Featuring: Ammosart, Belghast, Grace, and Thalen
Hey Folks! We are down our West Coast contingent this week but carried forth with a relatively short show. Bel talks a bit about the Anti Sanctum Alliance and how it seems to have actually made an impact at least in the pricing of Sanctum Tomes in the Legacy of Phrecia event. From there Thalen shares his experiences with The Roottrees Are Dead, which is a logic puzzle spiritual successor to games like Return of the Obra Dinn. We move on to talking a bit about Monster Hunter Wilds and our early experiences so far. We’ve needed some Palico shenanigans to help us cope with our present dystopia. Last week we got a new feature trailer for the upcoming Last Epoch Cycle 2 coming April 2nd. We spend a bit of time talking about what has been revealed for the new features and how it appears like the long wait has been worth it.
Good Morning Folks. As of this afternoon we will have had access to the Legacy of Phrecia event for a week. At this point I am level 94 and have mostly reached a point of stability with my build. Sure I would like to craft a new sceptre and am on the look out for a few specific jewels, but all in all Scavenger RF works pretty well. However I am not going to talk about any of that this morning, and am instead going to share my thoughts about the new Idol Based Atlas system. This entire event was touted as ideas that were left on the cutting room floor, and this idol concept was originally something that was abandoned in favor of the current Atlas tree system… which admittedly is damned near perfection. The first few days I was pretty hype for the idols, but now I have reached a point where I absolutely see the limitations and understand why this did not see the light of day.
The good about this system though, is that early maps feel amazing. You get a large number of Idols which allows you to cobble together something that mostly works. During White and Yellow progression I was essentially getting Delirium, Harvest, Niko, Essences, and Strongboxes every map… and Ritual, Expedition, and Betrayal pretty freaking often. This is way more content than you would normally have access to during early maps when you don’t really have that many Atlas points to spend. This makes the early game feel amazing… but you eventually reach a point where it starts to taper off.
By the time you are in yellow or red maps, you have quite a few points to spend on the tree which means that you have pretty much every node available for at least one league mechanic, making that single mechanic extremely juicy. In truth I tend to build trees that synergize with different abilities that are all on the same side of the tree. For example I might have a Ritual, Einhar, and Beyond tree as they all exist within a few nodes of each other so that by the time you near the end of your Atlas you have 100% chance for all of those mechanics and have a bunch of nodes that buff them so that they produce better stuff. I tend to be an “Alch and Go Andy” when it comes to mapping strategies, and I juice to extreme levels with the most expensive scarabs and most carefully rolled maps. I drop a map in the atlas, hit go, and then run with whatever content the device gives me.
For the heaviest juicers however… the Idol system is probably much better. For example Life Without Pants is a YouTuber that I enjoy watching content from, and he talks a bit about his strategy that centers around Harbingers. Essentially through the use of the Idols he can force something like six harbingers on a single map, always convert them to harbinger bosses, cause them to drop whole currency instead of shards, and then cause their cool down to be much shorter so you can complete each individual harbinger encounter much faster. Similarly Fubgun is running a strategy where he forces 36 Rogue Exiles onto his map and then uses Scarabs to juice that up considerably so that he can produce Affliction league levels of drops when you combine that with Ritual.
The problem that I have with the Idol system however is that it essentially forces you to go “all in” on a single strategy. Either you can cobble together something like I am running where it ups the chances of a bunch of different league mechanics to spawn, or you carefully craft a single mechanic and then juice it to levels that have never been possible before. The existing Atlas Tree lets you do a handful of of complementary mechanics really well, and I think makes the entire experience feel a bit better as a result. As someone who cannot bring themselves to skip mechanics when they appear on the map… it feels bad to do a bunch of mechanics with zero investment in them. Nodes that I thought might be good on their own like Crop Rotation, actually feel awful when you don’t have the rest of the points in the tree to buff it.
I think part of what makes the Idol system feel extremely bad is the fact that you are almost required to deal with massive amounts of very small specific trades in order to get an individual strategy working. Everything I am running I have cobbled together from the dregs of my bank. If you were wanting to run a hyper specific strategy though, you would need to trade for a bunch of specific rolls on idols… and then deal with the frustration of not getting answers from most of the traders because 1 Chaos trades are not worth stopping mapping for. If you want to bump things up to the next level, you are also probably going to be spending time deleting idols through the recombinator as you try and get a single item with four usable stats on it. This is graveyard crafting levels of tedium… which is again why I am mostly just yoloing my way through the system and trying to make something that feels halfway decent. This is yet another league that proves Path of Exile needs a fucking auction house already.
As glad as I am that the Idol system was left on the cutting room floor and we have our beloved Atlas tree instead… I have to admit that given the choice I would take this immediately over the systems in Path of Exile II. Everything about the Atlas tree in that game is awful, and it is entirely too focused on bossing. Bossing is just a subset of the Path of Exile 1 endgame, and most people… are not really focusing on it. Idols would go a long way towards patching the problems with that game’s system and forcing specific mechanics onto every map instead of the poorly designed precursor tablet system. Conceptually I like the exploration system because I enjoy it in Delve, but it just does not really work as a replacement for mapping. Part of the payoff of leveling and fully unlocking your atlas tree… is the agency to focus on only the mechanics that you want to focus on. You never really reach any of that payoff or any of that agency in Path of Exile II… which feels like the team missed that core tenet of the first game.
Phrecia has been a really interesting experimental league, and it was announced today that it is being extended by a month. I really like chaos pop righteous fire, and I would absolutely play something like this again in the future. Which admittedly makes me wonder what it would be like to play one of the witch based righteous fire builds at some point in the future. I do think that a lot of the ideas behind the Idol system in this league event could benefit Path of Exile II. Right now the endgame does not really work and feels way too far removed from the near perfect loop of game play that exists within Path of Exile’s endgame. All of POE’s problems center around on-boarding the player and gear acquisition for non-traders and non-crafters but the virtuous loop of the endgame was not something that should have been abandoned. Path of Exile II feels a lot like Destiny 2 did at launch… where it feels like they forgot all of the lessons that the previous game had learned. I am onboard for trying out quirky ideas in event leagues until they figure out how to make Path of Exile II feel a bit better though.
The post The Idol Based Atlas appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Folks. As of this afternoon we will have had access to the Legacy of Phrecia event for a week. At this point I am level 94 and have mostly reached a point of stability with my build. Sure I would like to craft a new sceptre and am on the look out for a few specific jewels, but all in all Scavenger RF works pretty well. However I am not going to talk about any of that this morning, and am instead going to share my thoughts about the new Idol Based Atlas system. This entire event was touted as ideas that were left on the cutting room floor, and this idol concept was originally something that was abandoned in favor of the current Atlas tree system… which admittedly is damned near perfection. The first few days I was pretty hype for the idols, but now I have reached a point where I absolutely see the limitations and understand why this did not see the light of day.
The good about this system though, is that early maps feel amazing. You get a large number of Idols which allows you to cobble together something that mostly works. During White and Yellow progression I was essentially getting Delirium, Harvest, Niko, Essences, and Strongboxes every map… and Ritual, Expedition, and Betrayal pretty freaking often. This is way more content than you would normally have access to during early maps when you don’t really have that many Atlas points to spend. This makes the early game feel amazing… but you eventually reach a point where it starts to taper off.
By the time you are in yellow or red maps, you have quite a few points to spend on the tree which means that you have pretty much every node available for at least one league mechanic, making that single mechanic extremely juicy. In truth I tend to build trees that synergize with different abilities that are all on the same side of the tree. For example I might have a Ritual, Einhar, and Beyond tree as they all exist within a few nodes of each other so that by the time you near the end of your Atlas you have 100% chance for all of those mechanics and have a bunch of nodes that buff them so that they produce better stuff. I tend to be an “Alch and Go Andy” when it comes to mapping strategies, and I juice to extreme levels with the most expensive scarabs and most carefully rolled maps. I drop a map in the atlas, hit go, and then run with whatever content the device gives me.
For the heaviest juicers however… the Idol system is probably much better. For example Life Without Pants is a YouTuber that I enjoy watching content from, and he talks a bit about his strategy that centers around Harbingers. Essentially through the use of the Idols he can force something like six harbingers on a single map, always convert them to harbinger bosses, cause them to drop whole currency instead of shards, and then cause their cool down to be much shorter so you can complete each individual harbinger encounter much faster. Similarly Fubgun is running a strategy where he forces 36 Rogue Exiles onto his map and then uses Scarabs to juice that up considerably so that he can produce Affliction league levels of drops when you combine that with Ritual.
The problem that I have with the Idol system however is that it essentially forces you to go “all in” on a single strategy. Either you can cobble together something like I am running where it ups the chances of a bunch of different league mechanics to spawn, or you carefully craft a single mechanic and then juice it to levels that have never been possible before. The existing Atlas Tree lets you do a handful of of complementary mechanics really well, and I think makes the entire experience feel a bit better as a result. As someone who cannot bring themselves to skip mechanics when they appear on the map… it feels bad to do a bunch of mechanics with zero investment in them. Nodes that I thought might be good on their own like Crop Rotation, actually feel awful when you don’t have the rest of the points in the tree to buff it.
I think part of what makes the Idol system feel extremely bad is the fact that you are almost required to deal with massive amounts of very small specific trades in order to get an individual strategy working. Everything I am running I have cobbled together from the dregs of my bank. If you were wanting to run a hyper specific strategy though, you would need to trade for a bunch of specific rolls on idols… and then deal with the frustration of not getting answers from most of the traders because 1 Chaos trades are not worth stopping mapping for. If you want to bump things up to the next level, you are also probably going to be spending time deleting idols through the recombinator as you try and get a single item with four usable stats on it. This is graveyard crafting levels of tedium… which is again why I am mostly just yoloing my way through the system and trying to make something that feels halfway decent. This is yet another league that proves Path of Exile needs a fucking auction house already.
As glad as I am that the Idol system was left on the cutting room floor and we have our beloved Atlas tree instead… I have to admit that given the choice I would take this immediately over the systems in Path of Exile II. Everything about the Atlas tree in that game is awful, and it is entirely too focused on bossing. Bossing is just a subset of the Path of Exile 1 endgame, and most people… are not really focusing on it. Idols would go a long way towards patching the problems with that game’s system and forcing specific mechanics onto every map instead of the poorly designed precursor tablet system. Conceptually I like the exploration system because I enjoy it in Delve, but it just does not really work as a replacement for mapping. Part of the payoff of leveling and fully unlocking your atlas tree… is the agency to focus on only the mechanics that you want to focus on. You never really reach any of that payoff or any of that agency in Path of Exile II… which feels like the team missed that core tenet of the first game.
Phrecia has been a really interesting experimental league, and it was announced today that it is being extended by a month. I really like chaos pop righteous fire, and I would absolutely play something like this again in the future. Which admittedly makes me wonder what it would be like to play one of the witch based righteous fire builds at some point in the future. I do think that a lot of the ideas behind the Idol system in this league event could benefit Path of Exile II. Right now the endgame does not really work and feels way too far removed from the near perfect loop of game play that exists within Path of Exile’s endgame. All of POE’s problems center around on-boarding the player and gear acquisition for non-traders and non-crafters but the virtuous loop of the endgame was not something that should have been abandoned. Path of Exile II feels a lot like Destiny 2 did at launch… where it feels like they forgot all of the lessons that the previous game had learned. I am onboard for trying out quirky ideas in event leagues until they figure out how to make Path of Exile II feel a bit better though.
The post The Idol Based Atlas appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Hey Folks! Things are starting to come together. Yesterday I made a number of changes to my build that have incrementally moved me towards the indestructible nonsense that is the pinnacle form of Righteous Fire. The next map that I run I will ding level 92 but this morning I dumped a fresh POB to show the state of things. The biggest change is that I managed to pick up a Shaper shield and after running a bunch of Harvest I managed to craft one with 5% life gain on block, which allowed me to shift to the block version of the build. What confuses me however is I have no clue how Pohx is hitting 75% spell block with his build, so I am going to have to pay considerably closer attention to his POB to understand it.
Right now I have 4687 life, but that will improve as I continue to shift things around in the build and pile on additional levels. I have 83% Fire Resistance and 80% Cold and Lightning which when combined with 75% attack block and 30% spell block feels pretty comfortable. Most of the time I can just stand still in a pack of mobs and my health barely moves. I really need more regeneration at this point because I am not super comfortable with only 1100 ish. I would really prefer to be sitting somewhere around 2000, but had to give up some nodes on the tree as well as the regen % on my helmet. I’m essentially playing a juggling act right now since I am not able to focus ONLY on Fire Resistance since I am not playing a Chieftain.
I made a number of gear swaps. First up I rolled a much better temporary sceptre using alts and then threw some ignite and additional fire damage on it. Sadly I could not craft the big betrayal Fire/Ignite on it, but I have a few more sceptres that I am working on rolling T1 damage over time multi on so I can try and recombinate something with both generic multi and fire multi on it. I picked up a somewhat scuffed Elder helm and got 20 Burning Damage/20 Concentrated Effect on it giving me a psuedo-six-link Fire Trap. I rolled a life recovery shield like I talked about earlier and also improved the Immortal Flesh I was running for a minimum negative resistance while gaining a bit of life and regen over my existing one.
My current Idol set up gives me a bunch of Delirium and I have managed to gather up raw cluster jewels and rolled a new Large cluster with Prismatic Heart, Widespread Destruction, and the throwaway Smoking Remains. I am combining it with one Medium that has Fan the Flames and Flow of Life, and another that has Flow of Life and Smoking Remains. As I find more minimum passive skill medium and large clusters I will probably try and craft slightly better versions of these cluster jewels. Smoking Remains is not exactly a great hit, but I also did not want to spend forever rolling over things and needed something I could use. I bought the cheapest two jewels I could find on the market with max Fire Multi and percentage life on them, but again those could be massively improved over time.
That is honestly the broad theme of this character… everything is more than a little scuffed. I’m trying to learn to give up on perfect items, because quite honestly I am not making enough currency to be able to afford them. Instead I am trying to find or craft items that are good enough for my purposes. I’ve played RF enough to know what I actually need, versus what the perfect textbook example of an item looks like. At this point I should be fine to get all the way through the rest of maps, and considerably deeper into delve. Right now I am sitting at 62 of 115 and have a few more maps that are ready to run. I’ve been holding off on running any Red maps because I know Kirac will almost exclusively start giving me those once I have passed that boundary. I am a weirdo that likes completing each individual tier in order if I can help it. I really need to find more cities down on delve, because they produce random map tiers rather than ones that I would natively have access to.
I’m recycling an image from yesterday of the pops, but really… I think this build is starting to feel stronger than the Chieftain build normally is at this point. The explosions feel like they spread so much further than the Hinekora explosions do. If I can get an Oriath’s End it will feel even better because effectively I will have three sources of explode combined with ignite proliferation… which should basically allow me to just charge through maps. The big goals going forward are to get another Cloak of Flame that is either better rolled than my current one, or has a useful corruption on it… and then figure out how best to six-link it. After that once I get back down into Delve I am going to start banking more 40% Elemental Damage sceptres in an attempt to recombinate a phenomenal one.
It feels like each league I play… I get more comfortable with understanding what I can do with gear and how I can acquire it on my own. If I can get a rudimentary understanding of recombination under my belt, I think it will improve gear acquisition considerably.
The post Scuffed Scavenger appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
