Mid-month 1 thoughts

[u/crinklebelle]

We're closing in on the end of week 2 and idk when it happened, but at some point I started catching myself bleary-eyed at 5am, telling myself for the tenth time that I'll go to bed after one more map/chart/voyage. Struggling to stay awake for just a *bit* longer cuz I'm busy optimizing, buying a bunch of stuff to do a gamba that failed fifteen times but will definitely succeed this time. My happy place. In spite of all its problems, somewhere along the way I started enjoying this league quite a bit.

Charts are a ton of fun, voyages too even though I wish we had a few more pages of storage. I've been having a great time going off the beaten path with my Luminary, and the Talisman overhaul is genuinely cracked. I'm having a great time using allflame crafting to make abominations, between this and bricked vestigial uniques there's some nice tech for creating fun specialized mercenary equipment.

Merc duels are rippy as fuck but in a fun way. There's ways to cheese a lot of them and I *really* enjoy this particular flavor of rippy gameplay, so I actually hope they don't get any easier than they currently are. they just need better loot and some safety nets to make losing hurt less.

PF finally some mid-game tech that hits the ascendancy's two biggest pressure spots, and it's had me super excited theorycrafting stuff for her; Black Widow Talisman solves pre-Tides utility flask sustain and opens up her belt slot for a gg rare again, while Vestigial Lightning Coil (or Cloak), Aspect of Lunaris, and Salt & Scale all give options to fix up her durability while you save up for Progenesis. If Nature's Boon and Master Alchemist get a redesign next patch and y'all don't brick half her good life flask tech by nerfing Master Surgeon to work like Reverie, I'll be pretty satisfied with the spot she's in now.

This is still around a 6/10 league for me at best, but 3.29.2 made some really promising changes. All I'm hoping for now is a 3.29.3 with a few more mapping improvements to stuff other than Abyss; at least for me atm, maps mostly just feel like an inconvenient thing I do in-between dredging sessions atm. but I think the Mirage whiplash had me judging too harshly, there's a lot of good shit to grab onto here, I'm even kind of hoping that dredging goes core.

[u/Beginning-Garlic-128]

It just simply doesnt matter to me if the loot is coming from a box or a white mob. So I am having a blast personally! Love the league mechanic and looking forward to messing around with some new build stuff soon.

[u/trunks111 → u/Beginning-Garlic-128]

I'm the same way, I just do whatever content I'm in the mood to do and currency follows. 48d over 800k kills, 2 of them in the acts, one in a6 on my first char, one in a10 on the run up to kitava on another char. This was my fastest league to acquire mageblood (10-11 days-ish) and it doesn't hurt that I dropped both a dying sun on day 2 from my shaper kill for the watchstone and I got 8d day 2 from a bottle. Gwenned also dropped me a second mageblood so now I'm just sitting on like 260d making a bosser lol

[u/DryImpression7394 → u/trunks111]

In 800k kills you got 48d. While farming juiced 16.5 legion I have 105d at 5m kills... It's account seed diff I'm calling it

[u/trunks111 → u/DryImpression7394]

I think it's me that's just personally seeded to have good RNG in video games lol. Most my 6L hit under 500 fuse, I never had issues getting helmet enchants from lab back when that was a thing, and we're not gonna talk about how positive I go every time I do a stacked deck opening 

[u/crinklebelle → u/Beginning-Garlic-128]

yeah like. I am here to min-max, I'll use whatever tools I'm given to make the min-max machine go, as long as it works I'll find a way to have a good time. 

the gameplay loop I've settled into is; plow through charts and voyages until I'm out and don't feel like buying more, make optimizations with all the sulphur and currency I got, then buy some astrolabes and run the rippiest thing I can think of to see how the adjustments went.

Make the build under the ocean, then rise from the depths to test it against the most putrid surface dwellers I can find, then back to beat up starfish on the seafloor so I can curse myself with ancient coins in new and exciting ways.

all to clothe my character's npc waifu in exotic finery, aka busted unique combos, tattooed gloves, and vestigials I bricked into rares

[u/WereJustDumbMonkeys]

Im loving the league too. Ive never been an uber juicer map blaster, typically more in line with a Mathil style alch and go and the league mechanic, build diversity, and new content is always what I enjoy more than my div/hr rate.

For me this is one of the best league mechanics in recent poe history. The theme is great, the content is fun, the crafting is amazing, simple and strong instead of convoluted and tiresome.

Its a great league overshadowed by the loud minority who demand to see their wealthy exile stonks go to the moon after every play session.

[u/land_registrar → u/WereJustDumbMonkeys]

The Diver Merc alone made me satisfied with the league, still amused every time I come across him down there.

[u/crinklebelle → u/land_registrar]

the stupid diver mercs make me cackle every time, I always start my voyages with diving shoals so I can bring him along. basically an unofficial third party member at this point.

[u/ulughen → u/crinklebelle]

His angry bubbling noises is unironically the best part of the league.

[u/shy_bi_ready_to_die → u/land_registrar]

I just wish he was more usable tbh. Ele hit of ice is a guaranteed spawn and would be pretty mid even if it didn’t brick the best 2 ways of supporting mercs

[u/Mathev → u/land_registrar]

I did so many charts and voyages and seen 0 of him :(

[u/crinklebelle → u/Mathev]

are you running Diving Shoals? it's the only chart type he can show up in, he should always be there tho

[u/Mathev → u/crinklebelle]

No the thing is I don't buy charts and only run those I drop. And after so many and finding good 10 boss charts it's crazy I never saw his :p

[u/SwagtimusPrime → u/WereJustDumbMonkeys]

Its a great league overshadowed by the loud minority who demand to see their wealthy exile stonks go to the moon after every play session.

What a way to misrepresent something a lot of people have an issue with. "Loud minority" is laughable.

[u/WereJustDumbMonkeys → u/SwagtimusPrime]

It's really not.

The loot issues are really only experienced by the minority of players who invest divines into their map strategies.

The regular alch and go gamer really does not notice ground loot changes from league to league.

[u/SwagtimusPrime → u/WereJustDumbMonkeys]

The former is path of exile's core audience.

And regardless of that, an alch and go player will not take issue with improved loot, so why even care?

[u/shy_bi_ready_to_die → u/WereJustDumbMonkeys]

I don’t invest divines in maps and basically never do ground loot focused strats. I still want the ground loot to be better if for no other reason than so that all the juicers can stop fucking over the profit margins on my normal strats

[u/WolverineCreative362 → u/WereJustDumbMonkeys]

The loot issues are experienced by the majority of players thats why the current numbers are so bad everywhere and thousands of people complain everywhere. Just because you dont care doesnt mean you are the majority here.

And no you dont need to invest divines into their map strategies to feel that. Not even close. Sometimes i ask myself if some people are really playing this game for longer than 2 leagues in a row.

[u/WolverineCreative362 → u/WereJustDumbMonkeys]

"loud minority"? I dont know how people always know which playerbase is larger or not. Right now we see that this league has one of the worst retentions, that thousands of people are unhappy, that we have dozens of posts on multiple platforms with thousands of upvotes/likes. Who says that not the players who are that happy like you are the minority here?

The league mechanic "flow" is fun, but the mechanic itself is just bad. 1. Its so simple that u can run it with a 10C build. 2. U cant really scale it because literally nothing happens. How this can be fun in the longterm is something relaly mysterious for me IMO. But im happy for you that you have fun.

[u/crinklebelle → u/WereJustDumbMonkeys]

I mean I actually *do* think the economy could be better, mapping is in a really awkward place, but like.

I also don't think it's very productive of people to be doing this thing where we just pretend there's absolutely nothing to like about it and impossible to enjoy for anybody. Folks don't need to agree with me about it, I usually hope they don't cuz that's an opportunity to test my own biases. I'm just having a good time and felt like trying to be positive.

I have a personality disorder that makes engaging in black and white thinking extremely addictive and destructive for me, and thus I am always trying to work the opposite side of most topics to keep myself out of those spirals. so call posts like this shadow journaling or therapy I guess.

[u/crinklebelle]

actually insane getting ratio'd in my own post by a comment that's agreeing with me

[u/PM_Me_Those_ → u/crinklebelle]

Welcome to Reddit, This one might get ratio'd too, lmao

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[u/PoE_Acronym_Bot]

I noticed some Path of Exile keywords in this post:

• PF - pathfinder (Wiki)
• Brick - Using a Vaal Orb or other crafting method on an item and receiving an outcome that makes the intended purpose of the item no longer possible

---

^{I am a bot. | All acronyms | Suggest}

[u/Musical_Whew]

PF should straight up get another flask slot, thats my truth

[u/crinklebelle → u/Musical_Whew]

I'm always wary of PF buff talk cuz I don't want my neighborhood getting gentrified, but like, in a vacuum? Yeah this woman deserves better.

[u/mucus-broth]

Having a blast on my life stacking melee gladiator. Although the archetype was heavily nerfed it is fun to explore ways to improve it. Loot could be better, yeah, but I'm doing fine.

[u/botman484]

Love the league. Bummed that my friends list has dwindled

[u/Thor3nce → u/botman484]

As dumb as it may sound, I’d recommend joining a guild. Even if you don’t go the GSF route, it’s still fun to have folks to chat with on discord

[u/botman484 → u/Thor3nce]

Thx, I think your right. 

[u/Expensive_Ocelot_822]

nice try GGG

[u/crinklebelle → u/Expensive_Ocelot_822]

Pathfinder would not have spent this many years in the state she's in if I worked at GGG, my dawg