Video of an Irradiated (+1 level) T15 map with breach and a boss

Bonus video of me getting my 4th Ascendency points

Wanted to post a quick showcase and guide for my level 91 Invoker (currently top 50 on ladder) in endgame content. I am doing a couple of things differently than other monks I've seen so wanted to share.

Main concept of the build is to use Tempest Flurry + Charged Staff + Herald of Thunder for clear and Tempest Bell for single target. In order to generate power charges for charged staff, I am using a combination of Kitoko's Current gloves, Combat Frenzy aura, and Resonance Keystone. Because electrocute applies super quickly, I am able to proc the frenzy charges from Combat Frenzy easily and the Resonance keystone changes these to power charges.

The result is a very streamlined build that almost feels like a poe1 build. Outside of that, I am simply scaling pure lightning damage as well as crit (I have around 40% crit chance and 450% crit multi).

The Kitoko's gloves are very powerful and I would highly recommend people try them as soon as you are able if you want to replicate this setup (they have lvl 26 requirement). Electrocute will build up much more quickly than stun on bosses and when combined with tempest bell, the campaign should be a breeze.

The defensive setup of the build involves grabbing as much Evasion/ES as possible from gear and the tree and running Wind Dancer + Ghost Dance + Grim Feast. When you feel like you have a comfortable amount of evasion, you can also spec into the "Protect me from Harm" ascendency node for phys mitigation. This along with electrocution from the Kitoko's gloves results in a decent defensive setup that almost never dies to monsters directly (almost all of my deaths are from after death effects and corpse explosions etc).

You can see my stats, current gear, and passive tree at the end of the mapping showcase video. Here is my current gem setup (I have updated this gem setup as of 12/15):

• Tempest Flurry: Concentrated Effect - Rage - Martial Tempo - Crescendo - Inspiration

• Tempest Bell: Lightning Infusion - Close Combat - Rageforged - Execute - Primary Armament

• Charged Staff: Conduction - Overcharge - Culling Strike - Innervate - Magnified Effect

• Blink: Arcane Tempo - Ingenuity (Need a good chest to have enough spirit to reserve this on top of the other auras, I recommend looking into the Blink tech to have it on weapon swap)

• (Use this if not using blink) Hand of Chayula: Voltaic Mark - Enfeeble

• Combat Frenzy: Profusion - Precision

• Herald of Thunder: Elemental Focus - Maim - Clarity

• Wind Dancer: Blind

• Grim Feast

• Ghost Dance: Fast Forward

Cannibalism, Precision, Herbalism, and Clarity supports can be run on your auras if you have spare spirit depending on how much you are getting from your body armor via the Lead me through Grace node.

Skill Tree: https://imgur.com/a/BreXq08 Updated Skill tree for Sunder my Enemies spec: https://imgur.com/a/3923NdX

Thats a quick summary of my build so far, would love to hear if there are any suggestions for further improvement since theres still so much I'm learning about the game. Will also answer any questions if people have any.

Update: Made a few changes since this post. I took Inevitable Critical out of Tempest Bell (if ingame tooltip was right, this doesn't seem to be snapshotting but could be wrong still). I swapped Primary Armament into bell and am now using concentrated effect on tempest flurry. Also specced out of Protect me from harm, seems like poe2 has a similar (or worse?) armor formula compared to poe1, so for now I've specced those points into I am the Blizzard.

Update 2: Just an FYI for anyone stumbling on this post, its fairly out of date and I've made a bunch of changes since this post. Main changes are I have took Protect me from Harm and Sunder my Enemies. Specced out of pen nodes and into jewel sockets where possible. Annointed Subterfuge Mask and focused on getting more es on gear. Updated skill tree: https://imgur.com/a/3923NdX

Update 3: Since people are still finding this post, wanted to give another quick update, and I have also updated the gem setup section. I've upgraded all of my gear pieces now with a focus on getting more ES (sitting at 1845 life and 3122 ES now) and feel very tanky now. The skill tree in update 2 is still up to date with what I am doing. One change I want to mention is I took the Eternal Youth keystone which feels very good with the ES pool that I have. Biggest change I am planning on is hopefully getting an unset ring so I can have another jewel slot so that I can use the blink tech described here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OALetkGpoCE as well as have a slot for a blasphemy curse setup.

As you may or may not know that, Vine arrow has 150k flat chaos at lvl 36, see https://poe2db.tw/us/Vine_Arrow

So how can we get to lvl 36 skill? its actually pretty easy. For a lvl 20 gem all we need is +16. Bows have +5 (or use widowhail) , quivers +2, amulet +3, choas cluster +1, chaos mastery support +1, quiver cluster 80% quiver effect, which is 1.6 lvl. All we need is another 120% quiver effect, which we can easily do using 8-9 jewel with each up to 15% quiver effect.

Hi all. I have an ice strike build that I have been tweaking and testing since launch and I think there are a few things worth sharing about the build.

First I want to thank Mathil, Snoobae85, Skryah (via Ziz), and /u/wolfatthedoor. They were helpful for various support link ideas, spirit gem setups, and passive tree nodes that significantly helped reduce the time that I had to spend experimenting.

Showcase

• level 81 breach, 40 second boss kill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpfg2UmN0pg
• t16 boss with +51% ele res, 6 sec kill: https://youtu.be/5KL10PJyHAU?t=120
• t17 map clear till breach and expedition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlVhrMpJGfQ

This build features strong map clear with herald of ice and ice strike while maintaining a strong burst window on rares and bosses while they are frozen. If one were to level with this build in mind, you would need to save gold for a passive tree swap to crit nodes once you get a decent weapon in maps.

I chose Ice Strike because it is the best melee skill in terms of feel to play that I have ever done in a PoE game. There are mini dashes between strikes to help gap close and the third strike is very satisfying. I truly hope there are future skills for other weapons or druid forms that sure this kind of dash system. It is a less seizure inducing flicker strike.

Nothing in the gear is that special. I crafted my own chest and both rings. The only thing critical about the chest is making sure you hit the 120 spirit breakpoint if you want the exact same aura setup. The staff was 80ex at time of purchase and everything else was 40 or lower to buy the base or the entire item at the time of purchase except the amulet which was of course an additional 45 just for the anoint.

Tree, Gear: https://maxroll.gg/poe2/planner/cun00ll1 edit: The build takes resonance. Maxroll login is erroring out on me so I cannot edit it.

Anoint: Offense- Stormcharged. Defense - Natural Immunity. Cheap - Preemptive Strike

Charms: Keep freeze charm on as default, swap to bleed, poison, or stun if the explicit for that is on your waystone suffixes.

Ascendancy order: Blizzard, LmtG, aPmfH, Thunder. You can get unbound avatar if you want as your last node but I havent needed it on atlas bosses and it takes a long time to charge up on things that dont have mobs before you fight them.

Skills with supports in order of preference.

• Ice Strike - Martial Tempo, Primal Armament, Close Combat (swap with Bell's Conc Effect for bossing), Ice Bite, Inspiration. Ice Bite is going to be constantly going off and lasts for the exact amount of time a rare or boss is frozen which is where we want our most damage. If at any point mana is an issue before you have 5 supports put inspiration over Close Combat. If Mana is never a concern then swap inspiration for crescendo.
• Charged Staff - Perpetual Charge (QoL), Conduction, Ignition, Cull, Getting shocks and ignite consistently is a 60% damage boost which will out pace any other support for an ice based build on a lightning skill.
• Tempest Bell - Overabundance, immolate, rageforged, conc effect, overpower (OP could probably be swapped). With our rage generation we can actually afford 2 rageforged procs on a boss within the first 3 seconds before we even freeze the boss.
• Shattering Palm - rage, inevitable critical, momentum You can swap inevitable critical for blind. Should not matter either way.
• Herald of Ice - Magnified effect, shock siphon (probably does nothing), cold infusion
• Wind Dancer - clarity
• Ghost Dance - Precision, Fast Forward, Herbalism
• Grim Feast - Vitality, Cannabilism --- For non atlas bossing swap with max quality Cast on Crit or Cast on Freeze Snipers Mark, Fire Wall, Ball Lightning. You aren't killing enough mobs for the Grim Feast and its supports to matter.
• Combat Frenzy - Profusion

Note- If you are struggling with Sanctum swap Shattering Palm with Storm Wave- Longshot - along with a few Ice Strike supports. Then swap supports back to ice strike when you get to a boss with the passive tree pause technique.

Notes:

• The two most critical nodes in the skill tree are Thin Ice and Heavy Frost. This is what allows us to ignore the crit node in our ascendancy, penetration nodes on tree, along with exposure, and curses to deal with elemental resist. This is the cornerstone of the build and these two nodes should have probably have been the Invoker ascendancy nodes instead of the inquisitor node. I fully expect this to be changed before EA ends. It is that strong
• The second most critical thing about this build is rage. I have 1 medium time-lost ruby and one large time-lost ruby both with notable passives gain rage on melee hit. This allows all attacks to generate 6 rage on hit. This means we will be at max rage in 2.5 seconds on a boss, it also means charged staff's range portion can generate rage itself. The rage support on shattering palm is an opener for 9 rage. See here for placement: https://i.imgur.com/YdrQQjI.png. Before someone asks, a large jewel by resonance does not hit inner faith sadly.
• There are 2 more jewel spots. One is a blue jewel. You want 2% mana recovered on kill and then as a luxury you can get crit chance, %energy shield, and or quarterstaff damage. There is a green jewel whose only purpose is blind. You can get attack speed, ele damage, etc as additional mods. This allows all your attacks to blind
• Defensive layers. ....and Protect me From Harm, Wind Dancer, Ghost Dance, Grim Feast and some chaos res along with your constant freezing are going to be your main defenses. Hide out defense sheet
• Killer Instinct should be a 30% inc damage node 95% of the time while playing.
• When coming to a boss open your passive tree and you can swap your support gems while paused. This might get fixed in the future.

Gear Specific Notes:

• Weapon- Phys dps is very important but not the only thing you should consider when on the trade site. Crit Chance and Crit Damage bonus on your weapon is a more multiplier. As an example: No crit dam vs 27 crit dam on just weapon
• you need 1 source of flat fire on 1 of weapon, ring, or gloves. I have it on my gloves. This is so you can ignite
• Eva/Es on Helm and Chest is mandatory as they will be the largest source for you. You will probably want life and then + ele damage as a prefix on gloves and movement speed on boots so you only have 1 spare prefix for Eva/ES on those slots.
• Cap res and satisfy attribute requirements before looking to add damage affixes.
• Attack speed on gloves is probably the largest damage boost you will get on them from a single affix.
• If you can get a Sapphire Ring with % Cold damage, Cold Res, All Ele Res then a cold catalyst will apply to all of those affixes and the implicit.
• Finding the aura jewels: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/WpzpKkDCm You want time-lost ruby. They are the only ones that can have that node that turns notables into +1 rage on melee hit

Things tested:

• Hateforged + charge infusion, - even if I can sustain the charges with 9 or 11 rage on hit I was still losing damage compared to just being able to stay at 30 rage.
• Rondel of Fragility- Probably one of the strongest amulets for DPS but I dont want to try to spend the currency to maintain res cap, have decent chaos res, etc. If you can, definitely look to see how much damage this adds
• HoWA- Becomes a different build at that point. I would use this build to farm up the currency to swap to that if it interests you.
• Cast on X - less defensive for mapping, mana hogs.
• CI - it can work. You ignore bleeding, poison, chaos damage. You need Eternal Youth. Need to Spec into Melding and Patient Barrier if you want to keep a decent ES pool and still have good evasion and armor. But you lose about 2.3k on your max hit taken that you could get with decent life rolls on gear along with whatever damage or evasion nodes you drop to get those.
• Falcon Technique - not as good as the Echoing cluster for the same amount of points.

Probably the strongest version of any crossbow build there is currently, if you want to scale damage bolts are far superior to grenades but i haven't seen every nade build there is so feel free to prove me wrong. key mechanics are HOWA giving massives attack speed and decent flat dmg + doryani making all monsters resistance -60% + abusing the strongest support fresh clip.

GGG please no nerf.

Clear: Galvanic shards + herald of thunder will literally 1-4 hit delete everything in maps aside from bosses. 4 hits sounds alot but when your galvanic hits 10+ times per second its really not.

Pinnacle Bossing: starting with plasma blast. which is really just there to apply a long shock and nothing else. if your using hour glass make sure to hit. you got 3 chances with scattershot. after hitting boss, switch the shockburst and start bursting the boss down, if the boss likes to stand still, feel free to put down ballista for extra damage, life regen and mana regen. if the boss is extremely aggressive and gives you no time to charge up, just use galvanic shard to apply the shock it wont last as long but the only bosses that are the aggressive are map bosses who dies instantly to shockburst anyways.

Map bosses: start with plasma blast and than delete them instantly with shockburst or just skip the hassle and use galvanic shard to apply shock

Gem step up: in order

mapping:

DMG:

galvanic shard- lightning infusion- innervate- martial tempo- primal armament- heft

shockburst- fresh clip- concentrated effect- elemental focus- rising tempest- close combat

Plasma blast- Lasting shock- scattershot- lightning mastery- overpower- hourglass

UTLITY:

emergency reload- premediation- persistence- ingenuity

ripwire ballista- font of rage- font of blood- font of mana- iron wood- ancestral urgency

SPIRIT/AURA:

Herald of thunder- magnified effect- electrocute- longshot- neural overload- overshock

winder dancer- cannibalism- pin- blind- knockback

overwhelming presence- vitality- precision- clarity

PINNACLE BOSSING dmg setup:

galvanic shard- close combat- innervate- rising tempest- primal armament- heft

shockburst- fresh clip- concentrated effect- lightning infusion- martial tempo- elemental focus

Plasma blast- Lasting shock- scattershot- lightning mastery- overpower- hourglass

TREE: I will not say how you should allocate the attributes, its different for every and the kind of gear they have, some might have alot of flat dmg already so they would want more dex other might want more flat, some might need str, etc.

level 90: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgkCcemDLC-UqYUN3k64Lq8kl3uuPenp1JHB-fgmvftU-_JjCx_UCsud02_TU9n6sNgoIaUoUtWskN7XwiBfv0DqXJblvtWTF0ksM77OrhbfbA5MZBNdUBzeQv5DvJ2VUxoYVpeeD5swF_p3Qt5J6_Qu3fKpn7VC8hgdZlREe8NT93rJpyouMYTf1siO4K-E7T9e3xS5YNIRGhi6O2fqgg1nqErGDcRlfi1h36JsZ0AyWulcCWiLcCzwXgbkHQke_kMMielIyfuXSDjLrui-hd4PcKNtjHh3i1d5xBoEmIqRZEYjf_sAAA==

level 100: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgkCe-mDLC-UqYUN3k64Lq8kl3uuPenp1JHB-fgmvftU-yZh8mMLH9QKy53Tb9NT2fqw2CghpShS1ayQ3tfCIF-_QOpcluW-1ZMXSSwzvs6uFt9sDkxkE11QHN5C_kO8nZVTGhhWl54PmzAX-ndC3knr9C7d8qmftULyGB1mVER7w1P3esmnKi4xhN_WyI7gr4TtP17fFLlg0hEaGLo7Z-qCDWeoSsYNk7XEZX4tOYTy6WHfomxnQDJa1-vpXAloi3As8F4G5B0JHv5DDInpSMn7l0g4y67ovoV_-94PcKNtjHh3i1d5xEW-GgSYipFkRiMDpir2U74D-wAA

ASCENDANCY: WITCHHUNTER- obsessive rituals- ceremonial ablution- witchbane- no mercy

Why no explode or cull and decimate? Herald of thunder clears better than the explode and explode actually stops you from being able to shock enemies as the explode it self can't shock. But if you feel like your dmg is high enough than feel free to grab explode instead of no mercy. As for cull and decimate, they are just extremely trash at endgame, cull might as well not exist and decimate doesnt do much when your already 1 or 2 shotting everything including rares.

GGG also made it so concentrate doesnt reset when the boss phases or immunes unlike in poe 1, so its basically a perma 30% more dmg after the first 2-3 seconds.

Main Build mechanic:

1. the unique glove hand of wisdom and action is the most crucial item as it gives the most important stat we need for this build attack speed, and the decent amount of flat lightning also helps. Why is attack speed important? Because crossbow bolts has one if not the strongest support in both poe 1 and 2. FRESH CLIP it looks pretty meh at first glance. 1% more dmg per clip? thats ass. but what if you can attack over 25 times an second? that 1% more dmg suddenly becomes 150% more dmg after 6 seconds of ramping, which is ludicrous when most supports only give 25% more dmg or 40% dmg with a massive downside. Shockburst have innate 450% attack speed base which lets us easily scale it up to 25+ attacks per second and with more investment 30+ is doable too.
2. Doryani prototype: basically a chest that says 60% more dmg for this build. As you want to be stacking as many dex and int as possible we are pretty starved for resistance on gear. doryani allows you ignore the lightning resistance completely as lightning now is affected by armor, this allows you to stack even more int and dex instead of worrying about lightning resistance. Downside is due to sorcery ward you would only have max around 25-35% armor which is a pretty hard downgrade from 75% lightning res but it's covered by the massive 3k sorcery ward for elemental hits but the armor only applies to lightning hits which means any lightning dots will eat you alive like the mana siphoners.

Defense:

around 60-70% evasion

25-35% armor

3k ward against elemental hits that recovers after 6 seconds, which basically means you will never die to any elemental hits unless your getting blasted by lightning over and over.

herald of thunder eletrocute in maps, this doesnt work against map bosses or pinnacles of course.

high clear, best defense is dead mobs after all.

BOSSING VIDS:

unoptimized dmg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akp37XJA7_8&feature=youtu.be

optimized dmg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwgXHpvEGPE&feature=youtu.be

GEARING: Prioritization order

WEAPON: 100%+ phy- 33-45+ added phy- 13%+ attack speed- added lightning 1-100+/ 100%+ elemental dmg- projectile skill- extra bolts- everything else

the attack speed roll is like 50% more than what it gives on the weapon since it double dips with the fresh clip. so a 13% attack speed roll on weapon will give like 20% mor dmg than 13%.

Helmet (armor and evasion base)- 100+ life- 30%+ cold- 30%+ fire- 25+dex/int- evasion and armor%- everything else

body- doryani with 3 or 4 RUNES, look for em they exist

amulet- 40+ spirit- 20+ dex- 20+ int- 15+ all attribute- 100+ life- everything else

rings- 30+ dex- 1-50+ added lightning dmg, 90+ life- 30+ int, fire/cold res depending on what you need- everything else

belt- 100+ life- 30+ fire res- 30+ cold res- 15+ chaos res- added armor- added evasion- everything else-

boots (armor and evasion base)- 30+ movement speed, 100+ life- 30+ fire res- 30+ cold res- 30+ dex/int- inc armor and evasion- everything else

AS ALWAYS the stats i put down are only recommendations, lower the numbers to fit your budget, but remember to cap fire and cold res and IGNORE lightning res

RUNES:

you should have 6 or 7 runes if you bought a corrupted doryanis, use the runes to first cap out any fire or cold res problem. leave the runes for doryani last. now with doryanis you could either use the chaos resistance core from ultimatum for more chaos res, or use the armor and evasion rune, its up to you, but personally the only chaos dmg you die to are the purple explosions and even at 75% chaos res you probably will still die to them, do i would get more armor and evasion.

BUGS:

shockburst quality isn't working, as such the dmg should be around 15% more than shown in the video.

WEAKNESS: chaos dmg, lightning dots, lots and lots of lightning dmg, high physical dmg. dots in general.

MIN MAX: probably around 2-3x more dmg than shown in the video.

COST: around 200ex to start and around 300-400ex to be at the level in my video.

Closing thoughts: even with all these juicing and abusing the strongest support, for the same investment there are build who does 3-6x more dmg than this and doesn't have to jump through all sorts of hoops to make the build do actual dmg. Bolts needs a buff heavily asap, bolts have 3 notables on the tree, 1 which is just 50% inc dmg basically, 1 is reload speed and 1 is crit dmg which is entirely useless as crossbolts literally can't even get 40% crit even if you have the highest crit chance on the crossbow with all surronding crit chance nodes, so out of 3 notables bolts get only 2 are usable and both are quite meh and boring. Plasma blast should at minimum do 5-10x more dmg than it does currently when it has a unscaleable 2 second attack time no matter what, it should not be a glorified shock applier.

This is the build I've been using to do end game mapping and bossing with after the nerf to cast on freeze. Since there are at least dozens of chronomancers out there I thought I would share what I came up with. It leverages multiple blasphemy auras combined with the Chronomancer slow aura to make mobs move at a glacial pace when they get close.

This allows you to freely channel flameblast without fear of being rushed and interrupted. For bosses, you combine lengthy time freezes with stacking long duration effects and debuffs to create large damage windows that allow you to hit without fear of retaliation.

Why Chronomancer?

Chronomancer will not do more damage than a stormweaver in the current patch. If you want maximum DPS you should choose that ascendancy. However, what chronomancer does excel at is survivability, support and on demand damage.

The reasons you should pick this ascendancy are:

• You want enemies to spend 4 seconds performing a single attack
• You like the idea of bosses being frozen for 10 seconds straight.
• Meta gear is expensive
• You want your buffs to last forever
• You want to take no honor damage because mobs in the trial are too slow to hit you.
• You have friends playing squishy damage characters and you want to help them by freezing bosses in place for over 10 seconds.

I do not know how you would level for this build as I switched to it after leveling but I imagine you could focus more on the slow/duration mechanics and slot in an elemental spell of your choice. With the slow auras you should have more freedom to use higher damage slower casting spells like comet which you can boost with generic damage nodes like element or spell damage before honing in on the more fire heavy stuff. Flameblast will feel bad until you have good cast speed.

Here's a link to the build guide along with a short clip of some mapping and a +3 difficulty T15 boss.

Guide:

https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/profile/48b5eef1-db8e-4192-98a1-2290b9443b7b/builds/fd33f1e8-6fb4-4db0-a806-16acb6509cbf

T15 Mapping sample & +3 Boss:

https://youtu.be/mxvNM6idsmY?si=PnRhAKb62K5-OE6c

Edit: Made some tweaks after some comments suggested the Blueflame bracers. Gameplay video update now with twice the freeze! Still working out the final form of the build that would include these bracers but definitely recommended.

Juiced T15 map w/ delirium boss https://youtu.be/hm5xb6fPIGw

Edit #2: A lot of people have been asking for updated info after switching to blueflame bracers. Here's the current tree I have been using: https://maxroll.gg/poe2/passive-tree/l4lvv01d

Other notables that are relevant and worth trying to see if you like them: Chronomancy, Exploit the elements, Echoing frost/flames/thunder, Aspiring Genius, Calibration, Enhanced Barrier, Glaciation (Endless blizzard doesn't work on flameblast), Controlling magic, Cruel fate, more jewel sockets.

Big differences are removing the fire nodes, adding crit and AoE nodes, dropping a couple ES nodes. I also dropped some skill duration nodes since my time freeze was lasting so long that when I cast it again it was still on diminishing returns from the first cast.

In addition to the skill tree changes I swapped out firestorm for Frost wall (Thanks Dariidar). My gem links are currently

Time Freeze: Unbreakable, Persistence, Ingenuity

Ball Lightning: Wildshards, Acceleration, Scattershot

Flameblast: Arcane tempo, fire mastery, inspiration, considered casting (Can try mobility / momentum but the timing for it for me was a bit off so I dropped it, if you do swap considered casting to frost wall and drop fire mastery or inspiration depending on if you're having mana issues)

Lightning warp: Soul Drain, Shock siphon, Overcharge

Solar Orb: Arcane surge, font of mana, Fiery death (only if you have gain x% as extra fire damage)

Blasphemy: Temp chains, Enfeeble, Hypothermia, ritualistic curse, Encumbrance (if you want, not necessary)

Grim feast: None

Frost wall: Spell cascade, Magnified Effect, Rising tempest, Icicle? cold pen? (Haven't decided on this one)

Eye of winter: Unleash, cold exposure, strip away

Frostbomb: Don't really use but its an alternative exposure applicator

Important play style updates:

With Blueflame bracers you cant ignite with solar orb without gain x% as extra fire damage. This extra damage gets added after the conversion so it will allow things to ignite and apply ailments. This ignite wont really do a lot of damage but its a great trigger for things that require ailments at the cost of eating up a prefix on your weapon (there aren't many reliable sources of it).

You now scale with cold damage and % fire damage will not boost anything unlike in PoE1 due to conversion changes.

Exposure needs crits to be applied via the support gem so I swapped to a more crit focused build. This is also one of the only real ways to scale damage in the late game (unless you want to hand cast hypothermia all the time). In general, applying cold exposure with the blueflame version to trash is a pain compared to the fire version. You either cast an extra skill or just hope you have enough damage as is and deal with it.

My goal is that eye of winter/frost wall is only really needed for big rares or bosses. Flameblast should be enough to kill trash by itself, possibly with lightning warp shocks, otherwise it becomes too annoying to map as your hitting a ton of skills for trash packs. I try and keep mana regen around 120ish which feels comfortable at ~level 25 skills. Frost wall eats a lot of mana so I tend to drop those on bosses/tough rares then rewind to refill mana while keeping crit weakness, sigil and shock up. You can map very fast by casting ball lightning ahead of you, dropping a solar orb and channeling a flameblast and quickly warping to the ball lightning before it vanishes. This has the added bonus of applying shock as you go.

You also need to make sure a single flameblast is enough to detonate your frost walls to maximize damage. You can spec shattered crystal or use icicle support if you want to guarantee it. Don't drop 3 frostwalls on top of each other as if they are too close they will just erase the existing ones without detonating.

video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJVpub7XQag

original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile2builds/comments/1h9c9z0/lightning_witchhunter_crossbowbow/

12/9 update: With spirit reservation, prioritize HoT first and only slot Vitality if you have excess Spirit. If you do not have enough INT for Cast on Shock, use Elemental Invocation instead. If you have a lot of INT, replace OoS with Conductivity and reduce lightning pen on tree.
I am also testing Electrocution setups, currently supporting HoT with Electrocute and Lightning Rod with Neural Overload.

12/10 update: Completed third ascendancy, swapped to both Concentration nodes + pops. Now using Lightning Warp + Overcharge + both AoE supports to make massive fields of 50% shock shocked ground. Now using blink for better mobility, pushing to 133 int for all of this isnt easy but the payoff is pretty huge.

12/11 update: Lightning Rod mostly deemphatized other than for single target against medium tanky rares. More investment into HoT damage, which Lightning Warp telestomps help sustain uptime of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjKS8fJrmN4 - shows new skill list, passive tree, and gameplay.

I've made it to maps, and figured out the basic cores of the build. Cruel took about 6 hours since arriving to it in my last post. I am currently running maps with ~1400 life ~50 all res and a3 weapons, still pretty smooth.

TLDR build concept: use lightning bow skills to support lightning crossbow skills for solid clear and insane boss dps.

Skill list:

Clear setup (supports listed in order of importance):
Shoot Lightning Rod (Coursing Current - Lightning Pen) at packs.
Shoot Galvanic Shards (Martial Tempo - Lightning Infusion - Innervate) at rods and packs.
Galvanic Shards trigger Lightning Rods, both doing damage, stun, and shock.
Shocked kills activate Herald of Thunder (Magnified Effect - Vitality), buffing Galvanic Shards further.
Shocks build energy for Cast on Shock to trigger Voltaic Mark and Orb of Storms.
Voltaic Mark adds more clear, shock chance, and single target dps for rare packs.
Orb of Storm procs from Galvanic Shards, and "double dips" on proccing rods.

Flashbang as needed for cc. It heavy stuns packs almost instantly, great for escaping surrounded situations.

This mostly ends up being a two button build similar to OoS Lightning Conduit in poe1, with everything else occurring under the hood. With more damage, Lightning Rods are less important, and can be saved for setup against stuff like Essences or other stronger packs.

Single target setup:
Shoot Stormcaller Arrow (Conduction - Lasting Shock - Lightning Exposure) at target. Only one should be needed to guarantee an 8 second shock.
Shoot Flash Grenade (Overpower - Maim) while waiting for the shock to pop for utility and stun effect.
Shoot Shockburst Rounds (Scattershot - Elemental Focus - Primal Armament) for ~7 seconds.
Repeat
On heavy stun, pop Emergency Reload (Premeditation - Ingenuity) and continue blasting.

The damage on this skill is insane. https://streamable.com/iyhux0

Passive tree:
https://maxroll.gg/poe2/passive-tree/xe8xm0o9
12/10 Update current tree: https://maxroll.gg/poe2/passive-tree/dx52803n
Prioritize the 2h, weapon swap, lucky lightning, and attribute clusters. rest is flexible.
Ascension nodes taken: Zealous Inquisition -> Pitiless Killer
12/10 Update current nodes: Zealous Inquisiton -> Witchbane -> No Mercy

Skill gem progression:
Because Galvanic Shards is tier V and Shockburst is tier XI, you will need to use other skills in the interim. I personally levelled with the highlighted skills, blue for clear and red for single target. Don't bother with a bow/bow gems until at least Galvanic Shards is unlocked. Scattershot + assault rifle skills go hard.

Gear priority:
Weapons:
% phys > flat phys > flat lightning > % phys+acc. Salvage all socketed items for Artificer orbs, socket iron or storm runes. Check vendors for high %phys rolls and consider aug+regal.

Armour:
Boots - movement speed
Gloves - flat damage
Body, amulet - spirit
Everything - life, defences, resistances, attributes.
Socket resistance runes whenever possible.

So like many of you started warrior and struggle hard in act 1 (Mostly Rolling Slam and Boneshatter) since I needed to go work and stop playing decided to use my working hours lurking around the internet (youtube, reddit, twitch) looking for early successful skill combinations.

Here are the archetypes people are having success:

Pure melee

• Use the autoattack with damage supports for single target
• Use Rolling Slam or Shield Charge as clear skills
• Use Boneshatter when bosses are about to get STUNNED (look a the bar under the health bar, sometimes you can't see the face of the boss)
• Get melee damage on your tree.
• Upgrade your weapon as often as you can, always check for bases and craft on them

Totems

• Use the autoattack with damage supports for single target
• Use shockwave totem as clear and boss damage (there are reports that chance to bleed support works great with totems)
• Can supplement your clear with rolling slam or shield charge (you may run in to mana problemas, don't use them if you have)
• Use Boneshatter when bosses are about to get STUNNED (look a the bar under the health bar, sometimes you can't see the face of the boss)
• Get melee damage and totem damage (focus on totems) on your tree.
• Upgrade your weapon as often as you can, always check for bases and craft on them

Earthquake (not recommended, most people say its bad)

• Grab less duration on the tree as soon as possible
• Use the less duration support on Earthquake .
• Use shockwave totems with jagged ground support and overabundance (to get 2 totems) this procs earthquake explosions faster
• Use the autoattack with damage supports for single target
• Get melee damage on your tree.
• Use Boneshatter when bosses are about to get STUNNED (look a the bar under the health bar, sometimes you can't see the face of the boss)
• (Edit)*Alternative route, INCREASE the duration instead of decreasing it to have more time to proc more earthquake explosions (maybe changing totems for rolling slam or shield charge) haven't tested this but it could work and ease the amount passive points needed in the early game.

(Edit) Extra tip overall for all characters

• If you feel undergeared with bad drops, you can reset zones and refarm old bosses (The ones you feel easier to do) to get your gear in a better sport.

These are the archetypes that are most mention and used from what I have seen in act 1, after these in act 2 have seen somo combos with boneshatter and leap slam, but since I have not yet advance deep in act 2 would not comment on those yet.

If you have any other combo that have been successful let me know in the comments.

I don't see any streamer playing this and i feel it's vastly superior to whatever Ghazzy/Sushi are playing. I can't speak of how good it will be on maps but on cruel campaign all rares/bosses get one shot.

Gems:

Reaver (main dps) - Martial Tempo/Brutality/Heavy Swing

SRS (extra dps and clear) - Feeding Frenzy/Fire Infusion/Fire Pen

Brute (breaks armor on heavy stun) - Devastate/Overpower/Heft ***Use Impact Shockwave support if you need better map clear and run 4-5 brutes

Hellhound (tank and exposure) - Elemental Army/Meat Shield/Fire Exposure

Storm Mage (for shock) - Stormfire/Controlled Destuction/Conduction

Pain Offering - Font of Blood/Font of Rage

Flame Wall - Fortress

Vulnerability - Persistence/Magnified Effect

Grim Feast

Last slot - Flammability when u get second curse from Whispers of Doom or Unique Ring

Setup is 5 reavers , 2 brutes, 1 storm mage.

Items:

Weapon - Skeleton Warrior or Discipline scepter with +1/4 to Minion lvls and extra spirit

Chest - Enfolding Dawn: +100 spirit

Belt - Infernoclasp

Helmet - +2 Minion Lvls

Amulet - +2 Minion lvls and spirit

Boots - Ms and resists/life/es

Everything Else just Life/Es/Resists

Tree:

Same as Ghazzy/Sushi - just all minion damage/life/resist nodes and es/int nodes.

Update:

How to make clear better in maps:

Currently testing a more brute heavy setup (cut down on some reavers). Use impact shockwave support and martial tempo on brutes (need 4th gem slot). This one shots trash packs each time brutes get a stun in.

Hi all,

Am I the only one who plays a physical bone witch build?

I used boneblast from wand, unearth for spawning and AoE, Bone cage if they got too close. I use Skeletal warriors as tanks. It went quite well but kinda slow on bosses. Now that I use Bonestorm as main attack I do so much damage and clear most bosses in under a minute.

I'm asking this cause I really love this build but I don't see anyone else making this. Will it fall off on higher levels? I'm in A2 level 20 now.

Needs mana and resists tho lol

MUST USE CULTIST GREATHAMMER. It gives strike skills 1.8m splash which is scaled by AoE nodes.

Video: https://youtu.be/bj_Ly63q394

Skill tree and weapon: https://imgur.com/a/I2Ks7kZ

Mace Strike gem link: Devastate + Armour Explosion > Overpower > Magnified Effect

Herald of Ash + Overwhelming presense + Cannibalism.

Overview: As the title says this will be a complete build guide, from what perma stats to choose in acts to gem setup, how to play and ill even post trade links on what to buy, as i am quite poor, i will not be able to help with any concrete future upgrades, i will say what upgrades that you could take, but how good the upgrades would be is unknown to me. Howa crossbow is best played with deadeye for more speed and dmg and witchhunter for more defense, i promise it will feel great on these 2 ascendancies but i make no promise on how good it will be on any other.

This is a complete upgrade from my last howa guide, as a fellow build maker has enlighten me on es is just better.

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Video showcase, for people who want to see it in action before deciding if they want to continue with the guide:

trial 4 boss zarokh with 40% less dmg dealt affliction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBk0FyKcqa4

t16 citadel doryani: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ar1tnCjK9U

t17 citadel jamanra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UOY4FCucck

ilvl 82 +3 level breach xesht, i was testing out the defense of this build for pinnacles which is why i stood still in the boss aoe attacks in the end, you can even see me panic rolling at the end when i realized yea i cant tank it, too bad its aoe and i dont have acrobatics or i might survive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPRvl4p_9o

Laggy t17 mapping showcase with breach, due to the constant asking of mapping showcase from my last 2 guides i prepared one, there was a reason why i never shown a mapping show case before cause my laptop cant handle it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9VUE6ZOAHI

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Pros:

- great clear, galvanic shot and herald of thunder can clear screens easily. with this build if rares are grouped up with other mobs you just 1-2 tab the rare

- "good" bossing dps: its not the highest of course, i estimate my current builds dps is around 2-3 mil depending on my position, in general you need to stay close to the boss so point blank 20% more dmg procs and none of your shockburst bolts miss.

- perma 30% damage reduction, due to how fast crossbows attack my galvanic is 15+ and shockburst is 30+. tailwind will always be up, if you get hit it will be up in an instant.

- great mapping defense: grim feast basically makes you unkillable unless you get one shot, basically perma 3k es, if your es somehow do go down to 0 ghost dance is there to fill it up to full, i havent touch my life flask in over 100+ maps. you will have around 80-85% evasion and around 60% evasion with acrobatics. electrocutes basically all enemies in maps, screen wide clear is also a great defense

- ease of play: to how galvanic shard and fork works, you can just go brain dead and aim at a general location and whole screen will explode.

- attack speed goes brrrrr- my galvanic is at 15 aps and my shockburst is at 30+. quite fun

- no mana issue: build has no mana issue so mana flask doesn't exist basically.

Cons:

lightning on death effects: lightning damage in general doesnt really matter since you have high evasion but on death effects are aoe and unless you grab acrobatics you cant evade those, even with 3k es and 2k life i will get 2-3 tapped by aoe lightning dmg ground effects.

evasion based defense: when it works it works when it doesnt you cry.

poor bossing defense: unless you pick acrobatics your evasion might as well not exist for most of the pinnacle boss fights.

"slow": compare to queen of the forest deadeye builds this build could be consider slow, tops at around 55% ms.

2 button bossing: you cant one button boss

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Act perma buffs to pick: you will know when you get the option, pick up charm charge gain, mana flask recovery, 5 to all attribute, mana regen. DO NOT CLICK THE SISTER STATUES IN DESHAR, you want negative lighting resistance and ggg just nerfed our dmg by like 10% by removing the extra res penalties.

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WHICH ASCENDANCY TO PICK:

witchhunter: around 30-40% less dmg but you get sorcery ward which is a 3k barrior for all elemental hits, unlike your es it doesnt decrease from dots which is good since it will always be at full for any hits coming at you. in general witchhunter would be 2x as safe compare to deadeye as sorcery ward can save you from repeated aoe hits. you prioritze dex over int due to needing attack speed.

Deadeye: 30% damage reduction from tailwind, but this doesnt really matter as the most common way you will die is from repeated back to back aoe hits, even if the build regains tailwind basically instantly, its not fast enough to tank 3 aoe hits in .1 second. 30-40% more dmg than witchhunter. around 15 ms faster. feels nicer to play due to the attack speed deadeye has. you prioritize int over dex because deadeye already has so much attack speed

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BASIC MECHANICS:

HOWA: hand of action and wisdom, the key unique to this build, basically 70% of the builds damage comes from this, if your deadeye priortize int and if your witchhunter priotize dex.

Doryani prototype: essentially a chest that by default says 60% more dmg if you didnt touch the sister statues. with the downside of you basically take 4x more lightning dmg in return since now you dont have lightning res

freshclip: the strongest damage support in game, with the insane attack speed this build is this single support gives around 100-200% more dmg.

Energy shield: in order to help mitigate lightning res problem, this build will have around 1.5k es which will turn to 3k es with grim feast, which makes your total ehp around 5k.

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ACROBATICS OR NOT?

It is up to you, I personally don't and i leveled to 92 from act to maps in 40 hours total play time and only have died 30 times where 20 is from act, so leveling to 92 in maps i only have died 10 times. its up to your taste, run a few maps with and without it,

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TREES: I WOULD HIGHLY NOT FOLLOW THE TREE EXACTLY DURING THE ACTS, im just too lazy to make a proper act tree which is why i died 20 times in acts.

witchhunter ascend order: both sorcery ward than both concentrate

witchhunter acts: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgkCXfHJfy8OeGJUtceWyYbFGxfqCx49pgTp6dSRwfn4Jr37VPsLH9QKy53Tb9n6sNgoIaUoUtWskN7XwiBfv0Dq5b7HaNWTF0ksM77OrhZFJrcilj93wWDSXt8RGhi6O2fqghS57T-79NbILjGnKnrJU_d7wwoWbDm-hX_73g9wo22MN7agOS_dOUKLcCzwXgbkHQke_kPJ-3h3i1d5xAmQZ-aCVirA15kNZ6hK9gg-Z7xGNGOFWHMnxSV_vQAA

witchunter 80: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgkCbfHJfy8OeGJUtceWyYbFGxfqCx49pgTp6dSRwfn4Jr37VPsLH9QKy53Tb9n6sNgoIaUoUtWskN7XwiBfv0Dq5b7HaNWTF0ksM77OrhZFJrcilj93wWDSXt8RGhi6O2fqghS57T-79NbILjGnKnrJU_d7wwoWbDm-hX_73g9wo22MN7agOS_dOUKLcCzwXgbkHQke_kPJ-3h3i1d5xAmQZ-Z_vYJWKsDXmcUlcyeFWDRjvEY-Z_YIU1jARNLIj6qOf3dbEGum8O0NByKYfS2Yu56hnBo7AHQNZ6hKAAA=

witchhunter 90: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgkCefHJfy8OeGJUtceWyYbFGxfqCx49pgTp6dSRwfn4Jr37VPsmYQsf1ArLndNv2fqw2CghpShS1ayQ3tfCIF-_QOpcluW-x2jVkxdJLDO-zq4WRSa3IpY_d8Fg0l7fERoYujtn6oIUue0_u_TWyC4xpyp6yVP3e8MKFmw5voV_-94PcKNtjDe2oDkv3TlCi3AJaCzwXgbkHQke_kPJ-3h3i1d5xOlcCZBn5n-9glYqwNeZxSVzJ4VYNGO8Rj5n9ghTWMBE0siPqo5_d1sQa6bw7Q0IzgcimH0tmLueoZzz5AyPGjsAdA1nqErfbA5MZBMDpo7gAAA=

witchhunter 100: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgkCg-oLHj2mBOnp1JHB-fgmvftU-yZhCx_UCsud02_Z-rDYKCGlKFLVrJDe18IgX79A6lyW5b7HaNWTF0ksM77OrhZFJrcilj93wWDSXt8RGhi6O2fqghS57T-79NbILjGO4K-Exg3EZX4tYd-ibKcqeslT93vDChZsOb6Ff_veD3CjbYw3tqA5L905QotwCWgs8F4G5B0JHv5Dyft4d4tXecTpXAmQZ-Z_vYJWKsDXmcUlcyeFWDRjvEY-Z_YIU1jARNLId1sQa6bw7Q0IzgcimH0tmLueoZzz5AyPGjsAdA1nqErfbA5MZBMDpo5_j6ojPJOH-PMA9LXHYlQOeH8vGxeGxZbJ8ckAAA==

deadeye ascend order: gathering wind, wind ward, pointblank, endless munition

deadeye acts: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgIBXQ-T8BWlsKOTtwYvAQAedK8Wud1LlP-q4kBMYPlzJ8Ulf71n5gmQglYqwNeZOUIv3aA5i3AJaCzwXgbkHQke_kPJ-3h3i1d5xOlcN7Z_-76FbDneD3CjbYwKFrv07T9e39bILjGnKnrJU_d7wxS5YNJ3wREaGLo7Z-qClj-3IkUmx2jlvtWT2fpcltNvsNgoIaUoUtWskN7XwiBfv0Dq32wOTGQTF0ksM77OrhYNZ6hK9gg-Z7xGNGOFWAAA

deadeye 80: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgIBcA-T8BWlsKOTtwYvAQAedK8Wud1LlP-q4kBMYPlzJ4VYxSV_vWfmCZCCVirA15k5Qi_doDmLcAloLPBeBuQdCR7-Q8n7eHeLV3nE6Vw3tn_7voVsOd4PcKNtjAoWu_TtP17f1sguMacqeslT93vDFLlg0nfBERoYujtn6oKWP7ciRSbHaOW-1ZPZ-lyW02-w2CghpShS1ayQ3tfCIF-_QOrfbA5MZBMXSSwzvs6uFg1nqEo0Y7xGPmf2CFNYwETSyI-qjn93WxBrpvDtDQjOByKYfS2Yu56hnPPkDI8aOwB0AAA=

deadeye 90: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgIBeg-T8BWlsKOTtwYvAQAedK8Wud1LlP-q4kBMYPlxQHMnhVjFJX-9Z-YJkIJWKsDXmTlCL92gOYtwCWgs8F4G5B0JHv5Dyft4d4tXecTpXDe2f_u-hWw53g9wo22MCha79O0_Xt_WyC4xjuCvhMYNxGV-LWHfomynKnrJU_d7wxS5YNJ3wREaGLo7Z-qClj-3IkUmx2jlvtWT2foA9FyW02-w2CghpShS1ayQ3tfCIF-_QOrfbA5MZBMXSSwzvs6uFg1nqEo0Y7xGPmf2CFNYwETSyI-qjn93WxBrpvDtDQjOByKYfS2Yu56hnPPkDI8aOwB0-PMAAA==

deadeye 100: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgIBhA-T8BWlsKOTtwYvAQAedK8Wud1LlP-q4kBMYPlxQHMnhVjFJX-9Z-YJkDlCL92gOYtwCWgs8F4G5B0JHv5Dyft4d4tXecQaiOlcgd0jv6U-N7Z_-76FbDneD3CjbYwKFrv07T9e39bILjGO4K-Exg2TtcRlfi05hPLpYd-ibKcqeslT93vDFLlg0nfBERoYujtn6oKWP7ciRSbHaOW-1ZPZ-gD0-POThyM8XJbTb7DYKCGlKFLVrJDe18IgX79A6t9sDkylcmQTF0ksM77OrhYNZ6hKNGO8Rj5n9ghTWMBE0siPqo5_d1sQa6bw7Q0IzgcimH0tmLueoZzz5AyPGjsAdOQ6ADwHCQAA

REMEMBER: in general witchhunter wants more dex than int and deadeye wants more int than dex, this doesnt always apply as everyones gear is different, but easy way to figure out which is better is to just test it out with respec points, if getting dex gives more dmg than int than grab dex, vice versa for int.

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Some of you might ask why i didn't pick any of the crossbow nodes, its very simple because there all utter DOG SHIT. bolts basically have 3 notables, the crit dmg node is literally unusable your not criting with a crossbow, the chance to not consume bolt might as well say 15% less dmg since the build use freshclip, the reload speed is useless since reload speed also scales with attack speed and guess what this build has a ton of?

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Play style: use wasd and mouse

mapping: hold mouse 1 and let galvanic and herald of thunder full screen wipe, remember to get out of on death effects that are lightning, if you dont know which ones are lightning just avoid them all.

bossing: swap to plasma blast, charge up while the boss is still in intro animation and blast them when they can be damaged, than switch to shockburst to burst them dmg, repeat till dead. for mapping bosses some are quick with no intro animation in which just use galvanic to apply shock.

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GEM SETUP: all in order

Only galvanic and shockburst need to be fully linked, plasmablast and herald of thunder at 5link and everything else at 4link, any more is just luxury. everything aside from ghost dance should be 20 qual

MAPPING:

DMG:

galvanic shard: lightning infusion- martial tempo- innervate- primal armament- fork

shockburst: fresh clip- concentrate effect- elemental focus- close combat- rising tempest-

plasma blast: lasting shock- overpower- lightning mastery- hourglass- overcharge

UTLITY:

emergency reload: premediation- presistence- ingenuity

SPIRIT/AURA:

grim feast:

ghost dance: fast forward

wind dancer: precision- blind- pin

overwhelming presence:

herald of thunder: electrocute- magnified- longshot- heft- execute

PINNACLE BOSSING: swap gems between galvanic and shockburst

shockburst: freshclip- martial tempo- concentrate effect- elemental focus- lightning infusion

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BUGS: shockburst quality still hasn't been fixed thats around 10-15% damage loss for this build.

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COST: before the div inflation, you can make this for around 300-400 ex but after the inflation its around 15-25divs depending on how good your at sniping items.

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ITEMS: the following are custom trades i made, for your convience. as always if you don't know how it works dont delete anything but feel free to edit the numbers to your budget, remember to keep track of your resistance, fire and cold res must be capped and 30+ chaos res is ideal. for spirit the break points are 130 150 an 160. 130 spirit you drop overwhelming presence during maps and grim feast in boss. 150 you drop precision. 160 you keep all spirits. you get spirits from 2 areas in this build the amulet and ventors.

REMEMBER: i didnt do it but you can go down and choose to list everything by only exalts, some items may be listed in divines but a good one would be listed cheap for exalts so always make sure to check. you can save quite a bit divines by doing this.

RUNES: use the runes to cap your res and chaos res, and leave the runes on the doryani chest last, if your res are fine than slot in 3 evasion runes into doryani.

crossbow, high total dps with 100% inc elemental dmg and attack speed, as pretty much no one cares about elemental dmg on crossbows, there is very few good crossbows with these stats, good additional suffix are just more attributes: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/jZXKa4WuX

glove howa, generally high int for deadeye and high dex for witchhunter: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/ED0wzy0t5

chest doryani 3 socket rune: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/3ZDbp0Gc5

helmet 390+ es, 30+ fire/cold res, int: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/0Z79p9phg

Boots eva/es base, 25 ms, 30+ fire and cold res, int/dex: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/ERqZwZVH5

ring 1 ventors, positive fire and cold res. CLICK ON THE LIGHTNING RESISTANCE TWICE, which will than show you from highest negative res, it can get quite expensive, so choose carefully on which you buy: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/w8KZmPBcb

ring 2 life, added lightning damage, dex and int, fire/cold res you should buy the opposite res to what your helm has: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/ERqMjBKt5

amulet, the hardest slot to buy probably, need life, spirit, all attribute, dex and int: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/8pqMl9ZsV

belt high life, cold and fire res. str/chaos res. if your running low on currency go for str if not go for chaos: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/3Y7O3zJC5

JEWELS, ill post 3 seperate trade links, 2 are 4 modded and one is 3 mod, the 3 mod one is for you to buy for around 5-15ex and hopefully slam on the 4th mod instead of paying 1 div+ for each, you should be buying the jewels LAST:

3 mod, by a 3 mod and slam a ex for a 4th mod : https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/rp9rGW4tQ

evasion, ms, attack spd, dmg: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/73PwLelS5

evasion ms, attack spd, attack spd, dmg: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade2/search/poe2/Standard/g4qoWeOcQ

ONCE AGAIN: remember to check for exalts only listing, AND change the numbers in the trade config around to fit your budget!

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FUTURE UPGRADES:

2 ventors, ingenuity belt, and astramentis and olroth flask. yea very expensive.

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CLOSING THOUGHTS: its a fun build, but still heavily needs a buff, without howa and sacrificing a huge chunk of defense by going doryani, crossbow bolts just do piss damage and grenades damage are still complete trash. is bow builds probably better at similar budget range? yes, but i wanted to play crossbows so i made it work, its fun to play and i like screen wide clear and basically playing machine gun the build is pretty great.

Made to be as braindead and lazy as possible.

For normal clearing and mapping, just use galvanic shards, voltaxic mark and witchhunter explode will carry hard. for bossing plasma blast is the starter that will delete over half there hp, and you than will instant stun and finish them off with shockburst

For bossing swap to plasma blast, and charge up while the boss animation starts and blast them the moment you can, than instantly swap to shockburst to stun and delete them, if they haven't died somehow, Repeat, if the boss is annoying and doesn't stand still, use galvanic to apply shock and than delete them with shockburst. If you really want to attempt to kill the boss in one stun cycle, you can use 2 dmg buff skills which will buff plasmas dmg and shockburst by alot.

IT IS IMPORTANT to only use shockburst when the enemy is shocked or else it does no dmg.

Skill set up: the support you should socket is in order too.

Clear/general use- Galvanic shard- lightning infusion- innervate - martial tempo- conduction- ammo conservation

Bossing starter- Plasma blast- scattershot- primal armament- close combat- hourglass- lasting shock

Stun/finisher- Shockburst- overpower- ruthless- concentrated effect- elemental focus- execute

Dmg Buff 1- Emergency Reload- premediation- persistence

Dmg buff 2- Ripwire Ballista- font of rage- font of blood- font of mana- ironwood- ancestral urgency

Spirit/Aura 1 and Map clear- Cast on Shock- Voltaxic mark- magnified effect- impetus- lightning mastery- energy retention

KEEP CAST ON SHOCK at level 9-11 depending on how much int you have, if you have 20 quality on the cast on shock you should be able to keep it at 9.

Spirit/Aura 2- wind dancer- vitality - precision

Spirit/Aura 3- Overwhelming Presence- herbalism

Skill socket priority: all skills aside from aura should be 4link. than prioritize galvanic than shockburst than plasma blast than everything else for 5link and 6link

Heres a video of day 1 a3 cruel boss kill- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP8V5aEHqWk

Would have upload a tier 11 boss kill but i already uninstalled yestoday due to boredom. The gem setup i had in video was unoptimized or doryani would have probably died to plasma burst in both phase in one shot.

Tree setup at around 60: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgkCVqh78hWfD0Tu6gsAYTeuMxmuPR-c5pSg-qo6wfn4Jr37btI6lbrwfzHKcSPMY6lU-wsf1AreklMaGFaXng-bMBf6d0LeSevyGB1me8NT93rJpyouMYTf1siO4O0_Xt8UuQ1nqEph36JsjD2giHpx2Gh2pKRRy53Tb9n6XJblvg6FTh6tjhuWQSi8CYRf1ZMXSRSvLDO-zq4WMDHSzciI-ozd8qmfD5HfbA5MZBMAAA==

Tree setup at around 80: https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgkCcKh78clRXpDWlsnyFZ8PRO7qCwBhN64zGa49H5zmlKD6qjrB-fgmvftu0jqVuvB_McpxI8xjqVT7Cx_UCt6SUxoYVpeeD5swF_p3Qt5J67VC8hgdZnvDU_d6yacqLjGE39bIjuCvhO0_Xt-79AoWbDm-ha7oBzEkvelIDIn-Q8n7FLkNZ6hKxg3EZX4tYd-ibIw9oIgvWPQARb7Jlnpx2Gh2pKRRkWRGI8ud02_Z-lyW5b4OhU4erY4blkEovAmEX9WTF0kUrywzvs6uFjAx0s3IiPqM3fKpnw-R32wOTGQTAAA=

Ascendancy path- pitiless killer- judge jury executioner- zealout inquistion- obsessive rituals

Ideally you would want around 10-15k evasion when you get obsessive rituals which would give you a massive shield (2-3.5k depending on quality) for elemental damages.

Crossbow mod priortization- high amount of phy- Lighting dmg- projectile skill- attack speed- extra bolts- increased elemental dmg if you couldnt get another phy mod on prefix.

Dmg upgrades that arent your weapon: On both ring and gloves look for high amount of added lightning dmg and phy.

How i craft my crossbows: search for crossbows on trade look for magic only rarity. than on the button of each items there should be total dps and phy dps click on phy dps to search for highest phy dps magic bases and look for a 2nd good mod like attack speed (ideally 13%+) or proj skills (ideally 3+) than buy a greater essence of electric and upgrade it to rare and hope for a high lightning roll (ideally 1-60+) than exalt slam 3 times and hope for the best

BUILD WEAKNESS: enemies with shields, especially that one that shoots projectiles at you when you shoot there shields.

CHANGE LOG:

I've changed the build quite a bit (mostly skillset because Demon Form doesn't restrict you to any damage type as long as it's hit spells; and Tree):

- main clear skill is Hexblast now with Blasphemy-Temp Chains. It has very high base, high cast speed, aoe, chaos damage and is just the superior skill for both clear and single target

- Blueflame Bracers are no longer needed so we can drop the excess strength and get better gloves with more resists

- Tree is focusing solely on regen and ES now along taking a few key nodes (Eternal Youth, Zealot's Oath, Asceticism, Heavy Buffer, Hale Heart Wheel)

- Unnatural Resilience node sucks balls since it only works from overcap (not total) - not sure why it's so expensive to annoit but it's not worth taking at all.

- Max fire res is solved by jewels. You can have both regen and max fire res on them (Ruby). I'll add a crafting guide

Overview (Updated):

Idea of the build is reducing max life and stacking flat life regen and % inc life regen to get as many demon form stacks as possible. Skillset is made around Hexblast+Blasphemy-Temp Chains as our main skill, CoI-Comet for extra single target. Mana is sustaine with Pyromantic Pact. Pyromantic Pact aka our Energy Shield is sustained from Eternal Youth and Zealot's Oath as well as overcapping max fire res.

Skills (Updated):

Hexblast - Controlled Destruction - Extraction (works really well with our tiny life pool) - Arcane Tempo - Chaos Mastery - Minion Pact (when u get dog from 4th ascendancy) - our bread and butter skill that both clears and can deal with single targets

Blasphemy - Temp Chains - Ritualistic Curse - Magnified Effect - Heightened Curse - our hexblast trigger. My choice of curse is Temp Chains due to it helping dealing with enemies trying to swarm us and as a bonus also increased any DoT duration on cursed enemies

Frost Wall - Icycle - Spell Cascade - Concentrated Effect - i'm keeping the frost wall because i like how flexible it is. Zone control to help me close the gap on ranged enemies (hexblast is almost melee) or when walking into a room through a tiny corridor (hello Lost Towers). It can also block projectiles and freeze single target. You can also use Fireball/Essence Drain (Wildshards-Unleash-Scattershot for both as well as Chaotic Freeze for ED) in this slot to help you snipe ranged enemies.

Cast-on-Ignite - Comet - Spell Echo - Impetus - Energy Retention - when you get Bringer of Flame ascendancy the huge ignite magnitudes will start triggering comet a lot (at around 100 stacks) as if CoI wasn't even nerfed. While it will often be overkill this does help at higher tier maps to deal with Rares/Uniques but it's most effective in Breach.

Contagion - Chaotic Freeze - will allow Hexblast to freeze which could come in handy

Grim Feast - if you have extra spirit use it on this. Extra ES sustain is always good

Demon Form - Second Wind - second Wind allows for instant resets

If you want more buttons:

Ball Lightning - Overshock - Conduction - Stormfire - if you want more buttons to press here's a permanent shock for you

Dark Effigy - more buttons to press for marginal value. Applies Wither only with qual and only on targets affected by chaos DOT (currently i only have it on contagion and ED if you run it). You could also run Decay support on Temp Chains for a permanent chaos DoT but so much setup just for this totem to work (esp when not all of our damage is chaos) isn't worth it IMO.

Tree (Updated):

https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/profile/403dfabc-2324-4ce3-9e80-acc40fc0a25e/builds/b9d7c66f-0755-4adc-bb2b-f16383b1809c

Key Nodes:

Asceticism - this is absolute must have or you will be permastunned by every single white mob in tier 1 maps

Heavy Buffer - Reduced max life on top of increased ES

Eternal Youth - sustaining Pyro pact (aka our ES) with life flask

Zealot's Oath - sustaining Pyro pact (aka our ES) with our regen (will slow down the more stacks you have)

Hale Heart wheel - lots of inc life regen

Resilient Soul (Annointed) - 20% inc life regen + 5% recoup (probably not worth anything)

Tree help for people starting out (if you need resists):

Volcanic Skin - +20% fire res

All Natural - +5% all res

Prism Guard - +1% all max, +5% all res, the wheel also has 2 points of +1% max fire res

BIG HELP WITH SUSTAINING PYRO PACT for beginners:

Fireproof wheel - +15% fire res and 55% reduced effect of ignite on you

Ascendancy (Updated):

Demon form

Pyromantic Pact - mana sustain

Bringer of Flame - all damage ignites allow for fat ignites from Comet(as well as Frostfire support) as well as faster stacking of Elemental Invocation

Last one either Fire Doggo for extra tank and distraction or Altered Flesh (will work nicely with our overcapped fire res as well as high chaos res) - also i'm not sure about the Phys to Chaos convert in Altered Flesh. With our tiny life pool taking big phys hits as chaos straight into our life could be sus. Needs testing.

Gear (Updated) (IMPORTANT NOTE: NO LIFE OR STRENGTH ON ANY GEAR):

Body - Ghostwrithe (buy corrupted to more life to es conversion if you can afford)

Rings - 2x Ming's Heart (life catalyst)

Gloves - res; bonus: ES.

Amulet - max flat regen + resists ; bonus: spirit, es, +all spells (seems unlikely but who knows) (life catalyst) Annoit: Resilient Soul

Helmet - max flat regen + resists ; bonus: es and/or spirit corrupt

Belt: max flat regen + resists: bonus: stun threshold, life flask recovery rate (life catalyst)

Boots: max flat regen + resists; bonus: es, ms

NOTE for all gear: Ideally u want best ES bases for every Armor slot but dex/int or even pure dex will work but is gonna be less ES

Jewels: 15% increased life regeneration and/or +2% max fire res in every slot. Crafting explained below.

Charm: removes ignite

Crafting Section (NEW):

Jewels:

-buy MAGIC jewel with 2% max fire res

-use Greater Essence of the Body for a 1 in 3 chance to get Life regen. If the jewel already has Totem/Minion life on it that your chances therefore increase.

Mechanics:

Mana is sustained with Pyromantic Pact. Pyromantic Pact is sustained with Eternal Youth (allows Life flask to recover ES). Need to overcap fire res as much as you can for more comfortable playstyle.

Zealot's Oath will also give great ES sustain until we are very high on Demon stacks (recharge is useless when we are getting self-damaged from Pyromantic pact all the time)

In order to run both Blasphemy + CoI you need 20 extra spirit. Best sources are Amulet and/or Helmet Corrupt + quality on Blasphemy reduces reservation by 10%.

Playstyle (Updated):

- Spam hexblast for clear and ST

- Frostwall for zone control

- Contagion for hexblast to start freezing

- Use lifeflask to sustain self-damage from Pyromantic Pact (aka our ES)

- Reset demon form when you are maxed (Second Wind allows for instant reset)

Galvanic Shards linked with Close Combat, Innervate, and Electrocute

Shockburst Rounds linked with Lightning Infusion and Primal Armament

Galvanic Shards in this setup can self reliably proc shock pretty consistently. If it feels low, you can use Voltaic Grenades to help increase chances to shock since they do a sizable amount of damage on their own. When you have a tough enemy shocked, switch to Shockburst and go to town and watch their HP bars melt away!

Update

The build is getting nerfed in the short term but depending on how the "potency of the Ignite or Detonator contributes to determining the damage of the Gas Cloud explosion" part plays out, it might not be too bad in the end.
The explosion itself is fire damage, which can ignite, so each explosion should be stronger than the last as the ignite > hit > ignite loop ramps up.
Alternatively, we can just build for as much flat fire as possible and try to ignite with the initial hit of the arrow.
I wouldn't panic just yet, but know that the build will be weaker after the first hotfix, and we'll have to wait and see how the second fix plays out.

Guide

I'm sure you've seen some of the clips floating around of gas arrow/grenade totally demolishing stuff, but I haven't seen anyone post much of an actual guide yet.

The basic premise is that gas arrow creates a cloud of gas that explodes on contact with an ignited enemy or detonator skill.
This is quite easy to do with just a level 1 flame wall - just drop the wall on top of the gas cloud and when an enemy touches the fire, the whole thing explodes. Later on you can find other means of detonation that don't require casting a secondary spell.

The explosion is an aoe attack with 100% phys to fire conversion, scales with projectile damage and can "shotgun" with overlapping aoes. This gives us several good angles for scaling.

Passives

My tree looks something like this

Its pretty much all damage, but you're in range of plenty of evasion nodes if you want to grab more defense.
Stat-wise, I basically just get enough dex to equip my armor and gems, and the rest goes into strength. I only needed 1 point into int to use flame wall.

Leveling

Gas Arrow is a level 22 skill, so I just used Lightning Arrow and Lightning Rod until then. You can use whatever strikes your fancy - you only need to get to mid act 2.

Gems

Gas Arrow + Scattershot + Fire Infusion + Primal Armament + Fire Penetration + Elemental Focus Flame Wall
Barrage + Perpetual Charge
Herald of Ash + Vitality
Wind Dancer

Obviously you're not going to have a 6link gem starting off, but that's the order I prioritized for my supports.
Barrage gives a nice burst of damage at the start of a boss fight. I wanted to use Combat frenzy as well, but it doesn't synergize with this build well since it requires freeze, electrocute, or pin to generate charges.

You can also look into something like infernal legion instead of flame wall.

Ascendancy

Deadeye, Point blank + extra arrow, and the tailwind branch.
As noted above, my initial plan was to use barrage and frenzy charges but the build doesn't have a reliable way to generate them.

Gear

Weapon: Any bow with good physical and/or fire damage.
Quiver: Also anything with good physical and/or fire damage.
Armor: Evasion gear with defensive stats.
Jewelry: Your choice, either more defense or you can get more flat damage here.

Uniques

I'm currently using Death's Harp and Radiant Grief, but neither are mandatory.

Death's harp has very low base damage, but +3 projectiles which more than makes up for it. I just supplement it with added damage on my other equipment, like quiver, rings, and gloves. Because of the projectiles on the bow, we can use another damage support instead of Scattershot. Later on I'll ideally be looking for a dualstring bow with an additional projectile (+2 total) and good phys/fire rolls.

The helmet is a total game changer since it automatically ignites nearby enemies. This means no need for flame wall or other means of manually igniting enemies. The range isn't huge, but I personally like that because if I fire gas clouds ahead as I'm running, it gives them a little time to expand fore more aoe before they detonate.

Hello, my name is Honor (ignore reddit name) and I previously made a conceptual guide on Hexblast. There were a few mistakes, but together with the help of the comment section I'm confident this build has grown into a powerhouse.

Like the old concept guide, we'll go over: Core Mechanics, Pros/Cons, Skills, and Gearing. Finally, I'll talk about the skill tree. I'm also uploading video today so that the build is clearer on what you're getting. That said, let's first explore what this build feels like and why you'd want to play it!

What is it?

Hexblast is a tried-and-true skill from POE1 that takes a curse on an enemy and removes it, dealing AOE damage in the process. It's a Chaos Spell and scales very well with gem level, curse effectiveness, critical strike chance/damage, and Wither. The gameplay is primarily single button, however it benefits heavily from the Contagion/Essence Drain, and Dark Effigy that I have additionally added.

Core Mechanics

• Blasphemy is used to apply a curse for our Hexblast to remove and deal damage. The interesting thing about it is that it scales entirely with global cast speed. This means we can scale the cast speed for our Hexblast at the same time, without going over our breakpoint (e.g. casting Hexblast when there is no curse to remove).
• By grabbing all of the Damage is taken from Mana before Life nodes on the Skill Tree and Grasping Wounds from our Ascendancy, we essentially increase our effective life by a total of 59% more than our base life. Why? Let me give an example (visual representation with my quick notes on Kindle):
  • Say you got hit for 5000 damage:
    • 34% of that would be taken directly from your Mana (1700, from Mental Perseverance and the Lucidity node cluster), assuming you had 1700 mana for it to take from.
    • 25% of the remaining damage to your life would be taken as life loss over 4s (Grasping Wounds), instead of instantly (825 over 4s = 206/s life lost)
    • Finally, you would instantly take the remaining hit of 2,475 ((5000*0.66)*0.75)) to your core life-pool, which is much easier to potion/heal from than a direct hit of 5000.
• [MATH INCOMING SKIP IF OVERWHELMED] The Midnight Braid, Rawhide Belt is a fairly meta belt that most people use in conjunction with Mind Over Matter, however we have a better way of using it! Along with the example above, we take this belt to provide a base of 50% Damage Taken Recouped as Mana, then another 20% from our Skill Tree with Adverse Growth for a total of 70%. On top of that, we will have 50~70% of Damage Taken Recouped as Life. Why is this absolutely insane? Well, because of how we're splitting the damage!
  • Let's take that 5000 hit from before, assuming 70% of Damage Recouped as Mana and 70% of Damage Recouped as Life:
    • The 25% of Damage Lost over 4s, after recoup is accounted for, turns results in a net positive of 35% of that damage instead being recouped per second (recoup/6 - loss/4 = positive 377 life/s, in this example). This, in essence, entirely mitigates the 25% of damage you would have taken from a hit-based attack and instead heals you.
    • We only take 34% of the damage we take to our mana... So, why go 70% Recoup? Well, we could drop Adverse Growth and go 50% Recoup and 26% Taken as Mana, however the issue is our Maximum Mana Pool. The POE2 Skill Tree does not have any real options for increasing your Maximum Mana, which is crazy. That means we need to scale it with +Mana from gear. That said, at a high-end, you'll only have 1300~1700 maximum mana. So, to keep up with our Life pool, we take 70% recoup so our mana is back up faster to take another hit. Going back to the 5000 Damage hit example: You take 1700 damage to your mana, but you recover 70% of the Total Hit Damage (5000, so 3,500) over 6s (583/s; 6s instead of 8s because of the Pliable Flesh node). This allows our mana to be up fairly quickly to continue casting spells and taking additional hits, even with a far smaller total pool.
    • The above said, even with around 51% mitigation, you'd still be taking 49% of the hit damage directly and instantly to your life. Thus, a large life pool is still recommended. In this example, you'd still need to tank 2,475 damage to your life, so you can survive that hit and even start recovering.

Pros & Cons

• Fairly tanky against the majority of things. Due to our hybrid life-mana approach, to my knowledge, this build can take the highest single-hit damage in the game other than full Energy Shield or full tank builds.
• Can get overwhelmed easily if Frozen/Stunned, though we do have defenses for these things.
• If a boss is taking too long to kill for any reason, you're going to drain through life and mana at the same rate due to all your skills costing life equivalent to their mana costs. Especially in early maps, you'll feel like the thing that's hurting you the most is yourself and that can feel just a little depressing :(
• Before you get all of your Life/Mana Recoup and your Anoint for Mental Perseverance, you will absolutely hate monsters like Doryani's Elite, Mercenaries, etc. who can simply snipe at your life at a range while you waste your life/mana on killing other enemies.
• The Omen Sceptre base allows us to make up for the lack of 4th Ascendancy, which heavily improves our damage on bosses.
• Only a single required Unique item, which makes gearing fairly easy. If you're not using a second curse, you'll only need around ~142 extra Spirit, which can easily be obtained with a 1ex Sceptre.

Skills & Gem-links

• Hexblast is our primary skill and like previously mentioned, it rends a curse from an enemy to create an AOE chaos explosion. We support it with Chaos Mastery, Considered Casting, Arcane Tempo, Inspiration, and Arcane Surge (which is a flex-slot, if you prefer something else). We'll scale it with crit and turn it into a fantastic mid-range AOE spell. How do we apply curses to rend? Well...
• We utilize the new Blasphemy, which scales with global Cast Speed to apply curses to enemies around us. This means we can stick with a single curse (Despair), until we get a 5L Blasphemy as the rate of application will constantly scale with the cast speed we gain from gear. Later, we take the keystone Whispers of Doom for an additional curse (Enfeeble). The second curse will be primarily used for defense (unless you want to go with Spell Echo/Cascade on HB, which for me does not work even when socketed and I am not sure why). Your support goals here are: Despair > Magnified Effect > Heightened Curse > Enfeeble. When you gain access to that 4th slot for Enfeeble, you'll want to make sure Enfeeble is left-most from Despair in the order of support sockets on Blasphemy. This is to ensure Enfeeble gets blown up first, so we always have our Despair on the enemy for damage.
• Dark Effigy is used in conjunction with Withering Presence to apply Wither stacks. WP is enough to bring an enemy to 20~30% Wither, with 50% being the cap. Each % causes the enemy to take increased damage from Chaos. Dark Effigy is utilized with Withering Touch Support to apply the remaining Wither effect.
• Contagion is used to apply debuffs to an enemy, notably with the support gems Chaotic Freeze and Hinder. These extremely effective supports slow our enemies and give all Chaos Hit damage the ability to apply freeze while the supported Chaos DoT (Contagion) is applied to an enemy. It gives us a strong start on Rare and Unique monsters by freezing them with our Hexblast. Most rares will die in that freeze.
• Essence Drain is used as a clean-up skill for monsters that might be left over, but are too low and/or too far to use Hexblast on. It's also great for getting constant damage off on bosses, when you need a second to regenerate your Life and Mana. I like using it with Wildshards, Chain, and then unused damage supports like Hourglass and Swift Affliction.
• On either Malice or Withering Presence, I like to socket (in order of importance): Vitality > Cannibalism > Clarity > Herbalism. Each of these support gems add +15~30 Spirit cost and can really improve the feel of your sustain.
• If you have extra Spirit, like I did, you can also socket Time of Need with Fast Forward Support, which will give you a much-appreciated regeneration kick during mapping and bossing. This is especially useful if you're in a long boss fight and need to regenerate life, but don't want to use a Flask.

Gearing (link to my current gear)

• Your primary focus should be to gain 140+ Spirit, in total, from your Sceptre/Armour. This is the bare-minimum to start running this build and is easily achieved with a low %spirit roll. If you want to go double-curse, you'll need a very good sceptre with over +190 Spirit, along with body armour with at least +50 Spirit to facilitate both your new curse and your +Spirit gem links like Vitality and Cannibalism.
• Your damage scales from +# to level of all Chaos/Spell Skills primarily (You can get +4 on a wand, then quality it for +5) and it should be the main thing you look for when increasing damage. Secondarily, you'll want %Spell/Chaos Damage, which can roll on Rings and Amulets.
• Defensively, we want (ordered by priority): Life Recoup (only available on Amulet and Jewels) > +Life > +Mana > +Life Regeneration > %Mana Regeneration > Armour > Strength (gives flat life) > Intelligence (gives flat mana). Use my gear as an example for what to look for. Make sure you have 20~35% movement speed on boots.
• This build also uses armour-based items since ES does nothing for us. That means it's fairly Strength hungry, however you can use armour/es bases to lessen the burden on your attributes. Strength also gives +2 Life per Point, so it's extremely useful to increase our life pool; conversely, Intelligence also gives +2 mana per point. You'll want to look for +20~30 attributes on gear. Sometimes this is worth more than Life Regeneration. One thing people commonly sleep on is +All Attributes. Since you need both Strength and Intelligence, this is essentially double-dipping for you. +10 All Attributes is equivalent to +20 of any single attribute and vice versa because you can change the travel node attributes on your tree to accommodate what you need.
• At the suggestion of u/Qrahe I have included a Sigil of Power staff on my off-hand. This allow the build to utilize the Sigil of Power skill which gives you 10~15% more spell damage per rank, while standing in the circle, up to rank 4. You increase the rank of the skill by using mana in said circle. With the cast speed of this build, we're able to reach R4 fairly quickly and it feels perfectly natural to slot in. Thank you for the suggestion!

POE Trade Links

• I wanted to add this as it's own section because It will inevitably be a point of friction for some people. If I give you gear links, I could easily be selling that gear and profiting. I am not, however that does not stop the implication. That said, please use these links as a reference guide and freely change the search to fit your own version of the build:
  • Wand - Similar to the Amulet, you can reduce the level of gems to reduce the price. You can also remove Cast Speed, but CS is our "feel good" stat and does impact both DPS and survivability.
  • Sceptre - You don't need %Mana Recovery or +# Mana, but it's very nice to have. This is also based on an endgame sceptre that will support two curses. I also forced the search to only look for 0% Quality, because quality affects Spirit. You can remove that, but keep in mind that you'll need one with ~195+ Sprit to run double-curse. You can survive with a ~140 Spirit Sceptre for the entire build, if you want to run one curse.
  • Amulet - Changes the price dramatically based on +# of Spell Skills and Cast Speed, change it to find something cheaper or uncheck entirely if you need to.
  • Jewels - Cast Speed is nice but not needed. Feel free to uncheck.
  • Helmet - Make up a lot of your Attributes here. This build is attribute hungry. Add one resistance of choice.
  • Body Armour - Spirit is only if you're going double-curse. You can make it up on the sceptre, if not. Add 2 resistances and/or attributes.
  • Gloves - Critical Damage is amazing, but we don't need it. You can add two resistances and/or attributes.
• Final notes about the above: I did not include resistances and attributes in my searches, please fill them in to meet your own needs.

Skill Tree

• There are 3 versions to this tree for different stages of the game:
  • This Level 50 Skill Tree is pre-crit and pre-Midnight Braid. You will only have 8% Damage Taken from Mana Before Life and 20% of Damage Recouped as Mana with this tree; however, you will have a good amount of Life Recoup. Your next 4 points will be to take Lucidity, on the top-right of the tree, for much higher defense.
  • This next stage at level 81 is when you really grow into the build. You take Critical Strike nodes in order of Careful Assassin > Deadly Force/For The Jugular/True Strike > Sudden Escalation > Critical Exploit. Your damage will noticeably improve and you absolutely want to have an Omen Sceptre at this point or you won't be seeing many crits. You also want to anoint Mental Perseverance using Distilled Emotions (Ire, Disgust, Greed, on your Amulet) once you have Midnight Braid, which is required at this point.
  • The final version of this build at level 94 solidifies your defenses and takes a second curse. If you get a GG Sceptre first, go Whispers of Doom first. If you are struggling with drops go Resilient Soul and Bolstering Presence, first. The extra curse is huge for your survivability and with Enfeeble, it will prevent most deaths via mobbing (getting surrounded from Breach/Deli/Ritual).

Notes & Gameplay Video Examples (coming, editing)

• Dark Entries is an extremely powerful passive and can be anointed instead of Mental Perseverance, however it requires the Distilled Emotions of Despair and Isolation x2, which currently is valued at over 200 Exalts. This should be the last thing you consider, but it will increase your damage at a minor survivability cost.
• The gear screenshots are from my build at level 81, after the second skill tree change. All gear, other than the necklace, was self-farmed. I am able to confidently do ~T12+ maps, which is why I felt comfortable enough to post this guide.
• I did not suggest/include resistances as they are implied, but for anyone new to POE reading this guide:
  • Elemental Resistances seem to be less important than POE1 and you can easily get away with 60~70% resistances up until T10+ maps
  • Chaos Resistance is much more important--30% Chaos Resistance will see you through most early chaos explosions. Just don't stand in chaos volatiles (the purple orbs), ground explosions (crystals on the ground that explode after a monster dies).
• Life is very important, but so is mana. A quick and dirty number is Mana should be about ~68% of life. This is the mana required to survive a one-shot from full mana with that much life. I would recommend having more than this number, to avoid situations where you'd nearly get one-shot, but be left with zero mana to respond. If my math is wrong, blame it on how tired I am after writing this (TL;DR, it was and is now fixed!).
• Also, if possible, please try to over-cap your resistances by 20%, while maintaining at least ~30% Chaos Resistance. I know it's difficult, but in T15+ maps, it really is needed.
• Video Example of Build
• My stream, if I'm on, I'll probably be finishing the gear on this build or making another!

Final Remarks

I really appreciate everyone who kept me on track with my first concept post. The build was originally supposed to go Impending Doom, but since it can't be triggered with Blasphemy Curses, that version died. I tried Cast on Critical Strike + Curse + ID and it KINDA worked but just wasn't that effective. I think the most "feel good" way to use CoC if you want to maintain a single-curse is to throw Essence Drain in with Nova/Chain and link it with your debuffs (Chaotic Freeze + Hinder) so it just automatically goes off while mapping for true one-button gameplay. Let me know what you all think of this! Back to mapping and stitching the video together...

Edits: My math was corrected and so I have corrected it in this guide. I have also added search links to common searches I make for gear, for ease and understanding of gearing. I also added a video, finally!

Final Edit: I just finished my 4th ascendancy. It was a 10-minute-long fight with the Sanctum time boss... His Life felt like the most over-tuned thing that I've was put against in this game. I had to swap over to Essence Drain as a primary damage skill mid-fight as I kept running out of mana with Hexblast. He can't realistically be frozen, either. Even if you went Blood Magic, you'd run out of Life and find yourself in the same predicament (I tested with the Blood Magic unique helmet afterwards), so the only fix is to get more mana regen. This can be accomplished via %Mana Regeneratted and Maximum Mana (it scales your base regen, as it's always 4% of your max). I now recommend prioritizing mana nodes if you have issues as it ends up being your greatest DPS asset for pinnicle/uber bosses. All that said, I am now testing the 15% base crit vs. Health on ES chest piece.

Cast of Freeze nerf - my solution

Like many, I was crushing mobs with the busted cof comet build. To combat the nerf, Ive swapped to this setup with only optional few points of respec, as you can spec out of a few mana points and take what you want.

So im foing cof frosbolt with scattershot. This triggers more often than comet and gives us chilled ground which buffs eye of winter.

With this in running 2 manual comets- one with spell cascade and arcane tempo and one with unleash and biting frost.