My first character

Here I am again with an update on my progress!

I have reached level 88 and I feel like the game has been going rather smoothly for a while. How ever I'm now starting to feel like progress is slowing down. I find it very hard to beat the map bosses in some T13 and T14 maps. I have managed to clear a few T13s and one T14 I think. I would like to know if my problems are indeed because of my lack of skill or if my character needs some tweaking.

One easy to see problem is my flasks, which I still haven't upgraded for no good reason:(. I'm also not sure about the unique gloves I'm rocking, perhaps more life is needed instead? I got basically one hitted by the boss in Crimson Temple! But should my character be otherwise capable of clearing T13s and T14? If so, what level of content should I expect to be able to clear improving nothing but my skill levels?

I have been using Barrage as my single target damage and feel like it hits harder than TS. It is confusing to me that according to PoE Barrage has significantly lower dps. Why is this and should I use it anyway? I tried using Path of Builder to check my Shaper DPS, which seems to be the thing to do, but couldn't manage to paste my character there.

Thank you in advance for the comments and critiques!
Last edited by Toopelius on Apr 23, 2018, 4:23:33 PM
Barrage is a lot more damage for single target, and has the potential for scaling much higher as every additional projectile you can get is a strong damage multiplier. The tooltip is just for a single projectile, and even then it's a total lie. Try and get the hang of path of building, makes things a lot clearer.
In PoB, make sure you change the drop down to 'All Projeciles' for barrage.
Grab 'Point Blank' too. You should be doing plenty of damage for clearing with tornado shot anyway, and it's a 50% more multiplier for single target on barrage if you get to close range (which you need to do for barrage really anyway)

T13+ maps are a fair bit trickier than earlier ones, and some of the bosses start getting tougher, so don't be too suprised.
You can level just fine on t7+ maps for now though.
Things do slow down though and deaths are starting to hurt a bit, A few deaths can wipe out an hour or two of mapping and it gets worse.
Save taking on really nasty maps, or tackling elder/guardians etc till you have just levelled up.

What's your life total right now? Should be looking at 4k life bare minimum for t12+. Ideally at least 4.5k and these days I try and aim for 5.5k even for bow characters.

Sort flasks out - it's the most underrated thing by new players, and things like ensuring you have all the immunities sorted out become vital in higher tier maps. Get bleed removal, get an instant life flask, get curse removal. Basically sort them all out and get them at 20% quality.
At some point try and buy a dying sun flask, it's a big clear speed and single target improvement. Not too expensive in standard.

Hrimsorrow is a total waste of a glove slot. They are for people using physical skills they convert to elemental. Not you. Use rare gloves or something to help your crit. Are you actually using hatred too? Don't, it's not worth it.

Might be worth getting a cast when damage taken setup, run a low level one with low level immortal call and increased duration (you cna level this one). Will help against spikey physical damage. Can add in a defensive curse too if you like.


Thank you for you answer!

I'm currently at 4,25k HP and I could grab some more life nodes once I level again, or get the point blank first. I will also replace my gloves with proper life/ele dmg gloves since i my resistances are capped quite nicely. In my estamation that should put me closer to 5k HP. I will finally get proper flask too since especially bleeding has become super annoying lately. Hopefully that ups my survivability enough to clear at least t14 maps comfortably.

I've been having trouble with my barrage single target because I haven't been able to tank some of the bosses close range. Perhaps Point Blank and proper gloves will help with that. I will also set up the defensive Immortall call for more survivability. The problem with that is, I don't think I'm generating any endurance charges for the Immortal Call and i don't know how to generate them.

I have only been using Herald of ice and proj Weakness, not hatred, but I figured I might as well max them out for selling purposes or for a future character.

I suppose for now I will keep farming around t10 maps because I have many of them and try to get some more passive points on the tree. I would like to try my hand at shaper, elder or atziri since I hear those are some of the hardest fights in the game. Would be nice to see where I'm at in relation to the top level content this game has to offer :) Problem is I'm not sure how to fight any of them. I guess atziri is unique map and clearing the guardians is necessary to kill shaped and elder? But some people talk about killing yellow shaper /elder which sounds doable to me, since I can easily clear or T6-T10 content.

Last edited by Toopelius on Apr 24, 2018, 10:44:54 AM
Ok, that's actually not too bad, and as you say, better gloves and a few more points will get you close to 5k.
Get the staunching flask - seriously!

Ok, HoI is good, and helps clear speed.

T10 is a good spot for you right now - and/or run nice t8+ layouts (Mud geyser, shore, estuary, plateau etc)
Basic rule of thumb for map bosses, pop your defensive flasks, run/blink arrow in and kill them with point blank in about 2 seconds. Safer than kiting them really.

Low tier elder fights you should be fine with, the Eradictor guardian might cause issues (He does for me anyway!) And will take a couple of attempts to get the mechanics learned, but no problem. Just do it after level up.
You will destroy normal atziri at your gear level. Just need to learn the fights (tip, for atizir, when she splits into 4, don't use tornado shot, the one holding the mirror has 100% reflect.). Basically atziri has never been updated since player dps has increased by about 10x.

Uber Atziri is a different beast, you need to be able to do normal blindfolded before really taking her on.

Shaper is more of a mechanics learning thing. With point blank and a bit of tweaking you should have enough DPS. But be prepared to brick a few sets (Which gets expensive)
Shaper guardians may be tricky if you struggle on boss fights too. At your HP/defense level you basically can't get hit at all.

I'd watch/read a guide on elder as spawning him is a little complicated, especially if you want to get on yellow/red (don't even think about uber elder yet!)

Shaper - you have to unlock the 4 t16s and kill the guardians for the 4 fragments and use in the map device (Or buy them)

Atziri - find (In vaal side areas or buy killing corrupt bosses, or from the vaults of atziri map) or buy the 4 sacrifice fragments (Dawn, Noon, Dusk Midnight). Midnight is the rarest but sets are pretty cheap these days.

Atziri herself can drop Mortal fragments - you need 4 of these to open up portal for uber atziri. These are quite expensive.

I'd give atziri a go after your next level up if I were you, then try and spawn Elder.


I have now upgraded my gloves and cleared T15 Basilica once, I think I could do it deathless with enough practise on my gear level. I had quite nasty map mods on my last try. I will definately try Atziri and Elder once I've upgraded my flasks and gained one more level for point Blank.

Thank you for the directions! It feels kinda hard for a first timer to figure out what to do once basic mapping is not enough, luckily the community is this helpful :)

Oh, thanks for the Immortal Call suggestion, it has been a life saver on many occasions. It is now level 13 and I have stopped upgrading since I don't want the proccing threshold to go too high. Have i already made it too high in your opinion? I haven't really felt like it's a problem since leeching refills any lesser damage almost instantly as long as I'm dealing damage. Having it lower level would make it proc more often if I understand how it works properly. That would grant me more immunity frames but I'm not sure if my mana can sustain too regular proccing of it, nor have i found it that necessary. Any thoughts on that? Have I overlooked something?

Edit:
I have now fixed my flasks and am feeling quite pleased. Any thoughts?

Edit2:
I messed about in Path of Building and found that getting a Chin Sol bow would increase my single target dps significantly when using Barrage. Would it be unwise to have different bows for clear and single target? I use both barrage and ts in the same 6link by just switching them in and out as needed. The only problem I can see is that I would have to get a 5links to get my HoI set up applied to my single target. Is HoI even essential to my Barrage dps since I don't really get that much benefit with out killing stuff?

Also I have been thinking of getting a vinktar, but I'm not sure what I should replace to make room for it. Would Vinktar even be good for me?
Last edited by Toopelius on Apr 26, 2018, 6:48:02 AM
Yeah it's probably a bit high on the CWDT immortal call setup.
Unless I'm on an endurance charge stacking character (where I normally want to keep the charges up most of the time) I normally leave CWDT at either level 3 with level 5 immortal call, or level 1/3.
Don't worry about mana - it doesn't use any.
Main us of immortal call is to prevent deaths by porcupines or similar - though with a crit ice build that's less of an issue as your freeze/shatter them.

A chin sol swap is a good idea, and its quite common to have a bow swap. Only issue for you is the two scale a bit differently, chin sol actually does decent phys dps so is better with a phys to ele conversion build. Also obviously doesn't get your dexterity scaling. But the 100% more damage mod is still good just on the flat damage, just remember to get at close range.
Other problem is you need 2 quivers too, but less of an issue for you as hyrri's demise is easy enough to get.

HoI isn't needed for pure single target - as you say it just adds a small amount of flat damage.

Flasks are looking better, and that's a good roll dying sun. You haven't got a suffix on the life flask though, and still need 'of staunching' against bleeds.
The jade could be better rolled, and I wouldn't use a jade anyway, either use a basalt or a stibnite. Maybe a stibnite for general mapping but swap in a basalt for any tough phys damage bosses/lab runs.

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