[3.19] Poisonous Concoction AutoFlaskFinder, detailed guide.

Greetings exiles, and before I proceed to the build, let me mention couple important things.

This build guide is translated from my Russian video guide (link working again).

I trying to keep Build Guide up to date for every expansion, changelog will be in spoiler below.
Changelog

3.18 Update

1. Little tweaks of Early Game PoB & its skill tree.

2. A lot of new info in Mid Game tree/gear/gem sections.

3. Endgame gear section & PoB updated, now more dmg & defence.

4. Late endgame build variation, examples & some of my ideas. How to scale dmg/defence even further.

3.19 Update 17.08.22


1. All PoB's Updated to 3.19 tree and balance changes, also moved to pob.inn.

2. PoB's Now have redesigned gem section with dropdown menu like skill tree.

3. Build Recive dmg nerf from % increased Duration of Ailments you inflict while Focused helmet craft, but still this is best option, also Poison Duration more valuable now.

4. Removed Mana Reservation Mastery, how to deal with mana.
Nerfed Defiance Banner not worth to be used rn, removing it will solve all mana problems in Early-Mid-Late setups.

5. New mark not worth it imo, cus we relying on multiple small poisons not a one but huge Poison stack and this is still one more curse.



1) Pros and cons of the build - what you should expect from your character and what you may dislike.
Pros:
1. Very simple leveling in acts, good for league start as you can easily run through acts without any leveling gear and with minimum gem swaps on the way.
2. Reaches early red maps with minimal investments.
3. Very tanky for a ranger, as much as "able to tank Sirus meteor" level of tanky:)
4. Benefits of being a Pathfinder - flasks with permanent uptime, even better now when we don't even need to press them manually.
5. Despite we cannot use any weapon, Poisonous Concoction provide enough damage for single target and good clear speed just by its base damage and via life flask, therefore we just have 1 less gear slot to care about.
6. Beside all kind of defensive layers, such things as ailments/curses/crits immunity are also making this build very comfortable to play.
7. There is always room for upgrade, but switching from poor exile using sticks he found on the ground (which is still performing somewhat good for its cost of none) to actually geared setups is smooth and doesn't require too much currency out of sudden.

Cons:
1. Poison playstyle is not for everyone. If you prefer instant damage dealing, it might be not the best build for you. But at the same time you have more freedom in dodging while damage is still ticking.
2. Initial setup has alright damage, but survivability mostly comes from further gear upgrades.
3. Fully automated flasks mean additional investments, specially when your goal is 100% uptime on Dying Sun (eventually it is your goal).
4. Having no weapon also mean 3 less gem sockets, which is pretty bad. At least you could level 3 more gems there to corrupt/sell them:)

2) Leveling (acts).
PoB link with leveling trees
You can navigate between different trees in left bottom corner of your PoB. Their names should make it obvious for when to follow them.

This section describe links and passives allocation order during leveling in acts, so if you respeccing already leveled character using this build, you can skip this part.
2.1) Gems and Links
=== Levels 1-12 ===
As soon as I enter the town and until lvl 12 I prefer to level with Caustic Arrow, which later is supported by QoL links - Mirage Archer (lvl 4 Flask Quest) and Pierce or Void Manipulation (lvl 8, entering Lower Prison), choice is yours.

Secondary link for additional single target damage is Puncture (lvl 4, Rhoa Eggs) + Pierce in case you manage to find an additional 2L, otherwise just Puncture would be enough.

Steelskin (lvl 4, Rhoa Eggs) bound to LMB will greatly improve survivability during the campaign, specially its bleed removal during skill effect.

Dash (lvl 4, Rhoa Eggs) - our movement skill until lvl 10.

Vitality (lvl 10, Brutus) - additional Life Regeneration.

Smoke Mine (lvl 10, Brutus) - main movement skill, still better than Dash despite all the nerfs. Also adding Flame Dash as your secondary movement ability is highly advised. You gonna need friends or a guild to get Flame Dash though, because rangers are prohibited to buy gems that are smarter than them.

Final links/colors we'll need during Act 1:
GGG - Caustic Arrow + Mirage Archer + Pierce/Void Manipulation
GG - Puncture + Pierce
G - Dash later being replaced with Smoke Mine
R x2 - Steelskin, Vitality
B - Flame Dash

Try to get a 3L in any other slot but your bow, because we gonna switch to Poisonous Concoction at level 12 and lose the bow while still needing the links.
Also its a good idea to check for some good shields on your way so you can use it from level 12, and pick up some magic items to vendor them unidentified and get couple extra transmutes for further NPC purchases / bench crafts.

=== Levels 12-23 ===
Upon reaching lvl 12 and first Merveil's cave we already begin to use our main skill. Get rid of the bow and everything related to it, equip shield you've found on the way / buy some from vendor and make our new main link:
Poisonous Concoction + Volley + Lesser Multiple Projectiles. If/when you find a 4L you can add Void Manipulation (lvl 8, Brutus), thats enough until lvl 38.

A few words about skill itself and why are we using two supports with less damage multipliers. Poisonous Concoction as you may figure by its name is a poison skill, and our main damage source would be from poison instead of direct hit damage. Because of poison mechanic we do not lose any poison damage from less multipliers on these support gems, as they affect hit damage but not base hit value which the poison scales from. Projectiles however add a bunch of damage to the skill because it is able to shotgun and poison one target multiple times per use. This makes additional projectiles and AoE increases a very potent source of damage, at the same time increasing our area coverage and clear.

Starting from level 12 your Life Flask is your weapon, so make sure you'll always replace it with better versions when possible. Percantage of its life recovery value is applied as base hit damage of Poisonous Concoction and if you forget to upgrade your flask for couple acts you may easily miss 1/4 or even 1/3 or your damage.

At level 16 you should be able to collect couple Alterations to buy certain gems after getting one for free from quest completion:
Herald of Agony (lvl 16, Chamber of Sins) - take it as quest reward
Blood Rage (lvl 16, Chamber of Sins)
Summon Skitterbots (lvl 16, Chamber of Sins)
Don't worry about Blood Rage degen as it should be completely countered by Vitality. Speaking of which, don't overlevel it and make sure you have enough unreserved Mana to use Poisonous Concoction at least 2-3 times.

Act 2 links summary:
GGG - Poisonous Concoction + Volley + Lesser Multiple Projectiles
G x3 - Smoke Mine, Herald of Agony, Blood Rage
R x2 - Steelskin, Vitality
B x2 - Flame Dash, Summon Skitterbots

=== Levels 24-37 ===
We keep all previous stuff, but still have to add couple new sockets onto our gear. Good news is that we're pretty much done with changing links at this point, only few gem swaps to do later (and they'll replace already existing ones).

Right after you tell Piety to leave Crematorium at level 24, we swap Summon Skitterbots for Purity of Elements Ailments immunity and extra resists is amazing thing to get and must be taken asap.

We gonna need one more Green and Blue sockets on our gear, used for Despair and Plague Bearer (also obtained after Crematorium). Curse is used against tough bosses while Plague Bearer is great for both clearing trash and add more damage on bosses.

Act 3 and onward links summary:
GGGG - Poisonous Concoction + Volley + Lesser Multiple Projectiles + Void Manipulation
G x4 - Smoke Mine, Herald of Agony, Blood Rage, Plague Bearer
R x2 - Steelskin, Vitality
B x3 - Flame Dash, Purity of Elements, Despair

=== Levels 38+ ===
There is only one yet very important change to make - after beating Kaom with Daresso and drill your way into the Beast, take one and buy another gem in town: Greater Volley and Greater Multiple Projectiles, which we will use instead lesser versions in main link now.

=== Act 5 and Lily ===
After doing Twillight Strand clear quest you can buy any gems, this is a good time to get few for leveling in weapon swap. There is some useful ones you'll need later in maps anyway:
Withering Step - you'll use it soon after finishing acts
Unbound Ailments - our 5th link
Vicious Projectiles - our 6th link
Spell Totem - can be used in acts for bosses as well, but then you'll need an additional 3L: Spell Totem + Multiple Totems + Wither (everything except Spell Totem can be left at gem level 1)
Grace - for later respec
Determination - same as above
Molten Shell - for when we'll have enough Armour to justify MS usage
Malevolence - for later respec or experimental Divine Blessing link.
2.2) Passive Tree
=== 18 points ===
Starting with projectile damage nodes for easier early acts. Heart of Oak for some life and stun avoidance, Primal Spirit in case you need more attributes for Steelskin, Vitality or Despair. Pathing towards the Claw Mastery for that early Life & Mana on hit, which removes the need of Mana Flask and allow us to tank some monster hits easier.

=== 27 points ===
Toxic Strikes and first Poison Mastery for demo-version of your future gameplay, also Freedom of Movement to not stuck in monsters as often and run to the endgame faster:)

=== 35 points ===
Time to get some life via Thick Skin, Herbalism and Intuition before we go in 1st Lab. You may also take one of Life Masteries for Vitality reservation efficiency if needed.

=== 42 points ===
Master Toxicist is an optimal choice for 1st Lab point. Monsters previously survived due not being hit will now die from Poison prolif, and poison itself getting stronger. At this point we also take Druidic Rite and Flask Mastery (Utility Flasks recharge) for better flask uptime. Graceful Assault allow us to have strong Onslaught earlier than we'd get Onslaught from flask in Act 5, also you may take 30 Str/Int nodes on the way if you need more of either.

=== 55 points ===
Swift Venoms and Mastery for more damage. Survivalist to counter Kitava's resist loss a bit. Also taking Jewel Socket and put Survival Instincts (Act 2, Golden Hand Quest) in for even better flask sustain.

=== 66 points ===
Fatal Toxins and Mastery for more more damage, Careful Conservationist to compensate a downside of Survival Instincts we added earlier.

=== 75 points ===
Second Lab is on the way, goot time for some extra life. Blood Drinker and Revenge of the Hunted is what we take, as for 2nd Lab point its up to you: Nature's Reprisal is simply more damage and aoe for better overlap, while Nature's Boon would provide even better flask sustain. Latter is also useful for better Master Toxicist uptime and make you faster indirectly (Quicksilver Flask) so I'd take this one first.

=== 89 points ===
With Lab done we now can get damages, and we will. Wasting, Coordination, Fangs of the Viper and Entropy should greatly improve our main PoB number; Blood Siphon on the way should also add some survivability. Keep in mind that Entropy does not affect Poison duration but still make certain secondary skills longer, namely Steelskin or Despair.

Our 3rd Lab point is whatever we skipped in 2nd one - Nature's Boon or Nature's Reprisal. Nature's Adrenaline is the least important node so we leave it for Uber Lab.

=== 98 points ===
This tree is partially related to early mapping setup, so I'll mention changes we're making here after acts.
First of all we change class start area because projectile damage does little to nothing for us even in early maps, not to mention further upgrades focussing on Poison damage.
Claw Mastery - changing it to crit immunity for higher survivability, also allows us to ignore crit modifiers we roll on our maps.
Inveterate - this cluster alone cover 1/3 or our Spell Suppress cap, the rest we will get on gear later.
Clever Thief - to replace Claw Mastery.
Charisma - must be enough to return Summon Skitterbots and level up Vitality.
Replenishing Remedies - better flask sustain.
Pantheons during leveling:
Major: Soul of Brine King - to deal with stuns
Minor: Soul of Ruslatha - Life Flask sustain

3) Early Mapping.
PoB links: E.Mapping

Now when we've gotten leveling topic off the way, lets talk about more interesting parts. This section covers gear, gems and passive tree progress from acts done moment and until early red maps (approximately level 90).
3.1) Gems and Links
Main Skill.
Our main link should look as following (add 5th and 6th gems when you have 5/6L available):
Poisonous Concoction + Greater Volley + Greater Multiple Projectiles + Void Manipulation + Unbound Ailments + Vicious Projectiles

Auras.
As I mentioned in leveling section, taking Charisma wheel and Reservation Efficiency Mastery should be enough for that aura setup:
Herald of Agony, Purity of Elements, Vitality, Summon Skitterbots

Utility.
Withering Step - replacing Steelskin on LMB, additional Wither stacks are nice for ramping up damage on single target, and Elusive is great for extra speed/avoidance while moving. We then link Steelskin with Cast when Damage Taken to not use it manually.

We also need another source of Wither as just Withering Step is not enough yet, and there is two options:
Default one - Spell Totem + Multiple Totems + Wither
Fancy - Ancestral Protector + Withering Touch + Culling Strike
Second option provides worse Wither sustain but better dps buffs for your character. Might be more effective if you manage to get a Divergent version of Poisonous Concoction.

Other links are remain unchanged.
3.2) Passive Tree
=== ~100 points ===
Taking Acuity to fix our Accuracy problems.

=== 113 points ===
At this moment we'll put all our points into cluster jewels. If you didn't get required clusters yet you can use temporary replacement without some notables or with higher amount of passives, its still better than trying to get something from the tree.
3.3) Grinding our Gear
Most interesting part for us Exiles:) We won't need any expensive upgrades to reach red maps, just a couple cheap uniques. The only "expensive" part here is flasks, no wonder when you play a Pathfinder :D I'll only mention important gear pieces to avoid "there is a generic rare chest with life and resist" kind of descriptions.
Gear
One property you really should get as soon as you could is a veiled mod increased Duration of Ailments you inflict while Focussed on Helmet - in 4 seconds of Focus you can apply a lot of very long Poison stacks, good single target boost that also doesn't cost you much.

Next one is a belt modifier % reduced Flask Charges used. This stat is almost non-existent outside of the belt slot and is very important for flask sustain.

Rest of the rares is placeholders I've mentioned already, with whatever good stuff you manage to get. However there is 2 more uniques worth to consider.

This unique might be not that cheap, so consider using one if you get a good deal or lucky drop - Leper's Alms with good defences and solid dps boost thanks to ailment duration mod.

Of course there is much more uniques that you can fit into your early setup, so there is a list of something you might want to get if you already got enough resistances etc on your other pieces:
Dendrobate - cheap and effective dps chest. Getting 300 dex is not a problem, and 150 int requirement is optional but would make this item even better.
Carcass Jack - good old Carcass, likely not cheap yet very nice unique.
Cherrubim's Maleficence - another cheap source of damage.
Three-step Assault - good boots when you have Phasing and Onslaught in your build.
Atziri's Step - the dream, sadly its usually pretty hard to get early for a reasonable price.
The Embalmer - amazing gloves, stats speak for itself.
Snakebite - also not bad option, but sustaining Frenzy charges against single target might be a problem.
Null and Void - source of Rampage and good other stats.
Starkonja's Head - cheap & good.
The Gull - really nice for those who like to click on shrines, specially with new Atlas passives for shrines.
Icefang Orbit - good damage and clear boost.
Leper's Alms - shield I mentioned before.
Flasks
Taste of Hate - relatively cheap and very defensive unique, with just this flask we gain a ton of Cold Resistance, Cold and Physical mitigation. Should be active all the time by enchanting it with Reused at the end of this Flask's effect, which does not require too much investments into flask sustain (and our should be enough already). Try to keep the flasks at 0% quality, details below.
Overflowing Chalice - very cheap source of damage and additional flask charges for other flasks.
Saturated Divine Life Flask - this one we definitely quality up, Life flask alone adds ~440 flat chaos damage to the skill, which is over 50% of base damage on the gem level 19. Try to get Bleed Immunity as a Suffix.
Quicksilver Flask and Granite Flask - movement speed is yes of course, and extra Armour is good to mitigate some physical hits because most of our gear is Evasion based.

Suffixes:
Increased Armour during Flask effect and reduced effect of Curses on you is what I've used.
chance to avoid Being Stunned - self-explanatory, if stuns are annoying.
incresed Attack Speed - extra dps when everything else is fine.
additional Elemental Resistances - to fix resistances early on.
Worth to mention that all mods above, as well as base flask properties are affected by Flask Effect increases.

Prefixes:
reduced Charges used - budget option for better sustain.
reduced Duration / Increased Effect - option for later when you can keep 100% uptime with less duration from this mod.

Enchantments:
Reused at the end of this Flask's effect - you start with this one, as it require less investments to maintain 100% flask uptime. Downside is that you have to press flask once at the beginning of every location.
Used when Charges reach full - fully automated option, you don't need to press flask with it, but require more investments into flask sustain, specially when you'll fit certain orange flask into your build.

Don't forget to visit upper left part of The Epilogue (unless its changed in 3.17), you can unlock flask enchants alongside the movespeed craft there.

About 0% quality on flasks. We have a Notable Spiked Concoction on our Medium Cluster Jewel, that provide a nice buff Alchemist's Genius (20% increased Flask Charges gained and 10% Flask Effect), which is applied on flask use. While we use first enchant on our flasks, lower their duration with 0% quality means they'll reuse themself more often, maintain the buff better.
Cluster Jewels
Large, Chaos Damage, 8 Passives. We looking for these nodes - Touch of Cruelty/Wicked Pall, Unholy Grace and Unwaveringly Evil. A lot of damage increase, might be expensive with everything we need - in that case you can temporary use 9 passives base and/or one without one of the notables. If you want to craft it yourself I recommend using ilvl 50-67 base to exclude unnecessary mods from the pool.

Medium, Damage over Time, 4-5 Passives. Ones with Flow of Life might be expensive, but there is a lot of possible good combinations that are cheaper (though you'll lose some life). Pay attention to jewel base, there is a lot of different Damage over Times, we need a generic one.

Medium, Flask Effect Duration, 5-6 Passives. Here we're looking for Fasting and Spiked Concoction. Should be easy to craft and therefore cheap to buy one.
Pantheons in maps:
Major: Soul of Brine King - as you progress further it become worse and eventually you switch to Soul of Solaris.
Minor: Soul of Ruslatha - remain unchanged as we spending a lot of Life flask charges.

Using my setup, at lvl 75 this build has:
- ~3.5k life
- autoflasks
- decent Phys mitigation and Evasion
- Crit immunity
- Spell Suppress cap (if you got enough on gear already)
- Ele Ailments immunity, Curse immunity, Stun immunity if needed
- 100%+ increased Movement Speed
~ 1kk (over 1.5kk with Focus) single target ramped dps against regular Bosses
*about 20% less against Shaper targets, good thing there is as much as none in early maps:)

Around lvl 90 when we buy/craft our clusters:
- ~4k life
~ 2kk (3kk+ with Focus) single target ramped dps against Shaper targets.

4) Midgame and lvl ~95 progress.
PoB link: its right here click it

At this point we got almost everything in the passive tree, time to invest more into gear.
4.1) Gems and Links
Main Skill.
Main setup is unchanged*, just try to catch cheap awakened gems on the trade if possible.
*look for Devouring Diadem in gear section to see a potential gem swap.

Due to gear upgrades we change aura setup:
Purity of Elements, Herald of Agony, Vaal Grace, Determination
How to win mana reservation
To fit all auras you need next:

Socket all Auras in Devouring Diadem

3 Passive Mana Reservation efficiency small cluster jewel with Sublime Form or Uncompromising Passive.

25% Grace reservation efficiency Mastery on Revenge of the Hunted
[/b]
For same reason we get a CwDT setup:
Cast when Damage Taken [Lvl 14] + Vaal Molten Shell [Lvl 18] + Increased Duration + Withering Step
Try to get an Anomalous version of Withering Step for better Wither uptime on bosses.

Misc:
Flame Dash somewhere

Enhance + Plague Bearer + Ancestral Protector [Phantasmal if possible]

Few words about Blood Rage: at the moment when we change aura setup and removing Vitality I prefer to drop it completely because I don't really like trading attack speed for huge degen, especially on bosses with dot damage like Baran, Shaper or Searing Exarch.

Secondary Wither link no longer needed after getting Divergent quality on your Poisonous Concoction. Alternate quality on Withering Step helping us to maximise Wither stacks on bosses.

Annoying but useful DPS button.

Divine Blessing + Malevolence
Use it when you have a Devouring Diadem because Eldrich Battery from helmet turn mana cost in Energy Shiled cost.
How Divine Blessing Cost Works
Divine Blessing turns your permanent Aura skill into temporary buff, and instead of reserving mana/life/energy shield you'll have to spend certain amount of the same resource once to receive that buff for some time.
Cost of casting Divine Blessing consists of two parts: first and usually bigger part is the amount of resource that original aura would reserve otherwise. In our case, its Malevolence which reserve 50% of Maximum Mana. For example, if we have 900 Mana pool, Malevolence would reserve 450 mana and therefore will add 450 to Divine Blessing cost. Note that reservation efficiency doesn't work on these calculations, only mana cost reduction because at this point you paying the cost and not reserve anything. To reduce this part of the cost, you need to lower your Maximum Mana as much as possible, so not taking mana nodes in the tree or mana on gear helps.
Second part of the cost is added flat value from the Divine Blessing gem itself. So if you did everything you could with your maximum Mana and still cannot fit high level Divine Blessing, just take low level gem - this will reduce duration and aura effect a bit, but at least you will be able to use it.
4.2) Passive Tree
=== 119 points ===
Alot of changes, especially after getting Devouring Diadem

To be more comfortable with Divine Blessing we dropping Primal Spirit and Druidic Rite.

To manage perma auto sustain Dying Sun we need some extra Flask Duration, small passive near Natural Remedies & small node on Flask Duration Cluster should help with that.


For Dying Sun sustain we also take Replenishing Remedies, this one will help with life flask sustain aswell.

Rest of the points we put into small life clusters.
4.3) Grinding increased Gear
And thats probably a good time to get truly core uniques that will make this build solid for clearing serious content.

Uniques:

Devouring Diadem - a helmet that I'm tempted to put into every build after trying it once :D In this particular build it is however a BiS option, combining tons of very important and useful properties:
- Eldritch Battery - built-in keystone allow us to reserve all of our mana and spend ES to use skills.
- additional reservation efficiency for socketed skills that perfectly complements previous mod.
- built-in ability that triggers every 5 seconds, eat corpses nearby and recover tons of Life, Mana and Energy Shield. Sometimes may save your life by eating Porcupine corpses with their on-death effects being removed before they reach your face:)
- like the other Betrayal items it comes with a Veiled mod, which makes it perfect... est? Yes, perfectest item for us because we gain all the good stuff while still having our Focus mod - increased Duration of Ailments you inflict while Focussed.
There is another thing you can change after obtaining this helmet - swapping Vicious Projectiles in main link for Deadly Ailments. At this point we don't rely on hit damage or leech anyway and this support provide more damage for Poison.

Circle of Nostalgia - also very good upgrade, this time in a ring slot.

1st stat on ring:

Increased Chaos Damage while affected by Herald of Agony - biggest direct damage increase.

Second modifier might be one of the following:

Herald of Agony has increased Buff Effect - less damage than 1st one but provide more global chance to Poison, which might be nice later (lategame gear section, Asenath's Gentle Touch).

to Chaos Resistance while affected by Herald of Agony - not the best option but thats a lot of Chaos resist so why not.

Herald of Agony increased Mana Reservation Efficiency To fit all auras we want it should have the modifier with at least 35% roll.
This one do not allow to use Defiance Banner, but free place to another Life Cluster Jewel.


There is a wide variety of possible Synthesised implicits on these rings, just check for anything that might be useful for you like increased damage or extra attributes. Also don't forget to catalyst something on your ring:)

Rares:

First in our list of important rare upgrades is a ring with Curse Enemies with Despair on Hit mod - big QoL as it frees up a gem socket, hotkey and the need to cast curse manually. Can be found on Chaos nodes in Delve or rolled on Hunter-influenced rings. Latter can be rolled with Harvest reforges (Caster) to get it relatively easy as there is not much caster mods on the ring.

Next important slot to upgrade is a shield, we can use Leper's Alms but ideally we want a hybrid EV/ES base with life, spell suppress and as much ES as possible. With Eldritch Battery our ES is our manapool pretty much, and the more ES you have the more you recharge per second, allow you to spam more concoctions. Its up to you if you want to craft or buy this slot.
ES from helmet and shield should be enough to use concoction without running out of energy shield, but if you still have some troubles with ES pool benchcraft Regenerate 150 Energy Shield per second while a Rare or Unique Enemy is Nearby in suffix on your chest or belt.

Belt upgrade consists of % reduced Flask Charges used mod we should already have and another flask one: increased Flask Effect Duration with maximum possible roll, gonna need it for Dying Sun automation (details in flask section).

Try to not be greedy and use new Ember & Ichor currency on you gear.
We have plenty of mods that can be useful for us:

Searing Exarch.

Gloves:

8-13% increased Attack Speed
Adds 5–10 to 10–18 Chaos Damage to Attacks
5–20% to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier
1-2% to maximum Cold Resistance


Boots:

5-10% increased Movement Speed
4-6% increased Action Speed
15–32% chance to Avoid being Stunned
13–24% to Fire/Cold/Lightning Resistance
6–17% to Chaos Resistance
1-2% to maximum Fire Resistance

Body Armour:

Flasks gain 1-2 Charges every 3 seconds
9–10% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills

8–19% of Damage taken Recouped as Life
Flasks applied to you have 6–17% increased Effect
15–30% increased Chaos Damage
+1-2% to all maximum Resistances
+1-3% to maximum Fire/Cold/Lightning Resistance

Gain a Frenzy/Endurance Charge every 15-10 seconds


Eater of Worlds.

Gloves:

7-12% chance to Suppress Spell Damage
6–17% increased Blind Effect
9–20% increased Global Accuracy Rating

Boots:

7-12% increased Life Regeneration rate
Poisons you inflict deal Damage 5-10% faster
15–32% increased Cooldown Recovery Rate of Travel Skills
33–50% chance to Avoid being Poisoned
33–50% chance to Avoid Bleeding

Body Armour:

<one Aura> has 19–36% increased Aura Effect
17–28% increased Armour/Evasion
+5–16% to all Elemental Resistances
7-12% increased Life Recovery rate



Jewels:

Important info to remember, Harvest jewel implicit crafts can help with Stun Immunity.

Jewel with corrupted blood implicit - nice QoL. As for stats, just look for whatever seems useful and affordable at the moment:)

Medium, Flask Effect Duration, 5-6 Passives - Fasting with Spiked Concoction, an option for better flask sustain.

Brutal Restraint - Timeless jewel with bunch of possible good stats. Optimal placement is jewel socket at Ranger start, next to the Acrobatics keystone.
Useful stats you may check for:
Increased Flask Charges Gained - very helpful for flask sustain, we need atleast one in pob provided at the start of chapter.
Chance to Blind on Hit - Blind is both defensive and offensive debuff now as it increases your chance to Evade attacks and reduce enemy chance to Evade, increasing your Hit chance. Highly reccoment to get this aswel on you 1st Brutal.
Damage with Poison - all sources of damage increase are very valuable as build doesn't have too many of them
Poisons you inflict Deal Damage faster - doesn't change total damage dealt per poison but increases DPS
Effect of non-curse Auras - extra defences / resists
Attack and Cast Speed - additional dps
Maximum Life - life (what did you expect huh)
Onslaught on Kill - nice yet rare mod, guaranteed 8s Onslaught on kill is cool to have
Chance to Avoid being Stunned - might be useful to reach stun avoidance cap
5% increased Dexterity - just some extra Accuracy
+20 to Dexterity - and this one too


Watcher's Eye - No mandatory stats for this build, the most useful imo are:


Determination - Additional Armour
Determination - Additional Phys Damage Reduction
Purity of Elements - Chaos Resistance
Purity of Elements - Physical Taken as Fire/Cold/Lightning
Grace - Spell Suppress
Grace - Chance to Evade
Grace - Movement Speed
Malevolence - Damage Over Time Multiplier

Flasks:
Dying Sun - flask that makes us investing so much into flask sustain. Insanely good when you can fully utilize it - with 50% increased Flask Effect it provide +3 additional Projectiles and bunch of extra AoE for better overlaps. Due to nerfs of unique flasks it is pretty hard to reach 100% uptime on this one, but Pathfindes still can do that.

Now PoB can calculate flask uptime without problems, but I'm still leaving my Dying Sun calc there because this tool have all flask mods in one place.
Few days prior 3.17 launch I've asked my friend to make a quik maffs device for stats required to automate Dying Sun. It should be accurate enough to not be completely useless, and you can try it yourself by making a copy of it here. PoB link for this section contains items that should be enough for automation, but its far from being guaranteed that you find exactly the same stuff so feel free to calc it for your setup:)
So what we got with this version:
- ~4.5k life
- autoflasks
- ~20k Armour and Evasion
- Crit immunity
- Spell Suppress cap
- Ele Ailment immunity, Curses immunity, Stun immunity (should be there with flask for sure)
- 100%+ increased Movement Speed with permanent Quicksilver
~ 5kk (~7kk+ with Focus) single target against Shaper targets.
eHP without Molten Shell | eHP with Molten Shell

Usually with this setup i'm starting to farm some endgame stuff, like Maven and her Invitations.
Feared can be rough but doable, confirmed by me in 3 last leagues.

5) Endgame, finishing pieces.
PoB link: click it all, oh yeah


Levels are leveled, gear is geared. Weapon is prohibited to use and we can't level up past 100 so the only thing we can do is to upgrade our gear even more. This setup was enough for me to clear everything in 3.16-3.18 including 30 waves of Simulacrum, 100% Delirious maps and Release all Maven's Feared.
5.1) Gems and Links

Keep replacing regular gems with awakened / alt quality.
Trick about alt quality gems hunting
You may be shocked by price of some gems but, not many ppls know about weight of alt/std quality. In Determination case, you have better chances to make Divergent by rolling it from Anomalous, since Normal quality have 50 weight.
5.2) Passive Tree
=== 118+ points ===
Points past lvl 94-95 required to Take one extra Large Cluster to fit Forbidden Flame & Flesh in to this 2 sockets.
If you dont want to level above 95, points to drop is 2 small life nodes near Herbalism & Revenge of the Hunted and 4 points by dropping Fatal Toxins or Toxic Strikes
5.3) Grinding more Gear
Only two but very important two changes here.

First is crafting a double-influenced chest with Redeemer and Hunter mods chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit and You can apply an additional Curse. Hopefully you know what the Awakener's Orb is, if not you might check it here.
Open prefix or suffix for ES crafts is must have, also Spell Suppress will help to get cap much easier.

Additional Curse modifier will be utilized via our second upgrade - Asenath's Gentle Touch gloves. Temporal Chains make our Poison and Wither stacks last longer, greatly improving DPS. Explodes are always nice and fun, and also screw you porcupines! They're also able to cause funny chain reactions in out case. Thing is, Asenath's explodes are physical damage, which can poison if you have global chance to Poison, and we happen to have one from Herald of Agony buff. One of the mods on our Circle of Nostalgia could also increase this buff's effect, giving even more chance to Poison. So monster packs may explode, Poison and Curse nearby monsters with explode, these nearby monsters die, explode etc. Also there is a good amount of life and Int on the gloves, always nice to become smarter that way:)

I Lied about two upgrades lol ;D (I didn't it just got updated)

In this setup I decided to include added in 3.17 Forbidden Flame & Forbidden Flesh jewels. We have a lot of passives to choose from, but in my opinion most of them are useless even if they looks cool.
Why? Because of Spell Suppress, this stat was pain in da ass to cap since introducing. Ofc we have Magebane, but build already short of skillponts and can't go for it, even though Ranger is closest to this Keystone (Scion doesn't exist). After some math I concluded that Quartz Infusion from Raider is the most efficent Point to take. 40% Suppress and Phasing allow us to drop some points near Freedom of Movement & Inveterate which can be used to take extra Large Cluster and improve our damage. More Forbidden Jewel variations in next section.

Want to mention one more thing, stacking armour on gear bases and getting alt quality on gems like Determination,Molten Shell allow us to achieve enough armour to drop Granite Flask and swap it with Topaz Flask, completly solving any problems with resistances on gear and giving us missing ~30% less dmg taken from lightning damage, the most dangerous dmg type in game imo.
Stats of this version:
- ~4.5k life
- autoflasks
- ~20k Armour and Evasion
- Crit immunity
- Spell Suppress cap
- Ele Ailment immunity, Curses immunity, Stun immunity (should be there with flask for sure)
- 100%+ increased Movement Speed with permanent Quicksilver
~ 15kk (~19kk+ with Focus) single target against Shaper targets.
eHP without Molten Shell | eHP with Molten Shell

All this highlights was recorded by using this setup in 3.16
Forbidden Jewels
didn't exist in that league, build was little bit more tanky instead.

And this is all for base reccomended verion of build. Further upgrades would be expensive and described in next part of the Guide. Even if you didnt plan to build uber version of this build i would reccoment to read next part, alot of info included there.


6) Late Endgame Compendium.

Look my post below

twitch.tv/maydie13

discord.gg/CkSaqGx

youtube.com/ontop13
Last edited by maydie13 on Aug 17, 2022, 4:27:23 PM
Last bumped on Aug 17, 2023, 3:42:11 AM
first i watched tripolar bear helix poison autoflask, catching my eye is the autoflask, but the problem from tripolr is build not hype enough in dps.

is your build tested?
6) Late Endgame Compendium.

I've completely revamped this section of guide, because I think providing exact setup for build which already have decent power is not what ppl are looking for. I'm getting a lot of PMs and discord messages from players who got stuck after reaching Endgame version of build. Of course some of them don't even need any further upgrades and just enjoyng playing any sort of content, but some of players like me can't live without constant progression.

So let's start from my first time trying the skill.
3.16 Scourge final setup

PoB link of my build from 3.16 League.

3.16 was wild time, Poisonous Concoction just got introduced into the game and everyone including myself were searching for optimal build setups and gear combinations.
Let's begin with some ideas I had at that time.
Amulet
Uul-Netol's Vow - was great back then because 7th link provided a lot of extra dps, but I learned hard lesson about divining it myself - 4 stats with range from -30 to +30 were eating my Divines like crazy. I can't remember the exact number now, but getting rolls I wanted took me about the price of whole amulet in Divines lol.
Not relevant as of 3.17 imo, because getting +2 rare amulet is pretty easy and there is more interesting options in uniques section. You can still use it if you manage to get one as a drop or buy it cheap enough.
Gloves
Expensive but RLY awesome upgrade is Asenath's Gentle Touch Corrupted with
Despair on Hit. This upgrade allow us to swap not too useful rare ring with another Circle of Nostalgia.
Rings
Few words about rings, in my 3.16 version I was using You gain Onslaught for 4 seconds on Hit synthesised implicit on rare ring. Same stat can be found on Circle of Nostalgia. Upside of this variant is price, as it might take quite a lot of currency to craft good rare onslaught ring if you get unlucky, and tbh I can't think of stats that would beat Circle of Nostalgia in terms of DPS, not even talking about attributes and chaos res it has.

About Circle of Nostalgia implicits, build benefit a lot from increased damage sources, so implicits can be very impactful on your dps.
Try to replace a regular Circle without damage implicits with this one and see the difference. I was shocked 1st time tbh ;D


My Personal tier list of stats

You gain Onslaught for 4 seconds on Hit
+1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges
x% increased Chaos Damage
x% increased Damage with Ailments
x% increased Damage with Poison
x% increased Damage
Determination has 20% increased Aura Effect - This one is a little spoiler from 3.17 but I'll include it here.
Belt
Another important stat which I started to use in 3.16 was syntesised implicit again, this time on the belt.

10-15% increased Flask Charges gained
10-15% increased Flask Effect Duration
This two can be found together and can save a lot of resources while you trying to set up auto sustain for Dyung Sun.
Downside of using this belt is that you'll probably have to craft it yourself from scratch.
Some crafting tips
Quality your belt before crafting, it will only take 4 catalysts on white item.

To make something simple like this, best strat would be chaos spam until u got desired suffixes and then lock them via Suffixes cannot be changed from crafting bench and reforge with life in Harvest. Keep locking and reforging until u get good life roll.
Another option is Essence spam until u got 1 stat form essence and 1 flask stat, then try to EX slam or Beast replace 2nd flask stat, then proceed with reforges of life. Might be more expensive, but you get more stats on the final result.


This belt I was using in 3.17 will explain why later.

To make something more specific like this, you need:
1. Essence Spam until you hit Alchemist Genius and %Reduced Flask Charges used.
2. Lock Suffixes with Suffixes cannot be changed
3. Syndicate Aisling Slam & pray to hit Veiled Suffix, if not repeat from p.2.
Veiled Chaos Orbs do not work in this case, as you can still add trash suffix modifier after slamming it (adding modifier is not "changing" it so it isn't prevented by suffix lock).
4. Its up to you which modifier you want from unveil, I mentioned before that ES regen can be crafted on Body Armour as well.
5. Lock suffixes and Harvest Life reforge until you happy with result or run out of exalts.
Jewels
Important thing to keep in mind when you minmaxing your setup is cluster jewel suffixes and all non-corrupted jewel implicits.
In my 3.16 build I was not using Purity of Elements which forced me to get ailment & stun immunity through jewel implicits. Later I decided to use purity but I kept utilising jewel implicits to get stun immunity.
As for cluster jewel suffixes, on Large cluster and medium with 5-6 passives (Fasting one) you pathing through 2 small nodes which can provide some pretty useful stats, e.g. t2 strength (5 per point) or some chaos resist (~4 per point).
Small passives on small cluster jewels can go further with Added Small Passive Skills have 25-35% increased Effect which work on everything you receive from small passives, including jewel suffixes.

Wathcher's Eye - again because of not using Purity of Elements I had very limited options. I decided to take Determination Crit reduction and unaffected by bleed with Malevolence.
I really liked the last one, but in further build variations we moved Malevolence from constant aura to Divine Blessing and couldn't rely on it as a source of bleed immunity.
Another Malevolence modifier, damage over time multi, work pretty well with Blessing, but 22% multi vs strong defence stat like up to 50% Chaos Resistance with Purity of Elements is a tough choice. I prefer defence, build has enough DPS in 3.16 and got even more later in 3.17.
3.17 Archnemesis final setup

In 3.17 I went allin into crafting and got some crazy items which raised dps of build to 90kk+, BUT of course it can't be as easy with ancient coding technologies from GGG.
Long time ago in 2019 during Metamorph league, players managed to reach the amount of Damage over Time that caused variable overflow and caused target to stop taking any Damage over Time completely.
Since it was quite game-breaking for certain builds, a temporary band-aid fix was applied and the maximum amount of DoT any target can take was capped by variable size, which is 2^31-1 or roughly 2.14 billions. Sounds good, you may think - who even reached that much damage to cause the overflow? Well, there goes some Ancient technologies. Damage over Time is calculated as value per minute, so the real cap is (2^31-1)/60, or 35.79kk per second. Which also was not easy goal to achieve back then, of course. So "temporary" fix stays in the game still, and everything was mostly fine...
...Until our guild went to farm some Flawless Chaylas for Global Defence Armours to craft & level guildmates.
After some runs we noticed that adding extra support with absurd effect of Despair curse didn't increased our ttk on Boss. We made Reddit Thread and were thinking this is a bug, but apparently its a bug fix. Nothing more permanent than a temporary as being said;)
Long story short, any target cannot take more than ~35.79kk Damage per Second from Damage over Time. So its not by 1 poison instance, 1 skill, 1 character or anything. You can make a full party or different DoT builds and they cannot deal more DoT DpS than 35.79kk combined. Live with that info :D
Therefore most of my investments in gear during 3.17 were useless lol, but I don't care because it still was a lot of fun to craft everything.
PoB link of my build from 3.17 League, which introduced a lot, no, A LOT of new stuff.

Amulet
Ashes of the Stars - Was a game changer of ArchNemesis League and 100% deserves name of core item in build alongside with Devouring Diadem.
Unfortunately GGG made drop chance changes in 3.18 and prices skyrecketed (was thinking to fix this typo, but lol sky rekt is what actually happened), anyway, i think this item is your next upgrade after reaching everything in EndGame PoB.
Just look
+~15% DPS
+~20% EHP With Just Swapping Amulet in EndGame PoB (Without swapping small cluster, because of mana reservation stat of amulet, which gives even more EHP)
Awesome right?
Jewels

Next Major update of 3.17 build was Forbidden Flame & Flesh jewels, as I mentioned before, even if we have a lot of passives to choose from, most of them are almost useless.
Here is a breakdown:

Pathfinder:
Nature' Boon, Nature's Adrenaline, Nature's Reprisal, Master Toxicist 2 Pointers from Ascendancy.
Veteran Bowyer - For Phys users
Master Surgeon - Can be usefull, although we using only half of this node cus dont have enough crit chance.
Master Alchemist - Dying being Frozen while waiting for Flask to tick, no thx. Doesn't save from shock/chill grounds and we use Purity of Elements aswell.

Deadeye:
Rapturing, Ricochet, Occupying Force, Wind Ward - Completly Useless.
Focal Point - Can be utilized, but doesn't add too much.
Gale Force - 20% Action Speed = more dmg & movement speed, one of the best options.
Endless Munitions - 1 projectile per jewel socket, not bad at all.

Raider:
Avatar of the Veil - Only can be utilized if we decide to drop purity of elements.
Avatar of the Chase - 20% Attack and Movement speed for 2 jewel sockets? No, thx.
Rapid Assault - Same as above.
Avatar of the Slaughter - Number of Frenzy charges in build 5-7 depending on gear, not good one I think. And we are not getting any benefits from Attack Dmg.
Way of the Poacher - Might be good if any other sources of Frenzy generation are unavailable.
Quartz Infusion - BiS imo, Spell Suppress is hard to get and Phasing is life savior for builds like our, when monsters aren't dying instantly.
Body Armour & Shield

Introduced in 3.16, but became popular in 3.17 Grasping Mail with fractured Global Defences, really interested me and with help of ppl from stream (yea I was streaming for awhile until couple leagues ago) we made this beast:

A lot of new options became available after equipping it.
Let's start with most important one, 100% Increased Global Defences
Global Defences include: Armour, Evasion and Energy Shield (and Ward but we don't talk about Ward here).
Increase of Armour and Evasion allow Molten Shell to reach the cap of 10k shield.
Increase of ES allow us to drop Hybrid Shield and go for pure Evasion one, which we crafted on stream with the help of guild/chat as well.

Looks dope I guess.

Next important stat(s) on the Armour were new implicit modifiers introduced in 3.17.
Malevolence has 30% increased Aura Effect
Flasks gain 2 Charges every 3 seconds

1st one is just direct DPS increase, 2nd look simple but more complicated in terms of how many freedom he give us on tree and gear.
Before, to maintain Dying Sun we needed to reach 12s of flask duration to make sure 4 Ascendancy ticks will always happen to charge it in time.
Now with 66% more passive flask charges gained we didn't really need Flask Effect Duration roll on belt and extra flask duration on Cluster jewel.
But we still needed Alchemist's Genius and I decided to upgrade belt from previous league.

Extra Points from tree went to Medium DoT cluster Jewels, which increased our DPS even more.
But can major respec happen without troubles? Not in PoE.
We swapped Frenzy+Curse armour and now had 2 troubles.
Trouble #1 Frenzy Generation was solved by adding Poacher's Mark in build.
Trouble #2 Additional Curse, we need one more now because of Mark, was solved by corrupting Ashes. Thanks god they were common drop and therefore cheap in 3.17.


And this is how one item make chain reaction of build upgrades.
Boots

Did you think the chain is over? Oh no, not for sure :D
Build was already socket-starving because of disabled weapon. And guess what, adding extra 2-link with Poacher's Mark & Mark on Hit make it even worse.
Withering Step was obvious choice to remove because of Ashes and 30% quality on Concoction.
Second one was Increased Duration which I added as influence mod on our new boots.

Rings
I promised to make few notes about Determination Implicit on Circle.
This Aura Effect working on alt quality aswell, so you get even more armour from your evasion.
3.18 Sentinel final setup
I arrived into 3.18 league armed with knowledge of DPS cap existence, and feeling I've tested everything I need about this build.
One thing was bothering me though, I still didn't test Melding of the Flesh in Concoction setup, and decided this should be one of my league goals. Introducing new endgame bosses added another one into the list instantly.

Mid League of 3.18 character.
End of 3.18 character.

Skill Tree
Little bit more left pathing on tree.
Because of Stacking Aura effect for Purity of Ice I'm going to the Leadership for reservation mastery.
Because of this we have not enough points to take large cluster near Point Blank like in 3.17 and forced to take all jewel sockets near Magebane.
Magebane was my extra reserve of Spell Suppression, but left untouched at the end.
Jewels
Core idea as I meintoned before was using Melding of the Flesh to acquire 90% of all res. Initially I had some rough ideas about how to make it, but sudden drop of Mageblood during leveling to 100 influenced my decisions and caused some massive build changes.
90% res + Sapphire/Topaz/Ruby Flasks with 125%+ increased Effect, yeah baby.

Another useful jewel introduced in 3.18 was Impossible Escape.
Passive we need in our case is Chaos Innoculation.

This one help make more comfortable transition to non-influenced chest, because of +1 curse, and have aura nodes near which can be utilized when we take Purity of Ice for Melding.

To get enough mana reservation we again need small cluster jewel, but this time with Pure Guile.

Having source of blind on this jewel and Mageblood which removed the need in flask nodes on the tree, Brutal Restraint also became non-mandatory, so I had an idea to swap it for Militant Faith with
.

Stats on jewel are also helpful for aura effect stacking.

Forbidden Flame & Flesh with Way of the Poacher to maintain Frenzy Charges.
Armours

Our Gear continued the idea of Melding Flesh, and on the shield I took Maximum Cold Resistance.

By the way, the possibility of having two or more fractured mods on item made process of crafting really simple for some items. For example, after getting the correct base, this shiled is the result of just spamming HP Essences :D
Some of my experiments ended like this.


In my case i was forced to use both implicits on armour to reach 90% cold res.

10% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills
from essence mod to fit all auras.

And because of dropping Quartz Infusion with perma Phasing I was forced to find a new source of it.

Solution was simple, just use recombinators to make x2 fractured base and spam some fossils after. Abyss socket was filled with this beauty.


With this amount of Elemental damage mitigation ofc I had ideas to convert incoming phys damage to elemental aswell, but got bored after ~3 weeks of playing (grinding 2k altars for 40 challenges was hell), it might be my goal for the next legue I guess.

Guide Follow-up

These three continue of original build verions

Corrupted AsenathPoB: click
Ashes PoB: click me
Asenath+Ashes PoB: click me senpai

Next one is theorycraft and isn't tested in game, just my mid league thoughts.

3.18 Outdated | Upper Tree Concept PoB: click me senpai pls,
3.18 Outdated | 90@ no Mageblood PoB: click me more senpai, yeah

More coming later


That's all my friends, hope you enjoy my magnum opus.
Author lives here from time to time: twitch.tv/maydie13
Also any questions can be asked there.
twitch.tv/maydie13

discord.gg/CkSaqGx

youtube.com/ontop13
Last edited by maydie13 on Aug 17, 2022, 4:48:30 PM
Hey, the build looks very good, seems like a very strong build to start with. Are gonna be league-starting with it too or are you trying something else this time around?
RESERVED
twitch.tv/maydie13

discord.gg/CkSaqGx

youtube.com/ontop13
Last edited by maydie13 on Jun 22, 2022, 12:46:02 AM
"
maydie13 wrote:
"
ADeadlyDwarf wrote:
Hey, the build looks very good, seems like a very strong build to start with. Are gonna be league-starting with it too or are you trying something else this time around?

Wanna try new bosses 1st, so i need strong starter. Sure this one would be great again, like in Scourge.



I was wondering about that, how is bossing gonna be? Its probably a league with alot of bossing, with current league and new endgame.
"
ADeadlyDwarf wrote:
"
maydie13 wrote:
"
ADeadlyDwarf wrote:
Hey, the build looks very good, seems like a very strong build to start with. Are gonna be league-starting with it too or are you trying something else this time around?

Wanna try new bosses 1st, so i need strong starter. Sure this one would be great again, like in Scourge.



I was wondering about that, how is bossing gonna be? Its probably a league with alot of bossing, with current league and new endgame.

https://www.twitch.tv/maydie13/videos?filter=highlights&sort=time
All highlights was recorded in "Late" setup from guide.
twitch.tv/maydie13

discord.gg/CkSaqGx

youtube.com/ontop13
What is "Autoflasking"?
"
Entralive wrote:
What is "Autoflasking"?

Maintaining flasks without touching any buttons
twitch.tv/maydie13

discord.gg/CkSaqGx

youtube.com/ontop13
Last edited by maydie13 on Feb 4, 2022, 10:15:45 PM
Thanks for the guide, I'm giving it a go this league.

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