The joys of playing a Meta Build, and how badly Incursion can screw you without one

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Teolive wrote:

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allbusiness wrote:

I could literally pick any skill and make it work in Incursion. You just need to learn to play. For one, most people make bad decisions and go straight for the architect without actually planning their path.


The league purposely forces you to strategize what path you will take and to kill efficiently. There's an actual point to this; it's a way to get newer players to strategize and think about how they are going to approach a map. It's actually good game play, as it gets newer players to start to think in the mindset of how can I efficiently kill this room with my build.


That being said, most of you guys are more willing to complain then anything.

says the guy playing a meta clearspeed flameblast ignite lol...

Which is our entire complaint that this league is nothing about your so called "strategy" but rather just forcing people to play meta or else suffer.

We are not asking for much, just some measly extra time to allow us to play slower clunkier builds. It shouldn't make difference for a get gud elitist like yourself since you allegedly can clear it regardless.

Flameblast is meta because Goratha is playing it? Good joke.



The temple is more rewarding than even shaper/elder items, and brings up items up to speed on them. The power creep is immense, and it's not even hard to access. People who are complaining are generally complaining because they can't get all the fat loot early in the game. That's like saying "HOW COME I DON'T HAVE IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO THE BREACH LORDS"

I've been playing POE since beta, always loved the fact that a meta exists and that leagues added variety, but never felt a pressure to conform to it.

This time feels different. I assumed GGG would patch the timer of the temple within hours because it's so ridiculous. Even with 3 people in my party we could barely accomplish things. However, I don't think the problem is that its "meta or bust", but rather that you see it so much earlier than before that you feel the pressure immediately. Having never really explored the end-game, I can safely say that most leagues and expansions just sort of sail past me, but this one is punishing me very early.

It's not a new thing that the league content can be overpowering during the levelling process--I remember skipping abysses a lot at low levels if my builds were junk at that point, and I skipped incursions a bunch when I was stuck running Magma Orb mines for a while.

Fortunately my actual build (Arc mines) is completely stupid this league so incursions are no longer a struggle--earlier today I managed to clear one with a full 30 seconds left on the clock, though of course that's not the typical case. I could definitely see it being hard to get the keys to open the doors if you're not able to full-clear incursions, though for most builds you can probably get there eventually. If you have good AoE clearing, incursions on maps actually spawn a lot more monsters, which gives you a lot more time on the clock if you're clearing them at about the same speed you'd clear a smaller pack.

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johnKeys wrote:

The Incursion Timer is a less-fair version of a Zana Mission timer.
you need to kill things, fast. very, very fast. one-shot whole packs if you can.

Arc Traps allow me to do that. I kill Architects, open doors, kill all monsters in the room for the achievement, get the temple layout I want.

But what about a normal build? some non-Mathil melee without Stat Sticks? some wacky build that doesn't have off-the-charts DPS?
yeah good luck with that, in this league. chances are you'll get a temple with only the entrance room...

This is a fun league no doubt, but it also took the barrier between the have and the have-not, and made it into a giant 50-foot wall.

john, my friend is playing Dervish summoner Champion, and while it isn't the quickest clear of all times, he does fully clear incursions.

If you're playing wacky off-meta build, I'm pretty sure you're doing it for additional challenge.
If these builds were doing as meta builds they would be meta builds, right?

And honestly, most non-super-wacky builds are able to clear fast. Heck, even Skeletons are scary as all fuck.

Killing monsters should be giving some extra time (f.e. 0.5s per normal monster, 1s for magic, 2s for rare, 5s for architect or smth).

I doubt new players are even able to kill some magic shit there.

I'm not a new player, but simply a bad player.
I like to take my time, don't do any races, because I don't like it.
Therefor after a few tries, I abandoned Alva's quests and ignore her for the rest of this league.
Just doing the story line and then some maps maybe.

Hope next league will be something without timed stuff in them. Timed Levers in the labyrinth are bad enough.. hate them...

just my 2 cents

Incursion just lets you peek behind the curtain a little easier, to see "The Formula(tm)"

The formula wasn't really around in the early days, but as streamers focus players into the game, the formula was developed.

It's simple and it works.

1. announce reworks of specific skills to be released for soon to release league.
2. large percentage of the player base goes with the reworked skills. Meta is born
3. players who follow the meta are rewarded with a strong build and a positive experience. They also are much more likely to buy MTX.
4. Nerf ludicrously OP skills, rework others, return to step 1 for the next league.

Maybe they tipped their hand a bit this time. Arc and a few others are stupidly overpowered. This might have been done on purpose due to the Tencent purchase. Give the players the chance to be gods for a league so they are less pissed off about the Tencent thing. Or they just went too far.

Either way, players can choose to get with the winning team or suffer the consequences.

Running ( literally ) Tri-Herald BV while mashing 3 speed flasks and I still barely make the timer on most incursions while mapping, often.

If I wasn't super stacking skill duration, and pre-stacking blades before entering them ... I wouldn't even get half way through ( and sometimes I still don't ).

The times where I finish with 10+ sec on the clock are random, and rare; so it makes me concerned that not only were they not balanced around any "normal" builds, but they weren't even balanced within their own possible layouts. Times should be fairly consistent, given consistent plays; not wild RNG swings that give Chris warm tingly feelings up his spine.

And don't even get me started on how random the stone drops are.
Nothing like not getting one until the very last white mob dies ...and you now have to go find that door on the other side of the incursion with 5 sec left on the clock.

Joy Intensifies.

I'm'a roll up a zombie/spectre summoner once my arc trapper hits 90, and find out what all the crying is about.

but seriously... I didn't finish a single incursion until I hit level 15 or so. Finish meaning linking a door AND killing an architect.

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鬼殺し wrote:

This deserves to be Post Of The thread Year, so I'm giving it an appropriate colour.

Don't tease the man, it got fairly obvious the moment they started doing the themed mechanic reworks. Minion patch, poison patch, golem patch, trap patch, you know something in there will be pretty broken. On the other hand, can they even do it differently? If they try to rework something and it ends up worse or just different it will get the fail of the year sticker before you can dust off Hillock.