Path of a Casual Exile

August 19^th… daylight. I defeated Kitava…

After a gazillion deaths of course. Fck Kitava. No. Fck you, Innocence. You one shot me so many times and all you did in the Kitava boss fight is freakin’ KS. Damn it.

Anyway, Path of Exile is an Action Role Pla blah blah blah. It’s difficult, fun and addictive. It takes all your time and money because you are going to purchase a lot of stash tabs to collect currencies so you can craft that perfect 6 link Axe and spam cyclone, and then you realize that your masterclass theory crafting idea sucks because you start dying a lot after Act 3.

I first played Diablo II on my friend’s Pentium III, Windows 98 computer sometime on 2002 or 2003. I get the idea, you play a hero, you kill zombies, skeletons and porcupines, they drop leather armors and baseball bats with spikes, you equip said leather armor and baseball bat to kill more zombies, skeletons and porcupines, you gain exp and then you level up, you put points on a skill tree and stats, your player gets a new skill and becomes stronger.

I liked it, my first character was a sorceress, who had a sword (I think it is a crystal sword iirc) and a shield. My friend laugh at me. He was right, I have no idea what I was doing. I was pissed that I suck at a game that I like very much. I asked another friend who also played D2 and told me to create a Necromancer and a blood golem build. I have no idea what he was talking about.

A few months later, I saw a used Diablo Playstation Disc on sale, I quickly grab it and slapped it on our PS console, I like the fact that It had a, kinda like a digital novel wherein the lore of the Diablo series was being narrated. It also has a Two Player Mode. Diablo (one?) was memorable. The ambiance of Tristram, a healthy Wirt, huge stash (the whole Tristram is the stash), 3 class selection, very few (shared) skills, one dungeon to Hell and the Save file eats all the blocks in your memory card. I recalled we successfully killed Diablo with a firewall skill, because…. he was stuck in a wall.

After a year or two, we finally have a PC at home; purchased a Diablo II LOD discs (probably definitely pirated, but hey, I was in my early teens, I was oblivious about what a genuine software is or anything about the legal implication of counterfeit software). I finally have the time to absorb the mechanics of the game and play with my own phase. I was reading guides and builds but I still have no idea what a bowazon is, nor a spearazon. So I just fired up the game, created my sorceress and spammed that ice skill that permeates the screen.

After a lot of deaths and grinding, I finally finished the normal mode. Tried other classes like the Druid and Necro but with a cheat program available and school getting annoying, the fun slowly diminished.

A few more years after the great letdown, I had my own PC. AMD Duron 1.22 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Ubuntu/XP Dual Boot, while browsing the web, I stumbled upon a click bait-liked article and somehow I came across a “Top Diablo II mods”-esque page, there I discovered Diablo II Median XL Mod. Median XL mod was refreshing, Diablo II felt new and engaging again, skill tree, rune words, crafting, maps etc. I ended up creating a lot of character to try the new things so I was not able to finished the game. And of course, school was just there and other modern MMORPG that friends plays, so again, Diablo II was set aside.

Fast forward again, I am now a responsible adult (I think I was unemployed at that point) browsing the web again in search for an online game to play. I saw Path of Exile, it says “inspired by Diablo II”, I clicked, I downloaded the game, (after a lot of hours) I launched the game. It’s like D2, but it’s not like D2. I liked it.

I think my first play through was the Forsaken Masters Patch (which I had no Idea at that time). The first road block I encountered was of course naming the character, I mean, It is really difficult to create a cool IGN in this game. My first character was an Archer, and yes, it suck. It is easy to imagine the character build that you want to play, until you can not even get pass Brutus. And then Merveil. Path of Exile quickly became my favorite pass time, my build iirc was Ice shot for AOE, Frenzy for Main DPS and Blink Arrow for mobility. It was good enough to kill Dominus (after a lot of deaths). Of course, things happen and I am supposed to stop playing video games that takes all my time.

The introduction of the new Act IV caught my attention, again. I re-downloaded the game, and fired up my Ranger. I was quickly reminded that I suck at this game. Darreso, Piety, Malachai, basically every boss fight I died. A lot. This time, I had the time to create another character. I contemplated on all my previous failures and decided to go with a Marauder - Molten Shell. EZ early game. EZ Dominus. I was getting hype about my build. Though It was not enough, I finally died against Piety. All the hype came crashing down. I was unmotivated and just lifelessly finished the normal mode.

This was the time I was introduced to another game (Dota 2) that will eventually eat a year and half of exclusively playing a single title.

Sometime on June 2017, I finally decided to uninstall that said game (Dota 2) and take back the fun of playing video games. After that instance, I finished The Witcher and The Witcher II in the span of a month, I purchased several Steam games during the 2017 Summer Sale that I have yet to touch beyond the first five minutes.

Late July and early August, Path of Exile related post are popping in my Reddit front page. A massive 3.0 update that will add six (6) new acts, a total of 10 acts and removing the other two difficulties of the game. I quickly removed the batteries of my Steam Controller, unplugged the wireless receiver and put them back inside their box, because I read the manual of the Steam Controller that says “remove the batteries when storing the device for an extended period of time”.

I can not wait to go home from work; I can not wait for the weekend to come; I can not wait for any non-working holidays; I can not wait for a typhoon to flood the streets and suspend all Government Offices. I can not get enough of my Dual-Wielding/Cyclone/Gladiator. I eventually died against Malachai, but I did not give a thing, as I was having fun and finally, I have a chance to play the end game which I was never able to achieve on my prior game play with PoE because, honestly and personal preference, the fact that I have to repeat the game in a more difficult nature is not very enticing to me.

Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath. A Brilliant game. The only time I baby rage were during the Innocence and both Kitava fights, but what the heck anyway. Now, I finally know what every one is talking about on chat, on Reddit. I finally know what a “MAP” is and what is “MAPPING”. I am playing the end game, yet I am far from the end of the game.