How do I play multiplayer with friends in the end game?

Myself and a friend have levelled up to doing maps and it quickly became obvious that it was not going to last. 2 Major design flaws are going to stop us playing multiplayer, he is going to leave and I will continue solo.

Hopefully someone here can help and rescue this situation:

Issue 1: visibility. We keep dying since we cannot see things on the ground. Our spells and effects fill the screen with visual noise, even with everything turned down. Most bosses do not telegraph any big attacks so you cannot even just run away if you knew it was coming. Is there some kind of solution to this really poor design decision?

Issue 2: map portals. The game actively penalises you for playing maps multiplayer. You have 6 portals and each gets used up by 1 player, making it only 3 portals. Why? How do 4 people play maps? Is there some kind of item, map upgrade, SOMETHING that can help us overcome this, yet another, stupid design decision?

Issue 1: Bosses and monsters are a bit better at telegraphing their attacks. Though, indeed, all of the fireworks from your skill, enemy skill, minion skill, ground effect and the BLOOM will make everything way clunkier. You ask for something that clears the ground from visual effects, GGG answers with Delirium Mist that covers that ground in laggy mist that conceals exploding corpses and other dangerous things.

Lower graphic setting may ease your life a bit, but don't expect too much. Personally, I'd just wish they could let me disable Shadows like they allowed back in DirectX 9. Game was WAY faster back then.

Issue 2: A party can be at maximum of 6 people because there are 6 portals for any map. You are expected to do everything on one single gulp, OR use the other 5 portals for extra attempts/looting. It is very rare the game allows you multiple attempts at a certain challenge - even Harvest does not allow you to fight the Heart in your Hideout's Sacred Grove, albeit it could totally allow you to.

You can face the problem by improving your characters not to die (or die rarely).
We can help you with character if you open your profile (set as private currently).

The basic rules are
- minimum 4K life, 5K+ for melee (close range fighters)
- capped elemental resistances
- positive chaos resistance (probably not priority but still a thing)
- main attack in 5 link with proper supports (4 -link might work too eventually)
- the rest of your slots filled with useful utility gems (auras, curse, guard skills etc.)
- flask with useful mods (at least bleed / freeze imunity)

Took me a while but I found the setting, I think it is public now.

I have checked your Chieftain a bit and it looks quite solid at first look but you can make some easy upgrades.
Btw what content are you playing with your friend? (map tier?*)
* specific map mods can also make bosses more dangerous

tips:

- first of all cap your elemental resistances
- 4256 life is rather low so try to improve it
you have some rare gear without life rolls

- get better weapon -- with high spell or fire damage and lots of crit spells / cast speed etc

- improve your flasks and learn how to use them effectively
Use 1-2 life flasks and the rest should be some utility flasks with useful mods.
There are some dangerous ailments you need to deal with (bleed, freeze,..) and curses.


- Diamond flask will help you to improve your low chance to score a crit.
- You have some gems not linked
- Arcane surge doesn´t work with Blood magic keystone same for WoC unless you link it with trap support.

- you can use smth like Storm Brand linked with curse on hit + flammability + PCoC (Power charge on crit) to apply both curse and getting Power charges at once (just lay a SB and get benefit)

- Add some form of avoidance later on --- it could be block bcos you are close to Glancing blows -- it will double your chance to block (you can improve it by getting more block from gear or tree - Rumi´s flask, Arcane Guarding, Sanctuary etc.)
- reaching 75% cap is quite easy with GB keystone*
*just shield + Rumi´s flask will cap your block (so you just need a bit of
extra spell block).

You need also more experience with endgame (what to dodge, how to use your flasks more effectively, boss mechanics etc).

Thank you so much for your advice! I will get started and work down your list. Just one question about the weapon: I thought the elemental dmg and other modifiers on the unique were almost too good to drop. What would I have to look for on a weapon that will be an upgrade? I mean what number ranges for those mods you mentioned should I look for?

"

boerewors wrote:

Thank you so much for your advice! I will get started and work down your list. Just one question about the weapon: I thought the elemental dmg and other modifiers on the unique were almost too good to drop. What would I have to look for on a weapon that will be an upgrade? I mean what number ranges for those mods you mentioned should I look for?

We can take a look at your scepter:

Let say you have around 400 Strength
which means
50% increased damage (it´s global but doesn´t matter)
32% increased elemental damage (implicit mod on scepter)
= 82% increased damage (both ele and global damage works with spells)
+
17% increased cast speed

so any item with better stats will beat it but things are a bit more complicated bcos of other stats such as crit chance for spells or crit damage etc.

I can recommend to use Path of building planner for such tasks.

You should be looking for smth like
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Harvest/EozpVOBT5
depending on your budget … or you can farm / craft smth eventually (it takes more time)

Late endgame looks like this
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Harvest/mZ9aBKaC6

You can also get an inspiration about gear from poe.ninja
https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds?skill=Holy-Flame-Totem&sort=dps
Just note that some gear might be build specific / very expensive

There needs to be a way to turn down spell and minion effects like in Diablo 3. Not sure why this isn't implemented in POE considering how much screen clutter this game is designed around.

"

SummonerOfMinions wrote:

There needs to be a way to turn down spell and minion effects like in Diablo 3. Not sure why this isn't implemented in POE considering how much screen clutter this game is designed around.

on screen effects should be gradually lowered with every additional member in a party.