I recently picked it up and started playing, but I'm really lost in what I should be doing. Anyone know of any good tips/guides I could read through?

 

I play quite frequently and have a couple of 80+ level chars. I'm slowly but surely leveling my cookie cutter shield charge build. I tend to take a break every other league, but I decided to try out this league.

Look up a guide and follow it, and don't make your own passive tree cause you have no idea what your doing until you level a few characters. Make sure to have maximum possible resistances, which is normally 75%. A very good early game unique for doing this is Goldrim, which is very cheap

Here is someone who has a list of his guides. They are generally very good. I am currently use one of them for my recent character.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1099189

 

One common bit of advice is to just muddle through on a character to level 50 or so then reroll and follow someone's build guide.

 

Right now, elementalists + juggernaughts are in a pretty strong state. (I'm a newer player as well so take what I say with a chunk of salt)

Elementalist Builds firestorm/Flameblast are super popular at the moment and they are very very budget friendly. (casters can prance around with shitty gear and still do fine)
ZiggyD Firestorm/Flameblast Quick Overview
ProjectPT Firestorm Guide a bit more indepth with step by steps leveling advice
PewPew Firestorm with Minions build (I haven't run this build myself, but I know plenty of people running this one

There are other great caster builds too! Contagion/Essence drain is very strong. If you have a computer that struggles with framerate, this is the build for you.
Contagion/Essence Drain 3xCurse. Not the fastest but will truck along fairly well

Juggernaught Earthquake
Absurdly strong. Half my guild running this build because they like running labs. I'm currently running this because my firestorm was too damn slow in groups.

Shield Charge Slayer
Mathil ShieldCharge.Build got nerfed slightly because of OP'ness. Semibudget since you don't need to get a weapon but a major streamer popularized it so much that Abyssus prices have skyrocketed.

Bladefall
Need around 30-40 chaos investment of gear. But it does decent

I haven't leveled any archers myself so I can't give you much advice if you want to run one of those



Quality of life stuff
Definitely set up loot filters + learn how to use poe.trade. ZiggyD has some good beginner basic videos that were helpful to me. Best bang for your dollar microtransactions are the Currency Tab > Stash Tab > Premium Stash tab. Premium Stash tab allows you to more easily sell shit on poe.trade without needing to use Acquisition.
Poelab.com Daily Labyrinth analysis. Usually linked with the subreddit discussion grp.

 

Contagion/essence is my favorite. It's shit for pvp but for pve you don't even have to try. If you've got skeleton minions and desecrate and corpse consume totem for health you just never die. Ever. And you can down most bosses in about 10 seconds.

 

I tried to pick this back up, but I don't think I'll be sticking with it.

Why?

Because fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck the Lord's Labyrinth. Worst new game mechanic ever.

 

Uber Lab is probably my favorite piece of content they've added in years.

Come at me, bro.


That being said, I've actually felt my interest in PoE dwindle since Ascendancy. It's not the Lab, which I love, but simply because every build is a clear speed monster now. Everything is either gigantic fuck off AoE, insane double dipping, stupid AoE shotgunning or monstrous crit builds. Or you can play Mine Bladefall and do all of that. Power creep has been a steady thing for forever, but the introduction of classes has just blown everything else out of the water.

For almost no investment, you can go Elementalist and clear high end maps with Herald of Thunder burn prolif. Designing any top tier build needs to be able to compete with crap that can automatically kill the whole screen by walking around.

Because of this, I basically only play niche, hipster builds now. It's still pretty entertaining, but it's hard to play Queen's Escape Summon Skeletons when you know that if you literally just swap in SRS you can double your clear speed.

Next up is my Summon Wands build, which is surprisingly looking to be pretty solid due to Animate Weapon's awesome AI.

 

I'm reasonably certain the power creep is a response to a theoretical new act, which will provide stupid levels of difficulty again.

That said I'm seriously enjoying my dead eye chaos wander build, its absurdly good.

 

I did finally get through the lab the first time, new Prophecy League summoner level 40. Izaro himself wasn't too big of a problem (did die on stage three the first time around because of the traps in the room, but redid it and got him on the second try). But generally, he's easy to kite. Problem I had was dealing with the traps when half the time I could barely see them due to the darkness of the instance. Just not a fan of having stuff like that in my Diablo clone.

 

What are your brightness settings at? Just curious, because my main issue with the Labyrinth with my first post-Ascendancy character was Izaro himself, because I was a squishy-melee type(Dual-wield Reave Ranger with Acrobatics). Heck, as it stands, I specifically swapped to my Rat's Nest instead of Abyssus just for the Izaro fights(and his pet when so inclined), then swapped back after, to avoid being one-shot.

Although yeah, on my Trapper Shadow(Saboteur), it was basically a one-shot from Izaro if I ever got hit by him, too...

Then again, a friend of mine died tons and tons of times to the traps in the Labyrinth itself. I think it took him nearly a dozen deaths before he even reached the first Izaro fight.

 

Good changes to the chat are on the way. I always found it a bit confusing.

 

Cleared Merciless labyrinth on the first try and got Daresso's Defiance to drop while I was doing it. Fifteen minutes well-spent.

 

What build are you running ?

 

Classic Summoner (zombies, flame sentinels, skeletotem, chaos golem). Necromancer ascendancy obv.

 

Is anyone still playing? The new Breach league is actually kinda fun. I have been playing on and off since Dom(SC player for various reasons), and am really enjoying this league along with discovering Prophecies which I feel are really great additions to the game.

There's currently quite a tizzy on the PoE subreddit wrt poe.trade, and its pretty understandable. Basically the past few days servers/trade API have been unstable, and poe.trade has also been down (DDOS'd? purposefully to force GGG's hand?), causing trade to be... unsatisfactory. GGG has stated that revamping trade is not a priority for them and they are satisfied with its current state, but relying on a third party website to handle trade for you is at best neglectful, and at worst business suicide, atleast for this game. Trade is a major part for a lot of people in this game, and its just unplayable without a working trade system.

Currently gearing up a Queen of the Forest/Reach of the Council chaos LA char (well, once i have all or most of the gear i'll actually make and level the char) after starting the game as a totem flameblaster - started Hierophant and life-based, switched to Inquis (when I saw Hiero is kinda shit) and CI (chanced Skyforth, LUL) - been having a blast (excuse the pun)

So anyone still on it? Breach has hit all-time high peak numbers recently, so it's a great time to play - plenty of players, plenty of trade, prices are pretty affordable now for good gear.

 

Hell yes I'm playing, by far he best league I've ever played.

 

Yeah, I'm playing. Not bored yet which is surprising. My first BHC death was from running a beyond map and thinking it was a good idea to pop a breach.

Instant regrets.

After a few failed character attempts, I'm back to a Cycloner.

 

Any of you on BSC? my IGN is JebaitedWeWaited so add me anyway, would be nice to atleast chat with DLPers and brag about loot.

 

Have had a long-standing guild in the game, which does include a few DLP'ers, among other people.

Add me if you like, my name in Breach League is the same as on here, at the moment.

Currently level 88 1/2, playing off and on, although I do get on for at least a bit most days. Sometimes longer.

Nicely done chancing the Skyforth, though, I must say.

 

I'm playing a righteous fire build (Righteous_Giz) at lvl 86 atm. Found my first Exalt this league :3

I'm in the guild with Fenraellis.