What games are you playing and why?

As a sidenote, my fresh sword and board duelist made it to lvl 11 and just killed the warden when the servers got taken offline(I'd literally just used a portal scroll to make a loot selling trip to town to make room for all the rare items he droped).
Running double strike, cleave, and whirling blades mainly, eventually going to work in frenzy and flicker strike, as well as a couple of auras and probably warlord's mark. I'm making a beeline for blood magic so I can fuel it all..

 

I've tried to finish Act 2 yesterday but gave up after 5 tries through the pyramid...
Loot timer is really too short. It doesn't bother me too much because I usually play with friends or solo but I can see it being a weird design decision.

 

I killed her -- she was definitely tough, had to run away (literally to town once). But once I got back, I didn't make any of the same mistakes the first time. And I did it without ever dying .

Note that I actually HAD to run away -- what happened was that I used up all my heals, I was at 16 health, and no way of restoring any health points. Fortunately when I ran, Merveill didn't chase me all the way across her lair, so I could use a portal scroll (ok, it did feel a little cheesy, but it worked). My nearly fatal error was that I had swapped out fire arrow for ice arrow just prior to finding her. I further erred by not swapping it back before engaging her again (I know, brain fart). But I was able to kill her with my poison arrow and being less panicky about hitting my heal potions (I have a tendency to miss the heal button, so I kind of slam my hand in the general vicinity of where it is, and end up using 3 doses at a time -- which is actually a very bad thing to do).

I'm in the forest fortress now, but haven't actually started any of the Act 2 quests.
P

 

I potion-tanked Merveil while spamming double strike and took her down pretty quick... no sapphire rings, but I do have a bunch of rare items, some with minor cold resists.

I found out whirling blades needs int at lvl 5+, my build was counting on whirling blades(and it's the only reason I went sword)... and it's str/dex, bah! Guess I'll have to swap it for shield charge or something... but I enjoyed the whirling blades being an escape/aoe spell.

 

I had some elemental resistances when I fought her. I did nearly die once, but mostly because of a couple of tactical errors. I had swapped out fire arrow for ice arrow Just a little bit earlier. Note that I did not know that she was resistant to ice until I fought her.

Also, I made a mistake in spamming heals when fighting her (well, not on purpose -- it was my fat fingers and a lot of panic). So at one point in the fight, I found myself down to 16 hp, and NO heals left. I ran away and was lucky enough that she stopped chasing me. I quickly used a portal scroll, and came back. My next error was just dumb -- I should have swapped fire arrow back, but no, I didn't think of that until I was face to face with her again. But no matter, because with a cooler head, and spamming poison arrow, I did succeed.

And I didn't die once

Granted, using a portal potion was kinda cheesy, but it worked.

I am running into issues with my gear in that I can't seem to get gear with the slots that I need. I've had to actually downgrade gear when I've screwed up the enchantments, simply to get something that can take my gems. It's sad (well, I did have a long run of bad luck on enchantments -- rerolling some subpar enchantments ended up getting rid of 2 out of 3 of the ones that were there twice in a row, leaving me only with irrelevant bonuses. Trying to improve the slots with other orbs didn't give me what I needed either. It's so random, I'm buying gear just to experiment with hoping that I can make something that i actually can use, but it's not been productive, except on rare occasions.

Which gets me to my main point -- it needs an auction house.

 

ack sorry, didn't realize my first post actually made it

 

Me thinky we needy a Pathy of Exiley topicy.

 

Oh well...

I'm still in act 1 now, trying to do something with a level 9 dual-wielding sword-bearing duelist with emphasis on dexterity (annoyingly, most "good" armour drops are ones centred on protection rather than evasion; forcing a supposedly evasion-centred character to choose between a simple +31 evasion or +55 protection with additional stuff is just plain mean). Because my build doesn't actually get bonuses other than simple stat increases or resistances for 2 more levels, I am sort of grateful for the skill gem system (cleave is fan, dual strike or however that is called is fun too, the fire trap is useful too [being my only means of ranged attack], and viper strike also sees some use; there are a few more but only equipped because I had slots and it would've been weird to leave them out, but I'm craving for some passive ones).

The currency system, well... I wouldn't say it's bad, the opposite of it even. But really, orbs of transmutation can be hard to come by. I got my first one (after a campaign for selling white items from the mud plains, due to the waypoint being there) after I already had 5 orbs of alteration, 1 orb of alchemy, a few orbs of something else and 1 orb of chromacity (or however that went; I don't see any point in using it because I only have one-slotted and two-slotted items now, but I've no doubt it will come in handy after passive gems start dropping).

I haven't really played in groups, but as far as I see it the whole issue of "ninja looting" is enough to make me not even want to try. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against giving loot out if it's more useful for someone (if I was in a group with an archer and I got a rare bow, I'd ask him if he wants to exchange it for anything I'd want on the spot, and if he didn't even have anything I could use there would even be a chance of me giving it to said archer for free) people "ninja looting" everything means that there is no point; now, if they added an option for party leaders to turn said ninja looting off when creating the party, it would mean much for me, but at worst I'll just stop at playing with people I know (or something like that).

 

http://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/path-of-exile.5772/

 

Gah, how bloody frustrating does it need to be?! And not to mention the annoying, repetitive theme from Casualty (a British medical drama that used to be very popular on Saturday nights, think ER but more soapy and much less gruesome)

I wanted to pick up the hammer but it wouldn't work

 

Yeah. It's like QWOP but you're killing someone rather than just breaking their spine.

 

Sidenote: just noticed Althea's latest avatar... overly attached crosseyed girlfriend?

 

The (evil? good? idk) love interest in ratatatatatatouie.

 

Colette Tatou, who is indeed from Ratatouille (one of Pixar's best!)

 

Pixar is generally excellent.