Trickster Stabilized

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Good Morning Folks. Yesterday was the 4th day of Pohx League and I’ve gotten my Ice Trap Trickster to level 87 and mostly stabilized the character. It is nowhere near as tanky as my usual RF Chieftain fair, but not too shabby. If I can swap out my gear for higher Evasion/Energy-Shield bases it will begin to perform better. Right now I am only running around 15k Evasion and 2k Energy Shield, the later serving both as a defensive layer and as my mana pool. I also have negative chaos resistance which is a problem when you encounter something that cares about chaos. Specifically I cannot run any map with the “additional chaos damage” mods on it. I however due to my traps giving me energy shield and life, the no-regen and low-regen maps are pretty doable. I am not doing anything to fix elemental ailments yet, so those are still miserable but Arctic Armor is at least making me freeze immune.

It is always wild when a build starts to come together. It is like turning the tumblers on a lock and seeing them click into place. Essentially I am relying heavily on four different notables that take my Energy Shield and convert it into both a way of fixing my mana and then giving me a method for recovering said energy shield quickly when I am taking damage. At some point I will swap over to the low life version of the build and work in petrified blood and pain attunement. However before that I really need to get some life recoup on my rings to pay off the degen that petrified blood brings. In a proper trade league this would be simple enough to fix, but in a limited trade environment of a private league… even the biggest private league ever… it is a bit hard to find the things that I need.

As such I have used this and the previous NecroSettlers league as a way of flexing my SSF muscles a bit, and trying to figure out how best to get the items that I need. For example there is some tech that I stumbled on during base settlers that I am abusing here to farm some cluster gems. Essentially the node Atlas Notable Unending Nightmare makes it so that Delirium fog never dissipates, but you also don’t end up getting splinters or deli orbs. However every time you fill the bar for an objective, you get that reward as a drop… but also get some sort of cluster jewel at the same time. Normally you don’t get cluster jewel drops until the final payoff of the delirium fog, but in this case you get them every step of the way. This means that during the course of a map you can easily farm four or five cluster jewels without much issue. I will then use these to roll the cluster jewels that I need with harvest reforging.

I’m making progress but it is relatively slow progress. I have completed 50 Atlas objectives and as such unlocked my second tree. I’ve specced it into Niko and Scarabs because I am curious how well this build performs down in the mines. Delve produces a lot of useful raw currency, and when I am not running it… I notice it significantly. You have to get pretty deep into red maps before they begin to pay out in the same manner that even shallow delve does. The big thing that I am missing is offerings to the goddess, for the fourth lab. I have a single token, but I have yet to attempt it. I might try that over lunch to see if I can knock out my fourth set of ascendancy points.

I’ve been running a lot of Betrayal to get crafting unlocks, and occasionally there is a big payday when you bargain. I should really spend time memorizing who is the best person to bargain with, because the currency payouts sure are nice. I’ve not gotten anything major but at the state I am in the league, eight alchemy orbs in a single drop is nothing to sneeze at. The biggest problem with Betrayal is that it can be VERY rippy… which is something I have never really had to worry about too much playing mostly exceptionally tanky builds. Folks will say that Trickster is tanky… and it is in its own way… but it feels SUPER lightweight compared to a finished Righteous Fire character. I deal a heck of a lot more damage already though, so for general mapping purposes it feels great. The difference is really only noticeable when I have to fight something that does not fall over immediately.

Tonight however I am going to be returning to Diablo IV. Ace and I have scheduled some hangout as we dive into the lunar new year event. Unfortunately I have not really regenerated my stash of boss materials, so we might have to just run a bunch of Pits and Infernal Hordes. That is not necessarily a bad thing because I can certainly use the levels on my glyphs. We should probably also run some nightmare dungeons, because I am not sure the new shrines can spawn in the more streamlined game modes. I am really hoping that I see a sizeable spike in damage output because supposedly the unique ring I am using got fixed.

Pohx League Shenanigans

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Good Morning Folks. This weekend I allowed myself to get sucked back into Path of Exile. Given the disappointment for Path of Exile 1 players last night, our hero Pohx decided to take matters into his own hands and throw together a league event. When I wrote about this on Friday, it full at 9500 players… before the end of the day it had been expanded to 20,000 players and also full. Then GGG stepped in and added 10,000 additional player slots, expanding the private league past the normal limit to 30,000. Suffice to say there has been more than a little bit of interest in some sort of a league reset happening in Path of Exile. I think there have been way more players than any of us thought, for which Path of Exile II did not really land well.

As of this morning there are just shy of 28,000 players in the Pohx private league, and I figure that is probably as big as it is going to get for the time being. If you are so inclined, you can go sign up for the league here which officially lasts until April 1st. A few caveats if you have never played in a private league like this. The big thing is expect trade to be much more challenging than during a normal league reset. There are simply going to be fewer items available and this impacts pretty much everything from the currency exchange to the player to player trade site. Folks tend to be way more chill about pricing however since this is a limited time event. However fully expect to be playing at least 80% solo self found. I picked up a few upgrades over the weekend but there was not a lot available on the market, and mostly all I really did was pick up a couple of items with good resists on them.

I am playing well out of my comfort zone and running my very first Trickster ever. I opted to go for Ice Trap, with the idea of eventually shifting into Ice Trap of Hollowness once I got all of my gear in place… which admittedly might not actually happen during the course of a private league. I still feel pretty squishy but am working on a series of upgrades with the next few points that should help that out. Essentially I am going to be stacking Mind of Matter, Ghost Shroud, and Wicked Ward with my existing Eldritch Battery to hopefully resolve my survival problems by making my Energy Shield double as both Mana and a proper damage barrier. I tried running Mind of Matter too early, and really all I did was cause myself to get into situations where I could not cast anything. Wicked Ward and Ghost Shroud should in theory help to solve the energy shield regen problems while I am taking damage.

Once I get another level I am probably going to respec the start of my tree a bit to free up two points, so that I can pick up all three of those notables at once. I am leaning heavily on Polymath which gives me 3% more damage for each unique mastery I am taking which at the moment is a 24% more multiplier. I’ve not run across any of the uber lab shrines in maps, so I might go ahead and try and purchase one from the currency exchange so that I can get my fourth ascendancy point. I feel like I am dealing plenty of damage right now, it is mostly the survival and comfort of mapping that I need to resolve. This is a way squishier character than I am used to playing, and since I don’t have access to really good cheap rares due to the limited trade environment… my evasion is way lower than I would like it to be. I am honestly not really a massive fan of evasion builds to start with, but I am trying to push myself out of my comfort zone.

I am still chipping away at white maps and making pretty decent progress. For the most part once I get something frozen I can kill it extremely quickly. Normal mapping is largely just walking through the map while dropping traps behind me which ends up being a fairly safe gameplay style. Things only really get risky when I have to stop and grind through something a bit tankier. The nice thing about the traps gameplay style is that I can run reflect maps without too much issue. The only change that I need to do is to remember not to drop Frost Bombs. I should also really drop back down to a level 1 Frost Blink so that I don’t have to worry too much about that either. I would really like to pick up some additional regen, but it feels like it is hard to juggle that with everything else that I want in the build.

For the most part right now I am running syndicate, as I try and get the enchants that I need. I am going to mix in some perm Delirium in the hopes of farming up some cluster jewels. Again being in a limited trade environment means that I am going to need to craft most of my own gear if I want some very specific things. I am still hoping at some point a Replica Dragonfang amulet shows up with Ice Trap on it, but I am not holding my breath. Thusfar there are plenty of those, but none for the specific ability that I want. I am very much playing an off meta build at the moment, based on one that was designed for 3.25 that does not 100% equate to the current passive tree. Essentially I tend to follow a guide until I hit maps and then I am off the radar with making the choices needed to hopefully make the build feel good after that.

I am not entirely certain how long Pohx League is going to stay active though, because this morning GGG released a statement that they are working on an event for Path of Exile 1. Essentially they are going to break out 19 Ascendancies that have never seen the light of day before, and will be running a league where every class has totally new options. This will run for a month, and I full expect an influx of players will rush over to this league to test things out. I am hoping we get a full release of what all of the ascendancy nodes are before this drops so that folks can begin to brew a bit ahead of time. This is going to have similar energy to a Krangled league, and I full expect by the end of the first day everyone to have spreadsheets floating around to help with buildcraft.

Tomorrow I am still planning on dipping back into Diablo IV for a bit with the new Lunar New Year event. I am not sure how hard I am going to grind but I would still really like to finish out the seasons journey while the buffs are active. I am hoping that the fixes to the Ring of Mendeln land at the same time so that I potentially see a massive boost in power. Other than that… I mostly want to be able to get some rest. I’ve not been sleeping well because Gracie has taken to screaming for no apparent reason in the middle of the night. Additionally I am still fighting a bit of a respiratory thing, which I hope passes rapidly. I have to go in a few times this week for meetings, so I am mostly hoping to get through the week without too much frustration.

AggroChat #510 – Death From Above

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

Hey Folks! This week we started with a single topic…  and by the time we were finished ended up having to bump half of the assembled topics to next week in order to keep the runtime down.  We start off with Bel talking about the bad news for Path of Exile players, and how there is no new league around the corner.  He also talks a bit about getting sucked into the private league that Pohx created which has capped out at 20,000 players.  From there Grace talks a bit about playing Heroes of Hammerwatch II and enjoying that.  Kodra shares his thoughts about the Diablo IV Campaign thus far as he still is effectively in the first act. Grace and Ash share their experiences with Coridden a more narrative-driven action role-playing game.  Finally, Kodra and Tam talk about their experiences playing Battletech and how Kodra is coming around to the idea of playing games for fun, rather than simply optimizing the strategy for winning.

Topics Discussed

  • Path of Exile League Months Away
    • Pohx League
  • Heroes of Hammerwatch II
  • Kodra’s Diablo 4 Thoughts
  • Coridden
  • Battletech – A Game of Awesome Moments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Goodbye Hillock

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Good Morning Folks! I am still terribly bummed about the Path of Exile news, but yesterday I knocked out an achievement that I have been working towards for literal years now. There is an achievement called “Beginner’s Luck” for getting a drop from the beach at the beginning of the campaign, an area that cannot be returned to once you have exited it. So essentially I have had a character named BelginnersLuck parked there and every now and then I run down the beach kill Hillock and then log to another character. I got to level 8.5 in doing this and effectively have every single item at yellow rarity from repeating this process over and over. Unfortunately I did not get the drop that is unique to Hillock, but I did at least get something meaning that I can stop this nonsense.

Pohx released a video yesterday sharing his disappointment about Path of Exile, and then handling it in the best way. Since folks really wanted a fresh start, he set up a private league that is up to 9500 players currently. I have no clue if he will keep expanding the size of the league because it gets rather expensive, but good on him for making a player run event happen since GGG does not appear to be willing to do something official. I was expecting them to do Endless Delve or something that they have done in the past to give the POE1 player base something to focus on. I missed my opportunity to apply when there were openings to this private league, so I doubt I will be able to participate in a few hours when it goes live.

I’ve taken a bit of a break from Diablo IV as there is a lunar new year event about to start right around the corner with various experience and drop bonuses. I’m in the phase of the game where I just need to spend a lot of time grinding, and I figure there is no point in doing that until I can earn the cosmetics from this event and also have some of my progress sped up slightly. I still do not feel super powerful yet in Season 7, and had been slowly accumulating a full set of gear so that I could have an alternate Blood Wave build to play with it. On the 4th I am sure I will be back and grinding that out, and hopefully finishing my seasons journey.

I’ve also been back playing some Guild Wars 2, and at least popping in and trying to do dailies and chip away at my weeklies. It is always extremely comfortable going back to Guild Wars 2. I probably should work on the Janthir Wilds story since I have not done the second part. Additionally there are holiday events going on there which could be lucrative. I could also start work again on one of the various legendaries that I have parts for. I picked up the kit from the dailies shop for Kudzu, since I really like using Longbows on a few of my characters. The weapon also deeply reminds me of Rhok’delar from World of Warcraft.

A new season dropped in Dwarven Realms as well, and with it comes a complete overhaul of the generally awful passive tree. I am sure at some point tonight I will be in the game playing that, so that I can talk about it on the podcast Saturday. I really want to probably do a bit of research because I know there is some sort of a spin to win build, and I am interested in seeing what that takes to build weapon and skill wise. I am not even sure if there are proper build sites for this game or not. I have always just winged it and been relatively successful, but like I said I do want to know what weapon grants the whirlwind-like ability.

I’ve also been fighting some sort of respiratory crud for the last few days and am running a low grade fever. So more than anything I am probably going to be chilling on the sofa and trying to coax cats to snuggle. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, because I am super tired of this week.