The Only Build I'd Take HC :-)

This build is a theory craft, and TBH I would NEVER want to level with it. I would respec into it in one of the full resets we get every so often.

This is the tankiest build I've ever even heard of. I set out, with a basic notion of using Incandescent Heart, Darkscorn, and CI. I also specifically wanted to USE the armor from Heart, and solve some of the basic issues of CI, those of stun and status ailments. I can say that this build DOES do that, while also taking advantage of CI to negate 25% of physical and elemental damage, as Darkscorn and Heart convert 25% of them to chaos damage, thus negating them as the build is immune to chaos.
This build is also made with the intention, and sucess of gaining ALL elemental resistances from the tree, and running Purity of Elements, Fire, Lighting, and Ice with an Enlighten L4. Because of the purities, and gaining all three maximum resist boosters on the tree, without any corruption or level alteration to the purities, the build runs with 80% to all elemental resistances, and is overcapped enough to deal with any elemental weakness curse, WITHOUT any gear at all, just from the passives.

This build DOES grab the full Crystal Skin node, giving it a 50% chance to avoid all the elemental status ailments. Assuming Alpha's Howl was run, which is of course an option, freeze immunity is offered, as well as adding two levels to the aura gems and leaving more mana free. With Alpha's Howl and corrupted Purities of Ice, Fire, and Lightning, the build could reach 81% elemental resistances, in addition to the 25% negation from Heart's conversion to chaos.

This build is immune to stun, as all this left side insanity was built onto a Maruader, with the Juggernaut Ascendancy. The build runs Unbreakable for stun immunity, and to bring Heart's possible 878 armor to a respectable 1756 armor, if you get the maximum armor roll. With Unflinching and Unrelenting, the build hits 6 maximum Endurance Charges, and rolls with .2 life regen for each. With Fortify up, an extra 1.5 is gained from Unyielding. Without either the charges or Fortify, the build still stands at 6.3 life regen per second, and of course has Zealot's Oath to use that as CI. Unrelenting also gains us a further 8% reduced elemental damage taken, thus rendering us nearly immune to all elemental damage.

With 50% avoidance of the status ailments, immunity to stun and chaos damage, along with the large physical and elemental resistances, this build would be nearly unkillable, as the damage taken would be negligible, and almost always outpaced by the 9% life regen reached with all charges and Fortify. This would only be further compounded by wearing 2x Kaom's Sign, particularly after the "Fating" that was announced in the State of The Exile podcast. For those who didn't catch it, Kaom's Sign will be fated with +X to life regen per charge. The number is not yet announced, but even .1 would be a significant boost to an already very tanky build.

The passive tree and wiki links for the items:


Now that you've seen the massive tankiness, the obvious downside...There is ZERO damage in this build. This build would be tanky enough for Righteous Fire, but CI characters can't use Righteous Fire, as it shuts of automatically when you reach 1 life, which CI is always at. Darkscorn is a decent base for a bow build, but there is no points free for damage scaling. With 75% resistance somewhere on your gear, large portions of the passive tree could drop out, leaving it looking like:


This would then leave 18 points for damage scaling somewhere nearby the tree, most likely with the Piercing Shots wheel and the Avatar of the Hunt wheel.

Is this a very, very silly theory craft? Yes, yes it is. Is it of any use whatsoever? No, no not really. It's just a funny idea I came up with while working off the notion of CI. It MIGHT, actually, work out, as you could wear ALL uniques with this build and abuse the synergies that allows. The only limiters would be Heart and Darkscorn, and with how tanky this passive tree gets, those aren't actually needed, simply added tankiness on top. I've no idea if running a build with all uniques would work off of this tree, but perhaps someone else has a broken unique combo that they've been unable to make work, that could work on this foundation. I simply thought I'd share my silly thought and see if you all enjoyed it.

I notice that you never said what your ES would be. Even without Alpha's howl, where are you getting your ES from?

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dudiobugtron wrote:

I notice that you never said what your ES would be. Even without Alpha's howl, where are you getting your ES from?

Agree. I'm intrigued, but I think you're better served rolling Templar or Scion and pathing down to get Unwavering Stance, Iron Grip, and Point Blank - I'll work it out right now and see what I can come up with.

8 AC point Scion might be able to do what you want without wasting as many points.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

I notice that you never said what your ES would be. Even without Alpha's howl, where are you getting your ES from?

Some from Incadescent Heart. A fair sized boost from the passive tree. The rest probably from a Soul Strike Quiver, and other uniques. A good rare chain belt could get me 27% of each resistance and allow me to drop Purity of Elements. Right now my auras would look like:
https://poe.mikelat.com/#TErU8s/tNrp.kRb
Without Purity of Elements, I;d look like this with Alpha's:
https://poe.mikelat.com/#_Vg2wBh/tNrp.sJb
That would free me up enough to use Discipline to boost my ES, as long as I wore Alpha's.
https://poe.mikelat.com/#_Vg2wBh/tNrp.wJb
If I could dredge up enough resistance on gear to get a jewel socket somewhere and use the Efficiency unique jewel, it'd free up more mana for use, or a Herald to get more damage.

Overall, the reason I didn't give an ES total is because I didn't have one. It depends on my helm, belt, gloves, and boots, and those aren't set in stone. This was really just a silly theory craft about how tanky you could really get with CI. There's even a fair sized boost to Evasion in the tree, so getting a significant sum of Evasion is not impossible.

With 28% resistance the whole area near Sentinel can be lopped right off, as long as you keep using Purity of Elements, and used either for Evasion or damage. Or use it gain reduced reservation for a few points, and maybe run Grace rather than Discipline. Overall this is just a base for a really, really tanky CI character. What you put on this base affects the sum total of your Armor, Energy Shield, and Evasion.
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Soul_Strike

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innervation wrote:

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dudiobugtron wrote:

I notice that you never said what your ES would be. Even without Alpha's howl, where are you getting your ES from?

Agree. I'm intrigued, but I think you're better served rolling Templar or Scion and pathing down to get Unwavering Stance, Iron Grip, and Point Blank - I'll work it out right now and see what I can come up with.

8 AC point Scion might be able to do what you want without wasting as many points.

Unwavering Stance costs you Evasion, and you don't get the armor boost for Heart, so that chest ends up being mediocre. Scion can only be stun immune on full endurance charges, it's not as good, particularly for CI. It also means we don't get the extra Endurance Charge from Juggernaut, the extra damage reduction, and the free charge generation. It's simply not as good.

AGAIN, this is NOT a build I plan to MAKE, simply an odd, silly thought about possibilities. If I EVER wanted to make this real, I'd level a char to 80 or so, then wait for a full respec. This would be hellish to level with.

You do realize that with CI, "how tanky you could be" depends more on your ES than literally anything else, right? It doesn't matter if you pump your resistances to fucking 90% all around (which you're, uh, clearly not doing)--if you have 3k ES then that's still worse than someone with regular capped resists (75) and 7.6k ES (it's equal to 7.5K ES if we pretend that physical damage doesn't exist).

You can't just call something tanky because it has high resists and avoids status ailments. It's only tanky if it SURVIVES.

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You do realize that with CI, "how tanky you could be" depends more on your ES than literally anything else, right? It doesn't matter if you pump your resistances to fucking 90% all around (which you're, uh, clearly not doing)--if you have 3k ES then that's still worse than someone with regular capped resists (75) and 7.6k ES (it's equal to 7.5K ES if we pretend that physical damage doesn't exist).

You can't just call something tanky because it has high resists and avoids status ailments. It's only tanky if it SURVIVES.

Actually, I'd be hitting 81% max res, plus the 8% reduced elly damage at max charges, plus 25% of all the elly damage I would take being made into chaos, so basically 25% negated, so...
Yeah, my resists ARE like 90% or higher, if you sort out all that math, yeah.

Overall, if this insane build hit 5k ES, with all the phys and elemental reductions, plus the 25% conversion to chaos, you'd be the equivalent of maybe a 15K es person with regular resists and a bunch of evasion, cuz armor's not on the left side of the tree. The downside is of course having to weapon swap to get Fortify, but it could be done, or you could simply ditch fortify and get a different node for your 8 points.

So no, contrary to what somehow seems popular belief, the giant ES pool alone isn't all that determines your tankiness. I'd be reducing all damage taken by, let's say 90%, after all the modifiers get sorted out....I take 10% of all damage, most CIs take 25% elly and almost all the phys. See the difference now? And that's assuming 90 is where I'd hit after the modifiers sort out, it could be a bit higher, around 95%. Anyone want to sort out how much elemental reduction is actually reached for me? I'm not THAT good at math.

Inquisitor's Pious Path - Immune to status ailments on Consectrated Ground. Never taken it before but it seems like it would be up almost all the time. Can run a Sulphur Flask too for on demand consecrated ground. That solves the trek to crystal skin.

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innervation wrote:

Inquisitor's Pious Path - Immune to status ailments on Consectrated Ground. Never taken it before but it seems like it would be up almost all the time. Can run a Sulphur Flask too for on demand consecrated ground. That solves the trek to crystal skin.

True, but you'd still be over there anyways, and Inquisitor isn't really great for this build in any way. If using Darkscorn, you'd want to scale phys for that free conversion into Chaos, not elemental damage, so inquisitor's one big draw is gone. More so as we can't afford the points to go crit. Templar in general would defeat a large point of the build's purpose.

If the build isn't Juggernaut, then it really has no point overall, as it loses so much tankiness and does nothing to make Heart's base armor and ES rolls not stink. There's really no comparison for tankiness between Juggernaut and any other ascendancy class, even the Scion version of Juggernaut.

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUBAE8EQ8gpi6i5cU1boJtuDFKaz6dV34ZDY3wOgDBo8q9sPO8LYRhdxq6t8cT2DF_AZnKpHKesqvcyU6VZ8-oYfNmfPnIP-Ost0maeu-0Ucbcxkc4OPIx2OlKePDJ-KU_kIhps98E8LYPMtz5Bh_noaHTaYhhWg1-Cxyj6V8kNfOq6N4Om6yymNAo3ZrQMytO-ipMnf8bBxewYLL8V14auVmOhL5ZsVw3SIWoeHOfyL57NpzCfy2o7Gj5fP_ZIxFjxrCku-tIXL2TnVdaApGwLIvRtGRFQNbmnKx1P2VsbJUuu6QLfipRvZlR99X5Z

Here you go - 9.6% ES regen per second, increasing to 17.6% on consecrated ground if that works like I think it does. It addresses ele status and stun issues. Still not a ton of offense, and you have to earn your endurance charges but... I think it's better than the starting point. :)

I think this strongly builds around incandescent's AR and ES. It's got a lot more %ES in the tree, and it's 172% armour. Also I think it's crazy to nitpick that you're not using the small 10% ele nodes. You're getting 90% damage and 45% attack speed on conc ground.