PoE is a bit more fun, I think, with a buddy to adventure with in Nemesis mode. Shared joy increased and all that. But honestly, it makes your decisions and play-style all the more meaningful if you have someone depending on you to cover their ass and vice versa.

Been having a blast with my SpecThrow-LMP-SlowerProjectiles Nemesis Scion though, and naturally Dominus wiped the floor with me on my first try. Didn't realize that he put shields up for the blood rain until it was far too late.

 

You guys doing the race in 15? It's gonna be awesome!

1 Hr Descent Champions (S05F028)

 

I'm sitting in the entrance hall now. Should be interesting.

 

Died at lvl 11, have some HUGE lags, my gfx card died yesterday so I am using an 8 year old one, I'm sill amazed that I could run the game as good as I did.

The Brute was too much though. xD

 

PoE is pretty well built in some places, it runs fairly well even on an intel integrated chip, though it makes my Laptop sweat and grunt.

I hope they expand upon the Descent races - it could be really interesting if they started everyone at level 80 or something for one and let us choose from crazy uniques.

 

Does it still suffer from the random desync issues? That is/was my only complaint I had about it.

 

It still happens, key is knowing what skills/mobs cause it so you can use /oos (I have it bound as a micro to my mouse 4) as often as you can.

 

Any timeline on when it may get fixed?

 

No. Path of Exile's netcode is wildly different from something like LoL. It's built in such a way that the only solution is to keep building better network prediction/analysis.

The problem (and great thing really) with PoE's networking design is that you can move your character before the server has okayed it. This is great because it means you never feel lag. If your game is lagging, you can still make actions and send them to the server, your whole game doesn't grind to a halt. The server can generally keep up even if there's a connection hiccup, so gameplay feels smoothly even if you're dropping packets or have a crappy connection (I've played POE successfully with 800 ms). The BAD thing is you CAN make movements while you're lagging. Because the game never grinds to a halt, you never know when you're lagging until you've been lagging so hard that your client is out of sync with the server's understanding of your game. A game like LOL will never let you move your character before the server has okayed it and it will simply disconnect you if you have as much as 1000 ping.

POE's system can only be improved by more quickly understanding when you get desync'd and auto sync for you and by making sure certain skills and abilities don't desync you. Using the re-sync command a year or so ago, I pointed out to Chris (though, he already knew this at the time), that skills like Shield Charge created large amounts of entropy when you got hit by them - you'd always be put a tiny bit out of sync if you took damage from a Rhoa. The server was poor at predicting how you would be effected by the knockback.

 

I'm new to not only this game but the whole genre (never played Diablo, etc.). I'm not a gamer at all. I decided to try playing an RPG after reading some HP fanfic in the "it's all a video game!"-genre, to see what it's like. I also didn't read the doc when making decisions about the character. So now I have a level 34 witch who failed to kill the Vaal multiple times.

Should I grind for better gear? Should I try a new character build? I don't have enough life, enough shield, enough resistance, or strong enough attacks. Are there any good playthrough I should study?

 

The first few characters (especially your very first) that you design yourself are going to be total shit. Fact.

You may get to cruel with them, but eventually the screw-ups you made along the way will catch up with you, and progressing any further will be incredibly tough.

At the same time, playing someone else's build early on can gimp you just as badly. Sure, you'll do well with it, but you won't know why you're doing well.

POE is all about the mechanics, and every time you die, you learn something new. For instance, my death at Lvl 60 to corrupted blood. I didn't know that bleed damage was based on the main hand weapon damage of the mob. And thinking that it was all the same, got a 20 stack of bleed damage. I just happened to attack a zombie, which if you didn't know have MASSIVE main hand damage, you just don't realize it because they barely ever hit you.

Thus, death.

Looked it up, figured it out, carry a pot 'of Staunching' .

There are guides everywhere, YouTube has decent vids, and the wiki is packed with info.

So take a look at your character, think on why it didn't work, plan out your next character, and then go for it.

 

So, I'm starting out a Tanky Lightning Arrow Blood Magic Ranger for the sole purpose of starting the game, learning it, and getting the skill gems/gear I'd want for other builds. I've done a fair amount of reading and watching (couple hours) newbie/beginners guide stuff. Looking forward to it.

Wish me luck!

I played the game months and months ago during the very end of closed beta/very beginning of closed beta. So I remember a few things, but it's been long enough that I may as well be a noob. I picked that build out especially because I like to start easy on complex games like this and then work my way up into the most difficult/challenging modes and it gives me time to learn the game/build resources before I start experimenting with builds and such.

 

Good idea, though I recommend playing in Domination League, since it's way more fun than Standard. It adds a ton of variety and new mechanics to screw around with.

It'll take you quite a while to get to Blood Magic on the passive tree from Ranger's start unless you can find its skill gem, though. I also recommend investing significantly in life leech if you do decide to go that route.

EDIT: 22 levels assuming you get no other passives.

 

I'm using This guide. From what I understand, It's a build whose entire purpose is to be easy, but to get you to end game content on a noob playthrough/skill level.

Apparently it's also rather popular, which in a game like this says a lot.

 

Let me know if you play on nemesis and I'll play with ya!

 

We have an entire league of Nemesis, and as an altaholic, I'd be up for running as a group since I find soloing to be the ultimate boredom.

 

Yep, I'm on Nemesis. I figure, at least this way if I die I don't get boned and flat out lose my character.

 

Nemesis is the hardcore league. You don't lose the char though, it's just moved to standard.

 

Which will be fine with me. I'm not a purist about difficulty on first playthroughs in highly complex games. Better to learn and then challenge myself rather than challenge myself and then bash my head against the wall of difficulty.

 

you guys doing the races tonight? One starts in 15. Made a char named 'Zigmore'. Send me a message!