It isn't often I do reviews or updates on PoE this often but I wanted to recap what was the most fun and deepest league I've played in. Usually in PoE I play for 1-3 weeks per league. I get to about 10-12 achievements and call it (usually around yellow/red maps). That was the case in about 10 leagues. The previous league I played through all the maps then called it. This league (Affliction) I made it to 31 achievements/challenges completed.
League Starter: I have a philosophy to never play the same build twice. I'm also still playing through all the ascendancies. You can see my previous post for every build I've played so far, but this league I settled on Hierophant because I have never done a totem build. I settled on ice spear because it looked legitimately like it could 1 shot bosses, and it didn't disappoint once I got the gear I needed to make it work (spoiler: it's very expensive to make it OP).
The TLDR for ice spear totem build is you have to use soul mantle chest which curses you when your totems die or are re-summoned but gives you a free level 20 spell totem so you can stack an extra support gem.
As a result I decided to level using freezing pulse until I had the currency to get curse effect reduction gear. There is 1 passive that you can get, you can get it on jewels that you slot into your passive tree, and you can craft it onto rings. Eventually I got the currency to buy the jewel that made me unaffected by curses and did extra damage per curse on me. This is when my build took off. Unless map bosses were super juiced, everything died instantly as seen in this video from a youtuber who also used the build.
The downside of this build is you have to stack so much offense to make it worthwhile that your defenses hurt a lot. You can take maybe 1-3 hits before you die so I would not recommend this build for hardcore. I also wouldn't recommend it for SSF as the gear you need to make it work is difficult to find without trades. If you'd like to see my build take a look at my PoB here.
Now my review of the league. This was the best league mechanic I've seen, even with some of its faults. The ability to choose to juice every level/map you're on is huge. You have a choice at the start of every level and map to go into the forest, collect wisps, maybe kill some random encounters or find a vendor, and then everything you gathered juices the level just like the sentinel league did. This will make enemies far more dangerous but the loot explosions it created were awesome. I made about 50 divine in 2 weeks without much effort at all. Streamers were dropping that in a couple maps. I also loved the extra ascendancies that came with the league. I chose the charms one because it gave me 3 extra passive slots essentially and extra inventory space, which was awesome.
Personally, I'm bummed GGG was not a fan of this league. They felt they over juiced the rewards and made the game too easy. I'm worried we'll never see something this fun again. I can understand hardcore PoE players and devs hating on it, but if they truly want to continue to steal Diablo players then they really need to embrace software trade league players getting rewarded for their time. People who don't like it can play SSF or ruthless.