Good Morning Folks! Since Path of Exile II is awaiting a patch, I figured I would spend some time doing something else. Sunday I started an Acolyte and turned her into a Necromancer going down the path of doing a fairly common minions build since that is what I played almost 300 hours of in Path of Exile II. It is wild just how comfortable Last Epoch is compared to Path of Exile. While the game is lacking at the endgame, and hopefully the big April patch will alleviate that a bit… the leveling experience is so freaking cozy. By my play session last night I was starting in on Monoliths and having a grand old time with my army of horrible children.
I played quite a bit in September when they did the Cycle Refresh and had gotten my Circle of Fortune faction up to rank 11. This made leveling a new character feel amazing, because I was constantly getting really interesting items. More than that the Nemesis system feels phenomenal at low levels because you are regularly getting pretty interesting unique items turned into legendaries with random stats attached to them. The only negative about the Nemesis systems… is that it makes all of the other content feel significantly worse. Rogue Mages for example need a rework because it feels like they only drop Clutch Plates for a 77 Honda Civic Hatchback… which is awesome if you need one of those but otherwise pretty forgettable.
Some of the items that I am seeing from drops are wild. Path of Exile II wanted to make loot on the ground matter and failed miserably at that, but honestly… that is precisely the state of Last Epoch right now. This is an item I picked up off the ground… that has 3 Tier 6 affixes… one of which sealed so that i could in theory roll off one of the other affixes trying to get something with better synergy. Granted I don’t plan on playing a character that needs any of those things, but it is still a wildly compelling item. Given enough time spinning the randomizer I will start seeing items that DO have the stats that I want on them. The fact that I can target specific monoliths for specific gear slots… and also throw Runes of Ascendance at random items use that trying to get the Uniques that I want. I feel like I have so many options to either farm perfect loot, or perfect less than perfect loot.
Right now I am mostly wearing a bunch of weavers will items, because they were handy and often have interesting results. I’m also running two Hollow Fingers which give me extra skeletons. I had one with two legendary potential and attempted to turn it into a ring with Minion Health and Minion Damage, but unfortunately hit flat health instead. Still a reasonable item to use but not necessarily an ideal item. That is one of the things that I dig about Last Epoch is that you can get to a pretty reasonable gear state easily, and then slowly over time attempt to improve upon it by making more Legendary items or lucking into some really tasty drops.
I am sure when the POE2 patch drops I will be back over there testing out the changes, but for the moment I am living my best life in Last Epoch. This game is so damned good, and really… once it has the amount of content that Path of Exile does… it is going to be the easy winner for my attention. I am definitely looking forward to April and the next Cycle where they are supposedly focusing on the endgame entirely. The monolith is a good core, but it just needs more surprise content to borrow a term from the POE2 patch announcement over the weekend. Monoliths feel great when you have a Nemesis, Rogue Mage, and a loot chest… and feel pretty awful when none of those spawn. The more of those little doses of joy that they can pack into the mapping experience, the better the game is going to be.
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Good Morning Folks! Yesterday I was piddling around and running maps and saw clear evidence that we are currently in “Early Access”. I had started a Savannah map and cleared the entire thing… and noticed that the final rare was out of the bounds of the map. I moved around the entire map but there was no way to break out of the boundary and get there. Thankfully this did not brick the node, but I was afraid that there was something cursed about it particularly and worked my way around it leaving it open for the time being. It is very clear that Stampede Explode in my current form is not quite as powerful as it used to be. However, I can still clear reasonably effectively and did get some advice that I want to charge along side of a pack rather than directly at them for maximum efficiency.
There is also apparently a version of the build that still exists in its prior glory, but it involves massively investing in AOE nodes and giving up some of the defense. Since I just was able to hit the 75% block cap, I am hesitant to give that up. However this might be a future goal of the build once I can get my hands on The Surrender, for its life recoup. I need to work on my third and fourth ascendancy point, but I have just lacked the desire to bang my head against that particular wall. I still do not enjoy Sanctum and very much do not enjoy Ultimatum in its current state. I tried doing the Trial of Chaos on my Necromancer yesterday and failed brutally on the third area reminding me just how much that entire experience is a crapshoot tied to RNG.
I keep saying Necromancer instead of Infernalist, because really that is how I think of the build because I am very much a “Minions Matter” character. I spent most of yesterday evening playing it instead of the Titan because it is way more enjoyable and relaxing to play. I managed to get up to the Apex of Filth and the very last thing that I did for the night was kill the Molten boss. It took me two tries, but only because I was a bit too slow while moving out of a big leap slam. I had plenty of time left when I killed him because my Raging Spirits floated above the lava field and were constantly attacking him when he jumped back. I will probably wrap up Act III tonight, and start in on the Cruel acts.
I’ve been running the Necromantle the entire time I have been leveling my Necromancer and yesterday on a whim I decided to throw a Vaal orb against it. I managed to get 15% of Damage Taken Recouped as Life which seems really good because it seems to trigger even if that damage is taken by my Energy Shield and not from my life. Combined with Grim Feast overflowing my Energy Shield, this seems like it might actually be a pretty reasonable defensive layer going forward. I originally was just wearing this chest for leveling purposes, but it might stick around as a more permanent edition to my setup. The energy shield on minions is also pretty nice for their general survival and the 50% faster revive is pretty great in scenarios where a big attack wipes all of them out at once.
It is wild to me how I have moved in opinion from “I don’t think I actually like this game” from the 9th, to really enjoying it in its current state despite the glaring flaws. On some level, I think part of this can be chalked up to a difference in expectations. What I really wanted from Path of Exile II was a much more approachable version of Path of Exile 1, and what we got was too sluggish, too difficult, and honestly just too different for me to immediately like it. Now I have gotten used to it, and have been willing to accept that it isn’t going to be the same game experience. I should have known this was a thing, because I’ve learned not to give my opinion of my wife’s new hairstyles until I have lived with them for a few days… because my immediate reaction is always “change is bad”. There are still aspects of Path of Exile II that I don’t like, and I think maybe on Monday I will cobble together a piece that is essentially an updated version of the Good and Bad with how I feel about the game now that I have put over a hundred hours into it.
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Good Morning Folks! I am still sort of in this pattern of MOSTLY playing World of Warcraft Pandaria Remix. I’ve come to realize that I do not have the fortitude to play this optimally… which would be to do ALL of the world bosses, a random heroic and normal dungeon, a random heroic and normal scenario, and then complete ALL of the raids. Instead, I think I am going to focus on trying to get my World Bosses done as they are fun and it is pretty easy to find groups in the LFG tool. After that, I think my goal tonight is to start chipping away at the Heroic Dungeons and Scenarios that I need to unlock rings. Then the next stretch goal would be to complete all of the raids on Normal mode, but that is probably going to take all week as I have realized my appetite for that sort of thing is not what it once was.
Related to that I got my Tauren Paladin over on Drenden up to level 25 at which point I tried my hand at one of the leveling theories. The idea is to run raids starting at 25 and level your character through doing that. I’ve personally found this to be a little lacking as I think in total I gained a single level after having done two wings of LFR. Because of this gameplan I’ve also been leveling as Retribution which is fine for playing at endgame levels… but is not my preferred method of leveling. So as a result I think I am going to shift gears with this character and just level it the old-fashioned way while switching over to Protection so I can bounce shields all over the map for fun and profit. I am also questioning my choice of Tauren as I remember now why I don’t like playing them… because they feel painfully slow.
Lastly, I created a little Vulpera Hunter on Eonar where another friend has a base of operations. In theory, my goal is to push this up to 70 before the event is up so that I can have yet another max-level character seeded throughout the cosmos in case I decide that I want to play on that server. I already have an Orc Deathknight that I played during Legion and a few babby characters of various ages. It would be awesome if they made the Stable go cross-character and cross-realm because that has been my core reason for not playing something other than the original Lodin. I did not love the concept of collecting spirit beasts again. I am kind of wondering how the Warband is going to change things up, because in theory, I should be able to have all of the characters that I am playing regardless of server on the same screen.
Now that I have capped my Barbarian, I think I am going to spend some more quality time with my Necromancer. There is a pattern that can be used from levels 20-50 that will allow you to craft legendary caches so that you can get aspects pretty quickly. So my plan is to push this character up to 20 and see how well that process works. Barbarian was a lot of fun, and I might still rework that character to go for the overpowered Dual Swing Twisters build, but I also want to see how the Necromancer world is doing. I also really need to find a bow build that I like because traditionally… tanky brawler, minion, and bow characters are what I tend to play over and over in ARPGs.
Anyways! Today is my first day back this week so I am not looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I also have to go into the office tomorrow so I am somewhat dreading that as well. Hopefully, you all had a wonderful weekend and an extended weekend if you are in the states.
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I did not make it terribly far last night as we had a family dinner thing to go to, which put me getting home extremely late. Additionally, the whole not really sleeping the night before because we lost power at 2:30 in the morning also meant I turned in pretty early. I did get to level 62 on my Barbarian and I did make an attempt at the World Tier 4 dungeon at 57 only to get wrecked by Elias. I think that fight favors folks who don’t have to stand all up in his grill. His attacks were just dealing too much damage for me to burn him all the way down. I am probably going to wait until around 65 before giving it another shot hoping that the levels and additional gear will make the difference.
I did create a baby Necromancer this morning just to play around with that class and see how the minion gameplay feels. It feels exceptionally strong, and to be honest… it feels like the easier option. Within 10 minutes or so I was level 16 because leveling in this game is just nonsense especially since I have the experience from monster kills buff in action. I will probably keep at the Barbarian because I feel like the visceral gameplay is more enjoyable for me personally, but I will keep poking around at the Necromancer as well. I would not be shocked if I managed to get both of them to 100 during this season.
The most important part of any character though is setting up the cosmetics and I feel like Necro has the best stuff. This is not a matched set of gear but it has the feel that I want it to have. I am such a sucker for “plate skirts” for characters and still consider Judgment the best gear set in World of Warcraft. I am hoping to get some time to play this weekend with my friend Ace and I am not sure if I will be bringing my Barbarian or dragging along this Necro when I do it. There are problems namely around the acquisition of gold and how awkward leveling glyphs feels, but all in all the changes that came with “loot reborn” have breathed much-needed life into the game.
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