Featuring: Ace, Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, and Thalen
Good Morning Folks! We are down a Tam this week and had some topics that were sitting on our list for a bit. We start off talking about the official end of Anthem and the Mark Darrah video that effectively provides an autopsy for the game. Loosely related, we talk about the impending death of New World in January 2027. This forces us down the path of talking about what the heck even makes an MMO anymore, and how we largely agree that it requires random interaction with other players to count. We decided that the lobby-based games are PSOLikes since the first game we can remember that was that way was Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast. From there, we talk a bit about Shape of Dream,s another Roguelike that Ash and Kodra have been playing. Bel shares his thoughts on Legacy of Phrecia 2.0 in Path of Exile, and Kodra shares his endgame thoughts about Path of Exile II. We wrap the show up talking about the impending patch in Guild Wars 2 that is going to add quickplay for raids and the new Fashion Plates adjacent system.
Good Morning Folks! Yesterday was the start of the Legacy of Phrecia 2.0 event in Path of Exile, and I got a bit of a late start… because my dentist called and told me that my night guard was ready for pickup. I expected to bop over and they would have it waiting on me at the desk. Instead I had to wait for a room to clear so they could do a fitting. Positive is it fits fine and I used it for the first time last night, and so far it is mostly okay. I was able to sleep fine with it in and it only really started to annoy me when I woke up around 2:30 in the morning, but was mostly able to turn over and fall back to sleep until the alarm went off. For the Phrecia event I was playing a class that is not supposed to be using minions… so as a result much like with Righteous Fire I spent the first part of the event creating a Witch Mule so that I could get abilities not accessible to the Shadow until the Library in Act 3. My problems started here… but we will talk about that in a bit.
This is what my early pathing looked like, and I have modified it slightly to drop some nodes and pick up some others. The early pathing is a bit of double edged sword, because you are not getting any power… but you are getting a bunch of much needed stats, namely intelligence. I did not really start to gain any real power until eleven points in. Suffice to say this was a bit of a rough start, which is only multiplied by the fact that we are playing under the Gauntlet ruleset. This means there is a bunch of general fuckery going on with boss fights. When you encounter Hillock on the beach, he is being witnessed by Maven, and when you take out Brutus you get a fake version to fight first… and then have to fight the real thing while the water canons from Hydra are attacking in patterns. On top of these every so has a modifier applied to it, so the base maps themselves are much more difficult they than would normally be. Combine this with the fact that Breach can be a bit rippy early on… and not playing a class designed for minions… it was a very rough start.
This was only multiplied by the fact that I was a complete and total fucking idiot, and I did not realize this until this morning at level 34. Essentially prior to that I had been using a level 1 Summon Raging Spirits, Flame Wall, and Holy Flame Totem. out of absolute paranoia of leveling them, and then screwing over the Shadow when I switched off the Witch Mule, I right clicked all of the abilities to keep them from leveling up. Problem is that this now applies globally when you move the gems to your main character. So for 34 levels… I have been using level 1 gems, and quite honestly just brute forcing my way through the content. This is so outrageously dumb, and it is no wonder that pretty much every boss fight was a massive pain in the ass to get through. Since all of my power comes from this one gem… I was essentially smashing my face against everything with the equivalent of a level one character. Sure I was a bit more sturdy and had some gear that was giving me some additional power… but not enough to make up for the fact that my minions were pure shit.
I am hoping that since I have now righted that wrong… the rest of the campaign will go much more smoothly. It will take a bit for Raging Spirits to catch up gem levels, but they should gain a lot of power in a quick burst. I am just about to the first lab, and at that point I get another massive boost of power in the form of a level 15 Envy buff that has no reservation. At that point I should be able to ride that as an express elevator through the rest of the content. Sadly I only made it to Act 3 last night before giving up for the evening. I did not do my normal Thursday thing but I did hang out on voice with everyone. Ace joined in the shenanigans this week so that was pretty delightful, and we had Ashgar until he had to bug out for Pathfinder. I laugh so much on Thursday nights, and they are truly good for my soul. Even if I am not playing the same game it is generally a good time to spend the time with my friends.
All in all the event seems to be pretty freaking popular. I have no clue what the actual numbers look like, but we did encounter some failures for instances loading, which means the instance servers were completely swamped early on. This is not exactly the same as a normal league launch, but it definitely seems like everyone is in and the game is hopping again. I kind of hate that this is a limited three week event. I am hoping they extend it until the next league drop, because ultimately this is going to be the league that everyone plays out if given the choice until 3.28. I am rocking the King in the Mists outfit with this character because it seemed fitting, and I am also using the Shadow Ravens mtx for SRS. I gave my Witch mule a proper name just in case I decided I wanted to roll a second character for the league. The thing is even though it has been brutal due to my own stupidity, I have been having fun. Tonight I am probably going to hang out downstairs, and attempt to coax some kitty cuddles while listening to an audio book.
Are you playing Legacy of Phrecia? If so what did you end up rolling? Drop me a line below.
Good Morning Folks! Yesterday we got full patch notes for the Legacy of Phrecia event and its changes and through this I finally decided my path going forward. If you want explanations in extreme detail then you can turn to SirGog who recorded a live stream that lasted over 3 hours of him going line by line through the patch notes. If you want the cliffs notes version, then I suggest the DreamCore video weighing in at 13 minutes. One of the more interesting aspects of this event is that every area is going to have random modifiers applied to it with a reasonable exclusionary list in an attempt to keep anything from hard bricking a build. I’ve said before that Phrecia in general was one of the most enjoyable events that I have ever participated in previously, and I am really looking forward at going into this event with the new trade system for snapping up and selling idols. Like I said yesterday I figured out my path going forward, but it is less a hard path and more a series of paths depending on how things end up performing. The reality is that Shadow has three different ascendancies that have three wildly different builds that interest me, so it feels like I am destined for the Dex/Int starting location.
One of the things that you end up doing after awhile, is figuring out your builds based on what you have seen working on POE.Ninja. I often find a build that is similar to the build that I want to play, and then use it as a bit of a template, and then make a lot of audibles while I am leveling based on what I actually need at that moment. None of these builds are going to be like following a Pohx or Zizaran guide. Each of them is an archetype that I have played before, or at least close to an archetype that I have played before, and that I largely understand what is needed for that sort of build. Right now my plans are to level as Servant of Arakaali Summon Raging Spirits, leaning heavily into the fact that I get Envy early and without reservation from that ascendancy and expecting it to hard carry me through the campaign. I like SRS builds and have played several different versions of them on Necromancer, Guardian, and Elementalist…. but never Shadow. The other huge benefit of this build is that you get to start playing it almost immediately. I will probably roll a Witch mule so that I can get some early quality of life like frostblink.
Here is where we go into some of the potential pivot points. Summon Raging Spirits is a heck of a lot of fun, and is a pretty good all-arounder build, but is maybe not the fastest mapper. In the even that I really want to go hard into mapping, I might pivot into a Blind Prophet bow trap build using Scourge Arrow of Menace as the base for large amounts of damage that utilizes the “nimis at home” functionality of the ascendancy. Mathil played a version of this build that seems pretty easy to get up and running and since I already like the trap gameplay style, it will probably feel better for me than it did for him. Aero did a slightly higher budget version of this which also might work, but I do prefer the Sunblast gameplay from the Mathil build. The huge benefit of the Mathil build is it has a good POB that I could follow, but I also found this other POB that is slightly different that I might blend in elements from. Essentially its an option if I want to pivot and try something different that only really works during the Phrecia event without needing a very expensive Nimis ring.
Finally if ALL of these plans fall through… I go Surfcaster and build a version of my Ice Trap of Hollowness build that has recently become my go to for just a fun build with a lot of damage projection that freezes the entire damned screen. I have specific preferences in this department since I have now played a version of this build three different times, with different flavors. I found this build from the last Phrecia event that I could use as a template for some of the early pathing, but the gearing is all whack because I will not be affording a mageblood, and ralakesh boots are no longer as good as they were when this was built. Once the initial pathing is sorted and gets me into the right area of the tree, I will probably start following the template of my Elemenatalist Ice Trapper from Keepers of the Flame that I have been playing a lot recently. Essentially this is a fall back plan in case none of the other options work as well as I want them to.
That is kind of the cool thing about a Shadow start in Phrecia is that there are a bunch of compelling things going on with all three ascendancies. I can’t say the same for any of the other classes really, that I am anywhere near as interested in all three. I think Chaos SRS is going to work beautifully as Servant of Arakaali, and in truth I have never actually played a poison minion build in the past. I’ve always done Elemental because it felt like I was not having to stretch the build too hard to get it there. I might be instantly converted. I know without a doubt I will be able to get through red maps without any question, and if nothing else SRS is going to allow me to farm the gear needed to make any of the future pivots. I doubt I will be delving on any of these characters however, so that will be a bit sad. I will probably either focus on Einhar Beasts or doing Harbingers during this event, but we will have to see what good idols I end up getting. I know how a lot of different strategies work so I can pivot to whatever fate gives me.
Are you going to be playing the Legacy of Phrecia event under the 3.27 ruleset? What are your plans? Drop me a line below.
Good Morning Folks! Hopefully yall are surviving Snowmageddon 2026. For the most part I have stayed in out of the mess. I had plenty of food, and so long as power stayed on I was going to be good. We got somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to ten inches. The snow was so dry that drifts were pretty rampant so it was really hard to tell an actual estimate, but I know when I was clearing my jeep yesterday and making a path so I could get out today for an appointment, it was coming up to mid calf high at times. I cleared the front porch enough that I could start putting food out for the outdoor kitties as well. I’ve not seen Tripod, but in the past when we have had cold snaps like this she has an underground borough system that she crawls down into. For years we had bunnies in our backyard prior to Tripod taking up residence there, and I think she has been using their underground warrens.
Things have mostly been okay… save for the fact that it has been raining in my livingroom. This is a problem that I had hoped we solved about three months ago when the roofers came out to work on the flashing at the top of the roof. My guess is that the snow sitting up there has basically been on top of wherever the leak starts, and then heat rising up through the roof is melting it. Essentially as far as we have been able to guess it runs down under the shingles and then finds a way into the house in the middle of the livingroom, dripping out onto this cross beam, and then down onto the ceiling fan before ultimately hitting the floor. Sadly the leak does not come down in a single spot, so essentially I just have to put towels out. It had stopped mid day yesterday, but then started up again late last night as things started to re-freeze and was still going whenever I went to bed. It stopped at some point over night because it is not going this morning. I’ve called the roofers to be on the list for after this is all over, but for now there is not a whole hell of a lot I can do. I have some IKEA bathmats and some towels down to soak up the water…. which I will run a load in the washer once things have chilled a bit.
My folks I think got it worse north of me. This is their front yard and you can barely make out the wheelchair access ramp. My dad of course had already trudged a path out to his shop, because he spends most of his time there. I think more than anything he was checking on the cats, who stay overnight in there with a heater on. I never knew my Dad was as big of a softie for strays as he is, until later in life. Maybe I get my own attachment to street cats by genes. I got out yesterday and cleared the cars and a path out, and then was wondering why the hell everything hurt today. These are all activities that I do not normally have to do, so I guess it makes sense that everything feels like it aches in my chest and arms. I don’t even have a proper snow shovel, because this happens so infrequently. My old shovel was rusted through so I tossed it, and had not gotten around to getting a new one. I guess I will make that a bigger priority. Essentially I cleared what I cleared with one of those giant plastic yard rakes and a nylon bristled broom.
This weekend I spent a lot of time snuggled with cats and watching movies downstairs on the television. I will probably make a post tomorrow about some of the things that I watched. “The Librarian” reminded me that I have a Letterboxd account so if you do that thing feel free to follow and I will likely give you a follow back. I like keeping track of media consumption and previously my plex server log was the most reliable method up until this point. However that was flawed because when I was pulling together my movies of the year post… I completely somehow missed the existence of Sinners. I figure I will try and keep up with this similar to how I do Storygraph and Bookwyrm. Speaking of those two I really need to get back in the swing of reading, or at least listening to an audiobook while I do other things. I figure on the 29th with the launch of the Phrecia league it might be a good time to get back engaged.
Speaking of gaming… I played a heck of a lot of Destiny Rising this weekend. I was trying to keep all three accounts active, because we were having some bad luck finding strongholds. Yesterday morning we cleared the three that we had access to, but did not find the third until we were already logged in trying to clear the other two. Thanks to Jade Rabbit I have been playing Umeko a lot more on my alt accounts, and apparently doing well enough to regularly get MVP when I run some strikes. Essentially I am trying to get account two high enough so that I can get 3 charges of Iron Commander and can get my 60 Pinnacle done without running any strikes. Account three… at some point I just need to put my head down and push through the campaign because I have not even unlocked the second planet.
Last night I played a bit of Path of Exile II, especially since Kodra has been talking about it quite a bit. I know come the 29th I will be over in Path of Exile and playing the new Legacy of Phrecia event, but in the meantime I am hopping around and making things explode in POE2. For Phrecia I am all over the place on what to play. Right now I am looking at either doing something akin to my Ice Trap of Hollowness build, a Blind Prophet bow traps, or Poison Minions. Pohx is going for a life stacking Righteous Fire build, but it is going to require a lot of gear to make it work. I had fun with RF Scavenger last time but I also needed a mageblood to make it work, and I am not sure if I want to push that hard. It sort of annoys me that there has not been a lot of fresh theorycrafting for builds within the POE community. Everyone seems to be focused on currency strats… which will fucking sort themselves out pending you have a good build.
Anyways! I hope you have fared well during the winter onslaught. I hope my livingroom rain comes to a close finally, and I hope todays tests go well and they don’t find anything else wrong with me. I am deeply scared about everything that is going on right now with cancer diagnosis and still not having much information. I will hopefully make it through this however.
