How To Tank Everything With Splitting Steel Pathfinder In POE 3.23?
As one of the strongest interactions in the game, Poison and the many Returning Projectiles take our damage and tanking capabilities to the next level. We can tank almost anything the game has to offer.
In this guide, I’m going to talk about our Splitting Steel Pathfinder build in Affliction League. Without further ado, let’s get started!
Skill Itself
Projectiles fired by Splitting Steel will split when affecting an enemy, with a default split of 5. This is where our base damage comes from.
We use Sniper’s Mark to increase the number of splits to 9 and use the extra projectiles in the skill tree. So our base split is now 10. We will also be adding Returning Projectiles so that all projectiles that split will be returned to us, resulting in an extremely high base damage skill.
We also added mix poison. Because I think if PoB is correct, we have capped the normal boss and do 35 million damage per second after 7 seconds.
On Uber using this setup, I calculated about 15 million injuries per second. It is important that you position yourself near the boss so that all returning projectiles hit their target.
Of course, you don’t have to do this with map bosses, as they will die after a few seconds no matter where you stand.
How To Reach 100% Poison Chance?
Since this is a poison build, we need to achieve a 100% poison chance. This might be difficult since they eliminate Alternate Quality Gem, Herald of Agony.
But I found an elegant way to get to 100% without any problem. We achieve 65% by simply taking all poison chance nodes on the tree. Another 20% comes from Herald of Agony.
So we just need to get 15% poison chance and we can get that from our weapon. Even the lowest rolling poison chance on the weapon is 20%, which is enough. So now we have a 100% chance of being poisoned.
Important Weapon
In this build we need to discuss weapons as it is a very important part of the build. Before, you need high attack speed and poison chance, and the all-important craft hits are unavoidable.
The reason for this is that we need a 100% hit rate, otherwise we need to invest more POE Currency in accuracy rating. Unfortunately, we cannot do this easily.
I think we need to sacrifice points on skill trees or attachments on items to achieve the same or even less damage. Therefore, craft is your easiest way to get 100% hit.
It is worth noting that our largest and best multipliers come from secondary sources. We’re going to inflict Wither on the boss, which will increase Chaos damage by 90% by default.
Scaling The Damage
In addition, we also get an Ascendancy node, which will increase Wither effect and give us the chance to cause a Wither.
We had over 50 projectiles hitting the target per second, so we had no problem maintaining 15 stacks of projectiles.
How To Use 4 Curses In The Build?
Since this is a poison build, we can’t ignore the best curse of this type of build. We can use 4 curses in our build thanks to the use of my favorite Anathema Moonstone Ring.
Our curse limit is equal to our maximum energy expenditure. Each character can have 3 charges. I also allocated extra energy to the tree, so our curse limit is 4 curses.
Curses I use include: Temporal Chains to make our poisons last longer. Despair reduces the enemy’s Chaos resistance. Sniper’s Mark increases the number of splitting projectiles to 10.
And my defensive curse also weakens the ability to reduce enemy damage. We also have some extra items, like Ming’s Heart. Since our physical damage is so high, the extra chaos damage is a tremendous boost for us.
In addition, we can also generate Frenzy Charges to use Frenzy on the hit charm and increase the poison duration.
Defensives
On the defensive side, the classic Pathfinder setup converts 98% of physical damage into elemental damage.
Of that, 50% is through the use of Lightning Coils alone, 23% is through the use of Taste of Hate, and 15% comes from our helmets. Finally, we use Watcher’s Eye so that 10% of physical damage is treated as lightning damage.
Therefore, we can use all elemental damage reduction bottles to reduce all the damage we take.
Items
Next, let’s take a quick look at some items you’ll need for this build. Of course, you can replace it to suit your play style.
- Weapon: Onslaught Fang
- Helmet: Grim Shelter
- Shield: Rune Ward
- Rings: Ming’s Heart & Anathema
- Amulet: Grim Braid
- Boots: Corpse March
- Body Armor: Lightning Coil
- Belt: Fate Cord
- Gloves: Skull Hand
Flask
Flask is a standard Pathfinder setup. All elemental resistance flasks have the enhanced flask effect. Sub-mod: Reduce mana cost, increase resistance.
We also use Silver Flask for bossing to improve charge recovery and attack speed. The reason for using the charge recovery mod is that we have considerable uptime. So the impact of the reduction is not obvious in the long run.
In addition, the recovery amount of Divine Life Flask is increased and 50% reduces the recovery rate to avoid being stunned during the effect.
Ascendancy
We use Pathfinder as Ascendancy.
- In the first lab, we take Nature’s Reprisal. This node is a game-changer in early action.
- In the second lab, we use Master Toxicist.
- In the third lab, we are using Nature’s Adrenaline, which is generating Flask Charges.
- In the final lab, we take Master Surgeon, your Life Flask will be activated even if you reach full life.
That’s the complete guide to building this Splitting Steel Pathfinder. While it may not be the king of boss fights, its map clearing speed and survivability make it a top choice for those who like to skim through content quickly. Try it out and watch your enemies turn to ash!
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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!
Path of Exile 3.27 has been running for almost two months, halfway through the League season. As usual, the official announcement for the upcoming livestream indicates that news about the next league will begin in the coming weeks, and that Path of Exile 3.28 will be released as planned in early March 2026.
While it's good that the official update is on schedule, given the large amount of content in each Path of Exile update, such a short timeframe has raised concerns among players about whether the content has been reduced.
Official Update Plan
In June 2025, Path of Exile's lead representative, Jonathan Rogers, clarified the future update plan in an interview, stating that Path of Exile 1 and 2 would both have a four-month update cycle, with the two games alternating in updates. This means that on average, players will see new content for one of the games every two months.
On January 12, 2026, the official forums announced that the Path of Exile 3.28 expansion would be released on schedule in early March, continuing the tradition of a four-month development cycle. This timeline is approximately three months after the release of Path of Exile 2 patch 0.4 in December.
For developers, a fixed update schedule alleviates development pressure. Rogers has admitted that delivering content every two months is quite difficult, but a fixed-date, variable-content model is more conducive to development management.
Update Schedule
Although the official timeline seems balanced, the official update dates are not entirely fixed; they may be released at the beginning of the month or at the end. Based on the principle of alternating updates between the two games and important schedules, this cycle may harbor some risks of imbalance.
Let's look at the update timelines for the two games:
- December 12, 2025: Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 The Last of the Druids released normally.
- Early March 2026: PoE 3.28 released, approximately three months after PoE 2 Patch 0.4.0.
- April 2026: A possible PoE 2 Patch 0.5 update is expected in about a month.
The official statement indicates they will strive to conclude early testing of PoE 2 by 2026. Therefore, they may adjust the update schedule for Path of Exile 1 to maintain a consistent update pace for PoE 2. Even if they cannot release Patch 1.0 by the end of the year, they will still release a major update to attract more players.
This raises a problem: for an early-stage game like Path of Exile 2, content consumption is faster. While version 0.4 adds the Druid class and Vaal Temple mechanics, the overall content volume still cannot compare to the mature PoE 1.
Potential Issues
Many core players worry that this cycle of one month for Path of Exile 1 and three months for Path of Exile 2 will create a double problem.
Because the mature Path of Exile 1 has more endgame content and three years of accumulated League mechanics, giving players ample choices to farm PoE currency, this is enough to support months of deep gameplay. However, players only have about a month to experience each new league before being drawn to the PoE 2 League.
Path of Exile 2 is currently still in early access. According to the game director, the originally planned six-month Early Access has been extended to approximately one year. Player concerns currently focus on whether its existing content is sufficient to support nearly three months of gameplay.
Furthermore, recent League updates have revealed a high player churn rate for PoE 2. Even with the addition of the new Druid class in patch 0.4.0, significant player attrition has occurred.
This is because the new endgame mechanic, Vaal Temple, initially didn't yield good returns. Subsequent adjustments by the developers, coupled with player discoveries of loopholes, allowed the mechanic to generate a large amount of currency. Several subsequent poor adjustments resulted in Path of Exile 2 patch 0.4.0 experiencing inflation, leading to increased unfairness in trading for ordinary players.
This is actually due to the current lack of endgame content in PoE 2, making players more likely to focus on game issues.
Possible Solutions
Faced with a potentially entrenched imbalance in the update schedule, some constructive alternatives have been discussed within the community. These proposals aim to break the potential vicious cycle and seek a more sustainable update model for both players and developers.
Perhaps a multi-stage update could replace a single full Path of Exile 2 League update. This would give the development team extra buffer time to adjust the timeline while maintaining player activity.
Another direction is to adjust the length of each update cycle. However, this would conflict with the crucial year-end revenue window, and considering that holiday season releases can generate three times the revenue of other months, this solution is less likely to be implemented.
Director Rogers stated that he will maintain communication with the community and promised to experience the game from the player's perspective and understand the reasons behind their feedback. This indicates that the official team may flexibly adjust the plan based on player acceptance of the actual update schedule.
With the release of Path of Exile 3.28 and Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0, you can observe whether this cycle will continue. If this cycle is broken, it may not be through drastic adjustments to update dates, but rather because the official team has found a way to populate Path of Exile 2 with enough new content within a three-month cycle.
