Mageblood, Headhunter, and Squire

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Good Morning Folks! It is feeling like it is time to start putting things to bed in the Path of Exile Affliction league. I’ve been spending most of my time over the last few weeks playing either Enshrouded or Last Epoch, and with that has come less desire to log in and grind. I feel like it was a successful league considering this was the league that broke my favorite build. Throughout the league I wound up creating five viable characters and honestly enjoyed each of them:

The only real failed build of the league was Volcanic Fissure of Snaking, and even then I probably could have made that work were I sitting in trade league at the time. I pivoted that character to Righteous Fire and was able to get it going much easier.

That was another thing that I largely considered a big success. We started the league in a private “Guild SSF” and I think that was a heck of a lot of fun. I am not sure I would ever let that league extend out as long as we did, but I could definitely see starting off with a 10-day private league again. It was a lot of fun trying to get my builds up and running under the stipulations of having to either farm or craft everything. Playing with a group of people made it a lot easier to find some of the various build-required uniques for folks, and there was also a general sense of camaraderie that was a lot of fun. Going 40 days though… was a bit much and quite honestly MOST of the folks hit it heavy for the first week and then slowly tapered off. It was really only a handful of us that stuck around for the entire league and continued on into trade.

We find ourselves in the doldrums of the league now as player numbers are waning heavily. I think tomorrow and the launch of Last Epoch 1.0 and its first seasonal content called a “cycle” will be the final nail in Affliction League. As it stands it seems like most of the streamers are going to be transitioning from Path of Exile to Last Epoch, and without a steady drum beat of new build and farming strategy videos at least some of the player interest will drop. All in all I think the league was pretty successful in keeping players engaged, but I am honestly hoping we have a bit more sober of an experience for the next league. We jokingly referred to last league as the “Inflation League” and if that was the case… this league was the “Hyper Inflation League”.

I talked a while back about how Mirrors of Kalandra have spiked in price, in part because they were common enough to actually allow them to be regularly used in crafting. The weirder effect this league has had is that it has pushed the value of a Divine Orb into the ground. For the uninitiated in Path of Exile for the sake of trading Chaos Orbs are the Dollar Bill and the Divine Orb has traditionally been the next major unit of pricing for larger trades in the neighborhood of 200-260 Chaos orbs. During almost all of the Ancestor League the price of the Divine Orb stayed pretty stable at 250-260 on the higher end of “normal”, and as of this morning, Affliction Divine Orbs could be got on the market for 130 Chaos. You would assume that this would create upward pressure on items… but in truth, most staples of the market are down as well in price. Essentially anything that could be gotten from Magic Find and juicing the Affliction mechanic is plentiful and cheap.

The positive I guess in this whacky economy is that it has pushed up the price of a lot of things that come from sources OTHER than juiced mapping adding to a scenario where I have made far more currency in this league than any other to date. The lower price of otherwise expensive things has meant that I was able to pick up a Headhunter for 50 Divines, Mageblood for 140 Divines, and a Squire for 3 Divines. For Reference… during Ancestor league a Squire was roughly 25 Divines, Headhunter roughly 100 Divines, and Mageblood roughly 230 Divines. With the league winding down and prices always going up at the end of a league due to a limited player pool… I decided to go ahead and “cash out” and pick up these “Tier 0” uniques so that I at least have them to play with in the Standard league. It is highly unlikely I will ever be in the position to have them going forward, so might as well get them while the getting is good.

Now my thoughts are largely turning towards Last Epoch. At 11 am CST today the online servers are going dark until 11 am tomorrow when 1.0 drops officially. This means I am going to have to find something else to play tonight, either that or start some offline characters. It is going to be weird moving into a seasonal model with Last Epoch because I know me… and that means I will stop caring about my “standard” characters. I am just wired to play seasons at this point, and it will be interesting to see how it changes my focus going forward. I might even play some Diablo IV this evening because I barely made a dent in Season 3 before bailing to go back to Path of Exile. I could also work on some crafting projects in Enshrouded, but now that I have more or less “beat” that game my interesting has waned a bit. I am contemplating poking my head back into Valheim to see how that game has progressed while I have been away.

Anyways! Mostly I am anxious for Last Epoch 1.0 to drop tomorrow. I have already done a slew of planning and I hope luck is on my side when it comes to getting the uniques I want early.