Good Morning Folks! Yesterday was the start of the Legacy of Phrecia 2.0 event in Path of Exile, and I got a bit of a late start… because my dentist called and told me that my night guard was ready for pickup. I expected to bop over and they would have it waiting on me at the desk. Instead I had to wait for a room to clear so they could do a fitting. Positive is it fits fine and I used it for the first time last night, and so far it is mostly okay. I was able to sleep fine with it in and it only really started to annoy me when I woke up around 2:30 in the morning, but was mostly able to turn over and fall back to sleep until the alarm went off. For the Phrecia event I was playing a class that is not supposed to be using minions… so as a result much like with Righteous Fire I spent the first part of the event creating a Witch Mule so that I could get abilities not accessible to the Shadow until the Library in Act 3. My problems started here… but we will talk about that in a bit.
This is what my early pathing looked like, and I have modified it slightly to drop some nodes and pick up some others. The early pathing is a bit of double edged sword, because you are not getting any power… but you are getting a bunch of much needed stats, namely intelligence. I did not really start to gain any real power until eleven points in. Suffice to say this was a bit of a rough start, which is only multiplied by the fact that we are playing under the Gauntlet ruleset. This means there is a bunch of general fuckery going on with boss fights. When you encounter Hillock on the beach, he is being witnessed by Maven, and when you take out Brutus you get a fake version to fight first… and then have to fight the real thing while the water canons from Hydra are attacking in patterns. On top of these every so has a modifier applied to it, so the base maps themselves are much more difficult they than would normally be. Combine this with the fact that Breach can be a bit rippy early on… and not playing a class designed for minions… it was a very rough start.
This was only multiplied by the fact that I was a complete and total fucking idiot, and I did not realize this until this morning at level 34. Essentially prior to that I had been using a level 1 Summon Raging Spirits, Flame Wall, and Holy Flame Totem. out of absolute paranoia of leveling them, and then screwing over the Shadow when I switched off the Witch Mule, I right clicked all of the abilities to keep them from leveling up. Problem is that this now applies globally when you move the gems to your main character. So for 34 levels… I have been using level 1 gems, and quite honestly just brute forcing my way through the content. This is so outrageously dumb, and it is no wonder that pretty much every boss fight was a massive pain in the ass to get through. Since all of my power comes from this one gem… I was essentially smashing my face against everything with the equivalent of a level one character. Sure I was a bit more sturdy and had some gear that was giving me some additional power… but not enough to make up for the fact that my minions were pure shit.
I am hoping that since I have now righted that wrong… the rest of the campaign will go much more smoothly. It will take a bit for Raging Spirits to catch up gem levels, but they should gain a lot of power in a quick burst. I am just about to the first lab, and at that point I get another massive boost of power in the form of a level 15 Envy buff that has no reservation. At that point I should be able to ride that as an express elevator through the rest of the content. Sadly I only made it to Act 3 last night before giving up for the evening. I did not do my normal Thursday thing but I did hang out on voice with everyone. Ace joined in the shenanigans this week so that was pretty delightful, and we had Ashgar until he had to bug out for Pathfinder. I laugh so much on Thursday nights, and they are truly good for my soul. Even if I am not playing the same game it is generally a good time to spend the time with my friends.
All in all the event seems to be pretty freaking popular. I have no clue what the actual numbers look like, but we did encounter some failures for instances loading, which means the instance servers were completely swamped early on. This is not exactly the same as a normal league launch, but it definitely seems like everyone is in and the game is hopping again. I kind of hate that this is a limited three week event. I am hoping they extend it until the next league drop, because ultimately this is going to be the league that everyone plays out if given the choice until 3.28. I am rocking the King in the Mists outfit with this character because it seemed fitting, and I am also using the Shadow Ravens mtx for SRS. I gave my Witch mule a proper name just in case I decided I wanted to roll a second character for the league. The thing is even though it has been brutal due to my own stupidity, I have been having fun. Tonight I am probably going to hang out downstairs, and attempt to coax some kitty cuddles while listening to an audio book.
Are you playing Legacy of Phrecia? If so what did you end up rolling? Drop me a line below.
The post Gated by Dumb appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Folks! Yesterday we got full patch notes for the Legacy of Phrecia event and its changes and through this I finally decided my path going forward. If you want explanations in extreme detail then you can turn to SirGog who recorded a live stream that lasted over 3 hours of him going line by line through the patch notes. If you want the cliffs notes version, then I suggest the DreamCore video weighing in at 13 minutes. One of the more interesting aspects of this event is that every area is going to have random modifiers applied to it with a reasonable exclusionary list in an attempt to keep anything from hard bricking a build. I’ve said before that Phrecia in general was one of the most enjoyable events that I have ever participated in previously, and I am really looking forward at going into this event with the new trade system for snapping up and selling idols. Like I said yesterday I figured out my path going forward, but it is less a hard path and more a series of paths depending on how things end up performing. The reality is that Shadow has three different ascendancies that have three wildly different builds that interest me, so it feels like I am destined for the Dex/Int starting location.
One of the things that you end up doing after awhile, is figuring out your builds based on what you have seen working on POE.Ninja. I often find a build that is similar to the build that I want to play, and then use it as a bit of a template, and then make a lot of audibles while I am leveling based on what I actually need at that moment. None of these builds are going to be like following a Pohx or Zizaran guide. Each of them is an archetype that I have played before, or at least close to an archetype that I have played before, and that I largely understand what is needed for that sort of build. Right now my plans are to level as Servant of Arakaali Summon Raging Spirits, leaning heavily into the fact that I get Envy early and without reservation from that ascendancy and expecting it to hard carry me through the campaign. I like SRS builds and have played several different versions of them on Necromancer, Guardian, and Elementalist…. but never Shadow. The other huge benefit of this build is that you get to start playing it almost immediately. I will probably roll a Witch mule so that I can get some early quality of life like frostblink.
Essentially my plan is to mostly use this build from the previous Phrecia league as a bit of a template, or at least for understanding some of the early pathing.
Here is where we go into some of the potential pivot points. Summon Raging Spirits is a heck of a lot of fun, and is a pretty good all-arounder build, but is maybe not the fastest mapper. In the even that I really want to go hard into mapping, I might pivot into a Blind Prophet bow trap build using Scourge Arrow of Menace as the base for large amounts of damage that utilizes the “nimis at home” functionality of the ascendancy. Mathil played a version of this build that seems pretty easy to get up and running and since I already like the trap gameplay style, it will probably feel better for me than it did for him. Aero did a slightly higher budget version of this which also might work, but I do prefer the Sunblast gameplay from the Mathil build. The huge benefit of the Mathil build is it has a good POB that I could follow, but I also found this other POB that is slightly different that I might blend in elements from. Essentially its an option if I want to pivot and try something different that only really works during the Phrecia event without needing a very expensive Nimis ring.
Finally if ALL of these plans fall through… I go Surfcaster and build a version of my Ice Trap of Hollowness build that has recently become my go to for just a fun build with a lot of damage projection that freezes the entire damned screen. I have specific preferences in this department since I have now played a version of this build three different times, with different flavors. I found this build from the last Phrecia event that I could use as a template for some of the early pathing, but the gearing is all whack because I will not be affording a mageblood, and ralakesh boots are no longer as good as they were when this was built. Once the initial pathing is sorted and gets me into the right area of the tree, I will probably start following the template of my Elemenatalist Ice Trapper from Keepers of the Flame that I have been playing a lot recently. Essentially this is a fall back plan in case none of the other options work as well as I want them to.
That is kind of the cool thing about a Shadow start in Phrecia is that there are a bunch of compelling things going on with all three ascendancies. I can’t say the same for any of the other classes really, that I am anywhere near as interested in all three. I think Chaos SRS is going to work beautifully as Servant of Arakaali, and in truth I have never actually played a poison minion build in the past. I’ve always done Elemental because it felt like I was not having to stretch the build too hard to get it there. I might be instantly converted. I know without a doubt I will be able to get through red maps without any question, and if nothing else SRS is going to allow me to farm the gear needed to make any of the future pivots. I doubt I will be delving on any of these characters however, so that will be a bit sad. I will probably either focus on Einhar Beasts or doing Harbingers during this event, but we will have to see what good idols I end up getting. I know how a lot of different strategies work so I can pivot to whatever fate gives me.
Are you going to be playing the Legacy of Phrecia event under the 3.27 ruleset? What are your plans? Drop me a line below.
The post Plans for 3.27 Phrecia Event appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Folks! Hopefully yall are surviving Snowmageddon 2026. For the most part I have stayed in out of the mess. I had plenty of food, and so long as power stayed on I was going to be good. We got somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to ten inches. The snow was so dry that drifts were pretty rampant so it was really hard to tell an actual estimate, but I know when I was clearing my jeep yesterday and making a path so I could get out today for an appointment, it was coming up to mid calf high at times. I cleared the front porch enough that I could start putting food out for the outdoor kitties as well. I’ve not seen Tripod, but in the past when we have had cold snaps like this she has an underground borough system that she crawls down into. For years we had bunnies in our backyard prior to Tripod taking up residence there, and I think she has been using their underground warrens.
Things have mostly been okay… save for the fact that it has been raining in my livingroom. This is a problem that I had hoped we solved about three months ago when the roofers came out to work on the flashing at the top of the roof. My guess is that the snow sitting up there has basically been on top of wherever the leak starts, and then heat rising up through the roof is melting it. Essentially as far as we have been able to guess it runs down under the shingles and then finds a way into the house in the middle of the livingroom, dripping out onto this cross beam, and then down onto the ceiling fan before ultimately hitting the floor. Sadly the leak does not come down in a single spot, so essentially I just have to put towels out. It had stopped mid day yesterday, but then started up again late last night as things started to re-freeze and was still going whenever I went to bed. It stopped at some point over night because it is not going this morning. I’ve called the roofers to be on the list for after this is all over, but for now there is not a whole hell of a lot I can do. I have some IKEA bathmats and some towels down to soak up the water…. which I will run a load in the washer once things have chilled a bit.
My folks I think got it worse north of me. This is their front yard and you can barely make out the wheelchair access ramp. My dad of course had already trudged a path out to his shop, because he spends most of his time there. I think more than anything he was checking on the cats, who stay overnight in there with a heater on. I never knew my Dad was as big of a softie for strays as he is, until later in life. Maybe I get my own attachment to street cats by genes. I got out yesterday and cleared the cars and a path out, and then was wondering why the hell everything hurt today. These are all activities that I do not normally have to do, so I guess it makes sense that everything feels like it aches in my chest and arms. I don’t even have a proper snow shovel, because this happens so infrequently. My old shovel was rusted through so I tossed it, and had not gotten around to getting a new one. I guess I will make that a bigger priority. Essentially I cleared what I cleared with one of those giant plastic yard rakes and a nylon bristled broom.
This weekend I spent a lot of time snuggled with cats and watching movies downstairs on the television. I will probably make a post tomorrow about some of the things that I watched. “The Librarian” reminded me that I have a Letterboxd account so if you do that thing feel free to follow and I will likely give you a follow back. I like keeping track of media consumption and previously my plex server log was the most reliable method up until this point. However that was flawed because when I was pulling together my movies of the year post… I completely somehow missed the existence of Sinners. I figure I will try and keep up with this similar to how I do Storygraph and Bookwyrm. Speaking of those two I really need to get back in the swing of reading, or at least listening to an audiobook while I do other things. I figure on the 29th with the launch of the Phrecia league it might be a good time to get back engaged.
Speaking of gaming… I played a heck of a lot of Destiny Rising this weekend. I was trying to keep all three accounts active, because we were having some bad luck finding strongholds. Yesterday morning we cleared the three that we had access to, but did not find the third until we were already logged in trying to clear the other two. Thanks to Jade Rabbit I have been playing Umeko a lot more on my alt accounts, and apparently doing well enough to regularly get MVP when I run some strikes. Essentially I am trying to get account two high enough so that I can get 3 charges of Iron Commander and can get my 60 Pinnacle done without running any strikes. Account three… at some point I just need to put my head down and push through the campaign because I have not even unlocked the second planet.
Last night I played a bit of Path of Exile II, especially since Kodra has been talking about it quite a bit. I know come the 29th I will be over in Path of Exile and playing the new Legacy of Phrecia event, but in the meantime I am hopping around and making things explode in POE2. For Phrecia I am all over the place on what to play. Right now I am looking at either doing something akin to my Ice Trap of Hollowness build, a Blind Prophet bow traps, or Poison Minions. Pohx is going for a life stacking Righteous Fire build, but it is going to require a lot of gear to make it work. I had fun with RF Scavenger last time but I also needed a mageblood to make it work, and I am not sure if I want to push that hard. It sort of annoys me that there has not been a lot of fresh theorycrafting for builds within the POE community. Everyone seems to be focused on currency strats… which will fucking sort themselves out pending you have a good build.
Anyways! I hope you have fared well during the winter onslaught. I hope my livingroom rain comes to a close finally, and I hope todays tests go well and they don’t find anything else wrong with me. I am deeply scared about everything that is going on right now with cancer diagnosis and still not having much information. I will hopefully make it through this however.
The post Snowmageddon and Livingroom Rain appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Folks. Today we mostly return to our regularly scheduled gaming content. I’ve been playing an awful lot of Path of Exile, mostly because I feel like I am maybe done with Path of Exile II for the moment. My jumpy Fire Bear build works amazingly well, and has completed most of the content in the game except for the most tryhard hardcore content. I have no real interest in doing any of that, just like I have never had much interest in doing it in Path of Exile. So instead I have shifted gears to working specifically on trying to get 34 of 40 Challenges in the Keepers of the Flame league. Since my Righteous Fire Chieftain is pretty much as blinged out as I can get him…. I have opted to start working a bit on my Ice Trap of Hollowness Elementalist, which was not a thing… prior to me doing it I think. It has been freaking potent as far as characters go and I would honestly do this over and over if I had the option. Unfortunately a lot of the power of the build is coming from Foulborn Uniques, specifically the double explode Berek’s Respite. I hope this shit goes core.
I had been trying to finish the challenge that requires you to run 50000 quant worth of maps. However on a whim I decided to see just how well my Ice Trapper could do at the Bolstered Breachlords challenge. I had knocked out one of the three conditions, and I figured since I do so well at Hive Fortresses I might as well give it a shot. The thing about the Ice Trap build is that it essentially freezes the entire damned screen. You know what is really good defensively? Freezing the entire screen when you are facing a boss. Sure enough I was able to effectively keep the “It that was” bosses locked down for the entire fight and kept them from firing off any of the specific abilities that I was not supposed to get hit by. After my second hive brain, I managed to complete Bolstered Breachlords and with it my 34th challenge of the league. I am not sure if I am going to try and knock out any more challenges at this point.
The real thing that I am chasing is getting the same sized totem pole for my hideout. I have been collecting totem poles since the Sanctum league, and when Necropolis league happened I was able to get 34 of 40 challenges. After that it has sort of set a benchmark for me in my league journey, and now that is my ultimate goal is to be able to get the same size as I have previously gotten. I doubt I will ever be a 40 of 40 andy, at least not without paying for some of the ubers… which is not a thing that I want to do. Please note when I talk about paying for carries in Path of Exile, we are not talking about real world money. There is a thriving business of people who make bossing specific characters and then spend the entire league doing nothing but carries for Chaos or Divine Orbs. There are a lot of places where you can get access to this but the most common is The Forbiddden Trove discord. I specifically hate doing The Maven fight. I CAN do it… have done it more than once… but I hate the fucking “simon says” round and as a result I almost always pay for that carry to get my last voidstone.
In my travels of completing my last challenge of the league I happened to get a Hinekora’s Lock to drop, and these were at that time going for 147 Divine Orbs. I don’t really NEED the Divines right now since I am winding down the league, but I figured I would rather than the Divines in standard than the Lock. For reference at this point in the league a Lock effectively sells for Mageblood money. It is not like I need a Mageblood for anything however, because I do not want to shuffle the gear on either of my characters to try and make room for it. I still stand by my statement that a Mageblood is the least interest of the high priced items, because it mostly just allows you to cheat things on your build, and doesn’t really add anything interesting to the mix. Given the choice I will always build around a Headhunter instead, because it actually does something interesting mechanically. Though in truth I rarely play the type of builds that can benefit from either of those.
In other Path of News… we are getting a redo of The Legacy of Phrecia event and I am pretty pumped about it. Instead of using Standard as the baseline we are getting all of the bells and whistles that come with the 3.27 Keepers of the Flame league. Phrecia was one of my favorite events last year, and honestly it was hype enough that I put it on my games of the year list. Essentially every normal ascendancy is replaced by 19 new alternative ascendancies, and what is wild about this version is that we will also have the new bloodline ascendancies… which will create some truly wild combinations. I have no clue what I am going to be playing, because I am waiting on the patch notes to drop that explain some of the updates that rebalance the state of things in the last running of this event. Everyone is assuming this will mean some nerfs for Scavenger and Ancestral Commander because they dominated the last round. Scavenger for example made it trivial to get 90% of physical damage converted to elemental damage, because you could stack that cloak of flame node with an actual cloak of flame. Anyways this one starts on the 29th and I am fully expecting to be mainlining this event for awhile.
Last night I spent a bit of time in Destiny Rising, because due to all of the shit going on in my life we did not get to do our normal “Sibling Time” night on Tuesday. We knocked out a couple of rounds of Grandmasters, and unfortunately learned the lesson that you can in fact run with characters that have run out of stamina… but you do not get the Grandmaster rewards. We got enough to Calamity Ops to not be relegated, which we are calling good and then finished up with some Morgran’s Hunt. I will still need to do another 5 key run, but that should be easy enough before the reset. We have found two Strongholds for the week, but I know I have expended resources on three accounts… so that is probably all we are going to find. I know I need to spend some time running The Expanse this weekend so I can get some fruit and progress for the upcoming reset next week.
As far as the other news in my life… I greatly appreciate the outpouring of support that I have received. It is honestly overwhelming. I had a bit of a nervous breakdown yesterday at one point when out of the blue and without warning I was scheduled for two diagnostic tests that I do not remember the doctor mentioning. I of course immediately expected the worst… but then later called their office only to find out that no they did not have the biopsy results back and that these were just part of the standard procedures to look for anything else that might be going on. I still know next to nothing other than I have cancer, and at some point it has to be removed. I am just hoping that the snowmageddon we have barrelling down on us, is such that I can get out Monday for those diagnostic tests. I am trying desperately to hold my shit together in the meantime while my nerves eat away at me. I go between being largely fine and resigned to whatever is going to happen, to being a basket case.
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