Do I have regrets? Absolutely. Will I do anything about them? Not for the time being. For whatever reason I decided to give a leap slam and ground slam build a try. At first, I thought I made the right decision to pick this skill as a build once again.

To say I hate leap slam-type builds is a bit of an understatement. I’ve never just enjoyed them. They also for the most part seem to not live up to the hype. I’ve perhaps played one in the past that I liked. Although, if I had I don’t recall.

What I did want was a bit of a lazy build. I did not want to have to spam 50 keys a second to keep up some mega build-up or have it fall over like a tree in high winds. It’s also hard to judge a build really till you get to maps and start switching over to the later stages of that build.

Things did at least start at a decent pace. I was splitting creatures in half with just a couple of swings of my two-handed axe. The damage early on seemed rather promising.

I also kind of knew I was not going to be making a fast pace to maps. I had just come back from quite a prolonged break from Path of Exile. I also wanted to explore the new league mechanics. Which I more than did in Early Impressions On Settlers Of Kalguur. With that out of the way or rather something I'm doing in the background of leveling up to maps. It was time to get things running.

On the day of launch, I ended up getting into the queue under 40k. I think it took around 20 minutes or so to get in. While I was hoping to be much lower the that for my region. I could tell this was going to be a busy league. Settlers of Kalguur was the talk of the town among ARPG players. There was no way I missed the launch of this league.

I also find it rather funny how many quickly go and dig at Diablo. Even without the league being out yet the war drums of Path Of Exile just once again smoked Diablo was in full force. I could tell within minutes of getting into the game that gamers around the world were yet again right this thing murders anything Diablo current.

One thing I have to give to Path of Exile is there are so many things on when you return from a bit of a break you either forget or were not around for a bunch of stuff. What is Ruthless mode?

It turns out forget being just sole self-found or just going hardcore mode. The true people who know how to suffer go ruthless hardcore. I looked at the website and when it says you might not even find any rings to wear several acts in. You know what I believe them.

A game mode like that takes insane game knowledge. Even with all my years and hours into this game. It’s an easy pass on my end for even thinking twice about ticking the ruthless box.

I ended up just going for the normal Settlers league. I've never been a big fan of hardcore mode as lagging out or something happening and you are done. No thanks. I want to experience many different parts of this game. Not just spend the entire league spamming low-level maps hoping not to die trying to find loot.

Granted with the build I want with. It would end up starting to feel like that in a bit. However, that is more for another post. I’m far from reaching maps up to this point of the post.

You could even say this post's starting point is more around leaving the first two. As that is kind of where being at the first town in Early Impressions On Settlers Of Kalguur started in its rabbit hole of the league mechanics.

I ended up picking up just whatever random loot I could find in the first couple of zones. I then ran back to the first town and just dumped stuff into a vendor. I needed some starting currency. Anything to give me some options early on.

Along the way, I did find a few pieces of gear to wear myself. Along with buying some as well. I also needed some basic currencies to buy skill gems from a vendor. Many of the ones I'd needed I would not be getting as rewards as I slowly progressed my way through the first few zones.

The pace I was setting was also quite slow. I was already level four and just getting over to kill Hailrake. You can also see the damage to the skills I was using early on. That was the first hit on him. A couple more and he would be dead like everything else that walked across my path.

I knew I was quickly over-leveling for every zone I was walking into. I had been gone from this game for so long. I just enjoyed the mindless slaughter. Picking up way too many items. In general, just take my sweet time.

While sure the experience per kill would have been better if I pushed hard and went quickly into harder zones. Which leap skill I was using would more than allow me to do so. I had yet grown tired of its insufferable sound every time I pressed a key to jump across the screen and that utter nightmare of a sound when my character landed back down again.

Since I'm playing a melee build it became quite important for me to take regular trips back to whatever town was the closest. I’d search the vendors for any upgrades. Spending the last bit of currency on me if I notice a two-handed axe as a worthy upgrade.

I was also stopping to break out any souls trapped in essence. Even if they were not the ones that would be great for a melee build. I was just spamming them on any two-handed axe I would get hoping to get lucky with some decent stat rolls.

It would not be that far behind before I got my first trial for ascendancy done. In the past sometimes I'd slack and not work on them at a decent pace. This time around I was already so over leveled for the zones I was going through. I needed to stay a bit more on top of picking them all up. The first one would be quite an easy run once I had the first few trials done.

By the time I got to act 1 boss Merveil, the fight ended quickly. So quick that I did not even bother to get any screenshots. I had recently just found a slight upgrade to my weapon. She was the first of many to suffer the fate of that tool in my hand.

In the second act, I'd be doing a bit of a strange one. I’d be helping the bandit Kraityn for the speed boost. In the past, I'd think such a thing was silly. Getting enough resistance would not be a huge issue while leveling up this time around.

So, I sought out the other two bandits and killed them. At least the good thing is you can reset your bandit choice if you choose. While I might have had regrets for the first couple of hours of not going for 15% all elemental resistance. I was more than ensured to be crafting resistance onto my gear as needed to make up for it.

In a much quicker run into trying to reach maps I would have skipped every Vaal side area I'd come across. This time around I decided to go for it. While I did not need any of the Vaal gems and they are usually not worth much if anything at all.

It’s just nice to enjoy a part of the game I'll be far too busy at one point and skipping over it every time I see it. I was also kind of hoping I'd luck out and a decent corrupted item I could use as an upgrade would end up dropping.

The item drops were all but one time some piece of junk that I had little to no use for. I even had some weapon drops from Vaal side areas. They were always to my disappointment one-handed.

In what felt like a blink of the eye I was face to face with Act II’s boss. I took him down so fast it was almost like he was having issues going into his different phases. As if I was supposed to be doing the amount of damage as I was to me.

This kind of boss-killing power rather impressed me early on. It would however fade at a while. Since after all I was quite over-level and geared for the content, I was doing. As I was not in a rush to get anywhere.

I found myself in Act III just having finished clearing another Vaal side area. It ended up paying off for once. I even lucked out and got the two red and one green gem sockets I needed. Along with a hearty 75% physical damage and some flat physical damage as well.

This axe was amazing. I even stopped for a while trying to find an upgrade. Knowing I'd need to craft a decent one just to beat it. Which would require finding the right kind of essence which for the most part was eluding me.

The Act III boss was a joke with my new weapon. After I quickly finished him down. I went and knocked out the first labyrinth as well. Since I now had all the trials done for it. I had to be careful to not take out Izaro too fast as I did not want to leave up anything that would power him up.

Final Thoughts

Act IV was rather uneventful. My quite powerful axe ensured nothing stood in my way. As I usually do once, I made it into Act V I took a screenshot of my playtime. Just to see how I was doing pace-wise. Not that great.

While I'd be doing far too many four or five AM grinds. I decided the first day I just wanted to be rather relaxed about things. I went on to do a little more grinding before calling it a night. Perhaps when I'm not as rusty returning to the game as I was, I'd have thought otherwise.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Path Of Exile.