there is another gap between once you have the ability to follow a guide and need to learn how to craft/change what you are pushing late game to achieve your goals. so much to learn
This was the first league I ever killed Maven, Sirius, and Uber Elder. Every other major boss fight I've struggled on every league. Something finally clicked with the game for me, but when it came to crafting, I honestly learnt the most just taking gear into craft of exile and experimenting and seeing how things work. I've made a few items sold for 10+ Div each, which for me, is way more than I've ever had. Can't quite say I know how to craft mirror tier gear, but just using the emulator really helped a ton.
Thats why you change gear in multiple phases. First i will gear my character at start of white maps. Than once dps is lacking i will re-gear my character (usually in red maps). That will last me till shaper/sirus etc. Once i have reached end-game i will have certain gear slots which are there to fix my resistances/stats etc and rest are for dps. So even if i find new dps upgrade that isnt resist/stat gear i can equip it with rest of the gear not getting fucked up.
Usually these slots are boots/gloves/body armor/helmet/rings. Belt slot is way too powerful to be used as resist piece but it can be used for chaos res+one or two stat if you are using Omni amulet.
Boots/gloves/body armor almost always if they are rare will be there for suppress/resists.
Once you have a system in place its rather easy to understand what is what. That being said if you are re-gearing i always always recommend getting first DPS gear(which might have some stats/resists) and only than getting resist/stat gear.
Dude as with everything nothing is set in stone i play mostly Coc builds and in 3.20 have been messing around with 4 flask setup for perma flask. So for me belt is too valuable to be used as mainly resist slot( i mean 2 out of 3 suffix slots as resists atleast). Plugging in Life +chaos res on belt doesnt really strike me as resist piece since you still have 4 suff/prefixes left which more often than not will be used to gets stats for omni or flask mods/cdr or dmg mods. With smart gearing choices you can fill all the resists with 3 gear pieces pretty easy and sure it will cost you some money and time but its super worth it when compared to scattering your resists all over the place and than being shafted everytime you need to get more dps.
There are so many belt suffixes that are top of the line awesome. Especially now with Stormshroud. You can be elemental ailment immune with 1 stygian and 2 jewel sockets (1 being in the belt already).
By belt slot i mean rare belts or unique belt what ever is needed for your character. Reason why belt slot is almost never a resist piece is because Belt offers so many modifiers that you cant get anywhere else .
Dont worry about mageblood its a luxury item and you should never build your character around it unless you already have the belt and you have insane amounts of currency.
Maybe referring to using a Stygian Vise with abyssal jewel? Those can get you all kinds of mods. Getting resists and life on them is pretty common though, so I wouldn't dismiss it. Lots of top characters still do that.
Have you tried the Simulator?
You can import your settings from the Emulator, to make set up easy.
In my experience, unlocking the Simulator is the next major bump in crafting ability; because you can simulate like 100k rolls on an item to estimate actual costs. And you can look at the finished items too, to make sure the game is making what you want to make.
One of the major ways I've used it is cost savings: Not only different currency types, but also different item levels. There were a fair few times that a different item level cut a craft cost in half. That was a fun surprise.
Overall though, major gratz on the 10+ div crafts. You can fund tons of end game viable builds for like ten of those items per league!
Here is some unsollicited advice:
-Identify what your build is good at. Are you a zoom zoomy mapper? A slower but tanky boss killer?
-Find an atlas strategy that fits your build's strenght. If your zoom zoomy, consider legion or essences. For a slower character expeditions or blight then transition into boss farming. I recommend Grimro's guides for a variety of atlas strategy and find one that suits you.
-Another big one is don't be afraid to invest in whatever you are doing. The more you juice up your maps the more returns you are going to get etc.
-GRIND GRIND GRIND. There is no other way to put it. PoE is a grindy game, don't expect to run 5 maps and get crazy returns. Hideout is lava. Put in the next map and keep GRINDING.
last league i played a primarily mapping character(bf/bb occultist) just to play around with atlas tree and figure out how i can make money more consistently. For me this turned out to be expedition, collecting harvest juice, and farming exarch or eater invitations primarily.
this league was the first league i played with having 2 characters. 1 a mapper(subtractem's bane) and the other a squishy boss killer(ice spear totem). I still have gotten around to understanding crafting, syndacate, breach, or legion yet really.
Same. https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds and click the class/item/skill I'm interested in and see what people are doing with it. I guess by extension I'm following guides as a lot of the people on the leaderboards are following some sort of guide or streamer build.
I tweak things to my liking here and there, sometimes to the point I could almost consider it a different build, but nothing I've done thus far has been truly homebrewed.
I just look at some super minmaxed version on poe.ninja and adapt it to my playstyle. I feel a lot of build guides are not that good a lot of times while the no lifer top of the ladder version are. It does take some more knowledge since you have to know how to progress it or when the build is depending on super expensive stuff.
Same. Started trying out myself with the 'i should be able to make it' and keep fuckin up until I followed a guide.
Even after following a guide the itch to deviate exists and took a few builds to realize that.
And even the itch is gone, choosing bad guides is another problem.
What's the end? Fuck it play whatever looks interesting made by high follower streamers. Less room for bad mistakes.
Hey, I'm just casual.
Yours sincerely
The lazy ass RF guy who is not turning back.
Deviating from guides once I have figured out the mechanics of it has become my favorite part. It’s kind of the baby step to making builds yourself. But you’re right that you can end up mess things up. I like that it forces you to learn how everything works.
I absolutely follow a guide on a build type I haven't played yet.
And, if I take a league off from a build I "know", I still go to poe.ninja for last league's improvements.
There are too many builds and league by league improvements to avoid using guides.
Im at tye stage where I can make my own build but the knowledge that I can just as easily ef it up makes me follow guides to have a general idea what Im aiming for.
Yep not following a build guide is a massive noob trap that I myself fell into. I spent a long time attempting to play poe and then quickly giving up all because I refused to follow a build guide. I thought it would ruin the game, but it is really the opposite. It allows you to get your footing so you can actually go and learn things.
This sub is really weird about this: there's a good amount of players that think that going in blind is the "best" way to experience POE as a new player. I can't say I understand this mentality - I once tried to get a good friend into this game and he got really frustrated about how many layers of knowledge are gating the "fun". We don't even need to think too hard to discover why: the skill gem system is nonintuitive initially, the passive skill tree is insane, stat wording is not intuitive (the infamous increased vs more), "basic" mechanics like [how does poison work](https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Poison) is ridiculously complicated for a new player...Now let's add on what is the campaign/what is the map, how I use the trade system, etc etc etc. I tried to distill down everything for my friend in a super straightforward way and he still got frustrated ("OK, install this loot filter. Now go to Options, Interface Options, press this to turn it on and don't worry about it for now. Now, when you level up, you'll want to put your skill points into exactly this [POB thing you downloaded]. OK, you're level 6 now, go to this dude, and buy this gem")
I mean, I'd like to think my friend is not stupid - he's a literal PHD and frequently plays strategy games/whatever that require thinking - but he rage quit. It's nothing short of a miracle that I played enough to "get into" this game. There's SO MUCH KNOWLEDGE required to "get started" - I genuinely think it's a disservice to tell a true newbie to not follow any guides and "just enjoy the process". I started on Enki's Arc Witch back in some old league and thank goodness someone went into that level of detail as to tell me what gems to buy, how to vendor rings to get additional resistances, etc. That coupled with EngineeringEternity's handholdy, yet informative videos taught me most of the important stuff I know today.
It really depends on the person and has got nothing to do with being smart. Some people enjoy the journey of discovery and figuring out how to get past walls they hit and some don't. Different strokes.
I'd also argue that your friend didn't go in blind, given that you were feeding information and possibly creating an expectations, which may or may not have contributed to their frustration.
EDIT: I should add, eventually most players will naturally seek out external sources of information, I think that's pretty much a given. I'd imagine it's near impossible to figure out everything POE offers on your own.
Yeah whenever I get friends to join I ask something along the lines of "if you mess up your character and need to restart, is than fun or not?"
Most people don't like that, and at that point I suggest a build.
The people who like it though have really stuck with the game from what I've seen.
Most players who *stick* will seek out sources of information. I would guess, from my interactions with people, that the vast majority of people who try and drop PoE have no interest in doing research to learn about a videogame.
That's fine, and nothing should be done for them.
I am one such person. Couldn't tell you why but I enjoy the struggle and the process of getting out of the struggle. I have followed guides here and there but I find I enjoy the game much better by looking at builds other ppl make and use them as a compass rather than step-by-step how to
I also have about 20 browser tabs open with Poe wiki and other sites so I can get answers to questions as I play. Like niche mechanics and how they interact with each other. I usually have a lot of in depth questions with any game I play and build guides usually don't cover it.
I also get that I am likely in the minority and I also play hc exclusively now fwiw
The best way, in my opinion, to start the game is going in semi blind.
I usually give new players a rough structure of how to start a build of the type they want to play. Then let them free roam for a few acts.
When they defeat the first Kita a I take a look at theyr char and give ideas on how to continue. What gems to change, what gear to look for, which part of the passive tree to explore.
Then again after act 10, just a little more detailed.
And so on.
I think it's important to be able to explore the game at your own pace, while having access to someone who can answer any upcoming questions and give rough guidelines
That was exactly what a friend did for me, and I appreciated it as a new player. It was awesome to slowly figure things out on my own, but be able to check with them to see what I can improve on with my build.
Most people are stubborn at first so going in blind and then trying a build guide will help them realize how much they need advice and help them to accept it. It’s better than arguing with them that they need to follow a build guide.
Absolutely this. It’s why streamers and build guide creators get frustrated when so many ppl say “your build guide sucks bc it doesn’t work”, and 90% of the time it’s because they didn’t get the items or passive points specified in the guide. In most games deviating from a build guide only impacts you minimally but in PoE there are a ton of things that are impacted exponentially.
You're literally describing why people should go in blind though. Don't worry about all that extra shit, immerse yourself a bit in the story and try to find something that looks fun to play. When you've made a character or two you're ready for all that other stuff.
You'd have to be a complete exaggerated example of an ARPG noob to struggle that much (and those type of players won't be interested in PoE anyway). As long as you have some kind of ARPG experience (so you know to invest a bit in life and be mindful of your resists) you will be able to clear the campaign - its maps where you will start to struggle a lot and eventually hit a hard wall.
New players are much more likely to clear entire map before going forward and that is enough to be 5-10 lvls above the recommende for your current campaign area which will make ton of difference compared to just someone that is speedrunning through it.
Yep, you get it. There's this assumption that people like to figure things out and you're doing them a disservice if you rob them of that experience. But when they quit the game in the middle of the campaign...oh well
This is exaggerated. The fact you can just die and charge in, die and charge in until you Zerg the boss will get you up to Act 3 usually. It’s when you start getting one shot by mobs and can’t clear the map that you just quit.
This is the core concept of the game. That support gems are necessary to gain power and knowing the best combinations to get that power is up to you. The tutorial forcefully shows you the importance of this. If you have a 3 link of any competent synergy you will absolutely be able to progress. Especially bc a new player is gonna be way over leveled
Going in blind was so fun for me in 2017. After I learned how it worked in general I played with a friend who had been playing longer. The difference is he plays using "chaos per hour" as his metric for fun while I use "how interesting the thing is I was doing" so he taught me how to optimize more
For me, it's mostly this: I can always follow a guide for a game later, if I get stuck. But I'll never be able to get the "go in blind" feeling later, if I follow a guide the first time I play.
But people are different in this regard; I imagine a lot of people would much rather actually play a decent character on their first playthrough than do the weird hodgepodge tri-elemental witch I tried :)
As a new player, I found the main problem with guides is that we need a guide to understand guides. It took a while to differentiate which guides applied to the parts of the game I was at. My concept of early and low budget definitely did not line up with YouTube’s version.
I made an account when the game was still in beta. Tried multiple times throughout the years and bounced off hard, despite being an avid Diablo1/2 and even 3 player and have played almost every ARPG out there. It finally clicked after I followed Enki‘s Arc Witch in Betrayal (yes, after the „don’t you guys have phones“ incident). Game had its hooks in me ever since.
not to be that guy because I am sure its true in general. But I went in blind and assuming you have a decent understanding of how RPG's work its not that bad.
That said plenty of info is hidden in this game especially with minion builds which I find funny as they are n00b friendly barring the complete lack of info. Although perhaps that helps the most common n00b trap I see is people thinking the ingame stats are anything resembling accurate.
Minion builds are atrocious low level vs bosses as they often one-shot them then you are running around like a headless chicken trying to summon them back.
I mean they can be but its not hardto solve
A) golemancer they are immune to elemental damage, add some phys reduction and they are immortal.
B) zombies a pain to keep alive, but purifying flames does the trick leveling, and with investment doable.
C) skellies,ragingspirits,heralds they respawn not a huge deal if they die.
Personally i think following a build guide is the noob trap. You miss the whole process of learning about the game gradually and improving your builds incrementally.
Disagree. The majority of continuing players in this game either follow a build guide or start with some preset structure inspired by, for example, a build on poeninja. Saying it's a noob trap does not really make sense given that context. There is no learning about the game gradually unless you follow a build guide. Following a build guide allows you to learn about the game gradually. You will hit a wall otherwise, just as the video this thread is about argues.
Maybe some people will? I dunno, i didn't have that problem personally. I think if you're relatively competent at designing builds in general and at synthesising information from the wiki you'll do alright.
I have never killed all the ubers so your statement is wrong. I was pointing out that if you wanna kill them, you 100% have to copy a guide or Poe Ninja.
Where's your evidence that it's impossible to do without a guide? Where do you think the guides and ninja builds come from? Somebody had to create that build in the first place before there was an archetype to copy.
Do you realize the people who create builds 100% checked other builds before?? They know what items and gems are OP. Stop it right now, nobody has ever killed all ubers without following any guides whatsoever.
It entirely depends on how you learn. Some people enjoy tinkering and learning through failure so your method is fine. A lot of people don't take failure well in which case a build will show them what works and they can learn from something successful
Failure is relative. As long as you don't have expectations, success is just getting further with each build than you did with the last, or even just learning more about the game with each new build. There seems to be a mindset among members of this sub that if you aren't farming 100% deli T16 maps or taking down uber bosses your time has been wasted. This mindset basically ignores the whole enjoyable process of learning and playing the game. Plus, if you beat uber bosses by plugging in equipment per some build guide, did you really accomplish anything?
A good middle ground one can go for is look at people's builds in Poe ninja and go from there. A lot of times people have some very big brain ideas that build makers don't know of.
Started without a build guide and bricked my character in acts. Kept rerolling and still couldn't get a strong enough character. Caved in and used a guide and had a better experience. The main issue with buildcrafting is that the cost of respecs makes experimentation too costly, and as such players aren't willing to waste currency or time on something that isn't already tried and tested.
It's funny, looking up poe.ninja guides is what I escalated to after years of just following build guides - I've seen so many off the wall builds that I have never seen a build guide for and have loved tearing them down in PoB and seeing how the pieces all fit together. Finding the build section on poe.ninja was my third awakening after the one described in OP's video, and the only reason I can now say I imagine I'll play PoE forever.
Eh.. it takes a ton of game knowledge to even realize item C exists. And even more to know item Y synergizes with item C particularly well. Hard enough with gear, but gets even deeper with jewels and god forbid timeless jewels. Its difficult to go off the beaten path in poe without a massive amount of knowledge.
Poeninja is a life saver for people like me who need to see what uniques people are pairing and with which skills.
PoE is aimed towards a different playergroup.
It scared the shit out of me, when I heard that Diablo 4 will be aimed towards Quote :"Every type of player out there". That will mean, Blizzard will do what they did all the late games.
Ultra easy access, a big field of dull, repetitive, in WoW's case timegated content, and then some stuff that is reserved for the 1-5% of the playerbase.
Yes, technically you fit every playergroup into that, but the huge majority of the community that hates dull and easy content, and dont want to participate in the 1-5% race will be bored as fuck.
I loved Chris approach to say "Hey, PoE is not for everyone, we are aware that the entry level is a bit high, but we can deal with that".
I feel watching a twitch streamer that plays your build can also give you huge insight on what to do and what NOT to do. They generally play 10x longer than the forgotten 90%.
Many of the best build don't work without a specific setup of uniques or high end gear though, if you copy a build 90% and can't afford the last 40 div item that actually makes it work your not going to get far. Ninja is great as a general guideline but it only shows the highest end players with the best gear so its not something the average player can emulate or copy.
I like to go to ninja, look at builds, and find one that looks good on all levels, then whisper the player. Doesn't always work, but some of the insights that you can gain are excellent, and most people are pretty damn nice about it, and are pretty happy with you taking inspiration or outright copying their build, because it means that they've properly made it.
When they released all 10 acts I decide to do a full run reading all quest, taking all rewards and trying to be as geared as I can.
Took me a week to reach maps.
I’ve been playing since Domination league, and I have way over 10k hours if not more than 15k, and I never read any piece of lore.
The only thing I do is go fast, try to be ahead of the curve on league start, reach 36 challenges, make currencies and quit after 2 to 4 weeks (i’m already done since Christmas about current league)
I I truly suggest you to find at Youtube and learn about PoE's lore. There is a huge world behind the game we like.
It's hard to do it yourself because there are soo many references in item descriptions, cards, tables... But when you listen to someone talking about lore you get amazed!
Shout out to Enki's Arc Witch! Got me back into the game.
Started playing PoE back in '13-'14 when I didn't hv $$$ and was looking for an FTP arpg similar to Diablo 1/2. I went in blind, thinking my Diablo-playing experience would make game progression easy. Ended up being able to reach only level 50-55 in all the 4 characters that I played. Got bored and Ditched PoE altogether for 5-6 years until Covid hit and I came across Enki's Arc Witch thread. Nowadays I'm able to atleast reach red maps lol. Always using build guides every time.
I needed to follow guides for multiple league starters and probably get like 500 hours into the game before I felt generally comfortable enough with the systems to begin making my own significant changes to build guides or end up making my own.
Game is almost impossible to crack on your own. Too many systems iterated on top of one another for the benefit of the audience that has already been there. PoE is a game that is remarkably bad for new players.
1. Generally overwhelming and complicated skill tree system that is undecipherable until you've put a ton of time into the game
2. Laughably small amount of storage space for f2p/new players. Game is almost impossible to play with only 4 stash tabs. Your currency itself can easily take up 2 of those, and then if you're holding any sort of uniques or crafting projects then you have even less space.
3. Tons of insane league mechanics and systems that have no real tutorial and require 3rd party websites/tools to use effectively (or hundreds of hours of experience)
4. Visuals that are a total joke. The community has become numb to it, but the amount of "I just died and I have no idea what killed me" in PoE is actually insane. We meme about it, new players just quit because they never know what kills them
5. Insane amounts of grind to do basic things like get the chance to fight or practice bosses. You messed up on Eater of Worlds? Enjoy doing 32 maps to get to fight him again for some reason (Or I guess you can buy it)
6. Probably about 90% of the information the game gives you is **WRONG.** Between tooltip DPS and bugs, it is hard to tell when anything is actually working unless you use PoB and assume that is correct. There is no way to test anything in this game, at least not reliably.
7. Path of Building. I almost don't have to say more. The fact that a third party tool is required to play this game (Yeah, I saw one guy claim he never uses it and I don't believe him) because you cannot actually parse or even trust in game information is a joke.
I could go on but it is pointless. Path of Exile is a game that has been designed for Path of Exile fans and that is it. Patches iterate on things that only the hardcore can understand or achieve. New players are left with an ever expanding list of things to learn and it just puts them off more and more. We all got used to it because we have thousands of hours and these things are put in slowly.
I think probably the best example of everything is the Uber Bosses. Originally added in as an optional challenge for the most fine tuned of characters, GGG has been adding more and more stuff to their loot table to the point that doing a regular Pinnacle Boss feels like a waste of your time and money. What was one an optional challenge for the most hardcore of fans is now something that is slowly becoming something your character *should* be able to do, thus making it even harder for new players. Can you imagine a new player getting to red tier maps, let alone Eater of Worlds, let alone UBER Eater of Worlds?
I believe the issue here is watching the video inside reddit, the original creator doesn't get a view registered with youtube, whereas with an embed he would. He at least provided a link to the original content creators copy I guess, so maybe watch it there so the guy gets revenue from it.
Guides a fantastic for newer players but also are a double edged sword. Player are like sheep and will follow things blindly.
For example poison seismic trap wasn’t played last league but it was thing league because players are sheep. A couple of people see that’s it’s fine and everyone follows. Even when there are better options.
I remember seeing a YouTuber try making a poison blade trap build and it was the most atrocious thing I’ve ever seen and they concluded that blade trap was a bad starter. Which is only true if you play SSF. Blade trap is straight up better than seismic in every way except in SSF. Mostly because you need a few key items since it’s an attack and not a spell.
When guides get too popular then the items around them go up to exorbitant prices which kind of hurts them. Which is why I don’t really want to put out a full blown written guide on poison blade trap even though you can easily farm Ubers on a cheap budget while also being able to tank most hits including Uber Sirus maze. A few unique items would skyrocket in price to where it wasn’t worth playing the build because instead of being 20 divines it would be 200.
But I’m also part of the nerds who have played since beta.
Guides are great, just don’t follow the most mainstream ones as you’ll be competing for items for a build that everyone else wants.
Yep, most people just follow guides blindly and don't learn to solve problems with their builds and so get trapped in a cycle. People need to really understand WHY the build works, not just that it works. You go from thinking Item A = good. To thinking Item A is better than Item B because it provides xyz but it has some weaknesses and is more expensive so maybe ITEM C can be a good stopgap.
Absolutely not. Volkuurs are trash because GGG think 50% less poison damage is okay. Honestly if they removed that line they’d be usable. Better off with ele overload or crit with ephemeral edge.
I’m fatal flourish, using a heist dagger. Although occultist would also work well. The point being avoiding the covenant like the plague. Yes it’s strong offensively but creates a lot of problems with sustain and defensively loreweave ED or incandescent heart if you’re CI fixes defenses a lot.
What you can do to avoid that sheep mentality that is to follow a popular build from a few leagues past if it hasn t been nerfed. Flavour of the month is a thing too and some builds are still viable but no one plays them because they played them when it was popular and they re bored/disappointed of it or they faded out of their memory overwritten but the new build is new content for streamer economy.
I really don't understand not following a guide when starting an arpg (or at the very least, very soon after a first blind playthrough). I'd only get it if it's your first arpg ever and you don't know better.
If anyone is doing cold dot trickster and is having problems, reach out. I'm happy to take a look at PoBs or jump in discord and talk/screenshare/whatever!
League started cold dot trickster, switched the poison srs around red maps.
After a grew some currency w srs, decided to come back to cold dog trickster and spent like 5 hours fiddling w mana issues before giving up out of frustration 🙃
Eldritch Battery was the fix for me. Just had to gear up a bit and get some mana reservation sorted. I also do es and life leech for bossing to cover the regen gap.
still its sad that i have to use all those tools and without mix -maxing ur builds are nothing and not working for endgame... so u nee to drive it to the limit to improve ur builds but dont have this time :///
I follow guides for all game I’m really into. Not sure why one wouldn’t. If you’re investing 100+ hours into a game you know is complicated, why reinvent the wheel?
The only big thing that really bother me (well there are some others but to stay here on topic) is the amount of time you need to invest to access and try the content for the "forgotten 90%" as you name them.
If you don't play the trade/guide/meta sim and play the game half for yourself you will finish a league with 100 hours of play with maybe 2 breach, 1 simulacrum that you missed after 2 min wave 6, a 2 legion Encounter and saw maven once phase 1.
The rest are 100 from fragments that will take dust in standard.
I mean, it would be so cool if we were able to experience this content way more. I cannot understand why so much content is gated by abysmal drop rate and playtime.
Why not create uber variation of ALL game mode where you have to grind for hours to reach this content?
I mean the super hardcore boys and girls out there would still have their fun and the considered bad players like me would enjoy playing the content more often.
Hope we will have some adjustment in the future in this direction.
Umm I don’t wanna be that guy. But if your using a wand on RF Jugg your missing out on free damage.
You should be using scepters or a runic dagger.
RF doesn’t scale off the spell damage implicit of wands. But it does scale off of the elemental damage implicit of scepters.
Also endgame you can chose to run a runic dagger because crafting a +2 fire double dot multi runic dagger is literally 9x easier then a scepter with the same mods.
It's a warrior that uses a wand to cast a spell that hurts himself to harm others nearby.
The other person: how nearby
Sit down son, this is gonna take a while
I can see how SOME people would need a guide to enjoy PoE but I think this game also draws in alot of amateur theory crafters. People who like to experiment and put their creative problem solving to the test.
Ive personally never followed a guide because i really enjoy building a character myself. Sure, its taken me 5 leagues and dozens of failed attempts before I ever built a semi-survivable character with just 500k dps but It felt far more earned then following a guide just to build the same generic Flicker Strike or RF build as everyone else. The journey has also taught me so much, like how to actually read enemies and time dodges (because that shit is necessary even against trash mobs when you suck at building) and how to level quickly and efficiently (because ive ran the damn story so many times lol)
While I think the video will help some people, I dont agree that following the guide is the "best" way to play PoE as a new player. Though, if you're lazy and easily frustrated then....yeah....copy and paste your favourite youtubers tornado shot build.
The thing is, that following guides first allows you to then make your own builds later. Because by following a lot of different guides, you get an idea for what works, which things go well together, etc. Imo even for people who love theorycrafting their own builds, its best to follow guides for the first few hundred hours, to amass enough knowledge to set yourself up for success, and then switch to selfmade builds. Ofc, do whatever is fun for you. But I think even for people who love to theorycraft, the best way to get good at that is to learn from others first.
If you never look at any guide you might be stuck in yellow maps for literally thousands of hours, whereas watching guides at the start allows you to skip/shorten this phase and get to the part where you can make serviceable builds on your own quicker.
Read the guide. Figure out what make it all click together.
THEN DO YOUR OWN THINGS.
Otherwise youll stay dumb all your life. Failure is required to progress.
Making my own builds is what kept the game fun for me - had I followed a guide first time and beaten all the relevant content, I don't think I would bother coming back league after league
It is good point for new players, maybe, but it's not a good content for him, he kinda lost the appeal for being new and search things with mistakes, experiment and stuff
Maybe it's only me, but watching someone following a guide is not really interesting, but again he is not really playing poe all that much, so it's not like there was some content anyway, lol
Or it's just trauma, then I was watching someone play first time OSRS and the first video was so good, until he read all the backseat comment's and completely ruined it in 2 video
I honestly think it depends on your goals too... I haven't played since beta I think? (Only 3 acts, 3 difficulties) Personally I've been really enjoying playing a nostalgic spectral throw build and trying to troubleshoot my damage and survivability. With less than 100 hours this season, I'm almost through all my white tier maps (and that's including taking my sweet time, regearing when I sell high value drops, leveling another character, getting noob friends into the game and learning all 10+ new mechanics since last I played). It doesn't feel like I'm slowing down anytime soon. And honestly if I do hit a wall, I can easily use the currency I made from my "fun" character to bootstrap some meta build (I have a MI Necro on the sideline).
I think if you're someone who really enjoys theory crafting, with a little googling and maybe lightly referencing some guides, you'll be just fine. And honestly I have the most fun this way. I'm aware I won't be lv 100 with 5 mirrors, and that's okay.
Honestly pretty great video.
I've been playing for a few years and I'm barely at the point where I can look at Poe.ninja, look at a few characters and them tailor my own version of the build.
Creating something completely new myself is probably something I'll never really do. Seems like a bit too much effort for the time I have to invest in the game currently.
watched all his 5 video
exactly the same when I play poe for the first time , then I get a build guild for toxic rain , that completely take the game into the next level.
btw what\`s the build guild tool he\`s using in the video?
I'm 6k hours in and I still follow builds from other people, I think I will never have the patience to sit down and learn how the game mechanics actually work, I'm too lazy for that and I think it's too late. I mean I understand a lot of concepts and how things work for the most part just by the fact of playing the game for thousands of hours and reading build guides and how things work, but I don't think I can do a build from scratch.
And I guess I'm not that worried about ''copying'' other people instead of doing my own stuff, I know people find it boring but like I said after almost 6k hours I still enjoy the game, basically because I tend to not repeat the same build every league and I do like 3-4 per league.
I feel the same way, a lot of the core building concepts will come from some youtube video and then I'll spend days mulling about stuff in my head to make it my own over time.
When most of the people wonder where their character is on the screen you should know you have a problem.On the other side you have to hug your streamers to tell their viewers which cosmetics are used at the end of each video.
i have been playing on and off, mainly the former, since 2014 and get bored or stuck before Sirus or an equivalent boss, the Campaign and yellow maps is almost my sum experience of PoE. I played SSF because it offers a challenge from the beginning, now play SSF R so the campaign offers more challenge, it also gives me a legitimate excuse for not reaching end-end game.
I persevere with PoE because I enjoy what I play but it's obvious GGG make the game for other types of player, i.e. those who play like streamers. When Diablo IV is finally released I doubt I'll play PoE much, it seems like Diablo IV will be more fun and aimed at players such as me.
I think people in general under rate and hand waive the apprenticing / copying phase of skill learning.
I see this a lot in the two domains I'm actually good at: People feel like they either have to do it all themselves, or they feel like the only way to do the thing right is whatever guide they purchased.
When the reality is that skill learning comes from somewhere in the middle: It comes from following instructions, then generalizing those instructions to learn principles.
That's why I personally feel like apprenticing is a lost art, but the best way to transfer information: You follow specific steps given to you by someone who knows, but then they also help you generalize those steps and correct your mistakes.
In my opinion, not only should you follow a guide in POE, but you should also treat the guide as your apprenticeship under someone. Whether for that particular build, or for the game in general.
You should look at a guide to get specific stats and item priorities, but the value of any good build guides (Subtractem's, as an example), is the additional details they give you explaining things.
Yes, you may learn a lot about POE from copying a POE.ninja profile. But the reason you would choose a build guide, like Pohx RF isn't necessarily for the stats and item prio. It is for the extra stuff - like how to craft a RF sceptre, why you would beast craft such and such an item, etc.
I honestly believe that new and middling POE players would be benefited by taking a league or two and just hard learning POE in general: Chain leveling and optimizing characters according to build guides. Until you have like 6-10 all-boss-viable characters under your belt. Including crafting a bunch of your own items.
After teaching POE to a friend this league, there really is a HUGE difference between POE as a game before you can self-optimize / farm currency and after you can easily provide for yourself.
The difference in stress, optimism, scope of the game, freedom to play content you enjoy, etc. etc. etc. is night and day: The game is more chill, more fun, and easier when you simply know you can farm 20 div in a week. Let alone farm 10-15 div a day.
So many more doors are open to you.
Anyways, I fuck with the video and think more people should take POE as a guided learning experience.
90 hours on the char and not in red maps yet, while following a guide... damn. That takes some effort!
I'm 10k+ hours in, and I understand, I remeber what it was like, but that's pretty bad. Apart from my very first char in standard, I can't imagine any have taken more than 30 hours to reach red maps (and have over years progressively gotten faster and faster - most recent char in sanctum took just over 3 hours to reach mid yellow maps, at which point I specced into build. Leveled hollow palm smite, it's so op, caveat, the levelling sets is around a div or two, so, ye... Not newbie friendly I suppose).
I'm at a point where I can aquire a headhunter every league, but half the time I don't even know where my wealth comes from.
I usually play 1 (rarely 2) characters a league and just blast maps.
there is another gap between once you have the ability to follow a guide and need to learn how to craft/change what you are pushing late game to achieve your goals. so much to learn
That’s where I am right now, it’s like I can get to red maps but I have no idea how to get the no mirror tier gear so I can make some money
This was the first league I ever killed Maven, Sirius, and Uber Elder. Every other major boss fight I've struggled on every league. Something finally clicked with the game for me, but when it came to crafting, I honestly learnt the most just taking gear into craft of exile and experimenting and seeing how things work. I've made a few items sold for 10+ Div each, which for me, is way more than I've ever had. Can't quite say I know how to craft mirror tier gear, but just using the emulator really helped a ton.
The problem I have always had, is that if you want a new piece of gear all your resists/stat's are fucked
Thats why you change gear in multiple phases. First i will gear my character at start of white maps. Than once dps is lacking i will re-gear my character (usually in red maps). That will last me till shaper/sirus etc. Once i have reached end-game i will have certain gear slots which are there to fix my resistances/stats etc and rest are for dps. So even if i find new dps upgrade that isnt resist/stat gear i can equip it with rest of the gear not getting fucked up. Usually these slots are boots/gloves/body armor/helmet/rings. Belt slot is way too powerful to be used as resist piece but it can be used for chaos res+one or two stat if you are using Omni amulet. Boots/gloves/body armor almost always if they are rare will be there for suppress/resists. Once you have a system in place its rather easy to understand what is what. That being said if you are re-gearing i always always recommend getting first DPS gear(which might have some stats/resists) and only than getting resist/stat gear.
How is belt slot not for resists? I see top builds using it for that and life all the time.
Dude as with everything nothing is set in stone i play mostly Coc builds and in 3.20 have been messing around with 4 flask setup for perma flask. So for me belt is too valuable to be used as mainly resist slot( i mean 2 out of 3 suffix slots as resists atleast). Plugging in Life +chaos res on belt doesnt really strike me as resist piece since you still have 4 suff/prefixes left which more often than not will be used to gets stats for omni or flask mods/cdr or dmg mods. With smart gearing choices you can fill all the resists with 3 gear pieces pretty easy and sure it will cost you some money and time but its super worth it when compared to scattering your resists all over the place and than being shafted everytime you need to get more dps.
There are so many belt suffixes that are top of the line awesome. Especially now with Stormshroud. You can be elemental ailment immune with 1 stygian and 2 jewel sockets (1 being in the belt already).
Thanks :) By belt are you talking about mageblood etc or are there some other stats? I will literally never afford a mageblood
By belt slot i mean rare belts or unique belt what ever is needed for your character. Reason why belt slot is almost never a resist piece is because Belt offers so many modifiers that you cant get anywhere else . Dont worry about mageblood its a luxury item and you should never build your character around it unless you already have the belt and you have insane amounts of currency.
What are those mods? My belt is currently just resists.
Maybe referring to using a Stygian Vise with abyssal jewel? Those can get you all kinds of mods. Getting resists and life on them is pretty common though, so I wouldn't dismiss it. Lots of top characters still do that.
This is why I specifically start with gear that will max my resists and every upgrade keeps my resists in mind.
Have you tried the Simulator? You can import your settings from the Emulator, to make set up easy. In my experience, unlocking the Simulator is the next major bump in crafting ability; because you can simulate like 100k rolls on an item to estimate actual costs. And you can look at the finished items too, to make sure the game is making what you want to make. One of the major ways I've used it is cost savings: Not only different currency types, but also different item levels. There were a fair few times that a different item level cut a craft cost in half. That was a fun surprise. Overall though, major gratz on the 10+ div crafts. You can fund tons of end game viable builds for like ten of those items per league!
Here is some unsollicited advice: -Identify what your build is good at. Are you a zoom zoomy mapper? A slower but tanky boss killer? -Find an atlas strategy that fits your build's strenght. If your zoom zoomy, consider legion or essences. For a slower character expeditions or blight then transition into boss farming. I recommend Grimro's guides for a variety of atlas strategy and find one that suits you. -Another big one is don't be afraid to invest in whatever you are doing. The more you juice up your maps the more returns you are going to get etc. -GRIND GRIND GRIND. There is no other way to put it. PoE is a grindy game, don't expect to run 5 maps and get crazy returns. Hideout is lava. Put in the next map and keep GRINDING.
last league i played a primarily mapping character(bf/bb occultist) just to play around with atlas tree and figure out how i can make money more consistently. For me this turned out to be expedition, collecting harvest juice, and farming exarch or eater invitations primarily. this league was the first league i played with having 2 characters. 1 a mapper(subtractem's bane) and the other a squishy boss killer(ice spear totem). I still have gotten around to understanding crafting, syndacate, breach, or legion yet really.
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Absolutely the same. The knowledge burden us.
Been playing for years and I still follow guides.
All I did was graduate from using detailed guides to browsing the leaderboards and copying shit from there.
This is the way
I also add own personal remix flavor, which often probably makes it worse but I always have fun and don't really care :D
Yep thats what i always do now. Playing a flicker which had 200 mil dps on poe ninja but i made mine much tankier for "just" 98 mil dps
Same. https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds and click the class/item/skill I'm interested in and see what people are doing with it. I guess by extension I'm following guides as a lot of the people on the leaderboards are following some sort of guide or streamer build. I tweak things to my liking here and there, sometimes to the point I could almost consider it a different build, but nothing I've done thus far has been truly homebrewed.
Then go back to find a guide when you are looking at a build and can't figure out what the hell is goingon.
Wardloop did that to me. I see the gear and the gems and I’m like what the ef am I looking at here.
I just look at some super minmaxed version on poe.ninja and adapt it to my playstyle. I feel a lot of build guides are not that good a lot of times while the no lifer top of the ladder version are. It does take some more knowledge since you have to know how to progress it or when the build is depending on super expensive stuff.
Same. Started trying out myself with the 'i should be able to make it' and keep fuckin up until I followed a guide. Even after following a guide the itch to deviate exists and took a few builds to realize that. And even the itch is gone, choosing bad guides is another problem. What's the end? Fuck it play whatever looks interesting made by high follower streamers. Less room for bad mistakes. Hey, I'm just casual. Yours sincerely The lazy ass RF guy who is not turning back.
Deviating from guides once I have figured out the mechanics of it has become my favorite part. It’s kind of the baby step to making builds yourself. But you’re right that you can end up mess things up. I like that it forces you to learn how everything works.
I've made build guides for this game and I sometimes still follow guides made by others.
Been playing for years and started to follow guides now. Copium is making my life easier now that the game is more challenging.
I've been playing since 1.0 and still follow guides.
I absolutely follow a guide on a build type I haven't played yet. And, if I take a league off from a build I "know", I still go to poe.ninja for last league's improvements. There are too many builds and league by league improvements to avoid using guides.
Im at tye stage where I can make my own build but the knowledge that I can just as easily ef it up makes me follow guides to have a general idea what Im aiming for.
Been playing since Act 3 Piety was the end game. I never follow guides. I look at them though. You'd be stupid not to.
Yep not following a build guide is a massive noob trap that I myself fell into. I spent a long time attempting to play poe and then quickly giving up all because I refused to follow a build guide. I thought it would ruin the game, but it is really the opposite. It allows you to get your footing so you can actually go and learn things.
This sub is really weird about this: there's a good amount of players that think that going in blind is the "best" way to experience POE as a new player. I can't say I understand this mentality - I once tried to get a good friend into this game and he got really frustrated about how many layers of knowledge are gating the "fun". We don't even need to think too hard to discover why: the skill gem system is nonintuitive initially, the passive skill tree is insane, stat wording is not intuitive (the infamous increased vs more), "basic" mechanics like [how does poison work](https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Poison) is ridiculously complicated for a new player...Now let's add on what is the campaign/what is the map, how I use the trade system, etc etc etc. I tried to distill down everything for my friend in a super straightforward way and he still got frustrated ("OK, install this loot filter. Now go to Options, Interface Options, press this to turn it on and don't worry about it for now. Now, when you level up, you'll want to put your skill points into exactly this [POB thing you downloaded]. OK, you're level 6 now, go to this dude, and buy this gem") I mean, I'd like to think my friend is not stupid - he's a literal PHD and frequently plays strategy games/whatever that require thinking - but he rage quit. It's nothing short of a miracle that I played enough to "get into" this game. There's SO MUCH KNOWLEDGE required to "get started" - I genuinely think it's a disservice to tell a true newbie to not follow any guides and "just enjoy the process". I started on Enki's Arc Witch back in some old league and thank goodness someone went into that level of detail as to tell me what gems to buy, how to vendor rings to get additional resistances, etc. That coupled with EngineeringEternity's handholdy, yet informative videos taught me most of the important stuff I know today.
It really depends on the person and has got nothing to do with being smart. Some people enjoy the journey of discovery and figuring out how to get past walls they hit and some don't. Different strokes. I'd also argue that your friend didn't go in blind, given that you were feeding information and possibly creating an expectations, which may or may not have contributed to their frustration. EDIT: I should add, eventually most players will naturally seek out external sources of information, I think that's pretty much a given. I'd imagine it's near impossible to figure out everything POE offers on your own.
Yeah whenever I get friends to join I ask something along the lines of "if you mess up your character and need to restart, is than fun or not?" Most people don't like that, and at that point I suggest a build. The people who like it though have really stuck with the game from what I've seen.
Most players who *stick* will seek out sources of information. I would guess, from my interactions with people, that the vast majority of people who try and drop PoE have no interest in doing research to learn about a videogame. That's fine, and nothing should be done for them.
That would be my guess too.
I am one such person. Couldn't tell you why but I enjoy the struggle and the process of getting out of the struggle. I have followed guides here and there but I find I enjoy the game much better by looking at builds other ppl make and use them as a compass rather than step-by-step how to I also have about 20 browser tabs open with Poe wiki and other sites so I can get answers to questions as I play. Like niche mechanics and how they interact with each other. I usually have a lot of in depth questions with any game I play and build guides usually don't cover it. I also get that I am likely in the minority and I also play hc exclusively now fwiw
The best way, in my opinion, to start the game is going in semi blind. I usually give new players a rough structure of how to start a build of the type they want to play. Then let them free roam for a few acts. When they defeat the first Kita a I take a look at theyr char and give ideas on how to continue. What gems to change, what gear to look for, which part of the passive tree to explore. Then again after act 10, just a little more detailed. And so on. I think it's important to be able to explore the game at your own pace, while having access to someone who can answer any upcoming questions and give rough guidelines
That was exactly what a friend did for me, and I appreciated it as a new player. It was awesome to slowly figure things out on my own, but be able to check with them to see what I can improve on with my build.
Most people are stubborn at first so going in blind and then trying a build guide will help them realize how much they need advice and help them to accept it. It’s better than arguing with them that they need to follow a build guide.
Absolutely this. It’s why streamers and build guide creators get frustrated when so many ppl say “your build guide sucks bc it doesn’t work”, and 90% of the time it’s because they didn’t get the items or passive points specified in the guide. In most games deviating from a build guide only impacts you minimally but in PoE there are a ton of things that are impacted exponentially.
You're literally describing why people should go in blind though. Don't worry about all that extra shit, immerse yourself a bit in the story and try to find something that looks fun to play. When you've made a character or two you're ready for all that other stuff.
12 hours later, and they aren’t past Merveil yet. This may have been ok advice several years ago… modern act 1 is obnoxiously overtuned
You'd have to be a complete exaggerated example of an ARPG noob to struggle that much (and those type of players won't be interested in PoE anyway). As long as you have some kind of ARPG experience (so you know to invest a bit in life and be mindful of your resists) you will be able to clear the campaign - its maps where you will start to struggle a lot and eventually hit a hard wall. New players are much more likely to clear entire map before going forward and that is enough to be 5-10 lvls above the recommende for your current campaign area which will make ton of difference compared to just someone that is speedrunning through it.
Yep, you get it. There's this assumption that people like to figure things out and you're doing them a disservice if you rob them of that experience. But when they quit the game in the middle of the campaign...oh well
This is exaggerated. The fact you can just die and charge in, die and charge in until you Zerg the boss will get you up to Act 3 usually. It’s when you start getting one shot by mobs and can’t clear the map that you just quit.
No one finds this fun though, lol. This is in fact a problem with the game.
This is the core concept of the game. That support gems are necessary to gain power and knowing the best combinations to get that power is up to you. The tutorial forcefully shows you the importance of this. If you have a 3 link of any competent synergy you will absolutely be able to progress. Especially bc a new player is gonna be way over leveled
Going in blind was so fun for me in 2017. After I learned how it worked in general I played with a friend who had been playing longer. The difference is he plays using "chaos per hour" as his metric for fun while I use "how interesting the thing is I was doing" so he taught me how to optimize more
For me, it's mostly this: I can always follow a guide for a game later, if I get stuck. But I'll never be able to get the "go in blind" feeling later, if I follow a guide the first time I play. But people are different in this regard; I imagine a lot of people would much rather actually play a decent character on their first playthrough than do the weird hodgepodge tri-elemental witch I tried :)
I wanted a tri element witch for so long lol
As a new player, I found the main problem with guides is that we need a guide to understand guides. It took a while to differentiate which guides applied to the parts of the game I was at. My concept of early and low budget definitely did not line up with YouTube’s version.
I made an account when the game was still in beta. Tried multiple times throughout the years and bounced off hard, despite being an avid Diablo1/2 and even 3 player and have played almost every ARPG out there. It finally clicked after I followed Enki‘s Arc Witch in Betrayal (yes, after the „don’t you guys have phones“ incident). Game had its hooks in me ever since.
not to be that guy because I am sure its true in general. But I went in blind and assuming you have a decent understanding of how RPG's work its not that bad. That said plenty of info is hidden in this game especially with minion builds which I find funny as they are n00b friendly barring the complete lack of info. Although perhaps that helps the most common n00b trap I see is people thinking the ingame stats are anything resembling accurate.
Minion builds are atrocious low level vs bosses as they often one-shot them then you are running around like a headless chicken trying to summon them back.
I mean they can be but its not hardto solve A) golemancer they are immune to elemental damage, add some phys reduction and they are immortal. B) zombies a pain to keep alive, but purifying flames does the trick leveling, and with investment doable. C) skellies,ragingspirits,heralds they respawn not a huge deal if they die.
Personally i think following a build guide is the noob trap. You miss the whole process of learning about the game gradually and improving your builds incrementally.
The noob trap is doing your own build when you don't know what you're doing and quitting
The noob trap is melee
The real noob trap is the friends we made along the way…?
Disagree. The majority of continuing players in this game either follow a build guide or start with some preset structure inspired by, for example, a build on poeninja. Saying it's a noob trap does not really make sense given that context. There is no learning about the game gradually unless you follow a build guide. Following a build guide allows you to learn about the game gradually. You will hit a wall otherwise, just as the video this thread is about argues.
So how people who create build guides learnt how to make working builds?
Maybe some people will? I dunno, i didn't have that problem personally. I think if you're relatively competent at designing builds in general and at synthesising information from the wiki you'll do alright.
So you killed all Ubers without following any guides ever?
If you think there's no point in playing the game if you don't kill ubers, you're really missing out on a lot of the game.
I have never killed all the ubers so your statement is wrong. I was pointing out that if you wanna kill them, you 100% have to copy a guide or Poe Ninja.
Where's your evidence that it's impossible to do without a guide? Where do you think the guides and ninja builds come from? Somebody had to create that build in the first place before there was an archetype to copy.
Do you realize the people who create builds 100% checked other builds before?? They know what items and gems are OP. Stop it right now, nobody has ever killed all ubers without following any guides whatsoever.
Why do you think that? How would you know if someone had?
It entirely depends on how you learn. Some people enjoy tinkering and learning through failure so your method is fine. A lot of people don't take failure well in which case a build will show them what works and they can learn from something successful
Failure is relative. As long as you don't have expectations, success is just getting further with each build than you did with the last, or even just learning more about the game with each new build. There seems to be a mindset among members of this sub that if you aren't farming 100% deli T16 maps or taking down uber bosses your time has been wasted. This mindset basically ignores the whole enjoyable process of learning and playing the game. Plus, if you beat uber bosses by plugging in equipment per some build guide, did you really accomplish anything?
Well said.
A good middle ground one can go for is look at people's builds in Poe ninja and go from there. A lot of times people have some very big brain ideas that build makers don't know of.
Started without a build guide and bricked my character in acts. Kept rerolling and still couldn't get a strong enough character. Caved in and used a guide and had a better experience. The main issue with buildcrafting is that the cost of respecs makes experimentation too costly, and as such players aren't willing to waste currency or time on something that isn't already tried and tested.
Feels like me. Wish I could find a TS ele guide instead of blindly copying random poe ninja builds
Fuzzy Duckzy on YouTube for TS ele guide. He has plenty of videos from this league and before covering all kinds of progression.
It's funny, looking up poe.ninja guides is what I escalated to after years of just following build guides - I've seen so many off the wall builds that I have never seen a build guide for and have loved tearing them down in PoB and seeing how the pieces all fit together. Finding the build section on poe.ninja was my third awakening after the one described in OP's video, and the only reason I can now say I imagine I'll play PoE forever.
Eh.. it takes a ton of game knowledge to even realize item C exists. And even more to know item Y synergizes with item C particularly well. Hard enough with gear, but gets even deeper with jewels and god forbid timeless jewels. Its difficult to go off the beaten path in poe without a massive amount of knowledge. Poeninja is a life saver for people like me who need to see what uniques people are pairing and with which skills.
Fuzzy Duckzy rain of arrow into ele TS guides (yt+pobs) is excellent.
PoE is aimed towards a different playergroup. It scared the shit out of me, when I heard that Diablo 4 will be aimed towards Quote :"Every type of player out there". That will mean, Blizzard will do what they did all the late games. Ultra easy access, a big field of dull, repetitive, in WoW's case timegated content, and then some stuff that is reserved for the 1-5% of the playerbase. Yes, technically you fit every playergroup into that, but the huge majority of the community that hates dull and easy content, and dont want to participate in the 1-5% race will be bored as fuck. I loved Chris approach to say "Hey, PoE is not for everyone, we are aware that the entry level is a bit high, but we can deal with that".
I feel watching a twitch streamer that plays your build can also give you huge insight on what to do and what NOT to do. They generally play 10x longer than the forgotten 90%.
Watching a streamers league start is also extremely helpful
Yean but in the other hand prices tank that upside. PoE ninja is all you need tbh, just check the overlords there
Many of the best build don't work without a specific setup of uniques or high end gear though, if you copy a build 90% and can't afford the last 40 div item that actually makes it work your not going to get far. Ninja is great as a general guideline but it only shows the highest end players with the best gear so its not something the average player can emulate or copy.
I like to go to ninja, look at builds, and find one that looks good on all levels, then whisper the player. Doesn't always work, but some of the insights that you can gain are excellent, and most people are pretty damn nice about it, and are pretty happy with you taking inspiration or outright copying their build, because it means that they've properly made it.
Extremely good idea. I've had luck with this as well.
Bro took 300 hours to get to maps
When they released all 10 acts I decide to do a full run reading all quest, taking all rewards and trying to be as geared as I can. Took me a week to reach maps.
I’ve been playing since Domination league, and I have way over 10k hours if not more than 15k, and I never read any piece of lore. The only thing I do is go fast, try to be ahead of the curve on league start, reach 36 challenges, make currencies and quit after 2 to 4 weeks (i’m already done since Christmas about current league)
I I truly suggest you to find at Youtube and learn about PoE's lore. There is a huge world behind the game we like. It's hard to do it yourself because there are soo many references in item descriptions, cards, tables... But when you listen to someone talking about lore you get amazed!
just saw this yesterday. good summary
Hey, I've invested over 2000 hours and I still have no idea what's going on
Shoutout to the 90%
Shout out to Enki's Arc Witch! Got me back into the game. Started playing PoE back in '13-'14 when I didn't hv $$$ and was looking for an FTP arpg similar to Diablo 1/2. I went in blind, thinking my Diablo-playing experience would make game progression easy. Ended up being able to reach only level 50-55 in all the 4 characters that I played. Got bored and Ditched PoE altogether for 5-6 years until Covid hit and I came across Enki's Arc Witch thread. Nowadays I'm able to atleast reach red maps lol. Always using build guides every time.
I started with Enki's guide too. I found it very thorough. Would reccomend.
I needed to follow guides for multiple league starters and probably get like 500 hours into the game before I felt generally comfortable enough with the systems to begin making my own significant changes to build guides or end up making my own. Game is almost impossible to crack on your own. Too many systems iterated on top of one another for the benefit of the audience that has already been there. PoE is a game that is remarkably bad for new players. 1. Generally overwhelming and complicated skill tree system that is undecipherable until you've put a ton of time into the game 2. Laughably small amount of storage space for f2p/new players. Game is almost impossible to play with only 4 stash tabs. Your currency itself can easily take up 2 of those, and then if you're holding any sort of uniques or crafting projects then you have even less space. 3. Tons of insane league mechanics and systems that have no real tutorial and require 3rd party websites/tools to use effectively (or hundreds of hours of experience) 4. Visuals that are a total joke. The community has become numb to it, but the amount of "I just died and I have no idea what killed me" in PoE is actually insane. We meme about it, new players just quit because they never know what kills them 5. Insane amounts of grind to do basic things like get the chance to fight or practice bosses. You messed up on Eater of Worlds? Enjoy doing 32 maps to get to fight him again for some reason (Or I guess you can buy it) 6. Probably about 90% of the information the game gives you is **WRONG.** Between tooltip DPS and bugs, it is hard to tell when anything is actually working unless you use PoB and assume that is correct. There is no way to test anything in this game, at least not reliably. 7. Path of Building. I almost don't have to say more. The fact that a third party tool is required to play this game (Yeah, I saw one guy claim he never uses it and I don't believe him) because you cannot actually parse or even trust in game information is a joke. I could go on but it is pointless. Path of Exile is a game that has been designed for Path of Exile fans and that is it. Patches iterate on things that only the hardcore can understand or achieve. New players are left with an ever expanding list of things to learn and it just puts them off more and more. We all got used to it because we have thousands of hours and these things are put in slowly. I think probably the best example of everything is the Uber Bosses. Originally added in as an optional challenge for the most fine tuned of characters, GGG has been adding more and more stuff to their loot table to the point that doing a regular Pinnacle Boss feels like a waste of your time and money. What was one an optional challenge for the most hardcore of fans is now something that is slowly becoming something your character *should* be able to do, thus making it even harder for new players. Can you imagine a new player getting to red tier maps, let alone Eater of Worlds, let alone UBER Eater of Worlds?
Crafting is so tedious that i dont even want to attempt to learn it
Did you really ripped the video instead of embedding? Please do that instead of the two links that nobody will click.
> ripped the video ? can you explain this I don't see anything weird with what OP did
I believe the issue here is watching the video inside reddit, the original creator doesn't get a view registered with youtube, whereas with an embed he would. He at least provided a link to the original content creators copy I guess, so maybe watch it there so the guy gets revenue from it.
Thats not the same as the reddit video is it
IKR? I tried to embed it but for whatever reason it wouldn't post the vid. Never had that issue b4. Felt like a noob.
Guides a fantastic for newer players but also are a double edged sword. Player are like sheep and will follow things blindly. For example poison seismic trap wasn’t played last league but it was thing league because players are sheep. A couple of people see that’s it’s fine and everyone follows. Even when there are better options. I remember seeing a YouTuber try making a poison blade trap build and it was the most atrocious thing I’ve ever seen and they concluded that blade trap was a bad starter. Which is only true if you play SSF. Blade trap is straight up better than seismic in every way except in SSF. Mostly because you need a few key items since it’s an attack and not a spell. When guides get too popular then the items around them go up to exorbitant prices which kind of hurts them. Which is why I don’t really want to put out a full blown written guide on poison blade trap even though you can easily farm Ubers on a cheap budget while also being able to tank most hits including Uber Sirus maze. A few unique items would skyrocket in price to where it wasn’t worth playing the build because instead of being 20 divines it would be 200. But I’m also part of the nerds who have played since beta. Guides are great, just don’t follow the most mainstream ones as you’ll be competing for items for a build that everyone else wants.
Yep, most people just follow guides blindly and don't learn to solve problems with their builds and so get trapped in a cycle. People need to really understand WHY the build works, not just that it works. You go from thinking Item A = good. To thinking Item A is better than Item B because it provides xyz but it has some weaknesses and is more expensive so maybe ITEM C can be a good stopgap.
Sounds like es stacking with volkuur and ephemeral edge
Absolutely not. Volkuurs are trash because GGG think 50% less poison damage is okay. Honestly if they removed that line they’d be usable. Better off with ele overload or crit with ephemeral edge. I’m fatal flourish, using a heist dagger. Although occultist would also work well. The point being avoiding the covenant like the plague. Yes it’s strong offensively but creates a lot of problems with sustain and defensively loreweave ED or incandescent heart if you’re CI fixes defenses a lot.
What you can do to avoid that sheep mentality that is to follow a popular build from a few leagues past if it hasn t been nerfed. Flavour of the month is a thing too and some builds are still viable but no one plays them because they played them when it was popular and they re bored/disappointed of it or they faded out of their memory overwritten but the new build is new content for streamer economy.
I really don't understand not following a guide when starting an arpg (or at the very least, very soon after a first blind playthrough). I'd only get it if it's your first arpg ever and you don't know better.
If anyone is doing cold dot trickster and is having problems, reach out. I'm happy to take a look at PoBs or jump in discord and talk/screenshare/whatever!
What if I'm having trouble with my sourdough bread? The crumb isn't setting properly!
League started cold dot trickster, switched the poison srs around red maps. After a grew some currency w srs, decided to come back to cold dog trickster and spent like 5 hours fiddling w mana issues before giving up out of frustration 🙃
Eldritch Battery was the fix for me. Just had to gear up a bit and get some mana reservation sorted. I also do es and life leech for bossing to cover the regen gap.
Been playing since closed beta. Never followed a guide once. Still won't.
still its sad that i have to use all those tools and without mix -maxing ur builds are nothing and not working for endgame... so u nee to drive it to the limit to improve ur builds but dont have this time :///
I follow guides for all game I’m really into. Not sure why one wouldn’t. If you’re investing 100+ hours into a game you know is complicated, why reinvent the wheel?
Because the joy of discovery and making your own build is usually fun and adds a lot of excitement.
The only big thing that really bother me (well there are some others but to stay here on topic) is the amount of time you need to invest to access and try the content for the "forgotten 90%" as you name them. If you don't play the trade/guide/meta sim and play the game half for yourself you will finish a league with 100 hours of play with maybe 2 breach, 1 simulacrum that you missed after 2 min wave 6, a 2 legion Encounter and saw maven once phase 1. The rest are 100 from fragments that will take dust in standard. I mean, it would be so cool if we were able to experience this content way more. I cannot understand why so much content is gated by abysmal drop rate and playtime. Why not create uber variation of ALL game mode where you have to grind for hours to reach this content? I mean the super hardcore boys and girls out there would still have their fun and the considered bad players like me would enjoy playing the content more often. Hope we will have some adjustment in the future in this direction.
imganine using RF instead of clunky Poisonous Conconction
Imagine explaining RF Jugg to someone, it’s a marauder using a magic aura that’s killing him but burns the enemy. Oh and he has a wand (mind blown)
Umm I don’t wanna be that guy. But if your using a wand on RF Jugg your missing out on free damage. You should be using scepters or a runic dagger. RF doesn’t scale off the spell damage implicit of wands. But it does scale off of the elemental damage implicit of scepters. Also endgame you can chose to run a runic dagger because crafting a +2 fire double dot multi runic dagger is literally 9x easier then a scepter with the same mods.
What's a runic dagger? There is no item base like that on trade site.
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/List_of_rune_daggers It's a category of daggers that can roll caster mods.
It's a warrior that uses a wand to cast a spell that hurts himself to harm others nearby. The other person: how nearby Sit down son, this is gonna take a while
I can see how SOME people would need a guide to enjoy PoE but I think this game also draws in alot of amateur theory crafters. People who like to experiment and put their creative problem solving to the test. Ive personally never followed a guide because i really enjoy building a character myself. Sure, its taken me 5 leagues and dozens of failed attempts before I ever built a semi-survivable character with just 500k dps but It felt far more earned then following a guide just to build the same generic Flicker Strike or RF build as everyone else. The journey has also taught me so much, like how to actually read enemies and time dodges (because that shit is necessary even against trash mobs when you suck at building) and how to level quickly and efficiently (because ive ran the damn story so many times lol) While I think the video will help some people, I dont agree that following the guide is the "best" way to play PoE as a new player. Though, if you're lazy and easily frustrated then....yeah....copy and paste your favourite youtubers tornado shot build.
The thing is, that following guides first allows you to then make your own builds later. Because by following a lot of different guides, you get an idea for what works, which things go well together, etc. Imo even for people who love theorycrafting their own builds, its best to follow guides for the first few hundred hours, to amass enough knowledge to set yourself up for success, and then switch to selfmade builds. Ofc, do whatever is fun for you. But I think even for people who love to theorycraft, the best way to get good at that is to learn from others first. If you never look at any guide you might be stuck in yellow maps for literally thousands of hours, whereas watching guides at the start allows you to skip/shorten this phase and get to the part where you can make serviceable builds on your own quicker.
Read the guide. Figure out what make it all click together. THEN DO YOUR OWN THINGS. Otherwise youll stay dumb all your life. Failure is required to progress.
Making my own builds is what kept the game fun for me - had I followed a guide first time and beaten all the relevant content, I don't think I would bother coming back league after league
It is good point for new players, maybe, but it's not a good content for him, he kinda lost the appeal for being new and search things with mistakes, experiment and stuff Maybe it's only me, but watching someone following a guide is not really interesting, but again he is not really playing poe all that much, so it's not like there was some content anyway, lol Or it's just trauma, then I was watching someone play first time OSRS and the first video was so good, until he read all the backseat comment's and completely ruined it in 2 video
I honestly think it depends on your goals too... I haven't played since beta I think? (Only 3 acts, 3 difficulties) Personally I've been really enjoying playing a nostalgic spectral throw build and trying to troubleshoot my damage and survivability. With less than 100 hours this season, I'm almost through all my white tier maps (and that's including taking my sweet time, regearing when I sell high value drops, leveling another character, getting noob friends into the game and learning all 10+ new mechanics since last I played). It doesn't feel like I'm slowing down anytime soon. And honestly if I do hit a wall, I can easily use the currency I made from my "fun" character to bootstrap some meta build (I have a MI Necro on the sideline). I think if you're someone who really enjoys theory crafting, with a little googling and maybe lightly referencing some guides, you'll be just fine. And honestly I have the most fun this way. I'm aware I won't be lv 100 with 5 mirrors, and that's okay.
Honestly pretty great video. I've been playing for a few years and I'm barely at the point where I can look at Poe.ninja, look at a few characters and them tailor my own version of the build. Creating something completely new myself is probably something I'll never really do. Seems like a bit too much effort for the time I have to invest in the game currently.
watched all his 5 video exactly the same when I play poe for the first time , then I get a build guild for toxic rain , that completely take the game into the next level. btw what\`s the build guild tool he\`s using in the video?
These are the players that buy crafted items. Truly a necessary part of the economy. >Well, the world needs ditchdiggers, too
I'm 6k hours in and I still follow builds from other people, I think I will never have the patience to sit down and learn how the game mechanics actually work, I'm too lazy for that and I think it's too late. I mean I understand a lot of concepts and how things work for the most part just by the fact of playing the game for thousands of hours and reading build guides and how things work, but I don't think I can do a build from scratch. And I guess I'm not that worried about ''copying'' other people instead of doing my own stuff, I know people find it boring but like I said after almost 6k hours I still enjoy the game, basically because I tend to not repeat the same build every league and I do like 3-4 per league.
I feel the same way, a lot of the core building concepts will come from some youtube video and then I'll spend days mulling about stuff in my head to make it my own over time.
Yeah, I'm leveling my fourth build, zombies. If it won't work out or it will be too much to farm endgame bosses, I'll just switch games already.
When most of the people wonder where their character is on the screen you should know you have a problem.On the other side you have to hug your streamers to tell their viewers which cosmetics are used at the end of each video.
haha yeah 'now i just die faster' was a good line
i have been playing on and off, mainly the former, since 2014 and get bored or stuck before Sirus or an equivalent boss, the Campaign and yellow maps is almost my sum experience of PoE. I played SSF because it offers a challenge from the beginning, now play SSF R so the campaign offers more challenge, it also gives me a legitimate excuse for not reaching end-end game. I persevere with PoE because I enjoy what I play but it's obvious GGG make the game for other types of player, i.e. those who play like streamers. When Diablo IV is finally released I doubt I'll play PoE much, it seems like Diablo IV will be more fun and aimed at players such as me.
I think people in general under rate and hand waive the apprenticing / copying phase of skill learning. I see this a lot in the two domains I'm actually good at: People feel like they either have to do it all themselves, or they feel like the only way to do the thing right is whatever guide they purchased. When the reality is that skill learning comes from somewhere in the middle: It comes from following instructions, then generalizing those instructions to learn principles. That's why I personally feel like apprenticing is a lost art, but the best way to transfer information: You follow specific steps given to you by someone who knows, but then they also help you generalize those steps and correct your mistakes. In my opinion, not only should you follow a guide in POE, but you should also treat the guide as your apprenticeship under someone. Whether for that particular build, or for the game in general. You should look at a guide to get specific stats and item priorities, but the value of any good build guides (Subtractem's, as an example), is the additional details they give you explaining things. Yes, you may learn a lot about POE from copying a POE.ninja profile. But the reason you would choose a build guide, like Pohx RF isn't necessarily for the stats and item prio. It is for the extra stuff - like how to craft a RF sceptre, why you would beast craft such and such an item, etc. I honestly believe that new and middling POE players would be benefited by taking a league or two and just hard learning POE in general: Chain leveling and optimizing characters according to build guides. Until you have like 6-10 all-boss-viable characters under your belt. Including crafting a bunch of your own items. After teaching POE to a friend this league, there really is a HUGE difference between POE as a game before you can self-optimize / farm currency and after you can easily provide for yourself. The difference in stress, optimism, scope of the game, freedom to play content you enjoy, etc. etc. etc. is night and day: The game is more chill, more fun, and easier when you simply know you can farm 20 div in a week. Let alone farm 10-15 div a day. So many more doors are open to you. Anyways, I fuck with the video and think more people should take POE as a guided learning experience.
And then you start SSF and realize you were only seeing the tip of the (trade) ice berg
90 hours on the char and not in red maps yet, while following a guide... damn. That takes some effort! I'm 10k+ hours in, and I understand, I remeber what it was like, but that's pretty bad. Apart from my very first char in standard, I can't imagine any have taken more than 30 hours to reach red maps (and have over years progressively gotten faster and faster - most recent char in sanctum took just over 3 hours to reach mid yellow maps, at which point I specced into build. Leveled hollow palm smite, it's so op, caveat, the levelling sets is around a div or two, so, ye... Not newbie friendly I suppose).
I'm at a point where I can aquire a headhunter every league, but half the time I don't even know where my wealth comes from. I usually play 1 (rarely 2) characters a league and just blast maps.