[3.14] Gryph's Bloody Mistress - Exsanguinate Scion - League Starter/EZ Mode Ultimatums
 Now Streaming! Come chat with me, I stream every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday 3pm-5pm and 10pm-1am USEastern Time. https://www.twitch.tv/gryphenprey Hello everyone! I'd like to introduce you to my league starter for 3.14: A Max Block, Self-cast Exsanguinate Scion or The Bloody Mistress So at the start of the league I was going to use Inquisitor with "the new phys spells!" and given the state of the league I had a lot of time to reconsider my madness. With that in mind I looked at different classes/ascendancies and decided that Scion looked really good for a tanky pure DOT variant. And so was birthed OliviaVoldaren
Videos
More coming soon! I am pretty slow to progress as I have 3 little gremlin offspring that take a lot of my time. :)
Tier 4 Ultimatum+Warlord Boss T12 Map showcasing Asenath's Gentle Touch+Ultimatum
Path of Building
This is very VERY experimental and will definitely change in the future, but if I don't give you SOMETHING I'll get an earful :P This is my character as she is now. Still room to grow! https://pastebin.com/2HUuEmeJ This is a POB I've been tinkering around with for a total endgame setup. level 97. Includes trees for 1, 2, and 0 cluster trees. https://pastebin.com/wUv6gw95
Pros/Cons
PROS - Exsanguinate + Chain = Full Screen Clear - Budget. Like, super cheap to get started. - Tanky. Max Block with life on block and a lot of regen make a very THICC Bloody Mistress :P - Bossing feels like playing Vortex in many ways. - Fast mapper. VERY FAST with Smoke Mine CONS - She can feel pretty slow if you don't invest into some cast speed - Boosting damage for endgame can be a challenge(expensive) but well, what else is new in Path of Exile? KEKW
The Concept+Ascendancies
The idea is pretty simple actually.   Gladiator is the obvious choice for the 25% more Physical Damage over time and since this also comes with +15+15 block chance, we want to take advantage of block as a defensive layer. This is the reason I went with Necromancer as the second ascendancy. Particularly in early league it can be hard to get a lot of block and ESPECIALLY the coveted Life Recovery on block. Bone Offering provides both for us. This is what makes us soooo tanky so early in the league.
Other Ascendancy Considerations
Pathfinder - for flasks and that whole package.
Raider - Free frenzy charges, onslaught, and phasing Guardian - Free Onslaught. some incidental phys damage reduction, and big periodic regen Occultist - Lowlife+ES version. Super late game option. +1 Curse and Stun Immunity Trickster - Frenzies on kill and life recovery rate. Good tree position. Not my favorite but will include because somebody will ask if I don't.
Gear
This section will take a little while to fully flesh out.
My gear first few days of league
Weapon
You have 2 options really. You can use Cold Iron Point for +3 Physical Skill Gems or you can use a +1-2 weapon with trigger craft. I personally prefer trigger craft option for Bone Offering. I like having it active BEFORE I go into combat. With Cold Iron Point you'll just link Bone Offering to Cast When Damage Taken. An ideal weapon will look something like this:  See: Crafting Guides for how to make one of these
Shield
A few options here actually. In an ideal world you get a +1 Phys spell rare with spell damage+life and Life Recovery on block. If you are at end game and have Corrupted Soul from a Glorious Vanity-Doryani, then you will want an Energy on Block Shield to sustain ES. Daresso's Courage is an excellent budget shield to start the Low Life journey with as it provides an INSANE amount of block and spell block. Plus it's like 1c.
Spoiler
 I would not bother with The Surrender at its current price tag. We already get life on block from bone offering and for the cost it'd be better to get a DPS shield.
Helmet
Life, Chaos Res, Helmet enchant of choice...That's the basic idea here. Maw of Conquest is an interesting choice if you're going low life with petrified blood as it effectively mitigates a large portion of the life loss that you take over time from the prevented damage. End game helmet can have "Nearby Enemies take 9-12% increased physical damage" Elder mod. More on this in the future. For enchants: Exsanguinate Damage Stone Golem or Chaos Golem Buff Effect Mana Reserve Corrupting Fever Damage Smoke Mine Movement speed if you like to use Smoke Mine. :P
Gloves
Starting off, Phys DOT Multi Gloves. For end game there are a couple other options. Asenath's Gentle Touch for temporal chains on hit and phys explosions are superb. 10/10 recommend. Also, explosions apply corrupting blood. Just putting that out there. You can also essence craft some gloves with Essence of Delirium for "Socketed Gems have 30% more damage over time" to give Corrupting Fever a big boost.
Boots
Boots are very generic. Movement speed, life, chaos res, and whatever you need. Can get fancy with some influence mods of your choosing (Tailwind, physical damage reduction, max endurance charge, etc...)
Chest
Gem Levels are incredibly potent for us so I would want to use something like Skin of the Loyal with +1 or +2 corruption or something similarly corrupted. For a rare though...  Elevated Increased Strength gives +1 to strength gems which boosts both Empower AND Exsanguinate for a +2 to gem level. Elevated offering Effect gives roughly 12% attack block, spell block, and 200 life gain on block. You can then add Extra Curse Prefix for approximately 2ex + a harvest craft or two. More in depth explanations in the Crafting Guides section.
Belt
IMO, best in slot unless you get generic physical(NOT ATTACKS LEECH)/spell leech elsewhere. IE: Vitality Life leech watcher's eye. If you get leech elsewhere, you can get a stygian Vise with some nice stats. Life+Chaos Res+Etc...
Rings
You'll want a Vulnerability on hit somewhere and this is a good place to start. Rare rings with life+chaos res are great. Circle of Guilt (herald of purity) with Physical Damage and Buff Effect are big DPS boost. Can also get ones with any combination of Buff Effect, Phys Damage, Phys Damage Reduction, and Mana reservation. Ultra flex would be to get one with Vulnerability on hit implicit.
Ultra Flex
I checked the market on a whim after writing this and found this for a fairly affordable price.
Amulet
Yeah so the amulet can be insane.  It is possible to deterministically craft a +2 Amulet with Phys Dot Multiplier. See Crafting Guides section for details. Aul's for Malevolence or Pride is also an option, but probably not much cheaper than a +2 amulet if at all. But worth mentioning. Budget: Anoint:  Amber - Crimson - Opalescent
Jewels
I don't really have anything on my character for jewels right now, BUT! Might of the Meek in the resist socket with Unnatural Instinct in scion mana start jewel socket is a nice combo.
looks like this
 Conqueror's Efficiency is needed to use Petrified Blood to its fullest extent. Grab one in Act 8 while leveling. Watcher's Eye: Vitality Life Leech is probably BIS. Relatively Cheap too. Abyss Jewels can now roll up to 20% chance to avoid stun in addition to the 10% implicit from Harvest. If you can stack up to 100% stun avoidance (already have 20% from tree) then you can drop Unwavering Stance and save 3 passives. Not hard to do with bench craft+jewels. Timeless jewel! Glorious Vanity - Doryani for Corrupted Soul Combine this with an ES on block shield for some huge defense+EHP boosts.
A List of Good Glorious Vanity Notables
Exquisite Pain - Damage over time+skill duration Ritual of Flesh - Life+Regen Flesh Worship - Life Cult of Chaos - chaos res+max chaos res Thaumaturgical Protection - spell block Revitalisning Winds - Phys Damage+Phys Leech Automaton Studies - Armour + flat phys %reduction Ancient Hex - Increased Effect of your curses. Good if you are dual or tri curse. Soul Worship - ES% and ES leech. Good if you don't have ES leech already or if you want to go for double spell block cluster jewel. There's a few others with just physical or spell damage that are decent as well, but those are the ones that stand out to me. Cluster Jewels: After some reflection I've decided that I like a Large Cluster Jewel with: Essence Rush and Conjured Wall   Get one with one of the following "throwaway" nodes: Burden Projection, Arcane Heroism, or Practiced Caster. These will fill the back slot to save you points. No need to allocate it. For Medium Cluster: I would go for a Physical DOT Multi Jewel with Blood Artist and either Brush with Dead or Flow of Life looks good to me. Several good options though.    We don't have a ton of points leftover for small clusters, BUT we can use 1 for endurance charges if you don't have another reasonable source of them. We can use Enduring Composure from an armour small cluster jewel to this end. 
Gems and Links
6L Exsanguinate Exsanguinate - Brutality - Cruelty/Empower 4 - Chain/Swift Affliction - Efficacy - Controlled Destruction *Swap Chain out for Swift Affliction for single target as needed (think, Sirus or Atziri for example). Uleash can be used situationally if you do not have good cast speed to instantly apply all 3 DOT stacks on a boss. 3 Socket Weapon with Trigger Craft Desecrate - Bone Offering - Stone Golem *Desecrate MUST come first in socket order for Bone Offering to proc properly. *Stone Golem can be anything you would otherwise prefer IE: Chaos Golem. Flex Slot 3L Shield Should you decide to use a reduced mana reservation shield, Auras will go here. Otherwise: Shield Charge- Fortify - Maim 4L Gloves, Corrupting Fever Corrupting Fever - Brutality - Empower - Swift Affliction *Use Efficacy until Empower 3+ is available 3L Boots Flame Dash - Arcane Surge - Tempest Shield *You'll either use second wind or have a free socket in the 4th slot 2L and sockets Helmet Pride OR Malevolence - War Banner *Pride looks better on paper but requires monsters to be in its radius which is not always the case. Malevolence also gives duration and has Watcher's eye mods that are useful. Decide for yourself what feels better. :P In a 2L separate from other links ONLY USE ARROGANCE ONCE YOU ARE GOING PETRIFIED BLOOD+LOW LIFE: Herald of Purity - Arrogance Support THIS NEEDS TO BE LEVEL 20! (actually I think level 18+ will work but level 20 to be safe :P) Unset/Miscellaneous If you are not to the point of using Petrified Blood, then you can use: Steelskin and/or Enduring Cry Otherwise you will need the sockets for a Vitality and a Petrified Blood
Pantheon+Bandits
Bandits: Kill all. For Pantheons I like Lunaris+Gruthkul for physical damage mitigation or Arakaali+Shakari for chaos dot protection.
Leveling
1-12 with Explosive Trap - Swift Assembly(single target) and/or Caustic Arrow - Pierce Pick up: War Banner at level 4 Efficacyx2 and Blastchain Mines at level 8 Vitality + Flame Dash + Enduring Cry (optional) at 10 Check for +1 Phys Spell wands or have them ready. You want 2. At level 12 you can grab Exsanguinate and link it to Blastchain Mine and Efficacy. Pick up Corrupting Fever at 16 and link Efficacy to it. Also grab Herald of Purity and frenzy At 18 you get access to Controlled Destruction and Cruelty Link Exsanguinate with Controlled Destruction and Blastchain Mine. add Efficacy as a 4L, and Cruelty as a 5L if you're rocking a Tabula. You take this setup to 24 when you can get spellslinger. Spellslinger - Exsanguinate - Controlled Destruction - Cruelty Frenzy - Faster Attacks - Lifetap(optional, buy in act 1)
Passive Tree for level 24 Spellslinger
 I didn't level with slinger bc I didn't like it but it's probably the best way. Reap at 28 as a 5th link in slinger or to replace exsanguinate(until chain support) is recommended. If you decide to single spellsling you can still fit in Herald of Purity and War Banner with a 5L spellslinger on your mana. At 38 you pick up brutality and chain. You can try swapping to self cast here but slinger until maps is probably going to feel best. Try it out and decide yourself. Either way it's pretty smooth sailing from here. Take Gladiator ascendancy first, then necromancer.
Petrified Blood + Low Life Mechanics
 Huge shoutout to sergeantminor for putting together these super helpful videos explaining how Petrified Blood works: Part 1 Part 2 For our purposes this is what you need to know: We gain "Slayer leech" and any and all Low Life bonuses that we can abuse. The most obvious being Pain Attunement for 30% more spell damage. At the cost of effectively 17% life. More on all that below:
Effective Life Pool
So, losing half your life looks really scary, but as long as you can sustain the damage over time you take from Petrified Blood hit mitigation you're not losing all that much eHP.
For example, if you have 6,000 maximum life, you'll be at 3,000 life while on low life and convert 40% of hit damage to your life into life loss over 4 seconds at 75% of its original value. So, for math nerds you're effective life to 1-shots looks like this: (50% of Max life x 100)/60 = Effective Max Life In my example with 6,000 max life it would look like this: (3000 x 100)/60 = 5000 I would have 5,000 effective life. 1,000 less than my actual maximum.
Life Leech
Petrified Blood effectively sets you at low life (50% life pool) by preventing any non-flask recovery from going above 50%. This includes things like life regen, life gained on block, life on kill, and
Life Leech "Gryph, why is life leech bolded and made to look all important and stuff?" I'm GLAD YOU ASKED OTHER ME! So the way life leech works is it STOPS recovering life and all instances of life leech when you reach your unreserved maximum life. Well, petrified blood stops leech recovery at 50% of our maximum life and since this is not our unreserved maximum life, all instances of life leech continue to persist effectively giving us the coveted "slayer leech." This also means we can reserve up to 49.9% of our life. Easiest way to do this is with a Herald of Purity+Arrogance (level 18+) support and Conqueror's Efficiency Jewel. Final note on leech: you must reserve less than 50% of your life or it won't work.
Crafting Guides
There are a few pieces of gear that are very deterministic in their method to make. I will outline those methods here for you:
Wand
DISCLAIMER!
This method is not cheap. Due to the scarcity of Harvest Augment crafts the cost of crafting these is very high (15-20ex or so) so keep that in mind when starting this project. However, the information and processes DO work and are good to pick apart for learning purposes at the very least. Alright, so this one isn't too bad. First thing's first, you need a wand with item level between 64-65. No higher than 65. 64 is required for potential T2 Phys Dot multiplier, so I suggest that. IF you go higher than 65 it adds more mods to the physical mod pool and then this method will no longer work. Step 1: Alt spam. This is the worst part of doing this.
According to Craft of Exile
 So....get a lot of alterations ahead of time.
ALTERNATIVELY
You can skip this step and the next couple of steps by simply searching for rare wands with +1 all spell skills of the appropriate item level and trying to annul any extra prefixes. You also need 1 open suffix. It's a gamble, but likely cheaper than alt spamming into imprint+regal+Annuling. If you do this, skip to step 3.
Step 2: Once your wand looks like this:  You need to purchase a Craicic Chimeral and imprint the blue item. https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ultimatum/mvJZnaH6 Once an imprint is made, go ahead and regal it. If you get a SUFFIX you're good to move onto the next step. If you regal a PREFIX then you need to try an annul the prefix away. If it takes off the +1 all spells, use the imprint, make another imprint, and try again. Repeat until you have +1 all spell skill gems and 2 open prefixes. Step 3: Craft "Cannot Roll Attack Modifiers" (Suffix)  From here, use harvest crafting to Augment a physical modifier. Twice. These cost around 6-8ex on the TFT Discord, or you can farm them yourself (Lol! good luck!). You will end up with something like this:  After this, craft "Prefixes Cannot be Changed" and scour.
pictures!
  From here you just multimod for cast speed and the trigger craft and you're done. 
Chest
Alright so the first thing you need to do is collect your two bases to Awakener Orb together. One must be Elevated Increased Strength% as it comes with +1 Socketed Strength Gems and the other can be either T1 or Elevated Increased Effect of Offerings. Your choice based on budget. Again, MAKE SURE EACH ITEM HAS ONLY ONE INFLUENCE MODIFIER ON IT Then you smash them together and should end up with something like this:  If you get a useful third suffix, WOOT! good on you. If you got stun and block recovery, I'm sorry. RNG's a @#$%!. :P If you have full prefixes like the image above, you're going to have to hit it with a Harvest craft: "reforge a rare, keeping all suffixes" until you have an open prefix like so:  Then craft (2ex) Suffixes Cannot be Changed:  And then hit it with a Harvest Craft: "Reforge a rare, with a caster modifier" This guarantees the Extra Curse mod every time.  Not happy with the result? Repeat the Suffix Lock and reforge with caster modifier until you are satisfied. 2ex n change per attempt. You want an open prefix for the 10% of Life as extra max Energy shield craft. You'll end up with something like this:  This took like 7 tries on Craft of Exile to get a good life roll and open prefix. THIS IS NOT A CHEAP CRAFT
Amulet
Modifiers you can expect to craft deterministically: +1 Physical Skill Gems +1 Strength Skill Gems 13-16% Physical Damage Over Time Multiplier
What you need
 Item Level 82+ Amulet with Warlord Influence, I went with Marble for my primary base. You are going to alt spam this for +1 to all Physical Skill Gems.
Average Cost According to Craft of Exile
 Then you are going to buy any Hunter influence amulet that already has +1 Strength Skill Gems mod on it. MAKE SURE THIS IS THE ONLY HUNTER INFLUENCE MODIFIER ON THE ITEM Buy an Awakener's Orb. Right click Awakener's Orb, left click Hunter Amulet w/ +1 strength skills, and left click Warlord Amulet(base type that you want to have in the end) with +1 Physical Skills. POOF! You now have something like this:
Spoiler
 Unfortunately there is nothing to be done with the third prefix (evasion% in the image above) so if you're not happy with this result, sell it, and try again. If you're lucky or don't care, then you move on to the next step: Locking the prefixes. This bench craft costs 2 exalts. 
BUT GRYPH! I don't have an open suffix?!
That's okay! what you'll do is use the Harvest craft: "Reforge a rare, keeping all prefixes" until you have a free suffix. Once you've locked your prefixes into place, you will then use the Harvest craft: "Reforge a rare with at least 1 physical modifier" or it's equivalent "and Phys modifiers are more common" There are 2 different mods with physical tags as suffixes. Physical Damage Reduction (1 tier) Physical Damage Over Time Multiplier (2 tiers) You will get one of these mods. IF you're not happy with the result, simply lock prefixes for 2ex and try again. You'll get it eventually. Worth noting, if you have an open prefix when you do any of the "reforge" crafts, it's very likely that the game will ADD a prefix. So keep that in mind.
F.A.Q
Start asking and I'll start writing :P
" You need to have life leech from either Vitality Watcher's Eye or Doryani's Invitation Belt. Then also you'll want to have Pain Attunement allocated. So, around that time. :D " Pride has more top end damage to enemies within its radius. Malevolence has consistent damage. Malevolence also comes with increased duration which is quite nice. Pride is better for like, conqueror bosses as they tend to sit still for that 4 seconds that it takes to ramp up the damage. I think if you have DOT Multi Malevolence Watcher's Eye then Malevolence will be globally stronger overall. That's all for now! Thanks for reading! Last edited by Gryphenprey on Jun 4, 2021, 11:31:03 AM Last bumped on Nov 5, 2021, 1:35:40 PM
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I'm gonna start Ultimatum with this guide!
Y'know, for the second or third time I have a vague idea of what I'd like to play ... and then I find your guide for it! You're great! (Last one was "Thirsty Archmage") Just wanna say: Many thanks for writing up all this stuff for us lazy/busy/dull players out there! | |
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How it perform in ultimatums and endgame?. Could this build do up to 10 waves without die?.
I see a few people posting in reddit that Exsanguinate lacks of damage in endgame. That is a cool skill but suffer in endgame with bosses. | |
" Nice dude! I appreciate the kind words. Glad I am able to help you once again. :D " That's ultimately my concern. I am fairly slow to progress so it's hard to know just yet. That said, so far it's been fine for damage on a level 19 gem. I still have to get: Empower 4 +1 strength gems chest (+2 level) +2 Amulet with phys dot (doable with ahrvest) Cluster tree +2 weapon another circle of guilt ring(maybe) awakened gems jewels etc... My gear is trash outside the one ring. lol If I get to end game and it's not enough I have another idea to try with this. At the very least it's solidly getting me through yellow Ultimatums with no issue. |
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This build looks awesome, and was exactly what I was thinking of when I first saw Exsanguinate. XD Am going to try it out and I will report back with how it goes!
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Just a heads up, essence of delirium on gloves is insane damage boost and very easy to craft. 30% more damage over time to gems in the gloves which is where corrupting fever goes! Get some now before price spikes higher.
IGN: Raise_Ur_Donger
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" Yeah I was thinking about that. I think I'm better off with generic Phys DoT multi gloves though (boosts both skills). Also I think Asenath's Gloves are where I wanna be for the explosions and Temp Chains on hit. Now...if you get BOTH Phys Dot AND 30% more....That's something to talk about :P |
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How would you prioritize Ascendancies while leveling?
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