Path of Exile

[NeoSneth]

Man the second ascendancy is kind of rough mechanic wise, due to the RNG nature of the debuffs you have to take each round.

I’m probably 85% through Act 3 I believe.

I’m still rocking a minion build for an infernalist witch.

I added Raging Spirits to have more minion damage and that really upped my damage. Great skill.

Once I got raging spirits, i felt like I had to be fire based because it was so good. I have no idea what ascendancy is, but I'm about 20% into Act III.

A lot of people complaining about the lack of loot. I'm getting enough, but maybe PoE1 had nonstop legendaries or something. I'm mostly crafting gear in this game. The annoyance for me is the inconsistency in drops. I had bosses dropping level 10 gear when I was level 30. Then a white chest will drop rare lvl 40 magic gear and 500 gold. Like wtf? The gear is crazy powerful, so I can't imagine getting even more. I've only had 2 legendary drops, and they were for melee classes and also 10 levels too late.

 

[Lagduf]

Ascendancy is when you choose what is basically your sub-class or specialization. For Witch that is currently Infernalist or Bloodmage. You have to complete a “trial” to do so. In PoE1 the trial was called the labrynth.

In PoE2 the trial (right now) is based on either one of two PoE1 league mechanics called (I think) Sanctum and Ultimatum.

You should encounter the first trial in Act 2 though you need to kill an optional boss to unlock it.

Your ascendancy class is basically has its own little skill tree.

 

[Average Joe]

Did a few Trial attempts and finally made it to the end and then ate it at the boss.

This whole Honor thing is a bit tricky with my current build and I can see it being incredibly easy for others or damn near impossible--I feel like this aspect might need a bit of kind of reconfiguring.

 

[Lagduf]

Did a few Trial attempts and finally made it to the end and then ate it at the boss.

This whole Honor thing is a bit tricky with my current and I can see it being incredibly easy for others or damn near impossible--I feel like this aspect might need a bit of kind of reconfiguring.

Just FYI the trial in Act 3 uses a completely separate mechanic.

I like the act 2 trial setup better because you can pick your room (and some rooms rewards restore your honor.)

I definitely almost lost all my honor on the boss though especially as he heats up when he gets low health. It’s almost a dps race.

You can always overlevel and come back to the trial. I used to do that a lot in poe 1.

 

[Lagduf]

Also the drop rate for unique items seems to be an order of magnitude higher in co op than playing solo.

Each time I’ve played with my buddy we get multiple uniques to drop a session.

 

[Average Joe]

You can always overlevel and come back to the trial. I used to do that a lot in poe 1.

Ever since I got into Soulsborne games this option basically doesn't exist in my mind even if it is entirely logical I'd rather stubbornly plow through it with as many attempts as it takes.

I do get how this Trial works though so I can see what Skills I need to focus on using, so it should go smoother next time.

 

[Lagduf]

Ever since I got into Soulsborne games this option basically doesn't exist in my mind even if it is entirely logical I'd rather stubbornly plow through it with as many attempts as it takes.

I do get how this Trial works though so I can see what Skills I need to focus on using, so it should go smoother next time.

Ha yeah I get it. Each trial I did so far in PoE2 did take me quite a few tries.

 

[Taiso]

Not PoE 2 related, but in Conan Exiles I designed Red Sonja but gave her the biggest possible tits.

I can't stop laughing when I see those medicine balls flopping around. It's like I can't take anything seriously. I may need to start over and be a bit more moderate.

 

[NeoSneth]

finished the trial and ascended. really wanted to pick the blood path, but the overall tree wasnt as engaging as infernal. I can absolutely see that trial being a nightmare for other classes. I keep seeing discussion about Honor, but I haven't run into that yet. There's a lot of stuff I haven't bothered to figure out. Apparently I can command minions, don't know how to do that. seems irrelevant anyways. Corrupted gear I just get rid of because it has all sucked anyways. Not sure what that even means.

I'm still using a level 10 scepter because it has +30% Spirit, and I haven't been able to make a new one with it.

Overall still liking this game. I think the choice of class is dictating the attention required. Mine is quite low. I play mostly half baked in the evenings without any issue. Progression is a bit slow if i wanted to make more characters, but I also think that's a positive in a way.

 

[Lagduf]

lol honor is a mechanic in the first trial. It’s basically a resource that depletes when you take damage and if it gets to zen you lose. I’ll assume you crushed the trial lol.

Not sure what command minion is. You can set a “skill” on your hot bar that lets you tell which enemy you want your minions to attack. Some minions also have abilities they can use which you have to put on your hot bar to activate (snipers, arsonist, frost mage, reaver, etc.)

Corrupted gear can have significantly higher stats than normal at the cost of being able to further modify the item with currency. It’s a tied in to the lore thing, with the ancient Vaal being very powerful but very corrupt/evil. There is a currency called a Vaal Orb which lets you corrupt gear.

 

[Average Joe]

Beat the Trial and that was a pain in the ass for me.

I did end up finding two Unique pieces of gear, but they're not for my build and I have no idea how to actually trade them. I know you can use a Premium Stash Tab, but my character isn't even showing on the PoE2 Trade site so I'm not sure what's going on with that.

 

[Bennett]

Using mouse and keyboard so far with not many issues I might try a controller at a later point. I am doing a lightning Mercenary and almost done with Act 3, ascended twice.

The gameplay so far has been great in the story portion. It is the most Diablo 2 -esque game since Diablo 2. They even paid homage to D2 somewhat with the act 1/2/3 themes.

People have been complaining about mapping (you fail the map if you die) and a lack of an endgame. I am confident GGG will get that figured out in subsequent updates.

Did a few Trial attempts and finally made it to the end and then ate it at the boss.

This whole Honor thing is a bit tricky with my current build and I can see it being incredibly easy for others or damn near impossible--I feel like this aspect might need a bit of kind of reconfiguring.

I am not a fan of the current way they handle ascendencies in POE2. I am actually a fan of the Labrinth, at least in that regard. I hated the lab when you had to run it over and over to get helm enchants in the past, thats fixed now in POE1.

 

[Lagduf]

PoE2 is the true Diablo 3.

PoE1 was Diablo 2-2. (AKA Diablo 2: New Vegas.)

 

[Lagduf]

I finally beat Act 3 and got to Cruel difficulty.

End of Act 3 story wise is really cool.

My damage was really good towards the latter half of Act 3. Beat the Act boss in two tries.

 

[Average Joe]

Got some usable Unique equips; played around with my Passives again, and now I feel like I'm really starting to cook.

I ended up having four (somewhat) useless points into a path that wasn't helping me at all. There's definitely a benefit (at least to me) to look at that Tree every few levels and change it around a bit. I'm not sure how it works for other classes/players, but I'm changing up how I play every few levels as well.

There's definitely a fun and unique feeling of gameplay evolution going on here that is quite addicting.

 

[Lagduf]

Just a note for cruel difficulty, not all of the side quests/bosses when you go through the campaign again will offer the rewards they dropped the first time. So it makes going through the acts the second time a bit faster because you can straight up skip some side areas and don’t really need to do a full clear on the maps.

I’m an idiot and my friend pointed this out to me. If the boss or side event rewards something (like passive skill points) it will have a little + next to the icon on the actual map.

Apparently the map legend even tells you this but i may or may not be able to read.

 

[NeoSneth]

Migrated to cruelty last night. the last level was pretty cool, but Act III is a slog IMO. Those maps became massive, and the formula didn't change. I like large maps. but there was starting to be a lot of backtracking due to the size. Every time there was some large open space, I got excited there might be a mini boss or a puzzle, but instead it's just some text on a stone that doesn't trigger anything. Quite deflating when you are roaming the huge maps.

Honestly, I can't tell you anything about the story. I stopped reading after I unlocked the Hooded One. Might be cool, but it's lost on me. Clicking on vendor's to see what new stuff they had to say just wasn't working for me as a story delivery system. That worked well in the era of Diablo II, but give me a cut scene in between acts or something.

In all of Act II and Act III i never saw a legendary drop. But I am very happy with the gear I was able to make on my own. I have a ton of spirit stat which means my minion army is massive. I have almost no armor with sockets. I added a few sockets manually out of curiosity, but those runes don't really seem that great. Maybe for classes that are in the melee, but I rarely take those kind of hits.

I still haven't figured out how to command minions to do their special abilities, but again, not really needed IMO.

Cruelty does seem like a good step up in challenge; However, I will probably pause here and let the game evolve some more.

 

[Lagduf]

Not all minions have skills. Which ones do you use?

Agreed on the Act 3 maps. Stupid huge.

 

[NeoSneth]

Not all minions have skills. Which ones do you use?

Agreed on the Act 3 maps. Stupid huge.

I switched to a few more melee minions in Act III because it seemed to throw more fast moving strikers at you in the trash mobs. Before that I was all in on Arsonists with Scattershot.

I finished Act III with Infernal Beast, 2 warriors, 2 reavers, 1 arsonist, 1 sniper, and 1 storm mage. For no logical reason other than I wanted variety after the melee.

For fun, I just figured out how to assign the minion command abilities. You cannot drag and drop them like all other abilities. You have to go to an empty skill bar slot. Select it. And it will pop-up the available minion command abilities. Neat.

 

[Lagduf]

Ah, yeah on controller the way you assign the minion skills is the same as a regular skill.

My buddy has a cool minion build. He has a unique chest piece that generates a power charge when he hits an enemy.

So he basically always has 10 empowered zombies. I think he was running those zombies along with 6 snipers, 2 brutes, and a cleric.

 

[Average Joe]

So apparently I've been walking around without any Spirit for a while now.

Since I was playing this guideless, I didn't realize I missed picking up that Spirit consumable in Act 1.

I ended up looking up how I get Spirit as I knew it was odd I didn't have any since the game was acting like I should have.

 

[Lagduf]

Scepters also give 100 spirit as base. But yes you do gain spirit through the campaign.

The Bog Witch Boss in Act 3 also gives a spirit consumable on both playthrough I believe.

I just beat act 3 cruel and am now on to maps.

 

[Bennett]

Sadly, the campaign is the highlight. The mapping leaves a lot to be desired and the map encounters like ritual and breach need tuning badly. The slower dodge based tactical gameplay of the acts goes out the window and it turns into a zergfest where you have to out damage the mobs before they overwhelm you (breach and ritual).

Trying to get your 3rd ascendancy is a massive pain in the ass.

 

[Lagduf]

Sadly, the campaign is the highlight. The mapping leaves a lot to be desired and the map encounters like ritual and breach need tuning badly. The slower dodge based tactical gameplay of the acts goes out the window and it turns into a zergfest where you have to out damage the mobs before they overwhelm you (breach and ritual).

Trying to get your 3rd ascendancy is a massive pain in the ass.

Yeah, im agreeing with this. Most of these encounter mechanics (ritual, breach, expedition, etc) are straight up from PoE1 and requires builds doing huge AoE trash mob clearing eye cancer inducing attacks.

I definitely want to see more encounters with stronger enemies with more boss like mechanics rather than trash mob spam.

Third ascendancy is a bit too much rng for my taste. At least the relics can mitigate it to American stent but sometimes you just get a shit run.