Month: February 2025

Spud is Eepy

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Hey Folks. I have to fight the urge to open with morning, because by the time I end up posting this it will be afternoon. Yesterday was a weird schedule which meant that I never got around to posting anything, and then this morning… I sat in front of the screen and was just not feeling it. I am very sensitive to my routines and when they are off… everything in my life is off. I had to be in the office very early yesterday, and then today was a snow day and as such my wife is home with me… essentially throwing off my normal patterns. You know how when a washing machine gets off balance, and the longer it goes the worse it gets? I feel like that is me with my routines… and the further I stray from them… the less that is right with the world. Which is weird because growing up I used to always think of myself as being highly adaptable.

The pandemic and the transition to remote work… has meant that in many ways I just don’t force myself to operate in uncomfortable parameters anymore. When I am forced to be in person… it is almost like trying to use a muscle that has atrophied from lack of use. I get so damned drained that when I do make it back home… I am just mentally dead. I was never an extrovert, but I’ve also stopped fighting against my weird tendencies and pretending I was perfectly normal. However when I am in person again, I feel like I have to fake it and push myself out there in ways that I am just no longer used to. Essentially this combined with the break in my routine did a number of me. Suffice to say… I just have not felt like putting pen to the virtual page and spawning forth a blog post. Granted it is probably weird that I just devoted two full paragraphs to get to that point.

Last night I finished up the first book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and it was a delight. Essentially what if you had Duke Nukem… but lovable and begrudgingly caring, thrown into Smash TV but its a dungeon crawler… and forced to fight for his life as a namely corporation attempts to convert the Earth into raw resources while using Humanity as extras in reality television. Combine with that the fact that he entered this dungeon with a cat named Princess Donut, who developed the ability to talk… and cast magic missile… and hilarity ensues. I started the second one and it is just as great as the first one, so I highly suggest checking this out if you have it available.

I’m still futzing around in Path of Exile, but not taking it super seriously. I really enjoy this build, but also feel like I don’t really have access to enough currency or even items available in the private league to fix the problems the build has. I have made it stable, but the survival is definitely a thing that I struggle with. Essentially any time I take any manner of damage over time it is a struggle because I am not recovering enough life through regeneration and don’t have access to leech due to the way the build works. I tried the whole Mind Over Matter thing for awhile, but honestly it just caused more problems than it was worth. It would lead me to run out of energy shield… which I am using as mana… causing me to have to run around hoping to get clear and free long enough for my energy shield to start regenerating. It feels easier to just watch my health with a potion and top off whenever I take a hit. I’ve gotten my evasion up to a little bit over 70% and wish I had a way to make it lucky.

I’m also keeping close tabs on the Legacy of Phrecia event league and some of the information coming out is pretty freaking wild. I can see a bunch of different builds that would be interesting to create, but am still leaning towards trying a Poison SRS league start. The Paladin shown above looks interesting, as does the build that focuses heavily on stacking heralds. I’ve always loved the interactions between heralds and could see that being extremely fun. It still looks like we are a few weeks out and will likely be happening in March… which will be a fun time and I will likely have run out of gusto for it before Last Epoch Season 2 drops in April. At least I am hoping it plays out in that manner because if I have to choose between this and Last Epoch I am going with Last Epoch.

I feel like the sort of thing that I am doing is not really interesting for anyone but myself. I am doing super chill mapping and delving while listening to audiobooks, and the combined total is delightful. I am pretty pleased with how easy it has been to farm cluster jewels. This has turned into a not-insignificant profit center for me. I’ve been dumping these into a 20 Chaos tab and selling quite a large number of them. I am probably selling them cheaply, but it is pretty easy and does not require any thought. It isn’t like I am getting spammed for any of them, which is usually the sign that you are WAY too cheap. I hate the thought of price gouging someone, especially in a pretty chill private league economy. However 20 chaos is pretty much the least amount of currency that I am willing to stop what I am doing in order to go sell an item for.

Anyways… I am still alive. I am just off balance from a few weird days. I am sure at some point I will get back to normal and regain my gusto for morning blogging. Gracie was super snuggly last night… as see in the photo at the top of this post so that helped a bit.

Voidstones and Third Atlas Tree

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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.

He also released a video diving into the Idol Based Atlas of Worlds that I talked about above.

AggroChat #511 – Closed Loops

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Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen

Hey Folks! This week we are down an Ammo which throws Ash off a bit.  We start off with a discussion about the changes to the death system and multiplayer in Windblown.  From there we talk about the most recent updates to Utopia Must Fall.  Citizen Sleeper 2 has been released and Tam shares some of his early thoughts.  Dwarven Realms Season 3 is going on and the game continues to get more polished over time. Bel and Grace talk about the Lunar Awakening event and how it represents this perfect example of why Blizzard’s Design Ethos makes the game less fun.  Path of Exile has an upcoming Phrecia event with 19 new Ascendancies and we talk about the four that have been spoiled so far.  Grace talks about Spirit Swap which is Lo-Fi Beats to Match Three To.  Kodra has had a bit of a revival of Ultimate Chicken Horse in his house as his son gets super into it.  Grace shares her early experiences with Deep Rock Galactic Survivor and we bid farewell to Kodra’s cat Willow.

Topics Discussed:

  • Windblown Death System Updates
  • Utopia Must Fall Update
  • Citizen Sleeper 2
  • Dwarven Realms Season 3
  • Diablo IV Lunar Awakening Event
    • Blizzard Design Ethos Issues
  • Path of Exile 3.25.5 Phrecia Event Spoilers
  • Spirit Swap
  • Ultimate Chicken Horse
  • Deep Rock Galactic Survivor
  • Goodbye Willow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Fullscreen Frostyboom

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Good Morning Folks! Since I finished the season in Diablo IV, I am now much more focused on Pohx League. I am very only likely to be dipping my toes back into Necromancer fun times when Ace wants to play, and particularly as we work on some of the seasonal objectives for them. In Pohx League I rolled something that was completely new to me, and it has been shockingly fun. I had never really played a Trickster before, or honestly gotten anything based on the Shadow class to maps. I’ve also not played a pure traps build even though Righteous Fire derives a lot of its damage based on Fire Trap. Ultimately I set out wanting to try a Trickster and then found a build that seemed like it might be enjoyable with that Ascendancy and rolled with it.

This build my friends… is ludicrous. I’ve never played anything with this level of full screen coverage. Sure my lightning arrow and later elemental hit of the spectrum builds could off screen enemies, but nothing to this point has ever just blanketed the entire screen in death. Yesterday I made some significant tweaks to the build and migrated to the “final form” and shifted over to Ice Trap of Hollowness. This is an alternate version of Ice Trap that comes from the Labyrinth that essentially scales up the area of effect of the traps, so that there is a dead spot in the center but MUCH wider coverage. It also has a much shorter time to trigger on its own, which makes it prime territory for some shenanigans.

Essentially to exploit the benefits of this alternate version of Ice Trap, we swap so using the Sunblast unique belt that makes it so enemies cannot trigger your traps, but allows you to throw 2 additional traps and explode on their own significantly faster. A perfectly rolled Sunblast is 75% reduced trap duration, but I was only able to afford a 61% one in Pohx league given the limited market. Since Tinkerskin works exclusively based on when traps are triggered, this means we need to move away from that chest and the most common choice is to go with a Carcass Jack for the additional Area of Effect and Area Damage scaling. The end result… is just truly silly for map clear because you essentially hit the entire screen at once.

More important than that, since I can easily have 17 traps up at once there is quite a lot of overlap which leads to shotgunning. The trick however is that you need to dance around the screen to limit the amount of mobs that are in the dead spot in the center that deals no damage. For bossing it is pretty straightforward to swap back to using the normal Ice Trap but it does mean having to take a moment to swap out your primary gem. I’ve never really loved gem swapping, but it does make enough of a difference to be worthwhile and will be even more so if I can get a slightly better roll on my Sunblast belt. What is nice about this build is with the swap it is both an extremely fast mapper and a pretty competent bosser. If you are curious I dumped a POB of the state of my build.

The only thing really lacking with this build is general defenses. I have enough layers to keep me from getting one shot, but I do have to hit my potion way more often than I would care to. There are a lot of things that I ultimately need to do to scale up the defensive layers, but the biggest one would be a load more evasion. Right now I have around 65% evasion and 90% lucky spell suppression combined with around 3500 hit points and 1700 energy shield. The only thing that is really going to one shot me is chaos damage, because I still have negative resistance in that department. Essentially the build is good enough to probably finish out the Atlas and unlock a few of the boss encounters, but would really need to find better versions of almost every rare slot in my build to make it feel a bit more comfy. Were I playing in a normal trade league this would not be a problem at all… but in a limited time event league there just isn’t a ton of stuff available for prices that I can afford.

I think much like it was in NecroSettlers, my first goal is going to be unlocking my full Atlas. When I get my third passive tree I plan on building it out to be Ritual and Einhar for the purpose of trying to farm either a Black Morrigan or an Omen of Connections to turn my five-link into a six-link. I am pretty happy with the state of my build craft in Path of Exile, where I can make a character function without trade intervention more or less. I still like trading for specific upgrades, and I like selling random stuff as well… but I like knowing that I can mostly get a build off the ground and capable of mapping on my own. I will likely never be a big crafter, nor someone who dives deep into market manipulation… but I do like that I can be fairly self sustaining. That is a pretty huge thing coming from the very rocky starts that I had back in Sentinel and Kalandra leagues to where I am today.