Scuffed Scavenger

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Hey Folks! Things are starting to come together. Yesterday I made a number of changes to my build that have incrementally moved me towards the indestructible nonsense that is the pinnacle form of Righteous Fire. The next map that I run I will ding level 92 but this morning I dumped a fresh POB to show the state of things. The biggest change is that I managed to pick up a Shaper shield and after running a bunch of Harvest I managed to craft one with 5% life gain on block, which allowed me to shift to the block version of the build. What confuses me however is I have no clue how Pohx is hitting 75% spell block with his build, so I am going to have to pay considerably closer attention to his POB to understand it.

Right now I have 4687 life, but that will improve as I continue to shift things around in the build and pile on additional levels. I have 83% Fire Resistance and 80% Cold and Lightning which when combined with 75% attack block and 30% spell block feels pretty comfortable. Most of the time I can just stand still in a pack of mobs and my health barely moves. I really need more regeneration at this point because I am not super comfortable with only 1100 ish. I would really prefer to be sitting somewhere around 2000, but had to give up some nodes on the tree as well as the regen % on my helmet. I’m essentially playing a juggling act right now since I am not able to focus ONLY on Fire Resistance since I am not playing a Chieftain.

I made a number of gear swaps. First up I rolled a much better temporary sceptre using alts and then threw some ignite and additional fire damage on it. Sadly I could not craft the big betrayal Fire/Ignite on it, but I have a few more sceptres that I am working on rolling T1 damage over time multi on so I can try and recombinate something with both generic multi and fire multi on it. I picked up a somewhat scuffed Elder helm and got 20 Burning Damage/20 Concentrated Effect on it giving me a psuedo-six-link Fire Trap. I rolled a life recovery shield like I talked about earlier and also improved the Immortal Flesh I was running for a minimum negative resistance while gaining a bit of life and regen over my existing one.

My current Idol set up gives me a bunch of Delirium and I have managed to gather up raw cluster jewels and rolled a new Large cluster with Prismatic Heart, Widespread Destruction, and the throwaway Smoking Remains. I am combining it with one Medium that has Fan the Flames and Flow of Life, and another that has Flow of Life and Smoking Remains. As I find more minimum passive skill medium and large clusters I will probably try and craft slightly better versions of these cluster jewels. Smoking Remains is not exactly a great hit, but I also did not want to spend forever rolling over things and needed something I could use. I bought the cheapest two jewels I could find on the market with max Fire Multi and percentage life on them, but again those could be massively improved over time.

That is honestly the broad theme of this character… everything is more than a little scuffed. I’m trying to learn to give up on perfect items, because quite honestly I am not making enough currency to be able to afford them. Instead I am trying to find or craft items that are good enough for my purposes. I’ve played RF enough to know what I actually need, versus what the perfect textbook example of an item looks like. At this point I should be fine to get all the way through the rest of maps, and considerably deeper into delve. Right now I am sitting at 62 of 115 and have a few more maps that are ready to run. I’ve been holding off on running any Red maps because I know Kirac will almost exclusively start giving me those once I have passed that boundary. I am a weirdo that likes completing each individual tier in order if I can help it. I really need to find more cities down on delve, because they produce random map tiers rather than ones that I would natively have access to.

I’m recycling an image from yesterday of the pops, but really… I think this build is starting to feel stronger than the Chieftain build normally is at this point. The explosions feel like they spread so much further than the Hinekora explosions do. If I can get an Oriath’s End it will feel even better because effectively I will have three sources of explode combined with ignite proliferation… which should basically allow me to just charge through maps. The big goals going forward are to get another Cloak of Flame that is either better rolled than my current one, or has a useful corruption on it… and then figure out how best to six-link it. After that once I get back down into Delve I am going to start banking more 40% Elemental Damage sceptres in an attempt to recombinate a phenomenal one.

It feels like each league I play… I get more comfortable with understanding what I can do with gear and how I can acquire it on my own. If I can get a rudimentary understanding of recombination under my belt, I think it will improve gear acquisition considerably.

Better Early Maps

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Good Morning Folks. At this point I am several days into the Legacy of Phrecia event in Path of Exile. I decided to follow the path of Pohx and am playing Righteous Fire on the new Scion Scavenger. This effectively gives me Obliteration pops, Chaos Ignite, and a free Cloak of Flames that can then be stacked with a real cloak of flames to convert 80% of all physical damage taken as fire. Initially… this does not feel nearly as effective at killing as the Chieftain variant I usually play, nor does it feel as tanky yet. However I am still very much wearing scuffed gear. I hit maps half of the way through Saturday and have been juggling between map progression and Delve progression as best I can. I am definitely intrigued enough to want to see this build to its completion. You can see the current state of my build here as I dumped a POB this morning.

What I find most interesting about this event is how mapping feels with the Idol system replacing the Atlas Passive Tree. Essentially the early maps, namely the white and early yellow maps feel like they are way more juicy than they ever would be at this point. However they also feel deeply random, because most of the idols that you end up getting… are not really focused on a single league mechanic. I took the time to screenshot everything that I am currently using and it is a bit of a mess. I’ve specifically targeted at trying to get Niko on my maps so that I can gain Sulphite, but am also not really gaining any of the additional benefits from the passive nodes on the tree.

This is really starting to be felt as by 41 nodes into the Atlas of Worlds, I would start to have a coherent strategy going… that reinforces itself by buffing one specific league mechanic. I would probably have the buffs applied when I collect sulphite nodes, or have them spawn golems which increase my sulphite gain and give me additional density. Instead it is a struggle to get Niko consistently on my maps, and I am gaining almost no other benefits from him being there… and as such I have to run way more maps to fill up on Delve juice before going back down into the mines. Similarly when I get Jun… without the nodes supporting him the Betrayal mobs don’t drop veiled items nearly as often… and as such I am struggling to build out my crafting bench. It feels like running maps that are generically juiced with somewhat random abilities…. but not really being able to focus on anything.

I am not making a ton of currency yet, but have managed to gather enough to get most of the uniques I need for the build. I picked up a Cloak of Flames and five linked it, and hope to maybe pick up a second and begin working on trying to six link that one. I snagged an Immortal Flesh pretty early, but it is not what I would consider a well rolled one. At some point I want to replace it for one with similar life stats on it but the minimum negative elemental resistance. I am running a Rise of the Phoenix shield, but at some point I will drop this to go with a Shaper Shield as I transition into the life gain on block build variant. I just spent most of my available currency on a well rolled pair of Legacy of Fury boots, which help with the clear considerably. Probably the item that I need to upgrade the most is my Sceptre which is a complete trash item that I picked up off the ground and threw a few things on it. My goal once I get deep enough into delve is to start picking up Sceptre bases with the purpose of trying to craft something with the recombinator.

All told though it is quite a bit of fun, and it has been ages since I ran a build that uses Legacy of Fury. I have the blackstar mtx from several leagues ago that makes the pops turn pink, which goes nicely with the purple righteous fire aura mtx that I am running. I’ve crafted a couple of cluster jewels so that I have Fan the Flames giving me elemental proliferation and Flow of Life then the combo of Prismatic Heart/Widespread Destruction on a large cluster. I have another medium cluster that I am working on crafting and my hope is to get another Flow of Life and maybe Burning Bright but I would probably roll with anything halfway decent. At some point I want a +Fire% Light of Meaning and an Unnatural Instinct but that is way beyond my price range. Similarly I would love to add on an Oriath’s End for more pops but I am not sure I will be able to hit that price point. I wish Scavenger was going to Standard so I could attempt to build the penultimate version there at some point.

All told though I am having a heck of a lot of fun. This event is pretty great and honestly… I would not have minded if this were turned into a three month long league. The absence of the Atlas Tree is a bit of a pain, but I would honestly love to see these idols worked into the game in some form in the future. There are some nodes that I really like having… but are just too cumbersome to path over to for various Atlas strategies. I would love to see a much smaller version of the Idol inventory that maybe only lets you slot only a few idols. For example I always run the node that turns every strongbox into a corrupted rare, because I like the way it feels… and if I could simply equip an idol to give every build that… or endless delirium… I probably would.

Anyways. Have you been playing the Legacy of Phrecia event? What are your thoughts so far? Drop me a line below, or of course respond to either Mastodon or Bluesky.

AggroChat #513 – Morrowindish

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

Hey Folks! We have the entire crew this week.  We start off the show with Bel explaining to Kodra the weird faction war currently happening in the Path of Exile Reddit. Bel also talks about his experiences so far with the Legacy of Phrecia event. From there we talk a bit more about Avowed now that Tam has had a chance to play it. Kodra shares his experiences with Civilization VII talking about how wildly different of a Civ game it is.  From there he also talks a bit about Pigment and his ambitions to speedrun it.  Ash shares his thoughts about Dynasty Warriors Origins and Tam discusses a Steam recommendation find, Deliver At All Costs.

Topics Discussed:

  • Path of Exile
    • Reddit Faction Wars
    • Legacy of Phrecia
  • Avowed
  • Civilization VII
  • Pigment
  • Dynasty Warriors Origins
  • Deliver At All Costs

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Starting Scavenger

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Hey Folks! The Legacy of Phrecia event is live in Path of Exile and yesterday I followed the Path of Pohx and rolled a Scion. I’ve only ever played one Scion in the entirety of all of my time playing this game, and it was only to unlock the handful of achievements that are associated with that class. The general idea behind rolling this as Scavenger which is the krangled version of Scion’s Ascendant is that it will give me access to 80% of physical damage taken as fire damage once I actually get my hands on a Cloak of Flames. Sadly because I was not super fast… I did not manage to snag one before they started to get expensive. In the first moments of the league they were going for 3 Chaos… which I now have, but the price has unfortunately gone up to around 20-30 Chaos for a non-corrupted version.

It’s been a pretty smooth run so far, and I’ve only taken a single death and that was before I was able to switch over to Righteous Fire. I just got completely swarmed in the cavern of rage and could not potion my way through it. Once I swapped to RF it was a cakewalk. I attempted to follow the whole Cobra Lash path that was suggested by Pohx but I think in future attempts I might just do with flame wall and rolling magma. I had a lot of weird early problems getting the right links, and for the first five areas I was struggling to find any wisdom scrolls at all to identify anything that might have been viable. I still don’t have the right links for anything, but I am rolling with it because I do at least have a 2 link Fire Trap and 4 link Righteous Fire.

The build has a somewhat annoying respec that I am going to have to deal with at some point. He suggested starting down the projectile path because of Cobra Lash and then swapping over to the resistance path for those first four nodes… which is fine but since Path of Exile does not have a “respec mode” you can’t just swap those points directly and will instead need to spend a total of 8 respec points to get those 4 swapped over. I should probably deal with that now rather than later so that the gold costs are not onerous. Overall the pathing is not terrible for this one and you get to the fire regeneration node about the same time you do as with the Marauder path.

Now we get to the point that I hated about Scion in general. The first labyrinth does not really get you anything. Instead you do not gain any new powers until you finish the second labyrinth. So I have ascended to Scavenger but the only thing I have to show for it is two passive points. I mean that is still a decent reward and I am fine with it… but it makes the entire process of leveling as Scion feel a little lackluster. Pohx suggests going for Bluderbore for the second lab and then later respeccing for Cloak of Flames once you get into maps. I am not sure if I will follow that path or not, because I am honestly hoping to be able to get a Cloak of Flames and four link it before we get to that point. Regardless of what I take for my second choice, I am absolutely taking Obliteration for chaos pops when I get to third lab, and then later picking up the bit that allows chaos to ignite as my fourth.

I did find a pretty reasonable weapon. It has an open suffix, so once I get access to the damage over time crafts I will probably slap that on it. Plus one to fire spells is not necessarily the major win that it once was, but it does help a bit since I just added burning damage support to both my fire trap and righteous fire links. I will drop this like a hot potato however if I manage to get any damage over time multi weapons to drop. I have been farming the kingsmarch shipments trying to get some decent gear, and I am hoping I end up getting a hat with the right links to expand Firetrap beyond two links. I basically need better items for almost every slot except my chest, and I am basically running minimum shipments hoping to get something good.

I have no clue what strategy I am going to end up leaning on for mapping… because that entirely depends upon which idols I get first. I do plan on dabbling in Delve so now that I am in Act 4 I will probably spend a bit of time getting the early unlocks set up there. My hope is that I can find delve idols soon enough, and I also really want endless delirium for farming cluster jewels. It is going to be wild playing with a mishmash of krangled atlas passives. They verified that you are going to be able to recombinate idols, which is likely going to be required to try and make any coherent mapping strategy. I will worry about that when I get there however.

For now I am just going to focus on leveling up and getting to maps. Did you end up rolling something for the Legacy of Phrecia event? What are you playing? Drop me a line below.