The 4th Ascendancy

"

Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index#1288 wrote:

Having screenwide clear in sanctum definitely is a huge benefit on floor 4. Also its a huge time sink

I would just buy trial master fragments if you dont have any and run ultimatum

That is definitely less time consuming than Sanctum. I guess I'll keep trying and maybe get lucky with not so horrible debuffs.

But still. Compared to PoE 1, this is insanely hard. Is the 4th Ascendancy intended to be a luxury that you can only afford at very high levels with very good gear? Or did GGG simply miss the mark and overtuned it?

"

Kelvynn#6607 wrote:

"

Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index#1288 wrote:

Having screenwide clear in sanctum definitely is a huge benefit on floor 4. Also its a huge time sink

I would just buy trial master fragments if you dont have any and run ultimatum

That is definitely less time consuming than Sanctum. I guess I'll keep trying and maybe get lucky with not so horrible debuffs.

But still. Compared to PoE 1, this is insanely hard. Is the 4th Ascendancy intended to be a luxury that you can only afford at very high levels with very good gear? Or did GGG simply miss the mark and overtuned it?

I think the 4th ascendancy shouldn't be taken for just granted, like its become in poe1 - I still think it was very doable and I slapped the trialmaster at around 82 in a 75 ultimatum.

Just don't be scared to fight bosses now, better learn how they work before the first league starts. If you feel comfy with the boss it makes it so much easier.

Also your Ultimatum debuffs don't carry into the bossfight

"

Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index#1288 wrote:

I think the 4th ascendancy shouldn't be taken for just granted, like its become in poe1 - I still think it was very doable and I slapped the trialmaster at around 82 in a 75 ultimatum.

Just don't be scared to fight bosses now, better learn how they work before the first league starts. If you feel comfy with the boss it makes it so much easier.

I'm not scared of the bosses. They are not a problem at all, neither in Ultimatum nor Sanctum. It's the regular monsters that kill me. On the 4th floor of Sanctum they do 10x more damage (or even more) than on the first 3 floors. And in Ultimatum those debuffs tend stack up to some unbearable combinations.

"

Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index#1288 wrote:

Also your Ultimatum debuffs don't carry into the bossfight

What do you mean? I'm pretty sure I had all the nasty stuff still happening in the boss rooms of the Ultimatums I've done.

"

Kelvynn#6607 wrote:

"

Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index#1288 wrote:

I think the 4th ascendancy shouldn't be taken for just granted, like its become in poe1 - I still think it was very doable and I slapped the trialmaster at around 82 in a 75 ultimatum.

Just don't be scared to fight bosses now, better learn how they work before the first league starts. If you feel comfy with the boss it makes it so much easier.

I'm not scared of the bosses. They are not a problem at all, neither in Ultimatum nor Sanctum. It's the regular monsters that kill me. On the 4th floor of Sanctum they do 10x more damage (or even more) than on the first 3 floors. And in Ultimatum those debuffs tend stack up to some unbearable combinations.

"

Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index#1288 wrote:

Also your Ultimatum debuffs don't carry into the bossfight

What do you mean? I'm pretty sure I had all the nasty stuff still happening in the boss rooms of the Ultimatums I've done.

trial master does not have any of the debuffs from the trials, he has a move that looks like the heart move though.

"

Kelvynn#6607 wrote:

Just how powerful are you supposed to be to get that 4th Ascendancy?

I'm lv 82 with decent gear, max resists etc, and I kill most map bosses in a matter of seconds (unless they go into invulnerable phases). But I'm still not strong enough to get my 4th Ascendancy. 10 Ultimatum debuffs make it way too hard (although I might get lucky one day and avoid the worst ones). And the monsters on the 4th floor of Sanctum absolutely destroy me even when I don't have any afflictions that increase monster damage.

Is this stuff overtuned, or what?

To be fair, I find Ultimatum pretty easy (I'm farming it for souls on SSF, mostly lvl80+ ones - no big reason for that, but I'm usually farming T15 maps on +1 and this is what drops there; a run takes under 20 minutes). With trade gear should be even easier.

Given that I made a lot of runs and know what which modifier does, I can select only the harmless ones most of the time.

There should be plenty of modifiers that does nothing / close to nothing to you (in my case some even improve my survivability as I have over 100% recoup and small consistent damage just helps with regeneration).

There are three bosses:
1. The bird that you kill (it's on the ground and summons chicken).
2. The bird that kill you (tornado one, fortunately, it was nerfed).
3. The bird that makes you wish to kill yourself (chimera - it is easy, but likes to spend 80% of the fight invulnerable and hides in different parts of the huge map).

Once you had some practice with (2) - bosses should be easy. (1) and (3) can hardly kill you even with stacked modifiers.

Modifiers which I find more or less free:

1. Turrets (both lightning and fire). Easy to dodge, extremely low damage.
2. Blood globes stage 1. They look scary, but deal very small damage. Stage 2 was really easy as well, but I have feeling that it was buffed last week.
3. Heart that snares you. Stun is really short, so usualy not a problem. Even 2nd stage is ok as increased damage debuff is pretty short and in general is easy to avoid.
4. No flask charges. I usually don't use flasks anyway.
5. Increased debuffs/decreased buffs - usually I don't use any, in general it's scary only if paired with second stage heart as increased damage becomes annoying.
6. More rare affixes (thank you for more loot), rares are not scary, usualy.
7. Death which haunts you. You should be moving most of the time - I think I've never recieved more than 1 stack in a run, even though it is usually my priority pick. It may be annoying on some encounters (escort / crystals), but you can always kite it to the end of the map and run away. If you run fast enough she will not pursue you.
8. Boss damag/survivability mod if "the bird that kills you" is already dead.

Modifiers which are annoying but not a big deal usually.
1. -defenses (maybe a different story for ES builds)
2. lightning circles (average damage, but not too bad, even on 2nd stage).
3. Resists. I don't have any penetration and cursing packs to deal damage is a bit annoying.
4. On death globes. Easy to dodge (just don't stop when they are near you), but annoying.
5. Blood globes stage 2.

The rest are scarier, but pretty often you can finish a run even with one of them.

I haven't tried most of the scary ones after ultimatum rebalance, maybe some of them are more in check now.

For ascendancy - annoying part is that you will need to finish about 6 trials on average to get one as you will be getting duplicate keys. At least in SSF I don't mind it as souls are really good and I need a healthy stock of them to keep upgrading my gear anyway.

Hope these tips were helpful and you will be able to ascend.

Sanctum can be really annoying for some builds and in general it requires you to plan/farm relics. Loot is good, but I don't run it as I find it too annoying.

"

adavydow#2566 wrote:

To be fair, I find Ultimatum pretty easy (I'm farming it for souls on SSF, mostly lvl80+ ones - no big reason for that, but I'm usually farming T15 maps on +1 and this is what drops there; a run takes under 20 minutes). With trade gear should be even easier.

What level are you? What level were you when you first beat it?

"

Kelvynn#6607 wrote:

"

adavydow#2566 wrote:

To be fair, I find Ultimatum pretty easy (I'm farming it for souls on SSF, mostly lvl80+ ones - no big reason for that, but I'm usually farming T15 maps on +1 and this is what drops there; a run takes under 20 minutes). With trade gear should be even easier.

What level are you? What level were you when you first beat it?

Currently 88. The first one was ~75 don't remember exactly (but I practiced in 7 trial ultimatums as I thought that they should give me the third ascendancy point).
Levels are not too important to your damage output. You can pick all most important nodes by lvl 70, and than gain per level is relatively small.

I think I can do it now on relatively low gear if I need to.
The main thing is to learn how to dodge "the bird who kills you" and to know which modifiers to avoid.

Definitely will go for 4th point for my next characters in Ultimatum. Maybe 3d also, but currently it's really unbalanced, as 3d Sanctum point is on lvl 60 and 3d Ultimatum on lvl 75.

Once you understand what to do, they are on par with maps that drop them, if not easier (I definitely have more chances to die in juiced lvl80 map than in lvl80 ultimatum).

If you are picky with modifiers, they are usually less harmful than map mods.

yep ultimatum has no +60% speed and 50% penetration

"

Kelvynn#6607 wrote:

Just how powerful are you supposed to be to get that 4th Ascendancy?

I'm lv 82 with decent gear, max resists etc, and I kill most map bosses in a matter of seconds (unless they go into invulnerable phases). But I'm still not strong enough to get my 4th Ascendancy. 10 Ultimatum debuffs make it way too hard (although I might get lucky one day and avoid the worst ones). And the monsters on the 4th floor of Sanctum absolutely destroy me even when I don't have any afflictions that increase monster damage.

Is this stuff overtuned, or what?

The thing is, unless you play a meta build with millions of dps already, the 4th boss is gonna be a wall anyways. He has like 50 times more HP then the 3td floor. Its literally an uber boss.