Path Of Exile: An Illustrated Adventure

I have no idea what to expect. I'll be playing hardcore, obviously, because I'm not a sissy, girly man. After looking at the character creation screen for a bit, I chose the Witch. I feel you can't go wrong choosing a creepy levitating girl. Of course I had to think of a highly original name.

This picture is way too big for the layout, so you'll have to click it
creation screen
exists? liar

I woke up on the beach partially dressed and partially submerged. Fortunately for me, there was a magic wand near my head.


a magic wand? how convenient

I rather enjoy lasers, so I was happy to learn the effects of my wand. It fired some kind of magical projectile at a high velocity.


that... looks a bit more like something else

After testing out my wand for a bit, I decided to explore the beach. I quickly found out that it was a zombies only beach and that I was intruding. My magic connected with a satisfying thump as I struck each zombie down.



I found what I assume is a rare shield. It seems pretty good compared to the other random debris I'm wearing for items. Almost every item I've found has some kind of life regeneration, so my life recharges pretty quickly.


i don't know whether this is good or not

There were lots more zombies, but eventually I encountered what appeared to be their leader. He had a lot of life, but he was far too slow to ever catch me or hit me. I didn't particularly feel like finding out firsthand how hard he hit, so I killed him from a distance.


lasers!

Past the giant zombie, I found a makeshift town. When I encountered a makeshift merchant, she refused to buy my items! I had to shamefully drop my inventory of driftwood and scrap metal onto the ground.


aaaaaaaaaaaargh!

I received my first skill gem as a reward for clearing the beach of zombies. There were a few gems I could choose, but for me there was only one real choice.


fireball: a girl's best friend

In my estimation, the combat skills in this game come from socketed gems, like materia in Final Fantasy 7. I assume the gem colors coincide with the primary stat that the skill uses, like my Fireball is blue for Intelligence. There are green(Dexterity) and red(Strength) sockets on my armor, but I don't have any gems of those colors to test my theory.

When you level up, there's also a passive tree where you can choose small bonuses to your character. I've been choosing to increase my cast rate because the other side is crit and I would rather my abilities be constant.

This picture is also way too large for the layout, so you'll have to click it
passive skill tree
skill tree!

Of course I had to test out my new Fireball immediately. It was much slower than my wand, but the splash damage was nice.


delicious splash damage

It was somewhat hard to determine where the splash was, but that was mostly irrelevant. The monsters here didn't seem to pose much of a threat because of how early in the game I was and because of my death laser wand.

While exploring, I found a hat with an interesting feature: Energy Shield. Basically it functions like a second life bar that absorbs damage before your life meter, with differences in size and regeneration. Exactly like a Protoss shield, if you like those kinds of analogies. Having an extra life bar seems pretty good to me, so I think I'll be trying to stack as much shields as I can.


this woman looks strangely familar

I found a rare quiver? Since I can't buy Identify scrolls and I can't sell things, it stays on the ground.


yeah, I'm sure you'll be real useful

I encountered another boss who seemed to be part of my quest. This guy was just as slow and had no ranged attack, so I took him down EZLOLOL 5-0 WITH REPS.


fireball? mine. blood? his

I was a little started to find that my quest reward was an unidentified potion. The potions in this game are a bit different from Diablo. Flasks(potions) are persistent, and recharge as you kill monsters.


whaaaaaaaaaat

What could a flask possibly have for magic properties?


ok i guess that's pretty good

Next chapter I'll be going to... well I have no idea because I've never played this game. I suppose I'll find out.

After finally finding my way off the beach, I was in a swampy area called the Mud Flats. There were still zombies here, but also giant duck dinosaur things that love using some kind of charge attack.


you don't see it? must be the camouflage

While wandering around the swamp, I found another familiar corpse.


I'm not a necrophiliac, really!

I encountered another boss monster, one I assume is area specific. Because of his charge attack, he actually ended up hitting me a few times, but I survived with a few scratches.


pictured slightly before I suplex the giant duck

The next area was a dark, muddy cave. The monsters here were fairly annoying. There was a crab monster that when killed would spawn an annoying bug creature who shot rocks out of its ass at a high velocity. The annoying part was that they have a few frames of invulnerability while spawning, making me waste time hunting them down. Annoying. There were also some tentacle monsters here, but they were extremely weak and died quickly.


fireball at point blank range

I came across an optional extra dungeon area. I knew it was optional because the waypoint list says Tidal Passage Level 2 instead of Flooded Depths.


that doesn't look very safe

In the Flooded Depths, I got to try out my new Raise Zombie gem. My zombie did fairly well in keeping the monsters in place so I could spend more time firing instead of running.


isn't he cute?

I found the guardian of the area, called the Deep Dweller or something similar. It was some type of giant crab monster. Naturally, I pelted it with fireballs until it keeled over.


sadly, the zombie didn't make it

As with the other crab monsters, this one also had a rock-crapping bug thing under it. I wasted no time in exterminating it.


now with 100% more minimap

The treasure was now unguarded. I kicked open the chest for my dubious reward. The rare helm was actually somewhat good and had some extra mana and life, so I put that on. Everything else was garbage.



After groping around in the dark cave for a while longer, I finally found my way out, onto an area known only as The Ledge. I found a green gem which would never be of any use to me, ever.


golly gee, that sure is useless!

There were zombies here too, but also some new monsters. I met a few skeleton archers, who I still have a hatred for because of Diablo 1. They weren't quite as annoying here, though.



My new items made me look like I was ready for a riot, or maybe for the casting of the next Mad Max movie. I was still using the same plank for a shield, but most of my other gear had been replaced by slightly-less bad items.


that's the waypoint if you're curious

After getting across The Ledge, I was on The Rocky Climb. This area was annoying because it was massive and had no waypoint. The journey was made even more annoying because portal scrolls aren't purchasable in stores.

There were some interesting new enemies here. There were still skeletons, of course. The first new enemy was called a Hellion. It's some kind of giant dog that moves quickly and likes to bite.


it's a good thing they aren't blue flame

The other new enemy were Goatmen. I'm sure everyone is familiar with goatmen. These particular goatmen have a habit of leaping into the air and trying to perform a smash attack, which I found to be quite enjoyable to watch.


hmm? what was that?

You can probably see from the picture that I replaced some of my gear in this area. The metal ring is a wizardish type of shield that has Energy Shield. The circlet and armor also do. My energy shield was coming along quite nicely and absorbs about 80 points of damage, compared to my 200 health.


pet zombie!

After climbing for what seemed like hours, at the top I found the entrance to the Lower Prison. I can't say I've ever looked forward to going in a prison before, and this is certainly no different.

I wasn't looking forward to it, but it was time to go through the prison. This area was harder than the previous ones because the narrow passageways and high walls made it difficult to see and avoid enemies. However, the narrow passageways did make it easy for me to aim Fireballs.


this has nothing to do with anything, I just thought it looked cool

There were skeleton mages here as well as the normal, garden variety skeletal archers and shamblers. Their glowy magic hands couldn't be properly captured on camera, so just believe me when I say it looked cool. There were also zombies here, which seem to be very common.

While here, I decided to take a break to make a sandwich. After slicing up some of the finest Vermont gas station pepper jack cheese, I returned just in time to watch my portal close in front of my eyes. The portal had vanished and the level had reset. I was forced to return through the closest waypoint and redo my progress.

After clearing a floor or two again, I was in the Upper Prison. As I explored this seemingly empty floor, I came across a trail of blood, as though something was dragged across the floor. The trail ended at the feet of a giant. He roared and then waddled toward me in a hostile manner.


he's on fire from fireballs

Brutus was much stronger and faster than the other enemies I had faced. He ran at about the same speed as I did and each of his attacks took around a fifth of my total health. When I had shot off about half of his health, he started to use some kind of shockwave attack to hit me at range. My energy shield wouldn't recharge while I was being struck, so I ducked behind a wall to catch a breath while it refilled. The full energy shield gave me the time I needed to win the battle. My reward was a treasure chest filled with garbage white items and my choice of a new gem.


sounds good to me

I wasn't sure of the radius of my new Shock Nova spell, so naturally I had to test it out. I found that it takes up almost the entire screen.


holy crap

The bad thing about this spell is that it does almost no damage unless the monsters are at the very edge. The good thing is that it can do some sizable damage over a huge area. I cleared through the next area quickly, another beach if you were curious, by using Shock Nova and Fireball together. There were quite a few champion and boss monsters here, but they didn't have much more life than a normal monster.


I think we all know why we call him that

A gateway made of some giant creature's ribcage led the way to the next area, The Ship Graveyard. As I made my way to the waypoint, glowing orbs decorated the air around me. The next area seemed far more otherworldly than before. Who knows what creatures lurked ahead?