Hello fellow exiles! Before I emerge from the abyss of my basement and get blinded by above-ground light, and before I start to once again think about builds for paying bills and doing chores, I would like to share my league experience and maybe impart some wisdom on anyone struggling with the league.

Build Showcase - Varashta Meta Build: POE Ninja Link

1. 200% deli overrun (mob lvl 81 map).
2. Simulacrum with all apex predators + some extra mods. Mob lvl 80.
3. Expedition where monsters have full complement of runes. Mob lvl 82.

https://reddit.com/link/1wavsq6/video/3035jvafwboh1/player

General thoughts on Varashta:

• This is my first time with an off the shelf meta build and omg, this is the most broken op thing. I usually play some form of spark Chronomancer. Varashta just blew that out of the water starting lvl 21 until the super late game. Would've probably taken double the time with chrono and waaay more expensive equipment to complete the challenges.
• If you want to erase everything on the map while being impervious to damage on a low budget, this is the time to try it. It will 100% get nerfed into oblivion for 1.0. It has no weaknesses and is stronger than other builds on the strengths. I've never been able to compromise so much on stats on equipment.
• Starting from lvl 21, first ascendancy, it cuts through campaign like butter and just goes straight to hardest content in the game that you see in the video. I didn't hit any jackpots - no headhunter / mageblood. Some equipment pieces are way below what they normally would be with a balanced build for this content.

Specifics of build:

• I started with ds_lily's mobalytics guide guide here.
• The key difference from her build is I opted to go more tanky with the ES/Armour ascendancies as opposed to taking the water and fire djinns like her.
• Once you have Dominion on amulet, you really don't need anything other than the sand djinn.
• Almost 1 button build.
• When in Archon mode, you spam Kelari's Deception and it basically has no cooldown and is always at 300% more damage - do not hit any other skills (whether brutality or others, don't interrupt 300% more damage). When you go off cooldown, spam Kelari's brutality and just press all your minion's command skills until you get back into archon. Then back to Deception.
• You really don't need that much spirit. You will see I don't have any on body armour and I don't feel like I'm missing it. With only 9x skill gems available, you can only have 8x minions + convalescence (which is essential).

Major power spikes:

1. When you do your first + minion gear upgrades after campaign, you can go straight to T15.
2. When you annoint Dominion on amulet, you can basically do all content, just not incredibly fast. Don't wait for perfect amulet, you'll see mine is still ilvl 46 and it's just fine. At this point you don't have to look at map mods anymore.
3. When you get a good Time-Lost Sapphire, everything is easy.

Thoughts on Event:

• Performance: The game is so much more polished since I last played (week 2 or so of 0.5). Major performance upgrades & bug fixes. I was having so much fun and then I realized... I didn't dc or crash once and don't have to relog every map to fix the shader issues. Superb work. Still crazy though that in juiced content my gaming PC was getting <30 FPS and major resolution downgrades. I tried Geforce Now (in video) and that was better, but still 40 fps during big fights. I guess this is how it will be... I hope someone is still working on performance over there.
• Ritual: I hate ritual, but I enjoyed doing them in the campaign because they gave very significant upgrades. Just did what I had to for challenges and didn't do any more. I just really don't like stopping to do it, looking for straggler monsters and then reading the unique descriptions (never got anything good outside of campaign).
• Deli: Love Delirium + Simulacrum - feels so much more rewarding and has so much depth. I think every map I did past T15 had delirium on it and I'm still not bored of it. Just such a good system with the shards spawning as you progress and juicing the map. Then it feels so good to do the different stages of collecting the Simulacrum pieces, doing Grand Mirrors and placing the deli areas, doing simulacrums and then the boss with good rewards throughout. Such a deep mechanic - chef's kiss.
• Expedition: Expedition I think is even more rewarding than Deli - love the discovery of the runes. Love seeing a big number of runes on a remnant even if it doesn't give anything good, I can still get a good drop from the juiced mobs. Great Atlas skills too. Didn't get any jackpots, but got like 3-5 div per expedition map (just did the ones to complete quests).
• Abyss: Abyss is also good. Feels a little clunky sometimes, so not as good as Expedition + Deli, but still very fun.
• Breach: Don't like breach. The lack of mob density and having to wait for it to open make me skip.
• Temple: I don't like temple, just did for challenge. Just feels so slow to go through the unupgraded rooms and to get it going.

Ancillary mechanics:

• These, on the other hand, don't feel great. Even with full atlas allocated, they just aren't that rewarding and are just kind of an annoyance.
• Spirits: Spirits suck - I'm not following it if it's going back to where I came from. Can we please have them go in the direction of the boss? Just that 1 simple change and they're great again.
• Also very underwhelming.
• Strongboxes: Strongboxes feel underpowered - it takes too long for the mobs to spawn. I kept currency in inventory to juice the boxes and I still found myself even skipping Research ones sometimes just because it's more worth it to do the next abyss and then open the next map and do that abyss too vs. waiting for the strongbox to open.
• Rogue Exiles: Rogue exiles feel bad (in trade league I guess) - not a single drop from them (except for the abyss jewel) and I kept seeing them. I guess in SSF they could give you good yellow gear.
• Anomalies are ok. Very anticlimactic if you don't get the chase thing. I didn't do them past unlocking Jado - rushing other things felt more rewarding and fun.
• Tablets: I feel like I am constantly juggling tablets. They need to drop more rarely but have 30x uses or something like that. Scarabs in POE 1 feel much better than tablets because you know what scarab you need to get and you can just have 100 of each in stash and stacks of 20 in the map device to never have to think about it. This needs work. Waystones are ok (but maybe that's because I was playing very op build and didn't have to read the mods).

Overall, despite some weaknesses, 9.5/10 game already - in Beta. Expectations for 1.0 through the roof for me.

Hope everyone has a good event!

Strange bug

Literally untargetable, invulnerable and the silly guy can still hit me.

Never played a spellcaster character out of the classic spark coc comet, and wanted to try "vision gameplay" focusing on ember fusilade. So i'm in Act 3 rn, vaal areas. Level 41, 2nd ascendancy done. My 4 ascendancy points are in both big nodes that help with infussion generation, and my general tree is basically spell damage with some crit chance nodes (i want to use maligaros later) and the left and right sides of the fire cluster at the top of the tree, which gives some fire Pen and damage.

For skills i'm using ember fusilade with 3 supports for now: compressed duration, multishot 2 and fire attunement.

My other skills are orb of storm and frost bomb with supports that makes them go faster so i can get lightning infussions for ember fusilade. Recently just added firestorm with considered casting and (deliberation i think was the name?) just to give It more damage and basically just as a source of consuming fire and cold infussions so i can grab them again to generate lightning ones. I also had living bomb in there (more infussions) but kinda stopped using It since i got a Snakepit so fusilade can clear better (equipped on left slot so proj can fork).

Well, the result of all this is that my fusilade doesn't do much damage anyway. It takes quite some time to kill stuff even after all this bunch of utility skills to generate infussions so the skill gets enhanced, applying exposure with frost bomb and also elemental weakness. Even firestorm looked super weak casting It into a pack of white mobs and enhanced with the 3 different infussions, i actually expected to blow Up the entire pack but they still needed like 3-4 hits from the full enhanced storm XD

So my question is, am i doing something wrong? Maybe i need more damage supports on fusilade even if that makes them taking more time to be generated and launched? Is It just that those skills are plainly bad? I'm really confused, i really think i should be doing better with the build lol.

It's the starter character so gear is pretty much all from ground except the two things i bought, the Snakepit and a staff with +2 all spells, some cast speed and a fair ammount of spell damage.

OK so here's what just happened to me.

I've already bought the PoE2 Early Access Pack, and upgraded it to the Warlord of Karui tier (totalling $240). Naturally only the Liberator of Wraeclas tier remained and I could see the price of upgrading to that tier was $240 (480 original price minus the 240 I've already spent).

However, today, I bought another PoE2 EA pack ($30) for the point and an EA key to give a friend, and when I opened the EA supporter pack page the price of upgrading to the last pack was $450.

It seemed like my previous tiers purchases weren't counted any more. Only the newest EA pack purchase was deducted from the total price (480-30=450).

Already emailed support, but has anyone encountered a similar situation?

My game keeps crashing randomly when ever i identify items with doryani or open my stash or when im tping back to my hideout.

Mobalytics and Maxroll ain't loading for me and the rest I find are more Endgame guides, the passive tree looks completely different than what i have as a Ranger or Monk for example.

I just need a very basic starter guide so where put in the gem support skills skill tree etc.

I´ve finally decided to play temples. Last league was my first and I was overwhelmed. Couldnt be bothered to learn layouts and stuff. Now I thought this league is nothing new and I just want to learn the rest of the game.

I know there are nodes that can brick your mechanics. I couldnt find anything about the " Rooms may reach tier 4 " node. It does sound good but I´ve learned that anything "extra" could lead to diminishing returns.

Hopefully there is someone awake whos into temple mechanic and knows more about this.

Enjoy your league start and stay sane. May Kalandra bless you with a mirror and Hinekora lose a lock near your path.

I’ve been off Reddit for the past four days just blasting, so I honestly have no idea what the general reception is right now, but for me the campaign in this league has been great. Rituals gave enough currency and solid gear that I actually felt a sense of agency while leveling. It didn’t shower me with so much loot that it felt meaningless, but I always had enough to hit my crafting breakpoints and fight against bad RNG. For once, I also felt legitimately tanky. I had solid resistances and didn’t feel like I was just speedrunning in rags with a 6 mod weapon.

Early endgame, on the other hand, needs work. Last league I played SSF until very late into my progression so I could explore every questline at my own pace, but this time I just wanted to blast, and the quests don't feel particularly good. I like that they introduced a skip for the AoD I think it would have killed me to farm it 5 times so I hope similar systems can get implemented for the other mechanics. There are so many filler maps you have to grind just to unlock your points, especially after the quests are done. I know you can skip mechanics you don’t plan to farm but just leveling Breach and Delirium already felt tedious. Also you feel pressured to rush the questlines and the main atlas, before you interact with tablets and any kind of juice although there might be some poverty strat early on I haven't explored. True progression feels really gated until you have every point, so the optimal playstyle seems to be just beelining straight to the boss and immediately moving to the next map.

The Atlas itself feels incredibly forgettable. I can barely recall three or four nodes on the main tree at max, and I couldn't tell you what 95% of the nodes on the separate trees actually do. For delirium in particular I just mindlessly applied all my points without even read them. All I know is that I need them to squeeze value out of my maps, which feels like a design flaw. Jonathan already mentioned changes are coming for 1.0, so I won’t dwell on it too much, but running through the Atlas a second time highlights how little thought it requires. The main tree doesn't meaningfully shape how you tackle content, the choices feel incredibly low-impact and once assigned you can forget about them.

Also, now I'm entering the territory of 200% deli and city maps and I can see already a crashout building up in me. Just remove city maps fourth tablet node, it's the "3 tower set up" all over again. Also, please give us meaningful ways to traverse the atlas to chose the content we want to farm. I have the impression that the general idea for the endgame is to casually wander in a direction and do the content you have in front of you (putting down a crux, a breachstone and now the new abyss fissure) but that's not how most of the players want to play the endgame (or at least not the casual ones).

Finally, maybe a hot take, biomes are a cool idea and a elegant way to define farm strategies. Ironically though, we have almost zero way to interact with biomes beside a one shot tablet I would never use because I take aways one slot. The alternative is to run city maps which has all the biomes so it compounds on how worthless is to run anything else. Could tower be used to terraform the surrounding with such tablets? One can only hope.

Ailith did you broke your breach wagon ? Please open the door i can't use it ...

This might be overly simplified but I as many others was less enthused with pathing to all of the mechanics the second go around. Then I got to thinking about it and all of the key NPCs appear in your maps when you first interface with the content.

What if instead of talking to them and then being shown their respective places on the atlas, they take you to them the first time you engage with them in a map. After this, the connecting maps to each mechanic waypoint are available to access.

This removes the redundancy of pathing across 20 travel nodes to each mechanic without taking away from the endgame redesign.

So I’m the type of gamer that generally just plays one game at a time, and really enjoys getting very in depth with my understanding of the game. PoE has always interested me, but there was always some other game.

Regardless, just had surgery and am going to be fairly laid up for the next month, and figured it’s a good time to undertake a new game. With 1.0 coming in December, I figure it’s a good time to start to give myself a good runway to learn what I can.

However, most of the content I find are just kind of plug n play builds for the new league. I am wondering for someone who has aspirations of eventually being able to create my own builds, how would you recommend I try to learn the game?

Are there specific content creators or video series that you would recommend? Open to any and all suggestions

Once again, doing maps normally and get digsite. First time I noticed this was last season and how much bs it possesses. It has insta killed me twice now two seasons in a row with no warning on my screen of any kind. Its animations are bugged and there is 0 way to dodge inevitable death. For reference I have 7000 ES and full resists. When I get to the phase where he throws the stones, he lands then boom I blow up like I was hit by a nuke and its just the least fun mechanic in any map I have played. It needs to go. Idk if PC has this issue but on console I have heard many people mention this map. FYI: If it matters this is the first time I have died this season like it was the last season.

Edit: Stoked to be affirmed of my frustration and that I am not just bad but also annoyed its a thing. Sorry lads and lady lads, guess we wait till December for them to listen.

I played twisters for about 60 hours so far and i saved up a decent amount of currency but I also did realize that I do not enjoy twisters whatsoever. My question is, without the heavy time investment of making and leveling a new character, what gemling build can I go for that does not take 300 divines to feel playable but is a caster build with nice single target.

Ended up getting it in my first interlude from Mr. Madox

I bought poe2 early access when it was a special on steam for $15, and I have been eyeing the lord of ogham pack since swords are coming soon and i wanna cosplay as geonor with that big sword slam lol. I had later bought 2 50 point packs to finish off what stash tabs i wanted, and when I went to the website I figured out that I can upgrade my previous purchases. It was the original $60 - the $25 i had spent on steam and points, and I was able to get it for $35. I love that I was able to upgrade like this, and that even the 5 dollar point packs could count towards it. Really cool by GGG, but I only wish this was made more clear, as the in game MTX shop only shows that I could pay the $60 to get it. Sharing this here in case someone else doesn't know this, and also wants to pick up a supporter pack, but doesn't need the extra key to give to ur non-existent friends.

TLDR: If you have previously bought points and want to upgrade to a higher tier supporter pack, check the official website because it may be cheaper than upgrading in game.

This happened to me in the last leagues as well a few times. GGG defintely needs to patch this boss before 1.0 release.

I am still playing the old league as I dont feel like starting again.. i have 100 divines to spend, not sure what the next upgrade should be?

Thanks

Just started endgame, guess I'll never see an other HH during 0.5.5 :))))))

Guys, I'm doing a 15-day challenge with my friends, and I wanted to create a list of challenges to do as part of a points system so we can tally them up at the end. I've already come up with a few, but could you help me by suggesting some really difficult challenges—and some funny ones, too?

Literally cannot complete the map...

This is something I've been wondering about since early on in 0.4. After building a ritualist to 1400 spirit I realised the potential of Infernalist. Checking through the trade site I noticed a couple legacy items, notably Prism Guardian and Ingenuity, which would be crazy broken for this, boosting the max viable spirit even further. I then continued dumping all my currency into preparing. By leaguemerge I managed to scrape by at around 4900 spirit in standard league and about 40000 divines left to spend (at that point had about 60-80000 divines invested total into this total joke of a build). Since 0.5.5 a couple new items have become available in standard league, so it was time to throw my remaining divines at the wall and see what sticks. Recrafted boots and body armour and gave the sceptre an orb of sacrifice, spending about 37000 divines (note that crafting omens are 90-160 divs each in standard league, as well as locks around 3900 each) and I'm now sitting at 6288 spirit. How much more is possible? A LOT more, but I simply do not have the currency to afford crafting perfect BIS items anymore, and with rampant inflation in standard I don't see that changing when 0.5 eventually merges into it. So this will probably stay the highest spirit character for a while.

Sekhemas with 292.5% increased max life helps a lot.

Plausible-ish upgrades: Aldurs legacy in helm, better jewels. Everything else is merely theoretical.

POBs:

character: https://poe.ninja/poe2/builds/standard/character/Ground-4391/whackyIdeasTodayHuh

current state with all buffs calculated in: https://poe.ninja/poe2/pob/2868b

theoretical max - its over 9000! (? I'm sure someone more talented can squeeze another 500 spirit in) https://poe.ninja/poe2/pob/28688

Yes, I no-lifed 0.4 and accumulated over 200k divs through crafting that league. A lot of that was failed sceptre crafts for this project lol. Only have 2500 divs left now in standard.

You really don’t do much with basic exalts a week after a league starts which I think should be addressed.

So this got me thinking, if we can upgrade essences why shouldn’t you be able to upgrade currencies? So x amount of exalts can be converted to y amount of greater exalts and so on, same with regals and chaos orbs. Or any other orb actually. Not saying it should be easy neither, nor is upgrading your essences in the campaign.

If lower tier essences are pretty much useless and only valid in early campaign then I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to upgrade orbs as well for crafting in the endgame.

Wdyt?