A shopper's guide to Neketaka

[Synomuumi]

A Shopper’s Guide to Neketaka:

This was originally written in response to a question on reddit about where you should spend your first gold on Neketaka and then expanded on over time. https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/u53ede/where_to_spend_my_first_20k/ 

Whitewitch Mask: Sold by Spindle Man in Delver's Row for 2.3k. Head item, gives +1 illusions power level (nichely useful) and casts Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage when bloodied (very very useful)

Repulsive Visage causes nearby enemies to run away in terror, causing attacks of opportunity as well as letting your guy in melee disengage or reposition. Really good on your offtank or a squishy melee dps. Super good value for money. Extremely fun with Barbarian cleave / Unbroken prones / WotEP.

 

Rekvu's Fractured Casque: Sold by Imuani in Delver's Row for 6.2k. Head item, makes you immune to interrupts when you have an injury.

Doesn't really do much by itself but has some amazing metagame stuff that'll become apparent with the next item.

 

Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry: Sold by Fassina in Arkemyr's shop for 8.5k. Has a pretty mediocre spell list with no unique spells.

Here's the kicker; it allows your wizard to cast one (1) extra spell from every spell level every combat. Such power does come with a small (well, not that small) downside of all sources of damage interrupting the wielder. If only there was a way to become immune to interrupts... (See Rekvu’s Fractured Casque)

 

Sasha's Singing Scimitar: Sold by Fassina in Arkemyr's Shop for 15k. Scimitar, gives the wielder +2% action speed for each held chanter phrase and using an empower point on an invocation instantly refunds 3 phrases.

This is the best weapon in the game for your melee chanters. Even if it's too pricy to get right at the start you should always get it eventually if you plan on having a chanter in the party. Has amazing enchantments too, granting you either a free (no empower point spent, still only one per fight) empowered invocation or instantly fills your phrases back to the maximum. The other enchantment either gives the wielder +2% shock damage per phrase or makes the inherent 2% AS bonus an AoE. The bonuses to empower make this very good for swapping into, empowering an invocation and swapping back to a ranged weapon too.

 

Ring of Focused Flame: Sold by Fassina in Arkemyr's shop for 1.8k. Gives +10 accuracy for all fire-keyworded attacks.

+10 accuracy is amazing: it makes you miss and graze less and lets you land more crits. There are a surprising number of abilities this helps too, probably the most notable ones being the Wizard's Fireball and Paladin's Sacred Flames.

 

Gwyn’s Bridal Garter: A belt, sold by Fassina in the Dark Cupboard for 2.5k. Grants +1 CON as well as resistance to DEX afflictions. DEX afflictions are notable for being both common as well as extremely dangerous, so the resistance is more useful than it might look like at first glance.

 

Burglar's Gloves: Sold by Iolfr in Iolfr's Raiments, Periki's Overlook for 4.7k. Grant +1 dex, +2 mechanics ,and +2 athletics.

A "free" way of boosting mechanics for difficult chests or doors. There is some really good loot that you can access early by stacking mechanics and this helps you do that. Even if/when you find better gloves for combat these will still be useful all the way to the end of the game. (hint: Delver's Row)

 

Animancy Cat: Sold by Tiabo in the Sacred Stair for 10k. Pet that gives all summons in your party +2 might and +1 pen.

Low penetration is the biggest reason why summons struggle to deal damage, and this lil’ guy as a great step towards fixing that problem. Amazing if you plan on relying on summoning-related strategies.

 

The Magnificent Escape Cape: Sold by Temple Vendor in the Sacred Stair for 2.5k. Gives +10 all defenses against disengagement attacks (niche) as well as the ability to use a teleport (similar to the rogue PL 1 ability) once per fight when dropping below 50% health. The teleport gives 3 seconds of +50 deflection and immunity to engagement afterwards.

A great "oh ****" item on any squishies. Extra funny on anybody who likes to stack intelligence, as the +50 deflection bonus can be extended.

 

Scordeo's Trophy: Sold by Uto in the Brass Citadel Smithy for 14k. A pistol that grants a stacking -5% recovery bonus on melee weapons whenever it hits. Does full damage on crits instead of most firearms -15%.

Honestly, not that great before upgrades. Has an enchant that gives a stacking -5% recovery to all actions instead of just melee weapons, and as such is one of the better guns to give any of your casters. (or Maia. Her ability to interrupt enemies with this and the pistol modal turned on is astonishing) Probably can leave this one for later.

 

Heaven's Cacophony: Sold by Wanika in Queen's Berth for 10k. Head item, gives +2 INT and +1 religion. Also grants two skills: a cone AoE stun and Avenging Storm, both usable once per rest.

Avenging Storm is a druid PL 8 spell. A single class druid gets access to it at level 15. A multiclass druid will never reach high enough PL to cast this spell. You can get it the instant you land it at Neketaka. Needless to say, it's super overpowered well into the endgame, especially if you really plan around exploiting it (which would probably warrant a whole thread of its own)

 

I hope this servers as a useful resource for any new players, as well as an useful starting point for discussion on what items could/should be added here.

[dgray62]

It should be noted that if you are playing a roguish character, many of these items can be achieved via the five fingered discount, that is, stolen. The items that can be stolen on this list include the Whitewitch Mask, the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry, the Ring of Focused Flame and Scordeo's Trophy.

I would add to this list Tuotilo's Palm and the Devil of Caroc Breastplate (presuming your choices in POE 1 allow this) from Marahi's Metalwork and the Spine of Thicket Green from the Dark Cupboard. These items can also be stolen.

[Synomuumi]

I have also written a beginning part for the PoE1 import items. I left them out of the original post because I tend to assume that players asking for first time advice don't have the savegame data needed to acquire them.

2 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

It should be noted that if you are playing a roguish character, many of these items can be achieved via the five fingered discount, that is, stolen. The items that can be stolen on this list include the Whitewitch Mask, the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry, the Ring of Focused Flame and Scordeo's Trophy.

I would add to this list Tuotilo's Palm and the Devil of Caroc Breastplate (presuming your choices in POE 1 allow this) from Marahi's Metalwork and the Spine of Thicket Green from the Dark Cupboard. These items can also be stolen.

Agreed with all of this. I couldn't remember what items could be stolen off the top of my head so I decided to leave the stealability off the list all together. I think at least the Devil of Caroc plate and Scordeo's Trophy require Sparkcrackers or other distraction items to get to.

[dgray62]

Or you can use the Bounding boots, leaping over to the item to steal while in stealth. If you act fast you can grab the item before you're seen.

[Boeroer]

The Magnificient Escape Cape is a true gem for every Wizard who has access to Wall of Draining (or a brilliant Priest with Salvation of Time - I like Priest of Wael for that).

Its Escape ability also grants +50 deflection which stacks with all other deflection bonuses. It does only NOT stack with Escape of the Rogue (so a Wiz/Rogue or Priest/Rogue doesn't really need it unless he wants to spare Guile). Its duration gets prolonged by Wall of Draining/Salvation of Time...

That way you can get an additional +50 deflection on top of let's say Arcane Veil (or Mirrored Images etc.) and Llengrath's Safeguard which makes you virtually untouchable for anything that targets deflection. 

If you later (like... a LOT later) also get The Mask of the Weyc - which gives a quasi-Arcane Veil - you can stack cape + mask a whopping +100 deflection.