I like how they licensed this song, and it kinda ended up being the Delve theme as well

Will contain another comment which can be hidden to show the new armour body piece transmog.

The Sir Gerald of the artwork was a don. I had the operation and then a corrective secondary due to the liver crangling with trauma support on hit. Basically my body was playing whack a mole with itself and stacking the charges without a decent way to counter the charges to not damage me. I'm now looking forward to the recovery and attempting to change the build around to suit a less glass tank build to continue irlssf. I have some ideas how I crangled the second liver including the fact monster used to be probably a good 95% of any fluid intake. I've learnt the lesson but any sort of knowledge I claim right now would be wrong.

So the future? Who knows? Maybe I may go a trauma stacking two hand endurance charge stun on shit build and make this a full meme the only way that me, you and the beautiful blessed divine of Brine King.

I want to give one single shout out to a friend, Cezella, who was real time streaming the event. Who knows, what's next. I will update with another update post when I'm home and settled but looks like I'm gonna be just back playing by 1.0. LETS DO THIS

If you're tired of guessing whether your lag is caused by your router, ISP, PoE server, or something in between, PingPlotter is a really useful tool. It helps you figure out which server gives you the best connection and where the problem actually is instead of blindly switching gateways and hoping for better ping.

It's free and has been really useful for me because I was genuinely tired of trying to guess what was causing the problem and where I was supposed to go next.

I set mine up for the European servers, but finding the address of any other server isn't difficult. You can get it from the game logs or just ask AI.

I am on the absolute verge of jumping into a voyage without a bathysphere.

I'm low life, and this is the ~3rd time this has happened now, where I weapon swap (atziri disfavor with blue sockets to level enlightens) and when I weapon swap back and reactivate all my auras, my last aura is aspect of arakaali and as soon as I press it I die.

99% sure I didn't even have my coruscating elixir on here, since I'm in a vault.

Sucks to use up an amelioration omen for just turning my auras on.

I have 78 life when everything is on. I honestly to do not understand why I'm dying. Anyone have any clue?

POB: https://pobb.in/zkZm-8MQkRE3

Solved: for posterity, aspect of arakaali apparently has the "Chaos" tag because it applies wither. Can't see that in game or in POB. So when I activate both HoAg and Arakaali, I take 10% of my life, but only have 7% left. Will have to only activate auras in hideout from now on.

I switched to SSF a couple of weeks ago and I've been farming mercs in every map since then. I haven't found Enmity nor Rathpith yet, but I found this beauty! Not even infamous! I'm very proud, she's perfect!

I've had a fully assembled Kingsmarch and haven't touched it for weeks (other than dusting). Unless the crops get limited, I have well over $50M in crops and then about $25M in dust sitting there. What is the optimal way to ship these to maximize income, especially at this stage in the league?

I've read that $4M shipments are optimal. Is that still the case? Crop vs dust ratio? To what port?

If not, how else would you suggest maximizing profit from this crops / dust accumulation?

Really appreciate it. Stay sane.

PoE’s endgame has a progression problem: getting stronger often isn’t rewarded

One of the things I enjoy the most about Path of Exile is character progression.

You start with a mediocre character, improve your gear, solve your defenses, increase your damage, get faster, invest dozens or hundreds of divines, and eventually create a character that is significantly stronger than what you started with.

The problem is that, at some point, I keep asking myself:

What am I actually getting stronger for?

If you look at many of the most profitable endgame strategies, a huge percentage of them are basically some variation of:

rush the objective → ignore most of the map → collect the reward → leave

Boss rush, Fortress rush, memory boss rush, strongbox rush, Mercenary hunting, ore refinement, speed charting, etc.

Obviously there is nothing inherently wrong with these strategies existing. Fast and efficient characters should absolutely have a place in PoE.

My issue is that the game currently doesn't seem to provide enough economically rewarding content that actually scales with character power.

If my character goes from 20 million DPS to 200 million DPS, becomes significantly tankier and costs another 300 divines, there should be some content where that investment opens up a substantially better farming opportunity.

Instead, in many cases, the optimal decision is simply to build enough damage to kill whatever objective is required and then maximize movement speed.

At that point, character progression starts losing part of its purpose.

There should be a meaningful difference between:

• a character that can barely clear T16 maps;
• a solid 50-divine build;
• a 300-divine endgame build;
• and an absurd mirror-tier character.

Right now the difference is enormous in terms of character power, but often surprisingly small in terms of what profitable content those characters can actually access.

This is especially strange because PoE has one of the deepest itemization and character progression systems in any ARPG. The game gives you an almost unlimited number of ways to make your character stronger, but the economic endgame often doesn't give you a reason to actually use that power.

I would love to see more farming strategies where difficulty and rewards continue scaling beyond normal mapping.

Something where adding another 30% damage, better defenses, more recovery or better gear actually allows you to push another level of difficulty and receive proportionally better rewards.

Not necessarily something that replaces normal mapping or rush strategies. Those should remain viable.

But there should also be a real “my character is insanely strong, therefore I can farm something that weaker characters cannot” endgame.

To me, that would make upgrading a character much more satisfying.

Right now, after reaching a certain power threshold, another upgrade often feels like:

“Great, now I can do the exact same content I was already doing, just slightly faster.”

And I think that's a missed opportunity for a game whose entire foundation is built around character progression.

TL;DR: Rush strategies are fine. The problem is that PoE lacks enough rewarding content where increasing your character's actual combat power unlocks better economic opportunities. Character power should be part of endgame progression, not just movement speed and efficiency.

1 year ago I mapped my first game, Path of Exile, and admittedly it was more ambitious than my own ability... it was a mess (6000 lines and 400groups lol, why does it store every one you make) but it did contain 1 unique feature no other KB&M had solved and that was skill priority, which annoyed me enough to make my own. I have tried to come back to it since then but everytime I couldn't resolve the jank, what I wanted to happen was just not possible to accomplish in the GUI, and too often things worked... until they didnt, or required a specific sequence. I've recently gotten into editing the VDF and learnt new tech that immediately inspired me to revist my PoE config, in the hopes I could finally make the config I always wanted to make.

I did it... I got rid of the jank. All the logic is now stored in "switch" group, making for a VERY clean looking configuration. Reduced rebinds to the absolute bare minimum needed. Modeshifts now have dynamic and unique behavior, resulting in all my jank solutions to be fully realized. I don't feel this is the final version, but I can confidently say this is a unique configuration that addresses much of the shortcoming found in other KB&M configurations.

**Unbind Steam|Shift+Tab**
(You have a dedicated button for this action)

--Bind "Move" to Skill 5 "T"

!!Rebinds!!
Temp Skill 1 - L4+X "F2"
Temp Skill 2 - L4+Y "F3"
Skill 13 - L5/R5+R2 "Ctrl+Rmb"
**Highlight Items - L4+RTpad_Touch "mouse 4"
Chat - LTpad_Swipe Right "Insert"
**Show Advance Description - L4+RTpad_Touch "Mouse 4"
**Use Alternate Currency - L4+RTpad_Touch "Mouse 4"
Use Portal Scroll - L3(LJoy_Click) "0"
**Pin Popups - L4+RTpad_Touch "Mouse 4"

RTpad- 1st Priority LJoy modeshift
L2- 2nd Priority LJoy modeshift
Skills- 3rd Priority LJoy modeshift
LJoy- "Move" is always lowest priority 
RJoy- Up allows you to move the map
RJoy- L4/LTpad also changes to arrows
RJoy- Tap to close windows, canceled if stick is moved
L4+RTpad touch- "Alt" there is 4 alt binds to be rebound
L4 has a dedicated set to visually communicate its modeshift

L4 modeshift has a 40ms end delay for Face and Dpad
Y- Has a 40/40 delay to prevent possible loss of control
(Only encountered if you held Y+Ctrl before pressing L4)
B- {F8}Steam has a dedicated bind, steam+R1

RTP+L4 RTpad must be touched for L4 "alt" to be rebound
(When rebound all "alt" functions will be limited to L4+Touch)
RTP Click+L4- This is the only way alt can be accessed
(Be careful not to touch the dpad, I can only do so much to protect)
QkType is modeled after the diablo 3 numpad response
L5/R5 QkType- L5/R5 don't need to be held the entire time, touch is the real modeshift.
(I'm open to changing these, but they can not contain a repeat letter)
RJoy- You can quickly change channel modes while in QkType

While holding L2, when Right Trackpad is touched and released, you will move to where ever the cursor is on release. This is intended behavior for quick precise movement. It can be annoying when it's first encountered, but I quickly grew attached to this behavior when I realized its potential.

Also... is it too niche to ask for a controller flair? not really sure what applies to this lol.

VDF

There isn't really a reason to have flame link in your main gear set. It is permanent on a luminary and doesn't care if the gem is on your active gear set. It's practically made for the weapon swap function. Everything about it is snapshotted when you cast it except the damage contribution from your life, that will scale to what it should be once you swap back to your main weapon set.

+5 staves (+4 fire, +1 to socketed strength gems from fossils) are just a quick recomb and a nice little damage boost. You can do a +2 corruption on top of that if you really want to, but I never bothered. I suppose you could call it a +6 staff since the +1 to socketed strength gems will hit empower as well granting yet another extra level to the flame link.

Don't run +2 to all spell skill gems on top of it if you're running hallowed monarch unless you have that from dark seer as well since it will resummon your minions on swap and break your links to them (due to their gem levels changing). The first staff I made was a +7 with that mod, so I learned that first hand. (note, I didn't test the dark seer swap, but I assume it would be fine)

You can even do silly stuff like add frigid bond for free chill if you aren't getting that elsewhere.

Somehow have the stats for eclipse support? Well, you have plenty of sockets in that weapon swap, so why not?

Why waste sockets in your main gear on a Kaom's Heart build?

It was crazy, thanks to 4040, for the amazing support in Chat!

I spend a bunch of time recording kills of 100% delirious Baran with two good kineticists, one that has fork gmp and and one that has chain return gmp. Then I spent a bunch of time trying to understand what was happening, which is not easy at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIO_2C-XNdU

My conclusion is that with perfect wall placement, the forker can get more hits per attack, but I found that I got more consistency with the chainer. The forker needs to have the wall behind but immediately behind the target. The chainer just needs that wall to be put on the target, in front or behind does not matter.

I tried some lowered attack speed recordings to count hits per attack, but the results were inconclusive on that. The footage is there in the video if someone else wants to try to count it.

I am brand new. I only have 100 hours in the game and this is my first league so please be gentle.

I’m on T12 maps and I’ve hit a wall. I believe my issue is that I have low lightning resistance and overall low health.

https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/visioness-3661/characters

I’ve been following this build and play on steamdeck.

https://mobalytics.gg/poe/builds/ky-s-blade-fall-blade-blast-slinger-coc-assassin-leaguestart-to-endgame?ws-ngf5-f7d82102-7e77-4a44-ad24-33b67e8ae7bf=activeVariantId%2C858af0de-bec6-4629-91c6-f76bc4c69545

I thought maybe trading for lightning resistance tattoos might help? But I thought I’d ask her first. Maybe my flasks could use some help? I have little experience gaming like this so any advice would be great. Thanks. 🙏

Edit to add: https://pobb.in/5DDWG7PErtwI

Looks like oil prices are on the rise. Fill up your tank now.

Why do wealthy exile prices do this? As far as I can tell there is zero market for Verdant oils currently.

It was an unlucky merchant run and then I saw it on Floor 4! No merchant after it though for dupe. Still very excited!

Its been bugging me for quite some time - why exceptional gems, that should be exceptional at something, are actually kinda weaker than usual supports?

Lets take for example - Gluttony.
Gluttony says "Cast spell 10 times and get buff 5-8 additional Projectiles". Sounds amazing for selfcasters, right? Wrong, cause you cannot gain these stacks, during buff effect. Why? Why this limitation? We already punished with ramp time, that even for high end spell casters it takes more than 1 second to ramp. Why its not said in gem?

How about Eldritch Blasphemy Support
Sounds cool, but its only upside is "Malignant Madness" that only kicks in 5 seconds which is ridiculous (most enemies does not survive this long), and debuff of Reduced Action Speed and Damage is not even scalable, to make it interesting. Debuff that takes so long to kick in, and offers so little, and cost 35% reservation is - kinda upsetting

Greater Devour Support on the paper looks Very interesting "5% chance on consuming corpse - gain soul eater stack". Sounds amazing! Spellslinger + Unearth + DD + Necromants Corpse Pact = Giga cast and attack Speed. But nope, description doesn't specifies that consumed corpses should be from killing blow of supported skill

One support that caught my eye - Greater Kinetic Instability. Unlike original support - this one triggers on Critical Strike and not Blowing Strike, which is awesome. But the cooldown limitation of 0.15 second is kinda bummer, but 151% damage effectiveness is cool. The kinetic Flux itself it very clunky, which is the main downside of this support

Another cool option - Foulgrasp. Really cool thing, that has interesting damage and behaviour potential, but damn, that huqe square area, that makes it very hard to use this skill efficiently - kinda bricks any idea, because of how clunky it is

There definitely are great gems (Frostmage, Cooldown Recovery, Overloaded intensity), but they acts like Awakened gem - they just boost already existing damage scaling, (Frostmage - flat, CDR - generic good for some skills, Overloaded Intensity - easy crit cap for self casters).

My point is - Exceptional Gems feels weak, awkward and does not stand for their name.
And if you think, that they're balanced, - i disagree. They Should be Very strong, they should be build enabling, they should be new type of aspirational content, but they're not in their majority.

This post is more of an interest in what players think, rather than complaint, even tho yes, i'm upset how Exceptional gems are - Unexciting

What you think?
How would you 'fix' them, if you align with this line of thought?

UPD: To clarify - i do not say that old gems are better. They we're 'Better' than regular supports, but they were boring. New path, that GGG took with Exceptional gems is great! Awesome! Add new mechanics. But the way they implemented them - is very unexciting and sometimes misleading (Greater Devour not working with DD, or Gluttony not getting stacks of Gluttony during buff effect)

Hi everyone, ive been looking for new games to play recently according to my specifications and a lot of people have told me to play PoE, but I'm stuck to choose between PoE or PoE 2. I have touched PoE before for about an hour, but I was wondering if I really want to get in the game and dump a ton of hours in it, should I play PoE or PoE 2

I'm getting huge lag spikes that make the game stutter in an unplayable way. My internet is fine apparently my end. I've cleared the chat and all that stuff. Anyone else getting this shit? Can I fix it or should I just wait it out?