Path of Exile

[VKhaun]

There's a buy-in option now.
I think the cheapest one is $10 to join 'closed' beta.
For those who played it, is it worth getting into?

[Esfires]

I only played it a little bit, but I liked what I saw. I figured it would be overshadowed once DIII came out, but since that crashed and burned it may be that PoE is the top contender for dungeon-crawling action right now. Guild Wars 2 is the only game I'm actively playing, but if I got tired of that I could see myself going back to PoE.

[Valec]

I just can never get into PoE. I've tried on numerous occasions and it just doesn't seem as much fun. Torchlight 2 is pretty good though. I think i'd rate it above PoE.

[Sillywilly]

I just can never get into PoE. I've tried on numerous occasions and it just doesn't seem as much fun. Torchlight 2 is pretty good though. I think i'd rate it above PoE.

Yeah the skill system in PoE was a turn off for me. Getting my abilities through gems placed in my gear just didn't sit well with me. I liked the extensive skill trees where you could choose multiple paths and the atmosphere for the game was pretty good as well but I ended up not sinking a lot of time into this one. I've played far more Torchlight.

[Sillywilly]

I just can never get into PoE. I've tried on numerous occasions and it just doesn't seem as much fun. Torchlight 2 is pretty good though. I think i'd rate it above PoE.

Yeah the skill system in PoE was a turn off for me. Getting my abilities through gems placed in my gear just didn't sit well with me. I liked the extensive skill trees where you could choose multiple paths and the atmosphere for the game was pretty good as well but I ended up not sinking a lot of time into this one. I've played far more Torchlight.

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

PoE is, in my opinion, the best action RPG since Diablo 2.
That said, I can't think of a lot of action RPGs I've played in the intervening years. Just Torchlight 1, Titan Quest, and Diablo 3.
All three of these are fine games in their own right, but they each had as many drawbacks that I couldn't stand to invest time into the game like I did with Diablo 2.

Torchlight had little draw for me because the game does basically nothing to stop you from modding or cheating. I don't like to self impose limitations.
I felt like the controls were a bit wonky, and the game wasn't very deep - skills were underwhelming so the skill tree was underwhelming.
I got about 20 hours from this game, which was well worth it considering it was pretty cheap. Also; the developers weren't trying to create the game I was looking for.

Titan Quest was good, but and seemed like I could really get into it for a while, but eventually it became very dull and there were some annoying aspects and mechanics.
I played about 50 hours according to Steam.

Diablo 3 was of course the next big hope I had. I don't see any reason to expand on the reasons that it failed.
I still logged about a 100 hours on the game, though I was definitely not having fun for at least 50 of those hours.

The best thing about PoE is the depth of character development.
Everyone has seen the ginormous skill tree. I love to just sit back and relax, spending time planning. I'd say I've probably logged at least a few hours just making builds on their website. A great thing about it is that it's something that you can always improve on so there's always some driving force to play beyond searching for items.
Skill gems gives another reason to play, not as much of a driving force, but you at least get to see a level up skill gem button every so often. Skill gems and support gems also give a ton of flexibility and add another layer to character building and planning.

Items are lackluster but I would say the same thing about almost all action RPGs (besides Diablo 2). At least the items aren't boiled down to a few important stats, you can mostly gear towards whatever you want as long as you can find the right type of armor and the right sockets. Sockets are another thing that make me think longer term. Oh what I'd do with a 6 linked body armor.
GGG has made some interesting uniques, though I've only found 2 while I leveled my witch to 67, one was a useless shield and the other was a ring that gave the equivalent as one of the skill tree keystones.
Ultimately, I think the biggest problem with items (and this was in Diablo 2 as well), is that magic find is a stat (or rather improved quantity and improved quality are stats). Seeing as the main goal of ARPGs is item grinds, this means that even if I find some super awesome item, if it would replace an item with a lot of magic find, I can't really stand to replace it. This always leaves me feeling a bit awkward because it means that ultimately I'm just farming for better magic find gear so that I can find better magic find gear.

The currency system is genius, albeit frustrating at times - it sucks that you have to blow hundreds of currency items on a chance of improving an item, and it sucks even more that the chance is so small that it's not entirely unlikely that you could end up blowing 10 times as much without getting the right upgrade. Gamblers might like it, but I will probably just trade for most really rare things like that.

I'm probably a bit biased because the only class I've played significantly is a summoning witch, and my favorite class in Diablo 2 was a summoning necromancer. PoE is the only game I've found that gave the same experience, and it is spectacular.
I tried playing a ranger and a templar, but I didn't get very far with either. The ranger got to about level 20, it was an OK experience. I gave up on the templar before level 10 because melee is just not fun.
With melee, stopping to attack feels so awkward, the only melee character I played in Diablo 2 was a WW barbarian, which (with a little life steal and mana steal) would just mow through every mob I found without stopping.
I think most ARPGs don't do this, they probably think they need to avoid it add more depth to the gameplay. I can't argue with the thought, but I will say I find it less enjoyable.

I generally dislike the idea of games supported by micro transactions, but the developers say it won't be pay-2-win and I believe them.
I've logged nearly 80 hours in the game, but I stopped playing until they go into open beta cause I don't want to spend the time playing just to have it wiped out. I expect to log much more time when open beta happens.
I've also read that they plan on releasing expansions/new acts for a long time (assuming they stay afloat and it's worth it), so hopefully that will keep the game fresh. Right now, I'd totally be willing to spend like $5-$10 per act, but I don't even know if they plan on charging for them since that's pretty close to pay-2-win unless it's the same level creatures and same loot but new environments and different mobs.

[VKhaun]

I got it. It's fun. Very much an RPG and not really an 'A'RPG but for ten bucks it's keeping my attention from borderlands and that's saying something.

Thank maybe for this passive planner they have on their site...
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQEB

Nothing is really grabbing me except the spells so far, but I like being tanky. Think I'll specialize a templar real hard towards blue. Cast speed and cold damage. I don't think I need to bother with AoE passives. It's big enough, and there are support gems later.

[Valec]

PoE is, in my opinion, the best action RPG since Diablo 2.
That said, I can't think of a lot of action RPGs I've played in the intervening years. Just Torchlight 1, Titan Quest, and Diablo 3.
All three of these are fine games in their own right, but they each had as many drawbacks that I couldn't stand to invest time into the game like I did with Diablo 2.

Torchlight had little draw for me because the game does basically nothing to stop you from modding or cheating. I don't like to self impose limitations.
I felt like the controls were a bit wonky, and the game wasn't very deep - skills were underwhelming so the skill tree was underwhelming.
I got about 20 hours from this game, which was well worth it considering it was pretty cheap. Also; the developers weren't trying to create the game I was looking for.

Titan Quest was good, but and seemed like I could really get into it for a while, but eventually it became very dull and there were some annoying aspects and mechanics.
I played about 50 hours according to Steam.

Diablo 3 was of course the next big hope I had. I don't see any reason to expand on the reasons that it failed.
I still logged about a 100 hours on the game, though I was definitely not having fun for at least 50 of those hours.

The best thing about PoE is the depth of character development.
Everyone has seen the ginormous skill tree. I love to just sit back and relax, spending time planning. I'd say I've probably logged at least a few hours just making builds on their website. A great thing about it is that it's something that you can always improve on so there's always some driving force to play beyond searching for items.
Skill gems gives another reason to play, not as much of a driving force, but you at least get to see a level up skill gem button every so often. Skill gems and support gems also give a ton of flexibility and add another layer to character building and planning.

Items are lackluster but I would say the same thing about almost all action RPGs (besides Diablo 2). At least the items aren't boiled down to a few important stats, you can mostly gear towards whatever you want as long as you can find the right type of armor and the right sockets. Sockets are another thing that make me think longer term. Oh what I'd do with a 6 linked body armor.
GGG has made some interesting uniques, though I've only found 2 while I leveled my witch to 67, one was a useless shield and the other was a ring that gave the equivalent as one of the skill tree keystones.
Ultimately, I think the biggest problem with items (and this was in Diablo 2 as well), is that magic find is a stat (or rather improved quantity and improved quality are stats). Seeing as the main goal of ARPGs is item grinds, this means that even if I find some super awesome item, if it would replace an item with a lot of magic find, I can't really stand to replace it. This always leaves me feeling a bit awkward because it means that ultimately I'm just farming for better magic find gear so that I can find better magic find gear.

The currency system is genius, albeit frustrating at times - it sucks that you have to blow hundreds of currency items on a chance of improving an item, and it sucks even more that the chance is so small that it's not entirely unlikely that you could end up blowing 10 times as much without getting the right upgrade. Gamblers might like it, but I will probably just trade for most really rare things like that.

I'm probably a bit biased because the only class I've played significantly is a summoning witch, and my favorite class in Diablo 2 was a summoning necromancer. PoE is the only game I've found that gave the same experience, and it is spectacular.
I tried playing a ranger and a templar, but I didn't get very far with either. The ranger got to about level 20, it was an OK experience. I gave up on the templar before level 10 because melee is just not fun.
With melee, stopping to attack feels so awkward, the only melee character I played in Diablo 2 was a WW barbarian, which (with a little life steal and mana steal) would just mow through every mob I found without stopping.
I think most ARPGs don't do this, they probably think they need to avoid it add more depth to the gameplay. I can't argue with the thought, but I will say I find it less enjoyable.

I generally dislike the idea of games supported by micro transactions, but the developers say it won't be pay-2-win and I believe them.
I've logged nearly 80 hours in the game, but I stopped playing until they go into open beta cause I don't want to spend the time playing just to have it wiped out. I expect to log much more time when open beta happens.
I've also read that they plan on releasing expansions/new acts for a long time (assuming they stay afloat and it's worth it), so hopefully that will keep the game fresh. Right now, I'd totally be willing to spend like $5-$10 per act, but I don't even know if they plan on charging for them since that's pretty close to pay-2-win unless it's the same level creatures and same loot but new environments and different mobs.

Dude.. hating Torchlight because it allows mods is like hating any Bethesda game for the same reason. It was intended to be moddable from the first. You're not self-limiting yourself by not getting mods that allow you to cheat. You're going out of your way to cheat, if that's what you're downloading. It's a conscious decision on your part to cheat.

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

Dude.. hating Torchlight because it allows mods is like hating any Bethesda game for the same reason. It was intended to be moddable from the first. You're not self-limiting yourself by not getting mods that allow you to cheat. You're going out of your way to cheat, if that's what you're downloading. It's a conscious decision on your part to cheat.

First; I don't hate torchlight - you read that into my post - I liked it for as much as I played it, and if I wanted to play it again I'd buy TL2, TL1 was a great game.
Second; you must not have read the whole post because I said "the developers weren't trying to create the game I was looking for" - so I acknowledged that it just wasn't my game. That's the primary reason I didn't get hooked.

Modding is a great thing. It's not something I'm interested in playing with in torchlight, but something I totally understand that others might.
I love mods in certain games I've played (Eg. Bethesda and Valve games).
I probably put too much emphasis on disliking mods in torchlight by putting it in the first sentence, sorry if it came out like I was hating on the game for that reason. What I really meant was that the possibly of mods was one aspect that stopped me from really getting into the game.

[Valec]

First; I don't hate torchlight - you read that into my post - I liked it for as much as I played it, and if I wanted to play it again I'd buy TL2, TL1 was a great game.
Second; you must not have read the whole post because I said "the developers weren't trying to create the game I was looking for" - so I acknowledged that it just wasn't my game. That's the primary reason I didn't get hooked.

Modding is a great thing. It's not something I'm interested in playing with in torchlight, but something I totally understand that others might.
I love mods in certain games I've played (Eg. Bethesda and Valve games).
I probably put too much emphasis on disliking mods in torchlight by putting it in the first sentence, sorry if it came out like I was hating on the game for that reason. What I really meant was that the possibly of mods was one aspect that stopped me from really getting into the game.

But this is entirely illogical? Just because you can mod it doesn't mean you have to(or in your case, even should). Just seems to me like you have some pretty fuzzy logic on the matter. You can cheat in nearly every game out there, via trainers, mods, or even built in cheats. So do you not play these games, just because cheating is possible?

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

But this is entirely illogical? Just because you can mod it doesn't mean you have to(or in your case, even should). Just seems to me like you have some pretty fuzzy logic on the matter. You can cheat in nearly every game out there, via trainers, mods, or even built in cheats. So do you not play these games, just because cheating is possible?

No, I still play games with cheating and mods, all I said that in this one case it was one thing that contributed towards me not wanting to spend a hundred hours grinding.

If you don't understand the opinion that cheating and modding might lessen the feeling of accomplishment in this situation, I doubt that I'll be able to convince you and I don't intend to.

[Valec]

No, I still play games with cheating and mods, all I said that in this one case it was one thing that contributed towards me not wanting to spend a hundred hours grinding.

If you don't understand the opinion that cheating and modding might lessen the feeling of accomplishment in this situation, I doubt that I'll be able to convince you and I don't intend to.

I do understand that, however, I don't understand why you feel that if these things are possible, you must do them?

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

I don't think I ever said I must do them, and I didn't mean to imply it.

[Valec]

I don't think I ever said I must do them, and I didn't mean to imply it.

So, if you don't feel compelled to do so, then wouldn't the fact that(in this case, mods for torchlight) they exist be irrelevant? I'm just not understand how something purely optional, that you have to go out of your way to even have anything to do with, could impact your experience negatively.

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

We're not on the same wavelength and I'm bored with discussing this.

Pretend all I said was that 'I didn't like torchlight as much as Path of Exile'.

[tysonlee]

-"Personally, I play a warlock to set people on fire as they run in fear while I steal their souls. As an added perk, I play an undead warlock so I can eat their brains afterwards. I suppose a better question is, why do people play anything else?" (Unknown WoW forum poster)

[VKhaun]

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-s...kwAeuHQ-y4JyYC


After playing more of the game I quickly remembered how much I loathe status effects in APRG's, especially chill/frozen. So that narrowed me to the DEX side between shadow and duelist. That corner holds all the status effect reduction in the game and a passive to make you immune to stun is on the STR-DEX border. I liked the Shadow more than the Duelist or Ranger, so I started there but it wouldn't be hard at all to adapt the build to any of the three.

My dip into blue for crit and red for damage yields enough INT/STR to comfortably use any support gem in the game. A little mana leech on top of that lets me run multiple Auras including Purity (+RES all) and use a kite shield(+RES all). The Armour/Evade bonuses look low, but with that passive converting Evade Rating directly into Armour I have three sets of gear to choose from (pure Armour, hybrid Armour and Evade Rating, and pure Evade Rating gear) and I can cherry pick the most favorable pieces for every slot. I have some mechanics concerns with the passive increases, but I did not go out of my way to get them so I can easily swap for pure Armour passives if the Evade Rating ones don't calculate favorably.

Attack speed and crit chance are harder to come by in STR territory and the STR-INT area's crit is spell specific so I expect my DPS to be decent compared to theirs. The added bonus is that attack speed also serves to free me from the DPS sand trap of the Frenzy skill. Since I already attack so quickly I can take my pick of the many fancy attack skills instead (stacking % based damage increases > stacking % based swing time reductions). Not to mention teleport speed leap slams for initiation o.o (Leap slam's animation time is affected by swing speed).





Shadow
Sword/Shield

2% Damage leeched back as Mana
Convert all Evade Rating to Armour
Cannot Evade + Immune to Stun
No movement Penalty from Armour

+120 STR
+210 DEX
+110 INT

+58% Attack Speed
+50% Accuracy
+147% Damage
+130% Crit Chance Modifier
+60% Crit Damage Multiplier
-40% Chance to be blocked

+14% Block Chance
+70% Defense From Shield
-40% Block Recovery Time

+10% HP
+114% Armour
+64% Evade (Transfers to Armour)
+42% Resist All

Status Effect Avoid Chance
Immune to Stun
55% Prevent Chill
55% Prevent Freeze
75% Prevent Shock
55% Prevent Ignite

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

You shouldn't plan a build to 111 points, the highest level on the ladder is 85 and only 14 people have gotten above level 80 on the legacy ladder, and 3 more on the hardcore legacy ladder
Assuming you get to level 80 and take all skill points from the quest in the second act you'll only have like 96 (? I think it's 2 skill points from quests per act).
I would say planning for an endgame of level 70 is fair, after that it's just gravy.

Chill and freeze are definitely annoying status effects, I was never bothered by shock or ignite, are they affected by resistance?

I noticed you put 1 extra point you don't need near the Ranger starting area - you can get rid of 10% 1 handed accuracy or 10 dexterity without losing anything else. Seems getting rid of the dexterity would be worth dropping.

How do you plan on healing? Only from flasks? You are right next to a 1.5% per second healing notable at the bottom of the tree. It's probably not a lot but it's at least small amount of passive healing.
Is 2% mana leech enough to keep you going? I haven't tried it, so I was wondering if you can sustain on that alone or you still need to use mana flasks?

Can I ask where you got the output summarizing the effects? Everyone on the forums has it formatted like that but I don't know where they got to the tool to do it.

[VKhaun]

I add the numbers up as I go along to help compare choices. I have access to more wheels of any given type than I can actually spec, so I need to keep track to know if I should do more of one bonus or the other. I wanted the 10% accuracy, but the extra 10 dex spot I can't find and is driving me nutts...

In the end though, you ARE correct. I did not account for time at all. The armor/evasion increases and my neat passives are all so far from the starting area it's not even funny. I can't just go marauder though because I'm spoiled by the attack speed. Even at lv20 I have about what an end-game marauder would have and I want MOOOAAAARRRR

Probably do VeekzVex as a ranger and convert this to a dual wield and pure evade ranger build today, or maybe stay Shadow and start with the far right wall and migrate late game when I have enough respec points. I.T. will have work shut down and I'll have plenty of time for it. I'm going in late and then I'll just be there to help test things if needed. Best case scenario I do one or two action in a few hours and everything works, worst case scenario I do one or two actions in many hours because nothing works!

[VKhaun]

EDIT--
Removed edits.
--

Tweaked to trade 9% IAS, for 18% damage and 3% IAS (don't have to go all the way around that wheel for 'fencing', you can short pick it as the second point.), and went around to the ranger stuff other way so I gained dex instead of frenzy charge passives I won't use and the flask bonus.

Later I can tweak this further. I am connected to a crit wheel up north, more flask/max life bonuses, elemental damage, etc. If I want to trade off stats later when I know more it will be easy to do because of how far I travel for the stun immune passive.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-s...DgjoMtQn2_gvGu


EDIT--
Same thing with crit chance, I can short pick the good crit chance passive up north so I dropped the two 15%'s in ranger, and got the 15 and the 40 up north. Free +25% crit chance.
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-s...LxrsOVX_-IRTFO

[VKhaun]

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-s...YfVM0SrI753pAI

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-s...YfVM0SrI753pAI

You're all over the place man, and all just for status reducing effects. I don't know if I understand that choice, it's never been that bad for me.

You're still planning 111 points, but you're probably never gonna get more than 90. What kind of character are you planning to play at level 65?

You didn't pick up iron reflexes, did you just miss that? Seeing as you picked Unwavering stance.

Also; blood magic, but that is more likely to have been a conscious choice.

You're picked like 5 or so flask nodes which seems like an odd choice to me. In case you weren't aware, I believe you can only regen 20% of your total health per second (via flasks or lifesteal w/o vaal pact), might consider the numbers, might not be a concern.

There's a +5% max resist notable near Resolute technique that seems good to me. Resists are something you can always make up for in equipment.

[VKhaun]

I really just stuck that there because I was playing with it and it was time to leave work, haha. Probably should have e-mailed it to myself.

I'm actually continuing with my sword/shield Shadow from the previous post. The game seems to lean on items and actives much harder than skills and you have an endless supply of respec points from item drops, so I'll probably just do the sword and 1h wheels near shadow, and crawl my way towards the end-game spec that way.

I'm just doing the 2h Duelist because it's OP as fuck and I was in a rut on the Shadow having not found any good loot for a while. Smashed through the game in about a tenth the time. Passed my shadow and sent him back a new sword. I'm looking at this right now for the two handed weapon duelist.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-s...qKhXQ9tOqHWw==

It's a lot of travelling, but I'll do that FIRST. Corner +10str instead of Mace+HP passives, skip the side armor passive and the skill cost reduction above it by going through the endurance charge on the first trip. He's still stomping everything's guts out. He hits so hard that it's very few swings (mana costs) per kill. Later when he starts to feel weak I can go lateral to get the defense or offense that I need from both marauder and duelist as needed, and his respec costs will be covered by the quests so I can funnel all respec drops to the shadow.





EDIT--
Edits above, and why am I this hardcore about this game? o.o

[VKhaun]

Oh snap, sista...

The cold damage spell wheel near where Witch starts has a nice double -chill duration. I might drop my shock and ignite passives on the shadow and see if I can get to that. I really don't like him being chilled.

The witch's closest points are fantastic too. I need to stay up until the bank opens today. Perhaps I'll make a cold damage witch and try to smash norm really fast like I did on my two hander guy. See if two hand is really OP or if my shadow was just wimpy.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-s...3T9Tm6j83KZmM=