Invasion experience - dying and aftermath

I feel that overuse of bear traps to create artificial danger has really detracted from these bosses.

"

Lanster27 wrote:

G'day guys.

I'm a relatively new player, just got into the game 1 months ago near the end of the last 4-month league. I have experimented with a few builds, mostly based off builds by ZiggyD.

Started off on invasion recently with a EK/MOM/EB Shadow. The first toon died to an invasion boss in Vaal zone with a combination of desync and fire burst. But I was determined to get this build to high levels, so I rolled a similar toon with slightly different skill tree and better gear from a few previous short runs in invasion.

It was all going nicely. I had a few close calls, quicksilvered getaways. I had lots of health (>1.1k by end of normal), maxed resists, and had 2 uniques (Karui Ward amulet and Goldwyrm boots). For 2 days I was worried that my character will get steamrolled by Dominus, so in the end I teamed up with a few other people and we took him down easily. Voila! Forward to the unknown of Cruel!

But alas, I was not prepared for Cruel. In Fetid Pool I met up with Rima, Deep Temptres. As I was keen for the next quest reward to clear out the pool, I took her head on with no knowledge of how dangerous she is. After getting stuck by traps and stuck between some rock pillars, I was helpless as I watched her firestorm emptied my hp. In hindsight I probably could have TPed while I was stuck, but hindsight is just that.

When I was playing normal, I never got this kind of ups and downs from POE. With each death I learn something, and need more time to recover.

TL,DR:

Now my toon is in Standard, I am not too happy with the market. In invasion I could get good skill gems for alchs and unique gears for 1c each, but in standard everyone is asking for Exalts. I don't think my stash can ever afford something like that, so either I self fund my way to end game or give up on this character and start a new build in invasion. What do you guys think?

How do people recover from a character dying after 1-2 weeks of playing in invasion/HC? I would like to hear other interesting (mostly deaths) experiences in invasion.

It feels good to share some good stories.

Good read except the last part of your post.
You are totally wrong about the market in standard you can get a lot of gem for 1 alch and a lot of unique for 1 chaos

Here i'm helping you :
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/512409

You have to search a bit before making false assumption like that :P ;)

Give ambush a shot. The leap from cruel to merciless is even worse than normal to cruel. Starting in invasion seems masochistic to me, but I guess if you enjoy it you should roll there.

Never go to high level side areas on Invasion, it's a suicide. Also 1.1k health is really, really low.

"

Alhoon wrote:

Never go to high level side areas on Invasion, it's a suicide. Also 1.1k health is really, really low.

This. Unless you overlevel them. Besides, the Fetid Pool quest gives you some respec points, if you're playing correctly, i.e. with a specific build already planned ahead, you won't really need this.

It's always good to refer "successful" guides though they sometimes don't include unsuccessful cases. So let me start with different perspectives.

Stash every best-in-slot uniques for your endgame build

So you don't have to pay/pray/farm again and again for those items every time you meet an unexpected death on the way to the endgame mostly due to lack of experiences.

In case of EK builds especially at the early stages, biggest problem is the slower casting of EK. Half second of casting in relatively short range of EK can result you death for some of new bosses. You need Fire Trap (and Bear Trap if necessary). Still it takes longer for quick and fidgety bosses. Run speed and any mobility skill is always useful both for offence and defense. Also you can counter those new bosses by new Vaal gem skills. To get Vaal gems and better chance for good loots, you have to face harder contents. This is exactly the intention and fun of Invasion League.

Farm zones on your level

You don't need to farm lower level zones stacking huge Increased Item Rarity/Quantity. What you need to keep looting possible upgrades is just to stay in the -4 ~ 0 range. If you are Lv.30, you don't farm in a Lv.20 zone. That's far more efficient than stacking IIR/IIQ to a certain level which is relatively higher requirement than stacking "OK" items to farm zones on your level. Hard monsters are still hard regardless of your gear (You just don't realize how hard they are and how much more/less you need to defeat them if you are killing them instantly with expensive items.)

It's sustainable till Merciless Act 3 City of Sarn or Docks at the best if you got lucky loots.

But the RNGessus doesn't always smile on us

The best and least you get at this point in Merciless Act 3 (or any highest zone you reached) is the levels on your skill gems. Your skill tree have to be prepared to abuse your main skills and balanced between defense and offence. If your defense is a bit too low, you cannot even try to attack sometimes. If your damage is a bit too low, you have to stack way much more defensive stats to sustain longer fights. You might have one or few useful uniques in the stash. It's good time to start using them to maximize your ability with minimum investments on gears and skill sockets.

Anyway, you should have earned enough loots and experiences to start over.

Random tips

Keep at least 1 or more HP/Mana flasks dropped from white monsters/boxes/crates in Normal Act 1, The climb (Item level 8). Keep upgrading it using "3 same tier flasks to a +1 tier flask" Vendor Recipe and you will always have higher chance to roll "Removes Bleeding" and/or "Instant Recovery" mod. For "Dispells Shocked" mod, you need flasks dropped in Normal Act 1, Upper Prison (ilevel 10). You also need "Dispells Frozen And Chilled" mod. Keep those 3 mods on your 2 of HP flasks and 1 Mana/Hybrid flask. Picking up every blue flasks to find those mods for almost free is also helping. I prefer Bleeding on mana/hybrid flask since Corrupted Blood monsters are less familiar in Invasion League and Bleed monsters are usually easy to avoid. At phase 2 Dominus fight, you might need more "Removes Bleeding" flask but basically you just put Decoy totem or Summon Skeleton+Spell totem and burst it down using Vaal skill. "Dispells Burning" is less useful because your HP should be regen'ing by any of HP flasks and when you critical-hit by those shotgun fire spells, you die instantly anyway. Better have Ruby Flask when necessary.

Have a nice day !

Your perception of the market is completely wrong, either you mixed up the leagues or you cannot read.


LMP, Blind, Flame Totem on Invasion are going for a Chaos each, I was lucky to get them through loot though

Those three gems on Ambush are going at alchs only, I just asked once and got spammed by invites.

 Alcohol works quite well to lower blood pressure after a hardcore death. That and privately rage venting about the GD no good GGG SOBs, etc., etc.

 For GGG, I'm sure they are all smiles and happy that there are frequent deaths in Invasion League. They are sick and tired (I hope so, I know I am) of the uber hardcore racing to get a build into the upper 80s or 90s a mere week or 2 after the new leagues start so for them to make a hardcore league that can face-palm all who dare play it unless you are an elite hardcore player is PoE working as intended.

 Unfortunately, these top tier 1% or so of PoE uber hardcore "no-life" players are skewing the game play dynamics of PoE in the uber hardcore direction and as GGG tries to stay ahead of them with ever increasingly difficult content, the rest of us "normal" players (ok, there is no such thing as normal, everyone has different PoE playing capabilities), but anyway the rest of us non-uber-hardcore players are left on the trail of dead builds. This level of insanity is spiraling out of control such that by next year most of us will have mostly thrown in the towel and quit (or severely curtailed) playing PoE unless GGG comes to their senses before it's too late and the whole game crushes itself to death (think dieing star where it runs out of hydrogen, shrinks to a marble size under the overwhelming gravity pressure, and then explodes in a nova or super nova). That's where PoE is headed if this course the GGG devs are on does not change.

 So after a hardcore death, stop and relax with your favorite alcoholic beverage, and repeat this 3 times...
 It's only a game...It's only a game...It's only a game...

 Then, get up from the computer, emerge from your winter cave, and for most northern hemisphere players, enjoy spring.

 Spring officially starts on March 20th at 12:57 P.M. EDT.

I kinda feel like AA is mandatory in Invasion, because of some of the Boss mechanics.

The problem is getting high enough/the Gear, to run a decent AA, before you actually RIP.. :S

No the real problem is lag spikes, dcs and desyncing for me. I've only played the HC leagues since I came also a little over a month ago and all died to like a white mob or very easy rare. My highest was lvl 74 RoA build. The content is not hard if you stack max mitigation and life and dont worry about DPS. Same in all these games. Its the always online part that will kill you if your connection is shaky.