Discuss your unorthodox/almostuseless/crazy/shouldn'tworkbutdoes builds/play styles here!
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edit: The title actually says it all. The rest is just me babbling.
Prerequisite knowledge: The 'Johnny' player type defined by Mark Rosewater
Johnny is the creative gamer to whom Magic is a form of self-expression. Johnny likes to win, but he wants to win with style. It’s very important to Johnny that he win on his own terms. As such, it’s important to Johnny that he’s using his own deck. Playing Magic is an opportunity for Johnny to show off his creativity. … Like Timmy, Johnny cares more about the quality of his wins than the quantity. For example, let's say Johnny builds a new deck that has a neat but difficult way to win. He plays ten games and manages to get his deck to do its thing… once. Johnny walks away happy. Source (To adapt this to Path of Exile, simply replace ‘Magic’ with ‘Path of Exile’ and ‘deck’ with ‘character’. -- Charan) Summary: An explanation of how using different characters in different ways can change how one sees the game, and that this approach can overcome several key problems of the game. Finally, a call to see if others might just think the same. I'm taking a break from playing my latest character to start what I hope will be an interesting collection of play styles and skill/gear combinations based not necessarily on efficiency or power but on ideas such as theme and creativity. My motivation for this is that many of us are solo players, and so sharing our ideas can be a little tough. Sure, we could post to the class section, but let's be honest: people are going to want to know things like 'DPS', 'clear speed' and other factors that don't always matter much to the Johnny player. What we build isn't there to be imitated or judged, but I believe there's room in this game for more than just 'fastest', 'hardest', 'strongest'. When I play Path of Exile, the character's aesthetics dictates what I'm playing. It might be the name, it might be the look. It might be an existing character or archetype but the first and main rule is it must come from outside the game, since we don't really know much about Wraeclastian legends, and even if we did, it all might be a bit too easy to pull off. In this light, 'class' choice is largely a matter of what would best fit the look of doing what I have in mind; passive choices are sometimes less than ideal. Skill choice is all about what I think that character would use if limited to PoE skills, within a basic constraint of my ever-growing knowledge of which skills play well together and which do not. Gear used to be much more restrictive, but with the Skin Transfer mtx, full-plate witches and robed warriors are more than possible. But it all comes back to the character as I envision it within Wraeclast, rather than as an on-screen avatar doing nothing but killing stuff as quickly as possible. And once the character is working as envisioned, the experience becomes so much more engaging than just clicking things on screen until they die. As an example, let's go back to my latest creation. I was playing another character, a witch with a sword who happened to be wearing a silken hood skin. The girlfriend saw me just loitering in town and said, 'Oh, you made an Assassin's Creed character?' Huh. She was right; there was an uncanny resemblance. Well, this should be fun.
Building for and playing Assassin's Creed: Exile UPDATED
 All you need is one good (back) stab... I immediately quit to character selection, created a new Shadow and stared at the name entry window on one screen, a fresh passive tree on the other. That's where the magic happens -- you either understand what I mean by that or you don't. I hope, for your sake, you do, because you're really missing out if not. As a writer, I get the same feeling with a blank word document on one screen, 10+ Wikipedia tabs open on the other. Half of you is spinning possibilities, the other half is trying to keep that first half from getting too enthusiastic. I settled on a place-holder name, because I wasn't sure if it was going to work. I had the look in mind, but not necessarily the play style. A name can come later (this is also true of most other creative endeavours). I did a few test passive trees, bookmarked each and got to work. That's when I realised I had a level 25ish Shadow with a leftover respec from a major patch, so I went to him instead and asked Support to change his name to the place-holder name, because I was too excited to just leave it at what it was, which was actually another themed character that didn't quite work. Heh. Before even leaving town, I had to get the look down. Silken hoods aren’t exactly something I have in vast abundance, and a shopping trip on my few characters high enough level to buy one from the vendors proved fruitless. I had to borrow my only one from that earlier character, but I promised myself the moment I got another one she’d be hooded once more. Body-wise, I thought something like a robe would be appropriate, since the Assassins typically go for that robed/cloaked look. The game doesn't have any truly white robes (tabula is a bit...undignified for an Assassin), but I had a mess around anyway. Then, thinking a bit beyond the obvious (since item art never fully represents its 3D skin), I tried some plates. I’m a fan of Majestic Plate+Leather Hood, but in this case the colours didn’t quite match. Desperate, I tried some chainmails. Did you know the Chainmail Doublet has a red sash? Boots were easier then: chain, to match the doublet. The combination of a silken hood, chainmail doublet and chain boots might seem banal, but several random players have asked me in town what mtx I’m wearing. That’s rewarding. Finally, because rapiers are really boring, I used a basic Aurumvorax for the weapon skin.
Passive stance, front
Passive stance, back
 With the look down, it was time to move onto skills. So the idea of this character was to use a rapier (it had to be a sword) with some sort of hard-hitting skill tapping both Melee Physical Damage and Melee Damage on Full Life. I've recently (and belatedly) come to appreciate the potency of 'more', and 60% more is nothing to sniff at. I'd even consider it essential for a 'one-hit kill' style befitting an Assassin. Two options presented themselves: Puncture and Flicker Strike. Puncture's good for fire-and-forget style play, whereas Flicker Strike provides a sort of mobility combined with serious punch. In the end, I went with both.
Brink of death
 I tried Frenzy for a bit, to fuel these hard-hitting Flicker Strikes, but the Frenzy’s lack of follow-up DoT proved troublesome. My Flicker Strike would not be something I’d be using repeatedly. This makes it more surgical, which is fine by me. I also tested some curses, and they’re all quite good, but they’re thematically too far outside of the Assassin archetype for me, so they’re not an option. This is a clear case of the Johnny player self-limiting for no reason beyond theme and design. I make no excuses for it. I'm a big fan of crit multipliers and power charges, since a 'critical damage multiplier' is the mother of all 'more' damage. I originally planned to use power charges, either with Voll's Protector or PCoC, but as it turns out, neither was viable. PCoC requires a fairly large number of rapid attacks to pay off, and Voll's destroys mana reserves. For a character focusing on less, but more powerful hits, PCoC just wasn't kicking in enough. As for Voll's, an unusual defence choice made that impossible. As I wanted to use Melee Damage on Full Life, Energy Shield was a given, which means my usual go-to for mana management, Eldritch Battery, was not an option. On top of that, I wanted to use Discipline, because I knew I'd need as much ES as possible. By the same token, I wanted to have a fair reserve of life, because going Chaos Inoculation would be entirely too risky: I want to be able to come back if the shield drops, not drop myself. I couldn't go full Energy Shield gear, since I'd be getting hit too much, and Armour isn't really the Shadow's strong suit. So, for the first time ever, I’ve actually chosen to go Evasion/Energy Shield, the Shadow’s supposed native defence combination. Interestingly, it doesn’t take much evasion rating to get a decent chance to evade – the diminishing returns start to show around 45%+. You can get 35-40% chance to evade with EV/ES gear and those EV/ES nodes. I also wanted to try maximum energy shield cooldown recovery which, incidentally, is 105%. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of the Shadow being able to regenerate his energy shield while evading/blocking. Getting those nodes was a major priority, although I followed the standard Melee Shadow progression through Haste, Mental Acuity, Repartee and Assassination. I played this setup for a little while, using a crafted slowest-type rapier with 70-90% IPD. Impressive damage, but not quite durable enough to do much more than poke a few mobs and then run like hell until the shield regenerated. I had to rethink my approach to melee. Hit harder? Not happening. Move faster? That just means more efficient running. More block nodes? Eh, stretched thin enough as it is combining defence and offence. Blind might be nice. Don’t have the sockets. Wait… Of course, the answer was staring right at me. I’m an Assassin. A creature of stealth and speed. Adding Smoke Mine to the mix was the last piece of the puzzle. Now I could lay down a few smoke mines, dash towards the enemy group, flicker-assassinate a high priority target, puncture the others, and when the shield was about to fail, detonate the mines. Bam – safely out of danger, enemies bleeding to death at maximum rate (due to moving), and within a second or two, the shield is back. The extra movement speed definitely doesn’t hurt either. I refined the technique in the docks, because not only are the docks fairly easy to play, the debris and clutter forced me to be very conscious of line of sight mine placement – if the mine’s not in line of sight, you won’t teleport back to it. This can be fatal for most, but in my case, it’s a matter of ‘is’, not ‘can be’. After overleveling a bit, I felt confident enough with the style to try progressing towards Cruel. The character had come into his own. What a lot of players would see as inefficient and fiddly I saw as a perfectly entertaining representation of a Shadow stalking Sarn, picking off targets and then disappearing to leave the rest to rapidly bleed to death. I work in words, so when I feel I have a gameplay experience worth writing about (I almost wrote a passage from the character’s point of view), I know I’m onto something cool.
Step 1: Avoid
Step 2: Counter
 I call this style 'Assassin’s Creed: Exile'. Sure, I can’t climb the buildings or disappear within the crowd, but I do believe I’m doing what Altair or Ezio would do *if* limited to only a few skills. Probably the only thing I could add is throwing knives, but that’d dilute the character too much. It’s not necessary, so I won’t do it. Other than that, I have the look down, the skills complement a style befitting the sort of person who picks off targets very carefully and never lets himself stand toe-to-toe with the enemy if possible. And it’s hell of a lot of fun. UPDATE: Thanks to the very helpful advice from a player called kolp, the assassin has a name: Ehud_benGera. Feel free to look it up. Dude was a total badass. Biblical level badass. He was also left-handed, which means I'm currently running the rapier in my left hand, a claw in my right, using Infernal Blow. The result of this is consistent left-handed thrusts. Not sure if I prefer it over puncture yet but it's done wonders for corpse management. ;) I am not entirely comfortable with the Johnny label, since what I do isn’t so much ‘creative’ with skills and items as it constrains them into pre-existing archetypes. There is another psychological profile, the Vorthos, who is committed to theme and consistency, but the Vorthos isn’t that worried about winning. In the context of Path of Exile, even the craziest player must have some commitment to winning, because dying means you can’t play at all. So perhaps what I’m describing is a mixture of the two, or something else again. Either way, this is the MO of a fairly specific sort of player. In a way, this sort of player changes the game by how and what they play. The above example shows how I turned PoE into a stealth-based assassination experience, whether that’s Assassin’s Creed, Tenchu or the like. The moment I change character, I change games. When I’m on my wandslinging Templar wearing Zahndethus’ Cossack and the Pilgrim hat using barrage to toss out fireballs and cold snaps, it’s 'Path of Exile at High Noon'. If I’m on my Puncture-Crit Shadow Archer with his short bow, leather hood and broadhead arrow quiver skins, I’m indulging in an Arrow like experience (been watching that show lately). I have a Lightning Strike/Leap Slam plated+hooded Witch based on Arshes Nei, who is something of a thunder-and-blade badass from the anime and manga Bastard!! Not all of my characters are built on others’ creations. 'Charan', obviously, is all mine, and I really did have to ‘burn’ my unique designs just so that I could make 'Path of Exile: Charan Edition' (I regret nothing!). What does Charan do in his original setting? Wears a hood (check, thanks to skin transfers), wields a katana in one hand (check), burns the fuck out of everything (check) with said katana, which has a serious Goddess complex (working on that one). He’s also left-handed, but he’s not a withered old man with spindly legs, so that was out. Still, on one build I did force a Shadow to be left-handed by wielding a claw in the right hand, a sword in the left, and then using Infernal Blow. Since IB won’t work with claws, it only ever used the off-hand. I’m proud of little discoveries like that. Another I made just for PoE recently is based entirely on an mtx: a witch fashioned as a fallen angel swinging a sword in as horrific a setup as I could manage. The tentacle wings were a start, but a very kind player offered me a sacrificial garb for skinning free of charge (I normally don’t do charity, but this was for a character!), and I threw in the demon king horns, infernal footprints and, hell, why not, The Goddess Scorned using Molten Strike (which I otherwise find a completely cheesy skill – more on that in a bit). She looks exactly as I'd hoped and is a delight to play. The last one I'll mention is named 'LetTheStormBeMyProphecy'. Sure, Lightning warp builds are all over the place now, but how many of them try to time the Lightning Warp so that the character arrives after a series of Storm Calls? It's a fun game of mixing increased and decreased duration gems, and when it works, it looks really awesome. An interesting effect of playing like this is that you tend to master your build because you’re utterly committed to playing it regardless of what the game throws at you. You learn the absolute limits of your chosen skills and items when you use them without exception, and more often than not, you surprise yourself with just how much you get away with. That’s the real draw of being this sort of player to me. Those moments when you think, there’s no way another player could have done what I just did the way I did, because they don’t have the same experience. Sure, they probably could do it ten times faster, but I’d wager I know who had a more fun, satisfying experience. By looking at the game as something not simply to be won but a setting for creative exploration, I overcome what would likely be three very big problems for me otherwise. The first is that I endow an otherwise short, repetitive game with a whole hell of a lot of longevity in a fairly creative way. Not only am I an altaholic, but my characters are all very specific in design and to me, completely different from one another even if they’re the same class and use some of the same skills. As noted above, playing different characters changes the game for me, so Path of Exile to me is much ‘bigger’ than perhaps it is for someone who sticks to one character all the way through. Needless to say, I’m not saying one way is superior to another, merely noting that this is how I work. How long I last on an ARPG pretty much comes down to how many different sorts of characters I can make and how many different ways I can play the same game. The second problem is one of skill utility. Some of you may have read my sentiments regarding single target vs AoE. While I stand by every word of it, I can sometimes bypass my dislike for ‘cheesier’ skills by finding an appropriate character to use them. The fallen angel with Molten Strike is one example; another is 'MehveeBarad_Moshe' ('Moses, bringer of the Seventh Plague' in Hebrew, although I think I have it grammatically wrong; oh well), who is almost exclusively Firestorm (since the game doesn’t yet have plagues of locusts and I think Atziri beat me to killing the firstborn of Sarn), and another few are just funny names I came up with: 'ReavingRainbow', 'DexsChainsawMassacre' (using the sawblade mtx). In short, as long as a character I like can justify it, I can pretty much use any skill, although I still draw the line at totems (someday I’ll come up with a reason). The last problem is the one that vexes players the most: end-game. Getting to high level isn’t really an issue with me because the characters are typically just as enjoyable from low level. None of them will magically ‘come into their own’ at level 60 or 70. They’ve already been doing what they’re meant to do since normal difficulty. Usually by the time I reach merciless act 3X, I’ve ‘mastered’ the character’s style and consider them a success. Anything after that I consider content designed for players who need the game to be challenging rather than making challenges for themselves. I’ve played maps on a few characters and quite honestly, now that we have corrupted areas filling the role of ‘maps lite’ from the start, I don’t think I’m missing that much. And that’s why I’m still able to thoroughly enjoy Path of Exile despite all the problems, all the issues, all the design changes, and yes, all the failures to be quite as good as we thought it’d be a few years ago. I play Path of Exile entirely on my own terms, and it is to the game’s credit that I’ve been able to do this with over 40 very different characters now. There are times when the game wins (usually I struggle against The Weaver and Dominus) but there are enough options that I can play/level in areas where I’m gaining decent experience and loot. At the very least, if a character can handle merciless docks, it’s set for life, give or take. That’s where I can play Assassin’s Creed: Exile or Path of Exile at High Noon or whatever game…all I want. So what I really want to know is, am I alone in this madness? Have you ever made a character with a theme in mind and while playing it, come to see the game in a different way? Have you ever seen an item skin and felt compelled to make a character based on it? Or had some overwhelming desire to create a pre-existing character from outside the game within the constraints of Wraeclast? How do you play in Wraeclast? https://linktr.ee/wjameschan -- everything I've ever done worth talking about, and even that is debatable. Huh. My mace dude is now an actual cultist of Chayula. That's kinda wild. Last edited by Foreverhappychan#4626 on Jun 5, 2014, 1:39:11 AM
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Max efficiency, min time effort. Not playing while in-between seasons. For me PoE is 95% races.
alt art shop view-thread/1195695
t.me/jstqw for contact | |
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I have not read this yet, but +1000 points for mentioning Mark Rosewater in the first line.
Exile
"Bullshit, you get the game for free." -Qarl |
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Good read (sorry, I skimmed parts however).
I enjoy the Johnny side of working with different skills and changing the gameplay through unique skill usage (my Glacial Hammer build can take on Carnage despite the fact he can most likely one-shot him, simply by ensuring his attack animations take ten seconds and that I am behind him when he hits). Unfortunately, I don't get very far all that often due to the game's desync problem. It often makes many of these builds and ideas too damn inconsistent and frustrating to bother with. Trying to primarily rely on movement skills is a good example of this. IGN: Ikimashouka, Tsukiyattekudasai, DontCallMeMrFroyo
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" I hear you there. That said, on character prone to desync, I learn to work around it and with it. Smoke Mine's a good example, actually -- it resyncs things nicely, just as Flicker Strike used sparingly will. It also blinds stuff, which means anything hitting you that shouldn't be has much less chance of doing so. https://linktr.ee/wjameschan -- everything I've ever done worth talking about, and even that is debatable.
Huh. My mace dude is now an actual cultist of Chayula. That's kinda wild. |
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" Hard to discuss these things without acknowledging the creator of the paradigm. ;) https://linktr.ee/wjameschan -- everything I've ever done worth talking about, and even that is debatable.
Huh. My mace dude is now an actual cultist of Chayula. That's kinda wild. |
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I gotta say I play almost the exact same way. That is one reason I want shield effects so damn bad.
When I first started, I mad a character based on the main character from the Cold Fire trillogy if anyone is familiar with that. I still have him (Shadow seemed like the best bet looks wise) and play him often. In fact, he is tied for my highest level character (69). I also have played around with a plan for a Batman themed character and now that we have smoke mine, I can probably pull it off more effectively. The one and only problem I have with playing like this is that many of my ideas requre gear I don't have and likely never will being a solo player that plays self found (with the exception of nabbing a few pieces from the guild stash once in a while). For that reason, I also usually have a 'farming' character that I use when I just want or need to grind for gear. Even those tend to be less effe ctive than the build-d'jour, but I hav efun playing a summoner that has more minions than the Beatles had fans (thats a lot in case yo udon't know who the Beatles are). but, to answer your question: No, you are not the only one. Exile
"Bullshit, you get the game for free." -Qarl |
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I think thats a main reason I love PoE. I was a Johnny with M:TG and I joined a few groups at college and my creativity and what I thought were neat concepts thematically were never viable compared to the gimmicky nonsense a typical college student at a nerdy tech school could throw down. One example Ill always remember is a combination of 3 cards someone used that did literally a billion damage to me instantly...why a billion? Well the player had to choose a real number as the end of a potentially infinite loop.
But with PoE, Johnnys are king. Most wouldnt agree, throwing around words like "dps" and "viable" and "clear speed" but the Johnnys dont see the same game as the elites do. And thats ok, because its our game too, and in the end everyone gets to play their own way, vastly unaffected by the playstyle choices of others. Ill always be a Johnny...I cant even force myself to use someone elses build for the most part. I cant even get myself to use skill combinations that are super popular unless Im really building from scratch or devising SOMETHING that is novel to it. Otherwise I feel like Im not the one playing. Its a mind glitch I have, Ill admit that...but I seek balance in all things. If theres something in a game that is regarded as "useless"...be it a class or skill or gear type...I have to believe that the majority is wrong, because why put so many choices in a game if theres only a few "right" answers? And thats why, to this day, whenever my friends and I dust off the N64 for the original Smash Bros, Ill always choose Samus. |
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I haven't read everything yet, but I really have to say this to everybody.
off Topic
MaRo's voice really annoys me. hear his voice here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpXwpmm8GXQ Better stay in the land of the damned, Exile. Here, even the very words are corrupted by Nightmare.
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I've built themed characters before and it can be a lot of fun, so I agree.
Of course, during events like the 2wk I go full on 'spike', to stick with M:TG player psychographics :) Deutscher Chat: /global 4745
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