The Trials and Tribulations of PoE!

I'm in trouble...or I should say maybe that my level 17 Duelist 'Ratsneve' is dead. I killed off the character last night when so totally frustrated trying to get past Merveil at the end of Act I.

It is hard to give up on something I otherwise was enjoying so much. What to do...? I suspect I was building a Duelist with too many strengths and thus too many weaknesses. He had his dual swords, a two-handed sword, and a bow and was building up Strength and Dexterity and because of some gems needed a couple points of Intelligence in the Skill Tree too.

Better keep it short...

1. How can I get through this game one-time with one character going Solo in Normal mode? Is it possible?

2. Was the Duelist the right pick? I feel like I need a Guide to take me through all the pitfalls--inventory management, mechanics of the game to avoid 'surprises', equipment armor vs environment (that's not the right word?), and if you are a duelist for instance is that all you can afford to use/build up? No two-handed sword? No bow? Only the gems in your blades?

3. My biggest problem seems to be that even though Solo is doable I am still surrounded by a Multi-Player environment and its consequences like maps, monsters, and portals respawning/redrawing if/when careless about the time (8 to 15 minutes?).

4. About Merveil and the like... Can a 'weak' Solo gamer ride on the 'coattails' of a party/group in order to get past certain bosses like Merveil and then continue on Solo in the game? Can this be done avoiding PvP? This was possible to do and of necessity at times during Guild Wars 2. And I was effective in helping too.

Thanks much. This will be my third and best attempt to getting it right or strike 3. In the meantime before starting a new character on Steam and awaiting some answers here I will focus on some Guides.

You can definitely get through Normal solo.

I had the same problem as you on my first playthrough (well actually it was worse, I got stuck on Hailrake for ages then on Brutus then on Merveil :P)

Make sure you are wearing two cold resist rings when facing Merveil (or at least get yourself as much cold resist as you can). Beyond that, if your main goal is to survive into late game , focus your passive tree on health/defense and leave the gear + levelled gems to provide you with damage output.

I can't give you specific duelist advice as it's been a while since I played that class but *every* class has the potential to get through to end game (let alone Normal) solo with enough patience.

ZiggyD has a lot of really good beginner guides http://bit.ly/PoEBeginners.

Don't try to spread out too much... pick a weapon class and use it. Pick a few skills and use them too. Don't try to level up everything or else you will become the literal Jack-of-all-trades and master of none.

Also, buy some cold resist rings from Nessa before attacking Merveil and you will be able to walk right over her.

You can level up and use whatever gems/equipment you like, but you really need to decide on a path before you end up all over the place and weak in all areas.

:)

edit: Any class can use any weapon, but it will be harder for some than others, due to the starting point in the passive tree (melee witch for example). I have a duellist that uses a 2-handed sword and it's working great - but I'm not also trying to spread myself between dual wielding and using a bow...

you can go in almost any direction for normal. its just not a good idea to have some passive allocated to bow / 1h and 2h instead try to focus on one thing.

also you'll have a much easier life if you get some life nodes (protip) and keep an eye on damage types of certain bosses.

in case of merveil you need cold resistance mostly and the fight becomes a cakewalk.

Merveil normal should be easy for just about any build if you stack Cold Resist. Every time you level you can zone into a new instance of town, and the items on the vendors will be different. Look for cold resist rings there and from drops.

If you stack cold resist to 50% plus (which should be pretty easy with rings and a piece of gear or two, if I'm not rushing I can usually cap it at 75%), even at the expense of DPS gear, the fight will still be easy. Honestly I usually have more trouble with Brutus than Merveil. It's all about the cold resist.

As for grouping to kill a boss then going back solo, that's totally doable too. A lot of people will do that for Vaal and Dominus - especially Dominus. Some builds just can't solo him.

Okay, I started off as a Ranger first, then got some advice to use a Duelist from Steam. The Duelist using bow, 2 h and dual swords was not bad all the way up to Merveil. But I wasn't paying any attention to resistance to cold and can't go back to her again since the character is gone.

Am I missing a description of what Merveil is hitting me with or just clueless of what gets flashed on the screen at some point? Where is it? I've paid no attention to this in any battles so far. I'm just whacking away with a split shot bow doing damage or whacking away with a 2 h sword or the dual swords doing damage on Merveil. I actually tried all three. Interesting that my first attempt was most successful weakening her down to her second attack but at that point I thought she was gone and her minions were the worry. My other attempts weren't as successful.

1. So if I was playing Merveil smart I would confront her, learn her weaknesses somehow, remember the direction into her lair and run off to set a portal to town to either buy or equip from storage what I need, and return through the portal before it disappears for the next fight of my life?

2. So as a successful Solo Duelist interested in Range weaponry I would be focusing only on bow skills in the tree? Does that mean using the bow even in a melee confrontation and never needing any other weapon or its associated skills? Does that also mean that the second weapon set would be another bow equipped with different gems?

Thanks.

3. What does Stack Cold Resistance mean? You can only wear two rings--right? How do you stack?

4. What do you keep in your limited inventory? Do you keep a selection of resistance rings in your stash and travel back and forth to town to prep for boss battles?

5. What are the pros/cons of Downloading here or using Steam...if any?

Thanks again.

1. Yes, pretty much. Merveil is really just cold damage, with a side of physical I think. Merveils minions are really just trash mobs that allow you to refill your flasks (by killing them) without returning to town.

2. Yes, bows will work just as well at point blank range as at long range. In fact, there's even a Keystone on the tree called "point blank" that you may want to look into if you'll be sticking with bows... As a side note, I've never actually found a use for the second weapon set, but other people may disagree. I'd ignore it for now, until you've got a better handle on things.

3. "stacking" resistances means to get as much as possible, with the max being 75%. The reason rings are mentioned is because Nessa sells them cheap and you can easily get 40%-50% cold resist buy just buying a couple of rings. You will find resists on other gear as well, but that requires luck rather than just shopping.

4. Between gear, gems and the passive tree, it's really not that difficult to have 75% to all resistances. So to answer your question, no I don't keep spare gear on my person - I make sure the gear I have is the best suited for all occasions. As you progress through the difficulty levels, the choice of gear becomes more and more important and more and more difficult to balance. But for now, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you can get more than 50% to all resists (excluding chaos), then you should be fine.

5. I don't know... I never played this through Steam :)

Good luck!

"

Miszou wrote:

1. Yes, pretty much. Merveil is really just cold damage, with a side of physical I think. Merveil's minions are really just trash mobs that allow you to refill your flasks (by killing them) without returning to town.

Good luck!

How does one know what resistances one needs for a battle? How do you know cold resistance will ruin Merveil's attack/provide your defense? Is the idea always that you die at least once to hopefully see what your correct attack/defense needs to be?

Thanks much for the help. I'm working on my basic Duelist skill tree now and may start the game again tomorrow.

Like he said: Most the time you don't know the type of your enemy. That is why you try to max all resistances. This goes through double-tripplete resistances on the gear. All gear could have resistances on it (even weapons). Prismatic rings have the + 8-10% to all resistances on it so you can build up resis against all element types (but not for chaos). For chaos you have to pick up extra resistances.
The other thing for surviving is to focus on one armor type:
1. Armor and Live
2. Evasion/Block and Life
3. Energy Shield and Life
4. Energy shield and CI (makes you Chaos immun but you only have 1 HP left)

So for your Bow duellist you can go for Armor+Life or Evasion+Life.

I would say take Evasion and Life and try to take the passive skill which changes all your evasion rating to armor (so you will get more armor and you can also focus on Dexterity as main stat, because this is what Evasion Gear needs and what your green gems will need).
Take some Life nodes. Try to get +maximum HP on your gear to stack it. increase your armor with the aura grace and through +%Evasion rating passive skills. If you then also link a Life leach gem to your main skill you should get tanky enough to survive more and more through your progression.

By the way, which country are you from? Maybe a native speaker of your country could explain it better to you and also maybe you have luck and someone who speak your language read this.

PS: IF you want a easy beginner guide take this. There you have all you need to make your first char and to understand the game mechanics by playing with it.