Good Morning Folks! Yesterday was the official end of the Affliction League in Path of Exile and with it comes the quarterly job of shoving all of those “Remove Only” tabs under the bed. My strategy for the end of each league is to group all of those tabs into a folder named after that league so that I never have to deal with them again unless I am specifically fishing for an item. I do the same for the Guild Stash but unfortunately, it does not prevent me from having to log in on the day of a new league and set everything back up again. During Sanctum I started this tradition of talking about the various things that I built during a given league, and I have finally coalesced this into a blog feature that I will probably start doing for Last Epoch Cycles as well. This morning I will talk a bit about the happenings of the Affliction League.
Innaugural Bel League
With the start of the Affliction League, we decided to try something different. Up until this point I had participated in a few private league events, but had never really considered starting our own. Kodra and I were able to drum up enough support for the notion that we managed to have nine different people participating in the league, most of whom made it well into mapping before calling it quits. Quite honestly this is probably the ideal way to play this game. It allowed us to completely bypass what was apparently a pretty rough start to the league with bugs surrounding the goblin band mtx. We already are known for pooling our resources in the guild stash, but this took it to an entirely new level with folks actively hunting for build-required uniques for other folks.
Unfortunately with the launch of the Necropolis League on Friday, it does not look like we have much support. It might even just be me playing, so we won’t be attempting another “Bel League” this time around but it was still a lot of fun. There were a few negatives, however. The first is that we made the league last 40 days… which was honestly way too long. The default 10-day time limit for a private league is probably ideal if we were to do this again. The second negative is that without access to trade, it really negatively impacted the power level we could realistically achieve in this “Semi-SSF” gameplay mode. I was however surprised at just how functional all of my builds were that I created during this league and that was a bit of a pride moment for me personally. I would absolutely do this again but most of the AggroChat crew is down on Path of Exile post launch of Last Epoch 1.0.
Boneshatter Juggernaut
Would you believe that this was my very first time playing Boneshatter in any form? With the severe damage to Righteous Fire that 3.23 caused… it left me reeling a bit trying to figure out a new build to main. Boneshatter has traditionally been one of the most tanky Juggernaut builds, and as such I decided to give it a spin after both Ash and Kodra seriously suggested I try it. I enjoyed it quite a bit but it also didn’t feel quite as sturdy as Righteous Fire did. This was especially true for Delve, my favorite game mode. I am sure there are things that I could have done to build this differently for Delve but without access to trade, I had to basically wing it with what I had access to at the time. Sadly I didn’t dump a POB at the time I recorded the above video, but when we merged the private league into trade, I ended up reworking the character and even putting on a Mageblood for shits and giggles since I could afford one.
Personal Rating: S Tier
Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Chieftain
3.23 was the birth of the Transfigured Gem, and with it came a bunch of interesting-sounding options to play existing skills. The one that stood out the most for me was Volcanic Fissure of Snaking, which causes fissures to form in the ground and cause explosions that heat seal targets. As soon as I saw this… I had a MIGHTY NEED to try and create something with it. Sometimes… a build just does not work out the way you want it to. I really wanted to focus on Mace and Shield for some assorted defensive and offensive layers of “while shield is equipped” passive nodes, but in truth this seemed to either need some sort of stacking that I could not provide on SSF or a switch to a well-rolled Two-Handed Weapon. It was one heck of a fun build to level, and honestly, I wish I had recorded a video of the state of the build before pivoting away from it. Truth be told I just did not record anywhere near as many videos this league as I did during Ancestor League. It did a really good job of clearing maps but was painful to kill anything even slightly tanky like a boss.
If I were to do this again I would probably pivot into armor stacking and go with some sort of setup that would allow me to convert that to damage. This just wasn’t something I could realistically do in the limited access environment of Bel League. If you are curious this is the state of the build before I tore it down to become something else.
Personal Rating: C Tier
Lightning Arrow Champion
Originally this was going to be my second build of the league, but Snaking got in the way. I like having some sort of a map blaster to play around with and for the last two leagues that has been some sort of Lightning Arrow build. I’ve played this as Raider and Deadeye before, but by far my ascendancy of choice is Champion because it feels significantly more sturdy. I really do not like to die. Lightning Arrow just feels comfy and playing it with as many defensive layers as Champion feels even more comfy. This is the state of the build that I managed to get during Bel League, but once we merged into the trade league I upgraded it significantly even eventually taking it to a Magic Find build with a Headhunter. I never found a mirror like Kodra did, but had a lot of fun blowing up maps while juicing them.
Personal Rating: A Tier
Righteous Fire Chieftain
Since Snaking was not working like intended, I wound up pivoting my Chieftain into Righteous Fire. I had given this build a few attempts during some of the limited-time events from last November and never really could get it into a comfortable place. The problem I think was that I kept trying to gear it like I was going to gear the Juggernaut variant. This time around I pivoted into 90% all res combined with converting as much physical damage to elemental damage as I could. Because of the juicing level of this league, we were getting Lightning Coils to drop like candy, so I colored and linked one of those to get RF up and running on it. I had to wildly overstack Fire Resistance to make up for the -60% Lightning Resistance penalty but it was worth it because damage conversion was the piece I had been missing in previous attempts. This is the state at which I got the build during the semi-SSF Bel League, but I later on upgraded pretty much every slot once we moved into trade. It was comfortable enough that I am very likely going to start this for Necropolis league on Friday. That said it is still nowhere near as good as the previous incarnation of Righteous Fire Juggernaut felt so I am downgrading my rating a bit. This time I am going to build with a Cloak of Flames and see if that improves my opinion at all.
Personal Rating: A Tier
Penance Brand of Dissipation Inquisitor
Penance Brand of Inquisitor was absolutely cracked this league. There have been other wildly overpowered builds in other leagues, that I never really threw my hat in the ring on… and then ultimately later wished I had. I remember the broken state of the totem explode builds during Crucible and wished I had made an attempt at creating one while the “getting was good” as it were. I love brand builds, so when a brand build was wildly overpowered… you know I had to at least try it out. I had so much fun playing this build and I will mourn its loss, because it was just stupid amounts of fun to watch things evaporate. We all knew however that there was no way this build could last any longer than one league. This is the state of the build at which I recorded the above video, and this is the state I got it to at the end of the league. Penance Brand of Dissipation you will be missed.
Personal Rating: S Tier +++
Cold Blade Vortex Elementalist
There are a handful of builds that I have always wanted to try, but never quite got around to building. Blade Vortex is one of these abilities and this wound up being the very last build I made during the league. By the time I set down this path I was already losing steam and as such I never really made it very far with this build, only managing to get to level 76 which for me is barely past the campaign. The playstyle was enjoyable with you essentially freezing entire chunks of the screen at once while your blade vortex rips them to pieces. The problem that I have with the gameplay style is it requires you to maintain stacks of Blade Vortex to be effective, which means every few seconds you are hitting a button to keep a buff up. While not necessarily a bad thing, and no different than repeatedly casting a primary attack… knowing that it was a buff that I was maintaining made it mentally feel like more of a chore. If I had given it the love and care of some of my other builds… and if they had not been quite as fun as they were… this might have been something. I would consider revisiting at a later date, but for the moment it satiated most of my curiosity.
Personal Rating: B Tier
Affliction League
I feel like Affliction League is going to go down as one of the player-favorite leagues, in part just for the sheer amount of loot that it generated. I thought the forest mechanic was really interesting, but more than that I really enjoyed the three new meta ascendancies… though in the end I wound up swapping all of my characters over to the same one because it was very clearly the best option. I will greatly miss my Rucksack because having that little extra bit of swap space was just too damned good. Weirdly though it feels like I was nowhere near as active in this league as I have in previous ones. For Trial of the Ancestors I wound up building nine different characters, and in Crucible I played six different builds. During the entire league, I only recorded three videos which is also a bit off-pace for me. While this was the most manic league for most players… it felt like I checked out a bit earlier than I would have expected.
I am really hyped about the Necropolis league, but also a bit bummed because it seems like I am going to be going into it largely solo. Not that I really played much with my friends, but it was fun to be feeding them gear during the guild bank. Ultimately this will probably mean I just go harder on the trade league since I won’t be specifically saving anything for folks. I am also really interested in the scarab changes and the new crafting mechanic. I feel like combined those are going to lead to a wild league… but admittedly probably one a bit more austere than the previous few have been. I am legitimately okay with that because in truth I don’t really love magic find strategies that much. I would rather quietly toil away in the Delve mines to get my currency.
Anyways! That is the last league and its builds in review. Did you enjoy Affliction league? Are you going to be playing Necropolis league? Drop me a line below.
The post 3.23 Builds in Review appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
I’ve talked about my Righteous Fire Chieftain for a few days now and the more I play it… the more I think I maybe even like this build better than the Pre-Nerf Juggernaut that I have played for several leagues before. One of the things I dig the most about this build is how easy it is to get off the ground, and how easy it is to gear. Most of the items that I am wearing are effective trash drops, and there is SO MUCH room for improvement. My sceptre I threw a few essences at it until I got something halfway decent, my helm, boots, and gloves were things I legitimately picked up off the ground and just started using. The only piece that I feel is somewhat critical is the Lighting Coil, but I ran without that for a very long time and primarily it simply adds some survival layers bringing it a bit closer to the tankiness of the Juggernaut. Most builds I am seeing tend to favor the Cloak of Flames… but I wanted some more armor and have also seen four Lighting Coils drop this league making that choice a no-brainer.
The main reason why I am talking about it today, is that I thought I would record some of my dumb little videos showing off gameplay. In this, I am running a non-juiced T16, but the build can handle juicing via the forest… it just significantly slows things down a bit. Right now my happy spot is to run t11/t12 maps with as much juice as I can get. Despite not putting any investment into the run and doing stream of consciousness… I still get a wild map explosion during this video. The play style is just so comfortable and I’ve noticed some weird things about Ignite Proliferation and Hinekora’s Fury down in Delve… that it seems like it can hit things and kill things that are in the Darkness and would otherwise be invulnerable. I need to play around a bit more with this to make sure what I think I am seeing is actually happening but so far this is one hell of a delver and mapper but probably a pretty poor bosser… though to be truthful I have yet to run any bosses or guardians on it.
I am so far from an expert at Path of Building… and in fact all I really know how to do is import my build from the GGG servers and then set some of the correct checkboxes. However, if you want to see the current state of my build:
I have no clue how valid the damage numbers are… because it does not feel “ZDPS” but also can’t oneshot tanky things without a Hinekora’s proc. Bossing on this would be a challenge because not getting the Hinekora’s proc means you are left just grinding it down with Righteous Fire and Fire Traps. I’ve not really talked about what I am running for Primalist charms but the above image is a cut-and-paste job showing everything I am running for both Ascendancies. I would probably swap these out for explosive charms, but I have yet to see any. In a perfect world, I would love to find some with maybe Life Regen and Explosion. I’ve still yet to find the final big boss version of the King in the Mists so I am lacking one entire charm.
All in all, I kinda love this build. Pending nothing significantly changes between now and 3.24 I can see league starting it. I feel bad because I essentially have two other characters… Lightning Arrow Champion and Boneshatter Juggernaut that I built out completely but have also just been sitting there and rotting because I am enjoying the RF Chieftain so much. The only thing odd that you will see in my POB is Corrupting Cry. I just threw that gem in there because I had the spare slot and it converted my Infernal Cry to cost life instead of mana. I am doing nothing with it past that and legitimately just started using it last night given that my Stone Golem could no longer stay alive long enough to be useful. Normally speaking in past leagues this would have been the time when I put a Portal gem in there, but since I have not seen one drop… I can’t do that. If I can find a Vaal Breach I would probably socket that in because it would give me a way to summon a bunch of small adds… and therefore proc Hinekora Explosions on bosses.
Anyways I will probably stop talking about Righteous Fire Chieftain for awhile. I love it, but I don’t want to just pound the build into the ground on the blog now that I have finally recorded a gameplay video.
The post 3.23 SSF Righteous Fire Chieftain appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Shocking to no one… I’ve found myself back maining a Righteous Fire character. This time, I converted my Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Chieftain over to Righteous Fire, and in the grand scheme of things, it is going pretty well. I do not feel anywhere near as strong as my Juggernaut did, but for playing a very tanky Righteous Fire character, this might be a viable alternative to Inquisitor. I am hoping that maybe we will get a new alternate quality gem that restores RF to its former glory, but if not… I think I can be happy enough with Chieftain going forward. My comfy space seems to be alternating between T11 Cemetary and T12 Tropical Island and then trying to stack on as much juice as I can get from the mists.
My focus over the last week or so had been trying to get levels so that I could add a Medium Cluster Jewel with Fan the Flames. This essentially gives you Elemental Proliferation at the cost of SEVERAL passive points. I accomplished this at 95, but I have to be honest… it wasn’t really that big of a bonus. I am already running Berek’s Respite which gives me something akin to Elemental Proliferation any time I kill something that has been ignited. Since Ignites can’t stack… it essentially just didn’t add any significant bonus to the build. I’ve since specced out of this medium cluster and distributed the points around the board into more life which in turn should translate to both more survival and more damage for Righteous Fire.
We’ve also decided to let our Private League lapse into Trade League. There are essentially 8 days left in the league and at that point all of our characters will transition over into Affliction Trade. This is going to open so many doors for making minor tweaks to my characters, the one I am looking forward to the most is Boneshatter. I still feel like I have not given Boneshatter a proper shake, so when the private league collapses I think my first goal will be getting that character some better gear. I would really like to reach 100% spell suppression and have a MUCH higher damage Two-Handed Axe. It will be a challenge dropping into the league so late and being so relatively “poor” as compared to where I usually am at this point in a league. I have enough of a stash of Divines though that I should be able to make some movement on my characters.
Lastly this morning I recorded another one of my dumb videos, this time attempting to explain what I have been talking about regarding the SkyScale versus World of Warcraft Dragon Riding. Mostly after being used to instant mounts having to wait three seconds feels like an eternity. I show off some gameplay of GW2 specifically flying around on the SkyScale and then show some Dragon Riding and talk about its positives and differences. Maybe with some footage, it might finally start to make a bit of sense.
The post Flames Didn’t Need Fanning appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Well friends with the help of my friend Eliyon, we figured out where I fell off the Main Story Quest. It does not in fact end at Valdrakken but instead spins off with a few quests inside of the city, that then lead out into what is the fourth zone of the game Thaldraszus. So I have a bit more questing to go before I can wrap things up and finish out the story… and then proceed onto gearing through World Quests. I remember having this issue as well with Shadowlands where I dinged the new level cap and still had one and a half zones to complete before I could join the open-world “reindeer games”. I remember it was during this chasm that my friend Ace bounced from Shadowlands never to return, so I can’t say this is a super great design decision. It would be nice if World Quests just unlocked whenever you hit level 70 no matter how far you were progressed in the story.
Feeling somewhat deflated I spent most of my evening in Path of Exile. I had converted my attempt at a Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Chieftain over to Righteous Fire and so far… I think this might be the closest to the glory that was Juggernaut Righteous Fire. If you are so inclined here is a POB of where I am currently. The thing is the Chieftain comes with a bunch of really nice perks for Righteous Fire, some of which I had overlooked or at least written off as less good than they actually are. Namely Ramako, Sun’s Light is something that I had skipped on my previous attempts at an RF Chieftain during the Blast from the Past league, and this was a mistake. You spend a surprising amount of time “stationary” as Righteous Fire and if you frostblink from pack to pack you can maintain this “stationary” state. All of that time everything just has -20 Fire Resistance which seems to override all other modifiers and while in theory you can get a resistance much lower than that… this just always works.
This allows me to run a curse that isn’t either Flammability or Elemental Weakness and have it feel like I am double cursing without needing to fiddle with the nonsense that is involved in making that happen. Of the other options, I went with Punishment which causes cursed enemies to take more damage when on low life… meaning that things die faster and hopefully proc Hinekora, Death’s Fury and clearing the entire damned screen. I went Primalist with the hope of eventually using charms to get more chance to explode but for the moment I am running two Percent Strength and Life Regeneration Rate modifier charms. In a perfect world, I would find something that gave me explode and life or regen but I will have to keep fishing in the forest to make that happen. I’ve also still never seen the ACTUAL King in the Mists fight so none of my characters have unlocked their final doodads.
My defenses are also extremely solid and quite honestly… now that I have equipped a Lightning Coil I don’t feel that much less tanky than the Juggernaut version did. What I bring to the table is roughly 25k armor, almost 5000 life, 2500 life regeneration, 90% to all elemental resistances, and 50% of all physical damage is taken as lightning damage… as well as 30% crit damage reduction and some things to limit damage over time which I don’t believe the Lightning Coil applies to. Now that I have the lightning coil I am going to try my hand at juicing some T16 maps and see how that goes. Essentially the gameplay is a bit odd in that you are trying to kill enough small stuff so that you proc an explosion and then the entire screen around you evaporates before moving on to the next big pack. It feels better than it sounds.
All told it is fun to map on albeit a bit slower than Lightning Arrow. Lately, I have been alternating between Cemetary and Tropical Island because both are fairly enjoyable maps and relatively open. I should run some of the crappier and less bow-friendly T16s that I have rotting in my bank and see how that goes. Mostly right now I need a good deal more levels. I am working on getting a Fan the Flames gem up and running while trying to roll a slightly better version. If this works like I think it will… my ignites will proliferate among the packs of things that I am killing, and then also “proliferate” again when one of those things dies thanks to Berek’s Respite. If nothing else this should be fun as hell to watch happening. If I could somehow manage to keep my resistance high enough… I would love to have a set of Maven’s boots as well to only further add to the nonsense explosions.
One of the things that has gotten me down in Path of Exile lately is the frustration of trying to link things. Essentially I had a 900 DPS bow that I was working on getting linked, a Lightning Coil in RF colors, and more recently I finally got a Fourth Vow to drop which I am trying to link for my Boneshatter build. After spending about 1000 fusings trying to get the Bow linked, this morning I had gathered up another hundred or so and managed to get both the bow and lightning coil to six links. That alone has helped increase my enjoyment of the league. I still do not love being isolated from the trade environment, but finally getting some of the things I needed up and running is a significant improvement.
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