From path of life nodes to path of energy shield node.

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Flickerflare wrote:

My builds are only 40% defensive, and I run hardcore.

A lot of builds people run insult me with how much HP/ES people think they need to survive.

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Flickerflare wrote:

However, I can't stream this game. This game is far too graphic intensive, and it just makes my graphics card go beserk. Lightning and Poison especially makes my game choke (which as you can imagine makes the crematorium fight with piety quite terrifying until my PC calms down) All of my characters have died from my game crashing or freezing, so far. Until I get a better PC, this is one game I won't be able to stream...

Sorry, man, I call total BS on this one. But nice try nevertheless.

I ranked top 24 (level 88) in 1 month party race, playing 95% of time solo. I once was top 10 (beginning of my level 87), but then I had an awful streak of map drops, never seeing 70+ ones ever drop, reduced to grinding 67-69 maps only. This was what really made me think about playing new leagues - maps just never drop at higher levels for me no matter what... But let's put that aside.

My point here is, at that time I had at about 6k hp buffed (~6.2k hp max), 520 hp/s regen with 7 endurance charges, 13.4k armor (38k under granite flask), BM powered 6.1k EK dps, and I lost track of close call situations where I was dropped to double-digit number of HP... If I had just a little bit less defense (like 500 hp less), I definitely wouldn't have made it to the end at all.

To further prove OP's point, you can examine my poestatistics account to notice I have a witch on default. I died at Thicket map (67) at level 83... My witch had 9k armor and 4.3k hp buffed (4.7k max), at about 220 both hp/s and mp/s regen. Boss had only one damage affix (boss speed/damage), still he hit me for 60% hp each RoA he spammed. Yeah, call me noob for that, for I know it's purely my fault, I even forgot to use granite, it was not a desync etc. Still, 60% of hp in a single blow at above-average defense character coming from a 67 boss level mob (67+2 = 69 mob level -> 83 char level)? Well, I guess my defenses were not high enough. My next incarnation went far better. Map luck drop was a lot better for me as well, my witch stopped seeing maps drop at level 82, and my marauder had his maps income last all the way up to level 87.

And just to be absolutely clear - I won't even try to pretend like "I have seen it all, so your point is invalid". I've never done maps level 76+, but mobs damage at 72-74 maps that I did cut through my defenses like a hot knife through a butter at least once or twice per map run, so I wasn't even close to facerolling content having (in my own opinion) a well overprotected character. There are people around with top level maps experience that know that boss damage there is insane. I can only conclude from my experience, that 72-74 average map damage is like 2x 68-70 map damage, that is like 1.5x 66-67 damage (with exception of Dungeon and Thicket map bosses). But still one EK shot for my marauder to a medium sized phys reflect pack at phys reflect map (level doesn't matter) with just fallen off endurance charges drop my hp from full to no more than 5-10%. Yes, at least -90%hp in a single blow... You still think you don't need as much defenses? Like about 40% defensive nodes? Well, spells do certainly differ, reflect may not be a problem for some builds, but then there is puncture, that I was totally laughing at, yet once I managed to get a puncture that ate half of my hp bar in less than a second... I can only wonder what it'd do to someone else without such defenses as I had. And furthermore, I can tell you for sure my build has exactly 1 dps passive node - Master of the Arena - just to get to that duelist hp nodes and regen. Though, +20 str is +10 base hp overall, so sometimes even dps passives can be good as well.

P.S.: I'll go off-topic once again, sorry, but if you make a slightly more dps oriented character, you are just going to die sooner or later (inaccurate play, sudden afk, lag spike, beloved desync etc), yes, I died like that myself, I saw my friends die like that... Or you can just go all out on defense spree, and eventually find yourself pretty high on a ladder no matter how slow you go through game's content, mostly because other players who don't stack defenses die. You eventually collect the loot to cap out your resistances (so to say, both times I have seen exactly 0 item upgrade drops for last 20 player levels or so). But my point is when you are at the point you can finally survive game challenges (be it passive defense, or knowledge of dangerous boss abilities, what to evade, what to ignore etc.), you are left with no maps to run, and maps just refuse dropping. All I got from doing continuous level 70-73 maps was a single level 66-67 map, but that was only when I was lucky! Hell, I would love to see a new map affix - mobs drop no loot, but at least one map of the same level is guaranteed to drop. After having like 4-6 map drops from a single map at level 72-77 down to having 0.3-0.5 maps drop later on (and even the ones that drop are usually 66-67) on both my hardcore characters, I just give up believing in RNG. 1 month party race rewarded me with insane god bless luck (only 6 jewellers and 1 (!) fusing to make 6s5l chest armor), so I feel really bad complaining about map drops, still map drop sucks ass big time at levels 82+. Yes, the game has some rather severe problems, and yet this is by far the best ARPG to play, good job GGG! (D3 or Marvel Fags are not even close, though they seem to have slightly more polished engine - a tasteless candy in a shiny wrapper)

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e7ang wrote:

Impossible to make an offensive build work endgame in this game. No matter what 70% of your nodes will have to be defensive minded if you ever plan on soloing any maps.

Why GGG, WHY?

Seriously why build this awesome passive tree, if you're just going to pigeon hole us into these supper tanky builds?

You have got a point. And solo players suffer the most. Being one shotted by a boss, despite of being tanky, is also not fun, at all. Add to that "rubber band" issues, and the picture is not that pretty anymore.

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Bhaya wrote:

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e7ang wrote:

Impossible to make an offensive build work endgame in this game. No matter what 70% of your nodes will have to be defensive minded if you ever plan on soloing any maps.

Why GGG, WHY?

Seriously why build this awesome passive tree, if you're just going to pigeon hole us into these supper tanky builds?

You have got a point. And solo players suffer the most. Being one shotted by a boss, despite of being tanky, is also not fun, at all. Add to that "rubber band" issues, and the picture is not that pretty anymore.

Yea I find grouping to be extremely easy in comparison to solo play. It's like they don't want you to solo.

Not only do you get more drops in group, you have far less risk of dying, even with a crap build.

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Sebulous wrote:

I feel it would have been better to have left the hp and energy shield nodes alone, freeing us up to have less spent on life and more on other defensives or offensive.

If they didnt reduce the passive health and ES nodes, people would still build exactly the same and just be over the top powerful, People refuse to give up the ghost on 'must take all possible life nodes', even when they basically make it not work anymore.

Try some shield block, try some meat shields, try a build designed to kite mobs. Many people in this game have tried one or two builds copied from high profile players, builds they created to suit their own play style and needs. All the while a very large variety of builds exist, and function very well. The builds are not faulty, they are not doomed to fail, they are just built for someone else's playstyle and needs. The sooner you realize that your favorite streamer or high profile player can only play one build at a time, thus making them choose one to play, the sooner you might realize that they picked one for them, not the 'only build ever', and it might not suit you as well given your own playstyle and biases.