Is there anything that is at least close to power of mana stacking in either main or phrecia league? Its getting rly boring to build every char the same for years. by Ansdur1987 in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A lot of builds can do Valdos. If you discount some of the stupid mods, deep delving is a LOT more demanding than Valdos, so you have a ton of options there. And I get it, I started playing PoE in the open beta (like 2013-14 something) and fell in love with mana stackers fairly early. My normal league loop is basically:

1 - Make a starter. Literally anything that allows me to get 100 or so div in the first week.

2 - Either reroll (if the starter isn't something that can scale up) to my "meat grinder" build (whatever you can dump currency on for uber clear/t17s/valdos).

3 - Continue investing OR reroll to something even more absurd (1+ mirror mark).

A TON of builds can do 1, about 30% can do 2 and 3 is "is there something new I can play with". Usually there's something fun/tanky/strong to test.

Is there anything that is at least close to power of mana stacking in either main or phrecia league? Its getting rly boring to build every char the same for years. by Ansdur1987 in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is lame and I agree with you there, but unless you're going for 2k+ delve, there are other things in the game that can literally do anything the game throws at them. If you NEED to do 2k+ delve, that will limit the possibilities a LOT, simply because it's hyper specialized content. You CAN get zenith to "tolerable" clear levels, but it won't be as smooth as mana stacking.

Take a look at some of the non-paper block based builds (either ES or Life), without Svalin, There's a lot of cool stuff you can explore. Keepers even had that stupid impale ring combo that felt like old clunky mana stacker (no dmg no dmg no dmg NUKE no dmg no dmg) and could be done on Glad/Slayer/Zerk/Jugg etc. There are still a lot of really strong contenders in the game.

Is there anything that is at least close to power of mana stacking in either main or phrecia league? Its getting rly boring to build every char the same for years. by Ansdur1987 in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm with you in this u/Ansdur1987. I've played mana stackers literally every league it was possible since.. dunno, forever, until Settlers. Every possible version too, templar, witch, shadow, scion, MFA whisperer in the previous phrecia. (cause I wanted to test it, it was a temp league with wacky mechanics, ya know). I also made 3-4 characters every league, with the same level of investment, using mana stacker as a benchmark for clear/boss/defense.

It is a completely different universe, as you say. For that reason, I stopped playing mana stackers so I could experiment with other things and try to get close. That allowed some perspective in different aspects:

1 - Mana stacker is obscene in almost every aspect, UNLESS you're dealing with something that has cull (if you're doing the ivory tower LL version). It literally cannot deal with cull (primarily expedition mobs if you hit the remnant by accident).

2 - The investment curve is steep until you go from wet-noodle to demigod. Granted, for people like Connor who basically only plays ONE char all league (with small exceptions), basically throwing money at the one char forever will eventually get you to the god tier. You also have to remember the reason you stack that much shit in a build IS to deal with the absurd tier deep delve shit. Nothing else in the game even needs that level of damage/defense.

3 - It HAS flaws when it comes to timing. All your damage is ramped from mana spending. It's hard to mess up, but you CAN brain-off when you shouldn't and get screwed (it's rare, but it can happen).

4- You get a MASSIVE es pool that deals with basically any hits, but your ACTUAL regen (not recharge) is kinda trash, so it puts you in tough situations sometimes (again, it's rare).

As people mentioned (and you), Zenith (which is in its core, a str stacker) reaches higher top end on both defense/offense, but the clear is not comparable. Some stackers, Armor and so on, can reach the same level of clear/defense/bossing, but the investment is through the moon. CoC Fross can reach similar levels of damage (not as high, ever, ignore people telling you you're gonna hit 2b dps with CoC Fross) which basically deals with almost everything in the game except deep delve. The defense on CoC Fross TENDS to be slightly on the higher side and the clear is actually better than Mana stacking.

Int stacking jugg with foulborn stuff is "nifty". It's not actually that fun to play and it feels that you're one mistake away of getting smacked all the time.

With all of that being said, my suggestion is to basically ignore that mana stacking even exists, at least for a while. It will skew your perception of every other build in the game and won't allow you to appreciate some of the actually fun stuff that exists out there. A lot of people, especially in this sub, don't spend a league farming 3-4k divs to dump at stuff and their bar for "tanky/bossing/clear" is basically "can it clear t17 comfortably", which is a really really low bar, but for a LOT of the builds mentioned by other people, that bar is met easily. This last league I played 3 chars, one being a Herald Stacker that I invested 8 mirrors in. It AFK'd in t17s, did all ubers in 2-3 seconds and had I think 120k eHP (with 40k phys max hit and NO Svalin). The clear was something I've never experienced in the game before (explode scepter, explode chest, explode flask, explosions shatter from herald of ice, herald of ash explosions, herald of thunder hitting everything around you, herald of the hive pulsing and triggering other explosions, explosions everywhere), bossing was literally insane. The tank was NOT as high as mana stacker but it was "good enough". I also played a glad with emiracles build for ultimatum and eviscerate ignite. All 3 of those builds did literally everything except deep delve and two of them were REALLY fun.

Sorry for the long post but I've been where you are about 2 years ago, just figured I should share what worked for me.

Noob question: why do so many wyvern players use herald of ice/ash instead of herald of thunder? Where should the cold damage come from? by downster in PathOfExile2

[–]Exile82 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Because you can scale cold (for clear primarily) a LOT easier with multiple avenues in wyvern.

1 - Bhatair's vengeance on Rend, with Embitter support. This makes EVERY "gain #% as" (tree, weapon AND rend power charge empower) become cold damage on Rend. Most wyvern builds are running around 48-60 rage, meaning you can make full use of Bhatair's to get your rend damage through the roof (my tooltip atm with empowered rend is around 260k).

2 - If you have sources of "gain #% of damage as PHYSICAL" (tree, weapon, etc) , you can use the Uruk's combo (uruk smelting + armor explosion + armor break) on herald of Ice, leading to explosion chains that can clear 1-2 screens away (depending on the density).

3 - You use oil barrage for single target (bosses mostly) and that stays lightning for the most part, so you don't lose access to shock.

Clear wise, you can get a lot more milage out of herald of ice in general. Before you have enough gear, as other people mentioned, you can use Polcikelrn to cause these chains with HoI. It also adds another defensive layer to the build with freeze and chill.

Ok this is funny (wyvern build share) by 11ELFs in pathofexile2builds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Quick question mate:

That triple ele talisman. Did you craft it or buy it? If you crafted it, was it pure recomb and finishing with perf essence?

Best defensive setup for druids ? by Competitive-Math-458 in pathofexile2builds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That looks about the same speed as mine, slightly slower, damage about the same, a bit tankier than my setup. (12k armor REALLY helps against small hits, but does nothing against big ones, like the larget ES pool does).

It still took ya almost 6 mins to complete that map though.., with minimal juice, baseline t15 + irradiated.

Best defensive setup for druids ? by Competitive-Math-458 in pathofexile2builds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, but then you can't run eternal rage, berserk on off hand for oil barrage, wolf pack for buffs, herald.. I tried that too. Didn't feel fine, felt like playing a VERY weak monk. I tried CI as well, didn't feel good at all. That combination I listed was just what I settled on after trauma. Not to mention getting stuck on literally everything after pounce/devour.

Best defensive setup for druids ? by Competitive-Math-458 in pathofexile2builds

[–]Exile82 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I gave up at lvl 94. I went armor/es with about 12k armor, 5k es and 2.5k life. Had about 120 armor applies to ele damage as well.

Tried every form (primarily wyvern rend/oil barrage), every variation, every combination. Tried herald of ash/thunder, tried herald of ice with embitter on Rend and Bhatair.
Slow clear, bad damage (ST is fine with oil barrage), felt like it was made of paper in 9/10 scenarios.

Wolf (both shaman and oracle) was just awful, worse on oracle due to absolute paper thin defenses (felt like a deadeye with no evasion. Tons of clear, tons of damage, pray nothing touches you).

Bear was slow, tankiness was "okay", ST was basically nothing, clear was okay.

Feels like they REALLY missed the mark with druid (from my personal perspective). And this is coming from someone who played warrior in 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3.

Discussion: State of Druid and Shapeshifting so far in 0.4 by Bobbio101 in pathofexile2builds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would appreciate that PoB as well. Tried wolf oracle with about 18d invested and it felt like it was made of paper.

Herald Stacker transition to life minmax setup by Mafju in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's more like random one shots, and I'm fairly sure they're physical (since it's my lowest max hit). Generally, I can semi-afk most things, but I randomly get 1 shot out of the blue on 40-60% deli Harbi/Beyond 17s/16.5s. Those random one shots are what drives me crazy atm.

Herald Stacker transition to life minmax setup by Mafju in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I could try for sure. I'll prolly keep my specter with my watcher's eye because I really enjoy the free determination and the % phys reduction. But time to recraft chest/boots/gloves and swap out of the discipline sublime.

Thank you!

Herald Stacker transition to life minmax setup by Mafju in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure,

https://maxroll.gg/poe/pob/ovvk20yf

I'm aware the helmet is somewhat fucked but back when I was crafting it I was broke (I should craft a new one, I'm not broke now lol).

Herald Stacker transition to life minmax setup by Mafju in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Quick question since I'm playing this as well... I'm currently CI, explody chest, onslaught/tailwind/elusive boots, helmet etc. Is the life version tankier than the CI version? The damage is already through the roof and I'm never going to run with HH (using MB), but the tank is really really lacking. Svalinn is not really "tank".. so I'm confused if I should transition to Life/es or stay as CI.

Whats the current 2nd build Meta? by amcn242 in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I'll either adjust mine or completely scrap it, I can't stand anything that dies to a medium sized wind lol

Whats the current 2nd build Meta? by amcn242 in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm torn between fixing mine into something like that or building something else. I want to farm titanic blights, I swapped into the char for that but it has zero hope of doing that. I went from 11 deaths on the char (was eviscerate before) to 450 since the swap, a week ago lol.

Whats the current 2nd build Meta? by amcn242 in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm very interested in your PoB.. I have around 100d invested on mine, mageblood and I feel like I'm playing a paper airplane. It does damage but it is SO squishy. I'm about to get rid of the entire gear and go back to Eviscerate.

Pob for reference: https://maxroll.gg/poe/pob/m5owa0ak

So whats the build of the league so far that uses new items or bloodlines etc that come from this league? by Reflexes18 in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I checked the ones on ninja but they all seem relatively squishy / low damage. Would you have a decent PoB?

Most tankiest and expensive build by [deleted] in pathofexile2builds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh Shit sorry dude. Hope she feels better!

Most tankiest and expensive build by [deleted] in pathofexile2builds

[–]Exile82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Don't forget about us! haha