Tremendously useful video! I had one of these on my last build, but I was just blindly following a build guide, and this video really made it clear why it was recommended! Even if the other Timeless Jewels aren't great endgame uniques, I think an explanatory video for them would be really useful and interesting.
Well done video on jewels that should be more popular then they actually are (seriously, these are huge defensive layers). As for "where to put them", here are the main sockets. 1: The one you showed is "fine" for attack-based Templars or Marauders, but it's overall a meh spot in general. 2: The socket directly next to Pain Attunement and Mind over Matter are the big ones. Pain Attunement is the socket for Life builds in top of the tree, MoM for ES builds. 3: Socket directly below Constitution and below Profane/Arcane Chemistry are the most popular ones for bottom-of-the-tree builds. 4: Rangers or Shadows that DO NOT deal Chaos Damage or need the nearby mana reservation can use the socket next to Perfect Agony. 5: The Socket next to Minion Instability is used occasionally by builds up there. Additionally, the socket next to Pain Attunement is PARTICULARLY quite powerful because it's next to Arcane Vision, which is the only 1-passive notable on the passive tree. This means it is the most popular place to fit in "core" elements of builds from the Timeless Jewel notable-pool, such as Conversion or Life Leech. In general, ALWAYS check to see if you get a Life Leech or Conversion node on Arcane Vision when you get one of these if you can, as if you have one you have a particularly valuable timeless jewel for the right buyer. Additionally there used to be a large spreadsheet that got shared around in inner-circles which contained a list of all "valuable" timeless jewel seeds for each jewel type (including what I said above) which eventually went public in a very downvoted reddit thread, but now that is mostly impossible to find. Another case of specific people wanting information posted on reddit to not be visible.
Thanks dude, this is really helpful. This is the only timeless jewel I haven't managed to drop yet in Ritual (SSF life), but I'm going to dive headfirst into more Legion content now that I know how powerful it is. Cheers
Loving the series and this video is hands down awesome!!!! Realised I confused xibaqua and doriyani haha ignore what I wrote before the edit :P Anyway, loving the content, loving the effort and ty for everything
Don't know if you know this, sirgog, but the Inquisitor node Pious Path will regenerate your ES while Immortal Ambition applies. This is because, AFAIK, Pious Path doesn't give you ES regen equal to your life regen, but applies your life regen to ES as well as life. I know several people were freaking out on Reddit when I posted this in the first week of the league. I don't remember exactly, but they were talking about using this interaction along with a different Timeless Jewel for various shenanigans.
Oh, silly, should have listened more. They were talking about using Pious Path with Soul Tether and Corrupted Soul. 26% of life as extra ES, and no need to worry about leech (per se) to keep your ES up.
Wow thanks for this! The single most confusing feature in the game, I have avoided entirely as I didn’t have a clue... this is the most useful of all your “unique” vids
@@sirgog wait...i didnt even consider that...maybe i should create another character strictly for checking. oops, im already a decent amount of divines in lol =(
For Divine Flesh, also note that the damage taken as chaos damage has a much larger effect on damage that penetrates because half the damage is no longer the original damage, and thus is no longer penetrating. Penetration is often a 2 or 3x multiplier on the amount of damage that is done to players. (problem is figuring out WHAT damage penetrates, POE is not good at communicating that) Also, they shouldn't be THAT hard to get in SSF, vaal encounters are quite common so you should be run quite a few. They're around 50/50 to drop in my experience.
On penetration - this is a huge deal on Shaper but not in many other places. It also makes Simulacrum harder (as the only area in the game with chaos penetration)
@@sirgog Simulacrums can also roll every other type of pen (and at MUCH higher values for the %extra phys as element, up to 100% vs 30% for chaos), so it's more likely to make them easier.
I really love this series, I started Poe late heist league, 5-6 weeks before it ended, so i didn't really know much about uniques or why certain items are used for any builds. Given how many mechanics and synergies exist within the game, it was definitely not a user friendly experience but thanks to videos like these, it made me understand not only my own builds, but other people's builds as well. Thanks for all these videos man. It's only a shame that i did not try PoE earlier than i should, i was worried bout the information overload the game has given its age, but had i known you guys existed, i bet it would've been fun playing in the past leagues as well.
I think that most players get the "cap your resistance before you map" message and then forget about them. In this game is so important to take a step back, forget what you heard and do the actual math to understand the real impact of your stats.
Great vid! Informative! When you produce content like this you will grow alot:) Are you up for suggestions for items to "go in depth on" ?
3 роки тому+1
Can you use Xibaqua for CI or is that instant death as well? Also these unique videos are incredibly helpful, despite having played for a couple of years now.
Hello, thanks a lot! I watched your video and made myself a Doryani using Blessed Orbs to attach at my Blade Blast Inquisitor. My question is; have also a harvest craft to add an implicit on the Timeless jewel. Would it ruin it or is it just an auto-upgrade?
I'm still toying around with various builds while this is going on. But today I had a great day. I made almost more Chaos today alone than other entire leauges. Ritual gave me a 21/23 Vaal Cyclone; which I sold for 190c. A Heist gave me a Quality Lens; which I sold for 90c. I also got a ton of stacked decks; and sold off 54 of them for about 70c [The guy was buying them in lots of 9 for some reason]. This is on top of selling off a few miscilaneous items for lower amounts. I've made like 350c in one day and my previous entire leauge record is like 400c at end-of-leauge... I'm not even a path of economy player, I just find it funny when everyone says trade is krangled I'm... well... tradeing well.
It's more than there's so many people running Domain of Timeless Conflict now. Grimro (popular youtuber) has advocated various strategies that make a lot of emblems drop, so there's more in circulation, and 4 and 5 way Legions are always amazing XP.
Hey. Sirgog. I've been doing 5-Ways and I've got over 200 of these Timeless Jewels laying around. Before I crash the market or sell them in bulk - maybe you would be interested in analyzing them, showing useful nodes for different builds and actually checking what's the probability of finding a jewel suiting a specific build? (I know it's not going to be a big sample size but it should be somewhat realistic at least).
I'm trying to run a guardian DB with HoP. Using loyal and memory vault. (Going for more armor and CI) Which one would you Recommend? So far Im using unnatural instinct
My build guide suggests I get glorious vanity, but in not sure where to get it. (well, at least I now know I need Xivaqha for divine flesh - I'm didn't even know that before.) Doriani seems like it's be ok for my build too. I have lots of regen from holy relic that doesn't do mich most of the time, and pretty much the only ES I have is from the guardian passive that gives me ES for reserved mana.
I got a question!! I couldn’t find an answer I’m playing a small private league of about 10 ppl and wanted to know the best way to farm the gem drop, is 1 ways best? Or 3-5? I couldn’t really find anyone talking about optimal ways of farming gem drops.
I don't know but I suspect running 4 or 5 increases the drop rate because of higher area level. Since Templar and Maraketh are so much rarer than the other emblems it probably makes sense to mostly run 3 at a time but you'll likely benefit from running more when you can. Also, once you locate the Vaal general, make sure that's the first general you kill every time you reset the area. Drop rate decreases as more monsters die so it actually matters (slightly) what order you kill things in.
Doesn't the Inquisitor's energy shield regen still work with Immortal Ambition because it is technically not regen. I think I saw Ziz using it. Probably worth noting.
89% would be optimal. You're gonna need a cluster jewel setup for that if your build doesn't use shields or certain items that roll +1 to max chaos res.
I'm curious, why are they a mistake? They strike me as kinda OP but it doesn't seem broken because of the heavy tradeoffs. I'm endlessly fascinated by game balance discussion so I'd be interested to hear your reasoning.
@@SkillGame For the record, I don't believe they are a mistake, but I do consider it sad that so many builds and important defense options are gated behind them, effectively barring them from SSF or beginner players who may not even consider them as an existing option. (And by beginner players I mean what would be considered intermediate players in any other game because of the sheer breadth and depth of knowledge involved.)
@@moozooh I feel you, I'd played at least 3 leagues but never got strong enough to beat Sirus until the pandemic. Now I have way too much time on my hands, but I know most people are not as lucky to have the option to spend it on a video game (or degenerate enough, for that matter). That said, I think this is an inherent feature of PoE rather than a bug. The nature of complexity is that every added layer will reduce how many players can access the very endgame. That tradeoff seems necessary to have enough content to keep the more tryhard gamers engaged. Much of that content is much more satisfying because of how difficult it can be to find/complete. Most of the builds which use timeless jewels can still function quite well without them. Playing SSF, my build suffers much more from not having found the Harvest crafts for an explode chest (aside from an add/remove phys that I wasted on a mediocre bleed bow for my second build), but even without that or finding a Glorious Vanity, I'm barely locked out of any content. I got owned by 'The Hidden' and I can't dream of taking on 'The Feared' or the Maven herself yet, but otherwise, it's only 80%+ Delirium red maps and Uber Elder (probably Aul too if I stumble upon him) that I can't manage. The Envoy knows me all too well. Pursuing the power to conquer those fights is probably the main thing that keeps me logging in. I hope this doesn't come off as a rant, because I fully recognize there are tradeoffs to this type of game design. Personally, I think the complexity and chase uniques are a net-positive, but I'm open-minded and very interested in hearing more if you have further thoughts.
@@SkillGame I don't mind complexity of chase uniques per se, but it's one thing to have a chase unique like Precursor's Emblem, Watcher's Eye, Megalomaniac, or Hands of the High Templar which can scale your power greatly (but aren't guaranteed to do so)-that's completely fine, I appreciate that they exist and I do treat them as something to chase (literally-whenever I play on a trade league I set up live searches for specific mods on items like that and monitor them daily). But it's a completely different thing when items that are by all means a load-bearing pillar of the build's defensive capability are also forced to be chased after. When it comes to Timeless Jewels in particular, it's important to note that most of them don't provide any power just by themselves-you have to actively plan and build around them to realize their potential, much like regular keystones. It's not like e.g. The Red Nightmare which you just plop into Marauder's or Scion's bottom jewel socket and enjoy your massive block and EC generation bonuses. Xibaqua's Glorious Vanity in particular is more likely to mess up your build than help you if you socket it without due consideration, and so will Maxarius's Militant Faith. Karui and Maraketh jewels are more straightforward in this respect but still not something that is guaranteed to make your build better automatically. That's why it doesn't make a lot of sense to me in terms of design to tie build-defining defensive mechanics to items gated behind obscure and random endgame content. Some of the conquered passives have been moved onto the main tree some time ago, and that was definitely the right decision, but definitely not all of those that deserved to be there in terms of their importance. I know this is done mainly to prevent stacking multiple powerful keystones but I feel like there could be a more elegant solution that didn't require in-depth knowledge and presence on a trade league to take advantage of.
@@moozooh Wow, thank you, I did not expect such a thoughtful response. I never considered that distinction, that they really do require extra knowledge in order to implement remotely effectively. I'm still somewhat new to PoE (Blight was my first league and I skipped Delirium entirely) so, if I didn't enjoy watching/reading a ton of guides, I could totally see myself dropping one after grinding a few emblems, slotting it into a jewel socket, being like "wtf this sucks," and tossing it into my uniques tab to gather dust. I don't know where I land on this. On the one hand, I think obscure content that takes specialized knowledge to access is a really important feature in games like PoE. Feeling like I'm unlocking the mysteries while being fully aware that I'm still oblivious to certain mechanics/interactions is really engaging. On the other hand, I agree that powerful defensive layers are probably the last thing that should be really obscure. Especially since a lot of endgame boss mechanics feel like 'survive this big hit or die' stat-checks that very few people will ever manage to consistently dodge. As opposed to something like CI, which also takes a fairly precise approach and a lot of respec points to implement effectively (thus remaining inaccessible or uninteresting to many players), I can 100% see the problem in only being able to discover a complex build-defining mechanic by dropping a rare unique (let alone all the different versions). In the same way that players shouldn't need to download a loot filter to have a reasonable endgame play loop, they probably shouldn't need to do outside research in order to discover defensive tools. I don't know how to change this without running into the keystone stacking you mentioned. Perhaps certain keystones could be mutually exclusive? Really interesting food for thought. Cheers dude
pre-emptive buffa against damage that you suffa
Tremendously useful video! I had one of these on my last build, but I was just blindly following a build guide, and this video really made it clear why it was recommended! Even if the other Timeless Jewels aren't great endgame uniques, I think an explanatory video for them would be really useful and interesting.
Well done video on jewels that should be more popular then they actually are (seriously, these are huge defensive layers).
As for "where to put them", here are the main sockets.
1: The one you showed is "fine" for attack-based Templars or Marauders, but it's overall a meh spot in general.
2: The socket directly next to Pain Attunement and Mind over Matter are the big ones. Pain Attunement is the socket for Life builds in top of the tree, MoM for ES builds.
3: Socket directly below Constitution and below Profane/Arcane Chemistry are the most popular ones for bottom-of-the-tree builds.
4: Rangers or Shadows that DO NOT deal Chaos Damage or need the nearby mana reservation can use the socket next to Perfect Agony.
5: The Socket next to Minion Instability is used occasionally by builds up there.
Additionally, the socket next to Pain Attunement is PARTICULARLY quite powerful because it's next to Arcane Vision, which is the only 1-passive notable on the passive tree. This means it is the most popular place to fit in "core" elements of builds from the Timeless Jewel notable-pool, such as Conversion or Life Leech. In general, ALWAYS check to see if you get a Life Leech or Conversion node on Arcane Vision when you get one of these if you can, as if you have one you have a particularly valuable timeless jewel for the right buyer.
Additionally there used to be a large spreadsheet that got shared around in inner-circles which contained a list of all "valuable" timeless jewel seeds for each jewel type (including what I said above) which eventually went public in a very downvoted reddit thread, but now that is mostly impossible to find. Another case of specific people wanting information posted on reddit to not be visible.
Thanks dude, this is really helpful. This is the only timeless jewel I haven't managed to drop yet in Ritual (SSF life), but I'm going to dive headfirst into more Legion content now that I know how powerful it is. Cheers
Loving the series and this video is hands down awesome!!!!
Realised I confused xibaqua and doriyani haha ignore what I wrote before the edit :P
Anyway, loving the content, loving the effort and ty for everything
Thanks! Didn't see your earlier message anyway
Corrupted Soul with Soul Tether is also really nice allows you to regen that ES
Don't know if you know this, sirgog, but the Inquisitor node Pious Path will regenerate your ES while Immortal Ambition applies. This is because, AFAIK, Pious Path doesn't give you ES regen equal to your life regen, but applies your life regen to ES as well as life. I know several people were freaking out on Reddit when I posted this in the first week of the league. I don't remember exactly, but they were talking about using this interaction along with a different Timeless Jewel for various shenanigans.
Oh, silly, should have listened more. They were talking about using Pious Path with Soul Tether and Corrupted Soul. 26% of life as extra ES, and no need to worry about leech (per se) to keep your ES up.
Wow thanks for this! The single most confusing feature in the game, I have avoided entirely as I didn’t have a clue... this is the most useful of all your “unique” vids
dropping knowledge as always
10:10 "its actually pretty low....actually very low" lol me every league
appreciate the series, heres to constantly divining my glorious vanity for the perfect rolls XD
Preemptive F in chat for all the divine orbs used, and all the good rolls you roll over because you don't know what they do in other jewel sockets
@@sirgog wait...i didnt even consider that...maybe i should create another character strictly for checking. oops, im already a decent amount of divines in lol =(
@@andrewwong9245 don't worry about it, it's completely unmanageable to handle it
@Andrew Wong, make 4 scions PvP only char ,you can unlock all the jewel sockets.
@@thegamingkage6162 good call! Thx
For Divine Flesh, also note that the damage taken as chaos damage has a much larger effect on damage that penetrates because half the damage is no longer the original damage, and thus is no longer penetrating. Penetration is often a 2 or 3x multiplier on the amount of damage that is done to players. (problem is figuring out WHAT damage penetrates, POE is not good at communicating that)
Also, they shouldn't be THAT hard to get in SSF, vaal encounters are quite common so you should be run quite a few. They're around 50/50 to drop in my experience.
On penetration - this is a huge deal on Shaper but not in many other places. It also makes Simulacrum harder (as the only area in the game with chaos penetration)
@@sirgog Simulacrums can also roll every other type of pen (and at MUCH higher values for the %extra phys as element, up to 100% vs 30% for chaos), so it's more likely to make them easier.
@@sirgog Atziri also I think. Maybe relevant for that one maven fight?
I really love this series, I started Poe late heist league, 5-6 weeks before it ended, so i didn't really know much about uniques or why certain items are used for any builds. Given how many mechanics and synergies exist within the game, it was definitely not a user friendly experience but thanks to videos like these, it made me understand not only my own builds, but other people's builds as well. Thanks for all these videos man.
It's only a shame that i did not try PoE earlier than i should, i was worried bout the information overload the game has given its age, but had i known you guys existed, i bet it would've been fun playing in the past leagues as well.
Yeah it's a great game and one with incredible complexity.
@@sirgog ye, although i do wish trade was implemented a bit better, and scammers would be less of a jerk xD
Love this series, great stuff.
Thanks mate! It's been fun to make.
helped so much. tyvm dude!!
Hey I just got a really nice Skin of the Loyal with +1 Gem, +2 AoE Gem with 4B 1R 1G and I just wanted to say thanks for adding your div card
I think that most players get the "cap your resistance before you map" message and then forget about them. In this game is so important to take a step back, forget what you heard and do the actual math to understand the real impact of your stats.
Probably the best jewel imo.
Great vid! Informative! When you produce content like this you will grow alot:)
Are you up for suggestions for items to "go in depth on" ?
Can you use Xibaqua for CI or is that instant death as well?
Also these unique videos are incredibly helpful, despite having played for a couple of years now.
It's instant death because damage ignores es. You'd have 1hp and nothing else.
I briefly thought I had a fivehead moment involving Shavronne's and these jewels but, alas, that does not work.
Hello, thanks a lot! I watched your video and made myself a Doryani using Blessed Orbs to attach at my Blade Blast Inquisitor. My question is; have also a harvest craft to add an implicit on the Timeless jewel. Would it ruin it or is it just an auto-upgrade?
I'm still toying around with various builds while this is going on.
But today I had a great day. I made almost more Chaos today alone than other entire leauges. Ritual gave me a 21/23 Vaal Cyclone; which I sold for 190c. A Heist gave me a Quality Lens; which I sold for 90c. I also got a ton of stacked decks; and sold off 54 of them for about 70c [The guy was buying them in lots of 9 for some reason]. This is on top of selling off a few miscilaneous items for lower amounts.
I've made like 350c in one day and my previous entire leauge record is like 400c at end-of-leauge...
I'm not even a path of economy player, I just find it funny when everyone says trade is krangled I'm... well... tradeing well.
Yea I've been having no issues with trade either, just the usual people not replying sometimes but it seems the same level as other leagues
Great video as always.
I was suprised how cheap these are a few weeks into the league, is there a specific way to farm them?
It's more than there's so many people running Domain of Timeless Conflict now. Grimro (popular youtuber) has advocated various strategies that make a lot of emblems drop, so there's more in circulation, and 4 and 5 way Legions are always amazing XP.
I switched to this around a week ago and my guy barely dies
What number range do we need with xibaqua and divine flesh for getting good notes for physical sweep build??
Hey. Sirgog. I've been doing 5-Ways and I've got over 200 of these Timeless Jewels laying around. Before I crash the market or sell them in bulk - maybe you would be interested in analyzing them, showing useful nodes for different builds and actually checking what's the probability of finding a jewel suiting a specific build? (I know it's not going to be a big sample size but it should be somewhat realistic at least).
Dang yo. 200 is no joke. You could crash the market with that amount. Lol
@@1911Zoey Dang yo, being a smartass in the comments made over a month ago at the start of the league.
I'm trying to run a guardian DB with HoP. Using loyal and memory vault. (Going for more armor and CI)
Which one would you Recommend? So far Im using unnatural instinct
My build guide suggests I get glorious vanity, but in not sure where to get it. (well, at least I now know I need Xivaqha for divine flesh - I'm didn't even know that before.)
Doriani seems like it's be ok for my build too. I have lots of regen from holy relic that doesn't do mich most of the time, and pretty much the only ES I have is from the guardian passive that gives me ES for reserved mana.
It drops from the Vaal legion boss. Mostly Domain of Timeless Conflict with a Vaal emblem
I got a question!! I couldn’t find an answer I’m playing a small private league of about 10 ppl and wanted to know the best way to farm the gem drop, is 1 ways best? Or 3-5? I couldn’t really find anyone talking about optimal ways of farming gem drops.
I don't know but I suspect running 4 or 5 increases the drop rate because of higher area level. Since Templar and Maraketh are so much rarer than the other emblems it probably makes sense to mostly run 3 at a time but you'll likely benefit from running more when you can. Also, once you locate the Vaal general, make sure that's the first general you kill every time you reset the area. Drop rate decreases as more monsters die so it actually matters (slightly) what order you kill things in.
Doesn't the Inquisitor's energy shield regen still work with Immortal Ambition because it is technically not regen. I think I saw Ziz using it. Probably worth noting.
Yes it does. I’m using soul tether belt and my ES is full sitting in hideout.
🍺 time
haha, you posted that at 4.51pm for me, so you got it right
How much chaos res would make divine flesh worth taking? (with 75% ele resist)
It's actively bad with 75% or lower. Starts getting solid at 81% IMO, though not really great until you get a bit more.
89% would be optimal. You're gonna need a cluster jewel setup for that if your build doesn't use shields or certain items that roll +1 to max chaos res.
These jewels were a mistake
I'm curious, why are they a mistake? They strike me as kinda OP but it doesn't seem broken because of the heavy tradeoffs. I'm endlessly fascinated by game balance discussion so I'd be interested to hear your reasoning.
@@SkillGame For the record, I don't believe they are a mistake, but I do consider it sad that so many builds and important defense options are gated behind them, effectively barring them from SSF or beginner players who may not even consider them as an existing option. (And by beginner players I mean what would be considered intermediate players in any other game because of the sheer breadth and depth of knowledge involved.)
@@moozooh I feel you, I'd played at least 3 leagues but never got strong enough to beat Sirus until the pandemic. Now I have way too much time on my hands, but I know most people are not as lucky to have the option to spend it on a video game (or degenerate enough, for that matter).
That said, I think this is an inherent feature of PoE rather than a bug. The nature of complexity is that every added layer will reduce how many players can access the very endgame. That tradeoff seems necessary to have enough content to keep the more tryhard gamers engaged. Much of that content is much more satisfying because of how difficult it can be to find/complete.
Most of the builds which use timeless jewels can still function quite well without them. Playing SSF, my build suffers much more from not having found the Harvest crafts for an explode chest (aside from an add/remove phys that I wasted on a mediocre bleed bow for my second build), but even without that or finding a Glorious Vanity, I'm barely locked out of any content.
I got owned by 'The Hidden' and I can't dream of taking on 'The Feared' or the Maven herself yet, but otherwise, it's only 80%+ Delirium red maps and Uber Elder (probably Aul too if I stumble upon him) that I can't manage. The Envoy knows me all too well. Pursuing the power to conquer those fights is probably the main thing that keeps me logging in.
I hope this doesn't come off as a rant, because I fully recognize there are tradeoffs to this type of game design. Personally, I think the complexity and chase uniques are a net-positive, but I'm open-minded and very interested in hearing more if you have further thoughts.
@@SkillGame I don't mind complexity of chase uniques per se, but it's one thing to have a chase unique like Precursor's Emblem, Watcher's Eye, Megalomaniac, or Hands of the High Templar which can scale your power greatly (but aren't guaranteed to do so)-that's completely fine, I appreciate that they exist and I do treat them as something to chase (literally-whenever I play on a trade league I set up live searches for specific mods on items like that and monitor them daily). But it's a completely different thing when items that are by all means a load-bearing pillar of the build's defensive capability are also forced to be chased after.
When it comes to Timeless Jewels in particular, it's important to note that most of them don't provide any power just by themselves-you have to actively plan and build around them to realize their potential, much like regular keystones. It's not like e.g. The Red Nightmare which you just plop into Marauder's or Scion's bottom jewel socket and enjoy your massive block and EC generation bonuses. Xibaqua's Glorious Vanity in particular is more likely to mess up your build than help you if you socket it without due consideration, and so will Maxarius's Militant Faith. Karui and Maraketh jewels are more straightforward in this respect but still not something that is guaranteed to make your build better automatically.
That's why it doesn't make a lot of sense to me in terms of design to tie build-defining defensive mechanics to items gated behind obscure and random endgame content. Some of the conquered passives have been moved onto the main tree some time ago, and that was definitely the right decision, but definitely not all of those that deserved to be there in terms of their importance. I know this is done mainly to prevent stacking multiple powerful keystones but I feel like there could be a more elegant solution that didn't require in-depth knowledge and presence on a trade league to take advantage of.
@@moozooh Wow, thank you, I did not expect such a thoughtful response. I never considered that distinction, that they really do require extra knowledge in order to implement remotely effectively. I'm still somewhat new to PoE (Blight was my first league and I skipped Delirium entirely) so, if I didn't enjoy watching/reading a ton of guides, I could totally see myself dropping one after grinding a few emblems, slotting it into a jewel socket, being like "wtf this sucks," and tossing it into my uniques tab to gather dust.
I don't know where I land on this. On the one hand, I think obscure content that takes specialized knowledge to access is a really important feature in games like PoE. Feeling like I'm unlocking the mysteries while being fully aware that I'm still oblivious to certain mechanics/interactions is really engaging.
On the other hand, I agree that powerful defensive layers are probably the last thing that should be really obscure. Especially since a lot of endgame boss mechanics feel like 'survive this big hit or die' stat-checks that very few people will ever manage to consistently dodge.
As opposed to something like CI, which also takes a fairly precise approach and a lot of respec points to implement effectively (thus remaining inaccessible or uninteresting to many players), I can 100% see the problem in only being able to discover a complex build-defining mechanic by dropping a rare unique (let alone all the different versions).
In the same way that players shouldn't need to download a loot filter to have a reasonable endgame play loop, they probably shouldn't need to do outside research in order to discover defensive tools. I don't know how to change this without running into the keystone stacking you mentioned. Perhaps certain keystones could be mutually exclusive?
Really interesting food for thought. Cheers dude