[3.0] KevaeL's newbie-friendly Dark Pact Suicide Berserker

Dark Pact is a spell (which means that it doesn't scale on your weapon's base damage) which can be cast either on skeletons or on yourself. It deals a fixed amount of damage which depends on the gem's level + 6% of your skeletons'/your maximum life (depending on the spell's target) in an area around the target. That same amount of life is sacrificed by the skeletons/the player in order to cast the spell. This sort of "damage" (which is not considered to be damage as it does not trigger effects such as Cast When Damage Taken and so on) can't kill the spell's target, and will leave them with 1 HP at worst.

31 points

50 points


At this point, you can either decide to invest a little more points to improve your sunder damage or stick to your finished tree. If you're struggling to get past the last acts I would definitely pick the first skill tree, which is the one that focuses on boosting sunder (however, a mace which decent physical DPS should be more than enough to go all the way through to maps), otherwise you can go for the second one. It also depends on how much currency you have: if you've just started the league/you're a new player, you'll probably have little to no currency to spend on regrets, so you'd better go for the second tree.

First tree (+Sunder -Dark Pact), 70 points

Second tree (-Sunder +Dark Pact)

I did respec somewhere around level 65, which means after the end of the main quest-line, after defeating Kitava, but I think it may be better to wait until level 70, which means after you've begun mapping. The main reason for this is the fact that in your early-mapping levels you will struggle to kill rare and unique monsters because you won't be able to keep up with Dark Pact's life loss. This means that you're going to die quite often, thus slowing your levelling.
Also, you HAVE TO obtain at least the first 2 ascendancy points before switching to the actual build, and that is because they are going to be your only reliable life-leech source for quite a long time.

74 points

Level 83 (106 points)


From this point on your skill tree choices will depend on your preferences. Here are the best choices you can make with your last points:
On the right of the Marauder's start, you'll see a juicy life node. You can go there and spend as many points as you want, which will drastically increase your survivability and, at the same time, boost your damage. Also, there are a few life points that we've skipped next to the notables (the ones with the narrow golden frame) we've already picked. Those are a very good investment as well, especially the ones which provide you both +% Evasion and life (if you're playing Evasion);
You can pick the spell damage points at the Witch's start;
You can pick the chaos damage points at the Shadow's start. However, the mentioned above spell damage points are slightly better as they provide you 2% additional increased damage.

My current tree, level 90 (113 points)

Kill all. In my opinion, none of the bandits' rewards is worth as much as 2 passive skill points, even though Kraytin might be a very solid choice as well, especially if you're playing Evasion.

Normal Lab: Pain Reaver
This bad boy is pretty much the only reason why this build exists. Without it, you couldn't keep up your Dark Pact spam, which is the very basic mechanic of the build.
Cruel Lab: Crave the Slaughter
Not very useful for our build (we don't use attacks), but the movement speed is nice and it allows you to pick from your
Merciless Lab: Aspect of Carnage
40% more damage is huge. It's like having an additional support gem, but without wasting a socket in your weapon. 10% more damage taken might sound like a lot, but remember that we're running a high HP build and that we instantly recover 100% of the damage we deal for the next 4 seconds after we've taken a savage hit (a hit that deals at least 15% of our maximum life).
Uber Lab: Cloaked in Savagery
This is what makes the build a great boss killer. Thanks to this single bonus, you can facetank anything that doesn't OHKO you (including Atziri's storm calls and flameblasts).

Major god: The Brine King
It might sound like something not-so-impactful, but trust me, this is a huge bonus to both your clear speed and your survivability. This single power-up prevents you from being stun-locked or freeze-locked, which, as we're playing a melee-like build, are two of the main threats to this build.

Minor god: Garukhan/Tukohama/Ryslatha
This choice depends on your playstyle. Garukhan is probably the best choice for map clearing once you unlock its power-up, but I'm currently running Tukohama because I like sitting next to bosses and spamming Dark Pact without having to worry about their attacks.
Ryslatha might also be a solid choice for a "hit-and-run" playstyle and for tougher bosses, but I'm not the kind of player who likes avoiding stuff and running in circles waiting for the flasks to refill xD .

Dark Pact
Increased Area of Effect (for map clearing)/Concentrated Effect (for single-target)
Added Chaos Damage
Controlled Destruction
Void Manipulation (for 5-links)
Faster Casting/Arcane Surge if you're not playing Cospri's Will, whereas you could also use Vile Toxins/Poison/Lesser poison if you are (for 6-links)

Wither + Spell Totem + Faster Casting + Increased Duration

Temporal Chains + Warlord's Mark + Haste/Grace + Enlighten

Vaal Haste + Immortal Call + Increased Duration + Cast When Damage Taken

You can use either:
Lightning Warp + Faster Casting + Less Duration
or
Flame Dash + Faster Casting

You can either use Flame Golem or Lightning Golem, though the latter should give you the better DPS boost.

My weapon of choice is Pledge of Hands, and there are 2 main reasons for that. First of all, if you're playing either evasion or armor, it's going to be very tough to get 5 off-colours on your chest, especially at the beginning of the league. Secondly, it allows you to run an additional support on your main skill, which greatly enhances your DPS.

However, you might also decide some different setups:
Double Apep's Rage;
Apep's Rage + shield;
Rare sceptre/wand + shield,
but you won't be able to play a Kaom's Heart as you would have no room for a 6-link setup.

If you're running evasion and Cospri's Will, it makes little to no sense to play any other helmet than Heretic's Veil.
If you're running evasion but aren't using Cospri's Will, you could still use it, but probably a helmet with lots of life and resistances would be better as it allows you to cap your res more easily and to focus more on getting life on the rest of your equipment, which boosts your base damage, thus being very valuable.
If you're not running armour at all, you definitely should use a rare helmet with those stats.

I'm currently playing a Cospri's Will and there are 2 main reasons for that: it allows you to play an additional curse (we're using a Heretic's Veil, which means that your enemies will always be cursed unless they're curse immune) and it gives you a cool DPS boost thanks to the poison.
It also allows you to run Vile Toxins, which should be a HUGE boost to your dps but I can't confirm that because I haven't tried it yet. The fact that you can curse Hexproof enemies is cool as well, and you get some juicy evasion as well.

You could also use a Cherrubim's Maleficence both if you're running Armour and if you're running Evasion as it gives you a pretty good damage boost.
Both Carcass Jack and Belly of the Beast should be very good choices as well, but they're still pretty expensive so I wouldn't reccomend using them at the start of the league.

However, none of them might be our end-game choice. If you're running Armour, the absolute best piece of gear might be Kaom's Heart. It gives you some Armour and TONS of HP, which doesn't only boost your survivability, but greatly enhances your base damage as well. Unfortunately, in Harbinger League (which is the one I'm playing right now) it's still one of the most expensive body armour, so I wouldn't reccomend it as a league-starter.

At the moment I'm running:
2 life flasks (one of them has anti-freeze, the other one anti-bleeding);
A Quicksilver Flask with added movement speed and -% charges used;
Jade flask with added evasion and -% charges used;
An Atziri's Promise for the added life leech, even though another Quicksilver Flask may well be a better choice.