I played this during the beta and thought it was cool, but didn’t get too far into it. There were some interesting ideas - I really like the way they handle potions, and the humongous passive skill tree looks really interesting and a custom character builders dream.
So it’s been released and is on Steam. Since I have some time off work I downloaded it and have been playing it for about a week. I really like it. Using gems slotted into items for your spells/skills is complicated and I’m still getting the hang of it (especially linking and using support gems), but being able to pop different gems in and out of your gear and finding what works is really cool.
I am playing a marauder, and am on act 3 normal, around level 30. I screwed up some gems by leveling them past the point where I can actually use them, but I am saving all my skill gems so I can hopefully use or trade them at some point. I started out dual wielding with daggers and using either dual strike or double strike. In act 2 I found a nice 2 handed unique sword. I don’t usually like 2 hand weapons in games, but that sword kicked ass. At the end of act 2 I found a rare 2 handed mace and have been testing that out. It’s very slow but does massive damage.
I have been saving passive skill points and have about 12 to spare. I got some decent skills built up (strength, life, damage), then decided to save some up and try to decide what path to go down. I’m not sure if I want to lock myself into weapon specialization at this point, so I’m leery of putting points into specific weapon skills. I’ve used 1 and 2 hand, maces, daggers, and swords, up to this point, and they’ve all worked well.
Anyone playing this? Have any tips for skills/weapons/gems? How is the game in the higher difficulties?
I preferred the actual gameplay from diablo but everything else from skills to the passive stat tree to the very important loot and endgame are far superior on PoE.
I do like the gameplay. I’ve found some cool skills so far that are fun to use. I love the mixing and matching you can do with skills, although I’m a bit lost on the gems. If you have gems you’re not going to use is it better to level them up or leave them alone? How can you tell what linked gem sockets are main and which are support? Do you get melee skills to use no matter what piece of armor the gem is in, or are there restrictions on that?
My 2h mace is going to need replaced soon and I was thinking of buying some swords from the vendor and using my orbs to rare-ify it and get some good sockets on it. Is this a good idea, or should I just try to buy something off the trade channel instead? Marauder is 35 and towards the end of act 3, the last area I went to the mobs had a lot more life than the ones I’ve seen so far.
Diablo III was probably the most disappointing game of all time if you compare hype to actual delivery. I don’t think you’re far wrong, even if you were kidding.
Yeah, Spore is definitely the champ in the hype-to-product ratio. Diablo 3 may not have lived up to all of its positive hype, but it also didn’t live down to all of its negative hype, and I’m not even sure which it had more of.
Didn’t say i didn’t like it, only that it was better in diablo. Diablo 3 feels better while playing and looks way better, it just has zero depth and gets boring extremely fast. PoE on the other hand takes a bit to get into and looks crappy compared to the alternatives but has incredibly good systems and gets better the longer you play it.
I am now starting cruel difficulty and am getting more into this game the more I play it. The skill tree is pretty intimidating, but I finally decided to focus my marauder on 2 handed weapons. I found a nice 2 handed mace and have been using it since about halfway through normal. At first I was going to give up on it since it was so slow, but then I slotted it with, Infernal Blow, I think. It makes enemies you kill explode and damage other enemies. I also invested in some passive attack speed bonuses which made it a lot faster, and it just feels so satisfying to run into a group of enemies and start popping them with my big hammer. Not sure if I want to put passives into any specific weapon skills like mace or axe, etc, right now I’m just going general 2 handed weapons skills.
When you slot passive/active gems, which socket is the support and which is the main, or doesn’t that matter? Support gems only affect the gem they’re linked to, right? So I link a Life Leech support gem to Infernal Blow, only Infernal Blow attacks are going to leech life, right?
Also do people tend to level up as many gems as they can, or only socket gems that you intend to use? I really only use infernal blow and life leech at this point, but I have dozens of other gems. Since most gems are physical attacks, spells, or support gems, is there any point to socketing and leveling gems I’m not using? There aren’t really any “passive” bonus gems are there? I tried using some of the “protective aura” gems but they reserve a large portion of your mana and I’m hard up enough for mana as is.
I have been playing the hell out of this game for the past few weeks. While I got bored a year or two ago, before leagues were really a thing, the new features have opened the game up in really cool ways. Ascendancy is a really neat way to pimp out character builds, the increased ways to deal with reflect are cool, there’s all kinds of interesting mechanics to play with… Lots to like. While the balance is still all over the place, the game is a ton of fun to play, and anyone playing breach league softcore in lategame is welcome to add me; I’m “Budget_Player_Cadet” and my blade vortex build is very very silly.
I’ve gotten into Heroes of the Storm lately, but I think I’m gonna take a look at PoE. The gem thing is in Neverwinter, so that shouldn’t be an issue. Looks like fun.
I tried to enjoy Path of Exile but I feel like the F2P aspect hurts it. I realize this is subjective, but since they need to make microtransactions there’s aspects of the game (portals for example) that are intended to be frustrating to encourage me to pay some money to remove the frustration. What I like about Diablo 3 is that playing it is hassle free. I really like the skill development tree in Path of Exile. I guess for me, I’m just the sort of person that prefers to pay for a game and be done with it, except expansions.
My other little quibble, which I realize may seem really silly, is that class is kind of tied to gender. This means that making certain types of characters I like to make is more difficult than it should be.
What do you mean? The micro-transactions change the appearance of portals, nothing at all about their functionality (unless they’ve changed this very recently). I can think of literally nothing you can pay for in the game that affects actual gameplay in any non-cosmetic way.
I played PoE in beta. It was okay, there just wasn’t anything super compelling about it. I agree that it’s superior to Diablo, but Diablo is pretty dated at this point.
I’m not sure. I haven’t played PoE in quite some time. I just remember being frustrated with aspects of the gameplay that felt like it was designed to make me buy stuff, which I understand since of course they need to get people to buy stuff. In particular, I remember routinely not having the ability to portal back to town. I think it is just that I have a personal preference that makes F2P games not fun for me. PoE the game is very good, just that little feeling I had when playing it that made it not fun. I’d have to play it again maybe to understand it again. That and the class to gender thing. Again, I know that may sound silly, but being able to make the character I envision is a very important aspect to me.
