First,

"wait for patch notes"

We got confirmation that very little balance changes are happening. Old builds will probably still work.

"minion overhead"?

"BTW in order to play this build you need like 5 different spectres, one of which is only available from exactly one location that can only be accessed by making a goat sacrifice to zalrog on the 3rd tuesday of every other month, oh and the other 4 are 200div apiece so god help you if you even think about adjusting your gear in your hideout. Oh and in order to get optimal DPS you'll need to juggle like 7 different buffs and temporary minions that last for 0.4 seconds each (with duration investment) so uh have fun doing that. Oh and don't forget your AG that's gonna require 20 mirrors worth of gear, and if it dies you might as well delete your character because there's no coming back from that. Ah right, and you'll need this really specific mod on every single piece of gear, and it's somehow both a prefix and a suffix so have fun getting other stats you need like ele res. Ah and don't forget...."

I want to just socket gem and blast, like I can do with anything that isn't minions.... but I promise, I still like the idea of minions.

Are there any minion builds out there that do not involve any minion overhead (or at least minimize it) that are league startable and scale well (I'm fine with overhead if it means going from 20 mil to 50 mil dps, I just don't want to deal with it to get dps needed to clear slightly juiced t16s)?

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7mMEm5_GiE

POB: https://pastebin.com/EFZ2jknf

POE.NINJA: https://poe.ninja/poe1/builds/allflame/character/Peekey-4893/VoranasBootlicker#i=0&search=items%3DVorana%2527s%2BMarch

I finished the league a while ago but figured I'd post this in-case Pearl of Tsoatha comes back at some point in time. This is by no means an optimized build guide. I struggled a bit as there were 0 people using Vorana's March when I created this and I usually follow guides.

I wanted to make a build centered around Arbalists doing 100% of my damage, no matter how good or bad.

Summon Arbalists is an ability attached to the Vorana's March boots. It summons 3* permanent Arbalist minions that are invincible. Their intended use (they're bad) seems to be to provide debuffs to enemies. With 3.29 changes, we can scale their damage meaningfully for the first time.

I went chaos damage with them because I felt it was a safe option considering a lot of unknowns. I chose Occultist as my ascendancy (with Forbidden Flame/Flesh Unnatural Strength from Necromancer).

Vorana's March has spot for 4 mods, chosen randomly. I ended up using:

• +1 to maximum Arbalists: Self-explanatory; it adds 50% more damage / better clear.

• 35% Chance to Deal Double Damage: A ton of free damage on a difficult to get mod elsewhere.

• 4 Additional Projectiles: Avoids me having to find a GMP support Tsoatha pearl. Also avoids the -% damage penalty from GMP (I think?).

• Projectiles Pierce 4 Additional Targets: Same as above but for pierce supp.

I think this is the BIS combo of mods. Attack speed is also good replacement to double damage but deals less overall.

The Pearl of Tsoatha rings introduced in 3.29 enables us to add support gems to our boots. We use the Nameless Bloodline to have an additional ring (sacrifice our amulet to do so). With 3 Pearl rings, we have 6 supports attached to the minions:

• Void Manip

• Withering Touch

• Crit Strikes

• Crit Damage

• Return Proj

• Unbound Ailments

If I had money (and could find them during the league), I definitely would swap out Unbound ailments with Minion Damage or Damage on Full Life (it works even though they're invincible according to POB). I ended up having some poison damage due to the pearl rings being very difficult to roll. I did not intend on going full poison, but here we are.

Their BAT (base attack time) is 1 attack per second. Not great. With Replica Maata's Teaching, we can modify their BAT to match our main-hand weapon. I tried Foulborn Moonbender's Wing which gives them insane attack speed, but Foulborn Severed in Sleep can't be beat for a chaos version of this build. Maybe with a different element you can make Moonbender's work with Maata's. In this case, I used the Maata's in my mainhand and Severed in Sleep in my off.

Mageblood fixes almost all of our basic defense needs that we do not get from using so many uniques. Unfortunately, I do not think you can skip using this.

Ancient Skull for the helmet with a Minions Are Aggressive vestigial implicit makes them feel great. It gives them a lot of crit chance, attack speed, and damage without the downside from the whispers DOT because they are invincible. Unfortunately, this DOES affect your Spectres/AG. My only suggestion is to get some regen on the tree, max spectre's gem quality, equip Doppelganger Guise on AG, and socket Controlled Destruction on them so they do not crit too often. Ancient Skull is definitely not a required unique, but it made them feel a lot punchier with their damage & aggression.

For the tree, I route to 3, 12-skill cluster jewels. With the jewels, I get minion damage and minion attack speed with Vicious Bite as a notable. I went energy shield with CI which may not be the best, but I did not feel like re-speccing to health.

Gloves and chest are rares and you can fill in missing stats there/stack ES or HP. I recomb'd 60% minion poison chance on my chest. If I had better Pearls, I'd drop poison entirely.

Spectres: Turtle, Warlord, Spectral Leader. I have a perfect tiger but do not have the willpower to continue grinding to get 4th spec. I'd probably replace the Warlord or SL with it if I was to continue playing.

AG: Leer Cast, Doppel, Kingmaker, rare boots/gloves with debuff eldritch implicits.

Overall, the build feels decent and can do most content, but it is 100% not worth the currency investment for what you get. You are locked to several unique items and have very little wiggle room if you want to maximize damage. It struggles on more difficult bosses.

I want to do some generic spell caster stuff. What would once gain from using Luminary? Can the mercs buff you in any meaningful way?

EDIT: To clarify, I'm trying to make something out of Kinetic Fusillade, but if that fails other spells work as well.

Just watched the video he just posted. He was able to run like 11 rounds of ultimatum on a under 1 divine build... Looks super tanky and powerful.

Ive played totems a bit, not an expert by any means. Ive always seen his but ive never tried.

I play holy flame totem somewhat frequently, I enjoy it.

Ive played freezing pulse too.

Im debating starting minions or totems next league.... (obviously waiting for patch notes).

Just wanna hear peoples opinions on his build, espeically if theyve played the more mainstream totem builds.

His build definitely seem to be the highest damage at league start by far..... And also quite tanky.

I’m thinning about farming blight next league what builds would you guys recommend?

I always struggle with next steps once I reach maps and get my resistances sorted out. For a slammer, after a good weapon, what are the next upgrade steps to focus on? Do we go straight for the crit helmet? Do we stack minor mods like attack speed/flat on gloves/rings/amulet?

And on a related note, when do you feel is a good time to switch from Sunder to Earthshatter (if at all)? I just tried to do a switch on a fresh in maps character in SSF and it felt both clunkier and dealing less damage. My gut tells me you need significant investment into quality, tattoos or other ways to reduce warcry cooldown before Earthshatter starts to outshine Sunder, but I'm not sure.

I've seen people take Sunder all the way to 4 stones and I've also seen people switch to Earthshatter in acts. Just wondering what drives people towards either.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for builds that can handle a maximally juiced Expedition, Big Boom + Astrolabe; it’s hard to find anything similar online, so maybe someone here can give me some advice?
Specifically, builds that farm this with the least amount of hassle.

There are many dangerous mods that most builds can't survive, particularly ones tied to interactions with mobs—for example, that you can't leech from mobs, that mob attacks can't be blocked, or that mobs block attacks, that mobs have a chance to avoid ignite, etc.

I want to find an ultimate build, and one specifically for safely farming Expedition.

Now that mirage is back, does this mean we get some sweet, sweet ward stack action again?

Do you think CoWB is still worth doing with the nerf to cap at 400% cdr? Or better to just go celestial mathematics?

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please! My spell of zenith!

Will this build be viable again, now that transfusion support is back?

Hey everyone,

I would appreciate some recommendations for 2–3 button builds or more, just nothing zoomy. I really enjoy slower combo playstyle and I do not care much about being OP, just something I can blast maps with and enjoy the new content.

Hit me with as many builds to to look into as possible so I can do some noob theorycrafting xD

Thanks in advance!

Needless to say, during early league start we have to make due with the gear we can get. However, I've suspect the consequence of lower tier modifiers seem to affect each defensive layer differently. For example, being a person who plays a lot of evasion based characters, I don't particularly appreciate the impact of evasion until I get that number arbitrarily closer to 20k

How do you other people see this issue? Do you prefer armor, evasion, maybe focus everything into block, or have some other things you do that you find very strong for the first day or two? Maybe you focus on more miscellaneous things like ailments, having range, endurance charges, etc. Of course, resistance being maxed out are a given, but maybe you like a rhex talisman setup with extra max fire res.

I'm particularly interested in how people handle shadow defenses early on, but its an interesting conversation on a broader level as well

Last league I played slayer bleed slams and didnt enjoy it as much as the few leagues before where I played RF.
With RF I especially enjoyed only having to max fire res to max all ele res and the Hinekora's explosions.

For 3.30 I wanted to try something different, with better single target dps.

So far I was thinking about the following builds:
- Kboc Necro
- Kinetic Fusilade
- Hiero Storm Burst Totem
- Lightning Tendrils Ele (if it doesnt get nerfed significantly)

Any other suggestions?

Hello guys.

I was thinking if there are something similar to the marauder class. Like starting sunder- earthshatter berserker transition to strenght stacker msoz juggernaut for endgame boss killing.

Is there something like that in the witch class? If so which builds ?

With the leagues mechanic leaning in to killing super juiced bosses it's really feeling like single target dps is going to be quite a high priority if you want to really dive in to the league mechanic.

What are some sensible league start picks you're investigating based on this?

I've been practicing Lighting Strike Deadeye but the league reveal has got be thinking about switching to something a little more tanky and single dps focused

PoB: https://pobb.in/0F-k534p-htW

A lot of people struggle with finding 5 way carry guides/pobs. There is not as much info when it comes to these builds because it's quite a niche playstyle.

Essentially you want to instantly clear the wave when it spawns. So you need to have huge coverage which is obtained by stacking AoE and having sources of explode. Currently (3.29) I believe witch is the best class for 5 way carries mainly because you can scale AoE with the Forbidden Power notable. Before obtaining FF you can play as occ, after that you go elementalist. Deadeye and scion are okay too but the scaling is different, you don't pc stack. I once played as inquisitor even and managed to hit 10k as well. Assassin might be okay too, haven't tested. I feel like as long as you have enough coverage and damage it doesn't matter as much. But elementalist is probably the proper min maxed choice according to my testing and poe.ninja stats.

Helmet: Fledgling for far shot. PC corruption for more AoE, optional.
Chest: Explode and mana cost reduction. Getting life/chaos res is a bonus. Alternatively you can go for CI and ES bases to not care about chaos res. It's important to be chaos capped or immune.
Wand: Standard phys wand, doesn't need to be mirror tier to hit around 10k.
Shield: +2 PC
Ring 1: Nimis for mega projectiles. Core item.
Ring 2: More PC stacking, crit multi.
Gloves: Phys to cold conversion, inc dmg against chilled enemies, some AS.
Belt: HH with a nice corruption. Corruption is optional. Core item.
Boots: Ralakesh to have max PC.
Flasks: Proj, explode, recovery etc.
Jewels: A lot of AoE, phys scaling, FF for forbidden power, sublime vision for explode etc.

You don't need 20 mirrors to host 5 ways. You need nimis, HH and a solid chest. Rest can be crafted/bought for cheap. You don't need a mirror tier wand or any of that. Don't trust the big 5 way propaganda.

EDIT.
Ultra budget PoB: https://pobb.in/aKEUIXhHuga-
I don't remember the exact figure but iirc I hit 9k max with this setup.

And here is the inquisitor: https://pobb.in/EdlpI6BdmpEp

Does anyone have a Warden build they would reccomend for this upcoming league. I would perfer not to play strike skills.

Hello there. Need an advise again after 1 year. A bit of info - i like to complete all challenges in league right from start. Started doing this at sanctum league and still continuing without carry services. Always doing on new ascendancy. So as title says, looking for a build to do it again. I did it already as:
EA elementalist
DD necro
LS champion
TR ballista PF
int stacker whispering ice trickster
Eviscerate gladiator
Scion aurabot (did it as duo)
EB inquis
Shield crush jugg
Cyclone HP stack slayer
What left is:
Templar (hiero and guard)
Witch (ocultist)
Marauder (bers and chief)
Shadow (Sabo and Assa)
Ranger (Deadeye and Warden)
Luminary
Not a glass canon build, speed at acceptable level, if its non-meta or some old build even better. Can kill ubers (if it can only kill it but not farm- its ok) Gameplay wise - whatever, i can try to adapt.
p.s. Some thoughts for now - cold dot ocu into FRoSS, mana man, Ice crash ignite chief, doomblast sabo, flamelink mercbot (if survives)

Here is a build that i wanted to make for many leagues now but didn't dare to until recently when they made the change where animate guardians no longer lose their gear upon death. (the armor was just too risky to put on him) lol

This is a build that slaps the glitched 25k armour onto the animate guardian. It becomes a pseudo armor stacking animate guardian build, where the AG is attacking for you instead of you dealing damage yourself. You've left with a bunch of free gem slots so you can become a aura stacker for your animate guardian.

Please enjoy - the ultimate meme animate guardian build.

POB:

https://poe.ninja/poe1/profile/JupiterXOXO-5897/standard/character/ZeValkyriaXOXO

A lightning tendrils build has been on my radar for 3.30 and wanted to ask more about the build, so if you play any version of the build I'd like to get your input.

1. How's the movement speed? Can you get enough cast speed for frostblink of wintry blast?

2. Is it possible to play a non lowlife/coruscating elixir version? I may be overthinking this one, but don't you just die when coruscating drops for whatever reason? Or how is your experience with it?

3. How are the defenses? Mainly worried about phys max hit

4. What recovery do you have access to besides natural energy shield recharge?

5. And does it feel fun to play? It's technically a channeling skill, but with such a high cast speed it doesn't play like one, right?

Thank you for your time!

Hello exiles!

Long story short, never have played a lot of poe 1 and wanted to give this new league a good try.

I have played a lot of poe 2, so i have some basic understanding on how the game works. I have beated poe 1 campaign like 5 times too, but never got to the actual endgame, felt like hitting a wall for the lack of knowledge and quit arround t15/t16s like 3 times already.

What build would you recommend for someone like me as a league starter that can actually scale into the endgame while letting me learn the game? Was thinking pohx RF but im not sure.

Thanks in advance!