[2.3] Occultist Poison Voltaxic Spark (Now includes video demonstration)

Voltaxic and Drillneck, the standard combo for the chaos conversion and the pierce damage conversion. Victario's Acuity has fantastic synergy with Spark and is relatively easy to get due to Perandus.

Finally I use Heretic's Veil to buff my curse and to have dual blasphemy for Warlord's Mark (leech) and Temporal Chains (safety).

Quill is nice to level with for the projectile speed. Look to use Victario's Acuity/Drillneck/Voltaxic as soon as possible. Other uniques like Winds of Change are also very good.

Use Careful Planning if you need to make up the Dexterity to use Voltaxic and place in the Witch jewel socket.

As the build is CI, you need to respec at a higher level once you have the gear for it. Make sure you do merciless lab prior to switching to CI.









Start by going towards Elemental Overload to the left of Witch, then begin pathing towards Piercing Shots to the right of Shadow. Ideally you should have Piercing Shots by the time you can use Drillneck which is level 36! Make sure to pick up the life nodes when you can.

Eventually when you pick up more ES gear, you can take Ghost Reaver in order to leech to ES. Be careful of Chaos damage though. As you progress towards maps and respeccing to CI is near, you'll need to head towards Potency of Will, pathing through the ES nodes in Scion in order to give that little extra duration to Spark and Vaal Spark.

Once you've respecced to CI, you can replace all the life nodes and take Vaal Pact and Charisma for the mana reserve. Furthermore you should spec towards the Dual Curse node North-West of Witch in order to use Heretic's Veil.

I see a lot of variants go for the life based build but I'm not too sure why. Fortify bonus could be nice but to me the CI option will always be strong especially matched with Occultist, building a large ES and ES regen pool. Not only this but Occultist has the -20% Chaos Resistance as an aura which is very strong.

For life based builds use Lioneye's Vision. For low life you obviously use Shavronne's Wrappings. For class you would pick Scion or Champion (Duelist).

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMBAAFvAx4D7gzyDXwPqxBYES8RUBV-FdcWvxhqGYoajxslHU8dvh8CH0EfxyL0JIsnqSj6KjgqWysKK3gsnCy_LYstqDI0M4c0CjW5Nj02xTdmQzZGcUcGSVFJsUuuUuxVhVZIVmNXyVgHXEBca13yX2pp2GwIbAttGXWedhF2gngvefZ85X6hf8aCx4MJhEiExYauh8uLeo_6knSTJ5cGm6GbtaEvpcunK6ebsZC0DLTFtNG1SLv8voC-isHFwuzDOsNtxKLG98gMytPPFdDQ18_YJNlb2-ffit-w4vfk7OkC6rrrY-wY74jw1fGK9tr31_k3-wk=

Gear



You must enchant your boots with "leeched as life and mana if you've killed recently" - this is crucial for sustain. Buying/grinding for +2 Spark Projectiles is also a long term and powerful enchant basically adding Lesser Multiple Projectiles as a link, without the downside of losing DPS.

HEADHUNTER GEAR



I have a Headhunter in Standard so I wanted to play around with it when the leagues end.

Rings: I would mainly just look for high resistances and a decent maximum energy shield roll (+40) with an open prefix for a % energy shield exalt from elreon 7.



This ring is a solid example, the mana roll is also okay to have in order to have some sort of a mana pool to cast from.

My second ring personally is very similar although you may need less resistances and focus more on stat attributes. Needing high dexterity and strength in order to meet gear and gem requirements.



Other useful stats to have are Mana Regen (my build does not acquire much mana regen to cast) on rings or you can also spec into Shaper for 40% regen and 1% life regen.

Jewels: So firstly I would say "Energy from Within" in order to convert the HP/ES nodes to full ES.

Secondly Sacrificial Harvest can be used to have Vaal Spark more freely available to use. I personally do not use these.

For rare jewels look for "Chaos Damage", "Lightning Damage", "Spell Damage" or Projectile Damage". In HC leagues also add a % maximum energy shield roll. Cast speed is also okay to have.

Kill - Kill - Kraityn

Only mod this build cannot do is blood magic, for obvious reasons.

Cannot leech mod is possible. Drop Warlord's Mark and run a high level Clarity. I cleared a cannot leech -max Waterways with ease. BE CAREFUL STILL

Gonna just group questions i've answered in the comments here too.

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Zenzen wrote:

Hi!

I was thinking over a voltaxic spark build and happened across your thread. Now that you've played it for a while how do you feel the occultist feels for the build? I'm really having a tough time deciding between the different options, so many pros/cons for each. I really like the better defenses of the occultist but it's so hard to ignore the free leech and pierce chance with scion. Pathfinder is even a bit interesting with its basically free poison gem though pathfinder would be more appropriate for a crit build I think.

From a defensive perspective I feel like Occultist is the strongest. The ES regen is actually ridiulous. I know some other people are trying Scion, not too sure what to make of it really but to me, Occultist just suits the build perfectly. I know Zizaran played as a Champion which is kinda weird but I guess he just favoured the permanent Fortify for bad situations.

However my style of play is more the defensive side and I believe that Scion/Deadeye/Berserker etc. will provide more DPS and save some skill points. But something I have to mention is that you do not require a massive tooltip at all. I cleared a t15 map with ease and generally have been mapping without any issues.

Edit: one other benefit to Scion would be the extra access to jewel sockets which do add some extra power.

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hyrenfreak wrote:

i was wondering why my warlord mark doesnt seem to give me enough mana, im constantly starved for it on single target.

If you dont have high enough strength requirement then the AoE might be quite small and therefore you need to be closer to leech, same goes for if you're using a blasphemy gem.

If you need more mana regen as a whole you can pick up Shaper or Deep Thoughts. Eventually you'll reach a stage where 1 or 2 casts will be enough to kill packs.

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moodzy wrote:

how necessary is lvl 3 enlighten?

Not necessary at all. If you don't have one, you can take an extra 8% mana reserve on the passive tree.

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Darkith1546 wrote:

Build work as low life? I have a 6-link shavs and I'm itching to try a new build.

Yes I believe so. Wouldn't need to make many changes to the tree either except for Pain Attunement and Arcane Vision.

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oedipat wrote:

I think i need some time to get a 6l. when i reach voltaxic, it will be a 5l and i swap my tabula to an other 5l with es. What gem can i miss? Void manipulation, or controlled destruction? i think the 50-60% pierce dmg cant be dropped?

So from the links in vaal spark, you can drop poison. For Spark I would probably drop Void Manipulation. You could also drop Poison but you might need some mana regen as you will be casting more often. But for ease of use I would just drop Void Manipulation.

If possible I would just look for a 6L ES chest that you might be able to pick up for like 1 ex.

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oedipat wrote:

Second question: what is important on quality? i got 20% spark and pierce. are the 10% increased poison duration important?

I would be honest and say that I only had a 20% spark and the rest of my gems I flipped when they reached 20. So highest importance is just spark.

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oedipat wrote:

Last of all: did you have problems to cap resis?

I did not. I am also nicely overcapped for Ele Weakness maps too. If you are having problems with resistances you can pick up Frost Walker and Flame Walker if needed.

For general gearing, obviously voltaxic, drillneck and victarios. I would even prioritise Heretic's Veil personally. Then you literally just want to find as much resist gear as possible. I started off with 30 ES boots or so, before you gradually pick up/buy better items.

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Zenzen wrote:

I noticed you have a bone offering in your gloves' cwdt setup. At first I thought it was to clear bodies but it's too high level for the cwdt, do you just manually cast it when needed? My other thought was that maybe you were thinking of going necromancer for the offering effect.

Yeah, I just use it to manually clear bodies like necrovigil.

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Zenzen wrote:

I see a few builds using a couple vaal haste setups instead of vaal spark. Have you found the vaal spark to be more effective?

I haven't really played around much with Vaal Haste. I personally see it more of a party aura to have, which I would definitely use in a party as vaal spark may lag/crash people.

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Zenzen wrote:

Edit: As a side note, lack of block scares me with these voltaxic builds. I'm tempted to run double rumi's as I love that flask so much. Coming from a pathfinder build with its semi surgeon's mod that works for unique flasks it's tough to give them up.

The lack of block, you just hope you can outrange them and outleech, hehe. You could in theory use a rumi's but it's difficult to drop a flask imo because you'll need anti bleed/freeze/curse.

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Coldlucidity wrote:

What's up with the bone offering skill gem in your boots?

This is so I can manually clear corpses for occasions such as "Detonate Dead" strongboxes or "Necrovigil" mobs.

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GreenAndGold wrote:

I'm mostly new to casters, can you explain what the increased skill duration nodes do for the build? Why wouldn't lightning or chaos damage nodes be better?

To increase the duration of Spark and Vaal Spark. General rule of thumb from what I've seen for Spark is to have at least 1 duration cluster.

There aren't too many Chaos/Lightning damage nodes nearby and I honestly don't need the extra damage any more.