merciless and self found pro tips

^^^ In standard I have a Level 66 Marauder in Act 3 Merciless. He is poking around the Barracks and using the Docks for leveling. Well trying to level. Some rare strongboxes and unexpected bosses can catch me off guard and kill me. So progress to level 67 has been slow.


I change my rings to suit the situation.

I use heavy strike for 2100 damage and have about 3600 life. In tough spots I use vitality and summon skeletons. I did my first map this week.

Here is the skill tree:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAecCcQSzBS0UIBRNGJEY2xo4GlUg8CECIWAj9icvKaUyiTboNuk9_ECgSn1Nkk4qUEdW-lcNV-JYY1nzW69fP2BLYSFko2aeZ6BqHmo7cql07XTxdn9673uMfPV-4IM4hO-HdooijM-NfZAKkFWRzp5Xns2iAKOKpKynMKeEqBisqrvtvJ_AGsCmwPPG2NIh3Q3jn-RR7DjuDu8O8i_2SPcy-tL8xQ==

the jump in difficulty between cruel and merciless is fucking retarded.
Warbands especially make this one of the worst gaming experiences in a long time.

I'd rather poke my eyes out with aids needles than play through merciless.

Necros are for D2 rawr!

"

Vlaka wrote:

the jump in difficulty between cruel and merciless is fucking retarded.
Warbands especially make this one of the worst gaming experiences in a long time.

I'd rather poke my eyes out with aids needles than play through merciless.

If you made it trough act 4 Cruel, the only thing you have to take care of is your resistances.. there is no difficulty spikes, sometimes it feels that there are 3 acts in the game, all act4's.

Nowadays you need to farm Aqueduct/dried lake to get your resistances, i see no point going to merciless if you know beforehand that your resistances are going to suck.

The gear you can find in Cruel dried lake will carry you to maps, even gear from Cruel Docks will carry you to maps.. so why do you even go to Merc undergeared?

some random gear that can be found in Cruel Dried Lake:

I have played self-found myself since I started to play in 2011. Well off-and-on since 2011, and the whole time since Forsaken Masters. I have probably bought 10-15 items grand total in that time. To add to that I have hardly ever partied with people, I would say less than 100 times in total. My first character is, well, dead in the water. I should delete her, but well, I am sentimental. My next ones have been much better and the main one I am currently working on getting to 100, she is at 88 right now.

To start, yes you will have a harder time finding good items. That is just the way the RNG will work, over hundreds of usable items for your character, and you will only find a few that are useful with good stats after many days of play. The thing about trading is you take that hundreds of usable items and multiply it by thousands. A perfect item for you might drop every hour, but it drops for someone else. The thing is, that item is not perfect for them, so they trade it away.

I want an intuitive mind right now. I could buy it. I prefer to go it alone though. If I don't find it in the next 12 levels to 100. I will probably buy it then. Again, I am willing to trade just not often or a lot.

Another issue is currency. You again only get the currency that drops or you get by selling to a vendor. I could make several exalts selling items in my stash tabs, but I don't. So I cannot take my high ilvl items and meta-craft them.

So, the RNG and the lack of currency will hold you back. But I play self-found because I enjoy the game and don't like trading. Seriously, if this game was single player, I would not notice much of a difference.

That said, it will just take longer to get the best gear you can. Longer just might be forever though.

I will link some of my better self-found items bellow to show that it is doable. Are these the best of the best? No. Do they allow me to play and enjoy the game? Yes.