📚┃off-topic

[desert jasper]

It's typical uhh
we want information about you, we totally will not sell it, we promise

[opal anvil]

what you modding?

[neon sigil]

tales of maj'eyal

[desert jasper]

tales of mai'q

[lethal bane]

Oh I thought I recognized it!

Been forever

[neon sigil]

👀 i'm going all out on the mod.
new class and everything.

i'm taking alchemist and giving it a bit of a blacksmith twist. and trying to make the golem go from useless to your main damage dealer

[lethal bane]

I like the cosmetic choices there, the glow is a nice touch

[neon sigil]

there's even a custom resource :v

but thank you, :v it's been a lot of fun to have a creative outlet

[warped wren]

trying to figure out if going self+companion hybrid and turning the companions into utility and distraction bots is a reasonable idea

[mental talon]

I am starting Martial Artist. I was going to start Martial Artist before, but now I'm definitely starting it.

[placid yarrow]

help me lord

legendary 6/31/34 botlane

[vagrant topaz]

oof

[opal anvil]

martial artist looks fun

[jovial bane]

pretty much the same

they had me at runes in meridian slots during the stream

let alone now

[placid yarrow]

Yep same martial artist is right up my alley

My all time favourite arpg playstyle is still D3 exploding palm monk

[jovial bane]

I might be weird, because I want to try out combo monk xD

[warped wren]

The first combo node is extremely good

Flat reduction to ES recharge delay is cracked, especially after the nerfs

[jovial bane]

yup

[fierce moth]

🤘 I'm a fan of spirit walker still, after checked out martial artist showcase

[abstract karma]

while i'm not chan of channeling skills it was nice to see to melt bosses

if just that leveling wouldnt be such harsh exp

[sudden anchor]

New official mechanic to level past 18 in ranked?

[twilit mountain]

I'm pretty sure it's a specific character that can do that

[vagrant topaz]

Toplaners only

[placid yarrow]

Yeah all toplaners can

[twilit mountain]

I was halfway there, specific characters (sorta)xdd

[torn quail]

I didn't buy it with USD, so it was cheaper. I already know about the orbs accumulation features, but not about their functionality. Anyway, I have a yearly subscription, so everything's fine for now.
P.S. I actually thought you'd already responded to me about my suggestions, 🙃 )

[fierce moth]

I'm sorry to say I'm not a melee lover so... Sentinel is the only character I never play any masteries and skills deeper.

Cut enemies one by one...Too slow

[torn quail]

Well, the suggestions I wrote don't apply only to the Sentinel, and not only to melee weapons, actually. There's only one point about melee combat per se, and the rest are very general.

[pine summit]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNRA_BbIr_Y

[torn quail]

Ahaha, yeah, you clearly haven't played melee.😄

[pine summit]

nte 1.1 livestream

porsche collab with racing outfit is free

cars get guns in a side mode including rocket launcher

[fierce moth]

I wish I love this type of games and this type of art style. My life will go easier a lot if I can

They're blooding in Chinese games and Janpanese games.

[fierce moth]

Ahaha, I need to find something to convince myself to love a sword at first. Lords will express their loyalty by pulling out their swords and their swords mean themselves.

[torn quail]

I'm a bit confused by the second sentence; maybe it's a reference to something, but oh well.
Well, playing ranged characters/mages/archers, etc. in RPGs and ARPGs is, on average, much easier — that's just a fact. Personally, I've always enjoyed playing close combat, using two-handed weapons, in both RPGs and ARPGs. And if you're playing different classes, it's better to assemble a team, set the difficulty to maximum, and go on raids and farm bosses, etc.😌

[fierce moth]

Side effects of watching game of thrones.

[torn quail]

Hah, I know about it, but I haven't watched it)

[fierce moth]

My Jesus... 18 mins left only before a new day now. I forget the time because too immersive in this tv shows obviously

[abstract karma]

nope, hard reality which goes back to of 2000s mmo's and rpg's

Simply put it.. Ranged based characters, are just easier, have advange in PvP As soon on..
A lot of times these designs to get good balance is godlike work.. (Especially in mmo's)

[jovial bane]

Game of Thrones was great until the last season

[junior oyster]

Terraria melee ouch

True melee that is

[warped wren]

Holy, Commissar Yarrick in Total Warhammer 40k

[opal anvil]

usually melee can be hella tanky tho

pondering whether i should continue my cyberpunk77 playthru or play poe2 after i take a break from wild hearts

🤔

[junior oyster]

I kinda want to replay stardew valley again

But then again StS2...

[hot crown]

Been toying a bit with an electronic drawing board...
||https://www.threads.com/@trafficdevourer/post/DYpxe4SjBCC||
Maybe related to some other media, maybe not... I don't know.

[desert jasper]

Stardew Valley is great
i can recommend it at any point

[junior oyster]

Yea last time I played was in Aug

[opal anvil]

it's fun

i enjoyed rune factory 4 more tho

[junior oyster]

I have almost 750 hours in stardew xD

[opal anvil]

stardew pr0

[junior oyster]

Not a pro. A lot of it is modded

[jovial bane]

I have not played rune factory 4, probably improved over the time. But Stardew Valley to me felt like Harvest Moon/Rune Factory with QoL the company refused to implement

[junior oyster]

Auto water and and all that

[jovial bane]

So yk playable Harvest Moon

[junior oyster]

I tried to get into another farming game but it wasn't the same

[junior oyster]

I played HM on the snes emulator back in the day

SV is the true spiritual successor to that game imo

[opal anvil]

one thing i really disliked about rune factory 4 is every once in a while typhoon destroyed all my crops

[junior oyster]

I'll be honest I'm not a fan of those kind of games

I want to chill

SV is a pretty chill game minus the combat and fishing

[jovial bane]

Welcome to the OG, not nearly as bad as blizzards I had in one of the HM games.
So picture this, there is no autofeeder and if you don't feed animals they can die.

And blizzard means you cannot leave the house, period

And ofc they can sometimes stack

You are stuck at home for 4-5 days in a row, your animals die and game blames you for not taking care of them 😠

[junior oyster]

Ok steam controller kinda buggy with sts2

Keeps changing from mouse to controller

[jovial bane]

But my personal pet peeve with HM was no energy bar like in SV, unless you equip an accessory

OFC you have only one accessory slot, so it always felt bad

[jovial bane]

odd

[junior oyster]

It's fine when I alt tab back in

[jovial bane]

uhhh that's relly weird

[opal anvil]

outside of typhoon it's chill
even then you have means to counter it and predict

[opal anvil]

like displayed energy?

[jovial bane]

yes

[opal anvil]

thats hardcore

[jovial bane]

There probably was more stuff, but hilariously enough success of Stardew Valley brought the games that inspired it to PC. And made them implement at least some QoL

Because SW ultimately was HM with all the annoying bs cut from the game xd

And more content over the time

[opal anvil]

this is great tbh. nintendo should learn from them instead of suing competitors

[jovial bane]

yeah, I agree

I think Palworld sold so well partially thanks to being edgy, partially because people really wanted open world survival pokemon game

[opal anvil]

i never played palworld but weirdest part for me is it is nothing like pokemon gameplay-wise

[jovial bane]

It's indeed not

[junior oyster]

The Pokemon aspect is mainly just collecting Pals

But aside from that nope

[jovial bane]

But considering the success of "Animal Crossing, but Pokemon" or w/e the game was. People do want Poke. on spinoffs

[junior oyster]

It's closer to Arc or w/e the game is called from others

[jovial bane]

Also riding, flying them and using them as helpers in battle. But that's still not much

[opal anvil]

there are no turn based battles right?

[jovial bane]

nope

[junior oyster]

Mounts exist in other games. Nintendon't need to get off their high horse

[opal anvil]

actual pokemon-likes are ignored by nintendo i think lol

[jovial bane]

I think they went after Palworld, because it was successful

[junior oyster]

Yea cuz they aren't nearly as popular as palworld

[opal anvil]

they are so out of touch

[junior oyster]

Also Palworld did what Nintendon't

[opal anvil]

it makes me sad cuz i really like early pokemon games

[junior oyster]

People wanted a decent to good open world sandbox pokemon game but gamefreak kept giving trash

[jovial bane]

I genuinely think a lot of the reason behind lawsuit was pure spite, because ultimately it was over game mechanics.

[opal anvil]

those patents also seem to more affect other games in the end, not palworld

[jovial bane]

yep

[junior oyster]

Ngl I've never been big on pokemon games so I can't really compare but I like Palworld because it's kinda fun for a survival game

The last poke game I enjoyed and fully cleared was emerald on the gba lol

[opal anvil]

i enjoyed blue, gold, Y and rangers

[jovial bane]

Shame building in it kind of sucks. It's better ark those mechanics wise. Problem is ark is probably the worst game there is when it comes to base building

[opal anvil]

rangers is so hard for a "kids game", wtf

[jovial bane]

Enshrouded spoiled me.

I'm glad Windrose took page out of Enshrouded's building system.

[junior oyster]

Published by Palworld xD

[jovial bane]

Golden opportunity tbh

Now if only they improved the SSD issue

They did "fix it", but it still uses like 10-20 times the normal game amount

[sand wigeon]

palworld also has clear plagiaristic tendencies from MULTIPLE nintendo products including breath of the wild

Nintendo had a lot of reasons to not like that game

aside from it just being a bad game

[jovial bane]

Ultimately for matters for me is the fact they did not sue for designs or stuff that was "plagiarised" instead going for the most generic patent of "throwing an object that spawns a 3D entity"

[sand wigeon]

that’s because a lot of the elements that are directly plagiarized don’t hold up in copyright court thanks to past cases

and those cases could simply be cited and nintendo wouldn’t be able to sue

one of the most obvious elements is the jingle and font that appears when discovering a new locations, which is near one to one with botw

palworld is a terrible game that is unpolished and frankly i don’t know how it’s popular in the first place

i’m a big fan of open world survival games so i went in hoping to find smth good, but even after exploring the entire game, i found nothing of value

[jovial bane]

Doesn't made screwing entire industry over by patenting gameplay mechanics. If it was over designs I'd have no horse in that fight.

[sand wigeon]

those patents only hold up within japan

not anywhere else

nintendo sues who they can because that way they retain the patent in japan

due to patent law in japan they need to consistently and actively fight for it to keep it

even if that patent doesn’t actually apply outside japan, they fight who they can to retain the patent and smart people just use different shapes because the patent wording requires it to directly resemble a pokeball

temtem, a mmo creature collector, uses a flat card shape

they’ve never had issues because nintendo couldn’t even try to sue them thanks to the language used in the patent

nintendo ultimately doesn’t care much about palworld, they just wanted to fight it to retain their patent because the design makes them so much money and allows them to restrict bootlegs in japan, making them more money through things like pokemon cafes and merchandise

[jovial bane]

They did patent it in the US as well, but some of them been thankfully rejected after scrutiny

[sand wigeon]

like i said, patent law for that doesn’t hold up thanks to past cases

[opal anvil]

yo thats half the popular AAA games described

[sand wigeon]

palworld isn’t AAA

[opal anvil]

i didnt say it is

[sand wigeon]

also i did not just describe most aaa games lol

most aaa games are good

[neon sigil]

Most games in general tbh

[neon sigil]

What

[sand wigeon]

wdym “what”

[neon sigil]

[sand wigeon]

frankly if you think all games nowadays are bad you’re just looking in the wrong places

[neon sigil]

https://tenor.com/view/the-simpsons-bart-simpson-grampa-simpson-old-man-going-in-gif-17818438

[sand wigeon]

plague tale, god of war, apex legends, valorant, sekiro, sea of thieves, resident evil, nightreign, metal gear solid, horizon, stalker 2, days gone, cyberpunk 2077, darktide, nioh

these are all aaa games

just off the top of my head

[warped wren]

she's right, this is actually one of the best times to be a gamer. Excellent variety across genres, strong tech to support high fidelity if that's your thing, solid cultural diversity with studios making games from across the world so you can experience stuff from cultures you've never been exposed to.

[sand wigeon]

Nine Sols is still one of my favorite games and it served as my first non-motivated expansion into the baseline of Taoist ideology, and despite taking its own interpretation encouraged me to research IRL Taoist and Chinese history that I hadn’t before

Great game BTW

[warped wren]

all you need to do is ignore the YT grifters trying to goad you to outrage and just, idk, play what you enjoy and enjoy what you play

[sand wigeon]

Getting to the point where a new game is announced and my first instinct is just, “cool! i hope it’s good :D” has been a blessing

[neon sigil]

In the context of unpolished and listing cyberpunk as an example to the contrary is kinda wild given its state on release.

[warped wren]

I got into Polish rock because of Witcher 3 despite not actually playing the game beyond a couple hours lmao

[sand wigeon]

agreed

we’ll knock that out, all bethesda games, every witcher game, kingdom come, no man’s sky

etc

i’m talking about in the now

are these games good now

fallout 76 is one of the best mmo games ever released

terrible release

but nowadays is great

[neon sigil]

Tbh there's lots of good games. There being lots of bad games doesnt mean the former is not true.

[warped wren]

yes and CP2077 had one of the greatest redemption arcs in gaming history, right up there alongside NMS

[sand wigeon]

there’s not that many bad aaa games

even modern ac, which is constantly labeled as garbage, are actually fine to great games if you happen to like the format

red dead redemption 2 is aaa

this myth that aaa games suck is just heralded by grifters online trying to generate distaste

[neon sigil]

There's plenty. But its all contextually bad. Aaa games are risk adverse most of the time. If its your thing you're often eating good.

[sand wigeon]

i can just keep going really

[sand wigeon]

ah yes because kingdom come deliverance and Nightreign are risk averse

because adapting a relatively unpopular ttrp that actively criticizes capitalism is risk free

[neon sigil]

Kingdom come as an example of aaa is like saying bg3 is a shining example of how indie games are.

[sand wigeon]

what

[neon sigil]

Tyop

[sand wigeon]

do you know how much funding kcd2 has

that’s not indie

[neon sigil]

Anand its not updating

[sand wigeon]

it has tons of employees

it’s corporate

[sand wigeon]

what does bg3 have to do with anything

like i hate bg3, i think it’s dogwater, but it’s still a functionally great game

[warped wren]

this is... situationally true. God of War 2018, BG3, E33 were all risks and are all AAA

[neon sigil]

Bg3 is an indie game by an indie company thats aaa in size.

[sand wigeon]

what are you saying

literally what

[warped wren]

how can a company be AAA in size but be indie

[sand wigeon]

are we saying LARIAN is indie

LARIAN?

one of the most funded and famous studios of all time?

[neon sigil]

Im saying that kingdom come isnt the face of aaa gaming in a nutshell. Ffs

[sand wigeon]

okay but that also has nothing to do with anything

[neon sigil]

Independent studio riding off the success of Kickstarter.

[warped wren]

there is no "face" of AAA gaming. There are AAA games. And MANY AAA games are good to fantastic

[sand wigeon]

i am laughing at you

[warped wren]

bro they've been making games for literal decades

and making rock solid money off them

the Divinity series was a great commercial success

[sand wigeon]

larian has 500 employees

they’ve been around since 2010

[neon sigil]

Yes I started with the original divine divinity. They got burned by publishers and thats why they went independent. Ffs

[warped wren]

*1996

[sand wigeon]

ARKAFUND is their primary investor

[sand wigeon]

modern larian is 2010

larian in total is 1996

[sand wigeon]

they’re not independent

arkafund is a major investor

[warped wren]

that's great, I can see how you might have classified them as Indie once upon a time, but in the last 10 years?

[sand wigeon]

like i’m sorry but the majority of games are good

and just because they’re not for you doesn’t mean they’re bad

[warped wren]

iirc their team size when they STARTED work on BG3 was, what, 300+ people? that's not indie by any stretch of imagination

[sand wigeon]

i sit here and say palworld is bad because on every descriptor it SHOULD be for me. but when i play it, observe its quality, compare it to its peers, it doesn’t hold up

that’s why it’s bad

let’s not even get into dishonored/prey/deathloop and their efficacy, that’s aaa

or modern doom, heralded as some of the best games ever made

dying light the beast has been a major success

the newest battlefield too

[jovial bane]

battlefield was a success afaik, emphasis on was

[sand wigeon]

the vast majority of aaa games are great games. just because you have confined yourself to tiny little boxes of impressionism is nobody’s fault but your own

[sand wigeon]

it’s still succeeding idk what to tell you

[warped wren]

I think people just get latched on to the AAA failures they specifically dislike for whatever reason and consider that to be some benchmark of the industry. And while I get the tendency to give more weight to the failures rather than the successes, it's just a limited view

doesn't help that YT and social media is full of material to reinforce that negative feedback loop

[sand wigeon]

like, it released to massive commercial success and had the same relative fall off that every battlefield has had, retaining its core players

that’s better than they expected

and, at the end of it all, if there’s this many good aaa games imagine how many good indie games there are that you don’t even know of

the games industry is doing amazing right now in terms of quality games

even if the studios to people behind them are not

[jovial bane]

IDK what you mean by that last sentence. Example of such studio ?

[sand wigeon]

uh

every studio in the past four years that has had major layoffs or shut downs

or the people behind kingdom come deliverance firing their lead writer and replacing him with ai

i was mainly talking about the amount of layoffs and cancelled projects, though

oh yeah, marathon is another example of a risky aaa success

[jovial bane]

Mm.
If we talk about games like Veilguard or Marathon, then success is arguable. Problem is how much those were expected to make

[warped wren]

Afaik most studios have had layoffs of one level or another, as the pandemic era splurge of idiotic funding finally tightened

[sand wigeon]

how is success arguable with marathon?

[warped wren]

Veilguard wasn't a success by any metric

Idk about Marathon

[sand wigeon]

yeah that was a failure

marathon is doing fine

it was an extremely risky release into a dead ip into a niche genre that released to extremely positive player reception and has retained a large core player base for such a niche genre

[jovial bane]

Considering Sony is reevaluating Bungie ? Idk about that, looks to me like the case of Veilguard. Sold well, but corpo expected 10 times more

[sand wigeon]

the amount of misinformation around that situation is palpable

marathon is fine

marathon is not being touched

sony shut down other projects and decided d2 was done

marathon has not been touched at all

they’re downsizing bungie and having them just work on marathon

if anything, it’s destiny that sony has no confidence in

not marathon

[warped wren]

Veilguard, selling well? It did worse than any Dragon Age game in history, and that's WILD considering what a dumpster fire DA2 was (despite being my favorite DA lorewise)

I think the only person calling it a success was Jason Schreier

[jovial bane]

gdi, I hate game "journalists".
I've just realised that "fastest selling doesn't mean much if it slows down just as fast"

[sand wigeon]

i rly want to be a game journalist

[warped wren]

It's not really "journalism" if your job depends on maintaining cordial relationships with the people whose product you're supposed to critique

Unfortunate.

[sand wigeon]

yeah p sure that’s just called being paid off, not journalism

[opal anvil]

nioh
peak mentioned

[opal anvil]

even now it's still rough in some areas

[lethal bane]

I mean it does sometimes, it's an odd field in some spots

[warped wren]

like what

[lethal bane]

Basically maintening relationships during fieldwork. Towards those who are hosting you, you wish to interview, and in general to be on good terms. It's similar to anthropology in this way. You want to be able to ask them questions, which means they're OK with talking to you

[warped wren]

that's not journalism though

[lethal bane]

It is incredibly similar in function

[warped wren]

when a journalist maintains relationships, the person they're maintaining the relationship with is not the person with power and authority

it's one of the authority's employees

[lethal bane]

That isn't a universal. Journalists have interviewed and talked to people in power, maintaining a relationship to continue that research

[warped wren]

yeah I mean that time is long past. In today's day and age, you have no reason to trust a journalist who has good relationships with people in power. They have no reason to report the truth.

[lethal bane]

It very much depends. In game journalism? Yeah, probably. But there are still journalists who have had to go undercover to develop and maintain relationships. We just ain't gonna see that in any game coverage though

The games industry and its media is kinda, uh, stunted in a way

I've been debating writing some stuff on TTRPGs and going out to interview folks TBH

[desert jasper]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n89-vSIBbQ4
Ghazzy & darth microtransaction interviewed Jonathan & Mark for 2 & half hours

[fierce moth]

thank you so much

I don't know this interview at all

[desert jasper]

Well it was just uploaded 10 hours ago

[fierce moth]

Sorry, I don't understand

👀 10h ago is a long time already

Remind me of editing notifications

[desert jasper]

Don't think it was mentioned on the forum announcement section

[junior oyster]

It's barely even been a day so I don't see how it's a long time already

[junior oyster]

Ok so one of the problems I've having to face with the steam controller is accidentally pressing the back buttons

That's what I get for having smol hands I guess 😭

[desert jasper]

Yeah I used to have problems with accidentally clicking them too

[jovial bane]

thankfully they are not bound by default

[desert jasper]

I think on the older steam controller they were A and... Y? by default

[placid yarrow]

Man I'm replaying oddsparks and I forgot how burdensome some things got around tier 5-6, can't wait to get local fuel production going. Having to transport coal halfway across the map ain't it

[opal anvil]

nioh fists are so fun

finally getting around to play other weapons
been doing switchglaive all the time in n2

[desert jasper]

That's... Nioh 2, right?

[opal anvil]

ye

[desert jasper]

I really should get around to playing that more
Only like 10hours in

[opal anvil]

its great
and way more balanced than nioh1

[sand wigeon]

also it has the best character

tokichiro

[opal anvil]

tokichiro real bro...

[placid yarrow]

The foot print and sheer amount of stuff it takes to get a T5 mall going is kinda dumb ngl x)

And it's not even overkill or anything, I'm making like 6 haulers per minute lmao, the recipes are just surprisingly deep, out of the 2 things haulers needs one of them is 8 steps deep and some of the things in those steps are several steps deep themselves etc

[sand wigeon]

he’s with you for the entire game!

[mental talon]

Free weekend.

https://x.com/pathofexile/status/2058671582495793297?s=20

[opal anvil]

rip servers

[opal anvil]

🙏

[warped wren]

Can't for total newbies to join and start a Monk because new thing and get ABSOLUTELY BODIED in a1

[junior oyster]

At this point they should just make poe2 free

[warped wren]

that's what they'll be doing on 1.0

same business model as PoE1

[mental talon]

I'll be doing my Glacial Cascade+ Frozen Locus start and having a good time 😊

[warped wren]

bro i tried that and I have NO IDEA how you tolerated it, I almost uninstalled

💀

[mental talon]

Oh idk it's pretty easy 🤷‍♂️ it is definitely 2 button but yeah idkI havent played since whenever so I looekd at what people having been doing to run it and I dont like the Ice Strike Bell setup and tried Glacial Cascade Frozen Locus.

Which worked pretty easily the past like 7-8 runs I've done? (Think I'm good but will do a refresher run Thursday before league)

[narrow token]

I think Glacial Cascade is cool on non-moving bosses, but I don't like using it in big groups.

[warped wren]

My experience has been to use literally any other weapon till I get wind blast + staggering palm

And even with those 2, wasn't exactly a romp

Because Wind Blast isn't a strike, so it doesn't build combo for Bell

Which is phenomenally stupid

[mental talon]

Yeah I just kinda watched GTD video and it just made it feel pretty easy for me tbh

[narrow token]

Should be able to when MA comes out though.

[warped wren]

talking about act 1

and that specific feature requires 4 ascendancy points

so is therefore bait

[opal anvil]

crossbow soon

™

[fierce moth]

Divine Orbs are now more common.

is it a good thing or bad thing, why?

[desert jasper]

Good thing.

Or a bad thing if you were measuring your success in "I was getting this many divs /hours while those people are getting way less. Now they are gaining more so I don't have as much lead"

Depends on how much more common they are
people might actually divine their gear

[narrow token]

RIP

[desert jasper]

Okay so
What does this affect?
I've never really done crafting in poe2

[narrow token]

Potentially essences I think. Maybe some others I've never had any to use.

[desert jasper]

Would it also mean that you can't have the essence + abyss thing on same thing 🤔

[placid yarrow]

Is the abyss affix considered crafted?

Oh wait they added some new materials that guarantee affixes outside of essences

So i guess they're mutually exclusive basically

[desert jasper]

Oh right yea

[narrow token]

I doubt it because abyss crafting is like a multiple choice affix craft rather than a guaranteed affix.

[junior oyster]

Oh hi d3

[twilit mountain]

Back to slam and pray territory huh

[desert jasper]

Yup
Remember to close your eyes first

[twilit mountain]

And somehow people question me when I say I hate how GGG is handling the game

[desert jasper]

Honestly I'm just surprised they haven't put in an actual crafting table

[twilit mountain]

I'm pretty sure they hate it lmao

[desert jasper]

Yeah, think they said they introduced it as a... I can't remember their exact wording
But they did say that now it's too late to take it away

bandaid solution, I guess

[twilit mountain]

They could just stop introducing things they don't like, idk. Or maybe like, introduce things the playerbase actually likes instead? Just a thought.

[desert jasper]

But that could lead to people having fun
And we can't have that

[twilit mountain]

I'm like 90% sure the only reason PoE2 gets numbers that it does is because 1) it feels good, 2) it looks good, and 3) it's not as bloated as PoE1 so the more casual players can still jump into it without being instantly overwhelmed. I cannot think of an overarching system in PoE2 that has actually landed well for the majority of the playerbase so far, they hate the league mechanics, they hate the ascension mechanics, they hate like 50% of the ascends in the game, there's far more dislike for the socket system and crafting than there is praise, I've seen maybe 10 people genuinely say they liked the old atlas, you get the idea

[desert jasper]

Just look forward to them screwing TOTA up royally
and people startign to think "maybe the first 2 ascendancy things aren't as bad as I used to think"

Not that I already hated tota when it was a thing in poe1

[twilit mountain]

I did! Genuinely one of my most hated leagues of all time :D

[desert jasper]

Yeah

Imagine having to go through like what
12 rounds of it? for ascendancy

I think I'd rather run sekhema trial

[twilit mountain]

Imagine having to go through one round of it, for anything

[desert jasper]

Maybe a mirror

[twilit mountain]

The depths of my stubbornness may surprise you

[desert jasper]

Oh, it doesn't

I am somewhat aware of the fathomless depths

I am pretty stubborn too, after all

[junior oyster]

Going to be deleted from poe1

[junior oyster]

Agreed. Though I still believe for solo chaos is the better option. I just wish it didn't require 3x stone to face the trialmaster

Lab is so much better for asc it's hard to even compare

[desert jasper]

Nah they can't delete it from poe1 at this point
It'd be like them suddenly making it so your flasks don't refill when you go to town and had to interact with special npc

[junior oyster]

Well you never know lol

[desert jasper]

They said they can't do it at this point

[junior oyster]

Ah right ok

[desert jasper]

Just like they can't do that flask thing I said
They wanted to do that originally

[maiden widget]

i still find it weird that they force you to do weird minigames just to get your ascendancy

[desert jasper]

I don't mind it that much in poe1
lab is mostly fine
but sekhema just goes on forever

And I'm not really a fan of having to go trough the chaos 3 times (or buying the keys) to get access to the boss

[junior oyster]

Same I prefer chaos but going through it 3x or buying keys is awful

Lab was just once per asc point lol

I'll admit the golden door thing was a bit annoying but as long as I followed the lab schematic I was mostly fine

[desert jasper]

Tbh last time I just bought the other 2 keys for the chaos and went in blind for the boss

And yeah, sure golden doors and so on
and sometimes the lab does have genuinely awful layouts

[junior oyster]

Still I'd rather do lab than the other two and quite possibly tota

[desert jasper]

Oh yea, absolutely

Tbh I might be a bit biased
because last 2 leagues I did the lab challenge part of the last challenge
what was it, 100 Argus kills
and then in another league it was 50 uses of the gem thing at the end of the lab

[maiden widget]

well lab is still the same game without severe downsides even though i hated it before poe2 too

[desert jasper]

Aye

Anyway
Wish the league start wasn't at 11pm my time on friday
I guess it does mean that I can skip a lot of the server issues and hotfixes
but ah well

[fierce moth]

:( No guides are available, again

I'm afraid of playing spirit walker without knowing anything is a bad idea because wrong passive tree will bury my character

But I don't want to play lich anymore

[desert jasper]

Considering we don't have the skill tree for 0.5 yet?
Yeah, not a big surprise

[fierce moth]

it's all depend on the fate, then

[desert jasper]

We'll probably get the skill tree on Wednesday
so you'll probably see guides with skill tree around thursday.
Depending on what you're going to do you might find preliminary ones before then

[fierce moth]

how are you know which passive nodes you active are wrong?

[desert jasper]

what

[fierce moth]

You know how complex poe 2's passive tree is. I don't know which branches should I go so it's quite easy to give points to unnecessary nodes

I can handle le's one but poe 2's one is out of my box

[desert jasper]

That comes with experience

[fierce moth]

Is it a valid passive tree for a spirit walker who specialize in projectile damage?

[placid yarrow]

feels like you're using a lot more travel nodes than you need

Could save a couple here for example

[desert jasper]

You're going past some attack dmg boosts but you just don't take those for some reason
Then you take some frenzy charge duration and stuff

[placid yarrow]

Yea I didn't bother actually looking at the nodes ngl but it just seems wasteful in general

[desert jasper]

That feels like
quin tree
travel everywhere, take some nodes to help with tankyness
and end up doing literally no damage

[mental talon]

PoE 2 passive tree is stupid easy don't overcomplicate it. Path to the most efficient damage, speed, or AoE clusters.

[placid yarrow]

Do we know when pob will get the new ascendencies and stuff?

[mental talon]

Especially for campaign, certain things just aren't worth clicking until later when you can start to specialize (like charge crap on the passive tree is mostly useless in your first like 20-30 levels you won't be efficient with it by then)

[desert jasper]

I don't think they actually said
but I guess wednesday or thursday

Hopefully not as late as one time when we got it on the launch day

[placid yarrow]

yeah I'd assume so too

I'm planning on just homebrewing a martial artist to start

[desert jasper]

I'm kinda feeling grenades
Mayhaps

haven't done them yet

[placid yarrow]

gemling with the new unique sounds nutty

[desert jasper]

Don't think I'll go Gemling
I'm just gonna be lame and follow Dread's league start practice deadeye

[fierce moth]

I made this mistake before, yes...

Updated

[desert jasper]

You could also take that... You go by it and it's only 3 points

[fierce moth]

I wonder should I go to left consistently to get these damage nodes

[desert jasper]

Anyway, I'm also not going to help you with making a twister build more than this

But you can also find something by googling for it already

[fierce moth]

I'm not stupid smart to recognize how stupid easy is it lol

No desecated prefix for helmets, interesting

[mental talon]

Find sources of increased damage for what you're doing, path to them as long as they aren't out of the way. Secondary things are speed and AoE (but AoE is also damage if you're playing something that can overlap etc.) click ailment magnitude if you are heavily invested in using Shock etc. That's pretty much how to make a campaign leveling tree. Generic % damage, speed, AoE, and alternatively Shock Magnitude/Ailment Magnitude if you're using Shock

[fierce moth]

twisters can go... fire/cold damage? Not sure how to build freeze buildup to freeze enemies... I guess it's the name of debuff from cold skills

Oh yes and shock damage

shock is the only element I know how to play lol

stormweaver had taught me that

[mental talon]

Well good luck

[desert jasper]

Twisters get benefit from elemental effect on ground

I tried playing Twisters in like
0.3? or 0.4
it was kinda janky to play tbh

Yeah I think it was in 0.3

But yeah, the spirit walker gets shocked ground for "free" from one of the ascendancy points
If you want fire / cold you need to invest in stuff

But it might become a bit too janky play if you wanna get all in

One of the spear skills can leave burning ground
But not sure about chilled ground

[lethal bane]

Yeah, be sure to hit up things that can help you scale up your damage too, they're useful and helpful and good

[desert jasper]

Tbh
I remember one of my earlier builds in poe1
Went marauder, picked health nodes at the start and then went 2h nodes , then weapon nodes
I think I used Sunder?
good ol' sunder before it was changed

Tbh it kinda sucked

my build, that is

[warped wren]

pure speculation but I think the shocked ground might be locked to the empowered node that you can take if you have all 3 spirit nodes

[desert jasper]

think so

So you can get it after 3rd lab

[warped wren]

yeah I mean you can get easy access to shocked ground WAY earlier for Twister

just put Freezing Mark + Charged Mark on Pounce in offhand weapon set

use Ice-Tipped Arrows and Frost Nexus support in Twisters

ezpz

get both chilled and shocked ground

and also get a good movement skill

[desert jasper]

Can you have 2 different marks on same enemy? 🤔

[fierce moth]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3100370/Black_Jacket/
A game maybe Fane will interest

hhhhhhhh that's interesting

[opal anvil]

i think its less intuitive than poe1's

mastery nodes help a lot

[mental talon]

It's literally stupid easy because either it's a node that is completely garbage conditional that you can ignore, or gives you movement speed, damage, or AoE. It's not like you have to make any hard choices like knowing when to select life, or going for Suppress or pathing to a jewel socket or resistance to fix anything it's pretty much click the close damage node, the movement speed node, or the AoE node. Since the tree pretty much has no power you have to consider.

[mental talon]

Nah they aren't Curses in POE 2 so you cant use things like Whisper of Doom or Doedre etc. but that does give you the ability to apply both a Curse and Mark freely.

[opal anvil]

idk dude... tree defo had power for my most recent build, earthquake

i guess tree does seem simple when you know where every node is 😂
but lack of mastery categories mades it harder to navigate it visually. when you could just eyeball for example fire mastery clusters in poe1, you can't do the same in poe2, only option for easier navigation is search

[twilit mountain]

I think you're misunderstanding

You don't need to make CHOICES for the power. You just click the nearest ones.

[opal anvil]

i see

seems like in trying to make it intuitive, they made it counterintuitive

[twilit mountain]

There's no optimization to be done that isn't just "take fewer travel nodes", every other passive on the tree is either completely useless or just raw power with no need to consider alternatives

[mental talon]

Their is zero opportunity cost because you don't have any actual choice is my point. I like the game. The tree is crap because you aren't really debating between anything, you just pick whatever %damage, AoE, or movespeed clusters you can take whiel using the least amoutn of travel nodes. I still like it, and it's very much intuitive but it's also easy as shit and hard to make a bad build on purpose (aka the old bricking your tree/build).

[twilit mountain]

Shit, we saw crab builds on the very first patch of the game because it was actually good lmfao

[mental talon]

I'm doing another Monk practice. I clicked all the efficient damage or w.e. nodes because like that's all I can really click. Some nodes are literally so bad I'd never click them. Their's no trap which is a good thing, but their's also no real consideration and power as well as having any ability for the tree to solve early issues (that you then spec out of later).

[twilit mountain]

Looks exactly like every early Monk, and like 90% of that is also every endgame Monk too

[jovial bane]

tree is deceptively deep

it is not that hard to understand

[mental talon]

So like yeah you just look for whatever cluster has the best attack/spell/% damage scaling and you click it in the campaign and that's kind of it. It's very easy which is good for a lot of people, but is kind of my point of you can't really mess it up unless you intentionally avoid every %damage scaling (since there's no Life, Resist, etc. to supplement defenses tankiness).

[twilit mountain]

Shallow ass tree that they just made look bigger by separating things, adding unusable things, and increasing necessary travel. Bravo, GGG.

[opal anvil]

perfect description, it seems

[twilit mountain]

I am an extremely dedicated PoE2 hater

[opal anvil]

very fair

[mental talon]

But yeah idk like the game hate the passive tree Kirra just click damage, movespeed, or AoE not that difficult.

[warped wren]

Where's the /s

[warped wren]

How can we forget the flowery, elegant cluster designs that also conveniently make pathing a total nightmare

[opal anvil]

i mean they are right

[warped wren]

N

There's zero depth to the tree

[opal anvil]

that's what "deceptively" for

seems deep but really isn't

[warped wren]

When something is "deceptively X", it is actually X but not at first glance

Idk what Bearhugger meant

[opal anvil]

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/deceptively

[warped wren]

Weird because I've always seen the opposite application of that term

Anyway

My opinion on Falling Thunder changed with this practice run

[opal anvil]

"deceptively" lives up to it's meaning kek

[jovial bane]

welp, I've meant that it looks like you have a lot of options, but in reality 90% of them could be removed without making any difference

[warped wren]

I feel like it isn't a trash skill but it FEELS like one when you get it because your only access to power charges is by culling, and you don't have a main damage skill unless you know what you're doing

[warped wren]

Got it, and I agree

[jovial bane]

now I'm actually wondering whether it should be deceptively deep or simple lmao

[opal anvil]

btw how bigger size game becomes with each update? i assume since it's 130gb now, around 150gb?

[warped wren]

So because of this it feels like a waste because what do you actually do damage with, because the cull gives you charges to use on the NEXT pack (mostly)

But once I got used to using it, it was really quite powerful

[jovial bane]

I think I've used correct word, but it definitely was ambiguous

[warped wren]

It's fine, English is an absurd language

[twilit mountain]

Usually less of a jump than that. Depends on if they optimize or compress like... anything.

This shit's gonna be like 200gb in a couple years isn't it

[opal anvil]

thats good to hear
i was ready for 150 but it means i have to free up less space :^)

[twilit mountain]

But yeah I'm pretty aure since the start til now it's only gone up around 10 or so

[junior oyster]

Not really

[jovial bane]

after Helldivers 2 trimming the game from 100 something GB to 20 ? They definitely don't

[warped wren]

I last played HD2 in late '24 I think

apparently it's on fire now

again

idk which cycle of the it's-joever-we're-so-back loop they're on now

insane devs, insane community, glad I never got deep into it

[opal anvil]

wow what did they do again

[warped wren]

Idk

[twilit mountain]

Made the mistake of trying to make the "Utter Bullshit Point And Click To Win" guns not be the freest thing imaginable. Again. You'd think they would learn after the first try that their community will not accept it. Oh and I think something with warbonds? Idk on that front.

[opal anvil]

lmao

[warped wren]

Apparently it's also a pile of longstanding bugs that never get fixed even though player-favoring bugs do, complaints with lack of a progression system, and something about Arrowhead going back on vehicle or mech customization or some shit

I can definitely believe the first, that game is pure jank

[ebon meadow]

if anyone is interested

it is going to be a really long week

[junior oyster]

Where even is that post from?

Oh nvm it's a private league

[ebon meadow]

umm BPL discord

yep

[junior oyster]

No idea what that is but cool

[ebon meadow]

instead of starting solo first week u can lab rat test first event and transfer week after xdd

mostly u going to get "fed" with trade and crafting

and carrys

[desert jasper]

Don't know who they are
would rather go solo

[warped wren]

BPL is a pretty popular PoE1 event

team-based goals and GSF and stuff

interesting that they're doing this week 1 instead of later like they usually do

[ebon meadow]

data gathering

[pine summit]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOkaFpemy5w

sf outfits

[pine summit]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIMSYPT5bn8 seperate from the two free weekend free cosmetics for clearing stuff ingame (poe)

[narrow token]

Poor guy

[opal anvil]

someone point him to trade site

[warped wren]

welcome to early access I guess

[fierce moth]

The new waypoint mtx from the latest twitch drop is amazing!

I want to test that as soon as possible

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIMSYPT5bn8

[hardy crane]

I want that parasite pet haha

[narrow token]

I'm not much of a pet person, but I am looking forward to trying to get the challenge cosmetic set. Idk if I'll be able to, but I'll give it a shot.

[desert jasper]

I'll probably try attacking it when I see it
Just like the breach pet or the chimera one

[opal anvil]

attack mimic

[desert jasper]

Ah, the json for the skill tree is out
Too bad I have no idea how to apply that to pob

[desert jasper]

Yeah, I wonder how the challenges are
I think 2 of them are just: get all your ascendancy points and get all your atlas points

[narrow token]

The ascendancy points are probably going to be where I get stuck, then. I've never been able to get more than 4 points.

[fierce moth]

lol Nub think the same with me? Pre-familiar something in current poe 2 before 0.5 live 👀

[desert jasper]

I once just paid Deias to get me the 4 points

[desert jasper]

I was just cleaning my stash in standard

[opal anvil]

are actual carries expensive?

[desert jasper]

I think earlier in the league it was 1div? or something
I've never actually looked for another carry

But it's like
You can just get all 4 of the points with one run

[fierce moth]

I guess passive tree I made last night is a big mistake

[narrow token]

Never considered that. But in 450 hours I've only ever discovered a divine orb one time.

[opal anvil]

oh i thought you mean 4 as in actual points, not tiers
thats neat

[fierce moth]

🤔 I ignored area of effects, life regen, attack speed etc

[desert jasper]

Yeah, sorry
Wasn't clear with it

[opal anvil]

also div seems not bad

[desert jasper]

It's not too bad
Though you could ofc be unlucky with drops and just take forever to get a div
Could see it being more useful on a 2nd character than league start

[opal anvil]

i might go for 2-3/4 solo and try to get currency for carry if rest solo wont pan out

[desert jasper]

I'm just gonna do the first 3 solo
Sekhema trials aren't too bad if you're prepared for it with the relics... well, first 3 floors aren't too bad
I hate the last one

[opal anvil]

i never did sekhema final boss

mf trialmaster kept oneshotting me with the creeping slam

[desert jasper]

I did it once
had no idea what to expect
Went in with like
4k honor and won with like 200 left or some shit like that

[opal anvil]

i think going in blind is fun
i also think doing that should not be punished

[desert jasper]

I've only done trialmaster in like
0.3 with a poisonburst pathfinder
It was very easy on her
but I see don't wana think about it on like melee or something

[opal anvil]

i was doing on melee
he literally couldnt do me anything other than oneshot with the slam

this felt so bad and i couldnt get the roll timing down for several fights

[desert jasper]

Oh yea, I bet it felt bad

Anyway, got to get cooking

[twilit mountain]

Trialmaster is very easy on specifically non-mace melee as kong as you have decent leech, decent movement speed, and about 3k health. On mace he's a god damn wall because he attacks faster than almost every mace skill lmao

[desert jasper]

Surely there's no design problems when it comes to mace skills

[opal anvil]

can 3k health tank the slam?

i think i had around that

[desert jasper]

I guess it depends on what mods you pick?
And the general quality of your gear

[opal anvil]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/477231216714579968/1419016920081891448/Path_of_Exile_2_-_2025-09-20_9-44-49_PM.mp4?ex=6a16853d&is=6a1533bd&hm=31b7166349f91cfe6af9d531a9fe243a4a5913410a3a4cb5e499d4b84170015f&

i found the old clip

bruh no embed?

[twilit mountain]

Sure as long as you have defenses. If you're pure evasion you definitely need some deflection rating. If you're not pure evasion uh, I really hope you aren't EV/AR cuz that shit is garbage.

If this was before deflection rating existed well, yeah, you would have struggled cuz the game was clearly not designed to have un-evadeable attacks lmao

[desert jasper]

Too bad
Here's a barrage of attacks that can't be avoided

For the memes

[opal anvil]

wow

i dont think i ever saw someone tank that tbh

[twilit mountain]

Yeah idk what they did there, I've handled that guy just fine on far less. Might just be awful mods?

[desert jasper]

Pick all the chaos dmg bonuses
and go in with negative chaos res

[opal anvil]

his slam shotguns even with base stats

at least at the time damage was insane

[twilit mountain]

I know, I've beaten Trialmaster in melee on every patch

Brain

Why did you type that way

[jovial bane]

Oh, that attack got me last time

[opal anvil]

i think it was this?

[jovial bane]

But outside of that combo he does not hit that hard

[opal anvil]

i think the fight is fine besides that slam

[jovial bane]

And I think he is easier than Zarokh, with Zarokh if you roll more HP or less damage on curses ...

[opal anvil]

i saw zarokh in a few vids and he seems scary

[twilit mountain]

Zarokh is not hard he's just badly made. Literally has a movement speed check wipe mechanic.

[jovial bane]

First time I did him with minions plus corpse explosion (on said minions), well the moment I've realised minions block his attacks it was a walk in the park

[twilit mountain]

(Hint, I intentionally ignore floor 4 Sekhema until I can effectively one tap Zarokh. You should just do this too.)

[opal anvil]

[desert jasper]

The one time I did Zarokh
I went in with like 2 curses that lowered my dmg & movement speed, more boss hp and less player dmg
it was the worst experience I've had in poe2 and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone

[jovial bane]

that curse that lowers the movement speed is, or rather was literally the worst curse possible

it was nerfed

now it reduces the movement speed only if you get hit

[twilit mountain]

Another hint, the entirety of Sekhema trials become the easiest content in the game as soon as you weapon swap to a shield and just hold it up while walking around

[opal anvil]

on the other hand, when i got a movement speed buff in sekhemas, it was the best poe2 experience for me :^)

[jovial bane]

but my pet peeve with Sekhema is the jars and the stupid poison from the third boss

never ever pick the modifier that makes you take %HP damage on hit, or lose sacred water on hit

[twilit mountain]

You are forgetting the possibility of getting "you have no energy shield" on a CI build

[jovial bane]

because for some sadistic reason GGG decided that those stupid jars do 10 million hits for like 3 damage

[desert jasper]

Oh yea
Remember 0.1 Sekhemas?
It was absolutely miserable on melee

[jovial bane]

The result ? The stupid jar hits you, and shreds half of your honor

[opal anvil]

i remember poison trap one tapping you

[jovial bane]

hilariously enough that's why I hate the third area in the trials the most

4th trial is unironically easier

[twilit mountain]

Gimme

[desert jasper]

I'd share, sure

Shame I ran out of cheese while making it

Also I should've put in more chili

[desert jasper]

Wish it was Friday already tbh

[fierce moth]

emmm it need lv 82 already 💀

It's excellent if I can get one more gem slot... But it need 5 more levels with increasing nothing

[twilit mountain]

Kirra what the absolute hell are you trying to make, this is the ugliest tree I've ever seen

[desert jasper]

twisters

as the new spirit walker or whatever

[twilit mountain]

This pains me greatly

[desert jasper]

The earlier version was even worse

Just went past dmg nodes without picking them
to get to some proj nodes or deflect nodes

[twilit mountain]

Girly just go look at any Twister build on poe.ninja 😭

[desert jasper]

Looked like something Quin would make

[fierce moth]

...Why all uber ritualist on the leaderboard I seen are fans of bows

🤔 Oh... Their passive tree have a common is try their best to go up not go down

[twilit mountain]

Because bows are the top tier weapon of choice lol

Just filter for Twister if you want to play Twister

[fierce moth]

Touch mage's area as more as they can

That's an interesting weapon

[fierce moth]

Ok I copied this passive tree from one of twister ritualists

lv 92 is my max as it's expected

https://poe.ninja/poe2/builds/vaal/character/Chimego-7741/DDDDVAAL?i=4&search=skills%3DTwister
From this build

[placid yarrow]

Spaghetti is served

[vagrant topaz]

Baby ducks 😍🦆

[placid yarrow]

pog

[desert jasper]

Adorable

[vagrant topaz]

Mama duck is very protective

Can't wait for this weekend when we will have to transfer them in the other chicken house

💀

[desert jasper]

oh yea, they're very protective

[vagrant topaz]

I'll put on my full plate armor

I am going to get mogged by a duck

[desert jasper]

Just take one of the babies and run
and step 2 is "Don't die"

[sand wigeon]

they will be good eating

[vagrant topaz]

You mean like us eating the ducklings?

[desert jasper]

No, the ducklings eating you

[twilit mountain]

I think they mean you

[vagrant topaz]

Ah 😅

The mama duck the moment I grab a baby

[desert jasper]

How long have you had ducks again?

[vagrant topaz]

A month or 2
Can't remember

[desert jasper]

Ah, yea
Be ready for a fight when you have to move them

[vagrant topaz]

I will be ready

[desert jasper]

The duck will have same amount of time to prepare for it as you do

[twilit mountain]

Hm. PoE2 has no sources of phys to ele conversion outside of innately in certain skills. This sucks.

[desert jasper]

Yeah. Would be nice if we had some

Well, more than just the skill + avatar of fire

And didn't they also change how conversions work? So you can't get 100% phys to fire even with skill + avatar

[twilit mountain]

You can, you're thinking of that it can convert in any direction

(I think)

Mmmm right I forgot that the game says "lol no leech for non-phys". Forget it, not even gonna try.

[desert jasper]

I'm still thinking I'll just roll grenades
And then have to wear sunglasses while playing at like 10fps

[twilit mountain]

Well I was gonna look into Flicker on MA, but like, can't do pure lightning like I wanted, and I can't plan unarmed properly because the biggest part of it isn't in PoB

[desert jasper]

at least the json is available

[twilit mountain]

Only for the tree

[desert jasper]

hmm yeah

I wonder how the gloves work with MA

[desert jasper]

Looking good

Also it's just a flesh wound

[vagrant topaz]

Was psn good in poe 2 ?

Or am I not understanding the change to that node properly

[desert jasper]

oh, it's 50% less now?

Anyway, yeah poison was good? probably still is mostly fine
kinda suffers from the same usual as all ailments in poe2 that you want a big hit to cause it

Tbh I'm not very good at answering poison related stuff.... even when i played one to 87 or so
because when i looked at the poison dmg it was way lower than i thought it was

[twilit mountain]

Yes, but it's annoying and only works on like two classes and a total of maybe 4 skills ever since the Splinter nerf.

[warped wren]

Yesn't

[twilit mountain]

I'm considering just running it back on poison Storm Wave ngl. It hasn't really been touched at all, some mild passive nerfs.

[warped wren]

There's basically 2 ways to play it: as an add-on to an already good, strong hit-based build (how boring and small), or as a poison stacker using some fairly whatever uniques

[warped wren]

Is Storm Wave better than the other wave skills, like Cascade or Wind Blast?

[vagrant topaz]

Yeah, that was my understanding

[twilit mountain]

Does anyone got the screenshot on what the hell the Hollow things are on MA?

[vagrant topaz]

So I dont understand the nerf but whatever

[warped wren]

Oh they also nerfed both of these btw, with the Plaguefinger nerf

[twilit mountain]

For this? Yeah, without contest.

[warped wren]

The bells?

I think there's a screenshot post on reddit, sec

[twilit mountain]

I think so? It's one the "select 1 of 3 variants" iirc

[desert jasper]

I wish they weren't nerfed

But alas

[twilit mountain]

Plaguefinger is technically buffed nowadays

[warped wren]

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile2builds/s/shIp3MU85y

[warped wren]

They added a line that makes you unable to apply elemental ailments with it

Goodbye shock

[twilit mountain]

No?

[warped wren]

Yes

[twilit mountain]

Oh is it new?

[twilit mountain]

Got it, new

Lame

[warped wren]

Fubgoon claims another victim

[twilit mountain]

Literally they just need to nerf bow skills lmao?

None of the items are the problem with any of the builds he's been runnin

[desert jasper]

But can't have that

[warped wren]

Tbf they did do that too, and nuked PF

Deadeye is still Deadeye though

[twilit mountain]

Nuke bows further, the damage loss on LA is only about 30% on bosses only.

[warped wren]

Yeah LA's single target got hit, and the current plan that fubgoon has... well it's obviously strong, but a LOT of people are gonna suck with it lmfao

Can't wait for the rage

[desert jasper]

I'm just gonna sell bows and spears I find
For people who go twisters or that

[twilit mountain]

Real

[warped wren]

For all of week 1 and much of week 2, I predict Reddit is gonna be full of the following rage posts:

1. Twister is too many buttons and I suck at it
2. Monk sucks
3. Fubgun baited me
4. League mechanic too rippy
5. How do I survive
6. Economy is in shambles, how do I keep up (ignore that I'm still in acts)

[desert jasper]

I wonder where... Redemption? drops

[twilit mountain]

I really just like, don't know if I should bother. I either run Flicker in some jank ass setup or I just do something I've already done because there's about 4 (good) builds per weapon type in the game

[warped wren]

I am gonna go hoppity zippity Martial Artist and make it work

[desert jasper]

I've never actually played with grenades so I'm looking forward to giving it a go

[warped wren]

[warped wren]

Can highly recommend Ducks' setup

He's been testing it for the last 4 weeks

It's unironically one of the strongest, safest starters I've seen so far

[twilit mountain]

Grenades are good. Pretty much all of them (that aren't explicit utility skills)

[desert jasper]

I was checking dread's testing
took him like 8hours to reach.. tier 15? in ssf

[warped wren]

I have no idea what Dread is doing

And while Dread is smart as hell, his picks tend to be not the safest and often janky

[desert jasper]

i'll just join one of the people on reddit & forums complaining how the game sucks etc

[warped wren]

Well at least you'll have plenty of company xdd

[desert jasper]

I wouldn't actually join those.
If it's too miserable I usually just reroll to something else

Maybe do a little bit of complaining, take a break and then figure out what I'm doing wrong or reroll

[mental talon]

Think it's a World Drop.

[desert jasper]

oh my

[exotic wave]

Complain about lack of axes

[desert jasper]

Nah, swords my man
They showed sword on the teaser with Chaluppa

[exotic wave]

Don't care, give axes

[desert jasper]

Tbh I'm looking forward to getting new weapons in general

[abstract karma]

After 2 weeks or less, ppl which know wtf they are doign with monk will cause first nerfs patches
Then you will see these posts quantity of 5x

[abstract karma]

so flicker strike focused ?

[twilit mountain]

They don't do mid-league nerfs unless it's bugged.

[abstract karma]

huh.. well we will see

[twilit mountain]

There's nothing to see, man, there's been two exceptions to that in the past nine years and both caused extreme amounts of backlash. Only one of them was actually justified.

[warped wren]

Killing Palm + Flicker Strike yes

[ebon meadow]

Monk will mostly be adjusted during the first week ,but yea they are really against mid league nerfs

[desert jasper]

And how will you suggest they "adjust" the monk during first week?

[ebon meadow]

Don't know not a dev but I m seeing backlash already from just patch notes in variety of discord servers

Might be wrong but that would make it a good thing not bad lul

[warped wren]

they don't do post launch nerfs lmao

they do sometimes buff tho

[twilit mountain]

Are you seeing a pattern in the people here insisting that they're going to do the very thing they've sworn not to do for nearly a decade? Cuz I am.

[warped wren]

Yep

[desert jasper]

What? Noo, surely not

[twilit mountain]

Fml I can't use that

Yes I'm playing D3. Idk why, I got a really strong urge to play it lately.

[desert jasper]

It's a fun game

[vagrant topaz]

I was genuinely thinking of playing it too

But then remembered I have already played all the builds I like in it

[twilit mountain]

I just pick a class I know I like and then choose a set depending on if I like the skill. I'm not particularly concerned with leaderboards, I got my ego boost from them ages ago.

[warped wren]

I'm passing time playing random things

Completed 100 hrs in Shape of Dreams yesterday by carrying a bunch of folks across a run

[desert jasper]

Honestly
I haven't really been doing anything today or yesterday
at least tomorrow I've some way to pass time

[warped wren]

Interesting that GGG nuked group play MF from orbit but didn't really touch MF outside of that

Extremely weird

I suppose it's just a 2-step thing where they solved 1 egregious thing now because they could and the next step will fix the whole issue

[desert jasper]

It's so I, me alone, can do MF

Ah well

Can't have everything, I guess

[junior oyster]

Ok I must have been out of the loop because I didn't know they were making a green lantern live action show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmcIjxwLJcY

But I'm looking forward to my fav lantern (after evil kitty) Jon Stewart

[mental talon]

If Explodey Crucible Totems and Reverse Snapshot Archmage Penance Brand of Disipation can't get a mid league nerf (where Reverse PBoD had literally Billions of damage with just one item) then Im not worried about Martial Artist. Unless you're actively cooking the servers, or functionality immortal (they never let that slide) you get to chill until the next league.

[ebon meadow]

nades are fine , holy unique SB

geniunly very broken leveling set ups i like it

my first time playing grenades

[junior oyster]

Expecting a grim dawn expansion announcement anytime this week 👀

I'm hoping it's tonight/tomorrow

[opal anvil]

yoo

[mental talon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpE1t_-uAog

[narrow token]

Would they show what the game will look or play like at all? Because that's one of the reasons I bounced off GD. I'm not familiar with the dev team at all.

[twilit mountain]

An expansion is not going to change that

[placid yarrow]

Imagine it did and all the dlc content is in the form of an fp shooter or something

Like if Gwent was a Witcher expansion and they didn't mention anything about it being a card game

[narrow token]

Ah, unfortunate.

[opal anvil]

lmao

they also adding wasd which is big for me

[junior oyster]

Well you got your answer xd

It won't change much if you don't like what's in the vanilla and previous expansions

[desert jasper]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE8D-N7JDcY
the challenges & rewards

[warped wren]

It's a nice set

Not on the level of Affliction but that was a rare one

[narrow token]

It's a game feel issue for me. Same reason I can't enjoy poe1 unfortunately. :\

[junior oyster]

It's fine

I know the feeling with the tl games

[desert jasper]

Just a few more days to go

[desert jasper]

Tbh I don't remember the affliction set
But I might grind for this one

[jovial bane]

oh what the hell

Witcher 3 Song of the Past is confirmed

[vagrant topaz]

Weren't they working on witcher 4?

[jovial bane]

they still are

[narrow token]

I'm trying to figure out how to put together blood mage with reap. It's a LOT harder than I thought trying to make a build.

[twilit mountain]

Reap is kinda dogshit

So there's that

Just do what any reasonable person does and use a bone skill or Spark

[twilit mountain]

Half the reason it sucks is because it's weapon locked and there is a 0.1% chance your spell build wants to use a 2H

Especially on BM

[narrow token]

I lament the fact that there aren't any blood-themed spells. It's part of why I want to use Reap. I can't think of anything else I want to try. I've done everything else that's fun to me. I don't find most spells to be very fun long-term.

[sand wigeon]

do you lament the fact that you use full stops every two words too

[lethal bane]

Reap can be viable, I recall seeing it pushed doing all content

I'm baiting myself

[twilit mountain]

They're basically all CoC builds not actually Reap

[indigo shadow]

I'm impressed this game works well on Linux

[twilit mountain]

Screw it, I'll try to make Flicker MA work and if it ain't working by like T10 maps I'll drop

I formally request everyone's first divine as a birthday gift since that's tomorrow /s

[desert jasper]

It'll work
trust

You may request that but since it's no longer your birthday when it launches you're not getting anything

[twilit mountain]

Damn fair enough xdd

[desert jasper]

I still have time to change my league start to something else
Also really wish it didn't start at 11pm my time

[twilit mountain]

Idk when it starts imma be real

All I know is Marathon season 2 starts at 1PM on the 2nd and I am probably accounted for cuz I asked a friend of mine if they would be around to play that

[desert jasper]

Sounds good
Anyway, gonna sleep early today
been feeling oddly tired all day

[twilit mountain]

Rest well!

[warped wren]

Another convert

We can make it happen

Just culling a single bell lets you use a 4-8 strike Flicker

And one KP + Flicker = enough combo to use Bell, which with Ailith's generates at least 1 power charge, so you can Flicker AGAIN

[twilit mountain]

They've been too stingy and haven't given us attribute stacking for flat damage yet, right?

[warped wren]

Why do you need that?

[twilit mountain]

It'd be more fun than dealing with weapon crafting.

[warped wren]

Ah

Maybe copium but I think Hollow Palm might be usable for longer

Because of Stonefist

[twilit mountain]

Still doesn't compare to a high end crafted phys/ele qstaff

[warped wren]

Ofc

Just meant that it might allow easier progression for a longer while

[fierce moth]

Oh my lord. The ending of s2 is quite... Inspiring and satisfying because...
Khalessi ||passed the test from the witch and punish the liar.|| Well done!

It's a epic character. She almost be treated by that liar because she want ships so much

And ||white walkers|| are here in real...Oh it's shocking

[twilit mountain]

Lmao. The price on a Steam Deck went up by about $200

[placid yarrow]

what?

[twilit mountain]

if I had to guess it's a tie-in expansion for TW4

[placid yarrow]

That would be cool. Maybe you get to see what leads to the beginning of TW4

They said they're announcing more in summer and that it comes out in 2027 so hopefully that means early 2027 and witcher 4 comes out late 2027 or early 2028

releasing a dlc for an 11 year old game is still kinda wild lol

[twilit mountain]

It's pretty rare yea

[placid yarrow]

I really hope it includes some combat revamps or something otherwise idk man x)

since I'd likely wanna do an entire playthrough since it's been so long but I don't think I have it in me with the combat

could maybe be a scenario seperate from the campaign, that'd be cool too

[cold ore]

Blood and Wine was kind of like that, right? I mean you could totally go from the main campaign into it (carrying over any relevant choices), but I think they also just had a main menu "Just start me in DLC Land" option

[placid yarrow]

I meant like totally seperate where you don't need to have a normal save at all to play through it if that makes sense

[cold ore]

Yeah, that was my recollection for Blood and Wine - if you pick the main menu option it'd just generate a level appropriate/average gear Geralt so you could jump straight in

[placid yarrow]

Nah blood and wine you keep everything

it's just a seperate map basically

at least that's how I remember it lul

[cold ore]

Yeah I mean you absolutely were better off just going from the campaign into there and all that jazz

Just they also had a main menu option that basically skipped the main game stuff (I think, anyways)

[placid yarrow]

oh yeah

I guess that would be similar to what I was thinking then yeah

I forgot it had a skip to the dlc's

[junior oyster]

Ahh still no grim dawn expansion trailer

Idk why but this button is so damn big lol

[jovial bane]

not as wild as warlock in D2 lmao

[placid yarrow]

true lol

Tbf though D2R isnt that old :P

[jovial bane]

Or Age of Empires 2 getting expansions
But I agree that it will probably tie in to Witcher 4

[jovial bane]

You will hate what they did to her in last season lmao

[jovial bane]

Sadly not a surprise, but to be fair I've expected a bigger price hike. Considering RAM and SSDs went up by 200-400% 🫠

[pine summit]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfUtseK27pc

xmen 97 season 2

announced

[warped wren]

RIP Bloodmage

[fierce moth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdnYDzZ6RJw These skills are very cool but I wish I know which support gems should I use per one...They're zero value without correct support gems

[opal anvil]

just experiment

or ||use pob||

:^)

[desert jasper]

They're not in pob yet

[opal anvil]

maybe soon™

[fierce moth]

Quite fun, my action skills back to just play poe 2 for the first time

[opal anvil]

wdym? you never played poe2? or it feels like you are playing for the first time?

[fierce moth]

Stick on the last phrase of act 4's final boss because no idea how to dodge various ground effects

Why it's quite fun:

[opal anvil]

sick boss

why it has shaper ground degens 😓

[fierce moth]

My issue is don't know how to dodge the ground slam after he summoned many spikes and a blood circle just exploded. He's mad
Oh not the slam. It's the roar.

🤔 Melee's weakness. Must aim at him closely.

[gilded elm]

Nicolas Cage as Spider-Noir isn't something I would have ever thought I wanted, but I'm pleasantly surprised by it so far.

[narrow token]

Idk how to use pob well at all, but I had no idea that trying to turn elemental attacks into pure phys ones would drop the damage so much. Just walls, walls, walls everywhere.

[fierce moth]

Kill this boss after tried 9 times

ok wait the new league. Done.

[desert jasper]

You could be doing so much more dmg with that build Kirra
but alas, you have ignored my suggestions previously

[narrow token]

Honestly Spearfield wrecks bosses like that.

[desert jasper]

Yes but she's doing bleed

[narrow token]

So was I. Tavakai and any big boss that walks/runs towards you just melts.

[fierce moth]

I should do stun, poison or elemental instead of bleeding because bleeding isn't good in Poe 2?
Sorry, I forget which key words are you mentioned in your suggestions to do a search.

[fierce moth]

Which debuff are you applying for?

[desert jasper]

I mean yeah
But she had struggled with a lot of the other bosses

[vagrant topaz]

Is bleed spear not good?

[desert jasper]

I mean
It's good enough
But the way kirra has built it? not really

She'd probably be doing more dmg if she used Rapid assault 5 times to leave the 5 spearheads and then detonate those with like
thunderous leap or something

But in general she seems to lack damage
who knows, bad spear or what?

Like I used spearfield too
But it wasn't the spearfield that was doing the actual bleeding damage on my character
it was just a way of proccing the atziris spear thing on enemies and then I'd use the skill from the spear

Though that build is getting nerfed in 0.5

[fast lagoon]

Anyone got added by this user? @frozen raven

[desert jasper]

Nope
I'd report it to @keen plank

[fierce moth]

Why it's nerfed...NO

The last day to enjoy bleed spearfield is the thing I don't expected

[vagrant topaz]

The atziri spear is nerfed

[fierce moth]

Wait a minute...a t z I r i s p e a r

Oh. Not my business. It's a lv 72 unique spear

lv 55 my ritualist only

[vagrant topaz]

So rapid strike and thunderous leap

[desert jasper]

Yeah and you wouldn't use that on ritualist for bleed
because it has a bunch of elemental damage

[desert jasper]

Yeah, that's good for single target

[vagrant topaz]

It's a shame thunderous Leap is... Thunder

[desert jasper]

🤷‍♂️ I just used it to detonate the things from rapid strike

[vagrant topaz]

Bleed comes from spear heads, and so scale from rapid strike right

?

[vagrant topaz]

Yeah, it's just thematically i would have loved it if it was not lightning

But won't stop me from sleeping at night

[desert jasper]

Tbh you'd probably be better off looking up a guide instead of asking me
I just followed mathil's bleed spear bloodmage for it LUL

[vagrant topaz]

Nah, I'll wing it

It's fine

[desert jasper]

For clearing rapid strike is pretty miserable

And while sure, there's also the... what was the spear skill that "deals dmg based on distance" and causes bleed? That one is terrible

[vagrant topaz]

Blood hound mark, herald of blood

[vagrant topaz]

Blood hunt?

[desert jasper]

Rake

[vagrant topaz]

Oo

But the dash is minuscule

[desert jasper]

Yeah, it's awful

[fierce moth]

https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/profile/shiny-dragon-6044a1/builds/b9a35b33-1646-4a91-98e6-a9e1adad8185?weaponSet=set2

Yes, this is the build my ritualist is following... (Seems that it was complaint with not a leveling guide)

[vagrant topaz]

Is it trash for clearing too?

I was thinking maybe using another skill to make a big bleed and pop a pack with blood hunt

[desert jasper]

yes

[fierce moth]

Using the main skill Rake to apply huge bleeds, Herald of Blood & Herald of Plague to explode screens and then Blood Hunt to execute bosses - an old concept but it feels slow so im testing things to make it faster and more fun to play.

From the guide. Hah... Interesting

So my mistake is using rake

[vagrant topaz]

Is spear throw smth you can work with?

[fierce moth]

Oh rake can bleed enemies but must melee. Bleedhunt is for cleaning damage from bleeding

Emmmm...Why I want to backwash my spear

And why my skill combo don't include rapid assault...

😅 these're good questions.

[vagrant topaz]

So this is just good right?

[fierce moth]

Alright I don't know what have I done

[vagrant topaz]

Aggravated is 100%More Dmg and don't require moving target (from what I read)

Base duration being lower means higher dps too?

Or is the base duration being lower means you loose 80% of your dmg? (since base duration is 5sec)

[desert jasper]

You're asking too many questions that I don't have an answer to LUL

[vagrant topaz]

Lol

[desert jasper]

I'm just a guide follower and don't think too much about it really

I guess it could give you higher dps if you keep on applying the bleed

Seeing that it also does have the bleed magnitude
So even if you lost the 80% of dmg but then you'd be dealing double the bleed damage over that 1 sec + that 50% more magnitude

[vagrant topaz]

Still a 40%dmg loss if I don't get ailment duration

So probably smth to use later on

[vagrant topaz]

I am guessing I'll loose dmg by reducing the duration

[exotic wave]

Eh... you can only have one bleed by default

[junior oyster]

So trailer is dropping tonight/tomorrow eh

[vagrant topaz]

So? (genuine question)

[exotic wave]

So as long as you can reuse you big bleed applicator within that window it's a dps gain

[junior oyster]

I'm in the UK so for me it's most likely tomorrow

[vagrant topaz]

In a 1 sec window yeah
But that's not smth you can do early on I suppose

[exotic wave]

Think like say an Armour break build

If you can break+pay off w/in 1 sec you're golden

[vagrant topaz]

Btw is there a way to have more than 1 bleed?

[exotic wave]

Yes

It comes with its own drawbacks

[narrow token]

That sad feeling when you only have 2 divine orbs but the thing you want costs 5.

[vagrant topaz]

Unique item?