[3.2] Harness the Barrage Void. Crit Voltaxic Rift Trickster.



Welcome to the "I wish they didn't nerf harness the void but I'll take what i can get" build

Also this is my fist ever build guide so I'd appreciate some feedback on how it can be better

MAJOR UPDATE:
3.3 is out. Voltaxic rift got its 3d art. unfortunately. voltaxic is the inferior build now.
So. Phys conversion is op. Build is changing from Voltaxic to a phys bow. chin sol is just stupid OP and I've been playing around on PoB for the best min-maxed tree and I think I've found it.
It got some phat dps, guise. trust me. you'll see.
This Build is still playable. just not as much endgame damage. still clears maps and bosses.

The Backstory
Spoiler
Basically, I love me some meme hipster builds
I got to the point to where I wanted to play a new build but no idea what.
This is the outcome of getting 90 on my aurabot (guide coming soon), and failing a theorycrafted cold snap build that was too slow. I came up with the idea of using some harness the void trickster bc most trickster builds are DOT based. What we got here is a Crit Bow conversion Hybrid Trickster. what I expected to be a white map farmer turned out to have some pretty saucy shaper dps in PoB. Definitely nothing to laugh at.

this is with dying sun, +1 barrage helm, and very well rolled gear (which I dont own atm but working on). but I'll get into gearing later


Build Theory
Spoiler
So this was built around the Trickster ascendancy Harness the Void

"
Your Hits have 20% chance to gain 25% of Non-Chaos Damage as Extra Chaos Damage
Your Hits have 15% chance to gain 50% of Non-Chaos Damage as Extra Chaos Damage
Your Hits have 10% chance to gain 100% of Non-Chaos Damage as Extra Chaos Damage

(pre nerf the % extra chaos values were double so you can imagine how crazy this would've been)

but this is what we have. and I wanted to build around it. Immediately, voltaxic rift came to mind


So with harness the void, every time you convert your non-chaos damage to another non-chaos damage, it procs for as many conversions that you do. In this build we "double dip" the damage. you could theoretically "triple dip" or even "quad dip" the damage. just keep on converting and you keep on stacking damage.

For example

Lets say we hit the 10% chance to gain 100% chaos damage from non-chaos damage.
If I have 100 lightning damage and convert 100% of it to cold damage. Then you will gain 100% of the lightning damage as chaos AND 100% of the cold damage as chaos.

so in the end, you will do
100 cold damage (that was converted from lightning)
200 chaos damage (from ascendancy)

Lets throw some more conversion in. Lets say you use a legacy pyre ring (converts 100% cold to fire).

Your Final damage comes out to
100 fire damage
300 chaos damage

crazy huh?

So here's what I got, using just a single conversion.

Voltaxic Rift converts 60% of our Lightning to chaos already so we dont have to do anything there.
we have a remaining 40% Lightning damage. Voltaxic gives us chaos damage can shock so we dont need any lightning damage so we convert all of it. So we get this guy.


This will give us that additional chaos damage conversion proc plus this gives us some nice lightning damage % and int that we definitely struggle with getting.


Videos
Spoiler
T11 Primordial Pool Twinned
https://youtu.be/MHyl57bX6Qk


(Waiting on getting back the +1 arrow quiver and dying sun to try out some guardians)


Ascendancy, Bandits & Tree
Spoiler
Ascendancy Nodes in Order:

Harness the Void > Swift Killer > Ghost Dance > Escape Artist

Breakdown of Ascendancy and why I chose them:
Spoiler
Harness the Void
"
Your Hits have 20% chance to gain 25% of Non-Chaos Damage as Extra Chaos Damage
Your Hits have 15% chance to gain 50% of Non-Chaos Damage as Extra Chaos Damage
Your Hits have 10% chance to gain 100% of Non-Chaos Damage as Extra Chaos Damage

Literally what the build revolves around. gives us many damages.

Swift Killer
"
+1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges and Maximum Power Charges
15% chance to gain a Frenzy and Power Charge on Kill
5% increased Damage per Frenzy charge
5% increased Damage per Power charge

We use this again for more damage. Charge generation is nice whenever you're clearing. Plus I love me some frenzy charges for the go fast.

Ghost Dance
"
40% increased Attack and Cast Speed if Energy Shield Recharge has started Recently
20% more chance to Evade while on full Energy Shield
10% chance to Dodge Attacks and Spell Damage while you have Energy Shield
10% increased Movement Speed while you have Energy Shield

Honestly. I like the movement speed from this. Gives us some decent survivability as well as some attack speed when we have ES recharge.
We only really take this node and the next because the other ones are DOT related and don't do anything for us. Weave the arcane could be good for the Attack speed after movement skill but then we wouldn't get more survivability from Escape Artist and who really wants to cast blink arrow for 20% attack speed. not me.

Escape Artist
"
+5 to Evasion Rating per 1 Maximum Energy Shield on Helmet
+1 to Maximum Energy Shield per 6 Evasion Rating on Armour
Cannot be Stunned if you haven't been Hit Recently
8% reduced Damage taken if you haven't been Hit Recently

These are nice for some an occasional stun avoidance and survivability. I think the Max ES from evasion armor is good for a bit of mitigation but we don't rely on it. Evasion for ES on helm is okay I guess. We currently wear an ES helmet. its ok. Not necessary tho.


Help Alira for the Crit Multi & resistances

PoB Link to lv100: https://pastebin.com/ScC9FLBN
(Goals)

PoB Link to lv90: https://pastebin.com/DxVBBCTh
(Current Build after respeccing pierce nodes on tree.)

PoB Link to lv78: https://pastebin.com/zrnQJFvk
(Was the gear and tree at the time)

Had a request for a link to the actual character's tree so



Leveling Guide
Spoiler


This is your bow progression. Get to lv5 somehow and then you're golden. Dont switch into stormcloud right at lv9. Quill rain will carry you because of its mana on hit and crazy attack speed. I usually switch to stormcloud around 20 ish when i can start using 2 two-stone -8 mana cost elreon rings to help with mana sustain and resistances.
Once you hit Lv64 You can use any roll voltaxic to start you off. I bought this one for 2c with close to max rolls and that beautiful QoL pierce corruption.

Start with shrapnel shot until you get lightning arrow.
For leveling gem links I just got a tabula and put all my gems in there.

Switch out Lesser Multiple projectiles for Greater Multiple when you get it.
for boss fights you could sub out multiple projectiles for any of the following: lightning pen, ele focus, crit chance, added cold. doesn't really matter what bc you should have tons of dps anyways.

Auras:

your other slots are just standard leveling gear. Goldrims, wanderlusts, Ondars. once you hit 36 definitely put on a drillneck. Thief's torment is almost a must and will help you sustain life and mana so much easier.


Other than that you probably dont want tree progression from me. I go straight for all the damage nodes and then fill out life later. I had like 1.1k life at like lv70. I take acrobatics, put on a thief's torment and hope for the best during bosses and progression.


Gem Links
Spoiler
Clear Skill:

Currently don't have a 6L but you could use pierce if you want to spec out of it on the tree or mirage archer. I dont use Mirage Archer here because I like dealing my own damage but its 100% definitely better for clear. take out crit chance if using.

Single Target:

After playing around on PoB, this is what I found to give the biggest deeps.

First 4S (2L-2L):

CWDT - Ice golem because who actually wants to summon the golem every time.
Vaal Haste - Increase duration bc go fast is good.

Second 4S (3L or 4L) / Aura setup:

This is the clear setup that I have going on for leveling. During clear, whatever doesn't die from the first Lightning arrow attack will get hit with thunder, applying Projectile weakness giving me more damage against it. Usually its rares that end up living thru the attack so they take increased damage.

Third 4S (4L):

This is your movement ability and boss frenzy/power charge sustain. Faster attacks will effect both blink arrow and Frenzy. So you would hit the boss with Frenzy, generating you both Frenzy charges and Power charges.

Gem Links for Endgame Bossing: (Changed it just a bit for QoL)
Spoiler
So Lightning Arrow and Barrage are still the same. If you manage a 6L socket in mirage archer. I'd rather not spend the fusings for a bit of QoL. But for your 4 socket stuff I changed it up just to be a bit more efficient.

First 4s (2L-2L) Auras:

So Curse on Hit HoT isn't a thing anymore so I just grouped up all the auras together.

Second 4S (2L-2L) or (4L):

Same CwDT Ice golem setup bc im lazy and your movement ability.

Third 4S (4L):

So this is probably the biggest change to our socket setup. So basically by the time you're gonna need to refresh your frenzy/power charges, you're probably gonna have to reapply your curse anyways so why not take out both at the same time. Frenzy charges, power charges, and curse apply all in one button.




Gear breakdown
Spoiler
Current Gear Lv90


Quicksilver for faster clear and silver for more damage.


gear at Lv78
Spoiler


Weapon
Spoiler
Voltaxic Rift is our bow of choice

Like I said before. It gives us Lightning conversion into chaos, chaos damage can shock, which enables us to use our remaining lightning to convert to cold with our ring. Basically it just fits in perfectly with Harness the Void.



+1 arrow bow as an offhand switch for maximum barrage arrow count. Got this one near max rolls for 25 scours. what a steal.


Quiver
Spoiler

Quiver is where you can get tons of damage. If I had more currency I would grab a quiver without the stun duration and replace it with flat lightning damage and attack speed.
Other than that Crit multi and WED are on top of the priority list for mods.



Threw about 2ex worth of chaos spam and ended up with this. not perfect but I wanted something somewhat well rolled and +1 arrow. More arrows is good. WED and crit chance is great. luckily I was also able to craft multi on it.

If you can find a cheap penetrating arrow quiver with similar mods, it would definitely help in clear speed so you can spec out of the pierce nodes on the tree but if you can't, drill neck is viable option

Its a decent quiver and I definitely used it for leveling as soon as I hit Lv36 and carried me into the early mapping stage. Super cheap and huge QoL bonus while leveling. would recommend.


Helmet
Spoiler



I went with this helmet because we take the Escape Artist ascendancy which gives us +5 Evasion per 1 Max Energy shield on helmet. Honestly I don't think its all that important that you get a ES helm. I just used it because it had decent ES, Life, some res and to fill out the remaining INT that I needed.

Haven't tried it but Probably a starkonja's or even a rats nest would be better.

Starkonja's gives us some life, both the helmets give us crit chance, and rats nest gives some attack and movement speed. Just use whatever feels good. Pretty flexible slot imo.

Eber's Unification could also be a option for this build. Void Gaze reduces enemy chaos resistance by 10% plus you get an additional 5-8% of Elemental damage as extra chaos. Basically a mini Harness the void without the % chance to proc. Could possibly be used early game to get the build up and running.

Maximum endgame DPS will require +1 barrage projectile enchant on helmet. Expensive but worth


Chest Piece
Spoiler

I like going fast ok.
I dont really like relying on Blink Arrow because of its cooldown time so running fast is really nice. It also fills out some resistances and gives us a good amount of Evasion rating so that our ascendancy node Escape artist gives us a decent amount of ES (+1 to Maximum Energy Shield per 6 Evasion Rating on Armour).


Belly of the Beast is also a good option since we definitely struggle with getting a decent life pool.It also fills out some resistances.
(Ignore gem links)


Now. This is our endgame chest. Gives us the biggest, most saucy-est dps boost of any chest piece because it gives us another 10-20% of elemental damage as chaos damage. This also "double dips" the elemental conversion the same way Harness the void does. Also the ES and Life and some life leech is nice. Getting colors on here will also be much easier than on the other 2 chests.


Gloves
Spoiler


Attack speed and flat lightning damage if you can get it. Its really not necessary if you can't get it so use the slot to fill out life and res.



These are also an option if you want some added damage or as a budget 5L and sticking either ur LA or barrage in here.



Boots
Spoiler


+1 FRENZY CHARGE CORRUPTION IS NOT NEEDED
I bought them because I had the currency for them. We take the ascendancy Swift Killer which gives us 5% increased damage per frenzy charge. so these 1ex boots will literally only give us 5% damage from the ascendancy plus a lil bit more attack speed.
You can definitely use an uncorrupted pair or Atziri's step.
If you want some extra dps, wake of destruction adds 1-120 lightning damage to attacks so up2u but I wouldn't recommend it. I'd rather you get some rare boots with movement speed, life and res.



Jewelry/Belt
Spoiler


If you didn't fill out your INT in the helmet already, ur rings/amulet is where ur getting it. We also need STR so get that somewhere too.
finish getting res capped. Get decent life rolls. Then focus on getting damage.

Get Crit multi, Flat lightning, and WED on your amulet if you can. Will be a huge dps boost.

Your ring should preferably be a diamond ring for extra crit chance. You want this with WED and flat added lightning damage.

Call of the brotherhood you want with the perfect 25% increased lightning damage roll. the higher INT you can get on it the less you have to get somewhere else.

Belt you want with the WED roll. QoL would also be having flask mods and a % movement speed craft but not required. Stygian is optimal so you can socket in an abyss jewel with some of the big damages.


Jewels
Spoiler

THIS JEWEL IS NOT REQUIRED
We literally path right beside the duelist leech nodes that are by Vaal Pact. If you can't afford the jewel, grab these leech nodes instead. The only difference is you miss out on a tiny bit of damage since you dont get the Crit chance/multi.

This was only jewel on the tree for a long time. you stick this bad boy in the socket right above the Acrobatics keystone to convert the claw nodes into bow nodes. This gives us crit chance,multi, and life/mana leech which helps us sustain.

If you get any other jewel sockets you want abyss jewels. Grab the ones with Added lightning damage, added lightning damage to bow attacks, global crit chance/multi, attack speed, attack speed with bows. These will give you maximum DPS. flat or % increased life would be nice also.


Flasks
Spoiler


Not really much to say here. pretty self explanitory. Life flask for life. Atziri flask for more ele damage as chaos damage. Vinktars for flat lightning damage + shock (you dont get leech from it since 60% of lightning is converted to chaos and the remaining 40% is converted to cold so u do literally 0 lightning damage rip) dying sun for +2 more projectiles for that big barrage damage, and my favorite flask of all. the zoom zoom go fast flask. Switch out Quicksilver flask for silver flask for boss fights or higher tier mapping/bossing where damage > clear speed




Pantheons
Spoiler

So I definitely forgot that pantheons exist LMAO. uhhhhhh. idk. choose something.
Minor I'm probably gonna be taking Soul of Gharukhan for the movement speed bc go fast.
Major probably Solaris for the reduce damage stuff.
Honestly just choose whatever you want. They really just depend on what content ur doing anyways so yeah.



So yeah. Like I said this is still a build in progress. I will continue to update the build as long as I keep playing. If you guys have any questions or recommendations I will gladly accept them.

I will also be making a build guide for my Aurabot that hit lv 90 very soon or after some feedback on this build guide.

Last edited by Ominous37 on Jun 3, 2018, 3:16:21 AM
Last bumped on Jun 26, 2018, 4:47:15 PM
FAQ / Any questions that have been asked at all


1. How do you feel about the upcoming changes to barrage in regards to the build?
Spoiler

TLDR
Spoiler
We're loosing damage for sure. Might not be so bad. Blast rain buffs so maybe we do some phys to ele conversion stuff for more void procs.

For those of you who don't know what might be happening to barrage heres a link to the post and the quote talking about barrage.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2133090/page/1#p15474984
Spoiler
"
Barrage
This skill is currently a cornerstone of the most powerful Bow builds, granting unparalleled single target damage once players have found ways to give the skill additional projectiles.

Additional projectiles provide too great a damage increase (as the skill gains 25% more damage for each extra projectile). We don't want to simply reduce the damage of the skill, as this makes the skill much less useful before players have access to additional projectiles.

We're currently trying out a version of the skill that has a base of 5 projectiles per barrage, rather than 4, and reducing the damage to compensate. This will mean that a player will gain 20% more damage for each additional projectile.

Long term, we want to provide alternatives to Barrage that can compete with it, but its ability to scale with additional projectiles is so extreme that we have to reduce its damage per additional projectile to give other skills a chance. This will give us the opportunity to provide more general power for bow skills.

The change doesn't seem too significant, if anything it might just give us more arrows to actually proc our ascendancy on. Might not be as big a nerf as other builds who focus on straight up extra damage from more projectiles. In the same post they talk about changes to blast rain which could also open up some single-target possibilities for us as well.

Spoiler
"
Blast Rain
Blast Rain was previously one of the more popular abilities for high single-target damage, and we want it to recover some of that strength.

The skill will now convert 100% of Physical Damage to Fire. Ranger characters don't have easy access to giving a skill full conversion to fire, so we've built this into the skill to let you take full advantage of Elemental interactions.

The skill will now penetrate 25% Fire Resistance by gem level 20. We wanted to boost the damage by about 25%, so we've done so in a way that will make it much more effective against resistant targets.

We're looking at more extreme mechanical changes to Blast Rain and other single-target bow skills, as well as considering Blast Rain's interactions with additional arrows. We'll keep iterating on these skills leading up to 3.3.0 and beyond.

The 100% Physical to fire conversion could be very good if we change the build to scale phys.The Skill gem itself will already give us a free 100% conversion to fire.
maybe use some conversion vinktars, hrimsorrows, Taste of Hate, stormcharger's?
Anything Phys -> element OR % of phys added as element
For bows, any high phys base bows could work. Lioneye's Glare, Xoph's Nurture, RoTC, Chin Sol? Deaths Opus? Doomfletch Prism? who knows. we have to wait until they decide on what changes to make to the skills.

2. It looks like Windripper and The Tempest simply put out more DPS despite all of the conversion double dipping shenanigans. They obviously don't put out as much chaos damage as Voltaxic though.

Spoiler

TLDR
Spoiler
Yes. In a perfect world of plentiful exalts and perfect gear. the tempest would do more damage. TONS more if you can get a +1 arrow one. Windripper will only do more damage with a +1 arrow but at least you'd make money clearing. But we're cheap hipsters so we go the more budget route.


The main point of the build is to be hipster

But seriously though, The build is made to put out a ton of DPS with the ability to be a fairly budget character. It also has a very high gear ceiling to be able to scale into tons of damage. So if you want to dump tons of exalts into the build, you will definitely see a difference.


The Tempest and Windripper are both meta bows and are much more expensive.
(currently in Bestiary league) the cheapest Tempest go for about 40 chaos and cheapest Windrippers are 1ex. Neither of which are 5L.
We are trying to go for budget. Im looking at poe.trade right now at a Voltaxic that is 2 off perfect rolls for 2 alchs. Buy yourself the Jeweller's touch prophecy for like 20c and theres ur bow. And theres a +1 arrow voltaxic up for sale for one (1) alch.

As for the damage numbers:

(I'm assuming that you're playing around with the Lv100 Tree)

The Tempest scales lightning damage the same way we do. But it benefits a lot more from the flat added lightning abyss jewels.

Abyss Jewels with those affixes for for about 10ex.
(affixes are flat lightning, flat lightning with bows, crit multi. these give most dps from one jewel)

For a more budget approach, a viridian jewel with projectile damage, some attack speed and % lightning damage would make The Tempest worse than a Voltaxic Rift. Of course, the Voltaxic build would also suffer in damage, but not as hard as The Tempest would. I tested a viridian jewels with Attackspeed with bows, Projectile damage, and crit multi in the PoB tree. The Tempest ends up doing about 1M dps less than the voltaxic.

Viridian jewels with those affixes go for about 1 or 2 exalts.

So yes. you could get more damage with the Tempest. But you're also spending tons more on gearing and jewels.

I also put in the windripper into the build. and without a +1 arrow windripper (Which cost around 70ex+) it actually does 2.5M dps less. Of course, If you want it to clear, it would definitely be really nice for the IIR/IIQ and you probably wont feel a difference damage wise on the trash clear just because you're gonna be 1 shotting everything anyways. Plus we have our +1 bow swap for bosses so it shouldn't be a problem at all. Personally, I just didn't want to spend the money for it. Plus it takes away from my hipster aesthetic.

Also. Another big mention is that a lot of monsters aren't resistant to chaos damage. you come across tons of enemies that are resistant to elemental damage but chaos is much less common. You run into it every once in a while but since you also have the chaos, its usually not a problem and they go down pretty fast. If they're chaos resistant, you have ele damage and they also usually go down fast. If you use a windripper or Tempest and run into mobs with ele resist, it's probably gonna be a struggle without penetration. Either that or rely on the somewhat unreliable 25%-15%-5% chance to proc void for chaos damage to help you out.
Now. If you find a monster with both chaos res and ele res. you're screwed regardless so voltaxic is just kinda better so you get around those resistance mobs.



Last edited by Ominous37 on May 10, 2018, 1:20:20 AM
Character Progression Updates:
Update 1:
Spoiler
Hit Lv80 & this Just happened



Update 2:
Spoiler
Currently Lv86. We finally got our hands on the Dying Sun


Not that many Gear upgrades asidie from that. but currently trying to craft a +1 arrow quiver


Current quiver atm just for clear speed so I can socket out a silver flask and put in our dying sun.
Also Purchased a new bow

after checking Poe.Trade I realized that buying a +1 arrow bow would be a massive DPS boost for barrage for cheap. Bought this +1 arrow voltaxic which is only 11 dps short of being perfect for 25 scours. Not going to bother vorici crafting a 5L onto it. not only would it be hella expensive but I have my chestpiece that holds my single target setup so I'm just going to carry around the bow in either the inventory or a offhand and use that for the switch.

Current barrage Tooltip with +1 arrow voltaxic and 6L chestpiece
Spoiler


Update 3:
Spoiler
Been progressing the character slowly. Did a lot of gear upgrades since last time.

Made some Abyss Jewel purchases. Foul song cost 15c and Grim rain cost 30c. both are massive boosts in dps.



New Jewelry and belt. Mostly DPS focused.


+1 Arrow quiver crafted decent I guess. not optimal but I've already dumped about 2ex worth of chaos spam into it and im too broke to keep going.


just a better rolled atziri flask to the one I had before. Perfect elemental to chaos since thats the important roll for us.


Update 4:
Spoiler

Did some tweaking to the Actual guide itself. Added a "Bossing" skillgem setup for better QoL which I will try and get on my gear as soon as I can reroll colors on my corrupt boots.
Added Video T11 Prim Pools with missing gear (More to Come)
Played around with trees on PoB. Unspecced out of Acrobatics and got Ghost weaver instead for more ES. Currently playing around with it to see how I like it.
On Lv100 tree, Changed up some passive points, +1 arrow bow bc I actually own that now. 5K ehp and actually topped off my resistances. Almost doubled my dps. Could definitely spec out of damage for life. (I would do it but I like my DPS so that’s a no from me.)
Bought Some Gear:



Realized a stygian would be another good option to squeeze as much dps out of the build as possible. One abyss jewel is for the belt, other for the tree. Added lightning damage to attack vinktars for boss shock + more damage to convert.

Gear Changes that need to happen / have happened:


Helmet and Gloves are going to need the resistances changed. Helmet is getting 30% fire res and gloves will get 13% fire and cold res. Kinda tilted tho. this will give me capped fire and cold res but 74% lightning res. only place I could get higher lightning res would be buying different gear or getting higher lightning res darkray vectors which might be difficult. Crafted Accuracy on the ring for dps. Other than that, build is coming along nicely.

Last edited by Ominous37 on Apr 27, 2018, 8:54:07 PM
I guess I make build guides now so here are my other ones
Spoiler

[3.2]Incinerate CwC Discharge meme build
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2147387

[3.2] Exilemancer - 12 Aura Generic Speedbot
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2149654
Last edited by Ominous37 on May 28, 2018, 4:31:53 PM
<Reserved> (not sure why people reserve posts but everyone else is doing it so might as well)
How do you feel about the upcoming changes to barrage in regards to the build?
Interesting build just managed to get this bow for one alchemy so I am going to try it. Thanks searched so long today for a build that was after the nerfs to chaos to poison and yours was the only one still using this bow. So happy to see it.

Last edited by Desarix on May 3, 2018, 7:23:19 PM
I have been playing around on PoB. I just really want to make this bow work.

It looks like Windripper and The Tempest simply put out more DPS despite all of the conversion double dipping shenanigans. They obviously don't put out as much chaos damage as Voltaxic though.

What are your thoughts on this? Is there a benefit to putting out more chaos damage that outweighs the extra DPS gains from other bows? All I can think off is that it will be superior to other bows at downing bosses with large energy shield pools.


Just interested to know what you think.
Cool build! Was wondering if theres any possible way to convert the last 40%?

Edit: Im stupid ignore this.
Last edited by WickedLiinks on May 31, 2018, 8:19:42 PM
Has 3.3 wrought any changes to this build as my tree has been reset and I am following this build.

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