Am I just simply $h!t, or the Game just broken, or something?

Hey everyone,

I'm a bit confused after playing my 2nd character in PoE2, since the launch of the beta.

A bit of a background info: I played D2, D2R, D3, D4, PoE1 and many-many other games in the past. Also other RPGs, so i think i have a good grasp (or at least i think) on the general idea of PoE2.

I started as a warrior, became Titan. The Chaos Trial cannot be completed by it, it's so hard i usually die after the 2nd wave. At the story, when i need to kill the poison damage tribe woman, who surrounds herself with shielded warriors (i forgot the name of the boss, sorry), i always fail and i eventually start a new character.

As a second choose, i created a mercenary. same scenario.

I use wetstones to improve, add gem sockets, upgrading my flasks and so. But the general issue is the following:

- i have NO items to upgrade to. Every item i found is weak AF. The gambling is, of course disabled after trying to buy a couple of items. The general sellers does not contain too much. I cannot find orbs, items to dismantle to have orbs properly, and although one of my friends helped me to gather some gold...wtf am i supposed to do with the gold, right now?

- At the passive skill, i always try to follow critical strike, general power for the character (strength for Titan, etc), but my main focus is cold damage, a i liked it the most in most ARPGs/RPGs.

- I cannot farm previous areas as well, because even if i'm level 44 with the mercenary right now, almost everyone kills me instantly. Although i upgrade the skills regurarly, it seems it doesn't make any proper effect, as my weapons are $h!t, as my gear. And it's like an ouroboros trap - cannot continue due to the damage, cannot find items because cannot continue, cannot upgrade because there's no orbs....

Am i missing something here? Am i so dumb for this game, or what? :D I really don't know at this point, and this experience is just a huge game breaking for me, i alt+f4 the whole game after 30 mins of try and fail.

i also tried to find a proper guide for mercenary with cold, but cannot find anything.

Any help/advice/suggestion/magic/summoning of good will is appreciated.

Hi! :D

1) It's not you. Warrior and Merc are both hard to play. You're playing on hard mode. Try Sorc or Ranger.
2) Check you fire/lightning/cold resistances. Try to get them as high as possible, preferably around 50% each around level 45, and 75%+ around level 70.
3) Try to get as many life mods on items as possible. Try to get over 100 life on your chest piece, and around 100 or more life on boots, gloves, helmet, rings, belt, and amulet. By level 45, you should be approaching 2,000 life, and by level 70, you should be approaching 2,500 life.

Dying at those levels is usually not a sign of low DPS, but a sign of low defense. At much higher levels, dying does start to indicate low DPS, but you're not there, yet.

Cheers!

"

ac429#4687 wrote:

Hi! :D

1) It's not you. Warrior and Merc are both hard to play. You're playing on hard mode. Try Sorc or Ranger.
2) Check you fire/lightning/cold resistances. Try to get them as high as possible, preferably around 50% each around level 45, and 75%+ around level 70.
3) Try to get as many life mods on items as possible. Try to get over 100 life on your chest piece, and around 100 or more life on boots, gloves, helmet, rings, belt, and amulet. By level 45, you should be approaching 2,000 life, and by level 70, you should be approaching 2,500 life.

Dying at those levels is usually not a sign of low DPS, but a sign of low defense. At much higher levels, dying does start to indicate low DPS, but you're not there, yet.

Cheers!

Hey there,
Thanks!

Even though i play solo, my GF, and 3 other besties are playing the game as well.

- I see the sorc - it has similar issues
- also, the monk failed for my friend.

All my friends are making 2nd/3rd/4th characters as all of us are trapped somewhere in a similar situation.

I would really like to do what you are saying, but here's one of the problems i've described - all the items i'm finding are $h!t. Even if the item gives me to life and armor and so (i even switched to heavy armor with the merc as well, pumped with extra life), it outdated. it's for lvl 19. the lvl 33-36-etc items are nothing comparing to my gear, so i cannot even find better/proper gear. and as i don't have wetstones, orbs, etc, i'm stucked.

If i find an exalted orb, it gives dumb@$$ things to the item so i need to eventually scrap it into a shard. yay. :D win for life.
same goes for vaal orbs. i've tried 4 times, all the items became $h!t, i needed to scrap those as well, so i'm stucked with the gear i have since level 20.

It's disappointing, to say.
And i also noticed that at the 3rd act's ending, every enemy becomes 200x stronger than it should. i mean - the size of the hordes at drowned city, their skills, and so on, is stunning, to say. And also, the damage/life/armor/regeneration i have is the best i could create in these circumstances, but as i can see it, it's totally not enough, so i'm a bit confused.

Thanks though for your kind words! :)

"

ac429#4687 wrote:

Hi! :D

1) It's not you. Warrior and Merc are both hard to play. You're playing on hard mode. Try Sorc or Ranger.
2) Check you fire/lightning/cold resistances. Try to get them as high as possible, preferably around 50% each around level 45, and 75%+ around level 70.
3) Try to get as many life mods on items as possible. Try to get over 100 life on your chest piece, and around 100 or more life on boots, gloves, helmet, rings, belt, and amulet. By level 45, you should be approaching 2,000 life, and by level 70, you should be approaching 2,500 life.

Dying at those levels is usually not a sign of low DPS, but a sign of low defense. At much higher levels, dying does start to indicate low DPS, but you're not there, yet.

Cheers!

2nd thought - i will possibly try ranger, but i'm affraid it will end up like the rest of them.

The sad thing for me is that i'm usually a sorcerer, or a meele character in every game since D2. My preference is cold damage with dual wielded one handed weapons (swords, as they are the fastest), but i cannot create it since the game does not have swords!! :D

So what i'm familiar and what i like to do is not possible. I need to choose another class, which is unfamiliar to me.

One thing to mention that i switched to bow skills with the merc as well, and also having the crossbow as secondary weapon. still, have no success.

As the game cannot give me enough proper, cold-based skills, i need to pick up other classes' cold based skills, which is, again, pathethic in my eyes.

This game should be about INFINITE possibilities, but i just choose 2 modifiers - cold damage and bow (for a merc), or cold damage and quarterstaff (for titan), but even though, it's not working. i've checked the passive skill tree, i know where i want to go, but i'm always stucked at lvl 45-50, so i cannot even reach the goal i'm aiming :D :D

Totally ruining the whole experience for me.

I wish I could tell you that it's the game's fault, because you seem like a nice person and I really don't want you to take what I'll say as an insult. It really isn't meant to be.

But it's not the game's fault. The game has many faults, but you CAN play it solo without trading, and many experienced players have done it (I play trade with my friends so I haven't done SSF in poe2). I will bet you and all your group are building your characters wrong. It's frustrating, and crafting is shit, but trading is shit too so you pick your poison. It's easy to do things wrong in this game, especially if you're winging it. You can get heavily punished for it if you are unlucky and also inefficient.

Anyway, it's hard to figure out exactly what it is you're doing wrong, because I can't see your characters. No matter how many questions I ask, we won't be able to cover everything.

I'd be willing to jump on discord with you if you really want to so we can figure out what you all can do better. If you feel like it, just drop me a message.

short version: Your solution is an Ice Strike Monk. It's one of the two easiest chars to level (the other being Minion Witch) and fits both your melee and cold preferences.

longer version:
Maybe you have underestimated the game coming from Diablo, which is a beginner franchise. But you have also picked the two worst options if you went with the native weapons of Warrior and Merc. The latter has a top3 meta build, but that uses quarterstaves, not xbows. Warrior is just bad.

Sorc or Ranger are better, but very squishy, you'd die dozens of times during the campaign and wouldn't need to be ashamed of that. Ice Strike Monk freezes most stuff, even bosses, so deaths are super-rare.

As with all attack builds, your weapon is by far the most important piece of gear, so use your gambling attempts on that - avoid the staff with base lightning damage.
Save your socketing currency and iron runes for decent staff upgrades.

For trials:
Sekhema: either overlevel it by 5+ levels or fail it on purpose multiple times to collect relics with honour resistance.
Chaos: overlevel it even more. I don't know how lethal the bird boss is after its nerf, but it took me 5-7 attempts back then. Also avoid bad mods if you can - like the blood circle you need to run out of every 10 seconds, highly annoying as melee.

You can beat the campaign without trading, but for maps, you'll be glad to have a few exalts saved up to purchase a weapon 5x as good as your best drop and a few pieces to cap elemental resists.

The problem with the game is META. You want to do a build ? Don't do it because you're not playing THE build the devs want you to.


POE 2 might be the worst ARPG ever made in this regard.

"

PrimordialDarkness#3913 wrote:

I wish I could tell you that it's the game's fault, because you seem like a nice person and I really don't want you to take what I'll say as an insult. It really isn't meant to be.

But it's not the game's fault. The game has many faults, but you CAN play it solo without trading, and many experienced players have done it (I play trade with my friends so I haven't done SSF in poe2). I will bet you and all your group are building your characters wrong. It's frustrating, and crafting is shit, but trading is shit too so you pick your poison. It's easy to do things wrong in this game, especially if you're winging it. You can get heavily punished for it if you are unlucky and also inefficient.

Anyway, it's hard to figure out exactly what it is you're doing wrong, because I can't see your characters. No matter how many questions I ask, we won't be able to cover everything.

I'd be willing to jump on discord with you if you really want to so we can figure out what you all can do better. If you feel like it, just drop me a message.

Hey,

Thanks for your comment and help! i have 0 ego mechanism which would modify my understanding of your help, so don't worries - if i'm $h!t at a game, i can admit it. :D

I'll possibly contact you later on, but i'm in the middle of a moving from one flat to another, so possibly it will be 1 or 2 weeks. Also, i will try out the monk and the ranger first, then i will possibly come back to this conv and tell my experiences. and if i'm failing again, you'd bet i'm contacting you. :D

Thanks in advance anyways for your help!! ;)

You are not alone. Playing SSF it took me 89 hours and 501 deaths to reach end game. Game has major balance issues and upgrades are hard to find

This. GGG has been catering to "only this" works, for a long long time. For a company that boasted so much diversity in builds since the beginning days of POE1, they really havent fullfilled this claim ever. In fact, i dare say, D3 and 4 have more viable end game builds then POE1 or 2. lol, damn, that sad...

Play how you want if you enjoy it, elsewise, jump on board 1 of 3'ish builds that work, and too many to count that are to sub par to even be worthy beyond campaign / story.

GGG has been crap at balance since day 1, and imo, they arent about to change. Its how they roll.

All about no drop chances, RMT, and supporter packs.

Its an illusion exile.