Bel League

Bel’s Bargain Bin

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Good Morning Folks! We are on the morning of day five of the Affliction League, and I have to say one of the more interesting things about the psuedo-ssf environment is how it changes your perspective on things. I recently got a pair of rings and they are phenomenal. The only thing I would change is adding 30 Chaos Resistance to the left ring somehow. Combined, these go a long way towards fixing my resistances and also give me a whopping 49% Item Rarity. These are both rings that I probably would have chucked in a vendor tab were I playing in Standard, because the moment I finished the campaign I would have fixed my resistances by buying gear. That is not to say that I don’t miss easy access to really good gear, but it is nice when something that drops is a solid upgrade for something that you use out of sheer desperation.

One of my favorite aspects of the “Bel League” as it continues to be called by folks… is that I can share the wealth. I am I believe the furthest progressed of our folks thus far and as a result, I am chucking anything with halfway decent resists into a vendor dump tab for 1 Wisdom Scroll. This makes all that gear searchable by my teammates and allows them to go shopping through my vault. I have no clue what resists a given player might need, but by just sort of gathering up anything with 60% total resists or higher, it allows folks to fix problems with their build and makes me feel at least somewhat useful. Honestly, I’ve wished I could make my entire bank searchable by my guild for a while now because in normal trade league, I am often doing this as well. The main difference is I am throwing 20 Chaos on them. I would always rather gear go to someone I care about rather than a random stranger.

The upgrade that has been the hardest fought thusfar is getting a new axe. While leveling through the campaign I picked up a random axe with a good fracture on it, and I have been unable to replace it. The positive is that I had a fairly decent axe for the later half of the game, but the negative is it was almost too good to get rid of easily when I started finding six socket items. I’ve been using the “Reroll Physical” craft through harvest on a few different items in the vague hope of trying to find something. Last night I picked up a six-socket/five-link Karui Chopper and managed a craft without bleed on it and am rolling with it. It is a fairly nice upgrade but I am feeling the slower attack speed. I’ve not found a six-link chest either because I would rather throw my main attack in that so that I can shift all six sockets in my weapon to red due to the axe mastery.

I am still extremely happy with my progress, and while I slowed down considerably I still managed to get 65 of 115 last night. I am starting to get into red maps and pulled a random corrupted T15 from a div card stack. For the most part that went fine and I took no deaths running it, but the rogue exiles and a few of the harvest beasts were a bit tanky. I am sure once I get some more quality on my gems and some slightly better gear that will even out. This was before I picked up the axe upgrade so that will likely help somewhat as well. I am honestly surprised at how well this is going both in delve and in mapping… I have no real doubts that I will be able to complete my Atlas and I have already set up camp hunting down delve-specific gear that folks need.

As far as my Atlas Strategy goes… I don’t really have one. Mine is the Atlas is sheer desperation and right now the thing I think we all need… is ways to craft gear. So I picked up the bare minimum needed to bring Delve online and start getting sulphite, and then picked up the best nodes for Harvest so that I could get higher quantities of juice. Finally, I have started pivoting into Essences so that I can pick those up as a sort of “bycatch” for running other content and slowly building out a cache of crafting materials. I’ve already picked up the nodes that upgrade the essences, and I am about to pick up the early node that forces at least one on every map. I am not sure I really want to take the one that forces multiple essences on the same monster, because that just tends to slow down the mapping. Given that my goal in running maps is to get sulphite and that harvest and essences are just a useful byproduct… I don’t want to slow things down any more than I can help it.

I think I am pretty happy with where I am currently in this build. I had declared in my video yesterday that Righteous Fire was dead and that was what prompted me to try Boneshatter. However, per one of my friends, RF is just fine and they are having a perfectly cromulent time with it. I need to spend a bit of time on my Standard RF Character and see just how it feels to play. Maybe the changes are not as bad as they seemed. I think probably the Inquisitor version is fine, but I have a sneaking feeling that the Juggernaut version will not be. Anyways! Boneshatter seems fun so I am happy enough for the time being regardless.

Fourth Day of Affliction

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Hey Folks! Apologies for the bit of a break that I took towards the tail end of last week. I have to admit it was a bit of a shit week, and some things happened at work that have pushed my morale into about the tenth-floor sub-basement. However, starting on Friday I mostly poured all of my attention into the launch of the Path of Exile Affliction league and all of the shenanigans that come along with that. This league is fairly unique in that it is the first time we are doing a private league giving us a semi-solo-self-found style playstyle as we either have to acquire something ourselves or it has to come from one of the other folks playing in the league. I have never really done a true SSF playstyle other than the random events that take place… I admit it is a bit weird not having access to the trade economy to fix my mistakes. I think I will be able to arrive at the same place as a normal league, but it will just take much longer.

There are a bunch of interesting things that come with playing a private league… not the least of which is the fact that we seemed to be immune to the game-crashing bugs that most of the other players experienced while going into a town. Additionally, we have our own copy of the ladder, so unfortunately I spent most of the weekend spamming the guild as I entered new zones. I was leading the “level race” until I went to bed Friday night, and then for a while, Kodra leapfrogged me until I could catch up Saturday morning. At this point, I think I have pulled far enough ahead that I will be here for a while at least until I hit level 95 and things start to slow down significantly. We also have our own copy of the trade website, which has allowed me to post a bunch of interesting things I find in dump tabs that I have priced for 1 Scroll of Wisdom instead of constantly clogging the guild bank.

As far as my league starter goes… I am largely enjoying myself. Since Affliction League essentially killed Righteous Fire, I had it suggested to me that I check out Boneshatter Juggernaut instead. That it should in theory be a similar playstyle and in large part,` I would agree. Instead of shield charging around and burning things up with my fire aura and then dropping fire traps when I encounter anything harder… the equivalent for Boneshatter is leap slamming and tapping my attack watching entire packs explode… and then dropping totems when I encounter anything that takes a bit. The biggest challenge is that I had three leagues to learn what Righteous Fire could and could not take… and I am having to rapidly reach a point of understanding what I can take and what I need to perform evasive maneuvers to avoid.

I did the thing that I often do this morning and recorded some gameplay of doing a Tier 8 map. You can see what I call the “Spiral of Death” take place as I stand in Voll’s slam and then can’t quite recover. In theory, I should leap out to safety to allow my recovery to solve my problems. My instinct from Righteous Fire is to just pop a potion and muscle through it, but Boneshatter seems to need some “quiet time” as I bounce away from the fight, let my life stabilize, and then leap back into the battle. It might even be a scenario where stopping attacking for a second might have given me enough time to bounce back from the slam. Essentially I am in this phase of trying to learn how to pilot this new ship when I had multiple hundreds of hours of experience with the previous one.

I have some fairly solid defensive layers, but I am using the crutch that is Purity of Elements to resolve my resistances. That will change as I craft better gear, but I need either an influx of essences, harvest juice, fossils, or just sheer dumb luck to pull myself out of that hole. Where I am currently is that I have a good deal of armor, decent enough regen especially when combined with my boneshatter recovery, and fairly decent damage. What I need the most at the moment however is a better axe, and I have been pouring yellow harvest juice into trying to craft one. At some point, I will have gathered up enough fossils to hopefully be able to at least attempt a 600 Physical DPS axe. Again this would be a trivial problem to solve if I had access to the trade economy, but instead, I have to sort this all out myself. As such I am currently running nothing higher than a four-link.

This is where I am progress-wise for three days. Essentially by the time we were recording the podcast on Saturday night, I was progressing my Atlas and mapping at the end of day two. On day three I focused on knocking out more maps and starting to progress my Delve seriously. While I ran out of sulphite, I was sitting just shy of depth 100, which is my target farming depth for the time being. My goal is to live in that 100-150 range and start hunting out Delve cities. Most of my atlas strategy has been focused on getting delve online, but now I am pivoting a bit into Harvest for crafting gear once I get some better bases. Essence spamming would also be an option, but since I am not playing a “map blaster” I can’t say that Essences are the best option. I mean I can take down Essence monsters extremely well, but I am not sure I can run enough maps efficiently to make it worth my time.

All told I am pretty damned happy with where I am gear-wise and progress-wise for the beginning of the fourth day. Unfortunately, I seem to be ignoring the league mechanic. Doing it just seems to make the maps way less predictable. For farming purposes, I have been going back to the campaign and running Desecrated Chamber. Normally league mechanics stop spawning when a zone is 10 levels under your current level, but because of the way that the forest works… the portal still exists even when a zone stops rewarding experience. So you can pop over into a campaign mission, run the forest, and then reset the zone giving you a new forest. I plan on doing this a bit today in order to complete my “kill all the treants” mission and get the next set of ascendancy points.

Since I am melee and hit-based… I ended up going with Warden of the Magi and Tinctures. While I had some fun shouting at corpses for loot… having a utility flask that I can change up seems to be more useful. I cannot reasonably work Culling Strike into my build as it stands, but having access to it at the cost of giving up a flask seems like something I can live with. I am not sure what all can roll on the Oakbranch Tincture but I figure I will keep perfecting this one as I go. For now, the one I have works pretty well for my purposes. I might switch over to Wildwood Primalist at some point if I get enough charms to make something interesting happen. The least interesting of the three seems to be Warlock of the Mists but that is probably because I am not using spectres currently.

All in all, though I am pretty damned happy with where I am sitting currently in a semi-SSF environment. I am hoping some other options will begin to come online as more folks get up to better content. For the moment Kodra and I are leading the Vanguard which means we are not really getting to benefit from having access to other players finding interesting things. The highlight of my weekend though was getting a six-link bow that then allowed Ace to build into that for their character or finding the weapon that Kodra was looking for that became build-defining. At some point, I hope to find a better axe and maybe a viable six-link chest. If not… I still seem to be shockingly viable for nothing more than four-links.

Are you playing Affliction league? How has your league start gone? Drop me a line below.

AggroChat #460 – Spoopy Forest Friends

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

Hey Folks! We are back with everyone and it is weird how long it has been since we have done a full seven-person show!  Tonight we discuss the Game Awards and some of the negative reception surrounding it.  We talked for a bit about the Monarch television show and the larger Legacy Pictures Monsterverse.  Tam talks about The Exit 8 and the liminal weirdness of an ever-shifting train station. Then we dive into the Path of Exile Affliction League and more specifically our private “Bel League” and how that has been going so far.

Topics Discussed

  • The Game Awards 2023
  • Monarch and the Legacy Pictures Monsterverse
  • The Exit 8
  • Path of Exile
    • Bel League
    • Progress so far
    • Affliction League Mechanic

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Chieftain Waffle Time

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Good Morning Folks. I think I am about to wind down my Blast from the Past league character. The problem is I am left with more indecision than I had hoped I would be at this point. I am still not entirely certain that RF Chieftain is the way to go for the upcoming private league that we are starting with 3.23. Sure it is damned nice to only have to focus on a single elemental resistance… but it seems to come with a price. I just feel way squishier than I would at the same gear level on a Juggernaut. I think the core problem is that Juggernaut is giving you a lot of survivability from the ascendancy, and Chieftain really is not. Sure it is a pain in the butt to have to care about all of your resistances… but I think that pain might be worth it.

This is essentially where I am currently on my Chieftain in the Blast from the Past league. I have 4700 hit points, 1400 regen, 82% on all Elemental Resistances, and just over 24k armor. Looking at that would make me think… that the character probably feels pretty sturdy. Unfortunately, as you play it… it is just constantly taking damage and I have to hit my healing potion to top myself off. Granted I do not have my potions online yet, because I just do not have the currency to reroll my flasks and get them to flaggelant/auto, so that is a whole defensive layer that is lacking. I also do not have anything resembling optimal gear, but I am starting to feel the same problems as I did with my Shield Crush Chieftain. On paper it feels like I should be sturdier than I actually am. It just feels like I am missing something that I am not sure how to resolve on my own.

At this point I am at 44 of 115 on the Atlas and have done a red map… that was admittedly a bit rough but largely manageable. I feel like I could probably complete my Atlas as a Chieftain, but I wonder if I would be better off just starting Juggernaut and dealing with the itemization problems. Maybe this would be the catalyst for me to learn how to actually craft resistance gear. I am so used to being able to go shopping and use the trade site to resolve my issues. I’m really good at buying gear… but significantly less good at crafting it. That is going to be the collective struggle of a private league… that adds a whole layer of challenge that I am not used to. I am hoping that the collaborative nature of the league will bring me more enjoyment than the inefficient floundering frustrates me.

There is always the possibility that I call an audible at the last minute and level Minion Guardian instead. I had a heck of a lot of fun with this build during the Ancestor league, but I have this sneaking suspicion that there is no way this goes unscathed into 3.23. It feels entirely too powerful for the minimal gear investment. I ran up one of these during the Toucan league and I was able to do red maps without any real fuss. It also did a far better job at bossing than Righteous Fire usually does, so I could absolutely see myself playing this happily for the majority of the league. Sure I would probably STILL level an RF Jugg because I like playing one… but I am not sure if I would feel the need to do so.

I had legitimately hoped that the Blast from the Past League would galvanize my path forward. It has not. The transition from leveling a Chieftain to early maps is very nice. I could also be pretty effective and burning my way through the atlas. However, since Delve is my favorite thing… I just felt very weak compared to the extreme amount of damage that mobs down there do. I’ve only made it down to around depth 80, and realistically at a minimum, I need to be able to comfortably do depth 100-150. So this is why I am waffling so hard right now… Chieftain is so close to being the perfect Righteous Fire leveling experience but still so far away. There is no way I can reasonably rely on using Forbidden Flesh/Flame to seal ascendancy traits from Juggernaut given that we will be essentially Guild SSF, and it will be a long time until any of us are capable of farming those bosses.

So I find myself crawling back into the good ole comfortable reliable Juggernaut. This is the character that I always seem to gravitate towards. I like the way it feels and I like grinding delve with it. So maybe I should just stop trying to go in a different direction and accept that like Pohx… I’ve found my niche. I tried to fight against it at the start of this league with a Lighting Arrow Raider… and as soon as I got up the currency I swapped to running up a Juggernaut. This is the character and build that I know the most about, and in theory, should have the easiest time gearing properly in SSF. So maybe I just live with that decision.

I am sorta jealous of Kodra who is entirely determined to play Hexblast Miner and has created intricate plans for how exactly he is going to achieve that. I strive to try new things… and end up building a ton of characters during a league but always end up sitting back down in my comfy recliner.