survivability a problem

Hi all,

I am quite new to this game but i played game like diablo in the past so i'm not entirely new to the genre. Act I was pretty easy till act 3 where i started dying sometimes. Act 4 was even harder and dying a little bit more. The act 3 ascension was even not possible for me to finish, i could not beat Izaro (or whatever his name was).

Now in cruel i have even more survivability issues, when i take a clasped hand i am dead in an instant. Some elites also come close to one shotting me. I have tried to go more HP/armour in my passive tree and refunding some as i was previously going for all damage, but still I have to be very very careful. If i have these sort of problems in cruel then i dont know how i am gonna finish merciless ever.

Can someone point me in the direction of my problem?

https://imageshack.com/i/pmF8eoEPj
https://imageshack.com/i/pmpJxzqSj

Where should life/armour/Resistance/dps be where I am now?

Act II cruel.

Go to your Profile on the main site and unhide your characters so we can see them. That way we can be much more precise in helping you.

To start things off, similar to Diablo, each difficulty imposes a penalty to your character. In POE this penalty happens so to be your Resistances (just like Diablo)

In Cruel, your Resistances are reduced by 20%
In Merciless, that penalty is 60%

Your resistances are capped at 75% after the penalty, which means you'll need 95% for Cruel and 135% for Merciless

The most solid way to answer this is obviously to get resistances on your gear. Leveling Uniques like a Goldrim can help with that for a while.

You can offset this slightly by getting more damage. A good offense can be a good defense. You can kill the mob before they get to you.

If your profile is public, we can see your Passive Tree and equipment, and that, in turn, will allow us to assess your dilemma.

The amount of Life does affect gameplay, but that's a bit dependent on your skill level too. There are players who can go all the way to Merciless with less than 2k Life. As a level 50 Duelist at the moment, 1.8k Life is OK. You shouldn't facetank things in this game, especially bosses like Izaro, without proper preparation and knowing the fight.

Armour is an illusion. You need MASSIVE amounts of it to be effective...ish. Even so, it'll protect you well vs small hits, but huge hits will still chunk through it.

Izaro is mainly a mechanic fight. 1.8k Life is more than enough to fight him, but you still need to know his movepool and stuff.

I have clicked unhide :)

the main problem is that you have no support gems linked to whatever your main skill is. At this point you should already use your main skill (and possibly also a single target skill) in a 4-link. This should also alow you to complete Normal difficulty Labyrinth

Ok. Since you're completely new to this game, I'll probably have to explain something.

Playing POE blindly is extremely punishing. Efficiency starts showing when things are done effectively.

You're going to need a crash course on POE basics.

I'll at least explain one of the most important ones here: Gems, Sockets, and Links.

You'll notice that there're several types of Gems in the game:

Attacks
Spells
Supports
Auras
etc.

Those obviously go into sockets and become active once you meet the requirements (weapon type, stats, etc). Certain Sockets are Linked together, and what that means is that any Support Gems that are in Linked Sockets with an Active Gem will grant its bonus to that Active Gem. So from your items, your Heavy Strike will gain Fire Damage. Your Molten Strike has a Physical Damage bonus. But your Herald of Ash is a self Aura, and doesn't gain any benefit from the Melee Splash Gem.



So let's use this for an example.

That item has 5 Linked Sockets, and 1 that is by itself. Dual Strike is the active skill there, and Melee Splash, Faster Attacks, Multistrike and Added Fire is linked to the Dual Strike, granting its bonus to Dual Strike. The Bloodlust gem that isn't linked is just sitting there looking pretty.

Modifying Sockets and Linking items require currency that is not really worth using on lower level items.

Second, you need to know currency.

Hey,

thanks for the crash couse, i did already read that information but all the armours i came across so far were lower stats then the one i was wearing now. So i just kept on using it. I did not realise the importance of the gem linking.

I have now enchanted 4 linked boots and have added melee damage support, faster attack support and life steal support with my molten strike. This has greatly enhanced my survivability.

As far as damage output is concerned, I am okay? Because i seem to find very few weapons that actually boost my dps.

Should i already be creating blues out of white's, rerolling them, auging them and maybe even regalling them?
I saw a crafting video of about 55 minutes but it seems to be i should be saving those for late game?
Or should i go ahead and start crafting from white's already?

Blues and whites are worthless for the most part.

For leveling, use Rares or Uniques.

Defense values (Armor/Evasion/ES) are not really important unless your build particularly focuses on one of them. You can go visit the Armor vendor and see if they have a white 4 Link item in stock and buy that and use an Alchemy Orb on it and you'll probably end up with something better. Or you can just find a good rare while leveling. 4 Links are pretty common.

DPS value on tooltip is actually inaccurate.

"Crafting" is done in late game. You can literally find what you need or buy it on POE trade.

Seriously, just pay poe.trade a visit, look up the corresponding unique you want to try out on it (and on the wiki) and you'll have a much easier time.

For your level, you can probably use a nice 2 Hander. The Termius Est and the Blood Reaper are both cheap and effective for leveling around your level.



You can also grab a Ngamahu's Flame for lvl 55. They all sport a nice DPS number that'll substantially increase your damage output.

Again, your Passive Tree doesn't really show anything, and we have no idea what you're trying to do. A proper Passive Tree will increase your efficiency exponentially.

You're starting out late in the league and that has its perks. As you level you will be swapping gear a fair bit so the trick to solving the slot problem is to get an item you will be using all the way to maps and then 4-link it but this late you can just buy it linked at no extra cost. It's usually Goldrim for resists, though some like Peregrine for move speed and mana leech, Slitherpinch or Lioneye's paws are popular if you expect having problems with stat requirements on some builds and so on.

There's a good selection of levelling weapons for most weapon types so there's no need to try and find a good one, just buy something good for 1 alchemy orb. For example 2h swords:
1. anything
2. rigwald's charge
3. terminus est
4. doomsower
5. 500dps rare

Your build's el cheapo early mapping option would probably be wings of entropy, you can try out Lacerate wit that, it's a decent skill if you're going for the Slayer ascension. If you're going Gladiator you can get two Scaevas and whatever skill you like.

Defensive stats like armor or evasion are less important during levelling than sockets or resists and energy shield is rarely stacked at all before endgame.

Your passive tree seems to be going for a non-crit dual wielder, you got a lot of wasted points and the whole idea isn't exactly optimal but that's fine. Just play around a bit and have fun trying out stuff, next time try planning out everything in advance and it will work out better.

@ sentilial

My plan from the beginning was to dual wield, because it looks cool.

I then decided to follow the passive tree of someone who posted a viper strike build while dual wielding. So i am following that passive tree.

I don't expect my character to be very competitive, but i would like it to be viable to start doing maps, Am I that far off from a decent passive tree?

can you point me in the direction of some nice 1 handers then?

Then use Dreamfeathers. Dreamfeather poison scaling has always been a popular option.

There is not "competitive" here really. Regular gameplay doesn't have a recorded ladder or anything. The only real "competitive" thing here is probably the races, labyrinth ladders, and stuff like that.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1646037

Use this as a guide if you're aiming for Dual Wield + Viper Strike.