You could always do the leer cast + dying breath animate guardian buffbot. Ape spectres for frenzy charges on your golems could be nice also, but it can be hard to find high level apes for that. When I used them on my SRS character the act2 apes could survive up until about tier 10 maps. Enduring cry bears are also nice, they apply the same debuff as a decoy totem and are pretty tanky.
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WarcryI'm getting my shit pushed in here!AustraliaRegistered Userregular
If I recall correctly, it is thought that massive implanting of gems is what lead to the two previous cataclysms.
I thought it was more along the lines of the gems are 'gifts' from the Beast, (the Vaal called them the Tears of Maji) which sounds to me like it's basically the Beast's natural defense. It provides lesser beings with a fraction of its power, so that they worship it and keep it alive, and it in turn corrupts a particularly prodigious individual (Doriyani and Malachai, respectively) to carry out the ritual that allows it to gain more power by absorbing the life essences of those who worshiped it. As told by the Karui guy you find in the painting in the Library, in the Eternal's cataclysm everyone died but the ones who were implanted with gems, who 'withered like grapes in the sun' and lost their humanity, becoming monsters (the Undying). That sounds like the Beast was siphoning off their energy/life/souls to fuel itself. We also know that with each Cataclysm, it takes the best and brightest minds to use as its guardians (we see Doedre, Maligaro and Shavronne), whether they were alive for the cataclysm or not. Clearly, Atziri managed to survive the Vaal cataclysm in much the same way as Malachai and his disciples, as well as her lieutenants. We also see the same thing happening in 'our' generation, with Kaom and Daresso. Both of them came after the last cataclysm, Kaom first within a decade of it at most, and Daresso almost three centuries later. Rather than their servitude being a direct result of their worship, however, the Beast was keeping them in dream realms, but acting as guardians nonetheless. A direct example of the Beast seizing a bright individual and repurposing them as a guardian is when Dominus is killed. He is sucked down into some kind of portal as he dies, and is immediately brought back as a twisted reflection of himself.
Whatever it is, the Beast is clearly some kind of extra-dimensional being, and is directly responsible for the existence of thaumaturgy. It obeys no natural laws and even creates its own set, or is perhaps warping some kind of underlying, pre-existing law to create thaumaturgy. We do know that our source of thaumaturgy, the gems, comes directly from it.
When act 5 hits Cruel will most likely disappear thank god. Running through content twice instead of 3 times would help a lot with leveling fatigue.
"If a cherry pie filled cape is wrong, I don't want to be right.
I'm dead serious."
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SaldonasSee you space cowboy...Registered Userregular
Wow, that was some nice reading. Makes me kinda sad I'm missing out on this league. Maybe next time! I still really want to try out that siege ballista assassin.
Huh, I had an easier time with Dominus on cruel than I did on normal. Just melted the guy with no problems at all. This means I'm going to get fucking slaughtered once I hit merciless, doesn't it?
edit: okay, so now I'm in act 4 and while I'm not having a particularly tough time of it, I remember how hard it was going from normal to cruel. Is there any place in particular that's good to grind for xp/gear in cruel to get ready for merciless? What sort of changes should I make before finishing cruel? I know about the increased penalty to resists and I'm always on the lookout for that, but is there anything else I should keep in mind?
Huh, I had an easier time with Dominus on cruel than I did on normal. Just melted the guy with no problems at all. This means I'm going to get fucking slaughtered once I hit merciless, doesn't it?
edit: okay, so now I'm in act 4 and while I'm not having a particularly tough time of it, I remember how hard it was going from normal to cruel. Is there any place in particular that's good to grind for xp/gear in cruel to get ready for merciless? What sort of changes should I make before finishing cruel? I know about the increased penalty to resists and I'm always on the lookout for that, but is there anything else I should keep in mind?
Dried Lake is the place to grind out levels in all three difficulties. You can get really good XP up until like 5 or 6 levels above the zone level, if you like.
I would just make make sure your resists won't be total poop in Merciless. In A1M/A2M you can probably skate by with elemental resists in the 40's and 50's (if you're melee this is a slightly less safe proposition). I would shoot for chaos resistance above 0, if only because The Weaver does a lot of chaos damage that is difficult to avoid.
Aside from that, make sure you have reasonably level-appropriate Heat and Staunching flasks, and it's probably a good time to get a defensive gem setup of some kind going (whether that be Cast When Damage Taken - Immortal Call - Increased Duration, or a Blasphemy - Enfeeble/Temporal Chains type thing).
I'm about to enter merciless. I will be glad to finally see the Atlas. Also really looking forward to cruel going away. I have leveled 4 characters to around merciless so far this season. Eff that noise.
BV is interesting. Similar to RF but with way more potential. At least, it feels that way to me. I melt bosses but I'm super squishy still. I have like 1400hp and 1700es. My tooltip DPS is around 2400 currently. I haven't spent much currency on him yet. I'm sitting at 15ish chaos (plus a lot of other orbs that I could change for more chaos), trying to save it for my end game gear that's recommend in the build guide.
I finally decided to spend some money on the game. Bout a currency tab for my stash and a premium tab. It is nice to be able to see things so easily now.
The damage scaling on those things in incredible. If you get a couple damage mods on a map, can they instakill a 12k ES character with overcapped resists.
I converted a bunch of currency and bought a 6L disfavour so I could try out double curses supported with empower-enhance-enlighten. Adding empower doesn't really seem to have done that much, so I'm guessing putting ancestral warchief in the axe is a lot more effective. It took me about 1k chromes to get the curse setup working though so I'll probably stick with it a while.
Thanks to whomever put the Vaal skeletons gem in the guild stash. I feel like could I punch Malachai in the asshole with this thing (I know it's mostly my other minions doing the heavy lifting, but it still feels rad having a whole squad appear at once to fuck shit up)
edit: someone posted this Tabula Rasa in chat last night before and after using a Vaal orb on it and I wanted to know if that 95% meant reduction or addition to socketed gems?
95% multiplier means exactly what it says, multiply the cost by .95. Most of your support gems do this too with somewhere between 1.1-1.4 or so for most of them.
I've come to the realization that Earthquake is actually just straight up inferior to Warchief Totem. Once I've finished funding my Guardian I think I'm going to have to reroll because I hate this feeling that I'm handicapping myself.
These constant disconnects are really grating on my nerves. If I were playing any other character it'd be no big deal, just log back on and stroll through the empty areas I just cleared out. But as a summoner I have to go whip up a new batch of minions every single time, and it's kind of a pain in my ass.
What is the minimum ES I should shoot for before switching to CI? I'm thinking that at 69 I will get it and the nodes behind it. I have a set of armor with pretty good es waiting for me then.
The critical rolls aren't worth much in the current meta when you can cap or close without it. Flat phys is nice, but still less DPS than the drill neck boost especially since the drill neck proj bonus double dips on poisons and bleeds. The life is a really good roll, though
I'd guess less than a drill neck, since the DPS scaling is lower.
So..triple flame golems work a lot better than I thought. Watching them machine gun their little fire ball spell into packs never gets old. Cruel Mal got destroyed, even with them randomly targetting zombies and the like. a SRS totem helps out a lot too.
Ball lightning is the real mvp tho. procs EE, curse on hit flamability and curse of elements=-100 fire resists. Hopefully by the time I hit maps and can equip alpha howl I can fit in haste for my 3rd aura.
I didnt know animate guardian lost the items when they die......so that was a waste of 4c on that leer and dying breath...
Minerva_SC on
"If a cherry pie filled cape is wrong, I don't want to be right.
I'm dead serious."
So..triple flame golems work a lot better than I thought. Watching them machine gun their little fire ball spell into packs never gets old. Cruel Mal got destroyed, even with them randomly targetting zombies and the like. a SRS totem helps out a lot too.
Ball lightning is the real mvp tho. procs EE, curse on hit flamability and curse of elements=-100 fire resists. Hopefully by the time I hit maps and can equip alpha howl I can fit in haste for my 3rd aura.
I didnt know animate guardian lost the items when they die......so that was a waste of 4c on that leer and dying breath...
Isn't there an enchant that lets you get the items back?
It's not worth running Guardian until you have gem levels and supports for it. At high levels and some cheap uniques like Southbound's he'll be well over 10k life.
I'm going to re-roll.
I just figured out how to to get effective hp pools equal to CI without all the expensive crap and still get 100% lightning penetration to boot. So excited.
Whoo, just beat Merveil on merciless last night! Wasn't very tough either, I just pointed my minions at her and danced away from her attacks. I am worried about my ability to survive in the future though. Even with discipline I only have 2k es and my resists aren't great (especially chaos). I haven't had much luck finding or modifying stuff and I really, really, really, really don't want to trade with people so I'll just have to hope I get something nice.
If so it's important to remember the 'ignore resists' is not the same as 100% penetration, or at least if that's the actual effect of the node the wording is not consistent. With 100% penetration, a non-resistant mob would have - 100% resist, and one that started with 25% would have - 75%. That never happens with the ignore resist node, as far as I know; it just always treats resists as 0%.
Stoll really, really, REALLY good, mind you. Just not flat 100% penetration good.
I think at this point I dont even need to run srs totem. With ape chiefs giving my golems frenzy charges and with flesh offering up p much 24/7, everything p much melts in seconds. srs is nice for cleaning up stragglers tho...
In the long run I'll prob end up ditching it so I can run beefier spectres and AG. I also need a socket for bone offering when I get Mistress of sacrifice in merc lab.
Minerva_SC on
"If a cherry pie filled cape is wrong, I don't want to be right.
I'm dead serious."
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AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
I have a Contagion and a Wither totem, while my Essence Drain is linked with Rapid Dec., Controlled Dest., Void Manip, Pierce and LMP. Should I switch any of those five supports? Vulnerability aura is no option since I need Clarity and Grace (to go with my Iron Reflexes).
I don't think LMP is that great with essence drain?
It's good if you aren't good at aiming, and since I use a Tabula for 6L I have less damage mitigation and thus need to Whirl around (with Fortify support) and sometimes use a Decoy as it is, making lining up shots well another distraction. With DoT/Chaos passives plus those other supports, ED's projectile damage is not important, only spreading it as fast and accurately as possible.
I've pushed my ESC Flameblast Totems guy to level 88, still deathless, and am sustaining T9/T10 maps pretty comfortably. I'm still missing a trial for Uber Lab, and haven't invested in Dream Trials to get the last one, but that will be another damage boost (10% more fire pen) when I get around to it. I've also sunk about 100c into trying to craft a +3 fire 6L staff with (obviously) no luck.
I'm not sure how much further I want to push him, because damage-wise it really is just Uber Lab and the 6L that are left as substantial upgrades. The staff would be a huge boost (a level 3 Empower in that slot becomes level 4, so it ends up being a 4-level gain on Flameblast) but crafting is such a huge money-sink when I could be putting that currency towards a new character.
Speaking of: I rolled a slightly less-meta Pathfinder and got her through the leveling process. The general idea is crit bow + Split Arrow + flasks poison on hit + bleed from Slivertongue + damage over time passives. Tag mobs with big crits and let the subsequent DoT effects bleed them out as you move to the next pack. It's working really well so far, although I have no clue whether it's more effective than a regular crit Split Arrow build would be. Ideal endgame for this character would replace Slivertongue with a 330+ PDPS Tora bow but that's a long way off at this point.
Woot woot! I just found a Exalted Orb! Its only my second so far. Now to decide what I can buy that will make the biggest difference to my build. Just hit lvl 69 and activated CI. I have around 8700 ES at the moment.
I've pushed my ESC Flameblast Totems guy to level 88, still deathless, and am sustaining T9/T10 maps pretty comfortably. I'm still missing a trial for Uber Lab, and haven't invested in Dream Trials to get the last one, but that will be another damage boost (10% more fire pen) when I get around to it. I've also sunk about 100c into trying to craft a +3 fire 6L staff with (obviously) no luck.
I'm not sure how much further I want to push him, because damage-wise it really is just Uber Lab and the 6L that are left as substantial upgrades. The staff would be a huge boost (a level 3 Empower in that slot becomes level 4, so it ends up being a 4-level gain on Flameblast) but crafting is such a huge money-sink when I could be putting that currency towards a new character.
Speaking of: I rolled a slightly less-meta Pathfinder and got her through the leveling process. The general idea is crit bow + Split Arrow + flasks poison on hit + bleed from Slivertongue + damage over time passives. Tag mobs with big crits and let the subsequent DoT effects bleed them out as you move to the next pack. It's working really well so far, although I have no clue whether it's more effective than a regular crit Split Arrow build would be. Ideal endgame for this character would replace Slivertongue with a 330+ PDPS Tora bow but that's a long way off at this point.
this except Assassin is kinda the brand new meta for shaper and guardians. you can do it with a crude bow thanks to the synergy of added chaos damage and poison.
Speaking of: I rolled a slightly less-meta Pathfinder and got her through the leveling process. The general idea is crit bow + Split Arrow + flasks poison on hit + bleed from Slivertongue + damage over time passives. Tag mobs with big crits and let the subsequent DoT effects bleed them out as you move to the next pack. It's working really well so far, although I have no clue whether it's more effective than a regular crit Split Arrow build would be. Ideal endgame for this character would replace Slivertongue with a 330+ PDPS Tora bow but that's a long way off at this point.
this except Assassin is kinda the brand new meta for shaper and guardians. you can do it with a crude bow thanks to the synergy of added chaos damage and poison.
Poison is still OP as hell, so it's likely that going all-in on chaos scaling (as this build does) is better for endgame content than mine will turn out to be.
Speaking of: I rolled a slightly less-meta Pathfinder and got her through the leveling process. The general idea is crit bow + Split Arrow + flasks poison on hit + bleed from Slivertongue + damage over time passives. Tag mobs with big crits and let the subsequent DoT effects bleed them out as you move to the next pack. It's working really well so far, although I have no clue whether it's more effective than a regular crit Split Arrow build would be. Ideal endgame for this character would replace Slivertongue with a 330+ PDPS Tora bow but that's a long way off at this point.
this except Assassin is kinda the brand new meta for shaper and guardians. you can do it with a crude bow thanks to the synergy of added chaos damage and poison.
Poison is still OP as hell, so it's likely that going all-in on chaos scaling (as this build does) is better for endgame content than mine will turn out to be.
I feel like Pathfinder probably is better at perfect gear levels as the extra crit from assassin becomes unnecessary
if nothing else the build demonstrates why poison double dipping has to get nerfed and maybe the unlimited stacking as well
I'd like to see poison made into something like Ignite where you aim for the largest possible hit rather than a bunch of small ones, in a different kind of way. maybe limited stacking a la old versions of shock
Oooh, found my first map today, and literally 5 minutes later found my second! I'm not at the eternal laboratory yet, but they'll sit nice and pretty in my stash until I get there.
Posts
I thought it was more along the lines of the gems are 'gifts' from the Beast, (the Vaal called them the Tears of Maji) which sounds to me like it's basically the Beast's natural defense. It provides lesser beings with a fraction of its power, so that they worship it and keep it alive, and it in turn corrupts a particularly prodigious individual (Doriyani and Malachai, respectively) to carry out the ritual that allows it to gain more power by absorbing the life essences of those who worshiped it. As told by the Karui guy you find in the painting in the Library, in the Eternal's cataclysm everyone died but the ones who were implanted with gems, who 'withered like grapes in the sun' and lost their humanity, becoming monsters (the Undying). That sounds like the Beast was siphoning off their energy/life/souls to fuel itself. We also know that with each Cataclysm, it takes the best and brightest minds to use as its guardians (we see Doedre, Maligaro and Shavronne), whether they were alive for the cataclysm or not. Clearly, Atziri managed to survive the Vaal cataclysm in much the same way as Malachai and his disciples, as well as her lieutenants. We also see the same thing happening in 'our' generation, with Kaom and Daresso. Both of them came after the last cataclysm, Kaom first within a decade of it at most, and Daresso almost three centuries later. Rather than their servitude being a direct result of their worship, however, the Beast was keeping them in dream realms, but acting as guardians nonetheless. A direct example of the Beast seizing a bright individual and repurposing them as a guardian is when Dominus is killed. He is sucked down into some kind of portal as he dies, and is immediately brought back as a twisted reflection of himself.
Whatever it is, the Beast is clearly some kind of extra-dimensional being, and is directly responsible for the existence of thaumaturgy. It obeys no natural laws and even creates its own set, or is perhaps warping some kind of underlying, pre-existing law to create thaumaturgy. We do know that our source of thaumaturgy, the gems, comes directly from it.
Now to suffer through the remaining 27 levels till I can equip clay shaperx2. On that note
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1743790
When act 5 hits Cruel will most likely disappear thank god. Running through content twice instead of 3 times would help a lot with leveling fatigue.
I'm dead serious."
Switch: SW-1493-0062-4053
edit: okay, so now I'm in act 4 and while I'm not having a particularly tough time of it, I remember how hard it was going from normal to cruel. Is there any place in particular that's good to grind for xp/gear in cruel to get ready for merciless? What sort of changes should I make before finishing cruel? I know about the increased penalty to resists and I'm always on the lookout for that, but is there anything else I should keep in mind?
Dried Lake is the place to grind out levels in all three difficulties. You can get really good XP up until like 5 or 6 levels above the zone level, if you like.
I would just make make sure your resists won't be total poop in Merciless. In A1M/A2M you can probably skate by with elemental resists in the 40's and 50's (if you're melee this is a slightly less safe proposition). I would shoot for chaos resistance above 0, if only because The Weaver does a lot of chaos damage that is difficult to avoid.
Aside from that, make sure you have reasonably level-appropriate Heat and Staunching flasks, and it's probably a good time to get a defensive gem setup of some kind going (whether that be Cast When Damage Taken - Immortal Call - Increased Duration, or a Blasphemy - Enfeeble/Temporal Chains type thing).
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
I'm dead serious."
Those the ones that blow up after you kill em?
BV is interesting. Similar to RF but with way more potential. At least, it feels that way to me. I melt bosses but I'm super squishy still. I have like 1400hp and 1700es. My tooltip DPS is around 2400 currently. I haven't spent much currency on him yet. I'm sitting at 15ish chaos (plus a lot of other orbs that I could change for more chaos), trying to save it for my end game gear that's recommend in the build guide.
I finally decided to spend some money on the game. Bout a currency tab for my stash and a premium tab. It is nice to be able to see things so easily now.
Yeah, I ripped a char this league not paying attention to one when I had low resists.
I'm dead serious."
edit: someone posted this Tabula Rasa in chat last night before and after using a Vaal orb on it and I wanted to know if that 95% meant reduction or addition to socketed gems?
T2 flat phys
T2 flat cold
T1 crit chance
T1 life
T5 crit multi
T2 fire res
I'd guess less than a drill neck, since the DPS scaling is lower.
Ball lightning is the real mvp tho. procs EE, curse on hit flamability and curse of elements=-100 fire resists. Hopefully by the time I hit maps and can equip alpha howl I can fit in haste for my 3rd aura.
I didnt know animate guardian lost the items when they die......so that was a waste of 4c on that leer and dying breath...
I'm dead serious."
Isn't there an enchant that lets you get the items back?
I'm dead serious."
I just figured out how to to get effective hp pools equal to CI without all the expensive crap and still get 100% lightning penetration to boot.
So excited.
My guess is an Iron Will hybrid Inquisitor.
Stoll really, really, REALLY good, mind you. Just not flat 100% penetration good.
In the long run I'll prob end up ditching it so I can run beefier spectres and AG. I also need a socket for bone offering when I get Mistress of sacrifice in merc lab.
I'm dead serious."
It's good if you aren't good at aiming, and since I use a Tabula for 6L I have less damage mitigation and thus need to Whirl around (with Fortify support) and sometimes use a Decoy as it is, making lining up shots well another distraction. With DoT/Chaos passives plus those other supports, ED's projectile damage is not important, only spreading it as fast and accurately as possible.
I'm not sure how much further I want to push him, because damage-wise it really is just Uber Lab and the 6L that are left as substantial upgrades. The staff would be a huge boost (a level 3 Empower in that slot becomes level 4, so it ends up being a 4-level gain on Flameblast) but crafting is such a huge money-sink when I could be putting that currency towards a new character.
Speaking of: I rolled a slightly less-meta Pathfinder and got her through the leveling process. The general idea is crit bow + Split Arrow + flasks poison on hit + bleed from Slivertongue + damage over time passives. Tag mobs with big crits and let the subsequent DoT effects bleed them out as you move to the next pack. It's working really well so far, although I have no clue whether it's more effective than a regular crit Split Arrow build would be. Ideal endgame for this character would replace Slivertongue with a 330+ PDPS Tora bow but that's a long way off at this point.
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
this except Assassin is kinda the brand new meta for shaper and guardians. you can do it with a crude bow thanks to the synergy of added chaos damage and poison.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1738625
Very cool - similar but different.
Poison is still OP as hell, so it's likely that going all-in on chaos scaling (as this build does) is better for endgame content than mine will turn out to be.
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
I feel like Pathfinder probably is better at perfect gear levels as the extra crit from assassin becomes unnecessary
if nothing else the build demonstrates why poison double dipping has to get nerfed and maybe the unlimited stacking as well
I'd like to see poison made into something like Ignite where you aim for the largest possible hit rather than a bunch of small ones, in a different kind of way. maybe limited stacking a la old versions of shock