equipment farming frustration

[LochnarITB]

OK, guys, advise me. My Ice Spear witch is my POE love, just as was WOW Lochnar, who threw snowballs from day one, never looking to fire or even to the evil spawn that was that frostfire idiocy. However, her equipment sucks, to put it simply. Just as in D3, I play solo self found/crafted. I am able to run almost everything with her, with the exception of merciless Dominus. I can't even zerg him without burning stacks of portals. Some of the rogue exiles have their way with her as well, but I will get them burned down if I have no more XP to lose.

Anyway, I've been trying to improve her kit, with no success. I run Catacombs and The Library. I hate the fauna of The Scepter of God, but I run it some. I run some of my maps, but feel they are a cruel joke. They should at least give some bonus to XP or drop item levels, but I don't believe they do. Where do people seem to do their best farming? I have a huge tolerance for boredom and repetition so that isn't a roadblock. I just need to see a glimmer of hope.

Advise me, please, oh wise ones. Point me to your secret gardens and I will be forever grateful, or at least until merciless Dominus falls over dead.

[shoju]

Merc Piety explodes like a loot pinata.
Catacombs, seems to be pretty good.
I personally like library / archives for farming.

Could you link your gear? I'm curious to see what you're running for ice. Since taking my witch Ice, I'm seemingly a little lacking in DPS.

[LochnarITB]

Could you link your gear? I'm curious to see what you're running for ice. Since taking my witch Ice, I'm seemingly a little lacking in DPS.

Uh, I don't know how. I was looking at my toons on their site when making the first post but it didn't seem to let me link the toons, only look at them myself when logged in to my account. As far as DPS, I would certainly say she is lacking as raw DPS goes. That seems to be the norm in any cold based toon, no matter the game. Slow/freeze and crits are your kiting friend, along with shattering frozen baddies to keep them down for good.

[edit] While working toward Piety (I so hate Lunaris 3 ), I realized that I hadn't posted a warning. Here it is - Mine is no example to learn from. I usually do it wrong, but I persevere through the weakness of the result.

[shoju]

To link your gear, you would need to make a post on the forums. If you wanted, you could even leave it as a reply to another post. If you wanted to leave it as a comment on another post, I have my:

"Old Sale, Not Active"

thread, that I've used for sometime as a link ground for the lounge. Just post a reply on there, make sure your cursor is in the tet box, open up your character and control click each item. That will link it into the post, and then hit submit, and tada! You can post your gears for everyone to look at.

We might be able to help you come up with more DPS.

I have my Witch in the first post in that thread. Now, Admittedly, I'm still leveling gems on her, since I just swapped over to Cold with 1.0

[Frag]

Cold can be tricky to get dps out of, for obvious reasons. There are two ways that you can push your dps up with cold that I am aware of: Shock Stacks (difficult, but very rewarding), and Crit (Huge node investment, gear requirements). Post your gear and spec up and we'll do our best to help. Might want to include how many regrets you have access to or are willing to use. >_>

[shoju]

For reference, here is my build: I'm REALLY pleased with the results so far.

I'm don't feel like a glass cannon, and even in a place like Merc Merveil, which took me about 15 minutes to kill (yay for bad gear, and leveling gems), I was never in danger of dying. I wont even begin to hide the fact that my gear is just not good. It's what I had to make the transition with, and another reason why I ended up being ok with playing domination. I need to farm up better gear for my witch.

But, even in my bad gear, I'm sitting around 36% chance to Crit on Freezing Pulse, and Stage 1 Ice Spear. It's hilarious how much easy the Sin Lord / Necromancers are to deal with when all you leave lying around is shattered chunks of things.

Part of me, wants to start using the Iron Will Support, to open up more gearing possibilities, but that's mainly because for so long I never cared about "spell jewelry" and weapons / shields, that now that I need them, I don't have them.

[LochnarITB]

I posted my gear as a reply to the thread you mentioned. I am making an assumption that it sucks. You may say "OMG, you must suck because that gear is phenominal!" for all I know. I only know that the only piece I have replaced, in a very long time, is the chaos resist ring that became available with 1.0.

I'm not really looking to rebuild her. As I said, I try to live with the choices I make along the way. Any shortcomings I end up with, I try to compensate for through equipment. I've done that from D1 through WOW and now in POE. In POE, I have backed out a few nodes, but mostly to grab something else sooner and then I go back to those nodes with subsequent points. I do reconsider builds on forced resets, but try to stay close to the build I had. It is their identity. If I want to go radically different, I build another toon from the ground up.

I do like your build, Shoju. I had considered going with Chaos Innoculation, but could not see myself staring at a 1 point life ball. With _of_noob, I've grabbed life and energy shield nodes. Her gear tends to evasion/energy shield mostly because that seemed most conducive to the gem colors I wanted. The chest she is wearing, I tried getting to 5 link. Best I could get was 4. I've also used a lot of nodes for crit chance and multiplier. She uses Ice Spear as main and pulse/fire trap/skellies to support. To have Ice Spear doing its best, I go for power charges and I use positioning to filter her shots through a close baddie to charge up the crit for the second strike of each ice spear. I'm just really hoping to find better gear to up her damage and increase her survivability.

[Frag]

Initial thoughts: I really like your gear, especially for self-found. That dagger is hot, hot, hot, and the resists sprinkled all over your gear are way above average. The main issue is that w/o having uniques (not your fault!) it is rather hard to find spell damage on gear, and you are lacking an ES offhand which can be a strong source of spell damage. With the gear you have, I would suggest having a very heavy damage passive tree, with some moderate defensive nodes should be sufficient. I realize you don't want to respec, just please keep in mind that POE does not have a Diablo or WOW style talent tree, you need to suit your passives to your gear here for optimal performance, not the other way around.

Now, onto gems, I see a lot of things that can be done to help:

First, boots: You truly, really, utterly NEED to put a LMP gem in there, probably for reduced mana, which is a terrible support for attacks. If you are having trouble sustaining it, you want mana leech, not reduced mana. Reason: Freezing pulse can shotgun and is amazingly potent when doing so. The damage will still be a bit lacking (though you pick up around 110% damage by doing so, at level 1 LMP), but the freezing can become nearly permanent.

Gloves & Hat: I would spend some currency to get those to 4L, stat. Also, I'd put added cold with your freezing pulse instead of added chaos, as FP has cold pen attached to it. Ideally, you would have cold pen with Ice Spear as well, but I understand the 5L struggle completely.

Belt: Honestly, I would try finding some higher level white or yellow belts and rolling them as it is lacking in a lot of nice stats, only thing worth much on it is the 23% Chaos.

Shield: Item rarity seems a bit odd on Fire Trap, but if it works as your boss killer, great!

If you have a spell totem, sync it up to your summon skeletons, it will help a *lot*. Take reduced mana and put it on your clarity, will save about 100 base mana.

That's it for now.

Good luck, Loch!

[shoju]

Like Frag Said, for Self Found, the gear is pretty good. The only thing I would say, is that the "types" of gear lack a little focus. You have some Eva, some ES/Eva, and armour.

Also, because you aren't going CI, your HP is probably pretty low. You commented before about the 1 life. Well, yes. I'm at 1 Life, but I have 5200 ES with Discipline running, and I don't really have a lot of good ES gear yet.

If you are going to stay life based, I would really start evaluating some pieces of gear for HP. Only three of your pieces of gear have HP on them. At that point, you are going to be playing "RUN AWAY!" from anything that touches you, which would explain why you don't care for places like Lunaris, SOG, and the Dominus fight.

As far as skill gems, I agree with frag.

LMP'd Freezing Pulse is AMAZING The Shotgun / freeze effect is great. My current setup on Freezing Pulse is:
LMP + PC on Crit + Life Leech, but then I'm trying to build around Power Charges sort of.
Honestly, Your Ice Spear Setup, duplicated for your FP, would be good.

If you could get a 4L head, and toss the current summon skeletons setup on a spell totem, you would notice that it's a HUGE buff to your survivability.

I second the Clarity + Reduced Mana. I pretty much run Reduced Mana on ANY auras that I'm running. The mana savings is HUGE. If you look in the first post, I'm actually running 2x aura on my Witch (discipline and clarity), with reduced mana, and I currently, to level up my gems am running without a mana pot. I'm running 3x diamond flasks, and 2x granite flasks, just to keep clearing, and moving, and running.

If you were ever interested in running something like Lunaris, and wanted someone to tag along with you, I could take the time to get my Marauder up to that waypoint, and he could be a big giant meat shield for you.

[LochnarITB]

Initial thoughts: I really like your gear, especially for self-found.

I see what you did there! Too nice to come right out and say "OMG, you must suck..."

Thanks for looking at my stuff guys. The thread did somewhat morph from my initial question of secret gardens for farming, but what Lounge thread doesn't?

Just a few comments. When I say that pulse/skellies/fire trap are support, I do mean very limited support. Pulse is used very little and the added chaos damage is there to try to cut down baddies with heavy all elemental resist. Skellies are really only distraction for tough fights, but the addition of spell totem to them is intriguing. I never really looked at how the totem works. I had only first played with any totem recently, flame totem on a couple toons, mainly because they give me a little too much of the feeling that the game is playing itself. Fire trap is used most often of them to drop under mobs that I try to have frozen in the flame. Since I can't have the item rarity on my ice spear, I like having it on the fire trap to add shinies to anything popped from the crispy critters.

My main damage is ice spear and it is my favorite type of spell, just as was frostbolt in WOW. I'm a happy camper when I can move and gun my one main. If I were in a movie, I'd be the guy destroying masses of attackers with my single gun that seemingly never runs out of ammo. In real life, I often shake a lot. The more intense things get, the worse it gets. If I can do most of my playing by moving the mouse and working just one or two keys, so much the better.

As far as changing equipment, one of my biggest issues is losing big chunks of resist, especially chaos. Chaos damage is my biggest problem with POE. I almost quit POE when I first figured out what it was doing. I hate that it is essentially a different type of damage entirely. I would keep it to physical/fire/ice/lightning. My implementation of chaos would be damage that is a mix of all three (or four, including physical) and that its resistance would be a combination of theirs. If you had 100% to one of them, it would be a 33% (or 25%) resist to chaos. Chaos inoculation, for me, just makes the situation worse. Now life is taken out of the game. Anyway, like I said, resists kinda keep me stuck in some of the equipment and result in the tossed salad of gear families.

So, back to the farming, I guess I'll try to work on leveling a little more as my next points were earmarked for another power charge and more crit anyway. That should bring up her damage more and maybe there will be some nice drops, or at least some stacks of currency to work up some gear. She'll get there. Maybe if I take her to 100, Dominus will see her come in and just fall over dead, littering the entire floor with goodies.

Cya. I'm headed out to the back forty.


[edit] I did swap out the belt (I'll add it to the forum post) but I'm leery of the lost chaos resist. I went from 75% to 53% resist so I'll essentially be taking almost twice as much damage from any chaos. It did bump my life ball ~200 and shield ~100 so that will help.

[MonTy]

Best farming method would be to stack as much rarity as possible and kill whichever main boss in Merciless you can kill the quickest, or whichever you prefer killing. It really comes down to RNG since some people swear by Merveil kills (like me), while others despise it.

Some of the more common MF gear is: Perandus Blazon, Aurseize, and Goldwyrm.

Eventually you'll have a huge pile of alterations from selling identified rares. You'll want to use those alterations to roll maps the best you can (maze, +pack size, etc). I'd say playing maps would be super important for self-found due to only being able to find some of the better caster uniques in maps only (Andvarius for MF, and Rathpith Globe shield). So for advancing your character, I'd suggest farming main bosses and then maps only when you can roll them efficiently.

I understand you only asked about farming routes, so I won't blame you if you don't read the below text about the spell / build. Just putting out some thoughts.

As for general Ice Spear play, it's a fantastic spell that works well with Crit Damage. This is because of the insanely high increase to crit chance in the second form (600%). Its base damage is a bit low, but due to the crit damage it'll really scale up as you level the gem. If I were to focus on only using ice spear, I'd have a single-target and multi-target version.

ST would be: Ice Spear + Faster Casting + Cold Pen + Inc. Crit. Dam
AoE would be: Ice Spear + LMP + PCoC + Life Leech + Faster Casting

Could either be Life / ES or CI. Would prefer CI after getting gear. You'd need some spells like Frost Wall to keep enemies away, and maybe Cold Snap.

Build would be something like this: http://goo.gl/qj5Pv0

Good luck and keep us posted!

[LochnarITB]

Build would be something like this: http://goo.gl/qj5Pv0

I looked at the build and was confused at first. Then I realized it was Shadow instead of Witch. Actually, though, with the exception of chaos inoculation and the nodes to boost its use, the build is very close to what she has currently, and in the ongoing plan.

Thanks again, guys, for going beyond my initial question and trying to help an admitted doofus who was thinking himself rather clueless. Maybe I'm not doing so bad after all. My biggest problem seems to be that I'm trying to mold the game to my preferred style forever - solo self found - as it was in the Diablos and WOW and all the hundreds of like genres I've played in the past. I am quite stubborn. POE will bend to my will as have so many before!

[LochnarITB]

Had the unique map, Vaults_of_Atziri, drop. I'm trying to decide if I want to run it or hang on to it for a while. I'm afraid I'll head in and find nothing or, worse, find a rogue exile that chases me out or kills me outright.

[shoju]

You will not find a rogue exile. You wont find anyone in there. At All.
RUN IT
RUN IT
RUN IT
RUN IT

BUT. You will need to take scrolls with you. You just wont have enough bag space to carry out everything, so you need to be choosy, and identify things, and only take out what you can carry.

[MonTy]

You will not find a rogue exile. You wont find anyone in there. At All.

IIRC, there is a very small chance for a rogue exile to spawn.. I've seen several people report it, but unsure if they patched that out recently.

Regardless, you should indeed run it and bring a few stacks of ID scrolls! Won't be able to carry everything back with your portals :P

[shoju]

And, if nothing else? You could always bring a little muscle to watch your back in case one spawns. I have a Marauder who would go with you, I can bring some scrolls, and if a big bad man spawns, I'll eat his cookies, unless it's that leap slamming jerk, and then I will pound him mercilessly and then stand there insulting his corpse. I hate that guy.

[shoju]

But, let's get back to helping you out.

As far as farming.

It really comes down to RNG since some people swear by Merveil kills (like me), while others despise it. (Like Shoju)

(I finished his sentence for him)
This is the truth. And even I've succumbed to the farming of merveil. Mainly, because it's quick. From Portal to dead, I can hit 5 minutes, unless I get a crazy cavern that is really big, or an exile, or something like that. I only kill what's in my way, and I'm normally able to stay pretty nuetral on my portal scroll usage. I'm actually looking to put together an IIR set for my Scion, without killing too much of the clearing speed.

And, it's not like Merveil has been terribly "unprofitable". I've sold a couple of drops, and I've picked up several uniques now. Nothing "super rare", but unique nonetheless.

Personally though, I HIGHLY recommend the library/archives. zone in via WP, clear library, enter archives, clear archives, go back to door, ctrl click to open new libary, clear, hit the Wp, Empty bag, go back. I full clear these areas, since there is no dedicated loot pinata in there. The bosses loot is marginal, but your normal mobs will drop 67, magics 68, rares / bosses 69. To me? it's better than mapping, as I don't have to roll up a map to do so.

As far as possibly, maybe, improving your character, There are a couple of points I'd like to work with you on.

1.) You said that you are mainly Ice Spear. After having several chars use Ice Spear in multiple ways, I will tell you that I find Ice Spear to be inferior to Freezing Pulse, unless Im' able to land a fair share of my Ice Spears at the "stage 2" crit / explosion. Are you just trying to stick with spear because it's the closest frostbolt type spell?

I ask, because I really feel like, with some work/crafting, you could get your gear to a more "focused" Defensive point, which would increase your survivability, and make some of the more challenging areas, easier, and if I know what / why /when you are casting what you are, I can offer better advice

2.) Without seeing your spec, I have a couple of questions.

a.) What type of defensive passives have you invested in? Armor? Evasion? ES? Just Life?
b.) Have you invested in passive resists?
c.) Power Charges?
d.) Did you make the trek over to pick up the resists while wearing a shield passives?

3.) Would you be interested in grouping up for some maps? I have a level 66 Marauder, a 66 ranger, both in standard, both "map ready". The marauder is by far the better of the two, as the ranger's gear / spec just seem to leave me feeling frustrated with the dps. (go me for choosing a tanky ranged spec)

I'd gladly map with you. I have a half dozen 66 maps, a dozen 67 maps, and then a few 68, and one 69, as well as a Unique Cowards Trial Map, that I've been holding onto, mainly because I don't feel like I have someone capable of soloing it yet. (The rauder might be able to, but that's iffy) But yeah, I'd gladly map with you sometime if you wanted.

I have to hand it to you. Playing Self Found is hard. If you go back to that thread, and compare the gear of my FP Witch, to my ST Scion, or my Marauder, you'll see that the scion and the marauder are decked out WAY nicer than the Witch. That's because, the rauder, and scion are not self found. I've actually traded for a few pieces that they are sporting. I guess the witch isn't either, since I'm using the wand you found for me, but even then, that's once piece of gear, as compared to the scion, which is sporting a couple of very nice, purchased pieces.

[Frag]

There is a 5% chance for a rogue exile to spawn in the vault. Just make sure Monty, Frag or Shoju are online when you start it and we can help in case one is in there, as that map is your best chance to find upgrades.

Secondly, I would truly recommend trying spell totem + summon skeletons, it will help so much you'll be amazed. Third, Monty's suggestion of Frost Wall is gold; phase 1 of ice spear passes through it, and will still change into phase 2. Fourth, when I said nice for self-found, there was no implication you suck, it's nice for self-found, but it is majorly lacking in defensive stats (HP & stacking mitigation). While you may hate Chaos damage, it is simply damage that ignores energy shield and the lack of hitpoints on your gear is a large reason why you hate it so.

[LochnarITB]

But, let's get back to helping you out.

As far as farming.

It really comes down to RNG since some people swear by Merveil kills (like me), while others despise it. (Like Shoju)

(I finished his sentence for him)
This is the truth. And even I've succumbed to the farming of merveil. Mainly, because it's quick. From Portal to dead, I can hit 5 minutes, unless I get a crazy cavern that is really big, or an exile, or something like that. I only kill what's in my way, and I'm normally able to stay pretty nuetral on my portal scroll usage. I'm actually looking to put together an IIR set for my Scion, without killing too much of the clearing speed.

And, it's not like Merveil has been terribly "unprofitable". I've sold a couple of drops, and I've picked up several uniques now. Nothing "super rare", but unique nonetheless.

Personally though, I HIGHLY recommend the library/archives. zone in via WP, clear library, enter archives, clear archives, go back to door, ctrl click to open new libary, clear, hit the Wp, Empty bag, go back. I full clear these areas, since there is no dedicated loot pinata in there. The bosses loot is marginal, but your normal mobs will drop 67, magics 68, rares / bosses 69. To me? it's better than mapping, as I don't have to roll up a map to do so.

I'm with you on Merveil. I've run her a few times. I can't tell you why, but she just rubs me wrong too. I also run Catacombs. That can be fun and fairly quick. But, yeah, Library and Archives have become my go to. It's still OK XP and some drops. I'm not a fan of the book blizzard tornado guy, though. He slows me down some but I just keep him busy and hope he pinatas.

As far as possibly, maybe, improving your character, There are a couple of points I'd like to work with you on.

1.) You said that you are mainly Ice Spear. After having several chars use Ice Spear in multiple ways, I will tell you that I find Ice Spear to be inferior to Freezing Pulse, unless Im' able to land a fair share of my Ice Spears at the "stage 2" crit / explosion. Are you just trying to stick with spear because it's the closest frostbolt type spell?

Yes. To expand on that. It is targeted. It is a magic "gun". Fireball also fits that bill, but it feels too cliche. I like being different. In my head, I see the classic magician rolling the missile in their hands and sending it on its way. I also picture the mob standing there frozen, eyes darting around and thinking "Oh, $%&^, what do I do now?" Pulse feels too AOE. For me, AOE isn't offense, it is "Oh, $%&^, beam me up Scotty!". I screwed up and this is my last resort. If you know Wizardry, from way back when, you may remember one of my favorite spells ever, Tiltowait. It's description was that it was essentially a small nuclear explosion. If I walked into a room and found I bit off a bit more than I could chew, "Tiltowait" and hope that most of the room has gone down.

The question, "Why is that Lochnar guy such an odd duck?", has often been asked. Now you have a small glimpse behind the psychological curtain.

2.) Without seeing your spec, I have a couple of questions.

a.) What type of defensive passives have you invested in? Armor? Evasion? ES? Just Life?

Evasion and ES. (edit - Don't know why I typed that) Just life and ES. There are more in the plan as well.

b.) Have you invested in passive resists?

Chaos. Oh and one cold damage node adds some cold resist. I have immediate access to two 6% nodes and I may need to find the points to take them instead.

c.) Power Charges?

Yes, with one more earmarked for the next level up.

d.) Did you make the trek over to pick up the resists while wearing a shield passives?

No. The shield is only there for the resists. I would rather be dual wielding, if I can find the gear, so I wouldn't want to lock in a shield.

3.) Would you be interested in grouping up for some maps?

No. "It isn't you, it's me." Really, it is about me. I'm not trying to be anti-social. I find most people are good, tolerant folks. I'm just not good with grouping. In WOW, grouping for instances, and especially raiding, was a major undertaking for me. I very much enjoyed it, but real life poses huge restrictions. I never know when I will have to AFK, sometimes for extended periods. (One huge draw for POE is that I can AFK in a safe position for hours, even days, without getting booted.) There is also a small bit of me that doesn't want to set myself up to screw up and cause someone else grief.

there was no implication you suck, it's nice for self-found, but it is majorly lacking in defensive stats (HP & stacking mitigation). While you may hate Chaos damage, it is simply damage that ignores energy shield and the lack of hitpoints on your gear is a large reason why you hate it so.

I know you weren't really saying that. I just had to kid given what I had posted. As to chaos, it wouldn't matter if I had a million HP. It breaks what I consider "the rules" for my magic universe. Granted, it is my view of that universe, but just as in real life, if it doesn't fit my view it is an immediate turn off. I think I try hard to be open minded but I often find myself surprised that someone isn't thinking the same thing as me.

[shoju]

Not a problem about the mapping thing. I don't take offense, and I completely understand.

I don't think it's too weird, that you have a choice of spells. I like Freezing Pulse, because I like that I don't have to try and gauge where I'm at to get good crit on it, and with targeting the way it is in PoE I don't feel I need to be as precise with it.

If I were you, if you had settled on ES, and Life I would try to start focusing on getting more gear with ES / Life on it, than some of the EV pieces you have right now. i know, that sometimes that's easier said than done, especially when you are playing exclusively self found.

I'm curious, what kind of Orbs are you sitting on? Mainly, Alch / Chaos. I would almost think if you have a fair amount, It might be worth it to take some time to visit vendors, and look for some ES gear to take a crack at crafting.

One of the things that I like about Power Charges, is the 2% Spell damage per power charge in the witch tree. It's not much, but I've noticed, especially with my build that I'm able to increase my spell power a fair bit pretty consistently with it.

I REALLY dislike the 6% all resist nodes. I don't know if I can bold caps lock enough. I'm a much bigger fan of the Templar / Shadow nodes that you can get that have ES / EV / Armour + Resists on them. It was specifically planned that I was able to pick up as many of those as I did in my witch's build. With my witch, I can completely take my shield off and still be capped. I like it, because it gives me a lot of flexibility in gearing, and when I look at a shield, I'm not having to stare at what kind of resists are on it, to make sure that I stay capped.

To me, the 6% nodes would only be worth it, if the nodes behind them had higher resists on them, or if the 6% nodes themselves had more resist on them. Even at 8% I would find them more intriguing as options as opposed to the 6% nodes.

I know that I don't have the most popular opinion amongst Lurkers on that ideology.

I'm curious if Taryn's Shiver (I think that's the name of it... the cold unique staff) is earmarked as "High Level Map Only" drop. That would be an absolutely amazing option for you. I'd probably find maelstrom staves to chance even, it would be that amazing for you.

Well, I'll put it out there again. You helped me with the wand. And I do greatly appreciate that. If you ever want that wand back, or if you have a need for a piece of gear, or gem, or whatever, please don't hesitate to ask. I know you don't have a problem with helping out other players, but I just want to say that if I ever have something that would help you, I would gladly reciprocate the favor. Without hesitation.


http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/536644


That's all the stuff I have in standard that is worth anything. If it's verified, I still have it.