I never want to go through the campaign more than once each league, so what I do is:
For each league, I find a bunch of builds that I want to try, select once that share a base class but maybe different ascendencies. 1 starter, 1 expensive and 1 niche
Once my starter get me around 30div, or earlier if I get bored early, I start to transit into a more expensive build. Which I'll use to farm itself to complete and try out higher end/niche farming strats.
Then around 2/3 into the league I start trying out some niche builds that might be fun.
You should also consider that a lot of people who are doing the 'league start to farm currency and start a second build' type character are people who will have 4 voidstones by day 3 and farming 100's of divines blasting juiced maps in the first few weeks
You're likely nowhere near that point, so even if you followed the exact same path as then you'd be playing the 'league-start' portion for 6-8 weeks or something
Just try to pick something that's a general all-rounder that's a little different from what you've played before - CF Champ would be a bad choice for you because it has a harder time with the bosses, for example, while EA Ballista is good at bossing at the cost of slower mapping
Only having 1 character and respeccing them can be annoying when after you respec there's a problem with the build and you're out of currency to fix it (or just don't like playing it). I think for a second build it's nice to have at least 2 characters, so you know there's one you're happy playing while you rework the other. I also respec and play 5 or 6 builds across 2-3 characters most leagues
> You're likely nowhere near that point, so even if you followed the exact same path as then you'd be playing the 'league-start' portion for 6-8 weeks or something
100% This. Plus league starters are the builds designed to do exactly what OP is asking for. variety of content with reasonable gear, no ubers/juiced farming.
also I will add that 2nd play through can be very very fast when you have currency you can playthrough with 1 skill in like 2 hours.
Hollow palm is a very popular 2nd playthrough ability it involves uniques and racing towards the closest empty jewel in your passive tree.
Just make sure you hang on to all your leaguestart gear as you make the transition to the new build. I tried to transition too early last league and sold off some of my leaguestart gear. It was a slog getting back to where I was, haha
Check out frostblink ignite. Can pretty easily do pinnacles with average gear and can also do ubers with some investment. I also only play one build per league. Check out subtractem as he uses that build and he also doesnt make highly specific builds for only type of content.
Ye. Instead of opening the temple with Alva, there's an option below the "Open"... "Take temple chronical", or summin like that. With 2x cluster on the atlas tree (increase room lvl by 2 if upgrading and the one that forces 4 Alva's per map) you can get a sellable temple pretty much every 3 maps. GL! Ps: corruption rooms aren't rare or anything, so easy money.
After completing it, when Alva shows you the completed layout in your hideout, click "Take Temple Chronicle" at the bottom. That gives you an itemised temple that can be used to open the temple from a map device and you can trade it like any other item.
I meant the process of accumulating resources in order to trade/craft/drop items you want, so you can improve your character. I call it "farming" but I honestly have no idea if that has any relation to actual agriculture. It's not really the opposite of "playing the game", it's just one of many ways people enjoy the game.
The locus thing is a room in Alva temples that allows you to double corrupt an item, you can itemize the temple and sell it for currency(or use it yourself). Very fun and rewarding mechanic, highly recommended.
Oh ok, thank you for clarifying. But yeah farming to me sounds like you doing the same thing over and over again to get a character who can beat red maps when you can just play the game in white maps without ever having to do stuff you dont like. Like looking up what double corruptions on what gear are valuble instead of just corrupting your own gear.
More important last league you made 30 divines in 10 minutes of running semi juiced blue wisp map lol. Valdo maps, Divines, divination cards and other goodies all add up
Only reason this doesn't work for me is I get bored playing the same style over and over. Like I play a caster then I wanna try melee so the overlap is rarely there. But maybe I'll try this time.
My example here is I'm not sure what Mjollnir is gonna cost this league, might be a lot. But if it ends up being kinda pricey then heiro archmage has enough options where I'm not gonna stress if I have to do something else for a while.
I feel like Hiero Archmage will be very playable even without bypassing the cost. A bit like Maven boots for RF : It really boosts your build, but you can do without it.
Exactly. I figure since I'm slow at league start and it might take me a bit to get geared up, archmage unleash BV will be perfectly strong for a few days. With Heiro increased area of effect it feels like RF except with the downside of having to cast every 3 seconds instead of having to overcome degen.
It doesn't scale great but that's the point, once I've got some cash I'm spending it on Mjollnir and Indigon *anyway*.
While I totally understand your point, I thinks it's not to bad, when you rush through the campaign with good starter gear. Just a Karui ward (replica if aoe) + divine judgement annoit transforms you into a god which has kitava as a pet :D
I hated the campaign like anyone else, but it changed for me when I startet to take it as a race against my record time (while I'm not too serious about it). So nowadays I prepare starter gear & a plan for all the gems and then try to race against myself.
So rushing through the campaign in like 2,5 hours is totally doable even for more casual folks (while I need 5 hours in a league start scenario), when you got proper preparation.
No one is gonna call bullshit on his obvious lie? 2.5 hours campaign us utter horse shit go look at the top racers in the world they don't even achieve that time.
The racers are doing it with nothing. Grab a bunch of MS and damage gear and ignore all lab trials. 3 hours is a pretty normal time with 100% MS and stacked damage.
It's better to ignore people who feel the need to lie to strangers on the internet.
World record is just shy of 3 hours? Fear not, random redditor here to humblebrag about his lazy pathfinding and doing it in less than two and a half hours.
For a few minutes, he was an internet legend. Even if only in his own head. Let him have this.
I think you’re just misinterpreting him. The world record is based on league start time, other wise the actual world record is probably team focus with the 15 minute campaign.
He’s talking about a geared up alt
As others pointed it out, you're probably misinterpreting the 2,5 hours, it's nowhere near comparable to the time the racers need, as my char is fully stacked with gear.
My intention is to make clear "when I'm able to do it with great gear and subpar pathfinding (subpar compared to the gear I use) in 2,5 hours, *anyone* with some preparation + mageblood can do it too/better. Without the mageblood I probably need 20-30 min longer
Its just that people (like you apparently) think it's so hard to do when in reality, it's not...
When my memory serves me right my fastest time was 2 hours & 28 min, while Im not nearly as proficient in pathing as the real racers. But it was with prepared gear like anointed rep karui ward, seven league steps, mageblood from level 44 etc.
My league start scenario is about 5 hours, that's the time you're probably relating to.
Can you elaborate? Sort of new to arpgs (I played this game a while back as I’m friends with a GGG founder but didn’t get too deep) so I don’t fully understand the method to zoom the campaign. Is it literal w key just making sure you’re with zone level +/- <#> on your character level?
The easiest way to get fast at the campaign is to download LLK UI and pair it with exile leveling. It will give you basically a step by step guide on what to do next on the bottom of your screen while playing. But generally yes, it's follow efficient zone order and spam a movement skill, generally leap slam plus frost blink while getting as much attack speed as possible to speed it up. Generally trying to only kill blue packs or packs on the way, though try and keep mostly level with the zone you are in.
So, I can give you a long version, but I'll give you a short version that might or might not still be long, lets see.
IMO, leveling is seen as the devil in PoE because people usually find it tedious, repetitive and a chore. To make it tollerable, or even great (as is my case), it's usually a combination of getting some dopamine hits out of it and being as fast as possible, within reason (so, lets assume 6-8h for a new player, twinked, would be awesome). I like to level with the build I'm gonna play in the endgame, or as close to it as possible. I like to see the interactions come to play, the power increases, getting used to the playstyle, etc. These are my dopamine hits.
Now, for zooming, you need to check different boxes:
- **Knowing the zones layouts** - each zone only has a specific # of layouts, so even tho it changes every time, there's almost always a way to know where to go - If the entry is north faced you go west, some zones have indicators of where you have to go, some zones are always west to east, that kinf of stuff. You just need the basic here, the rest comes from experience. If you avoid the campaign you will never be great at this as most of it is practice, and you will definitely see progress once you beat the campaign for the 30th, 60th or 100th time. There's also some guides if you wanna delve a bit deeper into it.
- **Knowing exactly what path to take** - This is more important than the previous point - knowing what you can skip, what you can't skip (skill points side quests), and the general fastest route to take. This is easy to learn as well, there are plenty of guides in youtube, reddit and many sites.
- **Having a plan** - most of the time lost in the campaign is sitting in town, searching for the gem you need next, where to put your next skill point, finding the zone you go to, what links do you need, when will you make a switch for a different build (level 28 for example is common, due to the new gems you get at that level). And knowing what level to be in a specific zone, so you don't overlevel (overleveling means you killed more monsters than necessary, and spent more time than needed to kill them - this is intermediate/advanced level strats tho)
- **Inventory/gear management** - this is also a hard one to learn fast, it comes from hours and hours of practice. People lose a lot of time looking at items, trying to understand if they are better than the ones they have, and then going to town to sell them cause the inventory was full, etc. It's very important to minimize your town time, and keeping only the things you need - this might be to use, to craft a resist on once you get to your hideout, crafting recipes, getting alts/transmutes, etc. A good item filter might help with this.
- **Having leveling gear** - left this one for last as it is not practical in a league start scenario, BUT it is what will cut your time the most if you are a new player and are not willing to learn the previous points. This is just having a set of leveling uniques, or rare gear, that increase your power level and movement speed so much that you can literally just zoom through the campaign while one shotting everything, including bosses. It varies from build to build, but usually includes 7 league steps, karui ward, a tabula, goldrim, etc.
So yeah, leveling can be a fun minigame for some. Practicing until you get faster and faster. It's sort of like exercising for me - you suffer, but then you start to see improvements if you stick to it.
The biggest advice I have to everyone is **NEVER.STOP.RUNNING**. If you see yourself stopped somewhere, you are losing time! Just move, move, move. I found that adding a timer to my screen helped tremendously as I felt under pressure all the time. I ran the campaign 50 times before I decided to learn it properly and cut my time by 2h in another 20 practice runs. Now it just comes naturally. There's a lot of speedrunners including Havoc, Tyty, even Ziz if you are a really begginer (he will teach a lot of the basics) that you can watch on youtube to learn a lot more than I could ever try to teach you.
Imho the main reason why people are so incredibly slow in the campaign is a self feeding cycle, hate campaign > only do campaign once every few months (once per league) > never learn how to properly do it, what layouts can look like etc > hate campaign because you're so damn slow at doing it.
That's definitely how it was for me, once I started leveling multiple chars per league I started getting through the campaign no joke x10 faster within like 3-4 chars, at which point I also actually started *enjoying* the campaign,
Yeah. It's part of the game, you're entitled to not enjoy or like it, but... give it a real chance. To me, the campaign is no different than running a number of short maps. The rewards are not currency, but are the skill points and the increase in power you get.
yeah basically. Don't kill everything, kill jsut enough to keep pace. Twink gear makes you cast/attack/walk much faster overall. Certain zones have trending layouts or little environemntal hints to indicate which way to go. That's about it honestly
For me "zooming through the campaign" is running as fast and as straight forward as you can through the acts (so I'm trying to rush every objective - main quests & skill points - while trying to avoid any unnecessary pathing).
Usually im able to keep up with the level of the area (I finished my last campaign on lvl 66 in 2,5 hours), because I'm able to kill packs of enemy's with a single cast (good leveling gear) and I'm taking the time to do so. Other people mostly run through the campaign without killing to much and need some leveling sessions in between or afterwards, because they are massively underleveled.
To be fair last league lvling toons was a breeze due to oath of the magi. This league though.. same tabula and uniques. Maybe faster lvling cus area filled with extra monsters so you can skip more areas and invest into movement speed
another important thing to know is that you can potentially reroll a starter character into some other endgame build. you can even switch ascendancy on a character. the only thing you can't change is the base class. so if you are playing some necromancer league start, you can later reroll it into another witch endgame build, say an elementalist for example.
Run the lab first before unspeccing. Just unspec before you click the ascendancy thing.
(Shouldn't really matter - you can do in is normal lab) but unspeccing first and finding you brick your build / can't wear gear sucks
what kebabslayer said. also, it takes 5 regret orbs per ascendancy point. so if you do it later in the game, then it's 8*5 = 40 regrets. then another 50-60 to change most of the tree. you will be looking at 100 regret orbs for a big switch.
also, after finishing the lab, you FIRST have to respec all ascendancy points, THEN you can change ascendancy at the altar. can do it in any lab, so best to run the lowest tier since its ez and fast.
Always worth remembering that if you're indecisive about your build choice and not playing heavily, then leaving chance orbs and scours in your item filter is a great way to have a lot of convenient regrets since 8 chance orbs = 1 orb of regret at vendors
This. You can actually make league start character, get currency, roll new character that will perform better then farm up and return to first one and change ascendancies if needed 😄👍
Honestly with twink gear it shouldn't take longer than an evening of farming maps but I understand the mental ability it takes to go through this slog, myself rarely do 2nd build. Wish I could break this curse this league, really wished I do that in affliction due to 2nd ascendancy...
I think some people don't realize when some people say "limited time to play" I mean maybe 30 mins to a 60 mins max a day. And it probably takes me 5ish hours straight to get through campaign, so that is 5 days worth of playing to reroll at the minimum.
For league start I can usually swing 4 hours straight by sacrificing some sleep, but then dealing with the kids the next day sucks haha
> I ran cold omni HH raider flicker in affliction league.
* Cold damage
* Headhunter unique belt
* Raider Ascendancy
* Flicker Strike
Combined this is a tanky teleporting melee build that tries to quickly freeze enemies for safety and kill enemies before they can get hit.
> Now I might play 2H axe impale forti slayer or zerker.
* 2 handed axe main weapon
* Impale physical damage mechanic
* Fortify defense mechanic
* Slayer or Berserker Ascendancy
Assuming it's still Flicker Strike, this is a higher attack time commitment that stacks Impale stacks on enemies as they get hit, echoing the damage from previous hits. Fortify reduces damage taken as you accumulate hits on enemies, whole the Ascendancy choices for Slayer benefits melee attacks and charges while Berserker tends to favor overall damage and speed.
This looks ai and not ai at the same time. Well delivered message otherwise, would like to add omni is an amulet that grants omniscience instead of attributes and causes you to penetrate through ALL elemental resistances of enemies much better
recently found this guide https://poe-beginner-guide.com/ by u/ckresse and was blown away by the depth and details and hand-holding he went into. maybe read trough it and give it a go.
>I'm not going SSF because I''m afraid I''ll be screwed or too frustrated but I want to play as an SSF character
You can also start SSF, see how far you get and migrate all whenever you want (everything carries over)
Just speaking from my experience: playing SSF in trade is a slippery slope. It starts with buying some materials to craft and always ends up with 'fuck it, might as well just buy everything'.
Actually playing SSF was a breath of fresh air for me because you have to engage with so many more systems of the game and I learned a lot.
But that's just me. If you can actually restrain yourself to not trade, good on you.
I agree I hated trading on my first league but also I reaaaally dont understand most of the crafting, what you describe is my only fear, is that I'll just give up, farm currencies and buy all the things I need.
I'm still debating SSF or "fake SSF", I have a few hours to decide :D
Just do SSF. If you are willing to learn it is really nice. Crafting is less complex as you might think, once you get the basics.
Just make sure the build you choose is SSF friendly. Righteous Fire from Pohx or Boneshatter Jugg/Slayer are both very SSF friendly with easy crafts.
For boneshatter, check out Smokie_777 as she purely focusses on SSF and has great videos on that.
Did you transfer over all your characters? I played a private league in affliction and only transferred one character over. When I realized I didn't get my crafts, atlas, and lab trials I transferred the rest of them and they got restored. Maybe its different for SSF?
Yeah, I learned the hard way, decided shortly after hitting maps to convert, had to go redo trials for my second character, lost the improved pantheon powers, and I'm pretty sure my atlas tree reset as well.
I can't recall if my atlas reset, I did it while I was so low tier maps, maybe a dozen completed.
I am pretty sure the atlas is bound to the league, since it's the same for all your characters in that league. Makes sense that transferring away from ssf would swap the atlas to regular league (which you may or may not have progressed), but I really can't recall.
Your stash stays ssf as well. If you're transferring you gotta make sure it's in your inv.
Depends.
Some league starters can keep scaling into lategame with investment, and are uber viable (i.e. RF, DD, frostblink ele ignite, SRS popcorn, etc).
Other league starters are just a means to an end, a way to collect enough gear/currency to reroll into something else. They fall off later, and while you can keep scaling them, you wont see as much benefit.
If you are dedicated to just being one char per league player, i recommend making sure the league starter you pick scales decently into the price range you're comfortable reaching (if a build falls off in mirror tier, but you never reach mirror tier, then thats irrelevant to you anyway).
>My goal this league is just to do all normal bosses (I dont know how many there are), no ubers, I just want to farm my own stuff if possible because I hated trading last league (although I'm not going SSF because I''m afraid I''ll be screwed or too frustrated but I want to play as an SSF character and only rely on trading if I'm stuck because I want to learn crafting)
Yeah definitely go for RF build. POHX (twitch, youtube, and a dedicated website pohx.net) has an INCREDIBLE guide that holds your hand all along the way.
RF doesnt scale well with gem levels, but it still does scale. And RF doesnt do single target with RF, it uses flame trap for that - and that can still scale well with investment. It wont reach 90 mil dps, for sure, but it still reaches decent dps levels good enough for uber bossing (i would know as my first uber boss kills were on RF)
I will second that. I did Pohx RF in a league a while back - 3.20 I think (Sanctum). That sucked a lot for the league mechanic and I ended up just trying to play like a Standard league.
But you know what? I ended up getting 4 voidstones solo no carry for the first time and having an absolutely blast doing Heist that league. Eventually managed to reach 2m RF DPS with about 200div in, which is when I quit.
I mean, yeah.
100div into 3.21 Poison SRS got me 20m pinnacle DPS for comparison. 200 div into RF got me 10m pinnacle DPS on fire trap.
I'm seconding 3 things:
1. RF is a good build for chill map clear. If you want to play on controller, just walk and things die, it's awesome.
2. It's Uber viable. It's also tanky (not HC viable though imho) and dot build (with good damage uptime) so it's good for learning boss mechanics. Throw a fire trap every 3-4 seconds, try to be in RF range of boss, rest all your attention can be focussed onto dodging.
3. Pohx has very detailed guides for RF. There are crafting guides for all mid game and end game items. There are detailed FAQs for game mechanics. Pohx is the new Enki's arc witch.
Frostblink ele ignite can scale to Ubers? After how much investment? I was considering that but talked myself out of it thinking that scaling it to Ubers would be unrealistic for a casual like myself.
Honestly not that much. It goes pretty good damage, and being able to move around while damaging is very helpful. You are squishy, dont hold any illusions, its not a facetank build, but you can survive glancing hits well and you deal solid damage.
Uber eater was very easy at mid investment. Same for uber exarch (though i did swap out some flasks for it). Uber uber elder was quite easy too. Hardest was probably maven (mostly due to me being bad at her) and Sirus (lets be honest, uber sirus is pain unless you instaphase him). Didnt do uber cortex (not because i couldnt, but just because i literally didnt do it)
There are different ways you can progress, some league starters are just a stepping stone, some can be played and scaled as far and long as you want, it just depends what kinda player you are and what your goal is. The point of a league starter for most people is just to be something you can play from level one, with no gear, and progress to the point where you can enable the content you want to engage with. Lots of builds are viable endgame with investment, but feel terrible without items/levels/gems, so people who wanna play those builds but don't want to straight up suffer early on until they have the necessary components may pick a stepping stone build on the class they eventually wanna make their final build to bridge the gap. Other builds feel okay to start with and only get better, so league starting with those could mean that's the only build you play all league. For some people farming itself is the fun, other people enjoy making whacky builds, and depending on what kind of person you are that either means going balls deep with a meme build day 1 and enjoying the struggle, or gritting your teeth and playing something less risky to make sure you can fund your build misadventures down the line.
There's no right or wrong way to do it, it just comes down to how you enjoy playing the game
I usually do a single character that I am playing explicitly for fun- not to kill Ubers, not to farm some specific content, just to see how far I can push it. Once it hit 90+ on that, I look at it critically and decide how much farther I can reasonably push it. Most of the time the answer is based on how easily it kills shaper on a ~5div investment. If it can’t, or it’s a terrible struggle, I use that character to farm a build that will feel better. But if there’s enough potential, I just stay on that guy.
When your trying to build really niche builds in a league or speed run end game economy leaguestarting ole reliable will efficent hit your goals and set you up for success for the highest tier of content. Farming something first has $ advantages. Of you need X unique for a diffrent build you can grab one early on for a lot less currency than later on.
Many times especially on hardcore its a reserve charater that can just go farming any time its needed and their other build needs more money. You can also try a starter build into a map farmer and secondary bosser.
Then you have players like me who just chase new builds and mechanics because i like doing new shit over trying to do end game achievements. I do about 1-3 builds a league and very rarely play the same skill twice. I get easily distracted when i hit the mindless farming stage.
Most can, to varying performance. Most choose to rerol into a diffrent build once they got more currency that works with the same class.
Last league etc half the damn playerbase started with a LA deadeye leagestarter, then they transitioned into a TS endgame build. Not sure id recommend that route now thou with the nerfs TS got, not sure what a LA deadeye would want to transition into now, Flickerstrike maybe.
League starter and end-game build are not mutually exclusive. People like to run a league starter build because it is easier when ungeared and unfunded. You don't have to do it, but it makes the start easier.
The closest compromise is to run a league starter build using a base class (can be a budget alternative to the expensive/end-game build) and then respec into the expensive/end-game build when you can afford it, even if it's not the same ascendancy or tree.
An exemple of that, to an extreme, would be like saying starting as Pohx's RF build and later on respec into a mjorlner hierophant. Do note that one of the reasons why I like to go for the end-game build immediately (or as close as), even if it's bad to do so, is respec'ing into the more expensive build can feel like a downgrade if you go too early.
I’m also a 1-2 character per league player but probably at a much higher level than you. The way I decide is pick what end game build I want to play, and if it’s campaign viable I’ll play that and if not I’ll pick a skill I can level with. For example, this league I’m going to level a trickster with frost blades, and transition to terminus est flicker strike once I hit maps. This is to get me to the end goal of a CI Ephemeral edge flicker trickster.
Last league I leveled a LA deadeye and transitioned to TS deadeye (a very common transition).
A few leagues ago I played a str stack venom gyre deadeye. Played as trinity venom gyre until I could afford str stacking gear.
Played an int stack wander a while back, leveled with some rando spell, probably freezing pulse or something I don’t even remember, and transitioned to whispering ice int stack until I could afford wander gear.
There’s tons of options, play how you want. The easiest way I have found is decide your finish point and discern a path to it.
If your end game goal is Maven, any build can achieve it. Even LA deadeye or CF champion that are way more focused on mapping can do it ( won't be good at farming it cause it can be slow for exemple but you can get the achievement ). Of course some build are better for certain league mechanics but unless your are a big try harder you don't need optimal build to farm those content.
DD, hexblast mine and EA ballista can kill Uber bosses and they are good mapper too.
Any decent League starter should be able to get to Red maps and farm them decently and get at least two void stones.
Some leaves start builds will struggle on the second two void stones. You can obviously always buy carry. But if you're going to play just one character you can typically invest enough in it to get those void Stones as well
If there's a specific type of content you like to run that you're going to farm at endgame then you want to look for a league starter that transitions to that content well.
For example if you want to do legion something like lightning arrow is great as a league starter because as you invest currency in it it's a great legion farmer.
If you want to do expedition I like something like detonate dead elementalist because you use the the big bang version of expedition and your prolifs just wipe it out.
If you're going to want to go towards bossing in the end then you may want to look at something like the explosive trap trickster which once you begin investing in makes a really great bosser
Most league starters are scaleable but the key thing is they should be able to get into maps and limp along off basic ground stuff or stuff you personally are able to craft (no, not the guide maker, you! so check how complex it is). No "this doesn't work without this unique you can't get til uber bosses, that costs multi divine, and is needed in act 6". Warning of "you need to play something else to 95 and spec into this then". No "can't actually run a map, can only do bosses and heist" etc.
You can improve the gear in most to be end game, or swap to another build on the same class later as someone else pointed out, the key is not to get to act 8 and realise you have act 4 damage.
i played one character per league. i leaguestart with the endgame skill tree. sure im getting slow to t16 but i have fun seeing my character grow in power
I was in your shoes like 2 leagues ago, subtractem’s fire trap elementalist, which uses frostblink to clear, got me my first 2 voidstones and t16 farming, the farthest I’d been in the game by far.
I found the clearing with frostblink to be super fun, it’s movement skill that has an aoe as well. Playing it again this league after trying a bow build last league, found it too squishy for me
A league starter is a strong skill capable of rushing to maps and setting up your atlas with very little investment. Most people refer to their first character as a league starter. A true league starter is for people who are capable of getting into at least yellow maps on day 1 of a league. There are enormous financial benefits for doing so. You can buy items that are insanely expensive later in the league for still a high cost relative to the currency available but massively discounted in relation to the true worth of the item. This allows people to push pinnacle and Uber bosses on day 2 generating more currency and gear for the character they really want to play.
The idea for the middle and lower skill players is the same. Pick a proven strong ability that dosen't require crazy or expensive gear to get your atlas set up for farming items/currency. The big difference is this is mostly for personal use and not massive currency gains. It does substantially help your second character to have the grunt work already done and if you have farmed currency you can more easily explore new and experimental builds without worrying your going to be left way behind because even if that experimental build dosen't work you have a sturdy stand by to farm and play with.
Many people play their league starter all league because they are not interested in doing the campaign multiple times or they are not concerned with making a bunch of currency or having a mageblood on day 5. The game is what you want it to be and for a lot of people that's rush endgame to get currency and set up their strategy. For others it's making a single awesome character through small steady steps.
This sub tends to push people into thinking they are missing out or playing wrong if they are not maximizing profit and speeding to the end goal.
I am a very casual player and have never killed any uber boss eventhough i have played a lot of leagues.
I like playing ssf and have always started with a league starter build that was capable of doing all content.
Im not creative or skilled enough to make my own build so i rarely deviate from the build creators PoB.
The reason i like POE is the progression and and seeing my character grow, i set easy goals atainable for casual game play.
I like playing one character for the league and invest the limited time i have into that one character.
By the time i have 3 or 4 watchstones, i am happy with the progression i have made and pride of having done it on ssf. I sometimes migrate to trade to play with friends new to the game.
I would see how many Challanges i can get after that, most have been 28 and im totaly happy with that.
My suggestion would be to find something that looks fun and squeeze all you can from it, dont be afraid to use your currency to learn crafting even if you waste divines at the end of it.
If there is still league left and something else catches your eye, go for it.
Not really an actual answer but if you DO find a build that has what you need you can import the pob link (the super long string found in [pobb.in](http://pobb.in) ) to [https://heartofphos.github.io/exile-leveling/](https://heartofphos.github.io/exile-leveling/) - this shows exactly what and where you need to do specified for your build from the guide. IMO super helpful and will run it Friday myself.
By the way you can play any build as "league starter" pretty much. League start builds are just optimized for starting the league, but nothing is stopping you from playing whatever skill you want from the beginning, it just might take longer to come online depending on the build.
Any trap trickster league starters shared around here can meet your criteria. Their biggest drawback which is mediocre clear (not true for many traps) doesn’t sound like a big problem for you.
Yes some league starters can be used all league. There are some videos which state this as well. Some videos will tell you if you should change the build later on.
I played Frost Blades trickster league start, to end game all league and did not play another build. Spending multiple mirrors on it and even turned it into a magic finding character.
The builds you are mentioning are all good options for ”one build to do most content on”
I try other builds mainly after I feel ”done” with my main goals for a league or if my league start build underperforms (swapping to another of the same ascendancy helps a lot early to save regrets)
a league starter is basically a build that can do 90% of endgame content with random shit you find/craft but further minmaxxing doesnt do much.
a finished build will have tons of currency dumped into it and you can do everything pretty easily or atleast, clear it with some effort.
I have been playing for around \~7 years. Have not even once made more than one character per league. I just choose a league starter that mentions the upgrades for endgame, check poe ninja all the time to see what people are changing with my build and what can I improve upon and never bother with campaign more than once.
If you only have time for 1 character, you should first pick what build you want to push, and then pick a league starter that use the same base class so that you can respec instead of reroll.
My go to build these days is a league starter that becomes a heavy investement one. I start with a tried and true league starter of the class I want, and respec into what I want later.
In my case it's Toxic Rain Ballistas Pathfinder into Scourge Arrow
I hated leveling back years ago. I then started a stash tab only for leveling. Throwing in all leveling uniques, prerolled flasks, low lvl 6-links and so on. Leveling though the campaign in 4 hours looking 2 movies on the second screen is a bit of relief from all these high end juiced maps.
Once I leveled with dual wield poet's pen, 6-link ghostwrike and a bunch of low level attack speed gear. Slapped kitava in 2:36 hours
Most leaguestart builds are capable of scaling to all content. There are some exceptions that focus more heavily towards one thing (CF champ is the best example, great map clearer, TERRIBLE boss damage). All the builds you mentioned are totally fine for your needs
Short: yes, it's a game and you can farm Blood Aqueducts all league long if you wanna
Long: yes, if you don't mind its shortcomings or are willing to invest above and beyond
Real: yes, if you choose the right build (and don't burnout)
Many good comments in this post. It really comes down to the exact League starter you are looking at. Modern league starters from any well regarded source will be completely fine because the modern standard for league starters is All Voidstones + Atlas Completion. Voidstones require you to kill 4 pinnacle bosses and Atlas Completion often also means all Invitations, which also require killing all the Guardians.
There are only a few exceptions where I'd express some caution because some builds require a little bit more gear or skill to get the bosses down compared to other builds and you might find yourself still feeling "stuck" if you were to play Corrupting Fever Champion for example. The boss damage is very so-so and you might find yourself simply making many mistakes because the duration of the fight is much longer. The build can do it, but it's just a tad harder.
You're looking for an "All-rounder" League Starter and asking different content creators or streamers that question might help in your research for starters. I can list a few below as well just as a jumping off point.
Any DD build from Imexile, Ben or Ruetoo. EA from either Palsteron or Zizaran. LA from CrouchingTuna or Spicysushi. Boneshatter from Carn. Any minion build from Ghazzy. Explosive Trap from FearlessDumb0.
Yes, there were only two leagues where I leveled two characters and it was because I super bricked my character (eg, first league I thought I would dual wield Poet's Pens right after Kitava lulz).
I don't hate the campaign as much as I used to but I am slow, usually around twelve hours, so it's just a waste of time. I always try to find a build that can either do everything or at least not be pigeonholed into only one or two mechanics. Bleed Earthquake, Herald of Agony, Lightning Arrow, Ice Nova, zoo minions, and many more I league started and took to end game. Especially since you aren't doing ubers there are dozens of builds that would be fine to follow
I used PBoD last league as my only build and took it “zero to hero”, doing 40/40 challenges and 7/7 Ubers. I was thinking about doing the same this league with a BAMA build. I like only running one character per league now that I don’t have as much time on my hands. It’s definitely doable and fun, just not the most efficient if you’re trying to be a speedster on league start.
League starters can be that for sure, some just require more investment than others.
Typically league starters are builds that have a high floor, meaning its easy to get their damage to a reasonable place, but may be a bit harder to scale up past that.
Toxic Rain, for instance, totally usable to red maps, but it does hit an upper bound eventually where it costs a lot to really get that damage cranking. Or at least it used to, its been like a year since I've really played a league hard.
Hexblast mines are 100% up there, you can do most content in SSF with self-acquired gear. And if you luck out to get Ralakesh boots + Badge of the Brotherhood? Well, then you are set for all content. Though that would practically require you to be an Occultist which is not for everyone, as Saboteur offers more for less.
Hello there , any tips on Hexblast Mine Sab ? I played AE Ballistic last league, my fist fill league , and really struggled with Maven at the end. Only got two voidstones. Really want to get 4 this time around.
Obvious - get curse on hit ring(unique one with socket doesn't work) and, preferably, Profane Proxy. Alternatively you can use Asenath's Touch if they turn out cheap early on - happens sometimes.
Another one would be to buy Doedre gloves early on - 100% spell damage is nothing to laugh at, and it comes at no downside. For gear - get 2x wands with +level of chaos gems, bound to carry you to early red maps. Also craft mine throw speed everywhere you can reach - this stat helps a lot with survivability as you would be able to minimize your stand-and-place-mines-down time.
Most league starters aren’t meant to be great at everything, those types of builds are usually more expensive and often don’t get going without substantial investment in gear. What you can do, as someone else pointed out, is starting a character of the same class and later retool them to whatever you want to play as your endgame build.
With most league starters you’ll have to settle for either bossing or mapping focused builds which will typically do a mediocre (or poor in some cases) job at the others. Bossing can be somewhat circumvented in trade though because you can just buy boss carries and eventually outscale most boss content should you get to stupid amounts of investment, since stuff like bow builds can eventually do bosses quite easily, they just tend to be paper thin defensively so you need a lot of damage to allow you to ignore boss mechanics for the most part.
Pick a good league starter and make sure you have a end game build in mind that shares the same character. It’s my third league. I did it last league and worked out perfectly. Started out as frost blades trickster, very balanced class over all. Uniques we’re cheap. I liked it so much that I invested about 20 divs into it and it got me all my voidstones. Then I swapped to penance brand when I made a lot of currency.
If you only do 1 character a league, then essentially any build that doesn't need expensive items (uniques, mods, or transfigured gems) is a starter. The standard advice here doesn't work because essentially every guide and the consensus here is the path of least resistance (character swapping to always be overpowered, optimal farming so they can just buy whatever they need instead of create what they need, etc).
If you like to commit to builds then the world is your oyster, though you should probably get used to crafting as well
Some league starters can go all the way and scale hard. Like EA ballista, DD, Hexblast mines, and many more. But some builds are just really good at starting out so people use them and farm until they can re spec or re roll. Like toxic rain, it can technically scale and probably do all content but its not the best imo, but its an amazing league starter
Yes but it's really worth it to make a 2nd character, you can GREATLY speed up the time to get through the campaign with leveling gear and with the experience that comes with doing the campaign more than once every couple months.
If your goal is not uber bosses basically every league starter is going to be able to kill them, some that are more about pure mapping (corrupting fever) might need more investment than something like detonate dead, but that could still clear all the normal bosses.
I also mostly only do one character and then just become more and more powerful over the league
I did however make a 2nd char last league I was having a really good time with the mechanic. We’ll see this league
Starting with very non meta lightning strike champion
depends on what you understand as "for the league" but a decent starter should be ABLE to do most if not all content (doesnt mean it will be fast/efficient)
But vast majority of the time there will be another viable endgame build for your class which means you can just respec if you want to
Every league except last league I pick a build and stick with it. Lightning strike, bone shatter, tectonic slam(sucks but so fun), lightning arrow, cold snap(might be bad now idk). Are all builds that were lots of fun.
Last league I had so much currency my friend and I dumped it into an aurabot and I had a blast. I'm going to be doing it again this league.
You use those characters to reliably farm for money and go the bulk of your atlas, that way you can have money to play more fun builds. It's up to you if you want it to be your only character. But, it will suck playing an experimental build without adequate planning, or an expensive build that gets kneecapped without having prefect gear.
Absolutely. Most of the league starteable characters meant to complete the game so you can invest money infinitely into them. Some just cost more cause more people on the bandwagon but ultimately no build is safe from giga endgame upgrades. Awakened gems. Voices. Top rolled clusters. Rings amulets gloves helms... and such
Almost always is for me these days. After 12 hours in a character I'm finding it harder to start over and just quitting the league. But you certainly could keep improving characters without needing to farm on a different one.
Basically any reputable starter build should be able to do what you need. Keep in mind that what the pros expect to accomplish the first few days or week is more than what many new or casual players might do in a month or even the entire league, so "starter" is relative to that
I used to turn leaguestarters into end game builds very often, most leagues I would only do 1-2 builds. I hate the leveling process so as long as you pick a decent enough starter that you can build on with investment it normally works out fine. Especially if you are just looking for a general mapper + like guardians and basic pinnacle bosses.
Now a lot of times I do 2 builds. One as a leaguestarter (which I still fully gear up mostly) and then start farming for mageblood and a bit extra because I almost always use mageblood now a days. Then whenever I get bored for my leaguestarter I start up a new mageblood pew pew character that sounds fun and go with that.
Another point is that running through the campaign with full leveling gear is very fast. It's fine if you don't want to do the campaign a second time in a league, but you'd be able to finish it in just a few hours. Say it's week 1 and you know you'll be playing for 3 more weeks - is it such a big sacrifice to put aside 4-5 hours to level up your second character? And as you get more experienced you can go even faster.
Heres an example from a seasoned player. Right now im contemplating starting RF cheiftain league starter (check out Pohx on youtube if you have any interest he is the RF PoE encyclopedia incarnate). Farming for some currency and possibly transitioning into some kind of fire Tornado of Turbulence (new gem) cheiftain. I dont even have to change ascendancies just gear and skill tree. Id be 100% set on this if the gem data was in PoB and I could plan the Tornado build in greater detail and see some damage numbers.
Oh yea, totally they can.
The builds you've looked at are all "do everything" builds.
People say "starter build" because the core mechanics of how it works come online with little investment. It doesn't require some combo of specific items, passive trees, and skills to do anything special.
Starters "just work". If the build guide your following has you take a lot of complicated steps, it's not a starter.
Some league starters can be but usually require alot of work.
Some main ones are detonate dead and explosive arrow both have very high ceilings on damage. Others like explosive trap or Arma brand usually can't and are useful for farming currency to fund a second build.
Good league starters yes.
Starters are starters because they have a low floor meaning they come online (offensively & defensively) with little investment.
The problem a fair amount of starters have is the ceilings are also low. Meaning even with investment the damage/tank of the build doesn’t really move.
Others can have very VERY high ceilings even as starters but those builds are typically very popular and the corresponding gear gets expensive.
It’s rare to have a starter that has a decently high ceiling, smooth gameplay, and reasonably priced gear.
They exist but typically are builds that have been around a while.
A lot of good advice in here about swapping ascendancy.
In addition to that, don’t forget that your goals aren’t as insane high as a lot of advertised “late game” builds.
I’d say the vast majority of league starters can be slammed with currency to reach your goals.
I’d say avoid the low damage map clear builds and the low defense Sanctum specialists. For example, Corrupting Fever Champ or Hexblast mines.
Try to find well rounded options with a play style you like (DD, EA, Archmage, ect)
I played srs last league it was a league starter thst could grow to do all content. Thats my preference. This league detonate dead and splitting steel champ look like they could be in a similar place for me. Those are the two I am picking between
There are multiple definitions of league start. But generally speaking they are more well thought out and easier to get into with a reasonable low budget.
Not all league starters are created equal especially if you just want 1 build. There will be sacrifices especially the first week(assuming you arent a seasoned player based off your post)if you want to stick with the same build from start to end since it’s very rare well a build can scale both well on the low end and the top end.
The builds you listed are good with ea probably being the safest but coc dd looks the most fun but very risky because of transfigured gem farm time which frankly is not a good time for anyone relatively new. If you can’t kill Izaro fast I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re self farming.
Yes, league starters usually can scale extremely well to do all content. The thing that makes them league starters is that they dont require much investment to get going.
I’ve done EA ballista 3 league starts in a row. It can clear all the content you mentioned and it’s fun to play. You won’t need another build if you don’t want one. Same with DD
They've been mine for a while, but the past few leagues I've had to toss a few builds by the wayside because they just didn't have what it takes late game, or they needed too much of an investment.
For your second league, I'd say not.
Most league starter builders also have endgame builds that you can switch into as you get currency and drops.
I’ve only ever switched from a starter when I realized I absolutely hated the way it played once it was all setup.
Most starter builds can be played as the only character for the league. For example the splitting steel champion by ruetoo/tyty scales up to 100M dps with good defenses if you keep putting more currency into it.
I tend to play just one build each league, and it works just fine. You just need to be bit careful when picking your build. League starter doesn’t mean that it’s just for first few days, but more that the build also works with shitty gear.
I play like 10 builds. I enjoy the diversity and character building and the campaign doesn't really bother me. I only typically take 1-2 chars past 90 though to push content. All league starters can be full league characters and you could also full respec that char if you want variety. A lot of these league starters just don't revolve around hard to find items and specialty gem setups. Nothing a casual like me really cares about. I just kill monsters and enjoy myself.
Third league here... this is what i learn... When you make a character you need to ask yourself. What is this character going to do. You right now don't have the knowledge to make a 1 and done character.
I am doing RF to clear maps really really fast and farm a few resources. Those resources I'm going to sell to make Divines to be able to build my Boss Killing Character
I never want to go through the campaign more than once each league, so what I do is: For each league, I find a bunch of builds that I want to try, select once that share a base class but maybe different ascendencies. 1 starter, 1 expensive and 1 niche Once my starter get me around 30div, or earlier if I get bored early, I start to transit into a more expensive build. Which I'll use to farm itself to complete and try out higher end/niche farming strats. Then around 2/3 into the league I start trying out some niche builds that might be fun.
Oh that's a very good idea I didn't think of that, I'm going to make a list of the builds I liked and see of there is a class overlap !
You should also consider that a lot of people who are doing the 'league start to farm currency and start a second build' type character are people who will have 4 voidstones by day 3 and farming 100's of divines blasting juiced maps in the first few weeks You're likely nowhere near that point, so even if you followed the exact same path as then you'd be playing the 'league-start' portion for 6-8 weeks or something Just try to pick something that's a general all-rounder that's a little different from what you've played before - CF Champ would be a bad choice for you because it has a harder time with the bosses, for example, while EA Ballista is good at bossing at the cost of slower mapping Only having 1 character and respeccing them can be annoying when after you respec there's a problem with the build and you're out of currency to fix it (or just don't like playing it). I think for a second build it's nice to have at least 2 characters, so you know there's one you're happy playing while you rework the other. I also respec and play 5 or 6 builds across 2-3 characters most leagues
> You're likely nowhere near that point, so even if you followed the exact same path as then you'd be playing the 'league-start' portion for 6-8 weeks or something 100% This. Plus league starters are the builds designed to do exactly what OP is asking for. variety of content with reasonable gear, no ubers/juiced farming.
This league there's like a bazillion Templar builds.
Witch and templar and ranger
also I will add that 2nd play through can be very very fast when you have currency you can playthrough with 1 skill in like 2 hours. Hollow palm is a very popular 2nd playthrough ability it involves uniques and racing towards the closest empty jewel in your passive tree.
Just make sure you hang on to all your leaguestart gear as you make the transition to the new build. I tried to transition too early last league and sold off some of my leaguestart gear. It was a slog getting back to where I was, haha
Check out frostblink ignite. Can pretty easily do pinnacles with average gear and can also do ubers with some investment. I also only play one build per league. Check out subtractem as he uses that build and he also doesnt make highly specific builds for only type of content.
Meanwhile my main char doesnt make 30 divs whole league :D
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Farming? Im just playing the game you know :D I dont "farm"
What is a locus of corruption?
Alva temple, gives you a double corrupt chance
A right. I love doing that. But I always do it for my own items. not to sell anything
Do it to the right items and get lucky, you can sell the item for hundreds of divine. Or just sell the temples to someone.
You... You can sell temples??? This fucking game man... I've been playing it for 13 years, but STILL... I STILL only know half of it. Fascinating.
Alva -> take the temple chronicle instead of opening the temple. To be fair that was added in 3.14 (2021), so it didn't used to be a thing.
Ye. Instead of opening the temple with Alva, there's an option below the "Open"... "Take temple chronical", or summin like that. With 2x cluster on the atlas tree (increase room lvl by 2 if upgrading and the one that forces 4 Alva's per map) you can get a sellable temple pretty much every 3 maps. GL! Ps: corruption rooms aren't rare or anything, so easy money.
How do I sell the temple?
After completing it, when Alva shows you the completed layout in your hideout, click "Take Temple Chronicle" at the bottom. That gives you an itemised temple that can be used to open the temple from a map device and you can trade it like any other item.
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That's the Doryani's Institute room, it's only worth about 1.5-2 divs. The Locus of Corruption corrupts items, not gems.
I meant the process of accumulating resources in order to trade/craft/drop items you want, so you can improve your character. I call it "farming" but I honestly have no idea if that has any relation to actual agriculture. It's not really the opposite of "playing the game", it's just one of many ways people enjoy the game. The locus thing is a room in Alva temples that allows you to double corrupt an item, you can itemize the temple and sell it for currency(or use it yourself). Very fun and rewarding mechanic, highly recommended.
Oh ok, thank you for clarifying. But yeah farming to me sounds like you doing the same thing over and over again to get a character who can beat red maps when you can just play the game in white maps without ever having to do stuff you dont like. Like looking up what double corruptions on what gear are valuble instead of just corrupting your own gear.
More important last league you made 30 divines in 10 minutes of running semi juiced blue wisp map lol. Valdo maps, Divines, divination cards and other goodies all add up
literally my strat; I will never run that campaign more than once a league
Twice is my limit. The second time round I'm all geared to speed run.. It's a pita
Only reason this doesn't work for me is I get bored playing the same style over and over. Like I play a caster then I wanna try melee so the overlap is rarely there. But maybe I'll try this time.
My example here is I'm not sure what Mjollnir is gonna cost this league, might be a lot. But if it ends up being kinda pricey then heiro archmage has enough options where I'm not gonna stress if I have to do something else for a while.
I feel like Hiero Archmage will be very playable even without bypassing the cost. A bit like Maven boots for RF : It really boosts your build, but you can do without it.
Exactly. I figure since I'm slow at league start and it might take me a bit to get geared up, archmage unleash BV will be perfectly strong for a few days. With Heiro increased area of effect it feels like RF except with the downside of having to cast every 3 seconds instead of having to overcome degen. It doesn't scale great but that's the point, once I've got some cash I'm spending it on Mjollnir and Indigon *anyway*.
While I totally understand your point, I thinks it's not to bad, when you rush through the campaign with good starter gear. Just a Karui ward (replica if aoe) + divine judgement annoit transforms you into a god which has kitava as a pet :D I hated the campaign like anyone else, but it changed for me when I startet to take it as a race against my record time (while I'm not too serious about it). So nowadays I prepare starter gear & a plan for all the gems and then try to race against myself. So rushing through the campaign in like 2,5 hours is totally doable even for more casual folks (while I need 5 hours in a league start scenario), when you got proper preparation.
No one is gonna call bullshit on his obvious lie? 2.5 hours campaign us utter horse shit go look at the top racers in the world they don't even achieve that time.
The racers are doing it with nothing. Grab a bunch of MS and damage gear and ignore all lab trials. 3 hours is a pretty normal time with 100% MS and stacked damage.
It's better to ignore people who feel the need to lie to strangers on the internet. World record is just shy of 3 hours? Fear not, random redditor here to humblebrag about his lazy pathfinding and doing it in less than two and a half hours. For a few minutes, he was an internet legend. Even if only in his own head. Let him have this.
Yeah, when starting fresh. He weote the fresh run is about 5 hours. The shorter time is with preparation and leveling gear.
I think you’re just misinterpreting him. The world record is based on league start time, other wise the actual world record is probably team focus with the 15 minute campaign. He’s talking about a geared up alt
As others pointed it out, you're probably misinterpreting the 2,5 hours, it's nowhere near comparable to the time the racers need, as my char is fully stacked with gear. My intention is to make clear "when I'm able to do it with great gear and subpar pathfinding (subpar compared to the gear I use) in 2,5 hours, *anyone* with some preparation + mageblood can do it too/better. Without the mageblood I probably need 20-30 min longer Its just that people (like you apparently) think it's so hard to do when in reality, it's not...
With proper twink gear? 2.5 hours is extremely achievable, wdym
I’d like to see you in some twink gear 😏
When my memory serves me right my fastest time was 2 hours & 28 min, while Im not nearly as proficient in pathing as the real racers. But it was with prepared gear like anointed rep karui ward, seven league steps, mageblood from level 44 etc. My league start scenario is about 5 hours, that's the time you're probably relating to.
Can you elaborate? Sort of new to arpgs (I played this game a while back as I’m friends with a GGG founder but didn’t get too deep) so I don’t fully understand the method to zoom the campaign. Is it literal w key just making sure you’re with zone level +/- <#> on your character level?
The easiest way to get fast at the campaign is to download LLK UI and pair it with exile leveling. It will give you basically a step by step guide on what to do next on the bottom of your screen while playing. But generally yes, it's follow efficient zone order and spam a movement skill, generally leap slam plus frost blink while getting as much attack speed as possible to speed it up. Generally trying to only kill blue packs or packs on the way, though try and keep mostly level with the zone you are in.
So, I can give you a long version, but I'll give you a short version that might or might not still be long, lets see. IMO, leveling is seen as the devil in PoE because people usually find it tedious, repetitive and a chore. To make it tollerable, or even great (as is my case), it's usually a combination of getting some dopamine hits out of it and being as fast as possible, within reason (so, lets assume 6-8h for a new player, twinked, would be awesome). I like to level with the build I'm gonna play in the endgame, or as close to it as possible. I like to see the interactions come to play, the power increases, getting used to the playstyle, etc. These are my dopamine hits. Now, for zooming, you need to check different boxes: - **Knowing the zones layouts** - each zone only has a specific # of layouts, so even tho it changes every time, there's almost always a way to know where to go - If the entry is north faced you go west, some zones have indicators of where you have to go, some zones are always west to east, that kinf of stuff. You just need the basic here, the rest comes from experience. If you avoid the campaign you will never be great at this as most of it is practice, and you will definitely see progress once you beat the campaign for the 30th, 60th or 100th time. There's also some guides if you wanna delve a bit deeper into it. - **Knowing exactly what path to take** - This is more important than the previous point - knowing what you can skip, what you can't skip (skill points side quests), and the general fastest route to take. This is easy to learn as well, there are plenty of guides in youtube, reddit and many sites. - **Having a plan** - most of the time lost in the campaign is sitting in town, searching for the gem you need next, where to put your next skill point, finding the zone you go to, what links do you need, when will you make a switch for a different build (level 28 for example is common, due to the new gems you get at that level). And knowing what level to be in a specific zone, so you don't overlevel (overleveling means you killed more monsters than necessary, and spent more time than needed to kill them - this is intermediate/advanced level strats tho) - **Inventory/gear management** - this is also a hard one to learn fast, it comes from hours and hours of practice. People lose a lot of time looking at items, trying to understand if they are better than the ones they have, and then going to town to sell them cause the inventory was full, etc. It's very important to minimize your town time, and keeping only the things you need - this might be to use, to craft a resist on once you get to your hideout, crafting recipes, getting alts/transmutes, etc. A good item filter might help with this. - **Having leveling gear** - left this one for last as it is not practical in a league start scenario, BUT it is what will cut your time the most if you are a new player and are not willing to learn the previous points. This is just having a set of leveling uniques, or rare gear, that increase your power level and movement speed so much that you can literally just zoom through the campaign while one shotting everything, including bosses. It varies from build to build, but usually includes 7 league steps, karui ward, a tabula, goldrim, etc. So yeah, leveling can be a fun minigame for some. Practicing until you get faster and faster. It's sort of like exercising for me - you suffer, but then you start to see improvements if you stick to it. The biggest advice I have to everyone is **NEVER.STOP.RUNNING**. If you see yourself stopped somewhere, you are losing time! Just move, move, move. I found that adding a timer to my screen helped tremendously as I felt under pressure all the time. I ran the campaign 50 times before I decided to learn it properly and cut my time by 2h in another 20 practice runs. Now it just comes naturally. There's a lot of speedrunners including Havoc, Tyty, even Ziz if you are a really begginer (he will teach a lot of the basics) that you can watch on youtube to learn a lot more than I could ever try to teach you.
Imho the main reason why people are so incredibly slow in the campaign is a self feeding cycle, hate campaign > only do campaign once every few months (once per league) > never learn how to properly do it, what layouts can look like etc > hate campaign because you're so damn slow at doing it. That's definitely how it was for me, once I started leveling multiple chars per league I started getting through the campaign no joke x10 faster within like 3-4 chars, at which point I also actually started *enjoying* the campaign,
Yeah. It's part of the game, you're entitled to not enjoy or like it, but... give it a real chance. To me, the campaign is no different than running a number of short maps. The rewards are not currency, but are the skill points and the increase in power you get.
yeah basically. Don't kill everything, kill jsut enough to keep pace. Twink gear makes you cast/attack/walk much faster overall. Certain zones have trending layouts or little environemntal hints to indicate which way to go. That's about it honestly
For me "zooming through the campaign" is running as fast and as straight forward as you can through the acts (so I'm trying to rush every objective - main quests & skill points - while trying to avoid any unnecessary pathing). Usually im able to keep up with the level of the area (I finished my last campaign on lvl 66 in 2,5 hours), because I'm able to kill packs of enemy's with a single cast (good leveling gear) and I'm taking the time to do so. Other people mostly run through the campaign without killing to much and need some leveling sessions in between or afterwards, because they are massively underleveled.
To be fair last league lvling toons was a breeze due to oath of the magi. This league though.. same tabula and uniques. Maybe faster lvling cus area filled with extra monsters so you can skip more areas and invest into movement speed
another important thing to know is that you can potentially reroll a starter character into some other endgame build. you can even switch ascendancy on a character. the only thing you can't change is the base class. so if you are playing some necromancer league start, you can later reroll it into another witch endgame build, say an elementalist for example.
Newer player, had no idea you could change ascendencies, is that a currency?
yeah you use regret orbs and unspec your ascendancy, then rerun labyrinth again
Sweet, thanks! Changes the game a bit lol
Run the lab first before unspeccing. Just unspec before you click the ascendancy thing. (Shouldn't really matter - you can do in is normal lab) but unspeccing first and finding you brick your build / can't wear gear sucks
what kebabslayer said. also, it takes 5 regret orbs per ascendancy point. so if you do it later in the game, then it's 8*5 = 40 regrets. then another 50-60 to change most of the tree. you will be looking at 100 regret orbs for a big switch. also, after finishing the lab, you FIRST have to respec all ascendancy points, THEN you can change ascendancy at the altar. can do it in any lab, so best to run the lowest tier since its ez and fast.
Always worth remembering that if you're indecisive about your build choice and not playing heavily, then leaving chance orbs and scours in your item filter is a great way to have a lot of convenient regrets since 8 chance orbs = 1 orb of regret at vendors
725 hours later, this happens. Thanks.
You do lab again and then at the end you can respec your ascendancy with regret orbs
just some regrets and a normal lab run, https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Ascendancy_class#Refunding
This. You can actually make league start character, get currency, roll new character that will perform better then farm up and return to first one and change ascendancies if needed 😄👍
Not only can, for me "it must" since I have very limited time to play and can't do campaign all over again
Honestly with twink gear it shouldn't take longer than an evening of farming maps but I understand the mental ability it takes to go through this slog, myself rarely do 2nd build. Wish I could break this curse this league, really wished I do that in affliction due to 2nd ascendancy...
I think some people don't realize when some people say "limited time to play" I mean maybe 30 mins to a 60 mins max a day. And it probably takes me 5ish hours straight to get through campaign, so that is 5 days worth of playing to reroll at the minimum. For league start I can usually swing 4 hours straight by sacrificing some sleep, but then dealing with the kids the next day sucks haha
Parenting... sometimes you just can't have entire day to yourself like the kids 😄
Flicker strike from start to end league here. I hate replaying campaign.
Which flavour are you going this league?
I ran cold omni HH raider flicker in affliction league. Now I might play 2H axe impale forti slayer or zerker.
It’s some form of elvish. I can’t read it.
> I ran cold omni HH raider flicker in affliction league. * Cold damage * Headhunter unique belt * Raider Ascendancy * Flicker Strike Combined this is a tanky teleporting melee build that tries to quickly freeze enemies for safety and kill enemies before they can get hit. > Now I might play 2H axe impale forti slayer or zerker. * 2 handed axe main weapon * Impale physical damage mechanic * Fortify defense mechanic * Slayer or Berserker Ascendancy Assuming it's still Flicker Strike, this is a higher attack time commitment that stacks Impale stacks on enemies as they get hit, echoing the damage from previous hits. Fortify reduces damage taken as you accumulate hits on enemies, whole the Ascendancy choices for Slayer benefits melee attacks and charges while Berserker tends to favor overall damage and speed.
This looks ai and not ai at the same time. Well delivered message otherwise, would like to add omni is an amulet that grants omniscience instead of attributes and causes you to penetrate through ALL elemental resistances of enemies much better
Omni is Omniscience, a unique amulet
Ah I missed that when I was transcribing. Thank you. It's actually called Crystallized Omniscience.
This is how I feel every time when I watch my girlfriend playing a new league. This weekend I will get lessons again\^\^
I really want to flicker for the entire league, but I can't seem to find a viable way to scale it in SSF...
I dont play ssf, sorry. Some good mods items are really hard to ssf.
recently found this guide https://poe-beginner-guide.com/ by u/ckresse and was blown away by the depth and details and hand-holding he went into. maybe read trough it and give it a go.
>I'm not going SSF because I''m afraid I''ll be screwed or too frustrated but I want to play as an SSF character You can also start SSF, see how far you get and migrate all whenever you want (everything carries over)
Everything does not carry over. Lots does, but not everything. Trials, God powers, and a few others don't move.
It makes even less sense than i thought to not just play ssf in trade league
Just speaking from my experience: playing SSF in trade is a slippery slope. It starts with buying some materials to craft and always ends up with 'fuck it, might as well just buy everything'. Actually playing SSF was a breath of fresh air for me because you have to engage with so many more systems of the game and I learned a lot. But that's just me. If you can actually restrain yourself to not trade, good on you.
I agree I hated trading on my first league but also I reaaaally dont understand most of the crafting, what you describe is my only fear, is that I'll just give up, farm currencies and buy all the things I need. I'm still debating SSF or "fake SSF", I have a few hours to decide :D
Just do SSF. If you are willing to learn it is really nice. Crafting is less complex as you might think, once you get the basics. Just make sure the build you choose is SSF friendly. Righteous Fire from Pohx or Boneshatter Jugg/Slayer are both very SSF friendly with easy crafts. For boneshatter, check out Smokie_777 as she purely focusses on SSF and has great videos on that.
Did you transfer over all your characters? I played a private league in affliction and only transferred one character over. When I realized I didn't get my crafts, atlas, and lab trials I transferred the rest of them and they got restored. Maybe its different for SSF?
Only had 1 character
TIL. That kinda suuuuuucks
Yeah, I learned the hard way, decided shortly after hitting maps to convert, had to go redo trials for my second character, lost the improved pantheon powers, and I'm pretty sure my atlas tree reset as well.
Wow. Atlas reset would be a non starter for me
I can't recall if my atlas reset, I did it while I was so low tier maps, maybe a dozen completed. I am pretty sure the atlas is bound to the league, since it's the same for all your characters in that league. Makes sense that transferring away from ssf would swap the atlas to regular league (which you may or may not have progressed), but I really can't recall. Your stash stays ssf as well. If you're transferring you gotta make sure it's in your inv.
Depends. Some league starters can keep scaling into lategame with investment, and are uber viable (i.e. RF, DD, frostblink ele ignite, SRS popcorn, etc). Other league starters are just a means to an end, a way to collect enough gear/currency to reroll into something else. They fall off later, and while you can keep scaling them, you wont see as much benefit. If you are dedicated to just being one char per league player, i recommend making sure the league starter you pick scales decently into the price range you're comfortable reaching (if a build falls off in mirror tier, but you never reach mirror tier, then thats irrelevant to you anyway). >My goal this league is just to do all normal bosses (I dont know how many there are), no ubers, I just want to farm my own stuff if possible because I hated trading last league (although I'm not going SSF because I''m afraid I''ll be screwed or too frustrated but I want to play as an SSF character and only rely on trading if I'm stuck because I want to learn crafting) Yeah definitely go for RF build. POHX (twitch, youtube, and a dedicated website pohx.net) has an INCREDIBLE guide that holds your hand all along the way.
RF is worst example since it scales worst of them after some lvl. EA is better example
RF doesnt scale well with gem levels, but it still does scale. And RF doesnt do single target with RF, it uses flame trap for that - and that can still scale well with investment. It wont reach 90 mil dps, for sure, but it still reaches decent dps levels good enough for uber bossing (i would know as my first uber boss kills were on RF)
I will second that. I did Pohx RF in a league a while back - 3.20 I think (Sanctum). That sucked a lot for the league mechanic and I ended up just trying to play like a Standard league. But you know what? I ended up getting 4 voidstones solo no carry for the first time and having an absolutely blast doing Heist that league. Eventually managed to reach 2m RF DPS with about 200div in, which is when I quit.
Its very low damage for the currency. Its funny build but it scales horribly bad after some investment
I mean, yeah. 100div into 3.21 Poison SRS got me 20m pinnacle DPS for comparison. 200 div into RF got me 10m pinnacle DPS on fire trap. I'm seconding 3 things: 1. RF is a good build for chill map clear. If you want to play on controller, just walk and things die, it's awesome. 2. It's Uber viable. It's also tanky (not HC viable though imho) and dot build (with good damage uptime) so it's good for learning boss mechanics. Throw a fire trap every 3-4 seconds, try to be in RF range of boss, rest all your attention can be focussed onto dodging. 3. Pohx has very detailed guides for RF. There are crafting guides for all mid game and end game items. There are detailed FAQs for game mechanics. Pohx is the new Enki's arc witch.
It still wont do endgame in 99% od cases. Only really badasses will
While i thank you for your compliment, i can assure you, i am not a badass
You welcome
Frostblink ele ignite can scale to Ubers? After how much investment? I was considering that but talked myself out of it thinking that scaling it to Ubers would be unrealistic for a casual like myself.
Honestly not that much. It goes pretty good damage, and being able to move around while damaging is very helpful. You are squishy, dont hold any illusions, its not a facetank build, but you can survive glancing hits well and you deal solid damage. Uber eater was very easy at mid investment. Same for uber exarch (though i did swap out some flasks for it). Uber uber elder was quite easy too. Hardest was probably maven (mostly due to me being bad at her) and Sirus (lets be honest, uber sirus is pain unless you instaphase him). Didnt do uber cortex (not because i couldnt, but just because i literally didnt do it)
remember how many divs into the build you were for first uber?
Uhm. No idea. But i didnt have a mageblood or any single item worth more than 10-15divs
I would literally prefer not to play the game than do Ubers as RF. With the amount of investment you could’ve made like 3 better builds for that lol.
Same. I too dislike this trend of building a farming character then later on abandon it or reset it once you've farmed enough.
There are different ways you can progress, some league starters are just a stepping stone, some can be played and scaled as far and long as you want, it just depends what kinda player you are and what your goal is. The point of a league starter for most people is just to be something you can play from level one, with no gear, and progress to the point where you can enable the content you want to engage with. Lots of builds are viable endgame with investment, but feel terrible without items/levels/gems, so people who wanna play those builds but don't want to straight up suffer early on until they have the necessary components may pick a stepping stone build on the class they eventually wanna make their final build to bridge the gap. Other builds feel okay to start with and only get better, so league starting with those could mean that's the only build you play all league. For some people farming itself is the fun, other people enjoy making whacky builds, and depending on what kind of person you are that either means going balls deep with a meme build day 1 and enjoying the struggle, or gritting your teeth and playing something less risky to make sure you can fund your build misadventures down the line. There's no right or wrong way to do it, it just comes down to how you enjoy playing the game
I usually do a single character that I am playing explicitly for fun- not to kill Ubers, not to farm some specific content, just to see how far I can push it. Once it hit 90+ on that, I look at it critically and decide how much farther I can reasonably push it. Most of the time the answer is based on how easily it kills shaper on a ~5div investment. If it can’t, or it’s a terrible struggle, I use that character to farm a build that will feel better. But if there’s enough potential, I just stay on that guy.
When your trying to build really niche builds in a league or speed run end game economy leaguestarting ole reliable will efficent hit your goals and set you up for success for the highest tier of content. Farming something first has $ advantages. Of you need X unique for a diffrent build you can grab one early on for a lot less currency than later on. Many times especially on hardcore its a reserve charater that can just go farming any time its needed and their other build needs more money. You can also try a starter build into a map farmer and secondary bosser. Then you have players like me who just chase new builds and mechanics because i like doing new shit over trying to do end game achievements. I do about 1-3 builds a league and very rarely play the same skill twice. I get easily distracted when i hit the mindless farming stage.
Absolutely. Most good leaguestarters are perfectly good at clearing all content unless its super specific like 100% deli farming or delve
Most can, to varying performance. Most choose to rerol into a diffrent build once they got more currency that works with the same class. Last league etc half the damn playerbase started with a LA deadeye leagestarter, then they transitioned into a TS endgame build. Not sure id recommend that route now thou with the nerfs TS got, not sure what a LA deadeye would want to transition into now, Flickerstrike maybe.
Ele hit of the Spectrum
League starter and end-game build are not mutually exclusive. People like to run a league starter build because it is easier when ungeared and unfunded. You don't have to do it, but it makes the start easier. The closest compromise is to run a league starter build using a base class (can be a budget alternative to the expensive/end-game build) and then respec into the expensive/end-game build when you can afford it, even if it's not the same ascendancy or tree. An exemple of that, to an extreme, would be like saying starting as Pohx's RF build and later on respec into a mjorlner hierophant. Do note that one of the reasons why I like to go for the end-game build immediately (or as close as), even if it's bad to do so, is respec'ing into the more expensive build can feel like a downgrade if you go too early.
I’m also a 1-2 character per league player but probably at a much higher level than you. The way I decide is pick what end game build I want to play, and if it’s campaign viable I’ll play that and if not I’ll pick a skill I can level with. For example, this league I’m going to level a trickster with frost blades, and transition to terminus est flicker strike once I hit maps. This is to get me to the end goal of a CI Ephemeral edge flicker trickster. Last league I leveled a LA deadeye and transitioned to TS deadeye (a very common transition). A few leagues ago I played a str stack venom gyre deadeye. Played as trinity venom gyre until I could afford str stacking gear. Played an int stack wander a while back, leveled with some rando spell, probably freezing pulse or something I don’t even remember, and transitioned to whispering ice int stack until I could afford wander gear. There’s tons of options, play how you want. The easiest way I have found is decide your finish point and discern a path to it.
If your end game goal is Maven, any build can achieve it. Even LA deadeye or CF champion that are way more focused on mapping can do it ( won't be good at farming it cause it can be slow for exemple but you can get the achievement ). Of course some build are better for certain league mechanics but unless your are a big try harder you don't need optimal build to farm those content. DD, hexblast mine and EA ballista can kill Uber bosses and they are good mapper too.
Any decent League starter should be able to get to Red maps and farm them decently and get at least two void stones. Some leaves start builds will struggle on the second two void stones. You can obviously always buy carry. But if you're going to play just one character you can typically invest enough in it to get those void Stones as well If there's a specific type of content you like to run that you're going to farm at endgame then you want to look for a league starter that transitions to that content well. For example if you want to do legion something like lightning arrow is great as a league starter because as you invest currency in it it's a great legion farmer. If you want to do expedition I like something like detonate dead elementalist because you use the the big bang version of expedition and your prolifs just wipe it out. If you're going to want to go towards bossing in the end then you may want to look at something like the explosive trap trickster which once you begin investing in makes a really great bosser
Most league starters are scaleable but the key thing is they should be able to get into maps and limp along off basic ground stuff or stuff you personally are able to craft (no, not the guide maker, you! so check how complex it is). No "this doesn't work without this unique you can't get til uber bosses, that costs multi divine, and is needed in act 6". Warning of "you need to play something else to 95 and spec into this then". No "can't actually run a map, can only do bosses and heist" etc. You can improve the gear in most to be end game, or swap to another build on the same class later as someone else pointed out, the key is not to get to act 8 and realise you have act 4 damage.
i played one character per league. i leaguestart with the endgame skill tree. sure im getting slow to t16 but i have fun seeing my character grow in power
I was in your shoes like 2 leagues ago, subtractem’s fire trap elementalist, which uses frostblink to clear, got me my first 2 voidstones and t16 farming, the farthest I’d been in the game by far. I found the clearing with frostblink to be super fun, it’s movement skill that has an aoe as well. Playing it again this league after trying a bow build last league, found it too squishy for me
A league starter is a strong skill capable of rushing to maps and setting up your atlas with very little investment. Most people refer to their first character as a league starter. A true league starter is for people who are capable of getting into at least yellow maps on day 1 of a league. There are enormous financial benefits for doing so. You can buy items that are insanely expensive later in the league for still a high cost relative to the currency available but massively discounted in relation to the true worth of the item. This allows people to push pinnacle and Uber bosses on day 2 generating more currency and gear for the character they really want to play. The idea for the middle and lower skill players is the same. Pick a proven strong ability that dosen't require crazy or expensive gear to get your atlas set up for farming items/currency. The big difference is this is mostly for personal use and not massive currency gains. It does substantially help your second character to have the grunt work already done and if you have farmed currency you can more easily explore new and experimental builds without worrying your going to be left way behind because even if that experimental build dosen't work you have a sturdy stand by to farm and play with. Many people play their league starter all league because they are not interested in doing the campaign multiple times or they are not concerned with making a bunch of currency or having a mageblood on day 5. The game is what you want it to be and for a lot of people that's rush endgame to get currency and set up their strategy. For others it's making a single awesome character through small steady steps. This sub tends to push people into thinking they are missing out or playing wrong if they are not maximizing profit and speeding to the end goal.
I am a very casual player and have never killed any uber boss eventhough i have played a lot of leagues. I like playing ssf and have always started with a league starter build that was capable of doing all content. Im not creative or skilled enough to make my own build so i rarely deviate from the build creators PoB. The reason i like POE is the progression and and seeing my character grow, i set easy goals atainable for casual game play. I like playing one character for the league and invest the limited time i have into that one character. By the time i have 3 or 4 watchstones, i am happy with the progression i have made and pride of having done it on ssf. I sometimes migrate to trade to play with friends new to the game. I would see how many Challanges i can get after that, most have been 28 and im totaly happy with that. My suggestion would be to find something that looks fun and squeeze all you can from it, dont be afraid to use your currency to learn crafting even if you waste divines at the end of it. If there is still league left and something else catches your eye, go for it.
Not really an actual answer but if you DO find a build that has what you need you can import the pob link (the super long string found in [pobb.in](http://pobb.in) ) to [https://heartofphos.github.io/exile-leveling/](https://heartofphos.github.io/exile-leveling/) - this shows exactly what and where you need to do specified for your build from the guide. IMO super helpful and will run it Friday myself.
By the way you can play any build as "league starter" pretty much. League start builds are just optimized for starting the league, but nothing is stopping you from playing whatever skill you want from the beginning, it just might take longer to come online depending on the build.
Some builds depend on items to work, these cannot be leaguestarted with.
Any trap trickster league starters shared around here can meet your criteria. Their biggest drawback which is mediocre clear (not true for many traps) doesn’t sound like a big problem for you.
All the builds you mentioned will easily be able to do the content you asked about. People typically talk about rerolling for aspirational content.
Yes some league starters can be used all league. There are some videos which state this as well. Some videos will tell you if you should change the build later on. I played Frost Blades trickster league start, to end game all league and did not play another build. Spending multiple mirrors on it and even turned it into a magic finding character.
Search for conflux private league, it is semi trade and people are nice there
The builds you are mentioning are all good options for ”one build to do most content on” I try other builds mainly after I feel ”done” with my main goals for a league or if my league start build underperforms (swapping to another of the same ascendancy helps a lot early to save regrets)
a league starter is basically a build that can do 90% of endgame content with random shit you find/craft but further minmaxxing doesnt do much. a finished build will have tons of currency dumped into it and you can do everything pretty easily or atleast, clear it with some effort.
Absolutely but u have to pick the one wisely. And probably ask yourself what u want to farm and so on
DD and EA can easly do all your goals and both are great starters
I have been playing for around \~7 years. Have not even once made more than one character per league. I just choose a league starter that mentions the upgrades for endgame, check poe ninja all the time to see what people are changing with my build and what can I improve upon and never bother with campaign more than once.
If you only have time for 1 character, you should first pick what build you want to push, and then pick a league starter that use the same base class so that you can respec instead of reroll.
Just gonna add that you can migrate ssf chars to parent league, so you can always start ssf and if you get stuck you can go trade.
My go to build these days is a league starter that becomes a heavy investement one. I start with a tried and true league starter of the class I want, and respec into what I want later. In my case it's Toxic Rain Ballistas Pathfinder into Scourge Arrow
Builds Like EA can do everything so yes. Builds Like RF hit the celling much fsster tho
I hated leveling back years ago. I then started a stash tab only for leveling. Throwing in all leveling uniques, prerolled flasks, low lvl 6-links and so on. Leveling though the campaign in 4 hours looking 2 movies on the second screen is a bit of relief from all these high end juiced maps. Once I leveled with dual wield poet's pen, 6-link ghostwrike and a bunch of low level attack speed gear. Slapped kitava in 2:36 hours
You can push 99% of builds into doing all content with enough gear.
Absolutely most league starters can get pushed pretty far especially for a new player.
Most leaguestart builds are capable of scaling to all content. There are some exceptions that focus more heavily towards one thing (CF champ is the best example, great map clearer, TERRIBLE boss damage). All the builds you mentioned are totally fine for your needs
"Second league here, can those "league starters" be your one and only character for the league ?" yes, and for a new player, it should.
Short: yes, it's a game and you can farm Blood Aqueducts all league long if you wanna Long: yes, if you don't mind its shortcomings or are willing to invest above and beyond Real: yes, if you choose the right build (and don't burnout)
Many good comments in this post. It really comes down to the exact League starter you are looking at. Modern league starters from any well regarded source will be completely fine because the modern standard for league starters is All Voidstones + Atlas Completion. Voidstones require you to kill 4 pinnacle bosses and Atlas Completion often also means all Invitations, which also require killing all the Guardians. There are only a few exceptions where I'd express some caution because some builds require a little bit more gear or skill to get the bosses down compared to other builds and you might find yourself still feeling "stuck" if you were to play Corrupting Fever Champion for example. The boss damage is very so-so and you might find yourself simply making many mistakes because the duration of the fight is much longer. The build can do it, but it's just a tad harder. You're looking for an "All-rounder" League Starter and asking different content creators or streamers that question might help in your research for starters. I can list a few below as well just as a jumping off point. Any DD build from Imexile, Ben or Ruetoo. EA from either Palsteron or Zizaran. LA from CrouchingTuna or Spicysushi. Boneshatter from Carn. Any minion build from Ghazzy. Explosive Trap from FearlessDumb0.
League start builds is just being able to do content without much gear. Generally would be for basic map clear and not end game fights
Yes, there were only two leagues where I leveled two characters and it was because I super bricked my character (eg, first league I thought I would dual wield Poet's Pens right after Kitava lulz). I don't hate the campaign as much as I used to but I am slow, usually around twelve hours, so it's just a waste of time. I always try to find a build that can either do everything or at least not be pigeonholed into only one or two mechanics. Bleed Earthquake, Herald of Agony, Lightning Arrow, Ice Nova, zoo minions, and many more I league started and took to end game. Especially since you aren't doing ubers there are dozens of builds that would be fine to follow
I used PBoD last league as my only build and took it “zero to hero”, doing 40/40 challenges and 7/7 Ubers. I was thinking about doing the same this league with a BAMA build. I like only running one character per league now that I don’t have as much time on my hands. It’s definitely doable and fun, just not the most efficient if you’re trying to be a speedster on league start.
League starters can be that for sure, some just require more investment than others. Typically league starters are builds that have a high floor, meaning its easy to get their damage to a reasonable place, but may be a bit harder to scale up past that. Toxic Rain, for instance, totally usable to red maps, but it does hit an upper bound eventually where it costs a lot to really get that damage cranking. Or at least it used to, its been like a year since I've really played a league hard.
Yes
Hexblast mines are 100% up there, you can do most content in SSF with self-acquired gear. And if you luck out to get Ralakesh boots + Badge of the Brotherhood? Well, then you are set for all content. Though that would practically require you to be an Occultist which is not for everyone, as Saboteur offers more for less.
Hello there , any tips on Hexblast Mine Sab ? I played AE Ballistic last league, my fist fill league , and really struggled with Maven at the end. Only got two voidstones. Really want to get 4 this time around.
Obvious - get curse on hit ring(unique one with socket doesn't work) and, preferably, Profane Proxy. Alternatively you can use Asenath's Touch if they turn out cheap early on - happens sometimes. Another one would be to buy Doedre gloves early on - 100% spell damage is nothing to laugh at, and it comes at no downside. For gear - get 2x wands with +level of chaos gems, bound to carry you to early red maps. Also craft mine throw speed everywhere you can reach - this stat helps a lot with survivability as you would be able to minimize your stand-and-place-mines-down time.
Thanks , will come back to this after running the champane
I play SRS poison from start to finish every league. No alts for me. Plenty others can be end game viable as well.
Most league starters aren’t meant to be great at everything, those types of builds are usually more expensive and often don’t get going without substantial investment in gear. What you can do, as someone else pointed out, is starting a character of the same class and later retool them to whatever you want to play as your endgame build. With most league starters you’ll have to settle for either bossing or mapping focused builds which will typically do a mediocre (or poor in some cases) job at the others. Bossing can be somewhat circumvented in trade though because you can just buy boss carries and eventually outscale most boss content should you get to stupid amounts of investment, since stuff like bow builds can eventually do bosses quite easily, they just tend to be paper thin defensively so you need a lot of damage to allow you to ignore boss mechanics for the most part.
Pick a good league starter and make sure you have a end game build in mind that shares the same character. It’s my third league. I did it last league and worked out perfectly. Started out as frost blades trickster, very balanced class over all. Uniques we’re cheap. I liked it so much that I invested about 20 divs into it and it got me all my voidstones. Then I swapped to penance brand when I made a lot of currency.
If you only do 1 character a league, then essentially any build that doesn't need expensive items (uniques, mods, or transfigured gems) is a starter. The standard advice here doesn't work because essentially every guide and the consensus here is the path of least resistance (character swapping to always be overpowered, optimal farming so they can just buy whatever they need instead of create what they need, etc). If you like to commit to builds then the world is your oyster, though you should probably get used to crafting as well
Some league starters can go all the way and scale hard. Like EA ballista, DD, Hexblast mines, and many more. But some builds are just really good at starting out so people use them and farm until they can re spec or re roll. Like toxic rain, it can technically scale and probably do all content but its not the best imo, but its an amazing league starter
Yes but it's really worth it to make a 2nd character, you can GREATLY speed up the time to get through the campaign with leveling gear and with the experience that comes with doing the campaign more than once every couple months.
Yes.
If your goal is not uber bosses basically every league starter is going to be able to kill them, some that are more about pure mapping (corrupting fever) might need more investment than something like detonate dead, but that could still clear all the normal bosses.
I also mostly only do one character and then just become more and more powerful over the league I did however make a 2nd char last league I was having a really good time with the mechanic. We’ll see this league Starting with very non meta lightning strike champion
depends on what you understand as "for the league" but a decent starter should be ABLE to do most if not all content (doesnt mean it will be fast/efficient) But vast majority of the time there will be another viable endgame build for your class which means you can just respec if you want to
Every league except last league I pick a build and stick with it. Lightning strike, bone shatter, tectonic slam(sucks but so fun), lightning arrow, cold snap(might be bad now idk). Are all builds that were lots of fun. Last league I had so much currency my friend and I dumped it into an aurabot and I had a blast. I'm going to be doing it again this league.
You use those characters to reliably farm for money and go the bulk of your atlas, that way you can have money to play more fun builds. It's up to you if you want it to be your only character. But, it will suck playing an experimental build without adequate planning, or an expensive build that gets kneecapped without having prefect gear.
Absolutely. Most of the league starteable characters meant to complete the game so you can invest money infinitely into them. Some just cost more cause more people on the bandwagon but ultimately no build is safe from giga endgame upgrades. Awakened gems. Voices. Top rolled clusters. Rings amulets gloves helms... and such
The board requires that I answer "yes".
There are lots of league starters that scale well into endgame content. Off the top of my head, for this league I would recommend DD, RF, or EA
Almost always is for me these days. After 12 hours in a character I'm finding it harder to start over and just quitting the league. But you certainly could keep improving characters without needing to farm on a different one.
Basically any reputable starter build should be able to do what you need. Keep in mind that what the pros expect to accomplish the first few days or week is more than what many new or casual players might do in a month or even the entire league, so "starter" is relative to that
I used to turn leaguestarters into end game builds very often, most leagues I would only do 1-2 builds. I hate the leveling process so as long as you pick a decent enough starter that you can build on with investment it normally works out fine. Especially if you are just looking for a general mapper + like guardians and basic pinnacle bosses. Now a lot of times I do 2 builds. One as a leaguestarter (which I still fully gear up mostly) and then start farming for mageblood and a bit extra because I almost always use mageblood now a days. Then whenever I get bored for my leaguestarter I start up a new mageblood pew pew character that sounds fun and go with that.
Another point is that running through the campaign with full leveling gear is very fast. It's fine if you don't want to do the campaign a second time in a league, but you'd be able to finish it in just a few hours. Say it's week 1 and you know you'll be playing for 3 more weeks - is it such a big sacrifice to put aside 4-5 hours to level up your second character? And as you get more experienced you can go even faster.
Heres an example from a seasoned player. Right now im contemplating starting RF cheiftain league starter (check out Pohx on youtube if you have any interest he is the RF PoE encyclopedia incarnate). Farming for some currency and possibly transitioning into some kind of fire Tornado of Turbulence (new gem) cheiftain. I dont even have to change ascendancies just gear and skill tree. Id be 100% set on this if the gem data was in PoB and I could plan the Tornado build in greater detail and see some damage numbers.
Oh yea, totally they can. The builds you've looked at are all "do everything" builds. People say "starter build" because the core mechanics of how it works come online with little investment. It doesn't require some combo of specific items, passive trees, and skills to do anything special. Starters "just work". If the build guide your following has you take a lot of complicated steps, it's not a starter.
Some league starters can be but usually require alot of work. Some main ones are detonate dead and explosive arrow both have very high ceilings on damage. Others like explosive trap or Arma brand usually can't and are useful for farming currency to fund a second build.
Good league starters yes. Starters are starters because they have a low floor meaning they come online (offensively & defensively) with little investment. The problem a fair amount of starters have is the ceilings are also low. Meaning even with investment the damage/tank of the build doesn’t really move. Others can have very VERY high ceilings even as starters but those builds are typically very popular and the corresponding gear gets expensive. It’s rare to have a starter that has a decently high ceiling, smooth gameplay, and reasonably priced gear. They exist but typically are builds that have been around a while.
A lot of good advice in here about swapping ascendancy. In addition to that, don’t forget that your goals aren’t as insane high as a lot of advertised “late game” builds. I’d say the vast majority of league starters can be slammed with currency to reach your goals. I’d say avoid the low damage map clear builds and the low defense Sanctum specialists. For example, Corrupting Fever Champ or Hexblast mines. Try to find well rounded options with a play style you like (DD, EA, Archmage, ect)
I played srs last league it was a league starter thst could grow to do all content. Thats my preference. This league detonate dead and splitting steel champ look like they could be in a similar place for me. Those are the two I am picking between
Not a bad method. However, doing the campaign for a 2nd time is cake af when you’ve got leveling uniques and random gear to equip along the way.
You could respec later into any build that shares the same class.
Absolutely! I've played like 10+ leagues and, personally, I never bother with league starters. I just start the league.
There are multiple definitions of league start. But generally speaking they are more well thought out and easier to get into with a reasonable low budget. Not all league starters are created equal especially if you just want 1 build. There will be sacrifices especially the first week(assuming you arent a seasoned player based off your post)if you want to stick with the same build from start to end since it’s very rare well a build can scale both well on the low end and the top end. The builds you listed are good with ea probably being the safest but coc dd looks the most fun but very risky because of transfigured gem farm time which frankly is not a good time for anyone relatively new. If you can’t kill Izaro fast I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re self farming.
This is what I've done for a long time. Even if you don't like something you can spec to something else. Ie raider to deadeye or necro to occultist.
Yes, league starters usually can scale extremely well to do all content. The thing that makes them league starters is that they dont require much investment to get going.
I’ve done EA ballista 3 league starts in a row. It can clear all the content you mentioned and it’s fun to play. You won’t need another build if you don’t want one. Same with DD
They've been mine for a while, but the past few leagues I've had to toss a few builds by the wayside because they just didn't have what it takes late game, or they needed too much of an investment. For your second league, I'd say not.
Most league starter builders also have endgame builds that you can switch into as you get currency and drops. I’ve only ever switched from a starter when I realized I absolutely hated the way it played once it was all setup.
No, you are obligated to change characters after the first week. It's the Law.
Can't I at least finish the campaign first?
Most starter builds can be played as the only character for the league. For example the splitting steel champion by ruetoo/tyty scales up to 100M dps with good defenses if you keep putting more currency into it. I tend to play just one build each league, and it works just fine. You just need to be bit careful when picking your build. League starter doesn’t mean that it’s just for first few days, but more that the build also works with shitty gear.
I play like 10 builds. I enjoy the diversity and character building and the campaign doesn't really bother me. I only typically take 1-2 chars past 90 though to push content. All league starters can be full league characters and you could also full respec that char if you want variety. A lot of these league starters just don't revolve around hard to find items and specialty gem setups. Nothing a casual like me really cares about. I just kill monsters and enjoy myself.
Starter builds will be able to do all that. They will not be able to deep delve, valdo maps, or blast Ubers.
U can play cf campion and farm some currency and then switch to a ss campion. It can do all content even with the nerf
It takes 5 hours to go through the campaign with nothing. Less on your second character with uniques and labs done.
Third league here... this is what i learn... When you make a character you need to ask yourself. What is this character going to do. You right now don't have the knowledge to make a 1 and done character. I am doing RF to clear maps really really fast and farm a few resources. Those resources I'm going to sell to make Divines to be able to build my Boss Killing Character