u/Interesting_Set_7080

For just 2 ascendancy points and a bit of recoup investment, this node is effectively giving you 30% less damage taken almost all the time, which seems absurdly efficient.

For comparison, Bloodmage only gets 25% less damage taken, and that only applies to hits. The PoE1 Delirium notable was 40%, but again only for hits, and it came with the pretty major drawback of disabling normal jewels. Lich gets 10% less damage taken for all damage, and then you'd still need Atziri’s Disdain in the helmet slot to push that into the ~22%+ range, while still costing 4 points.

My honest take is that this node should probably swap places with Temporal Rift. It would still be extremely strong, but at least it would require 4 points instead of being this efficient for 2.

Did something change? I remember that completing FIT counts as passing IPPT. That's also the same advice I've been seeing online, and also what has been the case for the last few years. This isn't my first time going through the 1st Year Fail IPPT -> 2nd Year Do FIT -> 3rd Year Fail IPPT (FIT not needed) -> 4th Year Do FIT cycle, at the very least.

I didn't realize it until I received a reminder SMS about not clearing the window. Checked the NS app and it wants me to book 9 sessions of FIT.

Looked at my message notifications from last year and I can confirm that I definitely did FIT. Did I just misunderstand something or did something change the past couple of years?

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Edit: Already got two different answers in the comments lol.

I painstakingly climbed to Mythic ~30stars playing mostly exp lane. At this point, I'm not longer able to properly influence the game, my skill is no longer good enough. I've gone from getting MVP/2nd highest score every game to consistently bottoming the score on my team.

After a rough losing streak I added Roam to my queue in hopes of maybe getting a free pass on a loss. Turns out, I feel like I've just discovered a hidden talent.

I still get exp lane most of the time, and I still do badly in all those games.

However, whenever I get roam, I pick a main tank like Minotaur or Hylos and end up absolutely crushing it. It feels like I've been living under a rock, moving from exp lane to roam. Back to getting MVP every other game, and 2nd on the scoreboard if not.

Everything feels so easy again.

Is it just a playstyle? Does my default playstyle just suit roam so much more than exp lane? I tend to play tanky exp laners too, but idk, it just feels like whatever I'm doing as a roam is just so much better than trying and failing to make exp laners like Alice/Ruby/Cici work.

I'm only really looked at the crossbow, but also want to hear what people think about the shield.

The crossbow is a 700+ pdps crossbow that has no phys as extra or levels to projectile skills, which means that at its baseline, it's not very good. However, when the buff becomes active, in bossing for example, you can spam Cluster Grenades.

The sheer DPS from that skill should more than make up for the lack of other sources of scaling on the crossbow, I think? Just gotta weapon swap for mapping.

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The shield on the other hand, is a lv84 weapon. This alone gives me some hope of its viability even when characters start to truly juice their maps and farming strats. Combined with how GGG has made other boss-specific uniques really strong (see Atziri Spear), I'm pretty optimistic about this new shield.

But then again, this is all vibe-theorycrafting, so I haven't actually looked at the true numbers of the shield.