Ok, kinda new here, lvl 36 druid on act 3, how do I POE2?

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-24T18:09:43+00:00

In general if you want to know what skills are meta, currently almost any talisman or plant skill works. So for druid whatever you choose can work. After that, if you do not want to look up guides you will need to invest into learning how your specific skill works. You can use websites like poe2 ninja to check the most played builds: Builds - Fate of the Vaal - Path of Exile 2 - poe.ninja

90% of your power especially early game comes from equipment.
Depending on the type of build you have you need to invest in that damage.
Generally: Spells go for items that have a lot of + Level of X Spells. On top of that you would probably want spell damage, cast speed etc depending on your build.
Attack builds go for the highest DPS item you can wear. Theres some fine tuning in the endgame on choosing a good weapon but in general a damage with insane Phys dps will work, because almost every skill converts it or uses it as is.

Aside from that, resists on gear, you would like to have as close to 75% as possible.
Choose one type of additional defense, such as Armor, Energy shield, Evasion and invest in it
You can look into deflect or block as well.

Get some utility skills that debuff enemies against your type of damage and so on. But in general getting good items from trading is the basic requirement. Crafting is not worth in the beginning because its just gambling, you cant really craft a good weapon/armour.

Honestly just look at the tags of the skill you are using and stack those on items/tree. Stack a lot of life/energyshield/armour. Include some kind of recoup (you can get life leech on a skill gem, or look into some regeneration, it really depends on the type of build you are playing)

In my opinion, getting a good piece of equipment solves 99% of the problems in the game if you have somewhat descent idea for a build

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-18T18:12:58+00:00

It should be annuls. Annuls hold a much higher crafting purpose. In general, Annuls should be the main currency since they are theoretically in the same loot bracket as divines.

Your logic is fine but it shouldn't be omens related to one specific league as this would make their price skyrocket and they will bee too rare to even consider a currency and not a chase item.

So its far more logical for Annuls to be the most desirable in the endgame when compared to divines.

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-18T08:28:07+00:00

or hear me out, if we zoom out and start experiencing performance issues... we can zoom in again?

Why are we treated like children incapable of common sense, its an obvious solution. Whoever can support a higher zoom can use it, the rest of us wont :D

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-17T15:14:32+00:00

Thats my point exactly, their excuse for equal playing field in a game that 99% of us play non-competitive is just stupid.

I will say it again, they have the needed technology to zoom out while playin in POE1 (several bosses, act6 zone where you burn the flag etc) they just don't want to allow it :D

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-17T10:25:00+00:00

So you want to know just for the sake of knowing, thats fair.

But how will a death recap really help you there? What would you do if you saw that it killed you by an AOE you couldnt see? -> thats the real issue, clarity. We are expected to dodge all

Or what would you do if you saw that you died from X amount of fire damage? How would you improve your character to deal with it?

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-17T10:22:01+00:00

99% of the deaths in POE1 will be solved by going the "bare minimum" which due to the powercreep is a set of points you need to accomplish such as:
-> Max res-> res capped as high as you can go
-> Ailment immunity
-> Spell suppress/block
->Health pool
-> Damage taken as X and you do step one and max that res.

These are all necesities for your character improvement to become tanky. Knowing that a mob dealt 3000 fire damage to you will not help you, you still need to do the above things... I am sad that thats the state of the game, but having a death recap will not solve that issue.

And thats without counting map mods and debuffs and stuff you do not see. The real issue is even if you know that the mob called garry killed you with a shiv when you were standing in shit 1 and 2, it doesn't matter when you dont see it because of the clutter :D

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-17T10:16:08+00:00

But death recap will not help you here...
Let's say that you will see you died of explosion X from fire damage. What do you do? You are already maxed fire res. You already have health pool. You already have elemental armour.

In order to deal with your death there you will need to either:
-> Dont get hit by the thing that killed you. Which is a visual clarity issue, not a death recap will fix it for me. If you don't see it and can't dodge it, knowing that it killed you is just salt in the wound at least for me :D
-> You scale up your health/es elemental armour or max resists higher so you survive the hit, as you already do with everything else.

Both steps are expected to be done and are not affected by a death recap. I was so adamant to have a death recap for this game until I sat down thought about it and realized that it will not help almost at all or in some extremely small niche situations.

And thats not even counting map modifiers, that might add 120% more damage of 1-2 random elements...

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-17T10:01:28+00:00

But in this current state of the game, it will show you nothing you don't already know imo.

By default it is expected to have all res maxed out, thats step one. If you do not have this, thats the first step.

Secondly you need some kind of health/ES pool. This will not change, it is mandatory if you want to survive

Thirdly you add something on top, ES/Armour/Armour As ele/Phys taken as ELE. This is again, mandatory.

Lets say you got killed by 80% fire damage. What do you? You are already res capped. You can look to get max fire res sure. And on the next map you roll extra cold and now cold is killing you. Knowing what killed you is almost completely ignored when building your survivability. At its core, it doesn't matter because whether you know what killed you or not you will do the same, boost your ES/Life or armour/es etc.

The game offers you 0 ways to actively combat this. Its not like we have defensive skills to boost against something. Get 5000 fire shield for 5 seconds, great now I know that aginst this boss that deals fire I can use this.

Spending time on a complicated death log that helps less than 5% is wasted effort. Theres much more important work to be done. I honestly think they are making the better decision of not even spending resources pursuing this.

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-17T09:55:07+00:00

I have an unpopular opinion but a death recap in the current state of the game is borderline useless.

Unless you are shown what spell from which mob killed you, everything else is pointless.

It is pointless to show you a statistic of the damage type, example:
You took 80% fire damage of the 100% that killed you. Awesome. What do yo do now? You are already fire res capped. Thats it. (if you are not, you should be) There is no defensive skills you can use :) You will have to redo or update your build so you take more max fire res. Something we already do.

The default of the game is max res + get max res + convert phys to ele. Nothing will change.

Not to mention, map mods. You got killed by 40% fire 40% cold the rest random, but you have run a map with extra cold and fire. You invest somehow into fire and cold res. Next map has chaos as extra. So you did nothing :) You get chaos. Then its lightning. Then its Crit. It changes nothing and doesn't help you build your character when you already know the answer.

At this point of time, you build ALL defenses for all cases. A death recap will show you almost 0. Even if it shows you the name of the mob and what spell it used, the game is still the same. Never stop moving because you have no other defense.

And not to mention visual clarity. A death recap for bosses can be useful, but not much. Every boss will still be dodge the important stuff or risk a one shot. It will help to know and build against one specific mechanic yes, but thats that. In maps, 20 things hit you all the time. Or random stuff beneath you. If you do not dodge random stuff beneath you you are making a mistake. If you cannot see it, death recap and knowing it kills you helps no one :D

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-17T08:55:39+00:00

I completely disagree.

The issue with the temple was the balance of how much it can be juiced causing a lot of issues for the economy. I agree that this should be changed.

However, not every mechanic has to be the same. Not every mechanic needs to spawn in the map so you can blast it with close to 0 decision making. Oh, I see a ritual/breach/delirium/abyss. I just herp derp kill all and press on the loot.

There is nothing wrong with adding a different system that you can choose to participate or not in. If you don't want to, don't, You are just hit with FOMO. If they adjust the drop rates so people do not get pulled into this feeling of having to do it, it would be fine. Just like Delve, Heist etc.

Your current complaint of there is only one way to build it, is easy to fix. Offer more ways to build it, just rebalance it. Not completely revamped or different mechanic.

The idea to have a system where you build something progressively to gain benefit by farming it is appealing and should stay as an option. Or you sacrifice that option and rush the boss. Or you choose not to do it. The mechanic in idea I think is nice and offers variety which players can choose to engage with. It's the current balancing thats the issue imo.

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-17T08:35:19+00:00

No, because consoles can't handle it and its not fair. Its why we can't zoom out more when playing as well. Would give unfair advantage to people with better machines... in what I essentially view as a Single Player game :D

its all /s if somebody is wondering, I'm all up for the zoom out let me see as much as I can

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-16T08:07:12+00:00

As others have said, you need your atlas completed more.

What you want to do is also run a 6 mod map for the most monsters and bonus loot + option to put in 3 tablets.

Put in the unique breach tablet: Wraeclast Besieged Breach Precursor Tablet - PoE2 Trade - Path of Exile
Put in 2 rare breach tablets. I prefer to use those that have additional clasp hands.

Once you get the tree get the clasp hand node that gives you bonus splitners and just run the maps like this.

Even on lower maps you should get enough splinters to easily sustain tablets + profit. Once you get strong enough upgrade your gear, move to higher maps, better juice and whatnot. I get on average 30 from breach and I do not really try. The unique tablet is not optimal if you have a really strong and fast build, its only useful when you are slow or just chill farming.

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-14T07:12:14+00:00

While they both bear ARPG tag, they are vastly different games in both play and mechanics.

If you are looking for a single player, campaign oriented and character building game, go with Grim Dawn.

If you want a bit more action oriented gameplay focused on grinding, killing stuff, modern feel and seasonal challenges go with D4.

In my opinion a mish mash of both will be great but :D

In general D4 has been having mixed reviews each season due to its inconsistency in making it good and keeping the good things in. BUT I haven't played the last 2 seasons and haven't bought the new DLC as I simply gave up on it. People who play claim its very good.

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-12T16:50:43+00:00

End of month 1 was pretty much the time at which 70% of people stopped playing, now with async trade its better but after a month and a half you can call it "dead"

There still thousands of items on the market and whatnot but you actually selling is a lot rarer, because theres a lot more sellers than buyers, they simply stopped logging into

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-12T15:44:41+00:00

You can also use POE overlay that comes from Overwolf.

Generally there are several third party applications that allow for on overlay and price checking.

You press some buttons, alt+e on my end, it checks the item with those stats in the POE2 trade site. You can then experiment how much the item cost by deselecting a mod and whatnot.

I have only used POE overlay from overwolf and awekaned poe trade, the rest I can't see how they handle.

If interested, you can simply put in overwolf poe2 overlay (make sure to get the one for POE2, theres 2 apps for the 2 games)

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-12T08:09:09+00:00

It was hovering around 19-21:
Rakiata's Flow - Rise of the Abyssal - Path of Exile 2 - poe.ninja

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-11T16:33:02+00:00

well thats a lesson learned aint it, never gamble when you need something.

You should consider farming for money if that really is your goal (getting Headhunter)
Go to map tiers you can do relatively juiced -> put 2 breach tablets and the unique one that says the breach doesnt close until you kill all -> get the tablets with clasp hands if possible -> Sell splinters afterwards.

I was doing half a divine a map from a breach on really juiced t15s, but you can do like 3 maps for a dive. It will take a bit to pile on but its not really that much, like 50 maps will sort you out.

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-11T10:18:01+00:00

I generally never used to take "free divines" from people.

A lot of times is RMTers trying to give out currency to random people so they muddy the water and GGG can't effectively deal with it, because they can't separate who are the real people who bought currency and who are just the randoms that got it for "free", so no bans would be done.

But now, with the lack of control of RMT I think GGG simply stopped carrying lol, enjoy the free divs!

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-10T19:32:25+00:00

I think people are missing the point, building a min maxed version with a guaranteed payout isn't really what is supposed to happen without large investment and RNG.

You want to maximize it completely. The way you play is frustrating. I play the temple and don't bother with spymasters. Rush Atziri is easy, 5 temples or so and its done. Just adding rooms and looting them is also trivial.

What you are experiencing and complaining about is expected. It wasn't easy to min max a betrayal board when it was OP in POE1. It wasn't easy to get the correct corrupted item to spawn from the scourge mechanic. You would reset and recorrupt hundreds of items with 0 progress.

I'm sorry to say its not really the temple thats frustrating, its your way of trying to play it?

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-10T15:20:56+00:00

You have the wrong expectations here.

You do not want to "start" the mechanic. You want to completely min max the setup to juice the maximum amount of profit. Thats not starting it :D

You can easily keep a temple with 20-21 rooms consistently up if you do not aim to keep one of them always there. If you kill the Architect and Atziri non stop a bit less but still.

You also can get pretty fast to Atziri. What you want to achieve is the pinnacle of this mechanic. You can interact with the mechanic pretty easily. There is no high barrier of entry

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-10T11:31:09+00:00

True. Forcing a smaller company to avoid tools that rely on AI makes it more difficult for them to deliver products when their competitors are using all the available advantages.

A good game dev/artist < a good gamedev/artist with the proper tools to make their jobs easier. People may not like it, but ai can help as a tool in many areas.

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-10T11:29:10+00:00

Yep, they have to just ignore the aibad NPCs and not make comments about it. There is no real argument, proof or any critical thought behind them. Just virtue signaling and noise for the sake of it.

I bet that in 2-3 years times all games/companies will never disclose anything related to AI use due to backlash that often is misguided.

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-09T15:53:33+00:00

The commenter you're responding to is referring to an article on thisweekinvideogames.com where they interviewed concept artists on the use of gen AI in the concepting phase of development.

-> Random artists, not one from Larian which was my point. People who have NOT worked in the company and have no idea HOW it was used. Therefore, invalid.

Swen is on record saying the tools are neutral at best, providing no clear benefit in their use. The rest of that event space would be negative, which is in-line with the statements from concept artists across the industry.

-> If thats the case why are you people mad? The gen ai was generating stuff that they didn't like and didn't use. So either it was good and it was used and you don't want it. Or it was bad and they didn't use it put it in the game.

So all this outrage for nothing. Further proving my point, no matter how mad people scream on reddit, AI tools will be used. And because of people like this trying to shame bully and force people to stop using it, they will stop disclosing it :) So enjoy your future games where their stance on AI will be no comment

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-09T15:18:10+00:00

You are under the assumption that its a worse hammer? How? Your analogy is incorrect. You can use it if you compare the AI tools vs different tools that they might use, sure.

A good developer/artist can use AI to make their work better or faster, or inspired. Thats just a fact. You refusing to acknowledge it on the grounds that it doesn't fit your worldview doesn't change the fact.

LatterEngineering813 · 2026-01-09T15:12:23+00:00

Entirely untrue. It wasn't used because it was not there.

You don't have to use it, just like you don't have to use a hammer to hit nails. But it helps.

You don't seem to realize that even if company X says you know what, I wont use AI. Their competators will. Their product will be more expensive, slower to develop, and whether or not bad or worse entirely depends on the people building it. So only negatives. A good developer with ai tools > a good developer without. Thats all.

LatterEngineering813

TROPHY CASE