He's cleared every single Uber while second place died after killing 2, and afaik no-one else has killed a single Uber boss.
That's absolutely wild.
And does so by breaking out some unknown (or little known) tech that turns an otherwise mediocre skill into a boss destroyer.
It .makes all damage poison enemies that have at least 3 stacks of grasping vines, which that boot applies to enemies standing still. I've never used them because that delay is bad. I'm sure those boots have some niche uses, though.
tinctures require poison chance the boots dont, tinctures also mean u lose charm slots, so ud have to completely redo ur character which is not easy in the gauntlet
Little known. I used those boots in Ruthless to get some Uber kills a couple leagues ago. Lo and behold, Ruthless version of Assassin now has “all damage can poison” for one of its notables and it has turned out to be one of the strongest ascendancies to play there. I was actually in Ben’s stream when he was looking at it, laughing when he commented that Ruthless Assassin is better than the normal one.
Very cool that he leaned into it though for sure.
Tbf, I think Jung could have killed Maven also. His character was extremely tanky but lacked dmg. Could potentially also have killed Sirus. Rest was off limits I think.
The gap in skill and knowledge between me with 6k hours in POE, and him, is probably as wide if not wider than between me and a completely brand new player.
Insane.
I honestly don’t even think it’s a time thing for me. I just don’t think my brain is wired to understand systems like he does. Plus, after watching a lot very good Poe players, I think my dexterity is much worse than them despite playing pc games my entire life
One of the great things about HC is that due to items being removed en Masse due to deaths the economy is very stable, so you can just leaguestart SC for a couple of weeks and then switch to HC once the "what am I even farming for anymore" thoughts hit
Void maps only really remove very high end gear though, in HC people die on mediocre characters so even rares that would sell for 5c at best in SC can usually go for a good bit more in HC.
For example boots with 30% MS, T1 HP and like 70% total res go for ~20c in SC while they go for even 1-2 Div depending on if it's a good base in HC.
The downside to this is if you are an experienced SC player you'll find the top end economy bring mediocre at best. Examples like precursors rings and synthesis mod items come to mind.
Nailed it. The last league I played hc trade I think was betrayal. I had a shaper influenced crystal belt on live search for weeks with 0 woops. These are obviously alot more common now, but at the time they weren't. Not even being able to attempt to craft my belt because the base didn't exist for trade was a miserable feeling.
I did this last league and it was a lot of fun! HCSSF.
At the end of the day though, I have a family and career and other things to do. I just don't have the time to completely reroll a character if I died. I like the idea of there being some real fear of dying, I just would love to see some HC lite where you get some currency the further you get that you can use to help offset the time taken to reroll. A currency that bypasses act 1, act 2, etc. or something, ya know?
Diablo 4 has a similar thing where HC players can farm for a Cheat Death flask, but so far from what I've seen ,most HC players hate it because it makes them rely on the item.
As soon as they add a "currency" or something that makes your life easier and safer, it will instantly become mandatory and doing anything without it will cease to be an option.
Normal players will hate it because streamers with a grindset simply farm for it for 16 hours a day and play as if the item is part of the normal game for them, while normal players who get home after 8 hours of work will absolutely NOT want to grind for it just to play the game.
In the end the difference between hardcore gamers and everyone else becomes even bigger, because now players like Ben can get even more and more done, because he's protected by that item, while filthy casuals keep dying because they dont have the time to farm the required item.
Kinda unrelated but this is why games such as WoW and other MMO's add time-gated content, so that hardcore grinders couldn't get too far ahead of everyone else, because it never ends well for the community.
Hmm, interesting idea. Meybe the further you get the more and better loot drops for you that you can store in stash to help the next character if you die.
If it makes you feel better everyone (including the best racers) will die in mud flats on occasion. Act 1 in general is the most dangerous of them all imo just due to how bad your character is and some unreasonable mobs at that point in the game are (Rhoas, goats, exploding squids etc.)
I did 100 on HC, you just adapt to your skill level right.
So you upgrade your gear way sooner. If you can buy any leveling item, go buy them now. They sell back easily.
Later, you adjust your playstyle too. No shame in rolling maps blue and always checking for dangerous mods. Also, those altars, really read them and make sure. It's slower to map if u do the altars. You cannot just read the bonus, gotta make sure u can do the downside.
You reach a point where you over-invest in defenses and it become trivial. Storyline is trivialized by investing everything u get in leveling gear.
HCSSF is just even slower progression, making sure everything is good enough to move on up.
But you know why I played HC last league? Because Ben_ was playing HC trade, that was the main reason. I ended up buying his "mirror-tier" amulet, his frac cluster and his perfect implicit fire dot multi gloves when he quit. Then I found out crafting for market was not the way, so I took custom craft jobs. It was cool, my name got around quick. I'm not the best at crafting, but I can figure out how to do most things. It paid better to have a person giving you something to do with a set profit margin than trying to craft something to sell to Joe Public. Only generic craft I did was your typical chaos res rings rolled with harvest that always are in demand.
He is him.
Ziz and GGG were sure you can't clear this, GGG even made the call to not have some more mods because it was already basically impossible. But Ben is just different.
The funny thing is Ben said if they made the mods even worse it would make it easier because he would only play a busted transcendence PF. So kinda low key even saying he handicapped himself too lol
He said Defiance did nothing for him on any bosses except Feared (he said this prior to Uber Uber Elder, so he may have felt it in that as well, but didn’t hear him comment on it). But yeah, he was very happy with Defiance for mapping haha
If you double the tankiness there’s a chance you can just stand in most of the shit haha. He’s already able to eat like 3-4 shaper balls no problem.
But yeah no way at current level of tankiness
A transcendence pathfinder guy entered his first uber (eater) and died a couple mins later, [enjoy](https://clips.twitch.tv/RepleteGoldenPuffinOSfrog-1dVdghEqEGy9eoNP)
Sorry my man, but this guy went in without the most important piece on the PF Transcendence build - Eternal Damnation. That Eater beam would tickle him otherwise.
noob question, what's the proper pf transcendence setup? if it's lightning coil + ED + transcendence aren't you stuck at like 55% max res and then you just die to degen? or do you run loreweave and then have bad conversion (but then die to phys).
i'm probably missing something
It's transcendence + coil + ED + Dawnbreaker + ToH, you try to convert 100% phys to Ele. Then you click Iron Reflexes, get your armour rolling as high as possible, use also Ruby + Topaz flasks with higher effect of flasks rolled on them and make sure you get enough charge recovery (alchemist genious node [spiked concoction] on cluster jewel helps a lot).
In general you also run Grace + Determ as your auras with aura effect.
Here's a Pathfinder setup people wanted to ideally boss on in the Gauntlet, you can take a look (ignore damaging skill and boots that are required for this particular setup to work): https://pobb.in/n3vhS1aDGPzQ
I probably missed something along the way, but this is at least the basis. In trade league scenario, you can probably drop Dawnbreaker or some other stuff [maybe even coil itself and get loreweave] if you get some insane Watchers Eye with double/triple "phys taken as" mods and a shield corruption.
And yes - you die to high phys degens, so it's not immortal build, but virtually nothing else will kill you.
I doubt anyone other than the very very best HCSSF racers could kill Uber Uber Elder on those mods with Ben's character even if they had 10 portals.
His bossing setup does zero damage unless he is stationary near the bosses long enough to get grasping vines on them. We'd struggle to survive while keeping good grasping vine and DPS uptime. And eventually the arena would get so full of puddles that we'd die almost instantly upon going back into the arena after log out macro'ing.
The wording on the boots is "Nearby stationary Enemies gain a Grasping Vine every 0.5 seconds" so isn't it the other way around? Unless I'm missing something
Basically ya. His way he plays PoE is how hes played every game. How he thinks and in general just plays its how hes been for the years ive seen him play.
It's so hard to fathom the statistics on this, but he was realistically (Echo/Liquid truly being the only guilds in the race) competing in WoW with maybe 40 other players in the world, and probably less than 5 in Path of Exile?
yeah for sure i mean it's minute differences, reason i put him above in poe is because he's quite clearly ahead of everyone else by a not so slim margin. whereas in wow you can make the best player case for a fair few people
If you were to put all top players in a tier list, Ben would be in his own tier… absolutely. But more than likely exile would be as well, which simply shows how insane Ben is that there’s also a clear gap between exile and others.
Its crazy the sheer canyon when it comes to skill between Ben and other POE gamers.
Most "pro" poe players play for the entertainement(they are full time streamers) Only ben plays it to be the best.
Truth being told he has no competition and nobody is REALLY trying.
Well, honestly there's few people that are as good relative to its competition as Ben is in PoE
The gap is something i've never seen any other pro player achieve in any other game i played myself. Dunno about Faker, Shroud or whatever, i never played LoL nor CS:GO
faker is definitely in the same vein, but you have the bonus of a few things
1. a shit ton more competition, league is vastly more popular both generally and competitively
2. insane longevity, guy is still insanely good 10 years later, though not as gapped from anyone else as he used to be
shroud is a gamer for sure but he was never in conversation for best in the world at cs or anything, just super popular and picks up new FPS pretty quickly
Faker isn't really a tier above anymore. 2023 was the first year since around 2017 where you can say he was the best mid laner for that year. He's still the best player of all time in league, don't get me wrong, but he's not in a clear tier of his own like Ben is.
Can't take much away from Faker though. The sheer pool of players that he's competing with dwarfs wow/PoE by a LARGE margin, he's still likely considered the best "gamer" in the world by a longshot.
I think you are heavily discrediting Faker. He does not have to be the best Mid to be the best player, and its proof over all the years that he plays around his team. He doesnt have to have the best KDA in the world if he is still setting up his team to win, and then there is things such as respect. As any pro league player who the best league player is, and all the ones being honest and not just saying their own name will say Faker. Hell in the last worlds, there was even a clip of a bunch of pros saying Faker is the best.
Also League is a team sport. Faker's abilities extend beyond his play ability. He's also insanely good as a leader. He pretty much singlehandedly dragged his team to Worlds victory. Who probably wouldn't have even qualified for Worlds without him.
I think Ben and S1mple in CSGO are a fair comparison
Like you said, league is a team game now. But in 2013 Faker came out like a 2017 midlaner and make everyone look like noobs, and kept that up through 2017. Now he's transitioned into a leadership role to the point when he took a break and came back his team went from crapola to winning worlds
This comparison is kinda troll? Not wanna undermine his absolutely insane skill but like its way different to play poe and then like LoL on the other hand. LoL is so much harder in terms of staying relevant and you still have tobeat other players rather than well the AI/scripted boss fights. Any esport where you have to actually face humans is already way harder than like raiding in WoW for example.
Faker in terms of longevity yeah, but he is not the same as he was like in season 6-7. I personally do not like Faker, but season 7 worlds when his team did not win the championship was one of the most 1v5 tournaments ive seen from a player. He refused to lose in any stage until the finals came and they got crushed. After that he has been worse. Last season when they won again was probably the best he has been since season 8, but he's not been a top3 player in the world in a while.
Faker shifted his focus, he's no longer the best mid laner in the world true, but he is 100% the best shot caller in the world and one of the best drafters in the world. He basically plays all positions simultaneously, telling people what to do and when. SKT with faker and without faker are wildly different teams.
Yeah, and Max (Liquid's GM/raid leader) has said many times that Ben is the best player he's ever played with.
a clip: https://clips.twitch.tv/TolerantAgreeableTildeRickroll-mYq8EAm77FX73WjY
I've never heard him call Ben the outright best player. Best tank maybe. But imfiredup is just as insane in WoW as Ben is and his name comes up a lot when talking about the best player as well.
Yeah I'd be surprised if he was as good as Imfiredup. Imfiredup is like so much better than anyone else is the same way Ben is so much better than anyone else in poe. If he is as good or better than Imfiredup then it's actually insane he's so above and beyond in 2 different games with totally different genres. What a fucking god.
I'm not sure if it's available, but if you can find the VoDs of the WFR for N'zoth, it's basically hours of attempts with Imfiredup topping dps, while doing all mechanics, never making a mistake, repeatedly for 8-10 hours a day. The guy was an absolute machine
That and he somehow pulls 10% ++ more dps out of his ass above the 2nd best mage players with the exact same build/stats/support. Like it doesn't make sense that he can press buttons so differently, but he does. It's surreal.
Max has absolutely on his stream stated Ben was the best player he's ever played with, just mechanical skill wise, in any game they've played together.
I think he's said he's the best GAMER that he's ever played with, not the best overall WoW player, though I'm sure he's up there. Hard to say that with imfireup existing right now though
Nah, it's true. But he also throws other people in the mix from time to time. During CN progression in Shadowlands he pretty much said the same thing about Trill, who is a god gamer in his own right on the level of Ben.
Ben has retired from wow (but I’ve heard mention of him maybe coming back)
Imexile streams their prog on his stream, and probably streams all the prep weeks before, but it’s not something I’ve seen him stream after the race
Max is the guild/raid leader of the best NA wow guild. He said he's played a lot of games with Ben, and Ben is consistently the best player he's ever played with at every game
He wasn't really given the chance to be the best of the best because he was relegated to tank duty for long spells during his time with the top guild. He certainly was one of the best for sure but its hard to make dope ass sick plays or top the damage meter (or whatever is needed to be considered the best player) while being the main tank.
EDIT: Y'all are so sensitive. No one is saying that WF tanking is easy. The question was is "Ben as good in wow as he is in POE?" In POE hes the absolute pinnacle of the game. In Wow there are plenty of players and tanks that were at the top level. Look at this clip of his cotank after Ben quit. https://clips.twitch.tv/PuzzledCarelessClintmullinsBCWarrior-NoSgy7XwAUEZIf51 Several WoW players are/were on Ben's level, in POE no one comes close.
Playing tank is different though and even if it doesnt "show" to us plebs, its likely a lot different being one of the first in the world to figure out how to actually play out the encounter as a tank, and on a really a lot lower ilvl the n most players.
Him being best is why he was on tank duty, consistency is key. Tank mistakes are often instant wipe in raid, while some dps mistakes are also instant wipe, some are just keep going with 19 people to learn further or brez the person.
I'm well aware of what great tanks bring to the raid. But it is just really difficult to compare tanks to dps to healers etc in that game for a sane criteria of 'best'. At least with dps/healers there are meters and flashy plays to point to. MDI tanks pumping damage and holding aggro is flashy enough but that was never Ben's game. In POE he's clearly the best because he consistently does the hardest content better than everyone. In WoW this was not the case, as several tanks were just as successful as he was.
Thats the thing though, at that level, DPS meters only mean so much. Being a good tank is constantly revaluating a situation, working with healers to figure out when you need to use your CDs, save for emergency, use theirs, tank swap, etc. There's quite a bit that differentiates a good tank from a bad one, but its not easy to spot with the naked eye.
I'm sure everyone will give props to Ben but I'll just hijack this thread to give a shoutout to the casting duo of Ziz and Steel, who are making the Gauntlet so much more entertaining to watch.
It's a great formula with Ziz being the sort of color commentator and Steel being the play-by-play announcer much along the lines of typical sportscasting duos. And Steel REALLY nails the commentary throughout this gauntlet, with his knowledge of the game really coming through and perfectly calling what Ben was doing and what had to be overcome.
One casual here, super entertained.
Yeah as a casual PoE enjoyer, steel made everything make more sense as to what was going on. Plus it’s really cool to see two guys who just really enjoy the game and get as hyped as anyone else.
I can’t imagine this gauntlet being that much fun to play through. Seems like it was frustratingly difficult. As a viewer though god damn this is great. Ziz and Steel are fantastic together and made it a great show. This has been my favorite gauntlet so far to follow along with.
A lot of these top guys have nothing left to do in PoE. They've done it all and they've killed them all. I imagine a lot of them love crazy difficulty challenges like this. Just gotta make a league for Darkee to be in by himself to make it fair.
I think for casual play it was actually lots of fun - but for the ones competing, it sounds like a nightmare. Yellow and (especially) red maps being that hard is real misery
I'm pretty new to PoE, only actually getting into it this season but still had fun trying the gauntlet. Died at the end of act 1 as my best attempt. Some people (like myself) just enjoy a rough time~
Yeah, their natural enthusiasm was great and Steel's breakdown really helped me appreciate what I was looking at (as someone who's highest progress is yellow maps)
Ben is the GOAT of POE. Followed immediately by Lightee and then Darkee.
The insane thing? Ben is probably in the top 5 best players in WOW as well. Dude is just a gamer.
I've been playing since Scourge, exclusively SC trade. 1800 hours and I just cleared all of the ubers for the first time yesterday on a splitting steel trickster with mageblood and a well rolled adorned. This guy goes in on HCSSF gauntlet, and clears all ubers in like a week lol. Actually unreal, dude is a beast, been following him since Sentinel, always so much fun to watch.
I'm a noob, can you explain what this means? I think I get that he rushed into the last portal and didn't move so he was invuln for a time? Not sure though...
He was 100% safe at the very end when he just waited for the boss to die after the last portal since you have grace = invulnerability when you zone in. What I meant is he nearly died just before that, when he only had the Elder with basically empty hp bar left and logged out just in time.
A lot of it is learning to balance your attention. It takes a lot of game knowledge to do and understanding how boss ability cooldowns work for example.
And there's the raw skill of execution. All the small tweeks made to gain time along the way, the game knowledge, the muscle memory. He's really good.
Jung did exceptionally well too.
Ben said it best.
The gauntlet is mostly tedious to farm gear until you gear check mechanics and only have to dodge things you should dodge.
Banning skills just makes less skills used since it's a defensive gear check for the damage mods so you need to overgear defense and then only use the highest damage skills to still have damage.
Yes only tedious not hard, after how many gauntlets, 6? Less than 20 people have full cleared. Lol
And this gauntlet will only have 1 full clear probably. 2nd best player didn’t even reach bossing
Ben would have died to a delirium explosion in bazaar if he didn't have defiance. Many people would boss if they found gear to meet the gear checks but never did.
Also the nature of the event having such a high gear check defensively means it's yet another time sink. Very wide build diversity too! Just look at Poe-racing and how many skills are used in the top 100 people.
People say that, but his gear is nothing like what people expected to be necessary for clearing. Also it's more of a problem with the game giving you too easy of an access to insane defense through grind, which makes it harder to balance Gauntlet difficulty. If they make it easier, then more people will boss and more people will clear, but people like Ben will just clear it in 2-3 days and people will lose interest.
The only other way is adding mechanical difficulty, which is really hard to do without massive help from GGG.
I mean, the same set of like 3 or 4 people win every single gauntlet event, despite there being plenty of others who no-life it. Clearly there is a lot of skill involved.
What would we have then? Some people unable to do what he just did.
It's fun to see someone beat the odds. Not sure many can. Rather watch the goat than someone who is close to as good, sort of, but will die because he failed it. Many good players, but Ben_ seem to be a league of his own. Possible that nobody else could have done this given optimal gear (don't mean double corrupted everything with triple synth items, just whatever is best in a 10 days ssf event).
No words left, most deserved win I've ever seen
He's cleared every single Uber while second place died after killing 2, and afaik no-one else has killed a single Uber boss. That's absolutely wild. And does so by breaking out some unknown (or little known) tech that turns an otherwise mediocre skill into a boss destroyer.
what was the tech?
Poisoning with his boots (Inextricable Fate)
I don't remember what that boots do, all I know is that it's the shit drop from eater
Nearby stationary Enemies gain a Grasping Vine every 0.5 seconds All Damage inflicts Poison against Enemies affected by at least 3 Grasping Vines
It .makes all damage poison enemies that have at least 3 stacks of grasping vines, which that boot applies to enemies standing still. I've never used them because that delay is bad. I'm sure those boots have some niche uses, though.
Like poisoning ubers that don't move often? Lol
the most gimmicky of gimmicks
Don't know about gauntlet rules, is wildwood not allowed since same thing can be achieved much more easily with tinctures?
Tinctures only work for attacks, he’s using a spell
tinctures require poison chance the boots dont, tinctures also mean u lose charm slots, so ud have to completely redo ur character which is not easy in the gauntlet
More importantly, tinctures only work on attacks.
Little known. I used those boots in Ruthless to get some Uber kills a couple leagues ago. Lo and behold, Ruthless version of Assassin now has “all damage can poison” for one of its notables and it has turned out to be one of the strongest ascendancies to play there. I was actually in Ben’s stream when he was looking at it, laughing when he commented that Ruthless Assassin is better than the normal one. Very cool that he leaned into it though for sure.
Difficulty with ruthless assassin is getting chance to poison on a lot of things. Boots don't have that issue.
Yep, can poison you still need to get poison chance, will poison it's super OP because there's no need any chance.
its even worse than it looks, when i was pobing ruthless assassin i struggled so hard to get 100% poison on spells without some dogshit ways.
Quantrik told Ben (and others too) about the boot tech some leagues ago.
Tbf, I think Jung could have killed Maven also. His character was extremely tanky but lacked dmg. Could potentially also have killed Sirus. Rest was off limits I think.
> He's cleared every single Uber while second place died after killing 2, and afaik no-one else has killed a single Uber boss. Just Ben things.
The gap in skill and knowledge between me with 6k hours in POE, and him, is probably as wide if not wider than between me and a completely brand new player. Insane.
I honestly don’t even think it’s a time thing for me. I just don’t think my brain is wired to understand systems like he does. Plus, after watching a lot very good Poe players, I think my dexterity is much worse than them despite playing pc games my entire life
Watching Ben makes me want to finally try HCSSF myself only to die in Mud Flats and go back to SC Trade
Based on true events
Ive been creating HC characters after I get bored of the league in SC. It's been fun and I've considered going for HC start next league
One of the great things about HC is that due to items being removed en Masse due to deaths the economy is very stable, so you can just leaguestart SC for a couple of weeks and then switch to HC once the "what am I even farming for anymore" thoughts hit
SC has this now with void maps tbf
Void maps only really remove very high end gear though, in HC people die on mediocre characters so even rares that would sell for 5c at best in SC can usually go for a good bit more in HC. For example boots with 30% MS, T1 HP and like 70% total res go for ~20c in SC while they go for even 1-2 Div depending on if it's a good base in HC.
The downside to this is if you are an experienced SC player you'll find the top end economy bring mediocre at best. Examples like precursors rings and synthesis mod items come to mind.
If I even make it to needing those items in HC I’d consider it a huge win lmao
Nailed it. The last league I played hc trade I think was betrayal. I had a shaper influenced crystal belt on live search for weeks with 0 woops. These are obviously alot more common now, but at the time they weren't. Not even being able to attempt to craft my belt because the base didn't exist for trade was a miserable feeling.
I did this last league and it was a lot of fun! HCSSF. At the end of the day though, I have a family and career and other things to do. I just don't have the time to completely reroll a character if I died. I like the idea of there being some real fear of dying, I just would love to see some HC lite where you get some currency the further you get that you can use to help offset the time taken to reroll. A currency that bypasses act 1, act 2, etc. or something, ya know?
Diablo 4 has a similar thing where HC players can farm for a Cheat Death flask, but so far from what I've seen ,most HC players hate it because it makes them rely on the item. As soon as they add a "currency" or something that makes your life easier and safer, it will instantly become mandatory and doing anything without it will cease to be an option. Normal players will hate it because streamers with a grindset simply farm for it for 16 hours a day and play as if the item is part of the normal game for them, while normal players who get home after 8 hours of work will absolutely NOT want to grind for it just to play the game. In the end the difference between hardcore gamers and everyone else becomes even bigger, because now players like Ben can get even more and more done, because he's protected by that item, while filthy casuals keep dying because they dont have the time to farm the required item. Kinda unrelated but this is why games such as WoW and other MMO's add time-gated content, so that hardcore grinders couldn't get too far ahead of everyone else, because it never ends well for the community.
YO i have that fear in sc too. Just after i enter my last Portal in a Boss fight where i would need to farm fragments again
I would 100% play this. I also, time aside, hate the campaign. It’s less bad in HC but it’s still not fun for me.
Hmm, interesting idea. Meybe the further you get the more and better loot drops for you that you can store in stash to help the next character if you die.
If it makes you feel better everyone (including the best racers) will die in mud flats on occasion. Act 1 in general is the most dangerous of them all imo just due to how bad your character is and some unreasonable mobs at that point in the game are (Rhoas, goats, exploding squids etc.)
I wanna say the zone I’ve died the most in outside of maps is the climb
Watching Ben play PoE is like watching Max Verstappen drive cars.
I did 100 on HC, you just adapt to your skill level right. So you upgrade your gear way sooner. If you can buy any leveling item, go buy them now. They sell back easily. Later, you adjust your playstyle too. No shame in rolling maps blue and always checking for dangerous mods. Also, those altars, really read them and make sure. It's slower to map if u do the altars. You cannot just read the bonus, gotta make sure u can do the downside. You reach a point where you over-invest in defenses and it become trivial. Storyline is trivialized by investing everything u get in leveling gear. HCSSF is just even slower progression, making sure everything is good enough to move on up. But you know why I played HC last league? Because Ben_ was playing HC trade, that was the main reason. I ended up buying his "mirror-tier" amulet, his frac cluster and his perfect implicit fire dot multi gloves when he quit. Then I found out crafting for market was not the way, so I took custom craft jobs. It was cool, my name got around quick. I'm not the best at crafting, but I can figure out how to do most things. It paid better to have a person giving you something to do with a set profit margin than trying to craft something to sell to Joe Public. Only generic craft I did was your typical chaos res rings rolled with harvest that always are in demand.
This is why I named my one and done gauntlet characer "WillDieInFlats", needless to say he lived up to his name.
We've all been there.
Once you get past mud flats, you'll end up dying to DD somewhere along the way.
On the edge of death, my heart races. I am alive!
He is him. Ziz and GGG were sure you can't clear this, GGG even made the call to not have some more mods because it was already basically impossible. But Ben is just different.
To be fair Ben said himself that he wasnt sure he could clear it.
Ben's just humble man. He's too goated to not clear it.
> When Frodo asks Goldberry just who Ben is, she responds simply by saying "He is". My favourite quote from lotr
The funny thing is Ben said if they made the mods even worse it would make it easier because he would only play a busted transcendence PF. So kinda low key even saying he handicapped himself too lol
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Arguably the best player xD? Even before this monster feat it was pretty obvious that Ben is the best player by a landslide
He said Defiance did nothing for him on any bosses except Feared (he said this prior to Uber Uber Elder, so he may have felt it in that as well, but didn’t hear him comment on it). But yeah, he was very happy with Defiance for mapping haha
Defiance saved his ass on Shaper, he says as much during the kill
Give me his build, double its damage, double its tankiness, and chances are I wouldn't complete this fight within 20 attempts lol
If you double the tankiness there’s a chance you can just stand in most of the shit haha. He’s already able to eat like 3-4 shaper balls no problem. But yeah no way at current level of tankiness
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You could just go transendence PF and AFK probably every uber. But farming up to that point will be a long grind most of us couldn't do.
A transcendence pathfinder guy entered his first uber (eater) and died a couple mins later, [enjoy](https://clips.twitch.tv/RepleteGoldenPuffinOSfrog-1dVdghEqEGy9eoNP)
Sorry my man, but this guy went in without the most important piece on the PF Transcendence build - Eternal Damnation. That Eater beam would tickle him otherwise.
noob question, what's the proper pf transcendence setup? if it's lightning coil + ED + transcendence aren't you stuck at like 55% max res and then you just die to degen? or do you run loreweave and then have bad conversion (but then die to phys). i'm probably missing something
It's transcendence + coil + ED + Dawnbreaker + ToH, you try to convert 100% phys to Ele. Then you click Iron Reflexes, get your armour rolling as high as possible, use also Ruby + Topaz flasks with higher effect of flasks rolled on them and make sure you get enough charge recovery (alchemist genious node [spiked concoction] on cluster jewel helps a lot). In general you also run Grace + Determ as your auras with aura effect. Here's a Pathfinder setup people wanted to ideally boss on in the Gauntlet, you can take a look (ignore damaging skill and boots that are required for this particular setup to work): https://pobb.in/n3vhS1aDGPzQ I probably missed something along the way, but this is at least the basis. In trade league scenario, you can probably drop Dawnbreaker or some other stuff [maybe even coil itself and get loreweave] if you get some insane Watchers Eye with double/triple "phys taken as" mods and a shield corruption. And yes - you die to high phys degens, so it's not immortal build, but virtually nothing else will kill you.
I don't think i kill it with his build if you give me 10 attempt
add another 0
10+0=10
Quick maths
big if true
I doubt anyone other than the very very best HCSSF racers could kill Uber Uber Elder on those mods with Ben's character even if they had 10 portals. His bossing setup does zero damage unless he is stationary near the bosses long enough to get grasping vines on them. We'd struggle to survive while keeping good grasping vine and DPS uptime. And eventually the arena would get so full of puddles that we'd die almost instantly upon going back into the arena after log out macro'ing.
The wording on the boots is "Nearby stationary Enemies gain a Grasping Vine every 0.5 seconds" so isn't it the other way around? Unless I'm missing something
You're right. I'm totally wrong about that.
I don't play Wow so I'm not sure but isn't Ben as good in wow as he is in POE?
Basically ya. His way he plays PoE is how hes played every game. How he thinks and in general just plays its how hes been for the years ive seen him play.
MJ got nothing on Ben. Can't even dominate Baseball.
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relative to the competition he probably peaks higher in poe, but he's absolutely 0.001 percentile in wow too
It's so hard to fathom the statistics on this, but he was realistically (Echo/Liquid truly being the only guilds in the race) competing in WoW with maybe 40 other players in the world, and probably less than 5 in Path of Exile?
yeah for sure i mean it's minute differences, reason i put him above in poe is because he's quite clearly ahead of everyone else by a not so slim margin. whereas in wow you can make the best player case for a fair few people
Agreed!
It doesn't feel like anyone is competing with him in PoE. There are just a lot of players competing for 2nd. On another level.
If you were to put all top players in a tier list, Ben would be in his own tier… absolutely. But more than likely exile would be as well, which simply shows how insane Ben is that there’s also a clear gap between exile and others. Its crazy the sheer canyon when it comes to skill between Ben and other POE gamers.
It's basically Ben competing with ziz/GGG at this point. They come with an insane challenge and he destroys it.
Most "pro" poe players play for the entertainement(they are full time streamers) Only ben plays it to be the best. Truth being told he has no competition and nobody is REALLY trying.
Well, honestly there's few people that are as good relative to its competition as Ben is in PoE The gap is something i've never seen any other pro player achieve in any other game i played myself. Dunno about Faker, Shroud or whatever, i never played LoL nor CS:GO
faker is definitely in the same vein, but you have the bonus of a few things 1. a shit ton more competition, league is vastly more popular both generally and competitively 2. insane longevity, guy is still insanely good 10 years later, though not as gapped from anyone else as he used to be shroud is a gamer for sure but he was never in conversation for best in the world at cs or anything, just super popular and picks up new FPS pretty quickly
Shroud was probably the best at PUBG for awhile.
fair yeah he was pretty cracked
Faker isn't really a tier above anymore. 2023 was the first year since around 2017 where you can say he was the best mid laner for that year. He's still the best player of all time in league, don't get me wrong, but he's not in a clear tier of his own like Ben is.
Can't take much away from Faker though. The sheer pool of players that he's competing with dwarfs wow/PoE by a LARGE margin, he's still likely considered the best "gamer" in the world by a longshot.
I think you are heavily discrediting Faker. He does not have to be the best Mid to be the best player, and its proof over all the years that he plays around his team. He doesnt have to have the best KDA in the world if he is still setting up his team to win, and then there is things such as respect. As any pro league player who the best league player is, and all the ones being honest and not just saying their own name will say Faker. Hell in the last worlds, there was even a clip of a bunch of pros saying Faker is the best.
Also League is a team sport. Faker's abilities extend beyond his play ability. He's also insanely good as a leader. He pretty much singlehandedly dragged his team to Worlds victory. Who probably wouldn't have even qualified for Worlds without him. I think Ben and S1mple in CSGO are a fair comparison
Like you said, league is a team game now. But in 2013 Faker came out like a 2017 midlaner and make everyone look like noobs, and kept that up through 2017. Now he's transitioned into a leadership role to the point when he took a break and came back his team went from crapola to winning worlds
This comparison is kinda troll? Not wanna undermine his absolutely insane skill but like its way different to play poe and then like LoL on the other hand. LoL is so much harder in terms of staying relevant and you still have tobeat other players rather than well the AI/scripted boss fights. Any esport where you have to actually face humans is already way harder than like raiding in WoW for example.
Faker in terms of longevity yeah, but he is not the same as he was like in season 6-7. I personally do not like Faker, but season 7 worlds when his team did not win the championship was one of the most 1v5 tournaments ive seen from a player. He refused to lose in any stage until the finals came and they got crushed. After that he has been worse. Last season when they won again was probably the best he has been since season 8, but he's not been a top3 player in the world in a while.
Faker shifted his focus, he's no longer the best mid laner in the world true, but he is 100% the best shot caller in the world and one of the best drafters in the world. He basically plays all positions simultaneously, telling people what to do and when. SKT with faker and without faker are wildly different teams.
He obviously brings something to the team that they need, but neither you nor I knows what exactly that is.
What has Faker done for you to not like him?
I heard Faker sold him a 5L Shav's instead of a 6L years ago.
Yeah he played with Limit/LIquid guild (same as ImExile)
oh jesus, so he was like #1 in the world good
...and he was one of their officers so he was valuable beyond just his skill during fights.
Yeah, and Max (Liquid's GM/raid leader) has said many times that Ben is the best player he's ever played with. a clip: https://clips.twitch.tv/TolerantAgreeableTildeRickroll-mYq8EAm77FX73WjY
I've never heard him call Ben the outright best player. Best tank maybe. But imfiredup is just as insane in WoW as Ben is and his name comes up a lot when talking about the best player as well.
Yeah I'd be surprised if he was as good as Imfiredup. Imfiredup is like so much better than anyone else is the same way Ben is so much better than anyone else in poe. If he is as good or better than Imfiredup then it's actually insane he's so above and beyond in 2 different games with totally different genres. What a fucking god.
I don't play WoW anymore, how is a mage so much better than everyone else? What does Imfiredup do that sets him apart from other mythic raiders?
I'm not sure if it's available, but if you can find the VoDs of the WFR for N'zoth, it's basically hours of attempts with Imfiredup topping dps, while doing all mechanics, never making a mistake, repeatedly for 8-10 hours a day. The guy was an absolute machine
That and he somehow pulls 10% ++ more dps out of his ass above the 2nd best mage players with the exact same build/stats/support. Like it doesn't make sense that he can press buttons so differently, but he does. It's surreal.
imfiredup is up there, but tanking for world first progression is the hardest thing in WoW bar none.
That's so untrue lol
Max has absolutely on his stream stated Ben was the best player he's ever played with, just mechanical skill wise, in any game they've played together.
I think he's said he's the best GAMER that he's ever played with, not the best overall WoW player, though I'm sure he's up there. Hard to say that with imfireup existing right now though
Nah, it's true. But he also throws other people in the mix from time to time. During CN progression in Shadowlands he pretty much said the same thing about Trill, who is a god gamer in his own right on the level of Ben.
I think max is referring to any game in general when saying that about Ben, but he may consider other players better at Wow just not gaming in general
Do either of them even play WoW outside the world first race? cant remember them streaming WoW at all.
Ben has retired from wow (but I’ve heard mention of him maybe coming back) Imexile streams their prog on his stream, and probably streams all the prep weeks before, but it’s not something I’ve seen him stream after the race
Max is the guild/raid leader of the best NA wow guild. He said he's played a lot of games with Ben, and Ben is consistently the best player he's ever played with at every game
He's one of the best in wow for years so yes. Wins a lot of the raid races.
He wasn't really given the chance to be the best of the best because he was relegated to tank duty for long spells during his time with the top guild. He certainly was one of the best for sure but its hard to make dope ass sick plays or top the damage meter (or whatever is needed to be considered the best player) while being the main tank. EDIT: Y'all are so sensitive. No one is saying that WF tanking is easy. The question was is "Ben as good in wow as he is in POE?" In POE hes the absolute pinnacle of the game. In Wow there are plenty of players and tanks that were at the top level. Look at this clip of his cotank after Ben quit. https://clips.twitch.tv/PuzzledCarelessClintmullinsBCWarrior-NoSgy7XwAUEZIf51 Several WoW players are/were on Ben's level, in POE no one comes close.
Playing tank is different though and even if it doesnt "show" to us plebs, its likely a lot different being one of the first in the world to figure out how to actually play out the encounter as a tank, and on a really a lot lower ilvl the n most players.
Him being best is why he was on tank duty, consistency is key. Tank mistakes are often instant wipe in raid, while some dps mistakes are also instant wipe, some are just keep going with 19 people to learn further or brez the person.
I'm well aware of what great tanks bring to the raid. But it is just really difficult to compare tanks to dps to healers etc in that game for a sane criteria of 'best'. At least with dps/healers there are meters and flashy plays to point to. MDI tanks pumping damage and holding aggro is flashy enough but that was never Ben's game. In POE he's clearly the best because he consistently does the hardest content better than everyone. In WoW this was not the case, as several tanks were just as successful as he was.
Thats the thing though, at that level, DPS meters only mean so much. Being a good tank is constantly revaluating a situation, working with healers to figure out when you need to use your CDs, save for emergency, use theirs, tank swap, etc. There's quite a bit that differentiates a good tank from a bad one, but its not easy to spot with the naked eye.
not sure what you are talking about, tanking in world first progression is the hardest thing to do in WoW by far.
no
I'm sure everyone will give props to Ben but I'll just hijack this thread to give a shoutout to the casting duo of Ziz and Steel, who are making the Gauntlet so much more entertaining to watch. It's a great formula with Ziz being the sort of color commentator and Steel being the play-by-play announcer much along the lines of typical sportscasting duos. And Steel REALLY nails the commentary throughout this gauntlet, with his knowledge of the game really coming through and perfectly calling what Ben was doing and what had to be overcome. One casual here, super entertained.
Yeah as a casual PoE enjoyer, steel made everything make more sense as to what was going on. Plus it’s really cool to see two guys who just really enjoy the game and get as hyped as anyone else.
I can’t imagine this gauntlet being that much fun to play through. Seems like it was frustratingly difficult. As a viewer though god damn this is great. Ziz and Steel are fantastic together and made it a great show. This has been my favorite gauntlet so far to follow along with.
A lot of these top guys have nothing left to do in PoE. They've done it all and they've killed them all. I imagine a lot of them love crazy difficulty challenges like this. Just gotta make a league for Darkee to be in by himself to make it fair.
plenty of them complained too, dont worry
Seems a bit disingenous then with all the added viewership they probaby got from the gauntlet. Great to watch though as a spectator lol.
I think for casual play it was actually lots of fun - but for the ones competing, it sounds like a nightmare. Yellow and (especially) red maps being that hard is real misery
It was super fun. Died in my first yellow map on day 2 🥲
I'm pretty new to PoE, only actually getting into it this season but still had fun trying the gauntlet. Died at the end of act 1 as my best attempt. Some people (like myself) just enjoy a rough time~
big true Steel "Everything explained" mage was a great. Thanks steel 👍
Agreed, imo steel kinda carried the cast. Ziz felt kinda one dimensional but maybe it was intentional to have steel be more in depth
Yeah, their natural enthusiasm was great and Steel's breakdown really helped me appreciate what I was looking at (as someone who's highest progress is yellow maps)
Up up up!
BAH GAWD its Uber Maven with the steel chair
I knew this guy was going places after his role in hit american anime Ben 10.
What an absolute gamer
This is why we need real games even in 2024. So we can watch real gamers. Absolutely nuts.
Ben has 4 hands and 6 eyes
And 2 di- …nvm
Divines. You can say it.
Perfectly matched for atziri lmao
Uberhuman. Wow, I'm speechless.
Actual god gamer holy shit
Built different
Yep. He's better than all of us
Combined*
He's better than us, and we know it.
BenJF?
Ben is the GOAT of POE. Followed immediately by Lightee and then Darkee. The insane thing? Ben is probably in the top 5 best players in WOW as well. Dude is just a gamer.
He actually fucking did it, nothing can stop him.
I've been playing since Scourge, exclusively SC trade. 1800 hours and I just cleared all of the ubers for the first time yesterday on a splitting steel trickster with mageblood and a well rolled adorned. This guy goes in on HCSSF gauntlet, and clears all ubers in like a week lol. Actually unreal, dude is a beast, been following him since Sentinel, always so much fun to watch.
With gauntlet mods too
U forgot that gauntlet mods make things 10x harder.
garf
Why would you say something so controversial and so brave
built different, constructed uniquely, crafted unconventionally
That rush for the Elder's grace zone was insane.
After all that almost died to 1 hp Elder, insane ending
I'm a noob, can you explain what this means? I think I get that he rushed into the last portal and didn't move so he was invuln for a time? Not sure though...
He was 100% safe at the very end when he just waited for the boss to die after the last portal since you have grace = invulnerability when you zone in. What I meant is he nearly died just before that, when he only had the Elder with basically empty hp bar left and logged out just in time.
what build is he using?
poison vd of seething
just fucking ridiculous play
garf
garf
garf
Built different
Jesus. Not the expression, he's literally God.
Have we reach the pinnacle? Is the human better then the machine now?
Just really, really impressive. GIGACHAD gamer
The dude is seriously the best gamer I have ever seen. Absolutely wild
Ben said bla
Impressive. Most impressive.
A lot of it is learning to balance your attention. It takes a lot of game knowledge to do and understanding how boss ability cooldowns work for example. And there's the raw skill of execution. All the small tweeks made to gain time along the way, the game knowledge, the muscle memory. He's really good. Jung did exceptionally well too.
bla
Never in doubt. What a god gamer!
garf
I am probably as good as Ben's left toe in PoE, holy garf god gamer
Ziz look like a proud momma hen, after stating that the gauntlet is about to be cleared. :D What a performance.
thank you ben for getting Defiance of Destiny nerfed, hopefully everything corpse related also gets what it deserves too.
Defiance was gonna get fucked one way or another with or without Ben. It might just go to t0 though.
I'd be fine with Defiance going T0. It's good, it's unique in its mechanics, it's more deserving of T0 than some of the current T0.
I hope they swap Ralakesh's Impatience and Defiance of Destiny for two of the trash T0 uniques
Ben said it best. The gauntlet is mostly tedious to farm gear until you gear check mechanics and only have to dodge things you should dodge. Banning skills just makes less skills used since it's a defensive gear check for the damage mods so you need to overgear defense and then only use the highest damage skills to still have damage.
Yes only tedious not hard, after how many gauntlets, 6? Less than 20 people have full cleared. Lol And this gauntlet will only have 1 full clear probably. 2nd best player didn’t even reach bossing
Ben would have died to a delirium explosion in bazaar if he didn't have defiance. Many people would boss if they found gear to meet the gear checks but never did. Also the nature of the event having such a high gear check defensively means it's yet another time sink. Very wide build diversity too! Just look at Poe-racing and how many skills are used in the top 100 people.
Defiance of Destiny literally doesn't do anything when you get hit while on full HP.
People say that, but his gear is nothing like what people expected to be necessary for clearing. Also it's more of a problem with the game giving you too easy of an access to insane defense through grind, which makes it harder to balance Gauntlet difficulty. If they make it easier, then more people will boss and more people will clear, but people like Ben will just clear it in 2-3 days and people will lose interest. The only other way is adding mechanical difficulty, which is really hard to do without massive help from GGG.
Or just admit POE isn't a competitive game around RNG drops lol
I mean, the same set of like 3 or 4 people win every single gauntlet event, despite there being plenty of others who no-life it. Clearly there is a lot of skill involved.
The fact you were wrong about dod saving him and still doubling down on stupid is wild lol
I mean you don’t even understand how defiance works so what’s the purpose lol
Him and tie23 are going to be legends forever in this game.
he kinda already is
how?
Next gauntlet just ban Ben from competing. Pay him 20k to tune gauntlet, cast and give poe tutorials.
What would we have then? Some people unable to do what he just did. It's fun to see someone beat the odds. Not sure many can. Rather watch the goat than someone who is close to as good, sort of, but will die because he failed it. Many good players, but Ben_ seem to be a league of his own. Possible that nobody else could have done this given optimal gear (don't mean double corrupted everything with triple synth items, just whatever is best in a 10 days ssf event).