Help making a hardcore build

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dudiobugtron wrote:

Anything_Item is asking for help, not a lecture. :P


I'm trying to help (that is why I answered after seeing no1 did for hours), but when I think I explained something 3 times, then I start to lose patience.

It is hard to relate to the problem.
Last edited by krenderke on Jun 29, 2016, 10:58:41 PM
So how do you even get started? Do you get good gear from quests?
Nevermind. If gearing is going to be so difficult then this game doesn't interest me.
To be perfectly fair, the company name is Grinding Gear Games, so the presumption is that they make games for people who enjoy Grinding for Gear :P

Based on my understanding of what you're saying, yeah, there's no way you can make this work. If you try to play Hardcore without farming areas below your level, you will not have nearly enough crud to survive to Merciless Map device unless you get super lucky with drops and crafting, or have someone feeding you gear.

That said, I'm probably misunderstanding you, because I am tired today. I mostly play Standard, but with the right mindset, I think you can do very well in Hardcore with one single character, with focus in tankiness, even solo self-found if you're okay with taking it slow. You will just have to farm for gear and/or currency.

I think maybe krenderke just didn't word it well, and dudiobugtron didn't directly explain something that I think should be directly explained.

The issue with resistances on the passive tree is opportunity cost. The majority of end-game builds can easily get capped resistances with no or almost no investment in the passive tree. However, +x% maximum Life or Energy Shield continues to scale infinitely up (though linearly, which means diminishing proportional return, or as Mark_GGG says, "less impact" per node).

EDIT: Some maths on this. Merciless resist penalty is -60% all, and generally you only need elemental resistances capped. This means you need a total of 135% resists, * 3 elements, = 405% total resistance needed. Ideal gear (head, chest, hands, feet, amulet, belt) can get 45% resist to each, or 135% total resist. Rings can get a little more because of implicits - 165% each. So 6 * 135% + 2 * 165% = 1140% total possible resist from gear, not even counting Shield or Weapon. So you don't even have to reach half of your full potential to get capped resists with zero investment in passives. Some resistance is fine here and there, usually if it's in the way of other useful things, but getting lots of resist nodes is either a) a noob trap or b) for niche builds like all Magic/White items self-challenge, or a very Unique-heavy build.

The issue with damage is that if you do not kill an enemy quickly enough, you are giving it that many more chances to kill you. A dead monster deals zero damage. This is why the vast majority of builds try to get an efficient mix of damage and defense. If you watch videos of Hardcore builds, you'll notice they have suspiciously high amounts of damage.

Getting Damage nodes in the tree doesn't mean you can't be ridiculously tanky. However, a build that literally takes no damage nodes can generally only be a support build, relying on other party members to deal damage. Killing enemies simply takes too long if you rely only on damage from gear, as they scale somewhat independently. You may not even be able to kill enemies that have Regenerate Life and/or Resistances to your selected Damage type.

EDIT2: I took it upon myself as a bit of a personal challenge to see if I could whip up a "better" tree for you. Honestly, your Champion Duelist tree looks alright to me - far from the zero damage that krenderke seemed to be implying. I spent some time tweaking it.

here's what I came up with.

Some notes on what I came up with:
  • IMO Stun is not too much of a problem if you build tanky (the higher your Life pool, the less likely you are to be Stunned.) With Unwavering Stance, you lose the ability to take advantage of Blinded enemies, which halve an affected entity's Chance to Hit - meaning you could have 0 Evasion Rating and still have 52% Avoidance against an enemy.
  • Speaking of 0 Evasion Rating, took Iron Reflexes because it ironically allows you to reach higher Armour values than pure Armour builds, and Armour is more reliable than Evasion.
  • Went with First to Strike... Ascendancy notable because Movement Speed isn't always available as a defense (debris, monster blocking when you don't have Phasing up, immobilizes, etc.) First to Strike gives you more damage when you need it and some non-manual defenses in a pinch. Note that increased damage taken on is quite strong compared to increased damage on your character. There are fewer sources of taken, so less of that "less impact - Mark_GGG" I mentioned earlier.
  • Choosing a style (probably 1-hand plus Shield if you're really into defenses) in Duelist start area would probably make more sense than the weird roundabout Strength node pathing.
  • Increased Fortify Effect is awesome against all Hits.
  • Since this tree focuses on Armour, +4% Physical Damage Reduction will go a loooong way - you could call it "rational scaling," or quickly-approaching-invincibility-type scaling.
  • For same reason, Endurance Charges are amazing (they help you with Resistances as well!
  • Resolute Technique gives you a massive damage boost on tanky characters, because then you don't need to worry about Accuracy for the cost of just 1 node. Trust me, it's awesome if you're going low on damage nodes.
  • Dex and Int from tree are a bit low so you may need to look for stats on jewelry to use the Skills you want.
  • +265% total increased melee physical damage
  • +154% increased Maximum Life
  • 349% increased Armour
  • At max end charges, +28% to physical reduction value (32% with Chaos Golem)
  • Your permanent Fortify provides 23% Reduced Damage taken from all Hits
  • +25% all resistances :)
  • 5.2% life regen/s, up to 6.4% with max Endurance Charges
Need game info? Check out the Wiki at: https://www.poewiki.net/

Contact support@grindinggear.com for account issues. Check out How to Report Bugs + Post Images at: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/18347
Last edited by adghar on Jun 30, 2016, 12:53:08 AM
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So how do you even get started? Do you get good gear from quests?


To start with, you pick up gear you find and identify it. To start with your gear won't be great, but you keep upgrading it.

Once you have a few currency orbs, you can buy better gear off of other players if you like as well.
Face it, all of your suggestions are worse than this idea:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/657756

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