What games are you playing atm? V2

Random new year update:
1. Was irritated by how slow + careful i have to play my character to safely level up each time (magic map T5 only atm), thus tried to start a new character which is skeleton necro, but turned out that i just cant get into playing multiple character each season. Probably will play slowly, 1 act per day. Stopped immediately after finishing act 1 despite it was only like several minute.
2. After several long grinding for metamorph encounter with 100% MF, i got several unique that properly upgrade my power level which made me able to beat uber izaro safely (i kept getting 1 shot by him, so i wear cdwt + enfeeble with rearguard for some block)
3. I rewired more skill points from focusing physical -> fire conversion (with a lot of strength), i finally got decent DPS that made me easier to clean up T8. Atm im on the way to deciding either i from switching from chieftain to slayer (faster farming) or pathfinder (better boss capability), regardless i need to rewired about 30 more skill points to go crit / staying at ranger tree.
4. Bloody Drox with area level of 75 (region with 1 watchstone) is FREAKING TANKY. My gosh, i always ran out of flask charges and can only damage him to 1/4 hp. Always become almost perma-invincible after that. At this point, i think im probably will just skip him until i can clear T12 map or something.

Judging from my previous PoE character, it seem like i tend to quit the game around level 90, this league is kinda like less irritating because there are more content to tackle rather than MAP MAP MAP MAP MAP MAP MAP. But still, some content are not rewarding enough though, making it hard to play SSF as i wanted.

EDITED 3 hours after first posted

1. Make a big decision to go for pathfinder + elementalist as my final build. I converted all my available currency for regrets which yield about 50 regrets to play around with (i dont care much since i dont play standard or 2nd character). Turned out it was a good decision as i finally managed to tackle long boss fight, specifically conqueror boss. I finally killed drox, although i was downed to last portal.
2. Im gonna admit that this is first time i feel like i playing PoE like is supposed to. I used to play many ARPG spamming potions and taking unnecessary risk which lead to a lot of death. Despite have 3 life flask, it was useless since im not fully utilize from pack to pack, mostly used only for boss fight. Thus with new pathfinder ascendancy, i can keep playing spamming pots, without needing to worry about flask charges.
3. Additionally, im now playing with balancing my skill points in the tree. It still my goal to get 4.5k life as i kept getting 1 shot on certain meta boss despite having some armor + enfeeble + arctic armor, hopefully i can then tackle atziri + other endgame content.

I am stuck in this loop place - hard to get xp to level because of death penalties. Need better gears for better mapping and need better maps for better gear ...And i do rushing to bosses and metamorphs with high properties = more deaths.

Also almost maxed the capacity of my 4 stash pages. What to do - create alts ?

Welcome to the club, where i feel like worthless piece of meat and cant enjoy the game anymore.
Creating alts generally required more stash, if you are still f2p, i would recommend to try any league starter build.
And hopefully your current character have found several uniques that can enable that particular build.

Couple of options:

1. Stick to high tier map magic (that you can rush within minutes), skip bosses / metamorph / master mission
Do this quickly back to back, dont care about drops unless you need that specific currency / unique (rare generally take took too much time)
2. Once you reached new level, then it is time to tackle deadly contents such as:
- Master mission
- Conquerors
- Uber bosses
- League stuff
3. Then you have done those stuff, then just switch back to "playing safe"

For your information, it took like more than 3 hours for level 87-88 for me last weekend because i died alot
You can highlight your experience bar at the bottom to see how much exp per hours you made.

So since some people are playing PoE here, here are some advices from experienced player :

- Always alchemy and go your maps, even white tier. To maintain alchs pick up and sell uniques as well as 1x1 and 1x2 rare items. You may even find one worth few chaos that you can sell in trade league. You will also stop complaining about map drops. For T13+ i also chistel them for 20 quality. In the long run it's worth it.

- Don't complain about drops. You literally cannot lose currency on running maps, i was even on small profit when i was literally wasting white maps to spawn conquerors. Also watch video on how to make currency once - everyone will say you just need to play the game anyway.

- Since this league got some funny hyperpwn bosses on maps with good drops, you can farm them fast on T1 maps for organs. Literally all my exalted orb drops were found in Tane's lab. And don't be discouraged when you can't beat one, this shit is just hard.

- If you want to progress your atlas faster, pick up ALL maps including white tier (may need to modify loot filter for that). When you spawn an conqueror and you have influence already in, for example Tirn's End, you can keep running white maps to obtain portal to his citadel. This speeds up atlas progression significantly. Run current tier maps -> spawn conqueror -> spam white maps, kill first few mob packs, if he does not spawn enter new map, repeat. I managed to get last 10 watchstones to fully upgrade atlas in less than 3 hours so it's a good method.

- RUN DELVE - this is the most reliable source of currency you have, behind the walls you will find alot of fossils that will sell instantly for some good chaos.

Tips for melee players :
1. Get fortify - this is straight up more multiplier for your life pool, as it provides less damage taken from hits, directly multiplying your effective HP. 20% less damage taken = 20% more HP against hits. Also you can get fortify effect from tree that has similar final effect. I would use it for actual link in my main skill to always keep it up, even in SC and even when it sacrifices little portion of your damage (still gives 34% more multiplier)

2. In my experience, if you have low budget melee chars, they usually most often split into two main archetypes :

- Pure physical - Herald of purity, Pride and impales. Impales are very powerful tool to boost your effective damage even though it will not show on tooltip. By taking 3 - 5 points on the tree in either Forceful Skewering or Swift skewering, impale support and Dread Banner for 10% mana reservation you can almost double your damage. Also Starforge if you have the money

- Full fire conversion - Insanely good scaling trough increases in fire and physical damage. Usually chieftains / juggernauts / Ngamahu / Nebuloch chars do this kind of conversion. Additional multiplying of your damage trough elemental penetration, using avatar of fire etc. More straight forward than phys scaling.

3. Armour and conversion from physical.

There are mods from helmet that grant you 48% resist for element and 10% physical damage taken as that element. Treat this as literal physical reduction from hits. On Armour you can self-craft physical taken as cold with essence of horror. Combining these two you can get 25% conversion to elemental damage from physical which you can treat like perma basalt flask - 19% reduced phys damage taken. Note that it only reduces hits, not damage over time.
Also, armour value is more effective is you have more conversion values as it reduces physical damage taken from hits based on damage of that hit (it's more effective against small hits).

4. Don't underestimate " #% reduced damage taken" mods.
Treat them as extra %res or in similar way, the more you stack them, the more effective they are. Look up these nodes on tree to consider (not only for melee): Crystal Skin, Soul of Steel, Brinkmanship, Bloodletting, Silent Steps, Force Shaper, Disciple of the unyielding.

Wow, a lot of tips. Dzienkuje. I changed my approach at the moment with lacerate build. I realised my damage is ok and my mana problems were solved with this aura that curses enemies and enables me to leach from them - warlord mark i believe. Now i am looking at defense part because i cannot stay long enough around for bleed to kill stuff. I am still reading every skill gem and trying to understand/combaine them into something usefull. This game has so much potential for creativity it's even scary. Plus i have followed the good guide but now i can see that i am lacking suggested gears and the ones i got are not matching the needs and i need to twink build around to make it work until i get the items or find my own comfortable working sollution.

nerf Arc+Pyroclast traps even more pls ty.

Hmm, I wonder if anyone have their own unique way to using their currency.
I know it is vastly different between SSF and Trade league, nevertheless would be neat to hear about them from veterran.

Especially those previous league content like fossil, essence,
or the encounter (betrayal, incursion, delve) etc.

I have been skipping alva, i cant see why i should run them
because the map is pretty much like harder than the map you are running (enemy tankier, more dps)

I did try bulk trading last night via poe trade. It worked like a glove, sold a lot of orbs that took space in stash for chaos. Bought two new savagery axes for lacerator. Now the new goal - six linked good body armor. Also chaos resists deeply into negatives ....
But on the bright side - leveling up slowly, just running available maps after turning them into blue, almost 50 maps from 15x atm. Starting to use banner for extra impale and nice visuals.

Had a few exalts to spare, decided to start slamming on a ilvl 84 styg vise i had stored. Holy fucking shit.

Haha, sold my crap for orbs and bought this beauty :