Good Morning Folks! Yesterday we got full patch notes for the Legacy of Phrecia event and its changes and through this I finally decided my path going forward. If you want explanations in extreme detail then you can turn to SirGog who recorded a live stream that lasted over 3 hours of him going line by line through the patch notes. If you want the cliffs notes version, then I suggest the DreamCore video weighing in at 13 minutes. One of the more interesting aspects of this event is that every area is going to have random modifiers applied to it with a reasonable exclusionary list in an attempt to keep anything from hard bricking a build. I’ve said before that Phrecia in general was one of the most enjoyable events that I have ever participated in previously, and I am really looking forward at going into this event with the new trade system for snapping up and selling idols. Like I said yesterday I figured out my path going forward, but it is less a hard path and more a series of paths depending on how things end up performing. The reality is that Shadow has three different ascendancies that have three wildly different builds that interest me, so it feels like I am destined for the Dex/Int starting location.
One of the things that you end up doing after awhile, is figuring out your builds based on what you have seen working on POE.Ninja. I often find a build that is similar to the build that I want to play, and then use it as a bit of a template, and then make a lot of audibles while I am leveling based on what I actually need at that moment. None of these builds are going to be like following a Pohx or Zizaran guide. Each of them is an archetype that I have played before, or at least close to an archetype that I have played before, and that I largely understand what is needed for that sort of build. Right now my plans are to level as Servant of Arakaali Summon Raging Spirits, leaning heavily into the fact that I get Envy early and without reservation from that ascendancy and expecting it to hard carry me through the campaign. I like SRS builds and have played several different versions of them on Necromancer, Guardian, and Elementalist…. but never Shadow. The other huge benefit of this build is that you get to start playing it almost immediately. I will probably roll a Witch mule so that I can get some early quality of life like frostblink.
Essentially my plan is to mostly use this build from the previous Phrecia league as a bit of a template, or at least for understanding some of the early pathing.
Here is where we go into some of the potential pivot points. Summon Raging Spirits is a heck of a lot of fun, and is a pretty good all-arounder build, but is maybe not the fastest mapper. In the even that I really want to go hard into mapping, I might pivot into a Blind Prophet bow trap build using Scourge Arrow of Menace as the base for large amounts of damage that utilizes the “nimis at home” functionality of the ascendancy. Mathil played a version of this build that seems pretty easy to get up and running and since I already like the trap gameplay style, it will probably feel better for me than it did for him. Aero did a slightly higher budget version of this which also might work, but I do prefer the Sunblast gameplay from the Mathil build. The huge benefit of the Mathil build is it has a good POB that I could follow, but I also found this other POB that is slightly different that I might blend in elements from. Essentially its an option if I want to pivot and try something different that only really works during the Phrecia event without needing a very expensive Nimis ring.
Finally if ALL of these plans fall through… I go Surfcaster and build a version of my Ice Trap of Hollowness build that has recently become my go to for just a fun build with a lot of damage projection that freezes the entire damned screen. I have specific preferences in this department since I have now played a version of this build three different times, with different flavors. I found this build from the last Phrecia event that I could use as a template for some of the early pathing, but the gearing is all whack because I will not be affording a mageblood, and ralakesh boots are no longer as good as they were when this was built. Once the initial pathing is sorted and gets me into the right area of the tree, I will probably start following the template of my Elemenatalist Ice Trapper from Keepers of the Flame that I have been playing a lot recently. Essentially this is a fall back plan in case none of the other options work as well as I want them to.
That is kind of the cool thing about a Shadow start in Phrecia is that there are a bunch of compelling things going on with all three ascendancies. I can’t say the same for any of the other classes really, that I am anywhere near as interested in all three. I think Chaos SRS is going to work beautifully as Servant of Arakaali, and in truth I have never actually played a poison minion build in the past. I’ve always done Elemental because it felt like I was not having to stretch the build too hard to get it there. I might be instantly converted. I know without a doubt I will be able to get through red maps without any question, and if nothing else SRS is going to allow me to farm the gear needed to make any of the future pivots. I doubt I will be delving on any of these characters however, so that will be a bit sad. I will probably either focus on Einhar Beasts or doing Harbingers during this event, but we will have to see what good idols I end up getting. I know how a lot of different strategies work so I can pivot to whatever fate gives me.
Are you going to be playing the Legacy of Phrecia event under the 3.27 ruleset? What are your plans? Drop me a line below.
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Good Morning Folks. I am still feeling under the weather, but last night I continued plugging away at my Storm Brand of Indecision Surfcaster in the Legacy of Phrecia Event. There are a few things… firstly this is one of the more squishy builds that I have played. Essentially I have no life and no mana… all of which is being used for reservation auras. The only defenses that I have are roughly 3000 Energy Shield, 20k Evasion, and Ghost Shroud. I can soak the stray hit here or there, but if anything actually gets in contact with me and starts beating away… I am going to drop quickly. Last night I got to the point where I felt comfortable swapping to a Melding of the Flesh setup, and now have 82% Elemental Resistance to all resists. Ultimately my goal is to stack enough +2% max lightning resistance jewels in order to get up to 90% all eventually.
I made a bunch of updates to the build, namely swapping out unique helm and gloves for rares with a large amount of Evasion and Energy shield on them. Essentially having high evasion is a requirement for making Ghost Shroud not feel awful, and the more Energy Shield I can get… the bigger the buffer. I also swapped over to Nebulis which gives me 15% Increased Cold Damage and 20% Increased Lightning Damage per 1% of resist over 75%. So this alone is giving me 105% Increased Cold Damage and 140% Increased Lightning Damage. At some point I want to try and find one with 20/20 on the boosts but for now this one works well enough. I also swapped over to the Headhunter I already had, mostly for the addition buffs which helps make mapping a little bit more smooth. However at some point I will probably swap to a well rolled Crystal Belt to add a bit more defense.
In my adventures yesterday, I noticed a bit of potential unintended interaction. In order to stack more Damage and Critical Chance, I have been leaning heavily into Large Cluster Jewels and Medium Cluster Jewels. I had a bunch of these sitting in my bank and used Harvest elemental re-rolls in order to craft some with reasonable stats. There are a bunch of these that I mostly just settled for anything that looked interesting. One of these abilities was something called Thunderstruck which gives me +20% Lightning Damage, 30% increased Critical Strike Chance, and then the text “Your Critical Strikes Knock Back Shocked Enemies”. This is not a chance to knock back… but if you crit they get knocked back 100% of the time. I did not really expect there to be a significant interaction and largely just went with this notable because it gave a lot of crit and some damage.
However when I started playing with it… I noticed some nonsense happening. I recorded a clip of me fighting a map boss so that you can see what is happening. Essentially Storm Brand of Indecision is constantly attaching and detaching from the target… something that is happening essentially every 0.16 seconds. How this actually plays in a map is that effectively it pushes a mob away from you… rapidly… in an almost comical manner. This reminds me a lot of the nonsense that players were doing with Knock Back and Totems during Trials of the Ancestors to effectively stunlock the mobs and keep them from doing anything. This does not prevent mobs from casting… but it does seem to confuse the shit out of them while they are being rapidly pushed in one direction.
I am also using freeze proliferation and cold exposure on my gloves… which combined with Herald of Ice produces big pops. If you are going to use Heralds… you gotta use the Automaton MTX to make big pretty splashes of course. I am in a weird space with this character because I like it a ton… but also it is way the hell more squishy than any character I normally play. I am not sure how far I will push this character. If I can get it to 90% all res, and maybe swap out a few other pieces for more defenses… it might get to a comfortable place. However it will never be as comfortable as something like my Righteous Fire Scavenger or my history of Chieftains will ever be. Evasion/ES just is never going to feel quite as good as Armor+Block+Max Res+tons of Regeneration.
All in all though, I am pretty happy with Storm Brand of Indecision Surfcaster. It was a lot of fun to pull together and will only get better as I keep poking at it. This is ultimately going to be the last character I probably play of Phrecia because I will obviously be at least giving the Path of Exile II Dawn of the Hunt league a shot. I am likely going to be playing something on the Smith of Kitava first. I just don’t really know what abilities I am going to go with. Maybe whatever that fire spear attack was that was shown in the presentation. Probably pairing a spear with Chernobog’s Pillar shield and then going all in on buffing fire damage as best I can.
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Good Morning Folks. I am fighting some generic respiratory crud and as such feeling pretty freaking awful. However here I am sharing my nonsense with you all. Yesterday I finished the campaign on my Storm Brand of Indecision character built on top of the Surfcaster ascendancy. I legitimately have no real idea where I am going with this character, nor is there a major consensus of builds over on POE.Ninja… so I am kind of winging it for the moment. I am currently playing pretty much a pure energy shield build and then using Zealot’s Oath to turn my life regeneration into Energy Shield regeneration. I have no clue how well this is going to work and for how long… but for the moment it feels shockingly comfortable for being low effective health. I already have a phenomenal character that I have taken pretty much as far as it can go… so any joy I get out of this character is just a placeholder until Last Epoch Season 2 drops.
The main draw of the Surfcaster is Stormy Seas. This ascendancy keystone converts all of your Lightning Damage to Cold Damage and makes it so that your Cold Damage can Shock, allowing you to effectively double dip both Cold and Lightning Damage while Chilling, Freezing, and Shocking with it. This gives me the ability to use a really fast ability like Storm Brand of Indecision and make it feels as comfy and safe as Wintertide Brand. Glacial Wave reduces incoming hit damage and buffs your damage, Sea Legs gives you a way of scaling Crit and Evasion, and then Ghosts of the Deep is just a generically good buff. All combined you end up with a package that just sort of works for the Storm Brand play style remarkably well. I know this is also being played more commonly with Penance Brand of Dissipation, but I prefer the pacing of Storm Brand a bit more.
What is wild about the current state of my build is that I am almost exclusively using unique items. Essentially the only gear slots that I am using rare items in are my amulet and both rings… all of which are items that I had laying around in my stash and or recycled from earlier versions of my RF build. The only uniques that are really purposeful at the moment are Shavronne’s Wrappings so that Chaos damage does not go straight through my Energy Shield, and Ralakesh’s Impatience for permanent charges. Everything else I just sort of made an audible on while I was leveling… and then largely just stuck with it and it somehow has kept working in maps. Immortal Flesh was pulled in pretty late into the process when I swapped to Zealot’s Oath, just to make the regeneration a bit more comfortable. At some point I plan on probably replacing all of this with Rare items but I am just sort of rolling the dice to see how long it works.
I can pretty comfortably do yellow maps without much issue, and while I successfully completed a red map… it was a bit rough at my current level. Swapping out some of my uniques for rare gear with more survival on them would probably help. Essentially I need to swap out everything that I do not absolutely need for high evasion and energy shield items… because right now I am running around with the effective hit point pool of 2000, whereas I am way more used to running around in the 5000-6000 level with my Righteous Fire characters. Essentially the next few levels are going to be building out another Lightning Cluster with dual Brand Clusters to see where that gets my damage output. If you are curious you can see the current state of my build with this POB.
There was another Dev Interview yesterday with Jonathan and Mark of Grinding Gear Games hosted by Darth Microtransaction and Ghazzy TV. It is two hours long, but if you are just wanting a quick summary Raxxanterax released a 20 minute video covering pretty much all of the important bits. I am still not entirely certain that the game that I want to be playing, is the game that they are envisioning in their heads. There are certain aspects of Path of Exile that they seem to have considered failures, and are trying to right those perceived wrongs… but how many things can you change while still capturing the same magic. The current version of Path of Exile II isn’t really quite right… so we will see if 0.2.0 brings things closer or pushes them further away. Like it is hard to quantify what I personally want, but going back and playing the Legacy of Phrecia event has made me realize how much magic was lost with POE2.
It is very clear that Legacy of Phrecia was intended as a quick filler content league, but ironically they have accidentally crafted one of the most enjoyable POE experiences. I still feel like they need to keep expanding Phrecia until 3.26 launches, but it seems like GGG would prefer that we all swap to playing Path of Exile II instead. That said I will be checking out the Dawn of the Hunt launch on Friday, just not sure how much I will actually be playing and for how long. Supposedly we are going to see patch notes potentially on Wednesday, and I feel like I should get a good idea from those how enjoyable I am going to find the first POE2 league. If things went too far in the wrong direction, and I can tell that from the patch notes… I might just make a hard skip until Last Epoch in a few weeks.
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Good Morning Folks! This weekend I was all over the place when it came to gaming. First up I finished up leveling to 100, which completed the Gear Grinding Goals achievement. Hitting level 100 on a character is a weird place because you suddenly no longer care about taking deaths. Up until this point even when attempting to progress, there was always a subtle tension there in the background because losing experience feels bad in your late 90s. Getting to level 95 is trivial, and honestly it does not feel too terribly bad until level 98. However that level 98-100 stretch is pure tedium with you either needing a relatively immortal build, or a lot of luck to keep from taking a stray death. Weirdly Delve ends up being one of the safer players to level because there is a sweet spot in the 150-200 depth where the incoming damage is not too bad, but the experience gained is pretty stable. Dipping back into maps to fill back up your sulphite however… that is where the danger arrives.
I also completed the achievement for crafting using one of every Settlers of Kalguur rune allowing me to knock out 34 of 40 and matching what I got to last league. This means I have another tall totem pole in my hideout to go along with all of my stubby ones. Essentially I have been earning a Totem every league since Sanctum. I could probably push forward with trying to knock out 40 of 40… but I just have not had that level of drive. It also involves doing a lot of bossing content that I do not necessarily enjoy. I could in theory start running my mappers more often and if they get abducted there might be a chance of knocking out one of those objectives and getting achievement 35 for the league. I am pretty happy with where I am, and honestly… I was happy with 32 of 40 until I came back for the Phrecia event and thrived in it.
With no fear of death I did a few t17 maps, and a few other sundry things that I had been avoiding due to the danger of taking an experience loss. However I feel like I am probably “done” with my Righteous Fire Scavenger. Sure there are a lot of things I could tweak on it… and swap out various gear pieces for even better versions. However I feel like I am pretty happy with where I got and don’t have ton of drive to push it much further. That is the irony with dinging level 100… is that I also lose a lot of my drive to keep going. I am not enough of an “Economy Andy” to really appreciate trading for trades sake. For me it has always a means to an end, that I want to trade items to get currency to be able to do more things. However once I lose the push of levels… I just sort of lose my drive to keep playing that character.
Instead I spent a chunk of my weekend playing other games. On Saturday I dove into Atomfall, which is a Bethesda game by a company other than Bethesda. We saw this with Avowed where they created a perfectly cromulent Elder Scrolls game set in a different universe. However that made a lot of since given that it was from Obsidian, a company with a long history of working with Bethesda on games like Fallout New Vegas. Atomfall however comes from Rebellion games, the folks behind the Zombie Army and Sniper Elite series… and they do a shockingly good job of replicating the feel of a Fallout game. The setup is considerably different… instead of a Nuclear war decimating the planet, you are inside an exclusion zone where things are going haywire. However the trappings are much the same… roaming gangs of very British outlaws and spore infected Ghoul like Ferals both fill the roles of the normal antagonists of a Fallout title.
There are a lot of things that work differently. For example it is not nearly as “If you can see it, you can go there” as the Bethesda titles… but I also don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. Everything that exists that you can travel to… exists for a reason, and as a result there are way fewer barren stretches with no reason for existing. There are similar crafting systems, but items break down into raw resources as soon as you loot them, rather than having to dump through the hoops of needing to salvage them as a separate step. Effectively… both Avowed and now Atomfall feel like Bethesda games that have been evolved past some of the busywork that some systems designer thought was really cool. The spirit of the game exists and it is close enough for me to effectively lump them into the broader Bethesda-like genre.
Sunday on a totally different whim I started playing Hero Siege, which feels very much like a spiritual successor to Diablo 2 more than anything else. It is doing some of the same things that Chronicon does, but feels much more polished. I started playing a Viking and have gone all in on this big earthquake smash thingy. So far it seems to be doing a good job of stunning enemies and also whitting down large groups because with a twohander I can hit everything at once. Large packs of purely ranged mobs though seem to be the bane of my existence, and as a result I have had to learn to dance around a bit in order to deal with them. I want to try this with a controller, because it seems like it would be the ideal game for SteamDeck. All in all though I am pretty pleased with what I have played of it.
However by the time Sunday evening rolled around… my brain worms had convinced me that rolling a brand new character in the Legacy of Phrecia event was a good idea. There is something about the fleeting nature of this event and having entirely new acendancy classes that we may never see again. As such I decided to roll a Shadow which I then turned into a Surfcaster and am going all in on Storm Brand of Indecision. For now I am largely patterning my build off this character that is sitting at level 99. Given that all of the brand nodes are nowhere near the Shadow starting position… most of my talents have just travelled across the tree to unlock the meat of what I needed. Now that I have all of those brand nodes and a few elemental nodes… I am now going back and fleshing out the build with what I pathed through previously. I have a six link Shavronne’s Wrapping sitting in my bank wanting on my 60s when I can actually equip it. The build I am loosely following uses Melding of the Flesh to achieve 90% elemental resistance to all, which is something I have never played with before and am interested in seeing it work.
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