Hey Folks! Today has gone a bit differently than planned and as a result, I am a bit later getting a blog post out the door than normal. Yesterday I decided to fully embrace the Crab and picked up the last two armor pieces that I was missing from the Blue Crab armor set. I figured this was a fitting visage since I am trying to build tanky in a game that feels like it mostly rewards overwhelming damage output. In theory, though I am on a trajectory that should give me that overwhelming output at some point in the future.
Without really meaning to, I have wound up on an adjacent trajectory to ConnorConverse/OneManaLeft. Essentially I am going down a path of dealing ignites and making things explode on stun, and plan on eventually going down the path of Hammer of the Gods and making it do massive damage with an even bigger ignite. For him, it appears to be working, and for me, I have reached a point where my build no longer feels quite as dumpster-tier as I originally thought. Warriors are in a rough spot where it feels like you have to struggle for an act and a half before you really get enough points for things to come online completely. It probably did not help that I was level 42 and did not have an ascendancy yet.
For years I have said that the most annoying part about leveling a character in Path of Exile 1, was doing the Labyrinth. It is not fun content, but I was wrong to complain… because the alternatives in Path of Exile II are even worse. This morning I managed to finally get through the Trial of the Sehkemas which is effectively Sanctum, and only because I am so defensively geared at this point and have such a large hitpoint pool that I was able to mostly shrug off the damage. I originally had planned on going down the path of Trial of Chaos which unlocks in Act III, because in truth I did fairly well at Ultimatum as Righteous Fire.
The problem with this theory is that Trial of Chaos is so much worse than anything Ultimatum ever dumped on us. In Ultimatum the zone denial abilities are mostly just nuisances because in Path of Exile, we are able to gear defensively enough to mostly shrug them off. In Trial of Chaos, you have to deal with at least twice as many incoming attacks from these, and they deal infinitesimally more damage. I just tried again before sitting down to write this post and chose the lightning turrets, because the alternatives were far worse. What I was not expecting was to get to the boss and effectively have twenty different turrets shotgunning me at the same time.
I suppose I will keep slamming my head against this until either I pass out or learn to enjoy the pain because currently, I am getting nothing from my ascendancy without a second set of two points. At first, I thought I would pick up a different notable, but that wound up bricking my build. So I spent literally all of the gold that I had to respec into the 20-slot bag because it was innocuous enough not to cause any actual harm to what I was doing. That means however that while I am ascended and a TItan, I am also getting zero real benefit from it until I get another trial done and pick up the +50% to all small nodes ability that should be the ultimate payoff.
All of this frustration aside… I have to say that I am really enjoying Act III so far. I’ve reached what is effectively the halfway point and have been loving the adventures in Vaal temples thing we have going on. While I did not really like doing Incursion, I’ve always been a fan of Alva as a character. I was happy to see her playing a larger role in the second game and quite possibly the larger story arc of Path of Exile as a whole. My character also finally feels good to play, which is a huge thing. I still take the occasional death to something stupid, but I pretty much made it through all of the Act III bosses one-shotting them, save for this fight… which required me to learn some of the tells and mechanics a bit more than simply dodging.
I am also really loving the setting and the lore. One of the Act III themes is a remix of one of the jungle themes from the first game and it is delightful. The whole explorer’s vibe is great as well. Oswald has a Death Journal where he has cataloged all of the horrible manners in which people have died in the jungle. This one was probably my favorite. I’ve already been spoiled on the fight that comes at the end of this Act and I am not necessarily looking forward to it. The end-of-act bosses are massive pains in the ass and just feel like they are giant bags of hitpoints. I helped out a guildie with Geonor this morning and it seems like when you group up with another player, the zone is set at the maximum level of the highest player. As such Geonor didn’t do a ton of damage to me, but it took forever to chip away at his health.
The loot changes that rolled in yesterday have made a significant difference, not just in the quantity of rares but the quality of them. I managed to pick up this amazing Chestpiece as a drop out in the world, and immediately spent artificers orbs on it to swap over to it. I also picked up a decent enough upgrade for boots and swapped to those, but I do wish it had movement speed on them. I am contemplating swapping out my chest for a Wandering Reliquary, mostly because the life recoup seems like it would be really strong even though I would be losing some overall life pool.
I also picked up a few more uniques yesterday taking my total to five. The gloves seem really good, and I might do something to build around them for a second warrior at some point. The mask seems odd more than anything, and given how hard it is to get elemental resistances it seems like a really bad idea to take minus any amount. In Path of Exile this would be a trivial downside and easily geared around, but here… that seems like a fatal mistake.
At this point, I am some 40 hours into the game and slowly plugging away at it. By this point in any other league, I would be halfway through completing my Atlas. This is the thing that concerns me the most about the design decisions that were made for Path of Exile II. I cannot see myself wanting to play this as a seasonal game. It will be interesting to play once… but I am not going to be willing to spend this amount of time just to get “started”.
The post Missing Izaro and Hating POE2 Trials appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Hey Folks! Today has gone a bit differently than planned and as a result, I am a bit later getting a blog post out the door than normal. Yesterday I decided to fully embrace the Crab and picked up the last two armor pieces that I was missing from the Blue Crab armor set. I figured this was a fitting visage since I am trying to build tanky in a game that feels like it mostly rewards overwhelming damage output. In theory, though I am on a trajectory that should give me that overwhelming output at some point in the future.
Without really meaning to, I have wound up on an adjacent trajectory to ConnorConverse/OneManaLeft. Essentially I am going down a path of dealing ignites and making things explode on stun, and plan on eventually going down the path of Hammer of the Gods and making it do massive damage with an even bigger ignite. For him, it appears to be working, and for me, I have reached a point where my build no longer feels quite as dumpster-tier as I originally thought. Warriors are in a rough spot where it feels like you have to struggle for an act and a half before you really get enough points for things to come online completely. It probably did not help that I was level 42 and did not have an ascendancy yet.
For years I have said that the most annoying part about leveling a character in Path of Exile 1, was doing the Labyrinth. It is not fun content, but I was wrong to complain… because the alternatives in Path of Exile II are even worse. This morning I managed to finally get through the Trial of the Sehkemas which is effectively Sanctum, and only because I am so defensively geared at this point and have such a large hitpoint pool that I was able to mostly shrug off the damage. I originally had planned on going down the path of Trial of Chaos which unlocks in Act III, because in truth I did fairly well at Ultimatum as Righteous Fire.
The problem with this theory is that Trial of Chaos is so much worse than anything Ultimatum ever dumped on us. In Ultimatum the zone denial abilities are mostly just nuisances because in Path of Exile, we are able to gear defensively enough to mostly shrug them off. In Trial of Chaos, you have to deal with at least twice as many incoming attacks from these, and they deal infinitesimally more damage. I just tried again before sitting down to write this post and chose the lightning turrets, because the alternatives were far worse. What I was not expecting was to get to the boss and effectively have twenty different turrets shotgunning me at the same time.
I suppose I will keep slamming my head against this until either I pass out or learn to enjoy the pain because currently, I am getting nothing from my ascendancy without a second set of two points. At first, I thought I would pick up a different notable, but that wound up bricking my build. So I spent literally all of the gold that I had to respec into the 20-slot bag because it was innocuous enough not to cause any actual harm to what I was doing. That means however that while I am ascended and a TItan, I am also getting zero real benefit from it until I get another trial done and pick up the +50% to all small nodes ability that should be the ultimate payoff.
All of this frustration aside… I have to say that I am really enjoying Act III so far. I’ve reached what is effectively the halfway point and have been loving the adventures in Vaal temples thing we have going on. While I did not really like doing Incursion, I’ve always been a fan of Alva as a character. I was happy to see her playing a larger role in the second game and quite possibly the larger story arc of Path of Exile as a whole. My character also finally feels good to play, which is a huge thing. I still take the occasional death to something stupid, but I pretty much made it through all of the Act III bosses one-shotting them, save for this fight… which required me to learn some of the tells and mechanics a bit more than simply dodging.
I am also really loving the setting and the lore. One of the Act III themes is a remix of one of the jungle themes from the first game and it is delightful. The whole explorer’s vibe is great as well. Oswald has a Death Journal where he has cataloged all of the horrible manners in which people have died in the jungle. This one was probably my favorite. I’ve already been spoiled on the fight that comes at the end of this Act and I am not necessarily looking forward to it. The end-of-act bosses are massive pains in the ass and just feel like they are giant bags of hitpoints. I helped out a guildie with Geonor this morning and it seems like when you group up with another player, the zone is set at the maximum level of the highest player. As such Geonor didn’t do a ton of damage to me, but it took forever to chip away at his health.
The loot changes that rolled in yesterday have made a significant difference, not just in the quantity of rares but the quality of them. I managed to pick up this amazing Chestpiece as a drop out in the world, and immediately spent artificers orbs on it to swap over to it. I also picked up a decent enough upgrade for boots and swapped to those, but I do wish it had movement speed on them. I am contemplating swapping out my chest for a Wandering Reliquary, mostly because the life recoup seems like it would be really strong even though I would be losing some overall life pool.
I also picked up a few more uniques yesterday taking my total to five. The gloves seem really good, and I might do something to build around them for a second warrior at some point. The mask seems odd more than anything, and given how hard it is to get elemental resistances it seems like a really bad idea to take minus any amount. In Path of Exile this would be a trivial downside and easily geared around, but here… that seems like a fatal mistake.
At this point, I am some 40 hours into the game and slowly plugging away at it. By this point in any other league, I would be halfway through completing my Atlas. This is the thing that concerns me the most about the design decisions that were made for Path of Exile II. I cannot see myself wanting to play this as a seasonal game. It will be interesting to play once… but I am not going to be willing to spend this amount of time just to get “started”.
The post Missing Izaro and Hating POE2 Trials appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
