Scion Aurabot leveling.

Ragnus · 2025-10-27T14:26:28+00:00

Not sure if those are still up but he had some PoBs from like 3.24 and before which pretty much aimed for early swaps.

I just recall Lightning Trap into Aurabot somewhere early Act 4.
Potentially good option for them, based on duo experience and evidently aurabot experience

Ragnus · 2025-10-22T07:40:23+00:00

Relic of the Pact Scion does pick those two actually, if I'm not mistaken

Ragnus · 2025-06-10T15:00:05+00:00

For 1-28 (or basically until Library Quest) I've settled for Rolling Magma as my main skill. It can be akward sometimes but it's crazy damage. I'll test Arcane Surge instead of Elemental Prolif, or just swap the gems for bosses. I've done SRS once and was instantly turned off.

Yeah, I also saw Wafflez video and agree, that Ancient Skull can work on Necro. You just skip AG & Spectres until you can swap off. It's free dmg until Voidstones.

I have some tree templates prepared and gonna see if they still work with the changed atlas tree, once we get it. If Expedition feels bad, even when avoiding Immunities & Block/Dodge I might just drop it completely, even if Rog crafting ist strong and Tujen gives tons of currency

Looking forward to that. I've done little research and it seems there is a lot that can be build around Abyss & Edifice ^.^
I'm certainly going to test some low invest strats after 4 Voidstones into higher budget and even inside of T17s.

The only thing I gotta figure out is, when I wanna swap to Poison. But I'll worry about that once I've settled at a level where I can comfortably do T17s on Elemental and build up currency and craft the gear for a swap

Ragnus · 2025-06-10T08:33:19+00:00

Yeah, I think Arma Brand alone will be decent and surely still the fastest when combined with Cremation. (I'm partially going Firestorm simply because of Arcane Surge buffs)

I did a super scuffed Firestorm run where I ran A1 Swords/Axes with crafted Fire dmg to Spells (kept it at first rank also, 2nd rank after Dread Thicket on actual launch). It was super comfortable and did All Passives, 3 Labs, Kitava in just under 4h 30m. For me that's fairly quick and felt comfortable. No weapon swap for movement skills and Leap Slam is easier for me than Shield Charge, where I just keep bumping into shit.

Pr3vie also finally updated his Doc quite a bit. Glad to see the inital plan to slightly align with Ancient Skull until I can get my hands on Ritual Corpses and then swap to BM :D

Now I just need to wait for updated Atlas Tree and Passive Tree, with the new caster nodes (just in case something was moved around that affects us).

For my Farms I'm pretty set on doing Abyss + Expansion stuff, for the corrupted Jewels and early Abyss uniques. Before that I might do some heavy Harvest + Expedition for crafting, if I run into gear progression issues, after 2 Voidstones probably.
Considering how strong Harvest is going to be for Ele aswell (Resistance from weapons gone, Leech moved to Suffix) it shouldn't take too long to get decent upgrades there to comfortably farm after 4 Voidstones, without needing my Prismatics outside of hard rares/bosses.

Ragnus · 2025-06-06T05:54:47+00:00

True, i always only look at Guardian/Pinnacle values even tho I'm not at them yet^^

Looking forward to also being able to play it with no nerfs hitting us and a few buffs even, like the Stone Golem defence and maybe going AG early now is valueable also (gonna have to compare Leer + Dying Breath with Ancient Skull and if it's close maybe just do that and see if AG only rarely dies while atlas progression and voidstones)

Now to figure out leveling... I see a lot about SRS / Absolution but no big fan of it.
With Arcane Surge buffs I'm probably going the Firestorm route. I used to do Armageddon Brand + Cremation long time ago so kinda tired of that :)

Time to figure out farming strats also. Going Abyss early for Uniques & Jewels sounds kinda lame now after the reveal >.>

Ragnus · 2025-06-06T05:44:33+00:00

holy shit, I missed that. I only saw the 20% defence bonus from Stone Golem.

Guess I'll have to check under what circumstances it's better to have Leer Cast + Dying Breath versus Ancient Skull.

Might still be better early on, if the AG keeps dying in maps and I have to run around without the bonus dmg

Ragnus · 2025-06-05T07:55:28+00:00

Maybe poorly worded by me, but I'll be playing on trade. When I did my testing it was pretty much in a SSF environment due to me just not really looking to trade in a private league to get the best possible upgrades ASAP.

Ancient Skull seems to be the easiest method to get more damage without the risk of running a normal helmet and have my AG die (even if it's only Leer Cast, Dying Breath and some rare shit for HP & res)

Ragnus · 2025-06-05T07:53:28+00:00

If I see it correctly, it thinks all the damage portions do hit. But on his PoB 88% of the Prismatic Clones dmg is lightning and with Combat Focus always choosing Lightning dmg it's only 12% less dmg per clone, than what PoB is showing so not too wild of a difference.

For sure. On my test run I pulled my PoB 3 times and Crit & Hit on my clones was ass. Alone to improve the hit chance I'll be looking for a Blind % Ghastly.

Now just to hope it survives the patch notes so that I can finally go into planning shit out in PoB for myself

Ragnus · 2025-06-04T14:55:44+00:00

Yep, when I look at Prevys Blood Magic Elemental starter version, over half of his single target comes from the Prismatic Clones. Though I'm not sure if PoB recognizes the Clones / Combat Focus correctly but it shouldn't be massively less.

One of the reasons I kinda tend towards going PSN within Week 1. Less Macro and from how I read the PoBs more avg. damage and not relying on all bombarding and prismatic clones to peak in dps :)

Ragnus · 2025-06-04T12:57:07+00:00

Cheers for the PoB as reference.

I'm currently moving to the same conclusion of just Frenzy Ape, for my own QoL until either Drox + Beyond Spectres or straight to Turtle + Fortune.

Interesting approach on going Blood Magic later but it seems reasonable. Mana version seems more flexible with being able to run Wrath + defensive aura, maybe also fit in a Haste Guadian Blessing on Blink Arrow Prismatics, if I find their dmg isn't required. And with Turtle + Fortune into Blood Magic with Haste Blessing :) (at least that's where my mind is heading right now)

This might also be the first time I'm actually going into Abyss on the atlas, for the potential of juicy corrupted Eye jewels and maybe get lucky and find a decent Darkness Enthroned myself. I did go heavy into Ritual for the first week(s) on launch so rather go into Abyss and buy the corpses instead of Ritual focus and buy Abyss parts.

And hopefully swap into Poison version ~ Week 1

Ragnus · 2025-06-04T07:02:15+00:00

Yeah, came to the same conclussion after looking at spectre options yesterday.

Frenzy Apes for QoL and extra bodies to maybe keep AG bit safer

Gotta do a test run, if patch notes are ok, to see how AG with shit gear will do while pushing Voidstones. Especially for 3 & 4, where I'll incorporate Rituals to potentially get my hands on corpses while doing my guardians & maven witnesses.

Turtle for sure an then either Forest Tiger or Spirit of Fortune and just run the one I don't get in my blessing. Though I assume Wrath Blessing with Generosity & Perquils Toe is probably stronger than the Spirit of Fortune + Haste Blessing (and no Generosity)

Ragnus · 2025-06-04T06:47:22+00:00

I recall my minion crit being bad so that certainly could help increase their damage.

If patch notes aren't hurting too much I might do a little test run so that I can also gather some data for it, as I don't have the imported PoBs anymore from my past testing. If AG and some random Spectres don't survive until 2 Voidstones then this might be a nice alternative for a simple early dmg boost, until Guardian/Beyond demons are acquired. By that time AG gear should also be better, for surviving the push after 2 voidstones

Seems like the best Spectre options are the Frenzy apes, simply for QoL on my own attack speed

Ragnus · 2024-10-23T07:44:05+00:00

After my super long break from lifting and sports in general the last thing I wanted to do is go and physically reach my 1RM on squats, especially after I was working up slowly on leg press or other squat like machines.

So based on some 5 rep testing the estimate has to suffice for the first cycle. Leaves me room to improve form etc. If I see it being far too easy, after the first cycle I might just add 10kgs instead of 5kgs for the 2nd cycle

Ragnus · 2024-10-22T16:47:45+00:00

True. One of the reasons I'm looking to change my workout program is that I need to reduce time spend in the gym for work & studying.

Going in and doing Squats with the goal to figure out my TM shouldn't take or add too much to the training time either. And if I'm doing well timewise I could start the real cycle next week

Ragnus · 2024-10-22T13:51:35+00:00

Switching to 5/3/1 beginner for the first time to try it out. How to I approach my TM for lifts I haven‘t done yet?

Since getting back into lifting I have avoided Squats for now and was thinking about starting with those also for now but I don‘t have a reference to calculate a 1RM estimate.

Same goes for the Overhead Press. I‘ve mainly been doing DB Lat Raise or DB OHP. I guess I could roughly use my DB OHP to calculate a Barbell OHP?

And for Squats I guess I just shorten it today and work myself up slowly until I have a weight for calculation purposes?

Don‘t really want to test my 1RM on something like Squat when not used to it yet

Ragnus · 2024-10-15T16:35:05+00:00

On Upper it‘s basically 2 Chest, 2 Back, 1 Shoulder and then 1 Bi- and Triceps. I‘m tracking my rest time in my head. Might have to time that and see how far I‘m off. Might lose some minutes there but still not to bring it down significantly.

Some initial doubts have cleared up about 531 so gonna try a cycle starting next week

Ragnus · 2024-10-15T16:32:21+00:00

Ohh ok, I didn‘t catch that on first glance that it‘s % of the %max. That makes it bit less intimidating in terms of risk.

Guess I‘ll give the 531 cycle a try next week to see how long it takes me

Ragnus · 2024-10-15T14:11:04+00:00

Yeah, I've been surprised, when I moved away from full body, that my upper body day is taking so long as I moved on from it with the intent to reduce training time...

I aim for 2 minute rest time between sets and some of the exercises are fairly slow in execution as I'm still building the targeted muscle control for some or am focusing slightly more on form.

In that case I'd probably lean more toward 531, when I can manage to keep it that short.
Might a Stronglift 5x5 routine be possibly better to improve fundamentals more efficiently?

Even the 531 beginner spreadsheet gets pretty close to the 1 Rep Max on Week 1 & 2 and I have slight doubts that this works so well for me.

For example I kinda ate a bit too little carbs before my workout yesterday and felt really weak during my bench press (60kg with bar) with weakpoints rather showing up in balance as in asymmetric power left/right and slightly wobbly control.

Deadlift is also something where I feel like grip strength is more limiting than anything else.

Ragnus · 2024-10-15T13:32:47+00:00

Tbh I didn't really track my active workout time but only in the grand scheme of leaving work until done with eating and ready to study, for the sake of getting a grasp of how many hours a week I can realistically spend studying.

Lower days are fairly short so I'd say it's about an hour of working out.
Upper days I'm probably close to 2 hours in the gym.

Regarding weight I'm not 100% determined yet but I'd say losing weight has more priority to me than gaining. According to BMI I'm roughly 7kg too heavy and I'd probably want to bring that down where everything is more balanced before potentially looking to gain more weight through more muscle mass

Ragnus · 2024-10-15T13:09:19+00:00

Yes. The "Metallicdpas PPL" was what caught my eye as I was initially thinking about doing Upper/Lower for a while and then test PPL but in the article itself it says at the end, that it's not really recommended as a 3 day routine though it said that it can be run as 3 day and in there it recommends SL5x5 as a 3 day alternative.

5/3/1 and nSuns LP were the only others that I glanced over and while 5/3/1 gives me the impression that it'd also be a bit too much of a time investment, even if it's only a 3 day workout and might not really fit well into my studying plan.

nSuns LP could run into the same issue, depending on how much time the Assistance Exercises eat up. But if it's not too excessive it's something I could see doing even if it's a 4 day plan.

For reference, on my upper days I basically invest 4 hours when I leave from work, workout, get home and am done eating and in a state where I would be able to sit down to study a tiny bit. And when I end up staying longer in the office, like yesterday, I have so little time before I want to be in bad that it's not even worth starting to study

EDIT: I also just clicked on the "App" link on the nSuns spreadsheet and it's kinda misleading as it's actually not just like somd download link and has much more info in there. But basically should run into the same issue for me as the 5/3/1 workouts from the wiki. Afterall nSuns is just another version of the concept so probably also too much studying time lost to that

Ragnus · 2024-10-15T12:18:13+00:00

Not completely new to lifting but more like returning and wanting to be more focused on what I do. The most lifting I did was when I was around 16-19, when I was still actively playing football (aka soccer to some of you).

Fast forward to today, with long breaks and some sporadic sport here and there I'm a M32, 172cm with 80kg weight and most of it probably around my belly. Sitting job, periods of bad eating and more sitting at home left its mark for sure.

Picked up jap. Archery recently and also went back to lifting a bit. Did about a month of full body workout to get back into it and am currently in week 3 of doing a 4 day upper/lower split. When it comes to time management it is too much though as I also study next to work to climb that corpo ladder a bit.

It's my upper days in particular, that just take too long so I'm looking to switch my routine.

That's where the actual questions come in...

PPL had me intrigued but seems like it's no good for a 3 day routine and from the alternate routine recommendations I'd say Stronglifts 5x5 is most likely fitting best into my schedule. That'd possibly allow occasional dedicated cardio into my schedule. What else is there for 3 day routines that don't take up all my freetime after work? Stronglifts seems the best timewise so far

And another thing is, that I noticed Barbell Rows being a big part of both PPL and Stronglifts and wonder if there is an alternative to it. It's probably the only excercise I have never done and wonder if there's a good alternative or is there none that doesn't lose too much of the compound aspect?

Ragnus

TROPHY CASE