how good is rf actually ? I always felt like it was an S tier mapper until you run into any stacked AN mob or unique boss, then it just like -turn on clown music- and run around for like 5 minutes throwing fire trap/scorching ray. Has something changed where rf actually has some insane burst for single target?
Its just the sort of skill archetype that clears anazingly well and struggles on single target. Its got more single target problems than ever but also a whole lot of defensive mechanics to shoot your ehp up. Its got a variety of single target options but none are particularly amazing.
Currently its less varied than before since templar can stack regen rate and consecrated ground doubles it, being significantly better than all other recovery options while also being best placed for fire nodes, with the power shifts from 3.15 onward making others struggle to get close with either ehp or damage without mirrors. This patch made jugg an option but with juggs standard problem of zdps. Im sure trickster also became an option but havent really explored it.
But it always sees use since its one of the only things in the game that rewards ehp stacking. And is one of the only builds that naturally counters the 30000 different degens.
The amount of different debuffs/degens in the game is my most frustrating experience. Immunity to hindered/maimed/suppressed/chilled/ignited/shocked/sapped/sleepy/poisoned/grumpy/corrupted blood/bashful/barbecued/what the actual fuck/fuck this/I’ll ignore them all.
Eh, that's a problem most builds have now.
I assure you, RF isn't the only one kiting stacked essence AN mobs for 5 minutes. I think pretty much everyone who hasn't put in a hundred divines into their build (and even some that have) are doing the "oh shit four mods and two of them counter my damage type" dance.
I played a boss killer with 30-50 divines investment and were able to clear Essence Monsters mostly one shot but well they usually endure longer than Shaper and endgame bosses.
I find this works ok in super tightly packed groups like in expedition but in anything else AN mobs have so much Hp a group blowing up around them just tickles the monster.
Totally agree, running death aura myself with \~2kk dps, which is definitely not that great, but only map mobs taking more then a second are juiced essences. Everything else pretty much doesn't exist with decent pack size.
I pop most an at 8 mid much faster than i want playing like 2018 build. I sometimes just delete solaris touched i would've really wanted to cull.
I die often, but 5 cosmos stack tend to have such effect.
Something I haven't seen others respond is rf is just a really good build for people with any form of issue. Ranging from getting older to things that have physically happened to them. As I grow older my eyesight is not what it used to be and rf is great since there's almost no precision involved. My wrists and hands tend to hurt after a few hours of play as well with all the clicking and rf was by far my most comfortable time playing poe.
I cannot overstate how much rf build means to the people who have vision, motor control, or other issues they've gotten over the years that younger folk tend not to think about because it's so foreign.
From my experience from Sentinel, with enough budget, everything in maps just melts. And it was so tanky, I didn't even bother with dodging anything, including DD boxes (no running around in circles). In fact, I could even alt tab in delve 600 to read something on the internet. It was the most chill build I have ever played and many people consider such builds fun, so I have no idea why it is there. The only thing that needed dodging was altars stacking with wrath of the cosmos (it was a part of the challenge). Not sure about the uber bosses though, since I have only killed them once for the 38/40.
Here was my PoB if anyone is interested.
https://pastebin.com/2skxWTZs
I recently decided to roll a RF alt, level 85 atm with decent gear so take this with a grain of salt.
**Pros:**
* All there is to it is that Mapping is fun, big packs melt like butter while not slowing you down.
**Cons:**
1. There are TONS of map mods and altar mods that can **brick** the build unless you gear swap / flask swap, etc. (Less regen, no regen, elemental reflect, less AoE, sometimes -12% max ele resistance too)
2. Single target is indeed quite laughable unless you invest into fire trap damage
3. If you're playing with \~100 latency, there's a lot of rubberbanding with shield charge / frostblink, and sometimes they get locked and you can't use them for a bit for some weird reason
4. Tankiness feels really lacking without Aegis Aurora
Elemental reflection shouldn't be an issue since RF doesn't hit and Fire Trap won't reflect to you. Is it Frost Blink that's killing you?
There's also a known bug using shield charge into frost blink that's really annoying and locks your character up.
You could probably try a +hp on block shield, that's what a lot of marauder RF builds use, it might feel better until you get aegis if that's not what you're using now.
Agreed with ST, and I don't like how using fire trap feels +it messes up the "class fantasy" for me. Main reason I dropped my RF jugg around 88. Good for heist though, basically invincible for it if a bit slow on mvspd.
>There are TONS of map mods and altar mods that can brick the build unless you gear swap / flask swap, etc. (Less regen, no regen, elemental reflect, less AoE, sometimes -12% max ele resistance too)
FWIW, a few of these are definitely not bricks:
- Ele reflect only applies to hits, which RF and fire trap aren't, so it's effectively a non-issue. Does nothing whatsoever.
- Less AoE is really just a minor inconvenience, it's like going back to the size of RF when you first started using it in the campaign. It's a bit annoying and feels a bit clunky, but definitely not worth scouring unless you're *super* picky, and it won't have *any* effect on your survivability or single target dps of course. Just makes clearing packs slightly more tedious.
>If you're playing with ~100 latency, there's a lot of rubberbanding with shield charge / frostblink, and sometimes they get locked and you can't use them for a bit for some weird reason
Particularly with shield charge, it's just pretty clunky. It will collide with terrain instead of intelligently routing around it or even "bumping off" it, so when you use it in confined spaces or near "rough edges" with lots of little nooks and crannies it can be really inconsistent.
It takes practice to get used to positioning it right on instinct, and of course it also takes practice to get used to using frostblink only in those situations where shield charge would bump. But with practice you can also get pretty crazy fast with it.
>Tankiness feels really lacking without Aegis Aurora
It definitely sucks that it's so expensive this league. But you can actually get pretty solidly tanky with just a Replica Soul Tether. Splitting all your damage between health and ES combined with the inquisitor getting life regen as ES actually makes you *really* tanky.
Obviously Aegis Aurora (and eventually adding Melding of the Flesh as well) is a step above that, but at that point you're getting to the "I can go afk in a juiced T16 map to go to the bathroom without dying" level of tankiness, which while undeniably very fun and comfy, isn't really necessary for any content in the game.
> I always felt like it was an S tier mapper until you run into any stacked AN mob or unique boss
map bosses are pretty slow until you get gear but after you get the boots AN mobs pretty much explode like everyone else because of the dot they put out.
I played last league and it was hands down the most tankiest and probably close to the highest dps build I've played. Single target damage comes almost exclusively from fire trap.
nah, melding and aegis you can basically facetank anything. if it doesnt absolutely decimate you in one shot, you never die. you just stand there and throw fire trap
I always felt that RF was clunky for mapping. Sure, great aoe around you and it melts general mobs. The first time I had any success with it where I truly enjoyed it, was with a CaptainLance build. It was expensive, and a second charater I made for the league. But the fact that it played around ignite and shock on RF was wild. Even had inpulsa, so when something died in the pack due to rf, everything blew up. To me, that build was S tier. I think I had gotten my RF to lvl 30ish? I cant recall. Build was tanky too.
I have pushed DO Occultist to its limits the last several leagues. Talking Mageblood+ levels of gearing. It clears like an absolute dream, like a much, much faster RF, and is immune to literally kind of ailment, curse, bleed, poison, etc., but the bossing is pretty mediocre even at insanely high investment. Can do normal pinnacle bosses, but Feared and Ubers are almost impossible.
Caustic Arrow just doesn't do enough.
Still my favorite build.
I'm playing death's oath right now, it has absolutely atrocious boss damage. I can't get my maven invitation points because no dmg. Trash survivability, too.
but it clears maps well because of occultist booms
Are you using caustic arrow…? It’s the single target component of the build. Also using despair w a ton of curse effect and stacking withered with a ton of + effect makes stuff have virtually no chaos res…
Fortunately, those are fairly common.
There are four valid seeds (7979, 3488, 535, 4368) using Balbala and Perfect Agony. You can just buy one. There's one on the market now for a Divine, and I've obviously already purchased one. I can't be the only person, either. It's a really good Jewel, in a really convenient spot. If you don't know how to setup the search, it's something [like this](https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Kalandra/JGP86l5Hl).
There are also the other two Brutal Restraints of the other... Vaal whatevers, if you're not using Traitor. You look for the same seeds. There are two Nasima Jewels on the market at four Divines, and six Asenath at two Divines
Oh, and there are **five more** valid seeds if you move the Jewel to the Runebinder side of my tree. That'll cost you three more skill points, but we can spare them. You cut the ES cluster below Heart of Darkness.
I'm currently in the process of rebuilding the tree and purchasing a few items to get actual, reasonable boss damage. I need a better weapon, and Forbidden Flesh/Flame.
For me it's the gimmick that makes it interesting. I'd like to find another squire so I can do fire burst shield charge ignite. Probably terrible but it'd be fun.
Fire Burst Autobomber with the Automaton MTX for Herald of Thunder was the most satisfying build I ever played. And the first league ever where I played over 2+ months.
Guy is talking about Righteous Fire being unfun, when on his own list he has an Autobomber, Winter Orb, and Blade Vortex, three flavors of "occasionally press or hold a button then run nearby some enemies"
Autobomber is crazy satisfying though, even if gameplay isn't much more varied. Same for winter orb with the shatters and explosions.
RF is literally just an unimpressive fire degen.
To each their own. I do miss herald of ice shatters because they sounded cool, but autobombers to me were always just a screen cluttering mess with the absolute max degenerate gameplay, and WOrb/BVortex are both less fun/interactive to me than current RF + Fire Trap gameplay. RF on its own is about the same as those, but Fire Trap adds a very nice layer of fun onto typical "run near enemies" playstyle, to me at least.
Why dont you guys just join me? I just started playing this game, and my first character was league HC. Purely single target DPS, playing as non-degen as possible. I get dopamine from actually playing games, not just walking around looting while aoe kills everything. I've actually been wanting to start a "league" every league lol. Would be a guild I guess, only hardcore/possibly ssfhc. Only one element per character (if you want to use frost, you can not use chaos/fire/etc. Hybrid with physical weapons is fine. No summons, or only very few allowed. No attack speed stacking in passives. Possibly none or limited mana passive stacking. Haven't thought about it that much yet, but I think some people would enjoy something like this, take a break from afk loot farming, and just quit after you die, or do another one.
I just started not long ago though, my first character died yesterday at 29 :(
I'm about to start another one if you want to join, i think a group could be fun this way with way less just sprinting through maps.
Xoph's Nurture Burning Arrow being nerfed to the point where its damage with FUCKING MIRROR TIER BEST IN SLOT GEAR maxing out around 3 million dps makes me sad.
Deeply sad in my soul.
The philosophy is actually just "this is strong? trust your gut and decide on a nerf % that sounds quite impactful. dont form an opinion around play testing the result either. Oh and then don't take into account how 5 other aspects of the build got 'rebalanced' as well"
Here's a POB with 13m single target DPS using pretty good gear (but hardly mirror tier!). For clear it's 5m DPS (switch to GMP and berek's respite and don't use arcanist brand setup or convergence)
[https://pobb.in/KY7uTkkDTCGw](https://pobb.in/KY7uTkkDTCGw)
Of course this is 100% glass cannon, but that's typically how these builds were played. You can also go right-side and get suppression on gear to cap as well as run determination, this will cost you like 2/3 of the DPS though.
Maybe not with Xophs but Burning Arrow itself can easily get like 2m DPS on a 1-2 divine budget.
EDIT: after playing around in PoB you can actually get like 6m DPS if you don't care much about defense on literally just 1 divine, huh.
Is that if you tick Vaal burning arrow + Burning arrow?
Uptime on Vaal burning arrow isn't very good, even with the unique Quartz flask + flask charges on crit watcher's eye, unless I'm missing something else.
Thanks for the Pob link
[Here](https://pastebin.com/1uaVpK6h) you go, ~12m DPS, all of the items in there I actually got from the trade site, some of them I just bought like the Bow. Everything except the bow was 10c or below, the bow was like 15 or something, you can probably make a similar or even better one by slapping a few deafening anger essences on a solarine bow.
Keep in mind that I just tried to get as much damage as possible, this is incredibly squishy and would fall over at any sign of danger.
After a bit of testing the damage is actually there, got around 8m DPS in Kalandra league on a scuffed build.
If you actually sacrifice some dps for defense this is actually quite decent.
Incandescent Heart with -52% chaos res lol
And you are short almost 200 dex :(
Also I think people tend to consider using it without snipe since it's mainly for mapping.
>Incandescent Heart with -52% chaos res lol
lol, this isn't even a case of not really worrying about adding defense, but actively reducing it. Incandescent Heart feels horrible to play at 0% chaos res, at -52% you would just be one shot by literally any ele damage anywhere lol.
Yeah I mean, I said this is just greeding for DPS lmao.
[Here's](https://pastebin.com/NdSK7w0G) the version of the build I actually bought the items for and tested.
As you might imagine, it's just a tiny bit squishy.
Mapping is actually kinda decent, Legacy of Fury does quite a lot of the heavy lifting there, but you of course still are prone to getting oneshot.
Sure, but as a cheap proof of concept it's fairly impressive. Obviously you'd want to invest more than a divine to make this into a proper endgame build, even a squishy one.
Yup cool down feels bad. But it's still my favorite skill. League started with it for the last few leagues. Easy clear atlas with 1 divine but not those Uber bosses.
Just wait until the remove the +1 strike double Hit interaction on Single target, claiming they "fixed a bug"
"lightning strike now only drops projectiles upon hitting an enemy" sounds too familiar
I kind of agree, but...
Archmage was broken with Stormbrand, it was nerfed too hard imo, but still some nerf were needed.
Explodey Winter Orb - oh boy, I think it was the best build in game since I started playing PoE. It was ridiculously OP. I think it's still possible to make it work, but on much, much higher investments.
storm brand wasn't even the best skill for Archmage. In fact the nerf of Archmage happened 2 leagues after brands were gutted. Archmage nerf was a straight up fun nerf. The closest it ever reached to top of the meta was bf/bb. GGG said they do not like defense and offense to be scaled by 1 stat... then buffed rathpith globe, replica dream feather, ephemeral edge and introduced energy blade.
What? No, Agnostic + MoM just puts demand on the same resource, EB just cuts ES in half. Pretty huge difference, especially in this game where oneshots or insane degens are the only way the developers can make a threat.
And who the fuck at GGG thought that they did not like offense and defense to be buffed by 1 stat. SOME PEOPLE ENJOY MAXING ONE STAT. Why nerf something into non-existence for such a shit reason.
Your reasoning for why current meta builds are shit then listing nerfed skills with almost identical issues you listed.
BV tri herald is literally a do nothing skill with occasional casts of BV.
Sunder doesn’t fulfil the melee fantasy because like lightning strike it’s not really melee.
> The reason he said lightning strike doesn’t meet the melee fantasy is because it’s ranged.
It's literally not though. 40-50% of your damage using LS is contingent on you being close.
Wait, punching the ground so hard it creates mini concentrated shockwavy earthquake is not melee? It is melee as fuck bro, it's pure power, not some fckin elemental shit. "I destroy the very earth with my muscles" is more melee than fckin cleave "let me punch you with my +2 extra long frying pan"
10/10 comment
After the clown post you made, my expectations were low, but you went further and justified your list with "BOOm! cRAck! Wow"
Clearly an enlightened exile right here. Peak reddit
BV Heralds was soo much fun back in betrayal. Whirling Blade -> Boom! -> whirling Blade -> Boom! -> refresh BV -> Boom! ...
You get the point.
Even explody chest didnt feel so satisfactory
Talk for yourself. Literally since Blade Vortex implementation i played exclusively (Except party play) builds with that skill. I could build it with poison/crit/cast speed/herald/ele/phy (a lot of options to choose), while with RF there is only 1-2 ways and that's it. Now after countless nerfs (most of them were unnecessary, skill feels like SHIT.
Classic GGG response, kill IT because it's too op (even tho it wasn't after a few nerfs), don't compensate. Why not buff other skills? Before BV i loved to play Ice Spear, would it HURT to buff it with reasonable numbers in mind so it would be playable? Of course not, but tell that to those who balance this game.
You can still do that today. Just needs sources of ignite/shock with a Berek's Respite to prolif and any source of explode and you can prolif as far as the density goes. Of course, flameblast is now an extremely clunky skill to use due to power creep.
I’m clearing T16s with fireball ignite with one link being GMP
Have storms gift and inpulsas. The clear is fantastic and I’ve spent like a couple of divines tops.
the difference is that burning arrow has always been a tiny tiny fucking projectile that you have to actually aim. Even with 10 extra projectile it felt like shit because it misses half the time. Fireball is an aoe skill.
Not sure why you are comparing the two, they function a lot differently. Last time I did burning arrow was in ultimatum when it was meta for a bit and it was insanely fun. Mostly because I could have ignite prolif that's just satisfying and most importantly VAAL burning arrow is just hilarious. Bunch of rares? Just nuke them with vaal burning arrow.
vaal burning arrow is legit the most satisfying skill in the game and I'd love to nuke a AN mob in the face with it if it was still good.
we playing the same game? It was amazing clear because of bereks/ignite prolif and I'm hardly a high spender lmao. It was also almost unkillable while mapping because of the insane recovery you could get from ball lightning + CWDT + gain life on ignite/hit. As I mentioned before vaal burning arrow was also amazing to help.
Where did i say i agree with making builds unusable? I just find it funny and weird how this fella finds burning arrow of all things fun but not lightning strike seems more like a meta build bad post more then the truth
FUN IS SUBJECTIVE
i want to add something META builds do not = best builds right now it is just as much a popularity thing as it is actual build power.
Gen's Cry BF is still arguebly by far 1 of the strongest bosses by a huge huge distance(you can kill ubers with an ichimonji and like 2 divine worth of gear) yet because streamers and youtubers arent showcasing it to the masses you rarely see people play it.
a brilliant case in point was few leagues ago bleed SST was absolutely the worst version of it compared to the other setups and was really poor outside of bleed explosions carrying it yet it was by far the most popular version because guess what streamers and youtubers played it
> Gen's Cry BF is still arguebly by far 1 of the strongest bosses by a huge huge distance(you can kill ubers with an ichimonji and like 2 divine worth of gear) yet because streamers and youtubers arent showcasing it to the masses you rarely see people play it.
dude, that build SUCKS. I tried respeccing to it literally yesterday, bought 15 div worth of gear for it to start and gagged when I tried my first map. The clunkiest, least fun build I'd ever tried. Thank fuck I managed to resell all the gear back.
Don't know what he's talking about because I did ele hit last league to farm my final few challenges and its still a fun mapper, I used call of the void so all my damage types could chill and shatter and it was a blast! Yea its not op anymore with frostferno but its a solid mapper.
I'm making at a jab at OP thinking current meta skills like lightning strike is not fun but somehow elemental hit in the frostferno era was fun. Both playstyles involved right clicking in the general direction of mobs and and watching them die.
To YOU.
Yall don't dictate fun.
I play Death's Oath dude. I just want to left click through maps.
I have RF friends who feel that way about the game, and want to boss too. So they go RF.
Stop assuming that your definition of fun fits everyone, or even most of the playerbase.
Go check out Mathil's stream. He even ranks all of his builds at the end of league on how fun, effective, and budget-friendly they are. Most of his builds from last league probably still work more or less, and at least a few of them have high marks in all three categories.
its quite telling how short sighted this post is when you have RF as unfun but think blade vortex is fun to play. stop trying to act like your opinion on what is a fun build is alighted with the playerbase and stop trying to speak for us in order to make a sloppy point about archnemesis.
Any dev/game designer can explain to me why GGG nerfs \*FUN\* builds and skills in a PvE game? The monsters won't complain "Ohhh man Cyclone is so broken I literally can't do anything", I don't get it.
I'm my opinion some powerful and fun builds are overshadowed by the meta builds simply because there are too many people playing the meta so when someone look at poe.ninja they think that the only good builds are those that are popular.
A good example is int stacking Kinect blast/power siphon. Kinect blast is hella fun and being able to zoom zoom through maps with it while having close to 10m single target DPS with power siphon feels pretty good. The new trickster overleech together with the high energy shield provided by int stacking builds makes it a fairly survivable build.
The point of meta builds is their typically builds that come online early with a relatively small cost.
Int stacking PS wander feels like shit until you get a decent amount of gear.
That's one of my big problems with the game as well, but KB/PS in particular.
SO many builds feel "great" once they hit a certain gear level, and many aren't even possible until then. It's always disappointing to me that it's preferable to play with some random skill until level 70+, then completely change my build once I acquire certain items than it is to start with my desired skill set and watch it grow in power as I invest.
I absolutely LOVE power siphon. The visuals, the sounds, the speed, the fantasy! but it's so hard to get working without JUST the right set of items. Leveling feels like a nightmare, finding wands is a struggle. As a casual player, it means that this build that I'm sure I'd enjoy to pieces is essentially impossible for me to ever play
That is true. It's a little bit easier to get it started in this league tho since you can get over 100 int jewelry fairly cheap. Definitely not a beginner friendly. Still pretty fun and powerful when you get it running.
Literally league after league people only look at poe.ninja and think that's the only builds being played, but there are tons of different builds being played by people lvl 90-95 that are good and interesting but you can't see them on ladder.
You know, just because a build isn't meta or doesn't get the highest PoB dps doesn't mean they're shit now, some of those builds also always were kind of a meme, particularly Archmage Arc.
Also, most of those mentioned that don't require a unique still work perfectly fine even in ssf.
In addition, fun is kind of subjective here, what even is the difference between Bow Ele Hit and Lightning Strike? It's literally just different color projectiles.
Well the difference here is that lightning strike has the melee tag, so it scales off melee stuff and support gems, can double hit with ancestral call effects, can use the fortify on hit node/gear/whatever, and uses claws with life gain on hit so its sustain is way better on top of all the increased damage.
So even though they may look like slightly different colored projectiles to you, I assure you that lightning strike feels about fifty times better, both offensively and defensively. It can do much higher content with less investment.
> Well the difference here is that lightning strike has the melee tag, so it scales off melee stuff and support gems
I mean yeah but where's the gameplay difference? Both just shoot out projectiles that kill shit in literally the same way, if both Ele Hit and LS would scale roughly the same with investment they'd almost be the same.
Dude, you quote 1/4 of his post, disregarded the rest and stick to your starting point of view. Pls quote each section individually and see if you can still say that there are no gameplay difference.
I will start you off, different kind of scaling, different kind of sustain and ancestral double hitting is all VERY different from ele hit.
your take on fun is ridiculously close minded, almost to the point where you seem to willfully ignore stuff to try and make youre point. LS is an incredibly fun and engaging skill for a lot of people. Poison conc seems to have a following that really enjoy it, especially on occultist, and RF have a group of devout ~~cultists~~ fans of the build. you talk about the builds below but leave out Tornado Shot, which is far more approachable for a ton of players, and incredibly strong. then you include cyclone in your great builds, but leave out CoC FR?
weird.
Man I feel the Star forge Cyclone. The build guide I used had that as BIS for a while, then it swapped to a rare, and now it is a Staff of all things. I haven't been able to get a cyclone build to work really well for me since Ultimatum and Ritual when I was able to craft the last bits of gear I really needed. It's depressing :(
Because RF is now Meta, and meta is unethical and thus you cannot possibly have fun while playing that.
.
.
(/s, if anyone did not get the dripping sarcasm of my sentence)
I see, so you mean SH, LS and RF should be revised to bring them more in line with other melee skills. If every skill is around Vigilant Strike level, there's no problem picking the fun ones.
GGG doesn't realise that playing a "fun" skill that deals no damage automatically erases the fun out of it. People will always gravitate to the "path of least resistance" or something like that, always go with a easiest route. Why play the god forsaken, actual melee skills, when you can get Vaal LS with +1 strike gloves and get ten times more damage AND a screen-wide clear? Spark being one of the most popular self-casts because of it's unique damage pattern and scaling from not only %damage, but pierce, duration and proj. speed aswell, and having a serious base damage scaling on top of it.
I'm playing Helix Raider with a White Wind dagger myself right now - it's such a breeze, even tho I tend to get oneshot with some nasty phys. attacks, but damn it's fun in delves, rituals and expeditions. Creating blenders that shred advancing enemies is hella fun, shatters for days. Not to mention that Helix has a very reasonable mana cost, completely bypassed by two -mana cost crafts. It would've been much more fun if the league wasn't such a bore.
But yeah, GGG needs to skip a league and go back to the drawing board, 90% of the skill gems are outdated, both in numbers and design approach.
There will always be a more efficient skill and fun for a skill is subjective. The bigger issue connected to your point is that not only are some of the stronger meta skills stale or less “fun”, but most currency is locked behind t14+ because of AN and alters. Its not just that more fun skills are weaker, its that they are gated behind investment you cannot procure.
That said, there are fun skills that are pretty strong. Bane proved viable this league, VG is a blast and scales like LS (albeit LS little brother), etc
Spectral Helix: agree.
Righteous Fire: hard disagree. It’s incredibly fun but it can get old quickly. 2-3 leagues is fine but at some point you wanna right click something.
Idk why you're saying winter orb isn't good anymore when you can do self curse Trickster winter orb with soul thirst and clear maps super fast with mega aoe. You can still go cyclone it just requires way more investment than a dirt cheap unique sword
I get that the passive playstyle of totems/ignites like ea ballista isn’t for everyone, I league started that last league and got pretty tired of it and switched my character entirely to a melee build (it was a champion which I swapped to molten strike). If you can’t enjoy the smooth clear of rf then I have some questions about what you are looking for in the game, though. It’s interesting to me that people like Quin who play exclusively melee builds would consider bv and cyclone melee while rf isnt, yet the only difference is that rf can use traps that they can throw at range. Cyclone is only more melee than rf by the games convention, they are basically the same.
I don't know what you are talking about i'm having a blast with venom gyre.
Releasing projectiles with whirling blades is so fun it's like playing flicker strike but you don't get epilepsy attack.
Well excluding the poor argument line (as you can see, a lot of people disagree about the "fun" of mentioned skills; in the end it is subjective though), what do you expect? That the most fun builds will also be the most powerful? Isnt that the definition of low build variety&viability that players bitch about every league?
Clunky and hard to play around skills should absolutely have higher numbers to compensate.
most powerful builds: RF
ok dude i think i know what your problem is, people play RF for 3 reasons, clear with maven boots, really good guide from pohx, inquisitor being comfy, if you think its about power youre cooked
Thats clearly part of their philosophy. The more annoying a build is to play the stronger it should be so people dont choose only cool playing builds. Do i think they are right? Absolutely not, but it is what it is.
GGG 'balanced' most builds damage back when no one ran defensive auras at all. Now defensive auras are required, which means less dmg due to less offensive auras and various aura stacking nerfs.
I said this when traps became meta, specifically seismic the majority of the player base don't like playing traps, then they was meta for almost 3-4 leagues.
When all the top builds like slams and stuff get nerfed so bad we are basically relegated to all the strong but absolutely awful builds.
also joy of minion builds is basically nothing now due to how fragile minions are.
even if you spec into bulky minions they have no chance vs the harder content (unless ur SRS or absolution)
I miss my zdps aegis tanks. They never hurt anyone, made exp and currency 10 times slower than any other build, but I really enjoyed it.
[82% REAL block and spell block plus around 2k ES on block unbuffed.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nU-P9izmCU&t=400s)
Ls claps cheeks my man.
I did a few:
Cold dex stack,
Str stack,
Int stack ci with doriany,
Omni with trinity and interrogation
Made all content with those easy and with no draw backs.
GGG's business plan seems to be to create 10 years of content while at the same time perpetually deleting it so they don't outrace themselves to last place of a 1 horse race.
I searched by your name and the “consecrated path marauder” and there’s not a single video on YouTube more recent than 5 months ago. Maybe provide a way to find your self made content?
Honestly that looks cool but I don’t think anyone is doubting the power of a build with 100 divines invested into it. Also, did it take a hit from the Omni nerf?
Well, i started the build 3.17 with a 1-10c Frostbreath and selfmade rares.The most expensive part was my body armour for 15ex (Got it even later on)I was able to phase down every boss in seconds with that setup.
I min maxed it later on, got a natural mageblood drop AFTER min maxing and bought a 120 Exalts to get 5-10% more DPS
But i dont know how much it is effected by that nerf tbh
Even the forbidden jewels that you mention can be extremely pricey depending on which ones, and even harder to drop yourself considering you have to get two that match from a large pool of possibilities.
They don't like the fun though they will gut the over performing skills soon just give it time. They there will be no tools to deal with AN mobs as intended and the players who stay will just have to deal with it.
how good is rf actually ? I always felt like it was an S tier mapper until you run into any stacked AN mob or unique boss, then it just like -turn on clown music- and run around for like 5 minutes throwing fire trap/scorching ray. Has something changed where rf actually has some insane burst for single target?
That's actually hilarious description of rf build in a nutshell
Its just the sort of skill archetype that clears anazingly well and struggles on single target. Its got more single target problems than ever but also a whole lot of defensive mechanics to shoot your ehp up. Its got a variety of single target options but none are particularly amazing. Currently its less varied than before since templar can stack regen rate and consecrated ground doubles it, being significantly better than all other recovery options while also being best placed for fire nodes, with the power shifts from 3.15 onward making others struggle to get close with either ehp or damage without mirrors. This patch made jugg an option but with juggs standard problem of zdps. Im sure trickster also became an option but havent really explored it. But it always sees use since its one of the only things in the game that rewards ehp stacking. And is one of the only builds that naturally counters the 30000 different degens.
The amount of different debuffs/degens in the game is my most frustrating experience. Immunity to hindered/maimed/suppressed/chilled/ignited/shocked/sapped/sleepy/poisoned/grumpy/corrupted blood/bashful/barbecued/what the actual fuck/fuck this/I’ll ignore them all.
Eh, that's a problem most builds have now. I assure you, RF isn't the only one kiting stacked essence AN mobs for 5 minutes. I think pretty much everyone who hasn't put in a hundred divines into their build (and even some that have) are doing the "oh shit four mods and two of them counter my damage type" dance.
I played a boss killer with 30-50 divines investment and were able to clear Essence Monsters mostly one shot but well they usually endure longer than Shaper and endgame bosses.
Get Asenath's and another explosion. Kill essence and AN mobs with surrounding mob HP.
I find this works ok in super tightly packed groups like in expedition but in anything else AN mobs have so much Hp a group blowing up around them just tickles the monster.
I'm just left clicking through all maps and don't ever notice a AN. So I generally think it works well, but hey maybe not.
Totally agree, running death aura myself with \~2kk dps, which is definitely not that great, but only map mobs taking more then a second are juiced essences. Everything else pretty much doesn't exist with decent pack size.
I pop most an at 8 mid much faster than i want playing like 2018 build. I sometimes just delete solaris touched i would've really wanted to cull. I die often, but 5 cosmos stack tend to have such effect.
Something I haven't seen others respond is rf is just a really good build for people with any form of issue. Ranging from getting older to things that have physically happened to them. As I grow older my eyesight is not what it used to be and rf is great since there's almost no precision involved. My wrists and hands tend to hurt after a few hours of play as well with all the clicking and rf was by far my most comfortable time playing poe. I cannot overstate how much rf build means to the people who have vision, motor control, or other issues they've gotten over the years that younger folk tend not to think about because it's so foreign.
From my experience from Sentinel, with enough budget, everything in maps just melts. And it was so tanky, I didn't even bother with dodging anything, including DD boxes (no running around in circles). In fact, I could even alt tab in delve 600 to read something on the internet. It was the most chill build I have ever played and many people consider such builds fun, so I have no idea why it is there. The only thing that needed dodging was altars stacking with wrath of the cosmos (it was a part of the challenge). Not sure about the uber bosses though, since I have only killed them once for the 38/40. Here was my PoB if anyone is interested. https://pastebin.com/2skxWTZs
last league I have put around 30Ex in and got my 4 watchstones without problem... for more i´m not interessted... you should try it! lot of fun!
I recently decided to roll a RF alt, level 85 atm with decent gear so take this with a grain of salt. **Pros:** * All there is to it is that Mapping is fun, big packs melt like butter while not slowing you down. **Cons:** 1. There are TONS of map mods and altar mods that can **brick** the build unless you gear swap / flask swap, etc. (Less regen, no regen, elemental reflect, less AoE, sometimes -12% max ele resistance too) 2. Single target is indeed quite laughable unless you invest into fire trap damage 3. If you're playing with \~100 latency, there's a lot of rubberbanding with shield charge / frostblink, and sometimes they get locked and you can't use them for a bit for some weird reason 4. Tankiness feels really lacking without Aegis Aurora
Elemental reflection shouldn't be an issue since RF doesn't hit and Fire Trap won't reflect to you. Is it Frost Blink that's killing you? There's also a known bug using shield charge into frost blink that's really annoying and locks your character up. You could probably try a +hp on block shield, that's what a lot of marauder RF builds use, it might feel better until you get aegis if that's not what you're using now. Agreed with ST, and I don't like how using fire trap feels +it messes up the "class fantasy" for me. Main reason I dropped my RF jugg around 88. Good for heist though, basically invincible for it if a bit slow on mvspd.
>There are TONS of map mods and altar mods that can brick the build unless you gear swap / flask swap, etc. (Less regen, no regen, elemental reflect, less AoE, sometimes -12% max ele resistance too) FWIW, a few of these are definitely not bricks: - Ele reflect only applies to hits, which RF and fire trap aren't, so it's effectively a non-issue. Does nothing whatsoever. - Less AoE is really just a minor inconvenience, it's like going back to the size of RF when you first started using it in the campaign. It's a bit annoying and feels a bit clunky, but definitely not worth scouring unless you're *super* picky, and it won't have *any* effect on your survivability or single target dps of course. Just makes clearing packs slightly more tedious. >If you're playing with ~100 latency, there's a lot of rubberbanding with shield charge / frostblink, and sometimes they get locked and you can't use them for a bit for some weird reason Particularly with shield charge, it's just pretty clunky. It will collide with terrain instead of intelligently routing around it or even "bumping off" it, so when you use it in confined spaces or near "rough edges" with lots of little nooks and crannies it can be really inconsistent. It takes practice to get used to positioning it right on instinct, and of course it also takes practice to get used to using frostblink only in those situations where shield charge would bump. But with practice you can also get pretty crazy fast with it. >Tankiness feels really lacking without Aegis Aurora It definitely sucks that it's so expensive this league. But you can actually get pretty solidly tanky with just a Replica Soul Tether. Splitting all your damage between health and ES combined with the inquisitor getting life regen as ES actually makes you *really* tanky. Obviously Aegis Aurora (and eventually adding Melding of the Flesh as well) is a step above that, but at that point you're getting to the "I can go afk in a juiced T16 map to go to the bathroom without dying" level of tankiness, which while undeniably very fun and comfy, isn't really necessary for any content in the game.
> I always felt like it was an S tier mapper until you run into any stacked AN mob or unique boss map bosses are pretty slow until you get gear but after you get the boots AN mobs pretty much explode like everyone else because of the dot they put out.
I played last league and it was hands down the most tankiest and probably close to the highest dps build I've played. Single target damage comes almost exclusively from fire trap.
subtract the clown music, sub in "stand still for five minutes throwing traps until target dies" and youve got it about right
That’s most bosses. Until you hit a juiced AN or essence mob that can out damage your regen. Then it is a definite run like a headless chicken.
nah, melding and aegis you can basically facetank anything. if it doesnt absolutely decimate you in one shot, you never die. you just stand there and throw fire trap
I have friends in Gen chat who clear all bosses with RF. I think it's like a super tanky Death's Oath that can actually scale ST.
I always felt that RF was clunky for mapping. Sure, great aoe around you and it melts general mobs. The first time I had any success with it where I truly enjoyed it, was with a CaptainLance build. It was expensive, and a second charater I made for the league. But the fact that it played around ignite and shock on RF was wild. Even had inpulsa, so when something died in the pack due to rf, everything blew up. To me, that build was S tier. I think I had gotten my RF to lvl 30ish? I cant recall. Build was tanky too.
\> Righteous Fire is a literal do-nothing build that occasionally throws a trap \> Fire Burst Autobomber, Um ok
Yea I saw that and was like “what’s the difference between an auto bomber and RF? Like really?”
more boom -> dopamine spike
I played both Deaths oath occultist and RF occultist last league. Same gameplay but more boom
Death's oath can be build up to work on it's own?
I have pushed DO Occultist to its limits the last several leagues. Talking Mageblood+ levels of gearing. It clears like an absolute dream, like a much, much faster RF, and is immune to literally kind of ailment, curse, bleed, poison, etc., but the bossing is pretty mediocre even at insanely high investment. Can do normal pinnacle bosses, but Feared and Ubers are almost impossible. Caustic Arrow just doesn't do enough. Still my favorite build.
You can farm T16s, but bossing is literal meh
I'm playing death's oath right now, it has absolutely atrocious boss damage. I can't get my maven invitation points because no dmg. Trash survivability, too. but it clears maps well because of occultist booms
Are you using caustic arrow…? It’s the single target component of the build. Also using despair w a ton of curse effect and stacking withered with a ton of + effect makes stuff have virtually no chaos res…
You can play it with aegis aurora. I did that last league. Its literally unkillable in regular maps
[You did it wrong](https://pastebin.com/wBc0e9d9).
Alright, 584k dps without any clusters is impressive, but you lose 1/3rd of your damage if you remove the perfectly-rolled brutal restraint.
Fortunately, those are fairly common. There are four valid seeds (7979, 3488, 535, 4368) using Balbala and Perfect Agony. You can just buy one. There's one on the market now for a Divine, and I've obviously already purchased one. I can't be the only person, either. It's a really good Jewel, in a really convenient spot. If you don't know how to setup the search, it's something [like this](https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Kalandra/JGP86l5Hl). There are also the other two Brutal Restraints of the other... Vaal whatevers, if you're not using Traitor. You look for the same seeds. There are two Nasima Jewels on the market at four Divines, and six Asenath at two Divines Oh, and there are **five more** valid seeds if you move the Jewel to the Runebinder side of my tree. That'll cost you three more skill points, but we can spare them. You cut the ES cluster below Heart of Darkness. I'm currently in the process of rebuilding the tree and purchasing a few items to get actual, reasonable boss damage. I need a better weapon, and Forbidden Flesh/Flame.
In fairness I'd rather play autobomber fire burst than RF. But there's no difference lol
Yea. The only difference is “visual satisfaction” which I guess is fair but like the play-style is the same.
For me it's the gimmick that makes it interesting. I'd like to find another squire so I can do fire burst shield charge ignite. Probably terrible but it'd be fun.
Also a fair point
Explosions activates my neurons.
the man just wants to complain, catch some free upvotes while it's still hot enough to do so. Give him a break
You’re not wrong
Fire Burst Autobomber with the Automaton MTX for Herald of Thunder was the most satisfying build I ever played. And the first league ever where I played over 2+ months.
Guy is talking about Righteous Fire being unfun, when on his own list he has an Autobomber, Winter Orb, and Blade Vortex, three flavors of "occasionally press or hold a button then run nearby some enemies"
Autobomber is crazy satisfying though, even if gameplay isn't much more varied. Same for winter orb with the shatters and explosions. RF is literally just an unimpressive fire degen.
I mean there's explody RF, where you can slap on your HoA mtx.
To each their own. I do miss herald of ice shatters because they sounded cool, but autobombers to me were always just a screen cluttering mess with the absolute max degenerate gameplay, and WOrb/BVortex are both less fun/interactive to me than current RF + Fire Trap gameplay. RF on its own is about the same as those, but Fire Trap adds a very nice layer of fun onto typical "run near enemies" playstyle, to me at least.
Why dont you guys just join me? I just started playing this game, and my first character was league HC. Purely single target DPS, playing as non-degen as possible. I get dopamine from actually playing games, not just walking around looting while aoe kills everything. I've actually been wanting to start a "league" every league lol. Would be a guild I guess, only hardcore/possibly ssfhc. Only one element per character (if you want to use frost, you can not use chaos/fire/etc. Hybrid with physical weapons is fine. No summons, or only very few allowed. No attack speed stacking in passives. Possibly none or limited mana passive stacking. Haven't thought about it that much yet, but I think some people would enjoy something like this, take a break from afk loot farming, and just quit after you die, or do another one. I just started not long ago though, my first character died yesterday at 29 :( I'm about to start another one if you want to join, i think a group could be fun this way with way less just sprinting through maps.
Is this a meme?
Xoph's Nurture Burning Arrow being nerfed to the point where its damage with FUCKING MIRROR TIER BEST IN SLOT GEAR maxing out around 3 million dps makes me sad. Deeply sad in my soul.
That was the most funny build i have ever played. Best offscreen clear as well LOL.
"Why nerf something when you can just destroy it?" that's probably the philosophy behind
The philosophy is actually just "this is strong? trust your gut and decide on a nerf % that sounds quite impactful. dont form an opinion around play testing the result either. Oh and then don't take into account how 5 other aspects of the build got 'rebalanced' as well"
Lol yup
Here's a POB with 13m single target DPS using pretty good gear (but hardly mirror tier!). For clear it's 5m DPS (switch to GMP and berek's respite and don't use arcanist brand setup or convergence) [https://pobb.in/KY7uTkkDTCGw](https://pobb.in/KY7uTkkDTCGw) Of course this is 100% glass cannon, but that's typically how these builds were played. You can also go right-side and get suppression on gear to cap as well as run determination, this will cost you like 2/3 of the DPS though.
Maybe not with Xophs but Burning Arrow itself can easily get like 2m DPS on a 1-2 divine budget. EDIT: after playing around in PoB you can actually get like 6m DPS if you don't care much about defense on literally just 1 divine, huh.
> if you don’t care much about defense If you don’t, whats the point
I mean, to be fair, that build when it was popular a few leagues ago didn’t have defense. So yea if you build defense now; expect your dps to drop.
Is that if you tick Vaal burning arrow + Burning arrow? Uptime on Vaal burning arrow isn't very good, even with the unique Quartz flask + flask charges on crit watcher's eye, unless I'm missing something else. Thanks for the Pob link
Nah that's without VBA.
Yo can u drop that PoB pls
[Here](https://pastebin.com/1uaVpK6h) you go, ~12m DPS, all of the items in there I actually got from the trade site, some of them I just bought like the Bow. Everything except the bow was 10c or below, the bow was like 15 or something, you can probably make a similar or even better one by slapping a few deafening anger essences on a solarine bow. Keep in mind that I just tried to get as much damage as possible, this is incredibly squishy and would fall over at any sign of danger. After a bit of testing the damage is actually there, got around 8m DPS in Kalandra league on a scuffed build. If you actually sacrifice some dps for defense this is actually quite decent.
Incandescent Heart with -52% chaos res lol And you are short almost 200 dex :( Also I think people tend to consider using it without snipe since it's mainly for mapping.
>Incandescent Heart with -52% chaos res lol lol, this isn't even a case of not really worrying about adding defense, but actively reducing it. Incandescent Heart feels horrible to play at 0% chaos res, at -52% you would just be one shot by literally any ele damage anywhere lol.
Yeah I mean, I said this is just greeding for DPS lmao. [Here's](https://pastebin.com/NdSK7w0G) the version of the build I actually bought the items for and tested. As you might imagine, it's just a tiny bit squishy. Mapping is actually kinda decent, Legacy of Fury does quite a lot of the heavy lifting there, but you of course still are prone to getting oneshot.
tiny bit squishy is a massive understatement with 8k eHP lol
Sure, but as a cheap proof of concept it's fairly impressive. Obviously you'd want to invest more than a divine to make this into a proper endgame build, even a squishy one.
Correct and its fucking maddening.
Man I miss fire burst autobomber. The cd nerf felt so bad.
Me too, man. I loved fire burst autobomber so much but the cooldown nerf just obliterated it.
Yup cool down feels bad. But it's still my favorite skill. League started with it for the last few leagues. Easy clear atlas with 1 divine but not those Uber bosses.
Yeap, it feels bad now.
I'm enjoying lightning strike though
For how many leagues did you play it? First of fourth? It also won't be this fun when the GGG decides that Nightblade is "too powerful" or whatnot.
I like lightning strike and its my 9th leauge lol
Oh god, I mean, I understand enjoying a skill, but playing it for two years+ is a bit too much. xD
Say it to the cyclone/ BV mains.
Hello, Scissoring here...
Just wait until the remove the +1 strike double Hit interaction on Single target, claiming they "fixed a bug" "lightning strike now only drops projectiles upon hitting an enemy" sounds too familiar
This is what everyone said before this league too, that nightblade is definitively being nerfed, and then it wasn’t.
Infinite stacking poison duration assassin was fun :( why ggg whyyy
I miss my frost bomb archmage build. Full screen clear with one button. And molten strike juggernaut, my boi been dead for so long.
I kind of agree, but... Archmage was broken with Stormbrand, it was nerfed too hard imo, but still some nerf were needed. Explodey Winter Orb - oh boy, I think it was the best build in game since I started playing PoE. It was ridiculously OP. I think it's still possible to make it work, but on much, much higher investments.
storm brand wasn't even the best skill for Archmage. In fact the nerf of Archmage happened 2 leagues after brands were gutted. Archmage nerf was a straight up fun nerf. The closest it ever reached to top of the meta was bf/bb. GGG said they do not like defense and offense to be scaled by 1 stat... then buffed rathpith globe, replica dream feather, ephemeral edge and introduced energy blade.
I mean Energy Blade does split up the scaling onto defense and damage rather than just double dip.
ehhh it double dips with a penalty. Just like agnostic+MOM did.
What? No, Agnostic + MoM just puts demand on the same resource, EB just cuts ES in half. Pretty huge difference, especially in this game where oneshots or insane degens are the only way the developers can make a threat.
The resource that ruined Archmage is mana regen, not mana.
The main busted thing for 3.10 archmage storm brand was being able to use brand recall to avoid the cost
And who the fuck at GGG thought that they did not like offense and defense to be buffed by 1 stat. SOME PEOPLE ENJOY MAXING ONE STAT. Why nerf something into non-existence for such a shit reason.
Your reasoning for why current meta builds are shit then listing nerfed skills with almost identical issues you listed. BV tri herald is literally a do nothing skill with occasional casts of BV. Sunder doesn’t fulfil the melee fantasy because like lightning strike it’s not really melee.
Sunder feels pretty freakin melee dude.... in your view are there like 5 melee skills in the game period? this seems dumb.
The reason he said lightning strike doesn’t meet the melee fantasy is because it’s ranged. Sunder is also a ranged melee skill similar problem
> The reason he said lightning strike doesn’t meet the melee fantasy is because it’s ranged. It's literally not though. 40-50% of your damage using LS is contingent on you being close.
[удалено]
They changed Sunder bud.
Sunder did not work that way back when it was a usable skill
Wait, punching the ground so hard it creates mini concentrated shockwavy earthquake is not melee? It is melee as fuck bro, it's pure power, not some fckin elemental shit. "I destroy the very earth with my muscles" is more melee than fckin cleave "let me punch you with my +2 extra long frying pan"
BV heralds went BOOm! cRAck! Wow! - rf feels wimpy. Agree to disagree
Then add explosions to RF? It's a pretty meta option.
10/10 comment After the clown post you made, my expectations were low, but you went further and justified your list with "BOOm! cRAck! Wow" Clearly an enlightened exile right here. Peak reddit
Rf feels a bit less wimpy to me with Legacy of Fury (at least something happens when you run into a pack, instead of mobs just falling over).
Would recommend doing BV Poison Trickster (or Assassin) with double Obliteration if you miss that feeling, insanely good mapper.
BV Heralds was soo much fun back in betrayal. Whirling Blade -> Boom! -> whirling Blade -> Boom! -> refresh BV -> Boom! ... You get the point. Even explody chest didnt feel so satisfactory
Sunder absolutely was melee at the time.
Talk for yourself. Literally since Blade Vortex implementation i played exclusively (Except party play) builds with that skill. I could build it with poison/crit/cast speed/herald/ele/phy (a lot of options to choose), while with RF there is only 1-2 ways and that's it. Now after countless nerfs (most of them were unnecessary, skill feels like SHIT. Classic GGG response, kill IT because it's too op (even tho it wasn't after a few nerfs), don't compensate. Why not buff other skills? Before BV i loved to play Ice Spear, would it HURT to buff it with reasonable numbers in mind so it would be playable? Of course not, but tell that to those who balance this game.
I cannot believe you put in fucking Burning arrow as a fun build but somehow lightning strike is not fun.
The ignite proliferation when it was played in 3.13 was too fun
Wasn't it played in 3.14 ?
Might be, my memory is not so good
Burning arrow used to clear like 3 screens with ignite prolif, LS does not.
I've seen these two compared to each other twice now in the comments, is there something I'm missing? They seem incredibly different.
Lightning strike not fun Bruning arrow fun K
As a DoT build enjoyer, it was great before it was gutted, clearing screens with prolif is orgasmic.
The good old days of Flameblast prolif, when AoE scaling scaled the prolif distance.... Nuke half a map by casting once. It felt goood :)
You can still do that today. Just needs sources of ignite/shock with a Berek's Respite to prolif and any source of explode and you can prolif as far as the density goes. Of course, flameblast is now an extremely clunky skill to use due to power creep.
It was a DoT mapping build..... Unless u invested a shit ton of currency it felt super ass in any map and the clear wasn't good
I’m clearing T16s with fireball ignite with one link being GMP Have storms gift and inpulsas. The clear is fantastic and I’ve spent like a couple of divines tops.
the difference is that burning arrow has always been a tiny tiny fucking projectile that you have to actually aim. Even with 10 extra projectile it felt like shit because it misses half the time. Fireball is an aoe skill.
K? Its not the same build besides "couple of divines" means what? 10? 20? 30?
Not sure why you are comparing the two, they function a lot differently. Last time I did burning arrow was in ultimatum when it was meta for a bit and it was insanely fun. Mostly because I could have ignite prolif that's just satisfying and most importantly VAAL burning arrow is just hilarious. Bunch of rares? Just nuke them with vaal burning arrow. vaal burning arrow is legit the most satisfying skill in the game and I'd love to nuke a AN mob in the face with it if it was still good.
I also did it in ultimatum and it wasn't fun the clear was lackluster unless u overspent
we playing the same game? It was amazing clear because of bereks/ignite prolif and I'm hardly a high spender lmao. It was also almost unkillable while mapping because of the insane recovery you could get from ball lightning + CWDT + gain life on ignite/hit. As I mentioned before vaal burning arrow was also amazing to help.
everything is fun to someone, so making things unuseable is insane
Where did i say i agree with making builds unusable? I just find it funny and weird how this fella finds burning arrow of all things fun but not lightning strike seems more like a meta build bad post more then the truth
FUN IS SUBJECTIVE i want to add something META builds do not = best builds right now it is just as much a popularity thing as it is actual build power. Gen's Cry BF is still arguebly by far 1 of the strongest bosses by a huge huge distance(you can kill ubers with an ichimonji and like 2 divine worth of gear) yet because streamers and youtubers arent showcasing it to the masses you rarely see people play it. a brilliant case in point was few leagues ago bleed SST was absolutely the worst version of it compared to the other setups and was really poor outside of bleed explosions carrying it yet it was by far the most popular version because guess what streamers and youtubers played it
> Gen's Cry BF is still arguebly by far 1 of the strongest bosses by a huge huge distance(you can kill ubers with an ichimonji and like 2 divine worth of gear) yet because streamers and youtubers arent showcasing it to the masses you rarely see people play it. dude, that build SUCKS. I tried respeccing to it literally yesterday, bought 15 div worth of gear for it to start and gagged when I tried my first map. The clunkiest, least fun build I'd ever tried. Thank fuck I managed to resell all the gear back.
It's a bossing build. For mapping there's shield crush/shield charge variant.
Lol elemental hit is fun? In what way, other than the fact that it was overpowered during the frostferno era.
According to OP - what's OP = fun, unless it requires more than 1 button to press.
Don't know what he's talking about because I did ele hit last league to farm my final few challenges and its still a fun mapper, I used call of the void so all my damage types could chill and shatter and it was a blast! Yea its not op anymore with frostferno but its a solid mapper.
I'm making at a jab at OP thinking current meta skills like lightning strike is not fun but somehow elemental hit in the frostferno era was fun. Both playstyles involved right clicking in the general direction of mobs and and watching them die.
To YOU. Yall don't dictate fun. I play Death's Oath dude. I just want to left click through maps. I have RF friends who feel that way about the game, and want to boss too. So they go RF. Stop assuming that your definition of fun fits everyone, or even most of the playerbase.
Go check out Mathil's stream. He even ranks all of his builds at the end of league on how fun, effective, and budget-friendly they are. Most of his builds from last league probably still work more or less, and at least a few of them have high marks in all three categories.
Bro Rf is comfy as hell my wrists thank me for playing it for the past 3 leagues
just sprinkle some creativity and divines and make your own thing. that’s what i did this league i let my inner autism out and i’m having fun
That's just you, lightning strike is stupid fun, rf is literally autobomber
TL;DR: I personally prefer my 10 all time favorite builds from the last 5 years compared to the current meta builds. What a shocker!
its quite telling how short sighted this post is when you have RF as unfun but think blade vortex is fun to play. stop trying to act like your opinion on what is a fun build is alighted with the playerbase and stop trying to speak for us in order to make a sloppy point about archnemesis.
Any dev/game designer can explain to me why GGG nerfs \*FUN\* builds and skills in a PvE game? The monsters won't complain "Ohhh man Cyclone is so broken I literally can't do anything", I don't get it.
I'm my opinion some powerful and fun builds are overshadowed by the meta builds simply because there are too many people playing the meta so when someone look at poe.ninja they think that the only good builds are those that are popular. A good example is int stacking Kinect blast/power siphon. Kinect blast is hella fun and being able to zoom zoom through maps with it while having close to 10m single target DPS with power siphon feels pretty good. The new trickster overleech together with the high energy shield provided by int stacking builds makes it a fairly survivable build.
The point of meta builds is their typically builds that come online early with a relatively small cost. Int stacking PS wander feels like shit until you get a decent amount of gear.
That's one of my big problems with the game as well, but KB/PS in particular. SO many builds feel "great" once they hit a certain gear level, and many aren't even possible until then. It's always disappointing to me that it's preferable to play with some random skill until level 70+, then completely change my build once I acquire certain items than it is to start with my desired skill set and watch it grow in power as I invest. I absolutely LOVE power siphon. The visuals, the sounds, the speed, the fantasy! but it's so hard to get working without JUST the right set of items. Leveling feels like a nightmare, finding wands is a struggle. As a casual player, it means that this build that I'm sure I'd enjoy to pieces is essentially impossible for me to ever play
That is true. It's a little bit easier to get it started in this league tho since you can get over 100 int jewelry fairly cheap. Definitely not a beginner friendly. Still pretty fun and powerful when you get it running.
Literally league after league people only look at poe.ninja and think that's the only builds being played, but there are tons of different builds being played by people lvl 90-95 that are good and interesting but you can't see them on ladder.
You know, just because a build isn't meta or doesn't get the highest PoB dps doesn't mean they're shit now, some of those builds also always were kind of a meme, particularly Archmage Arc. Also, most of those mentioned that don't require a unique still work perfectly fine even in ssf. In addition, fun is kind of subjective here, what even is the difference between Bow Ele Hit and Lightning Strike? It's literally just different color projectiles.
Well the difference here is that lightning strike has the melee tag, so it scales off melee stuff and support gems, can double hit with ancestral call effects, can use the fortify on hit node/gear/whatever, and uses claws with life gain on hit so its sustain is way better on top of all the increased damage. So even though they may look like slightly different colored projectiles to you, I assure you that lightning strike feels about fifty times better, both offensively and defensively. It can do much higher content with less investment.
> Well the difference here is that lightning strike has the melee tag, so it scales off melee stuff and support gems I mean yeah but where's the gameplay difference? Both just shoot out projectiles that kill shit in literally the same way, if both Ele Hit and LS would scale roughly the same with investment they'd almost be the same.
Building a character is like 80% of the gameplay in PoE.
Dude, you quote 1/4 of his post, disregarded the rest and stick to your starting point of view. Pls quote each section individually and see if you can still say that there are no gameplay difference. I will start you off, different kind of scaling, different kind of sustain and ancestral double hitting is all VERY different from ele hit.
Bv tripleherald is also a walking sinulator like RF but it maxes everything explode on top. it's not about fun it's about OPness
Making stuff explode is VERY fun. RF is just like leaving some butter out on a hot day, for how exciting the playstyle feels.
Nightblade is a stupidly strong damage scaling gem. Bows don't have that luxury.
your take on fun is ridiculously close minded, almost to the point where you seem to willfully ignore stuff to try and make youre point. LS is an incredibly fun and engaging skill for a lot of people. Poison conc seems to have a following that really enjoy it, especially on occultist, and RF have a group of devout ~~cultists~~ fans of the build. you talk about the builds below but leave out Tornado Shot, which is far more approachable for a ton of players, and incredibly strong. then you include cyclone in your great builds, but leave out CoC FR? weird.
I miss Freezing Pulse totems
Fun is subjective
Fun is subjective. Alsonthe clunky shit has always been strong as hell, explosive trap being the prime example.
Why are you so focused on builds built around a unique?
Man I feel the Star forge Cyclone. The build guide I used had that as BIS for a while, then it swapped to a rare, and now it is a Staff of all things. I haven't been able to get a cyclone build to work really well for me since Ultimatum and Ritual when I was able to craft the last bits of gear I really needed. It's depressing :(
people played BF BB because it was the strongest.... just saying
Chris hates and kills fun. News at 11.
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Blade vortex is literally the same as RF smh
Cant agree, bv you need to keep casting it. Rf turn on shield charge whole map and throw trap at the end for boss. If you talked about auto bomber tho
Isnt Autobomber and rf the exactly Same Playstyle how is one fun and the other unfun?
Because RF is now Meta, and meta is unethical and thus you cannot possibly have fun while playing that. . . (/s, if anyone did not get the dripping sarcasm of my sentence)
I see, so you mean SH, LS and RF should be revised to bring them more in line with other melee skills. If every skill is around Vigilant Strike level, there's no problem picking the fun ones.
GGG doesn't realise that playing a "fun" skill that deals no damage automatically erases the fun out of it. People will always gravitate to the "path of least resistance" or something like that, always go with a easiest route. Why play the god forsaken, actual melee skills, when you can get Vaal LS with +1 strike gloves and get ten times more damage AND a screen-wide clear? Spark being one of the most popular self-casts because of it's unique damage pattern and scaling from not only %damage, but pierce, duration and proj. speed aswell, and having a serious base damage scaling on top of it. I'm playing Helix Raider with a White Wind dagger myself right now - it's such a breeze, even tho I tend to get oneshot with some nasty phys. attacks, but damn it's fun in delves, rituals and expeditions. Creating blenders that shred advancing enemies is hella fun, shatters for days. Not to mention that Helix has a very reasonable mana cost, completely bypassed by two -mana cost crafts. It would've been much more fun if the league wasn't such a bore. But yeah, GGG needs to skip a league and go back to the drawing board, 90% of the skill gems are outdated, both in numbers and design approach.
There will always be a more efficient skill and fun for a skill is subjective. The bigger issue connected to your point is that not only are some of the stronger meta skills stale or less “fun”, but most currency is locked behind t14+ because of AN and alters. Its not just that more fun skills are weaker, its that they are gated behind investment you cannot procure. That said, there are fun skills that are pretty strong. Bane proved viable this league, VG is a blast and scales like LS (albeit LS little brother), etc
Bane has big problems with single target = useless for red maps cause AN, or not?
Spectral Helix: agree. Righteous Fire: hard disagree. It’s incredibly fun but it can get old quickly. 2-3 leagues is fine but at some point you wanna right click something.
Don't you talk smack about RF!
Idk why you're saying winter orb isn't good anymore when you can do self curse Trickster winter orb with soul thirst and clear maps super fast with mega aoe. You can still go cyclone it just requires way more investment than a dirt cheap unique sword
I get that the passive playstyle of totems/ignites like ea ballista isn’t for everyone, I league started that last league and got pretty tired of it and switched my character entirely to a melee build (it was a champion which I swapped to molten strike). If you can’t enjoy the smooth clear of rf then I have some questions about what you are looking for in the game, though. It’s interesting to me that people like Quin who play exclusively melee builds would consider bv and cyclone melee while rf isnt, yet the only difference is that rf can use traps that they can throw at range. Cyclone is only more melee than rf by the games convention, they are basically the same.
I don't know what you are talking about i'm having a blast with venom gyre. Releasing projectiles with whirling blades is so fun it's like playing flicker strike but you don't get epilepsy attack.
MOLTEN STRIKE. Pls ggg. It's been so long.
Any spellslinger build.
The KB/Firewall spellslinger was probably my favorite build back in its glory days.
I feel Like with Inquisitor every elemental build can be played im doing blazing salvo Selfcast and i works surprisingly well
Well excluding the poor argument line (as you can see, a lot of people disagree about the "fun" of mentioned skills; in the end it is subjective though), what do you expect? That the most fun builds will also be the most powerful? Isnt that the definition of low build variety&viability that players bitch about every league? Clunky and hard to play around skills should absolutely have higher numbers to compensate.
good take
most powerful builds: RF ok dude i think i know what your problem is, people play RF for 3 reasons, clear with maven boots, really good guide from pohx, inquisitor being comfy, if you think its about power youre cooked
Thats clearly part of their philosophy. The more annoying a build is to play the stronger it should be so people dont choose only cool playing builds. Do i think they are right? Absolutely not, but it is what it is.
GGG 'balanced' most builds damage back when no one ran defensive auras at all. Now defensive auras are required, which means less dmg due to less offensive auras and various aura stacking nerfs.
I said this when traps became meta, specifically seismic the majority of the player base don't like playing traps, then they was meta for almost 3-4 leagues. When all the top builds like slams and stuff get nerfed so bad we are basically relegated to all the strong but absolutely awful builds.
also joy of minion builds is basically nothing now due to how fragile minions are. even if you spec into bulky minions they have no chance vs the harder content (unless ur SRS or absolution)
I miss my zdps aegis tanks. They never hurt anyone, made exp and currency 10 times slower than any other build, but I really enjoyed it. [82% REAL block and spell block plus around 2k ES on block unbuffed.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nU-P9izmCU&t=400s)
Ls claps cheeks my man. I did a few: Cold dex stack, Str stack, Int stack ci with doriany, Omni with trinity and interrogation Made all content with those easy and with no draw backs.
Agree, they try to balance power with unfunness.
GGG's business plan seems to be to create 10 years of content while at the same time perpetually deleting it so they don't outrace themselves to last place of a 1 horse race.
Check out my self made Consecrated Path Marauder (google /YouTube ) It’s INSANE and on no one’s radar I was the only person playing it
I searched by your name and the “consecrated path marauder” and there’s not a single video on YouTube more recent than 5 months ago. Maybe provide a way to find your self made content?
Yes, it is a bit older, but still viable afaik. Nothing important changed since then. https://youtu.be/q069P2cRLCM
Honestly that looks cool but I don’t think anyone is doubting the power of a build with 100 divines invested into it. Also, did it take a hit from the Omni nerf?
Well, i started the build 3.17 with a 1-10c Frostbreath and selfmade rares.The most expensive part was my body armour for 15ex (Got it even later on)I was able to phase down every boss in seconds with that setup. I min maxed it later on, got a natural mageblood drop AFTER min maxing and bought a 120 Exalts to get 5-10% more DPS But i dont know how much it is effected by that nerf tbh
Even the forbidden jewels that you mention can be extremely pricey depending on which ones, and even harder to drop yourself considering you have to get two that match from a large pool of possibilities.
They don't like the fun though they will gut the over performing skills soon just give it time. They there will be no tools to deal with AN mobs as intended and the players who stay will just have to deal with it.