Trying out T17 maps for the first time...

What a disappointment.


The first one I did was Citadel. I don't know if it was the map, or an affix I rolled, but the whole place was always covered in one-shot death mechanics. Big rocks that would follow me to drop on top of me, or Elder donuts being spammed 3-5 at a time, it was just a constant barrage of unnecessary crap. I died twice before getting to the boss - and one of those times was actually to a Harvest enemy that randomly 1-tapped me (Crushing effect, and I think also crit?), but then was unable to threaten me on my return, because of course.

As for the boss? Obnoxious. Same reasons as usual. Small arena, dark rock terrain, with enemy spell effects that are dark puddles on the ground (with fairly obvious hands), lasers that are fine enough to dodge and easier to see... but these weren't what put me to my last portal.

Apparently, I was also being shot by "shuriken" things, as my friend explained to me??? Not sure how I'm supposed to see that, when I have a super obnoxious Righteous Fire going on (ongoing theme, that this spell is so incredibly obtrusive and cannot be hidden), and my offense of choice is self-casting Storm Call (locking me in place and also covering the screen in clutter).

So much of this game is needlessly obnoxious. Will this ever get fixed, or is this part of the cult PoE mentality?


Next map I did was Sanctuary. At least I liked the physical layout. But that's where the praise ends.

The whole experience was littered in death effects. Again, not sure if that's the base map/enemies, or if that was an affix, but when are we going to learn as a species that nobody likes enemy death effects in ARPG video games? I'm being chased the ENTIRE time by explosion orbs that aren't fast enough to get over with, and not slow enough to be ignored. I can't even stop and loot (another common problem in this ridiculous game) without being blown up. I had the place influenced by Exarch, and I insta-died in a room that spawned on top of me, got one-shot by me, and then the proceeding point-blank death effects then one-shot me in return. This is not good game design, plain and simple. Defending this makes you look silly to real life human beings. So if you find yourself defending this, know where you stand in the "Are You A Real Life Human Being" spectrum.

The boss was - of course - obnoxious. This is PoE after all, and if it's not a tank & spank target dummy, then it obviously has to be an explosive, one-shotting, strobe light bullet hell, where everything is the same color as the ground. There is no in-between in Path of Exile.

The strobe light phase aside, after that, this bitch spent the entire time teleporting to the opposite side of the screen any time I was able to place my mouse on her, all the while sending insta-death anime halberds at me every 1.5 seconds that also threatened heavy damage on the return. Overall, my complaint about this boss is the sentence I was screaming out loud the entire time: "WHEN am I supposed to DEAL any DAMAGE?!?" It was impossible to get more than 0.5 seconds of DPS uptime on her, and that's straight up obnoxious.


Last map so far was Abomination. Again, not sure if it's core map qualities or the rare map affixes, but this map was pleasantly not covered head to toe in miserable death effects or scenic destruction. It was just a map with enemies that attacked me. THANK god.

But, again, that's where the praise ends, which is funny because we've simply set the bar really low. This wasn't really praise.

The physical layout itself was the worse one yet, and Citadel was a pseudo-maze. The issue with Abomination's layout is that you have to keep backtracking in order to explore the whole map. Maybe a minor issue, but still seems to be a thing that the developers never actively think about. (Add it to the list, boys.)

The boss is where this map really shines. And by that, I mean blows.

I guess I got lucky early on, because I killed Shav really quickly. All portals intact, yada yada. But after that... well, the end result of this T17 map is that I lost all my portals after that, and never got to finish the boss fight.

I don't know who was doing it, but Consecrated Ground kept popping up in new places constantly, and as far as I know, I couldn't do anything to stop it or control where they would end up. And even if I could, I didn't seem able to control where the Two Stooges waddled around into, anyway. As soon as they touched the Con Ground, they would slurp slurp slurp back to full HP. I was stuck in this eternal hell, where 30+ million DPS wasn't good enough to burn anyone down when I caught them off the Con Ground, and as soon as they touched the tip of that green shit, all of my work went right into the garbage bin. Again, I must have won the lottery with Shav, because somehow, AFTER killing one of the bosses, I was totally unable to do shit for the rest of the fight. Which, after "typing it out loud," makes me wonder if it's a Trio type of fight like from Atziri's temple. Which, if it is, that would - of course - be terrible game design, because it would be game design that REQUIRES you to outsource game knowledge from the Wiki and Youtube before you're ever allowed to do anything in this god forsaken video game.

As for how I ran out of portals?

Well, my character seemed to have gotten so bored of the Consecrated Ground healing, that she kept deciding to explode her own heart or something, because I kept randomly dying to nothing. My last death was even this:

> Enter arena.
> Invulnerable grace period...
> Nothing is happening, Two Stooges waddling around with nothing to do.
> I move to the left.
> My character dies.

Nothing even fucking happened. I just get a random heart attack.




These were my first T17 experiences. And I gotta tell ya... it aint lookin' good.

Okay bye now. Gonna wrap up the night with an actual good game. :)