Crucible Week 2 News & Meta Report
Welcome to the Crucible Week 2 Maxroll news wrap-up for Path of Exile, covering major events within the community, which hottest builds break the meta, Economy updates and what comes next!
Community Headlines
Let's dive into the Crucible Week 2 headlines with our community event section!
"Quit the Game" Orbs
Youtuber and Twitch streamer "CaptainLance9" released a 9 minute scathing review of the current state of Orbs of Chance in Path of Exile. In the past, Orbs of Chance were a dice roll to try and get a unique item. In today's game, the odds of rolling a high-tier unique are so low that players need to risk their wrist health to get that Emperor's Vigilance shield.
After 12,000 Orbs of Chance, Captain Lance finally gave up on attempting to get his perfect shield.
Speaking of Chance Orbs...
A reddit user was finally about to make the perfect Emperor's Vigilance Shield using 35,000 Orbs of Chance. After creating the perfect base Steel Kite shield using the Crucible mechanic to add base Armor and Energy Shield, this player turned it into an Emperor's Vigilance with pure determination.
This shield combines +40 Maximum Energy shield, 60% increased local Energy Shield, 15% increased Explicit Defense Modifier Magnitudes reaching over 1000 Energy Shield, a total never before seen in Path of Exile, and maybe never to be seen again.
The Highest Physical Damage Bow Ever, For Now
This triple-implicit Spine Bow has been given a perfect crucible tree that adds Attack Speed, Double Damage, and heaps of Physical Damage. The creator spent tens of mirrors making this beast of a weapon, but it is not perfect.
With the Mirror of Kalandra they made selling copies of this weapon, they plan to remake the bow with perfect rolls, making the best Physical Bow that could ever exist... for now.
Past leagues like Synthesis, and Sentinel brought us some crazy items that up-ended what it meant to have something Mirror-tier. Now it looks like Crucible is doing that again, with no guarantee that the mechanic sticks around some of the items created could end up being truly one-of-a-kind!
Crucible Week 2 Meta Breakers!
Crucible Tree Builds
Crucible trees offer a lot of fun and unique ideas, furthermore many of them are incredibly powerful! Some of these builds are breaking the meta! However, because these setups rely on specific Crucible trees it might take a bit of work to get them up and running. But if you're looking for something that may only be playable within Crucible consider one of the following builds.
Explosion Totems Pathfinder
First up, the build you’ve probably heard about; explosion poison totems. This is a poison pathfinder that was recently showcased by Zizaran!
This build uses the Crucible modifier "Totems Explode on Death for 600% of their Maximum Life" combined with traps to rapidly exceed your totem limit, inflicting massive poisons on your enemies.
When played on a Pathfinder you get Poison Proliferation to help counteract the normally clunky playstyle, and access to great defenses through Physical Damage taken as Elemental Damage. Having permanent flasks on bosses certainly doesn't hurt anything either!
Milky's Cast on Crit Blazing Salvo
If you dislike seeing the screen but enjoy massive numbers of projectiles check out this Forking Cast on Crit Blazing Salvo build! When Blazing Salvo projectiles pass through Flame Wall they Fork. With 2 crucible nodes, 6 projectiles become 12 then 24 for blinding coverage.
Spectral Shield Throw/Shield Crush Trickster
Even during week 1, Spectral Shield Throw and Shield Crush got a good bit of hype due to the ease of access to high Defense shields in Crucible. These builds worked in previous league but got a lot of power from Crucible passives that scale shield Defenses.
There's also a Crucible node which allows you to scale these skills exclusively off of Energy Shield, which is especially powerful when combined with a Crucible crafted Emperor's Vigilance.
Poison Artillery Ballista/Blast Rain
Finally we have Poison Artillery Ballista. Applying Elemental Damage to poison is normally associated with the Heist base, Pneumatic Dagger but you can now get the same effect through a Crucible Passive Node! Many players are using this on both Pathfinder and Champion to deal large amounts of single target damage with setups similar to the exploding totem Poison build discussed earlier.
Currency News
Exarch vs Eater
The question that's been asked since the inception of Eldritch Altars, it's always been a close call. But the economy has stirred up this week and Awakened Sextants are rising in value at a rapid rate currently sitting at a ratio of 45:1 Divine Orbs. We'll get into why later.
This is the biggest strength of Exarch altars as the likelihood of receiving the modifier that grants Exarch influenced monsters an X% Chance to drop an Awakened Sextant is much more common than the Eater modifier that gives monsters a chance to drop Divine Orbs. Alongside this, Exarch altars also grant monsters the opportunity to drop;
- Chaos Orb
- Orb of Unmaking
- Divination Card that rewards corrupted Jewelry. The Apothecary The Fiend
- Gilded Divination Scarab
This, for the average player makes Exarch the much better option at the current prices of items.
Why are Awakened Sextants so Expensive?
The current endgame meta for the absolute peak mapping content is fully juiced 8 Mod Crimson Temple Map maps. These require very specific compasses which must be rolled with Awakened Sextants.
Some of the most expensive options used in pinnacle mapping content right now are;
- Maps drop corrupted with 8 modifiers
- Strongbox monsters have 500% increased Item Quantity
- Delirium Reward bars Fill Faster
- Area contains the Sacred Grove
- Map boss drops an additional Conqueror Map
Given the current lack of diversity in endgame pinnacle mapping content, we don't foresee the meta shifting too much from these prices as more and more players will reach a point where they want to do the most difficult and rewarding content.
7 Days 7 Farms
Milky has been working on multiple mapping strategies that can be used to farm up currency for all your build needs and documented it on his YouTube channel, here are just a few of the topics he's covered so far!
Good Luck from the Maxroll Team!
We hope you're still enjoying Crucible League and we will see you in game!
Written by Aer0, MilkyBK_, Tenkiei
Reviewed by MilkyBK_