User:Techhead7890

Notes

• Act 1 centres around naval and explorational themes. The Karui raiders, and their history. Mechanically, Scrolls and Gems are important. By the end of the Act it should allow you to solidify your initial 3-link items and ensure you have the correct supports.
• Phrecia appears to be the forest of Act 2 (see map background labelling. Various NPCs are related to it, such as Geoffery and certain Emperors including Izaro). Act 2 primarily ends up concerning the Vaal archaeology. This is the sort of ancient history of thaumaturgy. Act 2 sort of familiarises you with background mechanics such as the Hideout, Bestiary, and Labyrinth (trials). You'll also want more resistance gear as you go.
• It appears that the Old Empire and Eternal Empire are one and the same. Act 3 displays some of the Empire statues shown on currency. Act 3 shows the effects of thaumaturgy in the Empire that Sarn was once capital of; and the revolt, with necromancy in visceral fashion. Despite the sunny Greco-Roman architecture, it also gets surprisingly rainy (maybe that's the thaumaturgy). Sarn appears to be upstream of Phrecia. Mechanically, this lets you get your economy up and running, identifying plentiful items for alt shards. You'll be buying more specialist skill gems and testing them out, especially for a movement skill.
• Highgate was part of the endgame for many (real time) years and over time, has grown to many more NPCs than previous towns. It's situated on a mountain (that weird scaly pattern on the map) and also kinda laggy because of the water. We go back into the past.
  • You might get a 4 link chest here if you're lucky. You'd probably have a primary, momvement, and an aura-link or similar. Towards the second half it might be a good time to consider running the lab for ascendancy bonuses; repeating it for loot isn't likely worth it yet.
• Oriath is still imperial and brings up colonial influences, as though a foreign London.
  • Around here or Act 5, making specialist gear from alchingOrb of AlchemyStack Size: 20Upgrades a normal item to a rare itemRight click this item then left click a normal item to apply it. good socketed normal bases is the way to go.

mechanics

• Core of items are: base type; modifiers or rarity; sockets.
• Base comprises S/A/I attributes and drop level. Modifiers are sort of self-explanatory in themselves, but need manipulation. Sockets affect active gems, and the more links the better.

• item sockets and gems are difficult to categorise, but follow thèmes like MTG. Key ones might be melee/impact, projectile/speed, and caster
  • Higher item level grants more sockets. However it is only when more links end up dropping that they end up better than the same number of raw sockets. (example: a 4 socket item with a 3-link is not much better than a 3 socket 3-link item).
  • it's hard to get a good socket layout without any particular gem in mind, except that more links are usually better.
  • (nb: often skill is omitted to avoid confusion with the passive skill tree; perhaps we should petition GGG to rename gems to ability gems or something)
• Continuing on loot/pickups: Rares are the primary way to get Alteration ShardsAlteration ShardStack Size: 20A stack of 20 shards becomes an Orb of Alteration. for currency via ScrollScroll of WisdomStack Size: 40Identifies an itemRight click this item then left click an unidentified item to apply it.-identified modifiers, and Alts are used as a Vendor#Prices currency. Basically all magic items are dumpable because of their low amounts of modifiers (apart from maybe magic boots for movespeed); these tend to stay unid and vendored for Transmutation Shards (handbags)?
  • Alterations kinda look like fat octopi, whereas Transmutations look like thin squids.
  • Make class specific loot filters so you don't even need to think about picking up those bulky bows, nor 2h maces.
    • Neversink has early act weirdness. It starts to settle around Act 3. The problems with socketed armour then becomes more of a problem and you'll... probably want to set it to your stat-type armour due to the socket- and stat- colour association. It's not needed, but it really helps stop the frustration when 4-link #35 is entirely the wrong colour and stat type.
• Advanced currency/rarity management through magic rarity: use Transmutation to go up from normal, Augmentation to double up, Alterations to redo, and Regal to go to Rare? Chance Orb for Uniques ("Diablo Legendaries").
• Normal items are the best for crafting/alteration. Around Act 3 you should have plenty of scrolls and maybe some orbs to experiment a bit seeing what each can do. As a beginner, try starting by turning a normal rarity special flask into magic rarity with transmutes. Some flask mods are weird; if you don't like what you get... reroll with an alteration!
• Number of links/sockets are more important than colours, because chromatic orbs are way easier to come by than fusings or jeweler's.

value changing

• Modifiers: usually referring to 'explicit' modifiers which are added on. They're "sort of" enchantments from other games; except in POE itself, that term applies to labrynth loot only.
  • Read the "manual" of help text. The developers explain it well.
• Can be multiplicative(more)/additive(increased): (see stats for how they add values to your stuff/character - NB stats does not mean S/I/D but boosts in general)
• A lot of modifiers are local, affecting the item's values only; but some are global and affect your character
• Learn the ways to manipulate them with orbs. Add specific ones through the crafting bench like movement, resists, and weaponry/%damage.

classes

• Weapon restrictions: some can't be used with each other or certain skills. If in doubt, stick with a pair from your class. Specific examples: don't try and wield wands with anything else. Mauls can't be used with duelist's quest-given abilities. Sceptres can be dualwielded with each other or used with a shield, but nothing else.
• Skill trees: sometimes you can save points by picking fork points as late as possible. Some "travel" (stat) nodes are obligatory because they are entrances or exits to clusters, be sure not to count these mandatory spends.

Duelist

• Bladestorm is a little more focused than cyclone, but cyclone seems to be recommended for beginners and duelists and has a longer history. (bstorm was added in 3.7, mentions POEVault. Bstorm has those earmarks of advanced/niche benefits with its stance interactions, which are complex in themselves.)
• TODO: Bergerbrush>New Players Guide>Leveling Guide>Skills for Leveling Act 1-10>Auras recommends B&S stance: Maim Support. He explains:
  "Also when you use Blood and Sand & or Flesh and Stone. You can alternate between Blood and Sand Stance. I suggest Sand Stance for clearing packs of mobs and Blood Stance for Single Target/Bosses."
• Dex simply says:
  "You can swap back and forth between blood and sand stance as you want, just keep in mind that blood=DPS and sand=defense. Until you are comfortable with the build, just play in sand stance." (own notes: for F&S, some bosses may involve ranged adds/mobs, or ranged boss abilities, which would support his idea a bit. Sand stance also grants range via B&S.)
• You do need to cast the stances to reserve mana and gain those aura benefits, even if a "default stance" is specified on some of those 3.7 skills