need help with builds

[EarlSkrubb]

I've always struggled with building my characters in these games, I'm playing mercenary and I feel like I badly built my character, I'm going the crossbow path and I'm at the last boss of act 1 and I feel like I either don't have enough damage, don't have enough resist or a bit of both.

Is there a good "rule of thumb" to help? or a full on guide? Also, if you respec, what about your skill and support stones? do they "reset" and you get to re-use them to re-spec your skills?

[EarlSkrubb]

For context, I'm not a big A-rpg player, but I have a bunch of friends that like these games and the gameplay of path of exile 2 is, to me, "better" since you can use wasd to move around and the more interactive combat with dodge makes it more "engaging" (to me) so I'd like to get better at building my characters so I can get better at the game.

[pheno]

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard

[EarlSkrubb]

Originally posted by ⬛⬜🟥 🅿🅷Ɛ🅽🅾:

https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard

that's just the trade shop

[LMIB]

HP/Armour all of those help. I'm not sure what skills your class uses, but make sure you're getting damage passives related to your main skill/s. Like more projectile etc. Also weapon is huge, constantly check vendor for upgrade if not craft (transmutation/augmentation) and get something better

[wulfster42]

Ok here are some fast tips.

First your basic attack may be your strongest one, especially vs bosses. Add faster attacks to it and boost it's damage with a passive if you can (or add bleed/poison etc). Lots of ways to increase it's damage and support gems are free on it.

Second you want to check the guy in town that sells crossbows, keep doing so till you can get one that has 2 slots on it (you can also buy other weapons with slots and break them down and add slots to a already good crossbow.

You could also just check poe trade and buy a decent crossbow (probably with no slots though) and then add slots to it. There is a very cheap unique you can buy that is great, but it's mainly for random kiling not bosses. It's base damage is horrid 1d6 physical and cold I think BUT it has 2 (make sure you get one with 2) chain added, which means every shot hits 3 enemies (which means when you shoot 10 shots, they pretty much all hit everything 3 times).

Anyway if you get that unique it'll make random killing through areas and non-bosses insanely easy/fast (like everything just dies). Just add 2 cold runes (each adds 6-12 damage) to it, and now you do 1d6 physical and 13-30 cold every shot and it chains to 3 enemies (that is base). +projectiles from amulet etc will also boost the base damage of your basic attack.

Don't neglect defenses, + max health on equipment, +health regen etc. That'll help in all boss fights alot. Damage though does make them so much easier/faster. Movement speed is a MUST in this game, both for your sanity (moving through the game) and versus boss fights as most have AoE attacks that are telegraphed and you need to get out of them. Other than that constantly move while attacking, never stay still. WASD works really good for that. In combo with rolling you really shouldn't get hit much as a ranged build.

AS far as the boss fight itself. Make sure you have maxed or near maxed cold resist. Saphire rings naturally come with some, when you get them (or see them in the shop), make it magical. If it gets a mod you like, then add another magic mod to it. Do that every so often and you should have 2 good elemental rings of every type that adds damage and hopefully life regen/max life/stats or more resists. You can pretty much always tell the elemental resist you need for a boss. For the act 1 boss, it's cold.

Meanwhile his cold attacks are actually pretty easy to avoid, move back from the one that has all the ice explosions, the further away you are, the more distance between explosions and you can see where they will be. The breathe one just roll to either side and you shouldn't get hit.

The fog thing is really just about rolling and destroying the adds. Really easy with the unique crossbow I mentioned as it hits all of them each time. I lucked out and got one (hadn't even known poe trade was wokring for poe 2 yet at that point), so it made it really easy for my merc (which was my 3rd char so I already got a few uniques by then). Just dodge when he runs through the area, fire, then dodge again when he runs through, the timing is pretty easy).

That should make the fight cake. I think I didn't even get hit/hurt when I fought him as a merc, but I certainly didn't die.

Even early on get str from nodes if you don't need stats for skills/equipment....more strength = more max health and it's not as easy to get max health in this game as poe 1.

You CAN use the other ammo to good effect and you can freeze mr wolf dude, but i'd only bother doing it once tbh. I focused on just doing direct damage to him as fast as possible.

Anyway hope that helps and good luck!

[Alex]

Also on the skill tree the 2 handed weapon damage increase does apply to your crossbow. Helps a bit with the damage.

[wulfster42]

Yep they do and you can tell by hitting shift over a node what will effect your skills/attacks:)

[EarlSkrubb]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

Ok here are some fast tips.

First your basic attack may be your strongest one, especially vs bosses. Add faster attacks to it and boost it's damage with a passive if you can (or add bleed/poison etc). Lots of ways to increase it's damage and support gems are free on it.

Second you want to check the guy in town that sells crossbows, keep doing so till you can get one that has 2 slots on it (you can also buy other weapons with slots and break them down and add slots to a already good crossbow.

You could also just check poe trade and buy a decent crossbow (probably with no slots though) and then add slots to it. There is a very cheap unique you can buy that is great, but it's mainly for random kiling not bosses. It's base damage is horrid 1d6 physical and cold I think BUT it has 2 (make sure you get one with 2) chain added, which means every shot hits 3 enemies (which means when you shoot 10 shots, they pretty much all hit everything 3 times).

Anyway if you get that unique it'll make random killing through areas and non-bosses insanely easy/fast (like everything just dies). Just add 2 cold runes (each adds 6-12 damage) to it, and now you do 1d6 physical and 13-30 cold every shot and it chains to 3 enemies (that is base). +projectiles from amulet etc will also boost the base damage of your basic attack.

Don't neglect defenses, + max health on equipment, +health regen etc. That'll help in all boss fights alot. Damage though does make them so much easier/faster. Movement speed is a MUST in this game, both for your sanity (moving through the game) and versus boss fights as most have AoE attacks that are telegraphed and you need to get out of them. Other than that constantly move while attacking, never stay still. WASD works really good for that. In combo with rolling you really shouldn't get hit much as a ranged build.

AS far as the boss fight itself. Make sure you have maxed or near maxed cold resist. Saphire rings naturally come with some, when you get them (or see them in the shop), make it magical. If it gets a mod you like, then add another magic mod to it. Do that every so often and you should have 2 good elemental rings of every type that adds damage and hopefully life regen/max life/stats or more resists. You can pretty much always tell the elemental resist you need for a boss. For the act 1 boss, it's cold.

Meanwhile his cold attacks are actually pretty easy to avoid, move back from the one that has all the ice explosions, the further away you are, the more distance between explosions and you can see where they will be. The breathe one just roll to either side and you shouldn't get hit.

The fog thing is really just about rolling and destroying the adds. Really easy with the unique crossbow I mentioned as it hits all of them each time. I lucked out and got one (hadn't even known poe trade was wokring for poe 2 yet at that point), so it made it really easy for my merc (which was my 3rd char so I already got a few uniques by then). Just dodge when he runs through the area, fire, then dodge again when he runs through, the timing is pretty easy).

That should make the fight cake. I think I didn't even get hit/hurt when I fought him as a merc, but I certainly didn't die.

Even early on get str from nodes if you don't need stats for skills/equipment....more strength = more max health and it's not as easy to get max health in this game as poe 1.

You CAN use the other ammo to good effect and you can freeze mr wolf dude, but i'd only bother doing it once tbh. I focused on just doing direct damage to him as fast as possible.

Anyway hope that helps and good luck!

thanks I'll check that out tomorrow, can I respect my "uncarved stone" that I previously specked if I need to?

[wulfster42]

Also, you can easily and cheaply respect a tree later, so if you are going for something that is ALONG way away, and you need a ton of points to get there, grab nodes near you that are actually useful for now, and then respect them when you can get to what you really want.

Especially early on attack speed, movement speed, projectile damage, poison/bleed nodes, crit chance/multiplier etc are all really good. For xbow it's nice to get the reload nodes pretty fast and there are a buncha other good nodes right near them, but till you have the points to get there, you can snag the two handed nodes for more damage (which is right by the projectile nodes you initially get).

Don't waste time with life regen % nodes early on as you don't have enough hp to make it worth it yet. .5% of max life per second when you have 300 or less health is very blah (especially since you should have life regen on your eq already).

Don't remember the early nodes of merc that well (was a few chars ago) but you should really focus on boosting your damage potential as much as possible initially. Especially ifyou use the early unique (which is super cheap on trade), all that is gonna matter for almost everything is your damage and attack speed. If you just use the basic attack, put the attack speed support on it, and then maybe the one that makes it not use ammo 25% of the time or something (Don't remember what I used). Double barrel dosn't make sense till later (but still worth it on one of the other amunition types (maybe freeze and you don't want to have to cast that multiple timies if you can avoid it).

Primarily run around using basic attack and freeze ammo initially and everything should just blow up lol. Oh and a good grenade of course.

[wulfster42]

You should get plenty of them as you go through the game......so no need to respec. You also only need 1 of each for all characters, just toss em in the stash and use them on whoever needs it.

[Paranochat]

Originally posted by EarlSkrubb:

thanks I'll check that out tomorrow, can I respect my "uncarved stone" that I previously specked if I need to?

You can move your gems and support gems around all you want freely, but you can't change a cut gem into another skill. You will drop a lot of these though.

Early game with a crossbow, just take all the projectile damage nodes near the start, skip some of them if/when you can get to bigger more interesting ones. You can get the notables giving % armour and evasion near the start as well, but they're not as good as they seem early on.

Early crossbow skills aren't great for clearing, or at least they feel bad because of small clips/slow reload (and overall lack of supports at first) but Permafrost (with double barrel) > Frag shot is a pretty decent combo early on.

High velocity rounds with scattershot is pretty good all around for bossing (big stun, decent damage) or you can just put supports on your basic shot skill, it does decent damage. When you get flash grenade, it can help you stun bosses and rares, a decent tool to have.

(and yeah, if you can find/craft an upgrade for your crossbow, there's a ton of damage potential there. At this early point you only need good physical damage on it (if you have pieces of gear that add flat physical damage, it will give you a boost in damage as well)).

[wulfster42]

Wasn't personally impressed by high velocity rounds myself. Basic shot was pretty much always better for me. The pierce was a big problem since it invalidated the chain ability...which was very strong. You can also get chain nodes in the tree. I was running with the unique that has 2 free chain though, and even vs a boss it was waaay better than using high velocity rounds. I'm sure I COULD have specced it in some way that would have been useful, but I just didn't need it until I had much better options.

[DA2Z]

Don’t bother with builds they just nerf them

[Paranochat]

Originally posted by DA2Z:

Don’t bother with builds they just nerf them

I mean... Gas arrow and grenades were stupidly broken for no investment at all and... that's the point of Early Access. Things will get changed, nerfed, buffed, reworked. Too many people seem to forget that part.