Bonemist: A death poll for the 3 month hardcore league (circa v1.2)

The main obstacles holding up safer adventuring, at the moment, is Bonemist's defenses. Careful and conservative play is still very much the mantra for Bonemist.

Masters
Catarina is very close to level 6, at which point I'll invite either Elrion or Haku into the hideout. Vorici is already in the hideout and about halfway to level 5.

Life = 1
Energy Shield = 3680*
Mana = 1016
Armour = 1771 (20%)
Evasion = 557 (10%)
Resists = 75/75/76/100 fire/cold/lite/chaos

* with Discipline running, which it always is.

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMA2VsbJUuu6QLfiit4H8cti20ZLJzsimvbTLNfKuvkBAf316yYdFXDbVxrhEhmnvrSHRSPRpuhQ2Oaz3FNHNwNjWwLIvT0cUNUHdmIQsHFf8ZWYxXXhq4svw186rq0DJMngwlGcSpTYpWycFcrvYJqrFqRqH3T-4LHKPpXyVNSRZ2a4OvuPC3Grrc-QYf56PfBJIs9D8T2njx8u4x2TdgD7h2-M4esqiftpys1uRFQSbHXz_k374h-WQ==

Completing Body & Soul is up next, followed by getting Sovereignty (to reduce mana reservation and run 1 more aura). Then I'll need to pick between getting the extra +45% skill duration as the next priority or going in another direction (ie: more aura nodes, more ES, a second curse, …).

I'll keep leveling up Vorici to level 5, for his “five linked sockets” recipe, as I've got a Vaal Regalia with 6 sockets on it, which currently has four links. It is here:

I'm not quite sure about the most efficient and certain way to make it better. I'll start by scouring it to clean off the current mods. Then I could go the alt / regal / Haku route, to try to get a high ES total. The fly in that ointment is that I've only got one regal orb so far, so it would be a high risk move. I've got close to 60 chance orbs and about 30 alchs, so I could chance / scour or alch / scour for a bit (I've got close to 20 orbs of scouring), without doing major damage to my currency supply. I don't know what my odds of success are, though, so I'm reluctant to make a move right away.

Instead of making a quick move with the Vaal Regalia, I'll run Merc Piety / Library / Catacombs for a while, to build more currency, to keep leveling up, and perhaps to find a lucky upgrade.

Once her ES total is substantially higher, then I'll probably take Bonemist into maps.

Bonemist's defenses took a couple of significant steps forward, thanks to some good luck with crafting a Vaal Regalia and a few other changes.

When running Merc Piety, I gingerly tiptoe through Lunaris 2 until Kole has been found and killed (from a safe distance) or until I get to Lunaris 3 without running into Kole. I lead with enfeeble on a spell totem, for maximum safety. I keep conversion trap on the “G” hotkey until I get to Piety's chamber. When I'm in her chamber, I drop six conversion traps, and then switch out conversion trap and switch in “Vaal Discipline” on the “G” hotkey, to have a rapid heal immediately at hand. I've not needed it so far. But, it's handy to have in case things suddenly go south.

Masters
Catarina, Elrion, and Vorici are in Bonemist's hideout. Catarina is now level 6 and Elrion will be soon. Vorici is level 5, with quite a ways to go to level 6. Bonemist fails Vorici's missions fairly often and only succeeds as often as she does because of conversion trap and because she brings no minions when taking on his missions. With each of these three masters and with Tora, I now take missions for them whenever I find them, no matter how high the level of the zone.

I (still) only take Haku's missions when in zones well below Bonemist's level, due to a phobia Bonemist has about falling rocks. :) I have the same approach with Vagan, who has little to offer Bonemist that she would be likely to want anyways.

I have yet to set foot in a map, and so I have yet to meet Zana.

Life = 1
Energy Shield = 5138*
Mana = 1056
Armour = 2496 (23%)
Evasion = 584 (10%)
Resists = 75(83) / 75(87) / 76(113) / 100 fire/cold/lite/chaos^

* with Discipline running, which it always is.
^ over-resist figures given in parentheses, so 75(83) means 75 resist applied against damage, 83 total resist

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMA2VsbJUuu6QLfiit4H8cti20ZLJzsimvbTLNfKuvkBAf316yYdFXDbVxrhEhmnvrSQ2Oaz3FNHNwNjWwLIvT0cUNUHdmIQsHFf8ZWYxXXhq4svw186rq0DJMngwlGcSpTYpWycFcrvYJqrFqRqH3T-4LHKPpXyVNSRZ2a4Ovu-ej3wSSLPQ_E9p48fLuMdk3YA-4dvjOHrKon7acrNbkRUEmx18_5N--IflmdxFj1tzHAGlnzgW-QVY9GHRSboQ==

Investing in more aura passives is the immediate priority. I'll ponder what to do after that.

I tried a “scour / alch” combo for the six socket Vaal Regalia that I linked to this thread in my most recent post before this one. That didn't work out well. So, I scoured the six socket Vaal Regalia again and I went the “alt / regal / master” route, which burned through a fair number of alt orbs before using a regal and ultimately getting the Vaal Regalia linked above. After adding cold resist to the rare coral ring to make up what was lost from the earlier chest piece, Bonemist's ES total went up in a noticeable way. As I was sitting on hundreds of scraps anyways, I also went ahead and put 20% quality on all defensive gear.

Desired gear … -- I'm hoping to buy immortal call, purity of ice, and spell echo skill gems from the relevant masters. I passed on an earlier chance to buy each of them after completing daily master missions a while back, before finalizing my planned end game build, and I'm regretting those choices now. I'm particularly regretting not buying immortal call, as it's a key missing piece of Bonemist's planned defenses that I would have liked to already be using and leveling up.

I'm aiming to get some hybrid STR / INT pieces, with high +ES totals and high + armor / ES %, to get stronger defenses. Finally, I'd like to get 5 linked sockets in a chest piece, which I'm fairly well on the way to doing. If I converted all my alt and jeweler orbs to fusings, I'd have 120+ now. By the time I find an end-game chest, I'll hopefully have the needed fusings and be able to get Vorici to do his thing.

For now, I'll continue running Merc Piety. If Bonemist stays alive long enough for key gems hit level 18, then I'll do a damage check and consider wading into maps.

I'll leave Merc Dominus for now. There's no incentive to run him, really, before Bonemist becomes quite a bit tougher.

There's not too much to say about leveling up while running Merc Lunaris and Piety as a CI summoner without life leech, other than “don't get surprised by Kole” and “hide behind a pillar when Piety is in her ice archer form.”

I've run Merc Piety about as much as I can while still enjoying the game. I really needed to also add in some Merc Catacombs / Library runs, to have some variety. It's time to move on to maps.


Masters
I've been steadily leveling up Catarina, as I never fail her missions. But, she's still a long way from level 7. Now that Elrion is level 6, I'm tempted to switch the hideout to Elrion's tileset and to tell Catarina to leave, after finding Zana and leveling her up to level 2. I'd very much like to have Zana in the hideout.

Vagan lingers at level 3, fairly close to level 4. Tora is level 4 and close to level 5. Haku is level 5 and still a long way from level 6.

Despite failing a goodly percentage of Vorici's missions, I'm finally making a good-sized dent in the favor needed to get him to level 6. I may switch out Vorici after getting him to level 6, so that I can level Haku up to level 6 and (hopefully!) buy immortal call from him while doing his daily missions. I'll probably work on crafting some armour pieces and use some baubles and alts on an extra granite and quicksilver flask (or two), to prepare for doing Haku daily missions, ahead of bringing him back into the hideout.

Elrion will be a cornerstone in the hideout over the longer run, unless GGG suddenly buffs his missions up to make them extremely dangerous. He offers some very useful crafting options.

Life = 1
Energy Shield = 5164*
Mana = 1079
Armour = 2493 (22%)
Evasion = 591 (9%)
Resists = 75(83) / 75(87) / 76(113) / 100 fire/cold/lite/chaos^

* with Discipline running, which it always is.
^ over-resist figures given in parentheses, so 75(83) means 75 resist applied against damage, 83 total resist

Gear has not really changed in two levels, although Bonemist been accumulating base items for later crafting.

Getting Elrion to level 6 means I can now swap alts into jeweler's orbs at a 20% discount. That means I'm now very close to being able to generate 150 fusings, to 5-link any end-game chest I might find.

Finally, the habit of picking up items that sell for a chromatic orb and of shopping all vendors after each level-up (from about level 20ish onward) has been paying off. Bonemist has over 600 chromatic orbs now, which should be enough, with careful planning, to craft some decent end-game gear.

Maps, maps, and more maps.

Oh, and maps.

So far maps have been noticeably more intense, primarily because the number of Beyond spawns seems noticeably larger. For example, I spawned Abaxoth and Hast in one(!) non-magical Dried Lake map with +14 quality on it. That map layout is very unfavorable for "hit and run" tactics, and so I left them both there.

I've run across Zana once and I completed her "complete another Master's mission" ... mission.

I started out by following Lyralei's excellent resource of map management:

It's particularly helpful for a beginner to maps, like myself.

As one change from recommendations, based on some in-game advice I decided to run the 66 maps as I find them (mostly grey), rather than spend currency on them. I have just under 30 of them now and it seems like the main reason to spend currency is to get more maps. So, I'll save currency for now and see if my pool of 66 maps will be sufficient to climb up to level 67 and beyond. I already have 5 level 67 maps and 2 level 68 maps, which I find encouraging.

Regarding which maps to run, for now I'm sticking with the easier 66 maps, including Dried Lake, Tropical Island, and Grotto. I'll run Crypt later, as well. So far I've run about 7 or 8 maps, in total.

I'm waiting for now on running the harder 66 maps, including dungeon, orchard, overgrown ruin, and dunes. Since I have a big portfolio of 66 maps, I can wait. :)

- added 6% aura effect passive node, Influence notable is next.
- ES=5316, with discipline running