Leveling new characters is unbearable aids - rant

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

The OP is not entirely wrong. I blame 2 things - invulnerability phases on bosses and how hilariously different the uber lab experience is between certain builds.

This ^

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

Idk about the armor thing fruz, but if you try building a character the way I did you'll see the damage difference. The poison and hit parts should be roughly equal but aren't. You just end up not doing any damage.

And yes I did hate leveling my vs char, and I died a lot leveling my flicker char, that's what this whole thread is about fruz.

Btw I just modified my build last night to include some small es on hit and switched over to dot build, its still shit because it's a name lock melee and the move skills in this game are trash enough to make it aids to play vs. Still doesn't die though, and I did a couple alched red maps with no problems, despite having 2 damage mods and no regen mod (all I had to change was turn clarity off and had to hit my mana flask once).

The build as I have it is still mega tanky and probably still better with kintsugi than lc, only thing I wonder is if hyrris ire would be better.

Regardless until name lock melee is less cancerous to play as vs will always be shit.

Well, poison is supposed to scale better than hits with viper strike very quickly ( given you have some AS of course ), and that's something that you can notice on beefier targets of course, so that alone makes a difference. Wither totems amplifies that.

I know that it's what this thread was about, I was merely pointing out the fact that you used the viper strike example to illustrate your claim/rant, and of course it's your experience with this character that we've been talking about.

You should have gottend es on hit as soon as you took ghost dance imo, at least one part would be up very often, or often enough.
I mean, such a setup is likely pretty good against single tragets, including most bosses, but I don't believe at all that many big, dense packs would let you use thoses bonuses from ghost dance. And I mean, quickly enough too, where you can actually just "jump" to the pack and dps it down without too much troubles.
If you'd try going into an incursion with some pack size for example, I reckon you'd see very quickly that it's not enough with very low ES buffer, just acro, kinsugi and a flask.
I've also been playing HC recently, so what I consider tanky is likely slightly different from what you consider tanky at the moment.


Namelock melee will never be good to clear packs of monsters, it hasn't been designed for it in the first place and the game is not going to become significantly slower / less dense with monsters anytime soon imho.
Viper Strike => single target.

"

AndromedaDelux wrote:

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

The OP is not entirely wrong. I blame 2 things - invulnerability phases on bosses and how hilariously different the uber lab experience is between certain builds.

This ^

For the uber lab, I kind of agree altho it's definitely accessible for all builds. Some just have it easier than others, like many other things in this game ( have a boss killer that clears slowly ? well that's a really different experience from a build that skip bosses and cleans the screen in a second or two ).

I actually did all lab on a pure evasion char ( before I had coil ) this league, and it was quite fine.
You just need enough dps and mobility to kill Izaro "comfortably", basically.

"

AndromedaDelux wrote:

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

The OP is not entirely wrong. I blame 2 things - invulnerability phases on bosses and how hilariously different the uber lab experience is between certain builds.

This ^

- invulnerability sucks, i think so too
- lab is fine. you can make different chars for different purposes.

"

Fruz wrote:

You should have gottend es on hit as soon as you took ghost dance imo, at least one part would be up very often, or often enough.
I mean, such a setup is likely pretty good against single tragets, including most bosses, but I don't believe at all that many big, dense packs would let you use thoses bonuses from ghost dance. And I mean, quickly enough too, where you can actually just "jump" to the pack and dps it down without too much troubles.
If you'd try going into an incursion with some pack size for example, I reckon you'd see very quickly that it's not enough with very low ES buffer, just acro, kinsugi and a flask.
I've also been playing HC recently, so what I consider tanky is likely slightly different from what you consider tanky at the moment.

Namelock melee will never be good to clear packs of monsters, it hasn't been designed for it in the first place and the game is not going to become significantly slower / less dense with monsters anytime soon imho.
Viper Strike => single target.

Yes I actually was planning to do ghost reaver and get some LGoH but melee just feels too bad compared to everything else I can build that I didn't feel like continuing the build. It was never intended to have all those ES bonuses without any ES regen or leech. It was intended to have more ES (despite acrobatics taking some). Every single season I make a VS character as my 2nd toon with the hope that some unique or new change will make VS useful and every season I get disappointed and quit before the character is fully completed, so it ends up being non-complete.

The build does do very well in incursions, abyss, and elder maps though. It's a lot tankier than you think. I might not do incursions with double damage mods or something but should be ok there as well. The main defensive chain comes from kintsugi + escape artist (28% less damage first hit), then the hit triggering kintsugi also triggers CWDT enfeeble, the blind flask keeps melee from hitting and the life leech sustains well. It also has about 50% evasion in red maps (higher with better gear) and generally capped dodge/spell dodge. Nothing ever hits you for full damage really (if at all) and the life pool (which would eventually be about 5k + ideally 1650+ mana) is large enough and the leech is high enough to tank almost anything.
If you don't believe in the tankiness of this build try it out yourself. Kintsugi isn't HC material IMO but it's still underrated. This build isn't HC only because it is forced to tank damage as a dot melee (unlike a ranged/caster build) but is practically/basically unkillable.

As for HC yes, I did used to play HC exclusively before and I know how HC is, I would absolutely never play a VS character on HC even if it was a vastly superior build to the one I'm using. VS is in my opinion just not an HC-viable skill. I'm sure it's possible but the pain of doing it isn't worth the fun. I play SC mostly now though because I just don't feel like putting the extra time into the game that HC requires. I've gone casual - too many things I could be doing IRL to spend the time HC demands.

I hate playing through the new acts and prefer the old way for sure. I get why it is "better" to have 10 different ones with only one play through. It is aids, ebola etc to play through multiple times for me though. Wish they would give some more grinding option, like endless ledge or whatever. I hate boss fights with invulnerability phases. I don't like having quest items in my inventory.

Of course you would mostly get "git guud" posts with a thread like this.
Don't know if it's insecure people, people who hate that you "attack" what they love (poe) by being critical, or a mix of the two. Also people liking getting together and being right against somebody who is clearly wrong according to most who will enter the discussion.

For me it is not a question of difficulty, especially now with all the leveling items. It's just tedious and annoying. In my case I've probably played too much and gotten tired of the game. Maybe it would be the same now if we had the old way back.
I would like an alternative way of leveling new characters (get why the first one of a league would go through the grind). Also would like a way to not have to level masters and such as much. It's just incredibly boring. For somebody who likes to do that and make currency, they would be against this complaint and rightfully so. But to me it sucks. Maybe after 2 weeks the xp from standard could be moved over to the league so you would still get a benefit from leveling them quickly. Same with lab trials.


Lab has gotten better with normal, cruel and merciless being so short. That's something positive.

"

fesru wrote:

Of course you would mostly get "git guud" posts with a thread like this.
Don't know if it's insecure people, people who hate that you "attack" what they love (poe) by being critical, or a mix of the two.

...

For somebody who likes to do that and make currency, they would be against this complaint and rightfully so.

You pretty much said it yourself. For the small percentage of people who can actually tolerate lab and are used to making lab farming builds, this content is very easy for them and thus becomes a currency farm. GGG doesn't want to recognize that this is bad for the game, but having progression gated behind content that a large percentage of the population doesn't want to do IS bad for the game.

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

[...]

Ranged mobs are more my concern tbh, especially the vaal constructs in some incursions.
This and ... well, spells of course.
"capped spell dodge" ? Oo I mean, 50% when you have a ES .... that's not enough to dodge most spells and allow your ES to recharge often. With high AS and ES on hit though, I guess you should be able to get it to 50% most of the time, as long as you can keep hitting that is.

"

fesru wrote:

[...]

Wow, seems like somebody who can't be bothered to actually play the game and would rather pick a fotm skill and faceroll content over and over.
It's honestly what this post of yours reflects, imo.

Maybe if the game was just like an endless ledge from the start, you would have been bored after 2 months and not be there today.

"

Fruz wrote:

"

fesru wrote:

[...]

Wow, seems like somebody who can't be bothered to actually play the game and would rather pick a fotm skill and faceroll content over and over.
It's honestly what this post of yours reflects, imo.

Maybe if the game was just like an endless ledge from the start, you would have been bored after 2 months and not be there today.

Maybe you are right, but I don't think so.
I think people have different ways of "actually playing the game" and that is fine and natural.

It kinda was like an endless ledge for me back with the 3 difficulties.
Leap/run/whirl through most of it, stay in dried lake and other dense zones to level a bit.
Again, people like different things you know.

Going through the 10 acts is a tedious chore to me. That doesn't mean I don't think you are playing the game if you enjoy it.

"

Slaanesh69 wrote:

I will agree with OP in that I am not the biggest fan of the 3.0 expansion and, in hindsight, preferred the 3 x 4 Act runs rather than Acts 5-10.

I am going to go out on a limb and say I have done the entire grind through the acts some 30+ times, and it is only now with the new acts that I actually dread restarting.

I thought I was the only one. Clearing acts 1-4 equals to less than 30% of story mode completed, simply because every instance after a4 is fucking LOOOOOONG in comparison. It's painfully obvious that everything after a4 is made for speed meta, permanent qs and a minimum base ms of 30%.

Since this is now the unofficial VS thread :), I figured I'd update my progress with my viper strike ascendant (Jugg / Slayer) and ask for thoughts about how to move forward. She's on my playing account (my posting account is EnjoyTheJourney).

I have a general question about how sturdy / effective she's likely to turn out to be. Specific questions I have revolve mostly around what support gems make the most sense. I'm considering bloodlust for my single target setup because the totem and the AOE VS setup will be triggering bleed on a regular basis. I'm also weighing swift affliction and deadly ailments. I'm also wondering when to take Acro / Pacro; should I only take it after taking all life nodes, or earlier?

Edit: A10 Kitava went down this evening pretty easily and fairly quickly, with no deaths, mostly because of good mitigation / sustain that allowed for a high percentage of time to be spent swinging away. Very pleased with how that fight went.

------------------------------------------

I had zero confidence that I'd be able to get her even to maps without dying, as I planned to level her with viper strike. So, I made her in the SSF Incursion league (not hardcore) and I've been relying on viper strike since getting melee splash early in Act 1. She hasn't been leveling fast, but that's perhaps mostly because weapon RNG has been mostly just horrid, even by my usual SSF experiences. But, surprisingly she took down A10 Kitava this evening after a deathless run through the first 10 acts.

She has just under 4.4 hit points at level 70, 1.1K-ish armour (this is disappointingly low, but RNG has not been very kind for efforts to build up defenses), 2400-ish evasion, -30 chaos resist, and all elemental resists above 100 at the moment.

She runs arctic armor and temp chains + blasphemy for auras. She runs 4 end charges, gets CWDT triggered for about 3 seconds of phys immunity when at full end charges, and then builds up her end charges again while phys immune. She has a 5-link single target VS setup and a 4-link AOE VS setup with melee splash.

She drops a totem against harder targets to help with attack speed and damage, plus she usually has a stone golem following her around; with her golem she has about 340 life regen per second.

I dropped the dagger nodes from my passives planning and most of the crit nodes to emphasize attack speed and more "ailment" damage, along with getting a bigger life pool. I didn't realize until doing a bit of research that ailment crit multipliers aren't in synch with usual damage crit multipliers, which dampened my enthusiasm for building up crit in an earlier planned build.


Passives plan (revised from earlier, after much tinkering):



Her current passives are as follows (passives from A10 Kitava fight not yet allocated):



Her gear is as follows: