Perspective Shift from a Second Leaguer ft. another 100 Uber Sirus (no Loot Breakdown)

For some reason, the moderators of r/pathofexile believe my post is better off being removed before it sees the light after two days of awaiting approval. It's a long post for sure, but there is nothing controversial or contentious, just some organic experience coming from a second leaguer as well some of my thoughts on how to fight Uber Sirus.

Original Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1eyezus/perspective_shift_from_a_second_leaguer_ft/

The rest is all from my original post.


Warning: lots of babbling.

TLDR: Stop fomoing and complaining, and actually try getting better at this game. As counterintuitive as it might sound, getting better at the game takes significantly less time and effort than farming hundreds of divs, and it benefits you tremendously in the long run as you probably won't ever need mirror-tier items or T0s anymore to enjoy or beat everything in the game.

Now I know some of you might already have a lot to say about this TLDR, but just hear me out for a second.

Last league as a first leaguer, I indulged myself in all sorts of ridiculously profitable (and braindead) farming starts in T17. I didn't craft a single piece of gear for any of my chars cauz graveyard crafting makes 6 T1 items so accessible on trade and every upgrade is only a couple of curation scarabs away from me. It started getting quite boring and then I decided to kill Uber Sirus 100 times with a str stacking Reave Jugg https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1dn6p3i/loot_from_100_uber_sirus/. My DPS (300+ mil fully buffed) was high enough that other than getting back under him after the storm, I didn't even get to see any mechanics, let alone do them. On very rare occasions where I did encounter the mechanics, I just willingly died without much resistance. I never even cared enough to figure out how to beat him by completing the mechanics since I got 6 portals. Or I just slapped on a newly purchased 100-div watcher's eye for another 5% more DPS, hoping I'd never have to see the mechanics that killed me again. Guess what? My approach to the game turned arguably the most epic boss fight in POE, well according to Sirus himself, truly "boring and small."

However, watching streamers like Alk and Ben play this league really opened my eyes and changed me completely. I try to hold myself to HC/SSF standard even though I'm obviously not skilled and knowledgeable enough about the game yet. But even the mere attempt and effort have been well worth it since I've learned soooo much more than last league. I turned off global (later switched to global 773 for some wholesomeness), rolled my maps carefully to avoid any unnecessarily rippy mods (ran out of scouring quite a few times), focused on farming what I might actually use (frac orbs, veiled orbs, etc), and spent a considerable amount of currency drops crafting my gear, using them how they're intended. I rolled my two clusters with every means possible: harvest reforge, fossils, alt/chaos spam, yet they still cost significantly less than the market price of 20 div each, and it was so satisfying when they hit (credit to my wife for exalt slamming one for me). On top of that, the biggest revelation to me is how much more enjoyable the game could be once the idea of div/hr is purged from my mind. Right now, I genuinely feel like everything is fairly rewarding since there's always at least one mechanic offering the specific things I need. Another big change thanks to this mindset shift is how I've become more capable of distinguishing good and bad builds, along with good and bad build-makers. It has now become second nature to tick off guard skills, inconsistent buffs in config, and utility flasks every time I import a build into pob to get a better sense. And I try to stay away from self-proclaimed build makers who don't know what they are doing.

Now here comes another 100 Uber Sirus. I'm borrowing Alk's concept and using a petrified blood Dual Strike of Ambidex Jugg. Except for an impale Paradoxica that I bought for 90c and a meh watcher's eye that isn't even much better than a base jewel, all gears are rare-quality and nowhere near gg-level (in fact, my claw, amulet, and one of the rings only have 5 mods...). It has only a small fraction (probably not even 10%) of my previous str stacking Jugg's DPS and is a pure melee strike build with abysmal attack range and no AOE/projectile. I think it's easily the worst archetype against Sirus, but the build itself is strong regardless: suppression capped instead of relying on evasion/block, very solid max hits without padding ehp with Progenesis, decent enough damage to let me finish off Uber Sirus before the ground degen becomes cancerous. With that being said, my first few Uber Sirus attempts this league had been utterly frustrating, to say the least. Since I never paid much attention to any of his mechanics previously, everything killed me easily. Then I watched a few guides (I have to say it's absurd how few high-quality boss tutorials even exist compared to tens of thousands of div/hr videos for a game that's centered around killing monsters), studied all his moves listed on the wiki, and practiced what I've learned every time I stepped into another portal. It didn't even take an hour until I could sense I was visibly getting better at the fight. It took me about another hour to feel like I got most situations under control during the fight (I haven't had a chance to taste his "cheater bug" just yet...). And now I'm on a 17 deathless Uber Sirus streak that I hope to extend even further. Then I'll probably start practicing other tough uber fights, especially uber maven and exarch.

If you're interested in loot, sorry I didn't count this time as I no longer care. I think drop rates are pretty much the same so you might as well just refer to the post I made last league.

However, instead of a loot breakdown, I want to give my two cents on how to beat Uber Sirus using a melee build without giga damage.


Uber Sirus Dealthless doing (almost?) all mechanics with wrong flasks cauz I'm dumb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GwEmOh67BE


Pob of my Dual Strike Jugg (at the time of filming):
https://pobb.in/J867IZua0Dgq
Molten shell and battlemage's cry ticked off, banner not planted, all flasks ticked off, should probably downgrade power & frenzy charges as well since they ain't always up without Ralakesh, should also prob have like 20 rages instead of 40 given how it ramps up/goes down. The point is that the DPS would only be lower in real-world scenarios than what's listed on pob.


Tips on fighting regular/uber Sirus for someone who also has a solid all-around (melee) build yet hates the idea of grinding div/hr strats for gg gear just to build a glass cannon so you don't have to see/do mechanics at all:

1. Play an actually decent build with reliable defensive layers. If you are still reading, I assume you hate dying even if you're playing SC and don't rely on some half-ass defenses that are either conditional or rng-based.

2. Corrupted blood immunity (I change my protection mastery from ele res cannot be lowered to corrupted blood cannot be inflicted for Sirus) and as much shock avoidance & reduced effect as possible, ideally complete immunity. Change Pantheons if needed. Just some really generic advice that people like to bring up whenever it comes to Sirus.

3. Be perfectly aware of what can and cannot kill you. You can do this by checking pob or try tanking every attack during the actual fight (I recommend the latter for hands-on learning is always the best and you can practice at the same time, luxury of SC). The only thing that can kill me is standing on ground degen, 3-loop maze meteor if my granite flask is not active and not on full time, and tanking shit ton of beams consecutively if I'm not leeching. Stay calm when taking non-fatal damage and focus more on avoiding things that would actually kill you.

4. Get the "gain x charge when you are hit" prefix on your flasks, ideally 3 charges, and intentionally take small hits, of which there are many sources during this fight as even the non-damaging shock waves from the between-phase storms can give you plenty. If you do it right, all of your utility flasks are almost always active when needed. In the video, I realized I forgot to enchant two of my newly crafted flasks and the diamond flask had the wrong prefix, but I managed to push it through (was still too nervous to hand press all flasks while filming).

5. Before running the maze, actually spend one second looking at where all the exits are, then start running. You'd have a much higher chance to survive by running the shortest route even with a couple of seconds delay than running blind and praying it's the correct route. Keep in mind that even without a quicksilver flask, you should still be able to outrun the 3-loop maze meterior with T2 movement speed boots most of the times as long as you pick the right path. For anybody who doesn't know, there are flares around these exits. It won't take more than a few deaths to start identifying these exits fairly quickly if you actively look for these flares during every maze run. Also, keep your cursor away from the outer ring of the maze once you get out so you don't accidentally walk into the maze again due to weird path-finding behavior.
The flares:
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Sirus,_Awakener_of_Worlds#/media/File:Sirus_Meteor_Maze.png

6. During the last phase, figuring out where Sirus teleports while avoiding ground degen should be your top priority. This not only boosts your survivability from knowing where the beam would come from but also lets you deal more damage since you can always start attacking right away after he shows up, especially if you're melee. There are visual and audio cues that give away which one of the clones is Sirus as well. Make sure you pay close attention to those cues,
As long as you know where he is, dodging the beams is extremely easy. What I personally do is stay as close to him as possible and literally walk around him so he can't aim at me, as shown in the video. In case you somehow lose track of him, use the dialog cues to decide when to dodge by getting out of the clone circle and dashing right after the first half of the his line.

7. Don't be greedy. There will be times when Sirus just happens to teleport to the center of a bunch of degen where it's tempting to blink to a supposedly safe spot to deal damage when such spot doesn't really exist. Just back up when it happens, and it's pretty likely that our good friend Sirus will follow you and teleport somewhere safer shortly after. I can't remember how many times I frostblink/whirling blade directly into those degen to close distance to learn my lesson.

8. Don't forget to activate blood rage every ten seconds. It's a one-on-one fight, so you can't extend blood rage's duration.

9. Don't forget to cull him when the time comes. The less damage you deal, the more important culling becomes, so make sure you use it at the right moment.


This is it. Just some long-ass random thoughts and a totally unorganized Uber sirus guide from a second leaguer who's truly enjoyed the game and the league so far.

A couple of months ago if someone told me I could enjoy and beat the game without any fomo or running mind-numbing currency strategies on sc trade, I'd probably just roll my eyes and get back to rolling barrel mods on T17s. But I think I finally understand what they are talking about, and I'm so glad I do now.

*Updated Pob after I made the post:
https://pobb.in/GogW1gGzKFT4
Failed a warlord exalt slam on my previous amethyst ring (ofc it was going to give me T1 fire damage to ignited monster like it did a week ago); Uber Sirus dropped me a warlord amethyst immediately after; reforged attack 10 times for the current one that gives me more DPS and capped chaos res. Also ignore the mageblood tab cauz I don't intend on getting one even if I can afford it.

Why was your reddit post removed?

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

Why was your reddit post removed?

I've no idea. The post's status was "awaiting moderators' approval" for about two days and then turned to "removed by moderators." Maybe my post breaks some rules?

I've played since open beta and you know way more than me. Kudos to you.

I mean your tl:dr at the top is "git gud" and nobody is going to read a single word past that if we're being honest.

*Redundant reply

"

DiabloImmoral wrote:

I mean your tl:dr at the top is "git gud" and nobody is going to read a single word past that if we're being honest.

I'll never understand why some people in this community are so allergic to the concept of getting good, to be honest. I've played lots of games that involve mechanical skills and game knowledge, but I've never seen a get-good allergy on such a scale to the point that people would rather do anything than get good. And they'd still complain about how hard/punishing/unrewarding this game is when it's really one of the easier games out there.

"

DiabloImmoral wrote:

I mean your tl:dr at the top is "git gud" and nobody is going to read a single word past that if we're being honest.

Pretty sound advice for about 99.99999% off the issues I see on this forum.

"

ballhog2016 wrote:

"

DiabloImmoral wrote:

I mean your tl:dr at the top is "git gud" and nobody is going to read a single word past that if we're being honest.

I'll never understand why some people in this community are so allergic to the concept of getting good, to be honest. I've played lots of games that involve mechanical skills and game knowledge, but I've never seen a get-good allergy on such a scale to the point that people would rather do anything than get good. And they'd still complain about how hard/punishing/unrewarding this game is when it's really one of the easier games out there.

hes right though. starting off by offending half the people who click on your thread is not a good way to get them to read your long post.

"

Lyutsifer665 wrote:

"

ballhog2016 wrote:

"

DiabloImmoral wrote:

I mean your tl:dr at the top is "git gud" and nobody is going to read a single word past that if we're being honest.

I'll never understand why some people in this community are so allergic to the concept of getting good, to be honest. I've played lots of games that involve mechanical skills and game knowledge, but I've never seen a get-good allergy on such a scale to the point that people would rather do anything than get good. And they'd still complain about how hard/punishing/unrewarding this game is when it's really one of the easier games out there.

hes right though. starting off by offending half the people who click on your thread is not a good way to get them to read your long post.

The problem is that I really don't understand why saying "try to not complain and FOMO, and try to get better at the game" is offensive though at all...... I truly hope there were posts/vids about why/how to get good when I first started playing game a few months ago so I wouldn't farm 5 mirrors worth of currencies yet only knew close to nothing about the game.