Shoju's 1.0 Stuff.

[shoju]

I have been combing over my build, and after running a No Regen Map Mod last night, I comfortably concluded that I didn't need the point of passive regen in my tree anymore, and have specced it out. I now have my next 9 levels of points mapped out, taking me to 90. I'm closing in on 82, but I have made some observations about the game at this level.

1.) With the changes to maps that have come at, and since release, trading maps to the vendor at 3:1 is not advantageous for someone looking to level. At least not at 81. 3 level 66 maps, still give more experience than a 67 map.
1.a) It also doesn't help from a Orb drop standpoint yet. I have been mindful to make sure that I take 6 portals worth of stuff out of maps, and I'm still pulling a good bit of orbs / vendor junk.
2.) I have absolutely zero idea what things are worth. I had a nice dagger drop. It had a pretty nice Phys% Roll, Attack Speed, Crit, and Added Lightning Damage. By my estimations, it had 1 Prefix, and 1 Suffix open, and if someone had the eternals / exalts, it would be a pretty nice base to craft from. Most crafting pieces I've seen like that sell for ~1 Ex. I sold mine last night for 2 Ex, and the guy was pleased as punch.
3.) All of the Map Mods that I've been afraid to run (No Regen, Chaos Damage, Physical Resists being the top three) aren't NEARLY as awful as I thought they would be. I ran a Shore Map, Temp Chains, Monsters Attack, Move, Cast 25% Faster, Chaos Damage (25), inhabited by Animals Map that was... a piece of cake.
4.) I still hate IIR.
5.) The game seems to think I want tri-elemental 1h'd thrusting swords.
6.) The Official Forum Community is very "lemming-esque", and will follow the chorus of the streamers, even if the streamers are wrong.
7.) Crafting is utterly terrible, and I wish I hadn't purchased this 5L mace with the thought in mind that I could Roll it into something. I'm now over 1k Alterations thrown at it, and I haven't seen a top two tier mod for Phys % roll yet. (tyrannical, or the one below it, the name of which escapes me right now.)

[Mavfin]

6.) The Official Forum Community is very "lemming-esque", and will follow the chorus of the streamers, even if the streamers are wrong.

This seems to be a rather common affliction in many games, not just ARPGs.

I guess I never understood the appeal of watching *someone else* play the game and describe it to me, *unless* it was in closed beta or for some other reason I couldn't get access to it myself at that stage, and even then, I can only watch so long...

[shoju]

6.) The Official Forum Community is very "lemming-esque", and will follow the chorus of the streamers, even if the streamers are wrong.

This seems to be a rather common affliction in many games, not just ARPGs.

I guess I never understood the appeal of watching *someone else* play the game and describe it to me, *unless* it was in closed beta or for some other reason I couldn't get access to it myself at that stage, and even then, I can only watch so long...

I've tried to get active in the discussion about builds centered around Spectral Throw. I have 81 levels under my belt with the skill. I've done a ton of testing, a lot of math, and I've dropped a TON of respec points on things, trying out new ideas for the build. All 19 you get from questing, and another 40 ish in regrets so far.

The Streamers, only use Spectral Throw as a ranged AoE skill, and then move to a melee skill for single target. Their reason? Spectral Throw doesn't have enough umph to be your "boss skill" This is just ridiculous.

I run two copies of the skill.
One, setup in a very similar way to them. Multi Projectiles to make it AoE, more damage, life leech, etc...
One, setup to MOW THINGS DOWN. Whether it is one target, or a lot of targets coming through a choke point. The DPS is just stellar.

Why, you would run a great RANGED SKILL for AoE, and then run the risk of getting destroyed in melee for single target, on the mobs that hit the hardest is just absolutely baffling. And all because, you haven't figured out something that was pretty easy to understand.

And when someone comes in with a differing opinion, you bash them, and tell them that they don't know what they are talking about.

I'm by no means a super end game player. I have run less than 10 70+ maps. Because I just don't have them to run them. BUT. In the ones that I have run, the same thing holds true that has held true in every map I've run so far.

Spectral Throw, is superior to a melee skill in every single way, if you are already setup for Spectral Throw as an AoE skill. There are some nodes that will affect your melee attacks, but not spectral throw. Why waste points to do something like that? I'm a firm believer in making sure that every point in the passive tree matters. This is the first character that I've dived this far into the theory with. I've debunked several things that people held as "true" for the skill, and I'm clearing things with ease because of it.

So, back to why I posted that comment. Someone posted for help the other day, asking why they were dying, why they didn't have the DPS they thought they should, in short, why they weren't able to do as well as the streamer they were watching and copying.

When I tried to address some of the problems, they just immediately came back with the fingers in the ears "BUT HE DOES IT THIS WAY!"

My only response was: Then why are you having problems, and he isn't?

/sigh.

I'm just... I don't understand. IF you come asking for help, and someone is offering help, why turn their help down, because you think you know what you are doing?

[shoju]

Stupidly excited. Purchased upgrade mace DPS wise with 5s

5l'd in <50 fuse
Chromed to GGGRR yes that's 3 off socket colors in 14 chroms.

That's my rngesus luck for life

[MonTy]

Grats! What are the stats? Link!

[shoju]

Will link tomorrow when I'm at a computer. It's a 450 DPS pure phys 2hd mace, Ilvl 70, so it's not a "top" weapon, but for 2.5 ex, it was the best price for a 450 DPS mace. I don't plan on doing any diving on it, but it will hold me until I'm part of the super rich, and can afford a "top 10" mace

[shoju]

Here you go Nestled in there Second POst, in the spoiler, You will find my current gear, including my new Murder Club. 451.95 DPS of pure face melting awesomeness. I'm hoping, that at some point in the near future, I can find a neck upgrade, so that I can go back to my other smexy boots that I have.

[shoju]

OK, so while I'm at it, I figured I would go ahead, and post progress.

I'm 70% of the way through 82. Things are slowing down terribly XP wise, but that's to be expected. They say the real grind doesn't start until 80+, and I'm starting to feel it.

As I stated in the post above this one, you can go to that thread, and check out my current gear, and build. For the future, I have some plans in place.

#1.) Level 85. This is where I will be build wise, at 85. This finishes off my planned defensive nodes, with 2 more 10% Armor / 6% life nodes. With those 2 nodes, I should climb over 5K HP even in my current gear, and when wearing my "armor" type pieces, I'll be over 8K armor, unbuffed by aura.

#2.) Leve 90 This is just finishing off that Mace Cluster. More damage, more control. This will I think, make even my LMP'd Spectral Throw a good stunning ability.

From there? I haven't the foggiest idea what I'd do for the last 10 points. Originally, I had thought about just biting the bullet, and working towards Iron Reflexes. I can get there in 9 points, and I'm pretty sure I'll never take off Belly of the Beast, so It would be worth it. COupled with the current helm I'm wearing being such a monumental upgrade over the last helm I have, I could see myself wearing more hybrid pieces.

But then, the 1 week race happened. And GGG realized, just how good Iron Reflexes is. It's jaw droppingly OP. It allows you to use 5 of the 6 armor styles, and gain physical mitigation from them. Why were they so surprised that it was so widespread?

When you look at the gear available, it comes in 6 flavors.
Armor
Amor/ES
ES
ES/EV
Evasion
EV/Armor

You have essentially, with Iron Reflexes, allowed a character the ability to use all but ES gear, to improve their armor.

This, coupled with the fact that EV is found in greater quantities on gear than Armor, a flat 1:1 conversion of EV to Armor, in turn makes gear sporting EV better at being armor, than armor gear is.

And this doesn't even begin to cover Grace, which compounds the problem even further. Why running an Evasion Aura + a Keystone passive gives you more armor than the Armor Aura does, is absolutely confounding. I just respecced my ranger in Standard to IR to give it a whirl, and see how it worked out for the char.

Then, I realized my formerly pure Evasion / Acrobatics Ranger was now sporting more armor than my armor specc'd marauder To even compound that further? The marauder is pretty heavily invested in armor. The ranger? only has the hybrid EV/HP nodes, and IR.

But I digress.

At this point, my clear speed on my Scion is good. I'm working on filling my coffers as much as possible from maps. Buying the new 2h'er was a very cool thing, but it did set me back a fair chunk of my wealth (3 ex, 2 pure and 1 muddled). So, I'm running maps, hauling things out, and just focusing on filling up my coffers, and I'll probably be self found for some time into the future, unless I happen to find some piece that I just can't seem to live without.

[shoju]

Needed a break from the Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map of my Scion, so I started what will end up being a Facebreaker Duelist. I'm not too far yet, say... Level 12, but I have had a chance to test out some of the low level uniques in my stash.

Hrimsorrow - Hilarious at low levels.
Zeomyte Peak - A little underwhelming so far.
Araku Tiki- That's a lot of health and Fire Resist at low Levels.
Blackheart - Not sure yet.
Koam's Sign - Hilarious at low levels.
The Screaming Eagle - Wow. That thing is a metric ton of DPS at that level.

By the time I hit Merveil, I should be wearing:

Ezomyte Peak
Araku Tiki
Koam's Sign
Blackheart
Ashrend
Kaltenhalt
Facebreakers
Hrimsorrow

Leaving my only non uniques as my belt, and my boots, and that's only because I'm terrible about moving Uniques around. If I remember, I could also toss in a Wurm's MOlt from one of my other alts, and a pair of Wanderlust, and just go in, fully decked out in Uniques.

AS it is though, It should be a lot of fun.

I'm curious. I see a lot of people using Infernal Blow with Facebreakers. Is that the "optimal" attack? I haven't really decided. I'm just using Double Strike and Cleave at this point. I know that I'm going to need a melee splash gem for AoE, but I'm not sure on much else. So far, it's been hilarity with the Screaming Eagle, and I can only imagine it gets more ridiculous as you level.