[2.1]The Chaos Hexer. 2-Specs-In-One Tri(Quad)Curse EB Chaos Mage/Hybrid Supporter/Curser with EE.
 (OP image by artist kath) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ OPENING WORDS I don't bother to try out new things every now and then because I'm lazy as hell, but I love making trees in the offline planner even for the builds I'll never do. When the chaos skills' and the new stuffs came out and I looked at all the unused gear collecting dust in my stash, which happens to have all the things I needed for a tree, I said what the hell let's try something new for once. And here we are. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ABOUT THE BUILD This build uses Essence Drain and Contagion to obliterate the entire screen (and maybe another screen or two after that) at a reasonable pace while sporting 3 curses for various uses (2 in Blasphemy, 1 selfcast). It also uses Abyssal Cry for both offense and defense, as it does a hilarious amount of damage, and Bladefall in a Pledge on swap (We'll talk about this later). BUT because of the build's nature (high curse effectiveness, high area of effect, CHAOS DAMAGE), we can spend 1 point to get Elemental Equilibrium without ruining our solo play while turning us into a very powerful party supporter, with the addition of Abyssal Cry. PROS : +Reasonable clear speed. A good pair of casts will kill the entire screen. Becomes very comfortable when you get used to ED/Contagion's mechanics. +Very very safe. You just need to reapply the ebola to the next screen and spend most of the time dodging with the entire screen is covered in 50% Curse Effectiveness Temporal Chains. You can use Enfeeble in boss encounters or hard packs. +Versatile in both solo play and party play. Can do all kinds of mods except BM and Curse Immune of course. +AESTHETICS +Fully utilizes a weapon on swap to help with single target DPS and killing stragglers. --UPDATE: By equipping The Consuming Dark, we completely eliminate our single target DPS problem. You still need a Bladefall on swap to snipe Undying Rares/Totems and kill Chaos Resist bosses (which is rare anyway). --UPDATE: As of 2.1.1b, the interaction between chaos skills and poison is fixed, meaning Poison from Consuming Dark is no longer as strong as before. Do not throw away your Consuming Dark just yet, it's still a very strong weapon. CONS : +Shit DPS in parties, which is when we'll switch to our support variant, without using Regrets and by swapping in a couple of gems and gears. +Not the cheapest thing in the world. +Not faceroll, you actually have to dodge things. If they hit you they hit you. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ SKILL TREE
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https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwMAA-4EBwSzDR8RLREvFr8YahzcHb4fxyL0JpUo-it4LJwtizLRM4c2PTpYOuE8BTwoPV9Bh0SrRUdFnUlRSbFMs03jTm1QQlJTUq9TNVNSVUtVrlXGWAdcQGHiYqxn_GjybAtsjG0ZdZ52gngvfIN85X5Zf8aCEIIegseD24fLiEKMNo8aj6aP-pMnl5WX9JitmuCboZwynL6dqp_foS-iAKXEplenm6yYtNG1SLc-uJO7Tb6KwGbBxcgMzxXQH9fP2L3bC91f37DrY-vu7BjvfO-I7-vwH_DV8kX31_k3-ej-Cq1K
Plug it in the offline planner. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ THE BUILD(s) We use the Solo variant for solo play and Party variant for party play. SOLO
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Overall Equipments
+ Main hand: Dagger and shield. We don't use wands because we don't need much cast speed and we need every tool we can use to ensure that nothing touches us. Fortunately Whirling Blades is the best movement skill in the game. Can be rare or unique (Divinarius, The Consuming Dark). + Helm, gloves, boots, belts: Rares. We don't use Windscream in here, that's for the party variant. + Body Armour : Rare or Unique. The best HC option is obviously a Lightning Coil, but if you are confident with your dodging, just want that DPS or can't afford a LC, a +1 Tabula Rasa will boost the tooltip by a ton and is much cheaper than a 6L Coil. + Rings and the amulet : You need an extra curse mod in here. Either use Doedre's Damning or an extra curse amulet. If you use Doedre's Damning, you can get an amulet with cast speed for smoother gameplay.
Links
Contagion
Increased AOE + Faster Casting. Contagion is the skill that help you spread your purple love across the map. It's base damage is negligible, so stacking cast speed + AOE on this one and stacking DPS on Essence Drain is much more efficient.
Essence Drain
Void Manipulation + Controlled Destruction + Rapid Decay + Empower + Slower Projectiles "My grandma can dodge this thing." Well your grandma doesn't have Temporal Chains on her. We stack multipliers, very simple.
Abyssal Cry
Increased AOE + Void Manipulation. Scream to add more boom. There are mobs that just don't die fast enough to your liking, you use this. If the boss has a blue pack, try to kite it in and watch the fireworks. Gets more fun in the party variant.
Whirling Blades
Faster Attacks + Fortify. That move you spam to max out the Stylish Rank Gauge. A very important tool, you'll use this a lot.
Wither
Spell Totem + Faster Casting More damage is always good, sitting still is no good. We only use this in boss fights : we drop the totem and use our single target skill. We don't need Increased Duration because we already have 50% duration from the tree and Temporal Chains. The duration you see in the tooltip is the slow's duration. If you read the wiki, the second duration - the debuff's, has a base duration of 2 seconds.
Bladefall
Faster Casting + Concentrated Effect + Added Chaos Damage + Poison + Controlled Dustruction The perfect skill for us to burst down beefy/specific targets (like those Undying Rares/Totems). It hits hard, it hits fast, it hits a lot, it hits a specific AOE and most importantly it's PHYSICAL so we can use Poison + not messing up EE.
The Curses
Blasphemy + Temporal Chains + Vulnerability Selfcast Enfeeble Temporal Chains makes or breaks this build. You need this gem at 20/20, the slow is too important not to. Enfeeble is there as a fallback plan against harder encounters.
Vaal Lightning Trap
In whatever sockets you can spare. Optional, but hey, free 50% more damage. Throw this thing on bosses to make them die faster.
Gameplay
Use ED/Contagion against packs. Use Abyssal Cry if you want against beefy targets, magic packs (especially Necrovigils), shell crabs, golems, statues and porcupines. Drop Enfeeble and Wither on bosses and uniques, swap to Bladefall to burst or snipe. Spam Essence Drain on bosses. Kite and dodge. PARTY
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"Oh no! My plague is taking too long to kill things, my teammates are laughing at me !" Don't worry my friend, just switch to this and people will love you. We'll need a couple of ingredients. The Dying Breath has to be GBBBB and 5L. Windscream has to be rainbow, best if RGGB. You can opt out Windscream by using a Doedre's Damning.
The Curses and applying EE
Blasphemy + Temporal Chains + 2 curses. 1 Selfcast curse. We house 3 curses in the Dying Breath, made possible with the lvl 3 Enlighten. We don't need the AOE gem because with Dying Breath our curses still cover the screen. TEMPORAL CHAINS IS MANDATORY. You have a lot of options here since almost all of the offensive curses are Blue, and Enfeeble is Blue too. Leave out a Blue socket in any piece of gear to slap in a Blue elemental spell.
Abyssal Cry
Increased AOE + Void Manipulation + Poison. Leave out Poison if you're scare of losing chromes. Ainz Ooal Gown got nothing on this. Remember that Abyssal Cry scales with enemy's life so in a 6 man party our scream still deals a stupid amount of damage. I have more than often stolen all of my teammates' charges from curses. The spell damage from your main hand doesn't count toward Abyssal Cry, so it still hits as hard. This is our unique feature. No other support build has a 69% Increased AOE, damage specced Abyssal Cry.. Fun fact : With Abyssal Cry linked to Poison, you just need to kill one monster in the pack for it's friends to explode, chain reactions and all of that. Not like it matters since everyone is AOE anyway, but it helps in bossfights somewhat.
Gameplay
Keep up with your teammates.. While this support is pretty damn latency proof, it's still required that you have a half decent internet. Nobody wants a support who's a screen away from the DPSes. Other than that, smash sanic flasks, go up to a pack, hit Abyssal Cry or don't (since you'll steal your teammates' charges), go to the next pack, repeat. Occasionally throw Essence Drains at beefy targets. Apply EE whenever. Bosses will suffer some nice damage if their's blue packs explode since overlapping explosions and poison stacks.
The Cons
With Whirling Blades gone and a pair of 10% MS boots, you're still a sitting duck even with Temporal Chains. Your teammates need to protect you. The only cure for this is smashing more pots or opt Windscream out for a nicer pair of rares with 30% MS. MY GEAR
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The final flask can either be an unique or a resist flask. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ STATS
Offence
Lvl 20 ED + Lvl 4 Empower in a Lightning Coil
Lvl 20 ED + Lvl 4 Empower in a +1 Tabula Rasa
4L Abyssal Cry
Defense
Solo
Party
 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ VIDEOS I only have 2 solo vids up at the moment. If more interests come and my ISP decides not to be a bundle of sticks I will try to make a party video.
Solo
Fractured Shipyard + Vulnerability (Warning :A little loud) (Rare Dagger)
VS 78 Zana Double Torture Chamber bossfight (Rare Dagger)
Single Target DPS vs 78 Palace Dominus (Consuming Dark)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________ FINAL WORDS I've had more fun with this than any other of my past's casters. I think most people don't play support because they have to lock their tree and gear in a support role, losing their solo capabilities and having to rely on their teammates. With this I can both solo and support my team. I wish GGG a good future, this is the only MMO that I've spent money on, and it's not P2W! ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CHANGELOG
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18/12/2015 : Changed Rare Dagger to The Consuming Dark. 19/12/2015 : Added a video with Consuming Dark vs 78 Palace Dominus. 23/12/2015 : Added Vaal Lightning Trap. Last edited by kevodanh on Dec 23, 2015, 10:11:58 AM Last bumped on Mar 8, 2016, 10:49:43 AM
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Updated. Changed Rare Dagger to The Consuming Dark, added some notes.
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Going to give it a try! What would you suggest as an early alternative to PoH?
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" Any regular staff with spell damage\+1 gem will do, 4l or 5L. If we're talking about early league stuff here, you can use a Fencoil, will be sometime till you can get something better. | |
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Updated. Added a video to demonstrate single target DPS.
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That Marisa is pretty cute!
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" Thanks ! Although I think "cute" is not the right word for that picture. Updated. Changed the stats screens. | |
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Hey what did you choose on bandits?
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What do you think about Binos for this build?
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Hey there, really interesting build. Would you be able to tell me why you choose to use The Consuming Dark? After looking at the item itself and the build I really can't tell why, is it just for the poison from ED since it's chaos damage? Not sure if I'm just being daft or what (probably just being a bit daft since its 1AM atm), but other than that I couldn't think of a reason to use it and was just curious. :P
Great stuff and looking forward to trying it out. :) |
