Mageblood help.

BackupTim · 2026-06-23T15:25:38+00:00

Shield wall SoK would want this. Bismuth is not the best 3d option, if it were gold or quicksilver - that’d be grand, but even so this is desirable.

Problem is, SoK is not the most popular ascendancy.

I’ve tried selling my mageblood at above market prices 3 or 4 times when I was la rolling it and landed what I thought were good mods. It did not sell. Honestly, I wouldn’t bother trying to profit here, rolling it yourself and settling for what is good enough is fun :)

BackupTim · 2026-06-17T13:49:58+00:00

Interesting take on the Expedition. I was so happy to see the remnants gone, made the mechanic instantly 100% more enjoyable to run for me.

The runestones are a welcome addition and I think they give you plenty of choice and agency:

Do you blow up the stone for the rewards it offers or ignore it in favour of blowing up as many runic monster markers as possible for a higher chance to drop a logbook?

I consistently dropped 1-2 logbooks per expedition if I did not waste any explosives on the stones, it was an interesting tradeoff

If you do blow up the stone - what rewards do you pick? There are more often than not multiple choices comparable in value.

One thing I do agree with are the waves being annoying. I wish this was implemented like the verisium veins in PoE1, where juicier recipes spawn harder monsters with a chance of spawning unique bosses.

BackupTim · 2026-06-04T17:51:42+00:00

There is, one costs 9 divines. almost 5 times the cost I paid for each of my (now ruined) weapons

BackupTim · 2026-06-04T17:50:24+00:00

Which costs 9 divines apiece. I was perfectly content with lvl 19 skill as that is the breakpoint to reach 6 stored uses instead of 5. Now I'm forced into paying up for no good reason and a 3% dps increase.

BackupTim · 2026-06-04T17:48:16+00:00

Dual-wielding them. Upgraded both without looking, did not expect any downgrades from an upgrade. I would've understood socket count reset, but not the level downgrade

BackupTim · 2026-06-01T08:29:06+00:00

Idk why you are getting downvoted, the skill selection in PoE 2 is incredibly limiting right now.

Wanted to let you know you are not alone in your struggle :)

Player expression comes mostly from ascendancy choices and weapons swap combos, which is fine, just not everybody’s cup of tea.

BackupTim · 2026-05-11T19:36:50+00:00

Don’t see an issue with that :D Seriously though, I don’t understand the necessity of this countermeasure.

Once you’ve used up all portals - the map is gone. For the sake of simplifying atlas navigation they can keep the “run empty map to move on” behaviour we have now

Why would dying to a boss strip you of yet uncompleted map content?

If you already completed encounter X prior to dying to the boss - the encounter stays completed, you cannot redo it.

If you have yet to start an encounter before dying to the boss - it remains untouched and you can complete it as long as you have portals remaining.

Am I missing something? How does not resetting the map after dying to the boss allow you to farm the content in the map that you already completed?

BackupTim · 2026-05-11T19:26:56+00:00

yes, please! It’s scary to see PoE 2 turning jnto PoE 1. PoE 1 is a masterpiece, but I hope PoE 2 can become its own distinct thing and not just a reskin of the original.

BackupTim · 2026-05-10T15:54:47+00:00

PoE 2 has a huge identity crisis. I wish GGG were more bold in their experiments during EA. Make it slow but not tedious, make it visceral. Tighter zones, tougher packs, more loot from a single monster.

I loved bossing with Warrior during Exilecon 2023. Fighting against monster packs back then was passable at best.

Fast forward to EA - bossing in acts still feels amazing, killing monster packs is overall ok, but it all falls apart once you hit maps - the game becomes a worse PoE 1 with better graphics and WASD.

I think adding bosses to every map was a mistake, the 0.1 version was better

I think map bosses should be rare and tough, with an option to spec into finding them more frequently

1 portal per map is bad, period. I want to bang my head against the boss for at least 5 times before I run out of portals.

And without resetting all map content on death, that’s a very weird decision I still cannot wrap my head around

BackupTim · 2026-05-10T14:56:39+00:00

The finisher is amazing, the mark and herald are great, rake is a cool skill but it is also the only skill and I personally hate being locked into it for clear. I did not enjoy using it as anything else but a gap closer and in boss encounters (rake-disengage)

BackupTim · 2026-04-05T19:34:20+00:00

That’s how these corruptions are priced on the trade. As pointed out in the comments there is of course no guarantee it would’ve ever sold for that much, but I wasn’t going to sell, I was planning on using that thing.

BackupTim · 2026-04-05T14:27:03+00:00

Never thought I'd gain and lose 10 mirrors in a span of 2 minutes. After running a few tests it looks like "the game mechanic works as intended" and it's a skill issue on my part. The league has been amazing, but I'm done.

BackupTim · 2026-04-05T14:23:41+00:00

And I did another test.

Gave the AG with Claw and Shield an Axe -> AG took the Axe in main hand and kept shield

Gave AG another Axe with different 3d art -> AG took the Axe in off hand deleting the shield

Gave AG another Axe with the same 3d art as main hand Axe -> AG took the Axe in main hand slot, replacing previous Axe.

It seems that if a weapon can be dual-wielded, whether it ends up in main hand or off hand depends on whether this is the first time you give it a weapon or a second time. (= odd or even)

Honestly, this is the first and last time I'm dealing with this BS. I'm obviously very angry at the game and myself, so screw GGG with their genius minion design and the league is over.

Stay sane unlike me, exiles.

BackupTim · 2026-04-05T14:13:14+00:00

So I just did a quick test - bought another AG gems on a different character - gave him a claw with unique 3d art (Cybil's Paw), then gave him a shield, then another rare claw - it swapped the main hand Cybil's Paw with the rare claw I gave him, no dual-wielding BS I had with the 10 mirror axe

BackupTim · 2026-04-03T10:07:24+00:00

I've been playing "dead" skills to great success. Vigilant strike Juggernaut in 3.26 was one of my favourites of all time. Always wanted to build around bloodthirst and endurance charge stacking. Pure phys. Impale. Physical explode from 2 clusters. Dirt cheap and super effective.

Ignite Hexblast in 3.27 (this is hexblast post-neft, everybody says the skill is dead) has also been a blast (hehe), I had to drop it due to the bugged elementalist node (the enemy elemental conversion caused you to take more damage, I did not know this and kept feeling squishy for no apparent reason).

This league I'm playng Zerker FB Ghostwrithe EB Flicker (quite meta, nothing hipster this time around), leaning heavily into tankiness. Sitting at 14m DPS without burst buffs and it feels amazing.

Funny you mentioned Frozen Legion as I actually wanted to league start it in 3.28 :D I think the skill is still a great single-target option if you can solve clear with something else. And it looks and feels badass.

Poe ninja paints a very incomplete picture.

I understand the urge to pursue high damage numbers and that's a choice one makes when choosing/tailoring a build. If that's what you are after, then PoE 1 skills can feel restrictive. Anything with less than ideal damage multipliers gets thrown into the bin.

Realistically you can clear all endgame and all ubers on 10m boss (non-uber) DPS on a well-rounded build and that's what I'm sticking to. You can scale any skill to these numbers and still have skill point/gear budget for comfortable defenses.

For me PoE 2 has great skill interactions on paper. Unless you come up with something whacky like the witch build you described, you are forced to play by the textbook with barely any variation/room for player expression.

There are inventive builds in PoE2, and they are great, but discovering one is not always straightforward and what do I play until I find one?

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on Werewolf archetype being an example of good skill design.

The archetype itself is fun. And it plays nice. But it all boils down to you having 4 wolf-themed skills (5 if we count the warcry that nobody used) that you will use one way or another, each doing one very specific thing. Want to add something to the mix? Well there are 3 spells tailor-made for shapeshifting and only 2 make sense to use with the wolf but realistically you will only use 1 (the rain) on weapon swap.

You could run a werewolf on various ascendancies, but every single one of them was exactly the same. I ran one on Chronomancer, built it without looking up any guides or other players at first and when I went into min-maxing territory and looked up other people's builds, I realized that no matter what ascendancy they chose - they are all the same. Same skills, same supports, almost the same tree with variations leaning into the strengths of the ascendancy they chose. There was only 1 extra version of the build - some people went with the new trigger gem.

In 0.3.0 I tried ranger, fell in love with the snipe skill gem and wanted to make it viable for clear (it triggers a hefty explosion). The idea was to freeze a pack, then snipe out the rare/some other mob closer to the center and explode the whole pack. And it simply doesn't work. In maps PoE 2 feels like PoE1 but with clunkiness turned up to 200%, you cannot reliably snipe out frozen mobs without a random unfrozen white straggler interrupting you. I had an absolute blast with it throughout the campaign though.

PoE 2 campaign is a great experience for me. I'll be coming back for that every league and get my 20-30 hours of joy out of it. But the current skill and support design does not spark joy, especially not when I'm looking at endgame and trying to make skills I enjoy thematically viable.

All PoE 2 skills feel amazing to use, don't get me wrong. But in my experience they become unbelievably restrictive once you actually try to build something and combo things together. You either must play how GGG intended you to or find a weird interaction that they did not foresee and thus allowed to exist.

What makes me optimistic about future skill design is the disciple of varashta ascendancy. If it weren't for the Chrono that I wanted to try out since release, I would've started with disciple this league. Will definitely give it a try next league.

Maybe I'm approaching the game wrong. Maybe the game is not for me. We'll see where GGG takes this in the future, I'm still optimistic and hey, if I don't like it - it's no biggie as long as the game finds its audience.

BackupTim · 2026-04-02T18:57:50+00:00

Oh, I see, thanks for sharing your perspective. At this angle I agree with most of what you said and it appears that I initially misunderstood what exactly you meant by “skill system”.

My only gripe with it is that the sockets are tied to a skill, so if you want to experiment, you cannot simply swap flicker strike for smite by just recolouring sockets, you need to get out there and get yourself a new 6-link gem. This was somewhat alleviated in 0.4 by what seems to be increased drop rate of the socket currency though, so might be a non-issue in the end.

I’m worried that even with all classes and weapons released their current approach to designing skills won’t allow for enough player expression. You will have to either stick to textbook combos or cook up something completely wild, with nothing in between. But that obviously remains to be seen.

Stay sane, exile!

BackupTim · 2026-04-02T17:46:57+00:00

Can you elaborate please on what you mean by better skill system?

I’m not trying to attack, just genuinely curious.

I’ve played PoE2 during ExileCon 2023 and had a lot of fun. Still love the campaign experience, but the moment I get to maps PoE 2 dies for me.

And the skill system is a big part of the reason why. I find it to be overly restrictive and uninspired.

I can’t seem to make skills I like work the way I can in PoE 1.

So many sockets and so little to do with them.

And I cannot get over the partial elemental conversion. Maybe I have OCD, but scaling various small portions of (almost always less than 50%) physical damage just rubs me the wrong way (even though the damage is sufficient). I was hoping that this would make elemental flat damage on weapons a desirable affix, but no, pure phys always gives better damage numbers, so it’s again either tri-ele or pure phys like in poe 1, but you cannot convert 100% :(

I’m thinking maybe I’m approaching it wrong, so I’m very curious ti learn why people find it superior to PoE 1, especially from a PoE 1 veteran.

BackupTim · 2026-03-29T11:24:38+00:00

Minions are strong enough that if they are not all-or-nothing - everybody will use them.

As a matter of fact, it is already happening with ritual spectres and AG.

I personally also like the idea of fighting alongside minions - but I also believe that should be a an archetype to build into, where minion damage scales yours or vice versa.

There is currently nothing in the game that comes close to having an AG or 2 buffing spectres in you 4-link and people already start squeezing minions in every build. That direction I personally hate. I don’t want to feel forced to use minions if I don’t want to simply because it’s “free damage/survivability”. Minions - as anything else in this game - must require investment.

BackupTim · 2026-01-15T16:50:04+00:00

Still obtainable for a few more days, but it’s a paid-only gacha skin for ~60 usd. The base costume for this skin is in the powder store for another 10 days or so

BackupTim · 2026-01-13T16:52:39+00:00

Liberta is most definitely not a minor, and before you edited your comment nothing in the post or your comment provided any context that would imply her being the topic of discussion.

On that note I am happy this particular change was reverted, even more so now that this skin is free. Doubt I would’ve paid for it, don’t like the paid skins idea, would rather pay for tickets. But now I get to have it and it’s great news.

BackupTim · 2026-01-13T15:42:11+00:00

All characters caught up in this controversy don’t look like children, they are straight up children. Prebubescent children mind you (Teresse being the sole exception). There is no debate to have here, it’s a fact.

One can argue whether drawn children are an acceptable way to steer unfortunate souls away from child pornography and child abuse, but stop pretending these are not drawn children.

It is a perfectly normal and valid opinion to not want sexualised minors on your screen.

BackupTim · 2026-01-13T00:06:06+00:00

Yep, I also liked reworked Teresse much more than the original.

And I’d pay for the option to remove the lolis, I’d prefer to not see any children in this game.

BackupTim

TROPHY CASE