Good Morning Friends! As of last night, I am officially in maps. So far they are honestly going pretty smoothly with a few moments of press potion panic but otherwise manageable. Essentially yesterday I finished up the rest of Act Nine and all of Act Ten, then did my third Labyrinth, and finally killed Kitava for the second time. The transition into early maps for Righteous Fire is far smoother than any build I have played so far. I now understand why Pohx has so many devotees because this build is awesome for just sorta kicking back and doing content. Granted I am only in white maps so far, and who knows what the transition into yellows is going to look like.
So far I have only swapped out a single piece of gear, but my resists seem to be solid. I am shocked that my gear is as seemingly good still as was. This is the kooky thing about Path of Exile is that gear level seems to not matter even one little bit but instead how lucky you were on the random rolls that it came with. Obviously, the higher the gear the better the possible rolls that can be, but I am still using some items that show equipable levels in the teens. At this point, I am probably going to start shopping for something that I can use as a six-link chest piece so that I can migrate over to using all of the appropriate gems for righteous fire. I think everything else should be relatively correct. I had to move frostblink over to lifetap finally so that I could start running skitterbots.
I had some exceptional luck in my last few acts of the game, and due to over-leveling as heavily as I did… started seeing tier-one maps dropping left and right. I now have fourteen T1, one T2, three T3, and one T4 ready to run. In total, I have unlocked six points on the Atlas Passive tree and have several more that I can run that I have not gotten the bonus from. For the moment I am going hard into Betrayal and Expedition since I seem to be getting some cool things from there. Now that I finally understand Betrayal a bit more, I am way more willing to engage with it. Every map mechanic just seems to work better with RF, and I even managed to wreck Blight on one of the maps. I am looking forward to trying Breach since that seemed to be my personal nemesis before. Speaking of Nemesis… ArchNemesis still mostly sucks and I encountered my first proper mob in the middle of a map yesterday. It took forever but was mostly doable.
One of my goals in this league is to spend more time in other game modes. I noticed that I was almost capped on the Delve currency so I finished out my evening burning through some of that and shocking no one… Righteous Fire is also good at this game mode. I started at a rather conservative level, but I expect in the coming days to be cranking this up a bit as I upgrade the various sliders for Delve. All told I am having a lot of freaking fun and it feels like RF opens a lot more doors than the builds I had been previously playing. I am now however looking forward to bossing because this video of Pohx against Maven seems like nonsense. I found out that he is running a “quenching” flask to turn off his Righteous Fire during the degeneration phases but that also means that he can do it only so many times before falling over. This is probably the downside of this build, but considering most of what I enjoy is mapping, heist, and delve… I am probably okay with this. I could always afford to build a bossing character from the currency I am likely to gain doing that content.
I am having a heck of a lot of fun right now, and my current goal is to improve my gear and knock out more of the Atlas Passive tree. Coming from having completed this last league, it feels a little meager but it is progress nonetheless. I guess I will spend some time today and create another spreadsheet like I had last time to track my map progress. Games like this… really suit me. It gives me a bunch of goals that I can chip away at solo and feel like I am making forward momentum. At some point, I need to dust off Guild Wars 2 as well because it similarly has a bunch of solo-friendly micro goals that I can make progress on.
Hopefully, your week is going pretty swimmingly. Mine is largely tolerable but at some point, I am going to have to actually care about Christmas… because we have done next to nothing planning-wise.
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Good Morning Friends! I will warn you when I am on an ARPG kick… the posts are not going to all be winners. You have to somewhat really care about ARPGs and the loot that they can drop to fully enjoy these. That said I am not really playing anything other than Path of Exile so that is what you are going to get for a while. As of last night, I am knee-deep in Act Nine and sitting at level 73… which feels like I am a bit higher level than I was in this same place during the last league. After some rifling through my past posts for the Kalandra league I remarked that I was level 70 at the beginning of Act Ten, so I am making a bit more XP overall and it could just be that Righteous Fire is better at fully clearing a zone. I am doing really well on various resists but I am not sure how that will hold up once I get the debuff applied after killing Kitava the second time.
One thing that ultimately concerns me a bit, is that most of the gear that I am currently wearing… I have had it for a very long time. One of my rings for example is really nice but has an equipment level of eight. That means in order to transition into mapping I am likely going to have to go through a lot of socket pressure and upgrading in a very short period of time. If my resists were going to be good, then I could probably honestly start maps in the current state I am right now. However, once Kitava nerfs my resists again I am going to be hurting, especially in the fire resistance department. Not that resists are all that important but I do plan on finishing Cruel Labyrinth before I kill Kitava.
One game mode that I hated with my last build, but don’t mind at all this time around… is Incursion. Essentially for those not familiar with the various hold-over league mechanics in Path of Exile, the NPC named Alva sends you back into history and you can impact various rooms in the Temple. Essentially the overarching goal is to open up doors, which can be done by killing NPCs and getting a key to drop. You are trying to link up all of the rooms so you can run the entire Temple as a giant contorted map. Last night I managed to get my very first incursion ever where I could reach every single room in the instance. More impressive is that I took zero deaths and only had scant few close calls while trying to run the map once completed.
The rewards were not phenomenal. My loot filters seem to really be impressed by them, but in truth, most of it was vendor fodder. I held onto the unique and the belt because someone might find them useful, but everything else wasn’t of any use to me. There was also the problem that by the time I reached the end of my run, my bags were pretty full of other interesting drops that I left a lot of this to rot on the floor. Sure I could have dropped a portal because I still had five doors left… but running an entire temple with every room unlocked… is “a lot”. By the time I finished, I was very much ready to be free of that place and move on to something else.
I am still seeing my fair share of kooky kalandra-style loot drops, like this time when apparently a rare thought I needed a unique amulet and a bajillion ivory spirit shields. I am honestly kinda happy that they managed to keep some of this weirdness because it brings a smile to my face every time a dozen of the same item drops… even if said item is mostly worthless. I think more than anything that is one of the aspects of Path of Exile that I enjoy the most… the always confusing and surprising loot drops. Most of it is junk, even using an item filter… but every now and then there is a jewel in the rough that feels amazing to get. In chasing that unicorn you end up with enough raw currency that you can buy your way out of most holes.
Now for something a bit fun, because I had not really compared it myself yet either. I took some screenshots of my currency tab six days into the Kalandra league on 8/25/2022 and we can compare that with this morning’s screenshot some 4 days into the Sanctum league. At this point in the league, I feel like I am seeing way more Alchemy Orbs which is a good thing, because that is a positive for “Alch and Go” map sustain. I also have way more alterations overall which I had noticed them dropping a lot. I am down a bit on raw chaos and at this point in Kalandra I had already found a Divine Orb, but I’ve found two Exalted Orbs so while it doesn’t exactly shake out as an even it feels like I had similar tier 1 currency drops. I felt like I have had way less smithing currency, but really the difference is mostly negligible I think it was just that in Kalandra league it tended to drop 10 at a time in the lake.
All told I think I am doing pretty solidly at the moment. We will see what the next few days bring as I transition over to white maps.
The post Nearing maps with Aging Gear appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Friends! Friday saw the launch of a brand league in Path of Exile and I finally landed on playing Pohx’s Righteous Fire Juggernaut build. Mostly I think I wanted a fairly cozy and low-stress league start and Pohx is maybe one of the best guide builders in the community. Ash and I have talked a bit about this, but various guide makers have various risk margins that they are willing to live with. Velyna seems super chill as a human being, but she is willing to live with way more stress than I want in my life and as a result, I am not super likely to be following any more of her builds in the future. Ash commented that really what we are looking for… builds from people who are willing to take that build to Solo Self Found Hardcore… where they can’t realistically rely on the market for items and need sufficient survival to keep from dying to a random one-shot.
A few leagues ago I had attempted to go down the Righteous Fire path but ultimately stalled out because I loved the play style of Wintertide Brand. In the Inquisitor RF path, this is supposed to be just a jumping-off point, but I leaned into the gameplay so heavily that I never really made the conversion to RF and started going off in my own direction trying to make Wintertide a viable endgame build. In the last league, I took my love of brand gameplay and went down the Storm Brand path, and it was largely fine other than the fact that again I had to deviate to pack on survival. This time around however I committed early on mentally to following the path and trusting in Pohx and so far it has been awesome. I made the switch around level 40 to running Righteous Fire over Rolling Magma, and am now 63 and still trucking along happily.
This has been without a doubt my easiest league start so far, and I am not sure how much is chalked up to following Pohx’s guidance and how much is the fact that this is effectively my third league. The big thing I have noticed is that I’ve yet to die to any of the act bosses. Starting with Hillock I have one-shot every boss encounter so far and the only deaths I have taken… were due to some lag spikes on particularly nasty trash. Since so much of the build relies on health regeneration, you have to be deeply cautious around anything that might impair your regeneration rate. I can’t survive terribly long due to the damage I am dealing myself constantly from Righteous Fire so I have to make sure and disengage or potion to get through the rough spots.
As far as the Forbidden Sanctum league mechanic itself, I am not necessarily the biggest fan. It is a mechanic that greatly favors glass cannon builds because your health bar is not actually your health bar. You instead have this bar called “Resolve” that goes down every time you get hit by anything, and if you are not dodging literally everything you are failing. Ultimately the highest rewards are gained by letting the reward from each floor ride until the end of the map… but that also means you are at risk of losing everything. So my personal preference is to take the reward that effectively cashes out at the end of every floor. That way I at least got something for my time, and so long as I keep that perspective the experience is not too bad. It ends up just being a way to get some supplemental crafting currency which is usually worth my time.
As far as currency goes… this league seems to be way more generous than Lake of Kalandra was at the start. I am in act seven currently and have six raw chaos orbs and one exalted orb. That in theory should give me a good start toward buying some end-game gear at some point. I saw my first Chaos Orb drop in Act III, and my first Exalted Orb in Act V. I am hoping this trend continues and that I see a Divine Orb or maybe my first ever Mirror before too much longer. Normally speaking I have not seen much in the way of raw Chaos drops until maps. I’ve seen a number of the kooky loot types where a single mob will drop like six of an item so it really does feel like we have arrived at a happy place after the wild mood swings of Lake of Kalandra loot. Here is hoping they don’t screw anything up!
I am having a freaking blast… but so far my friend Ace is not. They tried another Minion build and it seems like maybe those are not quite back to normal. I hope either the build improves or they can figure out another build because it is going to suck not to be fucking around in the endgame without them. I want everyone to be happy and engaged in the league because it will make my long-term experience more enjoyable to see everyone having fun. It has been interesting to see how my opinion of different mechanics has shifted now that I have this wildly survivable killing machine. I hated Incursion previously and now… it is super easy and just a case of how fast can I move around the map and soak up more kills. I am looking forward to encountering my first Breach because that was also a mechanic that I loathed but I have a feeling it is now going to be my jam.
Are you playing Forbidden Sanctum in Path of Exile? How has your league start gone? What are your thoughts about the seasonal mechanic? Drop me a line below!
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I spent my night like so many gamers did while trying to maintain a connection to the Game Awards stream on both Steam.tv and Twitch.tv so I could earn potential rewards in both locations. I think everyone was out chasing the possibility of winning a Steam Deck, and it seems as though maybe Valve had some technical difficulties with this giveaway because about 20 minutes into the show they finally seemed to start announcing the winners. I did not win a Steam Deck which is probably a good thing because I already have one… but I promise it would have gone to a good home if I did end up with a second one. Here is hoping someone out there that I know actually managed to snag one.
We all know we tune into “The Game Awards” for the cavalcade of trailers because the rewards themselves are largely inconsequential. They will feature some esports people you have never heard of and a bunch of games that you didn’t play… with a single AAA game winning almost every single award. This year I thought it was going to be all about Elden Ring but it seems that God of War Ragnarok was the main character of the evening. What was significantly different this year however is how I commented about what I was seeing. Normally speaking on a game show like this I would have Twitter open and keep a running sequence of commentary going along with all of my other friends doing the same thing. Since I am no longer on Twitter however a few of us opted for something different.
I spent a delightful evening hanging out with Arkenor, Scopique, and Tipa as we attempted to all stay in synch while hanging out on voice chat while watching the show. It did not work as planned. The original goal was to have everyone tune in to discord which would in theory rebroadcast the same stream at the same time to all of us so we would be able to comment on the same things. What ended up happening instead is that the rebroadcast was wigging out for a few people, which lead some of us to be watching YouTube, others on Twitch, and myself trying to keep tabs on the Steam version of the broadcast. This caused some hilariously out-of-sequence comment moments, but in spite of all of that, it was a heck of a lot of fun. This is definitely the most enjoyable way to watch a big corporate games presentation.
There were way too many things covered to talk about in a blog post, so here are some of my rapid-fire comments about the things that really stood out to me on a personal level.
Dead Cells Return to Castlevania
You had me at Castlevania. I enjoy Dead Cells but have not played it anywhere near as much as I should. Once this DLC drops I will do my best to remedy this failure. I have so many fond memories of the Belmonts, and Alucard, and count Symphony of the Night as my one true favorite game of all time. There was no way I was not going t o play this.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
This looks really interesting. It gives me deep Witcher vibes as maybe a more spiritualist/druidic take on that franchise. The trailer definitely piqued my interest enough to wishlist this. My hope is it feels like the big open-world witcher nonsense that I love so much. It definitely seems like the sort of game I would go in for.
Hellboy: Web of Wyrd
Scopique and I were talking about this during the show, but we did not realize that we had apparently not gotten a Hellboy game before now. This is apparently not true and that there were two games previously… one in 2000 and one in 2004 but I remember the existence of neither. What impressed me about this game particularly is how closely it seemed to replicate the unique art stylings of Mike Mignola. I love Hellboy and more particularly I love the Hellboy comics. I will be watching this game closely.
Star Wars Jedi Survivor
I don’t have this problem when I am playing the game but in person… I cannot see Cameron Monaghan as anything other than his character from Shameless which is a hilarious show if you have never watched it. I loved Jedi Fallen Order so this is absolutely going to be a “day one drop everything else” type game for me. I will be picking it up on the PC and I will be ignoring again the warnings against playing with a keyboard and mouse because that control scheme greatly improved my enjoyment of the first title. I will also be playing this on a low difficulty because at that point it no longer feels like a “soulslike”.
Judas
Bioshock in Outer Space? Yes please, sign me the fuck up. Like if you had told me nothing else about this game but that elevator pitch you would have had me on board with it. I loved the Bioshock games and played the first two multiple times. There was something about Infinite that made me less interested in the replay. Regardless I am extremely interested in this game.
Dune Awakening
Okay, I love the Dune franchise and have been wanting to have a Dune-based MMORPG since I first started playing these games in the 2000s. There were a few rumored projects that went nowhere and now we have Funcom carrying this banner forward. Funcom is both the company behind Secret World that I loved and Conan that I had no interest in. I am hoping this does not end up being a forced PVP murder box and has a way in which I can play it in a purely PVE-focused nature. I am not super optimistic however because I am almost certain that faction lines will be drawn crossed the Great Houses of the Landsraad.
Hades II
I have to be honest, this reveals somewhat shocked me. When I saw Supergiant scroll across the screen I remember commenting to my friends that I wondered what genre they would be tackling this time. Basically, up until this point, each time Supergiant released a game it would dive into a new style of gameplay. Bastion was mostly a Zelda-like beat-em-up, Transistor was a strategic dungeon crawler, Pyre was a story-driven “sportsball” game, and Hades was maybe the purest version of the rogue-lite I had seen in a while. I guess Hades was just too popular not to warrant a direct sequel. I am on board for more Hades world from a different perspective, but also I am kinda hoping that the studio has gotten big enough to have folks also be working on another quirky venture into a new genre.
Death Stranding 2
This was my highlight of the evening without a doubt. I loved Death Stranding and I played it at a very specific moment in life, during the lockdowns of the pandemic… and as a result, the storyline felt deeply poignant. I want to know more about this world and it seems like we are going to get that. I became way the heck too attached to BB, which I know is a bit weird. I am just hoping we get a simultaneous release on PC and Console because I have no interest in trying to play this with a controller. It was excellent with a mouse and keyboard and I want more of that.
Reformed Orthodox Rabbi Bill Clinton
The highlight of the night however was at the very end of the show, when a kid seemingly snuck up on stage along with the confused developers of FROM Software. This gave The Game Awards their “Soy Bomb” moment, so I guess they have officially arrived on the world’s stage. Essentially after the devs gave their comments, the kid sneaks up to the microphone and in a faux broken English accent he dedicates the award to his “reformed orthodox rabbi Bill Clinton”. According to Geoff Keighley, he was arrested… which I guess is a bit sad because it added a moment of true levity to an otherwise stuffy occasion. There is another twitter thread indicating he did something similar on Info Wars with a Free Taiwan message, but I have not been able to find a clip of whatever that was. The same thread also indicates that he had planned this ahead of time.
Did you watch The Game Awards? What were your highlights? Drop me a line below.
The post The Game Awards 2022 appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
