Relevant for [[2021-08-04 Furtive (MF)]] [Tweeted 2021-08-01](https://twitter.com/EleanorKonik/status/1421494555690553345) ``` THREAD START Since this week’s story+analysis piece for The Iceberg metastasized from a deep dive on fungus into a love letter to a bunch of my favorite video games, I want to take a minute go full on #unpopularopinion & say I’m having more fun with @pathofexile 3.15 than I have in months. --- I don’t actually play the leagues very often — I am neither in college nor retired, lol — so I can’t speak to those mechanics, and I understand that the nerfs suck for a lot of people (my husband’s ranger build definitely took a hit) but I finally found a build I love! --- I’ve always really loved minion builds but I really hate the spectre mechanic, no matter how OP they apparently are. Somewhere along the way though I capped out because I was running an Elementalist build with zombies and a nerf happened and I switched to a Storm Brand build. --- Storm brand is fun and all but I was really squishy and kept dying, which was depressing, even after my husband helped me grind up all the top tier gear I needed. I just wasn’t good enough at keeping up all my flasks, I guess, and I don’t like to cheat with mouse macros. --- For for #pathofexile 3.15 I went looking (again) for a decent minion-based Elementalist build and stumbled across this beauty from @GhazzyTV – it hits on everything I love in ARPGs: https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/cold-convert-golem-elementalist-pob-passive-skill-tree-gem-links --- It uses gems I’ve already leveled up in the past (storm brand, carrion golem, zombies) & has just enough going on with debufs and elemental equilibrium that I actually have to actively play the game, but I don’t have to be hypervigilant to survive since my minions got my back. --- I know the meta right now is “omg poe sucks now everything is awful” but honestly most of the changes in this patch didn’t impact how I play the game at all, and I’m just thrilled I finally had a reason to go dig up this build. It’s so fun! --- Incidentally, if you’re curious about what other games I like and what they have to do with fungus (hint: the mycelium blight in #pathofexile is actually my favorite mechanic in the game) http://newsletter.eleanorkonik.com/ drops Wednesday. --- I also discuss games like Wurm Unlimited & Starcraft, and books like my all-time fave epic fantasy the Codex Alera by Jim Butcher. Really though it’s the story of fungi & how we got “zombie-spawning evil ooze” from “quasi-animal root systems that make great vegan leather.” THREAD END ```