Good Morning Folks. Sometimes in a game there is an event that I so loathe… that I cannot bring myself to complete. For me lately that has been the Festival of the Lost event running currently in Destiny Rising. It took what was quite possibly one of my most favorite game modes… Realm of the Nine Chaos mode… and completely ruined it by taking away the fun stuff and replacing it with dumb gimmicks to farm more candy. I have been avoiding doing any of this content, because I just was not having any fun with it. So here I found myself this morning with 23 hours left until the even goes away… and that I had not farmed up any of the actually useful items that come from it. So I put my head down and ground out all of the normal modes so I could at the very least reap the rewards.
I am really hoping that this is not evidence of what we should expect with the Dawning event that is likely to come around the beginning of the year. So far, most of the events have been pretty lackluster. They remix one of the existing game modes and then tack on some meager rewards to make you feel like you really should grind them out. It might just be that I am finding joy outside of Destiny Rising right now, and resent feeling like I need to grind this out. Whatever the case, I am very glad to see that it is over. I got my mask and got all of my exotic weapon mod upgrade currency, and am happy to call this over. I am still having fun with Destiny Rising, just not this event.
Over in Path of Exile, I am starting to get a bit of wanderlust. I’ve dinged level 97 and can in theory keep plugging away at alternating between mapping and delving until I hit 100, and slowly knock out all of the challenges. However… yesterday I started to get that old familiar itch that meant I was probably going to roll an alt. I could in theory keep gathering resources and upgrading gear until I got bored… but I am going to take a break and try and create something that does not currently exist in the league that I have seen. When I created the mule witch to get the starter gems for leveling Righteous Fire, I specifically gave it a reasonable name thinking that I would play an Elementalist later in the league, and I think that time is upon us.
Elementalist as a class, with its deeply strong new Golem node, feels like it is something that can essentially be adapted to almost any gameplay style. Right now there are folks playing all manner of bow skills on it, various assorting kinetic wand abilities, and even exsanguinate/corrupting fever on it. What I am not seeing a lot of however is trappers… and I am going to see if I can make that happen. During the short lived Pohx League in Settlers, I played an Ice Trap of Hollowness Trickster that I had quite a bit of fun with dubbed BelFreezyBoom and you can see a video of that gameplay here. It had good clear and was a fun mapper, and did a fairly reasonable job taking on bosses.
I have this idea in my head for the build where I essentially am using Ice Trap to freeze things, but also using Shaper of Storms and Shaper of Flames to make it so that my ice traps are shocking and igniting things. Then using the new version of Berek’s Respite to make it so that ignited enemies explode… so that my giant field of booms, has its own aftershock boms. I have zero clue how well this is going to work out, but if nothing else it should be fun it see it fall into place. Liege of the Primordial is a massive power node that also allows you to fix pretty much any other issues the build might have just through the use of really good semi-immortal Golems. I don’t necessarily have a build guide for this, but I did stub out a tree that I am going to more or less be following. We will see how this works out. No one appears to be doing anything similar to this… so it is going to be interesting to see if this actually works or if it feels like crap and falls apart rapidly.
Lastly I spent a good chunk of yesterday watching episodes of Dungeon Senshi/Delicious in Dungeon and am now caught up through episode 13. This super chill dungeon crawler cooking show… got real dark, real fast. I am completely hooked at this point so I am along for this ride no matter where it takes us. I am invested in these characters and want them to live a happy life… but I have a feeling they will not be. Bad things have already happened, and I fear that worse things are on the horizon. We will see how it shakes out though. I am likely going to be finishing this series run before moving on to the next Legends and Lattes book that dropped yesterday.
The post Freezy Boom Revisited appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Morning Folks. Essentially each night I am progressing a bit in Monster Hunter Wilds, and then wind up back in Path of Exile for super chill mapping and delve time. There is only so much directed combat that I can take in a single evening. Monster Hunter Wilds is cool but also feels like it has zero chill right now because every quest leads to another big boss fight. I did spend some time last night roaming around and picking up materials so that I could upgrade a few things. It is probably weird that Path of Exile is known for being this obtuse nut to crack… but that I also find it my super chill happy place. I’ve been slowly working my way through unlocking all of the Heist quests, which given that I tend to find two to three rogue caches in each map… it is going pretty quickly.
Over the weekend I recorded another one of my dumb little videos where I effectively documented the state of my Righteous Fire Scavenger build. I personally find these useful because as I look back on various builds it helps me remember exactly what the state of the build was when I stopped playing it. This one was especially important I thought because we will not be getting Scavenger for very long, and the whole chaos explosions thing is really fun to experience. Essentially I zoom into a pack and it more or less explodes and then proliferates out to everything else in the area causing them to either explode or at least get whittled down in health so that my Righteous Fire can finish them off. I still prefer RF Chieftain because it is way more sturdy, but this is pretty damned fun.
Yesterday I bankrupted myself and bought a Putrid Cloister which unlocked the 3 Crafted mods benchcraft. Then I liquidated all of my available chaos to buy two Divine Orbs so that I could take the Sceptre I had been sitting on and turn it into a Damage Multi/Fire Multi setup. When Righteous Fire lost its flat damage the whole gem levels thing became way less important in the long run, and you are generally better off just trying for as much damage multi on your weapon as you can get. The other stats are largely just useless but I had a few exalted orbs sitting on my bank and figured might as well slam something on it. I even used an imprint beast on this just in case the regal orb bricked the item, so that I had one more shot at it. I now have an imprint that is mostly useless, but I would rather use it and not need it than need it and not have used it given that I captured the beast on my own.
While I was in a video recording mood I also took a bit of time and documented the final state of my Pohx League build, which was Ice Trap of Hollowness Trickster. I really do want to revisit this build during a proper league to see how far I can take it. Right now I just lack the evasion to make this feel more comfortable. I would really like to be able to hit 90% evasion chance and the limited trade environment made that difficult… or at least unaffordable. During a proper trade league there would be way more gear available, and I would probably be able to find an Ice Trap Dragonfang amulet. I had a search running for a few days and none of them showed up on the market. If this says viable, I may legitimately start it during 3.26 just to see how far I can take it, given that I already know I can run up a RF character as a backup in a few days without much issue if it crashes and burns.
This morning I got the first Tabula Rasa that I have gotten in a few league events. I think Crucible was the last league when I was getting these constantly. I had a bank full of various corrupted versions because I kept getting them, and kept rolling the dice with Vaal orbs. Not that I plan on leveling anything else during Legacy of Phrecia, but a Tabula is always a good way to start out a build. Though over the last few leagues I think I prefer some of the other starter chests if you can throw enough currency on it to get it up to four links. It is really hard to beat Thousand Ribbons for starter gear.
Last night I took out the Black Flame and then continued on and took out a corrupted Doshaguma and then a corrupted Rathalos. At that point I wandered around for awhile until the itch to play some Path of Exile caught me. I seem to only be able to take about three or four boss fights before needing to do something else for a bit. I looked at a quest guide and it does not appear that I am even halfway through the main story quest yet. I am not exactly in a massive rush, but I do prefer the endgame loop of Monster Hunter games to the story driven leveling process. Mostly I don’t love the whole fiddling around with temporary gear sets and would prefer to invest my time in a final build. It is what it is… and I find it bizarre the games that I enjoy the leveling process in like Path of Exile and the games that I just want a skip button to zoom straight to endgame goodness like Monster Hunter.
Anyways! I figure I will be flipping back and forth between these two games at least until April 2nd when the new Last Epoch Cycle lands. Depending on how engaged I get with Monster Hunter I might swap from Path of Exile to Last Epoch and then alternate between LE and MHWilds.
The post A New Sceptre appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Tomorrow is the start of the Legacy of Phrecia Event… which honestly at this point might as well be considered a league. It feels like we are going to have the bulk of Path of Exile players returning for this thing, which will probably create a very normal trade economy. The Pohx League event has been a blast and I enjoyed my Ice Trap Trickster, and effectively proved that I put enough effort into anything I could make it feel comfortable. Big Ice Trap explosions was really fun, but due to the limited availability of items in the Pohx league I struggled to make it feel as tanky as I would have liked. I might try it again during a proper league economy but this is essentially the place where I managed to get it.
I crave Righteous Fire Shenanigans, but we will not have the good ole reliable and super easy to build Chieftain. Instead a new path will need to be forged and I have a few options. The problem with not having Chieftain is that we will not have easy explosions for clear purposes and the ability to ONLY stack Fire Resistance to get to 90% all res without much fuss. There are a few ways to get back the explodes, namely Legacy of Fury boots and Oriath’s End Flask… both of which might be either cost prohibitive or take awhile for them to actually show up on the market. As such Pohx, the godfather of righteous fire, is looking at the Scavenger aka the Not-Scion which comes with profane bloom shenanigans and the ability to essentially double the effect of a Cloak of Flames.
The thing with the Scion path is that there isn’t a great guide to follow. Pohx has released a vague sketch of a build and I have built Righteous Fire enough times that I often leave the golden path do to my own tweaking already. I am leaning towards giving it a shot and trying to make it work. You can get through Red Maps pretty easily as any form of Righteous Fire and by then hopefully the Legacy of Fury boots and Hateful Accuser ring will fairly available. Essentially a Fire Trap build will work fine until you can get the ring and have been able to get through Uber Lab to get Zerphis’s Heart. One of the nice things about Phrecia being based out of Settlers league is that the shipments seem to favor armor bases that are pretty solid for Righteous Fire builds.
The other path that interests me is Ancestral Commander, which feels like a tankier version of the Juggernaut prior to its most recent nerfs. There are a few paths that I could go with this. I contemplated trying another Boneshatter character since I did mine in a private league and felt like I just did not have enough access to gear to really make it work. That is the problem with physical damage builds, is that you really need to have a strong high PDPS weapon in order to make them work, and I am just not good enough to craft one on my own. I also felt like the survival of the build was nowhere near as good as what I thought it should be based on the hype surrounding it. At some point I definitely want to give Boneshatter another go, just not sure if right now is that moment.
The four picks that I am interested from Ancestral Commander are purely defensive options, essentially giving you 3 extra endurance charges, a poorly rolled defiance of destiny, a cloak-of-flames-at-home, and the old juggernaut node that made you immune to freezes and slows. I could in theory also level this as Righteous Fire using the general Chieftain template that I follow. The problem there is without the explodes it is going to feel super sluggish to map and delve on. The thing about the explode procs in Delve is that they can absolutely hit things out in the darkness helping you clear faster. I would really need an Oriath’s End AND Legacy of Fury boots to make it feel even halfway decent. The boots are probably pretty reasonable, but the flask… all depends upon what the economy looks like for the Phrecia event.
I kicked around Poison Summon Raging Spirits with the Servant of Arakali Shadow ascendancy, but the more I think about it the less inclined I am to go down that path. I remembered that Minions in Path of Exile require you to deal with Spectres and the Animate Guardian. These systems are the most kludgy unfun bullshit ever… and I really do not feel like dealing with that nonsense right now. I will happily return to playing minions when they implement some quality of life for either system. Nothing feels worse than killing your Animate Guardian and having to rebuy all of those damned uniques to make another one. Only slightly less painful is playing the hideout desecrate game to get your Spectres up and running… which will likely not make it through a map without taking a death. While I love SRS, and enjoyed it greatly in Path of Exile II… I think I am just done with it as a concept in Path of Exile 1.
Who knows! I might go in a totally different direction tomorrow whenever I actually get around to starting a character. Right now I am probably leaning towards following the wisdom of Pohx. That means of course that all of the items of that build will be in demand and inflated… but I like Ritual and in theory might be able to farm my own Hateful Accuser ring. Legacy of Fury drops from normal Maven, but I hate that fight so will be hoping someone out there decides to farm them. I will probably try and snag an early Cloak of Flames with whatever chaos I manage to scrounge together during the campaign because getting at least a four-link early really helps out considerably.
Are you going to be playing the Legacy of Phrecia event? Which of the krangled classes are you going to play? Drop me a line below.
The post Legacy of Phrecia Plans appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Hey Folks! I spent most of this weekend playing Path of Exile while listening to audiobooks, which is a pretty freaking great time. I am still progressing slowly, because I die way more often than I would like on this character. However given that I am playing in a semi-private trade environment the items that I want are either not available or priced way the hell out of my reach. If I had more evasion, and a way to fix elemental ailments… all of my woes would probably be solved. I also have negative chaos resistance still, so that is still a massive problem. However I got through the first of my voidstones yesterday so that was at least good. Once I get another t16 map I will try and tackle the Eater of Worlds fight as I am one map away from unlocking that.
As far as atlas progression goes, I have unlocked my third atlas tree which means I have completed 100 map bonus objectives out of 115. There are still several red maps that I have not completed, and I am struggling right now with a complete and total lack of Vaal orbs. I really do not want to have to buy them off the market, and I am hoping that eventually I start finding Vaal Cities in Delve and getting them that way. I could in theory run Alva… even though I do not love running Alva… and I could probably get a stash of them that way also. Thankfully I finally have a decent stash of Alchemy Orbs which at least allows me to roll maps without much issue.
My third Atlas Tree is devoted to running Einhar, Ritual, and Beyond which is a combination that can be pretty rippy but fits relatively well together in an atlas as it is all on the same side of the tree. Essentially my goal is to either find an Omen of Connections or a Black Morrigan beast so that I can upgrade into a six link. Buying one outright is not an option as there is only one available right now… and it isn’t even a well rolled one, is corrupted, and has all of the wrong colors. My guess is that it dropped that way because it has 18% quality on it… which if you were going to bother putting any quality on an item… why did you stop at 18%? I guess the corruption could have done that, but still… if I want a six link I am likely going to have to make my own and while I bought a second better rolled Carcass Jack that I am throwing fusings at… I have not had any luck so far.
I’ve been alternating between mapping and delve, which ultimately slows down my atlas progression, but gets me just a bunch of raw currency instead. I’ve been slowly selling resonators that I find for some currency to hopefully begin to buy some upgrades if I can ever find anything. The other option would be to just save all of those resonators and start trying to craft upgrades myself. I’ve held onto a few good bases, because I would really like to get out of the negatives on my chaos resistance at some point. My gloves are about as good as I am going to get currently, but I would really like to craft a set of boots with better movement speed than I currently have. I am also trying to decide if I just want to give up on some of my passive tree to go for cluster jewels.
I’ve been pretty impressed with how many unique maps I have managed to drop to this point. I’ve finished nine so far, but still am lacking the usual suspects of Twilight Temple, Putrid Cloister, and Coward’s Trial. I also need the Vaults of Atziri, but that will show up on Kirac at some point. I am still pretty regularly running Betrayal because I need that stupid trigger cast wand craft. I find it bizarre that I have not encountered it yet on any items. That is ultimately going to cause me to shift up some of my gear and convert Frost Bomb to being triggered by Arcane Brand and shift from Frost Bite over to Assassin’s Mark. All of that will be a significant net positive for the build because right now I am honestly only casting Frost Bomb if I am fighting a boss.
The latest update on the Legacy of Phrecia event shows that we are going to be losing the Atlas Tree during this event league in favor of a system that works like Sanctum Idols. These remind me a lot of the trinkets from Heist league. I think it might be fun as part of an event, but I am hoping this is not a permanent change. As far as I am concerned the state of the Atlas of Worlds at 3.25 with its tree different trees… is pretty much the perfect version of mapping. You spend time unlocking your Atlas and then the reward of having done so, is that you can run exactly the content you want to run in the manner you which to run it. This whole idol system seems like it is going to be a chaotic mess of impossible to optimize mapping. I feel like if they are going to make things random rolls, they need to make each individual stat line stronger than they currently are in the Atlas tree in order for it to work out.
Right now I am really interested in the Servant of Arakaali Shadow Ascendancy that has also been spoiled. Unless something just phenomenal drops in the coming days, I am probably going to start the league as a Shadow and build this into a version of Poison Summon Raging Spirits. Essentially this Ascendancy provides what you get from some of the specific uniques sought after in that build. This would make it much much cheaper/easier to run this type of character without having to rely on those items. You would still probably need a Covenant as your chest-piece, but it would be straightforward enough to get one of those and five link it yourself. Even in a limited trade environment you are able to pick up most unique chests reasonably cheaply if you are willing to socket and link them yourself.
SirGog has been releasing deep dive videos on each of the announcements as they arrive from GGG. I highly suggest following him and checking these out if you want more information.
