[3.21] Voltaxic Rift Autobomber, Poison Herald of Thunder Pathfinder

This build uses the new Voltaxic Rift/Original Sin to convert Herald of Thunder to chaos damage, poisoning enemies. The poison spreads to all enemies on the screen through Master Toxicist. Huge defense from pathfinder flask effect. Can clear all non-uber content comfortably with minimal button presses. Feel Free to message me here or in game if you have any questions.

3.22 - Temp chains poison nerf hurts, and we lost the crucible tree. I am not too excited about the numbers. High investment with Original sin may still be viable, so I may try it later in the league if I feel like experimenting. As for right now, I have no plans to play it.

3.21 - Finally made the switch. Sorry for the delay. Guide and POB have been updated. Still feel pretty tanky, but the DPS is lower than I was expecting. Ubers and higher deli maps will take some investment if you plan on trying them. The bloodnotch combo makes us tankier than we have ever been. There is potential for good dps if you can get a good tree on your bow. I'm going to miss the Original Sin, hoping that it gets put into the game eventually. I will keep an eye on this thread and answer any questions I can.

Showcase
Spoiler

3.21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ein0z62pvuI - High investment gear deli mapping smoothly. Bloodnotch tech makes us really tanky.

https://youtu.be/F3UeSXXZV_o - 8 Mod Mapping lvl 98 at about 60div. Big upgrades are Progenisis and a Voltaxic with a poison tree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnPiipeXxI4 - 40% Deli Defiled Cathedral. Shows how strong/weak the build is at about 30div and level 92. Still room to get tankier and add DPS.

3.20
Uber Shaper
https://youtu.be/g1NZbC5zSGI - 3.20 Original Sin/Mageblood
https://youtu.be/E4d9HOfrqAU - 3.20 Voltaxic Rift and 2x storm secret


POB
Spoiler

3.21
https://pobb.in/uGMc-31gSxlO - Current Gear and tree. Upgraded to the petrified blood/bloodnotch tech. Reserving aspect or arctic armour with life is messing with the EHP, I dont know why. Maybe I am forgetting something about the build, but in game it feels great. We can tank just about anything now.



Mechanics
Spoiler

Storm Secret and Inflicting Shock
Spoiler
The Storm Secret ring procs HoT storms whenever you shock or kill a shocked enemy. This damage will ramp a little as more and more storms are procced. The ring will self damage you every time a storm is created. We counter this with high enough leech an regen.

Voltaxic Rift converts all lightning damage to chaos damage and makes our chaos damage shock. I like Lightning Arrow or storm brand to start the loop. Link Shock Nova/crackling lance with CWDT and the storms will keep going without the flask.


Poison Explode
Spoiler
Voltaxic Rift converts all damage to chaos, which allows all damage to poison. Dendrobate, jewels, and passives give us a 100% chance to poison. We want to scale as much poison damage as possible. This damage will ramp as more storms are procced and more poisons inflicted.

Master Toxicist is essential to this build. It is basically Inpulsa explode, but in poison form. It will proliferate poison through any pack that your herald barely touches. The clear it gives feels amazing, and this build is dead without it.


Defenses
Spoiler
Capped Spell Suppression
Bloodnotch/Immutable Force/Petrified Blood
Elemental Ailment Immune
Taste of Hate
175%+ Movespeed
Aspect of the Crab
Enfeeble
Temp Chains
Pathfinder elemental flask effect
Endurance Charges - Storm Secret always hits us, so we always are gaining charges through enduring composure small cluster.
Eventually Progenisis


Ascendancy
Spoiler

Pathfinder
Master toxicist - Poison prolif. This gives us our clear.
Nature's Reprisal - Huge DPS with and QOL. Auto apply wither at 50% increased effect
Nature's Adrenaline - Flask Charges
Nature's Boon - Flask Effect

If you are having trouble with sustain, Master surgeon can solve it. Drop Nature's Boon for it. I prefer Nature's boon, but you will need high rolls on regen/leech/recoup before it feels better than Master Surgeon with a life flask.


Original Sin Upgrade - RIP
Spoiler
Original Sin converts all damage to chaos damage, allowing us to weapon swap to a +1 skill/lightning DOT wand and Atziri's Reflection. This will give us a big boost in DPS, but there is a drawback. Voltaxic rift is not equipped and our chaos damage can no longer shock.

We work around this with a Vessel of Vinktar Topaz Flask. It will shock nearby enemies as you run through the map. Drop the cwdt Crackling Lance if you have it. Pathfinder ascendancy along with some flask duration jewels will give it enough charges for 100% storm uptime.


Gear
Spoiler






Uniques
Spoiler
Voltaxic Rift - This converts all lightning damage to chaos damage, and lets chaos damage shock. Essential weapon to get the HoT loop going.

Storm Secret - Essential ring. Allows HoT to proc when we shock an enemy. Build will not work without it. You can equip 2 of these for a big DPS increase if you can deal with the damage taken. Dendrobate is enough ES to cover 1 storm secret, but you will need at least 800ES to cover the damage from a 2nd storm secret. The new(3.21) life recoup points on the tree could also help sustain a 2nd ring without as much ES.

Calamitous Visions - Allocates Lone Messenger. Huge DPS at the cost of all other auras.

Ancestral Vision - 50% Ailment Immunity along with 20% from tree and 30% from boots.

Bloodnotch & Immutable Force - These combined with petrified blood are an extremely strong defensive layer. You will need the energy shield mastery "stun threshold is based on 60% of your energy shield instead of life" as well. At high rolls, you can AFK in t16 maps and your character will tank and recover almost any hit. To be the most effective, you will need at least 58% recovery on Bloodnotch, a 21/20 petrified blood, and 40% life recoup. Lower numbers will need to be made up for with life leech/regen. Master Surgeon with a life flask is also an option. See the ascendancy section for more info on that. A higher roll on immutable force feels better, but is not necessary. Be sure that you have upgraded other gear to meet petrified blood's strength requirement, as you need the high level gem.

Dendrobate - Chance to Poison and Posion damage mods are really good here. Be sure that you have the attributes to make it work. At 100% chance to poison this feels really smooth

Original Sin(Optional) - RIP


Flasks
Spoiler
Flasks are a huge part of pathfinder. They are more important than almost any piece of gear. They are very versatile and can be switched out depending on the content you are doing.

Taste of Hate - Very important. A huge source of physical mitigation. Benefits of a Sapphire flask along with phys taken as cold. Makes us a lot tankier.

Magic Flasks
Quicksilver
Ruby
Topaz
Jade <-- eventually replace with Progenisis.

Good prefixes are charge recovery, duration, and reduced charges per use. The suffixes we want are:

Bleeding/CB immunity
% reduced mana cost of skills during effect - This benchcraft can be found by unvieling cinderswallow urns that drop from the final betrayal boss.

Final two suffixes can pick between:
Increased Evasion
Reduced Curse
Movespeed
Avoid Stun <-- Do not use with Bloodnotch

Note that if you need sustain, you can drop the jade flask for a life flask and take Master Surgeon. See Ascendancy section for more details.

Progenisis - Big tanky upgrade. Great if you can afford it. Replace your jade flask with evasion suffix.

Vessel Of Vinktar(Optional) - It gives us a little DPS increase and mitigates Storm Secret self damage. Enchant to use when charges reach full. This flask helps keeps HoT storms going. It keeps the loop going smoother than the cwdt loop, but it's not as good as crafted mana cost or regen on a magic topaz flask imo.

Atziri's Promise (Optional) - This flask can be used for life leech until you roll chaos leech on your flasks. Just like Vessel, I would eventually drop it for magic flasks or progenisis.

Witchfire Brew(Optional) - If you drop enfeeble, this can give you a DPS increase. You will be squishier. LVL 21 despair on the flask is better than a lower level despair with cwdt gem, and more consistent application than the higher level gems.

Rares
Spoiler

As you get further into the atlas, capped spell suppression and chaos resistance become very important. Look for them on rare gear when upgrading.

Helmet - Implicits are increased duration of ailments and curse effect. Enfeeble curse effect to be more tanky, Temp chains curse effect for more DPS. Spell suppression, life, and life regen are mods we want along with high evasion/resists. Phys taken as fire is strong if you can fit it in. Enchanting with HoT mana reservation Efficiency will allow us to add in an Aspect buff.
Gloves - Chaos damage over time implicit along with Chaos leech. Spell Suppresson if not capped, life, attributes, resists and high evasion are mods you want. Can beastcraft aspect of the crab or spider if you have an open suffix.

Boots - Poisons deal damage faster and either movespeed or chaos res implicits. 30% movespeed, life, and life regen are preferred. We want our boots to have 30% ailment avoid also.

Amulet - +1 to all and lightning skill gems, attributes, and an Aspect skill if possible. Can look at other damaging mods or life/evasion. but it can be tough to get with the +1's. Can beastcraft aspect of the crab if you have an open suffix. Anoint with Whispers of doom.

Quiver - Stat filler. Life/resists, any stats or attributes you still need.


Belt
Flask effect duration and flask charges gained are the most important. From there fill out any missing holes that you might have. Needed attributes, then cap your resistances, get life/evasion. Finally chaos/lightning damage if possible.

Large Cluster Jewels - 3 large clusters with Wicked Pall, Unwaveringly Evil, and Unholy grace are the notables we want.

Medium Cluster jewels - Two jewels with Circling oblivion and flow of life. Two other jewels with Lasting impression and empowered envoy. These can be replaced with Self-fulfilling prophecy jewels if you get elemental overload on your Weapon passive tree.

Small Cluster Jewel - Enduring composure is a must for defense. Endurance charges will generate if we get hit once every 9-10 seconds, so the uptime is pretty reliable.

Jewels - Flask effect Duration, % increased max life and Poison Chance/duration are the big mods we are looking for. We need to have four 5% chance to poison jewels to hit 100% on HoT. Chaos dmg over time multi and damage with poison are also good.



Gems and Links
Spoiler
Herald of Thunder - 21/20
Awakened Unbound Ailments
Awakened Elemental Focus
Awakened Deadly Ailments
Awakened Void Manipulation
Cruelty - Mapping
Empower - Bossing

Could also use Awakened added lightning damage for bossing if you have a white socket or multiple chests. Its a litle better damage than empower 3.

Vaal Lightning Arrow (Used to apply shock at a distance if loop falls off)
Storm Brand (prep strongboxes/altars/essence ect. and cull)
Overcharge
Culling strike
GMP
Elemental Proliferation - If you are not reliably shocking, you can use added lightning damage.

CWDT - Lvl 3
Enfeeble - Lvl 7 (Can Drop if using Witchfire Brew for second curse)

CWDT - Lvl 1
Immortal Call - Lvl 1
Temporal Chains - Lvl 1
Shock Nova - lvl 1 - Guaranteed shock. Better for single target. Can use crackling lance mapping.

Arrogance - Lvl 20 - Socketed in item that has Aspect of the Crab
Vaal Arctic Armour - lvl 20 - Can be used in place of Aspect if you link to Arrogance.

Petrified Blood

Flame Dash

Blood Rage




Curses
Spoiler
We have a max of 2 Curses with Whispers of Doom on our Amulet.

Temporal Chains - Big DPS increase with Poison, and the slower enemies is a good defensive layer
Enfeeble - Big Defense. Really helps stay alive.

A BIG thing to consider on this build is the level of enfeeble you are using. We use CWDT to trigger it. The higher the level of gem we want to trigger, the higher level CWDT we need, and the more damage we need to take for it to trigger. I found that lvl 3 CWDT and lvl 7 Enfeeble is the most comfortable. You can try experimenting with higher levels, but the uptime falls off.

Note that we can use Despair in place of enfeeble. This will add DPS, but can feel pretty squishy. This can be done with gems or a Witchfire Brew. Adding Witchfire brew will give you a more evasion and AOE curse with lvl 21 despair as opposed to a lower level cwdt link.


Pantheon

Spoiler
Major - Solaris or Lunaris. Note that Brine King will brick bloodnotch.

Minor is situational. Depending on the content I swap around.
I like the Ryslatha enemies have reduced regen most of the time.
If I'm farming Exarch, I take abberath for burning ground.
If map has poison mods, grab Shakari.


Crucible Tree
Spoiler
You are looking for any poison mods. Good Dps mods I have found are:
Chaos Dot Multi
Frenzy Generation
Damage over Time
Poison duration
Global damage

For utility, you can look at onlsaught and minimum charge. Skill duration helps with HoT uptime against reduced duration mods, but it does not affect DPS.

As far as some bait, I gave Magebane a try. Gave more DPS on the tree, but losing the evasion bonus on dex did not feel good at all. Also, the herald of thunder nodes are not worth it for the reservation cost.
Last edited by InFrontOfTheMoss on Aug 10, 2023, 7:34:34 PM
Last bumped on Dec 4, 2023, 10:31:18 PM
3.21 Updates

4/3 - Updated POB to 3.21
4/13 - Updated guide to 3.21
4/17 - Added Crucible tree and new showcase
Last edited by InFrontOfTheMoss on Apr 17, 2023, 5:12:17 PM
Can this do sanctum content?
Banned by TFT without a reason!
https://imgur.com/a/v447bMC
"
jcyxxx wrote:
Can this do sanctum content?


Flask charges fall off in sanctum, so you need to keep Herald of Thunder going with Voltaxic Rift and a bow skill. You lose the DPS increase from original sin and the wands. You could constantly weapon swap every couple guards to keep the DPS, but its awkward. Also, HoT has a small AOE and guards dont have packs to poison prolif around them. You have to be in close range of the guards to ramp the poison up. Beacuse of this, it plays sanctum more like a melee build than anything. Feels OK if you have good relics, but not too great. Definitely more of a map clearer.

Edit: After switching to pathfinder, flask uptime makes sanctum less clunky. You still have to be in melee range though.
Last edited by InFrontOfTheMoss on Mar 1, 2023, 2:34:34 AM
This might be "meme" enough for me to swap after league starting toxic rain.

How do you think this will do with the 3.21 Pathfinder rework & poison duration nerfs?
"
Ps0foula wrote:
This might be "meme" enough for me to swap after league starting toxic rain.

How do you think this will do with the 3.21 Pathfinder rework & poison duration nerfs?


The pathfinder rework adds a big QOL upgrade to this build in that wither will be applied automatically at 50% increased effect. Previously, we used wither totems that could only be effective on single target. Nature's reprisal will help our clearing out a lot. I would probably drop master alchemist in favor of Natures boon/adrenaline. Master toxicist is unchanged, and still enables the build.

The poison nerfs do hurt. Clearing should be around the same speed or faster with auto-wither, but I think that single target may fall off. Will have to look at maybe a few different nodes on the tree to experiment with other masteries. Dropping some poison nodes for medium herald clusters might be the play. Removing wither totem frees up some sockets as well. If Original Sin gets the same deal as Kalandra's Touch, we could grab it and scale damage that way. Probably a lot more expensive though.

At the end of the day, this build should still work. You will probably have to make some adjustments to the tree to optimize it. Note that I will be playing a different build to start this league, but I will keep an eye on this thread and answer any questions I can. I'll try and update the tree once the new POB comes out.
Last edited by InFrontOfTheMoss on Apr 2, 2023, 3:25:18 PM
Any insight into what build you are league starting? Ive been jumping around between TS and maybe reave....
"
Any insight into what build you are league starting? Ive been jumping around between TS and maybe reave....


I'm not that concerned with pushing too hard on league start, and usually try to experiment with new things. I want to try out the new cdr and triggerbots. Looking at BV to proc Choir of the Storms or maybe some Prismatic Burst build. POB just dropped so I have some tinkering to do.

Edit - Honestly might switch to this early league depending on dendrobate/voltaxic prices and if my trigger idea falls flat. Just waiting on the prismatic burst reveal. Running the numbers on this build seems like it may be decent. Pathfinder is strong. I'll miss Original Sin DPS tho.
Last edited by InFrontOfTheMoss on Apr 4, 2023, 2:05:20 AM
Won't the self hit wither us with the new Pathfinder node? Will be awkward to take 15 wither stacks all the time.
"
KellogZ wrote:
Won't the self hit wither us with the new Pathfinder node? Will be awkward to take 15 wither stacks all the time.


Storm Secret reads "Take 250 lightning damage when Herald of Thunder hits an enemy" so it is not a "hit" against ourselves.

This wording makes it so we will not wither ourselves. I just tested this in standard by equipping a curse on hit ring with a single storm secret. I was not cursed.

I will check in standard tomorrow when the patch drops to be sure, but I don't think this will be an issue.

Edit - The more I think about this, the more I wonder. Enduring composure grants us endurance charges off of storm secret, so we are getting "hit." I think it may be that the ring is hitting, not us. Or maybe it just can't apply on hit status. However it is coded, I'm hoping that the behavior with wither on hit is the same as curse on hit. Will know for sure tomorrow.
Last edited by InFrontOfTheMoss on Apr 6, 2023, 11:47:37 AM

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