[3.1] CI Doedre's Skin Support - 7 Curses [HC/SC]

Traditionally the cursing role has been dominated by the Curse on Hit Champion users due to the ease of Blinding/Taunting, the ability to bypass hexproof using Cospri's Will, and the general cost effective nature of the build.

Having played a Champion in that environment I found the build remarkably easy to scale. However, the biggest issue is that a Curse on Hit support is forced to run. A Quicksilver of Adrenaline is enough to keep up for some amount of time, however, when the team DPS acquires a Headhunter, it becomes all but impossible - especially if you fall out of aura range.

Fundamentally the core of this build focuses on the ability to use a Brightbeak.

Generally the only way to be able to keep up with your carry and loot enough to sustain is to Brightbeak shield charge, especially after they acquire a Headhunter.

Another issue the Champion has is that they gain next to no benefits from the Necromancer. There are defensive advantages from the Purities, and the additional movement speed off the haste is crucial, but the tremendous cast speed/attack speed bonuses are more or less wasted.

An important note of the Effigy is that while it may look like a totem, it is definitively not a totem. As such, its placement speed scales on your cast speed, and not on your totem placement speed. It is in this manner that this build synergizes with the team composition, using the cast speed from the Necromancer to have acceptable Effigy placement speed, and using the attack speed to keep up in pace with the group.

It's worth noting that you could theoretically call the 100% uptime on Temporal Chains and Enfeeble a possible benefit as well, due to using blasphemies as opposed to Curse on Hit. However, most competent Champions will be able to keep a high enough uptime on their primary curse on hit setup for that to be of negligible relative benefit.

It is easily possible to get up to 8 curses in this build. Possible variants include using a Heretics Veil for more Blasphemy curses, or to drop the support gems in the chest given that they bypass the overall curse limit.

Personally, I don't find this to be worth it. Due to the reduced curse effect on Doedre's Skin, I think it's crucial to use an enhance in each setup. Moreover, there are only so many relevant curses. Any further curses I would run would be of marginal benefit to my carry.

Given the underutilized nature of Doedre's skin it is incredibly easy to create a +1 chest piece. Getting the benefits on a Level 5 Enhance is massive. Quality is often better than levels on curses, and getting +32% quality on curses is not to be underrated.

For my personal setup, I have only Five Linked the chest because it's simply not cost effective to increase the quality on Conductivity given that it only gives shock duration. The off-socket can easily be used for whichever gem in the user's personal setup benefits the least.

Further testing is left up to the preference of the individual user.

Given that Doedre's Skin can bypass the curse limit, most of the Occultist ascendancy is wasted. While enemies do take 10% increased damage, that's the majority of the advantage given that most carries won't be doing a significant amount of chaos damage.

Trickster gives 40% attack and cast speed, more flat ES than Occultist, the ability to shield charge at no cost in No Regeneration maps and some minor evasion/dodge benefits.

Weapon:
Brightbeak, the entire ideology of the build is centred around the attack speed from this unique. Ideally you get high resistance rolls.


Shield:
Any rare ES shield.
Ideally has high Energy Shield & Resistance. Cast speed is a nice benefit.



Helmet:

High ES Hubris. Resistances preferred.



Chest:
Doedre's skin clearly. Most important roll is the Reduced Curse Effect. Ideally +1 as well. After that ES & Int are nice but not required.


Amulet:

Star of Wraeclast. Unlike generic Area of Effect scaling via. the Increased Area of Effect Support Gem or passives on the skill tree, Star of Wraeclast scales the area of the base curses, which in turn is one of the few ways of scaling the Effigy radius. Due to this, it's another core but niche unique for this build.

A Star of Wraeclast is created by vendoring a Unique Ruby Ring, any Onyx Amulet and a level 20 corrupted Lightning Warp; Vaal Lightning Warp will not work. It's worth testing various combinations of inputs prior to actually creating the item to find one with high Fire Resistance and All Elemental Resistance rolls. Given that the item is corrupted on creation, it cannot be blessed or divined.



Boots:

You can theoretically find a better pair of boots than Sin Trek, but they are few and far between. High Energy Shield, 30 Movement Speed, even the Dexterity is nice. Not a required unique by any means, but definitely an end-game viable one.



Gloves:

High Energy Shield. Elemental Resistance. Maybe attack speed or crafted Strength, neither would be required by any means.



Rings:

Firstly The Pariah is incredible. Attack and Cast Speed are both crucial for the build. The +2 Gems converts into Flat Energy Shield for the build. 100 Flat Energy Shield with a blue socket. All in all, great item.



The second ring ideally has flat ES, and fills in the rest of our required attributes and resistances. An open prefix for ES Recharge is nice, but by no means required.



Belt:

Some gearing options here. A Bated Breath or Auxium are both reasonable alternative considerations. Between the Brine King upgraded Pantheon and a flask of Heat, I opted for the Ascent from Flesh due to the Phasing, Movement Speed and Elemental Resistance.




Jewels:



Pretty self-explanatory. The uniques are required. Conqueror's potency is available as a quest reward. Due to the Star of Wraeclase, an "Immune to Silence" corruption would have no additional benefit.

The rares have %ES on them, and fill out resistance and attribute requirements.

Worth noting that you could get an insane Watcher's Eye here, but again it's not cost-effective for your team in terms of price/performance. Energy Shield Regeneration while affected by Discipline would be the best affix if possible.

Excellent Abyss jewels do give more total ES. They've been excluded from this test as it remains to be seen whether or not they stay in challenge leagues so far.

Core Links:

Blasphemy - Temporal Chains - Enfeeble - Enhance
It's crucial these gems are kept up at all times, therefore it's best to keep them off of the Effigy.

(Doedre's Effigy) - Enhance - Projectile Weakness - Assassin's Mark - Elemental Weakness - Poacher's Mark // - Conductivity
These links in the chest obviously vary from build to build. Tailor to the team's carry.

Shield Charge - Faster Attacks - Fortify
The entire purpose of this build.

Vaal Grace - Vaal Discipline - Faster Casting - Increased Duration

This assumes the team's necromancer takes advantage of their greater Skill Duration Modifier to run Vaal Haste. In the instance they cannot for whatever reason, or they struggle to maintain uptime, Vaal Haste is key.

Discipline
In the Pariah, gains +2 levels.

Illusory Warp

Acquired from the Star of Wraeclast. Basically replaces the need for a movement skill for gaps. Creates chilled ground on cast and on landing, which is a nice defensive benefit.

Auxiliary Links:

These are not key to the build functioning and are subject to user preference.

Cast When Damage Taken (1) - Immortal Call (3) - Vortex - (1)
Basic CWDT setup, the chilled ground from the vortex stacks nicely with the Illusory warp

Summon Lightning Golem (20)
Nice additional Attack and Cast Speed

Incinerate (1) - Storm Barrier (20) - Blind (20)
Nice way to proc EE, and get some additional benefits. Obviously would not have the same uptime as a champion with regards to trash, but trash should be relatively inconsequential regardless.

Gloves:

Of Spite or Of Reflection is best in slot. I preferred Reflection due to the chilled ground uptime I already get from the Illusory Warp and CWDT - Vortex.

Boots:

Life Regeneration if Hit Recently is the best in slot here by a mile. Works with Zealot's Oath to be converted to ES Regen.

Helmet:

Temporal Chains Curse Effect is definitely the most important. Temporal chains is the most defensive curse in the game. While playing this build, you can reliably stand in packs of normal mobs if required as you wait for the team's carry to get over. Mobs without curse-reduction simply do not move.

Due to the non-negotiable use of the Star of Wraeclast in this build, we're unable to use an Eye of Chayula for stun immunity. As such, the Brine King pantheon is key. With the enhanced Temporal Chains and Enfeeble it's rare to get hit enough to get chain stunned regardless, but this does help. The upgraded Stun and Block recovery is nice as well. The freeze and chill upgrades aren't particularly valuable if you can maintain uptime on a Heat flask, but there's no reason not to do them if you can.

Your minor is either the Soul of Garukan or the Soul of Grukthul. Both have more useful secondary properties than primary, so choose based on which you can upgrade first. I've elected to use Grukthul to provide further attack speed slows on bosses etc.

Don't do it. Play something else, e.g Essence Drain and then respec. Alternatively, have a friend carry you through leveling, but you'll contribute next to nothing.

Another idea is to level as a GC sabo and then respec entirely.

Here's a basic respec tree assuming you have the gear: poeurl.com/bK4d

If you don't have the gear yet to be useful, I'd recommend doing something else to farm first.

https://pastebin.com/8kf27Ysw

This is a support build. Kill all the bandits.

I can post videos, have no idea what to post that shows the build individually and not the carry clearspeed. Open to ideas.



You can see the defensive attributes here. Elemental Weakness capped with 11.7k ES solo. More with an aura scaled discipline from the Necromancer.