I will never be good at PoE

"

ChanBalam wrote:

I think that my problem is that I do not understand the math behind the Tree. % life; %armor; % damage etc. I don't really know which numbers are being changed. When I was was at 2000 life and I took two +5% life nodes, my life didn't go up 200 points. The easy path is to follow another's design and not understand what it is doing. The math of PoE is very complicated. I'm not sure that my ancient brain will ever fully get it, but moving into the merciless lab and maps is a sure way to find out where your weaknesses are.

Isn't there a tree builder somewhere that shows you important stuff as you build a design?

Most "+[X]% Stuff" nodes are increasing your base total of that node. You have 2k life, you take 10% extra life in nodes, but those nodes aren't applying to your 2k life; they're applying 10% of what your base life would be if you had no other life nodes in the tree at all and adding that less-than-200 number to your total life pool. The exception would be a "+[X]% More Life" modifier, as "More" is a multiplier that magnifies any "Increased" modifiers you have as well as the base total...but I don't think there is actually any such thing as a "More Life" mod anywhere in PoE. if there were it'd instantly become absolutely required in every build everywhere.

Anyways. Basic 101: "Increased" modifiers add +[X]% of your base, unmodified total of [Y] back into Y; "More" modifiers take your base [Y] plus the sum of your "Increased" modifiers, and multiplies it by the given percentage. I.e. you have 2k health, of which 1k is your base, unmodified health and 1k is from "Increased" life modifiers (100% increased life, in this case).

You take two +5% Increased Life nodes in the tree. Each of those nodes adds 5% of your 1k base life (50 life) to your total life pool, for a total of 2100 life after you take those nodes. You then find "GGG is Insane", a unique belt that has +100 Life, 10% Increased Life, and +25% More Life on it.

The 100 life is added to your base life total, for a total of 1.1k base life ('Base Life Total', or BLT, for the interim). Your 110% increased Life in the tree is then applied to your 1.1k BLT, leaving you with another 1.21k life (BLT + (1.1*BLT) = BLT+[I]). Your BLT+[I] is thusly 2.31k life.
Then you take the 25% 'More' modifier and apply it as a factor of BLT+[I]. Thusly:

(BLT+[I])*1.25 = 2.8875k, or just under 2.9k life total.

This is why 'More' modifiers are so incredibly powerful/desirable - they scale all your Increased modifiers as well as your base total (whatever). Also why there's no such thing as a 'More' life mod in PoE, come to think of it.


As for a tree builder tool: PoE Planner

This is the one I use. Shows you what all of your currently planned tree gives you, as well as how far from your tree any given node you hover over is and what the shortest route to get there is. 600% incredibly much nicer than trying to plan a build on the official website.

That one is good 1453R.

I like POE Planner for when I need to quickly glance at a tree to understand the basics. For offline, there was an Ascendancy Tree program posted on reddit some time ago. That one allows you to compare skill trees and find pros and cons between two.

^^^ Most helpful 1453R. Thanks very much. I will use that planner.

I'm level 68 duelist. Here is what the planner said for my current tree:

Max life: +109%
life regen: 5.2 per sec
max life +50 (equip?)
Melee Damage with Duel wield +150%
Melee Damage +142%
Damage with 1 handed weapons +49%
Damage with Attack +26%

Plus more of course.

IIRC I have about 2200 life and do about 15000 dps

"

This is the issue with the thought process here. You think that "benchmarks" must be obtained and instead its mostly conditional statements.

"How much HP do people in general think a character needs? 8k?" >>> How much HP for what? Evasion characters? Armour based characters? What are they doing? Speed farming Gorges, doing 40%+ Pack Size Red Maps, doing Uber Lab, farming Cruel Ledge? Layered defenses kicks in here as well. There is no "in general" type of approach here, each character's stats are going to be a direct reflection (after tuning) of what role they were meant to do. There is no magical ratio that you need to achieve to make things happen. There is no magical block chance you should get (in reality, these figures are "as high as you can"). Tree is based off of experience and not theorycraft tbh. You can make a good tree, but in reality you need gameplay and practice to figure out what needs to be tweaked.

And you need good game knowledge so you can refine and retune. I mean hell, you can kill Atziri with 1 HP if you know the mechanics of the game and what you are doing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loTfJoBZcPI

Thanks for your insight, I'll post a build that I'm thinking about right now and will listen to the advice for that specific build

Regardless of what build I'm making though, my goal is to experience all the game as to offer, being able to play through all maps (I'm not talking about map mods, just the maps themselves), defeat Atziri and her uber version, reach level 100 I suppose and despite playing non-hardcore, not dying to anything

I didn't get the chance to see Rigwald in talisman, nor the perandus manor in perandus, nor any temporary content from the temp leagues, I'm quite pissed

oh and DDDDDDDDDDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNNNNNN that video

"

ChanBalam wrote:

I'm level 68 duelist. Here is what the planner said for my current tree:

Max life: +109%
life regen: 5.2 per sec
max life +50 (equip?)
Melee Damage with Duel wield +150%
Melee Damage +142%
Damage with 1 handed weapons +49%
Damage with Attack +26%

Plus more of course.

IIRC I have about 2200 life and do about 15000 dps

Deepz is workable, life is low. 2.2k is awfully stun-y at level 78; that's about the time I'm hoping to break 4k on a well-geared build. 3.5k at least is where I'd generally like to be 'round that level, if my gear's been keeping up.

I'd definitely focus the rest of your passives on snagging more life for a while. Damage seems fine, I'd say you're good to go for damage in the tree. That's one of the biggest things everyone falls victim to, new or not - overdoing damage in the tree at the expense of life. Sounds great, works like pants in practice. Even if you can theoretically deal with the low life total, you end up stunned all the damned time and that messes with your clearing and your rhythm as much as it does your survivability.

Getting stunned bites. Moar Hepz is the answer.

"

Entropic_Fire wrote:

To win at PoE you need to combine features that are strong on their own and synergize into something greater than the sum of its parts. For example using a high armor high life character together with Taste of Hate and Rumi's flask can give you a really strong defensive build without much more investment.

You need to look at the investments you make on the tree and gauge whether that's the most efficient use of your points. If you take 4 points to get 30-40% armor for example you could probably use those points more efficiently elsewhere.

I know that much, I'm always trying to find a good balance with everything, I know it's not a good idea to grab only a few nodes of one specific thing

I will work to add more life. My gear doesn't contribute much, so I will look at that angle too. Thanks.

"

Coal48, don't think you are alone in your situation. I thought I was reading about my experiences when I read your original post, and most of your follow-up ones. I've got a 4167 life + 266 ES Blade Vortex + Life/Mana Leech build right now that mows down trash mobs (around 28k DPS), but doesn't have enough defense with 38% armor, 22% evade. I had 10 deaths total up to merciless Malachai. Finishing his 3 pre-bosses and him killed me 19 additional times. This char is stuck at level 73 because I can't make enough experience in Tier 1 normal maps because of the XP penalty for death.

I have another char, an Essence Drain + Contagion build with 3775 life + 1935 ES (which I'm proud of). This char has 2% armor and 19% evade but higher survivability. It's not just because he has more life, so I'm not sure exactly why. (His red life globe doesn't jump around as much, even when the shield is down.) This char gets one-shot noticeably less than the other. His DPS is much less. This char is stuck at level 80 for the same XP penalty reason. Unlike the other I don't usually die on Tier 1-3 maps, but I make so little XP on them, that in the end I still die too much to ever level up again.

Both chars use shields. I've never bothered to try merciless Izaro with any char.

Thankfully I can say each build I make gets stronger, except I don't really understand how to make a char sturdy, which basically seems to be your problem, too. I thought my most recent one (4100 life, blade vortex) would be it with my armor and evasion, but it's not even close (notably worse than the one with little armor and evasion).

I will mention that part of my rage quits come from disliking the style of boss fights this game has. Being able to pick up the fight where I left off means that I don't feel that killing a boss is an accomplishment at all—only killing him without dying (merciless Dominus felt really good!). It also means that bosses can be made much harder without regard to precisely setting how strong they are (which is somewhat impossible due to RNG).

thanks for the comment, yeah I dislike coming back after death to finish something off, I did complain about it in the past but since PoE is a classic arpg and the game as multiplayer, it's never going to change

"

ChanBalam wrote:

I think that my problem is that I do not understand the math behind the Tree. % life; %armor; % damage etc. I don't really know which numbers are being changed. When I was was at 2000 life and I took two +5% life nodes, my life didn't go up 200 points. The easy path is to follow another's design and not understand what it is doing. The math of PoE is very complicated. I'm not sure that my ancient brain will ever fully get it, but moving into the merciless lab and maps is a sure way to find out where your weaknesses are.

Isn't there a tree builder somewhere that shows you important stuff as you build a design?

Yeah things get really technical when you take damage types as other damage types

I know that lightning coil and taste of hate are good for physical damage, but I'm really in the dark as to what protection I'm precisely getting. especially considering that your physical resist is only an estimate and depends on the specific attack and monster, so in the end, I'm always blind

I have a build that uses rise of the phoenix and avian twin talismans that take cold as fire and lightning as fire, in the end I just know that it helps, I have no idea how much cold or lightning resistance I actually have, even less when I use +maximum resistance flasks

I do like that PoE is complex but sometimes it's just way too complicated, especially with it's terminology like increased and more being completely different