Path of the exile - Free to play

Skatan

Hello,

Path of the exile is free to play now (released in 2013 I think). Maybe it's been for a while, but I just got the info. Never heard of it nor played it before and for those of you that haven't either I can say it's a Diablo-esque game but with a really, really innovating skill system. You choose your starting class but can then do whatever you want with it.

If anyone starts to play or are already playing on european servers, let me know. Would love to play with someone!

Edit: Forgot to post the link! Here it is: https://www.pathofexile.com/

Fardragon

Tried it but found it rather dull and full of mmo-tropes.

O_Bruce

For someone who has less and less time for gaming, the skill system in this game is a big turn-off. Also, I believe it was free to play for a while.

Shikao

There was time when I considered playing it, until I read that you need to start over periodically (or so I understood)

Skatan

I guess that is just normal ladders? But I actually don't know about that @shikao.

SethDavis

I sank dozens of hours into that every few patches.

I haven't played many mmos, but it felt distinctly different to me, maybe because I solo'd. To me it was 100% diablo 2 but shiny.

There were a few minor annoyances when they added a bucket load to the skill trees between my obsessions with it and they had to reset the skill trees of existing character. I had no idea what my guys used to do.

There's also a new(er) expansion patch out that I haven't played yet... dammit.

jjstraka34

Path of Exile is probably THE most impressive and content-rich free-to-play game that has ever been released. Realistically, if you want to do things efficiently and be able to trade items easily, you need to buy a couple of stash tabs, and that is maybe $15-20. The game, if you are an ARPG fan, is worth far, far more than that by any measure.

The skill tree and how skills work in general (with gems slotted into gear) allows for basically unlimited experimentation and build variety, not to mention rolling on the links in the gear to supplement the skill gems with support gems. It is innovative, as far as the genre goes, and the game LOOKS intimidating, but it's not nearly as bad or obtuse as it looks.

Diablo 2 is still the best ARPG ever made. If you are looking for a single-player experience from this generation, I would recommend Grim Dawn over Path of Exile in that regard. But if you pine for the days of trading Stones of Jordan and Shakos, and are obsessed with meta-gaming, you can't really beat Path of Exile. And again, it's totally free, though the one thing that is necessary to get full-use out of the game (the extra, specific stash tabs) are wholly reasonable in price for the content the game provides. Everything else they sell is totally cosmetic in nature. It is expensive, but it has no effect on gameplay, and it is how they make their money and how they are ALLOWED to offer the game for free.

Skatan

I'm at level 23 or so now as a dualist. Speccing him towards survivability/damage, like some sort of tank but with decent damage and leech etc (I think). I have no idea what the hell I am doing though since I haven't read up on best builds or what to avoid etc, hehe.. I just go with what feels right! I will probably hit a wall sooner or later where my choices start to lack in min-maxing and my lack of good gear will become more apparent. I use mainly cleave using swords or axes but just started testing out shockwave, adding supporting gems with maim, bleeding or accuracy depending on other items and the area difficulty. So far it's been very, very easy though since my char has good DR and evasion, as well as, block from shield. Together with good damage and mostly one-two hit kills, the first acts has been very easy. Now halfway into act 2 when I encounter more elemental dmg I notice it will be the bane of me if I don't start to find items with good elemental resists.

I have to say though, this is a really, really good game. I know I am sooooo late, but damn.. why haven't I tried this before? I'm having a blast with my charname and are in act 2 currently, fighting bandits. I haven't really read any of the dialogues or quests, I just run around and solve the quests as I come across them. It's very self-explanatory so far. Whoever designed the skill system, my hat's off for you!

Come join me! i can start a new char and we can play together

SethDavis

oh god who gave the enemies beam weapons *dies*

Skatan

@SethDavis where are you at in the game, level and act? I'm still only level 30ish something and killed the Vale Something Overlord. I only play quite irregularly.

My dualist is still one-hitting everything and is as close to immortal one can be I guess, but I read in the chat channel that things start to become the reverse in about level 50, where enemies one-shot you instead, hehe..

SethDavis

yup, the bosses of act 5 are a rather noticeable jump in lethality, and the first couple areas of act 6 have enemies that summon overclocked fire totems that basically just kill you immediately. Oddly, most of the stuff after that seems fair (minus some bosses who just delete you sometimes).

I think I'm running close to lvl 60 in the start of act 7.

Skatan

OK cheers. Not looking forward to that, hehe.. I always want to try it alone first and see if I can beat the game SC before joining groups, but I guess that will be needed then when the diff level increase and my char's rig is built from found items.

Btw, I've been wearing all the +MF items I have found (around ~40% iirc) since the beginning and only found like 2-3 yellow items worth wearing, and not a single unique. Compairing to Diablo, that's very, very low. Not that it matters much though, the items are still OP vs the enemies in these lower levels and acts. But I guess to master the higher levels one needs alot better items than what is just found during questing.

I havent googled any tips and tricks yet on how to build the best char or where to scavenge for the best items etc, but I guess sooner or later I will have to.

SethDavis

Skatan said:

I always want to try it alone first and see if I can beat the game SC before joining groups, but I guess that will be needed then when the diff level increase and my char's rig is built from found items.

If you're brave enough to play hardcore, yeah. You never REALLY need a group otherwise though. You can respawn and reenter the boss's area almost instantly... before they finish using the attack that killed you last time.... I learned to wait a few seconds after getting blown up by the same move twice.

Skatan

Hey @SethDavis, if you got any good beginner's tips that would be great. Trying to read up a bit, but there's just sooo much information to read through now in retrospect. I've learnt a few of the vendor recipes but that's about it.

Got stuck at the God of innocence battle in ACt 5 yesterday. Had to start a party to take him down since his firelightning attack (similar to old Diablo's hehe, but yellow) killed me in one second. With a party it was easy since one was a summoner and he never really targeted me. So now I am about level 50 and working my way through the second half of act 5 and realizing I need to put way more points into +%life and get items with life on them. I have used all the %MF I could find with some decent stats on them but that of course makes my guy a little weaker.

SethDavis

The only tip I can really think of is "stop going for life and magic find", which doesn't really strike me as all that helpful on first blush.

As far as I can tell, the bosses that are gonna kill you are gonna do it no matter how much you increase your life. They're not designed to hurt you so much as to kick you back to the entrance every few seconds. Maybe if you have ridiculous damage output and really focus your passive points on buffing life leach.

Magic find in this game doesn't strike me as something that helps while playing. If you had a set of gear that you swapped in for it whenever you decided to hunt items that would be good, but with how things are starting to two shot me from off screen you may wanna focus on other stuff.

That said, I haven't beat the new stuff either, so asking someone who actually has would get you better info. Just be careful of advice from people who assume their audience has beaten the stuff, of course.

Skatan

Hmm.. that's interresting and completely contradictory to what I've read, haha I mean your comment about stopping to put points into %life. I'm at 55% block now and around 2k life, so focusing on trying to make the guy as resilient as possible, with life leech and as much DR as I can find. Running two auras as well, the arctic armor one for DR and the vitality one for life regen + the stone golem for more life regen. Works fairly good but just like you said, once I meet someone really nasty it still isn't good enough to keep me alive. I just found a Basalt flask to further boost my DR so gonna try and use that on bosses. I am in act 7 now and finished act 6 on my own. It was easier than act 5. The character is around level 58-59 IIRC. Still using Sunder as main attack but need something better on switch or vs bosses since my old double strike doesn't cut it anymore.

If I run into too much trouble I will take your advice and switch out the +MF gear as well. Had to take away some of it and increase my +%elemental res since I was killed too easy for a while there, so down to about 80% MF with about 30-50% ele res but negative chaos res so gotta find a good ring or amu for that.

Man, this game has really got under my skin.. I think about it all day at work, and when talking to my GF, and when I am about to sleep. I really don' have time to get addicted, heh..

SethDavis

yeah, there's a good chance I'm doing things wrong. the only way I'm killing bosses is by stacking bleed on them, which is probably not a good build anyway lol. don't let me lead you off a plan if you've got it all set out for end game stuff

Skatan

No man, I just go with the flow. I figured I was gonna mess up my first char anyways, so I just pick whatever I think will increase my survivebility while trying to mix in some dmg modifiers.

I was thinking about going bananas on the bleed dmg since I had three nodes accessible very cheaply, but in the end I took another path instead. Maybe next char, but I think I will either go ranger and bow or something with claws since I've found a couple of unique fright claws.

Did my first ever trade yesterday as well, hehe.. Bought an axe to now slow down my kill speed too much or waste more currency on trying to roll a decent rare one myself. Realized quite late that it's insanely more cheap to buy someone elses find than to roll one of your own. Well, you live and learn I guess

SethDavis

interacting with actual people??!! totally unfair advantage :P

Skatan

Hahaha, indeed. I remember playing D3 and using the auction house constantly. It was so good and so accessible that it pretty much made item hunting for yourself redundant. Poe.trade is not far from that since even if we are on diff. servers everyone is still in the same realm and can trade.

Son_of_Imoen

SethDavis said:

interacting with actual people??!! totally unfair advantage :P

Interacting with real people is scary. Well, not an a forum, but I never interact with real people inside games as I won't now how to behave, dealing with people through a game interface.

BTW, I've been reading this topic for a while and have had much fun with Path of Exile, but I've only just started act 4, so I don't know yet if the end boss of chapter 5 will be doable for me. I'm not really into working out number of damage output, resistance etc., I just pick what sounds good, reacting to what is my greatest problem at the moment. If I see my character killing enemies easily, but fall easily herself, I invest in life and resistances, and vice versa, if enemies fall to slow, I invest in damage output. In this way, I managed to complete the game with 2 characters, when the game was still 3 chapters long and the Highgate chapter was the last.

Skatan

My guy is about level 65 now and I just realized how easy it is to trade using poe.goods which made the game even more easy, but then again, so are all of these kind of games. I am nowhere near the endgame and even though I haven't read anything about the game, just noticing the global chat it seems end-game is about running different maps on higher and higher levels and killing of uber-versions of bosses, which again is exactly like D2. Still having fun but now that its starting to slow down I think I'm gonna try to play more in groups to keep the interest.

DragonKing

Level 53 mistress of the dead, I was actually a closed beta tester of this game who started back playing a month or so ago. I was amazed at how much stuff had changed and I'm saddened that I deleted my "arrowtotheknee" archer.

Son_of_Imoen

Spoiler for act 5:

I reached the end of chapter 5, but my level 50 Witch kept dying against the minions summoned by the Heart of Kitava. I respawn and within seconds, sometimes even half a second, my life gets reduced to zero again by all the damage they do to me. I've read on the Path of Exile forum, that this fight is really only doable with a tanky character with lots of life, armour and maxed out resistances. My witch is specialized in sending summons in (golem, skeletons, animated weapons) and damage the enemy with either blasting cold or fire damage their way and for safety she depends on her energy shield, but mostly using the skeletons as fodder to be attacked by the enemy instead. But I get being killed so fast, there isn't even time to summon skeletons (summoning time 0,5 seconds per skeleton, but I'm already killed in half a second).

I feel disheartened by this and now I want to try to get my level 46 Templar (who's just reached the Overseer Tower) to the end of chapter 5 , who's far better armoured, but I hope to get him some levels to increase his life, as he's only at 1200 life yet (my Witch was at 1000, but those 1000 got eaten away fast).

Skatan

After reading some hints I spend the last 20 or so points on pure life/HP skill slots. Went from a tanky 1200 HP guy to 3000+ HP nigh-invulnarable demi-god. I've invested quite a lot into life steal as well, but to be frank, leech is kinda weak in this game without that skill that let's your leech continue on after max so that you get that constant influx of HP. I also tried out picking the skills for reducing aura Mana reservation, but that one gotta be bugged or it's just stupid, since it seemed to actually just reduce the total mana reserved by 4% and not 4 percentage units per aura, so 4% less when you have 85% reserved is just a saving of 3,4% in total instead of 4*3 (if you have 3 auras)=12 and 85-12=73 total reserved mana which was my plan/hope. I hadn't used any of those backtracking skills before though, so I could just remove and re-spec those spent aura points into more HP slots. My gladiatior is combining his tree with the barbarian tree to gain the most +HP possible and since he's mostly STR based, those %HP is starting to add up quite nicely. It also enables 3-4 nodes of damage and stuff to my choice of weapons, the axe, with minimal point investment which synergieces nicely.

On top of this I've added points into around three full nodes of +Percentage to shield block. Oddly enough in these nodes 1% seem to be one percentage unit/point and not 1 actual percent. I've read you can reach 75% block with this build so gonna aim towards that to test. I have the.. whatever it's called, ascencion class? I've forgot, the one that lets me increase block skills.

Anyways, haven't played in a month or so now (been playing Nvn2) but I guess the ladder ended at November. I recall reading something about that. Not sure what happens then but I guess my guy gets converted to a regular character or something.

Son_of_Imoen

I had three character in Path of Exile pre-Fall of Oriath, a Templar, a Witch and a Ranger. But I didn't know 1000 hp is nothing when facing Kitava. I thought my Templar with 1300 hp had a lot of life. After reading above posts, especialy @Skatan's last post I decided to see with what characters I had the option of going for life boosts with all the next skill point, plus I started selecting equipment with high life bonusses.

Thus, only with my Ranger I was able to boost life enough to stand a chance against Kitava. I managed to crank up her life to 1950 and lots of the skill points nodes I chose gave Evasion bonusses as well, lifting her evasion to about 5500 (a 65% chance of avoiding attacks according to the character sheet). And she beat Kitava.

I'm still not into any multiplayer aspects though, and with no two other characters to swap around gear with in chapters 6-12, I wonder if she'll manage. And if I keep interested enough to finish the game. Going from act 1 to act 4 had been a long adventure and now I've finished act 5 and am still only halfway the game, I kind of feel overwhelmed by all the fights still up ahead.

Skatan

I don't even remember Kitava, so I guess my guy breezed through that fight. Is Kitava the guy that looked kinda like some kind of samurai?

Still haven't played since last time, so well over 3 months now. I wish I had more time so I could keep up more than one game at a time, but it's hard to do that as an adult, heh..

Son_of_Imoen

Kitava is the God on the rooftop of the Oriath's cathedral, with big arms mowing your character away if you're not careful.

Skatan

Ah that guy, yeah I remember that one.

Skatan

UPDATE - March 2 the new league starts and I intend to play in it.

@SethDavis @Northlander @Son_of_Imoen if you are interested I can also invite you to a Discord channels where there are a few other ppl who will play. I think everyone is pretty casual games, but it's always more fun to have someone to chat with even if you don't wanna maximize the MP experience.

SethDavis

I've dropped out for a while, the games backlog must be chopped down a bit.
Thanks for the invite anyhow