[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

I'm actually pretty excited for the new league. Open up breaches, kill mobs for new items and occasionally run into Breach Lords - end game bosses (probably in nerfed form) which you must deal as much damage as possible to before they leave the breach.

The amount of damage you do to the lords determines how many "splinters" of a particular type you collect. Combine enough splinters to create a breachstone - which can be used in map devices to open a portal the the Breach Lord's realm.
====

Probably the breaches will be designed so that most reasonable skills (CA among them) will do fine and get maximum or near maximum rewards. In fact, CA can spread clouds quickly over large areas and might really shine in these encounters. We'll need to see how it's tuned though; my hunch... Perandus mob-level difficulty.

Killing the Breach Lord's themselves in their domain is probably going to be Guardian-level difficulty, I think. I suspect that Shaper will remain the toughest fight in PoE.

Design limitations in builds will remain; some builds will simply be much more powerful than others.

Interestingly, one of the upcoming features in Breach is a channeled skill support gem. Maybe the gem will allow you to lock the spell in place and then permit movement? Or maybe it's a gem that allows leech for the channeled skills? Hopefully it's some sort of fix for the inability to move while channeling which might make some of the channeled skills much more viable for endgame.

Anyhow, I've really enjoyed all the leagues so far and I expect that I'll enjoy Breach a lot as well.

https://www.twitch.tv/liftingnerdbro/v/102329149?t=36m04s

Some highlights:
* The ability to get Essences may continue in some form past the end of the Essence League.
* Shift-click attacking has improved targeting.
* The Blight skill may be currently bugged. DPS might be improved.
* Blade Flurry got significantly more design time aimed at end-game viability
* The support gem for channeling skills is Cast While Channeling - at a set interval, linked skills are cast
* Breach encounters have diminishing returns so that lower DPS skills can still get most of the rewards
* Breach portals open a breach which you must keep open and travel along. Once you reach the end of the opening breach, you'll be able to enter the Breach Lord's arena.
* Fire, Cold and Lightning Breach Lords are Atziri-level difficulty
* Physical is next hardest and Chaos is harder still.
* The Chaos Breach Lord is Uber-Atziri level difficulty
* The clear speed, huge AOE meta is a recognized design problem but cannot be addressed without significant changes and skill reworks. As a result, this meta will continue into 2.5 - and this is why Blade Flurry has such large AOE.
* Poison double dipping and life vs ES are topics upon which the development team have diverse opinions. Consensus does not yet seem in place to allow for changes.

Takeaways for me:
* Non-meta skills will still be effective in the new league due to diminishing returns on keeping breaches open as long as possible.
* High AOE/damage skills will continue. GGG seems to want to make changes to allow many more skills to be really good but cannot make such drastic changes in the upcoming expansion.
* Blade Flurry seems to be as good as it is - or nearly so - by design. Blade Flurry is likely to be one of the strongest skills in 2.5.
* GGG's design process is consensus driven; the majority of their team need to support any large changes or the change won't be made.

There is also a video wich shows a early stage of how breach gameplay will feel.
It looks not satisfying for me.
I hope they rework this bevor leage start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMemPVtVOsk