L70 dual-Jelkhor’s Detonating Arrow build, focused on Cold damage. Also use Shadow Cascade for more spread-out mobs. My problems are with (2) bosses in particular: Rahyeh and T1 Area Champion. While I can understand Rahyeh (never got past him with my pre-1.0 characters, either, and he’s above my level), the T1 Area champion just either doesn’t take any damage or I can’t hit him for seconds at a time, even when I’m close enough to hug him.
Here’s my build link: https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/BGwlZpVB. Since I just switched out Decoy for Explosive Traps (just wasn’t using the Decoy), I haven’t had a chance to build it up yet. Any suggestions would be most welcome.
Note that I’m not looking for a complete overhaul; if this character is off the rails, then I’d rather just start over. I have other characters that have run into their own issues, but I’ve been able to eventually overcome them and would like the chance to do the same here.
I can’t say too much about your Rogue-Specific Things, as I am not a Rogue Player.
But your defensive setup is very much lacking. And I see you doing a mistake many many people make.
You have exalted items (almost) everywhere, but they are far from optimal. A perfect T15-20 Rare with a good base is better than a exalted item with 1 or 2 suboptimal affixes and bad base.
Your resistances are waaaaaaay overcapped and you neglacted any other form of defensive layer. Your Maximum Health is very low.
Overcapping resistances in LE has almost no benefit and only gives you some advantages vs Mark for Death and Resistance Shred, which are relatively rare.
Having 60-75% Resistance with better other defensive layers is boosting your eHP a lot.
You have 1 Flat Dodge and 1 Flat Armor affix, but you are not really focusing on neither of them.
You need to get more Health everywhere possible, especially on the slot s that have %Health or Hybrid Health (Helmet, Body, Belt, Boots, Gloves).
Then try to focus on Either armor or Dodge, since you are a rogue dodge is pretty easy to stack, but rogue has access to a lot of flat dodge anyway, so % dodge affixes are usualyl a lot better (Especially with Dusk Shroud Stacks).
So what I would do from a priority perspective:
Replace Transient Rest (Boots), gets Hybrid Health + % Dodge on them, or at least Hybrid Health + Flat Health
Replace Amulet with something stronger like Bone Amulet, Oracle Amulet or Gold Amulet. Try get Flat Helath on the Amulet
Get Gloves with Hybrid Health and any other useful stats. (Right now your gloves have 2 almost useless stats)
Get better Helmet Base Type with % Health
Get Better Body Armor Base Type with % Health + % Dodge or at least % Health + Flat Health
Get a Belt with Hybrid Health + % Health or Hybrid Health + % Dodge and try to get Cleanse on Potion use as a Prefix, this is very usefull against Shred, Shock and Mark for Death and other ailments.
Generally speaking I would assign each affix on an item a certain “priority” and you should rather try get 3x T5 and 1x T1 than 4x T4, but that is just a rule of thum I personally use.
Technically, when you have an item with 4 desired affixes always crafting/upgrading the lowest tier affix is the savest way to make the item better, because Forging Potential Cost for low affixes are lower and you will get more crafting attempts before running out of forging potential (and possible mroe chances for cirtical successes).
But in your case, I think damage is not a problem and focusing on yoru defensive setup should be priority No.1
One thing to note about LE as well, is that flat damage is always better than % damage increase …
So instead of “70% increased cold damage” on your weapons you want things like “+20 melee cold damage” try to get flat damage increases everywhere possible, and then % damage increases are a secondary priority.
As you can see, the major defensive changes have been slow to acquire. Now that the build is a little stronger now, I can start running her with Prophecies more efficiently.
Thanks again for all the help. I’m sure I’ll be back when it’s time to kill the Emperor.
Well I don’t know if this is what you want to hear, but I have looked at your build and I would say that your damage issues are due to a lack of focus.
It looks like your using melee Detonating Arrow directly for single enemies and Cascade to clear. But you’re only using their own skill trees, while your other skills only serve for utility.
The meta builds combine two or more skill trees into one button:
Jelkhor Marksman typically uses Explosive Traps that trigger multiple Detonating Arrows per button press. That build probably deals the most damage in LE.
Runemaster uses Frost Claw to proc Elemental Nova which applies Static Charges.
Wraithlord Necro pimps his Summon Wraith with Dread Shade, Infernal Shade and Volatile Zombies.
So those builds have 40+ skill points to work with, which you don’t have. Gear is secondary at this point, at 72 you use what you have. And you should go for defenses first anyway.
Would you be willing to change that much or does that count as a complete overhaul?
The fact that he’s willing to have a go without a guide should be an indicator that he’s not actually bothered about meta builds.
You don’t need all that to clear empowered monos and even get to 300c. His current setup, as long as it’s tweaked, especially for defenses, should allow him to reach 300c without having to go meta.
That’s a bit weird, for meta simply utilizes game mechanics in an optimal way. It’s okay if you don’t want that, but it’s the simplest way of solving damage problems.
Also you could learn from the meta concepts without copying a meta build. There are other ways to combine skill trees.
I don’t consider meta something negative, but some people just want to try their own thing. Some people only have the goal of getting to empowered monos or just pushing their build to however much, even if it’s just 200c.
My comment was simply targetted at the notion that his build should be overhauled to become closer to meta, or become optimal. Not everyone wants that.
As I said, the way his build is setup should be enough to clear empowered monos once he fixes defenses. It will likely also carry him to 300c.
If he wants, he can optimize it and make it closer to meta and reach 1k+ in the couple weeks left before the nerf, but it’s not necessary for the issue the OP posted. He had issues with some bosses before reaching empowered (and T1 arena) and those are easily solved without massive changes to his build.
Well let him decide. He posted about damage issues and using the pointy end would solve that. LE is a game, in which understanding the mechanics can get you very far. Just offering some help in that regard.
In the grand scheme of things there are only a handful builds per Archetype that are truly meta.
But there are a lot of other things you can do, that are still “good”, just not, “the best”.
You can still min-max within in alot of these “medicore” builds.
The problem with “meta” for me most often is, that people actively looking for that really only want to use the absolute top of the top builds.
So for me that is very negative because it gives you a very narrow perspective of the game and the gameplay.
Especially when new player copy such builds and than complain how easy the game is.
Yes, only the best of the best becomes meta because a certain kind of people strives for power.
But my intention wasn’t to say “go meta” but to explain why the meta builds deal damage and this one doesn’t. The concept of combining skill trees is very much applicable to self-made builds. I only listed the meta ones for many people can relate to them.
I’m actually confused why we have all these posts today simply for the term “meta” was taken out of context.
edit:
This is technically meta advice, too, you’re optimizing EHP there.
That’s not what meta is. In fact, considering the current LE meta, his advice was actually anti-meta, since he was not pushing for ward.
I can only talk about why I replied to your comment and it was simply for this phrase, following your meta synergies explanation:
That makes it implied that unless he does change all that, he might as well scrap the character entirely.
And my counterpoint was simply that even without going meta or doing optimal synergies, the build can still work, be fun and accomplish his goals. For example, he might not like to use traps to trigger EA.
If that was not your intention with that comment, then I apologize. It was a misunderstanding. But it certainly reads that way.
Well in a broader sense than the “LE meta”, metagaming means to apply knowledge from outside the game. Using % health over flat health and flat damage over % inc damage (in most cases) may seem intuitive to some but to me that’s meta knowledge.
You are right, that ward is represented more in the meta of top performing builds.
What part of it reads that way? To me, it’s not a drastic change to switch one active skill to Explosive Trap for example, which would multiply the damage output. But everyone has different interpretations of what qualifies as a “complete overhaul”, so I started with the caveat.
@DJSamhein and me are talking about “most efficient tactic available”.
In other words, the objectively best way to play the game.
What @DJSamhein and me wanted to say is, there are builds and playstyle that are not using the objectively best things (like skills, synergies etc) but you can still optimize and min-max within those builds, without being meta.
You’re just mingling words. There are probably dozens of definitions for metagaming, like this: The act of a roleplayer making use of knowledge that they have learned out of character (and which their character does not know) while they are in character. If meta sounds like nazi to you, that’s not my problem.
Technically we have provided the same: optimization tips, you for defense, me for offense.
We are speaking of two different, but because they use the word meta doesn’t make them the same.
In fact the term we were using is not even a word it is a abbreviation.
I am not here to do word mingling, but we are talking about different things entirely.
The term metabuild describes the most optimal (best) builds. Not from a subjective standpoint, but from a pure performance standpoint.
What you are describing and calling meta gaming, using the knowledge that was acquired previously or from outside sources has nothing to do with metabuild. It would be more related to people learning and improving at the games by themselves.
That is why context matters. In terms of ARPG builds, players use the term meta for those few builds that are very optimized and are the top performers to which most players will flock to.
You have dozens of builds in PoE and other ARPGs that are very optimized but that are not meta because most players won’t play them.
In this game genre, meta simply means those builds most people are playing at a certain point. It tends to align with the strongest ones, though not always.
