This weekend marked my first time feeling like my builds were pointless, exactly what I experienced with PoE when first running Maps. Tried running Tier 2 Lightless Arbor with my L68 Marksman (dual Jelkhor’s). Since the level stated it was L65, I figured I would at least give it a couple of tries before moving to another character. While I failed, I felt I was close.
How wrong I was…
I switched to this character - Necromancer, Level 80 (LE Beta 0.9.2f) - Last Epoch Build Planner - and while I made it to the end, I might as well have not even bothered. I didn’t get one-shotted like against Lagon (not the first one, but the second in the echo), but at least there I know what my problem is. Here my minions did absolutely nothing and my maxed resistances made no difference at all.
(3) questions:
Why list an area as L65 when the boss is 20+ levels above that?
Is this the norm going forward?
Are build guides required?
This is the most fun I’ve had in a game since D2 first came out 20+ years ago. I have (5) characters that I really love to play (explains why I’m only at L80 with my highest character). If the answers to Q2/3 are yes, then it’s back to the drawing board.
The dungeon bosses are very much end game content even at lower tiers imo.
That boss in particular even I find hardish after 2k hours, its very simple, but if you mess up you are most likely dead if you dont have tons and tons of defenses.
Guides are not required, but think of dungeon bosses like raid bosses from an MMO, if you dont look up a guide, you are gonna wipe for a few hours till you figure it out.
Another “important” thing. It may be frustrating now but you get used to it pretty fast. Most bosses are so powerfull to create a “if you mess up…” scenario. It’s a bit funny they needed to be as overtunded as they are on their level to even seem to be difficult.
How did you figure out that the lvl of the boss was highwr than the area lvl (it shouldn’t be)?
If your minions weren’t attacking the available mobs, that sounds like a bug (which sucks) & while you can force them to attack mobs with A, it’s reasonable to expect to not have to do that for mobs that are just milling around.
The dungeon bosses are very mechanical in nature with a number of one shot mechanics (ignoring bugs).
Nothing scientific, just an opinion. My minions were all attacking the boss as normal, but were doing next-to no damage. In the future, I need to pay more attention to the extra tier/area powers these dungeons are given so I’m not going in blind.
Ok, I was talking about the first stage of the fight where you have to burn the pyres. If you entered and are fighting the heart, then it’s a different issue.
With all due respect, this build and your gear is a mess. Minion builds need to go all-in on Minions. You have gone “half-in” and still have slots buffing your own (Necrotic) spell damage for Hungering Souls - this affix does nothing for your Minions. You really cannot split it like that. Either go ALL-IN Minions, meaning every single affix that can be is buffing the Minions, or do not use them at all.
The real frustration point for you lies in the near future. You have 400% increased minion health which is nowhere near enough. (I like min 1200%, if the build uses permanent Minions like this one). Soon your Minions are going to be dying on boss fights all over the place. And for a Necro there is nothing more frustrating than that. They also have no sustain (way of healing themselves if damaged, which they will be).
That aside, I would replace Hungering Souls with properly specced Dread Shade (a skill that almost every Minion build pretty much MUST take). Then replace all your gear that has Necrotic spell buffs on it with equivalent that buffs Minions.
My biggest frustration is that it removes you from the dungeon and you don’t get a chance to practice\develop strategies. End game, you get plenty of keys, but trudging through the numerous dead ends \ fog of war etc makes it tedious. At lower levels, you may not have enough keys yet to keep at it. It would be better to let us try a few times, perhaps with scaling reqards, or perhaps knock the bosses down a few pegs per tier AND add additional tiers so the dungeon can be a better gear check before fighting the boss.
I appreciate the advise; didn’t realize that my Necrotic Damage affixes were pointless. (I did this because the Hungering Souls tool-tip showed damage increases when I buffed my own damage). This is the farther I’ve gotten with any character, so i had assumed that the day would come where by build would fall way short of making it into the 90s.
That being said, if I have to take a skill to continue then I’d rather play another game altogether. I’m not an end-game person, never have and never will be. For me, the journey to gaining power is way more fun than actually using that power over and over and over again to min-max builds. I will reference build guides, but will never follow them to the letter.
Thanks again for the pointers on my minions. My (2) favorite characters are minion-based - this one and Beastmaster - so this advise will help me a lot.
I can completely appreciate that. I am a min-maxer; we have very different approaches. Of course you can take any skill you like but it would difficult (for me) to see what would be better for a Minion build than Dread Shade in at least one slot. I have several level 100 Necros and guess the one (and only) skill they all have in common…
That said, the skill you have most fun using is the often the best for the job too. Nothing is mandatory (unless the skill is build-defining but that’s a different thing altogether) and there will always be a best choice (or a few best choices).
Let’s agree that Dread Shade is a great choice for your build, and would be a nice (and very powerful) replacement for Hungering Souls.
This is one issue I do have with LE. There are so many skills for the classes yet every (at least nearly every) class has one skill that is pretty much necessary if you want to have a build that does well in end game.
A game should have the diversity I see in LE, but it should be that you can make a build just as capable of end game success without every class “having” to have one skill in particular as part of that build (the Necromancer “having” to have Dread Shade as an example).
Yes, I know it’s hard to balance it out and I think the devs here have done a great job for the most part, just wish it were better in this regard.
Guess I should have included Lagon in the L75 Echo. Same crap: 2x my minion health, 50% better minion damage, 20% more damage (for me), 100% more ward…and death every effing time on Phase 3.
Oh, and I’m dying faster in Lightless Arbor now. My PoE Maps nightmares are returning; guess I’m not just cut out for these types of games anymore. The whole genre seems to be solely focused on end-game, where the difficulties are so out of line with the normal game progression that everything you’ve done up to this point was like a slow jog in the park to now running marathons.
I love challenges, but this is just stupid. I don’t even feel like I’m playing the same game.
