[3.5 OUTDATED!] LL, poet's pen indigon template
 Nerfed in 3.5, OCCULTIST crit lowlife is now better for almost everything. Do NOT play this build unless you know what you are doing. Massively nerfed in 3.6, not viable anymore. ■ Welcome to this guide, exile! ■ This build guide is an update to Rhaegar_G's post to bring the guide to 3.4. Incursion and delve have a few new items and some passive tree changes. I would like to thank the time and effort put by Rhaegar_G for writing the original post summarizing most of the concepts you'll see here. Original thread: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2129235 This build took a major nerf in 3.5, and now deals about 70% less damage. The concept still works and it will carry you for all the content, but isn't the monstrous jack of all trades it used to be. PoB : https://pastebin.com/hjFTyWME This is the PoB of my actual character I made in delve, no standard bullshit or therorical BiS unreachable items. ■ Build Overview ■ This build has around 3M dps, 10k energy shield and 57% leech per second. I have carried dozens of uber elders in delve league, many deathless. It is a template that allows you to cast spells from poet's pen quickly and with insane spell damage multipliers. It works with most spells, but this guide will focus more on Volatile dead. ■ Videos ■
Spoiler
These videos are taken in delve league. The build wasn't nerfed at this point, but you only go from obliterating everything to obliterating everything a bit less... T14 Acid Lakes Stronghold https://youtu.be/cAWfdRiRvM0 T16 UGS with headhunter https://youtu.be/vfwZtuBtrtQ T16 Constrictor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVOHQ8n6qm4 Level 75 UUl netol breachstone https://youtu.be/TVLmLetrgpE Double hp (party scaled) T15 Red elder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQnI1TZYOP4 Double hp (party scaled) Uber elder 1 death (sorry for the random lags :/) https://youtu.be/obijCxk2YME Uber elder deathless (no bodyswap) https://youtu.be/QxZdxzjIHZA Shaper x3hp demolition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJlQ5e-TZUk Shaper without moving during the fight https://youtu.be/nyyGqdEAdCs Other notables achievements without video: Aul triple/double challenges solo. Aul no cocoon detonated/no crystals hit x2 hp + frenzy. Uber elder in japan realm with 350 ping deathless carry. DEPTH 300 KURGAL ALL CHALLENGES x4 HP 1ST TRY. ■ Build Concept ■
Spoiler
This is an indigon mana scaling build. We have over 10000 MANA, which allows us to spend a ton of mana for our skills. Indigon translates this into spell damage. We reach the cap of 2000% increased spell damage quite easily, even with the 25% nerfed version. Because we have so much mana, having access to the hierophant's sanctuary of thought gives us 3500 maximum energy shield simply from our mana pool.  Image from Rhaegar_G's original thread This gives us a good base to be Low life to benefit from Pain attunement to boost our spell damage.  Because we have an exponential mana cost from indigon, we need a way to cast spells even when we are out of mana, otherwise we'd have to wait for the mana cost to go down. We trigger spells using The poet's pen. Spells inside are triggered when we attack, so we attack with frenzy. When we are out of mana and we press frenzy, our character default attacks for no mana cost, wich still counts as an attack and triggers the spells in the poet's pen. We dual wield them for more spells triggered. Lowlife also allows us for more reservation space to run all three purities, clarity and discipline. Skyforth also gives us stun immunity. ■ Pros and cons ■
Spoiler
■ Strong. 10k ES, 3Million dps, 57% leech. 80+% all resistances, 3 endurance charges (31% phys mitigation + IC total). This is a very solid character. ■ Can run all map mods, but can be annoying. The only thing you cannot run is a combination of cannot leech (from cannot leech or hexproof, we use warlord's mark loo leech) and no regen. This is still technically doable, I've done it on low t10 maps. You have however close to no damage since you can't spend mana for indigon to give you the spell damage. Ele reflect requires a gem swap to Essence drain / contagion, it's annoying, just reroll it. Phys reflect requires you to swap to lvl 1 unearth, not that big of a deal. ■ All content viable? Uber atziri is impossible with volatile dead, so I used cremation. It's doable, I did it, but it didn't feel great. With the damage nerf in 3.5 you wan't insta phase her, I'd recommend not farming her on this build. HoGM is reallllly annoying, requires a balefire weapon swap and saffel's. Basically a no go. Lab is kind of easy, but traps as LowLife are always deadly, and izaro's cold lieutenant is really dangerous (this is true for most build, really, so it's not really a con, but take care. I'd use cremation instead of VD on a lieutenant day.). Shaper is an absolute joke. Uber elder gets deleted in 3 minutes. You can't facetank EVERYTHING, but it's not hard. Overall, it's a very versatile build, but it does not do EVERYTHING like a GC miner would. It has much better survivability, bosskilling (yes. delve bosses aren't only about damage, sorry gc bois.), and mapping speed potential. ■ Expensive. The build REQUIRES an investment of at least 15ex to START. I built this char as my delve league starter for the challenge, and even with multiple checkpoints PoBs and a week of planning, this was really hard. I would also recommend having a good game mechanics understanding to play this. I have seen people obviously RMTing their way to this build even before I posted this thread. Then they come and ask very stupid questions, and have no idea about the value of items used here. I will NOT answer stupid questions from people who obviously cheated their way there, and I will report you. Be warned. If you want to discuss further improvements to the guide however, feel free to contact me here or in game. ■ Lag unfriendly. Have a decent computer, this can be a bit hectic at some times. You'll be the king of your party however. ■ Scales to infinity. Some people like to find an endgame build where you can dump thousand of exalts to minmax it. This is one of these. It also scales incredibly well with an aurabot (flat damage is bae, defenses gets boosted to infinity...) ■ Gear, gems and explanations ■
Spoiler
Finally, the core of the guide! My gear for reference:
Spoiler
■ Equipement ■ Flasks ■ Jewels ■ Boots Skyforth is best in slot. Enables mana reservation, provides stun immunity, lots of mana, very good movement speed. The power charges are also really nice to keep Vaal pact and Elemental Overload up. Enchant wise, try to aim for "regen 2% of life and mana if you got hit recently". Life regen doesn't work, but mana regen gives a ton of damage. I'd recommend putting your blood magic aura setup in here, for ease of coloring. Enlighten 4 is MANDATORY to run all 3 purities, otherwise you want to only run one and purity of elements, and reserve clarity/any 35% aura on your life. ■ Gloves Atziri's acuity are very good for vaal pact, it multiplies our life leech by 2. Cheaper option is https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Doedre%27s_Malevolence, but the +50 mana cost also applies to basic attacks, which is very annoying. I did all guardians with these gloves, they still work well as a cheap option. For enchantment, Spite is in my opinion the best, meteor is nice too, reflection is interesting. Commandment of light does NOT work, because we are using skyforth. For ease of coloring, put your CwDT setup inside, and a phase run for easy delving and moving around. If you are rich, you can put an aura setup with +2aoe/aura gems corruption, for maximum resistances, and exchange the gems between gloves and helm. ■ Body armor Shavs because we are a lowlife build, straightforward. The roll matters little, most of our ES comes from mana conversion. Cheap option is solaris lorica, like any lowlife build. Colors are hard to get, and aim at maximizing the mana cost of frenzy. Base links are: Frenzy-Gmp-FasterAttacks Mana costs enhancers are Multistrike-MeleeSplash These increase the mana cost of frenzy because it is a melee attack gem, even tho it doesn't perform a melee attack here. Combustion is nice as a 6th link for minmaxing dps, be sure to deal at least 4 fire damage with your attacks to be able to ignite (just craft added fire on a ring, or herald of ash). ■ Helmet Indigon, as discussed above. enlighten isn't strictly needed here, but is nice to have. If you have an enlighten 4 and a reduced mana reserved enchant, you might be able to use herald of ash. We have no free sockets tho, so you need to roll it on an elder ring. good luck with that. Helm enchant for VD destroys an additionnal corpse is 1 mirror, and does not increase our dps when bodyswapping because we don't create enough corpses. It is the endgame goto for party delving however, since you don't bodyswap in depth 2500+ delves in a party (check empyrean's party yourself). " ■ Weapons Shouldn't need explaining. Get 10% penetration corruption if you can, and use whatever spell you want. Poet's pen has an internal cooldown, son make sure you don't attack with frenzy more than 4.8 times per second. If you attack too fast, you will only cast the spells every second time, that's easily noticeable. ■ Belt Comparable to a mirror tier shaper belt. The life and ES recovery both stack additively, giving us insane leech rate. Attack speed and CDR are really nice, try to get 19/20% cdr on it. A few corruptions are good, max endurance charge being my favorite. But good luck getting that. We have 3M damage per second already. Take the survivability route. The harbinger of time buff is also really pleasant, giving us 20% action speed and multiplicative CDR half of the time. ■ Amulet The only cheap piece of gear in this build. Get +1% max resist for maximum memes. Try to get a good mana roll, it's important. ■ Rings You need a warlord's mark on hit ring, and fill your resistances. If you can get 30 dex on a ring, that'll save you a passive point. Try to get mana, es and mana regen (in order of importance) on top of your resists. If you can corrupt one for bleed immunity, that's best in slot. ■ Flasks Not much originality here. Wise oak is good instead of chalice for penetration, and if you can triple balance it that's even better. Curse removal stibnite is REALLY good because it's always up, so get one of these. ■ Jewels I'll go into more details for jewel placement in skill tree section. Try to get useful corruptions on your jewel. Corrupted blood immunity and silence are the 2 main things here. If you have money to spend, get a watcher's eye with mana recovery rate while affected by clarity. The ES mod is more important and is already 10ex. This is the kind of endgame watcher's eye you want: Jewels corruption tips
Spoiler
Corrupted blood immunity and cannot be cursed with silence are really good. There isn't much sources of silence, but in incursion is was really annoying. Since being silenced basically means insta death, get easy immunity against it. Corrupted blood is always good quality of life. A very useful trick is to get reduced mana reserved jewels. Having 2 of them, a level 21 blood magic support and a level 4 enlighten, you can drop the 4% reduced mana reserved node on the tree for a passive point. Having 4 of them and the node on the tree, you can run your life reservation with a lvl 20 blood magic and a level 3 enlighten. Buying 4 jewels like that is likely to be cheaper than a lvl 4 enlighten, and it's strictly better because it also reduces our mana reservation. ■ Passive tree ■
Spoiler
https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.4.3/AAAABAUCAQDuA5oEBwhnCPQNfBFQGDwYVhslHNwi9Cj6Kk0qUysmLOky0TWSN0c64TwtPydBh0SKRUdGcUcGSU9JsUrIS65Ms03jUilUglXGVeBWSFfJWFpcil8qX2pgQ2KVahtqQ2usbAhsC20Zbj1uqm87cLtxYnUqeA17w3vXf8aBj4LHgwmDX4PMg9uFMoaziq-PGo_6kBGTJ5M6ly2XlZf0nj6hL6PvplenCKcrpzSu_bJwtAy18rc-uJO8qrzqvSe-gL6KwBrAZsHFytPQH9DQ18_YJNlb2t3b59-K6QLquuvk6-7sGOwu74jv6_GK8kX2_Pk3-d356P4K_o_-sw== Ascendancy contained in the skill tree. ■ Jewel placement:
Spoiler
 Transcendent spirit goes here for +120 mana. The non upgraded version does the same, I just think this one looks cooler.  We use two healthy minds here for the scion life wheel interaction. Note that reducing our life pool is good because it reduces %hp damage we take, for example from traps or the darkness in delves.  An other healthy mind here to convert the melding wheel.  And a last one here to convert heart and soul, and cruel preparation. All the other jewels can be placed regardless of their position in the tree. ■ Bandits: Kill all for 2 passive points (more mana). ■ Pantheon ■
Spoiler
  Good chaos mitigation, and the arakaali recovery rate is good, especially for uber elder because of all the ground degens,shaper's beam, elder aoe... ■ Upgrades ■
Spoiler
In this section I will discuss the different upgrades possible if you have more money to throw at the build. Note that these will only provide a marginal boost and will be very expensive. ■ Headhunter Headhunter is a perfectly balanced item, Kappa. Honnestly it doesn't fit that great here, but it's still pretty good for mapping.Soul eater makes you attack so fast that being offsync with the cooldown isn't that much of a problem. Looting is a pain with shroud walker tho. If you only care about XP, or never tried headhunter before, try it. ■ Dual mod Watcher's eye As discussed before, a watcher's eye with clarity mana recovery rate is good, but not as insane as it used to be in 3.4. If you can get a 3rd good mod that's even better. Note that post nerf, a phys taken as ele or ES gained on hit second mod is probably what you would be looking for. ■ Helm enchant indigon A +1 corpse VD enchant is really good for single target damage where you don't bodyswap. It's good in delves, and that's about it. For very dense mapping you will also probably notice a slight difference. You don't create enough corpses even without the enchant, so it's a questionable choice. If you have the money to afford that, you probably know the pros and cos of it, so up to you to decide. Note: arc chains is also a dank option. ■ Corrupted pens Get a "penetrates 10% elemental resistances" corruption on your weapons, straightforward. With it you can drop the fire pen gem and use elemental focus instead. ■ Corrupted amulet Easy +1% max res, at a minimal cost. getting a 24% mana one with the right corruption will cost a very random amount of currency. I got mine for 2ex mid delve, I know you could get some for 50c early, but the offer is so low that the prices skyrocket quickly. Even if you can theoretically delve craft a very good elder blue pearl amulet, +1% maxres is in my opinion better. ■ +2 acuities This requires heavy investment, but, you can get +2% max res in the resistance of your choice (you should pick cold and fire), bringing you at 82%. With a +2 aoe/aura gems corruption and the 2 passive points for influence, you reach 20% aura effect and 5% base maxres on your purities. This requires swapping the gems in your helm with those in your gloves. Last edited by Darkxellmc on Mar 18, 2019, 6:14:13 PM Last bumped on Apr 16, 2019, 11:52:55 AM
|
|
|
--- Reserved ---
|
|
|
Build works brilliantly, and is an improvement over the previous version.
One small thing I can add is that you can get local fire damage as a (cheap) corruption for Poet's Pen, saving you a ring prefix slot which might otherwise be used for, say, ES/Mana/ES faster recharge start. Also, phys reflect maps can be done easily by swapping your levelled Unearth gem with a level 1 Unearth gem (you'll hardly notice any dps change). Ele reflect maps can be done by swapping your VD/Fire Pen gems with levelled Bladefall and Brutality. Last edited by mrpetrov on Sep 30, 2018, 9:05:18 AM
| |
|
About the belt and life recovery, usually POB factor most of the stuff correctly so im a little skeptical has if life recovery apply to ES because it doesn't on POB.
A day w/o dealing with stupid ppl is like....Never mind. Ill tell u if it ever happens
| |
|
that's weird... Maybe it doesn't. I don't know tbh, I just know I leech fast ^^
|
|
|
got this badboy here, Do you think is worth building this build around it? Currency is not a problem. |
|
" Hmm, possibly but I would probably err not not doing the build around this watcher's. The reasons are three: 1. The phys damage mod is great, but it's linked to purity of elements and you're likely to want to use individual purities eventually for the + max res. 2. The lightning damage mod is not relevant to this build - we are fire and a little phys. 3. You say currency isn't an issue - so you can spend c. 15 ex for a really good clarity (ES from mana) + individual purity watcher's (or 100 ex for one with mana recovery rate + ES from mana). That said, given you can afford great stuff - do the build, you'll love it! P. Last edited by mrpetrov on Sep 30, 2018, 9:23:49 PM
| |
" oh, yeah, I'm doing Arc right now. I'm not sure if wrath gives more damage than having more unreserved mana, but ok. here's my build, using my items if you want to check it out: https://pastebin.com/7xZQnR8q Last edited by leolarizza on Oct 1, 2018, 3:18:38 AM
|
|
|
Why not. In the long run, you probably want a mana recovery rate watcher's eye anyways. Penetration is especially good on arc because you don't benefit from the 20% from combustion. Running wrath is costly however, and tbh this template needs survivability much more than damage, so running all 3 purities is gonna be a better true endgame goal.
I PoB'd you, your setup seems perfectly fine. |
|
" I can't pay 100ex for that jewel lol, I could afford all your build easily with some spare currency, but 100 is a bit over my budget edit: I have this one too, but I'd lose so much ES Last edited by leolarizza on Oct 1, 2018, 5:38:54 AM
|
|
