All Details About Starting A Ward Loop Build In POE 3.21 Crucible League
In this guide, I will talk about my pussycat build for POE 3.21 Crucible League. It is called Ward Loop build. There are several things you need to know about this build before you start and this is not an easy build for beginners without a proper guide. If done in the wrong way, the Pussycats may fly out of your monitor towards your face. I’m not joking. There are several things you have to prepare for before you start this build.
Budget
Let’s start with the first one and that is the budget to start this build. You need at least 35 Divine Orbs. In my case, I spent three Mirror Shots, which are sold for 13 Divine Orbs each. Now, let’s take a look at my gear and I will explain what you really need to get started.
Items You Need
The key ingredient of any Ward Loop build is the Olroth’s Resolve Iron Flask. This flask gives you permanent uptime of your Ward. Ward is a form of defense that reduces the damage taken from a hit equal to the amount of Ward you have. This means, if I take a hit damage of 1000 while having a Ward of 1001, I take no damage at all. This applies to all damage types, namely fire, cold, lightning, physical and chaos. It then goes on a cool down. Ward recharges for seconds after it depletes.
But unlike Energy Shield, taking damage will not interrupt the Ward restoration time. Under normal circumstances, your Ward breaks after you take the damage. But since we are using a layer of flask, Ward does not break during the effect.
Another fact is that Energy Shield and Aegis is of no use for Ward builds because the damage fast goes through them before applying the reduction. Hence, you gain low damage reduction benefit of having extra Energy Shield or the Aegis. This flask needs to be active all the time and if it breaks, you die. This is why our main focus in this build is all the modifiers to flask sustain.
One of the main items we use for our flask sustain is the Brutal Restraint Timeless Jewel, which grants The Traitor Keystone. Furthermore, we use two Medium Cluster Jewels (Ghoul Splinter & Plague Ornament), which grants increased flask effect duration with increased effect. Do not use Alchemist’s Genius or any modifiers that increase the effect of flasks because that also increases the less Ward modifier from the Olroth’s Resolve Iron Flask. We also have two suffixes on our belt (Beast Trap Heavy Bealt) that help our flask sustain.
One of the hardest parts of this build is tapping your resistances because Ward Loop builds are very squishy. For this, let me give you a big tip. Just look for the perfect prefixes on trade. Then, use Eldritch Orbs to free up the suffixes so that you can later craft resistances with the crafting bench. You will save tons of Divine Orbs this way. The Eternal Struggle helps you fix your attributes easily while giving you some good bonuses.
Also Read: Is Path of Exile Still Worth Playing In 2023? - 10 Things You Must Know
If you have tons of POE Currency, use Ashes of the Stars instead. Since Ward is a global defense modifier, most Ward Loop builds use Skin of the Lords and other items that increase the global defenses. The upside of having a high value of Ward is that you take no damage from small hits. I would not recommend doing Ubers with this build unless you have a good skill at it.
The most important thing to note is that you cannot have any form of physical damage reduction here because we have to take lots of damage to trigger our skills. The way how we trigger the loop is with Heartbound Loop Moonstone Ring and the Forbidden Rite skill. The way how we start the loop is by switching our weapon slot that is using a minion skill, such as Spectral Spirits from Essence of Insanity. When we swap the weapon, our minions die and the loot begins.
You may ask why use the To Dust Cobalt Jewel? The only line we need from this is the reduced skeleton duration. We need to lower the duration to 0.2 seconds so that the skeletons die quickly and we take more damage and the loop is faster.
Another important factor to consider is that since Ward Loop requires lots and lots of Mana, we can only use one Aura with Eternal Blessing. Hence, we are using Mind Over Matter and stacking a bit of extra Mana to sustain our loop and our defenses. We have reduced minor cost of skills on our Quicksilver Flask as well.
Finally, the weapon I prefer to use is the Cane of Kulemak. You need spell damage, double damage, mono regeneration rate and any modifier that is good. Some builds that have plenty of resistances use the Annihilating Light.
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PoE 2 patch 0.4.0 has been out for over a month, and many players' builds are nearing their peak. While Temple is a great mechanism, relying solely on it might become tiring.
The farming method described below requires a strong enough build to complete some challenging content, but the rewards are excellent, yielding hundreds of Divine Orbs per success.
Farming Goal
Your farming goal is The Adorned Diamond, which only drops from Trialmasters. Its market value has skyrocketed in the past week. Unidentified The Adorned Diamonds initially sold for 500 Divine Orbs, but due to inflation, they can now fetch over 1000.
Even regular The Adorned Diamond is now worth about half the value of a Mirror of Kalandra. After deducting your investment in farming, a net profit of approximately 3 The Adorned Diamonds is equivalent to one Mirror of Kalandra.
The Value of The Adorned Diamond
The high demand for The Adorned Diamond is due to its recent changes. Players can now refine it to higher stats and obtain powerful affixes that interact with rare jewels through Double Corruption.
On the other hand, it's also related to inflation. Vaal Temple has become incredibly juicy thanks to multiple updates and player research.
You first need to collect Energized Crystals from the endgame map content. T15 and T16 Waystones with six affixes are the best source of these crystals. You need at least 6 Energized Crystals to enter Vaal Temple. Before entering, you can use the options on the left side of the interface to place your chosen paths or rooms.
Each time you close Temple, the system automatically removes several random rooms from the current panel. Players will use various strategies to maximize room rewards. Finally, all players need to use Juatalotli's Medallion to prevent Temple instability.
Because of this, everyone is now focused on building their own Vault Temples to achieve an infinite supply of PoE 2 currency. When players start producing currency in large quantities, it naturally leads to Divine Inflation in the late game. Inflation reduces the supply of various endgame items, pushing their value even higher amidst currency fluctuations, ultimately making The Adorned Diamond worth hundreds of Divine Orbs.
How to Prepare?
Since it takes players a very long time (approximately 100 to 200 hours) to fully build an enhanced Temple, it can be combined with other farming methods.
If you want to use this farming method, you must at least ensure that your builds can easily defeat Trialmaster. Since the biggest cost of this build is time, the faster you defeat it, the better.
As the hidden final boss in Trial of Chaos trial system, Trialmaster is not an easy opponent to challenge. First, you need to collect the following three Fate Fragments:
- Cowardly Fate
- Deadly Fate
- Victorious Fate
You need to Inscribed Ultimatum to unlock 10 waves of Trial of Chaos. Each completion will reward you with one Fate Fragment. It's worth noting that the drop rate for these three Fate Fragments is random, so completing only three Trial of Chaos sessions won't guarantee you all three. Only after collecting all three can you unlock the gate and challenge Trialmaster.
However, even if you defeat Trialmaster, the drop rate for The Adorned Diamond is extremely low, possibly less than 2%, sometimes appearing only once every 70 to 80 attempts. Be prepared for this.
Cost
Farming Fate shards yourself is clearly a foolish choice. By the time you've painstakingly cultivated enough shards, PoE 2 Patch 0.4.0 might already be over.
To speed up the process, you'll need to invest some Divine Orbs to trade Deadly Fate and Victorious Fate shards with other players. Approximately two Fate shards require three Divine Orbs. While directly trading all three types of Fate shards is faster, your profits will be significantly reduced. Therefore, you can choose to cultivate the last type of Fate shard yourself. Under these conditions, challenging 50 Trialmasters requires approximately 150 Divine Orbs.
Clearing a complete trial takes about 13 to 15 minutes. If you include the time needed to collect the three types of Fate materials, the total time to prepare just 50 sets of Deadly Fate and Victorious Fate shards will be as long as 21 to 24 hours. As for the last type, Cowardly Fate, you can directly loot the final Fate Material from the boss to unlock Trialmaster's gate. This will save you approximately 75 Divine Orbs for future challenges.
Other Loot And Benefits
Besides The Adorned Diamond, you'll also get a certain number of Soul Cores. Basically, each Trial of Chaos will give you one or two Normal Soul Cores and Specialized Soul Cores. Unfortunately, even with fewer players farming Trials of Chaos, the demand for them isn't high.
As for currency, Trials of Chaos isn't as generous as Vaal Temple; its drop rate is within the normal range. Trials, monsters, and bosses all have a chance to drop Divine Orbs, but they certainly won't be enough to cover your costs.
Currently, each The Adorned Diamond is worth approximately 700 to 800 Divine Orbs. If we calculate based on 50 trials per diamond, each trial could yield a profit of around 600 to 700 Divine Orbs. As for hourly profits, that depends on your farming speed.
This method relies on gambling and luck. If you're lucky, it might be even better than Temple, but if your luck is average, you'll have to endure the tedious mechanics and long farming time of Trial of Chaos.
Since the release of Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids, Shaman seems to be used more frequently among the two Ascendancy classes of the new Druid class. This is perhaps because it is easier to learn and its benefits are quickly felt.
However, this doesn't mean the other one, Oracle, is not worth experiencing. In fact, if you craft the right build, Oracle can help you build temples and earn loot faster in the optimized Fate of the Vaal mechanic.
Based on this, we will provide you with a strategy for crafting such an Oracle build. If you are interested, please read on!
Oracle introduction
Choosing this Ascendancy class will grant you the power of foresight, allowing you to gain combat advantages by predicting enemy actions and unlocking additional passive skills.
If you find the above explanation difficult to understand, the following exclusive skill effects should give you a more intuitive understanding of how to play Oracle:
- Entwined Realities: You can allocate key passive skills without connecting them to an existing passive tree.
- The Unseen Path: Unlocks additional passive nodes accessible only to Oracle players.
Oracle Build for Atziri's Temple
One of the key elements to improving room building and overall exploration efficiency within this league mechanic is minimizing your skill cooldowns. Therefore, many related builds require Temporalis Silk Robe, which provides this effect.
Fortunately, Oracle build we're introducing here provides a similar effect without this gear and can easily defeat most bosses with extremely high DPS, making it very useful for clearing maps!
Skills and gems
After unlocking Oracle as your Ascendancy class, the key is to stack your critical strike chance to over 100%, as Mana Flare triggers on critical hits, giving you an auto-explosion effect.
Another crucial point is to reduce Lightning Bolt's cooldown to below 0.2 seconds - this is a critical point; any cooldown below 0.2 seconds is considered good. Additionally, you'll need 115% to 150% cooldown reduction to increase damage.
To achieve all the above, you need to unlock Spark to trigger Lightning Mode and add Pierce to increase projectile speed, faster casting efficiency, and duration.
For Spirit skills, you need to add Trinity to boost elemental damage, especially lightning damage.
Next, you need to add Blink and Mobility skills to gain a 100% reduction in Blink cooldown and increased Blink regeneration speed. Combine this with support gems Clarity I and Rapid Casting II, and you can eventually Blink in less than 1 second.
Best gear
First, you need Headhunter Heavy Belt. If you don't have it yet, start farming it now, or get PoE 2 currency for sale and exchange for one; this will be faster.
This gear provides increases to maximum health, Strength, and Dexterity, and rewards you with an extra 20 seconds of modifier when you kill rare monsters.
Next is The Vertex Tribal Mask Helmet, which is easier to obtain and, when equipped, increases four skill levels, significantly boosting damage and critical strike chance.
For weapons, we recommend Sacred Flame Shrine Sceptre, which grants you additional Purity of Fire skill, providing a fire damage buff for you and your allies, as well as a life recovery buff for allies.
When choosing gloves, prioritize those with energy shield resistance, and boots with chaos resistance, movement speed, and increased health.
Jewels and passive tree unlocking
Some nodes in Oracle passive tree provide significant cooldown reduction increases; these should be unlocked first.
Additionally, you need to unlock the additional Multitasking node for a 12% cooldown reduction increase or a 15% increase in ability duration. To do this, you need to defeat the boss Kosis, the Revelation, to obtain Megalomaniac Diamond.
Alternatively, you can consume Exalted Orbs to craft one From Nothing Diamond, distributing passive nodes within a specific keystone radius, even if these nodes are not connected to the main tree.
This greatly increases the flexibility of build crafting and saves many passive points. You can freely invest them in other nodes according to your needs.
If possible, we recommend socketing a Time-Lost Emerald, preferably with attribute bonuses and cooldown reduction speed. Heart of the Well Diamond is also a good option, as it similarly provides cooldown reduction speed and a small damage bonus.
In short, the core of this build's reliability lies in maximizing cooldown reduction speed to keep your Lightning Bolt cooldown below 0.2 seconds, ensuring automatic casting of Lightning Bolt.
While you might find this build a bit clunky in practice, it's one of the best ways to complete temples faster without adding Temporalis Silk Robe.
Other excellent Oracle builds
Oracle build we've introduced focuses on accelerating your temple challenge progress, but in terms of overall strength and experience, there are actually many better options.
Currently, the most well-known Oracle build is probably Lunar Assault Werewolf. As a top meta Oracle build in PoE 2, it centers on high-speed melee attacks and cold damage bonuses, utilizing transformation to freeze and crush enemies.
Besides these, Cast on Critical Comet, Plant/Vine Oracle, and Mass Summoner are all good choices. They'll suit you better if you're not focused on the temple progression.
Atziri's Temple is expected to become better experienced after Patch 0.4.0d is released. If you're interested, you can use our recommended Oracle build to test if the patch's changes are effective! It'll definitely be fun!
The recent Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 has been undergoing constant changes, with numerous patches and hotfixes optimizing the game based on Fate of the Vaal League mechanics, aiming to improve the overall experience.
Ten days after the release of Patch 0.4.0c hotfix 14, PoE 2 announced that Patch 0.4.0d will be released this week. Based on the announced content, this patch primarily focuses on bug fixes, with some aspects worth highlighting and discussing.
Below, we will provide a preview of this patch and analyze its main features and potential impact.
Patch 0.4.0d overview
The entire patch can be broadly divided into three parts: further optimization and fixes to Fate of the Vaal League mechanics, overall modifications, and comprehensive bug fixes. Undoubtedly, the most noteworthy aspect remains the first part.
Interestingly, even before the patch has been officially released, Fracturing Orbs have already depreciated in value simply by being announced. This means you can more easily acquire them through PoE 2 Divine Orbs to stabilize your gear affixes.
This is likely due to changes in the league system, making this part of the patch analysis a key focus of our guide.
Atziri's Temple boss fight reform
Let's temporarily ignore the usual temple fixes and focus on a new respawn change: if you die while fighting the boss Architect or Atziri in Atziri's Temple, you can respawn in the new temple instance.
However, this opportunity is very limited, as almost the entire temple is destroyed during the boss fight - somewhat like how endgame maps work in the game.
Therefore, when this mechanism is finally implemented, it's expected that not all players will be satisfied with it, but it's necessary because it can curb the possibility of some players seeking cheating due to the inability to respawn.
In short, if you die in these boss fights again later, you should be able to start re-challenging them faster, instead of having to unlock the rooms from scratch.
This means that even if you unfortunately fail on your first attempt, you'll have an extra chance to familiarize yourself with the boss mechanics. In fact, these bosses aren't difficult to defeat; their mechanics are just rather intricate.
Holten exploit fixes
As you know, collecting Energized Crystals by defeating monsters around Vaal Beacons is a crucial part of experiencing Atziri's Temple gameplay, as only with enough crystals can the temple progress.
However, in the game prior to Patch 0.4.0d, there was an issue where Vaal Beacons frequently spawned in an easily accessible location within Holten campaign area.
This allowed players to exploit this by repeatedly resetting dungeons to farm Energized Crystals faster, causing an imbalance in the entire Atziri's Temple system and an abnormal inflation of the value of some rare currencies.
Frankly, the issue of economic inflation was repeatedly mentioned in the player community shortly after Atziri's Temple's release, but for some reason, concrete measures to improve it have only now been introduced. However, better late than never.
Atziri's Chambers fix
As the spawn location of the final boss Atziri, the connection between this chamber and other rooms was previously a mess; sometimes you simply didn't know how to place and connect rooms.
Fortunately, Patch 0.4.0d finally fixed this, allowing Atziri's Chambers to correctly connect to any adjacent room, ensuring the entire mechanism functions more clearly and consistently.
Temple QoL fix
This fix requires you to place at least one room before each run. If you already have a highly optimized temple, you might not want to place any rooms at all, and therefore might mistakenly think this is a weakening change.
However, the purpose of this measure is actually to ensure that you don't accidentally open the temple before placing rooms, and to better guide new players through their first temple.
Of course, considering the needs of different players, the game also allows you to bypass this option. If you're a PC player, hold down Ctrl key and click Run Temple button. If you're a controller player, simply select "Deny" when prompted.
More Atziri's Temple fixes
Besides the highlights above, Patch 0.4.0d focuses on optimizing Atziri's Temple mechanics and includes other details, such as clearer instructions for Atziri's Chambers and more explanations of different mechanics.
The complexity and depth of gameplay have always been major obstacles for new players joining Path of Exile series. Sometimes, new leagues and their new mechanics can even confuse longtime fans.
Therefore, this patch shows that providing clear explanations is more effective in winning over players than creating mystery and raising the barrier to entry through seemingly complex mechanics.
Fracturing Orbs fix
In the first half of this article, we mentioned the devaluation of Fracturing Orbs, primarily due to a bug fixed in Patch 0.4.0d involving Immured Fury - the endgame boss and primary source of Fracturing Orbs drops.
Theoretically, this boss shouldn't spawn in cleansed areas, but previously, clearing excessive corruption would imprint a hidden marker indicating the presence of Immured Fury in certain areas.
This meant players could more easily earn Fracturing Orbs by defeating this boss, leading to an abnormally inflated value and disrupting PoE 2 economy and trade balance.
Fortunately, Patch 0.4.0d fixed this by making Immured Fury spawn completely unpredictably, restoring the rarity of Fracturing Orbs to a more normal level through a more randomized spawn method.
The above content covers what needs to be explained in detail in Patch 0.4.0d. However, there are also some interesting changes and fixes that you can discover and experience one by one through the game after the patch is finally released. Thank you for reading.
As you know, Patch 0.4.0, while adding new classes and other content, also brought many changes to the game's inherent mechanics. Although these changes may not be drastic on their own, they still affect the overall system.
For example, in The Last of the Druids, the left side of the skill tree, focusing on melee, defense, and life/block mechanics, was adjusted, leading to changes in the popular defense configurations used by each class.
This article will introduce the entire defense system and analyze the latest popular defense mechanics and styles during Fate of the Vaal league.
Path of Exile 2 defense mechanism overview
The game's defense system can be roughly divided into four layers: core and secondary defense layers, evasion, and recovery mechanisms. Each layer has multiple different functions that can be used in combat.
The core defense layer refers to the main attributes on the gear, which can be adjusted through the talent tree, such as armor or energy shields, which can directly block damage.
The second layer of defense indirectly transfers or reduces the damage you receive, including blocking, resistance, and more.
Avoidance mainly refers to default or temporary defensive buffs, while recovery restores health after being attacked, such as with flask or leech.
Changes in Patch 0.4.0
This patch primarily focuses on the left side of the skill tree, where the lower half emphasizes strength, while the middle and upper halves emphasize intelligence.
The left-side skill tree focuses entirely on defensive mechanics, containing numerous nodes that increase your health, armor, and block chance. It's key for melee builds that excel in high tanking or health.
The focus on these changes might be because the new Druid class is itself a defensive melee class, so most of the new passive nodes also share these characteristics.
The addition of new nodes and clusters necessitates adjustments to many existing skills. If your previous builds were based on these skills, you'll have to reset them, significantly altering the defensive styles popular during the new league.
The popularity of shield wall styles
The shield mechanic remains highly popular after Patch 0.4.0, primarily due to the surge in shield wall builds. As the most popular starting skill for Warrior class, shield usage has actually increased season by season.
This is perhaps because Patches 0.3.0 and 0.4.0 focused on hardcore single-player modes, where shield wall builds provide effective benefits, especially if you further unlock Titan as an Ascendancy class.
The popularity of Disciple of Varashta
As a newly added Sorceress Ascendancy class, Disciple of Varashta has caused quite a stir in the current league. Based on its powerful defensive capabilities, it performs exceptionally well in modes of varying difficulty.
For example, the passive skill The Fourth Teaching grants a 40% increase in shield recharge rate when your shield is below or equal to 35% of its maximum value.
In other words, the larger your energy shield hit pool, the better this talent node is, because you can maintain a considerable effective hit rate during the initial phase when the higher energy shield regeneration rate takes effect.
This talent node, combined with powerful support skills such as Nascent Hope or Convalescence, can significantly increase the natural regeneration rate of the energy shield, making its charging mechanism more reliable.
Even if you take a lot of damage and your health drops to a low level, you can still benefit from the higher regeneration rate by forcibly charging, ensuring your energy shield is fully charged again.
This Ascendancy class also has a powerful defensive skill called Sacred Rituals, which converts 60% of your current energy shield into armor, thus reducing the physical damage you take.
It's worth mentioning that both of these nodes can be combined with Chaos Inoculation to form one of the most powerful defensive configurations in PoE 2 - Chaos Inoculation is also another key defensive skill in the current league.
Despite a major balance update in patch 0.4.0, energy shields remain significantly stronger than pure health builds, and the addition of Discrete of Varashta has provided an ideal platform for the growth of these builds.
Talisman defense mechanism
This new Druid-friendly gear type cannot be used with shields, leading many Druid players to favor a hybrid health approach to defense.
The updated talent tree features a considerable number of energy shield and armor hybrid talents, so the vast majority of Druid builds focus on investing in energy shields as an extension of health.
Furthermore, many players using Talisman builds utilize the new keystone passive Lord of the Wilds, allowing them to simultaneously use a non-unique scepter and talisman to gain a pure resistance aura.
This not only alleviates gear pressure regarding resistance affixes but also allows for the use of numerous support gems without prior reservation. While this may be a bug, it has been present in the game for some time.
Self-chill and increased speed
In Patch 0.4.0, speed is also one of the most powerful defensive measures. As long as you can move, attack, or cast spells at extremely high speeds, no enemy can hit you or catch you - the best offense is also the best defense.
To achieve this, you can combine Asphyxia's Wrath Broadhead Quiver with Sierran Inheritance Marabout Garb. This quiver reduces the damage you take based on cooldowns, providing you with amazing damage reduction.
Therefore, you are not only unmatched in speed, but even if you do take damage, the damage reduction significantly reduces the actual damage dealt by enemies.
That concludes this introduction. Hopefully, this analytical guide will be helpful in your future crafting of defensive builds in PoE 2!
