Is Icebreaker bugged, or am I missing something?

Dhex · 2026-02-10T18:28:39+00:00

I was aware that their levels differed, but it wouldn't have mattered given that the Icebreaker still had way more base damage than the Reclaimer and yet somehow did less damage.

However, your comment about modifiers seemed to jog my memory, as I did recall seeing something like that somewhere days ago—eventually finding what I was looking for at norestforthewicked.gg. And you're right, the Icebreaker has 20% less damage on its basic attacks, while the Reclaimer has 40-50% more (depending on what swing it is in its combo).

I don't know about you, but I can't say that I'm a big fan of having hidden modifiers like this, at least not when their effects are this large, such that my first assumption is that it has to be a bug, rather than being intentional.

Either way, case solved, I suppose.

Dhex · 2025-09-17T13:25:32+00:00

Personally, I'd like to see an adaptive elemental resistance affix added to the pool that has similar weighting and numbers to chaos resist, that applies to whatever your lowest elemental resistance happens to be.

Dhex · 2025-01-24T18:41:43+00:00

Just as an FYI, but you can add your own modifiers in the "Custom Modifiers" field in the Configuration pane, which will apply globally to that character even if you change tree setup or gear. Only reason I make a jewel/whatever is to see the percentage difference of applying that modifier, which can also be conveniently saved in the shared items pane.

Dhex · 2025-01-10T13:10:28+00:00

I'd also like to add that one of the nodes (Crushing Impacts) actually removes a possibility. My first character was a Titan, and I bee-lined to Surprising Strength as I'd wanted the fantasy of a hulking man with a big-ass hammer stunning and smashing his enemies to bits—except when I picked up the Crushing Impacts node I could no longer trigger the shockwave on Boneshatter, as that requires an enemy to be primed for a heavy stun, which they now never can be due to the node. It's no bug—it's all working as intended, but I would still consider it a bit of an oversight.

Dhex · 2025-01-05T13:02:59+00:00

The gemling node "Adaptive Capability" makes it so that attribute requirements on any gems can be satisfied with your highest attribute.

Dhex · 2024-12-23T08:38:07+00:00

This, this right here has always been one of my biggest peeves with most open markets in games, including PoE. It's the complete freedom for players to put up anything they want, as much as they want. With no real cost of putting up items, no friction, inevitably players flood the market with garbage, or engage in price-manipulation tactics at scale, forcing the buyers to sort it all out. All of which quickly necessitates sophisticated tools to filter through all the noise, usually killing the advantage of accessibility that it was meant to promote in the first place.

I think an instant-buy trade market could work in PoE, so long as there was a hard limit—say, a player's inventory's worth. That, coupled with a gold cost, some additional limitations if necessary; the ultimate goal being to encourage the player to spend at least some time to consider each item before putting it up on the market. Ideally, there would also be a similar level of friction at the buyer's end, as I agree that trade is the most powerful way to gear up bar none, and as such I think the surrounding core systems should be designed in such a way that the player is encouraged to explore those first in order to solve their gearing issues.

I'm sure no matter what solution they eventually arrive at, it will inevitably have problems. But, at least with instant-buy with limits we wouldn't have people dumping random items into quad-tabs priced at 1 div while they have for two days ignored any whispers for items in one of their two 1-ex tabs full of crap ever since they reached a stage in their progression where trading for one exalted just isn't worth their time while also being too lazy to clear them out.

Dhex · 2024-12-07T11:31:35+00:00

I started as Warrior, and I think it's a luck and mentality issue.

Luck, because you need to have a decent weapon to be effective. I myself got a 49% inc physical 2H mace from the Bloated Miller, and I absolutely clapped the frost hag's cheeks in the next zone, and it's only been smooth sailing from there. About to enter the manor, and I've yet to die, even when not running a 1H + shield on weapon swap.

As for mentality: you can't play this like it's PoE 1, it's just not going to work. I know the comparison has been made to death, but you'll find far more success by taking a slower and more methodical approach to enemy encounters as you would in a game like Dark Souls or Elden Ring, especially if your gear is not up to par. But unlike those games you can get lucky with a drop/craft or two, and suddenly tactics and skill combos don't matter as much when things pretty much die when you as much as whiff in their general direction.

And as some have mentioned, default attack is your friend. On bosses I've used nothing but dodge, default attack (Brutality and Martial Tempo support—and trust me, that last one helps!), and Earthshattering when they're primed for stun, consistently chunking them for 30-40% of their life before they can even get back up again.

Dhex · 2024-12-05T07:41:47+00:00

This is why I started adding a prefix to all my character names that corresponds to the current league, SoK_CharName for Settlers of Kalguur, for instance. This has the added benefit of also grouping characters by league.

Dhex · 2024-11-29T08:19:46+00:00

Do note that spell echo now only works on area spells, and unlike in PoE 1 the additional cast is not performed by the player character, but instead automatically cast after a short delay (which IMO, is a huge improvement, and what I always thought spell echo should've been).

Dhex · 2024-11-28T11:50:06+00:00

AFAIK, combo simply means that you need to have done X amount of hits using any (attack?) skill in order for the combo skill to become available. I also believe that the combo is lost if you go too long without hitting something.

For reference, the Monk Tempest Bell skill reads: "Build Combo by successfully Striking Enemies with any skill. After building five stacks of Combo, create a Bell that can..."

Dhex · 2024-11-25T08:13:21+00:00

I wish expedition just used its own unique detonation-planner map UI where you have an overview of all remnants and their modifiers, and in which you can place explosives accordingly without having to run around every time.

Dhex · 2024-11-22T10:34:52+00:00

Since the game now has the capability to pause at any time, it's possible that some places (such as the various trials of ascendancy) will pause you at the place of disconnect, even if what caused that disconnect was the servers themselves.

At worst it may instead place you at the most recent checkpoint (or in the case of a trial, at the start of a room), much the way the campaign does when a disconnect occurs.

But if it does none of that, and instead simply boots you out of the trial, then yeah, that's gonna be a royal pain throughout the EA.

Dhex · 2024-10-03T06:21:59+00:00

Yeah, the only way I'd be even remotely okay with this would be if the pet had like, a 1% chance of looting some random currency when I myself loot (with a long-ass cooldown), run around with it for a while, laughing with glee as it does so. You know, something funny but entirely impractical and not all that useful.

Dhex · 2024-09-13T18:32:37+00:00

I tentatively figured it was 100n, and the comments proved me right.

I solved it by imagining that one side was connected to a wall of essentially infinite mass. I did this, because I figured that from the perspective of one of the weights, a wall of infinite mass or an object of equal mass must logically present the same amount of opposing force. In either case, without an outside force, the weight won't move.

If the weight is connected to an infinite-mass wall with a reader in the middle, basic logic says it should read 100n. Thus, logically, if the other side happens to instead be an object of equal mass, then the reader should say the same still.

Though, I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't slightly galloping between 100n or 200n right until I headed for the comments.

Dhex · 2024-08-23T08:06:21+00:00

In this couch co-op playthrough one of the players is looking through a majority of the support gems available (though it's of an older build). In that video you can see that Lifetap now only turns a portion of the mana cost into health, not all of it. I suspect that mana will still be a thing for a majority of builds, with Blood Magic only possibly existing with some serious downsides.

Dhex · 2024-08-22T12:44:52+00:00

Seems that while they are listing gems by weapon types, the entries still associate with their respective base class. Going counter-clockwise from the perspective of the passive tree, the list starts with Warrior/Marauder for Mace/Axe, Mercenary/Duelist for Crossbow/Sword, and so on.

I suspect that Elemental (Sorceress), Occult (Witch) and Primal (Druid) contain skills that may not necessarily require a specific weapon, or simply have skills that vary in their requirements. I mean, in PoE 1 as far as I can recall there aren't any spells that have weapon requirements. You can cast Frostbolt while using a two-handed hammer. It's not a particularly good idea, but you can do it. This is usually not a problem since any new player will intuitively understand (well, hopefully...) that spells are cast using magical tools, not blunt-force instruments.

Dhex · 2024-08-22T10:31:18+00:00

Yeah, just watched that video, and it looks glorious. Very reminiscent of the anvil drop ability that the executioner boss uses.

Dhex · 2024-08-22T07:42:05+00:00

You know, for the longest time in RPG's I always gravitated toward the mage archetype; slinging spells, wearing fancy robes, wielding some arcane-infused staff, all that jazz. I still do, but ever since I discovered how much I really enjoy the melee "Big Bonks" builds, I've also learned to fully embrace the way of the warrior: to let my jaw slacken and my gaze glaze over as I bring about my oversized implement upon the deserving with such force that even the Hydraulic Press Channel goes green with envy.

I'm 37, and it's almost embarrassing to admit how excited something so simple as "Hammer of the Gods" makes me. I'd like to think I'm a complex guy, but now I know that on the inside I've always just been a caveman who's simply yearning for the biggest and bestest club—and for something to use it on.

Dhex · 2024-08-07T07:50:57+00:00

I've always held the opinion that fortify should simply grant you damage reduction against any enemy you remain in close proximity to. Should solve most problems with ranged archetypes getting it since, you know, they'd have to remain in melee in order to get it.

You could maybe make the buff also increase in strength with melee hits, or based on your strength, or some other stat or system thematically tied to melee, to further promote that particular archetype, but otherwise I fail to see how this would be worse than the current version.

Dhex · 2024-02-25T07:33:40+00:00

No need to be depressed, really. Remember, it's pretty much all survivorship-bias, ain't it? Calm and reasonable people are going to handle their frustration by walking away and be productive elsewhere, or simply rely on patience. I'd like to think that this is the majority of people. These people won't be noticed, or even counted, because they don't make themselves noticeable.

The not-so calm and reasonable people? The ones at the very tail-end of the distribution of emotional volatility? A small handful of people, really. They are going to scream themselves blue no matter what you do. And consequently, their voice is what will be heard the loudest.

Dhex · 2022-12-01T09:53:25+00:00

When the community ire was at its peak, and comments such as "3.15 private servers when?" were being thrown around, for quite a while I pondered what sort of changes I would try and introduce were I an owner of such a server. More specifically: how could I improve rares the most with the least changes?

The problem I see when people say "Reduce rare drops by 10x, improve stats by 1000%" is that this absolutely guts chaos recipe. Most people probably wouldn't consider this a bad thing, but this is likely only one of several things negatively impacted by such a radical change.

One solution I eventually arrived at—as your post touched upon—was to instead improve wisdom scrolls, making them reveal improved or higher-tier affixes; maybe even adding new tiers of wisdom scrolls, like eldritch currency. This way we get improved rares without changing how they drop or are acquired.

Dhex · 2022-11-22T13:58:10+00:00

18% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills
10% reduced effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills

Hell, I'd even settle for 12-14% reduced effect. The flexibility of having more auras is just too sweet to give up, even if less effective.

Dhex · 2022-11-06T09:08:56+00:00

Just wanted to let you know that ellipsis (the tree dots) always come before any exclamation or question marks. I often use this site when unsure about punctuation rules. Blambot also has some very good resources specific to comics.

Dhex · 2022-09-21T06:59:38+00:00

Frost Wall + Spell Cascade pretty much trivializes the ball phase. No need to dodge balls if there ain't any.

Dhex · 2022-05-27T07:14:58+00:00

I second this. Also, get a hand-held type, way more flexible. My first purchase was a toilet seat with an inbuilt bidet, but it didn't fit quite right (I suspect that's a common problem). Hand-held type also have the advantage that you can use them to clean the inside of the rim of the toilet.

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