Back by Unpopular Demand - Underused Skills/Ascendancies Challenge - 10.26.19 at Noon
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INTRODUCTION
Basically No Necromancer League (Only sorta joking)! The league will be created Saturday, October 26th at Noon USA Central. Countdown Timer Reddit Thread; Discord: https://discord.gg/TQjAk2D Private League Link: SSF Blight Softcore SSF Blight Hardcore Mods are 10 days, SSF, Increased Monster Damage (tier 1), Increased Monster Life (tier 2), Added Phys as Elemental to Monsters (tier 1); Multi Proj (+2) to Monsters; Increased Monster Speed (tier 1) Chat: /global 15551 NOTICES First, if you are able, please contribute to the crowdfunds as they are updated. On average it amounts to like $.60 per person. But if people aren't crowdfunding, people are stuck waiting to get in. So please consider throwing some extra points at it. I usually sponsor at least 30 spots (some in both leagues if HC has enough interest). Second, if you decide to quit, please message me on reddit or through PoE ingame or account messages. It's very difficult for me to tell if people aren't playing, and I don't want to cut someone who is still playing the league. If you aren't playing, that's a spot that someone else could be using! Third, I chose the skills based off data from Blight SC SSF on Poe.ninja. The cutoff was generally 0.3% usage with 5+ links. I'm open to arguments until the league goes live, but please check poe.ninja to see where the skill is at before posting (inevitably a few skills get forgotten). If you feel I've included something that will be clearly broken please let me know. Also, keep in mind that Underused doesn't equal Unplayable or even Underpowered! Also, I've expanded the list slightly to compensate for the Ascendancy restriction. GOALS Top level of each Ascendancy: You get bragging rights and a (well done) nod. I'm open to new ideas here, IDK what could be good with Blight. No one wanted prizes last few times, so I'm not even going to deal with that. I think it's more about the challenge or competition. RULES You must make your profile and characters public, otherwise there is no way to see that you are playing the allowed skills below. APPROVED ASCENDANCIES These Ascendancies were 1% or less in either Blight SSF SC or HC. Surprisingly, Inquisitor was 1% in both, and unsurprisingly Berserker was also 1% or less in both. The others made it to 2% in one of the leagues: Chieftain Juggernaut Ascendant Champion Pathfinder Deadeye Slayer Inquisitor Berserker (Bit of a sad state of affairs for Marauder) (Witch and Shadow have no available ascendancy, so you can't play either, but you can mule one to max level 50 to get support gems, threshold jewels, or an extra quicksilver or whatever. If you do, please put "Mule" in the character name somewhere). APPROVED SKILLS As soon as you enter Merveil's Cavern (when you get access to lvl 12 gems) and beyond, you can only use the following "underused" skills and/or their Vaal version. I pulled these from SSF Blight and cut the list off at 0.3% usage: All Golems All "item-granted" skills Soulrend Cold Snap Holy Flame Totem Pestilent Strike Glacial Cascade Lightning Spire Trap Rain of Arrows Wild Strike Frost Bolt Lightning Trap Purifying Flame Flicker Strike Blight Earthquake Armageddon Brand Ground Slam Flameblast Ice Spear Static Strike Double Strike Flamethrower Trap Shock Nova Wave of Conviction Animate Guardian Sweep Storm Burst Reave Spark Scorching Ray Ice Trap Infernal Blow Molten Burst Viper Strike Kinetic Blast Leap Slam Ethereal Knives Spectral Throw Dark Pact Molten Strike Cleave Sunder Wither Shield Charge Summon Holy Relic Spectral Shield Throw Ice Crash Storm Call Desecrate Stormblast Mine Consecrated Path Glacial Hammer Flame Dash Power Siphon Arctic Breath Cremation Herald of Purity Magma Orb Charged Dash Frenzy Split Arrow Contagion Whirling Blades Smite Flame Surge Puncture Icestorm Heavy Strike Burning Arrow Lightning Strike Bladefall Shrapnel Shot Dual Strike Herald of Thunder Shattering Steel Frost Bomb Explosive Trap Perforate Searing Bond Blink Arrow Siege Ballista Summon Skitterbots Bodyswap Ancestral Protector Shockwave Totem Vigilant Strike Chain Hook Mirror Arrow Blast Rain Abyssal Cry Explosive Arrow Unearth Animate Weapon Lancing Steel Withering Step Discharge Molten Shell Seismic Trap Firestorm Frost Wall Siphoning Trap Lightning Tendrils OTHER Defensive skills:CWDT, Molten Shell, Tempest Shield, Immortal call, Bear Trap etc. - all defensive skills are okay Golems: No restrictions this league. Heralds: You can use Herald of Purity and Ash without restrictions. You may use Agony, Lightning and Ice as long as they are unlinked (Enlighten Support being the only exception). Banners: No restrictions. Elder/Shaper/Essence Crafted: Notwithstanding previous rules, no restrictions. Example - you could have Herald of Agony in an elder minion damage helm if it's unlinked to natural support gems. I doubt this will be used, but just wanted it clarified. These pseudo-link items can of course also be used with any of the approved skills too. Spell/Ranged Attack Totem Support & Trap and Remote Mine Supports: All usable with any listed skill. Other Exceptions: corpse creation skills, convocation, offerings, auras, curses, support gems and skills (brand recall, molten shell, warcries, blood rage, arctic armor, etc). counterattacks (these CAN be linked to damage supports if you choose), non-damaging totems, and movement skills (except cyclone). You can use Ancestral Warchief totem for the buff only (i.e. unlinked). EDITS Check back before launch to see if there were any other additions or omissions. I removed Ball lightning and Orb of Storms, see Manifesto in comments Added Lightning Tendrils as it was missed. Changed rule for 'Mule' characters to max level 50. Added Brand Recall to list of exceptions TIPS Keep in mind, especially in HC, the Brutus fight is insane, so you CAN over level to 12+ to kill him if you want. This helped me a couple leagues ago to get lvl 12 flasks. The multi-proj in my opinion is the most dangerous mod. However, keep in mind that all monsters do extra damage as all elemental types so you're constantly getting ailments. There are also no restrictions on characters, so e.g. you can mule a character class that can buy Decoy Totem at lvl 4. If you're playing HC, keep all movespeed boots or other early gear you "grow out of" as dying is a pretty much mandatory part of this league. Muahaha!. Here are a couple links I found on SSF as there are a lot of people that have only ever played trade league. I haven't vetted these or anything, but they looked solid: SSF Tips Link 1 SSF Tips Link 2 SSF Tips Link 3 Last edited by jolsen26 on Oct 26, 2019, 12:28:08 AM Last bumped on Nov 9, 2019, 3:03:22 PM
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Looking forward to this as always!
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Shadow also doesn't have any available Ascendancies btw. Looking very much forward to do this again, my Orb of storms/Ball lightning Pathfinder won the SC Shaper race last time and I hope to see some new contestants.
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Links are now live. I funded the first 20 spots in each league.
Discord server is up too. | |
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Manifesto:
Rather than respond to each comment or discussion, I figured I'd explain my thoughts around these challenges. The purpose of the league is not to get rid of all powerful skills, but to drastically shake up the meta to effectively force people to try new things. Maybe not new things to the community, but at least to them. Most people don't play this game as a job so don't play 20 different builds each league. This usually forces people to the most powerful or popular skills and ascendancies. This league it's Necromancer by a mile (43% of players on poe.ninja), last league it was Essence Drain or Cyclone making up over 50%. Despite the Necro imbalance, the skill diversity is better than the last few leagues. Within Necro there are many different strong options, and outside necro there is a wide range of skills being used. Some people have commented things like "X skill" + mines is broken. Keep in mind that poe.ninja takes the mine support into the equation, so the skills are still used by .3% or less, regardless of mines or not. So even though there may be a small subset of players that are already taking advantage of an underused skill and doing well, that doesn't apply to the vast majority. I don't consider finding a combination of skills and available ascendancies to be broken, even if it's super strong. I've seen about a dozen ideas just in this thread already. What I consider "broken" is something like Herald of Agony. This got missed out one league because I frankly forgot about it because it usually wasn't being run in a 5+ link. Wave of Conviction made the cut this time, and therefore I couldn't put restrictions on it. This is the type of thing that worries me because it can be run by so many builds for the exposure utility. This is similar to the reason for Herald of Ice being restricted to no links as it leads to too many people using for destroying packs, applying curses or both. I also consider the SSF aspect, and the ascendancy restrictions as you aren't easily able to find or purchase the most powerful items. For example, Deadeye is 5% in Blight, but only 1% in Blight SSF HC. I've reconsidered Ball Lightning and taken it out. It was at .5%, but I erroneously thought it's usage was being inflated as a support skill (i.e by Necromancers for applying curses and EE). Same goes for Orb of Storms. It was actually at 1%. While 90% of players with 5+ links on Orb of Storms are either Assassin or Elementalist, if it's at 1% and being used as a main skill I'm going to take it out as it shouldn't have made the cut. Last edited by jolsen26 on Oct 19, 2019, 2:05:42 PM
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" Sorry, I literally just cut both skills :( It wasn't directed at you haha! I explain why in the Manifesto comment | |
" Wasn't talking about doing it again, all good man, gotta find new semi-bad/awkward ways of beating the game! Looking into some melee skills, but that would probably have to be a 2nd character with these mods, Soulrend maybe some Flame Surge feels clunky but might be managable |
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Sounds awesome, been waiting for a league like this. Would like to join the HC league :)
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I really enjoy leagues like this, thanks for running a new one. Anything to shake up the meta gets a thumbs up from me. A lot of the underused skills are still very powerful and have solid builds from previous leagues that should still work. Rain of arrows Champion for example has been a solid build and fairly easy for ssf for a long time. I'm glad you restricted HoA, that was like 50% of the builds from the last league if I remember.
I look forward to trying a lot of stupid builds and dying quickly. There are a lot of good melee stuff available but doing hc with these mods as melee is pretty scary. I had really good luck running a jugg ice crash in a previous league like this and would highly recommend it as a safe option if anyone wants to try. Stun + freeze literally everything even if your dmg is a bit low. | |
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Reminder this starts tomorrow :)
I understand how people are waiting until launch to join or contribute as they may not know if they'll have time to play. But please consider contributing to the crowdfunds as new tiers are added. We are maxed on HC at the moment and close to cap on SC. I can approve people over the cap, but they will not be able to create a character until the crowdfunding goes through for the next tier. So you can feel free to join whenever. I changed the rules for "mule" characters to max level 50 to enable threshold jewels to be obtainable through this method. I set the max level at 50 as I have no idea how efficient it might be to, for example, farm for two days as a Necro (or other restricted class) and then switch. I ask that any mule characters put 'mule' in the name somewhere so I can know. I don't want people just playing for fun as a restricted class because that takes up limited spots. I think I'm going to try HC this time (I think I'll be happy to hit maps!), but I should be on the discord and will of course be on here to monitor and accept all applications to the leagues. Last edited by jolsen26 on Oct 25, 2019, 8:11:59 AM
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