[2.4] Chaos Warchief Champion

Welcome to the guide for my dual Ancestral Warchief Chaos DoT build. I've gotten many questions about my build, both on Reddit and in-game, so here is a summary of how it works.

The guide is now updated with my current version of the build in the Essence League (Patch 2.4). I've also cut down a lot of the guide to bare essentials to make it easier to read.


Theory

This build aims to maximize poison damage by using various sources of flat chaos damage and prioritizing modifiers that double-dip to greatly increase poison damage. It also has many layers of defense against both physical and elemental damage. I no longer feel the need to explain the offensive mechanics of the build in depth because they are much more widely used now (e.g. King of the Forest).


Videos

I'll start with some videos for you skeptics who need a proof of concept.

• T14 Twinned Palace boss kill
• T15 Dark Forest boss kill
• T16 Maze of the Minotaur boss kill
• T16 Twinned Vaal Temple boss kill
• Full Shaper run
• Endgame Labyrinth boss kills
• Apex of Sacrifice boss kills
• Alluring Abyss boss kills

I've also recorded myself doing twinned Colosseum and twinned Core, but the quality is so bad that it's difficult to watch. I think that with all the particles my computer can't handle rendering and encoding the video properly. So you'll just have to take my word that this build can handle them, unless you really want me to upload those crappy videos.

Finally I have a couple of bonus videos that people have asked me to record that I might as well throw in here. The first is an Atziri run with a Brightbeak, to show that the build can still do acceptable damage without a Malicious weapon. I apologize that this video isn't hosted on YouTube. The second is a short clip of my character facetanking Argus in the Uber Labyrinth, just to demonstrate that the build has strong defenses, especially against physical damage.

• Brightbeak vs. Atziri
• Argus facetank test

Passive Skill Tree and Leveling

Current Passive Skill Tree, level 95

If you have any Dexterity on your gear, or if you're using gear with lower Dexterity requirements than mine, I recommend pathing to the left out of the Duelist starting area instead of the right. That is, through the Strength nodes instead of the Dexterity ones. Strength gives flat maximum life, which is more valuable than increased evasion. If you're wondering why I took one +30 Strength node, it's because I didn't know what else to do with my level 95 skill point. If I were to level again (which I don't plan to do) I would respec out of that node and one life node and grab a seventh jewel socket.

You may level the character however you want to. If you choose to level it using Ancestral Warchief, beeline for Resolute Technique and Ancestral Bond. You can go with a more traditional Facebreaker build, you can use melee weapons, or you can just start with Added Chaos the moment you have access to it. The choice is yours, so just do whatever sounds like fun to you.

As for Ascendancy passives, go in the following order:

1. Unstoppable Hero
2. Fortitude
3. Conqueror
4. Worthy Foe

If you need a justification for my choice of Ascendancy class, it's mostly because of permanent Fortify. However, Conqueror's taunt on hit is fantastic, and making enemies take increased damage by casting Enduring Cry is not to be underestimated. And let's not overlook the 60% increased evasion rating from the minor nodes. You may also choose to go Chieftain for the totem leech and sustain Fortify with Shield Charge or Cyclone.


Gearing

Current Gear and Links, level 95






Body armour:

Lightning Coil is best in slot defensively, but (a) it is substantially more difficult to cap resistances with it if you're trying to use good chaos damage jewelry and (b) physical damage isn't really the bottleneck in this build's survivabilty anyway. I recommend instead using a rare evasion chest (preferably Zodiac Leather or Assassin's Garb, item level 84) crafted with an Essence of Horror. This provides some of the benefits of Lightning Coil without severely restricting your other gear choices. The other stats to prioritize are, in order of importance:

• Life
• Resistances
• Evasion
• Dexterity

Helmet:

Start with an evasion helmet (preferably Lion Pelt, item level 84) that already has an Ancestral Warchief enchantment on it, either radius for quality of life or damage for slightly faster boss kills. Alternatively, the Enfeeble curse effect enchantment is fantastic if you want to be more defensive. Craft with either chaos orbs or essences (I used an Essence of Envy on mine).

• Life
• Resistances
• Intelligence
• Evasion
• Dexterity

Gloves:

Nothing special about glove choices for this build. You may want a Labyrinth enchantment on them, but I didn't find it necessary. It's not by any means necessary to get the Essence of Insanity craft that I got on mine. I just wanted to go fast.

• Life
• Resistances
• Dexterity
• Attack speed
• Evasion

Boots:

Atziri's Step is probably best in slot if you can find the resists elsewhere to compensate. Otherwise I highly recommend a pair of boots with the spell dodge Labyrinth enchantment. With my current setup I would have to use some higher-resistance gloves and insanely good jewelry to get away with Atziri's Step, but if I could I absolutely would.

• Movement speed
• Life
• Resistances
• Dexterity
• Evasion

Main hand:

You want a high-attack-speed weapon, preferably with the "Malicious" prefix (item level 83) that adds flat chaos damage. The best thing would be a 2.0+ APS foil or claw. Availability is generally very low for these, but provided the league hasn't just started you can easily find weapons with 1.85 to 1.90 APS. Usually these are Gemini Claws, thanks to the divination cards "The Rabid Rhoa" and "The Twins." The DoT master craft is very low priority because it adds very little to your damage, so don't go too far out of your way to make sure you get it.

• Attack speed
• Chaos damage
• Damage over time
• Resistances
• Attributes
• Mana regeneration
• Mana

Off hand:

I highly recommend Saffell's Frame. The extra maximum resistances are invaluable, and the small amount of spell block provided is a nice bonus. A life/evasion shield would be better in certain situations but, again, elemental damage is a bigger threat to this build, so I never take off my Saffell's. If you just want to maximize DPS, use a Brightbeak in the off hand. Ancestral Warchief is bugged and averages the two weapons' attack speeds when dual wielding, making Brightbeak the best offensive weapon for the off hand.


Jewelry:

Although not absolutely essential for the build, eventually you will want jewelry crafted with Essences of Envy for global chaos damage, also preferably crafted with added chaos damage from Elreon's bench.

• Life
• Intelligence
• Chaos damage
• Resistances
• Strength/Dexterity
• Mana regeneration
• Mana
• Attack speed[li]

Flasks:

Two life flasks strongly recommended because this build has no leech, and most of its regen comes from taunting. Jade and Basalt will be your best friends for absorbing physical damage. The fifth flask is situational. Quicksilver if you're using Shield Charge. Otherwise I prefer to use a Stibnite and swap in a mana flask for less recovery and no regen maps. You may also want to use elemental flasks for some scenarios. Taste of Hate has synergy with the body armour, but it's debatable whether or not it beats a Stibnite defensively.

Jewels:

This build gets a lot of damage and a moderate amount of maximum life from its jewels. You want jewels with maximum life and at least two damage mods.

• Life
• Totem, area, chaos, and generic damage
• Attack speed
• Melee damage, damage over time
• Resistances
• Attributes

Gem setup details

There are two ways to deal with linking support gems for Ancestral Warchief. If you're like most people and swap single-target and multi-target gems depending on the situation, your links look like this:

5L: Ancestral Warchief + Added Chaos Damage + Poison + Void Manipulation + (Increased Area of Effect OR Concentrated Effect)
6L: Ancestral Warchief + Added Chaos Damage + Poison + Void Manipulation + (Increased Area of Effect OR Concentrated Effect) + Rapid Decay

If you're stubborn like me and refuse to swap gems situationally, they look like this:

5L: Ancestral Warchief + Added Chaos Damage + Poison + Void Manipulation + Rapid Decay
6L: Ancestral Warchief + Added Chaos Damage + Poison + Void Manipulation + Increased Area of Effect + Concentrated Effect

As for the rest of the links, here they are:

4L: Enfeeble + Blasphemy + Grace + (Flame Dash OR Lightning Warp OR Enlighten)
4L: (Whirling Blades OR Shield Charge) + Enduring Cry + Blood Magic + Faster Attacks
4L: Summon Lightning Golem + Cast When Damage Taken + Blind + (Minion Life OR Vortex OR Leap Slam)
3L: Vaal Grace + Vaal Lightning Trap + Increased Duration
3L: Wither + Reduced Mana + Faster Casting

Quality on the main links is pretty important because most of it double-dips.

Endgame Stats

[spoiler="No temporary buffs"][/spoiler]
[spoiler="Fully buffed"][/spoiler]
Here is a summary of all of the defensive mechanics this build utilizes:

• Enfeeble + Blasphemy, reducing nearby enemies' damage by 33%, accuracy by 51%, and crit chance by 38%.
• Taunts by my totems making enemies attack them and do 10% less damage to me.
• Lightning Golem + Blind, giving tough bosses 50% less chance to hit.
• 25K evasion rating with Grace, 46K with Jade Flask active (55K with Stibnite).
• 40%/38% chance to dodge attacks/spells, 75%/73% for 16 seconds with Vaal Grace.
• 14% chance to block spells with Saffell's Frame and Acrobatics.
• 15% of physical damage converted to cold (additional 20% if I had Taste of Hate).
• 20% physical damage reduction from endurance charges, 40% with Basalt Flask.
• 79% to all elemental resistances in Elemental Weakness maps, and 34% to chaos resistance.
• 20% reduced damage taken from hits from Fortify, goes up to 26% if I've taunted recently.
• 6% reduced DoT taken if I've taunted recently.
• 2% life regeneration per second (3% if I've taunted recently) and flat regeneration on demand from Enduring Cry.
• 85% increased life recovery from flasks from passive nodes and the belt mod.

Coupling all of the above with a high-mobility skill like Whirling Blades, I can safely say that any deaths I incur are avoidable and 100% my fault.


Conclusion/FAQ

Here I'll summarize the build and answer any questions that arise (or that I think might arise). Let's start with a pros and cons list:

Pros:

• High survivability with taunts, debuffs, avoidance, and mitigation
• Effective boss killer
• Can clear maps with any map mods
• Uses interesting mechanics and offers a unique play style

Cons:

• Expensive, requires niche gear, not recommended for a first character in a league
• Double-dipping goes both ways, so Enfeeble maps slow you down quite a bit
• Mediocre clear speed compared to things like Shield Charge CoC and Oro's Flicker
• Is not Pathfinder Blade Vortex
• Little life regeneration compared to other life-based builds
• Has trouble with poison-immune Hydra and Chimera guardians

FAQs

[spoiler="How do you deal with difficult map mods?"]This build is immune to a lot of debilitating and otherwise annoying affixes, such as reflect, no leech, and Elemental Weakness if you get enough resists. High chaos resistance makes poison on hit and desecrated ground a non-issue. Damage mods, including Hexproof, and any combination thereof are dealt with by just being more careful in such maps, as most builds do. As for how I deal with...

• No Regen: By swapping my Stibnite for a mana flask.
• Less Recovery: The same way as with no regen.
• Blood Magic: By deactivating my auras.
• Temporal Chains: The same way most people do. By suffering through it. Luckily, Whirling Blades gives good mobility, and my totems aren't affected by Temporal Chains.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler="Does this out-damage pure physical AW builds like Facebreaker?"]No, probably not. At least not against a Facebreaker build that has this level of investment put into it. This build relies on continuous stacking of Wither and poison, so the damage takes a few seconds to ramp up. Against extremely high-HP bosses it probably has an edge, but otherwise I doubt it.
[/spoiler]

Excellent guide, strong build (watching stage 2 palace bosses die really showed off the dps)

One thing I always notice with dual wielding is its a shame the bonus is more physical damage instead of more damage which would have further benefited the build.

Does the Gemini implicit help the totems sustain life at all? Do you use it to sustain for yourself maybe with spectral throw?

This build looks great, I'm leveling it on HC atm. How do you get attack speed on your gemini claws though? Is there a trick I'm missing to make it easy? There aren't many options on PoE trade to straight up buy the right claws.

"

link1313 wrote:

Excellent guide, strong build (watching stage 2 palace bosses die really showed off the dps)

One thing I always notice with dual wielding is its a shame the bonus is more physical damage instead of more damage which would have further benefited the build.

Does the Gemini implicit help the totems sustain life at all? Do you use it to sustain for yourself maybe with spectral throw?

Thanks! The Palace bosses die a bit faster now that I've got some level 20/21 gems. Yeah it's a shame the dual wielding bonus is for physical damage only. It screws over elemental builds especially. And the Gemini implicit doesn't help in any meaningful way except in no regen and less recovery maps, where whirling through enemies can get you mana back. You can certainly use spectral throw for utility if you want to.

"

This build looks great, I'm leveling it on HC atm. How do you get attack speed on your gemini claws though? Is there a trick I'm missing to make it easy? There aren't many options on PoE trade to straight up buy the right claws.

There's no trick, unfortunately. I just checked the market for people who got lucky with their augmentation orbs, either rolling "Malicious" after turning in "The Rabid Rhoa" or rolling "of Celebration" after turning in "The Twins." Availability will be low at the start of the league, and in leagues with lower population (like HC).

Very well thought out, researched, and exhaustively explained build. I did not realize some of the advantages of dual wield, Warchief, and other abilities!

However, for your build you're using the PoE site's skill builder, which loads horrendously slow on my trickle-net. In the future you might want to use http://poeplanner.com/ - it loads MUCH faster, even on my crappy connection, and shows all of the accumulated stats that the build has.

I'm somewhat contemplating a new build as I reach the point of boredom with my current EQ/naut and Prism Witch. I've always wanted something insanely fast that has a DoT to wear enemies down trying to chase it - voidheart and other bleed builds are fun that way. Stack bleed/poison/chaos and simply run around getting chased until there's nothing left to chase me.

That said; what are your thoughts on a Bino's/Voidheart combo? AW, trapper, whatev?

"

BlaqWolf wrote:

Very well thought out, researched, and exhaustively explained build. I did not realize some of the advantages of dual wield, Warchief, and other abilities!

Please see some recent edits I've made to the dual wield mechanics section of the guide. I don't know if you read it before or after I made the edits, so let's make sure we're on the same page about what those advantages are first!

"

BlaqWolf wrote:

However, for your build you're using the PoE site's skill builder, which loads horrendously slow on my trickle-net. In the future you might want to use http://poeplanner.com/ - it loads MUCH faster, even on my crappy connection, and shows all of the accumulated stats that the build has.

Oh, I didn't use the PoE website to put the skill points in. I just used the website link because it's easy to access the website versions of your characters' current skill trees through your profile on the website.

For actually planning builds, I prefer the offline version of the skill tree ("PoESkillTree" by EmmittJ) over PoEPlanner, but that's just personal preference I guess.

"

BlaqWolf wrote:

I'm somewhat contemplating a new build as I reach the point of boredom with my current EQ/naut and Prism Witch. I've always wanted something insanely fast that has a DoT to wear enemies down trying to chase it - voidheart and other bleed builds are fun that way. Stack bleed/poison/chaos and simply run around getting chased until there's nothing left to chase me.

That said; what are your thoughts on a Bino's/Voidheart combo? AW, trapper, whatev?

I would absolutely recommend Voidheart for a melee Bino's build. The important question is whether or not Bino's is worth it at all for whatever build you're going for. It won't matter that Bino's proliferates poison if you can kill packs fast enough that the poison is irrelevant. Bino's would be more appropriate on a poison Bladefall character (no Voidheart obviously), although those builds typically don't need the poison proliferation to do more than enough damage. Personally I haven't thought of a way to make Bino's worth it, but maybe you can with some creativity. Bear Trap + Southbound, maybe?

Well, since I've done the EQ to 90 now (my highest build thus far, ever) I'm thinking about what to do next, when 2.4 hits and mapping might actually have a goal (not that I ever create builds that can /survive/ high tier maps).

I like the fact that a jug can survive, but my totem gets slaughtered almost instantly against most map bosses making it pretty much meaningless in those battles. I have to spam it pretty fast for it to provide any bonuses.

I'd love to go Shadow/DoT or crit or... well, anything really. But nothing survives very well without insane regen/leech. Armor, Evaqsion, ES just don't mitigate those huge one-hit wonders.

Hello. One question. How you want generate frenzy charges with ancestral bond when you cant deal any damage? Thanks for answer

Hello, first forum reply. This is very brief and well structured guide. Especially for 2.4 after the CoC nerfs I think this is one of the strongest builds for Defense+DPS.

Hey, thanks for the great guide.
I'm currently planning on following this for my next character, and I'm wondering if voidheart is still a better choice than the poison support gem now, given that it's been nerfed down to approx. 30% poison chance.
What are your thoughts?