Resists is usually always the #1 reason people feel like some content is too hard.

For example, the path leading up to Kaom + the fight itself is crazy with low fire resist.

Helpful gems like Life Gain on Hit can also greatly increase your survivability. Fortify as well. Life leech too, if your damage is large.

Also, make sure that if you can use an aura.. use it. They are too helpful to ignore. It's better to pop a mana pot more often if it gives you 30% more damage.

I'm running around with a 65 free mana pool in Act 3 Cruel on my current ranger because the damage increase is just insane. I have some mana leech nodes, so it's not horrible, but I still have to use a mana pot regularly.

Always looks for life + resists + base defensive stat + sockets when leveling.

Save a lot of rings so you can easily change which resist is the highest if you are having trouble maxing them all. Go out of your way to max a resist that you know will be a problem in the current map. Fire for all of Koam.

HC play is usually a lot of learning by dying. But it's definitely the only way some of us can play the game. If you ever get bored of PoE and it's monotony, try jumping onto HC before dropping the game completely.

 

On HC, you must always overcap all your resists by a significant margin; so many curses affect resists. Even at maxed resist its so easy to die to some of the heavier spells if you lag at the wrong time.

Also, beware of trolls.

 

Immunity to curses during flask is helpful for that too.

 

As a new player, roll at least immune to bleed, frozen and curse on your flasks. Do stuff like bringing topaz flask against Dominus. Flasks aren't just potions, they're integral part of the gameplay and most successful builds spam them, since you get movement speed (always good) and powerful attack buff potions later.

Always identify strongboxes. If it's a corpse explosion one, or frozen + packs of strong mobs and you aren't ready, you can just die in a second. I don't, and I've died a few times to them.

I think I peaked out at 74. Kinda lost interest in mapping. Did encounter a cool Abaxoth, though. But overall, though I want to like the game, I just can't get into it.

 

53 level, got 6 linked normal armor (348) - is it good, sould I upgrade it all the way to the rare? I thought 6 links were super rare, but I've been playing in the Cruel only a few days..

 

The are indeed super rare. The base type will determine its value as a white item though.

Oh, and its ilevel. If it can't roll high mods then its value diminishes. But still, pretty valuable.

 

They're pretty rare, I've never had a 6-link drop, 6 sockets sure, but not linked.

Also, just died in HC Cruel A3 Docks. Warped into a bad spot, got trapped by dogs and panicked. I think I did pretty well for my first character in HC.

Level 52 Dual Flame Totem Blood Magic Witch

 

item level 50

 

Pretty low ilevel. Hurts it a bit, but you're still probably looking at 2-4 Exalts in Tempest if you sold it.

 

I just tried to to a Flame Totem Marauder. Dropped it once I realized that they nerfed the shit out of it by removing shotgunning in the new expansion. I usually read up on that kind of stuff before I start a character, but this time I didn't and the result was a waste of a few hours.

 

It's still crazy, almost all spellcaster builds and rush builds used Flame Totem at launch. Your generic spellcaster can have a 10-15k 4l Flame Totem dps. They removed projectile shotgunning... but also massively nerfed leech. Casters and melees were both majorly nerfed against bosses.

I personally wouldn't make a Flame Totem build for dedicated endgame stuff, but it's still a very good skill.

 

Yea, flame totem makes leveling(specially in HC) a complete joke. Can get to 60 so easily either going for ancestral bond flame totem, or just using a single flame totem and firestorm. don't even really need any nodes to support it, just get a +1 fire gem weapon and a flammability curse when you want things to die even faster.

 

Which is what I was intending to do with it, investing fully into totem nodes and everything. By the time I realized that it wasn't going to work out like I was planning, I'd already gone too far into my skill investment to justify keeping the character. I was only in Act 2 Normal at the time, easier to just reroll than to burn that many Orbs of Regret.

 

Fun fact: Flame Totem never shotgunned. Apparently it always worked like Barrage.

 

Made my first-ever hardcore character in any game ever last night. It's terrifying. You never realize how much you just don't give a crap about dying until it's actually important not to. Really makes me regret trying it with melee first though - something tells me this is going to be a bad decision if I live long enough to get to cruel. Oh well, tank ahoy.

 

Can't break past lvl 85 on my standard ranger because there's always that one reflect mob. Or boss that one shots me. Or some other stupid mechanic that kills me and prevents me from gaining xp. Fuck this gay earth.

 

I am afraid I must disagree. My 86 flame totem Templar can take maps up to level 79 right now, no problem. Warbands league. Currently 9.8k tooltip dps on a five link + blood magic (humility tabula rasa), X 2 because two totems. They actually made flame totem way tankier, and with the bonus life and damage mitigation from the totem mastery and ironwood nodes, my totems have tanked merc mala groundslams.
The trick is making sure you can resummon them easily. Also, herald of ice and herald of lightning are major damage buffs, as is the new anger. For some maps I swap anger or a herald for the new arctic armor, but usually I don't really need to between the totems and a three-linked chaos golem.

 

Yeah, I didn't actually delete the character (was planning to) and kept playing him. He's doing a good job. I'm probably going to start running into mana issues soon if I don't run Blood Magic though, which I'd rather not do because I could put another damage gem into that spot otherwise. Maybe my Atziri's Foible will help stave that off for awhile?

 

Another trick for helping with mana issues is a blood magic clarity. Clarity reserves a flat amount of mana, and even with the enourmous mana cost increase from blood magic, it's a rather negligable life loss if you spec health, and it can support most spells pretty easily. Alternitavely, I have actually been toying with taking the blood magic keystone and the reservation reduction, then trying to run the build with 50% less life, and mitigate it with Es or something.
I don't have the items on Warbands I'd need to make that absolutely viable, though. I'd need a blood shavs -_-

Honestly, though, 5 link and blood magic is completely fine. Sure, you could squeeze some more damage in by using added cold/lightning or something instead of blood magic, but the difference is not really worth twisting your passive tree/not running heralds + hatred in my opinion (and I've been playing flame totem Templar since nemesis). New hatred is amazing with totems.

My 6 link is pretty basic. Flame totem, blood magic, faster casting, added chaos damage, fire penetration, and faster projectiles (which increases the range of the totems as well as providing a damage boost). The downside to flame totem jaw that I can't change out of my tabula rasa until I get an actual 6 link, and who knows when I'll manage to do that. But, as long as I manage to kite properly, use lightning warp properly, and make sure the rest of my gear is strong enough, I should be able to avoid dying too often.

I made a horrible mistake in rolling double bosses with bonus damage on a village ruins map a few days ago, though. I managed to life the two pitbull bosses out of the boss area and killed them pretty easily (deathless). Then I got 1 shot by the stupid bird's split arrow this is a character that ran a deathless poorjoys, btw.

Oh, also. Hall of the Grandmasters is bullshit. Never again. I do not approve of discharge mjollner TWICE, not even counting some of the other bullshit.

 

LOL I got Poorjoy's on a Zana daily once. I might have managed to kill one or two regular monsters before I died!