[2.0.2] The Chaos Bomb - CI Chaos Vaal Righteous Fire Build - Fun guaranteed!

Summary

For this build we use Vaal Righteous Fire as our main skill and Firestorm as a secondary skill when Vaal Righteous Fire is not fully charged. We take Chaos Innoculation and stack an absurd amount of Energy Shield to maximize damage. We also use Ghost Reaver and Vaal Pact keystones with Life Leech so that we stay alive after an explosion.

For the Chaos part, we use a The Consuming Dark and an Infernal Mantle to convert 100% of our Fire damage to Chaos damage. This makes the build immune to Reflect, no matter what Fire skill you use.

You 1-shot everything except high life and Chaos resistance Rare and Unique monsters. Opening boxes becomes fun as you just stand in the middle and BOOM, box opens and drops loot (keep an eye on "Detonate corpses" though...).

This build only requires a 3 link for the main skill and 4 links for utilities. It only costs about 3 to 4 Exalted orbs to start and can be upgraded later on as you gather currency.

  • Cost: 1 to 2 Exalted, depending on rolls
  • Leveling: A bit hard and long but fun
  • Mapping Viable: Hell yes
  • Hardcore Viable: Erm...
  • Atziri's/Uber Viable: Hell no
  • A lot of fun: OH YES!

Why did I make this build?

Almost all of my builds and build ideas were nerfed when patch 2.0 hit. I was a little bit mad at GGG for this and lost a bit of interest in the game. Still, I wanted to play, because PoE is a lot of fun. But having lost the spark, I needed a fun build. A build that would just make me laugh out loud.

I started looking for fun skills that I could use for my build. At the time my friends were joking about the fact that the only thing that we dropped from Vaal Vessels in Corrupted Areas was Vaal Righteous Fire, and how much of a crap skill it was. I then tought a bit about it and just YOLO'd a character that would use this skill, primarly as a joke. But the joke was on me, because it turned out to be the best and most fun build I've ever played.

Character

Here is an overview of the character I am playing this build with.



Pros and Cons

Pros
  • Very fun to play
  • Great clear speed on open maps
  • One-shots almost anything
  • Can open and clear boxes efficiently
  • Good survivability for a CI build
  • Nice purple explosions!

Cons
  • Does not do well in maps with corridors/tunnels/caverns
  • Easy to die if you do not pay attention or misclick
  • Entry cost
  • Leveling is a bit of a pain



Videos

*Work in progress*



Skill Tree

Here is the completed tree, around level 85-90.

In the socket right next to Melding (the Life and Energy Shield cluster between the Shadow and the Witch), we put an Energy From Within jewel. The cluster will then give 8 + 8 + 8 + 16% Energy Shield.



Stats

Offensive

*Work in progress*

Defensive

  • Elemental resistance: All capped at 75%
  • Energy Shield: 10,000+
  • Armour and Evasion: None, but Granite and Jade flasks are pretty good
  • Life leech: Up to 6% without any on gear (yes you heard me right) applied instantly

*Work in progress*



Items

Mandatory


This is the center piece of our build. The Consuming Dark dagger converts 75% of our Fire damage to Chaos damage, which bypasses Energy Shield and is not reduced by many enemies. It also gives a nice boost to Spell damage and Critical Strike Chance as well as a +1 to level of Fire gems.

Also note that all Chaos damage poisons on hit. It does 10% of damage inflicted per second for 2 seconds, so it is an additionnal 20% more damage on our spells.


We need Infernal Mantle to convert the remaining 25% of our Fire damage to Chaos Damage. It also gives a nice +1 to level of Fire Gems, Fire damage and Critical Strike Chance for Spells. Tough we do not play Crit, they are always welcome. But watch your mana. If you ever fall below 35% mana, you take double the damage from enemy spells.

The Infernal Mantle could be replaced with a high Energy Shield (800+) body armour for those who have the money for it. Part of the damage could be reduced by Fire resistance but the additionnal Energy Shield could make up for it.


We play CI, so we need a way to deal with Stun and Freeze. The Eye of Chayula amulet takes care of the stun part. For the Freeze, we have 2 items to deal with it: the Auxium belt, which calculates Chill and Freeze duration with 65% of our ES instead of our life and a Sapphire Flask of Heat, to dispel Freeze and grant immunity to it during its effect.

Other items


For the rest of the items, we simply get high Energy Shield and try to cap our resists. Try to get Mana regeneration on the Shield since it will help with the Infernal Mantle.


The Atziri's Promise flask is a great addition to our build, since it gives an additionnal 2% Life Leech, since all our damage is Chaos damage.

Just fill the other flask slots with utility flasks of your choice. I personnaly recommend having at least one Quicksilver flask and one Granite Flask. Having a flask with the Staunching suffix to dispell Bleeding will help against Corrupting Blood.

Jewels

The Energy From Within jewel is really good when placed near the Melding cluster. It gives 12 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 16% (52%) Energy shield for 5 Skill points which is ridiculously good.



Skill gems setup

All gems setup are listed in order of importance.

Weapon (3 Link): Vaal Righteous Fire + Life Leech + Increased Area of Effect

This is our main skill. It only requires a 3 link to work and we put it in the The Consuming Dark for the +1 to Fire spells (though it does not really benefit much, so you could put it in another 4 link).

Body Armour (4 Link): Firestorm + Life Leech or Increased Area of Effect + Concentrated Effect + Spell Echo

We will use Firestorm when Vaal Righteous Fire is not fully charged, to gather souls. Life leech is a nice suvivability boost, but if you have no trouble staying alive, consider changing it for an Increased Area of Effect.

Helmet (4 Link): Summon Chaos Golem + Minion Life + Fortify + Culling Strike

Our Golem will, most of the time, tank for us, so we must give him life and damage reduction. I also like to put Culling Strike so that boss fights are shorter, but you can swap it for any support gem, really (Increased Area of Effect, Concentrated Effect or Minion Damage seems like good options).

Gloves (3-4 Link): Cast when Damage Taken + Temporal Chains or Warlord's Mark + Summon Skeletons + (Optionnal) Frost Wall or Minion Life

Any build should have a Cast when Damage Taker setup. We link Summon Skeletons to switch the aggro of the enemy that did the damage. Temporal Chains is a good option, though Warlord's Mark is great for Endurance charges generation. I like Frost Wall too because it blocks enemies that are melee. It can be a pain in the ass sometimes (it still blocks movement...) so chaning it for Minion Life for our Skeletons is a good alternative.

Shield (2-3 Link): Flame Dask + Faster Casting or Lightning Warp + Faster Casting + Reduced Duration

For our movement spell, the classics: Flame Dask with Faster Casting or Lightning warp with Faster Casting and Reduced Duration. No explanations needed here.

Boots (3-4 Link): Warlord's Mark + Discipline + Clarity or Arctic Armour + Any aura of your choice or Enlighten

Here we put our Auras and our Curse. Warlord's Mark gives a boots to the life we leech on our enemies and gives Endurance charges. Disciplines raises our Energy Shield and our damage. Clarity is run only to prevent our mana to go under 35%. If you can manage your mana without it, then you can replace it with Arctic Armour or a Purity if needed.



Cost

All the prices are for the Warbands league.

  • The Consuming Dark: 1 to 2 Exalted
  • Eye of Chayula: 1 to 10 Chaos
  • Infernal Mantle: 1 to 5 Chaos
  • Auxium Belt: 5 to 10 Chaos
  • Atziri's Promise: 1 alch or 1 Chaos
  • Other high ES pieces: Consided 5 to 10 Chaos each = 25 to 40 Chaos
  • TOTAL: 1 to 2 Exalted



Leveling

Leveling is great if you are willing to die a little and call a friend to help you with hard bosses (I'm looking at you, Act 4...). Basically you have two choices:

Boring choice: Doing all the leveling alone, taking some life nodes.

*Work in progress*

Hella fun choice: YOLO CI at lvl 31 and just explode the shit out of everyone.

I did this, and it was great! The basic path to follow is this one:

  • Take Ghost Reaver and Vaal pact as early as you can, while taking a fair amount of ES nodes
  • As soon as you are lvl 31, link Life Leech to Vaal Righteous Fire
  • Have a great time exploding everything!

Here is what the tree should look like at lvl 31.
Here is what the tree should look like around level 60.
Here is what the tree should look like around level 70.
Here is the completed tree, around level 85-90.

You will need a higher level friend though, since you will have a low amount of defenses. Have them kill bosses that are too hard and just proceed to the next zone. Pay attention to your level because you will most likely die and you must not enter zones that are too high level. Don't try to push it and power level, take your time to take back the lost experience. Dying will be part of the process and you will learn a lot about what you can and cannot do with Vaal Righteous Fire (like exploding in a Resists Fire Damage blue pack and leeching close to 0 ES...).

Bandits

  • Normal: Kill all (+1 Skill Point)
  • Cruel: Kill all (+1 Skill Point)
  • Merciless: Kill all (+1 Skill Point)

We do not need any of the bandit rewards, so we just kill them all at every difficulty level and take the skill points.



Upgrades

Here we will talk about upgrading the build. The upgrades are costly so only consider them if you have a couple Exalted orbs in your bank that you are willing to put on this build.

*Work in progress*

Jewels

Two words: Sacrificial Harvest. This jewel is so damn good with this build, because it reduces the downtime of Vaal Righteous Fire by a lot. Having 3 or 4 of those is a great addition to the build and it will increase your fun considerably. They do cost 1 Exalted orb each though, so it's a pricey upgrade. You will need to skill points into jewel sockets. You can sacrifice some damage nodes for it or just wait to get the levels.



Conclusion

This is my first build, so if there is something missing, tell me in the replies. I tried to explain the build the best way I can, though I may have missed some key parts. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on the forums, by private messaging or in-game.
Last edited by AlphSpirit on Oct 9, 2015, 6:50:41 PM
Last bumped on Mar 16, 2016, 5:01:08 PM
What about bandits ?
Good point Fedner, I have added the bandits rewards to the build. You basically take all 3 Skill points.
hey, nice build idea. I m also playing around with The Consuming Dark and Infernal Mantle and will give this a try.

I am thinking about using maybe one or two max level cwdt setups with max level spells. Not sure wich one I will use (maybe: cwdt+Firestorm+Inc Duration+ll or cwdt+Discharge+inc aoe+ll and use Endurance Cry manually;max endurance charges from tree worth it???).
Anyway you will trigger this everytime you use your Vaal Righteous Fire. I think it is important to leech to full es after every explosion immediately. Thanks Vaal Pact, this shouldnt be a problem.


Another idea is to use Molten Shell max level linked with life leech and other damage/area supports. You activate it, charge into a group of mobs and use your Vaal Rightious Fire. Molten Shell Explosion lvl 20 deals 1962-2943 Firedamage unsupported....

I will try to combine this three setups and tell you about the absurd damage combo tonight :)
Last edited by Norec on Aug 26, 2015, 4:54:04 AM
Norec, keep in mind that Vaal Righteous Fire does not trigger Cast when Damage Taken. Self inflicted damage never does.

Leeching back full ES is not a problem as long as there are 4-5 enemies arround you. Detonating on a single Rare puts me at between 10 and 15% ES.

And for Molten Shell to explode, it must either absorb a lot of damage from armour (which the build doesn't have), so it will be difficult to execute. You also don't really want to be taking damage, since your ES is your primary source of damage with Vaal Righteous Fire.

But do tell me if you happen to make something work, I would love to know! Any way to improve the build and it's fun factor is truly appreciated!

If you want to play another build with The Consuming Dark and Infernal Mantle that is Atziri's viable (but a lot less fun), you can try Zivko's CI Chaos Incinerate build.
Last edited by AlphSpirit on Aug 26, 2015, 9:13:53 AM
So your vaal rf does 14k base damage.

After 300 % spell damage from tree and 100% from gear you're up to 70k damage.

At this point there aren't any great support gems. Fire pen is out, conc effect is against the idea of using VRF, inc aoe is decent. Life leech is good. Added dmg gems are horrible.

I think maybe if you dropped mantle/consuming and went for fire pen-chance to ignite-life leech-aoe you might be better off. I don't really see why 100% chaos conversion is important for your build, you already have 4% leech, an extra 2% isn't that big. And you don't have good support gems you can use anyways.
All my builds /view-thread/1430399

T14 'real' clearspeed challenge /1642265
Last edited by MatrixFactor on Aug 31, 2015, 12:51:16 AM
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Im playing the build, lvl 73 at the moment... my invest has been 3 ex for the consuming dark, and 10 ex for 2 sacrificial harvest.. (on stasndard)

u could say its expensive, but meh, its funny and for now.. since i have 7.6 k ES ... i usually dont die.. so, with the time, the invest will be rewarded...


its pretty much good even without the sacrificial harvest, thats just for speed up the explosions, but the firestorm 5L hits rlly hard...

nice build ^^
I'm theorycrafting a Vaal RF build right now, so this thread proves to be very helpful. I'm going life-based though, with about 6k life / 45% block / 17k armour. The theory behind it is that it's just as good to start off with lower life/ES (and thus base damage) if you don't take as much damage as you would without any real defenses.

I'm not completely sure that the chaos conversion is needed here. It's good, but wearing a Doryani's Catalyst instead of Consuming Dark and some high-ES chest piece instead of Infernal Mantle seems superior to me. Reflect is not a concern because Vaal RF can't be reflected anyway and Firestorm is not dangerous to reflect since you're dealing and leeching back from many small hits.

I wanted to ask how often you need to use Firestorm? That's my main concern about the build right now, not getting enough souls to clear maps fast. I guess I'd need at least two Sacrifical Harvest for good use of Vaal RF?
scroogetemplar / scroogewitch / scroogemarauder

Freezing Pulser (safe + affordable): https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1529856
"
scrooge999 wrote:
I'm theorycrafting a Vaal RF build right now, so this thread proves to be very helpful. I'm going life-based though, with about 6k life / 45% block / 17k armour. The theory behind it is that it's just as good to start off with lower life/ES (and thus base damage) if you don't take as much damage as you would without any real defenses.

I'm not completely sure that the chaos conversion is needed here. It's good, but wearing a Doryani's Catalyst instead of Consuming Dark and some high-ES chest piece instead of Infernal Mantle seems superior to me. Reflect is not a concern because Vaal RF can't be reflected anyway and Firestorm is not dangerous to reflect since you're dealing and leeching back from many small hits.

I wanted to ask how often you need to use Firestorm? That's my main concern about the build right now, not getting enough souls to clear maps fast. I guess I'd need at least two Sacrifical Harvest for good use of Vaal RF?


No.... don't go life+mitigation. You need to go total HP stacking because it serves as both your health and damage pool at once. Similar to RF.

Yeah consuming dark/mantle are just gimmicks. You would be much better off with a high ES regalia and a catalyst. Partly because of leech, partly because of fire pen support & curses.
All my builds /view-thread/1430399

T14 'real' clearspeed challenge /1642265

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