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Welcome to the guide on my POE 3.24 Explosive Arrow Ignite Elementalist, a build that holds a special place as my all-time favorite and a legendary one! Throughout my experience, I've played this build multiple times, achieving notable success such as farming several Divine Orbs, including three mirrors from Expeditions. Join me as we delve into the intricacies of this powerful and enduring build.
You can smoothly progress through the early maps until you're able to enhance the build to the version I've outlined here. Leveling up and increasing damage output is quite straightforward.
Moreover, the playstyle is among the safest archetypes, which makes it more accessible for casual players to enjoy the end game. The version I'm presenting here differs from others.
Hence, it's a versatile build suitable for both clearing maps and taking on bosses.
In practice, the build prioritizes the most potent ignite based on the number of arrows or fuses lodged in the target. Achieving this requires high attack speed, a moderate skill effect duration, and scaling the total number of ballistas that can be summoned.
I'll provide a comprehensive explanation of everything you need to kickstart this legendary build, eliminating the need to search elsewhere. Additionally, for the purpose of this guide, I'll demonstrate how to craft the end-game bow, quiver, and amulet tailored for this build. Even if you're not using this particular build, you can still generate significant POE Currency by crafting items for it. Given the substantial player base likely to adopt this build at the start of a league, there's ample opportunity for profit.
It's crucial to recognize that by taking the Elemental Equilibrium keystone, which imposes a 25% exposure rather than the standard 12%, we must refrain from incorporating external modifiers to flat fire damage in our build setup. To verify this, consult the tooltip for flat damage output modifiers and assess the fire damage value from the gem, alongside any external sources of cold or lightning damage to activate this buff.
Unlike many other attack skills, this one scales primarily with gem levels. Furthermore, avoid any modifiers that enable pierce, chain, or fork effects, as the goal is for all arrows to remain lodged in the target. Failure to do so will result in a loss of damage potential from the skill gem.
Additionally, the nodes near the witch class do not provide accuracy, which is essential for maintaining consistent damage output. Aim for at least a 90% chance to hit, achievable through gloves, helmet, or rings. If necessary, utilize a precision aura in the early stages.
While maximizing attack speed is advantageous, ensure a total of 45% increased skill effect duration in your passive tree. Excessive duration may lead to delays and DPS loss, while insufficient duration will hinder the maintenance of maximum fuse stacks on the target.
These considerations are paramount when configuring this build. The combined total damage may not provide a reliable assessment and can be manipulated in various ways.
Storm Cloud and Skirmish offer the most cost-effective options for a budget setup, but I advise against using Quill Rain. Eye of Malice's increased resistance for nearby enemies only functions effectively at close range. When activated, it further reduces the target's negative resistance. Additionally, Elemental Equilibrium eliminates the need for exposure sources in your gear setup.
For defense, consider a rare helmet with life, resistances, chance to mitigate spell damage, and crafted physical damage taken as elemental damage, obtainable from Korell in the Syndicate. Cloak of Flame is another potential unique option, or you can opt for a rare chest piece with life, chance to mitigate spell damage, and physical damage taken as elemental damage, unlocked from Gravicious in the Syndicate.
When selecting Storm Stride Serpentscale Boots, prioritize modifiers such as Legacy of Fury, which may take a few days to become affordable but provides a significant damage boost. If you're triggering Elemental Equilibrium with lightning damage instead of cold, Pyre can be utilized as another substantial damage multiplier, especially for those embracing a Glass Cannon approach. Ensure you have no flat fire or cold damage if employing Pyre.
Polaric Devastation serves as a potent damage amplifier for this setup, resulting in a significant increase in total damage output, often exceeding a million. However, it's essential to note that this unique item is specifically tailored for boss encounters and may come at a high cost during the early stages of the league.
Dyadian Dawn stands out as the optimal item choice for this build, being a tier 2 unique that should become readily available at an affordable price within the first few days of the league. Prioritize acquiring this item and consider obtaining the Turbulent Catalyst to further enhance its damage potential. Be cautious when incorporating multiple unique items from the suggested options, as this may lead to attribute and resistance issues. It's advisable to carefully adjust the distribution of requirements within the build, possibly utilizing rare jewels or Grand Spectrum jewels for optimization.
Ensure you have a life flask with immunity to Bleed and Corrupted Blood, as these utility flasks can be crucial for survival. While they are optional, your flask sustainability heavily relies on defeating monsters. For challenging boss encounters, consider equipping up to four life flasks to bolster survivability.
In our gem setup, we need to manually generate frenzy charges using Frenzy since Manaforged Arrows cannot be utilized in this configuration. If prioritizing defense, you may opt for Determination instead of Haste. Combining Flame Surge, Flammability with Arcanist Brand provides a significant debuffing capability, complemented by the Burning Damage Support for Flame Surge.
Securing the appropriate socket colors for a 6-link setup can be challenging. Utilizing the crafting bench to obtain three of the required colors is advisable. Alternatively, tainted Chromatic Orbs offer an easier solution but necessitate corruption of the item. If fortunate enough to acquire four red sockets, Empower surpasses Deadly Ailments in effectiveness. The absence of the old Vorici method is lamentable in this regard.
If you have yet to acquire the Polaric Devastation ring, consider using Infernal Cry linked to Call to Arms to apply the covered with ash effect. Alternatively, Steelskin linked with Automation Support serves as another viable option.
Typically, players would opt for Lifetap across all skills in this setup.
However, in my iteration, prioritizing Mana Regeneration Rate proves more beneficial as it creates additional flexibility, especially considering the scarcity of available sockets. This explains our utilization of an amulet boasting high Mana Regeneration Rate, which synergizes with the Clarity aura we've incorporated. Should you encounter early setbacks, resorting to an enduring mana flask remains a viable option.
In terms of Mana Reservation, Sovereignty and Mana Mastery suffice to maintain the auras essential to the build. Should complications arise prior to acquiring Mana Mastery, options include removing Haste temporarily or maintaining Clarity at a lower level in your aura configuration. Incorporating Precision necessitates adjusting one of the major auras accordingly.
The Leveling section of the guide holds significant importance for all players, including veterans.
This build demonstrates a dynamic and somewhat fragile nature. Each notable and keystone selected serves a purpose and holds value. While Spiritual Command could enhance attack speed scaling, prioritizing basic necessities during league start takes precedence, hence its omission in the initial setup.
During Acts 1 to 4, the build functions as a caster setup. However, transitioning to Explosive Arrow post-Shaper of Flames acquisition entails substantial changes in the passive tree, gear, and gem configuration. Primal Bond should not be taken until after this switch, and testing the build with Explosive Arrow is crucial. If lacking accuracy in gear, employing the Precision aura is advisable, even if it means sacrificing one of the major auras.
In the early stages, Ballista Totem Support may seem underwhelming. It's recommended to level the gem from Act 1 in your off-hand. Primal Manifestation significantly boosts the effectiveness of Ballista Totems at this point. Prioritizing nodes at the top left over those towards the south is advisable. Upon obtaining Sovereignty, acquiring two major auras alongside Clarity becomes viable. Adjusting the Clarity gem's level or using an Enduring mana flask until acquiring Mana Reservation mastery may be necessary. These nodes, along with the amulet, aid in addressing attribute requirements.
Upon reaching maps, prioritize obtaining resistances along with a rare jewel to address any deficiencies. Once Elemental Equilibrium is acquired, regularly checking the tooltip for any flat fire damage from gear becomes essential.
There are 2 straightforward methods to craft the bow.
Firstly, using fossils—corroded, metallic, and jagged—can yield +1 and +2 prefixes, albeit at a potentially high cost, requiring an item level above 50. Alternatively, employing a Shrieking Essence of Dread, once a prefix with elemental damage with attacks and an open prefix is obtained, can be used. Subsequently, using the crafting bench to add 'cannot roll attack' modifiers, along with at least one open prefix and one open suffix, ensures the successful addition of +1 with an Exalted Orb. Clearing the suffixes with 'prefixes cannot be changed' and 'scour' follows, simplifying the crafting process of the main hand weapon.
Crafting the quiver's cost varies based on desired mods and crafting luck. For double dot multi, a fractured base cannot be used as an Influence Orb must be applied. Beginning with a Broadhead Arrow Quiver or Primal Arrow Quiver, one rolls alterations until acquiring a Tier 3 to Tier 1 dot multi with attacks, subsequently augmenting a prefix to it. Regaling to make it rare and then blocking all attack mods to achieve increased damage with bow skills follows.
For those aiming for double dot multi, applying a Hunter Influence Orb for the final suffix is necessary, although caution is advised as acquiring a mod related to poison or chaos is irreversible. In cases where tier 1 or tier 2 life is not obtained, using Orb of Annulment while having 'cannot roll attack mods' prevents the removal of the damage over time modifier. Even if chaos dot multi is obtained with a Hunter's Exalted Orb, the item can still be sold for a favorable price.
Obtaining +2 on the amulet requires considerable patience with thousands of alterations until +1 to the level of all skill gems is achieved. Alternatively, purchasing a base with this mod pre-existing is advisable, with the item level needing to be at least 76. Converting it into one prefix with +1 level of all gems alongside one suffix may necessitate Beast crafting. Bench crafting the appropriate mods, followed by using Harvest augment with removal to obtain +1 to fire skill gems, leads to achieving a total of +2. If this proves challenging, opting for an amulet with +1 and damage over time multiplier is a viable alternative.
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View MorePath of Exile 2 has been the center of discussion among loyal players of the action role-playing game since its early access release last year. Although the developers have added many new game elements to this sequel that were not in the original game, the player community and players on many social platforms have been negative about it.
Even after POE 2 released its first major update and the first league Dawn of the Hunt some time ago, players’ complaints about the low drop rate and drastic nerfs of in-game loot have not changed at all. According to some relevant information leaks, the developers are taking some actions, such as releasing some hot fixes and additional changes in patch 0.2.0.
But in order to ensure that POE 2 can be in the best state before the official version is released and can provide players with a best exploration experience, it may also need to add an important feature - death review. At this stage, players are very demanding for this feature, so this guide organizes players’ views on it so that developers can create corresponding strategies according to players’ requirements more quickly.
In the production process of POE 2, developers have always wanted players to explore the huge game world in a slow-paced gameplay, and make the best build that suits them best according to the different exploration contents, until they reach the end of all battles.
However, in this game with slow and methodical gameplay, once the player dies in it, the cost invested before drawing, such as currency, gear, and one-way available Waystones will disappear, which is a very sad thing for all players, especially in the extremely challenging endgame stage.
Most importantly, players must learn from the corresponding experience from the failure just now, and then buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade their own builds accordingly, such as enhancing the overall defense ability or elemental resistance of the build to obtain better survivability. Or re-roll the affixes of the potions that can restore health or mana that they carry to obtain higher combat durability.
The developers thought this style might resonate with players, but in fact they didn’t buy it. Because the one-way available Waystones used in POE 2, on the one hand, the cost of drawing in the more difficult maps will also increase. On the other hand, if there is no death review screen in the game, it is difficult for players to find the real reason for death from the failure just now, which will make players more frustrated.
Because in most cases, the death of players in battle is not only caused by the ineffectiveness of the build they used, but also by mistakes in skill rotation or network jams, or even because of the excessive visual effects presented by the game, which makes players use wrong operations.
After these deaths caused by non-game mistakes, players may not need to make large-scale adjustments to their builds, and they want to clearly understand where they made mistakes and modify them in time, but unfortunately there is no such educational function in POE 2.
Although Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt has made some adjustments to reduce the degree of punishment for players’ death in the endgame, such as being able to create a new instance map after death and use Waystones with the same modifiers to enter it for a new round of exploration. But this cannot solve the genuine dilemma of players.
In fact, there are already many calls for the death review function in the popular action role-playing games in the current game world. Even Diablo 4, a powerful rival of POE 2, has been called by players to add this function, but they are indifferent.
So after Last Epoch, a common rival of POE 2 and D4, released Season 2 Tombs of the Erased, some disappointed players began to enter this more interesting game, because there are many features that players dream of, such as death review.
Even some players who have tried these two games called for POE 2 to learn from these features in Last Epoch in the next version to make themselves more competitive. Although the developers have not explicitly stated that they will consider adding this feature, players are still looking forward to it, because its popularity has become a trend just like couch co-op.
In general, because the difficulty of building and endgame in Path of Exile 2 is very high compared to similar games, the learning difficulty of players will also become higher. Therefore, if a death review screen is added, it may make it easier for them to learn from the experience of this battle and complete subsequent challenges faster.
Because the addition of this feature will improve the accessibility of the entire game, it is very useful for both novice exiles and high-level exiles. This will also indirectly lead to more new players pouring into POE 2, thereby expanding their influence. Like the players, I will also wait and see whether the developers can implement this new feature that can greatly improve the player's experience in the official version.
Path of Exile 2 was well received after its early access release in December last year, because it added a lot of new game content and mechanics compared to the original game. This positive momentum continued until early April this year, when the first major patch 0.2.0, and a new league Dawn of the Hunt were released.
Although the developers also spent a lot of time in this major update to bring players a variety of new content, such as new classes, new enemies and new maps, players did not buy it. Even though the developers subsequently launched nearly 5 patches to make up for the losses of players, players still complained about it.
Since Path of Exile 2 is still in the early access stage, there is still a lot of room for developers to modify. In view of this, this guide will summarize some of the key changes that POE 2 needs to make in the next update that are currently discussed the most in the player community and social platforms, and they may all make the player’s gaming experience better.
Although the quality and drop rate of Path of Exile 2 loot have been greatly improved compared to the original game, only a small number of gear and currency have enjoyed this preferential treatment, while the drop rate of other POE 2 Regal Orbs, Orb of Annulment, and Chaos Orbs that can greatly improve production efficiency is still very low in the game.
This makes it a very long and tedious process for players to make a high-rarity and high-quality affixed gear in the game. More importantly, in order to obtain those rarer Uniques directly through the campaign, players need to complete the running tasks of those more challenging maps.
In this case, the shortage of currency and the lack of gear effectiveness will make this challenge full of great risks. Therefore, players are very much hoping that the drop rate of these key items will become a little higher, making some high-tier maps more profitable, so that the entire game can be more explorable.
The gem cutting system in POE 2 is recognized by players as a great addition to this sequel, because it allows players to customize their skills according to the needs of the current exploration. And when you enter a higher-level explorable area, you will get more Uncut Gems, which means you can use them to upgrade your current skills or unlock new skills.
But when you over-upgrade a skill and change an exploration style, you will find that your build urgently needs to be modified in terms of skills. But when you remove this skill gem, you need to use a lower-level Uncut Gem to fill this gap.
In order to obtain this Uncut Gem, you need to return to the low-level map to do boring farming again, and expect these randomly dropped items to be picked up by you as soon as possible, which will consume a lot of time and energy.
Most importantly, you also need to buy POE 2 Currency to make corresponding modifications to your already nearly perfect and powerful build, which is a completely avoidable consumption.
So if developers add a gem vendor to the game, whether it’s skill gems, support gems, or spirit gems, it will greatly save players the cost of searching for the gems they want, thereby greatly improving the quality of life of players.
Path of Exile 2 has several very large maps, and many players have complained about having to circle the map many times to find the corresponding exit. And because of the unique map refresh mechanism in the sequel, the location of the exit will change when you enter the map at different times.
In addition, there are very few checkpoints on each map, which makes it impossible for players to respawn nearby and challenge an enemy or boss again after failing. All these factors make it difficult for players to quickly draw maps and get more loot from them.
The improvement that developers can make is to set more checkpoints and reduce the scope of each map so that players can better backtrack and farm effectively.
Not only that, many players who want to complete all campaigns quickly suggest that the exit of each map should be permanently marked. However, from the perspective of some players who want to explore in detail, this may have some negative effects, because after completing the main battles and quests, they will be very eager to leave the map instead of looking for some optional quests or bosses.
Of course, in addition to the changes in the game mechanism, players also hope that developers can optimize the performance of the game. Because in many actual explorations, the player’s configuration is far beyond the recommended configuration, but the game’s frame rate is still not stable, so developers may need to put this type of optimization on the agenda.
The above are some suggestions from many players on the recent major update of POE 2 and what they want to see in the next update. Although there is no guarantee that POE 2 will return to its peak state after revising these problems, it is worth affirming that will undoubtedly be a relief to those exiles who criticized patch 0.2.0 and are loyal to the original. I wish you a happy game!
Since the early access release of Path of Exile 2, players have been very surprised by the performance of Mercenary class. This character, which seems to be out of tune with the game style, has become the first choice for many players who love strategic battles with its super damage output and super practicality.
In the latest Dawn of the Hunt league, the developer added a new Ascendancy class called Tactician, which is a class with vigorous support, survivability and damage capabilities. And some of the passive skills and effect gains it provides have significantly improved the practicality of Mercenary.
For Tactician, you can make it a purely auxiliary support class, or you can make it a part-time auxiliary class. If you have just unlocked this Ascendancy class, but don’t know how to use it correctly, this guide will provide you with the most commonly used and most powerful build tips for Tactician.
It should be noted that the builds provided here are all available for single-player exploration, which will focus more on self-leveling, and we will continue to pay attention to those builds that can benefit your allies in cooperation.
Before using Tactician, a class with multiple builds, you need to select Mercenary as your standard class before the exploration begins, and be familiar with some subsequent commonly used active skills, such as Fragmentation Rounds, High Velocity Rounds, Explosive Grenade and Gas Grenade.
Because being familiar with the rotation between these skills will make your early game and the campaign process in Cruel Mode very smooth. When you reach the endgame, you can modify your build according to your needs, because at this time you already have a lot of Uncut Spirit Gems to unlock some new spells, thereby enhancing the damageability of the entire build.
But it is worth mentioning that although the damage ability of Mercenary (or Tactician) is strong, its survivability is also very weak. In a boss encounter, the most powerful build of this character will be in serious danger of death after three consecutive attacks from the enemy.
Therefore, many players who use Tactician build often stun the enemy in combat, which will open up a window for them to deal super high damage and successfully complete all challenges. So here are some strategies and tips for using Tactician build during your exploration, including the leveling stage and the endgame stage.
Since the skills you have in Act 1 are only some basic skills that can help you get through the early game, such as Fragmentation Rounds, which can effectively defend you from monsters. When you unlock Tier 2 and above Uncut Skills Gems, you can cut them into Velocity Rounds and Flash Grenade, two very effective damage skill gems, to have higher clearing and combat capabilities.
Although you don’t have a lot of support gems in Act 1, you still need to place Scattershot and Double Barrel in the support slot of High Velocity Rounds, and Overpower and Second Wind behind Flash Grenade.
In addition, your defensive gear is also very important in the early stages of the game, so you need to try to find some armor or helmets with high dodge ratings and elemental resistance, and then buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade their rarity or re-roll their affixes.
When you level up a little, you can unlock Galvanic Shards and add Lightning Infusion and Martial Tempo to it to expand the effectiveness of this powerful elemental damage skill. Finally, after you successfully defeat King of the Mists boss, you can cut the first Uncut Spirit Gem you get into Herald of Thunder to increase the lightning damage you can apply.
In Act 2, you will need to upgrade your existing skills as much as possible and unlock some new skills. The first new skill you need to unlock is Gas Grenade, and place Scattershot and Magnified Effect support gems on it.
In the case of a group of enemies attacking you, you can use Explosive Grenade and equip it with Second Wind and Inspiration support gems. The other most needed new skill in this act is Explosive Shot, because it will work perfectly with Explosive Grenade skill, further increasing the explosion damage you inflict on the enemy, especially if you choose Martial Tempo as its support gem.
At this time, the support gem of Galvanic Shards should be changed from Martial Tempo to Conduction. With this powerful build, the exploration process of this act will be very smooth until you enter Trial of Sekhemas, which can provide you with a tough challenge with a strong Tactician Ascendancy class.
In this more difficult challenge, focus on upgrading your skills as much as possible and unlock Oil Grenade and Ripwire Ballista, both of which make some high-health enemies more vulnerable to high projectile damage and provide you with some defensive capabilities.
For the support gems of these two skill gems, Encumbrance increases the enemy movement speed caused by Oil Grenade by 15%, while Lockdown and Persistence make the damage inflicted by Ripwire Ballista stronger and more persistent.
If you miss the opportunity to gain Tactician Ascendancy in Trial of Sekhemas, you can also unlock it by completing Trial of Chaos in this act. However, if you have already unlocked Ascendancy class, you can also gain more Ascendancy points by completing this trial.
Finally, once you defeat Ignagduk, Bog Witch, you can use Uncut Spirit Gem it rewards you with unlocking Ghost Dance, which can be used with the support gem Clarity, which increases mana regeneration in this build by 30%.
In Cruel Mode, your overall build doesn’t actually need to be changed much, because most of the skill damage capabilities have been maximized. You can unlock Wind Dancer to enhance your defense capabilities according to your play style.
In addition, at this stage, the support gem slots of Gas Grenades and Galvanic Shards are no longer enough. You need to use two POE 2 Lesser Jeweler’s Orbs to increase this slot and place Primal Armament and Pierce in it.
When you complete all the main campaigns provided by POE 2, you enter the more challenging endgame content. Although your overall build is complete at this stage, you still need to modify it for subsequent game content.
For some key passive skills and active skill gems, you don’t need to modify them because their maximum effectiveness has been demonstrated. But the weapons and gear you use may need a major change.
In the early game exploration, your farming effectiveness and clearing ability may not be so important, so most of them are weapons that can inflict a lot of physical damage. In the endgame, you not only need to pay attention to the physical damage you cast, but also need to add some lightning damage to make you more profitable in some group enemy encounters.
Although your defensive gear such as armor and helmets are of a higher level before, and can allow you to complete some exploration tasks safely, the challenges of the enemies and monsters you face in the endgame are more difficult, so you also need amulets that can increase your maximum health and mana to escort you.
In fact, the operation and gameplay of Tactician build are very simple. You only need to use the correct skill rotation (from Oil Grenade to Explosive Shot to Gas Grenades) to have super high damage output. But it has to be admitted that the cooldown time of these skills is very long. After you use a set of rotations, all skills may enter the cooldown time.
But this does not mean that you can only dodge to ensure your safety during this time. You can also throw Explosive Grenades at the enemy to cause more explosive damage until all skills are restored. Or, during the skill rotation, throw Ripwire Ballista at the enemy, which will stop the enemy from moving forward under the damage of the powerful crossbow, so that it can withstand more damage.
Exiles, the arrival of Dawn Of The Hunt League has brought us some new classes and Ascendancies, which also gives us more options for endgame builds. And here, an excellent league starter build we want to recommend is the new Lich Ascendancy based on Witch class, which is Essence Drain Contagion Lich.
Lich is a very interesting Ascendancy class. It not only brings a new gameplay, but also is extremely powerful, causing a lot of damage in both the early and late game.
And Lich has perfect synergy with Essence Drain, because it has powerful defense nodes like Soulless Form and Eternal Life. And Lich class is also one of the few Ascendancy skills that Essence Drain will have a strong damage multiplier when using Eldritch Empowerment.
Essence Drain deals damage on top of regular hits, as well as secondary damage over time debuff that lasts for a set amount of time. When combined with Contagion skill, the damage over time spreads between groups of monsters, turning our primary damage into a large-scale clearing skill, and you can see groups of monsters on the screen exploding in an instant!
So, as the name suggests, this build revolves around two core mechanics, Essence Drain and Contagion. Now, let’s break down its mechanics.
As we said before, the core damage skills of this build are Essence Drain and Contagion, a combination that has actually been widely used since the early days of Path of Exile 1.
First, let’s understand the mechanics of Contagion, which is to apply a debuff to a single enemy and deal chaos damage over time. When an enemy affected by Contagion dies, it spreads all debuffs, including Contagion, to nearby enemies, and increases damage by +100% per jump, stacking up to 300%. This is really crazy!
For Essence Drain, after you fire a projectile, it can apply a powerful Chaos Damage over Time debuff to enemies. Currently, in POE 2, Essence Drain is the only skill besides Contagion that can apply a high Chaos Damage over Time debuff. So when an enemy affected by Contagion is killed by Essence Drain, its powerful Chaos Damage over Time will also spread to nearby enemies along with Contagion debuff.
In Path of Exile 2, this playstyle was initially adopted by a few Acolyte of Chayula Ascendancy players, making this class, which was not doing well in the early Early Access period, competitive.
However, after the release of Dawn Of The Hunt, Eternal Life mechanic of Lich class clearly proved that it was a better choice for this playstyle. Eternal Life Ascendancy node of Lich stipulates that life cannot be modified while having Energy Shield. At first glance, this seems to have two benefits, one is that as long as you have Energy Shield, you can prevent being killed instantly, and the other is that you are immune to chaos damage when Energy Shield is activated.
But the key is that when used in conjunction with Soulless Form passive skill, 10% of the damage will penetrate the energy shield. And after having Eternal Life, these penetration damage cannot modify life, which actually means that the penetration rate is converted into damage reduction.
The core equipment of this build includes Atziri’s Disdain Gold Circlet, which makes 10% of the damage penetrate energy shield, and it also increases energy shield based on maximum life. In addition to this, you can also get Heavy Buffer, which increases maximum energy shield by 40% and makes 5% of the damage penetrate energy shield.
The combination of Soulless Form, Atziri’s Disdain and Heavy Buffer can get a total of 25% of the damage bypassing energy shield, which is equivalent to 25% flat damage reduction, which is extremely powerful.
Considering that the key equipment of this build is Atziri’s Disdain, we adjust its modifier priority to: Chaos Skill Gem Level > Chaos Damage > Spell Damage.
Currently, the price of Atziri’s Disdain on the market is very affordable, usually 1 Exalted Orb can be obtained, but the price of wands that provide chaos damage is relatively high, so if you want to get a continuous chaos damage debuff, then you may have to buy POE 2 Currency to get them.
In addition, thanks to the unique mechanism of Lich’s Eternal Life, defensive equipment can use life and energy shield at the same time, avoiding dependence on a single attribute, which greatly reduces the difficulty of obtaining defensive equipment. Therefore, except for expensive weapons, other equipment is still affordable.
In the character panel statistics, we can see that the damage per second (DPS) of Essence Drain Contagion Lich is 52,000, and the effective health value is 28,000 under normal circumstances.
As a Contagion Lich build with Eternal Life, you can apply various curse debuffs, chaos resistance, or take advantage of low life bonuses to get additional damage bonuses. Therefore, you can use it to clear all non-chaos immune content.
For the advantages of this build, we will consider that Contagion’s spread mechanism makes it extremely fast to clear the field, and the continuous damage gameplay allows you to clear all enemies in just a few seconds!
Of course, the disadvantages are also obvious. First, Essence Drain and Contagion are both single-target skills, so you can only trigger the spread effect when attacking the same enemy, and missing this combo will make you vulnerable. Secondly, running this build requires at least 2 active skills, which greatly increases the complexity of the buttons.
According to the current statistics for the new league, Lich has a usage rate of 13% in the ladder class, ranking second. Atziri’s Disdain maintains a usage rate of about 6% in the entire ladder ranking, making it the seventh most used unique item. The combination of Essence Drain and Contagion currently has a usage rate of about 7%, ranking 15th among all active skills.
There is no doubt that the build is relatively popular, probably because Lich is currently too powerful, but you have to consider that if Lich is nerfed, the effectiveness of this build may be severely affected.