a GMP'd Frenzy instead of Life on hit with RoA.

This is where I'm planning to be at 70 skill points


EDIT:
Walk away from the desk for a bit, and people get talking.

That should give me a good base of the build, and from here, I should know if I'm capable of picking up Crit nodes, or if I need some more HP, or if I need to get some resists. I have some nodes that I'd like to pick up along the way as well, and might change to, but we'll see how it all works out.

And, this next part is mainly for Jr/Crushur. He has started playing, and I told him I would link some stuff for his marauder, and see if he might be interested in taking it off my hands. Here is that mace, and a bunch of gems I have. If any of it interests you, just give me a yell.
nobody ever slaughtered an entire school with a smart phone and a twitter account – they have, however, toppled governments. - Jim Wright
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#19
So I've started getting back into this game a bit. I don't think it will be something I delve too deep into just based on the (what I feel is incomprehensible) item/crafting system, but for now it is a minor distraction.

I've been continuing to play my ranger which I am building crit and focusing on Frenzy/Ice Shot.

A couple questions: What amount of skill points can you reasonably expect to get? The talent calculator lists 120 but if it's anything like D2 the upper range of those points will be fairly unattainable.

I've gone through all of normal difficulty with only one fight causing me a death (that being the bandit fight against the guy who just kept leap-smashing my face with this staff) until now in act 3 I find myself against Piety. I feel like everything else I go to fight in act 3 is a snorefest but going up against her I just get rocked. Is this normal? Is this something like WoW where I need to build a full set of lightning resist gear just for this one fight? If so, I think that prospect will kill off any desire I have to continue any further. It's hard enough to even build a default set of reasonably decent gear let alone having to put something together just for one fight.

Anyway, here's a general idea of the skills I was thinking of playing around with: Passive Tree

That's a full tree; which sections are the least needed and easiest to prune out? Is it a reasonable build? Are there better sections nearby that I can shift points into that I'm overlooking?

This is where I am now: Present Tree.

All the pros out there let me know what you think.
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#20
Chesspiece_face Wrote:What amount of skill points can you reasonably expect to get? The talent calculator lists 120 but if it's anything like D2 the upper range of those points will be fairly unattainable.

By the end of normal you should be around level 35, so that means roughly 41 skill points. Second difficulty would be char level 55, which equals around 69 skill points. End of Merciless you'll be 72ish where you can expect to have about 92 skill points.

You'll never want to plan above 100 skill points. I'm at 102 skill points (lvl 83) and it's taking me about a week to level up if I play an hour or two a day.

Chesspiece_face Wrote:...Piety. I feel like everything else I go to fight in act 3 is a snorefest but going up against her I just get rocked. Is this normal?

Pretty normal for your first character. She can be a tough fight as each of her forms are pretty deadly and each one does different types of elemental damage. You'll want at least 30 res of each type (Fire, Light, Cold). I'd favor fire as you can't quite run away from that. Even with Max resistances her Ice form is deadly. Just run away or stand behind the closest pillar. When she returns to her normal form is when you should go all out in damage. Another tip is to actually kill her portals, I prefer to stack up on Fire Res and let her take the fire ones, but to always kill the ice portals.

Chesspiece_face Wrote:This is where I am now: [url=http://tinyurl.com/m4z65fq]Present Tree.

How much life do you have? I'd recommend picking up life nodes first, then focus on damage and crit. You'll want at least six or seven hundred life with 30 resist all at minimum (I'm trying to factor into the new reduced life totals. I used to have around 900 life at Piety, or more, and 50+ res).

You have access to six health nodes right now, so either respec or spend your next six on those. I'd recommend not spending any more passives on damage, for a long time.

But I wouldn't worry about perfecting your character too much. It'll be hard to get into end-game with your first few characters. If you're dying go for more health and resistances until you feel stable then go for damage and crit.

If your interest remain in the game I can post some builds that would be optimal at end-game and go over the strategy for them. Also don't be afraid to ask for help in-game, if you need it.

*edit - I wanted to include a sample of my Evasion Ranger build. This is phase one: Life, Evasion, and Resistances: http://goo.gl/2DlpI .Phase 2 is working my way to damage and crit: http://goo.gl/iAXJ0 , then finally at around level 80 (100 points): http://goo.gl/FRox9
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