Hey Folks! We are down basically the front half of the alphabet for this show, but the remaining four of us end up recording a deceptively long episode. Path of Exile revealed the details of the Affliction League and we had an awful lot to say about that. We talk through one of the biggest meta-shakeups in the game’s history. Bel also picks a fight with Kodra apparently when he called Guild Wars 2 more of an ARPG than an MMO. It all resolves peacefully however as we realize those judgments are based on different points of reference. We close out the show with Tam talking about some of the interesting choices being forced in Star Citizen.
Friends… I have to admit that I was contemplating just sitting out of the Crucible League. I am still not entirely certain if I am going to go all in Path of Exile this time, but that itch in the back of my head… has returned. I still have some deep concerns about Crucible and the direction of the game, but also… I had a heck of a lot of fun in Sanctum League even though I was one of the few AggroChat folks who really got into it. I really loved the rhythm that I fell into of having a mapping/bossing character and then having my Righteous Fire Juggernaut do super chill Heist and Delve runs on. I have no clue what my plans are for the OP bossing character… but I am pretty sure I am starting the league with Righteous Fire at this point.
Pohx released his Righteous Fire video for 3.21 and an updated Path of Building guide over on his website. The main reason why I am interested in doing Righteous Fire again is that it is ultimately a playstyle that I enjoy greatly. Something that I have learned about myself is that I really like three types of builds:
Screen Clear Ranged Builds
Minions do the Work Builds
Super Tanky Damage Feedback Builds
My two favorite Diablo III builds sort of fall into the Tanky/Feedback builds with Whirlwind involving you spinning through packs of mobs and letting them break themselves on your whirling blades, and Invoker Crusader being a mega thorns build that causes them to essentially explode with damage if they touch you. Righteous Fire definitely falls into that sort of category where you are lighting yourself on fire and then running around and watching things burn up as they attempt to get to you. I’ve yet to really find a version of the Demon Hunter Multishot builds in Path of Exile that I really enjoy playing past about the midpoint in leveling.
The other reason why for a Righteous Fire start is because it does a good job of being an all-around character for doing a lot of different mechanics. More specifically it is good at the mechanics that I personally enjoy doing like Delve and Heist which each offer early access to a bunch of interesting types of loot that are much harder to get otherwise. To quote Jorgen, “Delve Provides” and with the Crucible mechanic focused around weapons… I have a feeling that Delve Crafting will be just as strong as ever as folks try and get that perfect Rare item with the perfect weapon tree on it. In Sanctum as soon as I had filled up on a decent amount of resonators I could pretty much liquidate them instantly which allowed me to funnel resources into shopping trips to fully equip builds.
The other benefit of just choosing to run up Righteous Fire which is a tried and true build… is it gives me some time to see how the other builds in the league shake out. I enjoyed Summon Raging Spirits last go-round, and I went with a fire-based build which was not nearly as strong as the poison variant but still good for doing Metamorph bosses. One of the things I contemplated last league was trying to build some sort of minion instability build turning the raging spirits into bombs. The above video talks about this sort of setup and honestly, I might consider that as my second build of the league.
I’ve never gone Boneshatter so I am contemplating playing around with one of those as well. I know this is one of traditionally the stronger league starts. I’ve also tried to play around with a Poison Rain build several times but never really got it playing in a manner that I enjoyed it. I think my problem with so many bow builds is that they tend to focus on ballistas doing the damage rather than hits doing the damage. I still want to find a fun and chill screen clear hit build that doesn’t cost 100 divines… but I have yet to really land on that. I figure in the next few days we are going to be flooded with builds but really we won’t know entirely what works until a week or so in.
