Life buffs [and spectral throw] make early game easier

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Hilbert wrote:

I still think shadow kills Hillock faster.

ST got higher costs and you need the perfect distance so hillock will be hit several times on the point of return.
Especially on Turbo races it seems to be far too hard get the correct distance.

Yeah, well obviously Shadow is faster, but that's not really my point lol.

I just tried ele ST templar, 31 min merveil kill. Seems faster than Ground Slam templar, not sure though.

That's interesting about muling ST to start. I might have to try that. Not sure about its viability long term, but I guess that too will have to be tested. ughhh I hate practice runs -_-

btw if you die in a practice run, just pause your timer, and run through to about where you died without killing and continue.
Back in the day when I practiced I'd do it all "legit" too and start over when I died, but then it got too tedious after a while. You're supposed to be pushing the limits and as a result dying in practice, and you'll never get to practice later content if you keep starting over. Just my 2c.

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boof wrote:

That's interesting about muling ST to start. I might have to try that. Not sure about its viability long term, but I guess that too will have to be tested. ughhh I hate practice runs -_-

btw if you die in a practice run, just pause your timer, and run through to about where you died without killing and continue.
Back in the day when I practiced I'd do it all "legit" too and start over when I died, but then it got too tedious after a while. You're supposed to be pushing the limits and as a result dying in practice, and you'll never get to practice later content if you keep starting over. Just my 2c.

Yeah that's a good point, I'll do that in the future. Just finished my 1h ST test run on templar.

I think you are right, just ST might not be viable, I think it has to be linked to LMP. I tried farming sins and finished with lvl 20 (57%) which seemed extremely shitty, given that my merveil time was 31 mins.

I first went with one-handers trying to scale it with the ele nodes in templar tree, but it was pretty underwhelming, later on I got a sick two-hander with ele dmg, which gave me another 20 dps.

Only problem is that with unlinked ST, you mainly hit only monsters that are in a straight line, so it's ok for crowding, but in sins it's kinda wank because all monsters are super slow and spread out in huge packs. Maybe ST with LMP on ranger might be better, personally I don't thinke ele ST on templar is, it's good in act 1, but in act 2 it just doesn't really work.

I just did a quick ST ranger run and lol... wtf

I spent at least 2 minutes of dead time looking at the tree with the timer going and checking stat requirements of items, and still made Merveil at 34 min (32 really)... at level 14! I can easily shave at least 2 minutes off of that time now that I know the passives and items I need to get.

And only had this too



ST fucking rapes for act 1 progression AND leveling. Merveil got fuckin shredded. God I just want to race with bows ;_; why does everything else have to be better.

But yeah I can see how it might be bad for sins farming.



oh and look at what dropped in coves on the ST run



lol

Yeah, for act 1 ST is insane. I'm not sure if ST+LMP is better than RoA though. Reason I say this is the passive tree, you get alot more bow dmg nodes with ranger than two-handed Dmg nodes.

Perhaps switching from two-handed to one-handed ST in act 2 is viable?

Skill tree:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAr-sB0aJA9PihIsSilcjfmGJaJJ3TfnByA4eVZgSxTGAbrXiuSO4=

Wait, I'm confused, does melee physical damage apply to ST? I just realized that it's not a melee attack? So I guess these nodes are pretty useless regardless of two or one-handed dmg.

I'm silly.

edit: In which case, I guess it probably won't be viable in act 2-3, simply because you run out of nodes to scale the damage with? But LMP still might be enough damage for it to be on par with RoA, damn it I guess I really have to test it with a docks run.

edit2: I guess you could go 2-handed swords, not sure how viable that is, but here is a prototype build for docks (not very refined)

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAr-sB0aJA9PihIsSilcjfmGJaJJ3Tfich_gnvevzFVvrdRmOn_E7uDqPny_UxsOcPZ6CHdkp93Q1brxjbdPHUUgbul3BjFw==

Not sure if the ele dmg nodes are worth it, but they should scale wrath quite nicely. Only question is, if you restrict yourself to just swords will you consisently enough find upgrades? Really not sure.

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SlixSC wrote:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAr-sB0aJA9PihIsSilcjfmGJaJJ3TfnByA4eVZgSxTGAbrXiuSO4=

For sins farming you will not have lmp anyway, and I think giving up the weapon size of two handers wouldn't be worth it for races.

I'm going to do a full run through to act3 later and see how it goes.

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boof wrote:

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SlixSC wrote:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAr-sB0aJA9PihIsSilcjfmGJaJJ3TfnByA4eVZgSxTGAbrXiuSO4=

For sins farming you will not have lmp anyway, and I think giving up the weapon size of two handers wouldn't be worth it for races.

I'm going to do a full run through to act3 later and see how it goes.

The build I have in mind is this (a 3 hr race build)

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBAdEG7hjbIWAknSchMbA0NUp9Vvpbr2JaYxdnoHTxfPWHdooilciXcKPnr-vApsDzwQfEosv1037UUtd-3Q3fmOcP7g7vevzF_gk=

Reason I don't pick up the projectile 8% nodes is because it will let me equip something better than a corroded blade before prisoners and Brutus. On my first run through, even a corroded blade didn't seem to lack for damage. I might be wrong though, and change my mind later.

Yeah that's basically the same build I just posted in my "edit", however you can't take the 2h melee nodes, because they don't scale the damage of ST. Everything else is pretty much exactly how I would do a 2h ST docks build.

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SlixSC wrote:

Yeah that's basically the same build I just posted in my "edit", however you can't take the 2h melee nodes, because they don't scale the damage of ST. Everything else is pretty much exactly how I would do a 2h ST docks build.

The nodes are fine for ST. They increase damage of melee weapons, as opposed to increasing melee damage.
For example in your 1handed build, all the nodes are fine except for Weapon Artistry.


As for restricting yourself to swords, all 2 handed classes do just fine, no reason a ranger shouldn't as well.

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boof wrote:

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SlixSC wrote:

Yeah that's basically the same build I just posted in my "edit", however you can't take the 2h melee nodes, because they don't scale the damage of ST. Everything else is pretty much exactly how I would do a 2h ST docks build.

The nodes are fine for ST. They increase damage of melee weapons, as opposed to increasing melee damage.
For example in your 1handed build, all the nodes are fine except for Weapon Artistry.

Alright, that makes sense. I got really confused there.

I guess I'll test LMP+ST with two handers aswell, just to increase the sample size.

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Wait, I'm confused, does melee physical damage apply to ST? I just realized that it's not a melee attack? So I guess these nodes are pretty useless regardless of two or one-handed dmg.

Melee doesn't work.

Everything else works.

The good nodes are too far away and only viable in 4h+ races. You don't have got any damage nodes for a long time. At the sametime you could go 2h ST too.
That build also needs solid weapons and the secondary attacks would be traps again.
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAr-sB0aJA9PihIsSilcjfmGJaJJ3Tfu965wrcgnjr_MW3FziWXPlnoId2Sn3dDVuvGNt08dRSBu6XcGMXIWDBB9d-NDVAoJ65BS1gS3rvdO0dJmyN

Dualwielding ST is really is like using GS on 2 1h maces.
The only alternative would be to go into the shadow tree on 1h weapons and possible use claws and 1h swords.