Path of Exile free to play in about six hours.

[swirly]

I'm not a huge fan of Hardcore, so I haven't tried it much.

I figure anytime I make a new character (which I don't plan on at all right now) I'll make them hardcore and try not to die. Then if they do I'll just keep playing them in default. I don't see much reason to start a character as default. Might as well try hardcore and see what happens since there doesn't seem to be any penalty to dying and being thrown into default. The only trouble area would be your stash really. Since they are separate. I just ran mine hardcore and when she died I moved her whole stash over with her. So my next char, if one ever happens, will start fresh too. Which I kind of like actually.

[shoju]

I'm now back to running

Clarity Discipline and Wrath as auras, and I'm running Arc as my "damage" And then my summons. I have an open spot that I use based on what I'm going up against. Sometimes it's Lightning Nova, sometimes, it's Ice Nova, sometimes, I just run with my attack in that spot.

I wish there was a way that I could just give a link to my stash, and let people see what I have. I'm sort of a hoarder, and ended up buying extra stash tabs so that I have 10 pages. I'm thinking about buying more tabs as well.

This morning I hit A1 Merciless, and I'm finding that a lot of it is easier than A3 Cruel. I steam rolled through the Island and the Fetid Pools, again, even though they are level 58 zones in Merc. I just cleared through the ledge a couple of times, and I'm now 56. Once I hit 57, I will be able to hit the second resist / shield node, which will cap my resists on Merc, and then I can start stripping away some of the exess as I find pieces that are chaos based, instead of Ele resist based.

[swirly]

The thing that is on my mind right now is armour. There are a couple of nodes that are 20% armour, 20% max ES, and 10% resist all. I compare them to some pure ES nodes that are 18% or 15% with nothing else and it really makes me want to go for those ones with the other stats. Yet I hear armour is bad against big hits and as a summoner the big ones are probably the only ones that will really matter. So I should probably ignore those combined nodes and take gear with pure ES on it instead of gear with armour and ES. It bugs me though! I can get resistance up to deal with that cold/fire/lighting, CI to deal with Chaos, and I want to be able to get armour up to deal with physical, but it just doesn't seem like it is going to work that way. Feel like the game is telling me that I should go pure ES with max resistance and just let the ES eat the non-reduced physical attacks. Those nodes look so tempting when comparing though!

[shoju]

Yeah, Armour is really really bad against big hits (Think Brutus, Kole, etc...). But it is FANTASTIC against smaller hits. Case in point: My Templar is a god while running most maps, but then the physical bosses just crush him. I got into Lunaris Temple with him in Cruel, got down to Kole, and he crushed me over and over and over. Mainly, because my Templar is Armour / ES, and I'm REALLY bad about not running away. I built him like a tank, I feel like I should be able to tank this stuff. It's a remnant of the WoW mentality I guess.

I do use some hybrid gear from time to time on my Summoner. I try to stick with Armour / ES, and not Evasion / ES, mainly because I'm a WoW tank at this, so I think Evasion is bad and random, Armour is bad and constant. Take the constant.

I agree, that those templar area nodes are very tempting. They are such nice rounded nodes.

[swirly]

I do use some hybrid gear from time to time on my Summoner. I try to stick with Armour / ES, and not Evasion / ES, mainly because I'm a WoW tank at this, so I think Evasion is bad and random, Armour is bad and constant. Take the constant.

I use some of both currently. I know Evasion isn't random like it is in WoW. There is a guarantee to it with the way they calculate it. With me going CI though and having a lot of summons, I really wonder if Evasion or Armour are worth it. I feel like the summons give me time that if I take a couple of hits I can back away and regen the ES. That means small hits aren't a problem. So the only concern is big hits. Evasion is random on the first hit. If it is a hit/miss then the equation for it will affect future hits to make sure it provides what it is supposed. So that means it is random on that one first hit which is the one I'm concerned with. Thus not so great for me. Armour, like you said, is bad against big hits as well due to how they calculate it. Bad in the one case I am worried about again.

So I end up thinking that I should ignore Evasion and Armour and go for pure ES and resists. Taking that line of thought even further makes me start wondering about not wearing a shield. Like maybe I could use a big two handed staff so that I could get six sockets on it. I know it is unlikely to find a good roll like that, but it would be quite handy to have both the weapon and chest slot as possible to have 6 for support gems. Right now I'm still leaning towards keeping the shield and pondering the armour stuff, but it is on my mind.

I haven't looked into the ES difference between wand/shield and 2H staff. Though the lack of the free ranged attack that I get with the wand and lose with the staff bothers me. I imagine that disappearing as I level more though.

I agree, that those templar area nodes are very tempting. They are such nice rounded nodes.

They really are. Even the nodes on the way to them. There are some 8% armour 8% ES nodes that I compare to plain 8% ES nodes that I have debated taking. Even if the armour is bad... the nodes are equal not even counting it. I think the big problem is that if you have a hybrid item then it will have half armour and half ES. Whereas a pure item will have a full value of ES. So you end up with the best way to gear being to not have any armour on gear which then makes those notes equal and the couple of extra passive points to get to them a big minus.

So right now I am thinking I have to ignore those nodes. Probably not worth the travel cost to get to them in the tree. I feel like it is a close thing though. I have a few levels to really decide on it all still.

Edit: On the staff/wand thing. Seems shields get ES, but 2H staves don't. So that makes shields the clear winner. So probably should stick with wand/shield. Though I can go with one of the pure ES shields if I choose in regard to the armour/no armour thing.

[shoju]

Dear Orb of Fusing:

Please go die in a hole. I hate you.

Thanks,
Shoju


I spent 2 hours this morning building up resources that I could vendor trade for fusings, and dropped another dozen into the robe, and I'm still no closer. BLECH.

[swirly]

I hit a quest reward where none of the rewards were skills I knew I wanted. So I decided to trust in Shoju and took the totem skill. I have to admit, I'm rather liking it so far. Don't seem to feel the damage loss like I thought I would. It has me considering an indirect build. I was already favoring Fire Trap as my person damage skill. So Fire Trap + Minions + Flammability. Thinking Skeletons and Flammability on totems and heading down to Ancestral Bond to be able to cast two at once. So when I see mobs I drop Skeletotem then Flammatotem then start throwing Fire Traps till everything dies. Should give me plenty of mobility between Traps too. Might keep the free wand attack on the bar just for filler might not too. Haven't decided on that one.

Speaking of the skill bar, I just now figured out that you can remove Auras from it after they are active and they will stay active. That has freed me up a ton. Lets me put the move command back on my bar (and assign it to the space key) which is something that had been bugging me.

SO I figure Fire Trap, Flammatotem, Skeletotem, Zombies, Specters, Move, Wand leaves one spot for Auras or I could even have no Auras showing and put another skill there if I decide there is one that is useful.

Haven't figured out if going for Ancestral Bond will work well or not yet. Have to look at the tree and see about that. It'll be a ways off for sure.

[swirly]

8 points. Just to be able to cast a second totem. Thinking it probably won't be worth it. Especially when I could spend those 8 points in straight fire damage or AOE range or Aura range or just something more productive. Don't think I'm going to be able to do the two totem thing. : (

[swirly]

I don't think I'll end up going it, but if I were to go down the path of taking all the stuff my gut likes even though my brain says it is a bad idea I think I would end up like this: http://bit.ly/15e3WBJ

Double totem. The Armor/ES/Resist nodes. Some mana reserve reduction nodes. Some burning nodes for Fire Trap and Flammability. Lots of resistance nodes. Some Aura range nodes. The build just makes a part of me happy. Yet I worry that it won't have enough damage or that going pure ES and 1 totem would be stronger. So I'll have to fiddle with what that would look like and compare I guess.

[swirly]

I think I have decided to try for this: http://bit.ly/113rZPt

Basically I've decided that I really want to try the half armor half ES stuff and two totems as well. It may not be optimal, but my mind keeps going back to it so I might as well embrace it and see what happens. Picked up the 2 curse passive as well. My thinking is that I'll put flammability and elemental weakness curses on totems. Then I'll manually cast Skeletons and Fire Traps. Between the two curses, the traps, and the minion explosions I think I will have enough damage to get by. I believe there is 78% resist all from passives. I'm hoping to run Purity aura which will give me another 43%. I'll also have 10% to max from the Aura and passives. Figure it shouldn't be too hard to meet that cap from gear even with the difficulty penalties.

Now I just have to figure out what I sockets I need on gear.

(chest-5 link blue sockets)
Raise Zombies
Raise Specter
Minion Life
Minion Damage
Item Rarity

(helm 3 link blue sockets)
Raise Skeleton
Minion Damage
Minion Speed

(wand 3 link 1 red 2 blue sockets)
Totem
Flammability
Elemental weakness

(gloves? 2 link red and green. Could add more links for support if I want)
Fire trap
Fire penetration

(boot/shield 2 blue, 1 red, no links needed)
Purity
Discipline
Anger

Looks possible to me. With room to expand even. Something to work towards anyway. Armour/ES gear built like that.

[shoju]

You might also look for a 4L "+1/2 level to Minion gems" helm.

You might also end up looking for a 4L boots, to put your auras + reduced Mana support.

[swirly]

You might also look for a 4L "+1/2 level to Minion gems" helm.

You might also end up looking for a 4L boots, to put your auras + reduced Mana support.

Yeah I was figuring on the +Minion helm. Didn't know about the reduced Mana gem. That is definitely something worth it for auras. Glove or boots should work I think. Just have to get a 2R 2B with them all linked.

[swirly]

51 and just starting Act 3 Cruel. Found a weird legendary necklace.

Carnage Heart
Onyx Amulet
Requires Level 20
+14 to all attributes
+38 to al attributes
9% of physical attack damage leeched back as life
25% reduced Maximum Life
25% reduced Maximum Energy Shield
12% to all Elemental Resistances
Extra Gore

Feel like I can't quite justify it. The All Attributes help counter the ES reduction, but with my build I get nothing from the leech. Feels like something better suited for a different class/build. Wish the All Resist was higher too. So not sure what I'm going to do with this.

[shoju]

That is a pretty nice neck for several styles of play. When I had my Life Leach Marauder I was looking to try and find one. You could probably spend a little time in Trade Chat, and sell it off for some orbs, or hold onto it and save it in case you make something that would use it.

I have a pair of Armor / ES 4L Gloves. They aren't... "Amazing" by any stretch of the imagination, but they are 4l. I used them on both my templar, and my witch from time to time.

They are:
106 Armor
18 ES
21Dex
12% ATK Speed
+3 Mana when you kill
+37 Armor
9% IIR

Like I said, they aren't great, but they are 4L's, and if you want them, you can have them.

I got my Shadow up to 21. I'm playing a Melee Claw Shadow. Right now I'm using

Wrath
Frenzy
Dual Strike
Ethereal Knives
Fire Trap
Flicker Strike
Whirling Blades

He's been a lot of fun to play, though I've been thinking about dropping EK, and just using Fire Trap For my AoE. EK just seems to be a waste with him (which is funny, because I wanted to go EK with him)

I really need to figure out what I'm going to do with him. I don't see any Keystones in the area that "make me want them". I have a build hammered out, and there are no keystones in it. It makes me wonder if I'm "doing it wrong" Ghost Reaver looks mildly interesting, but from what I've seen of the Dual gear, you don't end up with my ES off it.

[swirly]

I have a pair of Armor / ES 4L Gloves.

The thing about gloves is that I found a legendary pair off of Piety in normal (I think?)

Aurseize
Steelscale Gauntlets
Armour: 87
Evasion: 87
52% increased armour and evasion
15% to all elemental resistances
46% increased rarity of items found
5% reduced movement speed

I have 4 sockets in them. B-R-G G so I run my fire trap there with two support gems. They aren't ideal for me since no ES, but that is a crap ton of Rarity find and I am kind of an addict for that. I'm at 99% in general and 146 on my zombies. I have no idea how I am ever going to talk myself into giving up those gloves. o.O

[swirly]

Apparently today is a day for legendaries. Just found another one. This time a ring. Doesn't seem very interesting to me though. Maybe I'm missing something?

Blackheart
Iron Ring
Adds 1-4 Physical Damage
5% increased physical damage
Adds 1-3 chaos damage
+23 Maximum Life
3.9 Life Reg per second
10% change to cause monsters to flee

I feel like even if the numbers were higher that it still wouldn't be a ring people would really want. Am I undervaluing the damage on it or something?

[swirly]

I really need to figure out what I'm going to do with him. I don't see any Keystones in the area that "make me want them". I have a build hammered out, and there are no keystones in it. It makes me wonder if I'm "doing it wrong" Ghost Reaver looks mildly interesting, but from what I've seen of the Dual gear, you don't end up with my ES off it.

I don't know about things that aren't summoners, but I will say that I don't think there is anything wrong with not taking Keystones. I feel like each keystone makes a build a different kind of variant. You don't have to play a variant though. You can just play the core Shadow class. Which would be a no keystone build. Seems like a perfectly valid way to go about things to me.

Edit: Having said that, the Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics keystones look tempting to me. You said that you don't end up with ES on gear. We have talked about Armour not being great in general. So you could go for those keystones and abandon ES and Armour completely. Go for a high life high evasion build. Seems like an appealing idea to me anyway.

Edit 2: At that point you could even consider going down to the Arrow Dodging keystone. Going to have a high evasion anyway and be a melee class so why not double your evasion against things that don't want to be in melee?

[LennyLen]

I really need to figure out what I'm going to do with him. I don't see any Keystones in the area that "make me want them". I have a build hammered out, and there are no keystones in it. It makes me wonder if I'm "doing it wrong" Ghost Reaver looks mildly interesting, but from what I've seen of the Dual gear, you don't end up with my ES off it.

There just really aren't that many appealing keystones for a melee shadow. Mine's at lvl 55 now, I still haven't chosen any keystones.

My build is built around quick DoT strikes. I use temporal chains to complement my increased movement speed, hit 2 or 3 times with Viper Strike and then use Whirling Blades to move to the next enemy (or for quick escapes).

For AoE, I'm using Arc and Fire Totem, and I use bear trap to immobilize fast striking melee attackers.

Except when desync hits real bad, it's working out really well. I have basically no armour to speak of, and fairly low life for where I am ~1200. Despite this, I'm surviving really well.

[shoju]

That's what I've been using whirling blades for as well. I just can't seem to make it into an effective damaging attack, but it's great movement. I'm hoping, if I play my cards right, I can end up sitting somewhere around 10%+ Life Leech. What I had hoped to have with my marauder is just so much more feasible with a Claw wielding Shadow. I'm still striving towards building a Blood Death Knight style of play.

Which, honestly, had me leaning towards going with Ghost Reaver, and I still might, it will just depend on how much ES I end up with later on.

I also have this KILLER Onyx Neck, that I'm debating on Regaling into a rare. It's +18 Attributes, 4% Life Leech on Physical, and 19% Lightning Resist. I'll probably check the ilvl, and wait a bit before I decide to Regal it. I want to make sure that I don't happen across something better, and curse my impatience.



So I decided to give HC a try. I started a templar, and I'm in HC. I'm still really low level, as I only have the chest quest done in A1, but I'm trying to do some research. I figured this would give me a chance to try an off the wall type of build.

So here is my question.

The +% Elemental damage Nodes in the Passive Tree. Do they work with things like Freezing Pulse, etc... I know that there are some that say "weapon elemental damage", and those would only work with a weapon, but I'm looking at the beginning of the templar tree. I'm thinking about running a Power Siphon / Freeze Pulse type Templar, and I'm just trying to figure out if the +%Elemental will help me on Freeze pulse, as well as on the ele damage of a wand.

[shoju]

So I did a little Research, and I should be able to come up with a pretty nice, and slick Ghost Reaver Build.
This is what I'm currently staring at.

I like it so far, and I'm working to tighten it up, and make it even better.