[3.0] Another Crit Dark Pact but "SAFER & FUNNIER", In-depth. Now with "Speed/Nuke Weapon Swap Ver."

1, Get a Brightbeak and another shield. Shield Charge - Fast Attk - Fortify on Brightbeak.

2, Link CWDT- Immortal Call - BladeFall to the shield for trash clearing (with Brightbeak)

3, Link CWDT- Immortal Call - BladeVrotex for the other one using the original Apep.

4, Swap the auras gems to the Gloves/Helmet, Blasphemy - Assassin's Mark - Herald of ice(or Arctic Armour, we got another slot on the ring anyway ) - Lightning Golem(for more attk speed and cast speed, to charge faster and make up a little bit for the cast speed lost)

5, If you really want to focus on speed-farming on low-mid tiers, get rid of Assassin's mark and arctic armor, use Haste and Herald of Ice instead.

6, The other setup of this build remains unchanged. Use Brightbeak/shield charge for trash and Apep/Flame dash for bosses.

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.0.0/AAAABAECABzc6-51ngj0SVGPGu988kXyHS0fvOpqQw-rhMW3PjWSxtjw1aKjX9DQ9WyMxq5d8lxAwGZtbBQgshkmlVXGfIMPxK9sLJw8BZu1uZPwHzwtFumMz18_idOmV9i9RUfvDmebBLMOSD38VUv-j_hfh8tQR9terrMFQs8V6hDDOqIAJDdFnWHilS6_CI_6z3po8gcef8adqiBul5VQMDrhBAcy0SLqC2ERLTpY9kiDX-_rKjj-CjY9uMoyASSLcFIRloPb6_VYY-RRmuBBlrVITLNTUtAfjDY7fD1fwwkqC5hXUlODzE3jrj6VIMHzIZBirKebFr8=

This is the current stats of my char, not a PoB theory craft. And besides the 6L Carcass, everything else is cheap.You can see my gear down below. With a further investment, this will potentially get 20-40% more damage and up to 8500-ish life by leveling up a few. The PoB Pastebin up there is also some kind of a duplicate of my current gear, you can edit some godlike gears yourself and see how does that work.

Pros: You get hyped


Cons: You get too hyped

Ok here's the real one:
Pros:
-Decent damage for both single target and fast clearing.
-Decent radius for a nova build.
-Can do most of the mods.
-Face tanking most of the contents
-Fancy procs from CWDT and Herald of Ice. Very fun and useful. (explained below)
-Relatively safe enough.
-Don't care about freezing and temporal chain maps.
-You won't die unless you get one shot.

Cons:
-It's a Vaal Pact build, so eh...
-Cannot run no leech maps.
-It's a Berserker, and you sacrifice your own life to deal damage. So I don't think it's HC viable (unless you are skilled and well equipped)
-Cannot "trigger-happy".
-DoT damage can still kill you (Plaza boss, for example. I died once when dealing with 2 Plaza bosses, cannot proc my savage hit leech bonus)
-Shaper and Guardians with damage mods can still kill you if you don't position yourself carefully.

Yes, it can. I did Shaper, no sweat. Basically, you face-tank everything except the powerful one shots from certain bosses (Shaper's slam for example)

Tho I'm still skipping every trial I meet in the maps, not fun at all.

No, I didn't record any videos. If you want to know what this build looks like, just search on youtube for any random Dark Pact build (with Herald of Ice ideally), and another build which has CWDT-Blade Fall-Blade Vortex (or just try it yourself). Explained below.

Or maybe I'll make a short one just to show how this build looks like.

Yeah I know, it's far from an optimized gear.

1, Using Apep´s Rage, not just for its damage, also the 40% increased mana costs can support Lvl 9 Arcane Surge with Flame Dash. Why not using a sword like The Rippling Thoughts? See below the skill gems part.

2, Using Carcass Jack for the 20%+ aoe. Since we´re not using Inc. AOE Skill Gem, other resources of Inc. AoE are very important. Plus it has some damage, life and res on it.

3,Belt of the deceiver, for the Intimidate damage. But you can swap to a rare one for more life.

4, Kaom´s root, life and stun immune.

5, Why not dual Apep´s rage? For toughness.

6, Why using an Unset Ring? For an extra gem slot.

1, Flame Dash—Faster Casting—Arcane Surge, mobility and damage.

2, Spell Totem—Wither—Faster Casting—Inc.Duration, significantly more damage against bosses.

3,CWDT—Immortal Call—Blade Fall—Blade Vortex, this is an important part of the build. With the Berserker's "Cloaked in Savagery", this CWDT set up will make you almost invincible even when you're just walking around without casting Dark Pact(Instant leech to full life, unless you get one shot). Plus, it really LOOKS BETTER, and more fun to play.

And why are we using Blade Fall and Blade Vortex? Blade fall has a very big radius and it deals damage instantly, which is ideally the best skill to instant leech.
And Blade Vortex, well, imagine a Righteous Fire that can leech, just without the damage lol.

4,Blasphemy—Assassin's Mark, more damage and power charges.

5, Arctic Armour, toughness.

6, Herald of Ice, a little bit more damage, better AoE, possible chill/frozen effect, and fancy shattering.This really improves the QoL of speed-clearing.

7, Dark Pact—Spell Echo—Inc.Crit Strikes—Added Chaos—Controlled Destruction—Void Manipulation. Nothing special. You don't really need to swap for Concentrated Effect for single target, for Dark Pact, AoE radius is both toughness and damage (more reliable leech in a safer distance=toughness, less positioning with more dark pact casts=damage).

8, Why not using shield charge with another weapon?
Considering another melee weapon to use Shield Charge+Fortify, like The Rippling Thoughts? Trust me, I tried it played with it and sold it. If using The Rippling Thoughts for example,
First, you deal less damage(roughly 10~15% less damage).And a manual Arcane surge is much more reliable.
Second, you don't have enough attack speed to make this comfortable to use.
Third, even if you have enough attack speed and can have Fortify with Shield Charge for more toughness, actually it might not be safer. Why? Shield Charge has a clunky animation after casting, that means you cannot cast your Dark Pact as soon as you dive into the mobs. This tiny little gap might kill you.
Instead, using Flame Dash you can cast Dark Pact at the moment you dive in the mobs and one shot everything before they do any attacks.

9, Why not using Golems? I hate re-summoning them. You can have one though if you have another unset ring.

10, How do I sustain my power charges fighting Shaper/Guardians? Take off Blasphemy Assassin's and put on Orb of storms + Pow.Charge on crit.

Basically, you'll need an "Instant recovery" Life flask and a "Slow recovery/High amount recovery" Life flask.Very useful.
Diamond and Silver for burst damage, and Quicksilver for mobility. Keep in mind that choosing what kind of immune is totally up to you, but immune to bleed and curse is mandatory. And maybe an immune to poison, cause DoT is the most dangerous thing (besides one shot skill of some bosses) that could kill you.
PS: replace Silver with Quicksilver when speed clearing.And for more damage, replace one of the two life flasks with a Sulphur flask.

Edit: Additionally, inspired by the comments on Reddit, you can use a Doedre's Elixir (with -50% to -60% chaos res) to deal with the boss that deals pure DoT (Plaza's boss for example).

Flame Dash, Wither Totem, Dark Pact and Flasks, nothing more. The less you consider, the more damage and survivability you get.
The only "clunky" part of this build, is you cannot "trigger happy", it'll kill you veeery fast.
Tip: Dash into the center of the Harbinger Spawn to kill the Approximate Shield Totem ASAP