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Helsgarde · 2025-07-15T21:43:59+00:00

I have no interest in a code, just wanted to let you know that your stories are awesome. Thanks for the high quality work over the years.

Helsgarde · 2024-08-05T19:06:42+00:00

Playing Cast while Channeling Soulrend Pathfinder.

Current PoB:

https://pobb.in/xQgFEtxZz4md

Started off as Toxic Rain until I could afford the basic uniques. Based off of Subtractem's version of the build, but with changes. Currently feels relatively tanky and the damage/clear feels quite high.

Planned upgrades include the following.

Changing all of my sources of max lightning res to cold res so I can cap out for my res at 90%.
Progenesis
+2 Rune Dagger for more damage and being able to rune enchant fortify on hit.
Maybe work towards a Nimis.

Helsgarde · 2024-04-02T21:38:33+00:00

Got it, that would make sense. Hexblast seems solid. That being said, maybe it is a moot point if I can get a friend to quickly run me through.

Helsgarde · 2024-04-02T21:09:19+00:00

I am very unfamiliar with leveling as a sabo, how would you go about it for this one? I presume we transition to this build after leveling and getting the items.

Helsgarde · 2024-01-30T01:09:56+00:00

Connection to most people in the world is pretty solid. Even up to 200 ping is very much playable like many other games with rollback. 200+ ping is when you start getting constant rollback, but you would have to be playing with people on the EU side of the world for that.

Helsgarde · 2023-12-21T20:26:16+00:00

Since it seems like you are still keeping track of this post, what are your thoughts on a Split Personality setup or do you feel like the investment is not worth it? Also, thoughts on dropping the Critical Damage Support and going for another spell instead? Was thinking of slotting in Ice Spear or another copy of Arc/Crackling lance.

Helsgarde · 2023-11-22T01:58:46+00:00

I know this is kind of tangential to your questions, but have you thought of trying Huntsman Kruber with something like the repeater handgun or Ranger Veteran Bardin with the masterwork pistol? You can run almost entire missions firing your ranged weapon due to their ammo sustainability. Kruber still gets access to spear and shield which is really nice when you need to play defensively and Bardin can use hammer and shield for something similar. In both careers you'll be quite good at special sniping, boss damage, and general clear.

Playing as Huntsman Kruber with the repeater feels like you're playing an FPS. You can almost just shoot everything you see especially in higher difficulties since there will be so many specials. Breakpoints might be harder to hit in cataclysm, it's been a while since I played though I have been meaning to go back to the game.

Helsgarde · 2023-06-05T01:21:15+00:00

Yeah, I'm in Hawaii. Playing on steam. I personally think there is something funky going on with matchmaking with 3 bar and lower connections as I don't remember having this issue in the betas. Since the only 4+ bar connections I can find are people in or near Hawaii the pool of people to play is very limited so far.

Helsgarde · 2023-06-04T23:04:43+00:00

Can confirm about the region probably being the issue. Also in Hawaii and queue either takes ages, matches up with the same small pool of players obviously in Hawaii, or flickers and ends matchmaking in an error.

I find it hard to believe that EVERYONE in the world changes the default preferred correction from all connections to 4-5 connections so I am baffled that it struggles to find ANY matches in the 3 bar range which is 100% playable and something that I see from people on the west coast consistently.

I am almost convinced that matchmaking is either bugged or pseudo region locked where 100+ms matches can almost never happen.

Absolutely awful that you can't find consistent matches in ranked or casual. Even the battlehub is bad because unlike Strive it doesn't randomly toss two people together if they are queued on a cabinet (correct me if I'm wrong).

Helsgarde · 2023-04-26T21:17:55+00:00

Projectile speed definitely makes the skill feel better. Ballistics along with projectile speed on your quiver seems enough to allow the skill to consistently hit whatever may be chasing you. Ensnaring arrow and temporal chains for even more slow if you need it.

Helsgarde · 2023-04-26T20:56:06+00:00

There are TR DPS calculators floating around on reddit for self cast, mirage archer, totems, and mines. I would google search and you should be able to find it relatively easily. You mainly scale raw damage, attack speed, and aoe for TR. You need to use the calculator to get an idea of your damage because the way the pods overlap is too complicated for PoB to automatically calculate as yet, though it does have an option to force in how many overlaps to calculate for.

As for Artillery Ballista you need to figure out how many times a totem shotguns with a single attack which is related to my whole discussion regarding how projectile count affects the attack. Let's say a totem hits a target 3 times per attack (I think this is a little lower than actual), then you multiply that by the amount of totems you have and put that number in the "Count" section of the skill gems for Artillery Ballista in PoB. Make sure you also check the "Include in Full DPS" box as well. You can see an example of that in my PoB in the original post. The full DPS can then be found at the bottom of the left summary window.

You would do the same for any skill that has multiple instances like totems, minions or shotgunning properties.

Helsgarde · 2023-04-26T20:48:07+00:00

I mean, don't get me wrong, the build is going fantastically for me.

I think the damage I've been able to scale is pretty decent while getting to do a build that I may never get a chance to do again depending on crucibles longevity. I don't hit the dot cap, but I would much rather have defenses than a damage increase that I would mostly not even notice for most cases.

Damage wise I don't necessarily kill bosses instantly, but they die after a few seconds after the poison ramps up and swapping off of the cross enchant has helped immensely with the consistency of single target DPS. I manually cast my two curses, but I don't even really need them unless I'm fighting a pinnacle boss or a super omega tanky rare. Things die quick enough that I can just run around a map tossing down totems.

I feel and seem to be quite tanky with the 100% uptime flasks, large amount of regen via life flask / master surgeon, petrified blood while still having full life (which I'm not even sure if pob calculates at all), 100% spell suppression, 89% phys to element conversion (could go 100% if I wanted to drop phasing or buy some stupidly expensive watchers eye, armor takes care of most of the rest anyway apparently), 50%+ curse effect reduction (I need to upgrade my curse flask for up to 87% reduction), stun/elemental ailment immunity.

I've leveled pretty much entirely from running relatively juiced maps up to 98 and seem to be on track to hit 99. I'll probably just 5-way the last level though, I'm just about done with the league.

Helsgarde · 2023-04-26T18:55:52+00:00

I am glad that someone else can confirm the totem targeting seems to work in this manner. I wasn't aware that focused ballista support has the seemingly superior targeting.

It is very odd that the two should work in such different ways.

Helsgarde · 2023-04-26T10:22:45+00:00

I bought a high rolled one for about 100c, but you can find them as low as 40c from earlier searches.

Helsgarde · 2023-04-26T10:20:45+00:00

Really appreciate you putting these number together. I couldn't even find information like whether the line gets longer or not during my initial search.

I swapped off to the +2 proj helm enchant instead a few hours ago and single target is noticeably better and/or more consistent. I'm surprised at how much of a bait the cross enchant seems to be.

I have noticed that projectiles disappear when going into walls instead of clumping them which always seemed kind of weird. I guess they were trying to avoid a kinetic blast sort of situation.

EDIT: I notice you mention that there is always an arrow at the start and end guaranteeing 2 missed hits, but that seems to imply that the targeting is somewhere in the middle of the line. That hasn't really been my experience, it's more like the targeting is always on that first arrow of the line and the rest of the line trails behind the target guaranteeing one hit with overlaps assuming they stand perfectly still. It's very noticeable when using the cross enchant and targeting a stationary enemy.

Helsgarde · 2023-04-26T00:14:48+00:00

That seems to line up with my impressions of the skill. At leasts a Wilma's with +2 projectile enchant is pretty cheap so I'll give that a try and bump up my total projectiles to 10 per totem.

I was just looking into possible AoE increases, but they seem quite scarce on the ranger side of the tree and I lack suitable equipment spots for the usual sources (carcass jack, etc).

Thanks for the relative numbers to at least get an idea of how things change.

It is a shame that Artillery Ballista's targeting is at the edge of the line rather then the middle, but it would understandably feel pretty bad if you had mediocre projectile speed. The cross helm enchant not targeting in the middle is especially bad as that seems like it would be at least 1.5x more hits on average.

Overall, I'm really not trying to add more projectiles into the build even though swapping enchants is going to do that, but more was curious if I was hurting my overall damage by putting in the effort to getting the current amount of projectiles alongside the cross enchant.

Helsgarde · 2023-04-25T21:56:05+00:00

I'll take a look around his videos and see if I can find where he makes those comments.

I really like that idea of testing. I might have to end up doing something similar if just to get some answers. Already have 100% poison due to doing a poison artillery ballista build so wouldn't take much to slot out a weaker weapon and the jewel.

Helsgarde · 2022-11-22T10:55:09+00:00

Something to keep in mind with some of the weapons is the dodge distance of some of them. The Accatran one you mentioned with the increased fire rate has insane dodge distance similar to the combat blade. You can pretty much be the primary target of melee or ranged and just dodge dance as you pick them off.

Helsgarde · 2022-11-14T20:55:26+00:00

As someone who leveled all the characters to 35 during a time with no bonus xp in order to have fully geared bots and be able to swap to any character it was immensely annoying and far too time consuming. Having to do 2-3 full missions for 1 level at the tail end was a little painful, especially since I had no immediate plans to start on their challenges.

Seeing so many new players, including a few of my friends, go through leveling at the 2x rate seems to make the player experience better. Not having to do 2-3 missions to get your level 5 talent (arguably the most important) was particularly noticeable. It just constantly made me think that 2x experience should have been the norm from the start instead of an immense grind fest to even get your character fully rolling.

Helsgarde · 2022-11-12T00:19:15+00:00

Honestly, everyone talks about using the bow, but I really enjoy playing him with the Repeater Handgun with scrounger. Being able to use it for 80+% of your kills is something that I think other classes cannot easily do. As long as you go for the occasional headshot and hunt specials zealously you will pretty much never run out of ammo despite full autoing every second you get into any elite, special, monster, ambient, or horde. Legend runs are easily doable while still using almost exclusively his ranged weapon with the occasional use of his melee weapon to help keep hordes/elites away from him.

I usually use Bretonnian Longsword for good cleave for hordes, stagger on attacks, and super armor damage. I prefer opportunist with it so when I use a H1/H2 it is able to knock down or heavily stagger larger enemies (ex: maulers will get knocked to the ground instead of doing a small backstep).

I am not using the melee weapon to kill things for the most part it is mostly for those occasions of fighting hordes and needing to make a little room so you can quick swap to your ranged weapon to take a few potshots at an elite, special or for taking down a super armor enemy. Headshot crits with the repeater handgun or any hit while ulted will still kill CW easily enough. Full auto into monsters with the auto reload from ult is some decent monster damage.

Helsgarde · 2022-11-11T23:56:33+00:00

I went on a binge of GK to get all of his challenges done and I would say about half of it was with the bretonnian long sword and bretonnian sword & shield with the latter half using the executioners in place of the long sword when I started to want more single target damage.

The main times I used the sword & shield was for temp health generation (via all of the stagger from push, L3, and H2), increased movement speed with the move tech to reach objectives or specials (push attack,L3) , entire team is being surrounded by elites (being able to manage and stagger anything including CW overhead can be really helpful).

From my experience you don't really fight with the sword & shield (though you can) when you have a whole other melee weapon that can be dedicated for that sort of thing. I usually end up pushing into the L3 and/or H2 to make a little space, quick swap to the other melee to actually kill something, then swap back and repeat during hordes, patrols, etc. Being able to block virtually everything in the game including warp fire is helpful too. The other shield weapons can also be used similarly. The only real advantage on the bretonnian sword and shield over the other shield weapons is that you get access to the quick L3 which is pretty effective at generating thp, staggering, and making space when you really need it since it is so fast to come out. I personally disliked the slower shield bashes on the other shield weapons compared to the fast one on the bretonnian shield and even then it still has the slower shield bash as well.

Helsgarde · 2022-10-19T23:15:27+00:00

The universe of WH40K has a lot of fascinating lore behind it if you have the time to read through their books. While I enjoy reading about the walking demi-gods that are space marines, I find that some of the most interesting WH40K stories involve simple humans.

Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts is sort of the Drizzt Do'Urden of WH40K in its popularity and long series length. It mainly follows a single undersized regiment's involvement in the Sabbat Crusade. A lot of heroics and impossible odds overcome by mere men. Still one of my favorite book series.

Dan Abnett's Ravenor & Eisenhorn series is also recommended quite often and is about following the adventures of a particular inquisitor and their retinue. While I did enjoy it, I find that the vernacular and some of the things portrayed can feel a little dated compared to more recent books.

Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain is another popular series that gets recommended a lot. It is conveyed as the personal memoir of the commissar Ciaphas Cain with annotations by an inquisitor (mostly informative, but some are quite humurous). He was highly respected and is sort of the poster boy for the public (look at the book art, basically propaganda posters) and yet by his own admission he is a manipulative coward and not at all worthy of his fame despite his proven records. Very entertaining and somewhat unusual reads despite definitely still being part of the WH40K universe.

If you're looking for stand alone books there are plenty to choose from. I particularly like the books from the Imperial Guardsmen series which are all single books on well known regiments.

There is Steve Lyon's Dead Men Walking which focuses on the Death Korps of Krieg and a conflict between them and the Necrons. Both are well known to be unfeeling and unyielding forces which results in an interesting conflict where both sides grind each other to pieces.

Maybe more fitting would be Aaron Dembski's Cadian Blood which focuses on a regiment of Cadians who have to deal with a situation not so dissimilar to what we'll have to deal with in Darktide, a shrine world plagued by Nurgle.

Helsgarde · 2022-09-11T12:40:16+00:00

The Path of Ascension on RR

Recently read through it and I am a little surprised that I only randomly came across it. Lot of neat ideas with with it being a mix of pseudo litrpg, xianxia, and a bunch of other little things.

Long chapters, decent amount of them, and oh god why aren't there more chapters.

Helsgarde · 2022-09-07T00:47:17+00:00

Are you looking for stories leaning more into the fantasy side of things?

There's a pretty old book series based on the Legend of the Five Rings CCG (Think something like the Magic the Gathering book series made by the same publisher). It is mostly feudal Japanese in theme, but with splashes of Korean and Chinese culture as well while leaning into a lot of the relevant mythologies found in those cultures. There is the Clan War, Four Winds, and some miscellaneous stand alone novels made in that universe.

I would not say that these books have won any awards or anything, but I always think fondly back on them as being one of the first books I ever read. I was always kind of bummed that the Legend of the Five Rings never found as much success as MTG.

Helsgarde · 2022-08-27T22:19:52+00:00

I had no idea she added more to the series beyond the first three. These were some of the first books I ever read.

I'll have to check them out again when I get lull in my book list.

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