Whats so special about that coral ring?

This is my first build so I totally have no idea what I'm doing. My goal was to do a Shadow that could do consistent and quick life leech via dual wielding claws with ice elemental/curse stuff for crowd control. I basically picked paths that seemed to get me to the nodes I wanted quickly, but it might be best to reroll since I it sounds like splitting between casting/melee damage is going to be spread too thin.

Is the sort of build I'm talking reasonable or is there a better way to go about this. I basically came up with the build because there is a similar build/character class I like a lot in Torchlight 2, and that was really fun/viable so I thought I'd see how it translates.

I don't put any points into melee damge with my shadow but still dual wield at very high dps with good weapons and melee damage and faster attacks gems. If you are meleeing to just pick off single targets then meh don't put any points into it

I think it's suppose to be item level 100 I seem to remember hearing someone say on a stream and eventually new stats are going to be added to support it?

Something like that.


My home internet disconnected briefly last night while I was levelling a new Marauder character so RIP him and my leveling silverbranch.

Furyshade, as someone already stated you need to get HP nodes in this game. I am not sure how it was in torchlight but without HP you will run into a lot of trouble. Curses in this game are definitely viable but I do not think you need to take skill nodes to utilize them. Also you are only allowed to curse mobs once unless you have a skill node that lets you do two (at least i think). It is probably best for you to google a shadow claw build as I have never played that type of character before.

Item level 100 on the coral ring means it will be able to roll max stats when you upgrade it. It should be the best possible coral ring in the game at the moment I believe.

Oh didnt know its ilvl100 ring.

What about turbo races?

Be careful, unless something has changed I believe that dying in a HC race puts your character to default, not HC. Here's the relevant section from the league rules:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/44360

I checked my account and I see a level 10 in default that I'm 90% sure was one that died during a race, fwiw.

I can confirm that dying in a race puts your character into the default league, not HC.

Ah you guys are right, my mistake. Well, looks like I just shouldn't die in the race then!

furyshade: right now in PoE, melee is pretty rough to play in the end-game. If you're in SC i think it's fine but if you're playing HC i'd consider using some form of ranged. Most cookie cutter shadows are based around either lightning strike or ethereal knives. melee is due to be tweaked soon though to be more viable (developers have explicitly stated this) so if you want to play a straight melee shadow, i'd go for it. there's nothing wrong with playing melee, it's just more difficult at the moment. i would choose either melee or spells and just roll with it. you can look at the PoE official forums for info/builds if you want too

Thanks for the insight/advice, I was hoping to try to figure out my own build but PoE seems like it is a bit too complicated to get that right when starting out. One thing I don't really get is what is the point of being a mixed class if you have to specialize into casting or melee in the end anyway? Like what is the difference between a caster Shadow and a Witch?

Yea I think pretty much everyone's first character is gonna be gimped so I'd really just use it as a learning tool to figure everything out and see what you like and don't like. PoE is a lot about rerolling anyways and once you get better, leveling new characters isn't very hard at all (think sort of like D2, if you played).

As for class selection, the only real differences are starting base stats and starting location on the tree. It's really about which passive nodes will be more accessible that makes it easier to play a certain style. Generally speaking, using the conventional class for its expected build makes the most sense. But there are tons of viable builds out there that use different classes in "opposite" roles. I wouldn't worry about this stuff too much yet, as it will make more sense once you play and learn more.

Basically what the previous poster stated but you will also get different quest rewards which is listed out here. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...any=true#gid=0

The witch will have a much easier time accessing the Marauders health nodes compared to the shadow if you were to go the casting route.

I'm loving my two handed mace marauder. I have always prefered melee weapon fighting classes (barbarian in Diablo, warrior in WoW, etc.) so naturally I picked the marauder.

Melee isn't as strong as ranged at end game but it's still fun and not hopeless, you can still play endgame, you just won't be nearly as efficient at it.. Melee is also way more gear dependent. You can be a glass cannon DPS freak as a caster (well on softcore anyway) but as a melee char you are going to get hit a lot more so gear is more important.

For a first character I'm surprisingly non-gimped. Obviously my build is not as good as other builds, but as far as "two handed mace marauder builds" go it's probably pretty close to optimal. Basically get all the mace attack buffing skills, two handed weapon attack buffing skills, and focus on life node outside of that, picking up whatever other really good stuff is along the way to those spots in the tree.

I love Resolute Technique, it's the keystone where your attacks never miss (100% accuracy) but you never do any crits. I wasn't focusing on crits at all and crits seem to make more sense with duel weilding fast weapons anyway. It also helps that you don't have to care at all about accuracy stats and stuff. There's something satisfying about running around and 1 shotting everything with a single big hammer blow to the face.

Like the previous posters said nothing. Right now im leveling cookie cutter ice shadow with ice spear gmp totem which basically looks like this:

Skill Tree

I could play the exact same build with a templar or a witch because nodes at all three starting points are touched. I only chose shadow because i wanted to have eldritch battery asap and i prefer shadow over witch because of the looks... So its all just a matter of preferences in the end...

Does area of effect work for ground smash?

Also, is there any reason to not train gems until they hit your stats limit even if you won't use them?

Sciolist: stats limit is one reason, if you think you'll be limited. some gems may also be less effective for your specific character if leveled too high (ie. clarity, if the mana cost will be too taxing on your mana pool). also if you want to sell/trade gems in the future, many people don't want gems that are leveled already since they likely can't use them right away due to the stats limit

Ah, got you, thanks. I'll stop then - not really a big deal as I have nothing above level 17 after dying last night.

Grr, HSBC froze my card as I tried to spend $20 on path of exile to get more stash. I can handle money laundering and LIBOR manipulation, but freezing my card for a $20 purchase for the 700th time is starting to become upsetting.

Am I doing this right? It's HC Templar.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-s...7B5K3sOPAf-tI=

Standard so far, now into marauder starting area for hp/armor nodes.

Thanks, that's me set for the next 20 levels or so then. Or til I die anyway.

I realise this is turning into a thread in which only I post, but:

1. Can monsters drop higher level items than they are themselves?
2. What are the max level items that the vendors can sell by act/difficulty?

1. no. but champs drop +1 ilvl of the area, and elites drop +2

2. I think ilvl 60 in act 3 merciless

Melee is fine if you have something like leap slam or whirling blades to be able to escape tricky spots. Rejuv totem/life leech ect is good aswell.

The stremaer devmoon has a melee shadow doing maps and he doesn't seem to get into any close shaves