Path of Exile II – AggroChat

How To Buy a Carry

June 18, 2026 by Belghast

Good Morning, Folks! Today I turned 50, and it is all sorts of surreal to be that age. The 40s did not seem too bad, but the 50s… that is starting to sound a little old. I swear internally, I do not feel older than maybe my thirties. I have been juggling back and forth between Path of Exile II, and Guild Wars 2 and enjoying both. Last night after knocking out my dailies and a few weeklies in Guild Wars 2, I rolled over on my Spiritimaster in Path of Exile II. One of the things that fascinates me about Path of Exile II, is that everything is for sale in the very thriving economy. There are all sorts of niches that players can take up to make currency. For example, in POE1, I tend to spend most of my time in delve and sell the unique items that come from that game mode. If you are really good at taking down bosses or trials… There is always the option of selling carries.

I have played an exceptional amount of both games, and there is certain content that I do not want to do. For example, I hate the Maven fight. I have done it several times successfully, but when it comes to unlocking my atlas, I would just rather pay someone else for a carry so I don’t have to stress about it. Similarly, I hate both of the trial options for ascending past the 3rd and 4th ascendancy. The Labyrinth was not my favorite content, but I did not mind it because it was quick and to the point. Trial of Sekhamas and the Trial of Chaos both blow massive chunks, and while I have no problem doing the first one of both… I cannot ever see myself doing 4 floors of “suck my ass” as the community refers to it, or 3 rounds of Chaos. As a result, I would far rather gather the currency and pay for a carry that gets me my 3rd and 4th ascendancy in one go. I had a friend who had never done a carry, and it made me realize that maybe I should create a guide for it.

Most carries start with a trip to a discord known as The Forbidden Trove. This discord has been a bit controversial in the past because the originator was a bit of a mess. However, recently, the Discord changed hands and is under new management, and it seems to be way more focused on facilitating the provision of services. Ultimately, if you are looking for carry services, you are going to scroll down to the league that you are playing in and then click on the carry channel that matches what you are looking for. For example, I am looking for a trial carry, and as such, I clicked on that channel. Essentially, every few minutes, someone will advertise a carry. There are always way more buyers than sellers, and seemingly it operates 24/7.

Every seller has some sort of message that they want you to send them. This will be part of the post in the carry channel, and you simply copy that and then paste it into the game and message the seller. If you do not get an immediate response, then the seller is likely full, and you need to try a different one. You essentially wait in your hideout until someone invites you to a group, and then use the teleport to player button to teleport to wherever they are currently sitting. Do not move from the teleport. Sellers have this down to an art form and will direct you on what to do.

For example, there is a ready room for the 4th trial that will give you credit for completion without actually being in the fight. This will not be the case for every carry service. There will be times when you are told to zone into the fight in the final phase, and once again, you should not move because you are given invulnerability until you move. The seller will give you clear directions as to what you need to do and when to do it, so make sure you are watching chat.

When it is clear to zone in and collect your ascendancy points or whatever you are getting from the boss, you will be given a message from the seller. Once inside, interact with whatever you need to interact with and wait. The seller will open a trade window with you, and it is your job now to pay the fee that was originally requested. For example, this morning I paid 3 Divines for a 4th trial carry, which is a little bit more expensive than when I paid this on my necromancer character. However, I was looking to get it done and did not want to wait around for a player selling it for 2 Divines. All in total, it took maybe 5 minutes from the initial message to completion. The part of the community that sells boss carries is extremely efficient because they are trying to keep up that Divines per hour mark. The last step is to join the vouch channel and then post a message vouching for the seller.

Like I said, buying a carry is an extremely efficient way to get past content that you just don’t want to mess with. I will probably never fail to buy my 4th ascendancy, because I hate the trial options. Maybe when Trial of the Ancestors goes in, it might not be that bad. I seriously doubt it because the design ethic of trials in POE2 feels like complete bullshit. If you get really good at bossing, you can make a ton of currency as a seller. I’ve sold a few bosses, namely Aul down in Delve, and it went smoothly. Mostly, I wanted to lay out a straightforward guide to ease some of the fears players might have about engaging in the service economy.

The post How To Buy a Carry appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Raven RF Mostly Works

June 15, 2026 by Belghast

Good Morning, Folks! I am still mostly playing Path of Exile II with brief flurries of Spirit Crossing. This weekend brought a bunch of changes in my build, and I will catalog them shortly. On the personal side, Sunday is generally the low point in my recovery, and from this point forward, everything should be slight improvements. All of my friends seem to want me to get magically better, but unfortunately, the recovery from chemo does not work that way. It is slight incremental improvements until I am actually feeling pretty great by the time I arrive at Chemo for the next round. It seems deeply unfortunate that it works out to be that way, where I feel my best right before I get poisoned again. I am hoping to have a burst of energy tomorrow because it is our primary election, and I definitely want to vote.

The biggest change of the weekend is that I finally hit the point where I could equip Raven’s Flock staff, letting me finally have a Righteous Fire style aura that deals chaos damage to monsters in range of me. The big problem with this change is that, unlike actual Righteous Fire, my minion character is not terribly tanky. The gameplay that makes it so fun is the fact that I can shield charge and frost blink my way around the map, killing everything in my wake. Minion RF, on the other hand, still requires me to maintain my minion army, and I still cannot tank that many hits. I had been using the infernalist ascendancy, which reserves half of my health to give me more spirit and energy shield, and it made me feel exceptionally squishy.

The other major change in my build is that I have swapped over to the Lich ascendancy to improve my survival. This does a lot of really important things. First, it solves my mana problem by making my mana regeneration based on 6% of my total health. It also gives me chaos pops when I kill cursed enemies, which I am admittedly bad at actually doing. It also gives me and my minions Unholy Might, which increases the chaos damage being dealt. None of this screws with my life or energy shield, which means I have full access to all of this, giving me around 3500 shield/life and 500 runic ward. I feel so much more tanky than I did previously, so all in all, this seems to be a massive improvement.

That said, I need to run some actual hard maps to see how well I do. Right now, I have been farming t8 maps just to move around the atlas and look for new areas to farm. I am looking for a Ritual Area, because that is really what I want to be farming, and I want some of the passive points for that mechanic. I’ve farmed a lot of Abyss and Breach, and the passives both improve them greatly. Right now, I seem to MOSTLY be finding expedition areas, aka coastal regions. I should also probably farm some more delirium to earn more passive points. That is the only problem that I have with this current endgame: I feel like I am drawn in too many different directions and never actually make complete progress in any of them.

I am not sure what I have done with the normal atlas passives, but I seem to have triggered this weird event happening constantly. Essentially, I will kill a boss and then a bajillion two affix rares drop, and they are all identified as well. This is honestly kind of cool because it allows my filters to sift through them, but it has made me bump up to strict so that I can only deal with the well-rolled items. I have been able to pick up a lot of these and throw them in my shop and sell them for around 20 exalts each. It is not going to make me rich, but it is some nice passive income. I am seeing more Divines drop from maps as well, which are nice. That said, I did spend down some of my war chest when I bought an upgraded version of the Raven staff.

I did manage to find a runic doodad that dropped 3 Divine Orbs, which was pretty nice. If I feel up to it, I might record a video of this build in progress, because I feel like it doesn’t really make sense until you see it in action. So far, I am enjoying myself, but it also doesn’t really scratch that RF itch. Pohx said as much, and I believed him at the time. I am hoping we get proper RF in this game, but I fear they might fuck it up as they did with Raging Spirits. The general design ethic of POE2 just is not my jam, and I will probably always prefer the first game. It is fun, and I can reach a point where I enjoy myself, but it feels like it is a massive battle to get there.

The post Raven RF Mostly Works appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Raven Staves and Smashy Monkeys

June 12, 2026 by Belghast

Good Morning, Folks! I’m in the recovery cycle after my last round of chemo. I got my pump disconnected yesterday and then went to sleep around 7 pm and stayed that way all night, with a few brief wakeups here and there. Normally, I crash after coming home from disconnect, but I had someone ring my doorbell several times… which was not enough to rouse me but was enough to break my sleep cycle and cause me to wake up about thirty minutes later. I love my sister-in-law but it annoys the hell out of me that she swung by unannounced. I don’t do drop-in visits that well, especially if I am not expecting someone. I also try to limit my exposure to people when I am in an immune system weak period, because catching something when my immune system cannot fight it off… would be extremely bad.

All of that aside, I am still playing an exceptional amount of Path of Exile II, and mostly swapping back and forth between it and Spirit Crossing for my main gaming time. My focus right now is getting one more level because it will allow me to upgrade my gems to level 19, and also start using the new unique The Raven’s Flock. I managed to pick up a relatively cheap copy of this staff and have been sitting on it, waiting for me to finally be able to use it. Essentially, this is the staff that will give me a righteous fire style aura, but it scales off of minion damage. I currently have +413% increased minion damage, so in theory, this righteous-fire-like aura should be pretty strong. I plan on mostly just swapping directly over to the staff and seeing how well that goes. I will lose a few minions in the process, as my sceptre is giving me quite a bit of spirit.

Other than that, I have really been enjoying working through a number of the atlas quests. My progression has been nowhere near as fast as it would be in POE1, but I am still making steady progress. I’m now up to t11 maps, which pushes me into red maps, and for the most part, everything is still holding up. When I hit 84, I can take all of my gems to 19, which should be a significant boost in damage. My survival seems pretty solid, with a decent amount of energy shield, life, and runic ward helping to keep me alive. I could definitely use more life; however, as I swap gear pieces out, I am going to look for some more T1 life rolls on it. The biggest upgrade that I need to make is swapping over to a minion splash belt, so I can remove that and add a stronger gem in its place.

I’ve also leveled a Spiriwalker through the campaign and am now supported by a big smashy monkey friend. I think this might be too passive for my tastes because right now, I am literally doing nothing other than hitting health potions. The smashy monkey and cocaine bear are doing all of the damage, and I am mostly just applying marks and pain offering as I think about it. This build is absolutely getting nerfed because you should not be able to passively play in a way that you can clear all of the content without actually doing anything. I am an enjoyer of Righteous Fire, but even there, I am constantly using abilities to curse, shield charge, and frost blink. Once you get your monkey… the campaign is a breeze.

The biggest thing that I need right now on that build is levels, and to replace one of my rare companions with something that gives me haste. I really want it to be a monkey, because the quadrilla model attacks extremely well, but haste does not give a clear visual aura, so I keep having to mouse over things… which does not always give me time to mark the beast with tame beast before the monkey kills it. The number of times I have watched the haste beast die before I can capture it… is significant. I wish Tame Beast were something I could throw on my Necromancer build, but unfortunately, I lack the dexterity requirements. So instead I have to wander aimlessly and hope to stumble onto just the right beast.

I have been having quite a bit of fun with this league, but I am really looking forward to the next POE1 league that should, in theory, land in July. I enjoy Path of Exile II, but still feel like Path of Exile is the better game. POE2 is probably better for new players, but if you have only played it, I highly suggest, at some point, trying a POE1 league after learning the ropes. Other than all of this, I really want to ease my way back into Guild Wars 2. I am also playing a bit of Destiny 2 since the recent patch dropped. I am sure I will talk about both of those in the coming weeks. I hope you have an excellent weekend, and drop me a line about what is eating up your gaming time.

The post Raven Staves and Smashy Monkeys appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

AggroChat #571 – Sad Cat Game

June 7, 2026 by Belghast

Featuring: Ace, Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen

Hey Folks. We start off this week with a discussion about Life Below, which is an underwater building sim focused on coral reefs and maintaining them. From there, we talk a bit about another one of our patented 11 sads out of 10 games, where you try to keep the last cat in the universe alive. Spirit Crossing has launched on Steam and we are all pretty happy to see it being untethered from mobile-only. We talk about all of the things that we saw at the Summer Games Fest, which are too many individual games to list. We do focus in on one particular game announcement, however, which is Guild Wars 3, and we talk a bit about what we know so far, and more particularly, the fact that the studio released a video committing to keep developing all three games. Kodra and Bel go deep down the rabbit hole of Path of Exile II build craft, and kind of forget that they are on a podcast for a bit. Lastly, we wrap things up with some quick topics.