Path of Exile

The Edgerunner Life

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Good Morning Friends! It is Monday and as is often the case you are about to get a rundown of the nonsense I have been up to recently. What started out as me poking my head into Cyberpunk 2077 looking for something to hold my attention, has turned into a proper replay of the game. At this point, I am starting to get closer to the endgame, and combined with the very excellent Edgerunners anime I am deeply engaged with this world right now. In theory, this will be my second full playthrough of the game, but I have started it over several times in the past without really gaining traction. I can’t say I am making all that many different choices than I did the time before apart from the inherit options that change from playing a femme V.

I am extremely happy with the wardrobe options that were patched into the game with the most recent update. Essentially now I no longer have to choose between looking cool and being functional. In my previous playthroughs, a lot of my early focus was trying to find the decent-looking gear that I could just keep upgrading. Now I basically throw on whatever item is better and ignore what the hell it looks like because I am always wearing this wardrobe outfit. I also really like that you can now go to any ripperdoc and just change your appearance on the fly. I’ve not actually done this because I am pretty happy with my current V, but having the option is nice nonetheless because I really did not love my original V appearance after a while… and mostly wore a mask as a result.

I also made a bit of progress in Diablo III Season 27 this weekend. As always I am keeping my season tracker on D3Resources updated to show where I am in the process. Basically, I am down to the stuff that is less fun to do… aka complete 3 conquests, complete a set dungeon, and extract a bunch of cube powers. I cannot believe that so far I have found six cow sticks but not a single puzzle ring, which means I have yet to get a Greed kill for that achievement. I started farming bounty caches in case I want to do the dumb and easy method for getting Avarice. I need to sort out which of the other conquests I am going to go for. I really really hate set dungeons, but at some point, I need to buckle down and get that completed so I can move on with my life. Basically, I have enough crap in my stash to do the extractions because I tend to hold onto a bunch of crap until I have finished the set dungeon given that I am never quite certain what set I will be going for.

I continue to poke my head into Path of Exile, but my stays are shorter each time I do. Playing both Diablo III and Path of Exile at the same time… I have come to realize that I enjoy the gameplay of Diablo more and the loot chase of Path of Exile more. I hate the process of getting geared in Path of Exile, but once you are geared… the loot grind remains slightly more exciting. There are so many aspects of PoE loot that could be added to D3 to spice things up a bit. Like imagine that you had a chase item, that was the equivalent of a Chaos Orb that would take any item and turn it into an Ancient version, or a similar item that was like a Divine Orb that would turn any item into a Primal version. I also think D3 could benefit from officially having an SSF mode that you could turn on and get unique rewards from. We’ve seen seasonal items like the Angelic Crucibles that come in and change the way the game works and it would be cool if more of those stuck around and continued to flesh out the loot chase.

Finally, I am still playing some New World every day. Mostly I log in and farm enough resources or craft enough items in order to get 3 gypsum bags and the gypsum you get from an aptitude chest. Then I port out to Shattered Mountain and craft two gypsum casts for whatever gear I am working on leveling. In doing this gradually I have capped sword, shield, spear, hammer, great axe, hatchet, and all armor slots to 600 expertise and am now working on void gauntlet and blunderbuss. This feels a little pointless given that my intent is still to reroll as soon as the timetable for the launch of the Brimstone update is a bit more certain. Mostly I am fine with it taking a little bit because I am hoping my friend Ace finishes their move so they can join in the reroll nonsense properly. I think my goal in the reroll is to level up Armoring and Weaponsmithing up to 200 so that I can make another set of Voidbent armor, mostly because I like the look of it.

The End of Time

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I think I have reached a point with Path of Exile where I am done with it for the moment. I accomplished what I set out to do and completed all 115 nodes on the Atlas tree. I could push further, but my gameplay lately has been more frustrating than it has been successful. We talked about this on the podcast over the weekend, but for all of the things that I love about this game… there are an equal number of things that I greatly dislike. Not the least of which is XP loss on death, and it feels like I either need to grind safe things to protect my XP gains… or throw caution to the wind and do more challenging content. However regardless I have to make this choice of do I go for content that feels meaningful, or I go for the remaining skills on the passive tree.

I am not entirely certain I will be doing a Path of Exile league start again for a while. I had some fun, but it was more that I was driven by a specific purpose that allowed me to temporarily overlook the bad aspects of the game. I am uncertain why the design of Path of Exile is specifically punitive in nature, but it seems to be a common theme among ARPG enthusiasts. Where I would prefer if games just let you respec as often as you want, and that the core loop of the game be chasing loot not painting yourself into a corner and then having to deal with that frustration.

I spent a good chunk of time playing Last Epoch as that game is nearing the opening of wider multiplayer testing. While playing I also spent quite a bit of time listening to interviews with the development team to try and get a feeling for how punitive they feel a game should be designed. While they are less open than I would have liked, they seem to land more on the side of the player than Grinding Gear Games does. One of my early frustrations with the game was the gender-locked class design, but apparently, that is still on the table. Based on one interview they apparently want to expand the gender options but that would be after the finishing of the remaining class specializations. I am fine with waiting, but I am hoping when they take this pass they also open up some more character customization options.

I am really enjoying the Sentinel Class because it allows me to play something tanky feeling… while also maintaining access to Whirlwind. Essentially right now it feels like a blending of my two favorite Diablo classes the Barbarian and the Crusader. The only thing that could improve this feel is if buried somewhere there is a talent that lets me equip a two-handed weapon with a shield. For the moment the game feels very much like a weird love child of Chrono Trigger, Diablo, and Path of Exile. I really dig the crafting system so far because it is way more deterministic than that of Path of Exile, and even more open to changing things around than that of Diablo III. It seems like given enough attempts it would probably be pretty straightforward to gear out a character in this game.

Another thing that I really dig is how straightforward the loot filter is, and how they seem to be committed to putting guides in the game, instead of trying to make you rely on third-party sites. The only negative so far is that respecs are nowhere near as free as I would like them to be. They are not as punitive as Path of Exile, but you do have to roll things back a single point at a time which appears to cost gold. Changing your specialized skills and the trees associated with them seems to roll back experience with that skill. This means you would ultimately end up needing to re-level them to get them back to the place where you were previously. This isn’t much different than changing up your skill gems in Path of Exile but is still less open to modification than Diablo III would be.

All in all the game looks really good, but the proof will ultimately be in how the multiplayer game feels. That is ultimately what has killed my long-term enjoyment in Path of Exile. It isn’t really a game that I can sit down and play with my friend Ace in the way that we could Diablo III. Grouping in PoE is actively punitive, and you can’t just easily drop in and ride along for some chill gaming. Everything in that game also seems to be focused around trade value, and as such the gear that drops appears to mostly be shit and you are instead focused on gaining currency to then buy the items you actually need. It seems like based on the conversations I listened to… Last Epoch seems to not want this to happen. They want the trade to be free enough that if an item drops while your buddy is offline, you can give it to them… but to keep third-party trade from being the primary source of items.

I also spent a good chunk of my weekend poking around in the New World PTR. I’ve been playing a bit more with trade skills and verifying that you do in fact level a ton faster than you did previously. Across the board, your level gains are much faster as a character than previously. I’ve barely scratched the surface on Cutlass Keys and am almost level 40. I’ve been trying to push up trade skills a bit honestly as a source of gear. Since the PTR does not represent the actual live environment, there is nowhere near as much stuff on the trading post… and as such getting gear upgrades has been a bit of a challenge. I figured instead I would see how far and how easily I can level Armoring. This is a grind I have completed on live with my current main, and I am wondering just how difficult the 150-plus grind is going to be. Getting Smelting and Weaving to 100, just sort of happened automagically without me really trying and I am getting very close to the first major break point of 100 Armoring.

I am really looking into this patch dropping because it seems like I have convinced most of the AggroChat folks to try rolling again fresh on another server. We’ve yet to determine WHICH server yet, but likely whatever the lowest pop East/West server there is. I think there will be a sizeable influx of players for the Brimstone Sands patch. The new content appears also appears to be dropping items that can level your expertise, so that grind may also not be as bad as it once was. I’m thankful Demone Kim is back on the grind and knocking out often times multiple videos a day. I am not really spending any time testing Brimstone Sands content because I want that to be fresh when I complete my restart.

That was largely my weekend. Did any of you do anything fun? Drop me a line below telling me what you got up to.

Brokerage Service

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Good Morning Friends! It is another day and another Path of Exile post. I thought maybe breaking the atlas complete boundary, would end up taking away my desire to play the game but thus far it has not. In fact, I seemed to have a grand ole time last night running maps for experience and actually manage to push over the level 90 barrier. When I dinged I got an achievement called Diminishing Returns, which apparently only 6.5% of players have ever accomplished. My rarest achievement is Atlas of Worlds for completing the Atlas and only 2.2% of players have accomplished that. Now in theory I begin working on gaining a reputation with the Maven, Searing Exarch, and Eater of Worlds.

I’ve been woefully neglecting that side of the game while grinding out the Atlas since I was laser-focused on getting the maps completed and getting the map bonuses. In theory, I probably should have been letting the Maven watch my victories, but adding the Maven makes them ever so slightly more difficult and at that point, I wanted to get those bonuses before anything else. This morning I took care of my Tier 12+ Maven invitation, and now must have her witness my victories on Tier 14+ fights. Based on the wiki, this is the last step in that sequence, and will give me her final invitation to the crucible. If I were min-maxing this apparently choosing specific bosses to have her witness changes the odds of getting specific unique drops. I’ve made zero progress on Searing Exarch or Eater of Worlds, so I guess I need to focus on getting some progress there as well. I know all of this is ultimately what unlocks access to boss invitations, and in theory, my next BIG objective would be to down all of the “ubers”.

Last night I dove further into the trading system than I have ever before. Up until this point I had only been involved with purchasing items, but last night I sold a Divine Orb in order to get some liquid Chaos for other purchases. This was a bit of a disorienting mess and I quickly realized why folks run the POE Trading overly as it catches the messages and buffers them for you. Within minutes of me putting up my Divine Orb, I was flooded with messages and in less than 5 minutes from pricing it I had sold it. Essentially at this point, I have done enough trading that it seems to follow a specific sequence of operations.

  • Buyer clicks message link from Official Trading website
    • This sends a canned message indicating which item and what stash slot the item is located in and its price.
  • The seller teleports to a location with a stash box, usually a hideout.
  • The seller chooses one of the incoming messages.
  • The seller invites the player to a party.
  • The buyer teleports to the location the seller is at, with currency in hand.
  • The seller opens a trade window and drops the item being sold.
  • The buyer drops the currency in the trade window.
  • Both sides have to mouse over the trade to verify it is what they are expecting.
  • The seller usually seems to hit trade first.
  • The buyer hits the trade and completes the transaction.
  • The seller kicks the buyer out of the party.

I’ve seen this exact same sequence play out over and over, and often times not a single word was exchanged during it. It happens so quickly and efficiently that it might as well have been an auction house transaction.

Why I was bothering with selling a Divine last night, is that I was attempting to play broker and purchase some items for a friend. The trade aspect of the game is daunting and not everyone is willing to deal with it, but there comes a time in most builds when you need some items to beef up your progress. The other problem with the trade game is that you are trying to find the best item at the moment you are searching. It is extremely rare that you are going to find the perfect item, or if you do… it might be prohibitively expensive. For example, I was trying to follow a guide and the guide got the gem colors wrong… that is easily fixable. What is not fixable however is that the helm I got had the wrong implicit… which is apparently super important. The cost difference between the item was 35 Chaos for the slightly wrong item… and 3 Divines or roughly 600 Chaos for the correct implicit. I know when I got my gear I made some slight sacrifices and have largely been fine, and I am hoping that the same will be true. Otherwise, I will keep shopping for that perfect hat.

In other exciting news… I got an email yesterday in my inbox that I had been waiting for. I finalized my purchase of the Steam Deck and am now waiting anxiously to see a shipping confirmation. I went with the 64 GB model because the price was right for my interest at the time. I am also not concerned with upgrading the SSD inside after the fact, but based on the testing I have seen there is not a massive difference between loading off the SSD and loading off an SD Card. So for the moment, my plan is to use a 512 GB SD card for storage. Expect some coverage of my first steps into this world at some point in the future.

Atlas Complete

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Good Morning Friends! I am still mostly sickly, and as such, I spent most of the weekend parked on the couch and playing Path of Exile. When I last talked about the game I spent a large chunk of in-game currency in trades to get the four uniques that make up the foundation of my build. I cannot underscore just how much of a difference they made, and now I can pretty comfortably run through red maps without taking many deaths and often none at all. I’ve also come up with a reasonable way to handle the bane of my existence… elemental reflection. Essentially I swap over to the minor pantheon ability from Yugul, and equip Sybil’s ring in the left slot… which collectively gives me more than 100% elemental reflect damage protection. Combined all of this has allowed me to churn through the remaining maps that I had left on my altas.

Yesterday evening I managed to finish the last of my 115 maps and earn not only the completion achievement but all of the bonuses that grand atlas passive tree progress. This was the main overarching goal that I had for this league, and I managed to make it through in slightly less than a month’s time. The Kalandra league started on August 19th, and I managed to wrap things up on September 11th. The next obvious goal would be all of the seasonal achievements, but that might be a bit more grindy than I am willing to go after right now. One of those achievements requires the running of maps with 6000 explicit modifiers, and at last count, I was sitting at less than 900. I might be able to finish out the tier 2 set of cosmetics with enough low-hanging fruit on the achievement stack… but there is no way I am getting through tier 4.

I think my goal now becomes helping those in my guild who are interested in getting Atlas completion to reach that goal by feeding them maps. In theory for those who are curious I employed a handful of practices in order to get to the end of the list. Firstly my Atlas tree has a lot of nodes that are designed to feed me maps and it is very rare that I run ANY map and not walk away with at least four new ones. Other than that there are a handful of tricks that you can use to get the specific maps that you are after.

How To Get Specific Maps

  • Vendor Pattern – You can sell any three of the same map to the vendor and you will receive a new map from one tier higher. There is some dark calculus in the way this works and every map has a unique id, and different combinations of different unique ids will produce different maps. So if you have six of the same map, try listing different combinations of those six maps to see if you can get the specific one that you need.
  • Kirac Atlas Missions – Kirac offers daily atlas missions and these are a godsend for completing the White and Yellow tiers of maps. They become a little hit or miss once you get into reds, because in order for you to get bonus credit the map has to have been corrupted. If you see a red map that you have not completed and it is not corrupted… go ahead and run it because there are things you can do later to get a clean copy of that map.
  • Kirac Inventory – Kirac is also a vendor and sells a selection of white, yellow, and red maps. These are extremely costly and in theory, you could probably buy the maps cheaper from players via the trade economy… but in a pinch especially for early tiers of maps, these are a quick way of getting some specific maps.
  • Scouting Reports – As you run maps you will encounter scouting reports, which are used to re-roll Kirac’s missions. This is an extremely good way to get unique missions because often times immediately after a re-roll there will be one or more unique missions available.
  • Horizon Orb – I happened across a ton of these while grinding out some of the lower tiers of maps, and thankfully saved them for the red map grind. Essentially a Horizon Orb will change a map into any other map of the same tier. This is completely random, but I did manage to luck into several conversions along the way that got me the “clean maps” that I needed. By “clean maps” I mean a white no-modifier version that I can use to craft whatever I need.
  • Harbinger Orb – These are extremely rare items, but they allow you to reforge a map and turn it into a random map of one tier higher. In absolute desperation, I tried using one of these to get the map I needed one tier up… and succeeded, but it could have gone completely wrong as well.
  • Map Favorite Slots – On the left side of the map, you have a series of slots that unlock as you achieve various requirements. The easiest slot is attained the first time you complete a T16 map, and then others are mostly tied to elder/shaper maps and specific bosses. Remember earlier when I said it was a good idea to go ahead and run red maps even if they were not corrupted? Once you have cleared a map it becomes something that you can favorite, and then you have a higher chance of seeing that particular map drop from that point forward. I absolutely utilized this to get the last two maps I needed.
  • Trade – The last resort is to just buy the maps for currency from other players. Most maps go for 1 Chaos Orb each, with a few highly lucrative maps going for significantly more. One of the unique maps that I needed was going for 29 Chaos… but thankfully using Scouting Reports I was able to get access to it through a Kirac Mission.

Now that I am finished with the Atlas, I am probably still going to continue to run the occasional map mission because they are still pretty enjoyable. More likely though I am going to start diving further into Heist and Delve, which are alternative game modes that I’ve not focused as much on in this league. Other than that I am probably going to be spending some more time in Diablo III and finishing up my season’s journey over there. I have a fully kitted-out character, and just need to devote the time and effort to getting Set Mastery and three Conquests. I could stop playing Path of Exile this season and be pretty happy with the process I made. I might take a pass at some more of the elder bosses, but I need to spend some time unlocking The Maven fully before I can dive too deep into that. Side note… all of the currency I spent on gear, I have long ago made back completely so it was a good “investment” as far as easing my access to higher tier content.