What's YOUR Story?

PvP.

It's what unites most of us here on the pvp forums.

Some non-competitive players see us as ego-stroking jerkoffs who use pvp as some way to show off how good our gear is, to feel better about ourselves, or to distract from our egregiously dissatisfying personal lives, but do you know what I see? A different way of playing, one with goals, ambition, excitement, and ways to feel better about ourselves and distract from our dissatisfying personal lives.

But with each pvp player, there's surely a story, history.

So let's hear it. How did YOU get started in pvp in Path of Exile?

Tell us, all five of us, what your story is. Do you have a strong pvp history? Have you always done pvp in Path of Exile, or are you, like myself, fairly new? What was that moment that REALLY got you into pvp, that moment that you realized that pvp was the mode for you?

I'll end up posting my sleep-inducing story about how I got started if this thread gets enough actual responses, but until then, let's hear it! I hope.

Long ago, I finally got my first character mapping and to a decent level. It didn't take very long for me to grow tired of just mapping, I needed something more. Out of curiosity I thought I'd go check out sarn arena. While I was in there I got to see my character get destroyed over and over again by freeze pulse, cyclone, tempest, and ea. It was then that I thought that this is where the true end game lies. Being a fairly competitive player, I wanted to get on their level. I kept coming back to the arena and modifying my character to do better against other players. This is how I got started in pvp. Ever since then I've tried to make my characters at least somewhat pvp viable. This is so when I get bored of mapping I can just head into the arena.

I started getting into PVP a bit right before Rampage with my L93 Marauder. At the time, I was 75/65 block with no shield, dual wielding Gale Bane's as a shredder/blender AoE Cleave build (Con effect for single target). Getting crushed like a bug vs 2H guys, I just couldn't compete at all. My noob-brain just thought, "BUT I DO TONS OF DMG WTF?!" That is when I learned a very important lesson; Damage isn't everything, and DPS doesn't = good dmg. Yes having strong damage is nice, but if you can't survive in order to hit your opponent, then what's the point?

Once Rampage started, I decided to start leveling a Duelist since I already had a Marauder. Got him to 93 in Rampage like my Marauder in sc, and I made the decision once he rolled over to SC to level him all of the way to 100 to get all the passive points possible. In order to do that I would need a Legacy Kaom's because everyone knows that wearing a leg kaom's in PVE is like using a game genie (not really, but it helps immensely). In order to use a leg Kaom's I'd have to go 2h. And it began...

After selling both Gale Bane's off, I picked up a Leg Kaom's, Headhunter, and Atziri Disfavour. The Headhunter obviously made grinding maps a lot more bearable. I would take breaks as soon as I hit a new level (96....97...) and stop in Sarn arena or do some 1v1s to keep fine tuning here and there. Once I hit 100 it really took off from there. There was nothing left in the game to do. I'm not grinding another character to 100, I'm not doing uber service, I don't have time to be a streamer etc... Atziri, uber, blah - I get it! It's not that amazing. What WAS amazing to me was fighting other players in this game, and trying to figure out their weaknesses etc...

So I got to talking with other 2H'ers like Xukai, MyBrother, Gutbags, Tommie, Sith, and some others. I thought I knew a lot about the game mechanics before, but oh was I greatly mistaken! Acro > 3k life? Slower stronger hits are better? BCR gem? Pen gems? My mind was blown.



lol

years ago i was joining to sarn arena to see what is going on there. but simply everybody was wrecking me. i was not able to break 75%+ block anvil builds, a guy was simply standing there and while i was hitting, due to reflect damage i was killing myself. i give up playing pvp there, after a while i joined again and some flicker guys were one shotting everyone. i always knew that i wanted to play pvp more than anything else but i had not good enough gear to do that. so i grinded gear for 1-1.5 year then i came to sarn arena one day to see what i can do. before coming to pvp i finshed every challenge that pve can offer, i had a CI reave build in forum and it got really good attention of community. the days that i've been trying CI reave / static strike alone i was not bad, not very shining either. that point, thusladoom saw the passion in me to learn more about pvp and taught me a lot of things. lapiz tried to help me some and i learned basics from him.

i had CI Lightning Strike build for a long while, but due to problems im having versus EA builds, i grinded - flipped gears again and started my LA build.

This is my long and boring story,

I've been doing pvp on Diablo2 for years, mostly Assassin with the famous WW-SSIN.

Strangely I didn't really focus on PvP in PoE at first, my first real strong pvp character was an accident. At that time, I was one of the few players with a RF build that I started when damages were utter crap and RoTP wasn't even in game (good old time sustaining RF with Safael Frame and Elemental Adaptation). Then they introduced DoT scaling in 1.0.1 and suddenly RF became God Tier, rest is history (including Hauntworld monster ES Rf).

After it was nerfed to the ground (it was deserved, i wish the devs would do the same with EA). I lost interest in the game (for other reasons than pvp) and came back at the end of SoTV (1.1). I remember showing up with my CoC BOW duelist in Sarn and getting uterly destroyed by Ritch and some other players. From there I was hooked, fortunately 1.2 and Forsaken Masters dropped at that time giving everyone the ability to create good pvp gear.

I worked for a bit on Lioneye Puncture build using curse on hit vuln and some other tricks (ADeathWish) and it was glorious. Crafted an average Harbringer and switched to Crit Puncture (CircleOfDeath) but eventually, I became interested by the Crit Dagger Flicker Meta, I copied Missuse build (the one and only thing I ever copy paste in my poe career, NerfEverythingPlz) and abused it for a while. Then they nerfed crit and block in 1.3 and introduced the new pvp scaling formula.

From there I changed my build to Crit Dagger WB focusing more on block but dying over and over and over and over on old tempest shield Rumi and Molten Shell pissed me off immensely.

So I decided to build my own with my own twist on it. I started to experiment with Aegis Aurora with great results, eventually invested in a legacy one and finally managed to find the perfect formula (ColderThenYourEx_sHearth). I had great fun with this char for a while but it bored me due to the impossibility to chase other people, the low damages when attacking and the rise of EA players.

I started my anti EA crusade at that time, built my own EA to show how retarded it was (PutThisAppleonYourHead), reached rank 1 on both EU and US in a bunch of week and realized pvp was utterly broken and always will be.

After 2.0, I took a very long break, just lurking the forum and poping up from time to time. But right before 2.1, they announced the Ascendancy sub class system and that got me hooked again. I started to experiment with my Crit WB again eventually switching it to CI and giving it my Aegis wich solved a lot of his previous problem. But again I was self destructing on Molten Shell and was getting pwn by LA and Split from offscreen.

So I decided to build my own Offscreener, I experimented for a short time with Kinetic Blast but the mobility was a massive problem. At that time they annouced the poison rework and some buff on old skills wich gave me an Idea.

ST Crit Bleed archetype was born out of that (FasterThanLight) with the success we know but so far, only 2 players (Afhack and Chuck) managed to copy it with results as good as mine. Maybe more will emerge with Ascendancy, we'll see.

I enjoyed this build during the whole 2.1 era, perfecting and fine tuning it as much as I could but (again), I got bored of it. On day I checked my stash and realized I had all the items to make a Mjolner Dischager rotting there (excpect Mjolner) so I decided to build my own one (ADeathWish again).

It's the build I'm experimenting on right now with good results and I have hopes in Ascendancy to make it even stronger. Time will tell...

Back in the days when Bear Trap had like 7k base damage at lv20...

Once my pve lvl 81 dualstrike duelist got raped by lvl 64 flicker strike shadow I suddenly realized how op flicker strike mechanic is. So, I made lvl 23 lld ranger with 3x multistrike - flicker strikes.
That build was stupid, OP, "no skill", but damn fun.

Alright, since it's kinda taking off, I'll post mine. Get your pillows, people!

It all started around the end of November, 2014. I know that because I dug through screenshots to find my earliest pvp fun. Though I don't remember what it was that brought rlowe to existence, other than wanting to poke fun at my friend who used the name rlowe as his screen name on embarrassing sites, I do recall giving up on playing rlowe at around level 77. Though she was meant to be a cryo-crit witch, things just weren't working out. My execution of the idea still causes my face to burn with embarrassment at the mere thought. Almost no defense, no elemental proliferation, FREEZING PULSE. Yea, I'm not... yea.

This was in maps. Hadn't even THOUGHT of pvp at the time.

I gave up on rlowe. I left her to gather dust and cobwebs. I started a lightning witch shortly thereafter. I told myself Learn from rlowe. Do not sacrifice defense at all. Damage can be kinda shitty as long as I survive! My witch was coming along nicely, I got her to mid level 70s, she had around 10k ES. Things were promising! I was dying less! I decided to test her out against other players, so I wandered over to Arena, and it was there, that I realized that something was amiss. Players were dying to just one person, and that person changed PvP history forever*!

Typhera was undoubtedly raining hell on other players, and SOMEONE needed to stop him/her!

My lightning witch wasn't that someone. I wondered if there was a way to get to her while taking care of the skulls, but arc didn't do anything to them, not enough damage to kill. I then remembered that rlowe could maybe freeze them, so I did a quick (long and painstaking) gear exchange through the stash, strapped on ice spear and elemental proliferation, and made the march back into Sarn Arena. The moment I saw the skulls, I blasted ice spear at them and stopped them right up! Typhera was vulnerable to other players and was soon killed by them.
I can even present to you all the moment Typhera was broken by me, in SCREENSHOT FORM!
http://i.imgur.com/2FFVjb8.png

I knew pvp was where I was meant to be. rlowe the witch was back! I soon developed better strategies (within the limits imposed on me by having shitty gear), both for mapping, and pvp soon after. My main technique was freezing with cold snap, and zipping in with Lighting Warp, and shotgunning the shit out of players with Ice Spear! pvp mode was exactly what pve was missing, excitement, strategy, the ability to infuriate other players AND SEE IT! I was the reason people needed Dream Fragments, I was the one getting cussed out for having a "cheap strategy". It was truly wonderful! I made new friends, made plenty of new enemies, my gear got exponentially better. Since then, pvp is where I've made my home, on that one little corner of the raised area in Sarn Arena, specifically. And though I may never really compete with the best of the best, pvp has taken me further than I thought would even be possible, and I look forward to every new adventure offered by pvp mode, such as the recently-found requirement of needing Icestorm, brought on by shotgun removal, and ShadowtheFall reminding me of Whispering Ice, something I'd completely forgotten about! Yes, you all have him to thank for lagging your games.



*Note: Typhera has not had any impact, negative or positive, on the history or state of PvP

Hahahha nice!

I just found a screenshot of my buffed DPS from my old cleave build when for PVE before I went 2H

I played 2h rt, everything got nerfed, ranged got buffed, I quitted poe.

Cool story :(

Thanks guys for your stories!
Now we only need Xul, Tommie, Haunt, Markus and Libby :-3
I remember, meeting Tommie and Slay in Sarn - Tommie was planting mines with CasualPvP. He had the Golden Wings(tm) and it looked like an armored duck.
*Pling, Pling, Pling* DED :-)
It was hilarious...good ol' days!