Path of Exile

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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

I DL'd the client last night and plan to hit this as soon as I get through Dragon Age: Origins.

Playing around with their builder utility, I've spec'd out a Witch that specializes in Minions (all Minion +1's), Wands (all Wand abilities), Cold damage (most of the bonuses), and minors Hexes/Curses. I know squat about the game, but the builder's fun to toy with. I can't seem to post the link - it's huge and seems to break the BBC code.

In games that allow "minions" I'm almost always right there. These classes seem to hold the most appeal for me. Can't fully explain why, but it's nice to be able to "cut and run" when things start to go south instead of being mired in combat and unable to escape. My Mastermind in CoH never had any qualms with telling his Robots to hold their ground while he ran the other way.
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

Okay, so I had to try it once I had it... and I have a serious question.
ColdSteel wrote:My minion warden named Silverbones is now level 27 and my 5 zombies have a little over 600 health each
How did you get your minions up to that much health? I started up a Witch, and granted - she's only level 12 - but my 4 Zombies all have ~65 health and I have 193. Somewhere in the next 15 levels, does the health of the Zombies jump drastically - or is this a function of some Templar ability?
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

Paingod wrote:How did you get your minions up to that much health? I started up a Witch, and granted - she's only level 12 - but my 4 Zombies all have ~65 health and I have 193. Somewhere in the next 15 levels, does the health of the Zombies jump drastically - or is this a function of some Templar ability?
It's a function of a minion life support gem (adds about 30% health to minions at gem level 1) and leveling up the various raise minions gems. Each level of those latter increases their health by a good amount. For example at level 35 now my Templar's 5 zombies have over 1200 health each which is about twice my own health.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

:shock:

Well then ...

A hopefully quick question I haven't seen in the forums/FAQ's I've read... You mention the +life% support. Does that affect the base minion life, which is then boosted by minion passive bonuses and this boosts that, or does it all simply work together at once?

Ex:
Minion has 100 health
Passive +30% life
Support +50% life

Does it end up being...
100 * (passive 30% + support 50%) = 180
or
(100 * (passive 30%)) * (support 50%) = 195


A person could get lost in this skill tree forever. I've been playing with spellcaster builds that are all woefully lacking life bonuses... and started thinking "Well, why not take the "1 life, immune to Chaos" skill and then "+30% spell damage when low life" skill... and bypass life bonuses by design?
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

Paingod wrote:You mention the +life% support. Does that affect the base minion life, which is then boosted by minion passive bonuses and this boosts that, or does it all simply work together at once?
As far as I know it all works together. I should have also mentioned that I've hit every passive minion +10% life node that I could so far. Whenever I get one I do see my minion's life increase 10%. So that is a big factor in increasing their life as well.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
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Reemul
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Reemul »

Reading the forums it seems all classes benefit a lot from making sure you take some life nodes as you level and not just the main stats or weapon buffs.

I'm a level 26 Ranger getting through act 2 without a lot of issues, in fact my gems have started to out level me and would level until I hit 26 which was frustrating.
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Geezerone
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Geezerone »

Paingod wrote: A person could get lost in this skill tree forever. I've been playing with spellcaster builds that are all woefully lacking life bonuses... and started thinking "Well, why not take the "1 life, immune to Chaos" skill and then "+30% spell damage when low life" skill... and bypass life bonuses by design?
I've read on the PoE forums that what you propose doesn't work. The game thinks that when you take Chaos Inoculation CI (the passive you mentioned) the 1 life is 100% of your life total, and of course 0 life is 0% (dead), there is no possibility of a "low life" condition which is some low percentage of your total life (I don't know what that actual percentage # is). Chaos damage is any damage, including poison BTW, that completely bypasses your Energy Shield, so if you've invested into high levels of Energy Shielding, then it makes a lot of sense to take CI. The practical effect is that now your Energy shield level essentially becomes your hit point level. The advantage in doing this is that you don't need to take +life passives, freeing up the points for other purposes, and you don't need to carry life flasks.
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

That answer ought to be in the Newbie FAQ somewhere. I imagine every newbie that starts exploring the skill tree comes up with that question.

Still, to know that if you're heavily invested in Energy Shielding you can skip Life boosts is kind of nice; but only if you're immune to Chaos Damage. I imagine it would be a hoot otherwise - right up until someone poked through your fragile body with a large Chaos attack.
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Chesspieceface
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Chesspieceface »

ColdSteel wrote:What would be a fair trade price for it?
I could see a Lvl 1 Raise Spectre with 0% Quality going for about one Alchemy Orb. I might pay as much as 1 Chaos + 1 Alch (A 3 Alch value roughly) if I wanted it badly enough.
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

Chesspieceface wrote:
ColdSteel wrote:What would be a fair trade price for it?
I could see a Lvl 1 Raise Spectre with 0% Quality going for about one Alchemy Orb. I might pay as much as 1 Chaos + 1 Alch (A 3 Alch value roughly) if I wanted it badly enough.
Thanks. I bought one yesterday for 1 alch so it's good to see I paid a fair price.
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neofit
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by neofit »

I have taken a look at their classes, and behold, question of extreme noobitude: in order to play a pure ranged class with arrows or magic, I will have to play a girl?
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

Well, I currently have a level 22 bow Shadow and I think a Templar could also easily be played pure ranged (as a caster) if desired. So, I would say no.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

I have come to see that, with dedication, you can almost get one class to do exactly the same thing as another depending on the road you take through the skill trees. There's good odds that you can follow a path from a guy and move deep into "Archer" territory by level 10 or so. My Necro/Cold Witch could have almost equally been a Templar to begin with since there are also Cold abilities in there and Necro skills in between the two that would form the bridge.
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Frnk55
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Frnk55 »

Is there any chance you can bind keys to you're mouse? I like using the middle button to highlight stuff and side for map. :?:
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Vorret »

Frnk55 wrote:Is there any chance you can bind keys to you're mouse? I like using the middle button to highlight stuff and side for map. :?:
That was one thing you couldn't do back when I tried a year ago, maybe they still haven't implemented it.
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

Well, after playing my Templar summoner to lvl 42 and my Shadow bow to level 26 and my Maurader to level 18, I finally got my first unique to drop. Unfortunately I can't really use it because the "Conduit" skill on it is not useful to any of my characters. So, if anyone wants this and has any another unique or anything else that they would like to trade for it, let me know.

Image
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neofit
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by neofit »

How long is the game? I hear there are 3 acts, and I just finished the first one at level 17 after one Sunday, and I didn't even play the whole day.
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Reemul
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Reemul »

neofit wrote:How long is the game? I hear there are 3 acts, and I just finished the first one at level 17 after one Sunday, and I didn't even play the whole day.
I level 29 and right at the ends of act 2 after 18 hours but that includes doing all the side caves etc as well. Probably going to take 30 hours to d it all which for free is amazing value.

Also how much is acceptable for a free to play game, mind boggles
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by neofit »

Reemul wrote:Probably going to take 30 hours to d it all which for free is amazing value.

Also how much is acceptable for a free to play game, mind boggles
The issue is not money, thank god I can afford to buy a game. So it looks like Act 2 is about the same length as Act 1, and the highest level players got there by grinding?
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

neofit wrote:How long is the game?
neofit wrote: So it looks like Act 2 is about the same length as Act 1, and the highest level players got there by grinding?
Actually, when you finish Act III you start over at the next highest level of difficulty (cruel) and the loot changes and gets better. I'm on Act II on my second playthough at level 43 now on my Templar. I haven't had to grind at all at any point so far. When you finish playing on cruel, then you begin again on 'merciless'. That's how players are getting to high levels.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

I'm finding more and more that this game is giving me seriously intense Diablo II flashbacks - but it has greater character depth and more risk of making a 'broken' character.

My Witch is level 26 and doing well, but I find my 'Minions' frustrating. I have ~350HP, and my Zombies have ~250HP and are linked to +33% Health/+45% Damage support. I had to custom-make a chest-piece for this, but it worked first try. My skeletons are ~160HP. The Spectre is amusing, but I sometimes can't find a "good" enemy to raise for it. My undead are fodder and have very little staying power, but cost a lot of mana to keep re-summoning. I find myself chugging potions extensively and the one big 'Boss' fight I had was spent exploiting the boss AI to go sit in a corner and rest because my potions ran out.
ColdSteel wrote:My minion warden named Silverbones is now level 27 and my 5 zombies have a little over 600 health each.
As a level 26 Witch with 5 Zombies and 7 Skeletons and 1 Spectre, I'm continuing my confusion at how your minions have that much health. As above, my Zombies have ~250HP. I have them linked to +33% health and +45% damage. Even if I linked a second +30% health, they wouldn't even come close to 600HP.

My current skill tree is thus: Link
The way I envision it ending: Link
I know it has no Life bonuses. My entire existence is designed to be 'behind' a wall of undead minions.

I also find that while my first characters are always "test run" characters, I'm paralyzed by the choices in the skill tree when it comes to picking my way through a second character plan.

I was looking at starting up a Templar and trying to hit all the +Fire/+Burn skills and was daunted. You have to give up something to get them all. What to give up? Who on earth takes a Totem skill that makes your skills do zero damage?

I was looking at starting up a Ranger and hitting all the +Attack/+AttSpeed/+CritChance/+BowDmg type skills for bows, but there are so many you can't actually get them all. Which ones offer the most condensed route? What secondary traits will I need? Evasion over Armor, or no armor and no shield and just get Acrobatics? A lot of the "Unique" traits like that seem dangerous to take.

There are no respecs and few point reclaims. The skill tree (111 points) assumes things like killing all three bandits every time, but you could keep one alive for +8% elemental resist, and another alive in the hardest difficulty for +1 power charge.

Paralyzed, I tell you.

*Edit: When a skill says "Critical Strike Chance" is that global - even for spells? I see others that are just "Critical Strike for Spells" and "Critical Strike with Bows".
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

Paingod wrote:As a level 26 Witch with 5 Zombies and 7 Skeletons and 1 Spectre, I'm continuing my confusion at how your minions have that much health
I do have a rare headpiece that adds +1 level to minon gems so that's probably it since I have zombie and health and damage gems all in that. Also, I got my minion life gem early on and it was more leveled than 33% at that point. The jumps in health get bigger and bigger as zombie gems level. Right now at level 46 my zombies have just over 2,500 health. Throwing them out with a rejuvenation totem that does +58 health per second means that they rarely die. For tough battles I thow out a spell totem with my 8 skeletons and then swap it out for the rejuv totem once they get going.

As for spectres try the guard lieutenant at the end of the western forest road in Act II. They have a ton of HP and do cleave and double strike attacks. Pretty awesome. The best spectres are to be had in Act III however. I love the ribbon mobs from Solaris Temple that do triple fireball attacks.

Edit: I think critical strike is global unless the skill specifies otherwise. It is generally accepted that the health reward from the bandits quest is the only one better than the passive and that only for melee specced characters. I will take the health on my Maurader but took the passive point on my Templar. I may take health on my bow Shadow but I'm not sure yet.
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

Huh.

I did note a large jump in health when the Zombies hit level 7. They bumped from something like 80 to 150, but had been getting +5 and +6 until then per level. It also sounds like Totems might have some value for minion-casters, too. I was planning a lot of Hexing to weaken foes, but if I can alternately bolster my minions that would be pretty nice.

So far I've only found a single melee-oriented hex (required Strength I didn't have) and no totem abilities. Perhaps my problem is that luck is not favoring me.
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

Paingod wrote:I did note a large jump in health when the Zombies hit level 7. They bumped from something like 80 to 150, but had been getting +5 and +6 until then per level
The +5 or so health per level you are seeing is from the Minion Life gem leveling. It only goes up 1% per level. The Raise Zombies gem on the other hand, gets exponetially more health each time it levels.

Totems are great with raise skeletons but that doesn't work for zombies or spectres since they require a dead body to cast. Regarding luck on drops, I've found that I now get much better drops since I started using a lot of +quality % items.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

I mis-spoke about my Minion health. I apparently hadn't been paying attention to it well enough. The Zombies all had 415 health, and the Skeletons had 218. It climbs when you're not watching. They still fall apart extremely easily, though, and I would need to resummon the zombies every two or three fights.

I did hit a point of frustration and decided to try something different. The frustration was that I actually felt MORE effective just casting Ice spells than trying to rely on my Minions for damage. Without summoning them, enemies bunched up better and fell quicker to my Ice wave/AoE/lance attacks. I was ... dismayed.

I started up a Ranger and got her to level 13 in a couple hours. She has the benefit of spare skill gems and recycled Rare equipment, so she's got that advantage - but still, she's lethal. Most enemies never get close enough to hit me, let alone do damage. So far the skills I have are... Bear Trap (Physical Dmg, Immobilize), Fire Trap (Fire AoE, Burn), Ice Trap (Freeze), Hatred (+15% Ice Dmg Aura), Split Arrow (4x Arrows), Fire Arrow (+Fire Dmg), and Poison Arrow (Chaos Dmg AoE DoT). Right now, if I had to choose, I'd drop the Ice Trap (you have to manually trigger it) and Bear Trap (I don't need to get things to hold still much - yet).

Currently my favorite tactic is to round up a large hoard of enemies and draw them into a tight formation and then throw down three Fire Traps in rapid succession and then start pounding down Poison Arrows. The combined DoT effects stack and simply MELT huge swarms of enemies as they pass through. I also find that even if an arrow misses the mark, it seems to hit/kill something off screen. I'm sorely tempted to venture a little into the Intelligence area and try to grab a +40% mana regen rate. I drain mana very very quickly.

I also note that, while it may be my imagination, even having just one +15% item rarity ring has yielded more scrolls than my Witch used to. I could be wrong, or it could be the RNG smiling upon me, but they seemed to fall out of every fifth critter I killed. Even killing the Warden, he spouted three Rare items and six Magic ones - which seems like more than my Witch got for the same effort.

I decided to play around with some of my Orbs to try and get enough good items and slots to equip my skills and discovered how painful the random rolling can be. "Reroll the number of slots on an item" is frightening - 3 slots; 1 slot; 2 slots; 1 slot; 3 slots - Keep it! Changing the color of the slots is frightening - blue/red/green; blue/blue/blue; red/red/green; green/green/red - Good enough! The randomness means to me that I won't touch any of this until I'm well into the later levels and have massive stockpiles of items to waste; or an extreme need to change something awesome slightly and am willing to risk it.

And finally, for any newbies: PoE Forum Link - Game Mechanics
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neofit
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by neofit »

I am currently playing a level 28 summoning witch and she rips through everything. The tree is here, inspired by one from The Summoner Compendium on the official forums. 5 zombies at 418 HP, 7 skeletons at 185 HP, 1 Spectre that I am trying to raise as a ranged mob.

I got Firestorm very early as well as a lowbie blue wand (of the 4-7 dmg variety) that has a "+1 fire gems level" property, and am still using it. Life is pretty easy. See mobs, nuke them with fires from the sky while the zombies are tanking, is one gets close Ice Nova them to death. I've been Firestorming my way through the levels with relative ease. I do do quite often, but only because dumbassery, when I pay even a little attention the game is easy on this Normal difficulty level. Heck, even with illuminated yellow and orange mobs, I throw a Firestorm their way to tell my zombies to attack, then spawn the skeletons, and by the time I am done spawning the last one the elite is already dead. Those skellies seem to do a lot of dps.

Lag killed me once at 26 or 27. I am so very glad that I am not playing hardcore.

All in all I am having a lot of fun. I wish there was something useful to buy in the store. I am not sure I need extra stash tabs, I usually don't replay content until I have forgotten it a few years later. I'd give the 200 gems an extra inventory tab though.

Edit: I also have this flask:
Image
which helps my minions to stay alive when the going gets tough, or when I have a nice ranged spectre that I don't want to lose.
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

Wait until you get a totem of rejuvenation. It heals all in a radius for 15-20 seconds. Your minions will never die.

I also got firestorm at an early level. I'm still using to rain death at level 47 in cruel. Using chance to ignite and fire penetration support gems with it.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
neofit
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by neofit »

ColdSteel wrote:Wait until you get a totem of rejuvenation. It heals all in a radius for 15-20 seconds. Your minions will never die.
I got one to drop but it's red and requires 48 STR that I won't get anytime soon unfortunately.
Last edited by neofit on Wed Feb 13, 2013 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

I felt that I 'broke' my Ranger when I started her build and opted to do something different. As I went through I realized that I got a chance to grab alternate ability gems that I didn't get the first time (Choose one of these 6 type quest rewards) and I really like having the variety to choose from. Just running through the beginning quests before the move into Act II yields a few skills and only takes a little while.

Unfortunately, this sort of madness is part of my pathology and why games like this are dangerous for me to play. I may never get a single character into Cruel difficulty.
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

I remain vastly confused about how some people build their Rangers - and I don't want to follow their lead but am afraid that whatever they're doing is the "best possible" kind of Ranger build. Essentially, what they do is go heavily into Health, Resist, and Shock. Blood Magic, Iron Grip, Iron Reflexes, Unwavering Stance, Resolute Technique. They almost ignore everything else and end up with like 340 Str, 175 Dex, and 100 Int. They grab skills all the way over in Marauder-land and even run up to Witch-ville for the +10% Shock chance/45% Shock Duration. The only "Bow" skills they take are the ones required to get the hell out of Ranger-town. Purely baffled.

I mean, I get it, but it seems wrong. What they're building aren't Rangers so much as massive Health and DPS machines - they rely entirely on Lightning Arrow's chain hit, Greater Multiple Projectiles, Lightning Penetration, and Chain hits. The combo gives them a massive pounding burst of damage that never misses and ripples back and forth through groups of enemies with escalating Shock multipliers. Blood Magic and massive stores of health allow them to cast like fiends. Resistances allow them to absorb spell damage and shrug it off, even in Merciless.

So I restarted again.

Playing on that 'theme' of Lightning dominance but refusing to yield to it, my plan is to run down to Iron Reflexes, and then over to Unwavering Stance and Berserk. I can't evade and I can't be stunned, but my Evasion is my Armor. Hooray.
  • Now I back-fill towards Lightning skills near the Ranger set. There's the Shadow's +10% Lightning Damage/+5% Shock Chance. There's a +30% Lightning damage. There's three +10% Elemental Damage boosters.
  • Pick up the largest health boosters along the way.
  • Absorb Critical Chance and Critical Multipliers. Since Critical Hits should help trigger Shock, getting lots of them might be a ticket to being something 'close' to those maniacs but still being a Ranger.
  • Anything that says "Projectile Damage" and not just "Physical Damage with Bows". The Projectile Damage increases the entire arrow's effect, not just the Physical portion of it, according to the wiki. That's extra Physical and Elemental damage.
  • Since I don't have Resolute Technique, I add in a couple +20% Accuracy boosters and use my higher Dexterity for more hits.
What I'm hoping to create is something that might be, on the face of it, a little flimsier than the THOR builds these people are making but can dish out a tremendous volume of damage over them - essentially relying on damage to kill things quickly so my health doesn't have to absorb too many hits. If I find that I'm suffering through hideous lack of mana, I'm not too far from Blood Magic and haven't heavily invested in +Mana or +Int to make it a waste.

My skill build is as such:
Level 17 - Iron Reflex.
Level 26 - Unwavering Stance and Berserk
Level 35 - Leather and Steel, Fury Bolts, Diamond Skin
Level 43 - Health, Thick Skin, Perfect Aim
Level 55 - Health, Golem's Blood
Level 63 - Acceleration, Mental Acuity, Health, Shock
Level 73 - Fitness, projectile damage
Level 88 - Heartpierce, Nullification, Assassination

I'm not sure how long it takes to get to 88, or how hard the game is by then, but that seems to be when the Ranger starts to really be able to pack on the Critical multipliers. If it's pointless to get those so late, I'd have to rethink this.
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by neofit »

A couple more things I'd definitely pay for in the store, besides the already mentioned extra inventory space:

1. The ability to get a teleport in every zone. Or at least have them not repop after 15 mins but an hour or more, even after a relog. Many a time, just like in Borderlands, I'd like to play for a bit but can't since I don't have a couple of hours in front of me.

2. More spell hotkeys. It's a pain to waste to use the few we have for rarely used ones like Summon zombies, skeletons and Spirit. At 32 I have a couple of spell I cannot use due to hotkey shortage, plus 2 curses (and there are much more in the game from what I have seen), and then there are totems, etc.
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

My Ranger ran into the same issue with hotkeys. Remember how excited I was to be able to grab skills I hadn't gotten before? Yeah... I suppose there's a reason you don't get too many.

I tried to equip Fire Arrow, Ice Arrow, Lightning Arrow, Poison Arrow, Arrow Rain, Split Arrow, Fire Trap, Ice Trap, Hatred, and a Knockback Totem ... all at once. At some point I'd just decide that some skills are 'along for the ride' so they're leveling with me and I can use them if I feel compelled.

I was slightly dismayed that Hatred capped at level 1 until I got my Intelligence to 15. It's still 14, so Hatred hasn't gotten stronger. I didn't plan for many Int gains in my build.
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Chesspieceface
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Chesspieceface »

@Paingod

Here is my level 50 Ranger spec.

Its basically a copy of Nugiyen's (No 2. Hardcore ladder) BM/LA build. Its cheese but its a good way to get through the game the first time. Its a bit slow levels 20-30 when you are trying to get across to the Marauder side for ten levels and not getting anything new but then it picks up again. You'll also be pretty weak in the 30-40 range until you find a real bow with 200+ damage.

-----

Still playing the hell out of this. I have a 50, a 45, 35, 31 and so on... Add me @Chesspieceface is the account, or some Character names are Tyreana, CPF_Tanky, CPF_Magnus, Kharnas all should lead to me and co-op good times.

I watch a lot of streaming of this on Twitch and have really learned a lot that way. I reccomend the streamers named Kripparian, Nugiyen and Devmoon for the most informative experiences. Also Kripparian posts vids about PoE almost every day on his youtube channel.
kind of like a cloud I was up way up in the sky and I was feeling some feelings that I couldn't believe; sometimes I don't believe them myself but I decided I was never coming down
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ColdSteel
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by ColdSteel »

My highest level character (my Templar summoner, 'Silverbones') is now 51 and just finished the Piety Crematorium battle in Act II cruel. My main problem is that I can't seem to find equipment upgrades for him. He's still using equipment he found in Act II regular which was 20+ levels ago. It just goes to show how hard it is to find specific equipment you need. I really wish they had a formal trading house interface in the game instead of the trader chat spam. It's tedious at best. It didn't work well in Guildwars 1 and it doesn't work well here.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
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Paingod
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Paingod »

Chesspieceface wrote:@Paingod

Here is my level 50 Ranger spec.
That's one of those builds I was wanting to avoid, honestly. While I appreciate the effort needed to make it on the Hardcore ladder, I honestly will never play there and won't need anywhere near the amount of health these guys dump into their characters to keep them alive.

This is what I hope to have by level 50

I'm far more interested in playing an archer than a fleshmancer. Nugiyen's entire build focuses on nothing but grabbing as much health and resistance as it can, and then relies almost 100% on gear to do damage. In all honesty, I'd rather start as a Marauder and then try to equip a Bow if I was going to do that. Then you're at the epicenter of the +health and +resist skills to begin with and don't have to struggle to get there.

The only thing you'd miss out on are Ranger-specific quest rewards, which maybe makes all the difference.
ColdSteel wrote:I really wish they had a formal trading house interface in the game instead of the trader chat spam.
Chat spam is so 1998. Many games have had fully functional trade houses that don't break or ruin the game (I'm not talking about you, Diablo III). They could even do something like "Free accounts get 2 items for trade at any given time" with "paid" upgrades to bring the cap up to 10. Let people 'bid' on items since you can't give fixed prices - and give the seller the option of rejecting the highest bid if it's not high enough.
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Zenn7
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Zenn7 »

I concur with Paingod on the Ranger. It seems like a defect that the best/most competitve Ranger build tries to avoid everything that makes a ranger a ranger.

Not saying you should be able to ignore life/defense, but you should be able to take a significant focus on offensive in your core area and be highly effective.

Still and all, for free, it's a pretty fun game so far.
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astyanax
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by astyanax »

I'm kinda agree. My current ranger is stacking health, movement speed, and skill duration (hit-and-run poison arrow/puncture/fire arrow for endless kiting). It's sort of ranger-y in style, but the health is a necessity since I'm trying out hardcore.

The problem is that evade is inconsistent- you either dodge and take zero damage, or you get hit and take full damage (since you won't have much armor). What really kills you is burst damage (sustained damage can be mitigated by potions and running away)... and armor does a much better job of protecting you from burst damage than evasion.

You might consider getting Iron Reflexes (changes all evasion rating to armor) and possibly Unwavering Stance (can't evade but can't be stunned) if it doesn't go against your ethos. :p

As for starting out as a Marauder and missing Ranger quest rewards... maybe you can save your skill gems from your ranger build for your next Marauder character. ;)
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Zenn7
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Zenn7 »

astyanax wrote: The problem is that evade is inconsistent- you either dodge and take zero damage, or you get hit and take full damage (since you won't have much armor). What really kills you is burst damage (sustained damage can be mitigated by potions and running away)... and armor does a much better job of protecting you from burst damage than evasion.
Ask any MMORPG tank character who was an "evasion tank" - it don't work... :)

Problem being that in an MMO, you are expected to group w/ a Tank when you would need it, so it's not an issue that the DPS aren't not super armor/health and focus on DPS. Here, you want to think your ranged class can focus at least somewhat on his/her dps specialty w/o seriously risking survival. Not a real issue for me personally atm as I'm at L14 w/my shadow and 7-8 w/ my Ranger, and not likely to get to the highest difficulties (and not a hardcore player, too easily bored/distracted/careless for hardcore).

Despite that it won't likely affect me so much, I still see where it is somewhat of a game design issue (flaw maybe?).
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astyanax
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by astyanax »

Hm, now that you mention MMOs, I've been playing PoE as single-player, so naturally I'd have to stack health since I have to do everything. If, say, we were to team up with a "tank", would we be able to build more ranger-y?

I got kind of addicted when I first started, so my "lone" ranger is ~lvl 40. But since the game is just grinding after you finish the 3 acts, my interest has waned somewhat... which is probably a good thing since I have my life back again. :) I've saved up a few things from my travels, so if anyone wants some gems/equipment, look me up- account name: ScathingVitriol.
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Madmarcus
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Re: Path of Exile

Post by Madmarcus »

I'm with ScathingVitriol. I think of PoE as a single player game so I have no problem with the ranger needing health nodes as there is no expectation of having a dedicated tank around to protect my dedicated DPS dude.

Given equal emphasis on health/health regen nodes I think evasion might be better than armor. Against masses of mobs it might require more potion use but well within the potion recharge rate.Remember that evade also protects against elemental damage while armor doesn't protect against it. Against bosses I think its better but you have to be on your toes to deal with the damage spikes with movement and potions. Armor's advantage is that it takes no thought in combat. My evasion ranger is just as survivable as my armor marauder in general (normal act 2) but dies when I get distracted or tired.
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