Beating Nemesis without rares or uniques

In this log the RNG gods try to kill me in the library and I have fun in the hedge maze

The library quest is probably one of the dumbest in the game. I don't know what GGG thought doing a 4 page essay on history and than turning it into the ghostly teacher would fit so well in your adventures.

The library is one of the worst zones in the game for casters most casters. Most of the enemies resist all elements and they all move too fast to kite 100%. This means you cannot nuke them down before they get in close and you cannot relay on hit n run. My life leech is also dimensioned. You are going to take damage, lots of it.

I don't really like these monsters because they don't have any real interesting play. Porcupines require being last hit from a distance, enfeebled, or killed 1 at a time. Corpse spitters can be robbed of their ammo. Devourers can be scouted for with totems. Black guards dont hit too hard if you dodge the shield charge and assassinate the mages first.

The library enemies don't have anything you react to. They just move too fast to kite, hit hard, and take forever to kill. Its both frustrating and boring. I have no problem with difficulty, in fact I love it, but just raising the enemies stats isn't a very fun type of difficulty

The terrain also works against you, there are tons of dark areas where rhoas or any mob with a haste mod can charge at you. Unlike tower of god you don't get to see over the wall. Its very strange that the final area actually has some of the most helpful type of terrain in the game and the library has the the most dangerous

Not only are all these problems the game decided to spawn 4 different rare mobs with storm herald in the same instance.

So basically my entire trip through the area was filled with damage I had no way of avoiding.
Of course I survived it but man it was a bitch.

Stuff like this is the reason you HAVE to stack life at every opportunity in PoE. There were tons of times were I instantly lost 2k health and a few encounters with the storm herald enemies did 3k and made me use every flask charge I had (with max lightning resist and enfeeble on the enemy).

Thats 3k damage from a source which you have zero ways to avoid. Its a stat check, a stat check that is easily past but a check is a bad idea to begin with.

For reference I have 4650 health with a life roll on every gear except boots/scepter and 249% increased life from nodes. I've had 2k-3k damage put in my equally fast from things other than storm call but those were time when I was either intentionally playing extremely reckless or made a mistake like not realizing there was a cursing enemy nearby.

Storm herald is a bad mechanic. All of the other nemesis mods have some counter. Curse mods can be decursed, volatile blood you can get the mod to very low health than run away/drop a decoy totem and use a ranged skill (even melee folk can spectral throw). Soul collect and soul conduit can be countered by killing enemies in a certain order. Even corrupted can be controlled with a flask mod or by playing hit n run to reduce how many charges get on you.

Even if you nerfed storm heralds damage (which I'm not asking for) its still bad design. All stormcall does is stack extra damage ontop of you, thats not interesting.

I think storm herald should behave like stormcall where there is a small delay and you have time to avoid the attacks.

Well the ranting part of the section is over. My trip through the library was hellish. I kept molten shell permanently refreshed, even if I wasn't in combat I did so incase lagging packing of rhoas decided to come out of the shadows. If it broke mid combat I would run behind a wall and recast it. I also enfeebled every physical dealing enemy I fought (remember my base armor is less than 1k). The caster enemies I used conductivity because most casters are not dangerous if you have max resists.

The basic enemies didn't make me worry much. A pack of fury charge gaining enemies did do unexpectedly high damage but nothing too dangerous.

The library has some truely hard hitting physical enemies: bone giants and the t-rex. But they are easily kited. If I had no room to kite and would make them go backwards with a decoy totem behind them.

The fight with the book throwing wizard nearly got me killed. I could actually tank his damage just fine with my molten shell refresh+enfeeble. He had a lot of health so I decided to speed up the kill by getting in close range so my shell explosion could hurt him. Bad idea. I forget his ai tells him to try to kite. I was safe just trading shots from a distance but the moment I got in close he kites away, I pursue and agro several other enemies. I had few flask charges and the battle areana had little room to maneuver. I knew if I stood there long enough eventually the enemies would box me into a corner and I would have no way to escape. I ran backwards through the library maze looking for a safe place to drop a portal with the horde following me. I portal out and with a full stock of flasks and being carful about confined areas I took the enemies down.


The 4 storm herald mobs were on an entirely different level and no where near as fun.

First one I encountered was one of those mobs with resist all who also had an aura of resist all. Health sponge enemies are really annoying because they drain my mana.

I was lucky enough to encounter him with few additional mobs. With enfeeble and potion
spam I was barely able to sustain the damage. The sound of his thunder was loud
and blocked out all other noises. You never forget that horrible sound, it lets you know
whats about to hit you is going to hurt. I went with a hit n run strategy. Trade thunder with the mob than when I get to 1/2-1/3 health run around, lose him in the maze, and heal up. I am
careful to only go to areas I've already cleared so i wont agro new enemies. Several rounds of hit n run and he drops dead. What a menace

Second storm herald: Well if he got extremly good rolls. 'resist all elements' 'aura of resist all' 'powerful crits'.
Fortunately he was rolled on one of those moving skeletons. I heard him from a distance before he was agroed and pulled each individual monster near him first before challenging him. Skeletons have a very low agro radius. The first thing I did when I fought him is
enfeeble+decoy totem to test his damage. He destroyed the decoy totem almost instantly and managed to even shock the thing. There was no way I was going to actually fight that thing.
Shock+storm herald hits so hard and with his extremely high resistance the fight would last forever.

I lure into a corner of the map I know I will never revisit, leave it a decoy totem to distract him, run behind and him get far away. The monster is sealed away never to trouble me again.

Third storm herald I get a lucky break he doesnt have any dangerous mods. I thoroughly trash him. It only takes a few seconds to bring him down but he managed to hit incredibly hard in the few seconds he lived.

Fourth one was also another resist all monster he also had a slowing aura and was dense in a pack of mobs. At this point I knew the RNG god wanted me dead. I spent a long time clearing the mobs around him and I was amazed i was able to do it without pulling the monster.
I relocated the monster with decoy totem, stuck my head out to let the trash mobs see me and pulled them behind a wall. Several times I almost pulled the rare but ducked my head behind a bookcase at the last second. It must have taken 2 full minutes to do that, at least it felt that way.
The amount of trash mobs around him seemed endless as the bodies kept piling up.

Eventually I got him alone. I tried the hit n run strategy but it didnt work. The slowing aura combined with the mods already good move speed made fleaing too difficult. I needed to switch
up to a face tanking approach. I seriously considered I might die here but I had a good idea of how hard storm heralds hit from my previous encounters with the other monsters.


Constant refreshing of molten shell (even though I took mostly elemental damage my shell
life leeches), the life leech of storm call, granite flask to help molten shell trigger faster,
plus constant injections of health kept me alive. At this point I was playing PoE
more like an mmo, refreshing buffs and mashing buttons like a monkey on crack. I had to portal out twice to restock my portals and catch my breath.

With the death of that mob I got the last of the golden pages. I turn in my essay on history and get a cast on damage taken. I do a bit of crafting and make a 4 link glove for it.

Cast when damage taken+enduring cry+zombies+skeletons. I never level the cast when damage taken of course

A trip through the imperial gardens shows me how powerful my new gem combo is. The enduring cry adds a modest amoung of extra protection against physical but the summons really shine.

Every time I am struck skeletons pop out of me and zombie springs up like weeds growing in the gardens.

The summons distract the enemies acting as meat shields. Some of the melee enemeis even move away from me to go punch a skeleton on the other side of the screen wasting his time and putting distance between us.

Depriving the corpse spitters of their food is never easier.

I go into the hedge maze because why not?

I've actually grown to love the exploding porcupine and corpse spitters. Combat with them is intense being sure to kill off the corpse spitters first or steal their ammo if I can't. I ration my damage among the porcupines or pick out line ones to make it so I dont eat all the explosions at once. Theres many ways to mitigate the explosion: enfeeble, armor flask etc. I run away from explosions, still taking spines in the face but at a manageable amount.

The devours add a good amount of tension. Making me tread each step carefully. I feel they should be put in more zones because they change how you play much more than other monsters and it feels like a waste to barely have them at all. Or perhaps have another type of monster that can show up unpredicted.

The first thing that happens in the Hedge maze is the unique devourer popping up in my face. With my constant spawning of skeletons he barely even touches me. I dont think I actually used any potions vs him. Enfeeble+natural life leech was all I needed since he wasted so much time killing my skeletons.

The terrain in the gardens is a double edged sword. On one hand it is very easy to stay in a corridor and force the enemies to only fight you 1-2 at a time in the narrow passage. On the other hand if you do get surrounded its very easy to be trapped in.

For this reason and the presence of devours I proceed with caution advancing slowly and letting enemies come to me rather than go out to them.

I meet another storm herald monster. This is getting ridiculous. He has life leech, reflect elemental damage, resistant to elements, increased energy shield.

Thats fucking insane. I had to stop playing and just ponder at that to realize how stupidly strong it is. Reflect and life leech mean I can't win a sustained battle against him. Energy shield means hit n run isn't good because he heals up every time I run. Fortunately it was generated on a corpse spitter. As long as he didn't get his food I can probably handle him. I wait for him to wander away, clear all trash mobs near him and dispose of the corpses.

The fight with him wasn't too dangerous but it would have been a lot worst if he had any bodies.

The gardens kept generating hordes of magic porcupines in huge numbers. I kept my distance with a decoy totem. and the generous support of my cast on damage taken pets. Decoy totem didnt last very long so I still had to take lots of hits. I targeted the monsters in the back of the pack or ones that were off in the distance dueling a skeleton. This made very few spines actually hit me. I was careful never to stand near a low health porucpine and kept molten shell refreshed. The extra life leech from it was so strong.

Another rare mob from hell.
A devourer with ancestral power. What made him dangerous is that he was a in a part of the maze that was extremely narrow so he could easily trap me with totems blocking my escapes.. I saw him from a distance sitting in a the center of the maze, waiting for like he thought he was the final boss. I tried to navigate around him but after exploring every path I realized it wasn't an option.

I preyed him out with decoy totem but eventually my fears come to pass and he jumps in front of my face with a totem at both exits. I was mentally prepared to exit the game if I couldn't move my character but I could maneuver around the totems. With 2 totem streams on me I was taking fire damage fast and run out away from him. I was safe for now but he still guarded the only way to the sacred tree. Running past him wasn't an option since I wouldn't know if I had actually escaped him.

I try to maneuver him into a better position by forcing him to move around with decoy totem. My original plan was to put a small fence between him and myself so he couldn't borrow under and use his totems. It worked out better than I planned. Not only did he not have the positioning to burrow but his fireball attack kept hitting the corner of a wall instead of me. LOL Easy kill.

A final wave of porcupine monsters and I finish the maze. Once I got to that misty tree I realized that my pulse had become very steady of the course of navigating the hedge maze, my breathing was controlled like I was in meditation. After the shitty time in the library I realized I was deeply enthralled with the game and having fun again.

Hope you enjoyed the read. See you next time.

To conserve space my build and gear will not be posted in this log.
I'll repost it in the final log.


At the top of the world Dominus looks on. Everything will be resolved very soon.

Well I did it. My heart is still racing. I beat Dominus with no rares, no unqiues, and it felt awesome.

I marched towards through the power of God and killed everything in my path. No running, no cheesy tactics, most of it was straight up face tanking.

I enfeebled the enemies before they even know I was there and I rotated my molten shell and granite flask so i was never without high armor. I had incredibly high sustain from my molten shell and stormcall life leeching every single hit. Even with only blue gear I managed to face tank most of the enemies with smart use of defensive flasks and abilities. Fast healing flasks allow me to almost instantly negate huge burst hits.

The enemies took awhile to bring down. Tower of god enemies have extra large health pools and resist my lightning.

I used proper positioning, splitting enemies up with totem, or standing in narrow areas like door ways so they couldn't all hit me at once. I made sure to clear the trash mobs before engaging the big enemies.

if you saw my stream you probably noticed that I didn't pull all of the enemies at once. I understand agro radius well and dont bite off more than I can chew.

The trick with crappy gear is to find ways to get stats without gear rolls: flasks, auras, innate properties, nodes, utility skills all do the job

I had an encounter with another storm herald. He was one of the most dangerous I've fought because it was on one of those undying leap slammers and their movement is very unpredictable. I would rush in, enfeeble him, trade blows with him than rung away swallowing flasks. Often portalling to refill them. Than we would play hide and seek and do it all over again. I can close to dying once but managed to pull throw.Looking back I should have used a topaz flask.

Other than him there was nothing that scared me in the tower. I met that unique trap thrower but I bugged him and made him sit behind a pillar while I storm called him and his dumb ass just sat there.

I stormed my way through the tower, destroying everything in my path till at long last I reached the summit of the world. The air was cold and bit at my skin and hair. Covered in blood I stood before Dominus and challenged his most elite of elites.

I attempted to pull them one at at time. I succeeded in drawing the hamer guy and behind a small wall but than I panicked and agroed the lightning mage. I stayed near the hammer enemy which prevents him from leap slamming. He hit incredibly hard but with constant refreshing of granite and ruby flask I survived him. I consider him the only truely dangerous of the black guards.

The remaining black guards I took out one at a time with no issue. I made sure to be out of line of site when a new one spawned so I could pull it at my own discretion. If you watch the video of my fight you will see I spent much time slowly advancing and scouting with totems to make sure I knew exactly where the enemies were.

The all die. Than Domins himself comes down. I was nervous. I really was, it may have affected my performance. I also had some lag from streaming which nearly fucking killed me.


Dominus is a very chaotic boss and he punishes you heavily for doing a single mistake. His lightning stream hurts a ton, his hand of god can 1shot you, and his exploding minions can do 1k damage, having 3 of them go on you at once can be deadly. Ontop of this you are chasing him around the field and trying to stay out of the shocked/frozen ground.

With all these factors to consider its easy to make a mistake and than get killed for it.

The trick is to find order in the chaos, or if you are extremely good like me, to MAKE order.

I played very very cautiously with Dominus, staying far away and constantly moving around. With positioning I had 2 goals. The first is to keep the big minion spawning device off my screens view. This greatly reduces how often I agro his spawn. The second was to try to stay in range of the tiny wall at all times. The tiny wall near the bottom is your best friend, you can hide from minions by using it to break line of site, you can use it to shield you from Dominus lightning.

My cast on damage taken summons and use of my own skeletons totem also helped make it less chaotic

This was my strategy for just staying safe. Positioning in this way reduced how often I need to worry about minions and lightning stream. I would also reposition myself whenever there was shocked ground or icy totems. This way even if something crazy happened I had an exit.

I only committed to damaging Dominus when 3 conditions were met.
1. There are none of his spawn on screen
2. Dominus is in an area where his lightning cant hit me (protected by the wall or very close to the wall) OR he is distracted by my skeletons
3. I have a clear exit (no totems blocking my way or shocked ground on my only escape path)

Once all 3 of these conditions were met than i engage dominus, snipping off a bit of his health from a distance.

If his energy shield was down sometimes i would play more aggressive and swallow a topaz flask, spam healing flasks and trade blows with his lightning stream. This was very risky since it depleted flasks and I didnt do it very often.

I tried to also keep enfeeble refreshed. I portaled often to restock my flasks and sometimes did it just to wait out the exploding minion phase.

It was a long calculated battle where I shuffled around the field waiting for the perfect moment before going in for some brief hits. Dominu's totems, evil sparked ground and minions moved in on me like chess pawns trying to corner me into a trap. Dominus himself, the king, kept trying to hit me with that deadly lightning stream but I was always 1 step ahead of him, a quick side step and I was behind the cover of the wall. When he had no angle to attack me or nearby pawns I tossed out some storm calls, piling on the damage before he found me and sent me running again.
We spent long minutes chasing each other in circles trying to each corner each other. I was always 1 step ahead of him.

I would manipulate his positioning to my advantage with strategic use of skeleton totem.
When he was busy distracted by skeletons and his army was trying to fight back my summons: that is when I could hit him the hardest.

It was a dangerous chase, he could easily empty my life bar and if I was slowed down or shocked
by his skills than there would be no exit.

I was under so much pressure and had to portal out many times just to catch my breath and reevaluate the situation.

Before I fought Dominus I researched to see how players fought temple Dominus. I figured temple dominus with godly gear is about as hard as Merc dominus with blues. A lot of my strategy for the human form was based on this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITG24h9K6VE

Although he does it with a completely different build and engages at completly different times the basic of idea patinatly waiting for the golden moment to go in is the same for both of us.

During one point the game desynced and I suddenly ate a hand of god hit. I looked to my health globe and it was empty. For a moment i thought I was dead, it was only when i noticed there was no 'you died' message that I was still alive. I felt like that my raw determination had saved me somehow, preserving me with just a few hundred hit points.

Thats was the single most frightening thing that can happen to you in this game, the desyncing hand of god.

After this I lowered my graphic settings to prevent it from happening again.

It was a long, tiring battle with streamers cheering my on and gasping at the near fatal hits.
I was very proud of my control over Dominus, other than the game desyncing on me I was in almost complete control. I played very sloppy because of stress but very little did anything happen I didn't expect.

Go watch the video, its glorious. Please tell me that twitch saved the broadcast...
if not I'll have to do this again lol!

When he got to low health I switched to my other weapon which had firestorm and culling strike: I needed to use a dex quiver just to equip the culling strike. I was very cautious when doing this because it requires I remove my shield and be below max resistances. I chose fire storm because its very easy to hit with, it has a giant size and no delay.

Phase 3 was stupid

If someone was watching my do it without knowing anything about PoE they would probably laugh conclude the game is designed terribly.

For the fight I replaced my topaz flask with a ruby one

The fight basically went like this.
open a portal
swallow a granite and ruby to boost my defenses, swalow a curse immunity flask.
Damage enemies while taking tons and tons of damage and spamming health flasks (one of which removes bleeding)
When I run out flasks or feel like I'm taking more damage than I can handle go in the portald
Repeat till he dies

To an outsider view it might look like it probably looks amazing, every time I portal out I'm less than a second from death. I was in full control and when to leave.

I'd like to mention that I never actually physically moved my character more than once or twice in this fight. Dominu's last form may be the worst designed part of the entire game. Terribly anticlimactic way to end the game.

When I culled Dominus I took some fire damage with below max resist which got me very close to dying. It was dramatic finish as my firestorm executed him just as I myself was about to drop.

Dominus died and I stood victorious at the top of the world.

People congratulated me and I felt pretty bad-ass. Some ass hole insisted I run the level 66 map reward I got which involved me facing tons of devourers. I humored him for a bit and went with it before leaving that hell hole map.

I'd really like to thank the people for viewing, you guys flooding my chat log actually made me more focused. In the back of my mind I knew it would look ridiculous if I died on stream so I think it actually helped me play better.

Also to the posters in the thread, been lots of fun doing this. I looked forward to your reactions.

I also kept myself focused listening to Gradius 3's fire scramble track on loop.

That drained me emotionally. I had a near death experience, killed the prophet of god, and experienced the most difficult challenge I've ever found in Poe. Its all very overwhelming. Thats why I'm not talking in such excited tone. Even as I type this I'm exhausted and will probably take a long nap. A tired warrior needs to rest. I'll celebrate tomorrow.

Here was the final tree I had

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAnEC4wSzB2MHpQj0FE0VUBZvGYUaOB0UHwIkqij6LJwtHzGIMZ4yiTWSNsU26TrhPV9Bh0SrRZ1Jsk3jUlNVrlXGVytX4mBtZp5nvWh0c1N2EXkDeqp-r4IQgseDOIjxjRmPRo-mkFWUoJrgm6GdgKIAplenCKeErFm3PriTwBrAVMG0z2XQ0Ngk2mLdjN-w4BLjauTs52Pr7uw47m_vfPAf8kX56PrS_gr-jw==

I got enough resist gear to completely unspec my resist nodes and get more life regen.
if I gained any other levels I would put them into block chance or maybe reduce aura cost
so I could run vitality+clarity.




Heres my gear. Nothing special or cheesy, just the core stats of life and resist (armor is gotten via flask and molten shell).


For those who want a break down
the staff was found
the shield was purchased
the amulet I purchased
the belt I either found or crafted, forget which
the gloves I crafted or found, cant remember which
the duo resist ring was purchased
the other ring I found, or maybe I bought it, cant remember
the chest armor: I purchased a white base and crafted the mods
the boots I crafted with a recipe
the amulet I purchased
all flasks were crafted or found

My final health was 4775

I have about 10 chaos worth of orbs remaining.
I wanted to give out my currency and same random items to viewers on my stream. Surprisingly
there wasnt any interest in free stuff! Apparently I'm much more deserving of their attention
than a free orb! I take that as a compliment. I'll find someone to take them eventually!

-LETS BURY SAM

Dominus is dead and I hope sam dies with him. I think I proved conclusively that skill and strategy is more important than gear, that there is more to the game than grinding for better numbers, and this game lets you be capable of truely amazing things.

There has always been players of my skill level doing amazing things but I seem to have attracted the most attention. Maybe its my writing or the dramatic call out against Sam the scrub? Well I hope I did some good.

For the sake of the community and the future of PoE let bury Sam together and give him a eulogoy. No more talking about gear checks or petty whining.

Maybe Sam can reborn? Learn how to play, how to win without just stacking stats, find a strategy, clever ways to fight, and develop quick reaction time and a mind of steel.

Maybe not, maybe he will find more excuses and never learn. Maybe we should put a noose around Sam's neck?

I have absolutely no hatred for bad players, not the slightest hostility. It is the processing of acquiring skill, or learning it, testing it, and refining it that makes this game fun for me. Anyone can enjoy this. Whether you are a top-tier player trying to push yourself even farther or you just started playing 10 minutes and hillock killed you I think everyone can enjoy this game and improve themself.

What I do not tolerate is Scrubs which is exactly what Sam is.


-ANALYSIS OF THE SCRUB-

What is a scrub? Well Sam is one but what does that mean?
Sirloin said it best

"
Now, everyone begins as a poor player—it takes time to learn a game to get to a point where you know what you’re doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that by merely continuing to play or “learn” the game, one can become a top player. In reality, the “scrub” has many more mental obstacles to overcome than anything actually going on during the game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He’s lost the game even before deciding which game to play. "~from Playing to win (one of the most best pieces of literature on video games ever)

A scrub sets up boundaries for himself that prevent him from growing.
He wont try to win with ways other than just grinding/farming for GG because he convinced himself that its the only way to win
He wont try new strategies because he's told himself that they wont work and he should just follow a guide
He won't experiment because he thinks he already knows everything.
He wont learn from his mistakes because he thinks its the games fault not his "the game needs to give me better gear"
He will blame his character, or the game, or RNG not himself.

A scrub will never grow as a player, he never attempts to evaluate himself, he thinks if he just keeps mashing the buttons he will gain skill. Personal skill doesnt work like level ups. Its much deeper than that, much more rewarding and satisfying to acquire.

He becomes sore that he can't win despite putting so much time into the game and makes very angry statements, lashing out at people on message boards.

This is one of the ways that scrubs are different from casual player or 'bad player' or 'new player'.

The casual/new/bad player will play badly, die, laugh, and have fun and maybe learn something
The scrub will play badly, die, rage, and blame rather than learn.

He will never know the joys that come from self-improvment. Never know that feeling of power when something that seemed impossible is now something you have mastered. Everyone should know what I'm talking about, even the worst of the worst will be able to recall fondly the feeling of mastery.

Its something you force yourself into. I dont think the average player in PoE is a scrub.
I think (or rather hope) that all players understand and seek out the joy of self-improvement but I feel many are lost and have picked up scrub-like habits.

-THE EASY BUTTON

Why is PoE filled with people like Sam? Why is he in this game and not another?

Because gamers from this generation are used to easy games and being pampered with "carebear land"? Thats true but gamers from this generation are also capable of learning and adopting. No one is born hardcore, you shape yourself into it.

Because its a free game and free games attract children? Well children can be pretty bad-ass at game like those kids who beat ninja gaiden when they were 8 years old

Because it launched on steam and is now flooded with players who expect it to be like modern mmos or diablo 3? Yeah thats definitely a reason but again, players are human beings that can learn. You don't have to have a black belt in action rpgs and masters degree in button mashing from tokyo university to figure out how to play PoE.

PoE is presents the player with so many ways to win without developing skill that one is always tempted to take the easy way out. As a matter of fact its so convenient to do the easy way, and the hard way so mysterious and unmentioned many players probably don't even realize there was a choice between easy and hard to begin with or that personal skill mattered at all?

Overgrind all the level zones, load up on godly gear while leveling, pay for boss kills, run anything dangerous in a large party. Many people play this way, its a way that allows you to progress with very little personal skill.

The game makes doing these skill-breaking things so easy its no wonder everyone is tempted into doing it. A boss kill is what 1 chaos? Hey if you split the price amoung 5 people thats only 4 alts from each player. Joining a party and letting them carry you through docks till you gained 5 level ups is as easy as clicking the bulliton board.

Think of your favorite action game: doom, ninja gaiden, mega man, or contra.Now imagine that there is button on the keyboard/controller that instantly resurrects your dead character. You know pressing that button would cheapen the fun but you would probably do it anyway. This is the same situation PoE is in the 'easy button' is far too easy to press

It is the job of the game designer to take the hand of all new players and gracefully guide them down the paths that provide the monster entertainment. Part of this role as a designer means that he must try to obstruct the players efforts towards doing boring things. Grinding is boring but many players do it because it offers easy access to powering up. The designer's job is to protect the player from himself. That is why when a designer does have you resurrect your character at the press of a button he hides it behind a cheat code and makes you type "babymode" into the console to activate it. This simple act suddenly makes the player realize exactly what he is doing and he will than think "do I really want to do this?"

With the game industry filled with lots of new players and unskilled players every game needs to have 'easy buttons'. Thats fine, I have no problem with that. No problem at all. I'll just play my way and you play your way. However PoE's 'easy button' is way to easy to press. Many people don't even realize they are pressing and think that this is the only way you can win in the first place. When this is the case the player never grows. the 'easy button' is supposed to be bike with training wheels. Eventually you take off the training wheels because its more fun to ride a bike without them. Not even knowing the training wheels can be taken off is a sad situation.

There is a place for trading: trade is an entirely new level of depth and lets you do builds that would normally require too specific gear to ever pull off self-found.
There is a place for grinding and for 'power leveling' by wearing gamebreaking game. Grinding helps smooth out the difficulty curve and serve as bandaid for bad RNG. Power leveling with godly gear is fun every once in awhile, just like 'god mode' is fun every once in a while.
Maybe theres even a place for boss kill services? Many players have PCs that crash at Dominus.

All these things have a place
But these should not be the prime gaming experience they are 'easy buttons'.

I think GGG has failed in their design of the easy button. PoE borrows very heavily from diablo 2 and diablo 2 had the same design flaw. Maybe GGG can fix this some how?
Even if they don't it doesnt matter much.

Even if the easy buttons are accessed so effortlessly its still up to the individual player to decide what do to do with them.



-LOOKING ONWARD

Theres a lot of talk about how interconnected players actions are in PoE. A group of players popularizing a build might make it get nerfed. The types of trades you do change the entire worled economy. What you say in chat and on the forums affects the culture of the game. All of this is true to some exstent.

But more than anything PoE is about you, the individual. You set the rules on how will play, what you will do, what you wont do, and how you do it.

You can talk about 'farming effieincy' 'risk vs reward' and 'build tiers' but these are all self imposed rules. If playing risky with heavy face tanking and needlessly 1v1ing the storm herald mob when you could have ran from it, being poor and not using 'good items' , and using a 'bad' gem like stormcall makes you happy than thats exactly what you should do.

It doesnt matter that I could have 'done quicker' or 'done it safer'. Video games are entertainment not a fucking job.

If you the rules that you set up for yourself, your way of playing, is not fun for you than I would encourage you to try to change.

If you are bored with grinding, paying for boss kills, and winning only by stacking on better and better gear till you dont even feel the damage, and being an orb accountant.

If what I say inspires you, or sounds interesting to you than I encourage you to try it yourself. Go on an adventure. Travel the path of self-improvement, take the more difficult approach, push yourself, improve, learn. You will probably die and have many exciting close calls pushing yourself is the only way to grow. There will be stressful times, walls you cant get over but I promise you that once you get over that wall the view is beautiful.

You don't have to wear all blues, you dont even have to be good at the game.