Xiandre: Aqua said you found a Tabula Rasa today? DON'T flip it for some random 5L armor! Tabula is worth at least 20 chaos orbs, because it is always 6 linked white sockets (can accept any gem in white sockets). The reason you see so many people wearing it in towns is that it's in incredibly high demand. Yours is presumably uncorrupted, so it may be worth slightly more (people corrupt them to try to hit the jackpot and get a +1 gems corrupt, which makes it worth multiple exalts).
Tabula is terrible for melee builds due to no stats (i.e. makes you too squishy, melee needs defenses on chest!) so it's probably not useful for your cycloner, sadly.
But yeah, it's worth a fair few chaos, don't rip yourself off!
I'll take it!!!
50% increase in mana costs sort of sucks though
that's the problem with uniques -- everyone has these great stats then "OH and this one HUGE negative"
A tabula (~20 chaos) isn't worth nearly a 5L primacy (1-2 exalts, or about 50-90 chaos)... but you can buy a regular primacy for a couple chaos and 4L it no problem. Then buy a 5L chest armor for a few chaos.
To everyone using a 2H weapon: unless you have a VERY VERY specific reason (i.e. a weapon you cannot replace, such as Quill Rain for Explosive Arrow builds), get more links in your ARMOR and don't worry about weapon links. Weapons are far more important to upgrade than armor, you can get by with crappy high-link armor far better than a crappy high-link weapon.
This will make all your weapon upgrades far cheaper since you don't have to care about the links in them.
As far as 5Ling your 5S mantle... spend 150 fuses at Vorici would be your best option. This costs around 3 exalts worth of fuses, so if someone is selling a 5L mantle for cheaper than 3 exalts, buy that instead.
I started playing finally, and it is heavily indebted to Diablo II. It's sort of fun so far, but reading these posts make me wary about high level play.
Do not be wary, there are many stages of high end, and the fun is had all the way.
Honestly the main thing is following a basic guide for a build as it's way too expensive to respec and if you follow a video guide its easy and you get more and more powerful
There are plenty of guides on the main forums that are easy to follow and
we will be glad to assist.
One thing I will say is that as you level up, your gear matures and your build starts to form it will get more and more fun. :biggrin:
You simply shouldn't be dying in normal at all - as long as you have some idea of what you're doing. Share the link to your character so we can see what he/she has going on. What's your resistances? What is killing you so quickly?
As you get higher up, defense is VERY important. I learned that the hard way too. You can't kill anything if you're already dead yourself.
I was rocking along until level 40/Act 4. All previous gameplay has been fun, but it got super hard around level 40-44, and I die now almost instantly in some encounters whereas I was blowing through everything before. It appears to be one of those games where you can't just run through and destroy stuff, but actually have to have specific builds to even have a chance and really, that turns me off. I don't look to gaming to have to analyze and pour over details, find the exact armor with the exact gems I need to even survive, and reroll my stats to have a chance. I played on normal so it would be fun, and much of the fun has been lost now. Pretty frustrating for me, and I game to relax and have fun, not be frustrated.
See, you shouldn't have to look up a guide for a build. Every build should be viable, especially on normal. Screw following guides, just for normal gameplay, that is so counterintuitive to gaming.
I was rocking along until level 40/Act 4. All previous gameplay has been fun, but it got super hard around level 40-44, and I die now almost instantly in some encounters whereas I was blowing through everything before. It appears to be one of those games where you can't just run through and destroy stuff, but actually have to have specific builds to even have a chance and really, that turns me off. I don't look to gaming to have to analyze and pour over details, find the exact armor with the exact gems I need to even survive, and reroll my stats to have a chance. I played on normal so it would be fun, and much of the fun has been lost now. Pretty frustrating for me, and I game to relax and have fun, not be frustrated.
See, you shouldn't have to look up a guide for a build. Every build should be viable, especially on normal. Screw following guides, just for normal gameplay, that is so counterintuitive to gaming.
I guess I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not really new to these kinds of games, having played through all the diablos, 1-2 and 3, and other similar games, but this game is much more into resists and gear than those are.
Lets not throw in the towel yet.
share the link to your character(s) and let us see what you got going on.
as I and others have said, there are a million viable builds, but you can't just say "I'm a marauder, I'm putting every dime into strength and bash my way through the game" (which is what I use to do in other such games). POE does require some thought and balance. Life nodes, defensive nodes are twice (or more) as important.