[2.2] PhantasmalThrow - LL Ele Spectral Throw Build Guide
 An introduction to PhantasmalThrow This build is a typical low life spectral throw build. I do not claim to have 'invented' this build nor do i claim to have done the large amount of testing required to have chosen the best choices for this patch. The build itself has been around for ages. However, there is a severe lack of well written guides out there, so I've chosen to write one for the POE community to make it easier to create your own LL ST character. I would like to give credit to various streamers such as BakedChicken, Darkee and some other less viewed streams that I visited to learn more about the build. BakedChicken has done some youtube guides too which i'd defenitely recommend watching as they will prove extremely useful. If you'd like to speak to me in game my IGN is: PhantasmalThrow Please note, a lot of things will be changing often so keep coming back to look. The character itself is not well geared or tweaked yet but the general build should be sound. ______________________________________________________________________________________  ______________________________________________________________________________________ Videos
Spoiler
Please note, i'm not the best at speed running. These are pretty shite quality in terms of showing how fast the build can go. However, they do provide a good view of what it'll look like. Plateau Run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRuXbIYcCyo Gorge Run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFIFnQXmSTI Worst Atziri Run Ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvf2E04SX4Y Seriously, that was bad... Didn't even put a portal before atziri. I hadn't tried it until now. This is what happens when you don't have flask charges ready. This could easily be avoided by managing flask better and or using a flask belt rather than headhunter. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Pro's
Spoiler
- Super fast clear speed.
- Fun mini-game of getting the projectiles to kill things on return. - Scales well with money invested. - Fast whirling blades. - Consistent clear speed. Con's
Spoiler
- Can get extremely expensive.
- You'll forget to use vinktars... Trust me, you will. - Not spark. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Why play Low Life Spectral Throw?
Spoiler
Spectral Throw used to be one of the best builds in the game, it's clear speed unparalleled. However, this all changed when the skill was nerfed. It was a considerably large nerf of about 15% base damage. Low Life itself later got it's own problems when blood rage was nerfed to give substantially less attack speed when low life. Heralds and Auras themselves were also nerfed quite badly. Finally, with reduced mana no longer affecting reservation, it's a lot more costly to get all the auras on the character. This resulted in the build no longer being as viable as many of the other top tier builds.
With recent patches and power creep, we are now able to use more auras, gain ridiculous amounts of attack speed through jewels and do a large amount of damage. Thus, making the build not only viable but one of what i would say is the top three builds in the game. ______________________________________________________________________________________ The Build Current build: Here's the current build, it's moving around a bit as more stuff is being tested. Currently in a toss up about taking more crit and the aura effect nodes at the moment.
Spoiler
Updated some of the jewels, got a 21 BM. Leveling trees:
Spoiler
To be added.
______________________________________________________________________________________ Build Choices
Spoiler
The build i'm using currently is mainly centered around fast clearing. As i did not have the intention of reaching 100 this league, i didn't bother making it too tanky. However, if you wanted too, there are several nodes that you can take. For example, the nodes Precise Interception and Command of Steel will add a lot of ES if you have a good shield. You can also fill more of the center ES and go for Path of the Savant.
The build scales extremely well with jewels, the amount of currency you put into these will greatly increase or decrease your damage. Jewels can have upwards of 20% attack speed, 10% all resi and all sorts of damage on them. You've probably noticed the lack of critical nodes on the tree. The reason for this is because of the power of poachers mark, flask nodes and the Diamond Flask. This flask will make your critical strike chance 'lucky'. This basically means for each time you attack, you'll roll the dice twice to see whether you crit or not. This being up at all times means that you're not going to need an obscene amount of crit. Having around 50-70% will certainly be enough. You want to aim for around 78% with power charges. This will result in around 95% crit chance with diamond flask. Making your crits consistent and smooth. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Ascendancy The ascendancy we'll be choosing is Inquisitor: 
Spoiler
The reasoning for this is simple - Consistency.
Inquisitor has the powerful node Inevitable Judgement. Lets take a look at what that does: "Critical Strikes ignore Enemey Elemental Resitances Non-Critical Strikes Penetrate 10% of Enemy Elemental Resitances" Ignoring Resistances means your damage cannot be modified in any way by any Resistance stats, this means that adding extra penetration would be pointless, freeing up a gem in our main link and further. Not only will we not need to add penetration, we'll be critting almost every hit. This means, that if you come across rare with elemental resitance, you won't even notice it. You'll one shot it and move on as if it was a white mob with a little more HP. This is essential to the consitency of the build, spectral throw is a strong AOE ability but when it comes to single target, to really do high amounts of damage you'd need to switch out GMP to something like slower projectiles or added cold. Ignoring elemental resistances means this isn't necessary except for major bosses like Uber Atziri. The other nodes give us lots of elemental damage, critical multiplier and critical chance to further boost our damage and consistency. Our other choice Augury of Penitence also lowers the damage of and increases our damage on nearby monsters - That's pretty neat. ______________________________________________________________________________________ The Gear
Spoiler
Firstly, it's important to notice that a lot of this isn't necessary. Headhunter is definitely not required and infact can be detrimental to the build as a belt with flask charges gained and duration is almost required for this build to give the good consistency that we're looking for with inquisitor.
Saying that, my gear's actually rather shite. I'd recommend getting much nicer gloves and jewelery. Better enchants wouldn't go amiss either. Leech on boots, spectral throw damage on helmet etc. What's necessary? Shavronne's Wrappings It's a low life build, so it's a given that Shavronne's Wrappings will be necessary. Due to the high budget of the build i'll assume you know what it's for. If not, just know you'd die instantly to chaos damage without it. Skyforths This item is amazing, the addition of global power charge on critical is ridiculous. Not to mention that the reduced mana reservation allows us to save the large amount of nodes it would take to get to the sovereignty cluster. The best enchant you can get here is 0.5% leech as this will reduce the strain on vinktars and will mean you won't die if it is down for a second. Vagan Dagger While not totally neccessary, adding the required accuracy nodes it would take to make it viable greatly reduces the strength of the build unless the dagger in question is a mirror dagger. Which, i don't believe exists currently on the current Perandus leagues. You can pick these up quite cheap as to get one with ele damage on it is considered bricked for most CoC builds as it messes with Elemental Equilibrium. I managed to get mine for 3.5ex, you'll probably even be able to get one for less by now. Crown of Eyes Another extremely important item to make the build strong. As we start in templar, we're going to go throw a a lot of spell damage and there's quite a lot we can pick up along the way. Using a crown of eyes will make it so that our spectral throw benefits from this. With all that said, you can play this build without a lot of the expensive gear. You can drop skyforths which would result in requiring to have a way to generate power charges. This can be done by switching poachers mark to assasins mark. You'd have to use double vinktar for sure if you did this. You'd also likely have to use a life leech gem. The build could be accomplished with a 5L at the loss of a bit of damage too. Just drop ICS, you'll lack consistency but you'll still get to have fun. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Flasks
Spoiler
This build revolves around flasks, namely the Vessel of Vinktar. This flask will give you insane leech without even needing a gem. It's recommended to get leech on your boots though through an enchant. We take flask nodes all around the tree to make it viable to rely on this. There's quite a lot of choice when it comes to flasks. What's important to note though is that you'll require atleast one vinktar, one bleed flask, one shock flask and one anti-freeze flask. When vinktars are used, you'll be shocked so always use vinktars first, then your shock flask. The vinktar is where you'll get most of your leech. So it's important to have it up at all times. Only one vinktars is required if you have a flask charge belt, if you use Headhunter or are on hardcore, i recommend to use a second. Diamond Flask is great as it will ensure that you crit often enough to make inquisitor worth it. Silver Flask is free onslaught, which is great as it'll give you more attack speed. The rest of the flasks are your choice. You have two slots remaining if you use one vinktars. I chose to go with two vinktars and a granite. However, you may want to go with an atziri's promise or a sulphur flask for regen. It's up to you. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Jewels
Spoiler
For jewels, you're going to want a lot of attack speed, crit mult and resistances. Resistances will be hard to cap for elemental weakness as we've got very limited spaces to get resistance unless we spend a LOT of money on jewelry/shield. We'll have our boots, chest and helm reserved for unique items so it's essential we get resists on at least some of the jewels.
Links To Be Added ______________________________________________________________________________________ Gems and Links
Spoiler
Lets begin with the chest piece. You're going to want a 6L Shavs to allow us to get enough damage to make the build viable. It could work with a 5L but you're going to lose quite a lot. Spectral Throw - GMP - Increased Crit Strikes - Added Lightning - Weapon Elemental Damage - Faster Attacks / Added Cold Damage The last gem there is mainly personal preference. In a no mana regeneration map, you'll probably want to use added cold to kill monsters with less mana spent. Added Cold will also make it more likely to shatter meaning you will trigger poachers mark more often to get flask charges back. Next, we're going to need our auras. This is where it becomes a little hard. You're going to want Discipline, Herald of Thunder, Herald of Ice, Anger, Wrath. Unless you haven't realised, that's a freaking lot of mana. There's several ways we can get enough mana reservation to allow us to get all this in. The cheapest option which i recommend before getting one of the others is to use the conqueror's efficiency jewel. This will allow you to get the last 2% required to get one 50% and one 25% aura on your health with blood magic. The next option would be to get a mana reservation aura enchantment on your helm. This will reduce the requirement by around 10% which is just enough. Finally, you could get a level 4 enlighten or a 21 blood magic gem. Any of these options will work. It doesn't matter where the links are but in either your belts/helm/gloves you'll want these links: Blood Magic - Anger - Herald of Thunder - Enlighten 3 Cast When Damage Taken - Immortal Call - Wrath - Discipline Vaal Haste - Summon Lightning Golem / Ice Golem - Increased Duration - Vaal Discipline Now we'll need our curse on hit setup: Herald of Ice - Curse on Hit - Poachers Mark This is the bread and butter of the build, poachers mark will give us tons of flask charges for vinktars and it will also give us frenzy charges which are also extremely good. Finally, we have the usual dagger whirling blades setup: Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify ______________________________________________________________________________________ Bandits
Spoiler
Kill All / Kraitin / Alira Mana/Resistances/Passive - Attack Speed - Power Charge If you're intent on getting the resistance cap for cheap, it's an option but not recommended. Getting more mana can help for the no mana regeneration maps. A passive point is usually a good safe option though. Attack Speed is really important for the build so this is a no brainer. We want to get the most out of our Skyforths and getting higher crit is a good idea, so we go with a power charge. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Leveling
Spoiler
This is an expensive build so i'm going to assume you're doing pretty good on currency. Therefore, i'd recommend buying a +1 to gems tabula for about 1.5 exalts, getting an Empower level 2 and using your choice of spell in that. Blade Vortex / Spark work pretty well and will make you rip through content. I'd also recommend using a Hidden Potential gem as this will ensure you one hit everything along the way. You won't need to detour with the build as it follows most of the same principles. Leveling with Hidden Potential and wearing blues will last you till merciless. You probably won't die much, trust me - I'm an expert.  ______________________________________________________________________________________ Stats
Spoiler
Here's my current stats in the hideout. There's not much optimisation yet and there's still a few weak jewels. When finished, i should have around 40k DPS in hideout and around 100k+ DPS in maps with charges.   ______________________________________________________________________________________ FAQ's
Spoiler
How on earth can i afford this build? I'd recommend getting a mirror drop, worked for me.  ______________________________________________________________________________________ Last edited by Vangoule on Apr 15, 2016, 3:19:03 AM Last bumped on Jan 6, 2017, 6:00:08 PM
| |
|
Great guide ! Very well written, extremely structurized and thought-out. can't wait until you post some videos !
A few questions: 1. how does this perform vs reflect ? Vagan dagger means you basicly cannot evade reflected damage. I guess as long as vinktars is up, it is no problem (but as you said, you will forget to .. :D) 2. did you ever encounter situations where you wished you had a warding flask? 3. I dropped this dagger in Talisman league: now in standard, noone wants to buy it. Should i still go vagan dagger or do you think it is worth using this dagger + accuracy instead? Again, thanks for this high quality write-up. Edit: also lol nice mirror RIP King of the Forest view-thread/1738625 Last edited by cmphx on Apr 14, 2016, 10:02:22 AM
| |
|
Heya, thanks for the compliments on the guide! I'd been planning the guide long before even starting the character.
As for your questions, i haven't died to reflect yet. You can even do reflect maps if you're careful. I use two vinktars just to make sure. However, if you use one, it's possible you'll come across a time when you'll hit it while it's down. Thus, i'd take aderall if you're going to play this on HC. A warding flask could indeed be useful but sadly there isn't quite enough room. Shock, Bleed and Freeze are pretty much mandatory. The last two flasks are probably going to consist of atziri's promise and a vinktar or two vinktars. If you don't mind the loss of damage, you could use it just to be sure. That is a beautiful dagger, that may actually be worth going along the route of getting accuracy. You'll probably want to get some accuracy on one of your rings, as for the tree you'll probably want to go for some accuracy nodes like Precision. It's going to be pretty expensive to get enough on the rings while still maintaining enough resi but i'd give it a shot. If you do, post results! :D | |
|
Why do you have a molten strike enchant on your hat?
| |
|
I'll be honest with you... Labyrinth running for hours on end is not really my thing. So i gave up for now. I'll probably just buy a CoE with the desired enchant when it comes.
| |
|
Im fairly interested when u claim this to be a build in top3?
Any chance i could hear your thoughts about why? | |
|
When i claim that the build is in the top 3, i mostly meant LL ST in general and not this specific one. The reason I said this is for quite a few reasons. The top builds that i can think of currently would be: Spark, VMS, LA, EQ, ST. Each have many variants and are all extremely powerful. However, when it comes to clear speed, Spark, ST and VMS all have one thing in common, they can all kill while moving. By throwing projectiles behind you, you can just rush through enemies to kill them. If based on this, i do believe it is one of the faster clearing builds.
I've tried most of these builds this league. While they are all very good builds. I've never had as much fun as with this build. It's a lot of fun managing the projectiles flying around. For this reason, mixed with it's clear speed i do believe it is one of the best. However, the top 3 comment shouldn't be taken too literally as you really can't categorize builds into a hierarchy like that very easily. | |
|
How to skip skyforths? This item is sooo expensive. PCoC? Or assasin's mark?
| |
|
Without skyforths, I think a life based version would work better to be honest. However, if you really want to try it then you're going to have to drop poachers mark for assassins mark to allow you to generate the charges. You'll then have to probably get leech somewhere as your vinktars won't be up most of the time.
| |
" witch occulist with dual curse and +1 power charge is the best choice for spectral throw if you don't have many exalt to invest you gain power charges on crit, projectile weakness+elemental weakness gives you an extra 100% more dmg or if you are a scion get assassin+inquisitor or just use herald of ice/thunder + assassin mark |
|
