[3.24] Undying Vampire - Colin Robinson Build! | Exsang 2x Overleech | League Starter | Progressive
 This a thematic build that allows you to assume a role of a vampire, striking your enemies with powerful blood magic while draining both their energy and life simultanously! (Energy is tastier, as I'm sure Colin would attest!) It is capable of doing all standard endgame content in the game (although it is better at some and worse at others), barring extreme stuff that usually requires specialized characters (deep delving, etc.). The build tries to stay on theme by using skills and features that fit, but is still perfectly viable and playable. The main feature of this build is utilizing Double Overleech and a Unified ES + Life Health Pool. You can find more details in Build Mechanics -> Defence section. 3.24 Update
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We were not directly affected by any of the changes.
That being said, some unique items will now only drop from bosses - it is difficult to say which ones exactly and how that will affect the economy, but I don't think there will be any impact for us economically. The uniques we use are not crazy popular. 3.23 Update
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3.23 changes:
TLDR: We lose about 13% damage in the late-game scenarios and about 5% EHP; but we potentially gain better clear damage due to the new Exsanguinate of Transmission (needs to be tested in practice) Also lose Taunt on Hit minions, but that was only an addition so no big deal --- Full rundown Due to Support Gems no longer having alternative quality versions we lose: - 1% damage (Anomalous Exsanuginate (10% inc. cast speed)) - Some small amount of damage (Anomalous Vulnerability (10% inc. effect of curse)) - ~2% EHP (Anomalous Steelskin (Steelskin buff can take 10% more damage)) - Some small amount of damage (Divergent Pride (neraby enemies have -2% Physical Damage Reduction)) - ~12% dps due to loss of Herald of Purity, which in turn is caused by loss of Divergent Inspiration, thus not having enough mana for Herald - Frost Shield loses additional 10% damage protection from quality - ~2% EHP (Anomalous Petrified Blood) --- The new Exsanguinate of Transmission is different from regular Exsanguinate: - It launches at a single target instead of 10 targets in a cone - It chains 21 times - It deals much less damage Due to the above, it possible that instead of using Chain Support for mapping and swapping it for Swift Affliction on bosses, we could instead use Swift Affliction all the time and instead switch regular Exsanguinate (bossing) to Exsanguinate of Transmission (for mapping). It's hard to say how this will work without actually playing with the new skill itself ⚖️ TLDR / Pros and Cons
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Pros:
🟢 Progressive - you can start with it and improve as you go and earn currency 🟢 Lots of upgrades until you reach full potential, providing a great feeling of progression 🟢 Budget friendly - gets going in under 30c, mid version in 2-5 div, fully upgraded for under 25 div 🟢 Tanky (108k EHP endgame, around 70k mid game) 🟢 Good coverage and clear, works well with mechanics such as Legion 🟢 You damage all enemies in the area without aiming (damage spreads), which is great for Maven Atlas arenas, etc. 🟢 Corpse explosions included 🟢 Double Overleech feels fun Cons: 🔴 Can't do maps with physical reflect 🔴 No leech maps are dangerous (but doable) 🔴 Gem swapping for bosses is advised (although not required) until a good baselevel of damage is reached 🔴 Not terribly fast 🔴 Single target damage is not great, but you do reach a point where it becomes decent even without gem swapping 🔴 Requires Siosa quest due to using gems that are not "natural" for the class 🎮 Playstyle
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We are running self-cast Exsanguinate, so for most part you are... well, casting Exsanguinate.
Whenever we expect incoming heavy damage (popping Legion, Harvest, Expedition, etc.) we cast Frost Shield for protection. Whenever there are some mobs around or a rare mob we cast Enduring Cry for some Endurance Charges. Before getting the curse-on-hit ring we need to cast Vulnerability on harder mobs. We use Flame Dash to blink around if needed. We need to pop Pride Blessing from time to time (every 15s or so). We can plant the Banner if needed, although that happens rarely ⚗️ POB Link (3.24)
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(3.24) https://pobb.in/J6JlDjIH1n-C
(old 3.23) https://pobb.in/ZYnS1zul27xz (old 3.22) https://pobb.in/GUMA0bhuix7U 💣 Content done
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- Uber Eater
- The Feared - Cortex - Uber Elder - Shaper - Elder - Chayula - Uber Atziri 🎬 Videos
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The Feared: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL8aVUoA6XI
Simulacrum - made it to wave 30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ok1m8YBw Juiced T16 - Delirium, Expedition, Legion, Breaches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qci65joIA18 T16 - Delirium, Expedition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2acs6EyJX0 More soon ❔ Who is this for
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I've created this build for myself, aiming for a type of build I like the most - a single build that is both a league-starter and a league-ender and can be progressively upgraded as I play, until it is capable of doing all of the content.
This build works very well in this manner. It gets going with whatever items you find during acts and then offers a whole lot of less or more inexpensive upgrades to push the limits further and further. It works best as a league starter for someone who enjoys playing a single build and has fun in upgrading it. If you have a bunch of currency and are looking for some zoomer build to make money or obliterate bosses after being done with your league-starter then I would NOT recommend this one - because there are much better options for that out there. ⚙️ Build Mechanics
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⚔️ Offence
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Exsanguinate (Main Skill)
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We shoot tendrils of blood towards multiple enemies in front of us, dealing instant as well as over-time damage.
This skill is unique in several aspects: - it costs life instead of mana - it is a physical spell - it deals both damage on hit as well as over time - modifiers to spell damage also apply to its damage over time effect This means that we can scale it in multiple ways: physical damage modifiers, spell damage (which boosts both the on-hit part and the over-time part), damage-over-time modifiers, etc. Pain Attunement
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Pain Attunement is a passive skill that makes us deal 30% more Spell Damage while on Low Life.
The game considers you being Low Life when you are below 50% life - we are permanently below 50% life by utilizing Petrified Blood (more on that in the Defence section). Don't worry, we have ways of still staying alive despite missing half of our HP! Polymath
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This is a Trickster ascendancy which provides 3% more damage per each different mastery we have allocated, as well as some nice on-kill effects. We allocate around 10 different masteries, so around 30% more damage for us
Auras: Pride, Malevolence, Herald of Purity
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We use Pride in a setup with Divine Blessing, allowing us to cast it periodically (it lasts long, over 10s, so no need to click it all the time). With aura effect increases stacked, Pride gives us a whooping 43% damage increase when in full effect (and it comes into full effect in about 4s being near an enemy). It causes enemies to be least resistant to physical damage sources and take more damage from it - and our main skill deals physical damage both with hits as well as with damage over time effects.
Curses: Vulnerability, Temporal Chains
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Vulnerability is a curse that makes enemies take increased physical damage. We self-cast in on tougher mobs at first, but later get a curse-on-hit ring.
Temporal Chains is a curse that slows the enemies down and makes skill effects on them expire slower, which boosts our damage-over-time "On Full Energy Shield" and "While Leeching" effects
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The "Soul Drinker" ascendancy of Trickster makes us not stop leeching Energy Shield even if we are full - that makes it easy to utilize effects that say "(...) while on Full Energy Shield" and "(...) while Leeching Energy Shield" - because we never stop leeching and are on full ES 99% of the time due to evasion and the leech
15% Cull
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This is only present in one of the endgame options, as it comes from the Eternal Struggle amulet. The effect of that amulet causes us to instantly kill all enemies we hit that are below 15% HP - that directly translates to "15% more damage".
🛡️ Defence
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Double Overleech
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Overleech is a powerful mechanic that allows you to not stop leeching even if the resource you are leeching (life, mana, energy shield) fills up. This is very powerful because it basically gives you a "buffer of regeneration" that waits until you lose a bit of the resource you are leeching to kick in and start filling that resource back up instantly - you "overleech".
There are two easy ways of achieving overleech - Trickster's Soul Drinker ascendancy gives Energy Shield Overleech; and Slayer's ascendancy Brutal Fervour gives Life Overleech. However, there is a bit more involved way to achieve Life Overleech without the need of playing as a Slayer - by using Petrified Blood and having some life Unreserved. This works because the game's rule for leeching is simple - you stop leeching once you fill up whatever it is that you are leeching. With Petrified Blood, we "petrify" half of our Life and are unable to regenerate above 50% life in any way other than explicitly using a Life Flask. This means that if we use Petrified Blood and start leeching - we only leech up to half of our life and are unable to regenerate any further; however - our maximum life is still more than 50% of our life, so the game's rule "you stop leeching once you fill up whatever it is you are leeching" is not broken. Therefore, we still leech, although our Life does not increase (with Petrified Blood it cannot increase above 50% Life) - we achieve Life Overleech; albeit at the cost of half of our HP pool - but we have ways of dealing with that. TLDR: This build uses both Energy Shield Overleech as well as Life Overleech (with Petrified Blood shenanigans) to achieve a powerful Double Overleech effect Evasion
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We use Evasion as our main defense, reaching 85%+ evasion rate which is more than enough when combined with all of the other defensive layers
Blind
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Our gloves - Asenath's Gentle Touch - provide Blind on enemies that are near corpses of enemies that we have cursed before they died. Because we also apply Temporal Chains on hit, every enemy we hit is cursed and every enemy near the corpse of that enemy is Blinded. A bit convoluted, I know.
Blind works very well with Evasion as it lowers enemies' Accuracy, making it even harder for them to hit you Spell Suppression
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We reach 100% Spell Suppression with just the tree passives alone, which is a very powerful defensive layer that makes us take only half the damage from all the spells
Life and Energy Shield (Hybrid)
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Many builds bet their survivability on either large HP pool or a large ES pool + whatever defensive mechanisms they choose.
In this build, I have decided to go for a hybrid approach because it works best with Double Overleech. While the amount we have, even when using both HP and ES, is not very large; we utilize a lot of damage mitigation (45% damage is ignored due to Petrified Blood itself) for it to be enough. Joined Energy Shield and Life as a single Health Pool
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A small preface: there are several types of damage in PoE and one of them is Chaos Damage. The problem with Chaos Damage is that it ignores your Energy Shield and hits your Life directly - which is a problem for us because we want to stay on Low Life (<50% Max Life) permanently
To solve that we utilize Burden of Truth, which provides several things: - 33% of Chaos Damage taken does not bypass Energy Shield - 33% of Non-Chaos Damage taken bypasses Energy Shield - Gain 10% (12 with quality) of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield - Permanently gain Supreme Decadence, which makes Life Flasks also apply to Energy Shield Apart from that we use a Energy Shield Mastery: "30% of Chaos Damage taken does not bypass Energy Shield" With all of those combined: - Only 37% of Chaos Damage taken hits our Life directly, while 63% first needs to get through Energy Shield - this is enough to protect us from Chaos one-shotting us - 33% of Non-Chaos Damage taken hits our Life directly, but that is small enough to avoid one-shots and non-one-shots are healed instantly by Overleech + Life Regen - We can use a Life Flask in panic to fill up both HP and ES With these effects in place, every damage that hits us (whether it is physical, chaos or elemental) is spread between our Energy Shield (~70% of damage) and Life (~30% of damage). This is enough to protect us from one shots, and whatever doesn't one-shot us is instantly healed by our Double Overleech (both ES and Life). Damage over Time mitigation
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Damage Over Time is one of our worst fears when using Petrified Blood and staying Low Life. There are two big mechanisms we use to protect ourselves from it:
- Lethe Shade - a passive that causes us to take 50% less damage from DoT if it was applied recently at the cost of the DoT lasting 100% longer - Arakaali Pantheon powers Lethe Shade halves the potency of DoT, giving us much more time to react and remove the DoT (which is usually bleeding or poison) with a flask (or counter-act it with our leeching powers). Arakaali Panethon is powerful against DoTs, as it gives 10% reduced damage from DoT, DoTs expire 20% faster and we have +40% Chaos Resist against DoT (great for poisons). Ailment and Stun immunity
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We deal with Ailments with Spell Suppression Mastery: "Suppressed Spell Damage cannot inflict Elemental Ailments on you". We have 100% Spell Suppression so all of Spell Damage is suppressed and cannot inflict ailments on us.
What about hits? We dodge most of those due to evasion and even if something connects eventually, it is not enough to do us any harm. For Ignites (if a powerful enough igniting hit eventually connets through evasion) we have Soul of Abberath (60% less duration of Ignites on you) + powerful leech. We are completely immune to Chill and Freeze thanks to our "One Step Ahead" Trickster ascendancy. We deal with stuns with Evasion Mastery: "Cannot be Stunned if you haven't been hit recently". We avoid most of the hits and if something finally connects, it cannot stun us. Wind Dancer and Kintsugi (exaplained in another section) make it unlikely for another hit to connect right after the first one that connected - so before we get hit again we will be after the "recently" period, making us unable to be stunned again. Enduring Cry
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Not very big but I find Enduring Cry very useful both for regenerating Life in case our flask is out and leech is not enough for some reason as well as it providing up to 3 Endurance Charges, which provide good protection against physical damage
Divergent Frost Shield
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Frost Shield is great as it makes 60% of damage from outside the shield and 30% of damage from inside the shield (20% if not Divergent) be taken from the Shield's life first (which is around 1k usually). This is great one-shot protection.
Downside of Frost Shield is irrelevant to us, because it drains your Energy Shield in order to construct the shield - but we Overleech ES so it instantly fills back up. Anomalous Petrified Blood
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Petrified Blood is quite a complicated skill. It does a few things:
- It is an aura - you need to reserve mana for it to work - Half of you life is "petrified" (tendrils on the Life Globe on UI) - You can only recover HP up to half of your Max HP - the only way to recover higher is by using a Life Flask - When you are hit, 40% of the incoming damage is completely ignored... - ... however, 79% of that ignored damage is applied to you as a damage-over-time effect instead There is a twist though, because we want Anomalous Petrified Blood - this causes us to ignore not 40% of the incoming damage but 45% (better one-shot protection); at the price of applying not 79% of the ignored damage as DoT but a whooping 139% of the ignored damage as DoT. Why is this good for us? Two big reasons: - We want to stay on Low Life to make use of Pain Attunement (30% more Spell Damage while on Low Life) - with Petrified Blood, we are always on Low Life (<50% HP) unless we use a Life Flask (which we sometimes do, but that's ok) - By staying below 50% life but having more Max Life than 50% we enable the powerful Life Overleech, allowing us to leech life all the time - Ignoring 45% of incoming damage is what makes us able to stay alive while below 50% Life What about the downsides though? Won't the 45% ignored damage turned into DoT kill us? We deal with that with Life Overleech - we leech so much Life per second that it is very hard for the DoT effect of Petrified Blood to ever beat it; so we counter-act the life loss over time with a more powerful life gain over time (== leech) (and some help from Vitality) One-Shot protection
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As mentioned in other sections, we don't have a huge health pool and we stay on Low Life, so - apart from damage over time - our biggest threat is being one-shot. How do we prevent that? A few things come into play:
- First and foremost - Divergent Petrified Blood. This alone allows us to ignore 45% of the incoming damage straight out the bat. Yes, that ignored damage is then applied to us as damage-over-time but we fully mitigate that with powerful Double Overleech. - Next thing that helps with oneshots is Wind Dancer and (if using the Defensive or Balanced option) Kintsugi. Both of these mechanisms make you take reduced damage with that single hit that goes through your evasion, making it less likely to be one-shot - Frost Shield is an important skill that intercepts a lot of damage directed at us and the negative aspect of that skill (draining ES) is mitigated by our leech - We run a "Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes" mastery to help with those pesky crits - Defiance Banner - decreases nearby enemies' crit chance and, when placed, taunts them and causes taunted enemies to deal 15% less damage - Herald of Purity with Taunt - our minions from Herald of Purity have a chance to taunt on hit (10%), which is not a lot but suprisingly often comes handy when fighting a boss Defiance Banner
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Decreases nearby enemies' crit chance and, when placed, taunts them and causes taunted enemies to deal 15% less damage. Also increases evasion and armour
Taunting minions
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Our minions from Anomalous Herald of Purity have 10% chance to taunt on hit. That's not a lot but they sometimes happen to distract the boss just at the right moment
15% Attack Block
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From dual wielding - 15% is not a lot, but it's there. Other
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Mana Usage
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This build squeezes everything out of our mana pool. We benefit from the fact that our main skill uses Life instead of Mana. While there are a few auxiliary skills that we use mana for (Enduring Cry, self-cast Vulnerability, Flame Dash, Pride) we are able to reserve most of it for auras. We use a lot of "Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency" nodes and a level 3 Enlighten to be able to squeeze in as many auras as possible, while still having enough mana left to cast our auxiliary skills (most important of which is Pride).
In later stages, we lower the mana cost of Pride using Divergent Inspiration to cost just enough to be able to cast it and switch the other castable spells to using Life (with the Lifetap Support). We also squeeze in Defiance Banner and Vitality into Life (using Arrogance Support) since we use Petrified Blood and want to stay on Low Life (< 50%) so the upper half of our Life is "wasted" and should be used for reservation. It is important to keep enough mana, at all times, to be able to cast Pride (it gives us over 70% more damage!) and other skills. Pantheon
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Arakaali + Aberrath
💎 Gems
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Main Setup
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Exsanguinate - Chain / (Awakened) Swift Affliction - (Awakened) Brutality - (Awakened) Controlled Destruction - Energy Leech - Cruelty
Goes into the Body Armour. Brutality and Controlled Destruction for the raw damage. Energy Leech to make use of the fact that we are almost always Leeching and On Max Energy Shield. Cruelty boosts both the on-hit component and the over-time component of our damage. Chain makes mapping much smoother and the damage is more than enough. Swap to Swift Affliction for difficult single targets Mana Auras
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Petrified Blood - Grace - Malevolence - Enlighten (lv 3 is enough)
Goes either in Boots or Gloves (NOT the Helmet). Anomalous Petrified Blood gives more one-shot protection at the cost of damage-over-time being inflicted on you. Read more about it in the Defence section Life Auras
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Arrogance - Vitality - Defiance Banner
Goes into one of the weapons. Pride (Blessing)
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Pride - Divine Blessing - Increased Duration - Inspiration
Goes into the Helmet (for reduced mana cost). This makes Pride a castable that you need to activate every so often (like 10-15s). It is important to switch to Divergent Inspiration at some point to cut down the mana cost even more in order to squeeze in all the auras. Divergent Pride gives a bit more damage but is not strictly needed Castables
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Without Vulnerability-on-hit ring: Vulnerability - Lifetap - Steelskin - Flame Dash
With Vulnerability-on-hit ring: Lifetap - Steelskin - Flame Dash - (Vaal Righteous Fire or Blood Rage) Goes into either Boots or Gloves With Vaal Righteous Fire only use the Vaal part of the skill, not the RF itself! Additional
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Enduring Cry - Herald of Purity - Frost Shield
Goes into one of the weapons Upgrade Herald of Purity to Anomalous for 10% Taunt on Hit for minions Divergent Frost Shield is not expensive and prevents some additional damage 🛍️ Items
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🪖 Helmet: The Vertex
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Evasion and ES base, gives some chaos res, boosts the gems - overall great helmet without even considering the main feature; and the main feature is the 50% reduced mana cost of socketed skills, which allows us to turn Pride into a powerful Blessing and still reserve most of our mana. 🧥 Body Armour: Kintsugi OR Skin of the Lords
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Kintsugi provides some great one-shot protection. The main problem with this armour is getting socket colours - we need 3 Red, 2 Blue and 1 Green, but this armour is entirely DEX-based which means it highly favours rolling green sockets. There is a way around it though, but it requires a hefty amount of Jeweller Orbs: - Put the armour in Crafting Bench and craft either 2 Red and 1 Blue or 2 Blue and 1 Red - Now craft "4 sockets" - if it comes up green, craft "3 sockets" (the new green socket will disappear) and craft "4 sockets" once again. Repeat until the 4th socket is either blue or red. Once that happens, do the same but now do "5 sockets" and fallback to "4 sockets" if the 5th is green. Since the price goes up, craft the blues and reds first and leave the last one, 6th, to be green as it is most likely - This works because when doing the "x sockets" craft the game "remembers" the colours you had before and only manipulates the last one - NOTE: this is the craft that adds UNLINKED sockets (costs Jeweller Orbs) not the LINKED sockets one (which costs Orbs of Fusing) Skin of the Lords provides a lot of damage through gem levels and a free passive. When buying Skin of the Lords remember about these VERY important things: - It has predefined socket colors so search for one with 3 Red, 2 Blue and 1 Green - It has a random notable passive in it and some of the passives can brick the build. Most often Skins with build-breaking passives are the cheapest, so be wary of that. Example of a passive that bricks most builds - Blood Magic (removes mana). - Look for a notable passive that we use anyway to free up one point on the tree. Ghost Dance, Pain Attunement, Wind Dancer, any of these. Best would be Wind Dancer as it frees up 2 points. - You can only socket corrupted gems into it so either be prepared to buy them or vaal them yourself beforehand (vaaling can brick your gems!) 🎀 Belt: The Burden of Truth
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This item is the main mechanism that allows us to go hybrid Life + ES. Read more about it in the "Defense" section: "Joined Energy Shield and Life as a single Health Pool". Use the "Defence Quality" to get 2% additional Life as ES 📿 Amulet: Eternal Struggle OR Chayula's Presence
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Eternal Struggle is important for two reasons: - It is our main way of getting attributes, which are a problem - It provides 15% more damage with the cull When buying Eternal Struggle, remember about these VERY important things: - It comes with random Eldritch Implicits, make sure to fish for those that are relevant to us (phys damage, spell damage, etc.) - The Eldritch Implicit from Searching Exarch must be stronger than the one from Eater of Worlds for the 15% more damage to work. If it's not the case, this amulet is mostly useless. Researching on trade site is a pain in the ass but also necessary Whichever amulet you use, it has to be annointed with Sovereignty (3x Silver) to provide enough Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency to sustain multiple auras. 💍 Rings
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The Curse On Hit ring frees up one gem slot and makes it smoother to map (no need to cast the curse manually). Getting it is not that hard (Two Resists version): - Buy a base with SYNTHESISED "Vulnerability on hit". It is important that this modifier comes from Synthesis (implicit) and is not a Influenced base, as it will make crafting the ring much harder. - Make sure the ring is white (Scour if needed) and throw 4 Prismatic Catalysts at it. If you use Catalysts when the ring is not white, you will need 20 instead of 4 and they are expensive! - Throw some random fossils at it until you get at least two good resists. Remember that you can reroll type of resist with Harvest so it's not really important which two you get, just roll as needed. This ring with Two Resists is enough when using Kintsugi because that armour adds Fire Resistance. If you want to use Skin of the Lords, you need this ring to have Three Resists, which is a bit harder to craft: - Buy a base with SYNTHESISED "Vulnerability on hit". It is important that this modifier comes from Synthesis (implicit) and is not a Influenced base, as it will make crafting the ring much harder. - Make sure the ring is white (Scour if needed) and throw 4 Prismatic Catalysts at it. If you use Catalysts when the ring is not white, you will need 20 instead of 4 and they are expensive! - Throw some random fossils at it until you get at least two good resists. - If the third suffix is free, continue along. If not, use Orb of Annulment to free up the suffix. If a resist is removed, go back one step, if you end up with two resists and a free suffix - continue - Switch the resists type with harvest as needed, considering that the third resists that we will bench-craft will be ~25%. Observe your resistances and switch on the ring accordingly so the ones you need the most are the "natural rolls" (higher than crafted) switched around with Harvest and the one you only need ~30% of is the crafted one. - Craft the missing resist (with prismatic catalysts on, it should give ~30% resist) The other ring needs to be our Resist Power House. You need a ring with THREE TIER 1 RESISTS. That is not as expensive as you might think, usually 1-3 divines if you settle for useless prefixes. Throw Prismatic Catalysts at the ring to get the Resists as high as possible. You need to get the rest of the resists from boots Remember some Fire Res is available in Kintsugi if you are going with either Defensive or Balanced option. 🥾 Boots
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These need to provide as much resists as affordable, with some life and movement speed if possible These boots and the two of your rings (and Kintsugi if using that) need to provide ALL you elemental resists, so make sure you do the calculations and get good resists on those boots. 🧤 Gloves: Asenath's Gentle Touch
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These gloves give us a few things: - Explosions! - Temporal Chains on Hit, which boosts both defense nad offense - Blind which plays well with Evasion 🗡️ Weapons: Cold Iron Points early, later Crafted Wands
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Cold Iron Points early on are very good as they give damage through gem levels and are cheap to get (usually start at 70c and drop to 20c in 5 days of the league) Crafted Wands are our destination, each of those provide about 33% damage increase How to craft them? 1. Buy a base with Fractured mod "(24-26)% to Damage Over Time Multiplier". I recommend buying an Imbued Wand base because it gives Spell Damage in the implicit but INT requirements are too harsh. You could buy Prophecy Wand if you want slightly higher Spell Damage but it requires 245 INT (over 188 INT on Imbued Wand) which is hard to get and you might need to waste a skill point for the +30 INT on the tree. 2. Use a 4-socket Resonator with these fossils until you hit the mod "+1 to Level of All Spell Skill Gems": Corroded, Jagged, Metallic, Shuddering. 3. If you have the mod and there is a free Suffix - continue to the next step. If you have the mod but there is no free Suffix - use Orb of Annulment. If it freed up a Suffix without deleting the "+1 to All Spell Skill Gems" mod - move to the next step. If it deleted a random Prefix and Suffixes are still full - try again. If it deleted the "+1 to All Spell Skill Gems" mod - go back to step 2 4. Bench craft the "Cannot roll Attack Modifiers" mod 5. Use Harvest Craft: "Augment Physical". This is an expensive craft but, thanks to step 4, it will ALWAYS roll "+1 to Level of All Physical Spell Skill Gems". The downside is that it will remove a random mod - if it removes the "+1 to All Spell Skill Gems" mod - go back to step 2. If you have an item with both "+1 All" and "+1 Physical" - continue to the next step. From here there are two options: cheaper (and safer) or expensive (with some risk). I suggest to go for the cheaper one unless you are swimming in divines and can spare some. I've used two wands crafted with the cheaper method and they were more than enough. Cheaper Option: Bench Craft the Suffix: "+(18-20) to Physical Damage over Time Multiplier". That's it, you're done. More expensive option: 1. Bench craft "Prefixes cannot be changed" mod 2. Use the Harvest Craft: "Physical Reforge". This works like a Chaos Orb, except it can only roll mods with the "physical" tag - and, thanks to the previous step, prefixes (our +1 all and +1 physical) are protected and cannot be changed. Suffixes will be rerolled and the only suffix with the "physical tag" is "+X% to Physical Damage Over Time Multiplier". The generic "Damage over Time Multiplier" suffix will not change because it is Fractured (it will never change no matter what you do). The problem with this method is that it can roll a shitty tier of "Physical DoT" - if it is a bad roll you can either leave it or try to repeat from step one (but if there is no suffix free for the bench craft of "prefixes cannot be changed" then you need to use Orb of Annulment and that can destroy your item by removing one of the "+1" prefixes) If you are done with the weapon and there are still prefixes or suffixes free, you can slam an Exalted Orb (make sure to keep your eyes closed). Whichever option you choose, you end up with a weapon that has: - +1 to All Spell Skill Gems - +1 to All Physical Spell Skill Gems - +X% to Damage over Time Multiplier - +X% to Physical Damage over Time Multiplier - Might have a random prefix and suffix, if you're lucky maybe even a useful one, like "Spell Damage" or "Casting Speed" When it comes to getting the right socket colours on weapons, use the same Jeweller Orb method as described for Kintsugi. In short: - Bench Craft "At least 2 Red Sockets" - Bench Craft "Three Sockets" - of the third colour is the one you want, you are done. If not, bench craft "Two Sockets" and then "Three Sockets" again to roll a new colour on the third socket. Repeat until you get the one you need. ⏫ Leveling and Progression
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Acts 1 - 3 (until Siosa)
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I suggest starting with Ethereal Knives because it's a smooth skill for the first 2 acts and we don't get the skills we want until Act 3 Siosa anyway.
Use any support for Ethereal Knives you think will work, I suggest: Chance to Poison, Controlled Destruction, Void Manipulation. Get some helper gems along the way: Vitality, Steelskin, Flame Dash. Put Steelskin on your movement button After Siosa
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Doing the Siosa quest at the end of Act 3 is necessary (you could theoretically swap in Act 6 after Lily but you need to probably change the leveling tree).
Once you do the quest buy yourself the following gems: Reap, Controlled Destruction, Cruelty, Swift Affliction, Arrogance, Vulnerability, Enduring Cry, Corrupting Cry, Corrupting Fever, Discipline, Grace, Pride, Malevolence. From now on, our main damage will come from Reap and stacking Corrupted Blood 🩸 We use Reap instead of Exsanguinate for the whole campaign because Exsanguinate has low cast speed and is clunky to use this early on. That being said, you can swap Reap and Exsanguinate at any time if you like - the support gems stay the same. To make Reap apply Corrupted Blood stacks we need to use the gem Corrupting Fever - remember to activate it every once in a while if it stops working (it renews itself when you spend life to use skills). We also make use of Enduring Cry for two reasons: it's a very useful HP recovery technique and it provides Endurance Charges. We support it with the new Corrupting Cry support, which inflicts 4 stacks of Corrupted Blood on enemies when we use Enduring Cry (this is the same debuff that we apply using Reap) For Auras, use Discipline and two of: Grace, Pride or Malevolence - depending whether you want extra survivability (Grace) or damage (Pride or Malevolence) at this point. I'd suggest going with Pride and Grace. Keep the other auras in spare sockets or second weapon set to level them up After Act 4
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At the end of Act 4 you get access to some useful gems that you should buy. For us that's: Brutality, Unleash, Energy Leech.
Unleash makes Reap hit multiple times, making it very easy to stack those Corrupted Blood stacks. If you don't like it, you can swap it for Efficacy End of Acts / Early Maps
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When you reach end of acts and early maps, you will probably notice that Reap and Corrupted Blood starts to lack in damage. This is the moment when you should consider swapping to Exsanguinate. The main setup is described in the gems section, but it is worth mentioning that you can still use Reap with it if you prefer (just don't use Chain).
Exsanguinate (or Reap) - Chain (or Swift Affliction) - Energy Leech - Brutality - Controlled Destruction - Cruelty Start using Frost Shield at some point Further Upgrades
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Cheap Corrupted 6-Link
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At this point, further progression is determined by a series of upgrades. You can apply the upgrades in any order, but some of them are more impactful than others and also some of them require other to be completed beforehand - so I listed them in the order I suggest.
This section only mentions the upgrades, more details on how they work and what to watch out for can be found in other parts of the guide (Items section, Mechanics section, etc.) Cold Iron Points
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These weapons cost 70c in the first days and tamper off towards 10c during first week. They will provide enough damage for a long time.
Asenath's Gentle Touch
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Explosions, Temporal Chains, Blind - what's not to like? Get them when u get the Whispers of Doom passive point (two curses)
Pride Blessing
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Requires: The Vertex
Pride in a Divine Blessing setup will allow you to stop using it as aura and free the mana for Petrified Blood Petrified Blood
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Try to squeeze it in, maybe sacrificing Discipline if you need to and feel comfortable with it - experiment and see what you prefer. We need to ultimately use Petrified Blood, but it can wait until you get Enlighten Lv 3
Remember you need some mana left for castables (although you should swap them over to life with Lifetap) and Pride Blessing. When running Petrified Blood add in a Defiance Banner on your Life (using Arrogance support) to reserve life (along with Vitality). It is VERY important to leave some unreserved life above 50% for Life Overleech to work. Burden of Truth
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Get this once you have a decent amount of Energy Shield and Life and are using Petrified Blood. When getting this item, make sure to also pick up the Energy Shield Mastery: 30% of Chaos Damage taken does not bypass Energy Shield
Watcher's Eye with Life Leech on Vitality
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Watcher's Eye with the modifier "X% of Damage leeched as Life while affected by Vitality" is a very important upgrade once you start using Petrified Blood because it enables the powerful Life Overleech mechanic (read more about it in the Defence section). A Watcher's Eye with just this mod is not expensive.
Squeeze more out of Mana: Enlighten Lv 3, Sovereignty, Herald of Purity, Divergent Inspiration
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We want to squeeze in 3 large auras and Anomalous Herald of Purity but we need some serious mana optimizations for that:
Sovereignty gives more Mana Reservation Efficiency, along with Enlighten Lv 3 you should have enough to squeeze in Herald of Purity. Anomalous would be best for Taunt but you can start with regular and swap later. Better Corrupted 6-Link
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Still corrupted, but get it with some good Life, a resist or two, maybe some ES and/or Evasion. Should be around 30-50c. Don't over-invest, it's not our endgame armour.
Automated Flasks
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This would be a good moment to get the proper flasks and automate them with Instilling Orbs
Crafted Weapons
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Each of these weapons will provide ~30% more damage, so it's an important upgrade - it also costs a fair amount.
Remember that you need to craft both of them before you swap over, because you can't use a dagger + wand. You need to keep using daggers until you have both wands and then swap over to wands. See the item section for more details on how to craft these Watcher's Eye with Life Leech on Vitality and Increased Physical Damage with Pride
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We still need the mod that allows us to leech Life, but we can get a slighlty more expensive one which also has "XX% Increased Physical Damage while using Pride"
End Game Armour
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At this point you need to make a choice whether you want more Offence or Defence. Pick Kintsugi for Defence and Skin of the Lords for Offence. In any case - more details in the Items section.
The Eternal Struggle
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This amulet provides stats and 15% more damage - make sure you buy the right combination of implicits, see the Items section
Curse on Hit Ring
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This upgrade is difficult because we are starting to have problems with filling resists. See the Items section for more details.
This is my first build being shared on this forum, please let me know if there is anything missing or unclear! Last edited by Myzreal on Mar 28, 2024, 1:40:46 PM Last bumped on Apr 11, 2024, 4:44:47 AM
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Reserved
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Need more vid of tier 16 farming and some more boss video.
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Thanks a lot for sharing, the build seems very appealing to me.
As said above, any T16 mapping video footage would be greatly appreciated :-) | |
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Videos are coming soon, I just need to re-record them as I accidentally recorded with an open mic and they are full of me grunting :P
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Added two videos of T16 maps, going to post more soon, also uploading a Simulacrum Wave 30 video right now
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Very interesting build !
I have played a homemade "Vampire" Exsang Trickster build for some times, but yours has better DPS and better defenses. I have improved my build with two of your ideas : Soul Drinker and Zealotry + Divine Blessing. My current PoB : https://pobb.in/aZ4V-2cls8am Clear is good with Vulnerability + Punishment, but I'm quite the glass cannon and single target DPS is ok-ish. Your defense with the belt + ES mastery for chaos bypass seems excellent. Thx also for the wands. I'm currently using two Cold Iron Point daggers. I'll see if I can get wands similar to yours. Cheers ! Rahsaan's Workshop, a post to showcase a dozen of my home-made builds : https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3432443
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Update: Added a video of Simulacrum where I made it to wave 30. I think I would've completed the final wave if it wasn't for fps drops due to immortal monsters :P
" Thank you :) Yes, the weapons are a very large dps increase (30-35% more damage for each) and are quite deterministic to craft - just need a drop of luck :) | |
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Hey, maybe you can help me answer this question :
If you use Burden of Truth with Mind Over Matter and Eldritch Battery, will it have a good synergy, by splitting dmg between life, ES and mana ? Rahsaan's Workshop, a post to showcase a dozen of my home-made builds : https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3432443
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" If I understand this correctly (and I'm not expert, mind you): - Around 63% of all damage will go to ES (which protects mana) - Around 37% of all damage will go to life - Mind over matter will cause 40% of the 37% portion of damage going to life to go to mana instead (it will not be absorbed by ES since this part of damage bypasses ES) So with 1000 incoming damage this would look like this: - 630 damage to ES (63% total of all the damage received) - 148 damage to mana (40% of the remaining 370 dmg) (14.8% total of all the damage received) - 222 damage to life (60% of the remaining 370 dmg) (22.2% total of all the damage received) Is that worth it? Depends on your use case. You die when you lose life, so that's the only resource we are interested in keeping above zero. The setup you are describing does lower the damage going to life (from 37% to 22.2%) and since all damage always partially hits life, it makes no difference whether ES protected life or not. So yeah, I can imagine scenarios in which that makes sense. The problem with this is that you need to have enough mana to make it able to absorb the damage, limiting your reservation options etc. - which is a large limitation IMO. Casting spells is not an issue because you can spend ES with EB being used - but that does nothing for reservation, as far as I know? Note that I have no idea whether all of this works that way - this is just theory. Would need to be tested in game. Last edited by Myzreal on Oct 7, 2023, 1:26:00 PM
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