What games are you playing atm? V2

PoE experts give advice and knowledge how to craft high dps melee weapon. I have a ilvl 86 base weapon. It is nice and clean, what steps do i take ? Impicit modifier at the moment is +25 global crit multi. Do i change it somehow for ph.dmg ? And what next - transmute to magic and roll with alterations until t1 ph.dmg bonus , then try regal orb ? I tried something similar and got to t3 and the craft bench option to add 100-129% dmg is not available then. Currently using 2x ahns might - nice dmg but slow speed, want to improve both dps and speed. Thanks.

not a pro, but generally:
1. crafting for rich people. until you can afford a lot of currency (like exalt for adding affix to rare item), better to just to go for good rare on poetrade (something like several exalt price)
2. if your own build (not based on a guide) feel like stuck at specific T10-15 maps, either remake a new character or trade for better stuff. im as SSF who refuse to play 2nd character always struggle at this point
3. get some stash spaces, i mean you love the game, it is not hurt to spend some real money to get stash spaces. since i bought most of the special tabs, my recommendation : big stash (i forgot the name, but it is 4x stash in 1 page), currency, maps and maybe the card stash. Im kinda regret for delve since i rarely get enough currency to justify it, same goes for that shards (gosh i forgot the name) which convert normal or reroll rare item.
4. if you take more than 5 minute to clear a map, i think you farming wrong maps. at least slow progress is better than keep dying over and over again in higher / dangerous map. I forgot the equation, but generally you can ran random rare map (hope that you get more than 1 alc return).

I am farming t11-t14 comfortably since only few days ago i broke a curse and they started to drop. What i mean comfortably - i use this delirium fog encounter and manage to kill boss in fog most of the time. Well at least in maps that i know the layout. This way i am close to finish my second similacrum at the moment. With better atack speed i would be even better all around. I am lvl 91 at the moment. I spent 2 exalts on 6link body armour with nice hp and all resistances. Dps is 140k on main atack info line without buffs.
About stash and spending money - well i do like the game, but so far i managed to fit everything into 4 tabs (OCD helps a lot here) and few alt chars. Also i do use poe trade and constantly trade my currency for chaos. Then i buy stuff i need. Just at this stage i feel like i would like to master this crafting potential.

as i said, crafting is really for rich people
if i dont dare to spend currency on them,
most of streamer who did it are people who pretty much 24/7 in the game
know the game inside out
farming a lot of hard content (breachstone, guardian, elder / shaper)

seem like you already much further than i did last league (what was it, metamorph?)
at this point probably i would spend into buying more good rare in many of body part
i believe even a minor better roll can help you on longer run

and i dunno about new league,
but isnt those new skill tree should carry you much further than before?
since you got many new stats from farming new stuff

Yes, those new jewels can replace your old skill forest in some unique ways. But that is a two edge sword in reality - you will not have enough skill points to keep old school build and you have to decide what to sacrfice in order to have enough skill points for new jewels. In this area i am also a newb, where i tend to follow some general working build and then add some small fixes to make it work for my playstyle. So far i did
archmage caster with lighning brands - solid dmg against bosses, average farmer and a bit squishy overall;
cyclone slayer - did not have enough end game items to make it work against single targets to take down bosses comfortably;
cobra lash assassin - squishy and lack dps for single target, great farmer though;
my own build ideas - aoe stunner juggernaut - stun even bosses - again lack dps against bosses;
and lastly current frost blade berserker which is fun and working so far.

unique comic art style games

Title : Void Bastards

This game intrigued me in the beginning because of the unique toon-shading artstyle. Once you played the games, you will noticed it resemble alot of early day of comic where it used specific font (i dunno if it was comic sans), story told in comic strips, and the best, it even played in 3D simple toon shading style!. The story pretty quirky, but how about the gameplay? There are many games out there focused a lot of artistic part but suffered from gameplay perspective.

To explain this game, at the core, it is a rogue-lite shooter. But instead of linear progression of getting more power, you need to navigate through map to find a suitable space ships where you will jump in and try to collect as many resource as possible. It was tricky in the beginning especially if you are playing blind and still not having enough gears, but as you collect more resource, you will be able to craft more stuff that help you venture into deeper and harder ships. For the goals of the game, it is quite simple as you just need to craft 5 key items. Different ships combined with different enemy type, made it super challenging gameplay loop. On normal difficulty at least, it took me like 5 hours maybe before im finally comfortable with the game. The game have a lot of difficulty adjustment or if you have the skill, you can start with 0 item and try to survive. There isnt any time limit, although each day required you to have food and fuel to go each ship nodes.

Void bastard is really pleasant game that some people might find repetitive, but it was a blast for me. Granted that enemy type and your arsenal seem a bit limited, but the choice / difficulty adjustment made it much more worth for a game that you can replay infinitely.

Alternative : Since this game is a heist game, it remind me a lot of Swindler and Steamworld Heist. But if you have an itch for rogue-like ish gameplay, this also remind of Slay the Spire. As for cartoon artstyle, borderlands series ... as usual.

streets of rage 4.

its good.

I cant believe i forgot to review this.

Title : Grim Dawn Forgotten Gods Expansion

Again, before i begin, i would like to clarify that last time I played Grim Dawn when it was during free weekend, which i have gameplay for over 20 hours. My conclusion was that I wasnt enjoy the settings and feeling of the game, mainly because i did finished Titan Quest Anniversary couple of years ago. I think that Grim Dawn first impression was bad and didnt change much the formula aside from free stuff in devotion system as well faction. Turned out that with more hours as well venturing into more difficult content, it made me appreciate those 2 system more. But still, i still have issue because of limited skill design, as I already experience some mods in Titan Quest, i think that Grim Dawn skill design are too boring in general.

So after replaying the games more with my friends, we decided to buy both expansion AT FULL PRICE (which i will never done it before, because someone sponsored me abit). Content wise, I immediately love both Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods settings. From the various environment that have more colour, as well as different various enemy types in the games. Base game only have like depressing gritty type of enemy, so this fantasy-like creatures remind me so much of various enemy design from Titan Quest series. Not to mention that, town hub area a bit more open and feel less depressing than the base game. Additionally, there are alot of quality of life changes to games such as respeccing you mastery level, more storage spaces, enemy totem which showers you with tons of epic and legendary as well as a shortcut item that bring you straight to ultimate difficult (as well as potion with 100% experience gained).

While the game didnt expand much on devotion and faction as much as I wish, it does add more variety to build you can create. Both of them also expand more build by adding 3 more mastery you can use. Some of skill design are more flavorful here around. For example, the oathbreaker have a shield throwing skill that bounce around as well as a crowd control skill that works as vacuum, pulling all enemy toward you. Inquisitor have unique mechanic of seal where they can plan a sign on the floor which do both buffing ally as well as debuffing enemy. There are more skill design that i think interesting, but i didnt have times to fully explore them (despite my 200 hours playthrough, i only played 2 melee build to 100). Despite all that, i still hate this game abit because I unable to find a proper gear for my build despite hours spent (even with better drop chance!).

If you ask me, base Grim Dawn is still a meh and not something interesting. It gave poor first time impression as the system take more time to be appreciated. The expansion answer some of my issues, although there are several stuff that i think it still need to improve (UI for crafting / devotion is still terrible) and to be honest, I already feel irritated to grind more without much value per time spent. However if you ask me if it was worth the price i paid, I will answer simply NO. I probably would wait for a proper discount (I paid more than witcher 3 GOTY... so you know why, despite i play with more hours in Grim Dawn)

Alternative : Victor Vran, Van Hellsing both are similar victorian era ARPG, although quality are not the same. I still prefer the combat feeling & easiness from Diablo 3 and PoE several depth system that make it fun to discover new mechanic once a while. Titan Quest is still more memorable to me.

iwansquall wrote:I cant believe i forgot to review this.

Title : Grim Dawn Forgotten Gods Expansion

Again, before i begin, i would like to clarify that last time I played Grim Dawn when it was during free weekend, which i have gameplay for over 20 hours. My conclusion was that I wasnt enjoy the settings and feeling of the game, mainly because i did finished Titan Quest Anniversary couple of years ago. I think that Grim Dawn first impression was bad and didnt change much the formula aside from free stuff in devotion system as well faction. Turned out that with more hours as well venturing into more difficult content, it made me appreciate those 2 system more. But still, i still have issue because of limited skill design, as I already experience some mods in Titan Quest, i think that Grim Dawn skill design are too boring in general.

So after replaying the games more with my friends, we decided to buy both expansion AT FULL PRICE (which i will never done it before, because someone sponsored me abit). Content wise, I immediately love both Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods settings. From the various environment that have more colour, as well as different various enemy types in the games. Base game only have like depressing gritty type of enemy, so this fantasy-like creatures remind me so much of various enemy design from Titan Quest series. Not to mention that, town hub area a bit more open and feel less depressing than the base game. Additionally, there are alot of quality of life changes to games such as respeccing you mastery level, more storage spaces, enemy totem which showers you with tons of epic and legendary as well as a shortcut item that bring you straight to ultimate difficult (as well as potion with 100% experience gained).

While the game didnt expand much on devotion and faction as much as I wish, it does add more variety to build you can create. Both of them also expand more build by adding 3 more mastery you can use. Some of skill design are more flavorful here around. For example, the oathbreaker have a shield throwing skill that bounce around as well as a crowd control skill that works as vacuum, pulling all enemy toward you. Inquisitor have unique mechanic of seal where they can plan a sign on the floor which do both buffing ally as well as debuffing enemy. There are more skill design that i think interesting, but i didnt have times to fully explore them (despite my 200 hours playthrough, i only played 2 melee build to 100). Despite all that, i still hate this game abit because I unable to find a proper gear for my build despite hours spent (even with better drop chance!).

If you ask me, base Grim Dawn is still a meh and not something interesting. It gave poor first time impression as the system take more time to be appreciated. The expansion answer some of my issues, although there are several stuff that i think it still need to improve (UI for crafting / devotion is still terrible) and to be honest, I already feel irritated to grind more without much value per time spent. However if you ask me if it was worth the price i paid, I will answer simply NO. I probably would wait for a proper discount (I paid more than witcher 3 GOTY... so you know why, despite i play with more hours in Grim Dawn)

Alternative : Victor Vran, Van Hellsing both are similar victorian era ARPG, although quality are not the same. I still prefer the combat feeling & easiness from Diablo 3 and PoE several depth system that make it fun to discover new mechanic once a while. Titan Quest is still more memorable to me.

Great review as always. Only thing about what I disagree is your opinion on devotion-system. It can easily make a weak build tons of fun to play with. Sure its confusing at start, but when you really get to it things proc like crazy.

oh i thought nobody read the review, well i think i need to clarify

1. devotion system look like meh because we came from MedianXL where proc is king. I see it as the lazy way for a game to add interesting stuff into the game. Skill design that i would be prefer is somehting that play around a skill, then modify it toward whatever you wanted. D3, PoE, Heroes of the Storm, Dota2 and so on. Some of the skill (usually 1 skill per mastery) have an ability subpoint that do this but generally look very boring from design perspective. Some remove cooldown, but made them weaker. Some make it stronger, but add cooldown. While the other is conversion 100% to different damage type. This issue mostly with base 6 vanilla grim dawn mastery.

2. Devotion page is still confusing. I went to forum and there are tons of people asking how they build their devotion. My problem with tree page is inability to decide which tree is the best for my build at a glance. While game like path of exile, usually have their own class / build / weapon / key node that you can try to build around, which have icon represent the focus.

Example, like if i wanted to build lighting 2 hander (my first char, a druid), so i search 2hand bonus, which luckily focused at kraken. Then i search for lightning damage, which was tempest and lastly i search for spear of heaven for more damage. So the struggle was to find the proc that fit your build, useful stats (usually damage) type, AND make sure it fit the progression of specific affinity. I asked my friend, all struggled with the system until they read a guide. The system is good, but the page is not new player friendly. At least to my eyes, path of exile have more user-friendly, mainly because of icons and straight-forward pathing. This affinity system is a curse IMO

*To put in perspective, just imagine if you have a complex skill tree, that required you to spend specific of point in lower skill tier, THEN you have search all over the page to find the requirement that you needed. Yes we do have skill calculator, but you dont have that luxury to pathing in game manually.