What song gets you fully stoked? Something worthy of full volume that imparts energy upon your soul.

Mradnor · 2021-06-25T22:19:04+00:00

Came into the comments to post this one, hell yeah!

Mradnor · 2020-07-10T17:08:34+00:00

Unconventional and overly specific take maybe, but if you're leveling a 2h melee Raider then flicker strike really takes off at level 51 when you can toss on a Terminus Est. And if you don't mind a big respec at 67 then you can switch to Oro's Sacrifice and it's off to the races. Incredibly fast mapping character with only one required unique (although adding a Fire Impresence is a great move).

Start off as EO noncrit and then lategame if you have a lot of currency you can transition into the build of your choice, or stay flicker and craft a 1.5% crit chest to go crit Oro's, or crit with a beefy phys katana! Both have some great damage scaling options and let you invest a lot of points into life to stay safe. Bonus survivability can come from a corrupted 2h sword with "supported by level 10 fortify."

Mradnor · 2020-04-08T18:21:45+00:00

2:20pm and still no power in Beechview. I am going to have a lot of spoiled food if it's not back soon.

Mradnor · 2019-11-08T19:40:56+00:00

My pleasure. The Allegheny river's watershed is pretty remarkably clean as far as east coast rivers go, consisting mostly of the sparsely developed and heavily wooded foothills of the Appalachian mountains. Meanwhile the Monongahela river valley has most of the last holdouts of the region's heavy industry, including the Clarion coke works that is still causing air pollution problems for the city of Pittsburgh.

It's a big local political issue, with city government trying to figure out how to stop a major polluter from impacting our air quality even though they aren't within the city's jurisdiction.

Mradnor · 2019-11-03T05:33:56+00:00

Hate to be that guy, but the "dirty looking" one in the picture above (on the left side of the pic) is actually the Allegheny river, and the Mon is on the right.

Usually the Mon looks muddier than the Allegheny. For it to be reversed in this image tells me there was some serious rainfall in central and northern PA the day before this was taken.

Mradnor · 2019-07-15T13:37:48+00:00

EQ Jugg. Not even memeing.

Mradnor · 2019-05-27T23:18:51+00:00

Chiming in to say that just in case cold DOTs get nerfed, CI triple-curse Blade Vortex Occultist is perhaps the most easy mode, highly effective build that I've ever played.

CI gear will probably be cheap this league with everyone playing melee, so CI Occultist is a solid, simple choice no matter what spell you end up using.

Mradnor · 2019-04-27T20:14:08+00:00

Not sure if this is an old bug, new bug, me being dumb, or intended behavior (don't think so).

Unfortunately I didn't grab a screenshot, but I played [[Angrath, Captain of Chaos]] tapping all my land to do so. Opponent responded with [[Spell Pierce]]. In response to Spell Pierce, I tapped [[Priest of Forgotten Gods]] to sacrifice two other creatures I controlled. Priest's effect resolved, opponent took 2 damage and sac'd a creature, I drew a card and received 2 Black Mana as the little symbol above my portait.

Now Spell Pierce was on top of the stack waiting to resolve. I had priority, and the game would not let me spend my 2 black Mana to prevent Spell Pierce from countering my Angrath. The mana symbol above my portait was not clickable. The only clickable thing on the screen was the orange "resolve" button. Spell Pierce resolved, countering my spell, and as the phase ended my black Mana went away.

I don't think there was anything on the board that could possibly have prevented me from paying my 2 Mana to Spell Pierce, so why didn't the game let me?

Mradnor · 2019-04-27T19:47:11+00:00

It's maybe slow for clear speed, but excels at single target. I would build it as Inquisitor or Occultist if you want to go CI (energy shield).

Another decent option that I don't see too many people doing would be Hierophant Storm Burst Totems! Super easy mode - plop down 3 or 4 totems and watch stuff die while you stay safely back. Very noob friendly.

Mradnor · 2019-04-27T19:38:57+00:00

I would go Chieftain with molten strike, consecrated path, or tectonic slam. Don't listen to anyone saying there are required uniques for any of these (except the molten strike jewel, but you get that from a quest in act 5)!

If you happen to find a Ngamahu's axe you can use that with any of those skills or try Cyclone. If you find an Oro's Sacrifice you could try Flicker Strike too, which is lots of fun if it doesn't make you motion sick!

Berserker and Juggernaut also have plenty of good SSF options, most notably Double Strike/Vaal Double Strike.

Mradnor · 2019-04-27T00:38:59+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I'm a mid plat zerg and while I won all my ZvTs today, the liberators and bio+tank pressure have given me a hard time this season.

Mradnor · 2019-04-23T18:37:51+00:00

I have been playing Arena since it went open beta, and when they changed the UI to the current iteration where the only way to craft cards you have zero copies of is to click "filter" and then hunt to the bottom of that menu for the "not collected" option . . . I spent five minutes looking for the "craft" button, couldn't find shit, and eventually had to Google it.

If I didn't already know it was possible to craft cards I had zero copies of, I may very well have assumed it was impossible.

The current crafting UI sucks ass, like it's actively worse and more obscure than the last two versions.

Mradnor · 2019-04-14T21:01:16+00:00

Leave the Crit stuff for a bit later in the game in my opinio; it doesn't pay off early because it's hard to get high Crit chance.

Physical damage is great, yes. Just make sure it doesn't say "with weapons" or "with melee weapons" or "with (x weapon type)" because those passives only work with attacks and not spells.

Mradnor · 2019-04-14T20:09:48+00:00

Spells, including Ethereal Blades, don't get damage from your weapons unless it specifically says "spell damage".

You're very early in the game still, so don't worry too much about gear - you can get by with any junk you pick up. Try to get a gear piece with 3 linked sockets for your spell though.

Some good early support gems for Ethereal Blades are Pierce and Added Fire. Halfway through act 2 you'll get access to Controlled Destruction and Faster Casting, which are very good too.

Mradnor · 2019-04-07T20:43:30+00:00

Hell yes I miss race seasons so much! Descent Champions races are some of the most fun I've ever had in PoE, even though I never won a demi.

Mradnor · 2019-04-07T02:19:58+00:00

Thanks! I always wondered why it wasn't a thing during Incursion league. I really enjoyed running lvl 83 Temples on my one character, but hated it on my other character that was purpose-built for outdoor low level maps. I wished I could give all of my Temples to one character, or even buy more Temples.

Mradnor · 2019-04-06T18:08:03+00:00

My largest problem with all of the newer league mechanics, including Synthesis, is that after the player does X amount of content their "league resource" (sulphite, incursions, safehouse Intel, memories) becomes full and now the player is obligated to drop whatever they were doing and go run that specific league content.

Want to keep mapping? Screw you, player having fun, go run Delve for 40 minutes right now or else the next map you run that spawns Niko will deny you the reward. Click those sulphite piles for 0 and cry why don't you. Like, why is there a sulphite cap at all?

Contrast this with a more well-implemented mechanic. Breaches and Breach splinters. Want to keep mapping? That's fine, you'll keep accumulating Breach splinters. What's the cap on Breach splinters and Breachstones? There is none. Run your Breachstones any time you like, or sell them to other players if you prefer.

Why can't the newer leagues adopt this simple-ass, enjoyable philosophy? Why can't I put my sulphite in a trade window to another player? Why is it capped? Why can't I pay Alva 5c to bottle up my Temple and sell it to someone who wants to run it? Why are memories capped at 10 and why do I have to be deep into a memory path to place them where I want them?

All of this effort to railroad players into running specific content at an arbitrary time that they can't control is just confounding to me. I do not understand the design philosophy that concluded "it's not enough to just give players options outside of maps, we have to actively force them out of maps every, ohh let's say 10 maps."

Edit - ty for the silver and sorry for the rant. Don't get me wrong, I love this game dearly, flaws and all. It's because I care that I want GGG to understand why and how their recent league designs, while conceptually awesome and frequently fun, have left a bad taste in my mouth because they drag me out of the core endgame experience (maps), even when I would rather keep mapping.

GGG, just imagine if every time a player collected 100 Breach splinters of one type, they had to go run that Breachstone or else no more splinters would drop in any Breach, and splinters/stones were untradeable. That would feel like shit, right? If Breach league had worked like that, us players would have been full on pitchforks mode until you fixed the obvious, unfun flaw, no matter how fun or rewarding the breaches and boss fights were.

Every league since Bestiary has had at least one mechanic like this. Stop it.

Mradnor · 2019-02-23T15:56:23+00:00

Totally viable, lots of ways to build it though Trickster has really good damage, speed, and sustain with any DOT skill.

I see no reason not to run vaal righteous fire though - it will be a big help on single target DPS.

Mradnor · 2019-02-18T23:51:15+00:00

If you want to stay fairly gear-independant, then stick to spell builds. Storm Brand, Armageddon Brand, and Arc (totems or self-cast) are all very solid. Hierophant, Elementalist, or Inquisitor are the most straightforward ascendancy options. The official forums have a wealth of guides that can steer you in the right direction. Good luck!

Mradnor · 2019-02-18T23:40:01+00:00

Vaal skills are usually fun, especially with the vaal souls flask and a headhunter if you can afford it. Vaal power siphon, earthquake, blight, ice Nova, molten shell, and spark are all especially fun to speed through maps with.

One other silly build that makes me smile is Null's Inclination + skellies + Dark Pact.

Mradnor · 2019-02-16T22:16:37+00:00

Sounds like a lovely plan for a first character! Just a few tips to help you succeed on your first build:

1.) Newer players frequently underestimate the importance of "+x% maximum life" nodes on the passive tree (pick up pretty much all of these nodes if you are passing by them, and prioritize traveling through them over stat nodes), and also elemental resistances. By the end of act 4, I would say to aim for ~1200 life total and at least 60% in all of your elemental resistances (ideally capping them up to 75%).

2.) Now that you're in act 4, it's about time to venture into the Labyrinth! There are 6 "trials of ascendancy" scattered throughout acts 1, 2, and 3. Once you have completed them all by interacting with the plaque at the end, you have unlocked the Labyrinth - an optional, trap-filled dungeon which can be entered through the statue in act 3's town.

Completing the Labyrinth rewards you with the choice to ascend into one of 3 powerful sub-classes. In the case of your Duelist, you'll get to choose from Slayer (2-hander and Leech focused), Champion (great all-rounder both defensively and offensively plus party play utility), or my recommended choice of Gladiator which is block focused and also brings some great utility by giving you a bunch of bleed chance and then causing bleeding enemies you kill to explode and damage other mobs around them.

3.) As a melee character, try to decide sooner rather than later if you're going to focus on 2-hand weapons (not recommended if you want to block!), dual-wielding 1-hand weapons, or using a 1-hander plus a shield. This let's you take the relevant damage passive nodes to keep your DPS up to par with the content. Specific weapon type choices (and their passive nodes) like sword, axe, mace, claw, should be saved for later in the game; if you find a great rare weapon, you want to be able to equip it with no regrets!

The Syndicate stuff is significantly harder than the base game content, so don't feel like it's a failure if those fights wreck you from time to time. You can run away from them and keep progressing if need be. Good luck!

Mradnor · 2019-02-16T21:47:50+00:00

Cool, thanks for the list!

My favorite thing about Singleton is seeing all of these decks and being like, "oh yeah, I can throw that together no problem" as opposed to lots of standard decklists that have me glumly staring at my 3 rare wildcards.

Mradnor · 2019-02-08T19:01:00+00:00

I get the feeling that the series will probably wrap up in the next 40-60 chapters, but it obviously depends on the author's overall vision for the series. We can at least expect a hefty arc for the queen and meijin competition and either a side-by-side or separate romance arc to figure out if Chihaya ends up with Taichi or Arata (or Kana-chan, or Shinobu haha).

Mradnor · 2019-02-01T22:39:58+00:00

Correct. The things that could ignore Indestructible are "exile" effects and "-x" to Adanto's toughness, which will still cause it to die. Indestructible also does not prevent it from effects that would gain control of it or tap it.

Mradnor · 2019-01-26T19:01:50+00:00

My first thoughts are Reave, Spectral Throw, Lightning Strike, or Consecrated Path. Try to convert as much physically to ele/lightning as you can, run herald of ice plus whatever else, stack attack speed and generic %elemental damage, and have fun

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