A Call to the Builders Extraordinaire

To the Mods: I'm posting this in each class forum because it's not really class-specific. If you'd prefer it go into a different forum or something, feel free to delete and move whatever posts you want. I understand.

Hey gang... I'm nobody. No honestly, I'm nobody. I'm sure you can ignore my post and my request for help and literally nothing would happen and no one would care.

But if you care, I have a humble request.

I'm looking for some good build ideas that *DON'T* cost hundreds of EX. I don't mean "starter builds"... I've played with plenty of those. I mean builds that can actually rock the faces of the end game bosses, guardians, shapers, elders, whatever. Starter builds always hit a wall. If you are interested in helping me, I implore you to read on.

I've been playing the game for a very long time (took breaks and returned, obviously) and have managed to get *right to* some of the end game bosses but no matter what my characters just fail. Not for lack of skill (I'm sure many of you will claim)... but because I don't have *quite enough* of something. Just barely not enough health not to get one-shotted, or just barely not enough Chaos res, or just barely not quite enough DPS, or evade, or armour, or whatever is required.

I love this game. Honestly, I do. I used to play way back when every time you used a movement skill you would desync from the server and loved it even then. But I don't have the time to put in just to farm until my face melts just to get a couple more EX.

There are so many builds out there that I want to try, but I look at the POB and almost every item is 20+ EX... or sometimes there will be that one crucial item that the entire build revolves around and even in standard it costs 50 EX.

Yes, I can craft, but because I can't spend days and days farming (My wife would tell you I play too much as it is), I just don't have the currency to really craft what I need. I actually spent some time and currency trying to craft and ended up with pitiful failures every time. It is just agonizing.

I've got a handful of EX (around 30) and I've worked very hard on my top characters to be able to *MODESTLY* make it through most maps, but it's like when I get to the "end"... I hit a wall that just will not relent and the only explanation I can come up with is that my builds just aren't quite strong enough - and that I need to spend 25 EX on a new single item. Is this how you guys do it?... farm for months for the EX you need to replace *ONE* item at a time?

Look, I know I'm nobody. But I truly love this game and really want to see and accomplish some of that end game stuff.

Can anybody help?

disclaimer:
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I don't claim all good players are doing one of the below: but some ways to get that currency:

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- Run labs/maps/content for a price (sell services)
- Either scam Ur way to get the currency
- Snipe items (for me also some sort of scam) buy shit way to low, some would call this play the market
- Play way to much (just grinding,ginding etc)
- Buy some streamer luck (unconfirmed, but it exists, there are people who six link items with a few clicks...)
- get a whole crew to feed you
- make an awesome build and make sure you have enough of the core items in stock while there low and then post that build on every known build site/forums

- Or you can, like some self proclaimed pro players, just get the currency in a completely illegal way to get that HH.

It happens... yes i was shocked, so called awesome pro players who clear content within 2 weeks, just buy there *&^*@^% way there.

To the flamers:

Yes i suck, none of my characters are 90+, i fall asleep grinding after around lvl 90 so yes.. i dun care, instead i enjoy leveling and not doing the same maps/content 1000x to do a end-boss.

tldr: Just enjoy the game at Ur own pace/content make builds specific for 1 purpose.

Welp, you kind of explained a big problem with build guides in your rent:
Starter builds are falsly advertised as clearing all content, where this is clearly not the case. Progression is extremely important in PoE, just like any other arpg. You shouldn't be expecting and expected to clear the most endgame bosses with gear you buy when you reach maps. Yet most build guides make it look like that's what the build does.

When I started playing PoE, I picked an op singletarget build. It was a CI fire nova mine occultist, dealing 24million shaper dps (back in legacy, that was insane).
But I sucked hard, and anything not unique on my gear would just be ES+Resistances. I remember I was happy to craft 5% movementspeed on my belt, because it was different than my usual shit gear. I didn't know what to look for on rares at all, had no clue how to plan for corruption on uniques and had pretty bad jewels.
I did barely 2 million dps, and I was so squichy I couldn't get past lvl92 farming t11 strand (that was the meta at the time). I also considered that getting a 6l body armour was an endgame purchase, costing several exalts!
Yet I kept pushing, and ended up finishing all 40 challenges in roughly 450 hours (legacy was a 6 months league).
Needless to say, this would have been impossible in today's leagues. While the challenges are getting easier each time, the base game surely isn't at all. Players have more tools than ever to progress due to everlasting powercreep. New uniques, influence modifiers, cluster jewels, timeless keystones, unique support gems... But the enemies have also gotten stronger. An experienced player will tell you the tools we now have far outweigh the buffs to monsters, but a player with more shallow knowledge of the game is now forced to interact with complex mechanics in order to defeat foes the same way. This is especially true with the release of conquerors of the atlas.

This makes starter builds unable to clear any sort of endgame content without at least one stop to rebuild your character with better and more endgame gear.
The days where items you equipped after merciless malachai would last you till the most endgame bosses are over.
That said, your 30 ex budget is more than enough to clear all content, but do know that it's not THAT much in today's standards.
Your options are:

- Play league. This may seem counter intuitive, but standard is a trap if you don't have much time. Everything is far more expensive for various reasons, and you loot less due to not having access to a permanent league mechanic.
In heist, you currently make about 10 chaos per map just by picking up markers. That's an exalt every 6 maps. Now, consider that most people don't even find it worth it to pick up said markers. You do the math.

- Pick an op build. Note that OP isn't meta. I'm currently playing indigon BV pathfinder, that shit is broken op, but not widespread so things are cheap.
Most slam skills are currently a very good idea if you just want to experience endgame content but won't play enough to really care about cspeedclearing. For exemple, ED trickster isn't a good pick for you, it's WAY too popular to be cheap. Also note that there's builds so out of the regular power curve that they are good no matter what. Looking at you, poison BV assassin.

- play more of the same build, stop rerolling.
This should be very obvious, yet you don't do it. You keep rerolling before you hit lvl90, your gems don't even have the time to get to lvl 20. Gems naturally level to 20 way before you can reach endgame bosses like sirus 8. It's a BIG reason your characters are weak, you are not taking the time to really understand how they work to know how to upgrade them efficiently.
I have 3500 hours in PoE. I'm mostly unable to make most melee skills work. Yet I have multiple 40/40 leagues, enough money to buy headhunters and mirror items from previous leagues in standard.
Morality: focus on one aspect of the game till you understand it. Don't give up as soon as you hit a wall, overcome that wall.

I could give you specific advice on your builds, but I don't think it's what you need. Take your cyclone gladiator, for exemple:
You are using starter weapons that costs 1c each, your gems aren't leveled up and don't have quality, your crit chance is AWFULLY LOW, and your flask setup is very questionnable. Your tree is basic and most likely outdated. Also, cluster jewels. I haven't seen a single influenced item on ANY of your characters. Sure, you have a legacy abyssus and a 6link, but that ain't gona carry you.
By just playing your character, you will know. Open pob, and for each item, look at uniques you could use for this slot, or if an influence mod would be good here. Have you compared ichimonji, scaeva and ahn's might? Which one is better? Can you aquire a good rare weapon that will boost your dps for cheap (hint: yes, you must)?
Start theorycrafting. Understand the mechanics of your character, and what mods on gear takes them to the next level.
Good luck.

ED contagion. Follow this guide :
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2581551

You're basically unkillable. The build costs around 20 ex total to get some decent gear. If you're aiming for lvl 100, or for an all around good character this is the way to go.

You can get about 1m dps with essence drain + blight. It's not a lot, but it's enough to do Sirius 8 without much issues. Keep in mind that dot dps is effectively better than burst dps.

ED can damage Sirius 100% of the time (except invulnerability phases ofc). So with 500k ED, you out perform builds with 2m dps that can only hit 25% of the time, aka most melee builds.

30 ex is also enough to enable an autobomber.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2891996/page/1
Basically copy my build, replace the gloves with storm's gift, chest with inpulsa and headhunter with a stygan belt. Does all content, although Sirius is tricky.

You can also go for a cheap aura stacker. I wouldn't recommend it as these builds are disgustingly OP and should be removed from the game entirely, however you can probably start one with 30ex and keep on upgrading it.

Then you have golemancers, disgustingly OP, same as aura stacker : start "cheap", upgrade later.

Spectres also work like this. You get them going on leveling gear and a tabula, and can upgrade the build to get about 500m dps. A tabula is more than enough to kill Sirius 8.

Ask yourself the following questions whenever you play something :

1) Do you have enough clear speed ?
This is relative to your own preference, and to the league itself. You need the clear to feel good for you, and to be good enough to compete in a trade league. This is why explosions are so popular : they speed up the clear speed of any build without actually forcing you to play an other build.

2) Do you mind dying ?
Aka, do you aim for 100, 95, 90, 85 ?
If you're aiming for 100, then you want high clear speed high tankiness. If you're okay being stuck at 90, then you can go for a 20m dps 3k life build.

3) Standard, League, Trade, ssf, HC ?
What do you want to do ? If you go play on standard, let me tell you that 30 ex is barely enough for a starter build. I wouldn't recommend it unless you want to skip a league (I did it on harvest). HC neither since HC is shit in a game like this.

What I'd recommend tbh is ED trickster on Heist SC. ED is strong, but not strong enough to trivialize the game. You actually need to play the game, as opposed to aura stackers and minion builds.

I want to thank everyone who has given sincere feedback to my request. I had heard that the forums were super toxic. I'm glad that I'm not seeing that side of things here.

I have received some really good feedback and will carefully consider what has been offered. I know my flasks need to be looked at, I had always played with them as "Oh Crap" buttons, but I'm learning that they are really intended to be spammed and more proactively used. It is interesting.

Honestly, I appreciate it guys. And I'm learning. Please keep it up.

One reason I don't go into *ANY* of the leagues is that I have such a hard time with inventory management. I don't have enough $$ to buy new stash tabs every league. Another reason is that I have such an absolute HOARD of various items available to me in Standard. I just don't have any of the 20EX items... you know, the triple res, T2 Evasion boosted, T1 Life gloves with the unique warlord enchant. Yeah, none of that *but* I DO have 3 pages of rings, 2 pages of amulets, and 2 pages each of every other slot that allows me to get at least "close" to where I need to be. This has been my strategy so that when I need to put a build together when the new league gives me a full passive reset, I can get almost there and only have to buy that one or two items that get me that extra 15% fire resist or whatever is blatently lacking.

Where I'm getting frustrated is that it seems like (seems like... doesn't make it fact) every single slot needs to be one of those 20 EX items.

"

Kalchrost wrote:

I DO have 3 pages of rings, 2 pages of amulets, and 2 pages each of every other slot that allows me to get at least "close" to where I need to be.

The stash tabs you bought are shared across all the leagues. If you have this many stash tabs, you can play temp leagues without buying new ones. Am I missing something?

I don't play standard, but I just did a quick search and found that items there are 10 times more expensive than in Heist. What you call "20 ex item" might cost only 2 ex in Heist. You really need to play in Heist, not in standard. You can't use those items you stored in standard, but you can buy similar items at very low price anyway.

I just have to take a quick look at your individual characters to see that it's all about skill/knowledge.

None of your gems are at level 20 and 20% quality.

that alone makes a lot. first read guides correctly and understand why it fails.