pohx league

The Exile Faction Wars

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Good Morning Folks. Sometimes I sit down before you to talk about what nonsense I have been up to lately. Other times I act as an internet anthropologist and document weird things that I am seeing happening in games and their communities. This morning we are going to be wearing that second hat as I talk about something that is currently going on with the Path of Exile Reddit. While Grinding Gear Games hosts a proper forum, I would say that the beating heart of the community is likely the Reddit, and recently there was a thread hatching a plan to buy up all of the Sanctum Tomes available at the launch of Legacy of Phrecia and deleting them… thus spawning the Anti-Sanctum Alliance. Shortly thereafter Captain Lance spawned the concept of the Sanctum Rushers United later turned into Sanctum Runners Union to attempt to counter this plan.

The battle lines were drawn and folks started chipping their hat in with either side. For example Neversink indicated that he would be hiding tomes from everyone’s filters and throwing support to the ASA. This was hopefully a joke, but it was taken seriously enough that folks started posting the code to highlight tomes so that people could restore it to their filters. Then came the propaganda from the SRU both on the Reddit and in the form of YouTube videos. Various streamers in the community started throwing their hats into either camp for example Zizaran is a known Sanctum enjoyer. I personally hate Sanctum and would happy throw my hat into the ring with the ASA, but in truth I will probably just hoard the tomes until Kodra wants to run them… since he is a friend and also a Sanctum enjoyer.

If you have ever questioned if the devs at Grinding Gear Games read the Reddit… this should be proof positive that they do. They even got in on the action and posted a poll on Twitter asking which side the exiles will fight for. At the time of writing this the ASA is winning by a decent margin, and between the time I took the above screenshot and looked as I sat down to write this… the poll has crossed 14k votes. Sanctum generates stupid amounts of Divines per hour, for the folks who have built characters designed specifically to run it. I would be perfectly happy if it just went away… and it seems sad that Sanctum went core… but we also lost Metamorph which was a mechanic that I did enjoy greatly.

The battle lines were cleanly drawn for a short amount of time between two opposing forces… but in truth Path of Exile style folks decided that they were not necessarily represented by either side. This spawned the creation of all manner of other “organizations” representing other favorite league mechanics.

  • ASA – Anti-Sanctum Alliance
  • SRU – Sanctum Runners Union
  • CHB – Crop Harvesting Bureau
  • COD – Children of Delve
  • SSS – Simulacrum Secret Service
  • CLEAR – Committed Lab Enjoyers’ Agency of Revenue
  • FBI – Fungal Bureau of Investigation
  • OM – Order of the Mist
  • KGB – Kalguuran Group for Business
  • AGI – Alch and Go Industries
  • BBC – Big Breach Coalition
  • WETA – Wraeclast Engineering and Temporal Architects
  • SIH – Sitting in Hideout (doing one map per hour)
  • CASUAL – Cards and Sometimes Unique Acquisition Lobby
  • IRS – Institution of Rogues & Smugglers – Redacted

The meme above is right… things are in fact getting out of hand. This though… is probably part of why I love this community. It is completely nonsense and will take something to the extremes… but like the Toucan and Krangled it just becomes part of the culture.

If you have read this blog for any length of time… you will know which faction I truly belong to. In the wise words of Jorgen… Delve Provides. This is the mechanic I keep going back to over and over because I really do enjoy Delving down in the mines more than pretty much anything else. I love the endless scroll of nodes and finding a comfortable level to set up and start farming. Even with my recent Ice Trap Trickster from Pohx League… I am back down in the mines seeking treasure. When I do not Delve I just miss the generic bubblegum currency that it produces in addition to all of the unique stuff that comes from down there. My role in Path of Exile is to provide the stuff that comes from Delve to the people who choose not to partake, and truthfully… I think choosing any role and dedicating to it will lead to decent currency gains.

In other more important news… yesterday the Map Stash tab was finally released for Path of Exile II, and the game instantly became more playable. I managed to snag one of the Guild early in the morning while the weekend stash tab sales were still going on. Then I spent what felt like an eternity trucking waystones from quad tabs over to the new map stash tab with affinity. I am not really playing much Path of Exile II, but I am certain this will be a welcome change whenever I do return. The map stash can hold 576 waystones of each tier with room for the corruption only tier 16 as well. Anything that makes the process of storing loot faster is very welcome. What we need now however is the Fragments tab, because the Maps tab does nothing for our tablets.

The Legacy of Phrecia event starts at 12pm PST on Thursday the 20th… so I have until then to figure out what the hell I am going to play.

[EDIT] During the day today this became an official part of the SubReddit with flair now being offered for the various groups. This is why I love this silly community of RNG addicts.

Avowed and Brothers Gift

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Yesterday I decided to give Microsoft $25 to access Avowed early. Essentially I noticed that Battle.Net was showing it as available through Gamepass but only the Deluxe edition could start playing early. I would honestly love to see Microsoft migrate all of the Gamepass PC games over to the Battle.net launcher, because really it feels like a better interface than essentially going through the Microsoft store via the Xbox app. Essentially Avowed is what if Obsidian made their own Elder Scrolls Game, this time set in the same universe as Pillars of Eternity. So far it feels very Morrowind to me, in that you are arriving on the docks of a far flung destination… filled with all sorts of creepy fungus growing everywhere. I am playing a melee character so far and the combat feels pretty enjoyable.

I got my first companion, which is essentially a Shark dude straight out of the Tigersharks Cartoon. Essentially we are adventuring together out of convenience at the moment, but I assume some events are going to happen that bind us together going forward. I know there are other companions but right now I am digging Kai because he gives me the ability to burn things down, since I am not going down the magical route. I believe I can make my own firebombs eventually out if this plant that I occasionally find laying around. One of the objectives of the tutorial area was to shoot one of those plants down so it fell onto some vines and burned it to open up a new area, which makes me think at some point I can use the same plant to do the same thing in other areas.

I’ve not made it super far but I am enjoying it. There are these adorable Aye Aye meets Lemur meets Cat things all over the island that sort of purr when you get close to them. Unfortunately this particular one meets a grim fate in the opening cinematic. I’ve heard this is around a 40 hour campaign start to finish, which seems fairly reasonable. It is open world, but open world within the confines of a fixed map level so there are is a lot of exploration, but it doesn’t really let you stray too far off the beaten path. I am hoping at some point I find a companion with some healing spells because right now I am having to chug a lot of healing potions to keep topped off after combat. I specced into this thing that heals back 50% of the damage that was dealt after combat, but that still makes a lot of the fights a battle of attrition.

Over in Pohx League I did a safehouse and got one of the crafting benches that allow you to swap one Divination Card for another random one. The first one I turned in was nothing special, but the second one landed me a Brother’s Gift card which I immediately turned in for 5 Divine Orbs. I’ve not been terribly wealthy during Pohx league, but then again I have not really focused on trying to make currency. Given that it is a private league, everything costs way more than it would during a normal league economy. This is especially noticeable on the currency exchange, because buying relatively simple things… like a Tainted Fusing for example costs around 50 Chaos each. Gemcutter’s Prisms similarly are really expensive so I figure at some point I am just going to chain run a lot of Labyrinth to get gems upgraded. I purchased every single Ice Trap of Hollowness in the entire league and have been leveling them all to 20 so that I can attempt to corrupt a 21/20% gem.

Immediately after turning in the Brother’s Gift card, I took four of those Divine Orbs and converted them into an Omen of Connections. Now that these exist in the game, this is more often than not who I end up getting my six-linked chest. I was running a Ritual/Einhar Atlas quite a bit trying to get either this or a Black Morrigan so I could use beast crafting to do the same thing. The new Gem that I have mixed in is Cold Penetration and lord does it make a massive difference. I also added Bonechill to my Skitterbots and together I am dishing out a ton more damage. I bought this chestpiece ages ago and I had been throwing fusings at it in vain thinking that either I would six-link it the old fashioned way or I would earn enough currency to do it the easy way. I’ve since corrupted my old one and got a white socket on it, so I will probably throw the first tainted fusings at it trying to six-link it so I can sell it for a decent profit.

I am pretty happy with my progress in Pohx league and honestly… would be fine if I don’t make it any further. I’ve completed 110 out of 115 maps, with the remaining 5 maps all being uniques. I will probably start using Singular Scouting Reports when I get Kirac missions to try for the remaining maps since I can’t really afford to buy any of them off the market right now. I’ve finished two of my voidstones, and I might make a run at Uber Elder and Maven, but I am in no rush to do either. If they happen organically it is cool, but I am not necessarily going to push my way through it. I still do not love bossing and I also feel way too squishy to reasonable deal with the damage output from those encounters. I would essentially have to perform both of them perfectly… and I can’t say I have ever done that. I did however do a no-death Eater of Worlds which made me happy. Searing Exarch though was a complete and total mess, which is funny because as Righteous Fire that fight is a cakewalk.

I say I am happy with my progress in Pohx League in large part because I know come the 20th I will not be playing it anymore. Yesterday GGG released the full trailer for the Legacy of Phrecia Event and with it came the start date of February 20th. Which gives me eight days of undivided attention before Monster Hunter Wilds comes out and I tag out to play that with friends. I have no clue at all what I am going to play. Right now I am leaning towards either doing Poison Summon Raging Spirits on Servant of Arakali Shadow or try and build something Righteous Fire themed on either Ancestral Commander Marauder or maybe Polytheist Templar. The problem with that last one is I do not think there are four ascendancies that will help me out… Scavenger Scion could probably also work. If I do go RF, I will probably wait to see what ideas Pohx has before going down that path. I am also somewhat interested in 100% melee with Behemoth Marauder.

Have you played any of Avowed yet? Are you going to be joining the nonsense of the Legacy of Phrecia Event in Path of Exile? Drop me a line below with your thoughts.

Voidstones and Third Atlas Tree

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Hey Folks! I spent most of this weekend playing Path of Exile while listening to audiobooks, which is a pretty freaking great time. I am still progressing slowly, because I die way more often than I would like on this character. However given that I am playing in a semi-private trade environment the items that I want are either not available or priced way the hell out of my reach. If I had more evasion, and a way to fix elemental ailments… all of my woes would probably be solved. I also have negative chaos resistance still, so that is still a massive problem. However I got through the first of my voidstones yesterday so that was at least good. Once I get another t16 map I will try and tackle the Eater of Worlds fight as I am one map away from unlocking that.

As far as atlas progression goes, I have unlocked my third atlas tree which means I have completed 100 map bonus objectives out of 115. There are still several red maps that I have not completed, and I am struggling right now with a complete and total lack of Vaal orbs. I really do not want to have to buy them off the market, and I am hoping that eventually I start finding Vaal Cities in Delve and getting them that way. I could in theory run Alva… even though I do not love running Alva… and I could probably get a stash of them that way also. Thankfully I finally have a decent stash of Alchemy Orbs which at least allows me to roll maps without much issue.

My third Atlas Tree is devoted to running Einhar, Ritual, and Beyond which is a combination that can be pretty rippy but fits relatively well together in an atlas as it is all on the same side of the tree. Essentially my goal is to either find an Omen of Connections or a Black Morrigan beast so that I can upgrade into a six link. Buying one outright is not an option as there is only one available right now… and it isn’t even a well rolled one, is corrupted, and has all of the wrong colors. My guess is that it dropped that way because it has 18% quality on it… which if you were going to bother putting any quality on an item… why did you stop at 18%? I guess the corruption could have done that, but still… if I want a six link I am likely going to have to make my own and while I bought a second better rolled Carcass Jack that I am throwing fusings at… I have not had any luck so far.

I’ve been alternating between mapping and delve, which ultimately slows down my atlas progression, but gets me just a bunch of raw currency instead. I’ve been slowly selling resonators that I find for some currency to hopefully begin to buy some upgrades if I can ever find anything. The other option would be to just save all of those resonators and start trying to craft upgrades myself. I’ve held onto a few good bases, because I would really like to get out of the negatives on my chaos resistance at some point. My gloves are about as good as I am going to get currently, but I would really like to craft a set of boots with better movement speed than I currently have. I am also trying to decide if I just want to give up on some of my passive tree to go for cluster jewels.

I’ve been pretty impressed with how many unique maps I have managed to drop to this point. I’ve finished nine so far, but still am lacking the usual suspects of Twilight Temple, Putrid Cloister, and Coward’s Trial. I also need the Vaults of Atziri, but that will show up on Kirac at some point. I am still pretty regularly running Betrayal because I need that stupid trigger cast wand craft. I find it bizarre that I have not encountered it yet on any items. That is ultimately going to cause me to shift up some of my gear and convert Frost Bomb to being triggered by Arcane Brand and shift from Frost Bite over to Assassin’s Mark. All of that will be a significant net positive for the build because right now I am honestly only casting Frost Bomb if I am fighting a boss.

The latest update on the Legacy of Phrecia event shows that we are going to be losing the Atlas Tree during this event league in favor of a system that works like Sanctum Idols. These remind me a lot of the trinkets from Heist league. I think it might be fun as part of an event, but I am hoping this is not a permanent change. As far as I am concerned the state of the Atlas of Worlds at 3.25 with its tree different trees… is pretty much the perfect version of mapping. You spend time unlocking your Atlas and then the reward of having done so, is that you can run exactly the content you want to run in the manner you which to run it. This whole idol system seems like it is going to be a chaotic mess of impossible to optimize mapping. I feel like if they are going to make things random rolls, they need to make each individual stat line stronger than they currently are in the Atlas tree in order for it to work out.

Right now I am really interested in the Servant of Arakaali Shadow Ascendancy that has also been spoiled. Unless something just phenomenal drops in the coming days, I am probably going to start the league as a Shadow and build this into a version of Poison Summon Raging Spirits. Essentially this Ascendancy provides what you get from some of the specific uniques sought after in that build. This would make it much much cheaper/easier to run this type of character without having to rely on those items. You would still probably need a Covenant as your chest-piece, but it would be straightforward enough to get one of those and five link it yourself. Even in a limited trade environment you are able to pick up most unique chests reasonably cheaply if you are willing to socket and link them yourself.

SirGog has been releasing deep dive videos on each of the announcements as they arrive from GGG. I highly suggest following him and checking these out if you want more information.

He also released a video diving into the Idol Based Atlas of Worlds that I talked about above.

Fullscreen Frostyboom

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Good Morning Folks! Since I finished the season in Diablo IV, I am now much more focused on Pohx League. I am very only likely to be dipping my toes back into Necromancer fun times when Ace wants to play, and particularly as we work on some of the seasonal objectives for them. In Pohx League I rolled something that was completely new to me, and it has been shockingly fun. I had never really played a Trickster before, or honestly gotten anything based on the Shadow class to maps. I’ve also not played a pure traps build even though Righteous Fire derives a lot of its damage based on Fire Trap. Ultimately I set out wanting to try a Trickster and then found a build that seemed like it might be enjoyable with that Ascendancy and rolled with it.

This build my friends… is ludicrous. I’ve never played anything with this level of full screen coverage. Sure my lightning arrow and later elemental hit of the spectrum builds could off screen enemies, but nothing to this point has ever just blanketed the entire screen in death. Yesterday I made some significant tweaks to the build and migrated to the “final form” and shifted over to Ice Trap of Hollowness. This is an alternate version of Ice Trap that comes from the Labyrinth that essentially scales up the area of effect of the traps, so that there is a dead spot in the center but MUCH wider coverage. It also has a much shorter time to trigger on its own, which makes it prime territory for some shenanigans.

Essentially to exploit the benefits of this alternate version of Ice Trap, we swap so using the Sunblast unique belt that makes it so enemies cannot trigger your traps, but allows you to throw 2 additional traps and explode on their own significantly faster. A perfectly rolled Sunblast is 75% reduced trap duration, but I was only able to afford a 61% one in Pohx league given the limited market. Since Tinkerskin works exclusively based on when traps are triggered, this means we need to move away from that chest and the most common choice is to go with a Carcass Jack for the additional Area of Effect and Area Damage scaling. The end result… is just truly silly for map clear because you essentially hit the entire screen at once.

More important than that, since I can easily have 17 traps up at once there is quite a lot of overlap which leads to shotgunning. The trick however is that you need to dance around the screen to limit the amount of mobs that are in the dead spot in the center that deals no damage. For bossing it is pretty straightforward to swap back to using the normal Ice Trap but it does mean having to take a moment to swap out your primary gem. I’ve never really loved gem swapping, but it does make enough of a difference to be worthwhile and will be even more so if I can get a slightly better roll on my Sunblast belt. What is nice about this build is with the swap it is both an extremely fast mapper and a pretty competent bosser. If you are curious I dumped a POB of the state of my build.

The only thing really lacking with this build is general defenses. I have enough layers to keep me from getting one shot, but I do have to hit my potion way more often than I would care to. There are a lot of things that I ultimately need to do to scale up the defensive layers, but the biggest one would be a load more evasion. Right now I have around 65% evasion and 90% lucky spell suppression combined with around 3500 hit points and 1700 energy shield. The only thing that is really going to one shot me is chaos damage, because I still have negative resistance in that department. Essentially the build is good enough to probably finish out the Atlas and unlock a few of the boss encounters, but would really need to find better versions of almost every rare slot in my build to make it feel a bit more comfy. Were I playing in a normal trade league this would not be a problem at all… but in a limited time event league there just isn’t a ton of stuff available for prices that I can afford.

I think much like it was in NecroSettlers, my first goal is going to be unlocking my full Atlas. When I get my third passive tree I plan on building it out to be Ritual and Einhar for the purpose of trying to farm either a Black Morrigan or an Omen of Connections to turn my five-link into a six-link. I am pretty happy with the state of my build craft in Path of Exile, where I can make a character function without trade intervention more or less. I still like trading for specific upgrades, and I like selling random stuff as well… but I like knowing that I can mostly get a build off the ground and capable of mapping on my own. I will likely never be a big crafter, nor someone who dives deep into market manipulation… but I do like that I can be fairly self sustaining. That is a pretty huge thing coming from the very rocky starts that I had back in Sentinel and Kalandra leagues to where I am today.