SSF Blight HC Lvl 84 Occultist Witch, Nerferella Ascended!

in #gaming5 years ago

Posted on my PoE Facebook Community:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/pathofexilehideout

So this is possibly the most amateur video I have done to date. But I wanted to celebrate a big SSFHC milestone for me. 😆

As indicated by the title, I finally ascended one of my witches. It's also the first time I have even been in an Uber Lab across any league. I really wasn't sure what to expect as far as how much Izaro and the traps would hurt me.

The first few minutes of the vid I talk about my experience getting to this point. Then I just show sections of the Lab itself with a couple of trap series (you'll see me do nothing for a few secs here and there as I think thru my next steps), and I've also included each fight, in which I was slammed hard in fight 1 and fight 3. Then I end with a few minutes on my thoughts watching back my own lab performance. It was a bad performance too!😆

You'll need to turn up to volume as I didn't have any audio gear, and a lot of umms and ahhs as I didn't bother to script it. I am also too lazy to re-record to remove repetitions and rambles, or the fact that youtube has cropped the vid! Apologies for all its imperfection.

tl;dr (or watch) - Level 84 and a fully ascended Occultist Witch is my best result to date! Still glowing with satisfaction that I don't have to visit Izaro or do another trial/lab for the rest of this league if I don't want to!!

Yayyyy!!!

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Ooh. Look who's back: not one but two missing gamers. Are either of you preparing to dip your toes into newsteem? You've missed a lot of drama and interesting happenings. But congratulations on your ascension :)

lol Hi Nikv!!!!
I'm a retired gamer for now.
How is newsteem coming along? I've seen a few small dramas. Have the changes been a good thing? I'm still not sure how I feel about the free downvotes and separate downvote rewards pool. A lot of people have stopped posting. Downvoting to $0 is harsh; we should be educating people not just downvote to $0 and leave it as that. Also with the rewards curve, it will be hard for minnows to reach 10 steem in order to get the better post rewards payout since votes are worth less when the post has earned under 10 steem. A lot of people have stopped posting. Yes some were shit posts; but some were good too. I've seen some double standards but I don't want to get involved. Lets see how the newsteem pans out. I would be interested to know if interaction/commenting has increased or decreased since now voting on a comment is even worth less too.

I am liking newsteem, I'm working as a curator on the Curangel project and I am seeing a lot of smaller accounts finally earning more than cents because there is a lot of curation going on and I have seen many people who make an effort to post interesting things are finally getting recognised and rewarded.

The downvoting is a bit of a double-edged thing because there's a fair amount of revenge behaviour going on but on the other hand, it's gotten the bidbots to behave and some abusive accounts to stop farming and that means more rewards in the pool for the smaller fishes.

At the current price of steem, it hasn't been possible to reward comments for a very long time but people are still engaging.

I'm feeling like Steem is finally moving in a good direction.

How are you and how is Soju?

I was wondering why you haven't posted lately; you've been busy curating. Good to hear there has been more curating going on and the smaller fishes are getting rewarded for their efforts. I do hope that continues and encourages more genuine interactions between people.

I've been just ok; haven't been feeling well for the past 2 weeks. Headaches and feeling tired everyday; hard to concentrate and do things. I've been getting asthma attacks when I smell pollen (even freshly cut grass); I dont react to all pollen; must be certain ones; but how could you even tell by smell. I would start to react within seconds of smelling it; the coughing increases in a short amount of time. It is the first time this is happening and it has been getting worse. I was lucky my last attack (which was the worst attack so far) I had already gone to buy a new asthma pump reliever because my old one had expired. I've been to the docs and he has given me advice on how to manage it and prescribed me something if it is really bad and my reliever doesn't help. But he said it may be just a seasonal change thing since my asthma was never bad in the past. Well I do hope that is the case and it goes away soon.

Soju on the other hand; is naughty as usual and even more crazy about grass. She is so addicted to it where we were able to teach her how to do a 'hand shake' trick. On days she is desperate she will force hand shakes onto you without you asking for it. That is when you know you have to be extra careful of your fingers when giving her the grass.

How about yourself? Hope you have been well too. How are all your cats? Any new additions?

Oh; the other day I saw a cool looking succulent in a store and thought of you. I told my partner about the succulents you have posted and they are so cool looking; especially the hairy ones; they just make you want to touch them. I was thinking of having a small indoor plant on my desk; but I just don't know with Soju around.

Ooh, that's not good :( Some pollen is practically microscopic and it has already entered your airways by the time you are smelling it.
I'm ok, just very busy trying to sort out my house and my life in general.

My cats are all ok. No new additions, I think there would be world war 3 if I brought any more cats home.

Yeah, cats and plants are not a good mix unless you got a really solid pot for it

Woot Woot!! Congratulations!
I'm watching/listening the vid as I am typing this.

With the traps; I learnt certain traps do damage by a certain percentage of your health; not at a fixed value; ie 50% of your life per second; 20% of your life etc. So in the Trial of Swirling Fear, it contains spinning blade traps; they deal damage at 50% of your life per second; which is why your health regen didn't seem to keep you up.

Oh bugger; let me turn the volume down; you just finished talking and I had the volume up but now you're in the lab. Eeek; just saw that first hurt during the first Izaro fight. Eek; just saw the one in the 3rd fight but CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Very Exciting!!!

LOL bane-ing the door

I couldn't find the last trial on my last toon. Had been waiting to find it for a long time so i can remove the points for the second curse to use for more health/defense nodes. Good on you for going for it when you came across it. Now you've ASCENDED!!! Woot Woot!!

I had to give up Hex Master too; would have loved that but needed the points elsewhere. Also getting only one point every level at endgame felt so slow lol; i did a couple of respecs after certain levels once I had enough to reach a particular bigger node. Made me miss the quests that gave free points as rewards.

You are always full of useful answers. Me, I'm just too lazy to figure out the whys after the fact, as long as my witch is not dead. hehehe

However, I did know the damage from traps is scaled on your level, but what I didn't get was why I had so much trouble in that last T6 version of Swirling Fear. I have done that trial before in a lower tier, and it was a cake walk compared to all the others I did this league. I really wasn't expecting any trouble for this last trial.

Was I in for a shock. It was nasty, my life see-sawed badly, to my eyes, the traps were on overdrive! Maybe I was just tired and everything looked faster in comparison and my reflexes were slower than normal. I had a horrible time. As you were on your last too, then you might remember Stinging Doubt. That one was the most scary, and it felt reasonable in comparison!

And yeah, I totally know what you mean with waiting for the last one to spawn. This is one Lab where you have no control over when you go in. But having done this once, I think I'd aim to go in at 80+, so at least 5+ levels above with my build. As you saw, he hits really hard. I feel this ascension was 40% luck, 40% build and 20% player skill. XD

It is exciting to check another thing of my must-do list. As you'd know with HC, each time you get past a gate, it feels it'll be easier next time.

We sound like we're on a similar thinking regarding the extra curse. I had the extra curse on the normal tree node, but because I cannot afford to have a second curse due to sockets, I took it off and used it for life and resists. And thanks to you bringing Hex Master to my attention, I really like it. But like you, I have to skip it in the early stages in favour for more immediate needs. But it is strong, so it needs to return.

I know the slowness bores you. It is hard with the skill point, but I'm okay with it. It's one of the reasons why I play HC, because I don't mind it is slow for my slow brains and limited time to play. I have the game open often but rarely do I actually play it. I'm usually just looking at stuff. But as long as maps will drop. I'm still doubtful a few will and we'll be left with no way to get them. My shaper game feels non-existent atm. It's halted at T4 simply because I cannot get a Leyline map!

Anyway, I hope you feel refreshed enough to do a comeback when you're ready. I'll be the same though. Once Nerferella rips, I won't have the energy to relevel. I'm happy with what I've achieved this league, at least with hitting Lvl 84 and with the bonus happy of an ascension, I've improved from my previous Level 83. With all that said, I still commend you getting to 88. As I already said to you, that was a phenomenal effort, and the higher you go, the more it hurts to lose a toon. One of the guys of our group recently ripped 2 blocks from 87 and he raged apparently. hehe. I think once we get past the 85 mark, we all start getting super tense. I've always considered 86-88 the death zone for HC anyway. I've read of some many HC rips around then.

For me though, I am so sick of being poor! So I'm basically stuck with needing to farm low tier maps anyway for currency. I desperately want a 6L. I refuse to give up Spell Echo on my bane to fit in a 2nd curse. But I still won't Delve. I just know I'd be so blind as to run the wrong way and kill Nerferella!

Anyway, I hope you and the cheeky cat are well. Btw, I checked out Sims Magic. It looks good! I just need to find the original Sims 4 CDs, to install it on my PC. I'm very tempted...

Lol I had to find out because it seemed odd that my higher level toon with a higher life regen rate was getting hurt at the same rate when it did its first trial. So it was interesting to find out that the traps hurt at the same % of your total life no matter your level/hp; but physical mitigation does help; something I would have to look into using more often if I ever play again; I haven’t really used non life/mana/speed pots properly; I tried by couldn’t get into the feel of it; I was planning on using one for the last toon to get into the feel of it; but I had yet to find a basalt flask because I didn’t pick it as a reward back when I had the chance. That was how unlucky that toon was.

Also with the Sentry traps; I never learnt what each one did; or spent the time to learn how to identify them all. A couple I figured out what they did from coming into contact with them. But there are quite a number of them. I should really have paid more attention and try to learn them because there is one that increases the damage taken by 50%. All I was focusing on was getting to the end.

The scary one for me was the Trial of Piercing Truth; the one with the spike traps. Reason being; I went in on my first map when I knew my witch was too squishy; her life regen wasn’t up to scratch. About half way through; I had made a couple of mistakes and used up all my pots and had just flicked a switch but needed to go back through the spike maze. It was one of those mazes where you couldn’t use lightning wrap because of all the turns/corners. I tried to port out but of course you cannot port out; so I had to just keep going with no life pots. I swear I thought I was going to rip in there. But I made it.

It is exciting to check another thing of my must-do list. As you'd know with HC, each time you get past a gate, it feels it'll be easier next time.

That is so true.

It is a shame you haven’t found the Leyline map yet; you just have to keep pestering Zana to sell it at her shop. Chasing shaper/elder brings an extra edge to the game with the extra mobs that pop up.

I don’t know if I will play again; not this league for sure. I haven’t been feeling well; been having headaches each day and feeling tired. It is hard to concentrate for long. I’ve been getting asthma attack from pollen since the the same day I ripped; just saw the doc today; hopefully its because of seasonal change and it will go away soon. I would hate to live with this for the rest of my life. I have a plan and meds ready for when /if I get another attack to avoid it getting so bad again. I will try my best to manage it so I don’t have to go back to the docs.

Achieving ascension in SSFHC at level 84 is a great feat.
Losing a toon at 88 was painful; but not as painful as ripping after gathering a whole bunch of high tier maps when they were so hard to obtain. I was looking forward to doing them and actually getting some better xp.

Getting a 6L is dam hard; Soju will pray to the random gods to give you a 6L.
I haven’t checked out Sims Magic game play/reviews properly yet; it might tempt me too much lol. I still have to raise 100 babies.

This game really must be addictive :-) I remember you way back just testing it out for some kind or article. I guess it really got you good. Enjoy pathofexile!

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