The Ultimate discussion thread Pt 2

[Raven Darkholme]

@thelee Tactician/Skaen is fine, most time waste lies in the route usually.

Difference between Bloodmage and Tactician is mainly the early game, there is some cool stuff BM can do late, which Tactician can't but for the most part their difference comes down to Tactician getting easier brilliant and BM getting easier Mind over matter (which is mostly useful for the dlcs).

Yes the BM has a lot of spells, but at the end of the day high level Storm of Holy Fire often is all you need.

I do agree BM seems stronger overall, my point is just the time a run takes should not be shorter with a BM, since buffing just takes longer in general.

(which is partially negated by the fact once you have mom you can keep SOTing during combat).

The amount of time traveling takes makes a perfect route jsut by far the biggest factor.

[thelee]

Just now, Raven Darkholme said:

@thelee Tactician/Skaen is fine, most time waste lies in the route usually.

Difference between Bloodmage and Tactician is mainly the early game, there is some cool stuff BM can do late, which Tactician can't but for the most part their difference comes down to Tactician getting easier brilliant and BM getting easier Mind over matter (which is mostly useful for the dlcs).

Yes the BM has a lot of spells, but at the end of the day high level Storm of Holy Fire often is all you need.

I do agree BM seems stronger overall, my point is just the time a run takes should not be shorter with a BM, since buffing just takes longer in general.

(which is partially negated by the fact once you have mom you can keep SOTing during combat).

The amount of time traveling takes makes a perfect route jsut by far the biggest factor.

problem is that i don't have access to storm of holy fire (yet). i sped things up a bit with picking up shining beacon, but i'm starting act iv still "only" at level 16; i need 19 for storm of holy fire.

i'm going through decadency's videos a little more closely now. it's possible that my act iii is super inefficient and i can shave off a lot of time there (thankfully my real character hasn't moved forward in act iii since i wanted to make absolutely sure my current path would work out; glad i did so).

[thelee]

3 minutes ago, thelee said:

problem is that i don't have access to storm of holy fire (yet). i sped things up a bit with picking up shining beacon, but i'm starting act iv still "only" at level 16; i need 19 for storm of holy fire.

i'm going through decadency's videos a little more closely now. it's possible that my act iii is super inefficient and i can shave off a lot of time there (thankfully my real character hasn't moved forward in act iii since i wanted to make absolutely sure my current path would work out; glad i did so).

well, going through the vids, the big thing is going to nemnok and belranga before the fire dragon. that seems like it shaves off some travel time (since i basically have to make a very similar trip in act iv to get to belranga).

i'll have to check out my act iii pathing, i didn't think my quests worked out such that i had access to SoT to do boss fights - i needed the dump of experience from arriving at ashen maw to get to level 16. maybe this was all figured out in part 1 of this thread and i just missed it while i was recovering.

[Raven Darkholme]

Yeah thats what I meant by the early game being easier for BM.

Tbf you don't need Storm for Belranga or Nemnok, but Nemnok is definitely a lot less annoying with a BM.

[thelee]

well i'm squeezing the time a bit. a couple of minor pathing tweaks and got myself the voyager ship and now i have 23 days remaining for all the content. going to try the traveling circuit again with some palm sails and boneframe hull (an add'l +10m travel speed) and see how much time that gives. maybe with all that combined i'll have enough time for all the content.

Edited August 5, 2019 by thelee

[Decadency]

9 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

but Nemnok is definitely a lot less annoying with a BM.

Why? Just spam Spiritual Allies and go kill. All the same I guess.

Also after triggering the fight with Shadowing Beyond and deaggro you can kill the separate groups of enemies without getting Nemnok's aggro.

[Raven Darkholme]

Just saying it's less annoying with BM, not saying it's impossible with a fighter but killing the mobs off with either shining Beacon or auto attacks(no scordeos yet) just is a lot more tedious than a mage nuking everything around him.

(this just straight up becomes irrelevant once one has either Storm or Scordeos, but since nemnok early seems to be the route usually you won't have these tools)

 

9 hours ago, thelee said:

well i'm squeezing the time a bit. a couple of minor pathing tweaks and got myself the voyager ship and now i have 23 days remaining for all the content. going to try the traveling circuit again with some palm sails and boneframe hull (an add'l +10m travel speed) and see how much time that gives. maybe with all that combined i'll have enough time for all the content.

Btw do you ahve the level 4 navigator from Crookspur?

Edited August 6, 2019 by Raven Darkholme

[thelee]

7 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Btw do you ahve the level 4 navigator from Crookspur?

i have to double-check but i think i have a level 4 navigator via worthless idiot. it comes a little bit later than  one could get from crookspur; didn't know until watching decadency's videos that that option existed.

 

edit - btw, i don't think going to nemnok then belranga before fire dragon will actually save me that much time. i'm going to have to more thoroughly examine the earlier decadency vids because it just seems like something along my route must've been extremely inefficient that i'm struggling to fit everything into the end.

Edited August 6, 2019 by thelee

[thelee]

aha, well i noticed in the last video that motare o kozi isn't uncovered. i didn't friggin realize you could just the engolio de espiers wherever so i've been doing the huana faction quests even though i'm already doing 99% of the principi. so that definitely ate a lot of time to travel.

(for some reason i seemed to think that engolio espiers being used only outside dunnage, and then having an extremely slow ghost boat to travel with all the way to the end)

well, we'll see if i can find a way to squeeze in the last stuff, otherwise i'm going to have to start over, since i'm well past the point where i could re-path and ignore the huana faction quest. not so sure if i would start over with a tactician/skaen...

 

edit - actually, this realization does save me some time, because now i don't have to waste time to travel back to/stay in nekataka to do the final huana faction quest (blowing up the powderhouse). saves just a day maybe, but every bit helps.

edit 2 - gives me an extra day for content and removes one thing off my TODO list to worry about. getting there, we'll see.

Edited August 6, 2019 by thelee

[thelee]

well gang, i'm cautiously optimistic. 25 days to do content that i got from above with that one trip back to nekataka removed gives me just barely enough time; 6 days for SSS, 2.5 days for FS, 2.5 days for BoW. that leaves about 2 days per other megaboss or boss left, and i've been able to take out nemnok and belrange in just one day (hauani o whe will probably be slowest at 1.5-2 days), effectively giving me more leeway to make timing mistakes later on.

even though the path ahead is pretty clear now, it'll still be a couple weeks what with my schedule. but dang, thanks @Decadency for posting your vids here, just scouring them for clues and how you clear certain areas has really helped me squeeze out enough in-game time that I can still pull this run out of the toilet. i was probably gonna give up otherwise.

to anyone else contemplating a run: don't do what thelee does - don't waste time going to motare o kozi.

 

PS - something i only just discovered in act iv almost by chance is that the +2 all skills from hylea's bounty and +2 all skills from luminous adra stack. i think this will help out a bunch with some skill checks in the DLCs.

Edited August 6, 2019 by thelee

[Decadency]

6 hours ago, thelee said:

PS - something i only just discovered in act iv almost by chance is that the +2 all skills from hylea's bounty and +2 all skills from luminous adra stack. i think this will help out a bunch with some skill checks in the DLCs.

It didn't stack when I tested

[thelee]

2 minutes ago, Decadency said:

It didn't stack when I tested

color me just as surprised as you. they seem like textbook case of the same buff not stacking. maybe something got changed and they didn't use to stack. but at least for me it's 100% reproducible - i incurred some injuries from belranga, i drank a luminous adra potion, and found my skills were higher despite me thinking that since i had hylea's bonus active i wasn't going to get anything. loaded up a different experimental character, summoned up a hylea bounty and a luminous adra and combined one after the other, and sure enough i got a total of +4.

would have been useful to know earlier on, might have saved me some skill respecs or tight stealth sections.

[Decadency]

59 minutes ago, thelee said:

color me just as surprised as you. they seem like textbook case of the same buff not stacking. maybe something got changed and they didn't use to stack. but at least for me it's 100% reproducible - i incurred some injuries from belranga, i drank a luminous adra potion, and found my skills were higher despite me thinking that since i had hylea's bonus active i wasn't going to get anything. loaded up a different experimental character, summoned up a hylea bounty and a luminous adra and combined one after the other, and sure enough i got a total of +4.

would have been useful to know earlier on, might have saved me some skill respecs or tight stealth sections.

Very strange. On one of my runs I actually didn't know that they were not stacking and crafted a luminous adra potion in Port Maje. Used it and it didn't increase my stats.

[Decadency]

8 hours ago, thelee said:

well gang, i'm cautiously optimistic. 25 days to do content that i got from above with that one trip back to nekataka removed gives me just barely enough time;

Sounds awesome btw. I really hope you'll do it. Don't forget to buy rum to craft Captain's Banquet after SSS cause it took me ~6 days to get back to Neketaka and return xD 

[Raven Darkholme]

You have to save and reload your game for potion and boounty to stack, it's a bug.

[B4nJ0]

I come here just to say gz to all of you that put so much effort into poe2.

PoE1 leaved me kinda burnout so joining poe2 only after all the balance patches has been my choice to avoid balance burnout once again, but I do regret to have missed the opportunity to contribute this great community achievement.

I know how many hours I have sinked into a simple 3crown poe1 run with both my paladin and my priest, so GZ to all of you who theorycrafted for the ultimate, and ofc to @Decadency and @Tenray for the actual clear.

 

Well done guys!!  I hope that many others will join the club asap

Edited August 7, 2019 by B4nJ0

[Decadency]

47 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

You have to save and reload your game for potion and boounty to stack, it's a bug.

Vic knows just everything = )))

[Tenray]

I thought Hylea + Adra stacking is common knowledge. I am using it in my run aswell.

 

For everyone who is wondering how it's going for me with SC monk, I am thinking about throwing in the towel. I managed to beat everything EXCEPT SSS. All these arena fights are so impossible, no clue what to do.

You probably think: "There are so many enemies! Should be awesome with WotW spamm!" Yea well, that's what I thought initially aswell. Some of the fights on their own are already quite tough. Every second you are not in your WotW animation, you are getting so insanely much damage + you need to cast withdraw on Vela from time to time. The recovery time you need after casting a withdraw will almost always kill me.

I went with Helwalker and I have 422Hp. I wish I went with Napalzca and maxing Alchemy, that's what I would recommend for everyone who wants to try it.

[Decadency]

1 hour ago, Tenray said:

I thought Hylea + Adra stacking is common knowledge. I am using it in my run aswell.

 

For everyone who is wondering how it's going for me with SC monk, I am thinking about throwing in the towel. I managed to beat everything EXCEPT SSS. All these arena fights are so impossible, no clue what to do.

You probably think: "There are so many enemies! Should be awesome with WotW spamm!" Yea well, that's what I thought initially aswell. Some of the fights on their own are already quite tough. Every second you are not in your WotW animation, you are getting so insanely much damage + you need to cast withdraw on Vela from time to time. The recovery time you need after casting a withdraw will almost always kill me.

I went with Helwalker and I have 422Hp. I wish I went with Napalzca and maxing Alchemy, that's what I would recommend for everyone who wants to try it.

Wow... I thought you would take a rest from Deadfire after the Ultimate )

I've bought PoE1 on Switch  Coming back to Dyrwood. 

Edited August 7, 2019 by Decadency

[Tenray]

27 minutes ago, Decadency said:

Wow... I thought you would take a rest from Deadfire after the Ultimate )

I really want to believe that it is possible without Brilliant, but I doubt it.

 

Btw forgot to mention. I found a "new hippster way" of triggering Brilliant from shroud for EVERY class. However only recommended for Priest+X to prolong the buff with SoT of course.

Equip generic blunderbuss + Belt of Magran's Chosen and shoot Vela. Vela will regen health really fast. When you managed to summon the Fire Blight of her you need some health regen (Potions, Regen, Lethandrias swap shenanigans) and can wait till the Fire Blight triggers your Brilliant + you are obviously in combat and can instantly cast SoT when your Brilliant triggers unlike with the Rakhan Field boots.

I haven't found it being posted somewhere so I thought I will share it quickly. It needs more patience ofc, but it opens more builds. Pretty much everything combined with priest.

 

Enjoy.

[Decadency]

3 minutes ago, Tenray said:

I really want to believe that it is possible without Brilliant, but I doubt it.

 

Btw forgot to mention. I found a "new hippster way" of triggering Brilliant from shroud for EVERY class. However only recommended for Priest+X to prolong the buff with SoT of course.

Equip generic blunderbuss + Belt of Magran's Chosen and shoot Vela. Vela will regen health really fast. When you managed to summon the Fire Blight of her you need some health regen (Potions, Regen, Lethandrias swap shenanigans) and can wait till the Fire Blight triggers your Brilliant + you are obviously in combat and can instantly cast SoT when your Brilliant triggers unlike with the Rakhan Field boots.

I haven't found it being posted somewhere so I thought I will share it quickly. It needs more patience ofc, but it opens more builds. Pretty much everything combined with priest.

 

Enjoy.

So... I like the idea of  SC Priest

[Tenray]

40 minutes ago, Decadency said:

So... I like the idea of  SC Priest

That's what I exactly started to play yesterday. =D

I am currently at Concelhaut. Tbh, it's not quite bad, but I thought the PL 8+9 are alot stronger. A little underwhelming, imo. The damage is ok, but not that crazy in contrast to Wizard, which both of us played before. Reason for the lower damage is obviously the missing PL you easily get from BM buff and the Hit to Crit buff.

You could craft the potions of course, but really annoying. Haven't found that many Reptilian Eyes for Perfect Aim potion, maybe just unlucky. Not sure.

 

From my experience so far, I should maybe mention some great things about SC priest:

- allows technically earlier fights, because you get SoT very early

- symbols are all really strong (PL8)

- Symbol of Skaen targets Deflection => does a ton of damage to various type of enemies

- Symbols do "stack", with alot of INT they last for 30+ seconds which allows you to stack easily 5+ symbols onto each other

 

Some disadvantages:

- priest of skaen is must have (because of invis .... no clue how you should beat, sigilmaster or nemnok without invis)

- needs constant use of potions to deal really good damage

- has no access to self damaging lightning spells to trigger Deltro's

=> needs arcana 3 for crackling bolt against a wall which does not deal that much damage

=> arcana 9 for chain lightning for the really dope 100+ rolls

 

 

Edited August 7, 2019 by Tenray

[Decadency]

22 minutes ago, Tenray said:

That's what I exactly started to play yesterday. =D

I am currently at Concelhaut. Tbh, it's not quite bad, but I thought the PL 8+9 are alot stronger. A little underwhelming, imo. The damage is ok, but not that crazy in contrast to Wizard, which both of us played before. Reason for the lower damage is obviously the missing PL you easily get from BM buff and the Hit to Crit buff.

You could craft the potions of course, but really annoying. Haven't found that many Reptilian Eyes for Perfect Aim potion, maybe just unlucky. Not sure.

 

From my experience so far, I should maybe mention some great things about SC priest:

- allows technically earlier fights, because you get SoT very early

- symbols are all really strong (PL8)

- Symbol of Skaen targets Deflection => does a ton of damage to various type of enemies

- Symbols do "stack", with alot of INT they last for 30+ seconds which allows you to stack easily 5+ symbols onto each other

 

Some disadvantages:

- priest of skaen is must have (because of invis .... no clue how you should beat, sigilmaster or nemnok without invis)

- needs constant use of potions to deal really good damage

- has no access to self damaging lightning spells to trigger Deltro's

=> needs arcana 3 for crackling bolt against a wall which does not deal that much damage

=> arcana 9 for chain lightning for the really dope 100+ rolls

 

 

Sounds like it is a valid strat. Also you can forget doing bounties and start doing bosses earlier than you reach level 16.

[Waski]

31 minutes ago, Tenray said:

has no access to self damaging lightning spells to trigger Deltro's

You can use rakhan field boots + essence interrupter+blunting belt to trigger deltro, but that's quite a challange for pathing the run.

[Tenray]

36 minutes ago, Decadency said:

Sounds like it is a valid strat. Also you can forget doing bounties and start doing bosses earlier than you reach level 16.

That's right but I haven't done any bounties on my Ultimate run either. My pathing let's you hit lvl 16 right when you enter Ashen Maw with 10+ days more to spare, which results in 35+ days (I am playing quite fast, so I mostly end up having 40/41 days) left for everything else in the game when you get teleported back to Neketaka after you talked to Eothas at Ashen Maw. 

This here is actually my best run, unfortunatelly not the successful one: 45 days left for everything else, except Jada ofc, after returning from Ashen Maw.

28 minutes ago, Waski said:

You can use rakhan field boots + essence interrupter+blunting belt to trigger deltro, but that's quite a challange for pathing the run.

Cool idea, Rakhan + Essence also hits really hard for a good damage roll. You need however to do alot more quests + going back to Port Maje for the bow.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Tenray