Path of Exile (Diablo 2's real sequel)

I have to say, the butt-hurt on the forums after last night's security patch is downright mind boggling. Never before have I seen so many people bitch about have to enter their password each time they log in, even after the misconstrued belief that having a dynamic IP would require you to get an email with a one-time use code each time was cleared up. Is this seriously the level we've reached in gaming? People are too fucking lazy to type in a six to eight character code when they want to do something? These people are going to be fucking shocked if they ever find a job that requires them to use a computer.
What's really funny is all you have to do is re-check the save login box. So far the only thing I've had to re-do since that patch is choose my region.
 
I had to re-enter my password. That was it. Didn't have to rechoose my region, didn't even have to recheck the save password box, just had to retype (once) my 8 character password and keep on playing like before.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Both times I've tried to play, the game's been unavailable. I thought "diablo 2's real sequel" would have learned from one of the biggest sins of diablo 3 and allowed for offline play. Silly me.
 
Both times I've tried to play, the game's been unavailable. I thought "diablo 2's real sequel" would have learned from one of the biggest sins of diablo 3 and allowed for offline play. Silly me.
You must have incredibly bad luck, considering the longest downtime I think I've experienced since the beginning of open beta was a 2.5 to 3 hours, and most downtimes are 5 to 10 minutes long at most, even when they're rolling semi-significant patches. But no, there's no offline mode.
 
I have to log onto my email adress everytime my IP-adress changes for GW2 to allow acess for the new IP.
And I appreciate the extra layer of security.People in general are lazy and entiteld.
 
I feel like they kept so much of the bad things that D3 actually did do a good job of getting rid of, such as inventory being more even to fit more, having a mini-map with way markers, auto potion refills. Being a carbon copy of D2 doesn't make it a better game. The talent trees are intriguing, but from everything I've been reading, it's not nearly as robust as it looks. For a free game, yeah, it's OK, but I don't think it's even as good as D3, frankly.
 
I feel like they kept so much of the bad things that D3 actually did do a good job of getting rid of, such as inventory being more even to fit more, having a mini-map with way markers, auto potion refills. Being a carbon copy of D2 doesn't make it a better game. The talent trees are intriguing, but from everything I've been reading, it's not nearly as robust as it looks. For a free game, yeah, it's OK, but I don't think it's even as good as D3, frankly.
Potions refill a certain number of charges every time you kill something, so as long as you're not chain-chugging like D2 you're fine. I do agree about personal inventory space, but by the time I got about halfway through the first Act I had at least 20 portal scrolls so going back to sell was easy enough. The Passive tree is a bit misleading in that you can't take, say, a Marauder and get him all the way to the opposite end of the tree while still being viable in any way. Really, the specific builds are only super-important if you're playing Hardcore.

The other thing is I think this game just appeals to a different sort of ARPG gamer. D3 took out a lot of micromanagement that D2 had, whereas PoE kept it. Personally, I like stumbling on quests moreso than being constantly bread-crumbed into them, but that's just me.
 
Torchlight 2 removes a lot of the micromanagement, but still has quests all over the place that you stumble upon. I'll just stick with that one until they get out of beta on this one. Maybe when it goes gold, they will have worked on that a bit.
 

Dave

Staff member
I'm actually liking this a bit more, even though it's tough to learn things about the game without constantly looking at the wiki. But since I haven't been hording every white it's been a load off my mind. Still, I'm running out of identify scrolls at a pretty good clip. I just can't let myself sell a magic item without looking at it first.
 
Trading non-identified items usually gets you a number of shards that, when stacked to 20, make an orb that can enchant a white weapon into the rarity the orb lists. Anytime I stumble on a superior white item I hold onto it for a couple levels in case I get an orb for enchanting.
 
Both times I've tried to play, the game's been unavailable. I thought "diablo 2's real sequel" would have learned from one of the biggest sins of diablo 3 and allowed for offline play. Silly me.
To be fair, this is still in beta. Diablo 3 had a week of downtime at its actual launch.
 
I'm actually liking this a bit more, even though it's tough to learn things about the game without constantly looking at the wiki. But since I haven't been hording every white it's been a load off my mind. Still, I'm running out of identify scrolls at a pretty good clip. I just can't let myself sell a magic item without looking at it first.
Even though I'm not that far in the game, it seems like the slots matter more so you can have the correct skills and support gems that you want. Having a magic modifier on it is just icing. So I only identify the ones with the correct slots I want. Or like cynicismkills said, save the superior white ones with slots you want and use an orb on those to make them magic or rare.
 
Even though I'm not that far in the game, it seems like the slots matter more so you can have the correct skills and support gems that you want. Having a magic modifier on it is just icing. So I only identify the ones with the correct slots I want. Or like cynicismkills said, save the superior white ones with slots you want and use an orb on those to make them magic or rare.
Also, hold onto the orbs that allow you to alter the number/color of slots. They randomize, but if you're a Marauder with some super-sweet axe that's full of blue slots you'll be glad to take the chance to get a couple reds on it.
 

Necronic

Staff member
Trading non-identified items usually gets you a number of shards that, when stacked to 20, make an orb that can enchant a white weapon into the rarity the orb lists. Anytime I stumble on a superior white item I hold onto it for a couple levels in case I get an orb for enchanting.
Unidentified will give you shards for Transmutation. Identified will give you shards for Alteration (re-rolls the item), and sometimes shards for Alchemy depending on what the identified affixes are. Both are very useful. You will go through a lot of Alteration orbs trying to get the right affixes on a potion.

The talent trees are intriguing, but from everything I've been reading, it's not nearly as robust as it looks.
This is simply wrong, no other way to say it. There are a ton of different possible builds. For instance, with a witch you can:

1) Summoner CI build - Stays in Witch tree mostly, except to grab the summoner nodes near the templar tree. Probably grabs dual curses
2) Summoner Tank/health build - Moves to Templar tree and starts focusing on health.
3,4,5) Cold/Lightning/Fire Crit CI - Pick a color and go for crit nodes while keeping ES high
6,7,8) Cold/Lightning/Fire Crit Tank/health - Same as above but run to Templar tree

Right there are 8 basic builds. BUT WAIT. Do you want to run Dual Totems? Dual Curses? If you're running CI do you want Ghost Reaver? What about Vaal Pact? Do you want to take some weapon nodes along the way?

There are tons of ways to build these characters. Sometimes its better to think of a class external to the in game classes, like a bow/Blood magic character. You can build that with either the Duelist, the Ranger, or the Shadow. The Shadow has a CI build option, the Duelist/Ranger have Resolute Technique options.

And of course all of this leaves out the ACTIVE skills. The possibilities that arise from different active/support skills open up tons of different options, and the way you choose your actives affect how you build your passives. If you want to run Lightning Strike with LMP you probably want some +Lightning dmg nodes, and will probably need Blood Magic at some point.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Well, I got it to play. I wish I could zoom out further. I realize it's the genre to be pulled in tight to limits that make archery a farce, but I find myself always rolling the mouse roller back, hoping. Also, not a fan of inventory-tetris.

Apart from that, I like the setting, the controls are ok, the barter system is kind of interesting... the passive points feels like FF8 to me. I'm only level 15 (Marauder) but I was kind of grumpy that every one-handed sword after the copper one seems to want dex. Had to switch to a hammer finally, losing cleave in the process, but doubled my damage... and leaping is pretty much as good as cleaving anyway. Actually, I got a red support gem of +hp on strike and attached it to the leaping strike gem... now it's hilarious when I get bogged down by trash mobs, I just start jumping up and down like a maniac, my life going up and they all get squelched into a pile of juice and bile.

I keep thinking of reasons to not like this game, but I keep going back to play more.
 

Necronic

Staff member
Weapons are inherently linked to a certain stat, so all swords will require good dex. I think Axes are strength only though, and you can use Cleave with them. That's part of what makes building a character so interesting/challenging. One AOE skill that you can use with pretty much any weapon is Lightning Strike. Its fantastic. If you're running 2h though I suggest you go to Sweep. It's Cleave +180 deg.

One note to you new guys though, there are a number of skills that involve both a move and an attack (like Leap). These are known to cause de-syncs from time to time. Once you learn how to recognize a desync it won't matter much, but if you keep hitting the same guy and his life isn't moving....well you're gonna have a bad time.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I think I'll stick with 1 hand and shield, I like shield rush for getting in and out of trouble and I'm starting to not miss cleave with the bounce of death (Leap Leap Leap). Also Leap comes in REALLY handy for jumping up/down those annoying 2 meter cliffs.

As for axe vs hammer... I dunno. I guess whatever I find that does more damage. But my hammer is now a yellow, so...
 

Necronic

Staff member
I was wrong before, Axe is Str/Dex. So unless you plan on taking some dex nodes (not really a good idea for most maurader builds), I would go hammer (straight str, and bonus phys dmg intrinsic property)
 

Dave

Staff member
This is exactly what I was talking about before when I said it's too difficult to build characters using the passive tree. You have to have dex for everything except hammers? So my fighter character needs to range FAR outside his strengths to grab some dex just to use a fucking sword?!? That's dumb as fuck.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
This is exactly what I was talking about before when I said it's too difficult to build characters using the passive tree. You have to have dex for everything except hammers? So my fighter character needs to range FAR outside his strengths to grab some dex just to use a fucking sword?!? That's dumb as fuck.
It does seem pretty inane. Even the 2 handers seem to require dex. Because, you know, a sword or axe takes WAY more dexterity to swing than a hammer.
 

Necronic

Staff member
It makes a more sense the more you get to understand the passive tree. First off even in the maurader tree there are Dex nodes here and there, including a couple +30s. If you look at Axes the Str required for the top one is 147, the dex is 65. This means that with a little careful planning on the passive tree you can easily use Dex. Many mauraders will likely grab Blood Magic, which puts you near the Deulist area. That area is replete with Dex nodes.

Also, you would never want to use swords with most Maurader builds late game. Why? Two reasons. First, Swords have an intrinsic crit bonus, and you have little easy access to crit nodes. Second, you have little access to accuracy nodes, which means you are more than likely going to take Resolute Technique pretty early, which eschews crits but means you will always hit.

So, you really would never WANT to run swords on a Maurader. But you WOULD want to on say a 2H Deulist, Shadow, or Ranger, which has a lot of Crit and Dex nodes.

The passive tree is immensely complex, so it takes quite a while to understand, but when you do you will see that it is remarkably well balanced and intricately planned.
 
I see plenty of Maurader bow builds, so getting Dex shouldn't be difficult. You'd have to head south on the Passive tree, down into Duelist territory, I think.
 

Necronic

Staff member
Good point. This is something a lot of people don't fully appreciate until they've logged a decent amount of time. Forget your preconceptions about what a class is. It's all about what you can build in the passive tree. I've also heard there's a solid Dual Wand build for Mauraders. Which is insane.
 
The main thing is the skill Fire Trap being one of the best abilities in the game right now, so everyone tries to keep their Dex up so it can stay at a decent level.
 

Dave

Staff member
So the game tells me what kind of fighter I have to be to be effective? Sounds great.

Remember, I've got a level 30 Maurader, so I'm not just talking out my ass. A fighter that has to jump through hoops to use a sword is fucking stupid.
 
So the game tells me what kind of fighter I have to be to be effective? Sounds great.

Remember, I've got a level 30 Maurader, so I'm not just talking out my ass. A fighter that has to jump through hoops to use a sword is fucking stupid.
Boom, 13 skill points used and you're at 100str and nearly 90dex, more than enough for most swords. Also puts you in range of crit multipliers, accuracy and health nodes, armor, and within a few levels you could have life leech and some 2h bonuses. This doesn't even take into account any str/dex bonuses on armor you'd likely have by then.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Yeah, and you have to eschew EVERYTHING ELSE up to that point to get it. You have to steer away from the +health, +1 hand damage, and shield areas.

Sorry, guys, the way this game defines swords, and what is required to use them is retarded. I'm with Dave. 13 points into never-never land to raise dex is 13 points not going into something else when hammers don't have that prereq, which automatically gimps a marauder comparatively not using a hammer, which is an unsatisfactory situation.

That said, I'm still gonna play it. It's just the game has some pretty bullshit ideas and there's way too much metanonsense going on under the hood.[DOUBLEPOST=1361821209][/DOUBLEPOST]
I can't load that at work, but I assume it goes into the duelist tree?
Here you go -

dex..JPG
 
Well I'm looking at bare-bones getting some Dex. You can stop along the way and pick up whatever you want.

I dunno, up to this point I've been able to use swords just fine on my Templar who's in basically the same boat as the Marauder. If you have a certain weapon or set up you want to use, you've gotta plan ahead for it. The game's like Diablo 2 in that regard, unless you've been lucky in Orb of Regret drops.
 
If you wanted to you could go through that first big circle with the 1h or 2h DPS buffs also, there's a big 20 or 30 dex plus accuracy right there too.

The problem you're going to have, though, is being level 30 and pretty well-set on a route in the tree. You'd have to veer off somewhere to snag more dex (unless you reroll equipment for more dex).
 

Necronic

Staff member
Yet again though, let me ask the more obvious question. WHY do you want to use swords? Swords are a dex/crit weapon. Mauraders aren't well positioned for dex/crit. You can still do it, but like you pointed out, you have to go pretty far out of your way.

Is it purely an aesthetic thing? You know this isn't Hello Kitty Island Adventure right?
 

Necronic

Staff member
It's GasBandit. I wouldn't be surprised if he used the title "This isn't Hello Kitty Island Adventure" as the title of his next crochety Andy Rooney style rant/blog (which are p funny).

ed: Good catch on that other early dex node, I was sure there was one there.
 
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