[3.11] Poison BV Explosion Assassin - Super Speedy Mapper



3.11 Poison BV Explosion Assasin - Super Speedy Mapper

Gameplay vid: (fullclear rare T16 including metamorph in 1:30)
https://youtu.be/hgYRf1Oqnro

3.11 Update
Our build is largely unaffected by the 3.11 balance changes. The passive tree and cluster jewels received a lot of small changes which only change some smaller priorities of what we take.

The most interesting is probably the changed "Evil Eye" notable which gives us a very reliable way to blind on hit. This would make it possible to drop Flesh and Stone Aura for something like Aspect of the Spider.

Detailed review of passive changes:
Spoiler
Overview passive tree changes:

- Coordination (buffed): +2% cast speed - we were always gonna take this
- Entropy (nerfed): -4% Damage over Time - we were always gonna take this
- Coldhearted Calculation (buffed): Now has 12% damage instead of 12% attack and spell damage. Our explosions are actually neither attack nor spell damage. So this is a nice buff.
- Atrophy (nerfed): lost the 8% chaos resistance - this cluster was already one I was ready to skip, especially when you got cluster jewels, you probably still take it for levelling
- Hunter's Gambit (nerfed): lost 10% faster Poison Damage - it was one of the best annoint, now you probably gonna take something else
- Fatal Toxins (changed): All the smaller nodes on this cluster are changed. In the end we get pretty much the same.
- Revenge of the Hunted (buffed): Slightly buffed evasion for this cluster
- Method to the Madness (nerfed): Already wasn't a huge cluster damage wise and not taken in my regular trees.
- Dire Torment (buffed): They want to make Perfect Agony more attractive for DoT builds. It does still nothing for explosions, but you might pick it if you wanna boost single target.


Cluster jewel changs:

- Wicked Pall (nerfed): Lost 10% skill effect duration. That node was absolutely insane. Is still good.
- Towering Threat (buffed): Gained 3% life, so now has 8% life and 10% AoE. Thats a super nice node, you can get it on small life clusters or medium AoE.
- Assert Dominance (nerfed): This was crazy on AoE clusters. Still good for us.
- Circling Oblivion (changed): Lost 15% skill effect duration. Gained 5% DoT and Poison Duration. Still an insane damage boost for longer bossfights, but doesn't help with BV uptime anymore.
- Evil Eye (changed): Now blinds enemies for 4 seconds when you inflict non-aura curses. We always do that (when we have a curse on hit gloves or ring) and our curses spread fast with explosions. This node is now super strong IMO. It lost some attack dodge.


Conclusion: Our passive trees will not change. Atrophy nerf makes it slightly more attractive to drop it when you go clusters. Hunter's Gambit is longer one of the best annointments.

The biggest in my opinion is the Evil Eye notable on Curse Clusters. That's a reliable way to blind (for 4 seconds) in addition to the 5% DPS the node already gave. We were already running Flesh and Stone for blind. If you get Evil Eye you could get Aspect of the Spider as an aura instead. (or Skitterbots but you would have to get some reduced reservation)


Poison is one of the best ways to scale phys explosions (new Crusader chest affix or Asenath's Gentle Touch). Assasin can easily get 100% chance to poison and you can also apply curses on hit with explosions. Making it possible to chain explosions nicely. The skilltree is optimized with damage nodes and AoE that also affects your explosions.

With Vaal BV, Plaguebearer and Wither Totems you also have a very strong single target nuke.

You can start this build off just with budget gear and dual Obliteration wands. So it's possible to leaguestart with. Getting an explosion chest is absolute priority and a big upgrade.


Defences:
* 7-8k EHP
* Max dodge and spell dodge if your elusive buff is still high.
* Flesh and stone aura (and a decent amount of Evasion from your gear)
* Tempchains curse aura
* Fortify (stacks with reduced damage taken from Assasin ascendancy)

How is bossing?
Your single target is very good as long as you can nuke bosses. Conquerors should be no issue. When your flasks+Vaal BV drops off, the fights will take longer and we got no good way to regain life against bosses except flasks. Doing Sirus is still possible if you bring 3 life flasks. But this build is optimized for mapping.

Credit to madziar169 for these bosskill vids:
Sirus A8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbpoAAF1Pjc
Uber Elder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmiYnCL84ts


PoB: https://pastebin.com/ZenYAASU (you can select different gearsets and skilltrees)
Browser version: https://pob.party/share/oteronatareror


Gameplay style
Spoiler
Plaguebearer is a very big reason why poison builds are good. You should always activate your Plaguebearer when it's fully charged. In higher maps you can recharge Plaguebearer just with one pack, so the uptime is very high (see in the vid).

Get your BV stacks up when you wait for something to die, this occurs especially while Plaguebearer is down.

Against bosses get full BV blades and place your Wither totems. Then press Plague Bearer, Vaal BV and lastly Withering Step. I run around the Boss to naturally dodge some attacks. You can also shield charge into boss or adds for fortify. If the boss is below half health, you can usually move away to a safer spot and wait for the poison to finish them off.

Gem links
Spoiler
Vaal BV - Unleash - Deadly Ailments - Vile Toxins - Unbound Ailments - Void Manipulation

On a 5link drop Void Manipulation. You don't need Poison Support since we want to have 100% chance to Poison for explosions anyways. But use it for leveling until you have 100%.

Plague Bearer - Empower - Increased AoE
Enlighten - Malevolence - Herald of Agony - Flesh and Stone
Shield Charge - Fortify - Faster Attacks
Wither - Spell Totem - Multiple Totems
Cast when Damage Taken - Increased Duration - Steelskin/Immortal Call
(Immortal Call is much better than Steelskin at lower levels, so if you don't have enough Strength for lvl 19-20, run Immortal Call)

Withering Step
Flame Dash

If you wanna run Solstice Vigil, you have to drop the CwdT setup. You could self cast a guard skill.

Bandits/Ascendancy/Pantheon
Spoiler
Bandits: kill all

Ascendancies (in that order): Noxious Strike (gives us 40% poison on hit), Toxic Delivery, Mistwalker, Opportunistic

Pantheon: Brine King against stun (and maybe freeze), Garukhan for evade and movement speed

Gear
Spoiler

My SSF gear in 3.9:


If you are interested in optimized non-SSF gear, check the "Fully optimized build" section.

Overall remarks on gear:
As with all builds try get as good life as possible on all your gear. Evasion bases are best for us. Try to get chaos resist as well, it's really important especially this league. Don't overvalue some minor damage mods.

Helmet
It's really good to get a reduced Mana reservation enchant which should be cheap. If you have Enlighten lvl4 you could go for something like Despair or TempChains curse effect.

With 3.10 you need a Hunter influence Helmet to get the "Nearby Enemies have -x% Chaos Resistance" mod. You would roll these with Pristine+Aberrant fossils. But you cou can also get the mod without fossils.

Getting an Enchant on that base will be expensive, so you should just be fine with either of those.

Of course as with all other gear you can just use a random decent rare helmet as budget option until you can upgrade.

Body
The only requirement of this build is the "Killed Enemies explode, dealing 3% of their life as physical damage" mod. You need a ilvl85 Crusader body armour to get that mod which might take a few thousand alterations. It's super rare.

With Awakaner Orbs you can combine two influence mods which is very strong. For this build I would certainly go for "Enemies can have 1 addtional curse" mod from Hunter body armours.

Gloves
It's actually much easier to get Hands of the High Templar gloves with both Despair and Tempchains on hit than I thought. Such gloves are absolutely insane for our build and should be a high priority after getting an explosion chest.

As a budget option you could just get Despair on hit corruption. This will at least allow you to drop your Blasphemy-Despair setup.

In SSF you might wanna corrupt rare gloves to get a curse on hit corruption.

Boots
I really like Atziri's Step for the high spelldodge (and evasion).

You could just use other temple boots with spelldodge or craft some Redeemer influence boots. Your spelldodge will be lower, but you could get some higher life or resists if you fancy that.

Weapon
With 3.10 fossil crafting was changed we can no longer "Despair on hit" on weapons.

Fossil crafting is still powerful to roll several poison mods, especially on Hunter influenced daggers (best base are Kris with 50% critchance). You would use abberant+corroded+metallic fossils. (last one blocks physical mods)

Until you can afford to craft such a dagger, you could just look to get a weapons with high "chaos damage over time multiplier". This is the most important mod. You could also run Cold Iron Point if you just wanna boost your single target, but Cold Iron Point does nothing for explosion damage.

If you can't afford an explode chest or Asenath's Gentle Touch yet, you absolutely should run 2 Obliteration Wands. It means no shield charge and less single target, but much faster mapping than without.

(Note: The "chance to poison" from the weapon is a local modifier, so it doesn't work for us, but that mod is hybrid with poison damage, so it's still good for us)

Shield
You probably need some resists from your shield, so you are good with just a rare shield with life and resists.

If you can get "+1 level to physical gems" or "increased critical strike chance" that's a nice bonus, but not necessary at all.

With a free prefix you can craft "physical gained as extra chaos" which is just as good maybe even better.

If you don't need resists from the shield, you could think about some unique shields as options. Mistwall could fit nicely. Zeel's Amplifier would be huge for the AoE.

Update: Vix Lunaris is actually another great choice for our build and I think it might be best in slot. We get +4 levels for our Plaguebearer setup. We also get cannot be frozen which is normally hard to get with our flask setup.

Amulet
With 3.11 GGG moved the Overcharged node on the tree which I really like because we kill quickly and gain all 3 charges. Thus the main priority for an amulet is now to get the Overcharged mod "10% chance to get power/frenzy/endurance charge on kill" on a hunter amulet. The hunter amulet also has chaos dot multi which would be a great mod for us.

You can also get Overchared as an annoint as mentioned below.

Solstice Vigil is still a good unique option which gives you another possible access to tempchains and makes your BV last longer.

Annoints:
* Dirty Techniques: After the nerf to Hunter's Gambit, this is your go-to annoint. 5% faster poisons, 10% DoT multiplier and 20%(!) longer poison duration which is huge against bosses.
* Overcharged: If you don't have a hunter amulet, the best annoint is Overcharged.
* Toxic Strikes: If you wanna get 100% poison chance without running Herald of Agony, you basically have to annoint this one. Allows for some other Aura setups like Aspect of Spider+Skitterbots instead of Malevolence+HoAg. Overall its not really an improvement, but if you prefer that, totally fine.
- Toxic Strikes can also be a nice budget annoint especially because amulets is not one of the first things you invest into.
* Whispers of Doom: If you have some other chest without additonal curse that you really like to run, of course you could just annoint Whispers of Doom. It's really expensive though with 2 golden oils.

Rings
You can just get good rings with lots of life and resits. Vermillion bases are best for lots of life. If possible get one mana regeneration affix or craft "Non-Channeling Skills have -9 to total mana cost". That way you should almost never run out of mana.

You could also get "Despair on hit" from Hunter influence rings if you are unable to get it as a glove corruption.

Belt
Just a good Stygian Vise with high life and resists. Getting some flask mods on belts is always good. Craft "Flask applied to you have increased effect". Especially if you run Atziri's Promise that mod is absolutely huge as it give use damage, chance to poison, movement speed (and a better life flask and chaos resist).

Jewels
Get one Onslaught Jewel. After that it's really good to have one jewel with chance to poison. This will cap out your poison chance with only taking one "chance to poison" node on the tree.
Of course there are some really nice mods if you wanna invest in a Malevolence watcher's eye.

Because we kill really fast, and could profit from all charges it's really good to take the Overcharged node in the lategame. One of the best ways is to put an Intuitive Leap in the socket nearby. (and also take Melding then)

Another lategame optimization is a Thread of Hope (very large) in the slot below Acrobatics. That way you can directly take "Hunter's Gambit", "Revenge of the Hunted", "Heart of the Oak" and "Swift Venoms". You would then also take the life wheel nearby.

Lastly because we run 2 unique flasks, we cannot get freeze immunity on flasks unless we run a "Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you" Jewel. Than you could put freeze immune on your life flask.

The new cluster jewels discussed under "skilltree".

Flasks
Spoiler


Coralito's is mandatory. Atziri' Promise is very good for Damage and Chaos Resists. Sin's Rebirth would be a damage upgrade over Atziri's, but you lose all that good Chaos Res.

Then Quartz to more easily cap out Dodge (and Phasing is also REALLY nice for just runnig through the map with Plague Bearer). And of course Quicksilver and Instant Life Flask. Alchemist's Quicksilver of Adrenaline if you wanna be super speedy.

Make sure you get curse immune and bleed immune (on life flask) and upgrade all your flasks to 20% quality. Flasks are super strong in PoE and they should be always up with this build while mapping.

If you can get an anti-bleed jewel, you can craft freeze immunity on your life flask.

Levelling and skill trees
Spoiler
I updated the PoB with 3.11 skilltrees. You can select different skilltrees for levelling and different endgame setups.

Don't pay too high attention to the DPS values. It's based on your full poison duration, but doesn't calculate stuff like Unholy Might. Also you have the additional Damage from Vaal BV and Plaguebearer. Also this is a mapping build and you want to optimize Plaguebearer DPS and Explosion Damage, improving BV damage doesn't make mapping better.

PoB: (with new jewel trees) https://pastebin.com/ZenYAASU
Browser PoB: https://pob.party/share/oteronatareror
Forum tree (lvl91 - without double curse and cluster jewels): https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.11.1/AAAABAYBAAQHBLMFtQZwBucHHgeZCPQOSBB7ES0RlhNtFAkWvxewHNwfQSL0JogmlSj6LJwuIzBxMtE1kjY9OkI6WDrhPAU9X0GHRUdFnUlRSotLeEyOTLNN41JTU1JVS1XGWfBcQF3yYeJirGpDaoxsC2yMbRltbHBudZ52gnp_fIN_xoLHg9uEoofLjDaNv48aj_qTJ5Uul5WX9JhTmuCdqp_foS-iAKLZpAWmV6ebqM-w2LTRtUi3MLc-uJO86r46vorAZsEAyAzIFM8V0B_UI9i92xrdqOd06Nbr7u987-vwH_DV8kX1S_Vv-ej-Cv6P

3.10 New Cluster Jewels
Spoiler
The Delirium League introduced Cluster Jewels. Some of the mods are very powerful. But you shouldn't feel forced to run some cluster jewels quickly. This build will run perfectly fine without any and you need really good cluster jewels so that they are actually worth taking with all the travel nodes you spend.

Your Optimal Cluster Jewel Setup

Cluster jewels are actually easier to craft than I thought (edit: might change in 3.11). Especially for small and medium clusters you are mainly focussed on 3 affixes, that you want and with a small affix pool, you don't need that many alterations, augments and regals.

Crafting the perfect large cluster is much much more difficult. Because you need to hit 4 affixes and the mod pool is much more diluted. So even aiming at 2 notables while hitting the "2 additionial jewel sockets" is already a hard task.

Large cluster jewels also have much more travel points. And especially for us the Chaos Damage cluster has several notables that aren't that great for us, so crafting a good large cluster that is actually worth it, is pretty difficult.

This is also why the Voices unique cluster jewel is so expensive, because you get so many sockets without travel points. If you want to spend the currency it surely is BIS for us too.

So I will include 2 ways of setting up your clusters. The basic setup is just getting a medium and small jewel and should be relatively easy and can give you the important "Overwhelming Malice" node.

The bigger setup is one large that leads into 2 medium and 2 small. This shouldn't be a big priority and you need a really well rolled large cluster to make it actually worth it.

To get a feel how hard it is to roll some mods with crafting, I can definitely recommend http://www.craftofexile.com.

Cluster Jewel Size and itemlevel
The best thing about Cluster Jewels are notables and additonal jewel sockets. So we don't actually get much value from travel points and thus our jewels should have as few passive skills as possible. The only exception are small cluster jewels where you only have one notable and get much more value from passive skills. For small life cluster jewels it's actually worth to take 3 passive skills instead of 2.

For medium you want 4 or 5 passive skills. With 5 you can just leave the last one unallocated. With 6 you are basically wasting an entire skill point because you have to take one more.

For large ones you really want only 8 passive skills.

The itemlevel only matters for passive skills. You can roll all notables at lvl 1. So for medium and large clusters the itemlevel doesn't really matter. For small clusters, especially life, ilvl84 is best. But they are currently very expensive and the weighting for ilvl84 mods is also really low, so you can just settle with ilvl78+.

Basic Setup: Medium Cluster Jewel
We need a "Critical Chance" medium cluster to get the Overwhelming Malice notable. It actually has a low weighting to roll so getting the perfect 3 mods is more difficult here. You would want to alt/augment roll the jewel until you hit Overwhelming Malice and "1 additional jewel Socket". Than you regal and hope to hit a good notable as prefix.

Best possible second notables in order: (note that everything with crit only improves our BV damage, not explosion damage)
* Magnifier (1%, but also 10% AoE)
* Haemorrhage (6.5% more DPS in my PoB)
* Basics of Pain (4.6%, but also generic damage for explosions)
* Precise Commander (3.5%)

Hitting any of those affixes with your regal should be very good. If you don't have much currency to craft just settle with whatever you get on your regal. Overwhelming Malice is good enough to get alone.

All Setups: Small Cluster Jewel
It's actually debatable if Small Cluster Jewels are even worth it. Imagine you could just place a regular jewel with like 7% life and some damage there and save 2 skillpoints.

It is however the best place to get more life and chaos resists if you wanna be more safe. Get a life cluster with Towering Threat (best one) or alternative Fettle, Flow of Life or Blessed. Make sure you get good passive skills with +Life and/or Chaos Resists for the other passives. On Small Clusters it's totally worth it to go for 3 passives instead of 2, because you will at least get 4% life and some other stuff for a passive.

Big Setup: Large Cluster Jewel
The really only viable large cluster for us are Chaos Clusters. We can get the big "Overwhelming Malice" node here, but we could also get in on a medium crit cluster. So if you get an amazing large cluster without overwhelming malice, you could still go with it.

You absolutely want "2 additional jewel sockets".

Best notables:
* Overwhelming Malice (20% more DPS on good uptime)
* Grim Oath (7% more DPS)
* Wicked Pall (4.5% more DPS and 10% skill effect duration)
* Unwavering Evil (4%)
* Unholy Grace (4%)
* Unspeakable Gifts (only worth consideration if you are still running Obliterations)

4% more DPS for a notable is already worth considering skipping them if you can save 2 skill points. This underlines how difficult it is to get a good large cluster.

You probably be content hitting Overwhelming malice, two sockets and another good notable. Its actually worth considering chaos spamming if you wanna gamble on getting potential 4 good stats. You will hit Overwhelming malice and 2 jewels on average every 31 chaos rolls.

Big Setup: Medium Cluster Jewels
If you didn't get Overwhelming Malice on your Large Cluster, you need a Critical Chance cluster jewel as one of your mediums. (see Basic Setup)

Medium Clusters Jewels is where the big value of your Cluster Setup is. Don't underestimate the AoE you get from Area Damage jewels and the utility from Curse effect jewels. It's certainly worth considering running these two and no Damage over time jewel.

Area Damage Jewels:
These Jewels look REALLY good for giving us more AoE. Dream Jewel would be Assert Dominance + Towering Threat (and of course a jewel socket). Could also be content with Magnify as one notable.

Chaos Damage over time Jewels:
These jewels seem the most natural for us and they can roll a TON of possible notables. My order:
* Low Tolerance (3.4% more DPS and a 300% buff for your 'first' poison which is mainly good to guarantee explosions chaining from one single mob, it does almost nothing for single target)
* Circling Olivion (4% DPS and 25% poison duration which means 12% more DPS in longer bossfights)
* Wicked Pall (4.5% more DPS and 10% skill effect duration)
* Wasting Affliction (2.6% more DPS and 10% 'faster' damage, 'faster' damage doesn't mean more damage, still useful)
* Flow of Life (3.1% DPS and 4% max life)
* Exposure Therapy (4.2% DPS and 30% chaos resist against DoT)
* Student of Decay (3.2% DPS and 13% chaos resist)
* Haemorrhage (6.5% more DPS for crits, so ONLY with BV, not with explosions)

All these are pretty close in power level and you can choose what you need or prefer the most.

Damage over time Jewels
These only have a smaller mod pool. The main mod you are missing are "Low Tolerance" and "Wicked Pall". If you want to combine Circle Oblivion with on of the other mods mentioned above, they should be easier to craft on these jewels.

Curse Effect Jewels
If you manage to run Despair+Temporal Chains, curse clusters are a serious consideration for us. The following DPS numbers are partly based on your curse effect against Standard bosses, you will have more DPS against non-bosses, and less against shaper/guardians. These jewels have a small affix pool, so getting the perfect jewel shouldn't be that difficult.
Curse Effect is also good because a stronger Despair curse will also make your Plaguebearer do more damage and Plaguebearer does heavy carrying especially while mapping.
* Dark Discourse (6% more DPS, Enemies are hindered)
* Evil Eye (5% more DPS and blind on hit for 4seconds, this DPS counts full for Plaguebearer!)
* Wish for Death (2% more DPS, and Culling Strike)
* Master of Fear (6% more DPS)
* Whispers of Death (6.3% more DPS if killed recently)

Especially the changed Evil Eye passive makes it interesting to get a curse jewel. You could drop Flesh and Stone aura for Aspect of the Spider (or Skitterbots if you can get reduced mana reservation somewhere - like an amulet with reduced malevolence reservation).


Levelling with Poison Blade Vortex early is bad because your Poison Chance is low and you have to recast a lot without Unleash Support. With our skilltree you can do pretty much any other chaos damage build without respeccing. I tested ED/Contagion/Bane and Caustic Arrow/Toxic Rain and I think Toxic Rain is faster and also not so demanding on gem slots.

The following detailed guide is for a fresh leaguestart with Caustic Arrow+Toxic Rain. If you prefer ED/Contagion, you can do that with the same tree.

Act: 1
Spoiler
Starting skilltree: https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.9.3/AAAABAYAAAbnFr8fQV3yaox2gphTotmw2LTRtUjIDMgU9W8=
* Get Explosive Trap and link it with lesser poison (you will keep this later in your weapon swap for single target until you get Toxic Rain)
* Lookout for 3G links and get a bow. Bow damage will become less and less important. Attack speed is important. Still keep upgrading your bows if possible.
* First links are Caustic Arrow+Volley+Onslaught. Later Caustic Arrow+LMP+Void Manipulation.
* As movement skill use frostblink/dash first, then I prefer to use Smoke Mine and Flame Dash. With second wind, Blink Arrow might be fine too.
* At lvl12 you get Toxic Rain and Blade Vortex. Use Toxic Rain+LMP+Void Manipulation. You can drop Caustic Arrow.Level Blade Vortex in your offhand.


Act: 2
Spoiler
Follow-up skilltree: (I would get Blood Siphon and Trickery last if your are not HC) https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.9.3/AAAABAYAAAbnBx4OSBGWE20UCRa_H0EmiCaVSVFVS1xAXfJh4mqMdZ52gofLjDaP-pUumFOi2aQFp5uw2LTRtUi3MMgMyBTPFfDV9W8=
* Remember to do Den Quest for second Quicksilver
* Get Herald of Agony and Skitterbots as first auras. Start using Blood Rage.
* Switch out LMP for Faster Attacks.


Act: 3
Spoiler
* Start looking out for 4G 4-links. You also want to keep a 3G1B (or 2G2B) for Blade Vortex. (also keep good wands for BV)
* Get Despair as Quest Reward
* Get the rare Dex Amulet from the Ribbon Spool Quest. We really need the Dex to level Toxic Rain and BV.
* Do Library Quest and get Poison Support as reward. Buy Mirage Archer, Spell Totem Support and Blasphemy Support.
* Swap Faster Attacks for Mirage Archer until you have 4L and can use both.
* Spell Totem + Wither will help immensly with single target
* Use Blasphemy + Despair instead of Herald of Agony.
* This is your final setup before switching to BV. You might not be able to have links for everything first. Thats fine, but try to get the sockets. Could just look for a good 4socket item at vendor and use an essence.


Act: 4
Spoiler
Skilltree: (get the relocated Arcane Expense Cluster too) https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.9.3/AAAABAYAAASzBucHHgj0DkgRLRGWE20UCRa_H0Ei9CaIJpUsnDLRPAU9X0VHRZ1JUVJTU1JVS1xAXfJh4mpDaoxsC20ZdZ52gnyDf8aHy4w2j_qTJ5Uul5WX9JhTmuCf36IAotmkBaebsNi00bVItzC86sBmyAzIFM8V6-7vfPAf8NX1bw==
* Continue to use your Toxic Rain setup until the end of act4. Running Lab as Toxic Rain should be easy with wither totem.
* After finishing act4, get unleash, and switch to BV+Unleash+Poison+Deadly Ailments(act 2)
(if you only have a 2G2B four link, use unbound ailments support from library instead of deadly ailments)
* Get Plague Bearer (act 3) and increased AoE (act 4) linked. This is important. Start using Plague Bearer every time it's full. Especially from act7-8 onwards it will carry you heavily.
* Less important is linking Flame Dash to Arcane Surge (lvl1 from Library) and getting Withering Step (act 1).


Act 5-10:
Spoiler
* Get Silver and Granite Flasks (need to find Silver locket in act 7) as Quest Rewards.
* Get Flesh and Stone and use instead of Skitterbots when you feel that's necessary. (should have enough damage)
* When you find Vaal Orbs, start corrupting Blade Vortex gems to get Vaal Blade Vortex.
* Tree for early Mapping: (its worth to get Overcharged now, respecc out of Will of Blades)https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.11.1/AAAABAYBAAQHBLMFtQZwBucHHgeZCPQOSBB7ES0RlhNtFAkWvxewH0Ei9CaIJpUsnC4jMHEy0TY9OkI6WDwFPV9FR0WdSVFKi0t4TI5Ms1JTU1JVS1XGWfBcQF3yYeJirGpDaoxsC2yMbRltbHBudZ52gnp_fIN_xoPbhKKHy4w2jb-P-pMnlS6XlZf0mFOa4J2qn9-hL6IAotmkBaebqM-w2LTRtUi3MLzqvjq-isBmwQDIDMgUzxXUI9sa3ajndOjW6-7vfPAf8NX1S_Vv


Early Mapping:
Spoiler
* If you get good rares you should start coloring and linking them to get your final gem setup.
* Your early aura setup without Enlighten and Despair on hit should be: Blasphemy+Despair, Flesh and Stone, Herald of Agony.
* Flasks are very important in PoE. I always vendor my first whetstones for Baubles and get them to 20% quality. And use my first alterations to roll them properly. Your starting setup should be Quicksilver+Granite+Quartz+Silver+Life. If you get into mana issues (especially with early 6L), just get an enduring mana flask instead of Silver.
* Getting Obliterations for early clearspeed would be super helpful. And in tradeleague you also would look to buy Coralitos soon.



Optimizing the build
Spoiler
I included endgame gear (nothing mirror-worthy) in the normal PoB now. You can select different gearsets: https://pastebin.com/vNtyHk9t

Also make sure to select the "Minmaxed Tree". It's essentially the Jewel Tree 1 version with a Watchers Eye.

The PoB has about 16 million DPS against against regular bosses with BV and Vaal BV combined (because you have to add "20% more damage" from Opportunistic and Unholy Might is also not calculated). You still have to add Plaguebearer DPS to that.

Of course our build is not really optimized for single target DPS, but to scale explosions and Plaguebearer. That's why have Vix Lunaris and lots of AoE scaling.

Note, that this build should work very well with budget gear and you don't need to be fully optimized. Especially something like a crazy Hunter Amulet should be one of the last things you think about improving.

And you don't need to replicate every stat that my gear has. Especially for Hunter influenced items there are other possible stats that can be very good for us. Don't overvalue some single damage stat like "I need chaos multi on my amulet", it's more important to get good all around gear.

The most important thing is to get double curse gloves and a chest with both explosion and additional curse. Don't invest multiple exalts into other items before you got that, crafting something decent with fossils is fine. Getting an Intuitive Leap is very nice and you get that earlier depending on prices.

Further possible optimizations: (not necessarily better)
* Using Tailwind boots instead of Spelldodge boots. Faster for mapping, but more vulnerable. Since we move very fast already, I don't know if it's worth.
* Using Evil Eye notable on Curse Cluster and replace Flesh and Stone with Aspect of the Spider or Skitterbots


I'm sure this build can still be optimized, so feel free to post suggestions.

Credit to waggle for the inspiration to combine the explosion chest with Poison BV. His build will be an occultist. Check out his stream, he's great.
Last edited by VisorX on Jul 21, 2020, 9:36:06 AM
Last bumped on Sep 19, 2020, 7:14:00 AM
Nice take on BV! Was looking for a good clearing build to maybe start the next league with, that uses no uniques as core items, and your build seems really cool! I know there is a trending build with the same idea, but using Asenath's and Cold Iron Point daggers. Do you think the daggers (or Bino's) could fit well with your build?

Gonna try your build to see how's leveling with it! Btw, any tips for leveling with this build as a league starter (like skills to use up to the first lab)?
I don't like Cold Iron Point at all as it only buffs your BV damage. And while mapping the main damage comes from Plaguebearer and explosions. (Plaguebearer recharges with one pack and its very noticeable if its up or not, you can even see that in the video)

Bino's is also unnecessary as everything dies after the first mob with explosion chains.

I rather have a dagger that buffs all my poison damage. And having the despair on hit is also really important.

My build is focussed on scaling the explosions. That's why we also take all the AoE nodes.

And I wouldn't want to give up shield charge running 2 daggers. (and if you run Zeel's Amplifier as shield that's actually big AoE for even more better chains)


As I wrote in the levelling section, I would probably go with other chaos skills until you get normal lab and unleash. So best is probably ED/Contagion and maybe switch to Bane once it's available.
Last edited by VisorX on Jan 24, 2020, 10:22:24 PM
Thanks for the reply! Had never used these skills before for leveling (or endgame), going to give it a try.
how is your build comapared to this one?

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2670800/page/11


I already ahve 2x void battery and Badge of the brotherhood amulet, so i was wondering if your build is still better or not (I would sell those items to buy gear for your build if your build is better)

?
SHOP : http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/682434
Last edited by xenochaos1 on Jan 25, 2020, 10:28:08 AM
"
xenochaos1 wrote:
how is your build comapared to this one?

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2670800/page/11


I already ahve 2x void battery and Badge of the brotherhood amulet, so i was wondering if your build is still better or not (I would sell those items to buy gear for your build if your build is better)

?


Despite also using BV, this is an entirely different build which I also have no experience with. To call one build better, that would depend on your criteria for being better.

On the first page the creator wrote that he currently not recommends his build, because it has survivability issues against Metamorphs and struggles with increased health of magic and rare monsters. Something I have not experienced with my build.

In general I think it's much harder to scale the Herald of Ice explosions to the same damage as poison explosions (which scale with the monsters life).
Nice build, I'm in the process of getting the explode+curse chest.
Regarding the weapon section, you say that we shouldn't use Rune Dagger bases but Demon Dagger is a Rune Dagger.
Looking at poedb I think Rune Daggers would be the way to go.
Also Copper/Gold/Platinum Kris would be better than Demon Dagger because of the higher crit chance implicit. The rest of the base stats are worthless to us right?
You are right, Demon Dagger are Rune, must have looked that up wrong. I was thinking only losing 10% crit was worth it to have an easier time crafting the items, as we already block a lot of other affixes.

So yeah, best base should be any Kris. Probably ilvl82 as we avoid hitting added chaos damage, and still can get all good mods for us. I will change that in the guide.
I added a few things to the guide.
* Which annoints you can take.
* Taking the Overcharged node to get all the charges. Best with Intuitive Leap.
* Using a Thread of Hope below Acrobactics is a very good spot.

Since a lot of people also asked how I would optimize my build if I would not be in SSF, I created a PoB for this.

Optimized PoB: https://pastebin.com/S3QAXSzf
Browser Link: https://pob.party/share/amihubikahumim

The PoB has about 15 million DPS against against regular bosses with BV and Vaal BV combined (because you have to add "20% more damage" from Opportunistic). You still have to add Plaguebearer DPS to that.

Of course our build is not really optimized for single target DPS, but to scale explosions.

Note, that this build should work very well with budget gear and you don't need to be fully optimized. Especially something like Hunter Gloves with Chaos Dot Multi should be one of the last things you think about improving, especially since you will probably be resist starved while optimizing crazy.

I think Zeel's Amplifier, Intuitive Leap and Thread of Hope are some of the best optimisations that also are not expensive.

Further possible optimizations: (not necessarily better)
* Using Tailwind boots instead of Spelldodge boots. Faster for mapping, but more vulnerable. Since we move very fast already, I don't know if it's worth.
* Sin's Rebirth over Atziri's Promise is debatable as I wrote. You trade 37% Chaos Resist for about 4-5% more damage. I would probably not do it, unless you have really high chaos res already.
Last edited by VisorX on Jan 28, 2020, 5:33:32 PM
Thanks for the build!

Just got it to lvl 80 and It's one of the fastest mappers I've played. My favorite part so far is how easy the gearing was. I was able to craft everything but my helm, boots, gloves and rings.

I feel zeels amplifier is 100% not needed your aoe is already really big with 20% quality bv and plague bearer.

I chose to use devos for the helmet for more movement speed/chaos res and hands of the high templar for +4 to malevolence/flesh and stone/and tempchains. This pair also gave me flat spell crit and despair on hit freeing up a mod on my weapon.

EDIT: THIS BUILD IS SICK FOR BLIGHT MAPS ALSO!!!!
EDIT2: THIS BUILD IS SICK FOR DELVE ALSO

my gear:
Spoiler
Last edited by DrFlopolopogus on Feb 6, 2020, 2:40:49 AM

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