titan

Sad Stampede and Angy Firebois

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It took every last exalt I had, but I have balanced out my elemental resistances capping them, and got my chaos up to something reasonable for mapping purposes. I would sure love to have chaos at 75% but for the moment that is just not in the cards. I really need to focus on getting through my third trial so that I can pick up crushing impact, which will make stampede much more effective. I have to admit though I have struggled to get into mapping. It is just so much slower-paced than the equivalent activity in Path of Exile 1 and feels less rewarding. This is probably entirely due to the class that I am playing, but Stampede is super jank when it comes to object collisions. I ran a map yesterday that was chock full of trees… all of them had collisions enabled, which made charging through them feel like I was a steel ball in a Pachinko machine.

There is also the challenge of Stampede Explode eating a pretty sizeable nerf with the most recent patch. Technically it was a bug fix, the end result is that it is doing much less damage. Armor Explosion Support was triggering too many times, leading to the entire process proliferating way more explosions than intended. Now without this, it feels like Stampede is considerably weaker, but still one of the better options for clear that the Warrior has. It is essentially either that or Cleave because the other options are way too cumbersome for hitting multiple targets quickly. Once I get my third ascendancy I will probably go down the path of Avatar of Fire as described in this build. Once I go Crushing Impact on my ascendancy it pretty much means that Boneshatter pops are completely off the menu, but everything else should be generating armor explosions a bit more easily.

All of that said, I spent zero time yesterday on my Titan and instead chilled out playing the Infernalist. I finished up Act II and started Act III and am pretty much still humming along easily. I did encounter a bit of a challenge with the Silverback in Act III, but this was only a problem because I approached from a direction other than where the checkpoint was. That boss is so aggressive that it will attack from what feels like halfway across the map. I feel like when you engage a boss regardless if you triggered the checkpoint, the act of fighting the boss should flag you for it automatically. Though I have to say I am nowhere near as annoyed reclearing content areas as the Witch was I was as the Warrior. Clearing is just so much easier because all I am really doing is running around and spamming flame walls as my angry children do all the work.

Essentially at this point I really want to get the Witch into maps to see if they feel better. Ironically I have the opposite problem that I usually do in Path of Exile, where I have built a very shitty mapper in the Titan but a phenomenal bosser. I can evaporate most bosses in one or two hits at this point, but the act of actually clearing the map is cumbersome as hell. With my Infernalist and my army of Raging Spirits, the clearing part is a breeze and the bosses are not terribly difficult… but just take forever to finally drop. However since I can damage from out of melee range, I mostly just spend my time avoiding the mechanics while my minion army slowly whittles it down. I probably need to do some proper research on what an endgame version of this build looks like so that I can start preparing for that because as soon as I hit Cruel acts I expect to breeze through the rest of the campaign and into maps.

The Necromantle

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Good Morning Folks! I’ve reached the point with Path of Exile II where I am alternating largely between two characters. You have my try-hard Titan Stampede Explode character that is progressing my way through maps, and then you have my way more chill Minion Necromancer Witch that I am progressing through Act II. It is amazing how much more chill the campaign feels now that I have gotten used to mapping. I am uncertain if I simply know the content better, that leveling minion is more relaxed, or by playing a lot of higher-level content I’ve reset the anchor for my new normal. Whatever the case I feel like I need multiple characters so that I can shift back and forth between them as my pace needs change. For those looking to play a Minion character, I am mostly following this guide from Maxroll.

Yesterday I decided that since I was seemingly going to run up a second character and take it somewhat seriously, that I might as well buy a few twink items along the way. The first that I picked up is the Necromantle, which is equipable at level 16 and is pretty much just a universally amazing summoner item. The defense for the item is definitely something I will outgrow, but giving my minions some energy shield and the ability to revive 50% faster is freaking amazing. I can legitimately see myself using this all of the way to the end game. I also looked into Dark Defiler, but it is a bit fraught as it drops at several different item levels with higher tiers of Summon Skeletal Warriors on it. Realistically I need to be swapping my sceptre every few levels to keep current pets, so I am probably going to pass on this item. The other item I have contemplated picking up is The Wailing Wall which is just a universally good defensive item. I would have bought it already but I am lacking in Strength, which is going to be an annoying juggling act as I need that to keep upgrading weapons as well.

Over on my Titan main, I have progressed far enough to be doing Tier 3 maps. In all of my maps run I have taken a single death… which made me fully understand how deaths work. They do not bar your progress as they had originally stated, but the node loses any benefits it might have and also eats the tablet that you were using. I still think this 1 portal stuff is bullshit because if I wanted to play in that manner I would be playing hardcore. I am hoping given time they will back away from it and give us back our six portals. We are still very much in a phase where deaths can happen randomly, and it feels annoying to lose XP and resources when you take one. I had spent most of my time clearing to the north but read that there was a quest I needed to start by finding a Fortress. So I found one off in the mists which I marked with a green circle and am beginning to work my way in that direction.

I found a reasonable option for a neck anoint and added it last night. I had to buy some Greed Destilled Emotions from the currency market but picked up three ire through running a delirium map. Essentially I am trying to get my block as high as I possibly can and between this notable and another one that I have already taken I am gaining both life and mana each time I block. This should help sustain quite a bit while mapping. I ended up having to put Lifetap on my Warcry so that it would not eat all of my mana before dropping Hammer of the Gods. I would absolutely go blood magic but I am not sure it is possible for me to stack enough life regeneration for that to be comfortable. Life in general seems like it is a massive problem for everyone, now that it does not exist on the tree.

In other news, we received notice of an upcoming patch that is tweaking a number of things. There are some buffs to Rolling Slam, so I will have to try it again after those go into effect. I am not sure what difference the buff to shield skills are going to do considering I think there are 3 and none of them are really proper attacks. I am holding off on trying to do any more ascendancies until the Trial of Sehkemas changes go in because it should be much easier for me as melee to complete that. The endgame balance and respec costs are both very welcome. All in all it should be a good patch, and given that I am thankfully not playing any of the abilities that were targetted for nerfs, I should not be hit terribly hard by any of it.

Another useful thing that I have found is a replacement for Awakened POE Trade. SnosME is not going to be supporting POE2 since he is not playing it, and does not really have the passion to try and figure out how it works. As there has been a new project that has sprung up called Sidekick which serves to follow in its footsteps and at least in theory appears like it should support both POE1 and POE2 going forward. Better than anything, it uses the same keybinds so your muscle memory should be able to carry along and keep doing the same thing you are used to with Awakened POE Trade. I just started using this and so far it seems to be doing exactly what I would want it to do. This is going to be hugely beneficial in attempting to pricecheck rares and uniques that I might want to sell.

I could grind my way through the early maps, but I am taking the entire process of the Path of Exile II endgame pretty chill. Right now it is all new, and I want to enjoy myself as much as I can. I am much happier with the game than I was, because I have finally reached a point of equilibrium thanks to some of the recent changes surrounding block, and the upcoming changes should only serve to make it easier for me to move forward. I need to spend some time working on my gear, but in order to do that… I need more currency. I greatly miss Delve and the stable source of income it provided in Path of Exile. I need to find my niche, but mapping strategies in general are way less predictable in this game.

How are you getting along in Path of Exile II so far? Have you made it through both the normal and cruel campaigns? How are you enjoying the endgame thusfar? Or are you instead still struggling to get through Act II and Act III and the walls that they often present to players? Drop me a line below.

The Difference A Week Makes

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Good Morning Folks! What a difference a week makes. My opinions of Path of Exile II have improved considerably as my build has more or less come online. I largely yolo’d my way into a functional build because I wanted one thing… to be able to run around with a two-hander and a shield. I also really like explosions and fire… so whatever of that I could work into the build was a bonus. On Friday I took the day off to work on some stuff around the house, and when I finished all of that I started plugging away at making progress through Act III, and putting some of the final pieces in place for the build. The hardest part was being able to meet 3 times the strength requirement for a two-hander in order to use the Giant’s Blood notable. Early on I bought a two-hander with reduced attribute requirements that managed to get me over the hump.

It is shocking how much faster the Cruel Acts go after having completed the first three acts on normal mode. There are a bunch of factors here, firstly you know the boss fights and you know how to progress through the quests. Secondly, there is the fact that by the time you reach Cruel difficulty, your build is more or less reaching its final form and it is largely just an optimization game after that point. While i did not set out following a build, I accidentally wound up in a very similar place that Connor Converse/OneManaLeft did with his Titan Ignite build. If you want to follow in my footsteps I would suggest following his guide. A lot of the struggles of the first act were trying out all of the Warrior abilities and figuring out which ones felt pretty decent.

What I have landed upon is using Stampede to charge at a pack and then trigger explosions on it. The more points that I get and the more AOE support that I get, the better this will ultimately work. I need to get through my 3rd ascendancy so I can try out adding Crushing Blows to the mix, which supposedly really helps with the exploding. The only negative of this is that Stampede’s pathing is pretty bad. It often veers off to Albuquerque at the worst possible moments. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a backup plan, because if mobs did not get primed for a heavy stun… then I can’t explode with Boneshatter as a follow-up. I’ve contemplated working Sunder into the build just so I would have something that could deal reasonable clear damage to packs, but then the problem ends up being… what would I even use for support gems since the good stuff is currently buffing Perfect Strike and Hammer of the Gods.

Yesterday afternoon I wrapped up Act III on Cruel difficulty and proceeded into mapping and the endgame. There is the same quirk that happens when you progress to maps in POE1, where you have to do your very first map in the endgame hub or the game does not realize you have progressed that far. Unfortunately this time around there is not a specific quest telling you this, and you end up with this weird scenario where you can access the mapping device, but it will not work because it keeps telling you that you have to finish the campaign. Generally speaking, when you drop into mapping, somewhere in the near vicinity should be a hideout that you can conquer. I wish I had taken a screenshot prior to clearing it but these are mapped with the familiar blue and silver Fleur-De-Lis symbol hideouts have in Path of Exile. I got access to my hideout early due to the $100 supporter pack coming with a hideout, but generally speaking, this is going to be what you want to go for first.

Mechanically speaking I was not sure how maps were going to work exactly, but essentially you need Waystones, which for me started dropping toward the end of the campaign. You click on a node on the map and it opens an inventory and you place the tier of waystone that you want to run, which turns that map into that tier. This is honestly a cleaner system than the whole maps dropping at specific levels, but it still means that you are going to need copious amounts of way stones to progress your way through the content. The mapping NPC (not naming names for spoilers) will sell you a limited quantity of waystones similar to how Kirac and earlier Zana did in Path of Exile. I’ve not interacted with the Atlas passives yet, because I believe I have to complete the quest to do 10 T1 maps before I get any points to spend.

This is what my tree currently looks like at level 70. I am slowly making my way toward a cluster that is going to give additional close melee damage and area of effect. I am contemplating taking a bit of a detour at some point and picking up the 3% life node, which has a few 7-strength nodes on the way to it. I will also probably want to pick up the max resistance nodes, but given that I am nowhere close to capped, I figure this is a future-me problem. I’ve been stacking percentage block on the jewels on my tree and have managed to get up to 51% which means if I find a better shield I will be really close to the block cap. I am going to have to spend most of my exalts in an attempt to get better gear and resistance capped, but my long-term project is to find The Surrender which drops from Breach bosses but should make me way more tanky with its life recoup. I might start banking Stone Tower Shields in an effort to chance gamble on trying to hit one.

All in all, though, my opinions of Path of Exile have improved significantly since last week. I still feel like this game is overturned, especially in the early game, and that a lot of those bosses have about a third to a half too many hitpoints for when you encounter them. That said though, once my build started to come together I have been enjoying myself considerably more. I think Warrior probably just has a really weak start, and it takes forever to start to get abilities that I would consider good. You are forced into the Rolling Slam and Boneshatter combo for way too long and it feels bad for killing bosses. I feel like if they swapped Sunder to a second-tier ability instead of a third-tier ability, that would greatly improve the playstyle as Sunder can absolutely carry you even into the endgame.

Ishgardians are Still Awful

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Morning Folks! Since I spent all day yesterday talking about my Summoner, I figured this morning I would talk a bit about our progress on Kraken characters. Fair warning for this older content I am going to be pretty open with story spoilers as I talk through it. This is ten-year-old content so you had your chance to play through it. When last I talked about our adventures, we had finished Brayflox and were hot on the tale of a rumble with Titan. Fighting the giant rockboy was as always a fun experience, and even though it went super smoothly we had plenty of time to bask in the great music. This however led us through the Coerthas phase of the MSQ… which is a heck of a lot longer than I remembered it being. The next major destination was Stone Vigil and we mostly kept our heads down until we were able to get there.

I thought that maybe after returning to the game I would find the Ishgardians less insufferable given that I understand the people and their motivations a bit more now. This was not the case. Haurchefant is a great boy as always, but the rest of them can largely die in a big fire. Now that I have actually met Halone… I have so much less patience for their bullshit. The whole paranoia in dealing with the Dravinian threat is equally tiresome, especially after having spent much time hanging with Dragons at this point. Ishgard is so very in the wrong on most of these matters, and it only feels more obvious on a second play-through. The whole business with the Inquisitor and not being able to get into Stone Vigil was a pain in the ass and made me just want to murder everyone until they stopped annoying me.

Last night we pushed through and fought Garuda, and it is hilarious doing that fight in the four-player version. So many muscle memories came flying back to me, at which point I realized just how many times over the years I have done that fight. I remember feeling like it was a real challenge back in the day, but now she mostly just falls over. We wrapped this up by starting on our course to Castrum Centi in Mor Dhona and an attempt at saving our magical pals. It seems like the next big thing we are going to do is a raid on Castrum Meridianum…. many many quests from now. We are sort of in that final grind to finish out the original ARR MSQ. I’m honestly looking forward to doing the patch content because really that is the part of the game that sold me properly on Final Fantasy XIV as a story.

It has been wild seeing scenes that I had long forgotten. I can probably regurgitate the cutscenes of Praetorium like a 5th Grade Class drone through the pledge of allegiance, but there are many scenes I have only ever seen once. For example, I did not remember the whole bit where Baelsar indicated that he was going to get down and dirty with Livia when he ordered her to his room in an hour. The Garleans seem so freaking laughable at this point because I have been making them fall over time and time again for years as I leveled my characters through Main Story Roulette. I remember thinking they were freaking cool the first time I experienced all of these cutscenes. Even Darth Vader though would lose his novelty and fear factor if you made him fall over in minutes every single day for years. I still really want Square to release some of these outfits as cosmetics. I would kill entire zones just to get hold of Nero’s hammer as a Warrior weapon transmog.

Back on the other side of the fence over on Cactuar, I pushed my Summoner forward a bit in levels. I dinged level 96 and in theory, should be able to get another two levels tonight. If I grind really hard, I might be able to hit level 99 and equip the artifact set of gear which would be slick. I really need to clean out my Armoury Chest a bit in order to figure out what gear I actually need in there. Right now I have stuff strewn out between that and my inventory and am pretty sure I have broken a few of my gearsets for other jobs in the process. I’m basically living in Shaaloani now doing FATEs between queue pops of roulette. I’ve yet to get any of the bits required for the “Guinea Big” mount, but I want it badly. Its a fun zone to hang out regardless though because of the phenomenal soundtrack.

Anyways! At some point, I need to check out the new Last Epoch cycle, but I have been so focused on FFXIV that I have barely given it the time of day this week. In the coming days, I am going to get a bit more serious with my recruitment of folks to do some raiding in the game. Since Cactuar is sort of hell to travel over to, we might choose a neutral ground in order to meet up and do the content.