I'd reccomend keeping in your stash a good level 2 stater kit-

I have helm with firetrap (unlevelled)
unique high damage weapon with double strike (usually a hilllock drop)
unique armour (usually a hilllock drop)
2 coral rings and pau amulet- magic or transmuted- pref + health and mana regen or maybe strength

It means you can rush through the first quests- which is easy way to get skill gems and the first support rewards (+ For some reaosn I tihnk there are good rate of orbs dropping). And you can keep improving on this starter kit. Seriously it will save a fair bit of time. If you paly default league then why not go play ****ing hello kitty or limit plo hi/lo

lol @ hello kitty and limit plo hi/lo. Seriously, I lol'd at both those things.

What's wrong with default league?

Isn't everything going to reset once the game goes live? I'd rather learn as much as possible without worrying about dying. HC is definitely fun though once you've figured out what you are doing.

Play this game for fun, surprise, anticipation. How can you enjoy something without an experience of suffering. Dieng is a good way to learn anyway because then you refine your build, gear selection, and that gear in your stash actually comes in handy.

I've lost my first 5 characters, the last two were in cavern of wrath or whatever because of the special mobs there seriously come out of no where and annhialate you. I LOVE IT.

I had a ranger, who was just plowing through everything taking it all for granted- then she met some lightning enhanced teleport strike pirates and was dead in 6 hits/2 seconds. That was educational, on default league you can just go back, with an ally perhaps and kill them and think nothing of it.

In same place with my new shadow, the mob was merrils daughters with exploding spawn, he felt secure with his whirling blades, 'I can just whiz round everywhere and never die' then I whizzed into a pack of exploding merril spawn, and gone in one second. That **** is awesome.

Meh. I see HC as the equivalent of taking a test. Whereas softcore is doing practice problems or studying. You definitely can learn about a subject just by taking tests and looking at the results but you probably won't ace it without excessive failure. Softcove you can really tweak with builds, gear, crafting content and everything without having to restart if you die. Most 2p2ers are probably competent enough to know how to play these types of games anyway, so why make it more difficult on yourself when you are trying to learn the details.

The people that generally win HC races and world firsts are those that spent hours theory crafting on SC also. HC is great for the purpose of competiton, but unless you have a full understanding of the game, your time could be spent better on SC.

My response is that we play games for fun, emotion ect and you are relating it to academia 'tests, subject, studying'. Which confirms that softcore players are 'pathetic' . Sorry I was struggling to find a polite world there and that had to suffice. One run through of sofcore would just remove so much potential pleasure/addiction, it's like going out of your way to find answers to said test, or researching the ending to a book you are about to read.

I don;t mind such philosophy in the real world, but games are casual unless you want to dedicate to be the best. Which I don't with poe so I play hardcore.

Lol. Didn't realize we were still in 1999 where people still make a distinction between softcore and hardcore players.

Your last point is kind of lol too. So casual to you means play hardcore where an unfortunate lag spike can ruin a month of progress all while still learning the game. Whatever floats your boat.

The best way to learn poker is to play the highest stakes possible then right? That way you can learn from your mistakes.

from http://www.pathofexile.com/leagues

Holy **** they do have the diablo 1 style of play-

cut throat hardcore sounds brutal

I like the sound of ironman hardcore league

Ironman was popular in D2. It was never an official game mode of course but similar concepts applied. You could only play through the game with what you found, but also no extra farming too by replaying content. I think you couldn't even buy items from the NPC as well.

Glad to see something like that is now an official league. I wouldn't primarily play this mode but it's pretty fun to do from time to time.

Looking for hardcore team, EU preferred. Really got hooked up by the depth of this game. Will be starting with a Dual Spark Totem Elemental Shield Templar which I experimented with in CB. PM if interested!

I am going to do ironman with some friends

The design and depth of this game is sooooooooooo much better than D3.

Just reinstalled. Open Beta Jan 23.

Anyone have an extra beta key to get in now? I will trade for Dota 2 key if you want it.

Please PM me.

EDIT: !!!! Just sniped a key off of Reddit. Sat there for 20 minutes hitting refresh.

Only 23.5 hours to go.

I must have been burned out on D3 back when I first played this game because I didn't care for it much. Now I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I'm still not quite sure how I want to play or build a character so that part is a little overwhelming thinking that I'm going to have to keep replaying the game just to find something I like.

I'm trying to experiment now so I can focus on one after everything gets wiped.

Working on a Bow Duelist now.

Still not too sure about the clunkiness when attacking. There is a slight delay to it. Also, the movement isn't as fluid as D3. I have to spam click sometimes just to get away from mobs because it's like I get stuck.

I don't see the attack delay unless I'm lagging... I find it a smooth experience. Getting stuck is kind of because you are surrounded no? Adds a little realism/difficulty... But yes the A.I pathing is rather bad...

Open beta begins in 15 hours or so...

I have two builds...

Ice witch with lots of energy shield and cold damage + summoning

Shadow who uses fire trap, poison arrow and dual wield... It's quite powerful to drop a poison arrow and a fire trap when kiting huge mobs. I guess I could probably use a ranger for this build also but I like the shadow.

Servers just went down for a minute to increase server capacity.

I was running a dual wield Duelist, working on increasing attack speed. It's pretty powerful. My problem right now is trying to find the right gear with the right colored sockets. I have a few rare pieces with blue sockets that I'm having a hard time replacing. At the moment I am down one skill because I don't have enough green sockets -- and no socket rerolls.

Lol, POE launches 11pm here, I have to work tomorrow and i plan to play the whole night. Havent done this in like 15 years...you only live once...

After you initially gear up your character with white items - meaning the first few levels - is there any point in picking up white items or even looking at them? At this point in my limited experience I'm not too sure how to value the stats or even what I'm looking for.

I think I'm going to roll a Shadow when the open beta comes back. I was having a lot of fun with dual wielding sabres and stilettos (my previous post said I was running a dual wield Duelist, which I was wrong).

As a Shadow I am a Dexterity/Intelligence character so do I want to be looking for gear that requires both of those stats? As of now that is really the only way I've been able to identify what is specific to my class as all I ever see on white gear is Evasion/Armor/Energy Shields and I don't know which is best for which class.

Is there any point in upgrading a normal item to a magic item? Is there a specific purpose when you would do that?

Should I save my currencies for later in the game when I'll need to improve the quality of the better (end game) gear?

@ IFX
I pick up whites that have the sockets I want or ones that have the links that I want. Then use an orb of alchemy on it to create a rare version of it. There are a ton of modes on rares (up to 6 I think), so you won't always get what you need, but you can make due with it.

Here is a great post on crafting. http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/54003

Hope that helps.

to craft your own items... like if find a coral ring with the max hp bonus to alch... or obsidian amulet with max stat +20 or best gold ring ect

If there is a 3 link socket of each colour on an item you can sell it for a chrom


If you get 40% quality combined you get a whetstone/scrap at vendor

Basically just to find most suitable items to alch.. sockets links ect. And the next tier of potion to transmute aswell.

Main use is potions.... It's good to have one long term use health potion, and a good instant recovery with buff or thawing. Most of my transmutes/alts go into potions.

I also use them on gold rings for when I want to farm and resistance rings for boss fights.

yeah it's good to save everything but the transmutes/alts, but sometimes you need an upgrade and crafting a good weapon/armour early on can mean you get through the game and to the higher tier items faster.

by the way this game is about to slaughter diablo 3 totally, and diablo 3's sub forum should be removed and replaced with POE.

Thanks, makes sense.

I keep getting disconnected. Probably about 4 times now. Hard to progress at this point because it keeps making me rerun the same place I went through since it takes a bit to get back in.

But good news, I found my first unique item, ilvl 5 shoes.

Only level 9 at the moment. Looking forward to getting past where I was before the reset since I was really liking the speed of my character.

EDIT: As far as armor, should I be looking to gear up with the gear that has dex/int requirements? Seems logical since that is what my character is.

Ahh back to this. Not sure what character/build to use. It's so overwhelming.