Killed the Maven for the first time

Finally, my first Maven kill. It was a close call.
I failed my first attempt so I decided to farm 3 Maven's writs so I could get used to the mechanics. I was doing fine with the memory games but it was the balls and floor degen what was killing me (I play with controller, it drifts a bit, so it's hard to dodge stuff and sometimes blinks are unresponsive and unpredictable). Last writ and last portal, the whole arena is splattered with regen, I try to move around the best I can but while trying to blink over a ray I actually get hit so I can't leech or recover hp so I decide to go all or nothing and just face-tank everything and hitting her at max speed. I managed to proc culling strike in the very last attack (I use lifetap so if I didn't kill her with that it was bye bye one way or another).
At least I can finally say that my improvised rage-crit Ice Crash is Maven-viable.

Just for fun, and in case someone more experience has feedback, here's some core elements of my build:


This shield is not perfect but has been crucial in getting me past the 2M damage mark (I have around 7M right now) and made me pretty tanky as well (although I have a tankier version). The main goal was to get %block chance and damage per block chance, which I got. Ideally, I would've liked to get %HP and 30% mana reservation efficiency instead of the +2 to level of socketed gems but oh well. Also extra max elemental resistances instead of the lightning res would've been great.


I decided to use these boots because I got so focused on other mods that I neglected stun avoidance and it's a pain to get interrupted every now and then even with the pantheon. Also they made me immune to temporal chains although they do nothing vs other slows. I tried to double-corrupt several of these, to see if I can get a couple of nice extra mods (%life or max endurance charges would've been brutal) but my luck is awful, specially with vaaling. I had better boots and unwavering stance on my skill tree but I swapped it to use those 5 points that I needed to reach US to get fortify on hit.



I used to have this armour but, surprisingly, the +1 to socketed skill gems barely does anything and the hp doesn't do much if it means having such low armour.
I have more survivability and damage with this other one:





I use this helmet for some extra flat damage and to gain bleed immunity. It's not perfect either but gives me a lot of things I need together with this belt:



And these gloves... These are one of my favourite crafts:


And probably what gave me the Maven kill.

My weapon is nothing special, although it took me a while to go from 400dmg to 500:



My amulet is pretty good too:


I've been planning on getting a simplex amulet that, if I calculated everything right, could pump my damage for an extra million almost.

And here are my rings:

Just crit, stats and some life. I have another vermillion that gives me melee damage and attack speed but I can't equip it because I need the DEX.

But my boss killer is easily this tincture:


Killing Sirus, Catarina, any conqueror or elder slayer, etc, is very easy with it. Maven and Exarch not so much. It does well vs the Elder and Shaper. I can kill Atziri although she sometimes pops me with something I don't see (it's not reflect). T17 bosses and foiled maps feel impossible with this build (I killed one T17 boss with the scarab trick and that's it).
Overall the build is somewhat tanky (although very specific things kill me FAST like fire skellies and goatmen), decent clear, a bit slow without flasks but aspect of the crab gives me 24% phys damage reduction and I have 30 fortification while focused (plus another 12% phys damage reduction) and I'm immune to reflected damage. Also, not a lot of buttons needed as most of my gem slots are filled with auras.

I don't think I could've done any of this build without this league's mechanic. When I used to play in the past (I played back when it was only 3 acts, quit before act 4 and then came back on and off after the 10th act was released) I was very unlucky and I also didn't grind much so I never got much further than completing the Atlas.

I think my last goal is to kill the elder in the shaper realm. I'm not sure if I'm interested in getting the 40 achievements, getting lvl100 and other stuff is incredibly tedious (last time I got 5% of XP: walk by ritual area, rare monster ice-cages me, I get sapped by something so I can't blink or run, a horde of wildwood orbs just rush me and pop me) and this build can't do T17s very well. Not tanky or dps-y enough I guess. Although I'd imagine this is my last chance to do something like that on my own because I don't think that, if there's a next league, it's going to be as "generous" as this one.

Sorry for the long post, I guess I got excited with the feat. Hope all of you have fun.
Cheers.

The kill:

Congrats! Definitely one of the most satisfying bosses to kill. 26hp is hilarious

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Pestilence_PoE#6339 wrote:

Congrats! Definitely one of the most satisfying bosses to kill. 26hp is hilarious

Thank you very much! It was very satisfying indeed.
My Ice Crash costs 148 life so those last 26 points were basically my last breath hehe.

congrats. i remember my first kill.

i "ate" maybe 4-7 mavens writs before i finally killed her.

i really like her mechanics and thematics.

but fuck her memory game.

Glad you hadn´t the Purple Bear Boss from Bramble Valley in the Maven fight.
That boss bricked the whole fight with its stupid walls.

Congrats on the kill, doe a bit of overkill gear for that :P

Thanks for your replies!

After an unhealthy amount of hours grinding, today I finally got some closure by killing the Elder in the Shaper's realm. I suppose that means that I technically beat the game as all that's left is mostly "challenges" and not "story" related so to speak.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

congrats. i remember my first kill.

i "ate" maybe 4-7 mavens writs before i finally killed her.

i really like her mechanics and thematics.

but fuck her memory game.

I loved the story behind the Maven, Elder, Shaper and Sirus but the fight against the Maven was a bit too gimmicky for me. Thematically is perfect but mechanically is a nightmare with a controller.

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TayPoE#6379 wrote:

Glad you hadn´t the Purple Bear Boss from Bramble Valley in the Maven fight.
That boss bricked the whole fight with its stupid walls.

Congrats on the kill, doe a bit of overkill gear for that :P

Damn, I read about that bear boss. It still happens?
The gear might seem overkill (and it is vs most other bosses) but I barely killed Maven so I'd say it was perfectly calibrated for my skill haha. I was trying to build towards completing the 40 challenges but I don't think I can. I die so fast in T17 maps it's unreal, so I'll leave it happily at 36 and killing all the pinnacle bosses.

Thanks again for reading, and my best wishes to you!

I think the controller is definitely a huge issue on the maven fight. The 10 second no regen is not very forgiving on a miss-move. On mouse+keyboard it’s an easy fight to learn mechanics of, and anyone who builds up a pile of writs should be able to learn it and have minimal issues.

Congrats!

Congrats its a great feeling, she is especially annoying for me so always happy to see her die.

I still remember the first time I beat the game, Uber Elder was the top at the time and it was like christmas when I finally downed him.