Sovera

We all went through NCSoft start when they decided players did not need numbers and we didn't have the detailed info tab. Every power was 'moderate damage,' 'minor damage', etc. then by 6 or 7 or whatever they added real numbers in after realizing players did not like having two powers saying they did moderate numbers but who did different amounts of it. That was the birth of Mids, btw, in an age where there were no complicated invention system and dozens and dozens of small bonuses we would need to add by hand to know what amount of X we have. Players hating that claptrap just had them test thing by hand then coalesce their findings and birthed Mids. New players might not need to have a link to Mids, but they should know about ED, they should be introduced to the idea each attack power needs at least one accuracy, three damage, one endurance modication, etc. Even now I'm helping new players with builds where they socket their attacks powers for stuns, and I'm not saying they would not manage to eventually reach 50 (and that we all have stories of such, on hindsight, blunders) but first impressions matter and instead of throwing them in blind the first SO drop could trigger a pop menu with basic slotting as mentioned above.

I'm not talking semantics. And I already made my point of view plain about the whole balanced-to-the-point-no-one-takes-it. But you keep talking about Rain of Fire. Yes, I know all of that. And what about all the other sets that don't have a Rain of Fire? A Fire Blaster might not need the extra CC but others set might. And now I'm going to back it off because it almost like we are disagreeing on the root when we are not.

I love you, PF, but why are you comparing the damage of Bonfire to the damage of Rain of Fire? BF is not about the damage nor taken for its ability to dish out damage. BF is a CC tool, and a pretty powerful one at that. Not saying I agree with the nerf, or disagree on how the 'epic' pools are turning into slightly-better-than-average pools, but it was disingenuous comparison. I have not tested the new bonfire (and haven't taken Bonfire on a character in years), but if the flippy floppy makes a spawn to do.. say.. 20% less damage than it would without Bonfire then it still doing its job as a CC tool. Now it's a matter of tweaking the percentage up or down. The last patch upped it a bit more, perhaps more can be obtained yet before going live.

Possibly an option in Options where we can turn off all pop-menus. It's one of the first things I tick off on a new character in Path of Exile to not be reminded I can right click to attack an enemy 😄

Yes, but then you also slotted the chance to KB from Ragnorok which was what I meant. I also slotted Overwhelming Force in for the reason you mention. Check the newbie guide in my signature for money making o/

We have all gone through the phase of wanting to try a Nova only form, but the damage will be pretty bad and no utility which is why you don't see any. But it can be done and there are plenty of other challenges around like leveling a pet-less MM so it can be a thing. I'm not a Kheldian expert in any way, shape, or form (hah!) but if you post what you have I can try seeing if you missed anything obvious.

The reason you see perma Hasten with your build is because you have the FF procs toggled on. If you were to detoggle all the FF procs in your build you'll notice Hasten is no longer perma. In my experience a single attack that does a good spam can shave a good 10-15 seconds off Hasten, but it can only do so much. I would probably just keep the Energy Pool but swap Superior Conditioning for Focused Accuracy instead. It's not that you need more accuracy but it does protect against having it debuffed which sucks when it happens. And as you've pointed out there is not a lot of wiggle room because of the slot starvation, but since you might not like to use Ground Zero due to its huge cooldown you could consider picking Cleave which is Axe's big single target hitter and that is also ranged AND a small AoE. Between Pendulum, Axe Cyclone and Cleave your AoE needs should be met. Cleave is also part of the ST rotation anyway. So you have both your ST and AoE well in hand. P.S. Fly is taken super late but you can swap something else earlier on for it, but I prefer to just buy a 5k jetpack from the P2W vendor and use it until I can pick up Fly for the simple reason I spend longer fighting things than travelling between missions. Brute (Battle Axe - Radiation Armor)V2.mbd

People may hate leveling, but in this game it's not a long thing to do and jumping straight to max level, often times fed money from a farmer, and then start farming again... I used to power level myself to 50. By power level I mean make a group and start doing TFs straight at level 1 (well, DFB is not a TF, technically). In the first game session I would usually be level 36-38-ish. Second day would usually have me at 50. I did this lop so often and it was fun, for me, because I like starting as a zero and each power pick, each slot, makes me feel I am growing into a hero. But now I reached the same burn out and I do the reverse. I solo near everythign to 50. And then when that too was too easy I started doing challenges where I do it with zero cash or IO transfers. Then I realized I was spoiling the spirit of it by spending too much time in the AH buying and selling to make money to gear up that I wasn't actually leveling and now I only sell what I find and only sell the merits that I earned. But you can have a pretty good and easy leveling experience by picking up all the good IOs and slot them as they become available. At level 7 you can slot a Panaceia, both the +3% defense uniques, the Shield Wall 5% resist unique. Then at level 10 you can slot both your ATOs plus the event IOs like Avalanche and Frozen Fist etc which are infinitely better than using generic IOs. These combined with Amplifiers give such a power boost it is common for my Brutes and Tankers to be soloing at +0x6 at level 15+ and +1x8 by level 20. By the time the Amplifiers run out by level 30-ish I already have enough slots that the bonuses make up for the Amplifier's loss. If you want to talk about what sort of good easy starting IOs you can pick to level at your pace while feeling strong we can do it once you mention what AT you'd like to use.

That guide's wording seems familiar 😄 It's not weird though, nor exploits. It's literally a system placed in. In WoW you might be told to farm leather or mine and pick herbs and then sell in the auction house. I will grant is overwhelming for a new player, but, it does not hurt to bookmark some of these explanations and come back to them until you're better acquainted with the game. I know that in new games I try to be sure I don't throw away valuable stuff but the splanges into flanges and the peanut butter get to me too. That said the easiest way to make money IS by playing the game. Just try to follow a storyline to its end, get merits, trade merits for converters at the ATM, type /ah, toss the Converters in and make money. It is an exceedingly simple loop birthed from.... playing the game. Now, regarding the 'contacts don't sell enhancements anymore' you don't need them to. Type /ah, go to Crafted, Other, and you will find that stuff like generic accuracy, or generic damage. Those are worth anywhere between 50k to 100k (and never go red unlike the old SOs) which will be a pittance considering a single merit is worth 210k in Converters and a new character simply doing the initial arcs ends with 9 merits after 20 minutes of play.

You want to check the Farm Fresh thread over the Guide section, that's where the farmers congregate and discuss builds. You can still find such advice here, but over there it's specialists.

You don't need to farm for weeks on your farmer, unless you're enjoying it. Check the money making tips in my newbie guide. Your build is all over the place but that's normal and nothing that can't be fixed. Real question here is if you're sold on Mystic Flight or would regular Fly and perhaps a mystical aura from the tailor suit you? Or perhaps you don't like to fight while hovering and would prefer to bunny hop? Done a pass over it. I didn't want to mess with your power picks but you don't really need the Energy patron pool since Radiation already has a lot of endurance. Just remember to use Particle Shielding on cooldown (don't wait, just use it if it's up) since it gives recovery, a small heal and a big absorb shield that takes the hits for you. And then Radiation Therapy is slotted for healing but the proc in it will also suck endurance for you. So between that and Gamma Boost you should be sweating endurance without a need for the patron pool. Ground Zero is only really worth using as its slotted right now. It's not slotted for accuracy but use Build-up first (their cooldowns coincide) to make up for that. You might not believe me but it's a 'cheap' build. Just slowly buy stuff over time and replace what you have. Even if you later transition to a more expensive build you can save what you got and pass it to another alt (check how to make your own supergroup base to place your extraneous gear in the newbie guide). Brute (Battle Axe - Radiation Armor)V2.mbd

The testing done before things arrive to the open test server already has things set mostly in stone. Details are changed, maybe tiers, but it's mostly numeric and bug squash. The forums most often just produce more of the same feedback as what was reported by the testers but that had been already decided as not going to be changed. For example Storm Blast being a middle ground DoT based set stayed the same, but since Storm Cell had so much push back (I sometimes swear the devs don't play the game) it ended getting that mechanic where it follows the user. But a bit like Arsenal here the change was grudging and requests to make Storm Cell a toggle or increase movement speed, or bottom the teleport like Faraday Cage has, have been refused. So there is a design time, then a pre-test time when that set reaches the beta testers, and then it arrives to Brainstorm and the forumites can log in and test. So don't think being in the beta testing gives a particular weight to things. Arguments are made against obvious (so obvious) things that will not be good or welcomed, but, the devs have a vision(tm) of things. I don't want to paint the devs as malicious devils or incompetent, or uncaring. But they have a very firm spreadsheet idea and things cannot budge further than. And, you know, I dig that. We've seen what other servers have done with willy nilly changes and just throwing numbers up without much care for balance. But this is about design philosophy and it has been talked a fair bit already on how the new things are designed to such a blandness that until other existing sets are balanced DOWN the new sets just don't catch up to them.

*dusts the thread, again* We're baaaaack. This is in preparation for Page 7, whenever our benevolent god devs deem it fit for consumption. After testing a Stone/Elec I found that the new Thunderstrike gives a much needed help to Elec's ailing ST damage. I unfortunately do not have numbers to offer until our OTHER pantheon of god devs in Mids update the program, but it was some very good chunking of bosses and 2.5 is decent. It still sucks for AoE though. How much does it suck? Well, you know those little gears that pop out of Clockwork bosses? The shockwave only takes about a third of their HP. What Thunderstrike has is the godly chance to proc Force Feedback reliably thanks to doing it in AoE and anyone who followed this thread back in the day has a good inkling of my love of a good FF spammage combined with Burn. I'm particularly proud at how I managed to fit it all and still get good numbers. Some initial testing shows nothing survives the initial BU (with Gaussian) + Lightning Rod + Burn and then Thunderstrike the boss and mop up. I do mean that. Even the lieutenants are dead. This is just while leveling though. I haven't done anything at level 50 yet since I'm saving myself for the release of page 7. But for an armor set based on kill-before-being-killed this is mmmhmmmm *chef's kiss*. I appreciate @Infinitum making me re-test Lightning Rod since I had decided it was not worth using and it was already discarded in my head. In fact I think my previous Elec build in this thread didn't have LR because of that. I would have liked to throw damage procs in both Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch, but, eternal lack of slots rears its head, and the small return. A damage proc in Charged Brawl only had 14% chance to go off and in Havoc Punch it would be 29%. Despite no longer being appreciatively good for ST Burn makes a return to the ST rotation since it still does more damage than using the T1/T2. Havoc + Charged Brawl would do 100 damage less than Burn and take half a second more and two Charged Brawls would do nearly 200 less, so, Burn it is. Like in the ye old golden days before the dev god nation attacked. I can't edit Mid's database since it makes the program crash so I can't place the new stats in it, but even assuming the FF proc did not go off we have a rotation of Burn, Chain Induction, Thunderstrike (this sequence ensures Chain Lightning can use the Gaussian as well as Thunderstrike since the animation only needs to start while the proc is ongoing even if it finishes after it has ended), Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Charged Brawl. Burn recharges in 8 seconds so 1.2 + 2.5 + 1 + 1.7 + 1 = 7.4 seconds. Acceptable, and this assuming the FF proc did not go off. While leveling or while Hasten is not up then Charged Brawl is the bread and butter and it is snuck in between every attack. After some experimenting we can see how many are needed to keep the chain gapless and reduce them as more recharge is acquired. The build works in the current page but Thunderstrike will be 3.3 seconds to animate, smaller AoE, and less damage than the new Thunderstrike so I'd wait for it. As usual if someone feels like that they need a leveling build I can cobble something. Tanker (Fiery Aura - Electrical Melee).mbd

When you mentioned Shield I suddenly thought 'Hold on... Was it LR or was it Shield Charge that I had been totally unimpressed with...' Despite not liking the extra long recharge I can't help but appreciate how even the +1 lieutenants were reduced to 20% HP. Combined with Thunderstrike reliably popping the FF procsI'll have to reconsider for my next Fire/Elec. Especially for a Fire Armor who is all about burst and kill-first-before-being-killed. I do dislike the loop of egging the recharge to hurry up and be ready for the next spawn. That's a ranged character annoyance and my meleers just truck along with their short CDs. I've been trying to save my CoH batteries and not level in Brainstorm to instead wait for the page 7 release but it's been hard to contain myself 😄 Seriously though, thanks.

You got me there 😄

That's good. It's how we should have it. Each badge found could show the tip for the next one and then that info stays in the badge info we can access from the nav screen.

Counterpoint: we don't need LRT until we leave Atlas. Once we leave it because we're leveling or whatever we pick the badges at that time.

It's been so long that you might be the one who is right and I've just continued with my bad impression. Or perhaps I used it at a low level, AKA 25-30. I went to the test server to take a gander and you were right after all. Build-up + Gaussian + five Scirroco + a second damage proc and all the minions I hit in the Yin (character's only level 30) were instantly wiped. Thanks for calling me out on my BS, I'll edit the first post.

The devs said that they already on this so I'll wait to see what they cooked up, but other games put things like arrows showing where to go next, or obvious tips (the man who holds the world on their shoulders!). Others simply tag all explorations in the map or show them on the minimap if we are close. The first I don't think is achievable here, and the second would imply going over 80% of badges (or how many are composed of exploration). Maybe what we need is simply to use Videots officially with some sort of layer tech that can be toggled on and off? Not gonna say it would be simple but 90% of the work seems to already have been made since anyone can install the Videot mod without special know how. Anyway, lets see what they have come up with.

Guild Wars 2 and combo fields is all over it. And it's a pretty important mechanic too, and now that Bopper has explained the reasoning why we were sent blind to it I can see the reasoning. A pity it could not have shipped with the patch notes though. I just want to reaffirm I love the HC dev team and their thankless (sometimes literally) job that they do. It doesn't mean I agree with all they do or even like it, but I love my parents (may they live many years more) and don't like some of the stuff that they do or say, and it doesn't make me love them any less.

No, they have been upfront about not divulging the powers and encouraging to find them. I don't mean this metaphorically. This is an actual thing, I'm not doing hyperbole.

My number one problem with exploration badges is that they are not casually or organically found. Either we visit a third party site such as paragonwiki or we use a third party program like Videots.

It feels a bit trollish not to say which powers cause 'wet'. Not just because we are being sent on a busywork errand like a kid, but after someone has had the patience to go one power at a time from all paired sets AND pools AND epic pools then that person will simply post the list of all powers that do it. Something not needed and that feels borderline malicious no matter the spin given to it. And THEN until HC eventually dies (may it live forever) we will have a steady trickle of people in the forums for the next decade 'Hey, I picked Arsenal. It says it works on wet mobs. What are wet mobs?' and someone with a lot of patience (or not when I see people asking stuff in these forums with hundreds of views and zero answers) will go 'Yeah... the devs did not specify it, but it's X, Y, and Z who do that'.

As Peregrine pointed out Tankers are the best AT to feel like a super hero.... Wait, no, that's not what he said... 😄 Seriously though. While other ATs can solo at x8 it is the Tanker that does so at the earliest. All my runs at 0x6 and later +1x8 from 20 onwards. But, this is from a min max twink perspective with all the good expensive IOs waiting to be slotted when I ding the correct level. Leveling with generic IOs means taking it easy at x4 tops until all the defenses are slotted in and doing the job that the expensive IOs would have been doing. Peregrine is right that Tankers will only slowly whittle stuff but you can get around it by playing Fire Armor which increases the damage output to be at least reasonable (if never top damage). Something like a Fire Armor/Claws will let you work through the game at a steady pace. Fire/Fire has good numbers too. The way I level on a twinked out character involves slotting all my attacks first, then slot by heals/endurance, and finally my armor toggles which is around level 40-ish. Until then all the IOs and a stream of inspirations in the very low game (up to 20-ish) becomes the occasional inspiration up to 30 once the armor toggles are slotted the use of inspirations is simply gone. Until then it's a matter of defeating the enemies before they defeat you which Fire Armor is good at. Other sets are good at surviving (better really) but do not achieve the same kill-first. Later in the end game Radiation Armor can do it too, maybe even better to be honest. As regarding AFK farming that's easy to do. Any Tanker that has been built can handle a farm. Now a FARMER build will not handle general PvE since they are strictly built to survive against fire mobs, but a Tanker built for PvE will handle PvE and handle farms. If you meant completely AFK then that's definitely a Fire Armor and probably specialized. You can level with only generics, but to be completely honest with you there is no reason to. If you don't know how to sell merits check my newbie guide. Sell your merits, or use them to craft, make enough millions to start buying good things. It's not wasted money since you can pass those good things to your next alt. Some stuff you could/should look at minimum while leveling would be: - Both 3% defense uniques (Gladiator Armor and Steadfast Protection). - Both +res uniques (Shield Wall and Reactive Defenses). - Performance Shifter proc in Stamina. - Panaceia unique in Health. Once you can efford it the Miracle and Numina's Convalescence uniques. - Definitely the Might of the Tanker unique even if you don't buy the rest. It has a chance of giving 5% to ALL resistances when you hit a mob with a power that has it slotted (so try to put it in a power you use often) and can stack up to three times (so 15%). Truly important I'd just say those. Other than the Might of the Tanker any of them can be transferred to other ATs at a later date, or you can even sell them back to the AH. Even the Might of the Tanker can be saved (check how to make your base to store your IOs in the newbie guide) in case you make a new Tanker. I made a lot of money simply by saving my IOs I bought piece meal but then transferred to the new alts instead of re-spending half a billion worth of gear and it only takes 5 minutes tops. Once you decide what flavour of Tanker you want to try we can put our heads together and see how to cobble it.

People can do that on their own as well. Better too much info than too little, and then too save the chat settings which is then loaded when a new alt is made. IMO.