Good Morning Folks. At this point I am several days into the Legacy of Phrecia event in Path of Exile. I decided to follow the path of Pohx and am playing Righteous Fire on the new Scion Scavenger. This effectively gives me Obliteration pops, Chaos Ignite, and a free Cloak of Flames that can then be stacked with a real cloak of flames to convert 80% of all physical damage taken as fire. Initially… this does not feel nearly as effective at killing as the Chieftain variant I usually play, nor does it feel as tanky yet. However I am still very much wearing scuffed gear. I hit maps half of the way through Saturday and have been juggling between map progression and Delve progression as best I can. I am definitely intrigued enough to want to see this build to its completion. You can see the current state of my build here as I dumped a POB this morning.
What I find most interesting about this event is how mapping feels with the Idol system replacing the Atlas Passive Tree. Essentially the early maps, namely the white and early yellow maps feel like they are way more juicy than they ever would be at this point. However they also feel deeply random, because most of the idols that you end up getting… are not really focused on a single league mechanic. I took the time to screenshot everything that I am currently using and it is a bit of a mess. I’ve specifically targeted at trying to get Niko on my maps so that I can gain Sulphite, but am also not really gaining any of the additional benefits from the passive nodes on the tree.
This is really starting to be felt as by 41 nodes into the Atlas of Worlds, I would start to have a coherent strategy going… that reinforces itself by buffing one specific league mechanic. I would probably have the buffs applied when I collect sulphite nodes, or have them spawn golems which increase my sulphite gain and give me additional density. Instead it is a struggle to get Niko consistently on my maps, and I am gaining almost no other benefits from him being there… and as such I have to run way more maps to fill up on Delve juice before going back down into the mines. Similarly when I get Jun… without the nodes supporting him the Betrayal mobs don’t drop veiled items nearly as often… and as such I am struggling to build out my crafting bench. It feels like running maps that are generically juiced with somewhat random abilities…. but not really being able to focus on anything.
I am not making a ton of currency yet, but have managed to gather enough to get most of the uniques I need for the build. I picked up a Cloak of Flames and five linked it, and hope to maybe pick up a second and begin working on trying to six link that one. I snagged an Immortal Flesh pretty early, but it is not what I would consider a well rolled one. At some point I want to replace it for one with similar life stats on it but the minimum negative elemental resistance. I am running a Rise of the Phoenix shield, but at some point I will drop this to go with a Shaper Shield as I transition into the life gain on block build variant. I just spent most of my available currency on a well rolled pair of Legacy of Fury boots, which help with the clear considerably. Probably the item that I need to upgrade the most is my Sceptre which is a complete trash item that I picked up off the ground and threw a few things on it. My goal once I get deep enough into delve is to start picking up Sceptre bases with the purpose of trying to craft something with the recombinator.
All told though it is quite a bit of fun, and it has been ages since I ran a build that uses Legacy of Fury. I have the blackstar mtx from several leagues ago that makes the pops turn pink, which goes nicely with the purple righteous fire aura mtx that I am running. I’ve crafted a couple of cluster jewels so that I have Fan the Flames giving me elemental proliferation and Flow of Life then the combo of Prismatic Heart/Widespread Destruction on a large cluster. I have another medium cluster that I am working on crafting and my hope is to get another Flow of Life and maybe Burning Bright but I would probably roll with anything halfway decent. At some point I want a +Fire% Light of Meaning and an Unnatural Instinct but that is way beyond my price range. Similarly I would love to add on an Oriath’s End for more pops but I am not sure I will be able to hit that price point. I wish Scavenger was going to Standard so I could attempt to build the penultimate version there at some point.
All told though I am having a heck of a lot of fun. This event is pretty great and honestly… I would not have minded if this were turned into a three month long league. The absence of the Atlas Tree is a bit of a pain, but I would honestly love to see these idols worked into the game in some form in the future. There are some nodes that I really like having… but are just too cumbersome to path over to for various Atlas strategies. I would love to see a much smaller version of the Idol inventory that maybe only lets you slot only a few idols. For example I always run the node that turns every strongbox into a corrupted rare, because I like the way it feels… and if I could simply equip an idol to give every build that… or endless delirium… I probably would.
Anyways. Have you been playing the Legacy of Phrecia event? What are your thoughts so far? Drop me a line below, or of course respond to either Mastodon or Bluesky.
The post Better Early Maps appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! We have the entire crew this week. We start off the show with Bel explaining to Kodra the weird faction war currently happening in the Path of Exile Reddit. Bel also talks about his experiences so far with the Legacy of Phrecia event. From there we talk a bit more about Avowed now that Tam has had a chance to play it. Kodra shares his experiences with Civilization VII talking about how wildly different of a Civ game it is. From there he also talks a bit about Pigment and his ambitions to speedrun it. Ash shares his thoughts about Dynasty Warriors Origins and Tam discusses a Steam recommendation find, Deliver At All Costs.
Hey Folks! The Legacy of Phrecia event is live in Path of Exile and yesterday I followed the Path of Pohx and rolled a Scion. I’ve only ever played one Scion in the entirety of all of my time playing this game, and it was only to unlock the handful of achievements that are associated with that class. The general idea behind rolling this as Scavenger which is the krangled version of Scion’s Ascendant is that it will give me access to 80% of physical damage taken as fire damage once I actually get my hands on a Cloak of Flames. Sadly because I was not super fast… I did not manage to snag one before they started to get expensive. In the first moments of the league they were going for 3 Chaos… which I now have, but the price has unfortunately gone up to around 20-30 Chaos for a non-corrupted version.
It’s been a pretty smooth run so far, and I’ve only taken a single death and that was before I was able to switch over to Righteous Fire. I just got completely swarmed in the cavern of rage and could not potion my way through it. Once I swapped to RF it was a cakewalk. I attempted to follow the whole Cobra Lash path that was suggested by Pohx but I think in future attempts I might just do with flame wall and rolling magma. I had a lot of weird early problems getting the right links, and for the first five areas I was struggling to find any wisdom scrolls at all to identify anything that might have been viable. I still don’t have the right links for anything, but I am rolling with it because I do at least have a 2 link Fire Trap and 4 link Righteous Fire.
The build has a somewhat annoying respec that I am going to have to deal with at some point. He suggested starting down the projectile path because of Cobra Lash and then swapping over to the resistance path for those first four nodes… which is fine but since Path of Exile does not have a “respec mode” you can’t just swap those points directly and will instead need to spend a total of 8 respec points to get those 4 swapped over. I should probably deal with that now rather than later so that the gold costs are not onerous. Overall the pathing is not terrible for this one and you get to the fire regeneration node about the same time you do as with the Marauder path.
Now we get to the point that I hated about Scion in general. The first labyrinth does not really get you anything. Instead you do not gain any new powers until you finish the second labyrinth. So I have ascended to Scavenger but the only thing I have to show for it is two passive points. I mean that is still a decent reward and I am fine with it… but it makes the entire process of leveling as Scion feel a little lackluster. Pohx suggests going for Bluderbore for the second lab and then later respeccing for Cloak of Flames once you get into maps. I am not sure if I will follow that path or not, because I am honestly hoping to be able to get a Cloak of Flames and four link it before we get to that point. Regardless of what I take for my second choice, I am absolutely taking Obliteration for chaos pops when I get to third lab, and then later picking up the bit that allows chaos to ignite as my fourth.
I did find a pretty reasonable weapon. It has an open suffix, so once I get access to the damage over time crafts I will probably slap that on it. Plus one to fire spells is not necessarily the major win that it once was, but it does help a bit since I just added burning damage support to both my fire trap and righteous fire links. I will drop this like a hot potato however if I manage to get any damage over time multi weapons to drop. I have been farming the kingsmarch shipments trying to get some decent gear, and I am hoping I end up getting a hat with the right links to expand Firetrap beyond two links. I basically need better items for almost every slot except my chest, and I am basically running minimum shipments hoping to get something good.
I have no clue what strategy I am going to end up leaning on for mapping… because that entirely depends upon which idols I get first. I do plan on dabbling in Delve so now that I am in Act 4 I will probably spend a bit of time getting the early unlocks set up there. My hope is that I can find delve idols soon enough, and I also really want endless delirium for farming cluster jewels. It is going to be wild playing with a mishmash of krangled atlas passives. They verified that you are going to be able to recombinate idols, which is likely going to be required to try and make any coherent mapping strategy. I will worry about that when I get there however.
For now I am just going to focus on leveling up and getting to maps. Did you end up rolling something for the Legacy of Phrecia event? What are you playing? Drop me a line below.
The post Starting Scavenger 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.
