Struggling with endgame - need advice

So my build in Synth League has been working pretty well so far. Most of my deaths came down to carelessness/bad reflexes, and I've been beating content up through Tier 16 just fine (most recently: deathless Phoenix Guardian). But other bosses just kinda wreck me. My last attempt at the Minotaur killed me 6 times and I didn't even get him down to half health.

Can anyone give me some advice?

https://www.pathofexile.com/character-window/view-passive-skill-tree?accountName=Budget_player_cadet&realm=pc&character=ToymakersWorkshop



The only hint I have at the moment is that my flasks kinda suck. Which... is fair? But I'm not sure what I should be using, other than Dying Sun, which is a bit... pricy. I'd be running Pandemonious if I had the currency for it, but that wouldn't actually help me much against the bosses I'm struggling with, since I can't actually chill them. My weapon is not exactly BiS, but a well-crafted Sambar Scepter is kind of nutso pricy as well, so that's not happening any time soon.

Mark of the shaper might be a worthwhile purchase...

Is there anything in the tree worth improving? Is there anything on my gear that'd be inexpensive to fix? Any recmomendations here?

"

Kulze wrote:

That's what I'm talking about. Not knowing how to properly build a character. I've taken a look at your build:
Did you buy those bubonic and inpulsa? If so, you've messed up. Inpulsa is the last item to buy for progression, instead of this and buponic all of those should've come earlier:

Threw that crap Doryani away, that should've gone starting red maps already. Instead pick a wand with 20% ele as extra chaos, craft cold as extra chaos on it. First major upgrade.
Do that a second time, dual-wielding for Winter-Orb is far stronger, you'll see why if you read on.
Craft a belt with Pristine + Prismatic + Frigid, gives life, res, damage.
Buy a ring with warlord's mark on hit, cheap one is enough.
Shaper's mark is fairly nice as well, around 100% inc damage + extra effects, Best in Slot.
Get an amulet with non-chaos as extra chaos, another major upgrade.

So I actually don't know how to craft that onto an item. I'll go hunt down some guides - got any handy? I've been kind of disappointed with my weaponry as is, and now that I have an amulet with leech, I can probably get a better weapon.

I dropped the bubonic and haven't found a better pair of boots since.

"

Abyss jewels for Winter orb aren't optimal, unless you get near perfect ones. Switch them either out for 46+ life ones, or use normal jewels with %life on them, they are better to scale the build, you already got enough flat damage from the gem-setup itself, you want to scale it up.

46+? Whoa, I literally didn't know that was a thing. Cool. I'm mostly using the abyss jewels for flat life, as my damage has felt pretty good for the most part, until... well, now.

I bought the Inpulsa pretty early on. Whoops.

"

Also:
The Exceptional performance node is not the best choice. I know, the guide tells you so, but the guide is wrong there.
Instead, use the 7 points after the large life-cluster for Herbalism + the jewel slot there. Switch back when you get the jewel for the slot near Exceptional performance.

This is a good call that I've been considering. It does feel like a whole lot of points for some extra duration nodes.

"

Get rid of Ash, Frost and Storm, instead pick Fangs of the Viper (very strong! 20% on the extra chaos, that's massive) and the jewel slot there as well.

Okay so this is something I wouldn't have even considered. Interesting - I'll do that after I get the chaos damage gear.

"

So, your build as-is... is simply badly made, you choose wrong, that's why it's crap.
All those upgrades together should cost... 3 ex? At max? Well, besides the Shaper's touch, but that's the last of all those things to do.

The ring is only like 16C at this point. I expected it to be a lot more expensive and haven't even thought about it. I'll give this stuff a try, thanks. :)

Major changes before gear upgrades:

Passive tree:
Removal of 'Ash, Frost and Storm'
Removal of 'Exceptional Performance'

Instead:
'Fangs of the Viper' + close-by Jewel slot
'Herbalism' + close-by Jewel slot.

Switch from wand+shield to dual-wield. The extra slots provide enough defensive options there + herbalism added.

Gear:

Flasks:
Anti curse Sulphur flask until you can afford Dying Sun, Dying sun comes after the wand, belt, amulet and jewel upgrades.

Weapons:
Dual-wield.
Shaper wands with 20% (or close) elemental as extra chaos damage. Craft cold as extra chaos damage on it, both. Most important stat. Secondary is spell inc, then everything else.

Belt:
Styg wise crafted with pristine + prismatic + frigid. Do that on the side whenever you have a bit of currency left over, you can sell many of the failed attempts, take the best one for you. The one on my Winter orb build in Synthesis is a BiS example.

Amulet:
Non chaos damage as extra chaos damage, optimally with res and life on it. Take a cheap one for the beginning, work your way up.

Jewels:
Take Abyss Jewels with 46+ life on them until you're around 5,5k life, that's enough to run comfortable at T16.
Afterwards normal jewels with %life and damage mods, the more the better. Can get expensive, mediocre ones do it for the start.

Rings:
Elder ring with warlord's mark on hit. You'll craft Aspect of the Spider on it along the way, that's a good damage boost, not mandatory in the least to run t16 comfortably though, Warlord is a major one to get though.
Second one is Shaper's Mark, BiS for the build.

Helmet:
Pristine + prismatic + frigid again, try to get as much life on a lion pelt as possible, -res for enemies is great, survivability comes first. Craft along the line simply again, sell decent surplus crafts.

Other gear:
Res + life, get as much as possible. Either switch out Bubonic for life+res+30% movement boots or get decent jewels with life + res + damage on them. Minimum 46 life once again.


Your character can free-kill T16, every Guardian besides Chimera (he's a pain in the ass but also doable) and Nexus bosses besides the Cortex. If you upgrade fully along this line you'll be uber-elder viable, just switch out while keeping res near-maxed (a bit less isn't hurting, at least 65% keeps it comfortable) and keep life above 5,5k. Maxed res keep away all the one-shots usually, deep-delving up to depth 300 is definitely possible after a few minimal upgrades along the line then.

Hi there,
besides some gear/tree tweaks it´s about knowing the encounter. You need some practice on these bosses.
Just note that t16 bosses are affected by map modifiers.

"

Kulze wrote:

Major changes before gear upgrades:

Passive tree:
Removal of 'Ash, Frost and Storm'
Removal of 'Exceptional Performance'

Instead:
'Fangs of the Viper' + close-by Jewel slot
'Herbalism' + close-by Jewel slot.

Switch from wand+shield to dual-wield. The extra slots provide enough defensive options there + herbalism added.

All good.

"

Weapons:
Dual-wield.
Shaper wands with 20% (or close) elemental as extra chaos damage. Craft cold as extra chaos damage on it, both. Most important stat. Secondary is spell inc, then everything else.

So looking at it Cold as Extra Chaos is a Betrayal craft. Gonna have to check if I've found that one yet, but that's something to work towards anyways.

"

Belt:
Styg wise crafted with pristine + prismatic + frigid. Do that on the side whenever you have a bit of currency left over, you can sell many of the failed attempts, take the best one for you. The one on my Winter orb build in Synthesis is a BiS example.

Ohhhhh they're fossil crafts! Now I get it! Thanks! I have loads of Fossils sitting around, let's see if we can't whip up something nice.

"

Amulet:
Non chaos damage as extra chaos damage, optimally with res and life on it. Take a cheap one for the beginning, work your way up.

Okay so part of the problem is I don't actually have enough DEX in my build, I don't think. So that makes this part a little more complicated, but not impossibly so. In other news, I see you had the same problem. =P

"

Jewels:
Take Abyss Jewels with 46+ life on them until you're around 5,5k life, that's enough to run comfortable at T16.
Afterwards normal jewels with %life and damage mods, the more the better. Can get expensive, mediocre ones do it for the start.

Hi there, I didn't know you could get 50 life on a jewel. G'damn I'm learning things today! But I'm already over 5.5k life.

"

Rings:
Elder ring with warlord's mark on hit. You'll craft Aspect of the Spider on it along the way, that's a good damage boost, not mandatory in the least to run t16 comfortably though, Warlord is a major one to get though.
Second one is Shaper's Mark, BiS for the build.

Aight this is apparently a way bigger upgrade than I thought. Given that Shaper's Mark is actually pretty cheap right now, I should get on that. Still can't find that darn spider, though.

"

Helmet:
Pristine + prismatic + frigid again, try to get as much life on a lion pelt as possible, -res for enemies is great, survivability comes first. Craft along the line simply again, sell decent surplus crafts.

This post and your character's gear is like an object lesson on how and why to Fossil Craft. =D

Thanks for all the advice! I'll try to make some of that happen tonight.

"

Rakiii wrote:

Hi there,
besides some gear/tree tweaks it´s about knowing the encounter. You need some practice on these bosses.
Just note that t16 bosses are affected by map modifiers.

This is true - I died right at the end of the Elder fight (T10) and I have no idea how or what killed me. The minotaur fight seems to demand practice... But man is it pricy to practice that fight. I'm not trying that one again until my next level up.

"

Budget_player_cadet wrote:

Aight this is apparently a way bigger upgrade than I thought. Given that Shaper's Mark is actually pretty cheap right now, I should get on that. Still can't find that darn spider, though.

You can buy bestiary beasts as well. Just be aware that the spider is fairly costly, and it's not guaranteed to get crafted on it then, after all you'll need to kill it. Be aware, the poison is very deadly.

"

Budget_player_cadet wrote:

This is true - I died right at the end of the Elder fight (T10) and I have no idea how or what killed me. The minotaur fight seems to demand practice... But man is it pricy to practice that fight. I'm not trying that one again until my next level up.

Yes, the boss-fights are a little demanding at the beginning: As a few pointers on how to do it with Winter Orb:

Minotaur: He goes underground, coming back up where you were standing that moment. Flame dash away, throw a frost bomb, channel your Orb. Best place to do damage. The second important part is to see when he loads up the AoE. Large animation, Flame Dash once again. General rule is to keep the fight close to an already active AoE field if possible, you can simply either walk clockwise or counter clockwise. The last field will decay before you reach it this way.

Hydra: There's only 2 things. Balls and shots. Simply run behind Hydra for each animation. Don't let yourself get hit by orbs doing so. Being on the side is fine as well.

Phoenix: Just run from corner to corner, the adds aren't an issue, he always does (if I remember right) 2 times whirl 1 time explode.

Chimera: He's a darn annoying thing. Always keep moving, don't let yourself get hit. Be happy if the add phase comes, don't let yourself get hit from the unique adds there. If he goes up in smoke then run fast through the smoke areas, he's in one, you're dead quickly.

So... a few upgrades.



(Don't laugh, ilvl80 Elder Rings are really frickin' pricy. Like, getting a ring with just Warlord's Mark was as expensive as Shaper's Mark. I'm considering scouring and starting again, because my aug and regal both sucked.)

With this and about half the tree upgrades (don't have the wands to make Viper Fangs worthwhile yet) I already feel considerably more damaging and have a slightly larger life pool. Which is nice. Still gonna wait on retrying the Minotaur (I keep getting hit by the dig attack and that's just not great on my end) until I level up. I beat the Phoenix on my first try; he's pretty easy with this build. Haven't unlocked the maps for Hydra or Chimera yet, probably just as well.

The fossil crafting on my belt has yet to yield any good results. I don't think it makes too much sense to shell out for a high-ilvl belt, given that the only thing that makes a difference on is being able to roll T1 elemental resistances instead of T2, and that's like... 3% difference or so, so not that big a deal. Not doing the helmet until I get the belt done.

The extra jewel slot probably helped, I could slot in a lovely little spell damage jewel I had lying around. All in all I feel significantly stronger and tankier, and I haven't even gotten to the most important buffs yet.


Does anyone have any tips on finding/crafting poison weapons? The crafting base alone for Sambar/Void Scepters is already most of my budget so that's probably not an option right now. Even profane wands are really expensive.