[PB57] Pindicator searches for his mascot

[pindicator]

Been a year now since I stopped playing.  I occasionally have a glimpse at news or patch notes,  but already don't understand most of it.
I do want to come back to it eventually,  at least when they release the new campaign,  but now I have two civ games rolling already which is more than enough to obsess about (mind I still don't have as much routine as you old guard guys)

But I do understand right that you're playing a raider right? With GH do you go crit,  or is that neglected as it freezes anyways? I'd appreciate if you linked a char occasionally

I am not scaling crit on this character and it's going to be a little unique in that way. Usually with GH you do scale it that way, but here I want to try and scale it with added cold damage instead.

I'll try to remember to link the character along the way. I guess last league I was following a cookie cutter build instead of going my own, and this time is more of a middle ground (I saw a char like this on poe.ninja and am copying the concept), so I'll be making more decisions and not following a guide.

I can't remember, do you play Hardcore? That Immune to Elemental Ailments node is so nice for tankiness.

i don't play hardcore, it really isn't for me. I've tried it and the frustration at dying to something I don't understand and then having spend hours upon hours to get back to where I was? Nah, I don't have that kind of time for playing. For me the game is more fun as softcore, and the penalty experience hit is a bit of a midcore cap on progressing if you aren't built well or playing too risky. I usually cap out around 90, but last league I got better and got to 95 with the archmage fireball trickster.

That Immune to Elemental Ailments is nice though, and its one of the big decisions I'm going over for my ascendancy points right now. Going the Phasing Route seems better for defense: more dodge, elemental ailment immunity, decreased accuracy for enemies. (The exposure is largely going to be there for me with Frost Bomb anyway.) Going Onslaught would be more evasion and more damage. So I'm torn, but I'm worried my damage isn't going to be high enough as it is so I'm leaning going the Onslaught side.

[NobleHelium]

I think boss damage and more defense is always the way to go now, at least in terms of how the game feels to me in SSF. All the new league mechanics emphasize staying alive for rewards, and I'm always gated by difficulty killing bosses like Sirus than clear damage. Further past boss damage you want better clearing for full Delirious maps (or maybe 400+ Delve), but that's further down the line and you can worry about that later.

[pindicator]

Well this league launch has been one of the worst in a long time. We're over 6 hours in and there are still server issues they've yet to even identify - but good getting to play longer than 20 minutes without disconnecting. In the meantime I've played my latest turn, and I probably should give an update. TBS and I are at "war", but basically I just pulled out of the cities I had taken from him because there was no way I could hope to hold off his stuff or even kill some units. He took what were originally his cities, offered peace (I declined) and now we're at war but not really. I don't want to give him 10 turns of peace, but OH isn't joining in and at this point I don't think he will. So I guess I should give peace.

[pindicator]

Right, so the Raider has been a pleasant surprise. I thought it would be a bit janky to level and potentially just flame out altogether, but I'm ending tonight at the start of act 10, my char feels pretty solid. Not super fast like the meta builds, but it isn't all clunky and slow like I remember melee characters being. I don't even have the threshold jewel yet and I feel like my clear speed is okay. Currently doing about 25k dps, have almost 3k life, and I've grabbed the Quartz Infusion for dodge and Way of the Poacher for extra frenzy charges. Have 7 frenzy charges right now and all the others are going to have come through gear. I can do most ultimatums right now, though they aren't entirely a breeze. Still, I've gotten some good items now by going to the max of ultimatums.

Character is linked here below, it's the top char named "PindisUltimateHammer"

https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view...characters

[pindicator]

095

Yeah, so I guess there is still a civ game to report on here. But honestly, it's pretty much over unless TBS makes a misstep. I tried to get people to gang up on him with me and they all just sat out. And so after he took his cities back and didn't venture any further, I still held on to war to dissuade him, hoping someone else would join in and then we could finally pressure him.

But no.

And so the turn I offered peace was naturally the turn he declared on Old Harry. No idea what has gone on yet in that war but no cities have changed hands. Maybe this is good for me and they are fighting bloody. More likely nothing is happening and they're posturing or TBS is just feinting against OH while he hits Cornflakes.

In any case, I'm going for Paper and building infrastructure everywhere.




If I don't go for it now, when will i?

But really, TBS is just a few turns from knights. And I still can't build War Elelphants even though I have Ivory hooked up. Why did you have to continue to tinker, Krill?

Expect another Path of Exile update soon. My Raider is actually fun. More fun than I thought it would be.

[pindicator]

Turn 098

Paper is done.




We'll start the wonder in the capital next turn. In the meantime, everybody else is beelining Guilds, and so I've switched back to Theocracy and War Elephants and Catapults and Triremes are being built everywhere else. This is rather hilarious; I don't have any of the main techs on the path to Guilds and half the field is about to have it. So many PHI bulb beelines.

I don't feel very good for the future of this game, but we're going to see what we can do with Religious wonders.

[Tarkeel]

Hopefully elephants will make you spiky enough; I have no real feeling about how effective they are vs knights are RtR.

[Krill]

095

Why did you have to continue to tinker, Krill?

Do you want an answer to this?

[pindicator]

Only if you want. That was all blowing off steam on my end.

Also, great to have you back around the forums

[pindicator]

So looking back, I have a number of frustrations this game. Each one is compounding my reaction to the next, as well:

1. After placing my first city I find that all the time I spent planning micro is ruined due to there being silver one tile in the fog. My reaction: I don't want to bother to plan any more. Perhaps not the best reaction to win, but I still share that feeling: I don't really care what happens this game still (though my brief period at the top of demos/score was still a nice surprise.)

2. The way the patch notes were written combined with my recollection of how the mod acted made me think Sacrificial Altars were still at Code of Laws but that portions of its benefits were unlocked upon Monotheism. In my defense, this would be a more balanced Sacrificial Altar; what we have here is just crazy good. More frustration at my planning (not micro this time, just strategic goal planning) being wasted, and frustration that charriu still hasn't changed the wording to make it clearer what happens. I can see the argument that i should have looked up the item in Civolopedia in the game, but you can't expect people to verify every change like that.

3. War Elephants changed requirements. This one is mostly my fault as I just went off memory of how it was in the previous RtR versions I played and never checked patch notes. Although now that i think on it more, it does seem like the requirements are a bit onerous. Still, nobody to blame but myself for not understanding the requirements and planning poorly around that.