Is starting endgame supposed to be an immediate wall?

I just finally got to endgame yesterday evening, and I'm completely unsure what I'm doing wrong here.

I struggled a little getting through Utzaal since I had -10% cold resistance, but I managed to do it. I'm doing pretty good damage as a bloodmage ice strike monk, I have effectively double HP and I'm running grim remnants for overshield too. I... have literally zero idea what I'm supposed to do here. I've run probably 30 T1 waystones now and I've completed 5 of them. I don't have currency to just BUY good gear from people because I can't complete maps and I've been trying to USE it to enchant better gear from these white Expert gears that are the only thing that drop, and it's just not getting better. I'm killing, I'm killing, I'm killing, I'm suddenly stunlocked by a single archer hitting me once with an arrow that I cant even SEE on my screen because of the absolute particle hell, and I'm IMMEDIATELY dead.

I've seen a lot of guides say "You need capped resistances" but I don't know how I'm supposed to even get there. If I take a piece of gear off, my entire build is unusable. If I craft lower level skillgems to reduce requirements, I don't do enough damage to kill stuff before I get swarmed, stunlocked and fucked to death.

"Kill everything before it kills you." was fine for 95% of the game until I got to Utzaal, and then it was "Kill everything before it kills you, but if you see "Gelid" anything IMMEDIATELY start kiting backwards." Now I'm doing maps and it's "Good luck, you'll need it." I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, since when I die it's just immediate. I've got 2000ehp with life remnants overheal and 700 base ES with 40% chance to evade and 7% physical damage reduction. None of my resistances are below zero, but all of them are below 15%. I've spent 500k gold just playing with nodes on the tree, and the only way I can even clear a map is going damage>everything else because having 200% more ehp doesn't matter if you're being hit 500% more while trying to clear packs that won't die.

Starting the game was a tad bit rough as a melee character and having to deal with those poison shooting bastards, but the game immediately got better after filling all my gear slots and getting a few skill/support gems. It was a literal breeze until Utzaal for every single character (I have one of everything). Utzaal is always hard as fuck because of the teleporting kidneystabbing enemies and the freeze-spam zealots. I've only cleared Cruel mode on my witch and spent all my gold trying to respec my other characters out of the hell that is Utzaal several times. I can't twink myself out of this hell I'm in now with the Atlas.

Is starting the Atlas supposed to feel like having a full contact fist fight with your grown ass dad at 8 years old? How am I supposed to progress? Crafting never hits anything halfway decent, I'm not leveling up much anymore, gear ain't dropping (because good luck crafting Item Rarity + all the other shit you need to not blow up in 1 hit) and the only way to play the game seems to be "Play ranged or suffer immensely." I was playing the witch properly at first and the winions were doing great things for me, but the spells all feel like ass to play with and the mechanic where you could Pokeball rare enemy corpses and then summon them back to fight for you (at a hefty reservation cost) isn't even in the game for some reason. That was literally the entire reason I wanted to play the witch.

Rant over, I guess. Can someone at least tell me if it ever gets better? Is it just a matter of spamming T1's until I get a half decent full set of expert rares?

You are supposed to be upgrading your gear as you go along, which clearly you have not if you had -10% cold at the end of Act 3 Cruel.

You need to either buy from other players (trade site), check vendors, craft or just farm some of the act zones until you get better gear.

Your EHP is low if that is including the overheal (what is your actual base life?). Your Evasion is very low, but witch normally doesn't go for that anyway, same with phys reduction.

Your resistances are the biggest problem right now, they should be at least 75% (that is the natural cap, but you want some extra). Resists can roll on any armor or jewelery.

In short, without trading from the external site the game is unplayable... but people don't wanna admit it because god forbid we admit that GGG has made a horrible game...


Because the last time you looted something from the ground and used it was about 3 weeks ago... the game simply doesn't have loot... PERIOD!!!

"

Blade_Dancer_90#3602 wrote:

In short, without trading from the external site the game is unplayable... but people don't wanna admit it because god forbid we admit that GGG has made a horrible game...


Because the last time you looted something from the ground and used it was about 3 weeks ago... the game simply doesn't have loot... PERIOD!!!

Yup, all those SSF players just haven't yet figured out that the game is unplayable.

According to you this is the worst game ever made and completely unplayable. Apparently you think LE is the pinnacle, so why are you here spreading absolute lies and not over there playing that superior game?

"

You are supposed to be upgrading your gear as you go along, which clearly you have not if you had -10% cold at the end of Act 3 Cruel.

Yes, that's accurate because nothing that drops is useful in any way, and nothing I craft is useful in any way. I think the last thing I actually equipped was an extremely lucky Face Mask that dropped on one of my T1's that I managed to scoop before I got oneshot. I am level 69. I have a level 12 ring because from Act I, nothing more useful than that has dropped for me. It's giving me 30% cold resistance. If I take it off, I'm at -18% cold resistance. I have a level 27 amulet that offers zero resistances. If I take it off for an amulet that does have resistances, I lose 42 spirit and can't use grim feast or combat frenzy and do zero damage.

I guess I'll just spam Utzaal until I get better jewelry.


That's basically what it comes down to though, right? I just have to have capped resistances at minimum and then look to pump hitpoints where I can?

the balance is screwed and their is a "wall" once you get into mapping because act 4,5,6, in cruel are placeholder and a cakewalk

"

Doutei_Kun#1993 wrote:

"

You are supposed to be upgrading your gear as you go along, which clearly you have not if you had -10% cold at the end of Act 3 Cruel.

Yes, that's accurate because nothing that drops is useful in any way, and nothing I craft is useful in any way. I think the last thing I actually equipped was an extremely lucky Face Mask that dropped on one of my T1's that I managed to scoop before I got oneshot. I am level 69. I have a level 12 ring because from Act I, nothing more useful than that has dropped for me. It's giving me 30% cold resistance. If I take it off, I'm at -18% cold resistance. I have a level 27 amulet that offers zero resistances. If I take it off for an amulet that does have resistances, I lose 42 spirit and can't use grim feast or combat frenzy and do zero damage.

I guess I'll just spam Utzaal until I get better jewelry.


That's basically what it comes down to though, right? I just have to have capped resistances at minimum and then look to pump hitpoints where I can?

It is likely you HAVE had some other rings drop, but you should've tried to pick them and mod them. However, it IS true that sometimes you don't get the best drops in the campaign.

As for your spirit issue, what is your max spirit? Through the campaign, you should have acquired a total 100 base spirit from side-encounters (they are marked on your map), so with the amulet you mention you would have 142 spirit (more than you probably need, unless you're running minions). Likewise, doing side-encounters would net you a certain amount of base elemental resistances.

"

"In short, without trading from the external site the game is unplayable... but people don't wanna admit it because god forbid we admit that GGG has made a horrible game... "

PoE2 has many flaws and progression wall in early mapping is one of them but not a important one

there is no point in much balancing act 4,5,6 into mapping progresssion curve as act 4,5,6 are just placeholder

also it is not "unplayable"

i leveled 3 classes in SSF to lvl ~80+ and yes, early mapping with basically no gear is hard and a slog but you get through it, took me like 5-10'ish hours on each of my characters to get basic gear

"

Valsacar#0268 wrote:

You are supposed to be upgrading your gear as you go along, which clearly you have not if you had -10% cold at the end of Act 3 Cruel.

You need to either buy from other players (trade site), check vendors, craft or just farm some of the act zones until you get better gear.

It really obvious that you need to get better gear as you progress, but thats easier said then done when loot drops are absolutely abysmal and currency drops are even worse. It might get better after cruel (i wouldnt know because im stuck in cruel act 1 rn) but so far for me even with full clearing and instance farming im still not getting any decent gear or currency drops.

"

Doutei_Kun#1993 wrote:

"

You are supposed to be upgrading your gear as you go along, which clearly you have not if you had -10% cold at the end of Act 3 Cruel.

Yes, that's accurate because nothing that drops is useful in any way, and nothing I craft is useful in any way. I think the last thing I actually equipped was an extremely lucky Face Mask that dropped on one of my T1's that I managed to scoop before I got oneshot. I am level 69. I have a level 12 ring because from Act I, nothing more useful than that has dropped for me. It's giving me 30% cold resistance. If I take it off, I'm at -18% cold resistance. I have a level 27 amulet that offers zero resistances. If I take it off for an amulet that does have resistances, I lose 42 spirit and can't use grim feast or combat frenzy and do zero damage.

I guess I'll just spam Utzaal until I get better jewelry.


That's basically what it comes down to though, right? I just have to have capped resistances at minimum and then look to pump hitpoints where I can?

It is very unlikely the game didn't offer you the very basics of what you need, what is more likely is that you didn't pick up items looking for upgrades or check the vendor (it refreshes every level).

You should have 100 spirit at the end of the campaign, and there's also a number of +10 resist quests as well that should help a little.

Check the map and look for icons that have a + next to them, if they aren't greyed out you missed a permanent buff. Go back and get those. You should also have 24 weapon swap points, if you don't you missed some of those as well.