Arghhhhhhhhh, this game, dude...

"

JoeShmo wrote:

"

ShadyC wrote:

Can you imagine that in any other game? You're getting rushed down by a Blanka, but if you attack him, he reflects damage back to you anyway? Or if you Awp someone down middle of Dust 2, you also die? It's a joke of a mechanic.

When being rushed down by a Blanka, always open with a ranged attack ( if at distance ) or a standing fierce ( if he is airborne ). F,D,F, HP is also acceptable for shonen type characters.

But above all else, never get into melee with an electrified Blanka.

Sure, but I didn't say electrified. I said he literally reflects damage if he takes any. That's the analogy.

"

raics wrote:

"

ShadyC wrote:

The correct analogy is, quite simply, one of the enemy players has damage reflect. That's it. That's the analogy. Kill him, he kills you. That's it. That's the analogy.

And there are things like that in shooters. CoD is notorious for it, there are Martyr, Last Stand or Dead Man's Hand deathstreak, if you kill someone there's a chance you will die if you aren't careful.

Anyway, we found the culprit, you should have your reses capped at all times in endgame, even when under resist reduction curses.

Yes, indeed.

But I'll probably have to save up a bunch before I can afford any upgrades :/



Anything better than these is going to be many Exalts per piece of gear :/ ESPECIALLY if I intend to make minimal trade-offs in my stats...

"

ShadyC wrote:

... Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this is that I need to naturally cap my lightning & cold (I use Brotherhood). They sit at about 50% right now, so another 25% is basically halving the damage I'd take from reflect compared to right now ...

cap at 75% immediately and stop crying :P

No, seriously, you can deal with reflect and deal massive amounts of damage. And you dont need absurd investment for this. Overcapping resist and max you energy shield a bit more will save you from reflect. 6K ES is VERY low, and upgrade cannot cost more than 5ex, no way. Try to check your tree and fix it by taking more defensive nodes.

"

ShadyC wrote:

Helpful post, thank you. Indeed my resists are not naturally maxed, and I usually just pop a Flask to finish the deal. But when I reflect onto myself because I'm dropping big aoe's from off-screen to remain safe (which is another problem with reflect), then I don't know to pop one. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this is that I need to naturally cap my lightning & cold (I use Brotherhood). They sit at about 50% right now, so another 25% is basically halving the damage I'd take from reflect compared to right now.

Yeah, the game is pretty much balanced for capped resists at endgame. A quick fix could be running a purity of elements aura if you aren't already. If you show me your character (either unhide characters in your profile or paste the gear and skill tree link here) I can take a look and recommend more specific solutions. One common cause for a lack of resistances is using too many unique items. Many uniques have very little or no resistances on them, so other items will need to make up for that.

Edit: I see you pasted some while I was writing my reply

Remove the %ES from the gloves and replace it with cold resistance. That should fix that. I assume you have the ring because of the attributes? Being dependent on attributes on gear can indeed be a sticky situation. What's your amulet like? It's a prime source of attributes, and it's usually best to choose one that's complementary to your class. It's also often worth it to take some of the big attribute nodes in the tree to open more options for gear.

The shield has pretty good ES rolls but no resistances. You could sacrifice some ES from it to fix your resistances. There's plenty of affordable shields with lightning resistance on them on poe.trade. Adding the crit chance reduces options a bit but doesn't remove them entirely.

"

raics wrote:

"

JoeShmo wrote:

F,D,F, HP is also acceptable for shonen type characters.

Shonen? :)

The best.

"

ShadyC wrote:

Sure, but I didn't say electrified. I said he literally reflects damage if he takes any. That's the analogy.

Blanka is always electrified.

"

Blade_Master wrote:

"

ShadyC wrote:

... Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this is that I need to naturally cap my lightning & cold (I use Brotherhood). They sit at about 50% right now, so another 25% is basically halving the damage I'd take from reflect compared to right now ...

cap at 75% immediately and stop crying :P

No, seriously, you can deal with reflect and deal massive amounts of damage. And you dont need absurd investment for this. Overcapping resist and max you energy shield a bit more will save you from reflect. 6K ES is VERY low, and upgrade cannot cost more than 5ex, no way. Try to check your tree and fix it by taking more defensive nodes.

I 100% promise you. Anything upgraded from what I just showed you is going to be multiple Exalts per piece. I check the prices every day. (Just checked now, same story. Sidegrades are 10+ Chaos, 25+ if I'm not "settling".)

I feel like people finished their ES gear 3 years ago and are always reflecting upon old prices when they doubt me. I mean, I remember when Exalts were 15 Chaos each. I even made a comic about their ongoing inflation at the time.

I also have every meaningful ES skill node in my areas. I absolutely do not neglect them, I don't enjoy dying, lol.

"

databeaver wrote:

"

ShadyC wrote:

Helpful post, thank you. Indeed my resists are not naturally maxed, and I usually just pop a Flask to finish the deal. But when I reflect onto myself because I'm dropping big aoe's from off-screen to remain safe (which is another problem with reflect), then I don't know to pop one. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this is that I need to naturally cap my lightning & cold (I use Brotherhood). They sit at about 50% right now, so another 25% is basically halving the damage I'd take from reflect compared to right now.

Yeah, the game is pretty much balanced for capped resists at endgame. A quick fix could be running a purity of elements aura if you aren't already. If you show me your character (either unhide characters in your profile or paste the gear and skill tree link here) I can take a look and recommend more specific solutions. One common cause for a lack of resistances is using too many unique items. Many uniques have very little or no resistances on them, so other items will need to make up for that.

Edit: I see you pasted some while I was writing my reply

Remove the %ES from the gloves and replace it with cold resistance. That should fix that. I assume you have the ring because of the attributes? Being dependent on attributes on gear can indeed be a sticky situation. What's your amulet like? It's a prime source of attributes, and it's usually best to choose one that's complementary to your class. It's also often worth it to take some of the big attribute nodes in the tree to open more options for gear.

The shield has pretty good ES rolls but no resistances. You could sacrifice some ES from it to fix your resistances. There's plenty of affordable shields with lightning resistance on them on poe.trade. Adding the crit chance reduces options a bit but doesn't remove them entirely.

Alright, just updated my profile, I believe my shit should be visible now.

I run Chayula because I run C.I., pretty much mandatory. I don't find my Str/Dex ring to be holding me back, really, though. I need a bit of Strength anyway for my Decoy Totem, which will require I think 158? by level 20. When I respec this Firday, I'll be going down some +30 Strength nodes, so I need to accommodate. It'll be a close call, might need to buy a new Doryani's with +30 implicit, but I should be able to get there without sacrificing, really, anything at all.

Ideally my gloves and boots would have at least 130 ES, some combination of resists that total 40+, and either Strength or Dex (if I still need that stat). My chest piece is low ES, because obviously I use it for the radius (AND GORE). But after the respec, I'll be going up in radius, and can probably ditch it for a real ES piece. But I do currently have:



... in my stash. Which isn't too bad, but... It's still low ES in comparison to what I feel like everyone uses, and it's also only a 5-link. I feel like I'll never be able to afford a 6-link. Literally, the cheapest 6-link chest with over 500 ES is a 517 ES piece at 3 Exalts.

The auras that I run are Discipline, Wrath, and Clarity. I feel like that can't really change. I could, I suppose, get rid of Wrath... But I don't really want to get rid of it. It's probably the best offensive aura I can run, and I don't want to just go purely defensive by getting rid of it. (Although I've been tempted to run Grace.)

Like...

I feel like my gear is good. The respec will grant me another +12 to all resists, so that will be amazing. But all in all, I can't really boost my ES that much. It's going to all be in whatever chest piece I end up using. But I can't afford one. And even still, if I got like... some miraculous 800 ES chest piece, my estimation tells me it would put me up about 1800 additional ES from where I am now using Carcass Jack. And that's a good chunk, and I'd have about mid 7000's, but... I always feel like people are telling me, "you should be able to get at LEAST an EASY 10k, blargle balrblgjlefsrelefffff"... And I don't get it. Do they like, 100% prioritize every single possible ES node, or something? Cuz like, I grab them, but I don't sit there and pick up random 6% nodes that lead to nowhere, either. I grab the efficient ones along my path, and sometimes go out of my way for the really efficient ones (usually if it averages at least +10% per node spent).

I dunno.

Somewhat rambling at this point, lol.

"

ShadyC wrote:

I 100% promise you. Anything upgraded from what I just showed you is going to be multiple Exalts per piece. I check the prices every day. (Just checked now, same story. Sidegrades are 10+ Chaos, 25+ if I'm not "settling".)

Are you trying to find upgrades with all the same stats, only better values? That's no doubt expensive. I bet you can find much better deals if you allow some stats to move around or are willing to sacrifice one thing for another.

"

ShadyC wrote:

Alright, just updated my profile, I believe my shit should be visible now.

You seem to have rather low ES for a CI build. Your items have 1306 (including shield bonus from tree), plus 393 from discipline and 32 flat ES from tree. Your tree has 120% increased and 15% more, for a total of about 5830. Since ES is harder to recover than life (no flasks), most CI builds get significantly more pool than a similar life build.

"

ShadyC wrote:

I run Chayula because I run C.I., pretty much mandatory.

That makes sense. My CI build from Essence has no stun immunity, but I can definitely see why you would want it.

"

ShadyC wrote:

I don't find my Str/Dex ring to be holding me back, really, though. I need a bit of Strength anyway for my Decoy Totem, which will require I think 158? by level 20.

155. I usually use rings for resistances, but one of my builds has a ring which is not too dissimilar to yours:

Also wtf is this shit I just noticed on my summoner:

That's so going to get replaced when I next play that character.

You do have other options so I'm not saying you need to change the ring. At least craft something on it though. Suffixes are all taken so it can't get a third resist, but you could put some ES on it.

"

ShadyC wrote:

It'll be a close call, might need to buy a new Doryani's with +30 implicit

Too bad about the corruption, if not for that it could have been improved very cheaply with a blessed orb or two.

"

ShadyC wrote:

Ideally my gloves and boots would have at least 130 ES, some combination of resists that total 40+, and either Strength or Dex (if I still need that stat).

Gloves and boots have low base ES, so they are good candidates to sacrifice ES rolls for other stats. I usually go for movement speed on boots and resistances on gloves.

"

ShadyC wrote:

My chest piece is low ES

Yes, Carcass Jack is a strange choice for a CI build.

"

ShadyC wrote:

because obviously I use it for the radius (AND GORE).

I'm not convinced the increased AoE is worth sacrificing all that ES.

"

ShadyC wrote:

But after the respec, I'll be going up in radius, and can probably ditch it for a real ES piece. But I do currently have:

... in my stash. Which isn't too bad, but... It's still low ES in comparison to what I feel like everyone uses

It's much better, though honestly, for a CI build I'd focus on a high-ES chest and get resistances from somewhere else. My CI occultist has this:

The life roll is only useful for stun avoidance obviously. I'm considering swapping chests with my Icestorm elementalist (she has a 710 ES one) because Icestorm would benefit from the intelligence and that gal is a hybrid life/ES build.

"

ShadyC wrote:

and it's also only a 5-link. I feel like I'll never be able to afford a 6-link. Literally, the cheapest 6-link chest with over 500 ES is a 517 ES piece at 3 Exalts.

6-links are by no means mandatory. I've never had one, yet I've easily beaten T15 maps.

"

ShadyC wrote:

The auras that I run are Discipline, Wrath, and Clarity. I feel like that can't really change. I could, I suppose, get rid of Wrath... But I don't really want to get rid of it. It's probably the best offensive aura I can run, and I don't want to just go purely defensive by getting rid of it. (Although I've been tempted to run Grace.)

Well, you won't be doing much offense if you're dead. Swapping auras is often useful as a quick fix. You can then sort out a more permanent solution and restore your aura setup.

"

ShadyC wrote:

I feel like my gear is good.

It's not that the individual items are bad, some of them just don't work very well together. Carcass Jack is a strange choice, and I prefer ES belts (chain or crystal) on ES builds. Those two slots represent some 500 points of wasted base ES potential.

"

ShadyC wrote:

The respec will grant me another +12 to all resists, so that will be amazing.

There's potential for even more. I can see 33% worth of elemental resistances close to your current tree. I guess you're planning to get Elementalist from the templar area?

"

ShadyC wrote:

But all in all, I can't really boost my ES that much. It's going to all be in whatever chest piece I end up using. But I can't afford one. And even still, if I got like... some miraculous 800 ES chest piece, my estimation tells me it would put me up about 1800 additional ES from where I am now using Carcass Jack. And that's a good chunk, and I'd have about mid 7000's, but... I always feel like people are telling me, "you should be able to get at LEAST an EASY 10k, blargle balrblgjlefsrelefffff"... And I don't get it. Do they like, 100% prioritize every single possible ES node, or something? Cuz like, I grab them, but I don't sit there and pick up random 6% nodes that lead to nowhere, either. I grab the efficient ones along my path, and sometimes go out of my way for the really efficient ones (usually if it averages at least +10% per node spent).

My CI occultist build for reference. She has about 11.3k ES.

I think one part of your problem may be that you have a lot of different things in your tree. Besides ES and damage, you also have AoE, crit, power charges and auras. It's difficult to fit that many different things in the same build, especially when you have to get them from all around the tree. You're spending a lot of points just for pathing. You're also only level 82, with 8-10 easy passive points ahead of you. Spreading yourself too thin at this point could cost you as slower leveling.

By comparison, my occultist tree is designed pretty much ES first and mostly grabs utilities (mana, curses, auras, cast speed) when they are in close proximity to the main path. There are things I wanted to get but didn't because they were too far away. I did get some of the loose small ES nodes because they add up.

Getting a proper ES chest and fixing your resistances will be a good start. Maybe it'll even be enough; my occultist can kill ele reflect rares and only lose about half of her ES pool to the reflect. You'd have a lower ES pool so would take larger relative damage, but it could well be survivable. If it isn't, we'll see what else you can change.

"

databeaver wrote:

"

ShadyC wrote:

My chest piece is low ES

Yes, Carcass Jack is a strange choice for a CI build.

"

ShadyC wrote:

because obviously I use it for the radius (AND GORE).

I'm not convinced the increased AoE is worth sacrificing all that ES.

Beast fur shawl doesn't work for you?

My 2cents:
1: as previously mentioned, by the time you reach maps, you should cap your elemental resistances.
2: For CI-based character i recommend to forget the Carcass jack. That armour offers very little ES, wich means a very big trade-off for the largest ES-slot for a little damage. Also, 6link is a luxory, just settle with 5link (until you have at least 5ex to spare) & there is a relatively cheap prophecy for 5linking.
3: 3 quicksilver flask is a huge overkill. Try some other utility or def. flask. I also recommend an anti-freeze flask.
4: You took 0 jewel slots on the tree. Don't overlook jewels, they are very versatile and can help your build in many ways. Most jewels with resistances are also very cheap (min-maxers mostly go for perfect full damage ones or the ones with life/es & the rest damage).

Btw you can level gems in your alternative weapon setup (good for later use, like stockpiling for vaaling main spell gem)

lol doesent cap resists and then complains about ele reflect....

thats funny

Oh man, such a big post, thank you for the time :P Lot to respond to!

"

Are you trying to find upgrades with all the same stats, only better values? That's no doubt expensive. I bet you can find much better deals if you allow some stats to move around or are willing to sacrifice one thing for another.

No, I'm talkin' about sidegrades as well. Giving up some things, narrowing my focus to 1-2 specific stats. And every time, as long as I'm not settling for some shitty 16% cold resist piece of gear or something, it's always really expensive. I currently have a bunch of tabs open, in fact, that are eyeballing glove search criteria, boots, chest, shield, and rings. Actually bought a decent shield for 3 Chaos earlier:



Solid upgrade, considering the previous shield had 0 resists. Lucky buy, though. I'm basically trying to snipe good purchases between either maps or Kaom runs.

"

You seem to have rather low ES for a CI build. Your items have 1306 (including shield bonus from tree), plus 393 from discipline and 32 flat ES from tree. Your tree has 120% increased and 15% more, for a total of about 5830. Since ES is harder to recover than life (no flasks), most CI builds get significantly more pool than a similar life build.

Combining this with your following display of your CI build, it's a little disheartening. It follows suit with what every CI player does, which I guess I was trying to avoid. But it feels like if you play CI, you run like 1-3 uniques and that's it. I feel like Armor/Evasion characters get to play with whatever uniques they like the effects of, since their effective health is increased by the plentiful amounts of armor and/or evasion that they acquire passively.

Dunno.

"

Too bad about the corruption, if not for that it could have been improved very cheaply with a blessed orb or two.

Dude, I got so mad about it. I'm just like, "UGH, why does every idiot just throw corruption on everything? There ARE reasons to hold off from doing it."

Like, look at this that I bought like a complete moron:



Now it's just sitting in my stash, probably vendor trash, and I'm just... ugh.

Why would you corrupt that?!

"

Gloves and boots have low base ES, so they are good candidates to sacrifice ES rolls for other stats. I usually go for movement speed on boots and resistances on gloves.

But all the non-ES affixes on gloves & boots are suffixes. The only prefix stat I remotely use is mana. So I mean, I might as well just wear some 130+ ES ones.

"

It's much better, though honestly, for a CI build I'd focus on a high-ES chest and get resistances from somewhere else. My CI occultist has this:

Tabula Rasa might be why I feel like you're a chump if you're not running a 6-Link. It makes you realize that, no matter what gear you got on now, if you're down a link you're down a TON of power.

I still feel that way. But maybe I just need to get over it for the time being, I guess. Ugh.

"

It's much better, though honestly, for a CI build I'd focus on a high-ES chest and get resistances from somewhere else. My CI occultist has this:

That chest your Occultist has is probably worth about 2 Exalts, give or take half of one.

I have 50 Chaos to my name right now.

Right now, I'm looking at a 702 5-Link that I could buy for 45 Chaos and be broke. It has literally no other stats. Or I could save up a little more and blow 60 Chaos on a 703 chest with 6% fire resist.

After that, everything is 1+ Ex. Guess I gotta keep farmin', because I don't wanna spend 45 or 60 Chaos on some bullshit, lol.

"

It's not that the individual items are bad, some of them just don't work very well together. Carcass Jack is a strange choice, and I prefer ES belts (chain or crystal) on ES builds. Those two slots represent some 500 points of wasted base ES potential.

"

There's potential for even more. I can see 33% worth of elemental resistances close to your current tree. I guess you're planning to get Elementalist from the templar area?

(What the fuck, white crystal belts are 20 Chaos.)

Yes, I most likely just need to narrow my build down. But also, I play Assassin. They work off of Power Charges, and unfortunately, those are spread out from one end of the skill tree map to the other.




THIS is my currently-intended skill tree once the respec hits:



(EDIT: Oh, and I should absolutely grab Nullification... I'm literally right next to it, lol.)

I'm not 100% sold on it yet, however, because this discussion is making me decide to spend much more time layign out other paths & mentalities, and see which one I overall prefer.

But let's talk about skill paths right now, because I think that will determine how I go about the rest of my character.

With the above skill path, I decided to go for the Power Charges first and foremost. After that, generally speaking, I just grab anything near the path already taken that appears to be above the standard par of node strength. I generally consider ES node par to be 6-8% per node, damage types to be 8% per node, crit chance to be 20% per node, crit mult to be 15% per node, xxxx. So if anything is above those values, I will go out and grab them. But if they are equal to those values, the only reason I'll get them is if they're along to way to something important. For example, 3 damage nodes that are 8%, 8%, and 24%. That totals 40% over the course of 3 nodes, which is way above the average damage node. How can I pass that up and grab a bunch of 6% ES nodes that lead nowhere, you know what I mean?

Consider, I run Storm Call. Let me tell you, AoE radius is a magical thing with this spell. Its default is tiny, but I never realized how much radius would affect it. Without radius, I'd have to use a different spell (probably Arc) for trash clear. But because of radius, Storm Call is my trash + boss clear, which lets me use entire other skills in Arc's place. Plus, it is actually very effective as a trash clearer.

With the coming respec, I will be gaining a 15% radius increase that I do not currently have (though am on the route for). So I'll be able to drop Carcass Jack more comfortably.

Right now, I'm going to tinker with trying to narrow myself down a lot on my skill paths. The first decision will be to not get the Templar Power Charge, and stick with the Shadow's and the Witch's. But I hesitate dramatically about that, because Assassin gets so much out of Power Charges... And not only that, but I eventually planned to get Void Battery, which also does. (And honestly, with Void Battery, I could probably kill off a decent amount of crit chance, either from gear or skill nodes, since Battery gives me +1 Power Charge.)

That being said, I think my above displayed path is probably the best path I can do if I am indeed grabbing all 3 Power Charges. Do you think that much is at least true?

"

2: For CI-based character i recommend to forget the Carcass jack. That armour offers very little ES, wich means a very big trade-off for the largest ES-slot for a little damage. Also, 6link is a luxory, just settle with 5link (until you have at least 5ex to spare) & there is a relatively cheap prophecy for 5linking.

What do you mean a "cheap prophecy"? Another game mechanic I have no idea about? lol