A GGGames Design tribute :Self-found/manmode/famine/100hp on gear challenge nemesis (act 1 merci )

That's a really wicked chest piece temper! Some might not find it so but personally if that dropped for me i would jump in the air of excitement!

Personally i consider my boots my best piece (dat resist!!!) and the fact they did not roll life mod!

I have actually stashed away quite some upgrades with life rolls, or just sold them to the vendor (when i play a char i rarely focus on what other chars could use :) )

I also donated some to my guild members at the time, but since i was kicked everything ends up being sold to a vendor/stashed once it has life rolls.

Maybe if i allow myself to trade them away for currency i could speed up my progress, but atm i am not considering that.

"

I made it to Act 3 Merciless with 1300 hp. Was playing ranged tho (as always) will go further if I find a stronger bow.

I would assume if you ignore reflect mobs/reset instances if need be you could manage this, depending if your dps is solid so you can mow down mobs before they reach you :). Currently i am using/abusing the functionality of Viper strike against tougher packs/mobs, allowing me to stab 4 stacks on them and then do a little DANCE BABY DANCE with them :), it's highly entertaining to see them drop dead behind you! The downside is that you prolong a battle which results in a higher chance of dieing :o), but so far so good, a regular /oos to make sure my positioning is solid and all is well.

"

Boem wrote:

I am also considering taking Iron Reflexes, but the evasion is proving to be useful up to this point. Until that reaches a breaking point i will not spec into it.

I always play ranged, and I've decided evasion is a waste of time. The points you have to dump into are way offset by the armor increase. I can put points into something that may work (evasion), or put points into something that will work (armor). Choice is easy. Plus, your gear options are freed up by not deciding evasion or armor, but knowing that either will work the same.

Factor in constant (if slight) desync which prevents a feasible "dodge" mechanic, and then you're much better off with armor or energy shield in either case.

"

I would assume if you ignore reflect mobs/reset instances if need be you could manage this, depending if your dps is solid so you can mow down mobs before they reach you :). Currently i am using/abusing the functionality of Viper strike against tougher packs/mobs, allowing me to stab 4 stacks on them and then do a little DANCE BABY DANCE with them :), it's highly entertaining to see them drop dead behind you! The downside is that you prolong a battle which results in a higher chance of dieing :o), but so far so good, a regular /oos to make sure my positioning is solid and all is well.

Reflect mobs are somewhat deadly to me. Actually, my character hit the wall about mid-Act 3. Lvl 69 and no upgradable bow since lvl 50. Yes, near 20 levels without a weapon grade. Drops were pure garbage. Found a Quill Rain before giving up, which basically confirmed I should give up. Finally find a unique bow, and it's 4-12 dmg. At lvl 69. Wouldn't have made it this far without exalting a nice bow I found in the first place.

That is a really nice bow bro! I don't play ranged character a lot so maybe it sux for that lvl but i really like the stats on it.

About the quill rain drop, did you consider leveling up an explosive arrow and using that with quill rain, i hear it's pretty bad ass if you can manage the mana cost. But reflect will also be a concern so try not to mass spam EA on reflect packs or you will wreck yourself.

Just a thought i had because some players have told me they farm up to lvl 80 with quill rain EA.

You should give it a try :).

Yeah, unfortunately explosive arrow is pretty much the only option for Quill Rain atm. And, to use it meant to grind even more just to level it, respec, and then end up with about the same DPS as before. Quill Rain is too much a novelty item to be useful beyond getting past Act 1 normal (for my play style/enjoyment/whatever).

And, yeah, the bow was awesome when I found it. I exalted it, and got... +33 to accuracy rating! Whoopie fucking doo! The one thing I didn't need and won't make a single iota of difference! Yay!

So a little update.

I thought i already did the "burn the anus" quest and thought i could go straight for gravicus + piety + dominus, sadly i didnt do it yet so i did not make it to dominus this evening.

Current hp value 1573

Current gear


Do note that the gloves dropped from piety, i did not have them to do the fight, i was using these when i did piety


So far so good, piety went down rather easily, i think the fight was even bugged because an enormous amount of mobs spawned at the start, and then nothing after that. Maybe GGG changed this fight from the last time i did it i don't know, but usually creeps keep spamming when i do her. This was pretty bad since i play famine, making the fight vs piety harder then i assumed it would be.

I also opted to down Kole, to be honest i was more anxious for him then for piety, but he went down rather easily as well. I had one close call this entire run (from sewers to piety)
and it was an extra damage/powerfull crit miscreation that cast's vulnerability, he did about 70%of my hp.

The ebony barracks was also quite a bitch, since i got stunned from every single charge, luckily i play slow and safe, pulling mobs as i see fit.

Here is what you get when you challenge yourself and please RNGesus in the process, i bought this in sarn from a vendor.

If anybody want's to buy this send me a pm, else it will most likely rot in my stash.

I also got some more presents from RNGesus,

All sitting in my stash since i don't use life rolls :).

Atm i am considering using a ring with 30 or less life rolled on it in my right ring slot, since i am struggling to find a decent coral while keeping my resist up. I am not doing it atm, but i am considering it, rings are hard enough to find let alone a coral without a life roll + resis.

Tomorrow i have a Christmas dinner and will probably be away to celebrate until thursday, sorry if i am updating this slowly, but with the holidays i have less time to play and update my challenge :-).

GGGL & HF all and a merry x-mas to you all!

You two GGG, if anybody of the devs read this, pass it along i wish you all the best of luck and some breathing time during this holiday season.

Peace
-Boem-

Edit : typo's

Challenge put on hold due to week race :), will go for dominus after this race ends!

Gl hf and stay alive to all playing the week race!

*****Reached merciless***** (<--- yes the stars where a necessity, because it was stressful)

quick update to my challenge, with the end of the week race(already a week ago, but was not playing PoE a lot, just lurking the forums :E) i decided it was time to go for dominus.

Current hp value : 1573, nothing has changed in that regard still using the same items i did when i brought down piety.



Also threw some allts on a pot for bleeding.

Sadly i must report, the famine rule was broken for dominus in cruell. I am stil trying to figure out if it is even possible to do it without breaking the famine rule. Due to the nature of my build (using viper strike) i cannot leach life/mana, at least not so much that it would make a significant difference.

On top of that, melee cannot recharge potions because of the exploding mobs and the curse dominus uses.

ON TOP of that, i have only 1500+- hp, so any life regen i have, is greatly reduced due to the nature of my low hp.

So i ended up relying heavily on potions/keeping my endu charges up, and using town portals to refill pots, while slowly taking mobs + dominus down with viper strikes.

I think it's sad for the challenge, but i rather did this at dominus, then die with a character that i slow-played the entire content so far with :).

It must be noted that with 1500hp + 4 endurance charges, his second form bleed attack deals around 45%damage, a lot lower then i initially thought.

I am currently at the ledge, but my resis are 39/19/39 atm, so i am in bad shape :O! (gotta lift some shit)

All that is left to do know is farm resis gear without hp rolls.

The game is trolling my challenge btw

Found that on dominus, like seriously...so beautiful, will probably go to another char.
Dat humor RNG dat humor.

So far so good.
Gl hf all and keep alive.

Edit : forgot to add my current character level, i am at lvl 52 atm.
And this is my current passive tree

Hope you enjoy, hf guys.

Another quick update.

So i was farming ledge today for about 20 minutes and got bored in doing so :E. So i decided to run to brutus and yolo him.

Appears that you can solo him with 1700hp at merciless with 22%damage reduction and 50% evasion + 4 endurance charges. He did smack me down to 15% and 20% 4 times, but as long as it does not kill me, Who cares :D!

My current tree so far (lvl 54)


Current gear



I am beginning to use my 1h more often then my 2h at this point, since the damage of the weapon does not really mater for this build, and the block feels important to me :).

I am trying to find a decent shield, but since its self found and i rarely use my orbs this probably wont be any time soon.(i have only used 5 allts for this challenge to get "remove bleed" on a potion for dominus cruel)

So far everything is going "ok", but i will probably need above 18% cold resist for merveil, as to avoid a one hit "ko" scenario.

It's quite amazing how people value hp so hard on gear, while really it only serves to protect you from bosses. so far i have noticed

dps merciless based on 1700hp/22%reduction/ 36/18/36 resist/50%evasion.

white mobs : around 15% of my hp consistently. really, nothing to worry about unless you fall asleep.

blue mobs: same as rares, totally dependent on damage modifiers and to what element they convert(resistance related) between 15% and 30% since they cannot "stack" damage modifiers.

rare mobs : between 15% and 60% depending on modifiers. (the only rares i skip, reload instance are storm heralds because of my 36% light resis)

unique + bosses : a whopping 90% of my hp. At brutus a single hit brought me down to 150hp at some point (this includes 4 endurance charges)

There is a clear tendency to gear for bosses trivializing all other content. This seems like a bad indication for "challenge" or "thrill" anywhere outside of boss rooms.

Gl hf guys, stay safe.

Edit : just a quick note, a crit would have probably killed me in a single hit. This makes gearing up for bosses highly double sided.

You can not prepare for a crit, get RNG lucky, and survive.
Or you have to postpone your progression in order to deal with a RNG related scenario.

Thx for the free bumb Cronk :),

Like i mentioned somewhere on page one if i remember correctly this thread is not about obtaining fanboys :DDD, it is more about realizing the value of defensive attributes VS stacking hp, as is the common case on most characters.

I think it's cool if some people show interest, but i will continue regardless of that interest.

And my challenge so far has even amazed me about how much we value the HP mod, and the lack of needing it for game progression.

On the other hand, it shows enormous value when going for a boss at merciless difficulty, and since people tend to gear for bosses, i think this explains the high necessity of hp mods on gear.

It's rather sad in my personal opinion, that item progression is limited in this way due to limited difficulty spikes.
I feel that if bosses attacked faster, but with less damage, you could perfectly gear yourself without the limitation of needing hp on every piece, and replace that hp roll with common sense
and what some people call "skill".

I am still using the famine rule btw, my observation was just that it would be impossible to do this on the dominus fight. The lack of regen (due to low hp value) really starts to show, and with the exploding minions etc, it is hardly possible to refill potions in this one scenario.

However for a ranged character i deem it very likely that they could, since they can kill the mobs before they explode. A melee however is excluded from this option.

"

The general desire/obsession/value for/of life mods on gear is so high that a thread like this could have wider reaching benefits beyond a simple hardman challenge.

I think that it still demonstrates that even with the other rules i follow :). The other rules are for my personal pleasure, and in case my character would die because one of them, i would drop them in order to save the character (like the dominus fight/famine rule there) because i have invested quite a lot of time in it so far.

But when i do, i will mention it in this thread accordingly. So far only the famine rule was broken once (which i regret sort of, but not so much as to lose my character for it :E)

Also i value the "manmode"(melee only) rule for this challenge, since it demonstrates the power of HP mods (or the lack of it) in greater detail.

Imagine if i went a ranged character, people would simply dismiss my progression as being high dps and killing anything before it touches me. I prefer to test the value of the other mods as a tank to give a better view on there "EHP" capability's.

I also don't imagine i get a lot of views since i don't write many details about my encounters and beautiful walls of text around my adventure :), like NotRegret manages to do.
(that is not an insult btw, his walls of text really make his thread unique and a great read)

On that note, Congrats to NotRegret for completing his challenge,
Well played sir, well played.

(i never imagined i would make it to merciless btw, this makes me value my character even more :D)