Kinda frusterating

I'm losing motivation to play this game.

I got a level 48 dead eye but I know that by the time I get to maps I'm going to find out that my stupid build isn't "perfect enough" to get much further.

Mostly my problem is I can't figure out how people can get 5k health. Even when I specifically tried to get as much health as possible I could only get up to 3k and that still wasn't enough to sustain my build.

I tried watching videos but I can't seem to make anything viable. I either don't have enough defense and health or I don't have enough defence ,health OR damage and it's kinda passing me off.

I could still do maps but I'm just going to die all the time if I try anything above t6 and that's with a lvl 80 character. And I don't have the patience to sit and watch my XP go all the way to zero every time I die and I I'm not going to grind t3 maps and not get any good drops.

Also after what 4 characters that I got to maps I have yet to get a single exalt? I know it's rare but I mean come on. I just feel like the game works against me

You get slight hp every level, and its fine with 3500-4000hp early maps. Ranger are also known for having trouble getting hp, so you gotta abuse the very powerful dodge and spell dodge to compensate your low hp.
You can easy get 40 dodge and 30 spell dodge and with grace you can get like 70% evade, then the atziri boots can give you additional 15% spell dodge, and as raider you get even more dodge and the ghost thing that allow you to run thru enemys.

There are one item especially good for reaching 5k+ hp as ranger, "belly of the beast" but its far to expensive.

Focus on a uniq bow then buy yellow evasion gear with 100 hp

i am running tier 8 maps at 3300 health bv pathfinder

Exalts are as rare as you think, you get multiple some days or go days without one that's how RNG works. It also helps if you are fast and efficiently playing if all you want is to farm currency. There are also very few items restricted behind a drop level of 68 meaning you aren't missing anything by being stuck in t3 maps.

Your first exalts will probably come from trading for them. The chance of you seeing an exalt before hitting maps is next to none.

In order to get high HPs. You need to enchant all your gear. If it doesn't have hps on it then put it on there. Do not wear a lot of unique items unless they are required for your build. The less uniques your build has usually the more hps you can get. Make sure every non unique item you are wearing has hps build into the item. Enchanting is the way to go earlier on, but once you have enough alteration orbs to start making your own gear you can get built in hp of up to 100 per non unique item. Then you need a lot of the passive skills to multiply your hp and make it larger.

It's all about end game and time.

Also you have said correctly. This game is all about a few amazing builds. GGG hasn't figured out how to balance their tree so that any build is viable. You should probably look up a build and read about it and then use that build. Find one that lists statistics on what all it can kill.

Not all of my characters have been archers. In fact I had a marauder with only 2 or 3 uniques and still couldn't get more then 3500 health. And since strength attacks don't do alot of AOE damage I had to get right in the middle of everything. And even with I think 6 or 8k armour and fortify I was still chugging health and getting wiped by bosses.

And in all honesty if I have to use another players build to do anything then there is no point in playing the game. I could just use my build to do the low tier maps I guess maybe play with builds

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AngryMu5r00m wrote:

Not all of my characters have been archers. In fact I had a marauder with only 2 or 3 uniques and still couldn't get more then 3500 health. And since strength attacks don't do alot of AOE damage I had to get right in the middle of everything. And even with I think 6 or 8k armour and fortify I was still chugging health and getting wiped by bosses.

And in all honesty if I have to use another players build to do anything then there is no point in playing the game. I could just use my build to do the low tier maps I guess maybe play with builds

In PoE if you find fun; going fast blasting mobs away with one click, then you probably have to follow another's guide to get there with out an extreme deep understanding of how your character and mechanics work.

If what you find fun is exploring a game with extremely complex builds and 1000s of ways to play you shouldn't expect to just "get" it. Many people here play their own theory crafted builds that fail and fail and fail as they slowly learn the game and how to build.

There seems to be a third type of player which is somewhere in between (I have a lot of experience dealing with this as a friend of mine is such a player.) They see other talking about meta stuff and see their crazy fast build deleting everything and wanna do that, but they feel some wierd obligation to make their own builds and are doomed to fail because they are too new and inexperienced to understand what is going on under the hood so to speak. This same kind of player depending on the person may get frustrated at their failing builds and go to another game out of anger, or a few will suck it up and become one of the other two types I listed.

Not sure why I shared the above but the thread and your post made me think of this and you seem to be a person from the third category.

I recommend just trying to enjoy the game for it's complexity and try to learn all the ins and outs. Due to the nature of PoE there is challenge even in leveling and this is one reason it's so much fun to create different builds that have to overcome these challenges in different ways based on their build. There's no shame in making a bunch of new builds to try things out until you finally click with something. If that sounds boring and you absolutely abhor following another much more experienced players guide then this may not be the game for you.


I feel I should touch on the HP and armor topic a tad as well.

Armor in PoE only helps against physical damage which is often applied to you in two ways, a single massive hit (boss slams), or a ton of tiny hits in quick succession (a group of mobs or special types like tentacle miscreations). Armor helps a lot with the later while not helping too much with the former. This is because of the formula used to calculate the damage reduced.

You should also think of your HP as more of your last line of defense, and focus on stacking things that prevent it or mitigate it's drain when getting hit. This is known as defense layering, where you use multiple defensive mechanics to reduce the incoming damage giving you more time to rest to a shitty situation.

My point here is a little bit of armor and fortify with a below average HP pool will definitely not be that tanky. If you were at maps on that character you should have been aiming for something in the range of 5k-7k Total life. When first entering maps 3.5k is about the minimum to prevent constant one shots.

Hope something I had to say helped, I sympathize with you as I do my friend who's been struggling to get into endgame since harby league and finally had success this league and smashed some maps with my other friends and I.

The path of an exile is not an easy one for those who refuse to follow the footsteps laid out by their betters.

The only reason I don't want to do a step by build is because it takes alot of the fun away from the game.

In my opinion games like this have 2 fun factors

1.) Exploration of both character customization and environment

2.) Loot

And with most good uniques kinda trash or low level loot isn't really a strong point and
With the game being a grind not only for loot but for finding a "sweet spot" for builds it's really annoying to miss out on content.

It feels like wasting 50 picks on a master locked chest in skyrim just to find a potato and 5 gold.

But I have also gotten some joy in going through the story with my builds and got close with my witch build but she still was too squishy and my minions couldn't take on higher maps

It kinda sounds like you are just looking for something to complain about. Even in Diablo in order to do the max end stuff you have to pretty much look up builds that other people have taken the time to min/max in order to make any real progress. The days of Diablo 2 where you can just play any character and do any spec to progress through 3 difficulties is long gone. This game is far more technical than D3 also. It's not impossible to come up with your own spec that will work really well, but you have to put in lots of time in order to get to that point. You really have to understand the passive skill grid and how to get around on it and how to use it and gear to make up for short comings.

Its not like it is hard to find builds out there. There is a whole section of this website dedicated to builds for the game. Some are good at some things and some are good at others. Seeing as how this is a F2P game they seem to want you to have to make several characters and become invested in order to do everything so you will spend more money playing. If you don't like the system then I'd suggest staying away from free to play games and just sticking with the stuff that you know. The average achievement completion time for this game is around 500 hours. It's one of the most time consuming games for 100% completion.

You really dont need a perfect build to get into endgame tbh you just need to make sure you tweak it and upgrade gear as you go along if your making your own build.

Until youve made a stack of characters dont expect your first bunch to be a great success but that imo is part i like the most in this game tbh the whole trial and error.

People have killed shaper with sub 4khp you just cant mess up.

If your having problems with staying alive make a check list.Are my resistances capped? Do i have gear thats really dating holding me back? Stuff like that matters so much specially old gear with low teir rolls.

People that make these crazy meta builds have been making builds for ages and can look at a skill they havent used and already have a rough idea what to do with it.
Takes time to gain this knowledge.

Dont give up