[3.10] neoCrown's Assassin Bow CoC VD [All content cleared][Deathless Simulacrums/U-Elder/Sirus]

Cast on Crit Volatile Dead Bow Build Guide

Mapping A+, Bossing A+, MTX A+, Ease of playstyle A+, Starter potential C (120-150 chaos budget start)

Non-herald build/Non-archmage build/No Voices cluster jewel stacking

All content cleared, Mildly Ethical, One button playstyle, ZoomZoom fast speedy build

Cons
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Spawning >15 Volatile Dead balls while you are being swarmed by millions of mobs on a fully juiced Double Beyond map as your computer is trying to calculate your critical hits and ignites and buffs might cause some input delay and fps drops. Although doable, this build will not compete against Herald stacking builds in speed and effectiveness while clearing these maps.

Elemental Reflect Maps not doable. Abort mission.




>6k Life, >10 Million Shaper DPS

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In-game tooltip

Unbuffed Defence -
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Buffed Defence -
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Unbuffed Volatile Dead damage -
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Buffed Volatile Dead damage -
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Damage calculations -
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(VD average damage x 9). Asenath's Chant helmet has a cooldown of 300ms or 0.3seconds per spell. We can spawn 10 corpses per rotation thanks to spell cascade. With an attack speed of slightly more than 3 per second, we can trigger volatile dead based on the Cast on Crit cooldown which is 150ms or 0.15seconds. Volatile Dead consumes 3 corpses per cast. We can crit 3 times per second and spawn 9 balls which deal damage. This is raw damage value from the tooltip. It does not take into account our fire penetration (which we have heaps of), flammability curse, fire exposure, etc. Actual damage numbers can be viewed in the POB


3.10 Delirium - Deathless Shaper
3.10 Delirium - Deathless Uber Elder
3.10 Delirium - Fast 4-way Legion Domain of Timeless Conflict Farm
3.10 Delirium - Deathless Awakening 8 Sirus
3.10 Delirium - Lair of the Hydra clearspeed showcase
3.10 Delirium - Deathless 20 wave Simulacrum with 3 boss appearances
3.10 Delirium - Endgame Bow Crafting Showcase

Added 14/4/2020
3.10 Delirium - 100% Delirious T16 Promenade Map
3.10 Delirium - Delirium-influenced Baran, the Crusader

Added 16/4/2020
3.10 Delirium - Delving showcase Depth 300+

Added 30/4/2020
3.10 Delirium - Narrating the fight against Awakening 8 Sirus

1. Core concepts - Autotrigger with Asenath's Chant Unique Helmet, Cast on Critical Strike setup - trigger a spell with an attack

2. Damage (Barrage/Volatile Dead explosion/Volatile Dead Balls), Ignite, Penetration/Raw damage with level 28 VD with empower and +1/+2 gem setup on amulet

3. Defenses - Elusive - enemies cannot crit you, 8% reduced damage taken while elusive, 15% attack and spell dodge, 30% movement speed, Blind, Acrobatics, Phase Acrobatics, Guaranteed knockback with bow crits from King of the Hill annointment

4. Required thresholds - attack speed - 3.0, accuracy - at least >90% chance to hit(Precision, accuracy mod on one gear piece), critical strike chance - close to 100%

5. Required uniques/gear
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Kaom's Heart, Asenath's Chant, Xoph's Blood, Thread of Hope (Very large Ring), Intuitive Leap, Volley Fire, Shaped Cast on Critical Strike Bow.

Volley fire needs to be socketed in the jewel socket near the Shadow starting tree to meet the dex requirements(Dex nodes do not need to be allocated. It just has to be within the radius). Mechanics explanation - Volley fire enables us to have a wider spread while attacking with barrage to ensure good coverage when attacking packs of enemies.



6. Required cluster jewels
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One 8 passive Large fire damage (Cremator, Smoking Remains/Disorienting Display, Doryani's Lesson), two 4/5 passive medium critical strike chance, and one 3 passive small life cluster jewel

Smoking Remains and Disorienting Display serve the same purpose of blinding enemies. There is better uptime with Smoking Remains while farming Simulacrum due to the lingering smoke affecting new enemies that spawn in waves


7. Luxury upgrades
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Circle of Anguish ring, Anger/Precision Watcher's Eye, Jewels with Crit Chance/Attack speed/Life/Crit multi/fire damage


8. Defensive upgrades
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Divine Flesh from Doryani Timeless Jewel sacrificed in the name of Xibaqua, 90% Max chaos resistance (3% from Born of chaos cluster jewel notable, 2% from Hunter mod on quiver), Reduced chaos damage/Max elemental resistances Corruption on Kaom's Heart. This is the ultimate endgame setup and also Hardcore Viability Upgrade. Divine flesh makes us take 50% of elemental damage as chaos damage and with 90% chaos resistance, we can facetank almost all of Sirus's attacks. Alongside the Kaom's heart corruption that makes us take reduced chaos damage and the Soul of Shakari pantheon for more chaos damage reduction, we will be extremely tanky. The only weakness would be physical damage. This can be mitigated by having the 'Steelskin gives 12% additional physical damage reduction' enchant on the helmet although it is not necessary

Another good Timeless Jewel to use would be the Brutal Restraint jewel in the name of Deshret which will give us the Wind Dancer node. This is also a good defensive option as it makes us take 20% less damage if we have not been hit recently.


9. Tree
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Stats to go for: crit chance, crit multiplier, fire damage, power charges, life, attack speed, early access to cluster jewel sockets. Last few points in the build go towards the non-unique and non-cluster jewel sockets.







Be aware that some cluster jewels have a level requirement before you can equip them. I recommend sticking with cluster jewels with item level <75 with useful mods for levelling such as
before switching over to the main cluster jewels


10. Ascendancy order - Mistwalker, Unstable infusion, Deadly Infusion, Opportunistic

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11. Bandits - kill all for 2 passive points

12. Pantheon
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Soul of Lunaris(Major), Shakari(Minor). These pantheons supplement our dodge as well as reduces our chaos and physical damage taken




Gem Links

With shaped CoC bow:
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Barrage - Volatile Dead - Inspiration - Concentrated Effect - Combustion/Elemental Focus - Fire penetration


Without shaped CoC bow:
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Barrage - Cast on Critical Strike - Volatile Dead - Inspiration - Concentrated Effect - Combustion


Empower setup with +2 VD from amulet:
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Barrage - Lvl 21 Volatile Dead - Inspiration - Concentrated Effect - Combustion/Elemental Focus - Lvl 4 Empower


Auras:
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Lvl 3/4 Enlighten - Precision - Anger - Herald of Ash


Movement:
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Lvl 4 Arcane Surge - Flame dash. Arcane surge gives us more spell damage as well as cast speed and mana regeneration


Defense:
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Cast when damage taken - Steelskin/Withering Step


Helmet autotrigger setup:
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Desecrate must be first in link - Spell cascade - Wave of Conviction - Flammability



Gearing

Amulet
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Xoph's Blood or Double influence Hunter/Warlord amulet with +1 to all dexterity gems and +1 to all fire gems (global modifier), Life, Resistances


Annointment on amulet - Divine Judgement for damage (Sepia, Teal, Black oil), Recommended - King of the Hill (Verdant, Violet, Silver oil)


Helmet
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Good enchantments would be - Volatile Dead deals 40% increased damage, Flame Dash has 30% increased cooldown recovery speed, Steelskin gives an additional 12% physical damage reduction, Anger has 15% reduced mana reservation (We can potentially slot in an aspect of the spider aura with level 4 Enlighten and annointing a reduced mana reservation notable alongside having the reduced mana reserved corruption on all our jewels but this is a hefty investment for potentially little return).


Body Armour
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Kaom's Heart, Good corruptions - + Max resistance, Reduced Chaos damage taken, Increased Damage


Ring (Diamond ring base for crit chance) -
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Crit chance, Life, Resistances, Dexterity/Strength, fire damage/spell damage, Open prefix to craft minus mana cost


Gloves
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Accuracy, Life, Resistances, Attack speed, Open prefix to craft projectile pierce. This is important as sometimes, your mouse cursor can be in a different location far away in the middle of the pack but your barrage hits are hitting a very close enemy, preventing your Volatile Deads from being created in the far away pack. Pierce solves this issue enabling your barrage crits to trigger Volatile Dead in the middle of packs that are far away


Quiver (Spike-point arrow quiver base for crit chance) -
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Attack speed, Life, Accuracy, Resistances, Global Critical Strike Multiplier, Open suffix to craft frenzy on crit. Frenzy on crit mod can be acquired by unveiling veiled quivers from Betrayal mechanic. I got mine by purchasing unveiled quivers from the market with an open suffix and unlocked it within 15 tries. In addition, if you have sufficient critical strike chance, you can opt for a quiver base that has the Arrows Pierce an Additional Target implicit, freeing a mod space on your gloves as you do not need to craft the Projectiles Pierce mod


Boots
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Movement Speed, Life, Resistances


Belt
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Stygian Vise - Life, Strength, Resistances


Jewels
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Crit chance, Attack speed (Generic or attack speed with bows), Life, Resistances, Critical Strike Multiplier


Utility Flasks
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Diamond flask (of warding/heat), Quicksilver flask (of warding/heat), Sulphur Flask (of warding/heat), Seething Divine Life flask (Staunching)


Unique Flasks
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Wise Oak (Ensure Fire resistance is highest), Cinderswallow Urn, Bottled Faith


Cluster jewels
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Note that you can craft your own cluster jewels but the minimum item level for the large cluster jewels to have 2 jewel sockets is item level 75. Good secondary mods to have - attributes (all attributes, strength, dexterity), chaos resistance, all elemental resistances, increased damage, maximum life


Required cluster jewel notables
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Large fire jewel, 8 passives - Doryani's Lesson, Smoking Remains/Disorienting Display, Cremator, 2 jewel sockets

Cremator is important as one of the most common things that kill us is the Porcupine spikes that gets released when they die. Cremator can circumvent this at the cost of reducing the effectiveness of our Cinderswallow Urn due to not consuming any ignited corpses to regain charges. This is a decent tradeoff.

If you find it difficult to grab the Smoking Remains/Disorientating Display notable, a good alternative would be to grab an abyssal jewel with some blind on hit. Another option is to craft the physical damage/blind on hit prefix on your bow at the cost of another damage mod. One other option is to annoint your amulet with Dazzling Strikes for the blind on hit and some crit chance.

An alternative to the Doryani's Lesson leech is to grab a Watcher's Eye with the % fire damage leeched as life while affected by Anger mod.

Another thing to note is that multiple sources of Exposure do not stack so if you are planning to grab the Corrosive Elements notable or Master of Fire notable from the Large Fire Cluster Jewel, make sure you drop Wave of Conviction in your setup. Only the largest exposure value will apply. I recommend sticking with Wave of Conviction as it applies -25% to fire resistance compared to the -15% of the other two notables. Credits to @Cry0nicS for bringing this to my attention.


Medium crit chance jewel, 4/5 passives - Precise Commander, Precise Retaliation/Pressure Points/Quick Getaway/Basics of Pain, 1 jewel socket



Small life jewel, 3 passives - Surging Vitality/Blessed, chaos resistance/attributes/flat life


Bow
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Minimum iLvl 84 Shaped Harbinger or Maraketh bow (222 dexterity requirement), ensure bow has high base Critical Strike Chance (>7.00) and good attack speed (1.2 - 1.6)

Essential Mod - Socketed Gems are Supported by level 20 Cast on Critical Strike

and 1 other damage mod

+1 all socketed gem
+1 frenzy charge
Attack speed/double damage
Damage penetrates elemental resistances
Global Critical Strike Multiplier

Good bench crafts - +2 socketed support gems, critical strike chance, global critical strike multiplier, attack speed

Summarised method - Basically, use alteration orbs until you hit the mod, 'socketed gems are supported by level 20 cast on critical strike', and any of these mods -

+1 all socketed gems

+1 frenzy charge

Attack speed/double damage

Increased critical strike chance

Damage penetrates elemental resistances

Then use a craicic chimeral to beastcraft an imprint in the Menagerie and then use a regal orb. If it is not the mod you want, then turn it back to the previous version using the imprint. You can keep repeating this as many times as you want as it costs about 50-60c for the beastcraft. If you ended up with an open suffix and some open prefixes during your initial craft, it is recommended to craft 'Cannot Roll Attack Mods' and slam twice to get the prefixes. There is a high chance of landing something good as the mod pool is really small. The only unwanted prefix mod you can get is 'gain %phys damage as cold, the other mods are golden.

Displayed below is the bow I used before I crafted my current bow. The only relevant mod was the flat added lightning damage to spells and global critical strike multiplier. I melted Awakening 7 Sirus with this bow and easily farmed the conquerors with it



Levelling
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I levelled as a Kinetic Bolt Frostslinger character with the idea of transitioning to a CoC Ice Nova build. After seeing the progression of the league, I believe the lightning version using Ball lightning and Arc would be smoother to level with. Below is the video of my starter character -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANLlQuv_dGo

This is the starter POB link - https://pastebin.com/dqD8G71x

General tips

Start as Kinetic Bolt character and transition into CoC bow with minimal respec points

Kinetic bolt lvl 1

Volley at lvl 4

Grab Added lightning and added cold damage at lvl 8

Grab Arc at level 12

Link arc to spellslinger once you have it in act 3 I believe (lvl 24)

Herald of thunder and herald of ice in act 2. You can also opt for ball lightning linked to a second spellslinger instead of herald of thunder.

Grab Controlled destruction at lvl 18 and link it to arc.

Grab one of the golems at 34, probably ice golem

Then stick barrage on which will be a great damage boost at lvl 38. Replace volley with this.

In act 6 you get the curses, link herald of thunder or herald of ice with your curse (either conductivity or projectile weakness)

The 4 link Kinetic bolt should be plenty to carry you to maps.

5th and 6th link would be inspiration and elemental damage with attacks. Replace the added cold with power charge on critical.

When should I respec? My advice would be to respec into the bow setup at Level 70 as you can equip most of the uniques then. I changed into the bow build from my Kinetic Bolt character at level 80+ once I had allocated most of the power charge and crit nodes on the tree. Rule of thumb is to switch once you have adequate crit chance or the build will not feel smooth as you are not critting often for the VD balls to trigger. If you still plan on making an early transition, make sure you have a well-rolled Diamond Flask and a Critical Strike Chance mod on the Cinderswallow Urn.

Note that you need minimum 191 Strength to equip Kaom's Heart and anywhere between 160-222 dexterity depending on which bow you use so perhaps allocating some attribute nodes as you level up is warranted in some cases.

Levelling Uniques

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Common pitfalls

My Volatile Dead balls are not spawning? Troubleshooting algorithm:

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1. Ensure you have at least 90% chance to hit, the higher the better.
2. Ensure you have as close to 100% critical strike chance as possible.
3. Ensure that you have Desecrate linked first in your Asenath's Chant Helmet setup (Top left slot).
4. Ensure that you do not have the notable, 'Resolute Technique' in your passive tree or as a corruption on your gear.
5. Ensure that you are using the Barrage (attack) gem instead of the Barrage (support gem).

Credit to @DJS88 for helping with this


Compendium for good Timeless Jewels

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Found this sweet pie (1405 Xibaqua)
placed in Pain Attunement area for Divine Flesh -

8% critical strike chance
10% fire damage
11% fire damage
4% increased effect of non-curse auras
12% spell damage
9% area damage


Credits to @Paulst1ck for finding the following 2 seeds (2227 and 3575)

2227 Xibaqua over Mind over Matter -

4% Attack speed
8% Increased area Damage
9% Increased attack Damage
1% Chance to block spell damage
4% Increased area of effect

Ritual of Flesh
7% Increased Maximum life
regeneral 1.03% of life per second

Might of the Vaal
9% Fire resistance
11% increased projectile Damage
3% chance to Freeze
1% chance to Block Attack Damage.

3575 Xibaqua at Mind over Matter -

11% Increased armour
4% Increased Maximum Life
3% Increased Maximum Life
MInions deal 8% increased Damage
7% Physical Damage

Flesh Worship
6% Increased maximum Life
0.4% of Attack Damage Leeched as Life

Thaumaturgical Aptitude
31% Increased Spell Damage
47% Increased Critical Strike Chance for Spells




POB links

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Budget version for new league start - https://pastebin.com/BffULF6K

Endgame POB version updated 16/4/2020 to Community Fork version. Also utilising the Doryani Timeless Jewel sacrificed in the name of Xibaqua, Divine Flesh keystone - https://pastebin.com/jULNRZdF

Low Life Energy Shield version
https://pastebin.com/4b3gJ9PD


Last edited by neoCrown on May 9, 2020, 5:34:47 AM
Last bumped on Sep 26, 2020, 11:08:46 AM
Gonna try this build as a last ditch effort, hated every build i've played so far.

your POB requires you to be level 106


Also, what uniques for levelling besides the obvious helm, boots and chest?
"
Sepulker wrote:
Gonna try this build as a last ditch effort, hated every build i've played so far.

your POB requires you to be level 106


Also, what uniques for levelling besides the obvious helm, boots and chest?



I have yet to update to the Forked version of POB so it does not recognise the Thread of Hope point allocation. This will remove 9 or 10 points from the linked POB. Will remedy this once I update it.

https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/neoCrown/characters

Here is my profile for the character VoidSpiritZoomZoom to view my point allocation.

These are the items I used while levelling.




Here is a video of my starter build which I levelled with -

Kinetic Bolt Frostslinger Assassin

I recommend levelling with the lightning version with Arc + Ball lightning as it deals more damage and clears better.
Last edited by neoCrown on Apr 12, 2020, 8:38:22 PM
Think this is good on a 20 ex budget? My plan is to use this build to hopefully farm a voices build.

Pretty much not having fun with any build, doing golemancer and it's deff not my speed
Hi!!

Just rerolling to this build xD

This looks great!

Thanks!
Last edited by Sanfear on Apr 12, 2020, 10:13:45 PM
"
Sepulker wrote:
Think this is good on a 20 ex budget? My plan is to use this build to hopefully farm a voices build.

Pretty much not having fun with any build, doing golemancer and it's deff not my speed


As mentioned in the post, the core uniques and gear total up to roughly 150 chaos depending on the rolls. I farmed the conquerors and awakening 7 Sirus with an extremely undermodded bow without the Cast on Critical Strike shaped mod on it.

The reason I created the guide is because I have had 30+ people taking interest from the videos and requesting assistance with the build in-game (questions, tips, etc). They have all started on a budget of less than 5 ex and reporting great success with the builds in terms of farming endgame content.

The build gets gradual, singular gear upgrades on a slot-by-slot basis. I went from a 1 damage mod Watcher's eye to a 2 damage mod Watcher's eye (9 ex at time of purchase). I upgraded from a 1 damage mod Circle of Anguish ring to a 2 damage mod Circle of Anguish ring (5 ex at time of purchase).

I am working my way towards acquiring a Bottled Faith. Seeking Cortex maps for challenge completion and hopeful flask drop ^^

These 3 focal things are what you should work towards after getting the core setup. This build also enables you to farm simulacrums for that juicy Voices drop if you are not planning to buy one from the market.
"
Sanfear wrote:
Hi!!

Just rerolling to this build xD

This looks great!

Thanks!


No worries. Hope you enjoy it as many of the others that followed it have. You can view how well their build progressed based on the comment section in my videos. Good luck levelling!
"
neoCrown wrote:
"
Sanfear wrote:
Hi!!

Just rerolling to this build xD

This looks great!

Thanks!


No worries. Hope you enjoy it as many of the others that followed it have. You can view how well their build progressed based on the comment section in my videos. Good luck levelling!


Thank you! i'm sure I will!

Just one thing about the cost of the build. The cost os the large cluster jewel i s really high. 6E atm and only one (there was another with 9 passives for 4E). I bought it xD.

Probably it can be caft with fossils, but it doesn't look easy to obtain... or maybe i paid too much... I hope not! hahaha
"
Sanfear wrote:
"
neoCrown wrote:
"
Sanfear wrote:
Hi!!

Just rerolling to this build xD

This looks great!

Thanks!


No worries. Hope you enjoy it as many of the others that followed it have. You can view how well their build progressed based on the comment section in my videos. Good luck levelling!


Thank you! i'm sure I will!

Just one thing about the cost of the build. The cost os the large cluster jewel i s really high. 6E atm and only one (there was another with 9 passives for 4E). I bought it xD.

Probably it can be caft with fossils, but it doesn't look easy to obtain... or maybe i paid too much... I hope not! hahaha


There's probably a few that were gobbled up by the influx of new players that were trying the build out.

Essentially, you are paying a lot for the Cremator notable for quality of life (avoid death by porcupines and other on-death effects/corpse explosions) so how much you are willing to spend would be up to you. I am sure there are a lot of similar jewels with just 2 of the mods and 2 jewel sockets that go for less.

In the cluster jewel section, I also recommended Disorienting Display instead of Smoking Remains as it serves the same purpose (blind enemies). Smoking Remains would be the go-to notable to farm Simulacrum with however as the smoke lingers in the area and blinds new enemies that spawn.

To craft a similar jewel, just remember that the cluster jewel has to be minimum item level 75 in order to have the 2 jewel sockets.
Can you post some juicy %100 t16 runs ?

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