Playing SST Blood Magic Bleedbomber and Loving It

So I keep seeing seven bananajillion threads about how absolutely nothing but the absolute strongest Meta-Compliant(TM) builds are remotely functional right now and how there's just absolutely no way to play anything remotely fun this league.

I find that a curious statement, honestly. I'm running a Meta-Compliant(TM) shield chucker build, stole it straight off of Zizaran's video and went about adjusting the trappings without really changing the core of the build at all. I may have Reckoning on there, I've still got a Stone Golem on tap when I need more life regen, and I'm using both Dash and Shield Charge because Shield Charge is no proper gorram replacement for Dash, but it's still a Crimson Dance/Blood Magic Gladiator focusing on bleed DOT and on-death explosions, as close to meta standard as it can get and still be a build someone actually plays.

It's also been quite thoroughly enjoyable.

I've never gotten a high-level Duelist worked up before, the class just hasn't interested me in the past. This is the first time I've gotten Gladiator bleed-bombings to work and watching stuff popcorn all over the screen is quite satisfying. Dosing a large pack of blues with a few bleeds and watching the fuse health bars tick down to an Earth-Shattering Kaboom is great. I've learned a good bit about how these builds scale and function, and I've learned that the Duelist is indeed every bit the jabbering putz he starts out as throughout the entire campaign. Delightful.

I suppose my question is mostly...why aren't the 'Meta' builds also fun? There seems to be a strict dichotomy in the average forumite's mind that says "if this build is meta, it is automatically horrible, un-fun and utterly not worth playing", and I really don't get it. I very much understand the drive to make your own builds, forge your own path and ignore the meta trends, but frankly few people are capable of doing that in this game to start with and the gem nerfs didn't affect anyone who could. If you were capable of creating your own endgamey, red maps-viable builds prior to the nerfs, you're capable of doing it now. And frankly, every 'meta' build was someone's original, janky weirdbuild at some point before it caught on.

Honestly? Been considering a Herald of Agony Scion next, since the Agony Crawler gets around a lot of the worst hits to minion damage. Scion has better access to minion damage nodes than the Ranger/Pathfinder does, and there's some cool interactions with the Micro-Distillery Belt base type, the Flaskfinder node for Ascendant, and the Traitor Timeless keystone. 'Course, unsure what to do with that particular engine especially since "flasks" and "minions" don't generally mix, but I'm just as capable of working on that build while enjoying a smooth league start with a proven Meta-Compliant build I knew wasn't going to crap out on me halfway through yellow maps.

Legit question here: what gives?

nice

In very broad terms, there are two approaches to how to go about the build.

Either to find a build someone else made, or to pick a skill that one likes/looks fun and try to make a build around it.

Some people enjoy the first approach, others, the latter.

On my example, my wife loves the first approach while I do the second one. For her, making a build would be a pain in the ass she is unwilling to go through.

For me, following a guide removes at least half of the enjoyment I get from PoE.

In Expedition, the first approach still works the same way it did in all previous leagues.

What people are complaining about is that the second approach doesn't work nearly as well as it used to - there's a really high wall at red maps, over which the vast majority of skills simply cannot climb.

That's where most of the complaining comes from, and by all available statistics, it has a very real basis behind it (poe ninja ascendancies/skills usage), and there're quite a lot of people who fall into the second category (Expedition having the worst player retention in the history of PoE in spite of having a smooth launch and awesome league mechanics).

Fun is subjective. You don't have to have fun the same way as other players.

If you don't find SST fun, that's fine. Play something else. I don't usually target "Meta". But it's often fun to. Pretty sure my second build for the league is going to be Forbidden Rite totems. They say they're crazy strong. Still having fun with my Bonecrusher/beheader Slayer. I really don't see why people shit on Slayer. He can do any map mode except no leech and those show up in high tier maps rarely. I love being able to run yellow maps un-ided and not have to worry about corruptions hitting one of the twelve mods I can 't tolerate.

"

Xyel wrote:

In very broad terms, there are two approaches to how to go about the build.

Either to find a build someone else made, or to pick a skill that one likes/looks fun and try to make a build around it.

Some people enjoy the first approach, others, the latter.

On my example, my wife loves the first approach while I do the second one. For her, making a build would be a pain in the ass she is unwilling to go through.

For me, following a guide removes at least half of the enjoyment I get from PoE.

In Expedition, the first approach still works the same way it did in all previous leagues.

What people are complaining about is that the second approach doesn't work nearly as well in Expedition - there's a really high wall at red maps, over which the vast majority of skills simply cannot climb.

That's where most of the complaining comes from, and by all available statistics, it has a very real basis behind it (poe ninja ascendancies/skills usage), and there're quite a lot of people who fall into the second category (Expedition having the worst player retention in the history of PoE in spite of having a smooth launch and awesome league mechanics).

Fair enough, and thanks for a reasoned and rational answer.

I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure the hullaballoo over the support gem power nerfs is legit. From all my experience in and around this game, it's extremely rare for a base skill to be entirely incapable of climbing the red-maps wall. Usually it's more a matter of "can you handle the level of investment required to make this skill work?", which is in turn hampered by the idea most players have that you need smegloads of currency prior to starting a character to make that character work.

Admittedly, you need a plan to get the character to the point where you can start buying core build pieces and certain builds benefit greatly from knowing they'll have access to things they need when they need it - low-life builds that want a heavily linked Shavronne's Wrappings being a good example - but that's why I figure so few people can legitimately make their own builds in this game. It's a case of knowing the mechanics of the game well enough to understand how to scale whatever you're doing, because the generic "pick the weapon/element you're using and just grab all those nodes on the tree" answer is what leads to terrible, failed builds. It sucks that Path is so unintuitive and unforgiving, that "get the damage nodes that correspond to your damage" is barely even Step 1, but that's also in part what makes the game fun.

The skills that simply can't handle endgame are rare and generally very well known. Most other skills can be pushed to red maps if you work at it and are willing to learn as you go, at least in my experience. Endgame bosses are another matter, especially since I favor skills/builds that clear well over skills/builds that boss well, but I simply don't see how the global power reduction that affects virtually every build ever known is unfairly punitive to "Pick A Skill and Build It" style players. You still do exactly the same things you did before, and with exactly the same percentage chance of success. The top-end numbers went down, but the average builder never saw top-end numbers anyways. Getting over a million DPS is normally all the achievement you can get with self-made jankbuilds, and that's still plenty doable if you know what you're doing better'n I do.

I believe the core of the issue regarding builds and meta involves the religious way PoB is and has always been used: racking up a high dps number.


If we no longer worry about Sirus DPS, the build options open up a bit more.

Every build is stacking sirus DPS, so whichever builds have the most sirus DPS will be the new meta, regardless of nerfs.

So is the solution to nerf sirus so more builds have room for viability?

No, not really. We need to explore the options for boss DPS, ignore it entirely and rely on boss killers to finish this content, or play a meta build with quite a bit of thought put into it.

"

1453R wrote:

I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure the hullaballoo over the support gem power nerfs is legit. From all my experience in and around this game, it's extremely rare for a base skill to be entirely incapable of climbing the red-maps wall. Usually it's more a matter of "can you handle the level of investment required to make this skill work?", which is in turn hampered by the idea most players have that you need smegloads of currency prior to starting a character to make that character work.

Admittedly, you need a plan to get the character to the point where you can start buying core build pieces and certain builds benefit greatly from knowing they'll have access to things they need when they need it - low-life builds that want a heavily linked Shavronne's Wrappings being a good example - but that's why I figure so few people can legitimately make their own builds in this game. It's a case of knowing the mechanics of the game well enough to understand how to scale whatever you're doing, because the generic "pick the weapon/element you're using and just grab all those nodes on the tree" answer is what leads to terrible, failed builds. It sucks that Path is so unintuitive and unforgiving, that "get the damage nodes that correspond to your damage" is barely even Step 1, but that's also in part what makes the game fun.

The skills that simply can't handle endgame are rare and generally very well known. Most other skills can be pushed to red maps if you work at it and are willing to learn as you go, at least in my experience. Endgame bosses are another matter, especially since I favor skills/builds that clear well over skills/builds that boss well, but I simply don't see how the global power reduction that affects virtually every build ever known is unfairly punitive to "Pick A Skill and Build It" style players. You still do exactly the same things you did before, and with exactly the same percentage chance of success. The top-end numbers went down, but the average builder never saw top-end numbers anyways. Getting over a million DPS is normally all the achievement you can get with self-made jankbuilds, and that's still plenty doable if you know what you're doing better'n I do.

This was true all the way up to Ultimatum. There was always a wall at yellow and then at red maps, but it's much bigger now.

I mean, have you tried making a build in this league?

It's not nearly as easy (okay, easy is relative, because it was always relatively difficult) as it used to be.

The reason the global support gem + mechanics nerfs hit self-made builds the hardest is because the monsters part of the game remained the same - if a 100 mil dps necro specters build is nerfed by 60 % of dmg, it still deals 40 mil dps, more than enough to delete anything in the game.

But if a build that barely made it to 5 mil dps at full self-buff, 60 % dmg nerf drops it to 2 mil dps, and that's not enough to evaporate rare monsters in red maps, so the build's defenses become tested. And most build's defenses fail that test, because all the way up to Ultimatum, they weren't needed before.

Like this, the blanket nerf lets meta remain strong, but purges the non-meta builds, hence the much-decreased build diversity.

And the blanket nerf isn't just to damage - the movement skill nerf hit certain archetypes extra-hard, as did the flask nerf, as did the mana nerf, as did the endgame item nerfs.

On the example of my current poison assassin (for this league, I picked venom gyre), the removal of "60 % chance for poisons inflicted by this weapon to deal 100 % more damage" craft means my BIS weapon is Wasp's Nest, formerly a leveling unique. The mana nerf means I no longer have CWDT because it could mana-drain me to zero in a moment when I would need to use whirling blades (=death), and my defenses are overall down the drain compared to Betrayal, when I last played a similar build, since I need to invest much more into damage.

Due to all of this, yes, I do the same things as before, but the percentage rate of success is much smaller.

Also, on the self-made jankbuilds - in Ritual, I pushed Wild Strike to ~15 mil dps at full self-buff, so 1 mil dps isn't very accurate.

That's a very good point. Not every build can or should have "Can this kill AW8 Sirus in less than thirty seconds?" as an endgame goal. If that's the goal you want to set for yourself, then you need to approach that goal the way you would approach any other similar goal - decide what the best way to reach it is and pursue that path.

There's absolutely nothing wrong, whatsoever, with wanting to kill Sirus with your own build, but you should be aware that you're setting a difficult goal for yourself and you may have to make compromises to reach it. It may take more investment than you like, or it may require you to invest in a second skill on your build. Nobody in the history of ever has killed Sirus by shooting him with Split Arrow and nothing but, and builds like Frost Blades have long relied on supplementary damage sources.

There's ways to do it, but you have to be realistic with your goals. or at least honest with your goals. I maintain that virtually any skill can be made Red Maps Viable with a sufficiency of investment, but I'll admit that not all builds/skills are "I want to put AW8 Sirus on thirty-second kill farm status" viable. There's maybe two archers in the whole-ass game that can do that and both rely on DOT abuse (Assailum Puncture Gladiator and Toxic Rain spam), and I have yet to meet the minion build Sirus doesn't cordially violate with his ridiculous AoE spam.

If that's your goal, you have to use the right tools to get to that goal, but it doesn't have to be the only goal, ne?

90% of the fun of this game for me is coming up with wacky builds. 10% is actually "playing" the game and running maps/etc.

This league I got the latter 10% just fine, but the 90% is lacking. It's the first league I've actually followed a build guide. My homebrew builds were just too painfully slow to get going.

Not sure how long I'll play the league if I'm only getting 10% of my enjoyment. Shooting for 24 challenges, at least. Dunno past that.

Sirus is a terrible example for a goal, because it's a mechanics-oriented fight more than anything else. With the wildstrike build I mentioned earlier, he was extremely difficult to kill even with the 15 mil dps, because chasing around Sirus with a squishy, true-melee build is a nightmare.

On the other hand, he was really easy with stuff like spellslinger VD.

Also, for minion builds, specters trivialize Sirus in this league (for char examples: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds?class=Necromancer&skill=Raise-Spectre), almost all did in the previous ones. Sirus aoe does little damage to endgame minions, and they shred him to the next phase in seconds.

Anyway, back to the goal - to comfortably farm red maps is the usual one, and it was doable on most skills in past leagues.

Not so much in Expedition due to what I said earlier.