Good Morning Folks. We’ve gotten a timetable for the release of 3.28, which is going to drop on March 6th, with the big reveal stream taking place on the 26th of February. It is super fucking rare that I am still playing Path of Exile when the new expansion drops, but for better or worse, the Legacy of Phrecia event has held my attention. BelLovesArakaali might be my favorite minions character ever, and this is the first time I am playing with Spectres or Animate Guardian since they did some major quality of life improvements. What has surprised me about this character is just how much damage it deals… allowing me to focus on more survival. This might be the tankiest minions character I have ever played. Granted, I am still in the process of “breaking into” delve, but I am doing shockingly well down in the mines. It is not like resonators are really worth much of anything, but I still enjoy Delve even if it is not worth tons of currency.
Right now, I am mostly going horizontal at 100ish depth so that I can collect Azurite and start building out the rest of the trappings of Delve. I have reasonable resistance and light area for this level, and am slowly starting to increase the amount of sulphite that I can carry. Once I get a bit more unlocked, I will drop down to the 200ish depth so I can hopefully start getting Primordial Cities and maybe Aul fights. I really should be focusing on bossing with this character because that seems to be its true strength. When all of my minions are focused on the same target, it just sort of melts. I am curious how the Eater of Worlds and Searing Exarch go when I unlock them, because the earlier fights aka Blackstar and Shrek, did not even get to a transition phase. I am going to do my best to get my four voidstones on my own, because I think Maven, Shaper, Elder, and Uber Elder are going to melt.
I really need 21/20 gems for Animate Guardian and Raise Spectre, but both are sitting at stupid prices right now. I am not making a ton of currency, so I can’t really afford either. Which means I probably need to pick up a good six socket staff and level up 3 guardians and 3 spectres at a time, and try to corrupt my own 21/20. I hate leveling gems, but if I start doing that… and also keep playing content, I will either get the divines needed to buy the gem outright or get gems to corrupt, either way. I am bad about not leveling gems in the weapon swap set, and I should really be better about that. While I play in a trade league, I greatly prefer being as self-sufficient as I can possibly be. One thing that I wish they would change in POE1 is make it so you only get 4 quality items to max out quality on a gem socket, or a flask. That honestly is the most painful thing about leveling gems: needing to get the gemcutters’ prisms.
Speaking of corruption projects, I picked up a second Foulborn United in Dream with unholy might on it, and tried corrupting both my current copy and my new copy. One of them managed to hit 10% chance to Gain Onslaught for 4 Seconds on Kill, and this does, in fact, count minion kills. So this allowed me to drop my Onslaught flask and swap over to a Gold Flask for some additional rarity. Onslaught doesn’t really do much of anything for me except for the slight speed boost, but I am still happy to have it. I wish it applied to my minions. I wish there were something akin to Spiritual Aid that made buffs on me apply to the minions. That, however, would likely make everything highly broken, since you can target way more buffs at yourself than you can at your minions easily. I am really hoping that Foulborn Uniques stick around for standard, because they have added a lot of really cool interactions.
I am now trying to figure out where I want to go on the passive tree. I guess the next obvious choice would be to go after any jewel sockets I can make my way to easily enough. I need to redo my bandit choice since I have plenty of resistance, so that will give me one more skill point, and then I have seven left. However, I sincerely doubt I’ll level this character higher than level 95, just because of the sheer slog that it becomes then. Last night I picked up Fearsome Force when I dinged 93, which finishes out the minion crit wheel. I could always pick up various other nodes in the meantime and then respec to pick up jewel sockets as I get more points. In theory, I could spec into my minion damage cluster jewel that I have, but I don’t really have enough points left to do much of anything meaningful with it. Really, I am not sure how much it matters at this point because I feel powerful enough to do any content I would want to do.
I am continuing to slowly chip away at Atlas progression, and I think my goal for Phrecia will be to get 115/115 and 4 Voidstones. If I can get there before the launch of 3.28, I will consider myself really good. I do not really want to burn myself out ahead of the next league launch, but I am also mostly finding everything I am doing really chill. Once I hit maps, the Gauntlet style modifiers seemed to evaporate, and life was fine. Even the enrage mechanic doesn’t seem to come into play that often. I think I am doing t13s right now, but really, there is not a big jump between those and t16s, so I should be able to make it all the way up without much issue. I am still running a set of idols that is producing a ton of maps, so that I will have plenty to run as I slowly unlock my way to the top of the atlas. I have been so out of it lately that, honestly, I spend more time talking to “Erasure” or staring at the middle distance than actually playing POE.
The medical woes have been a real drain on my emotional and mental health. Hopefully, today when I get my MRI, I will start to get some answers. I think once I have a path set, whatever path that ends up being… I will be doing better. I hate the limbo of waiting around for something to happen, all the while it feels like I have a ticking time bomb in my body.
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Hey Folks! I spent most of this weekend playing Path of Exile while listening to audiobooks, which is a pretty freaking great time. I am still progressing slowly, because I die way more often than I would like on this character. However given that I am playing in a semi-private trade environment the items that I want are either not available or priced way the hell out of my reach. If I had more evasion, and a way to fix elemental ailments… all of my woes would probably be solved. I also have negative chaos resistance still, so that is still a massive problem. However I got through the first of my voidstones yesterday so that was at least good. Once I get another t16 map I will try and tackle the Eater of Worlds fight as I am one map away from unlocking that.
As far as atlas progression goes, I have unlocked my third atlas tree which means I have completed 100 map bonus objectives out of 115. There are still several red maps that I have not completed, and I am struggling right now with a complete and total lack of Vaal orbs. I really do not want to have to buy them off the market, and I am hoping that eventually I start finding Vaal Cities in Delve and getting them that way. I could in theory run Alva… even though I do not love running Alva… and I could probably get a stash of them that way also. Thankfully I finally have a decent stash of Alchemy Orbs which at least allows me to roll maps without much issue.
My third Atlas Tree is devoted to running Einhar, Ritual, and Beyond which is a combination that can be pretty rippy but fits relatively well together in an atlas as it is all on the same side of the tree. Essentially my goal is to either find an Omen of Connections or a Black Morrigan beast so that I can upgrade into a six link. Buying one outright is not an option as there is only one available right now… and it isn’t even a well rolled one, is corrupted, and has all of the wrong colors. My guess is that it dropped that way because it has 18% quality on it… which if you were going to bother putting any quality on an item… why did you stop at 18%? I guess the corruption could have done that, but still… if I want a six link I am likely going to have to make my own and while I bought a second better rolled Carcass Jack that I am throwing fusings at… I have not had any luck so far.
I’ve been alternating between mapping and delve, which ultimately slows down my atlas progression, but gets me just a bunch of raw currency instead. I’ve been slowly selling resonators that I find for some currency to hopefully begin to buy some upgrades if I can ever find anything. The other option would be to just save all of those resonators and start trying to craft upgrades myself. I’ve held onto a few good bases, because I would really like to get out of the negatives on my chaos resistance at some point. My gloves are about as good as I am going to get currently, but I would really like to craft a set of boots with better movement speed than I currently have. I am also trying to decide if I just want to give up on some of my passive tree to go for cluster jewels.
I’ve been pretty impressed with how many unique maps I have managed to drop to this point. I’ve finished nine so far, but still am lacking the usual suspects of Twilight Temple, Putrid Cloister, and Coward’s Trial. I also need the Vaults of Atziri, but that will show up on Kirac at some point. I am still pretty regularly running Betrayal because I need that stupid trigger cast wand craft. I find it bizarre that I have not encountered it yet on any items. That is ultimately going to cause me to shift up some of my gear and convert Frost Bomb to being triggered by Arcane Brand and shift from Frost Bite over to Assassin’s Mark. All of that will be a significant net positive for the build because right now I am honestly only casting Frost Bomb if I am fighting a boss.
The latest update on the Legacy of Phrecia event shows that we are going to be losing the Atlas Tree during this event league in favor of a system that works like Sanctum Idols. These remind me a lot of the trinkets from Heist league. I think it might be fun as part of an event, but I am hoping this is not a permanent change. As far as I am concerned the state of the Atlas of Worlds at 3.25 with its tree different trees… is pretty much the perfect version of mapping. You spend time unlocking your Atlas and then the reward of having done so, is that you can run exactly the content you want to run in the manner you which to run it. This whole idol system seems like it is going to be a chaotic mess of impossible to optimize mapping. I feel like if they are going to make things random rolls, they need to make each individual stat line stronger than they currently are in the Atlas tree in order for it to work out.
Right now I am really interested in the Servant of Arakaali Shadow Ascendancy that has also been spoiled. Unless something just phenomenal drops in the coming days, I am probably going to start the league as a Shadow and build this into a version of Poison Summon Raging Spirits. Essentially this Ascendancy provides what you get from some of the specific uniques sought after in that build. This would make it much much cheaper/easier to run this type of character without having to rely on those items. You would still probably need a Covenant as your chest-piece, but it would be straightforward enough to get one of those and five link it yourself. Even in a limited trade environment you are able to pick up most unique chests reasonably cheaply if you are willing to socket and link them yourself.
SirGog has been releasing deep dive videos on each of the announcements as they arrive from GGG. I highly suggest following him and checking these out if you want more information.
Good Morning Friends! Yesterday I talked about setting forth on a dumb adventure that was trying to brute force my way to farming a Tabula Rasa. For those unfamiliar with Path of Exile, the Tabula is essentially the perfect starter item that you can equip at level one and has six linked white gem sockets, allowing you to basically get your spell links faster than usual. The catch however is that the item has no stats on it other than the six gem links. There are a number of ways to farm one of these up but I specifically chose Blood Aqueducts zone because Waterways is not in the Atlas this league and Waterways the other map that can drop it is a tier 13 and I’ve yet to see one. Blood Aqueducts is also largely a straight line, which means I can zip through there relatively quickly making the total clear time of each reset extremely fast.
I set down this path initially because I wanted a Tabula to start the Toxic Rain Trickster that I am working on. However, what set me down that path was picking up a Replica Quill Rain from a Grand Heist. However, while farming the Blood Aqueducts I managed to pick up a legitimate Quill Rain that is probably better for the build overall due to the higher attack speed. Both are currently five-links, so will take some effort to push them to six-links. I have to say I got a shocking amount of loot from farming this one map over and over. In total, I found four six-link chests, one of which will do nicely for the Toxic Rain build once I get it high enough for that to matter and one that would work well for the character that Ace is leveling and that Thalen is leveling. I’ve also filled the Guild Bank with minor uniques that I had already seen a drop, probably the most significant that I got was a Call of the Brotherhood which is not expensive but is used by a number of builds.
So around 7:20 yesterday evening I got my last Humility card to drop as pictured in the first screenshot. In total it took me somewhere around four hours to farm the remaining Humility cards, but I went into this adventure having already found three of them in my travels. Had I started with none, it probably would have taken me somewhere in the neighborhood of six hours total. So I guess the question is which is worth more to you… the six hours of farming or the ten chaos that the item regularly seems to cost. I mostly did the farming method so that I could prove to myself that it was something that could be done relatively easily. Additionally, it is also something that you can do without having a maxed-out character that is heavily geared. You essentially have to get a character to act nine and then can farm this up freely. I personally used the time to work on leveling a set of 3 Fire Trap and 3 Righteous Fire gems for attempting to corrupt later for a level 21 gem of each.
As far as Toxic Rain Trickster goes… it is weird and is going to take some getting used to. Essentially the bulk of my damage comes from the spectral archer that hangs out attached to my head raining down bad stuff on the baddies. So I have to stop and channel for a moment to begin that process and then can run around like crazy avoiding taking damage. I’ve picked up a second copy of Toxic Rain that I have kitted out with Balista Totems so that I can drop those as well for additional unattended damage. Mostly I went down this path because I had already done an Explosive Arrow build and wanted to try one of the other “archer” staples. This also allows me to knock out a few achievements because I have never played a Shadow of any kind before. As of this morning, I am level 15 and have completed Act 1 entirely, and am moving on to Act 2. This is very much going to be a side project when I don’t want to do serious content on the RF Juggernaut.
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