[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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Piros wrote:

haven't had too much trouble with Breaches in normal a1-a3 yet, but I imagine that will change in cruel...

Breaches keep getting more and more challenging. In Merciless now, they're definitely not easy by any means for my admittedly poorly geared AW toon. I ripped once at the start of Merciless in a lightning breach - didn't bother to get resists close to capped (I was at like 50 under or something).

But now, as I head out of A3M, even with capped resists, the amount of mobs and they damage that they do is just insane. I have to keep spamming my health pots, running around like a headless chicken and tossing out Vaal Lightning traps just to survive - fun, but challenging.

Which leads me to this conclusion...

Several of the top tier builds were allowed to survive into Breach relatively unscathed. Power creep means that existing content before maps is not challenging. But the Breaches seem to have been tuned for the new top tier ultra powerful builds.

Based on what I've seen, the issue is less on the side of power creep and more on the end of AoE coverage with decent damage.

I kinda wish I was running CA right now to test it, but I imagine pretty much everything except rares and uniques would just melt away by spamming clouds around. While CA's damage output isn't that great, it's got pretty solid coverage and would still kill all the white adds before they got a chance to start contributing damage.

I say this because of a similar experience with my BF char. While my dps isn't fantastic yet, once I was able to get the AoE gem slotted in, Breaches became far less threatening.

Don't get me wrong, Breaches definitely lend themselves to power-crept builds, but I think even average builds with good AoE will be able to run them more or less effectively.

The vortex dudes though, ugh.

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Serleth wrote:

Based on what I've seen, the issue is less on the side of power creep and more on the end of AoE coverage with decent damage.

I kinda wish I was running CA right now to test it, but I imagine pretty much everything except rares and uniques would just melt away by spamming clouds around. While CA's damage output isn't that great, it's got pretty solid coverage and would still kill all the white adds before they got a chance to start contributing damage.

I say this because of a similar experience with my BF char. While my dps isn't fantastic yet, once I was able to get the AoE gem slotted in, Breaches became far less threatening.

Don't get me wrong, Breaches definitely lend themselves to power-crept builds, but I think even average builds with good AoE will be able to run them more or less effectively.

The vortex dudes though, ugh.

Interesting...

I'm on a 4-link using a good leveling weapon but I don't have great AOE coverage. Still, AW is OP :-)

I have trouble killing the rare breach mobs in this setup - but in a few levels I'll get better gear and eventually my DPS will be roughly 40 times what it is now. The cold breach guys using - I guess it's vortex - really suck. If my totems get caught up in that they get slowed and hardly do any DPS. And it's a bit hard to tend to my totems while literally running for my life with the massive mob spawns :-)

There's a few tricks I can apply to improve AOE - still, I'm using a mace right now and switching to facebreakers (my plan) may mean that AOE is not good at all. We'll see though.

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Serleth wrote:

I kinda wish I was running CA right now to test it, but I imagine pretty much everything except rares and uniques would just melt away by spamming clouds around. While CA's damage output isn't that great, it's got pretty solid coverage and would still kill all the white adds before they got a chance to start contributing damage.

Can confirm. Putting up the wither totem, and maintaining the frenzy charges keeps the normal mobs at bay. Magic mobs give chase for a little while, but might only land a hit or two. Rare mobs, well lets not talk about those just yet. Might be less of a problem if I have a Vaal lit trap, and after I get the Occultist ascendancy points (have not completed Merc or uber yet).

Given monster level and Mathil's assessment of the elemental breach lords, I think the build should be able to handle them with little issue. Will report when I finally get there.

I used Neversink filter, but there are still too many Rare drops. Where do you guys get all your ID scrolls? What to pick up (or not picking up)?

Even picking up virtually all items, I still end up with 5K+ surplus scrolls at the end of a league, because I vendor all my portal scrolls (I use a Portal gem), scraps, stones and transmutes (I keep 40, anything above that I vendor).

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TheHeadsmasher wrote:

I used Neversink filter, but there are still too many Rare drops. Where do you guys get all your ID scrolls? What to pick up (or not picking up)?

As Serleth says, buy a Portal gem and vendor portal scrolls. Occasionally you may need to vendor some transmute orbs but this is rare.

In Breach league, numerous scrolls drop from Breach mobs; if you regularly tackle breaches, it's very unlikely that you'd ever run short of scrolls.

Breaches are amazing.

Not only do mobs swarm you thus helping you level quickly, they drop lots of loot. *AND* breach mobs drop maps!

I expect that drops - especially maps - will be nerfed soon. It's just too good atm.
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Edit - Haha :-) Patch notes confirm that map drops will be nerfed. Oh well.

To jump on the scroll train... back in Perandus, when currency tabs were new, I bought nearly 5000 scrolls just to have them.... only costs 20-30 chaos...

Compared to the amount of chaos you make on recipes and finding things worth posting for trade, even straight up buying bulk scrolls won't hurt you too badly... but as they said... depending how much you use/need your portal scrolls, transmutes, scraps, or whetstones, you can supplement quite a bit...

Buying in bulk mostly let me be lazy about picking up all those things when I couldnt be bothered...

Rushed Cruel now, and seen more breaches... participated in some xp groups... breaches get pretty big (is this the parties or just later difficulties)... starts to seem like they can grow forever...

Started buying some gear now that I broke 50, and I've noticed the effect public stash tabs have had on the economy... gone are the nice, easy currency conversions it seems... 41 coins : 10 chaos... 2.6-2.8 fuse : 1c... I miss when everything was 16:8:4:2:1... just because it was easier... of course, this is only a short-term problem while I try to get my build going... back in 2.2 I just let my currency grow in the currency tab once I was nominally geared and saving for the GG items...

Yeah, the fractional exchange rate really pisses me off. Ultimately, it means things are more properly valued, but it's so annoying when all you want to do is buy (arbitray example) say 10 fuses, but you can't do it with 5c, you have to do it with 4.33.

Okay, have your fuckin' alc?

Ugh.


Far as Breaches go, it's pretty clear with my slightly under-geared re-roll that clear speed meta is now enforced. It's impossible to do them without high aps or aoe.

They're tons of fun, but I really hope they don't go core without at least reducing the pack size somewhat. Enough punishing the non-meta.