[spoilers] - pindicator is excited for the next Realms Beyond league mechanics

[pindicator]

Come on Adler, I know you're not going to pick my civ. Don't make me say it in this thread and jinx myself though

[Miguelito]

Only slightly related at all because I'm going to draw on Path of Exile for my city naming theme again...

What build should I play when Blight starts up on Friday? I'm currently debating between some kind of poison Assassin or summoner Necro. Now that the patch notes are out I'm probably hoping to have someone do the work for me and post a decent build in either of those classes online.

What did you go with after all? Started late and have a cobra lash assassin in act 4 now. Poison mechanics are pretty convoluted and I'm not sure I know what I'm doing, but so far it's fun, especially now having completed lab. Before was a bit weird because I feel you can't really scale poison early, but I don't really see an alternative either without messing up the tree completely.

[pindicator]

What did you go with after all? Started late and have a cobra lash assassin in act 4 now. Poison mechanics are pretty convoluted and I'm not sure I know what I'm doing, but so far it's fun, especially now having completed lab. Before was a bit weird because I feel you can't really scale poison early, but I don't really see an alternative either without messing up the tree completely.

I went with the poison assassin and decided I liked Venom Gyre over Cobra Lash and used this build as a starting point. It does take a little bit to ramp up, but I got lucky by finding a Tabula early to help with damage, and I did have to spec into Pierce since I wasn't a Deadeye - but I plan on using my Anoint for either Pierce or defenses later on. It really started to come into it's own for damage somewhere in the later acts, but I feel like I'm starting to slow down a little bit again as I start maps.

I'm actually still using the Tabula and have less than 3k life / am not resist capped as I'm going through maps, which really says a lot to how tanky the new defense mechanics are for Assassin. That combined with the near constant instant leach of claws - that part of it reminds me of claw molten strike. Anyway, I like the build a lot, especially how it Venom Gyre turns your movement skill into another source of damage.

Not sure how far I plan on taking this build. Mostly I just want to be able to run maps to farm currency and find uniques to inspire whatever homebrew build I decide to go with for my 2nd plan. Righteous Fire Hierophant to abuse that new AoE buff they got is an idea...


EDIT: As for poison mechanics I can't say I fully understand them either. I went with scaling attack damage and claw nodes > scaling poison > scaling crit as my order of operations. Eventually I hope to go for Perfect Agony since I've never used that in a build before, but that is a long term goal since it is going to take a lot more crit and gear.

[pindicator]

I was really really tempted by Babylon here. FIN / EXP with cheap granaries would be like old BtS Pacal. But practically Pacal of nobody. I really don't care for these Bowman as a UU. I guess you could use it go try to secure areas early on while expanding like mad, but that's not the era you really run into border clashes because territory is still usually available. HRE has a better placed UU for that kind of strategy.

But I did have an opening plan with Babylon that got me a settler and a granary in the capital by turn 30. And that was really really appealing

Still, Arabia was a civ with too much going for it. I get markets for half cost, libraries for almost half cost, extra specialist slots at said cheap library, and in addition a UU that comes right when you want to conquer a neighbor. It keeps religion open as an option but doesn't have to be an early religion to work.

[pindicator]

Now that the picks are in we can finally get to arbitrarily picking winners and losers based off of incomplete information! Rather than a strict 1-16, I clumped, although I would say within each clump picks are largely placed in order of preference.


The I don't want to call either of these #2 hroup, because they're both so damn good
1A. GeneralKillCavalry: Darius [FIN/ORG] of Aztecs
1B. Old Harry + Hitru: Victoria [FIN/IMP] of Inca

3-4: Because I keep flipping their position
TBW: Shaka [EXP/AGG] of Rome
Commodore: Wang Kon [FIN/PRO] of Mongolia

5-8: Potentially Strong, but There are Questions
2MetraNinja: Mao [EXP/PRO] of Ethiopia
Pindicator: Pacal [EXP/FIN] of Arabia
Krill: Hannibal [FIN/CHM] of England
Elkad: Churchill [CHM/PRO] of Native America

9-10: All Around Solid, But Nothing Spectacular
Borsche: Suryavarman [EXP/CRE] of Persia
Rusten: Isabella [EXP/SPI] of India

11-14: Right Idea, Wrong Trait
Gavagai: Stalin [AGG/IND] of Germany
BeardBeard: Charlemagne [PRO/IMP] of HRE
Adler: Julius Caesar [IMP/ORG] of Sumeria
Dark Savant: Bismark [EXP/IND] of Mali

15-16: I Don't See a Winning Plan Here
BaII: Mehmed [EXP/ORG] of Khmer
superdeath: Boudicca [AGG/CHM] of America

[pindicator]

Actually, on thinking about it more I think I judged Ball too harshly.  I'm assuming he's grabbed EXP to build half cost Barays when he should be building them with ballistaphants and boosting the ballistaphant with CHM. Or just picking another economy trait. But if he's accounted for that and decided that EXP works best for his start anyway then I should bump him up to the All Around Solid category

[Miguelito]

Not sure how far I plan on taking this build.  Mostly I just want to be able to run maps to farm currency and find uniques to inspire whatever homebrew build I decide to go with for my 2nd plan.  Righteous Fire Hierophant to abuse that new AoE buff they got is an idea...


EDIT: As for poison mechanics I can't say I fully understand them either.  I went with scaling attack damage and claw nodes > scaling poison > scaling crit as my order of operations.  Eventually I hope to go for Perfect Agony since I've never used that in a build before, but that is a long term goal since it is going to take a lot more crit and gear.

League goal is the lvl 90 hardcore achievement, as it was the last two leagues. I managed to get my first char killed by Kitava (yep,  act 5c and with >1800 life) so I'm getting a bit skeptical as it seems I've become just too sloppy. but the build was becoming fun, worked well on the Blight encounters and yes the claw life gain is very nice. 

Mana irked me a lot and was actually part of the reason for dying. Forthesecond char I set the double claws to tier 1 in the loot filter, hoping I can get through the acts just using those. Got the first one recently, and mana gain on hit does feel awesome.  Although I'll also try to chance a wasp nest, if I get that I hope to get by with clarity.

Second char also leveled on chaos spells before labyrinth, that felt a lot smoother. Also if/when I die again I may try to make poison work on a pathfinder. split arrow/ barrage sure send nice to get a lot of pain stacks

Why would you not take perfect agony?  I mean, if you've specced into poison your his should not be doing any damage anyways, and just with the assassin crit chance it should be worth it?  or am I missing something?

[Miguelito]

also on topic, how did you end up with a tier 3 rank and would you take it again?

[pindicator]

Not sure how far I plan on taking this build.  Mostly I just want to be able to run maps to farm currency and find uniques to inspire whatever homebrew build I decide to go with for my 2nd plan.  Righteous Fire Hierophant to abuse that new AoE buff they got is an idea...


EDIT: As for poison mechanics I can't say I fully understand them either.  I went with scaling attack damage and claw nodes > scaling poison > scaling crit as my order of operations.  Eventually I hope to go for Perfect Agony since I've never used that in a build before, but that is a long term goal since it is going to take a lot more crit and gear.

League goal is the lvl 90 hardcore achievement, as it was the last two leagues. I managed to get my first char killed by Kitava (yep,  act 5c and with >1800 life) so I'm getting a bit skeptical as it seems I've become just too sloppy. but the build was becoming fun, worked well on the Blight encounters and yes the claw life gain is very nice. 

Mana irked me a lot and was actually part of the reason for dying. Forthesecond char I set the double claws to tier 1 in the loot filter, hoping I can get through the acts just using those. Got the first one recently, and mana gain on hit does feel awesome.  Although I'll also try to chance a wasp nest, if I get that I hope to get by with clarity.

Second char also leveled on chaos spells before labyrinth, that felt a lot smoother. Also if/when I die again I may try to make poison work on a pathfinder. split arrow/ barrage sure send nice to get a lot of pain stacks

Why would you not take perfect agony?  I mean, if you've specced into poison your his should not be doing any damage anyways, and just with the assassin crit chance it should be worth it?  or am I missing something?

Ouch, dying at Kitava would be frustrating.  I think that's why I don't play hardcore.  I tried it for a bit, but my machine isn't the best and my connection isn't perfect, so after a couple hardcore deaths from a software hiccup or my connection going bad for a bit made me wonder why I was stressing about it.  I know a lot of people like hardcore and that's cool, but it's not for me.

I guess I'm more casual in the game in total.  I don't trade much, hardly at all.  I could play in a SSF league but sometimes I like to play with my little brother, so I guess I'm quasi-SSF.  Most of the time I do a homebrew build that's a little janky / hipster just to see how well it will turn out.  This league I didn't have time to really plan anything so my goal was to go with an established guide on one of the new skills / ascendancies.

I think I need more crit multi for Perfect Agony?  I ihaven't quite picked up all the crit multiplier nodes and my gear still needs some more.  But I know that's the next thing to try to scale to get more damage.  Like I said before, I'm more casual with PoE so I'm not sure.

[pindicator]

also on topic, how did you end up with a tier 3 rank and would you take it again?

First of all, I think any of the 3rd tier group can be powerhouses if the cards fall right. They just have some questions they need to overcome. Krill has to get through the early game with his strongest boost early on being free happy from CHM. If someone decides to pressure him early he could really feel it. Elkad has the potential for some really crazy promotion units by stacking CHM, PRO, and gunpowder or archer unit. But will he be able to get to the point where those units make the difference? (Actually, PRO might be enough of an early game powerhouse to get him there. I might need to bump him up to Tier 2.) 2MetraNinja is going to have a really powerful Musket UU when he gets to gunpowder, but can he stay relevant until then? Will he be able to leverage the early Great Merchant well? This game should show how powerful that is.

As for me, I've be second-guessing taking EXP instead of IMP. I've got weaknesses in early culture for popping borders unless I can snag an early religion, and then my starting techs absolutely suck for this start so going for an opening religion is off the table. I simmed out 30ish turns and basically I have to go Hunting > Wheel at the start and only then can I head for religion or Bronze Working. Probably Bronze Working, because there's 4 other civs that start with Mysticism. We're getting into some strategy thoughts I was going to save for another post, but basically my goal is to take a middle religion: Monotheism at the earliest, but more likely I bulb Theology or Philoosophy or hope FIN, cheap libraries, and early specialists maybe carry me to Code of Laws first.

PRO, IMP, CHM all would do one thing stronger than EXP. But EXP is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades tech, and even moreso on a water map, so I think it's probably okay. I kind of wish I had picked CHM or IMP to help boost the Knight UU a bit more, or PHI to really push the great people strategy early on.

If I had to do it again I'd pick the civ first. (But I was too indecisive on picking a civ in the first place which is what led to this.) I do really think Arabia is strong and I am really excited to play them. I get the cheapest library and the cheapest market in the game. So if I can be efficient early on and get the cities up and running then I can really start to power ahead in the classical era. Then hopefully convert that to But I would pick civ first next time because the traits are all close enough together in strength that you can get away with not having your top pick or the best synergy for your civ. But it would be harder to find the civ that fits the traits more than the trait that fits the civ - and more fun to know the civ you want to play with and then work with the traits to best accomplish that.