Path of Exile 3.0 (the other Diablo clone)

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Hmmm... over by Mind Over Matter are two tasty little minion trios, and RIGHT next to that is a four-slot circle which nets a total of 20% chaos resistance.

I know generally you want to gear resistances rather than passive skills, but does that also hold true for Chaos, since it is the one thing that bypasses the majority of the defenses?

Also, there's a huge minion circle out in Scion territory. I almost wonder if Scion wouldn't make a decent summoner, almost as good as Witch. You know, if it wasn't for Witch/Necromancer that is.

[Starwulf]

Hmmm... over by Mind Over Matter are two tasty little minion trios, and RIGHT next to that is a four-slot circle which nets a total of 20% chaos resistance.

I know generally you want to gear resistances rather than passive skills, but does that also hold true for Chaos, since it is the one thing that bypasses the majority of the defenses?

Also, there's a huge minion circle out in Scion territory. I almost wonder if Scion wouldn't make a decent summoner, almost as good as Witch. You know, if it wasn't for Witch/Necromancer that is.

As solo self found, Chaos resist passive nodes may be the best way to get it, as actually finding gear with it is going to be few and far in-between, and it's unlikely you'll ever find it on a piece with other good stats. Hell, trying to buy gear that is tri-resist with one of them being Chaos and then life + whatever else you need for your build is incredibly expensive.

On the topic of eva/armor/ES, that sucks that they didn't really buff it any. So they basically took away the best defensive stat, and gave us nothing in return for it, bit disappointing :-(. Going to make mapping even more irritating once you get to the high-end stuff. Glass cannons shall reign supreme(which means leveling past 90 will be a monstrous chore, since a single death will wipe out hours of work).

[Drasius]

Hmmm... over by Mind Over Matter are two tasty little minion trios, and RIGHT next to that is a four-slot circle which nets a total of 20% chaos resistance.

I know generally you want to gear resistances rather than passive skills, but does that also hold true for Chaos, since it is the one thing that bypasses the majority of the defenses?

Also, there's a huge minion circle out in Scion territory. I almost wonder if Scion wouldn't make a decent summoner, almost as good as Witch. You know, if it wasn't for Witch/Necromancer that is.

Generally you don't care about chaos resistance... Unless you go heavily into low life ES builds, but then you have 1 of the 3 uniques that stop chaos damage bypassing ES and it doesn't matter anymore. It's also a relatively rare damage type and never comes on it's own, so you just don't get that much benefit out of it unless you routinely fight enemies that do chaos damage for some reason (the Vaal construct in Atziri's temple I guess, they can be plenty nasty in a group)

Many players run around with -60% chaos resist with virtually no problems whatsoever.

That minion wheel is probably the worst one, and Scion has crap starting nodes, but she wouldn't be terrible at it and with her split ascendancy, she can pick up Necro and something else.

[Siosilvar]

Yeah, elemental damage is balanced around you having capped resists. Chaos damage is balanced around you having the full -60%, anything you pick up is pure value and not required. I don't think I've ever played a character with positive chaos res except CI who are completely immune. Plus, as mentioned, most sources of chaos damage are also at least half physical in addition to the chaos.

Speaking of resists: Aurumvorax is a godsend. 54% all res for an alch? Sign me the heck up.

[Drasius]

Speaking of resists: Aurumvorax is a godsend. 54% all res for an alch? Sign me the heck up.

Every time I look at that for a stat stick as SSF I see the -ve rarity and cringe. It's got decent enough damage at the level that you can equip it though, and if you need those resists, there's not many better sources that are as easy to come by.

Tried to take on normal Atziri for the first time the other day and failed. Died twice to the trash (I need more life and armour), twice to the trio (more life and damage) and twice to Atziri (MOAR LIFE! and more damage). I also need more movespeed as while I can survive a flameblast (just), it's not enough to survive the rest. Also, cyclone is terrible at dealing with her add phase. I'll have to link my lacerate instead of switching between them when I feel like it. A 4-link and a fairly trash damage axe just isn't cutting it anymore. Can't complain though, it was a beastly upgrade when I got it ~20 odd levels ago.

[Siosilvar]

I was at -1 fire res before I picked it up so it definitely solved my biggest survivability issue :P I'm also not doing SSF this league, I did last time but I don't craft much so I figure currency is better used than sitting in my stash doing nothing.

[lord_khaine]

So, i finally found my first jewel, and since it were rather crappy i ended up spending the majority of my more rare orbs to make it woth using (scouring, val and alchemy).
How much is it normally worth to invest in a jewel?

Also, how much is increased rarity worth? Should i run around wearing gold rings like another ganster if i can survive that way?

[Drasius]

So, i finally found my first jewel, and since it were rather crappy i ended up spending the majority of my more rare orbs to make it woth using (scouring, val and alchemy).
How much is it normally worth to invest in a jewel?

Also, how much is increased rarity worth? Should i run around wearing gold rings like another ganster if i can survive that way?

Usually worth investing nothing, just sell it for shards if it's no good.

If you've got 2 or 3 really good mods (this basically means 6-7% life or 12+% damage to things relevant to your character), then MAYBE you might consider wasting an Exalt, or, more likely, risk bricking it with a Vaal to try and get Immune to silence if you're a caster and you've got other, still decent replacements. Almost everything in the game can be measured by how many passive points it would take to get the same effect. You generally spend 2 passives to get a jewel slot, so, unless a jewel is better than spending 2 passive point more than what you have, then it's not worth anything.

For Solo play, increased rarity is nice since it lets you find more rares and uniques since you can't just jump on PoE trade and buy whatever you need. Increased quantity is also handy since that gets you more orbs as well as rares and uniques. Unlike D2, the best way to farm gear is to maximise the number of trash mobs you kill, not repeatedly running bosses (unless said boss is Izaro/Atziri/Shaper). Having said that;
|Resists| --> |Life| ---->|Damage|----->|MOAR LIFE!|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->|Everything else|

[N810]

Ok, I finally got one of my marauder ported over and did all the extra content to get my various rewards...
now at the last stage, I'm wondering if the Desert is going to end up being the new dried lake,
For all the high end grinding, so far it has a lot on common, mostly a large open area, and decently high level enemies,
but they aren't terribly dangerous, sadly it lacks a boss at the end of the run, is there a better area I should be farming ?

[Drasius]

Ok, I finally got one of my marauder ported over and did all the extra content to get my various rewards...
now at the last stage, I'm wondering if the Desert is going to end up being the new dried lake,
For all the high end grinding, so far it has a lot on common, mostly a large open area, and decently high level enemies,
but they aren't terribly dangerous, sadly it lacks a boss at the end of the run, is there a better area I should be farming ?

From all accounts it's Oasis (the story one, not the map one though they're very similar). I'd suggest that The Canals and Feeding Trough are also good. I actually found Lab of all places to be decent XP (and gear) farm these days, but that's for SSF, not combing areas for chaos. My cycloner wishes the blood aqueducts were a bit higher level since he basically just held the right button down and gulped quicksilvers from one end to the other, only stopping if something good dropped. There's something disturbingly satisfying about feeding monsters into one end of that blender and have nothing but bloodied chunks come out the other end.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You know, the more I play this character, the more it feels like a D2 Necromancer.

I've got flying target-seeking skulls, summoning minions to do the heavy lifting, being able to do corpse explosions, and area effect cursing.

Here's a question... is it going to be worth boosting Chaos damage for use with Blight/Desecrate/whatever else might come up later to augment my minions? There's a nice little circle directly adjacent to one of the minion circles I've got, would take no additional detours to get. Not sure if it is a worthwhile investment though.

Now, should I go ES regen time or should I go for life/life regen? There was a minionmancer build I saw that was Blood Magic based. I'm not doing that, obviously, but I'm worried about a) chaos damage bypassing ES, and b) there's no such thing as too much life.

I will DEFINITELY be getting Mind Over Matter, I would have to be silly not to. I'm also wondering about the ratio of damage to defense I should be taking with my passives. I could crank up my life/life regen. I don't think I have anything that CAN leech life, so that is unavailable to me, although I probably will be getting some skill at some point that will have a 'curse on hit' with a curse and something that actually does an attack, paired with Echo Spell or something similar.

I'm also curious about what my minions are affected by. If I get a passive that is, say, 5% physical damage as chaos, does that also apply to my minions, or just to me?

I'm also looking for a decent 4L so I can have SRS/Minion Enhanced Damage Support/Melee Splash Support/Added Chaos Damage Support (probably starting with Added Physical Damage Support until I can get Added Chaos), with something similar for my Zombies.

Right now, I have Skeletons + Minion Damage Support because I have little else better to do, and they make good distractions and can get placed precisely where I need them. I may eventually drop this, but for now, it works. Kind of.

I don't think I'm going to be able to neglect my Dex much either, because I'll be wanting Hatred to boost my minion damage later on. But there's this nice little +30 Dex passive slot nearby I can snag. And, IIRC, it only needs 100 Dex max.

That brings me up to the Baron. Having looked at it... I dunno. I mean, sure, if you can get your Strength to 1k, it's awesome. But that seems... prohibitively expensive to me, considering Strength is completely and entirely useless to the entire rest of my build. It just seems like way too much investment for not enough return. It's GOT return, obviously, but not enough that it makes me want to dump everything else in favor of trying to get my Strength up that high.

Spirit Offering + Desecrate seems like a nice combo. Summon corpses to sac for bonuses to minions plus chaos damage in the area.

So what I guess I am asking really is:

Passive Skills: Is Chaos Damage worth getting since I am nearby? Once I get my minion stuff, should I try to dive for the minion circle in the Scion tree, because doing so also nets me a Jewel Socket along the way, or is it too far away for it to be worth the dive? How heavily should I invest in ES vs Life Regen? Anything else I should be asking but haven't figured out how to ask yet?

Sorry for all the pestering, I'm still trying to get a handle on the game's mechanics. It is certainly a far more complex game than D2/D3/TL2, and I really like that aspect.

Also, latency issues seem to have totally cleared up for me!

[lord_khaine]

For Solo play, increased rarity is nice since it lets you find more rares and uniques since you can't just jump on PoE trade and buy whatever you need. Increased quantity is also handy since that gets you more orbs as well as rares and uniques. Unlike D2, the best way to farm gear is to maximise the number of trash mobs you kill, not repeatedly running bosses (unless said boss is Izaro/Atziri/Shaper). Having said that;
|Resists| --> |Life| ---->|Damage|----->|MOAR LIFE!|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->|Everything else|

Alright thanks, i recalled it were more or less wothless in Diablo 3, so i was wondering if it applied here as well. Its also nice the comments about stats weight. I had not though that +Life were prized that highly, but i guess it makes sense since the skill wheel mainly contains %Life. Of course right now i prize number of linked sockets above everything else.

Also, just finished the first labyrinth. Kinda disapointed with the Ascendant class so far. But the labyrinth did contain a lot of high level treasure.

Passive Skills: Is Chaos Damage worth getting since I am nearby? Once I get my minion stuff, should I try to dive for the minion circle in the Scion tree, because doing so also nets me a Jewel Socket along the way, or is it too far away for it to be worth the dive? How heavily should I invest in ES vs Life Regen? Anything else I should be asking but haven't figured out how to ask yet?

You could test the Essence drain+Contagion combo and see what it does for you?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You could test the Essence drain+Contagion combo and see what it does for you?

How would I set up that combo? Cast on hit? Sounds pretty nice, since ED is spread by Contagion. Might even go so far as to replace Blight.

[Sian]

Found This sexy shield on my SSF Templar, that intends to go Totem + some sort of fire attack (still haven't decided if it should be Magma Orb, Scorching Ray+CwC Firestorm or something else) ... It'll probably hold me up to 'bout end of act 3 / first Labyrinth

[Chen]

How would I set up that combo? Cast on hit? Sounds pretty nice, since ED is spread by Contagion. Might even go so far as to replace Blight.

I'm pretty sure its done manually with those two skills. It's the key to almost any essence drain build.

http://www.requnix.com/path-of-exile...starter-builds

Probably a link to a forum guide on essence drain somewhere in there. It can make a good league starter build I believe.

[lord_khaine]

I'm pretty sure its done manually with those two skills. It's the key to almost any essence drain build.

Yeah you just cast Essence drain first and follow up with a Contagion.

[Siosilvar]

So, i finally found my first jewel, and since it were rather crappy i ended up spending the majority of my more rare orbs to make it woth using (scouring, val and alchemy).
How much is it normally worth to invest in a jewel?

Also, how much is increased rarity worth? Should i run around wearing gold rings like another ganster if i can survive that way?

Only alterations and augments, pretty much. I always vendor my rare jewels since they don't often have stats I want. If you get a really nice 2-stat jewel you can regal it for a third stat, and if that's really nice then you'll never get the exalt to finish it off so it doesn't matter.

How would I set up that combo? Cast on hit? Sounds pretty nice, since ED is spread by Contagion. Might even go so far as to replace Blight.

Manual casting. I put Contagion on W and ED on Q so I can just push WQ or QW at an enemy and clear the screen.

I'm not sure how viable it is as a spare damage skill, but it definitely works as a full build. I played it in Breach league, here's my Trickster passive tree at level 84 (there are a few points unspent and a lot of the new quests not done so it's really a level 72 build). Occultist is a good option too, especially with a bow and the Soul Strike unique quiver so that your ES recharge is nearly always active.

And my link setups, each in order of importance:

5-link: Essence Drain + Swift Affliction + Controlled Destruction + Void Manipulation + Pierce (may not be necessary with the new Pierce mechanics, since I have the quest jewel with +1 target pierced on my tree)
3-link: Contagion + Increased Area of Effect + Faster Casting
3-link: Wither + Spell Totem + Faster Casting (only necessary against bosses, even rares tend to die in the span of one ED)
4-link movement: Lightning Warp + Less Duration + Faster Casting + Swift Affliction (Whirling Blades or Shield Charge + Faster Attacks + Fortify would be better but I was using a wand until recently)
3-link curses: Blasphemy + Temporal Chains + Vulnerability

And there's a spare 1 socket and 4-link for whatever you want. You could have a 4-link Blight setup for additional damage to bosses; I just use mine to level some extra gems in so I don't completely nuke my damage when I reset all my gems from level 20/quality 0 to level 1/quality 20.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Having a bit of trouble getting Essence Drain/Contagion to work because I can't get something to live long enough to cast them both on the same target!

I have a 3L R/B/B wand. Into this I put SRS + Minion Damage Support + Melee Splash Damage Support. Umm... wow. I didn't realize how powerful the splash damage was until I saw it in action. RIP everything else.

Contagion is linked with Void Manipulation support. I tried putting ED with Lesser Multiple Projectiles support, but I'm having trouble finding enough Blue/Green links. Ideally, I'd want them both to have Void Manipulation. Maybe Contagion/ED/Void Manipulation/Swift Affliction as a 4L to start off with in act 3? Can two different actives be buffed by the same support like that if they are all linked? Because that would be one heck of a way to be efficient about gems.

For SRS, I figure Minion Damage + Melee Splash Damage + Melee Physical Damage might work? That'll be another 4L, this time two blue two red. Same with Zombies if I can manage it.

[Drasius]

You know, the more I play this character, the more it feels like a D2 Necromancer.

I've got flying target-seeking skulls, summoning minions to do the heavy lifting, being able to do corpse explosions, and area effect cursing.

Yeah, I'm currently doing a similar character and it's awesome since I loved the old D2 Necro. There's a threshold jewel that grants skelly mages too, though it's not exactly common and at lvl28 you get Revive Raise Spectre and it's basically the exact same as the old fishymancer.

Here's a question... is it going to be worth boosting Chaos damage for use with Blight/Desecrate/whatever else might come up later to augment my minions? There's a nice little circle directly adjacent to one of the minion circles I've got, would take no additional detours to get. Not sure if it is a worthwhile investment though.

Only if you use either Dark Pact or ED/Contagion combo, otherwise your damage is going to be insignificant.

Now, should I go ES regen time or should I go for life/life regen? There was a minionmancer build I saw that was Blood Magic based. I'm not doing that, obviously, but I'm worried about a) chaos damage bypassing ES, and b) there's no such thing as too much life.

ES regen gets less and less reliable as you go on (unless you're an Occultist or abusing Vaal Discipline) while life& regen stays useful basically forever. Remember that you've got a giant meatwall ahead of you to absorb shots and that you don't have to stand still to do damage, so give dodging full priority. Having said that, summoner is probably one of the easiest to go ES with, so it's really up to you.

I will DEFINITELY be getting Mind Over Matter, I would have to be silly not to. I'm also wondering about the ratio of damage to defense I should be taking with my passives. I could crank up my life/life regen. I don't think I have anything that CAN leech life, so that is unavailable to me, although I probably will be getting some skill at some point that will have a 'curse on hit' with a curse and something that actually does an attack, paired with Echo Spell or something similar.

Usually you're looking at roughly 50% of your passives in life/ES, getting to life/ES nodes or defences (like block, dodge, MoM etc. Armour and evasion generally aren't worth spending skill points on however). The general aim is ~170%+ life on the tree at lvl 80-90, so if you're just intending to do the story, you'll finish about lvl 70 or so, so aim for ~150ish% increased life.

If you're wanting to use curse on hit, there's no point using Spell Echo since it just locks you in place longer and your sole purpose with curse on hit is just to get the curse on stuff easily (and cheaply wrt mana cost) while you do other things.

If you don't mind losing the damage, you can socket a life leech or life gain on hit gem into almost anything and have it work ... OK'ish early on, or you can use warlords mark as your curse and get the same effect.

I'm also curious about what my minions are affected by. If I get a passive that is, say, 5% physical damage as chaos, does that also apply to my minions, or just to me?

Generally everything that has the word minion in it works and nothing else (though support gems can link and support minion skills ie faster attacks will speed up the attacks of your minions), so for your 5% phys as extra chaos, no, just you.

I'm also looking for a decent 4L so I can have SRS/Minion Enhanced Damage Support/Melee Splash Support/Added Chaos Damage Support (probably starting with Added Physical Damage Support until I can get Added Chaos), with something similar for my Zombies.

Right now, I have Skeletons + Minion Damage Support because I have little else better to do, and they make good distractions and can get placed precisely where I need them. I may eventually drop this, but for now, it works. Kind of.

Melee support is going to be far more damage than added chaos, same for added fire. I'm not sure how you've got nothing else to do, you should either be spamming SRS out as fast as possible or be moving. You can't possible be hitting the max cap on SRS already, surely?

I don't think I'm going to be able to neglect my Dex much either, because I'll be wanting Hatred to boost my minion damage later on. But there's this nice little +30 Dex passive slot nearby I can snag. And, IIRC, it only needs 100 Dex max.

You get ~22 respec points via quests (plus orbs of regret), and it's very common to sink a couple of points into +30 str/dex/int while leveling and then respec out of them once you can meet requirements via gear.

Keep in mind that Hatred reserves 50% of your mana, so it makes MoM less attractive an option.

That brings me up to the Baron. Having looked at it... I dunno. I mean, sure, if you can get your Strength to 1k, it's awesome. But that seems... prohibitively expensive to me, considering Strength is completely and entirely useless to the entire rest of my build. It just seems like way too much investment for not enough return. It's GOT return, obviously, but not enough that it makes me want to dump everything else in favor of trying to get my Strength up that high.

Str gives 5 max life and 2% phys damage for every 10 points, it's very rarely useless (even if just for the life, which is multiplied by all the % life you're getting on your tree) and Baron is insane for summon builds - +2 levels is great, +20% life is awesome (since most of their tankiness comes from high life pool and regen) and the boost to their str makes them do far, far more damage, doubly so if you're stacking str to get that tasty, tasty leech. There's a very good reason why it's so expensive, it's because it's really, really good, even without going for 1k str. Remember how stacking more damage modifiers is king? Go back and look at all the more mods available to minions and then know that there's still other stuff out there that also grants more modifiers for minions. Suddenly that couple of hundred str that was "only" +40% damage is now +240% more damage, on top of the any other damage mods.

Spirit Offering + Desecrate seems like a nice combo. Summon corpses to sac for bonuses to minions plus chaos damage in the area.

Yep. Gets even better as Necro since your offerings affect you too. Get a cast on damage taken linked to desecrate and your offering of choice (usually bone ofering for the huge boost to block) and life is good. The chaos damage is pretty trash though, even with chaos investment, so don't get too excited.

So what I guess I am asking really is:

Passive Skills: Is Chaos Damage worth getting since I am nearby? Once I get my minion stuff, should I try to dive for the minion circle in the Scion tree, because doing so also nets me a Jewel Socket along the way, or is it too far away for it to be worth the dive? How heavily should I invest in ES vs Life Regen? Anything else I should be asking but haven't figured out how to ask yet?

- As before, not unless you're also maining a chaos skill.
- The Scion minion wheel, while the weakest, is still decent and basically required for a minion build. The jewel socket is just gravy.
- Life regen generally comes with +life, though most of it is found in the marauder and duelist areas, so you're going to have a tough time getting there while also getting all your minion stuff.
- ES is easy to get, especially as a witch, but these days you're goign to need to commit to it
- Find a copy of Summon Vaal Skeleton and learn to love it
- Get at least +20% faster run/walk move speed on your boots
- Cap your resists
- Get more life
- Learn to start dodging the moves of bosses and some monsters as the game will start to become challenging shortly (maybe not so much for a summoner though, but you're going to run into a wall soon if you don't learn to dodge)
- You're going to run out of sockets soon, it's just a thing that happens to summoners, you can't have everything you want
- If you haven't got a loot filter, get one right now
- If you haven't played around with path of building (imagine the old D2 skill planners but a billion times better), do it right now
- If you haven't already, bind left mouse to run&walk only
- Use your flasks more
- Get more armour while levelling, it's bad lategame, but awesome early game

Sorry for all the pestering, I'm still trying to get a handle on the game's mechanics. It is certainly a far more complex game than D2/D3/TL2, and I really like that aspect.

Also, latency issues seem to have totally cleared up for me!

No problems, it's a big, complicated game hidden under the eye cancer special effects and phat lootz.

As for lag, I find that it comes and goes in patches and sometimes quiting to desktop and firing it back up can sort some things out. Hopefully they've just sorted whatever issues they had and you're good to go.

Alright thanks, i recalled it were more or less wothless in Diablo 3, so i was wondering if it applied here as well. Its also nice the comments about stats weight. I had not though that +Life were prized that highly, but i guess it makes sense since the skill wheel mainly contains %Life. Of course right now i prize number of linked sockets above everything else.

Also, just finished the first labyrinth. Kinda disapointed with the Ascendant class so far. But the labyrinth did contain a lot of high level treasure.

+life basically determines if a non-weapon rare is worth considering or not. It's probably the most prized stat since you NEED ~3k minimum life to beat the Act10 boss and at lvl 70, without any bonus from gear, str or the passive tree, you've got ~900 life. To do lategame (not endgame, just general maps), you're going to need minimum 4.5k EHP and if you want to do serious endgame? 7k is normally reasonably "safe" if you have good gear and even then it's no sure thing.

[Siosilvar]

Having a bit of trouble getting Essence Drain/Contagion to work because I can't get something to live long enough to cast them both on the same target!

I have a 3L R/B/B wand. Into this I put SRS + Minion Damage Support + Melee Splash Damage Support. Umm... wow. I didn't realize how powerful the splash damage was until I saw it in action. RIP everything else.

Contagion is linked with Void Manipulation support. I tried putting ED with Lesser Multiple Projectiles support, but I'm having trouble finding enough Blue/Green links. Ideally, I'd want them both to have Void Manipulation. Maybe Contagion/ED/Void Manipulation/Swift Affliction as a 4L to start off with in act 3? Can two different actives be buffed by the same support like that if they are all linked? Because that would be one heck of a way to be efficient about gems.

For SRS, I figure Minion Damage + Melee Splash Damage + Melee Physical Damage might work? That'll be another 4L, this time two blue two red. Same with Zombies if I can manage it.

That's a good SRS 4-link, yeah. Your 5th link if/when you get one should be Spell Echo (more skulls = more damage), Faster Attacks, or Added Fire. Or Spell Totem, if you don't like manually casting them. I think the popular builds that go whole hog on SRS use both a spell totem setup and a selfcast one.

Contagion does like no useful damage, it's best linked with Increased AoE + Faster Casting and letting ED do the heavy lifting. ED is definitely heavy on the green links, you can see my recommendations in my last post (which you probably haven't seen yet, I know I leave the page open for like half an hour and am always surprised by responses).

[Drasius]

Having a bit of trouble getting Essence Drain/Contagion to work because I can't get something to live long enough to cast them both on the same target!

I have a 3L R/B/B wand. Into this I put SRS + Minion Damage Support + Melee Splash Damage Support. Umm... wow. I didn't realize how powerful the splash damage was until I saw it in action. RIP everything else.

Contagion is linked with Void Manipulation support. I tried putting ED with Lesser Multiple Projectiles support, but I'm having trouble finding enough Blue/Green links. Ideally, I'd want them both to have Void Manipulation. Maybe Contagion/ED/Void Manipulation/Swift Affliction as a 4L to start off with in act 3? Can two different actives be buffed by the same support like that if they are all linked? Because that would be one heck of a way to be efficient about gems.

For SRS, I figure Minion Damage + Melee Splash Damage + Melee Physical Damage might work? That'll be another 4L, this time two blue two red. Same with Zombies if I can manage it.

Yeah, if you ever go back and start another character, get 2x +1 fire wands or sceptres and put SRS-totem-melee phys in one and SRS-melee phys-melee splash in the other and proceed to faceroll all early content like you wouldn't believe. Can you imagine this with another coule hundred percent damage? 'Cause that's why Baron is awesome.

Yes, you can definately support multiple gems with the same supports. It's usually done to save slots for support spells 'cause you generally want 1 main spell and then 3/4/5 supports (all with more if you can manage it) for MOAR damage, depending on how many links you have available.

As for not having enough greens, I hope you've been saving your chromatic orbs. The other way is to use a set or Evasion/ES equipment since it's going to roll blue/green sockets more often than not, so it'll use much less chromes to get the layout you want. Don't spend too many chromes though, you're still levelling and you're going to need them later, not on gear you're going to outgrow in a few levels.

[Sian]

Str gives 5 max life and 2% phys damage for every 10 points

Melee phys damage, sadly

[Tome]

So I started playing PoE not long ago and I've made it up to act 6. Which is turning out to be something of a wall.

I've been trying to rock an energy shield based occultist build but it doesn't seem to be holding up. My damage and energy shield aren't high enough to hack it in act six.

I've been using Ball Lightning in a 4L with Spell Echo, Life Leech and Lightning Penetration, paired with Orb of Storms in a 3L with Curse on Hit and Conductivity. I've avoided really comitting to elemental damage nodes thus far, since I didn't know if I wanted to stick with lightning or switch to Essence Drain.

Is my build salvageable? I have about 7 respec points banked, plus a few orbs of regret stashed. Do I just need to switch up my skill gems?

[Drasius]

Melee phys damage, sadly

Yeah, but a) this was in context of The Baron and b ) Iron Will and Iron Grip both exist.

So I started playing PoE not long ago and I've made it up to act 6. Which is turning out to be something of a wall.

I've been trying to rock an energy shield based occultist build but it doesn't seem to be holding up. My damage and energy shield aren't high enough to hack it in act six.

I've been using Ball Lightning in a 4L with Spell Echo, Life Leech and Lightning Penetration, paired with Orb of Storms in a 3L with Curse on Hit and Conductivity. I've avoided really comitting to elemental damage nodes thus far, since I didn't know if I wanted to stick with lightning or switch to Essence Drain.

Is my build salvageable? I have about 7 respec points banked, plus a few orbs of regret stashed. Do I just need to switch up my skill gems?

Oh sweet jesus, CI? At this low a level? Forget that noise, respec out of that straight away. Also, Vaal Pact doesn't work with ES anymore, so ditch that plan too and save yourself a bunch of points.

You can probably save it, though it's never going to farm lategame anything.

Something like this and then grab the witch power charges and the shadow life drinker nodes. If you stay lightning, grab the witchs blast radius (but not the 3rd AoE minor node), crackling speed and lightning walker. If you go chaos, the grab atrophy above the doomcast nodes and then make your way over to corruption and un-natural calm just below it. Either way, consider going for the quick recovery cluster for more life and mana recovery. Remaining points would be looking from throatseeker and maybe heart of thunder if light or down to path of the savant if chaos.

Crit-cultist is a weird one in that you want all the ascendancies. Wicked ward and vile bastion are givens, so then you need to make a choice between forbidden power and malediction. Both are really good and can be replaced - Malediction with Whispers of doom and forbidden power with OoS-PCoC-Inc Crit. Strikes

[Tome]

What's the point where CI is recommended then?

Also, would Ghost Reaver still be worth it?

Would Zealot's Oath be good? Does it work with the regen from Essence Drain?

Is there any particular Occultist build that's considered good?

Does Blast Radius work with Ball Lightning/Arc/Essence Drain? I didn't think it did.

[Drasius]

What's the point where CI is recommended then?

Used to be you switched at around 65/70. Now that VP doesn't work with ES anymore, most people have decided that, in conjunction with the nerfs, ES is dead (and obviously CI with it), though for certain classes (mainly Occultist and necro support), it can still be a thing. The ~30% reduction in ES on every bit of gear as well as the removal of the 3 modes behind CI don't make it easy though.

Also, would Ghost Reaver still be worth it?

Maybe? I don't have enough experience with it to say one way or the other. One of the main benefits of occultist is ES regen not being stopped by taking damage, but now you've halved that in exchange for being able to leech your shield. I think it's something you're going to have to test.

Would Zealot's Oath be good? Does it work with the regen from Essence Drain?

I suspect that you'd struggle to get enough natural regen to make it worth while given that you're already investing lots on the right side of the tree and running crit on top of that. If it works with ED, then maybe, but I don't think it does (but I'm happy to be corrected).

Is there any particular Occultist build that's considered good?

ED. I think someone made a pretty good dark pact build, but then you look at that and then look at 'Zerker with 40% more and 100% instant leech and wonder why you're bothering.
Edit: If you can get a Shav's and go low life with Pain Attunement though, that's a different story.

Does Blast Radius work with Ball Lightning/Arc/Essence Drain? I didn't think it did.

Whoops, my bad, I mixed up my nodes. The AoE works, but the damage doesn't (since the damage is single targets, it just happens repeatedly against targets in range). Obviously blast radius doesn't work for Arc or ED since they're not tagged with AoE. What I should have said was if you get increased projectile damage for ball lightning, don't get Sniper since faster proj will make the ball spend less time over the target and therefore do less damage. Obviously it's just fine for ED (but not arc since it's not a projectile either).

Poor, poor Arc...

[Tome]

Okay, I'll keep Ghost Reaver for now, since I don't have the full shield regen kit from Occultist yet. Maybe switch it out later.

A quick search says that ZO and ES do work together. I'll do some playing around, see if I can get enough life regen nodes to make it worth it. Are there any sort of benchmarks for how much regen it takes to be useful?

I gather that when trying to build damage it's best to get as many different types of damage bonus as possible, IE a mix of Spell Damage, Elemental Damage, Lightning Damage, Projectile Damage etc?

EDIT So maybe something like this for my end goal if I stay lightning?

[Drasius]

...Are there any sort of benchmarks for how much regen it takes to be useful?

I gather that when trying to build damage it's best to get as many different types of damage bonus as possible, IE a mix of Spell Damage, Elemental Damage, Lightning Damage, Projectile Damage etc?

EDIT So maybe something like this for my end goal if I stay lightning?

Can't help on the first one beyond "Are you dying? If yes, you need more regen". Given that ES regens at 20% per second base once it's going, I guess you need to figure out how quickly you get chunked and regen more than that. 5 seconds is an eternity in PoE, but IIRC, the most (life) regen you can realistically get is somewhere around 25%, but that comes with a bunch of compromises that you can't really afford to make as ES.

One thing to note is that Discipline's faster recharge isn't working at the moment, so don't rely on that.

As to the second, not really, you just need to stack as many more modifiers as possible along with a bunch of base damage. if you're running conversion, then yeah, stacking elemental is for winners, but that's about it. For something like plain 'ol lightning based ball lightning, just get the biggest mods you can manage on there and job's a good'un.

For the tree, not sure how dedicated you are to getting to 100, but even if you are crazy enough for that, I'd:
Order or importance to remove
- Drop conduit unless you often do party play
- Drop arcane vision
- Drop deep thoughts and the minor node
- Ditch soul siphon and the minor node
- Drop the Static blows trio

Order of importance to add
- Grab the Throatseeker cluster (crit multi >>> all)
- Grab the missing crit node next to assassination
- Grab as many sockets as you can with the remaining points
- Head towards path of the Savant or the witch flask nodes
- Grab the Blood Drinker nodes depending on if you have a Shavs or not.

I'm not sure why you seem to need so much str and dex on the tree instead of on your gear though? Are you playing SSF too? If not, it should be trivial to get sufficient str and dex on gear to get those 3 points back.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

I gather that when trying to build damage it's best to get as many different types of damage bonus as possible, IE a mix of Spell Damage, Elemental Damage, Lightning Damage, Projectile Damage etc?

Doesn't matter. A spell like Arc gains the same benefit from any applicable bonus - 12% spell damage is exactly as good* as 12% elemental or 12% lightning. There's no reason to get different types other than convenience, and similarly no reason to focus on one. Note that the more specialised the damage type, the higher the bonuses (usually) are.

It is, however, important to know what damage bonuses apply to your skill and even to what part of the skill they apply to in some cases. E.g. molten strike gets proj dmg bonuses to the "meatballs" but not to the main hit.

Another thing to note is that PoE has two kinds of bonuses. "Increased" bonuses are additive with each other and so get less efficient as they stack up. "More" bonuses multiply all other bonuses and are much, much more valuable.

*There's exceptions, but in PoE there's ALWAYS exceptions

[Tome]

Oh, I'll probably never reach it. Helps me think about which nodes to actually hit, and then I can math out which ones give the biggest bonus to whatever I need at the time and get those.

What do you mean by a Shavs?