Oni-Goroshi in Current League - are You gonna farm it or drop it?

If anything, Tangmazu was an unqualified improvement on the original canned voice lines. >:^D

The game could use more of that to be fair. Jack the Axe and other "gimmick possessed weps" can't do all the heavy lifting.

Fractal Thoughts would have been great if it actually squeezed your head so small that it looked like a thimble. Or rickrolled you from time to time. It's a great helmet with super utility but it's just kinda bleh storywise

Or some item that when you wear it, it paints the world in cheery pastel tones, behaving much like "Pyro-Vision" in Team Fortress 2, belying the squalor, neglect, and brutality of Wraeclast. Something that also grants rampage, so you can see the rampage and extra gore through the lens of blithe delusion as a fount of confetti and flowers and dandelion fluff. And as the rampage wears off, the Pyro-Vision fades away revealing the normal dank, squalid, harrowing wraeclast we know so well.

Or maybe a predator visor that grants infrared rendering so everything is a galaxy of tender beating hearts and heat signatures and motion artifacts. All other textures and surfaces are nearly invisible, like a flat gray or an intaglio print. You only know the saws and spikes are there because someone or something has anointed them with their blood recently enough for your heat sensors to pick it up.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

(I had a naginata-like staff, a pair of haste gloves, a non-shield shield and a stealth-based hood in the works at one point)

I remember one 2004 game that had a type of "Naginata-like staff". As a matter of fact, it had 2 different versions which were meant to be wielded by 2 different character. There was always a main concept of a big stick with a side ending with a blade and another ending with a magic gem. The version which was meant to be used by the mage had a way more ornate "magic gem" ending while reducing the blade part to basically a stiletto, while the other version for a war angel had a blade very much akin to a naginata while having a way more modest "magic gem" ending. It was meant to reflect how they used that staff - the mage used it for magic and occasionally bashing since he had a small training in martial combat, while the war angel was a powerful warrior which imbued her attacks with magic and divine powers. I always liked that kind of weapon and I have come to use a similiar weapon with a character I have in my mind and that grew with me since I was 8. Only the blade part now ends with a curious set of blades meant to be used for gardening purpose. For... the purpose of my inner history.

Haste gloves would have been way useful. I guess we have to stick with Vaal Caress and her Onslaught for 10 seconds when using Vaal Gem.

non-shield shield... I always like the idea of "shield-that-is-not-exactly-here" as to promote a playstyle with single wield and free off-hand. I prefer however how Oni-Goroshi, White Wind and Grim Dawn's concept of "off-hand" item achieved that goal, instead of Titan Quest's Phantom Protection or whatever the name of that shield made of shadows. That said, we already have a no-weapon weapon (Advancing Fortress) and we had some attempts on non-shield shields with Kongming, Mistwall and that new Shield that explodes on block and gives you offensive power in the meanwhile. I would really like however a Shield that when equipped it is not considered like wielding a shield.

Stealth-based hood... I think I've read it before in the forum. A hood that hides your character so that enemies won't notice it if they don't stand around too much or until fought. Pretty sure it sparks from other Hack'n'Slash games where you just wish you could reach a certain region or ending a certain quest without stopping to fight or taunting enemies to cast an immobilizing spell on you. While it would previous have been shunned in PoE because "It's RPG, smash smash kill kill"-mindset, I guess in Heist it would have been way too much useful. But... no, let's completely remove alert from killing guards. Easier.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

And now, to me, it seems like she has always been embedded in some particularly unfortunate incarnation of Hillock, just waiting for the right person to come along and know her...love.

I don't know about the original Charan sword, but I know a bit about Hillock. If I have to say, I can feel some sympathy about him - many people just stop at the Exile letter and know him as a blacksmith raper that just stuck with an Oni-Goroshi on his heart and kept bashing those unfortunate enough to drown in Wraeclast's coast, but I don't think he was actually mistreating her. Talking with Syndicate Hillock we can see how, despite his very primitive mind, he took his blacksmith work at heart ("Treat them good, ok?" says when he drops items as a Bargain option, after a long chat about how much care he took in keeping those items safe and sound).

I don't know your vision of Hillock, but for the Uber Hillock, lifting the veil of primitive violence, I can see a man that is literally using his body as a shield for his most precious creations (or what he thinks it is) as an act of ultimate care and love... while the item feels offended because he is not doing her bidding.

... I am actually impressed I've said those things. I guess I am starting to win some of my inner fights to get my empathy back.

"

crunkatog wrote:

The game could use more of that to be fair. Jack the Axe and other "gimmick possessed weps" can't do all the heavy lifting.

Agreed. Talking equipments are always nice, expecially in order to keep a bit fresh something year-long players come to find extremely tedious - reaching endgame. Even then, having something else to keep you company during your slaughterer dreamscapes, deep delving, careful heists and so on is always cool, even when it gets stale

"

crunkatog wrote:

Fractal Thoughts would have been great if it actually squeezed your head so small that it looked like a thimble. Or rickrolled you from time to time. It's a great helmet with super utility but it's just kinda bleh storywise

It was born way before Delirium, when Tangmazu was as much important as Ahorongui or some other background Karui god, I won't blame them. However I would have indeed liked it to be an item with some extra effects in Delirium, now that Tangmazu has risen to the status of Secondary Character

"

crunkatog wrote:

Or some item that when you wear it, it paints the world in cheery pastel tones

As a person afflicted with something-that-is-not-exactly-daltonism-but-it-is-very-close-to-it (difficult in naming and recognizing shades of color), I would vouche for something that give you, if not the full cartoon-ish graphic, at the very least the same color palette you have in Fungal Growth. I love how, in there, the red is RED and the blue is BLUE and... well, I think I am clear enough

"

crunkatog wrote:

Or maybe a predator visor that grants infrared rendering so everything is a galaxy of tender beating hearts and heat signatures and motion artifacts. All other textures and surfaces are nearly invisible, like a flat gray or an intaglio print. You only know the saws and spikes are there because someone or something has anointed them with their blood recently enough for your heat sensors to pick it up.

Seems very nice as a concept, not to mention the complete unload of graphics is a lot Potato of Exile and indeed helps with performances in low-ending games. Sometimes I get back in a map and the game is still loading all of the map's skin, so for some steps I am just walking into a black rendering floor surrounded by black rendering walls. It feels so smooth...

"

Maxtrux wrote:

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

(I had a naginata-like staff, a pair of haste gloves, a non-shield shield and a stealth-based hood in the works at one point)

I remember one 2004 game that had a type of "Naginata-like staff". As a matter of fact, it had 2 different versions which were meant to be wielded by 2 different character. There was always a main concept of a big stick with a side ending with a blade and another ending with a magic gem. The version which was meant to be used by the mage had a way more ornate "magic gem" ending while reducing the blade part to basically a stiletto, while the other version for a war angel had a blade very much akin to a naginata while having a way more modest "magic gem" ending. It was meant to reflect how they used that staff - the mage used it for magic and occasionally bashing since he had a small training in martial combat, while the war angel was a powerful warrior which imbued her attacks with magic and divine powers. I always liked that kind of weapon and I have come to use a similiar weapon with a character I have in my mind and that grew with me since I was 8. Only the blade part now ends with a curious set of blades meant to be used for gardening purpose. For... the purpose of my inner history.

Well, what I had in mind was something that almost certainly by now would have been outdated and rendered pointless, so I'm glad I didn't do it. I was going to have a recipe where you combined Searing Touch and Mightflay to create a naginata with a flaming edge. I mean, at the time, there were far fewer uniques and people always seemed to have a surplus of these two. I was going to call it Brother Raven's Calling, a pretty obscure reference to a show the GF and I really like called Survivorman -- sort of a Canadian mixture of Man vs Wild and National Geographic. The survivor/cameraman was constantly making tools out of whatever shit he could find. More than once he sacrificed one of his cameras, in fact.

But another thing changed that made me less eager to do this: the Shadow's staff attack animation went from badass to utterly fucking lame. He used to hold the staff one-handed and back-hand, sort of like a Shaolin monk. And his attack was equally stylish. Now he just holds it like someone who's only just discovered long sticks. It's super sad.

Anyway, that never happened but we did talk about it a fair bit. One of the devs did quite a lot of game-related research. I was duly impressed.

"

Maxtrux wrote:

Haste gloves would have been way useful. I guess we have to stick with Vaal Caress and her Onslaught for 10 seconds when using Vaal Gem.

My bad, it was a belt. I wanted to create a PoE version of the iconic Everquest 1 Haste item 'Flowing Black Silk Sash' (FBSS), which people camped long and hard to acquire (at one point, the queue to kill the mob that dropped it was a week long on our EQ server). It was to be another of those low level uniques that doesn't do much but does one thing well. That one made it as far as concept art and everything. I regret not completing it.

"

Maxtrux wrote:

non-shield shield... I always like the idea of "shield-that-is-not-exactly-here" as to promote a playstyle with single wield and free off-hand. I prefer however how Oni-Goroshi, White Wind and Grim Dawn's concept of "off-hand" item achieved that goal, instead of Titan Quest's Phantom Protection or whatever the name of that shield made of shadows. That said, we already have a no-weapon weapon (Advancing Fortress) and we had some attempts on non-shield shields with Kongming, Mistwall and that new Shield that explodes on block and gives you offensive power in the meanwhile. I would really like however a Shield that when equipped it is not considered like wielding a shield.

So way back in closed beta, we had an offhand base that granted energy shield, evasion and attack speed. It was called the Roped Bundle, and the current Spiked Bundle replaced it. Once I learned it was being removed, I created a unique that disabled the off-hand BUT had the Roped Bundle built in. This is why The Goddess Bound has that nominal amount of evasion and significant attack speed. I just found this post from 2013 I made on the matter:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/244680/page/1#p2096101

Glad to see I wasn't misremembering. I mean, it's been a long time. Basically I am a huge fan of one-handed swordplay and leaving the off-hand free for other purposes -- spell-slinging, grappling, balance, whatever. Now and then a game comes along that actually rewards you for leaving the off-hand empty, but PoE wasn't one such game. So the disabling of the off-hand wasn't meant to be a drawback so much as a shift in power. There is absolutely no way any of the Goddess swords could be normal one-handers.

So I was probably thinking of some sort of gauntlet for the off-hand. maybe a shield, maybe a claw. Sometimes when I wanted to simulate one-handed swordplay I'd equip a sword in the left hand and a claw in the right, skin the knuckle duster type onto the claw and use whatever skills would still work with the sword in the off-hand. Infernal Blow was particularly good for this, but I believe that utility was patched out at some point. Anyway, with a claw equipped the attacks look a bit like empty-handed pugilism supplementing the sword attacks.

Fun fact about Kongming's Stratagem. I'm fairly good friends with the guy who designed it (he got me onto the TV show that inspired the item, Three Kingdoms, although like most gamers I was already familiar with the setting and some of the characters) and he sat on his item design opportunity for years. I'm not sure where his item stands in the meta these days, but I always thought it was super cool that he put Zhuge Liang's fan into the game and designed it to simulate the famous fire attack used at the battle of Red Cliff.

"

Maxtrux wrote:

Stealth-based hood... I think I've read it before in the forum. A hood that hides your character so that enemies won't notice it if they don't stand around too much or until fought. Pretty sure it sparks from other Hack'n'Slash games where you just wish you could reach a certain region or ending a certain quest without stopping to fight or taunting enemies to cast an immobilizing spell on you. While it would previous have been shunned in PoE because "It's RPG, smash smash kill kill"-mindset, I guess in Heist it would have been way too much useful. But... no, let's completely remove alert from killing guards. Easier.

I was thinking an evolution of the infamous D1 item Gotterdamerung, which, true to its name, reduced your light radius and thus made you much less of a threat. Sneaking around with Gotterdamerung and a bow in D1 was especially fun, since you could snipe unaware monsters. It was a nice bit of vengeance after being the biggest, brightest target in the the depths of Hell.

Ultimately I wanted to create a sort of Assassin playstyle, a real one rather than just loads of crits for no discernible reason. A character that could flit around groups of mobs, only alerting them once he or she got so close it was too late. Probably massive damage buffs for reduced light radius, life regen, other defensive measures. I was mucking around with a smoke mine Assassin at the time (using the aforementioned Infernal Blow trick to seem left-handed, since he was based off possibly the first ever assassin, the biblical Ehud ben-Gera, who was famously a leftie), so I guess that's part of where I got the notion from. I think I was also rocking Demon's Souls around then too, which also rewards a sneaky playstyle.

But the more I thought about it, the less plausible it was in PoE. This was one of those 'this might be cool in a different game, but in this one it'd be really pointless' ideas. Mainly because there's so little incentive to play that style when you can just blast shit from afar.

"

Maxtrux wrote:

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

And now, to me, it seems like she has always been embedded in some particularly unfortunate incarnation of Hillock, just waiting for the right person to come along and know her...love.

I don't know about the original Charan sword, but I know a bit about Hillock. If I have to say, I can feel some sympathy about him - many people just stop at the Exile letter and know him as a blacksmith raper that just stuck with an Oni-Goroshi on his heart and kept bashing those unfortunate enough to drown in Wraeclast's coast, but I don't think he was actually mistreating her. Talking with Syndicate Hillock we can see how, despite his very primitive mind, he took his blacksmith work at heart ("Treat them good, ok?" says when he drops items as a Bargain option, after a long chat about how much care he took in keeping those items safe and sound).

I don't know your vision of Hillock, but for the Uber Hillock, lifting the veil of primitive violence, I can see a man that is literally using his body as a shield for his most precious creations (or what he thinks it is) as an act of ultimate care and love... while the item feels offended because he is not doing her bidding.

... I am actually impressed I've said those things. I guess I am starting to win some of my inner fights to get my empathy back.

What an interesting interpretation! I always figured that by the time she got stuck in Hillock, he'd lost all reason and couldn't hear her voice. I think the only time he pulls the sword out of his chest is when the Exile finds him, because it's the only time he feels the need to. He clearly rules the Twilight Strand as the biggest zombie of the lot, and has no need to resort to the weapon stuck in him. And for the vast majority of his versions, that's just another rusty bit of iron. But for the so-called Uber Hillock, it's something else. You're sort of granting zombie Hillock some residual awareness of his former life as a blacksmith, whereas I think the only reminder there is of that is the collection of blades stuck into him.

And since Betrayal came after the sword's implementation, I really couldn't see the idea of a coherent, even intelligent Hillock coming. I never really dug into the lore that deep but it is interesting that whoever raised him as a champion for the Syndicate managed to do so with his sentience intact. We should all be thankful that the Immortal Syndicate version of Hillock never got his hands on Oni-Goroshi. Which makes me think that whoever was wielding her last died to his zombie form...hm. Well, there have been plenty between the first and the latest, but for some reason she treats them all the same, as though she doesn't believe people ever change, when the truth is the unchanging one is her.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

I was going to have a recipe where you combined Searing Touch and Mightflay to create a naginata with a flaming edge.

Basically a precursor of Kingmaker and Duskdawn. I would not dislike more "two become on" uniques like that.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

I mean, at the time, there were far fewer uniques and people always seemed to have a surplus of these two. I was going to call it Brother Raven's Calling, a pretty obscure reference to a show the GF and I really like called Survivorman -- sort of a Canadian mixture of Man vs Wild and National Geographic. The survivor/cameraman was constantly making tools out of whatever shit he could find. More than once he sacrificed one of his cameras, in fact.

Scrapping items in order for survival is the basic rule on Wraeclast, though the result of scrapping is not exactly intuitive and, instead, we have the orb bargain. The idea of turning surplus into something different or useful is however really nice. Nice enough, in fact, for a league based on that, which the community would eventually dub "Fallout league" or something.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

My bad, it was a belt. I wanted to create a PoE version of the iconic Everquest 1 Haste item 'Flowing Black Silk Sash' (FBSS), which people camped long and hard to acquire (at one point, the queue to kill the mob that dropped it was a week long on our EQ server). It was to be another of those low level uniques that doesn't do much but does one thing well. That one made it as far as concept art and everything. I regret not completing it.

Hmm... Don't know Everquest, but it seems the "only" things that do is "Haste 21%". Combining this effect and also its graphic... it really looks similiar to The Flow Untethered Harbinger belt. Main diffeence is having the Harbinger floating around to give you the actual Action Speed boost.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

So I was probably thinking of some sort of gauntlet for the off-hand. maybe a shield, maybe a claw. Sometimes when I wanted to simulate one-handed swordplay I'd equip a sword in the left hand and a claw in the right, skin the knuckle duster type onto the claw and use whatever skills would still work with the sword in the off-hand. Infernal Blow was particularly good for this, but I believe that utility was patched out at some point. Anyway, with a claw equipped the attacks look a bit like empty-handed pugilism supplementing the sword attacks.

So I guess Advancing Fortress was an half-hearted attempt to create this "no-shield shield", although a Sacrificial Garb-like "shield" does indeed seem a better choice. A shame what they did to dual wielding - the fact you cannot use anymore skills that would work with both weapon kills this style at birth

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

I was thinking an evolution of the infamous D1 item Gotterdamerung, which, true to its name, reduced your light radius and thus made you much less of a threat. Sneaking around with Gotterdamerung and a bow in D1 was especially fun, since you could snipe unaware monsters. It was a nice bit of vengeance after being the biggest, brightest target in the the depths of Hell.

[...]

But the more I thought about it, the less plausible it was in PoE. This was one of those 'this might be cool in a different game, but in this one it'd be really pointless' ideas. Mainly because there's so little incentive to play that style when you can just blast shit from afar.

Yup, remember you talking about it on a thread about Gotterdamerung and how it could be used in a very clever way on Diablo. I also agree on your feeling about actual stealthy assassin / ninja style not being incentivized in this game. Apparently Assassins in Wraeclast are still one-shotting lethals but do not go stealth. After all, they won't notice you if you kill the offscreen, before they notice you...

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

What an interesting interpretation! [...]

Thank you!
I actually believe Hillock's weapons are mostly leftovers of some other Exiles unfortunate enough to kill him, so I've always assumed Oni-Goroshi was not something he had actually forged but, rather, something an Exile came with the first time (after all is a Lv1 Item) and could not find enough to kill the ruling zombie.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

And since Betrayal came after the sword's implementation, I really couldn't see the idea of a coherent, even intelligent Hillock coming. I never really dug into the lore that deep but it is interesting that whoever raised him as a champion for the Syndicate managed to do so with his sentience intact.

Mastermind's Horns of Kulemak raised back people from death as they were, so in the case of Hillock he would have been raised before being Exiled, probably drowning. That is also why he say "Why do you look so familiar?" to the character, because those memories in the Twilight's Strand were not restored. "But the imprint is always there - nothing is ever really forgotten", if I can paraphrase a certain song.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

but for some reason she treats them all the same, as though she doesn't believe people ever change, when the truth is the unchanging one is her.

A piece of metal will always be a piece of metal. Rusty, perhaps, maybe even shattered, but can only be reforged to be a piece of metal. Maybe reshaped as a plowharsh, maybe reshaped as a figurine... but metal will still be. I don't really blame The Goddess for her... stiff point of view on everything.

This is my 5th attempt in farming OG.

I got this sword 3 times so far (all SSF league) and one time i gave up.


Normally it dropped for me when my characters are lvl 7 and have 20-60% exp towards lvl 8.


But this time the RNG-sus is not with me.

Have already two of my four farmes at lvl 8 and not seen Uber Hillock yet not even MS boots on all characters or any useful weapons.

Maybe when all characters are lvl 8 (+20% exp towards lvl 9).

Will keep you updated.Good luck for all other sane OG farmers ;)

I got my third sword the other day at level 8.7; it has a terrible roll IIRC 8.5%, but that's Ok. I keep running my last scion a few times a day. That one has a tabula!

"

ChanBalam wrote:

I got my third sword the other day at level 8.7; it has a terrible roll IIRC 8.5%, but that's Ok. I keep running my last scion a few times a day. That one has a tabula!

At this point i will be pleased with any shite rolled OG ;)

Btw all my OG farm characters are now lvl 8. I will end this attempt when all are at 30% towards lvl 9.

I suspect GGG has made it less likely to spawn U-Hillock to fight bot farmers, so legit players are competing with scripts, which is not good ;)

"

gandhar0 wrote:

"

ChanBalam wrote:

I got my third sword the other day at level 8.7; it has a terrible roll IIRC 8.5%, but that's Ok. I keep running my last scion a few times a day. That one has a tabula!

At this point i will be pleased with any shite rolled OG ;)

Btw all my OG farm characters are now lvl 8. I will end this attempt when all are at 30% towards lvl 9.

I suspect GGG has made it less likely to spawn U-Hillock to fight bot farmers, so legit players are competing with scripts, which is not good ;)

I wish you luck. If you stop your farming before you get one sword. Let me know. :)

"

gandhar0 wrote:

"

ChanBalam wrote:

I got my third sword the other day at level 8.7; it has a terrible roll IIRC 8.5%, but that's Ok. I keep running my last scion a few times a day. That one has a tabula!

At this point i will be pleased with any shite rolled OG ;)

Btw all my OG farm characters are now lvl 8. I will end this attempt when all are at 30% towards lvl 9.

I suspect GGG has made it less likely to spawn U-Hillock to fight bot farmers, so legit players are competing with scripts, which is not good ;)

Do you legitimately think bot farmers are going to waste all that time to get what is, I believe, a 1 exalt unique? I mean, I'm touched if so, but I just don't see it as particularly lucrative.

As for shite rolls, I made sure to lock the really important stats away from RNG shenanigans (the added fire damage, the added damage per level). You're welcome. :P

my m8 and I waited until this week to start our league. He's thinking of rolling a melee dork and so I've been lowkey farming three peons for this as a surprise.

First time for everything I guess. Wish me luck. I certainly wouldn't bother if it was for myself - I usually level with claws for that shit. But it's been a geologic age since any one of us ran a melee (that wasn't spinning to proc something else) that I feel it's a special occasion.