Overview: Ultimatum was a Path of Exile challenge league. The primary mechanic consisted of defeating enemies in order to get items and currency in an all or nothing fashion. Between each round, take what you've earned, or continue with an additional modifier to earn the an additional reward at the risk of being defeated and losing it all. The league started on 20210416 and ended 20210719.
20210417:
I didn't play until the day after the first day of the league.
20210419:
Today I thought about not playing and giving up, but I decided to push towards hitting at least maps. The build was beginning to feel more powerful. I was able to get all the energy shield required, but didn't have the flasks I needed. Without the right flasks, 5000 energy shield (ES) was hard for me to play.
I called it a night after a couple of white maps and two trials. I gave away a portal for the second trial but the person didn't tip.
20210428:
I'm still missing two trials: Burning Rage and Swirling Fear.
20210429:
Entered a free Swirling Fear on Global 820 and naturally got the Burning Rage.
20210517:
Today I reached and defeated Sirus Awakening Level 5 (A5 Sirus). Officially the character shows played 5 days, 0 hours, 47 minutes, and 2 seconds. With respect to Steam, 131.6 hours. In Ritual, it took me 130.6 hours to get to A5 Sirus (but couldn't defeat him). In any case, I felt maps proceeded slower this league. In other words, given my experience, if I were to replay Ritual, I could probably reach A5 Sirus in 100 hours. Note that my mood and mental state also come into play: my notes during Ritual indicate signs of boredom and research.
Gameplay Log:
- Defeated Sirus on the fourth portal.
- First portal was wasted because the character got stuck in the wall of his one move.
- I actually almost defeated him during the second portal
- Third portal was wasted due to the storm (couldn't even reach him)
- Fourth portal removed that last tick of his health.
- Theoretically, if everything went well, it's possible I could have defeated A5 Sirus in one pass
- Note: replacing my Jade Flask of Warding with Sorrow of the Divine was useful
- Note: I used Arakali (with Queen of the Great Tangle and Gisale) and had Abberath, but probably should have used Ryslatha
- Sirus dropped a Crown of the Inward Eye and an Ivory Watchstone.
On a different note, I recently reached about 50% XP on the way to level 94, dropped down to about 40%, roller coastered up and down, and eventually blew it all away. That was disappointing. But being able to do A5 Sirus this early was win.
20210518:
Today I ran Doryani's Machinarium and got a Doryani's Delusion Slink Boots. Following up on my recent loss of leveling experience, today I was able to smoothly go from 93 to 94. Perhaps previous strategy of being cautious backfired in that "slowly gaining XP with a very low possibly of dying, and then dying" is worse than "quickly gaining XP with a higher possibly of dying, but not."
20210519:
I'm 29% of the way to level 95.
20210520:
I encountered the Trialmaster for the first time and lost.
20210521:
Today I did a lot of theorizing and other non-gameplay activity. In terms of experience, I made it back up to 30% of the way to level 95.
20210522:
I continue to focus on tracking experience. I ended today at a net of 40% of the way to level 95. Note that I have thus far had 187 deaths.
20210523:
Today I reached and defeated Sirus Awakening Level 6.
Gameplay Log
- Defeated Sirus on the fourth portal.
- During the initial encounter, I was barely doing damage and I realized that I didn't have some auras on (which is a significant amount of my damage). I got to the beam part and died.
- Then I think I nicked him some on the second portal and on the third portal I died to his beam while navigating my way back towards him
- Sirus dropped a Hands of the High Templar
20210524:
Gameplay Log: - Defeated level 82 Catarina
- Catarina dropped a Bitterbind Point.
- Gambled a Succor of the Sinless divination card (Bottled Faith) and lost it; that's a loss of approximately 2.2 exalted; in hindsight, trading it in for a guaranteed Awakened would have been better for me at this stage in the game
20210525:
Today I bought an Awakened Swift Affiliation and I can feel the power boost!
20210528:
I don't want to jinx it, but so far I'm 84% of the way to level 95. I think I died once today and started at around 50% or 60%. In any case, I was thinking about trying to go for 100%, but decided that would be risky since I already had some moments where I fell asleep while playing.
20210529:
Today I reached level 95!The character has been played for 7 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes, and 45 seconds with a total of 215 deaths. That's 28 deaths since I was at a net of 40% of the way to level 95 on 20210522 and at most 45.1 hours since I had reached level 94 on 20210518. In any case, the cool part is that I achieved this on my own as opposed to joining Beachhead parties (there's nothing wrong with joining Beachhead runs, I'm just contrasting how my previous characters had reached a similar level as this in the past).
Gampelay Log:
- Oh no! I died twice during today's first session so I dropped a lot of XP
- Did Vinktar Square and got Vessel of Vinktar. Unfortunately, it's "only" 18 chaos.
- During a Heist contract, combat was getting spicy, an exalted dropped and I almost thought I would die and not get it; in the end, I sruvived and managed to get it
- Within a minute of grabbing the exalted orb, I also managed to reach 100% to level up to 95!
- There was some Heist gear that I decided to leave in order to secure the exalted orb
20210530:
Today I reached and defeated Sirus Awakening Level 7.
Gameplay Log:
- Bought the last Awakened skill gem for the main skill set-up in my build: Awakened Controlled Destruction. My remaining currency consists of 8 exalt shard and 138 chaos. Feeling poor again.
- Defeated Sirus using the fourth portal.
- I wasted the third portal by dying to the storm.
- Sirus dropped a Thread of Hope (with small ring radius) and an Ivory Watchstone
- Not bad. Hopefully I don't jinx it but I'm 34% of the way to level 96
20210531:
I was doing well with respect to leveling experience. I got it to about 54% of the way to level 96. Unfortunately, I then died twice in Maven's Invitation: New Vastir (~80% quantity), followed by two deaths in a map, and one death at the hand of Drox. So now I'm only at 17% of the way to level 96. On bright side, a Titanium Watchstone dropped from the Maven's Invitation. I ended the day at 22%.
20210601:
Today I fell to 10% of the way to level 96, so I think it's best if I don't try to fixate on it; level 95 is a good spot. In any case, I reached Sirus Awakening Level 8 and just barely defeated him. I entered the last portal and I almost saw my life bar vanish as he was defeated. I'm not sure of the type of damage being applied to me, but I suppose it could have been possible for me to both defeat him while simultaneously dying myself (which in terms of loot, would have been equivalent to not defeating him).
Gameplay Log:
- Barely defeated Sirus on the sixth portal.
- Sirus dropped a Crown of the Inward Eye
- It's possible I could have done better had I remembered to use Soul of Ryslatha from the beginning. I think I first switched to it for the fifth portal
- Second portal was a waste as I couldn't get back to his inner circle. Not as much as a waste as those times when I run into his storm...
- I later spent the bulk of time transitioning to a defensive version of the build.
20210602:
I'm trying out this new defensive version of the Cold Snap Vortex build I was playing. I call it Vortex 2.0. In any case, it feels weird. Perhaps the drop in DPS is significant. It could also just be the maps I was running.
20210605:
Today I came up with the plan that I do want to level at least one more level and that I would do it by alternating Delve with Lex Proxima. By the end of the day I got to 51% of the way to level 96.
20210606:
This morning I realized that if I had a second character, then I could use the second character to do the more risky Conquerers and Sirus fights. But it was a matter of figuring out which character to play. I thought perhaps I'd try an Ice Spear Cyclone build that seems popular. Either that or a Cold Blade Blast. As I continue to do research, I learn that Blade Blast builds using Cloak of Defiance is commonly done with Lightning. Before leveling up this new character, I had about 30K sulphite to spend.
Gameplay Log: - 30K sulphite to spend
- Death setting me back to about 46%. I suspect there's lag. About ten minutes later I d/c'd.
- Including some gameplay at 20210607 1 AM
- Another death, back to 46%.
20210607:
Today I started a new character. I started playing around 11 PM and continued well into the morning. By the end of the session, the build was starting to feel good. While the eventual build would be a Bladefall Blade Blast (BFBB) Archmage, the build levels using Lightning Trap and so I referred to a Lightning Trapper build to help guide me through the leveling process.
20210608:
I got to start of Act 9 with the Lightning Trapper. The character has been played for 13 hours, 4 minutes, and 59 seconds. I guess this is why some players choose to play characters they've already played before when League starting: it removes a lot of the decision making required of a new character which consumes time. Perhaps my next League-start character will be one that I try and learn to repeat the game with. Maybe even this Lightning Trapper!
20210609:
I should get in the habit of not doing any essence or strongboxes while leveling. This new character has been played for 17 hours, 23 minutes, and 49 seconds with less than 45 deaths.* I'm almost finishing up the transition from Lightning Trapper to BFBB Archmage.
*On 20210610, I hit 45 deaths after a couple of deaths while running a Tier 5 map
20210611:
Today I got the BFBB Archmage to level 80. This latter part felt smoother. Starting around level 70, I was just doing Tier 5 maps (with some Tier 4 maps earlier on). Hitting level 80 means I'll have to start doing Tier 9 and/or Tier 10 maps.
Played 1 day, 1 hour, 30 minutes, and 25 seconds with 62 deaths. I think ending this build at level 90 should be the limit.
20210612:
Returning to my Vortex build, I died to lag in the Azurite Mine. This dropped the character to 51%. I'm not sure what hit me. I saw my life ticking down and hit all my flasks but I still died. It's possible I had Vaal Discipline available and using it could have saved me, but I'm not sure. Anyways back at 57%* and running low on sulphite (8545 sulphite remaining).
*My notes indicate "47%" but that doesn't make sense given the earlier statement indicationg "51%."
20210614:
Oh my goodness. So my Vortex character, Vortexada, was at 78% on the the way to level 96, and I was being protective, so I sent my BFBB Archmage to do a Maven's Invitation with 10 bosses. Unfortunately, the character wasn't doing well and burned through the first five portals. As such, I decided to send in Vortexada in on the last portal to try and salvage the situation, but died. One mistake was that I forgot to socket back in the two gems which I lent to the BFBB character (i.e., I was trying to salvage the situation on a 4L). In hindsight, it would have been better to do the encounter with Vortexada from the beginning, since defeating each enemy as fast as possible eliminates the danger of accumulating multiple bosses. In addition, I could have (and should have) just done it white.
Now I'm back at 68% and lost 10 maps worth of Maven progress for that region.
On the bright side, I eventually did make it to level 96! Vortexada was played for 9 days, 23 hours, 37 minutes, and 58 seconds with 256 deaths. My main strategy in the end was running Tier 14 and Tier 15 Lex Proxima maps (Chisel + Alch + 3 Frag + Sextents), running Delve, and not dying. I might try for level 97, but first I would do some leveling of Maven and ignore XP. Maybe I can try leveling with Heist, since I have a ton of Heist maps. Note that I was getting about 40M XP per hour in Delve (which is probably super slow, but I was happy with it).
Interestingly, now that I have earned this extra passive point (the only benefit of going from level 95 to level 96), I don't know what to do with it!
For some reference, my past all-time highest level character is a level 97 Pathfinder Scourge Arrow build in Heist (Joalla) followed by a level 96 Slayer Cyclone build in Delirium (Triagano). This character now ties with the Slayer Cyclone character, but this character is cool because I did it all on my own (no leeching off Beachhead or Breachstone runs).
Gameplay Log: - Defeated A8 Sirus on the third portal (this somewhat verifies my hypothesis on 20210601 regarding my ability to have defeated Sirus with a better margin)
- Second portal was wasted to storm
- I equipped Blood of the Karui and Sorrow of the Divine (in addition to Basalt, Quiksilver, and Rumi's)
- Sirus dropped Hands of the High Templar
20210618:
Ouch. My greed led to three deaths in a single map: one death from Delirum packs being too dense and two deaths from the Elder Guardian that uses lightning (probably The Eradicator) with the presence of the elemental weakness mod on the map. That put me back to 24% on the way to level 97 from about 50%. What a mistake.
It turns out though my Vortex Cold Snap character is way more powerful than my BFBB character. To be fair, the former is at a much higher level, but I definitely took the progression and DPS attainment of my main for granted. For additional context, I had my BFBB character have one or two attempts at fighting the Elder Guardian. Making a BLEACH reference, Vortexada was like a Captain and Benderdondatbee was like a Lieutenant; huge power difference.
In any case, I followed up with another two deaths in yet another Elder-influenced map. So now the character is back at 10%. I guess if the aim was to level up, then I should do any Elder-influenced maps! Ha! This was also a new enemy I never encountered before that used fire pillars (probably The Enslaver).
To end the day, I played a final session where in one of the maps I got an exalted orb from Ultimatum followed by an exalted orb drop from Abyss. First time getting exalt orbs from two different league mechanics in a single map! At least as far as I can remember.
With one additional death somewhere, I ended the day with 10%.
20210619:
Two deaths occurred today and I'm back to 15%. I'm getting bored of the grind. Perhaps I should play another game.
20210627:
Ended the day at 64% of the way to level 97.
20210628:
Ended the day at 92% of the way to level 97.
20210629:
Finally reached level 97! Played 11 days, 20 hours, 46 minutes, and 29 seconds with 271 deaths. A little over 45 hours elapsed from level 96 to level 97. In theory I could have done it in much less time if I had focused purely on leveling over running maps. After all, I "only" had 15 deaths from level 96 to level 97.
With respect to running Heist contracts, I feel as if doing at least blues or yellow Heist contracts is worth the time over just running contracts white. Additionally, I would remark that engineering sucks. In contrast, deception is definitely a good choice. In general, spending time running only contracts for Gianna is WORTH (Deception level 5, Counter-Thaumaturgy level 3, Perception level 2). The next best after Gianna is lockpicking with Karst. Note that engineering sucks, because it's easy to miss the engineering room that shuts off the barrage of attacks, and those attacks are deadly.
20210630:
Today I tackled a handful of endgame bosses. Noteworthy considering I haven't faced many of these bosses before. With that being said, I did prep by watching videos on YouTube.
Gameplay Log: - Defeated Catarina on the fifth portal.
- Defeated Maven on the last portal.
- On the fifth portal I died to the last phase of the memory game.
- Defeated Shaper on the second portal
- After defeating him, I hid behind Zana, left through a portal, reentered and walked past Zana, I guess the Shaper didn't explode yet, and so he killed me. As such, I used the third portal to collect the items.
- Defeated Atziri in the Alluring Abyss on the third portal.
20210710:
Gameplay Log:
- Defeated A8 Sirus on the fourth portal.
- The first death was kind of stupid and I forgot to take Ryslatha.
20210717:
Gameplay Log:
- Defeated A8 Sirus on the fifth portal.
The above entries were added on 20210822.
20210829 Comment: This league felt good because currency was easy to come by with the league mechanic. Just run a map, run the Trials of Chaos, and get a couple of chaos. Another great aspect of the mechanic was that it didn't require thinking, because for the most part I just had to decide whether I could continue with adding more difficulty mods and reap the rewards. In contrast, Ritual required looking through a bunch of items and choosing which items to purchase and/or defer. On the other hand, I thought it was ridiculous how rare the Trialmaster showed up. To top it off, I don't think I even got any significant drops from him. In general, I dislike the heavy RNG nature of the game.
Throughout the league, I went through some variations of the Vortex build. Combining those iterations, I spent approximately 6000 chaos on it. Meanwhile, I spent about 548 chaos on my BBBF Archmage build. For comparison, I technically spent 1850 chaos on my primary Ritual build (BBBF), with a theoretical spend of 4450 chaos (see my Ritual post for details), and 525 chaos into my secondary Ritual build. As I mentioned earlier, the league was filled with more currency and I managed to participate in acquiring some of it.
In my Ritual league post, I made a table of purchases and a table of sales with a minimum cutoff of 1.5 exalt. I'll use the same cutoff with a small increase in chaos equivalent: 175 chaos.
The following were my purchases involving at least 175 chaos or 1.5 exalt:
It appears my sales this league pale in comparison to my sales last league. That also means I spent more time acquiring currency from maps. In any case, the following are my sales with a minimum cutoff of 1.5 exalt or 175 chaos:
I made some big purchases this league.
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This league had an extra week compared to the last. With respect to hours played, I put about 57 more hours into the game this league than the last. Overall, the previous league saw greater initial investment of time while this league saw a more consistent level of play with a spike in the middle.
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| Vortexada (Cold Snap Vortex) early on |
20210417:
I didn't play until the day after the first day of the league.
20210419:
Today I thought about not playing and giving up, but I decided to push towards hitting at least maps. The build was beginning to feel more powerful. I was able to get all the energy shield required, but didn't have the flasks I needed. Without the right flasks, 5000 energy shield (ES) was hard for me to play.
I called it a night after a couple of white maps and two trials. I gave away a portal for the second trial but the person didn't tip.
20210428:
I'm still missing two trials: Burning Rage and Swirling Fear.
20210429:
Entered a free Swirling Fear on Global 820 and naturally got the Burning Rage.
20210517:
Today I reached and defeated Sirus Awakening Level 5 (A5 Sirus). Officially the character shows played 5 days, 0 hours, 47 minutes, and 2 seconds. With respect to Steam, 131.6 hours. In Ritual, it took me 130.6 hours to get to A5 Sirus (but couldn't defeat him). In any case, I felt maps proceeded slower this league. In other words, given my experience, if I were to replay Ritual, I could probably reach A5 Sirus in 100 hours. Note that my mood and mental state also come into play: my notes during Ritual indicate signs of boredom and research.
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| A Tabula Rasa shows up in Ultimatum! |
Gameplay Log:
- Defeated Sirus on the fourth portal.
- First portal was wasted because the character got stuck in the wall of his one move.
- I actually almost defeated him during the second portal
- Third portal was wasted due to the storm (couldn't even reach him)
- Fourth portal removed that last tick of his health.
- Theoretically, if everything went well, it's possible I could have defeated A5 Sirus in one pass
- Note: replacing my Jade Flask of Warding with Sorrow of the Divine was useful
- Note: I used Arakali (with Queen of the Great Tangle and Gisale) and had Abberath, but probably should have used Ryslatha
- Sirus dropped a Crown of the Inward Eye and an Ivory Watchstone.
On a different note, I recently reached about 50% XP on the way to level 94, dropped down to about 40%, roller coastered up and down, and eventually blew it all away. That was disappointing. But being able to do A5 Sirus this early was win.
20210518:
Today I ran Doryani's Machinarium and got a Doryani's Delusion Slink Boots. Following up on my recent loss of leveling experience, today I was able to smoothly go from 93 to 94. Perhaps previous strategy of being cautious backfired in that "slowly gaining XP with a very low possibly of dying, and then dying" is worse than "quickly gaining XP with a higher possibly of dying, but not."
20210519:
I'm 29% of the way to level 95.
20210520:
I encountered the Trialmaster for the first time and lost.
20210521:
Today I did a lot of theorizing and other non-gameplay activity. In terms of experience, I made it back up to 30% of the way to level 95.
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| Vortexada |
20210522:
I continue to focus on tracking experience. I ended today at a net of 40% of the way to level 95. Note that I have thus far had 187 deaths.
20210523:
Today I reached and defeated Sirus Awakening Level 6.
Gameplay Log
- Defeated Sirus on the fourth portal.
- During the initial encounter, I was barely doing damage and I realized that I didn't have some auras on (which is a significant amount of my damage). I got to the beam part and died.
- Then I think I nicked him some on the second portal and on the third portal I died to his beam while navigating my way back towards him
- Sirus dropped a Hands of the High Templar
20210524:
Gameplay Log: - Defeated level 82 Catarina
- Catarina dropped a Bitterbind Point.
- Gambled a Succor of the Sinless divination card (Bottled Faith) and lost it; that's a loss of approximately 2.2 exalted; in hindsight, trading it in for a guaranteed Awakened would have been better for me at this stage in the game
20210525:
Today I bought an Awakened Swift Affiliation and I can feel the power boost!
20210528:
I don't want to jinx it, but so far I'm 84% of the way to level 95. I think I died once today and started at around 50% or 60%. In any case, I was thinking about trying to go for 100%, but decided that would be risky since I already had some moments where I fell asleep while playing.
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| Some exalted shards from Blight |
20210529:
Today I reached level 95!The character has been played for 7 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes, and 45 seconds with a total of 215 deaths. That's 28 deaths since I was at a net of 40% of the way to level 95 on 20210522 and at most 45.1 hours since I had reached level 94 on 20210518. In any case, the cool part is that I achieved this on my own as opposed to joining Beachhead parties (there's nothing wrong with joining Beachhead runs, I'm just contrasting how my previous characters had reached a similar level as this in the past).
Gampelay Log:
- Oh no! I died twice during today's first session so I dropped a lot of XP
- Did Vinktar Square and got Vessel of Vinktar. Unfortunately, it's "only" 18 chaos.
- During a Heist contract, combat was getting spicy, an exalted dropped and I almost thought I would die and not get it; in the end, I sruvived and managed to get it
- Within a minute of grabbing the exalted orb, I also managed to reach 100% to level up to 95!
- There was some Heist gear that I decided to leave in order to secure the exalted orb
20210530:
Today I reached and defeated Sirus Awakening Level 7.
Gameplay Log:
- Bought the last Awakened skill gem for the main skill set-up in my build: Awakened Controlled Destruction. My remaining currency consists of 8 exalt shard and 138 chaos. Feeling poor again.
- Defeated Sirus using the fourth portal.
- I wasted the third portal by dying to the storm.
- Sirus dropped a Thread of Hope (with small ring radius) and an Ivory Watchstone
- Not bad. Hopefully I don't jinx it but I'm 34% of the way to level 96
20210531:
I was doing well with respect to leveling experience. I got it to about 54% of the way to level 96. Unfortunately, I then died twice in Maven's Invitation: New Vastir (~80% quantity), followed by two deaths in a map, and one death at the hand of Drox. So now I'm only at 17% of the way to level 96. On bright side, a Titanium Watchstone dropped from the Maven's Invitation. I ended the day at 22%.
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| Ultimatum offers 3 exalted shards after 2 have been rewarded! |
20210601:
Today I fell to 10% of the way to level 96, so I think it's best if I don't try to fixate on it; level 95 is a good spot. In any case, I reached Sirus Awakening Level 8 and just barely defeated him. I entered the last portal and I almost saw my life bar vanish as he was defeated. I'm not sure of the type of damage being applied to me, but I suppose it could have been possible for me to both defeat him while simultaneously dying myself (which in terms of loot, would have been equivalent to not defeating him).
Gameplay Log:
- Barely defeated Sirus on the sixth portal.
- Sirus dropped a Crown of the Inward Eye
- It's possible I could have done better had I remembered to use Soul of Ryslatha from the beginning. I think I first switched to it for the fifth portal
- Second portal was a waste as I couldn't get back to his inner circle. Not as much as a waste as those times when I run into his storm...
- I later spent the bulk of time transitioning to a defensive version of the build.
20210602:
I'm trying out this new defensive version of the Cold Snap Vortex build I was playing. I call it Vortex 2.0. In any case, it feels weird. Perhaps the drop in DPS is significant. It could also just be the maps I was running.
20210605:
Today I came up with the plan that I do want to level at least one more level and that I would do it by alternating Delve with Lex Proxima. By the end of the day I got to 51% of the way to level 96.
20210606:
This morning I realized that if I had a second character, then I could use the second character to do the more risky Conquerers and Sirus fights. But it was a matter of figuring out which character to play. I thought perhaps I'd try an Ice Spear Cyclone build that seems popular. Either that or a Cold Blade Blast. As I continue to do research, I learn that Blade Blast builds using Cloak of Defiance is commonly done with Lightning. Before leveling up this new character, I had about 30K sulphite to spend.
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| Vortexada in the Vaal Reliquary |
Gameplay Log: - 30K sulphite to spend
- Death setting me back to about 46%. I suspect there's lag. About ten minutes later I d/c'd.
- Including some gameplay at 20210607 1 AM
- Another death, back to 46%.
20210607:
Today I started a new character. I started playing around 11 PM and continued well into the morning. By the end of the session, the build was starting to feel good. While the eventual build would be a Bladefall Blade Blast (BFBB) Archmage, the build levels using Lightning Trap and so I referred to a Lightning Trapper build to help guide me through the leveling process.
20210608:
I got to start of Act 9 with the Lightning Trapper. The character has been played for 13 hours, 4 minutes, and 59 seconds. I guess this is why some players choose to play characters they've already played before when League starting: it removes a lot of the decision making required of a new character which consumes time. Perhaps my next League-start character will be one that I try and learn to repeat the game with. Maybe even this Lightning Trapper!
20210609:
I should get in the habit of not doing any essence or strongboxes while leveling. This new character has been played for 17 hours, 23 minutes, and 49 seconds with less than 45 deaths.* I'm almost finishing up the transition from Lightning Trapper to BFBB Archmage.
*On 20210610, I hit 45 deaths after a couple of deaths while running a Tier 5 map
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| Benderdondatbee (BFBB Archmage) |
20210611:
Today I got the BFBB Archmage to level 80. This latter part felt smoother. Starting around level 70, I was just doing Tier 5 maps (with some Tier 4 maps earlier on). Hitting level 80 means I'll have to start doing Tier 9 and/or Tier 10 maps.
Played 1 day, 1 hour, 30 minutes, and 25 seconds with 62 deaths. I think ending this build at level 90 should be the limit.
20210612:
Returning to my Vortex build, I died to lag in the Azurite Mine. This dropped the character to 51%. I'm not sure what hit me. I saw my life ticking down and hit all my flasks but I still died. It's possible I had Vaal Discipline available and using it could have saved me, but I'm not sure. Anyways back at 57%* and running low on sulphite (8545 sulphite remaining).
*My notes indicate "47%" but that doesn't make sense given the earlier statement indicationg "51%."
20210614:
Oh my goodness. So my Vortex character, Vortexada, was at 78% on the the way to level 96, and I was being protective, so I sent my BFBB Archmage to do a Maven's Invitation with 10 bosses. Unfortunately, the character wasn't doing well and burned through the first five portals. As such, I decided to send in Vortexada in on the last portal to try and salvage the situation, but died. One mistake was that I forgot to socket back in the two gems which I lent to the BFBB character (i.e., I was trying to salvage the situation on a 4L). In hindsight, it would have been better to do the encounter with Vortexada from the beginning, since defeating each enemy as fast as possible eliminates the danger of accumulating multiple bosses. In addition, I could have (and should have) just done it white.
Now I'm back at 68% and lost 10 maps worth of Maven progress for that region.
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| Ultimatum offers an exalted orb! |
On the bright side, I eventually did make it to level 96! Vortexada was played for 9 days, 23 hours, 37 minutes, and 58 seconds with 256 deaths. My main strategy in the end was running Tier 14 and Tier 15 Lex Proxima maps (Chisel + Alch + 3 Frag + Sextents), running Delve, and not dying. I might try for level 97, but first I would do some leveling of Maven and ignore XP. Maybe I can try leveling with Heist, since I have a ton of Heist maps. Note that I was getting about 40M XP per hour in Delve (which is probably super slow, but I was happy with it).
Interestingly, now that I have earned this extra passive point (the only benefit of going from level 95 to level 96), I don't know what to do with it!
For some reference, my past all-time highest level character is a level 97 Pathfinder Scourge Arrow build in Heist (Joalla) followed by a level 96 Slayer Cyclone build in Delirium (Triagano). This character now ties with the Slayer Cyclone character, but this character is cool because I did it all on my own (no leeching off Beachhead or Breachstone runs).
Gameplay Log: - Defeated A8 Sirus on the third portal (this somewhat verifies my hypothesis on 20210601 regarding my ability to have defeated Sirus with a better margin)
- Second portal was wasted to storm
- I equipped Blood of the Karui and Sorrow of the Divine (in addition to Basalt, Quiksilver, and Rumi's)
- Sirus dropped Hands of the High Templar
20210618:
Ouch. My greed led to three deaths in a single map: one death from Delirum packs being too dense and two deaths from the Elder Guardian that uses lightning (probably The Eradicator) with the presence of the elemental weakness mod on the map. That put me back to 24% on the way to level 97 from about 50%. What a mistake.
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| I defeated the Maven!!! |
It turns out though my Vortex Cold Snap character is way more powerful than my BFBB character. To be fair, the former is at a much higher level, but I definitely took the progression and DPS attainment of my main for granted. For additional context, I had my BFBB character have one or two attempts at fighting the Elder Guardian. Making a BLEACH reference, Vortexada was like a Captain and Benderdondatbee was like a Lieutenant; huge power difference.
In any case, I followed up with another two deaths in yet another Elder-influenced map. So now the character is back at 10%. I guess if the aim was to level up, then I should do any Elder-influenced maps! Ha! This was also a new enemy I never encountered before that used fire pillars (probably The Enslaver).
To end the day, I played a final session where in one of the maps I got an exalted orb from Ultimatum followed by an exalted orb drop from Abyss. First time getting exalt orbs from two different league mechanics in a single map! At least as far as I can remember.
With one additional death somewhere, I ended the day with 10%.
20210619:
Two deaths occurred today and I'm back to 15%. I'm getting bored of the grind. Perhaps I should play another game.
20210627:
Ended the day at 64% of the way to level 97.
20210628:
Ended the day at 92% of the way to level 97.
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| An exalted shard from Ritual |
20210629:
Finally reached level 97! Played 11 days, 20 hours, 46 minutes, and 29 seconds with 271 deaths. A little over 45 hours elapsed from level 96 to level 97. In theory I could have done it in much less time if I had focused purely on leveling over running maps. After all, I "only" had 15 deaths from level 96 to level 97.
With respect to running Heist contracts, I feel as if doing at least blues or yellow Heist contracts is worth the time over just running contracts white. Additionally, I would remark that engineering sucks. In contrast, deception is definitely a good choice. In general, spending time running only contracts for Gianna is WORTH (Deception level 5, Counter-Thaumaturgy level 3, Perception level 2). The next best after Gianna is lockpicking with Karst. Note that engineering sucks, because it's easy to miss the engineering room that shuts off the barrage of attacks, and those attacks are deadly.
20210630:
Today I tackled a handful of endgame bosses. Noteworthy considering I haven't faced many of these bosses before. With that being said, I did prep by watching videos on YouTube.
Gameplay Log: - Defeated Catarina on the fifth portal.
- Defeated Maven on the last portal.
- On the fifth portal I died to the last phase of the memory game.
- Defeated Shaper on the second portal
- After defeating him, I hid behind Zana, left through a portal, reentered and walked past Zana, I guess the Shaper didn't explode yet, and so he killed me. As such, I used the third portal to collect the items.
- Defeated Atziri in the Alluring Abyss on the third portal.
20210710:
Gameplay Log:
- Defeated A8 Sirus on the fourth portal.
- The first death was kind of stupid and I forgot to take Ryslatha.
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| A Warlord's exalted orb - my first ever conqueror's exalted orb |
20210717:
Gameplay Log:
- Defeated A8 Sirus on the fifth portal.
The above entries were added on 20210822.
20210829 Comment: This league felt good because currency was easy to come by with the league mechanic. Just run a map, run the Trials of Chaos, and get a couple of chaos. Another great aspect of the mechanic was that it didn't require thinking, because for the most part I just had to decide whether I could continue with adding more difficulty mods and reap the rewards. In contrast, Ritual required looking through a bunch of items and choosing which items to purchase and/or defer. On the other hand, I thought it was ridiculous how rare the Trialmaster showed up. To top it off, I don't think I even got any significant drops from him. In general, I dislike the heavy RNG nature of the game.
Throughout the league, I went through some variations of the Vortex build. Combining those iterations, I spent approximately 6000 chaos on it. Meanwhile, I spent about 548 chaos on my BBBF Archmage build. For comparison, I technically spent 1850 chaos on my primary Ritual build (BBBF), with a theoretical spend of 4450 chaos (see my Ritual post for details), and 525 chaos into my secondary Ritual build. As I mentioned earlier, the league was filled with more currency and I managed to participate in acquiring some of it.
In my Ritual league post, I made a table of purchases and a table of sales with a minimum cutoff of 1.5 exalt. I'll use the same cutoff with a small increase in chaos equivalent: 175 chaos.
The following were my purchases involving at least 175 chaos or 1.5 exalt:
| Item | Price | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Shavronne's Wrappings | 1 exalt 88 chaos | (1 ex is 147.9 c) |
| Sceptre | 4 exalt 150 chaos | (1 ex is 150.1 c) Likely my biggest purchase to date. But it was worth it. The "craft up to 3 modifiers" alone is worth 2 ex. |
| Awakened Swift Affliction Support | 2 exalt | (1 ex is 140.1 c) |
| Level 2 20% Awakened Elemental Focus Support | 1.4 exalt 101 chaos | (1 ex is 140.1 c) |
| Awakened Controlled Destruction Support | 2 exalt 55 chaos | (1 ex is 111 c) |
| Shield | 2 exalt | (1 ex is 116.3 c) |
| Large Cluster Jewel | 2 exalt | (1 ex is 121.3 c) |
| Bottled Faith | 12 exalt | (1 ex is 120.6 c) A purchase to top the 5 ex sceptre above! |
| Boots | 330 chaos | (1 ex is 109.9 c) |
| Crystal Belt | 4 exalt 105 chaos | (1 ex is 104 chaos) Tying my sceptre purchase... |
It appears my sales this league pale in comparison to my sales last league. That also means I spent more time acquiring currency from maps. In any case, the following are my sales with a minimum cutoff of 1.5 exalt or 175 chaos:
| Item | Price | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Jewel | 3 exalt | (1 ex is 153 c) |
| Jewel | 2 exalt | (1 ex is 147 c) |
| Jewel | 3 exalt | (1 ex is 114 c) |
| Gloves | 2 exalt 60 chaos | (1 ex is 115.5 c) I purchased these gloves for 55 c |
| Jewel | 2 exalt | (1 ex is 118.3 c) When I saw this jewel, I thought about keeping it for my SA character that's now in Standard. |
| Helmet | 2 exalt -60 chaos | (1 exalt is 120.1 chaos) |
| Jewel | 2 exalt | (1 ex is 120.1 c) |
I made some big purchases this league.
This league had an extra week compared to the last. With respect to hours played, I put about 57 more hours into the game this league than the last. Overall, the previous league saw greater initial investment of time while this league saw a more consistent level of play with a spike in the middle.
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