Path of Exile 3.0 (the other Diablo clone)

[Drasius]

3.1 "Path of Nerf" patch notes --> https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2036284

Bolded stuff is the super important stuff (IMHO). There's a bunch of other changes too, but these are the non-trivial ones for most people I think. Noted that all ascendancies are going to be rebalanced in 3.2.

Notable cliff notes:
- Elder and 32 new maps
- Lots of Tier and Boss changes to existing maps
- Linear maps get a further density nerf
- A handful of new gems
- Breach 2.0Abyss league
- Can turn in Div cads in your hideout via Navali
- VO for lots of Oriath stuff
- Div cards redistributed
- New god for Pantheon

Balance
- Vaal Pact gives double leech instead of instant leech and got moved further down into the Duelist area
- Nerf to max leech rate on heamatophagy and vitality void
- Slayer no longer has +10% max leech
- Barrage enchant gone from merciless and down to +1 in uber lab
- MoM mana nodes nerfed
- Belt of the Deciever now attack only
- Additional XP penalties for lvl 95+ characters
- Minions can no longer deal/take damage once their master is dead (looking at you golemmancer)
- Big nerf to self cast Dark Pact and it adds the minion tag
- Huge buff to Summon Skeleton
- Lightning Tendils completely reworked
- Ruthless can no longer support Cyclone (but apparently still works with BFlurry? WTF? nevermind, doesn't work with channelled skills anymore either, suck it BF!)
- Ice Crash/Eathquake/Reave get minor AoE increase
- Wither has less max stacks and less damage increase per stack
- Acuities hand out VP on crit instead of instant leech
- Witchfire Brew gets the aura changed to DoT and Chaos damage
- Both Doomfletchs lose 10% ele damage and all their crit
- Lycosidae & Biscos drop rate nerfed
- QotF nerf to Eva and Speed (no more 3 minute Lab runs)
- Rise of the Phoenix max res nerf
- Baron only adds half str to minions intead of all
- Reflect totally reworked (doesn't appear to be based on % of incoming damage but some sort of ranged retalaiation attack instead?)
- Act 10 Kitava has his 1 shot ability damage lowered
- Wickermen RF nerfed when spectre'd
- Rhoa map bosses gain 33# max life when you break their nests, so no more getting them to 1% and then popping them for phat lootz :(

Bug Fix
- Sunder no longer hits stuff that was tagged by the linear hit with the AoE as well
- Ailment modifiers when holding a shield were applying twice if not holding Varunastra
- Fixed vibrating item hover text
- Fixed inaccessable lab chest loot explosions

So, yeah, some people are going to cry pretty hard, Slayer and 'Zerk will continue to be master-race overlords, casters can go suck it as can assassins but overall, I think it's a pretty good patch. Fixes, or at least addresses, many of the major elephants in the room (VP, DP, elements of RF, Barrage, Reflect) that have been sticking points towards better balance since they overshadowed all other similar options. Will reserve judgement on 'Zerk now that VP is gone, though I suspect it's still going to be the go-to caster due to the availability of both leech sources which feels dumb. Interesting that there's no ES changes at all too, so the all life all the time meta continues.

Going to be a huge wake up call to a lot of people that thought they were gosu because they sloted VP into every build and will make some previous options nigh unplayable at higher levels (read: Red maps+) unless there's been some serious changes. Should be interesting how it all shakes out. Keen to get playing tomorrow.

[Meta]

No ES changes made me a little sad. It was the green light to go ahead and grab that legacy Shav's with my mirror currency, but it further cements ES being absurdly good in standard if you have deep pockets and a little behind in league.

I don't think it's quite as bad as people make it out to be in league, as the first to 100 in HCSSF Mayhem was ES this time, but it can be a struggle. And poor CI...

[Drasius]

So, anyone planning out a league starter or are you all filthy standard scum staying with your previous characters? I'm thinking Glacial Cascade Inquisitor, though a Sunder Gladiator could also be a thing.

[Tome]

I have a couple of builds I want to try out. I saw an interesting build involving sire of shards, storm burst and ball lightning that seems pretty fun.

I really want to give a totem build a try too.

[GloatingSwine]

So, anyone planning out a league starter or are you all filthy standard scum staying with your previous characters? I'm thinking Glacial Cascade Inquisitor, though a Sunder Gladiator could also be a thing.

I'm going to try a comedy ricochet/caustic arrow Trickster build. CA should drop a new pool of goo at every ricochet, so by going in on chaos damage instead of projectile damage it should be able to just drain everything down. Support it with Swift Affliction, Void Manipulation, and Chain.

Have a Blasphemied version of that new Despair curse running too.

No idea whether it will be any good, but it will be messy.

[Astral Avenger]

So, anyone planning out a league starter or are you all filthy standard scum staying with your previous characters? I'm thinking Glacial Cascade Inquisitor, though a Sunder Gladiator could also be a thing.

Flameblast totem, probably Inquisitor, maybe cheiftan or juggernaut if i want a bit more survivability.

[Sian]

Considering a change that Drasius failed to mention, I've been considering going Kinetic Blast (Or Barrage) Gladiator since "Melee Physical Damage when Holding a Shield", will be changed to "Physical Attack Damage when Holding a Shield"

[Drasius]

Considering a change that Drasius failed to mention, I've been considering going Kinetic Blast (Or Barrage) Gladiator since "Melee Physical Damage when Holding a Shield", will be changed to "Physical Attack Damage when Holding a Shield"

Just be aware that phy wanders are generally significantly more expensive than ele wanders while not really being thaaaaaaat much better at the top end.

Also, I noted that there were many other changes and the skills that "melee phys while holding a shield" affects is relatively minimal: Frost blades (not bad, but overdone last league), lightning strike (known issues with rocks and grass blocking projectiles), phys wanders (ele is waaaaaaaay easier to roll on a wand) ... uh, molten strike maybe (which doesn't need any help) ... power siphon (HA!), spectral throw (again, doesn't need the help) and maybe Static Strike (whoo, with +1 range, this is sure to make it not terrible /s).

There's like, 3 playable skills in there (plus KB which is better done going ele unless you've got exalts coming out your ears) and only frost blades will likely notice the change. But yes, by all means, break out a phys KB glad, I've heard that they're pretty decent if you have the budget and if not, hey, IIRC the tree isn't too much different for ele.

I'm a little suprised that no-one is trying lightning tendrils, or is the fail that was storm burst stll fresh in everyones mind?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Ideas on Sunder/Cascade? Not sure if it would interact like I think it would, but it would be interesting.

[Drasius]

Ideas on Sunder/Cascade? Not sure if it would interact like I think it would, but it would be interesting.

IIRC cascade is spell only, so no, fairly sure that's not going to be a thing.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, spell cascade only supports spells, and only ones which affect a specific point on screen. So stuff like Bladefall or Cold Snap.

[Drasius]

Yeah, spell cascade only supports spells, and only ones which affect a specific point on screen. So stuff like Bladefall or Cold Snap.

Stuff that should work:
- Firestorm (big winner for levelling I suspect)
- Flameblast (not sure if it works with channelling, but could be the return of pizza sticks and Atziri wannabes)
- Contagion (not as good since it spreads if it kills stuff, but nice for coverage)
- Bladefall (I think this will really benefit since it shouldn't be impossible to get 2x hits on the same target)
- Desecrate (handy with all the new corpse requirement gems)
- Cold Snap (lol, still unplayable)
- Frost Bomb (maybe, since it targets an area, but while it's not a trap or mine, it does rely on something to do its effect)
- Frost Wall (maybe, same as Frost Bomb above)
- Storm Call (should be nice as it was not terrible for damage but needed more aoe for clear speed, we know this works for sure since we've seen a video)
- Any self cast curse

I hope it supports other stuff like GC or Incinerate, but I highly doubt that it will be the case. I think Bladefall would be a rather interesting one and I've always thought about doing a BF build.

Technically Whispering Ice should also get affected, so that could be pretty rough since it's trivial to get a 7 link. Whispering Ice CWC Flameblast with cascade support? Back to the pre AoE nerf days of filling the entire screen with a lightshow. A shame you "only" get 3 supports, but you are kicking out 6 spells at a time...

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Even with Skele buff, I don't foresee many people using it seriously. Skeletons are like SRS... only slow, clumsy, and not nearly as spammable.

Sunder nerf... I suppose there'll be fewer SunderZerkers running around, especially with VP nerf?

Maybe Occultist ED build? I mean, Contagion got buffed to begin with. The mana dots behind MoM got nerfed, but it should be fairly valid, especially with the new Despair curse.

Maybe another Necro? Seems to have gotten a lot of support love lately. Desecrate buff, Desecrate + Cascade gives you as many corpses as you need. Maybe toss in something other than an offering if you want to support your minions with one of the several corpse-explosion-likes that are being added.

RT Cyclone build? Nice, simple, tanky... maybe the new SunderZerker?

Going to be doing an SSF this league, and don't have much time for grinding, so builds that require rare uniques are probably not going to be my bag.

[Drasius]

Even with Skele buff, I don't foresee many people using it seriously. Skeletons are like SRS... only slow, clumsy, and not nearly as spammable.

Sunder nerf... I suppose there'll be fewer SunderZerkers running around, especially with VP nerf?

Maybe Occultist ED build? I mean, Contagion got buffed to begin with. The mana dots behind MoM got nerfed, but it should be fairly valid, especially with the new Despair curse.

Maybe another Necro? Seems to have gotten a lot of support love lately. Desecrate buff, Desecrate + Cascade gives you as many corpses as you need. Maybe toss in something other than an offering if you want to support your minions with one of the several corpse-explosion-likes that are being added.

RT Cyclone build? Nice, simple, tanky... maybe the new SunderZerker?

Going to be doing an SSF this league, and don't have much time for grinding, so builds that require rare uniques are probably not going to be my bag.

If skelly mages inherit the same bonus (and I'm reasonable confident they do), I think you'll find they will rapidly gain in popularity. I remember using skellies last patch and being surprisingly pleased with their damage output and simply sticking them on a totem means that they're pretty hassle free too. Playing around in PoB looking at another necro the skellies were hitting something silly like 30k damage each on a 5 link before any optimisation. They're not going to be a meta-buster or anything, but I think they'll surprise a few people. Having said that, SRS got a 15% effectiveness buff, so yeah, anyone doing minions is almost assuredly doing either SRS or Spectres (or both).

Sunder was shown to only be doing 1 hit the vast majority of the time (via single target, Voll's Protector and Trypanon), so I doubt that there's going to be much difference, but who knows, maybe there was something wrong with the test and it'll be nerfed into oblivion? I expect you'll still see a bunch of sunderers running around, though I expect them to be slayers instead.

RT cyclone is great, even without Ruthless. Mine was great last season, very solid all the way through to red maps with only mediocre gear. 'Tis a great SSF option.

Good luck with SSF, it's not for everyone, but as long as you have realistic expectations, I reckon you'll be fine.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If skelly mages inherit the same bonus (and I'm reasonable confident they do), I think you'll find they will rapidly gain in popularity. I remember using skellies last patch and being surprisingly pleased with their damage output and simply sticking them on a totem means that they're pretty hassle free too. Playing around in PoB looking at another necro the skellies were hitting something silly like 30k damage each on a 5 link before any optimisation. They're not going to be a meta-buster or anything, but I think they'll surprise a few people. Having said that, SRS got a 15% effectiveness buff, so yeah, anyone doing minions is almost assuredly doing either SRS or Spectres (or both).

The problem with skelly mages is that they require the unique jewel Dead Reckoning in order to summon, which I'm not going to be able to guarantee with my SSF playstyle. If I could get skele mages instead of skele warriors, they would be more useful.

Sunder was shown to only be doing 1 hit the vast majority of the time (via single target, Voll's Protector and Trypanon), so I doubt that there's going to be much difference, but who knows, maybe there was something wrong with the test and it'll be nerfed into oblivion? I expect you'll still see a bunch of sunderers running around, though I expect them to be slayers instead.[/quote]IIRC, there was a huge nerf to the Sunder's single-target damage?

RT cyclone is great, even without Ruthless. Mine was great last season, very solid all the way through to red maps with only mediocre gear. 'Tis a great SSF option.

Marauder or Duelist?

Good luck with SSF, it's not for everyone, but as long as you have realistic expectations, I reckon you'll be fine.

I don't expect ANY unique gear at all. I'll plan my build based on what I can reasonably find on rares, including crafting my own. I doubt I'll ever get into high-end mapping, ever, so I don't really think I'll ever be at a point where I will truly *need* any.

Of course, watch me end up with something like The Baron after playing on RT Cyclone (Heard something about Storm Cyclone, any good?) which causes me to go for another necro summoner.

[Drasius]

The problem with skelly mages is that they require the unique jewel Dead Reckoning in order to summon, which I'm not going to be able to guarantee with my SSF playstyle. If I could get skele mages instead of skele warriors, they would be more useful.

Oh, for sure, but then most people don't play SSF, so it's not a huge consideration for most people.

IIRC, there was a huge nerf to the Sunder's single-target damage?

Maybe. The only thing that changed was a bug-fix where a target hit by the initial sunder wave would also get hit by the secondary explosions. It's up for debate just how often this happened, so we'll have to wait until 3.1 goes live to see if it was a rare thing or if this is why sunder has been so strong for the last couple of leagues.

Marauder or Duelist?

Mine was a Slayer. 20% cull and non-stop +100% leech are both fantastic, not to mention 20 second onslaught on unique/rare kill or the more damage/area on kill. I've also found it to be easier to get a nice 2 hander in SSF too, so again, slayer is an obvious choice. I have absolutely no doubt that you could make cyclone work as a jugg or marauder though, or probably even chieftan. Both marauder and duelist have very solid ascendancy choices with only champion being a little lacklustre.

I don't expect ANY unique gear at all. I'll plan my build based on what I can reasonably find on rares, including crafting my own. I doubt I'll ever get into high-end mapping, ever, so I don't really think I'll ever be at a point where I will truly *need* any.

Of course, watch me end up with something like The Baron after playing on RT Cyclone (Heard something about Storm Cyclone, any good?) which causes me to go for another necro summoner.

Oddly enough, many uniques are more reliable than rares since, even though specific uniques are unreliable, you can usually be fairly confidant you'll get at least some usable stuff while rares are a total crapshoot and you can blow all your currency with nothing to show for it very easily. You might not get the unique you want, but banking on getting some sort of usable 2 hander before you get to yellow maps isn't unreasonable at all. Just keep your passives to generic melee/2 hand damage until you find a solid beatstick and then grab the appropriate passives then. You'd be surprised how far the basic crafting recipies will take you however if you're willing to collect every alteration orb that drops.

Not sure what storm cyclone is, but if I had to guess it's yet another person thinking cyclone is channeled and expecting storm barrier to work with it.

As for finding class inappropriate gear, well, there's nothing wrong with rolling multiple characters. I think I had 9 in Harbinger and have no doubt at all that I will have at least 5 in Abyss.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Not sure what storm cyclone is, but if I had to guess it's yet another person thinking cyclone is channeled and expecting storm barrier to work with it.

No, it's a build that uses a lot of converting phys to lightning damage, then a whole bunch of both physical boosting and elemental boosting. Build found here.

[Drasius]

No, it's a build that uses a lot of converting phys to lightning damage, then a whole bunch of both physical boosting and elemental boosting. Build found here.

Brain Rattler is a unique that can only get dropped by Minotaur and the author states that the build revolves around it (and IIRC there's not many alternatives for lightning conversion other than the gem). Kaom's isn't exactly common, and opal rings are red tier map only drops (and specific ones at that) and wise oak is going to be a huge chunk of your damage due to the ele pen and I've never seen one drop in >1000 hours of SSF. I'd go so far as to say that while you could make do with a lot of alternatives on a budget, missing the Brain Rattler that this is built around means that it's probably not viable as a league starter. Having said that, there's not too many ways to screw up a cycloner - get Resolute Technique, get a meaty weapon, enough mana leech to sustain (read: a single passive), enough life leech not to die, stack attack speed and whirl 'til you hurl. Anything beyond that is icing and only really needed for red maps and guardians. The tree isn't specialised for ele damage from what I saw, so it wouldn't matter much if you just replaced the weapon, but it's an old VP build so not only does the extra damage taken from 'zerker actually matter now, it might not be quite as strong as it was previously, not to mention that there's little reason to go so far up the right side now that VP is directly below the dualist start.

I'm not saying don't do it, though I would suggest following a guide that at least has budget alternatives.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Launch day server issues... that's both expected and unexpected, I suppose.

On the one hand, maximum amount of stress on servers, if anything was to go down, now would be the time for it to happen. But considering they've had a week of rather low server time to overhaul things, they'd have anticipated this and been ready.

Still, at least servers are back up, even if the queue times are still pretty big.

[Drasius]

Launch day server issues... that's both expected and unexpected, I suppose.

On the one hand, maximum amount of stress on servers, if anything was to go down, now would be the time for it to happen. But considering they've had a week of rather low server time to overhaul things, they'd have anticipated this and been ready.

Still, at least servers are back up, even if the queue times are still pretty big.

Same old story for every online game ever, IIRC there's something like a 20-fold increase in players on the server if not more on launch week. Should settle down by tomorrow or even later today. Unfortunately Aus is where the internet goes to die, so I've got another 1+ hours of download to go (4.1/6.1 gig).

A quick PSA for everyone to update their loot filters is probably worthwhile though, so, yeah, do that.

[Tome]

Heh. Had a tabula drop from an abyssal trove in the mud flats. This league is already looking pretty good.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Vaal Pact got moved to be FAR easier to access by Gladiator and Marauder, the two classes most likely to try to take advantage of it. Of course, it also got nerfed to heck and back, so the big question is if anyone wants it anymore. Sure, it's still doubling life leech per second AND max life leech rate, but it isn't instant leech anymore, and still sacrifices regen.

Compare with Slayer and Brutal Fervor which has +100% life leech per second plus all the other benefits you get from that particular branch and... yea, starting to look a little lackluster. Although I suppose if you combine the two, it might get more interesting, depending on how they interact...

[Drasius]

Vaal Pact got moved to be FAR easier to access by Gladiator and Marauder, the two classes most likely to try to take advantage of it. Of course, it also got nerfed to heck and back, so the big question is if anyone wants it anymore. Sure, it's still doubling life leech per second AND max life leech rate, but it isn't instant leech anymore, and still sacrifices regen.

Compare with Slayer and Brutal Fervor which has +100% life leech per second plus all the other benefits you get from that particular branch and... yea, starting to look a little lackluster. Although I suppose if you combine the two, it might get more interesting, depending on how they interact...

If you needed VP before, you'll still be keen for it now. The big issue with leech was it being too slow for everyone but slayer and certain high block, high armour stackers (who had minimal damage) - the new VP fixes that while not being the full health/dead binary system that we had before. As for Slayer leech, they interact exactly how you'd expect. Max leech rate and +X% leech per second are 2 seperate things. I think someone ran the numbers and it's possible to have ~126% max life per second as Slayer if you really need it and don't mind the sacrifices (up from ~80% they could have at max previously).

ION: Abyss is fun, but the rares that pop out of the not!Breaches are tanky as hell, doubly so when they get soul eater, triply so if they happen to get ghosted. There's definately some rough combos out there. I'm doing a bit better than previous with regards to speed, into act 5 in under 5 hours (barely) though I see people are already mapping. I don't think I've ever had a non-twink character have as easy a time as my GC inquisitor templar is at the moment, though an SRS necro would come close. GC, even on a 3 link, is stong.

[Sian]

gone back into the game after burning out of Harbringer (got a Flame Totem Hierophant to ~t5-6 maps, dropped it and got a Sunder Gladiator to t12maps), decided to go Witch (with the intention of going heavy Minionmancer) and the first Unique drops for me in Abyss is Sidhebreath ... which is quite respectable for Minions, and should probably be able to hold up until high act/low maps, when my focus is already on minions

[GAAD]

I’m doing Lightning Tendrils ASSFSC. The single target is pretty darn amazing even with just a 3 link (lt storm barrier added lightning). The base crit chance is pretty high and storm barrier rolls in the power charges.

[Drasius]

Strongly considered directly remaking my previous Dark Pact Summoner and decided against it. Out of my first 5 uniques, I had both Queens Decree and Midnight Bargain drop. Damn you game. Damn you. *shakes fist*

Also, my Inquisitor has had a bit of a rough trot mid game, getting repeatedly pumped due to not being able to source anything with +life. Seems to be coming good with heavy investment into life on the tree, though luckily it's not impacting damage too much because GC is in a pretty good place. Still missing a lot of stuff, resists aren't quite capped in A9, life is lowish, damage is good but not spectacular, and gem links have been tough to come by. Looks like I'll be farming Blood Aqueduct for a while for levels and Humility cards as well as some decent gear as I've made it ther a bit earlier than usual level-wise.

Some of the new rares and uniques are absolutely mental from the looks of things though, and combined with the abysses, this looks like it's going to be HUGE power creep well over and above anything we've seen before. Interesting times.

[Deakins2658]

People ask me if playing this game is time consuming

[GAAD]

It IS though :P

If you want it to, of course. Save points are very frequent, and I like to play 20 minutes or so at a time sometimes.

[Drasius]

People ask me if playing this game is time consuming

As mentioned above, it can be. You can choose to do all 10 acts in 1 sitting or you can go from 1 waypoint to another or do 1 map and call it a day with just a few minutes invested.

[Tome]

Some of new uniques are making me want to do another ED build...

And I really want to get my hands on a shimmeron for that power charge lightning build I've had jn mind for a while now. Hopefully the price settles somewhere reasonable.