My journey to level 90 with four stash tabs

Good luck on your adventures! :)

Completed the rest of act 3 and about half of act 4 on cruel.

Before act 3 I used up a few lower level leaguestones I had left with one charge. Beyond was kind enough to spawn Na'em so I got a kill off him. He's generally the easiest of the beyond bosses for me.

While doing that I reached level 51 and grabbed the iron grip keystone for a good chunk of damage.

At the start of act 3 I again had a breach leaguestone active, this time without beyond. It was still really intense and I almost died. I decided to finish the stone once I had gained better gear and/or overleveled it a bit.

Crematorium dropped an Ambu's Charge off a random mob. It would have been a nice chest at this point if not for the poor sockets.

In the Market Sewers I had a Brinerot warband drop a Fencoil.

In the Docks I was just thinking that I'd need to upgrade my bow soon when a decimation bow with an amazing %phys damage roll dropped. Just a magic one, but still a good 20% damage increase over my previous magic bow.

Found an Arcanist Strongbox in Solaris Temple level 2. It dropped a few chaos-tier currencies.

An invasion boss in Lunaris Temple dropped Kitava's Thirst. It was highlighted with an unusually large font in the default filter. Sadly it's a caster helmet and as such useless for me, but it will be a fine addition to my collection in standard.

After dealing with Piety I noticed that my wisdom scrolls were getting alarmingly low. So I completed the Library sidequest and did some extra runs of library. I only got one scholar card but otherwise the area dropped a decent amount of wisdom scrolls. I also converted one stack of portals to wisdoms since I had a surplus of those.

While in the Library I found not one but two Vaal areas (on different runs). They dropped a vaal arc and a sacrifice at noon.

I completed my dailies and went to bed.


Today I started with dailies and increased my influence with Haku to level 5. With that I was able to upgrade my hideout and invite Tora and Vorici over.

Upon arriving to Dominus I had accumulated a total of 8 passive points, which I used for some bow physical damage nodes. My DPS grew about 20%. Dominus was a total pushover, didn't even have to use my staunching flask even though I now had one.

Act 3 was completed at level 56, with 16 hours 49 minutes /played. It was the slowest act yet thanks to the library farming and doing a bunch of leaguestones that required finding stuff.

An essence monster in the Dried Lake had a wailing essence of greed. I tried it on an armour/evasion chest with decent sockets I found in the same area. The result wasn't very good but still worth using for the time being thanks to the life roll. Had to give up the 4-link though, but I had another on my gloves.

Pikerivet dropped a Hrimsorrow.

I managed to scrounge up enough glassblower's baubles to max out the quality on a flask, so I rolled a quicksilver flask. It turned out fairly well, with one extra use and additional movement speed.

I had another close brush with death when a soul conduit mob spawned from a strongbox died in the middle of a huge pile of corpses and filled my screen with apparitions. That teaches me to not pay attention to nemesis mods, especially in a nemesis area.

Orra Greengate spawned from another strongbox in the same area and was kind enough to drop a regal orb for me.

The next arena dropped a 6-socket commander's brigandine. This is the first item I'd seriously consider crafting. I don't really have the chaos orbs to spend on it yet, but with that regal I found I could alt a good life roll and some resistance on it and hope for the best. It'd hardly be worse than my current chest.

Daresso himself dropped an Ezomyte Peak. That would have been excellent in normal act 1 or even act 2, but now it's just obsolete.

A chest in Kaom's Dream contained Ewar's Mirage. I guess it would be a decent early weapon for a lightning strike build, but I'm not playing one.

Now I have to go buy groceries and take care of some other things IRL. I may still complete cruel act 4 and attempt cruel labyrinth today. We shall see.



My stash is starting to fill up, but I still have one tab of hammers, as well as a significant amount of gems I'm unlikely to ever use. I can get rid of most of the uniques well. Low-tier essences I plan to use for creating chaos recipe jewelry once I start finding ilvl 60+ items.

I'm planning to spend my next four passive points on grabbing Hematophagy and start using blood rage. I have enough passive regen to cover the life drain even without my stone golem. I really want to try it out before merciless bandits so I know if the frenzy charge will be worth it or if I should take the passive instead.

Playing with default 4 tabs makes you stop picking up and hoarding garbage.

"

tinko92 wrote:

Playing with default 4 tabs makes you stop picking up and hoarding garbage.

Newbie tip I learned though was to take advantage of those 24 char slots and use 20 (or so) of my characters as just item mules. :P

Lots of people play with 4 stash tabs and don't make a big deal out of it lol.

Continued from where I left off in act 4. Random mobs in Kaom's Stronghold dropped The Magnate and Alberon's Warpath. I suppose Magnate might be nice for the damage and resistances, but it doesn't have life so doesn't really work for my build.

I had an anarchy leaguestone active and got the stranger in a strange land achievement, which requires killing a rogue exile on Kaom's Stronghold.

I was lucky enough to get another 6-socket chest with correct defenses, this time an even better base type than the last. I then spent 100-ish alts rolling it, finally ending up with 69 life and 31% cold resistance. I had 80+ life twice but it was always paired with a total junk roll. A regal orb gave it 21% fire resistance and I crafted %armour/evasion with Haku's workbench. Success! Didn't spend any fusings on it yet as a 5-link with only nine fusings is a rather remote possibility and I already have a 4-link on my gloves. Should I find gloves with better stats though, I can easily get a 4-link on the chest.

I opened the way to Belly of the Beast and soon after found a tormented Embezzler inside. It fled into a huge pack of monsters around a shrine, and for a moment I thought I had lost it... but then a rare monster possessed by the spirit emerged from the mess! I handily dispatched it and got credit for killing one of the more rare spirit types for my challenge.

Using a gemcutter's ambush leaguestone netted me a full set of gemcutter cards, which I exchanged for a gemcutter's prism.

Upon entering Belly of the Beast level 2 I had an onslaught leaguestone active. At the entrance to corrupted Piety I realized that may not have been the best idea ever, but decided to try anyway. There was a rather close call when I forgot to kill the eye hatcheries, but I survived. Piety did too, sans the corruption.

At this point I was around half a level away from the fourth passive point I needed for Hematophagy. I opted to run Dried Lake twice to level up. The second run contained a corrupted area, from which a sacrifice at noon dropped.

Having obtained that second leech cluster I purchased the blood rage gem. Trying it out in the harvest I found it to be to my liking. Frenzy charges were somewhat hard to keep up in the twisty passages with poor monster density, but I later found it to be vastly easier in more open areas with larger packs. It should work out in maps as well.

Cruel Malachai was much harder than the normal version. The last phase had several close calls, but I kept an eye on his attacks and managed to avoid them sufficiently to not die. At this point I was level 60, with 19 hours 57 minutes /played. I had 2794 life and 2084 tooltip DPS for barrage with blood rage and four frenzy charges.

I completed my remaining trials for the labyrinth but it's getting late now so the labyrinth itself will have to wait until tomorrow.

I easily beat cruel labyrinth. Izaro was entirely facetankable, even his big hits. They took around 40-60% of my life but it was quickly recovered with regeneration and leech. A significant fraction was evaded entirely. The most dangerous situation was in the last phase when I forgot about Izaro's teleport circle and got teleported over some sentries.

The treasure chest I opened contained two cartographer's chisels and a bunch of whetstones and scraps. Not the worst result, though I prefer the alchemist and divination chests (and map chest, but that's not available at this point).

I did my dailies at this point lest I forget them until it's too late. Haku's daily contained a tormented vaal cultist which I was able to herd into the boss. It dropped a sacrifice at dawn.

As I'm about to embark to merciless I figured it's time to do some skill planning instead of just slapping random gems into sockets.

Access to maps loomed on the horizon and I was anxious to reach it, so I pushed through merciless difficulty a bit faster. I still used leaguestones but tried to pick leagues where I wouldn't have to clear entire areas.

A gemcutter's strongbox in the Flooded Depths dropped a vaal rain of arrows. That might actually be useful, although I'm not sure if I can fit it in my sockets.

The same Flooded Depths also contained a vaal side area, which dropped vaal double strike. That's decidedly less useful.

In early act 1 I got Elreon to level 5.

Brutus hit me extremely hard. That ground slam spikes attack of his took something like 80% of my life. I was able to keep myself alive with leech and flasks but had to do a lot of running. When he finally died he dropped a Doedre's Tenure.

Two minutes after the fight my wireless mouse ran out of battery. Luckily I was in town selling loot at the time. If it had happened mid-fight I'd almost certainly have died.

An invasion boss in the Ship Graveyard cave dropped Lifesprig.

Act 1 on merciless was completed at level 62, with 22 hours 33 minutes /played.

In the Riverways I encountered a tormented smuggler, one of the two types I was still missing. It possessed a Mutewind lynx and dropped a rare desert map and fencoil when killed. That was my first map in this league.

Since ilvl 60 items were dropping now, I started doing the chaos recipe. White jewelry got essenced into rares (with useless and/or low-tier essences) and the set was completed with rare armor and weapons. Since essences produce identified items this only gives one chaos orb per recipe, but it's still the best use I have for those essences.

In early act 2 some item upgrades and crafting brought my resistances to the cap (or in one case a single percent short).

Vaal Oversoul dropped a Foxshade. Act 2 was completed at level 64, with 24 hours 10 minutes /played.

In Sarn Slums I ran into an echoing shrine, which was the last one I was missing. Challenge complete.

A tormented cutthroat in the Slums Sewers possessed Gloomgut, the unique maw that resides in the area. The mob became insanely fast and dangerous so I ran away and reset the instance.

A Catarina mission monster in the Marketplace Sewers dropped a Prismweave.

At level 66 with 25 hours 18 minutes /played I reached the eternal laboratory and gained access to maps. This felt and probably was a lot slower than essence league. In essence it was easier to ignore the content until maps, only killing essences when my path crossed them. Here leaguestones kept dropping and because they have area level limits I had to use them and dealing with their content took time. I still have a whole bunch of leaguestones that don't work in maps.

After reaching the eternal laboratory I expended a few level 50-ish leaguestones, including one for breach. It was a lot more fun when I wasn't in constant danger of dying.

While using leaguestones in cruel Dried Lake I got a Voidhome and The Wise Oak from Voll (on separate runs).

My stash was getting seriously full so I cleaned it up a bit. Most of the unique items were disposed of; I only kept Ambu's Charge and The Magnate because those two could be remotely useful. I sold a bunch of skill gems and flasks I deemed unlikely to be useful as well. Selling quality flasks and gems got me three baubles and one gcp. Soon I will get rid of all those hammers as I start running maps and will inevitably get more maps than I can run.




Before starting with maps I will likely kill Piety and get those two passive points. Possibly even get the point from act 4. The remainder of act 4 will be left until later, because the bosses are quite hard and there are no rewards to speak of.

My DPS doesn't feel too great, though that's largely due to my weapon. It only does 150 dps, whereas a decent endgame bow would be closer to 300 or even over. Barrage has very low tooltip DPS due to the multiple arrows which can hit the same enemy, and this is compounded by using a greater multiple projectiles on it. Tooltip DPS with blood rage, full frenzy charges (currently 5) and the Hematophagy proc is only about 1496, but because it fires eight arrows actual DPS is about 12k. I figure I can easily double that with gear upgrades and the fifth support, maybe even triple when all is said and done. Honestly though I was hoping for a bit more, but I have to live with what I get. My leech cap is 43% of max life per second, which at my projected 7k life translates to about 3k per second. With 5.8% leech I'd need to do 52k DPS to one target in order to sustain capped leech. Against multiple targets it's obviously easier.

Not much time for PoE today.

Piety fell easily. I then went to unlock the sceptre to get rid of the key in my inventory and found a vaal side area while looking for the sceptre waypoint. Entering it was a mistake. The boss inside delivered me my first death. And then the second. Oh well. This is why I play softcore. It's still the furthest I've made in a league before dying.

I started my mapping with an arcade map. With me being slightly below the area level and having an outdated bow clearing wasn't too fast. The map dropped another arcade map which I also ran. After running a total of three maps I had ended up with a desert and two ghetto maps.

As soon as I find some decent bases I'm going to craft better gear for myself. Ideally I'd have two of the same base so I can alternate between them and reroll the one that has worse stats at the moment. So far I've found a single nightmare bascinet.