[3.20] Lifestack Hexblast Miner



Hello and welcome to my more or less comprehensive guide on lifestack hexblast miner scion.

I played this build for the most of the 3.20 league and I wanted to share it with others so here we are.

Feel free to ask questions here or to PM me.

3.23 Affliction league update - build's dead, go play other versions of hexblast, forget about this one

Video guide by A V (thanks for that)


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Pros and Cons

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+ Very fast - ~250 ms most of the time
+ Very good clear
+ Safe - we freeze most of the enemies all the time
+ Good single target damage - can do most of the bosses including uber versions
+ Cheap at the core with potential to pump it up with currency
+ Not cast on death + portal gameplay. While this build isn't exactly tanky, it's not that squishy and has decent survivability
+ Ailment immunity - unfortunately we use not the best option for ailmnent immunity but it's still muuuuch better than none of it
+ Option to be totally resistant to curses


- Dissolution of the flesh and mine gameplay might be not for everybody
- Requires several cheap uniques to work
- No stun immunity - while this isn't a big problem for this build it is still noticable sometimes
- No spell suppresion



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Core Mechanics Explained

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Dissolution of the flesh

This jewel is one of our combo pieces allowing us to use Rathpith Globe and take Pait Attunement without any downside. That is why our lifepool looks like this and we still don't die:
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Jewel does exactly what it's description says so basically you don't need your life, only your lifepool, when we receive damage this damage reserves our life instead of removing it and if we don't take damage for 2 seconds all life reservation from this jewel dissapears and we're okay to take damage again.
Unfortunately ground effects (Burning Ground, Desecrated Ground etc.) and DoT damage are problematic for this build.

Kaom's spirit

This unique gives us a lot of movement speed and defence via berserk. We miss out on life regen but since we don't need it anyways there's no disadvantages to using this item. By getting #% life regeneration we get very decent uptime of berserk.

Hexblast and why we use frostbite + elemental weakness instead of despair
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Hexblast is a spell with slow cast speed, which we ignore by using it with mines, very low critical strike chance, which we improve mostly by using Rathpith Globe, but what makes this spell really unique is that it hits the lowest reistance instead of chaos resistance.
Examples:
1) We use lvl 20 Despair on target with 0 chaos resistance and 0 elemental resistances - it will result in target having -30 chaos resistances and hexblast will choose target's chaos resistance.
2) We use lvl 20 Frostbite on target 0 chaos resistance and 0 elemental resistances it will result in target having -37 cold resistances and hexblast will choose target's cold resistance
So this is why for our curses we choose elemental weakness + frostbite. You can play with conductivity or flammability but frostbite supposedly gives us more stable freeze but I never tested that and it shouldn't really matter.
Nevertheless hexblast's damage will still be chaos and we can still benefit from wither stacks.

Why it is Hexblast - spell deals 100% more damage if target is hexed and removes hex after, that is why we use blasphemy - so enemy is hexed all the time.. You could also use Summon Skitterbots with Profane Proxy, but we're too fast for skitterbots to catch up with us, although it is an option for bossing.

About AoE part of Hexblast:
Hexblast has 2 parts of damage - hit and AoE around target. They don't overlap and increases to AoE damage only affect that AoE. This AoE explosion does not deal damage to primary target of the skill.


Ailment immunity

Unfortunately we get basically a bad version of ailment immunity by reducing their duration by 100% using Militant Faith and Solipsism. That means that as soon as we get affected by an ailment - it's gone instantly and as far as I know there's no window in between. However, and why this is a bad version, we are affected by ground effects, so Chilled Ground and Shocked Ground unfortunately do work on us. Still, this is much better than none ailment immunity, especially since ignite is very bad for us because we're using Dissolution of the Flesh.

Example
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Green arrow signifies primary damage to target. Hollow red arrows signify AoE damage around the target - this damage will not be dealt to primary target.




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Path of Building

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Lvl 90 very budget version
https://pastebin.com/TaYe5G5Z

Level 95 Medium Budget (Solipsism from Sanctified relic - it's very cheap)
https://pastebin.com/1yZvA1W4

Level 99 High Budget
https://pastebin.com/fUpF588h

In all PoBs Molten Shell is on and enemy isn't a boss - adjust it for better calculation



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Gems

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Main links
Hexblast - High-Impact Mine - (Awakened) Void Manipulation - Swift Assembly/Minefield
I suggest using Vorici to get 1 white socket on the helmet to swap swift assembly and minefield.

Minefield vs Swift Assembly
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Minefield has much lower mine throwing speed, but throws 4 mines at once and has +2 maximum mines placed while Swift Assembly has much higher mine throwing speed with just a chance to throw multiple mines at once and does not have +2 maximum mines placed. I'd suggest using Swift Assembly on maps since couple of mines is more than enough for the most of mobs and using Minefield on bosses because you can reach maximum mines placed much faster. As far as I'm concerned Swift Assembly is good for Hadcore since you can move faster between laying mines, but I am a proud softcore pleb so I don't care.
Important note for PoB calculation - in PoB enabling minefield instead of swifts assembly results in losing about a half of dps. This isn't true but reason behind it is that PoB does calculate mine throwing speed but does not calculate that we reach mine cap much faster so this is actually a lie and for bosses minefield does provide more dps.


Auras - Determination, (Anomalous) Frostbite/Flammability/Conductivity - (Awakened) Blasphemy

(Anomalous) Bear Trap
Anomalous quality on bear trap doesn't really increase the damage but it prolongs the debuff on the target so it's not mandatory. Also you don't really need to level it if you don't have enough dex - level doesn't increase debuff effect.

Flame Dash or Frostblink
Movement skill of your choice to dash out of something or to dash to something.

Divergent Berserk - Molten Shell - Enhance lvl 3 or 4 - (Anomalous) Withering Step
You really need Divergent Berserk since it increases spell damage and it shouldn't be very expensive.
Withering Step isn't necessary but I use it to ramp up wither stacks faster on bosses.

Despair
Just buy lvl 1 Despair from Lily, you only need to cast in once in 10 seconds in order for wither from Balance of Terror to work.

Detonate Mines - if you want you can use it for a little bit of extra mine detonation speed. Please note that alternative quality doesn't boost life regen - it recovers our life and we don't need that.

Zealotry - Divine Blessing lvl 1 - Inspiration

(Divergent) Rejuvenation totem
Absolutely unnecessary but helps with initial rage generation for berserk and also helps to clear boulders on Searing Exarch and in Sanctum.

Clarity - you can use it until you solve problem with mana regen, just don't level it too high, level 3-4 should be enough but check in pob if your regen covers your mana costs.



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Bandits and Pantheon

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Bandits - kill all or help Alira if you're sure you won't have problems with skill points

Pantheon:
Major God - I prefer Soul of Arakaali to better deal with dot
Minor God - Soul of Shakari to deal with poison or upgraded Soul of Abberath if there's burning ground.

Last edited by kucjlopo2d on Dec 12, 2023, 3:41:23 PM
Last bumped on Dec 12, 2023, 3:40:34 PM

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Gear

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Helmet
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BiS Helmet for our build:

Shaper helmet with Hypothermia, +#% socketed spell critical strike chance and "Socketed Gems deal 30% more Damage while on Low Life" obtainable by crafting it with Essence of Hysteria and at least crafted +1 to Socketed AoE gems.
Helmet like this is unbeatable in terms of damage unless you go for elevating Hypothermia and Spell Crit chance mods which isn't worth it in my opinion.
Please note that Increased Area of Effect or Concentrated Effect do not increase our damage.
Enchantment - Berserk is the best option since "Hexblast deals 40% increased damage" doesn't give us that much compared to Berserk enchant.

Budget alternative will be in "Budget" section.


Body Armour
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Absolute best chest for this build. Get yourself one with good corrupted implicits like #% increased maximum life, +1% to all maximum resistances or #% Increased damage if you can afford it but any Kaom's will do


Rings
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Yep, cheap and one of the best defensive options available. It is the only source of "Damage of Enemies Hitting you is Unlucky while you are on Low Life" which helps a lot with survivability. Corrupted implicit "Bleeding cannot be inflicted on you" or "Cannot be poisoned" is not a necessity but it's very good and not that expensive, you can corrupt it yourself if it's expensive.


Rare ring with resistances, attributes and life and crafted -7 mana cost to non-channeling skills, crit multi is optional but benefitable. Unveiled life is actually very good because it provides mana regen which we actually do need but you can use other options for it. If possible - get Vermillion ring and use Fertile catalyst on it.

Please note that Mark of Submission doesn't work with mines or traps, but ring with curse of hit ring or gloves impicit does work.


Amulet
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Same as the ring, but here we also want +1 to All Skill Gems or +1 to All Chaos Gems. +1 to All Skill Gems is obviously better but not by much.
Annoints:
Skittering runes - for RMR and blasphemy AoE, very solid option and probably the best one if you don't have Unnatural Instinct.
Destructive Apparatus - if your RMR is fine without skittering runes this is the best DPS option (according to PoB)
Tenacity - solid option for both life and damage.


Boots
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Just rare boots with movement speed, resistances and preferably as much life as possible. #% increased life recovery rate helps us with sustaining berserk but isn't necessary.


Gloves
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BiS, nothing more to add. Enables Berserk for us and we can get Elemental Weakness on Hit implicit.


Reserved
Reserved
Having some technical issue on forum with posting complete guide (LUL), I will finish it later and make an update message for 3.21
powerful ,ty share
3.21 update - since scion's saboteur ascendancy has been changed and we lost Balance of Terror there's no point to play this build as of right now. Still I will finish the guide (since I already put work to it) when I have enough time. If you still want to zoom with HB miner you can adapt sabo for it, you just need to change some gear but it should be doable.
Last edited by kucjlopo2d on Apr 18, 2023, 10:12:25 AM
3.23 Update - build's dead af, Kaom's nerf killed all the versions of fast hexblast miner, just go play sabo or assassin, this current version is dead and it wasn't even that good last league neither.

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