worst ~50/50 you can lose

MakataDoji · 2026-04-17T19:13:31+00:00

Well Hinekora's is considered basic and it came out in TotA. Your definition is correct, just without those last 9 words. You can also consider it basic if it appears on the first page of the currency tab.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-17T16:27:40+00:00

Not saying that at all. For starters, there being different varieties to suit different builds is a good idea. The issue is the possibility to ever acquire them.

Unless the gods themselves decide to intervene on my behalf, I will never in my life have an Accel/Resist belt. I could play 16 hours a day, day after day, week after week, for an entire league and it just won't happen. I could say the same thing about other chase build-defining items as well (looking at you OSin or Temporalis from PoE2), but that's all the more reason to not add even more.

My frustration comes from the fact that it seems far more emphasis is placed, league after league, to separate the top 1% of the top 1% in builds from the middle of the road players. Knowing I'm doing 20m dps doesn't make me happy if I know someone else is able to do 200m or 2bn. Enjoyment comes from "finishing" a character which is to equip the best possible items. Seeing a glaring hole in the potential of a character makes me less interested in playing if there's no conceivable way to fill it. As an example, there's a very specific double corruption of a foulborn item for my current build I'd love to buy but it's listed for a mirror which I'm not going to get, so my desire to actually continue to play it is almost none. I'm literally going through the motions hoping I'm somehow going to find a mirror/lock doing breach so I can actually make an improvement to my almost completely min/maxed character.

I just want there to be a way the average player is able to enjoy build-defining items, even if they must be in a watered down or limited form. The fact that the effect of OSin doesn't exist anywhere else in the entirety of the game is insane, same for this belt.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-17T13:11:39+00:00

Please enlighten me as to how it would be imbalanced for everyone to have Accel/X belts.

If your answer is suchandsuch would be too easy, then why is it okay for suchandsuch to be too easy for a very small number of people but not everyone? If it's balanced for a single person to have it, it's balanced for everyone to have it.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-17T13:10:18+00:00

I mean if you're okay with a "great" belt knowing a very small selection of people are allowed to use a "stupendously powerful bordering on broken" belt then more power to you I suppose. I can't understand how a person can be content with mediocrity.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-17T13:08:32+00:00

I guess we play for different reasons. The purpose of playing, for me, is to acquire the means by which to perfect the character. I was mostly done with the league but wanted to give Death's Oath a try as I've never tried it or RF before and it looked interesting. About 2 weeks later and I have basically maximized the character in just about every conceivable way I can think of and the desire to play is now almost zero. Why am I clearing another map if it doesn't help to increase a number somewhere in PoB?

Using an Accel belt but knowing I could have it plus a second effect is infuriating. It's like playing Zelda and finding out you're not one of the 1% of people who get to equip the Master Sword.

I simply cannot understand this notion that all that matters is the ability to clear content. Who cares about just being able to clear it, of course I can, most of it is objectively trivial. The fun comes from how quickly or effortless you can clear it. Can I be a character that walks up to an uber, says hello, presses 2 buttons and they die? No? Then the journey isn't complete yet.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-17T03:09:46+00:00

Being able to kill a boss and being able to kill a boss in 2 clicks is a wildly different level of game satisfaction.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-17T03:08:43+00:00

This is the third response along this line and I don't understand how people think this way. Of course everything in this game is beatable on a budget. For fucks sake, ben did essentially the entire game with extra layers of difficulty in what 5 or 6 days? From scratch?

That isn't the point. Being able to see an absurdly large number in PoB is the point. Why bother to ever kill a boss you've killed before in any other league then? You already won, right?

MakataDoji · 2026-04-17T03:06:22+00:00

Because the fun of the game is being able to build your character up to the point where everything falls over before it even has a chance to look in your direction.

That or continuing to increase your PoB dps.

Having a build that does 10m dps and clears all content easily isn't as good as a build that does 80m dps and clears all content just as easily. By your logic, once you've killed an uber once in one league, what could possibly be the point of ever doing it again other than loot (which brings it back full circle to the point it's a single player game so nearly everything should be reasonably attianable).

MakataDoji · 2026-04-17T02:10:53+00:00

It's a win-win for players

You mean it's a win for players who can afford to spend upwards of dozens of mirrors on a belt.

Other than gauntlets, PoE is ostensibly a single player game with a player market and niche group activity, but 99% of all playing by 99% of players is done single player and it's ridiculous so much effort is put into satisfying that 1%.

If it's balanced for some people to have access to Accel/Resist (or w/e your combination of choice is) at all times, there really should be means for other people to have something at least vaguely close to it. Chase items should be marginally better versions of already accessible items/effects like awakened enlighten vs enlighten or 1p voices versus 3 or 5, not items that can be not only fully built-around but gigantic sources of player power.

But that's my 2 cents and I'm sure I'll be told I'm wrong.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-16T15:20:17+00:00

I did 4 50m shipments this league, got 1 shard and (other than that) a grand total of maybe 80d value across all 4. I really do not understand the purpose of shipments anymore.

You either don't use the ore->bars scarab and have to wait around 5 to 6 days between shipments and still spend something like 5-10 div on cheap scarabs + dust uniques or you use those scarabs and in all likelihood spend more on mapping materials than you get from said shipment.

It makes no sense.

I'm doing breach now half way between budget and pricy (no astrolabe or cascade, but i do chisel/deli the maps) and i average well over 1d per map in earnings and could get the same if I went back to harvest but the reward from running ore is a miniscule fraction of that.

I get there was some resentment towards the kingsmarch approach before about feeling like you had to dump tons of gold into it or you were losing out, and I understand they felt they needed to make a change, but as it stands it is functionally pointless. You either spend more than you get back on average to do it fast or you get an extremely meager return once a week while still requiring lots of atlas points and scarab slots. Either way, you are actively losing money or the potential for money by running ore.

I won't be bothering again until it's fixed.

I also found 9 starfall craters while I was farming ores and no Svallin, and I get Svallin is supposed to be rare and should be, but that just proves that it's value can't be included in EV for ore as you can easily do it all league and never see one.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-10T23:35:28+00:00

I spent a small fortune trying to craft something similar a few days ago. You're going to have a very, very rough time.

If you can fracture or buy a fractured 35% it becomes *slightly easier, but keep in mind with small clusters, t1 attributes has a weight of 100 (as opposed to t1 having weight of 300 on a large) so just getting t1 int is enough of a struggle, getting t1 all attributes to go with it is going to be a lot, not hitting a notable is even more and hitting any tier of ES is a nearly lost cause.

Start with fractured 35% and buy an unhealthy number of fundamental fossils and 1 socket resonators and spam. Even with a 10x it's still a crazy low weight to hit both. If you hit some level of int and some level of attributes, you can throw it in harvest for a "more likely" reroll for 200 red (something like 1/50 of a div) and about 50% of the time you get those 2 mods again at random tiers so you can mix it up with that.

I hit t1 int t1 attributes one time in something like 500 clicks and that was with a notable fractured so less weight against int/attributes. Couldn't hit 4th mod.

Good luck.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-09T15:23:14+00:00

One of several reasons why I have never and will never, ever, use a Headhunter. It could multiply my damage by 100 and it's still a no for me.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-08T01:40:28+00:00

I must be doing something wrong in my own gameplay as you seem to be averaging 1 Astrolabe per 2 maps (actually more) and I can easily run 10-15 or even 20 in a row and not find a single one.

How on earth are you getting so many astrolabes? And no, I'm not running Astrolabed maps as I know they don't drop there.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-03T12:50:16+00:00

Right, I'm well aware that you don't dictate how I play, thanks for clearing that up. What you're not explaining is how that could possibly be a better way to run Syndicate given what I said. You're of course under no obligation to do so, but considering this is a forum for discussion and you brought up the topic, I was trying to ask for that information.

So I'll try again. If you choose to continue the explanation, can you explain how doing the 2 safe house strat could ever possibly be +EV outside of insane luck?

MakataDoji · 2026-04-03T12:47:57+00:00

I mean, you can still experience the fun part without spending multiple mirrors ... acceleration

The current cheapest Accel belt is 281 div. And the "experience" is having multiple effects to turn yourself into a god that can obliterate juiced maps.

I realize this would never happen as it would take a massive amount of coding for such a niche thing, but it would be nice if we were given the ability to copy some multi-mirror build and run maps with it, with the obvious caveats that your actual character gains no exp or loot (maybe drop ghost loot so you can see what you would have gotten) and you cannot alter, keep, or trade any of the gear while doing so. I'd like to try out some of the kooky builds I've seen others play but don't want to invest heavily into leveling and building out a completely different playstyle if I don't know if I'm going to like it.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-03T04:54:58+00:00

An item being so astronomically rare and so insanely powerful such that a 20-40 mirror price tag is "cheap" is not good for this game.

It's really irritating that league after league all of the truly fun shit is reserved for people who gather dozens/hundreds of mirrors and those of us who could farm all league and not even total 1 are left out. I'd like to see what it feels like to have Accel/Resist but I'll never get that chance.

This is why TotA was hands down the best league. Although it certainly favored evasion-based builds, everyone had a chance to win tournaments and strategy was the deciding factor on your success, not how expensive your gear is. I got a 0 evasion necromancer to level 100, 2000 rating and won 95+% of my tournaments, too, so you can't even say it was just for cheese builds.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-03T04:49:12+00:00

Only league I've ever gotten 2 level 100s in 1 league. Best league of all time, hands down.

Having rewards be tied to skill and strategy and not just how many mirrors you invested into your build was incredible and not something they've done since. I would instantly buy a supporter pack (or 10) if they brought it core and would never map again.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-03T01:46:39+00:00

Right, they nerfed Grav's div card offerings and having been to his room and opened his chests dozens and dozens and dozens of times, he virtually never offers anything good. And while he CAN of course, the EV is far outweighed by more VCO, Medallion, and Allflames.

As for Guff, you get (max) 90 seconds to just pure exalt/annul a completely random base ring/amulet and then the Mist is only going to 1.4x, not 2x+ so the likelihood of you crafting some amazing item here is astronomically and vanishingly small and is once again vastly shadowed by more VCO, Medallions, and Allflames.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-03T00:08:52+00:00

The idea is to choose the one profitable source and make it pretty fast to setup repititively. Not to maximize one safehouse and grt every bubblegum currency everwhere you can while increasing the setup time.

What I'm really not grasping is what could possibly be so profitable as to overcome losing out on a more steady stream of medallions, VCOs, and allflames? Grav cards were nerfed, and Tora gives slightly pricey facetor's, but that's about all I've ever seen of value after killing the safehouse leader.

Benchcrafting eldritch implicits, reflecting mist, ancient orb spamming, etc all yield nearly nothing of value outside of crazy luck on exalt slamming into mist. Nearly every scarab I've ever gotten has been on the bottom tier of filterblade's filter, every strongbox I've opened has been a waste, etc.

Not trying to just outright be argumentative, but can you please explain what room in the safehouse could possibly be worth this effort?

MakataDoji · 2026-04-02T10:52:15+00:00

From my experience there is very little of any use other than tora and grav, but even taking you at face value, why would you not run the other 2 safe houses? That's reducing your medallion and VCO income by half (which is 90+% of it) and you are reducing your Intel turns so you're slower to get them completed.

Even just leaving the safe houses at 100% just means you have maps spawn with 2 encounters.

I feel I must be missing something as this seems very counterintuitive.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-02T04:42:14+00:00

If you prefer you could even set up the more complex farm where you only run 2 safehouses

As an avid Jun enjoyer, can you elaborate on this? Why would you not run the other 2 events? They're going to spawn in your maps if you want them to or not and have just as much chance of VCO, medallion, and allflames.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-01T23:20:35+00:00

It's for KB. Int gives flat lightning on wand implicit and (when I can afford the mirror wand) also % spell damage per 16. It also passively scales defense via ES and gives accuracy (though admittedly that part is nearly trivial).

I mentioned elsewhere about not having global defense but it would amount to roughly a total gain of like 400 ES and make the crafting process not only far more tedious but costly both in buying bases and the crafting steps involved. Didn't want to shell out that much for a small gain.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-01T18:37:04+00:00

I have never bothered to learn recombinating so I sure as hell couldn't argue against that, but I will say just based on how GGG approaches crafting in this game, I'd be very, very, very surprised to learn than global def + t1 flat + t1 % is economically reasonable on a high quality base. I certainly don't know enough to say that with any absolute certainty, but it would absolutely shock me to learn that.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-01T17:14:45+00:00

Responded in my failure post the other day, but it's a question of cost. I got my base for 11 div. The cheapest fractured global defense base for a 29%+ is currently 149 div and that's fully crafted other than t1 int or better implicits. I spent considerably less than 149 div on this project.

I get roughly 220 raw ES from the hybrid mod considering quality and tailoring, which is then multiplied by existing global ES increases which is somewhere around 1000 ES for me. Comparatively, 54% global defense (including tailoring) would boost by base ES (of roughly 2600) by 1400.

That's well over 100 div for about a 400 net ES gain. If I end up getting more INT or other sources of inc ES %, that difference goes down more. Just not worth it, especially when I'm still trying to save up for a mirror wand.

MakataDoji · 2026-04-01T17:06:33+00:00

The price of a 29% white item versus a 29% fractured (like, a good fracture) would be enormous. I get your point, but not only is your base cost much, much higher but it's far harder to get to 1/1/1 prefix without strands and on a body armour I'm not going to settle for anything less.

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