I will explore the inner workings of Frostblink of Wintry Blast CoC Occultist build, which is my favorite of many new emerging cold CoC builds in Path of Exile 3.23. It offers superb mobility, as it teleports the character just like the regular Frostblink does. However, due to the lack of cooldown, you can hook it up to a well-established Cast on Critical Strike and Cyclone gem combo.

The additional upside of this alternate Frostblink is more damage per chill effect on the enemy, which should be capped at 30%. The chill is removed on hit with this spell, so to apply it once again, you will use the basic Frostblink, as it is one of the very few instant cold spells that will not disrupt the channeling.

How It Works

The greatest benefit of using a mobility spell is the main damage source, as Bronze body armor, with its unmatched local increases to gem level for ascendency, we’ve selected occultist due to the obvious synergy with cold damage and critical strikes from forbidden power stacking maximum power charges normally yields tons of crit chance.

However, in this situation, it also provides a larger area of effect and area damage. The unique items that have to be used are also heavily tied to charges of all kinds, especially Ralakesh's Impatience boots, which treat you as if you’re fully charged. You’re dealing damage with your Frostblink cast on Cyclone that has 100% Critical Strike Chance with a high crit multiplier. You will benefit from Inner Conviction and Pain Attunement. Void Beacon and Frigid Wake are excellent additions.

Enemies will take magnified cold damage. The build has a high spell suppression chance, spell block chance, Elemental damage recoup, and a sizable hybrid life pool. It cannot withstand big physical damage hits unless you’re willing to tweak the build to make it tankier at the cost of damage. Clear speed resembles that of a Flicker Strike, but you can also use a regular Frostblink to close the gaps. It’s really fast. Single-target damage is also more than enough, tens of millions of DPS.

Gear And Jewels

The build uses many cheap Uniques with rares to cap resistances. You will harness the power of charges with Ralakesh's Impatience, Willclash, Malachai’s Loop, and Graven's Secret. With this combination, the character is treated as though it had all its basic charges.

You will also benefit from the absorption charges, which result in a lot of life, life recoup, and spell block chance. Other unique POE Items to implement are Badge of the Brotherhood amulet and Bronze live body armor for more damage. Willclash is an enormous bonus to spell block chance. When combined with other items, characters are treated as if they had all 10 or more power charges, and they do not lose these charges when blocking.

The damage and defense stats are also generous. Malachai’s Loop increases spell damage and grants 2 extra maximum power charges. The extra 5 levels to the Frostblink spell socketed in Bronze live will result in much more damage. Corrupt it for an extra 2 gem levels AOE gems if you can afford it, double corrupted if you like to gamble.

It could potentially increase the level of Frostblink by up to 8. Ralakesh's Impatience boots cause you to be treated as on maximum power, frenzy, and endurance charges. Conjuring these in any other way would be too inefficient and difficult. You can still benefit from Inner Conviction Keystone or absorption charges. The build is not very tanky, so using the Graven's Secret belt is quite a good idea. It grants you an extra maximum power charge and tons of life recoup from the elemental damage you take.

Use Badge of the Brotherhood to benefit from an additional 7 or more frenzy charges. These make you deal more damage and increase the cooldown recovery rate for Frostblink.

You may struggle with capping your Elemental resistances if you put Polaric Devastation on, but if that’s not an issue, consider it for extra damage, crit chance, and to cover enemies in Frost. They will take increased cold damage, and their crit chance gets reduced by 50%. A good Precursor's Emblem with +1 to max power charges is immensely powerful in this build.

Keystone of inner faith is available in the Dominus variant of Militant Faith and deals with more damage per power charge. The devotion mod shall increase your damage, grant you some Elemental resistances, Mana regeneration, or reduce the Mana cost of your skills. Shaper of Storms, Shaper of Winter, Mastermind of Discord, and Heart of Destruction are suitable keystones if you need more damage.

Shaper of Winter is particularly good to upgrade your chill and freeze for improved durability. Look for Bastion of Elements or Nine Lives, Elemental Penetration, and extra Critical Strike chance can be found as Hatred or Zealotry mods on a Watcher’s Eye. Grace offers more evasion and blind on hit. The abundance of unique items leaves you with very few rare items that will be mainly used to fix the missing resistances and attributes.

Flasks

You can craft the prefix to never miss with Cyclone on your weapon. Reduce the mana cost of skills and gain Spell Suppression, Chaos Resistance, and Blocking. You need some sort of melee weapon to use with Cyclone. We recommend a claw with its instant life and mana on hit, but most weapons will do.

Craft a prefix to make your hits unavoidable and seek modifiers for Critical Strike chance and global crit multiplier with spell damage. Acquire some maximum life, resistances, and spell suppression on the gloves. Other mods are of lesser importance.

Cold Exposure and Unnerve can be gained as eldritch implicit modifiers. Rare rings are where the bulk of your resistances and attributes reside. For prefixes, get maximum life and reduce the Mana cost of your skills. You’ll probably still need a bit more resistances and attributes, so try to gain them on your rare Jewels.

If that’s already covered, go for suitable Critical Strike modifiers. You can use 1 or 2 of the cold themed Large Cluster Jewels. To proliferate freeze, you need to look for Elemental resistances, Elemental damage, cold penetration, and Blast Freeze. Medium Cluster Jewel here you may find additional Critical Strike Chance with crit damage or AOE for better clear speed. We recommend one vast power for around 30% increased area of effect.

Bottled Faith increases your Critical Strike Chance and damage as long as its consecrated ground affects you and your foes. Your block chance is high but not capped. Use room’s concoction flask for more spell and attack block chance. For magic flasks, you can pick up diamond, quartz, jade, and life flasks. Their suffixes shall increase your crit chance, evasion rating, and reduce the mana cost of skills. Life flask shall stop bleeding.

Skill Gems

Frostblink of Wintry Blast is more suited for a trigger build, as it has no cooldown but cast time instead. Although it cannot be chilled, it deals more damage to chilled enemies and removes the chilling effect at the same time. Cyclone is used to trigger Frostblink. You can easily move and attack at a high rate. Link these 2 with cast on Critical Strike, Empower, Inspiration, and Power Charge on Critical Support gems.

A regular Frostblink is the mobility spell, which is also used to chill and freeze. Link it with Bonechill and Unbound Ailments for a more powerful chill effect, which translates into more damage. Zealotry guarantees you to have more spell damage and more Critical Strike Chance. Hits against tough enemies will create consecrated ground.

Use Grace for more evasion, which is excellent with Ghost Dance. You can swap it for determination if you prefer to take less physical damage from hits. Instead, Hatred simply grants more cold damage. If you feel like your damage is enough, use Tempest Shield or Arctic AR armor instead of it, maybe even both if you can fit them in. Link 3 skills with Enlightened to reserve less mana.

Numerous incoming hit damage is taken as dot instead of petrified blood on. It can provide you with a high life regeneration. Affects the bottom half of your life pool. Link it with Arrogance and Enlightened support gems to be just below half of your life pool permanently.

You will take less physical and Elemental damage by Immortal Call in a few moments. Frost Shield drains your energy shield to form a protective stationary sphere inside of which you take less damage and have an increased Critical Strike chance. Link both with cast when damage is taken to save your character from dangerous situations.

Enemy marked with Assassin’s Mark takes increased damage from critical strikes and is more likely to be hit with such strikes. Link it with Mark on Hit to apply it automatically against rare enemies. Activate VRF for a brief but potent bonus to your spell damage. Use Shield Charge to move around faster if there are no enemies nearby. Frostbite lowers cold resistance.

Bandits And Pantheon

Manually kill all the bandits. It’s probably the best option. Alternatively, help Alira. This would get you extra Elemental resistances, Global Critical Strike multiplier, and 5 mana a second. It is a good option for starters.

For a major god, pick Arakaali. We don’t expect to cap chaos resistance anyway, and too much damage over time may be dangerous. As we went heavily into hit damage mitigation with block chance, petrified blood, and recoup. Minor God is less important. Abberath seems like the best pick. It reduces ignite duration for you.

Passive Tree

The passive skill tree follows the outermost ring on the top. It’s the most efficient way to allocate all the maximum power charges and grab 2 large jewel sockets for cluster Jewels. The rest of the points are spent on maximum life, Critical Strike nodes, cold damage, reservation efficiency, and spell suppression.

For keystones, get Pain Attunement, Ghost Dance, and something to turn into Inner Conviction. Allocate 50 extra life and 15% increased life if there are no life mods on your body armor.

As life masteries, reservation efficiency as a mastery life reservation efficiency is reservation mastery crit multiplier against unique enemies and extra gem level to Critical Strike gems. As critical masteries, increased damage per charge as charge mastery, and maybe lucky spell suppression if you have any points left and low suppression chance.

In the WoW Season of Discovery, one of the prominent changes in WoW Classic is the level-gated content. Initially, in Phase One, players can reach Level 25, which will gradually increase to 40, 50, and eventually 60 in subsequent Phases. At the culmination of each bracket, a new Raid awaits, and for Phase One, the WoW SoD team has completely revamped the Blackfathom Deeps from a Dungeon into a 10-man Raid.

Each boss within the Blackfathom Deeps has undergone a comprehensive overhaul compared to their classic versions. As a result, players must adapt to new strategies to overcome the re-tuned and intensified bosses. This guide offers insights into the Raid preparation and specific strategies tailored for each role—DPS, Healer, and Tank—allowing for quick reference before each encounter.

Blackfathom Deeps - Overview & Preparation

Located in the northwest of Ashenvale, on the northern coast of the Zoram Strand, Blackfathom Deeps is initially available as a Raid at the maximum level in Phase One. However, in subsequent phases, it will transition into an optional Raid that players can engage in while progressing through levels, offering high-tier loot and quest XP. The Raid comprises seven bosses scattered throughout the redesigned underwater maze.

Presently, the recommended Raid setup includes two healers, two tanks, and six DPS equipped with at least a few Interrupts among them. Prior to entering the instance, it's advisable to enchant your gear and acquire specific consumables to aid in handling certain mechanics. Some helpful consumables are:

Shadow Protection Potion, useful for Twilight Lord Kelris' second phase and Gelihast's murloc waves (in certain situations). Free Action Potions, in case Twilight Lord Kelris' abilities remain uninterrupted. A food consumable that enhances your class' primary stats.

Additionally, before reaching Blackfathom Deeps, make a stop in Darnassus to obtain the Boon of Blackfathom world buff. This world buff automatically applies to everyone in Darnassus when a player turns in the final Blackfathom Deeps quest. It augments Hit Chance, Critical Chance, AP and SP, and Movement Speed, lasting for two hours.

Baron Aquanis

Here are strategies for defeating Baron Aquanis based on different roles.

Baron Aquanis DPS Tips

Melee DPS should consistently position themselves behind the boss to avoid the Bubble Beam ability.

If afflicted by the Depth Charge debuff, cease attacking and plunge into the water, returning once the debuff dissipates.

For Ranged DPS, maintain awareness and move to evade the boss' Bubble Beam ability.

Navigate between platforms to dodge the boss' Torrential Downpour AoE.

Remarkably, it's possible to attack the boss safely from the water below once the trash is eliminated.

Baron Aquanis Healer Tips

Transition to a party or AoE Healing setup, utilizing Runes such as Mass Regeneration and Prayer of Mending.

Navigate between platforms to evade the boss' Torrential Downpour AoE.

Notably, healing allies from the water below is safe once the trash is cleared.

Baron Aquanis Tank Tips

Remain vigilant and move to evade the boss' Bubble Beam ability, which targets the main Tank's location, as indicated by the castbar.

Ghamoo-Ra

Here are strategies for defeating Ghamoo-Ra based on different roles.

Ghamoo-Ra DPS Tips

Melee DPS should use rapid weapons and abilities that enhance Attack Speed, like Slice N' Dice, to expedite the removal of the boss' Armor.

Avoid stepping into shell fragments scattered in the area, particularly if you do not utilize Mana as a resource.

For Ranged DPS, employ swift weapons and abilities that bolster Attack Speed to accelerate the boss' Armor removal.

Steer clear of shell fragments scattered around the area, especially if Mana isn't your primary resource.

Ghamoo-Ra Healer Tips

Reserve Emergency Healing abilities, such as Lay On Hands, in case a Tank accumulates excessive stacks of Crunch Armor.

Promptly activate AoE Healing abilities once Ghamoo-Ra's armor is shattered, as the entire Raid will sustain substantial damage.

Step onto shell fragments only if Mana reserves are critically low, and Tank attention isn't an immediate necessity.

Ghamoo-Ra Tank Tips

Alternate Tanks upon accumulating two stacks of Crunch Armor, as Ghamoo-Ra's Triple Chomp ability becomes perilously potent with more than two Stacks.

Consume a potent Healing Potion after Ghamoo-Ra's armor is shattered, enabling Healers to concentrate on restoring the remainder of the Raid.

Lady Sarevess

Here are strategies for defeating Lady Sarevess based on different roles.

Lady Sarevess DPS Tips

Melee DPS should consistently disrupt Frost Arrow whenever it's cast. Rogues and Paladins are particularly adept at this task.

Avoid lingering in the Ice areas, as prolonged exposure may result in temporary immobilization.

Prioritize focusing on Sarevess rather than the Elite for a more efficient takedown.

For Ranged DPS, steer clear of the Ice areas to prevent temporary immobilization.

Prioritize focusing on Sarevess over the Elite for optimized results.

Lady Sarevess Healer Tips

Avoid lingering in the Ice areas to prevent temporary immobilization. Maintain maximum range for safety.

Assign one Healer to concentrate on the Offtank, responsible for diverting the Elite's attention.

Lady Sarevess Tank Tips

Continuously reposition Lady Sarevess to avoid the formation of Ice areas.

Ensure the boss faces away from the rest of the group to prevent cleave and chain damage.

Disrupt Frost Arrow to support melee DPS in preventing its execution.

Have the Offtank focus on the Elite, positioning it at the periphery of an Ice patch to potentially immobilize it.

Gelihast

Here are strategies for defeating Gelihast based on different roles.

Gelihast DPS Tips

Melee DPS should prioritize eliminating Tendril adds as soon as they emerge to prevent their casting of Mind Flay.

Exercise caution while maneuvering between enemies, refraining from attacking them, during the March Of The Murlocs ability across phases (three total waves).

For Ranged DPS, prioritize eliminating Tendril adds promptly to prevent their casting of Mind Flay.

Exercise caution while maneuvering between enemies, refraining from attacking them, during the March Of The Murlocs ability across phases (three total waves).

Evade Gelihast's Shadow Crash ability, an extensive AoE Shadow damage aimed at Ranged party members.

Gelihast Healer Tips

Reserve Emergency Healing abilities, such as Rewind Time, should a Tank accumulate excessive stacks of Crunch Armor.

Exercise caution while maneuvering between enemies, refraining from attacking them, during the March Of The Murlocs ability across phases (three total waves).

Evade Gelihast's Shadow Crash ability, an extensive AoE Shadow damage aimed at Ranged party members.

Gelihast Tank Tips

Switch between Tanks once Gelihast accumulates two stacks of Shadow Strike – the boss's damage significantly escalates beyond three stacks.

Be cautious while moving amidst enemies (avoid attacking them) during the March Of The Murlocs ability, occurring across three total waves.

If still affected by the debuff during March Of The Murlocs, consider using a Shadow Protection Potion to counter any potential contact.

Lorgus Jett

Outlined below are approaches to defeating Lorgus Jett across various roles.

Lorgus Jett DPS Tips

Melee DPS should cease attacking Lorgus Jett immediately upon the casting of Corrupted Lightning Shield Totem. Rapidly dismantle this Totem before resuming attacks on Lorgus.

Avoid the boss's Molten Boulder ability, a slow-rolling, high-damage Fire attack traversing the room.

For Ranged DPS, refrain from attacking Lorgus Jett upon the casting of Corrupted Lightning Shield Totem. Swiftly dismantle this Totem before returning focus to Lorgus.

Stay clear of the boss's Molten Boulder ability, a slow-moving Fire attack causing substantial damage on impact.

Lorgus Jett Healer Tips

Steer clear of the boss's Molten Boulder ability, a slow-rolling, high-damage Fire attack traversing the room.

Watch out for the boss's Windfury Totem, which significantly boosts the boss's DPS, and be prepared to employ Emergency Healing abilities if available.

Lorgus Jett Tank Tips

 Immediately halt attacks on Lorgus Jett when the Corrupted Lightning Shield Totem is cast. Rapidly dismantle this Totem before returning focus to Lorgus.

Avoid the boss's Molten Boulder ability, a slow-moving Fire attack causing substantial damage on impact.

Twilight Lord Kelris

Here are strategies for overcoming Twilight Lord Kelris in different roles.

Twilight Lord Kelris DPS Tips

Interrupt every Shadowy Chains that the boss attempts to cast. It is cast about every 10 seconds in Phase One, so Rogues can Kick it every time on cooldown. Other DPS should focus on Interrupting Mind Blast.

Consume a Shadow Protection Potion right before Phase 2 (at about 35% health) and focus on unleashing heavy damage. Kelris cannot be interrupted in Phase Two and will continually cast Mind Blasts.

Avoid staying within the Shadow Crash AoE area by monitoring your debuffs.

When transported to the shadow realm, eliminate Priestesses until one reveals a Portal to return you to the normal world. Kelris targets the closest players and avoids targeting the same players twice. 

Coordinate groups of two (Tank+melee DPS) to stay close and compel Kelris to teleport them. Others should maintain maximum range to avoid becoming targets.

Twilight Lord Kelris Healer Tips

Minimize healing in Phase One to conserve mana for the much more impactful Phase Two.

Maintain maximum range at all times to avoid being sent into the Dream realm via Kelris' Sleep ability.

If Shadow Chains isn't interrupted, employ a Free Action Potion to avoid being CCed before it takes effect. Priests can also utilize Dispel Magic.

Consume a Shadow Protection Potion right before Phase 2 (at about 35% health) and focus on heavy healing. Kelris cannot be interrupted in Phase Two and will continually cast Mind Blasts.

Avoid staying within the Shadow Crash AoE area by monitoring your debuffs.

Twilight Lord Kelris Tank Tips

Position the boss so that Ranged party members can still attack Kelris while having enough space to avoid the Shadow Crash AoE DoT.

Assist DPS in interrupting Mind Blast and Shadowy Chains in Phase One.

During Phase Two, employ personal defensive Cooldowns to assist Healers and consume a Shadow Protection Potion right before he reaches the 35% HP mark.

When transported to the shadow realm, eliminate Priestesses until one reveals a Portal to return you to the normal world. Kelris targets the closest players and avoids targeting the same players twice. 

Coordinate groups of two (Tank+melee DPS) to stay close and compel Kelris to teleport them. Others should maintain maximum range to avoid becoming targets.

Aku-mai

Here are strategies for overcoming Aku-mai in different roles.

Aku-mai DPS Tips

Melee DPS always stay behind the boss to evade either Corrosive Blast or Void Blast. The boss might abruptly change direction from the Tank, so maintain proximity to reduce travel distance.

Halt attacks immediately when Aku-Mai summons adds; prioritize eliminating them. Neglecting these adds could jeopardize the success of your attempt.

Towards the fight's end, utilize defensive Cooldowns to aid Healers, particularly if both Tanks become incapacitated – Aku-Mai's attacks are formidable.

Ranged DPS always stay behind the boss to evade either Corrosive Blast or Void Blast. The boss might abruptly change direction from the Tank, so maintain proximity to reduce travel distance.

Halt attacks immediately when Aku-Mai summons adds; prioritize eliminating them. Neglecting these adds could jeopardize the success of your attempt.

Towards the fight's end, utilize defensive Cooldowns to aid Healers, particularly if both Tanks become incapacitated – Aku-Mai's attacks are formidable.

Aku-mai Healer Tips

Always stay behind the boss to evade either Corrosive Blast or Void Blast. The boss might abruptly change direction from the Tank, so maintain proximity to reduce travel distance.

Consider shifting to a single-target Healing focused setup, utilizing abilities like Beacon of Light, as Aku-Mai primarily focuses on a single Tank at a time.

Aku-mai Tank Tips

Position yourself on the opposite side of Aku-Mai to face away from the party, preventing them from getting hit by the boss's Corrosive and Void Blast, and keeping Cleansing Pools nearby.

The Offtank should employ AoE Tanking abilities, such as Thunderclap or Consecration, to generate Threat for the adds that frequently spawn during the fight.

Only utilize Cleansing Pools if afflicted with four or more stacks of Corrosion or Shadow Seep, as they have limitations. Swap Tanks upon reaching this limit.

This guide is about the new Righteous Fire skill for a Hierophant in Path of Exile 3.23. The build uses Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion skill, in contrast to regular RF, not only sources its damage from maximum mana instead of maximum Life but is also affected by all modifiers to spell damage, including increased spell damage from the Indigon helmet. It’s one of the most potent sources of damage that’s rarely explored in dot builds, as the dot damage doesn’t scale with it unless it’s specifically stated.

How It Works

To get more damage from Indigon, get a lot of maximum unreserved mana and then spend it very quickly with Arcane Cloak to recover all this mana back. Use Armageddon Brand of Volatility with Brand Mastery that recovers 10% of your maximum mana after the brand expires, which happens after merely one activation. When mapping, there's no need to do it since you'll also gain mana on killing with Thrill Killer and/or Mind Drinker.

Hierophant is the ascendancy that specializes in mana, with passives such as Divine Guidance and Sanctuary of Thought. These nodes grant mana damage, reservation efficiency, area of effect, and energy shield, which the build heavily relies on. The damage is sourced entirely from the Indigon. It has a damage cap that you’re able to reach with enough mana, which is sourced from items and passives.

The fire damage over time can be improved with burning damage or dot multiplier modifiers on a weapon. It’s a durable build with over 10k energy shield, a lot of evasion, and reduced Elemental damage taken. It has a low block chance and almost no armor, but the high ES pool combined with Arcane Cloak guard spell will protect you from getting killed in one hit.

Clear speed is great and restricted only by your movement speed. To reach meaningful single-target damage, you will need to spend some POE Currency. The price is high, as expected from an intelligent stacking build, but it can be assembled on a moderate budget.

Gear And Jewels

The build requires a lot of unique POE Items. Your focus is on mana and intelligence. Intelligence grants mana and energy shield, making it important with Shaper’s Touch gloves. It grants Evasion. mana will affect your damage with the Indigon helmet. Transfiguration of Mind adds AOE due to the Sanctuary of Thought. Strength grants mana and energy shield. Indigon increases energy shield and your spell damage alongside mana spent recently, which is the main reason to stack mana and use Arcane Cloak.

All spell damage modifiers affect the damage over time of Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion. You can’t reserve mana, but you can reserve life, and the Prism Guardian Shield is the most efficient way to do so. Socket your most expensive and important auras here. The Ivory Tower protects you from chaos damage and grants tons of energy shield regeneration, intelligence, and mana.

There is no replacement for this armor. Legacy of Fury boots will significantly improve your damage with powerful Scorch and Explosions on killing. If you can't find any resistances, mana, or intelligence, consider replacing them with rare boots. Use Shaper’s Touch gloves to gain tons of mana with energy shield from strength and evasion from intelligence. Cyclopean Coil is a reasonably priced belt with a lot of maximum mana, attributes, and freeze immunity. Use it before you’re able to afford a better one.

Astramentis is the amulet with a lot of attributes that we recommend using in this build. Eyes of the Greatwolf with suitable rolls will undoubtedly be very expensive. You’re looking for increased intelligence, strength, or all attributes with life regeneration, global defenses, fire damage, or maximum mana. Put Shavronn's Revelation on your right finger to gain tons of maximum mana and energy shield regeneration. Since you don't regenerate mana, the downside won't be a problem. Socket Healthy Mind Jewel near Cruel Preparation to gain much more mana, intelligence, and mana on Split Personality.

A rare amulet can be an excellent option. Look for maximum mana, attributes, and resistances. The best ones will have a synthesized implicit or shaper suffix for increased attributes. On a ring, you shall get the usual mana and attributes, especially intelligence. You will probably need some dexterity too for the Grace skill gem. You can obtain mana, energy shield, attributes, chaos resistance, and Elemental spell damage from Jewels. Use large cluster Jewels to create a suitable environment for 2 of your Split Personality jewels. There are quite a few notables to look for. Most importantly, Scintillating Idea from a lightning cluster Jewel for a 20% increased maximum mana.

Flasks

Mana and intelligence from Clarity are the best modifier to get on a Watcher’s Eye. Another great one is the Malevolence dot multiplier. Excellent additions may manifest as Clarity, Discipline, Grace, and even Purity of Fire. It may be hard to cap your resistances after you put most of your resources into intelligence, strength, and mana. It can be done with Ruby, Topaz, and Sapphire flasks if you’ve opted for the Traitor Keystone. While searching for burning damage modifiers on your items is an option, prioritize mana and intelligence instead.

Life regeneration will affect your ES with Zealot's Oath and is very important. You need a weapon with a lot of maximum mana and various types of fire damage over time modifiers, attributes, and dot multipliers are too very valuable. We can craft some of these modifiers. Look for boots that offer attributes like movement speed, mana, and resistances. For Eldritch mods, seek life regeneration per endurance charge and maximum fire resistance. On a belt, you can increase your attributes via Hunter or Elder suffix. Try to get some intelligence from the crafting bench. energy shield, maximum mana, and resistances are good too.

Ivory Tower protects you from chaos damage until you have no mana. Use Coruscating Elixir flask to shift incoming chaos damage to affect energy shield if your mana has been depleted and to take less fire damage. You may also use a regular Ruby flask if your chaos resistance is high and you don’t run out of mana. For other flasks, get a Topaz flask with bleed immunity and a Sapphire flask with increased movement speed if you’re using the Trader Keystone for permanent flasks. These are your 3 flasks. If not, you should also get a Forbidding mana flask with a crafted mod for life regeneration during flask effect and a Quicksilver flask with increased movement speed.

Gems And Sockets

Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion deals damage based on your maximum mana to your character and enemies around you in the form of fire damage over time. Link it with Burning Damage, Swift Affliction, Controlled Destruction, Elemental Focus, and Arcane Surge support gems.

It’s important to use some kind of channeling skill with Armageddon Brand of Volatility. Scorching Ray is the top choice because of its powerful fire exposure. Armageddon Brand of Volatility is supposed to recover 10% of your maximum mana when it expires, which it does after activating once. Allocate the specific Brand Mastery to achieve it. It’s a substantial source of mana recovery during boss fights. Link these 2 with Cast While Channeling and Infused Channeling support gems.

The following 3 auras shall be socketed in the Prism Guardian Shield:

Discipline adds energy shield and increases its recovery rate. Grace adds and increases evasion, which you have a lot of already from the Shaper’s Touch gloves. You need a lot of maximum fire resistance to withstand self-inflicted burning damage. Increase the purity of fire skill gem level to 21 additional maximum fire resistance.

Malevolence makes you deal more damage over time and increases your skill effect duration if you have no mana reserved. Eternal Blessing support allows you to have one permanently blessed aura of charge with an increased aura effect. Link Malevolence to it. Clarity does nothing with Shavronn's Revelation, but it unlocks some of the best mods on a Watcher’s Eye. If you don’t have it, use Vitality instead or alongside it if you have enough life. Link it with Arrogant support.

Your entire mana pool has to remain unreserved. Activate Arcane Cloak to spend 64% of your current mana and gain up to 2,000% increased spell damage from Indigon. Spending a minimum of 16,000 mana in just 4 seconds is necessary to reach this aspirational cap, but it's not practical to attempt with any other skill. Link it with Less Duration and Swift Affliction to use it again sooner. Flame Dash's ability is the curse that lowers the fire resistance of your enemies. If you don’t want to cast it, get a slightly worse Elemental Weakness on hit as a corrupted glove implicit, as we did. You can link your curse gem to Hextouch support to proliferate the Hex.

Shield Charge is simply used to travel faster. Spending mana within Sigil of Power enhances its strength, leading to reduced damage from enemies.

Bandits And Pantheon

Kill all the bandits in Act 2. You will need the two extra passive skill points the most. For a major God, we recommend the Soul of Arakaali to take less damage over time and less chaos damage over time after an upgrade, which is good if your chaos resistance is not yet capped. The selection of minor Gods offers a variety of bonuses. We recommend something to take less physical damage or less damage over time against the type of damage you struggle with the most. We have picked Shakari for better protection against poison.

Passive Tree

The passive skill tree resembles an S shape to squeeze out more mana and intelligence from forbidden jewels. So if you don’t have them, opt for a more optimized shape. Aim mostly for maximum mana, some energy shield, and intelligence. Fire damage and damage over time are less important. Eternal Youth will be transformed into the Traitor Keystone. Allocate also Zealot Oath, Iron Will, Pain Attunement, and a single brand cluster. Get passive energy shield regeneration and shift the stun threshold to ES. Two energy shield masteries lessen damage taken. As for mana recovery after using Guard skill, as mana Mastery, increased attributes as attribute Mastery, and mana recovery when brand expires as Brand Mastery.

Here, we’ll discuss the latest changes to Uber Unique drop rate in Diablo 4 and how it affects the game.

I feel like many of you are probably not fully up to date on every latest change to the game. Since it’s the end of the season, there usually aren’t vast changes at this point.

And Christmas event that just released is boring and uninspired, to say the least. So you have good reason not to listen closely to what’s going on with Diablo 4 right now, at least until they start announcing details about Season 3.

Duriel’s Uber Uniques Drop Rate Changes

That being said, one recent change to the game that you may have noticed is that the drop rate for Duriel’s Uber Uniques has doubled. That’s what I want to talk about here, because this change has serious implications for both future and past events.

Hardcore Diablo fans should be very aware that doubling things in a game rarely has the desired effect. Before we talk about this change, we also have to talk about Uber Uniques’ system of dropping a boss throughout the game. Because the system itself is highly questionable, to say the least.

Everyone praised the developers for their decision when they announced that Uber Uniques would be more suitable for the average player. Because the drop rates for these items have been so low since the launch of the game that only a handful of players in the world are lucky enough to get them.

Anything is better than this system, so that’s why everyone cheered when Duriel could drop Uber Unique items with about a 2% drop rate.

Influence

But little did we know it was another horrible system that players grew to hate over time. In order to fight Duriel and have a 2% chance of receiving one item, players must go through a heartbreaking grind.

The time varies depending on the class you play. But I think it’s safe to say that summoning Duriel at a time requires at least an hour of farming time.

Now, if a player kills Duriel in a group, it can increase the number of summons by 4x. But the problem remains: long hours of soulless grinding with a slim chance of getting really good items.

Trust me, 2% chance is small, especially if you want a specific Uber Unique. You can easily kill between 5 and 800 Duriel without dropping your target Uber Unique. And you can get multiple other unique items that are actually useless to your class.

It filled Reddit with posts, complaining about how many times they ran it without getting Unique drops they wanted. Other types of posts are where players post screenshots of the items they ultimately earned as proof of some kind of achievement.

But is beating a simple, easy-to-kill boss repeatedly really a tremendous accomplishment? Players are frustrated, and rightfully so. Wouldn’t it be better if it could drop Uber Uniques from any mob, but the chance of a drop didn’t limit them to a handful of players in the world?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the addition of Uber Bosses is completely useless. They serve their purpose well by letting players aim to farm regular unique items, such as Tempest Roar and Malignant Rings. But bundling Uber Unique items with Duriel is a huge mistake in my opinion.

Player Feedback

Now let’s get back to the present and look at the recent changes to Uber Uniques drop odds. The fact that the developers made such a change, especially in the middle of the season, upset more people.

First, this doesn’t solve the problem of Duriel being a single semi-reliable way to get Uber Uniques. But that’s not the only problem. Let’s see how some player groups react to this change.

Players who have gotten Unique items they wanted despite tedious grinding without buffs may feel betrayed by the developers. Because it takes new players half the time to get the same items.

The second category of players are those who obtained Unique by purchasing Duriel summoning materials using Diablo 4 Gold or even real money. I personally see nothing wrong with using gold to purchase materials. But since duping is available to certain groups, material prices can become very low due to the excessive number of duped items being sold.

So, while buying with gold isn’t inherently a bad thing, duping is questionable. As for paying real money to get summoning materials, I do understand the reasoning: people want to skip dozens or hundreds of hours of grinding to reach Duriel by paying. I understand the motivation, but it’s still bad for the game as this is clearly a case of pay-to-win and will ruin the game in the long run.

So, the target group that should benefit from the double drop chances are players who have never obtained unique items and plan to get them later in the season. However, at the end of the season, the number of these players was not as high as the developers thought.

It’s entirely possible that some players who never got Uber Uniques evaded this chore, and they still have to do it after the change. At least the price of summoning materials is expected to drop due to increased drop rates.

Conclusion

So, overall, the developers made a controversial change to an objectively terrible system. They could have redesigned the entire system, or at least they could have waited until next season to introduce the change.

Regardless, this is yet another in a long line of terrible decisions from Diablo developers. Looking at this trend, they really have to do better to compete with the upcoming Path of Exile 2. What are your thoughts on this topic? Are you planning to take advantage of Uber Uniques? See you next time!

In this guide, we will deep dive into WoW Dragonflight Season 3 crafted gear.

General Info

Crafted gear is still a force to be reckoned with in Season 3, despite a slight nerf. The max item level caps at 486, just 3 levels shy of the highest Myth gear.

But don’t let that deter you. It’s still a solid choice. For Stardust, no RNG headaches here, as crafting gear allows you to target specific slots and items, offering a strategic advantage to your gearing journey. So, you can plan ahead and farm the Reagents needed.

Enchanted Dreaming Crests

Speaking of Reagents, let’s take them one by one and go over the changes this season brought.

Each crafted gear piece requires an Enchanted Crest crafted by Enchanters through the work order system. Or if your main character has enchanting, you’re in luck. It can save you some WoW Dragonflight Gold there.

Enchanted Crest Recipes are found in the Emerald Dream from outdoor activities like rares, treasures, and the Superbloom Event. The drop chance is quite high as well.

Same as last season, we have 3 Enchanted Crests:

Enhanced Whelpling’s Dreaming Crest Enhanced Wyrm’s Dreaming Crest Enhanced Aspect’s Dreaming Crest

The Whelpling crest is utilized for lower-level blue gear, providing an item level of up to 447. Although this is fairly low considering it can drop from outdoor activities as well, it can prove very useful for solo players. On the flip side, the Wyrm and Aspect crests are reserved for epic-quality gear. This is the most powerful gear you can craft, but you also need another Reagent for that.

In WoW Dragonflight 10.2, all crests go directly into the currency tab rather than your bags. Due to this change, an item had to be implemented to convert the crest into a Reagent, allowing for easy transfer to the crafters. This is done by the Nascent Wyrm’s Dreaming Crest, and there are 3 kinds of them: one for each type of crest. All can be purchased from the enchanting vendors throughout the Dragonflight zones.

For example, to craft the highest crest, you need to purchase the Nascent Aspect’s Dreaming Crest by handing in 60 normal Aspect’s Dreaming Crests. To put things in perspective, gathering this amount is equivalent to completing 5 level-16 keys in time or taking down around 6 Mythic bosses. It does take some effort and time, but the high item level makes it worthwhile.

Additionally, you can obtain a free Enchanted Wyrm’s Dreaming Crest through specific milestones. One is rewarded for defeating Fyrakk as part of the main campaign, including all the difficulties. While the other is granted upon reaching Renown 20 with Dream Wardens.

Spark Of Dreams

So far, we have covered the enchanted crests. Now, the second reagent that you have to provide for high items is the Spark of Dreams.

This item is basically replacing the old sparks that we had in Season 1 and 2. You can create it by combining 2 Splintered Sparks of Dreams and 250 Flightstones.

There are 2 known ways to earn a half spark. The first way is by completing the “A Worthy Ally” weekly quest offered by the Renown keeper. It requires farming 1,500 reputation with Dream Wardens. The second way is by completing any of these 2 quests offered by Malicia for PVP players. You can find her in the Valdrakken’s PVP Hub.

As you may anticipate, you can generate a spark weekly by receiving one half spark per week. However, there is a unique opportunity to earn an extra spark through the one-time quest “Dreams Unified” offered by Lady Moonberry. Upon completion, you’ll have 2 sparks. But keep in mind, this occurs just once per character.

If you join in later in the patch, you do not need to fret. There’s a catch-up mechanism in place. Splintered Spark of Dreams can be obtained from raids, dungeons, PVP, and weekly activities until you reach the current spark count.

How To Put An Order & Tips

Since we pretty much cover all the universal Reagents across crafted pieces, let’s see how it works in practice.

Firstly, you need to reach out to an enchanter, open a work order for your chosen Enchanted Crest, and find a crafter for your desired gear piece. Consider the cost, quality, and Reagents needed. Many people in trade chat or your guild can help, so don’t be shy.

Besides the spark and the crest, the other Reagents vary depending on the item, and it’s not necessary to provide them yourself. The crafter can also contribute, but take that into consideration for the payment.

The quality of the Reagents is also very important, as it can help to make it faster. The ingredients can be gathered throughout farming, or you can purchase them directly from the Auction House.

So, the consistent Reagents are the Spark and the Enchanted Crest, and these will determine the final item level. If you provide only the spark, then it will be between 450 to 463, depending on its overall quality. However, it’s best to save your spark and enhance the piece further by cooperating crests. The Wyrm crest elevates it from 463 to 476, while the Aspect crest achieves levels from 473 to 486, making it very powerful.

Crafting weapons requires 2 sparks instead of 1, translating to approximately a month’s effort. Hence, it’s crucial to be strategic about the items you choose to craft, considering the sparks don’t come in as quickly.

Aside from that, crests also have a weekly cap of 90 per week, which, of course, increases every week. A good approach is to take notes from the best-in-slot gear guide for your class and spec.

Don’t forget that you can also add Draconic Missive of the Fire Flash for your preferred stuns and Embellishments for some extra Flare, providing fun effects on the piece.

Some items come with building Embellishments, such as the Elemental Lariat, and are so totally worth a look.

All in all, Embellishments give a powerful touch to the gear, and you should always utilize them, but you cannot equip more than two at a time.

Also, keep in mind that if you’ve got any crafted gear from Season 1 or 2 lying around, you can give it a refresh by adding the new Reagents.

PvP

Plus, it might even save you a bit of gold, especially if you reach out to the PvP same crafter. That’s all good and well for the PvE players. Now, let’s go over to the PvP side.

Honor and Conquest vendors offer items that let you convert professionally crafted gear into PvP gear. You can find them both in the Valdrakken’s PVP Hub. There are 3 (Greater Verdant) Crests of Honor, which will increase specific slot item levels to 476 PvP item level.

They are sold by Seltherex and they cost different amounts of Honor, depending on the slot you want to use them for. Honor is obtained from doing all types of PvP activities, ranked or unranked.

For the advanced players, there are 3 (Lesser Verdant) Trophies of Conquest, which will increase the gear’s level to 489. These are sold by Calderax and they cost different amounts of Conquest again, depending on the slot item.

Conquest is only earned from rated PvP activities and it has a weekly cap. Season 3 started with a 1,350 limit and it keeps increasing by 550 every week.

Don’t forget that the PvP item level is only enabled during Arenas and Battleground matches. In the Outdoor World, then it’s the actual item level on the piece that counts.

WOW Classic Season of Discovery has started for a few weeks. Currently, almost all Warlock Runes have been discovered. Some you just click on an item, but some are more difficult to complete, like Metamorphosis Rune.

So, in this Warlock Runes guide, I want to review the five most important Runes of Warlock, which are Runes above level 15.

Incinerate

So let’s get down to business first. The Incinerate Rune deals fire damage and increases the fire damage you deal by 25%.

They dropped Rune of Incinerate from Incinerator Gar’im. This is a level 23 elite found in a cave in Render’s Valley, which is located in the southeast corner of Redridge Mountains, approximately around coordinates [77, 85].

Keep in mind that Redridge Mountains are a contested area, so rival factions on PVP server will attack you here. You’ll also have to deal with other Blackrock orc monsters in the area.

So if you’re at a lower level, you may need a friend. You just have to fight him, knock him down, and then you can loot Rune of Incinerate from him, which is actually pretty easy to get once you get to that level.

Lake Of Fire

In Season of Discovery, one of the most valuable Runes you can get as Warlock is Lake of Fire.

This spell is powerful in a fire-based Warlock build. Because it leaves an area on the ground beneath your target, causing all other targets within that AOE radius to take increased fire damage from you and your demons.

To get this Lake of Fire, you first need to find Zixil, a goblin merchant. After finding Zixil, purchase Demolition Explosives from the merchant for a total of 1 WOW Classic SOD Gold. This reagent will be the key to obtaining Lake of Fire Rune later.

Next, head northeast in Hillsbrad Foothills to Durnholde Keep reaching coordinates [79, 40]. There, you’ll find a pile of rocks and debris labeled “Rubble.”

Stand directly on the rubble and use Demolition Explosives purchased from Zixil. If done correctly, you will destroy the rubble and a locker will appear containing Lake of Fire Rune.

If you miss the rubble or stand in the wrong spot when detonating the explosives, the locker containing Lake of Fire Rune will not appear and you cannot get explosives there.

You only have one chance to get this rune, and if you mess up, you’ll have to return to Zixil and drop another gold piece before you can try again.

Everlasting Affliction

It can engrave rune of Everlasting Affliction on Legs slot and allow Warlock’s various abilities to refresh the duration of your applied Corruption.

We should note that Alliance and Horde players get Rune of Everlasting Affliction differently.

To get Rune of Everlasting Affliction, Alliance players need to turn in Waylaid Supplies until you gain a Friendly reputation within Azeroth Commerce Authority faction. You can then purchase Rune of Everlasting Affliction from the same Supply Officer for 2 WoW Classic SoD gold.

Horde players who want to get Everlasting Affliction need to turn in Waylaid Supplies until you gain Friendly reputation in Durotar Supply and Logistics faction. You can then purchase Rune of Everlasting Affliction from the same Supply Officer for 2 gold.

Shadow Bolt Volley

Shadow Bolt Volley is a Gloves Rune that enhances Warlock’s classic skill, Shadow Bolt. When this rune is activated, your Shadow Bolt can attack chain enemies within up to 10 yards, but 20% reduce the damage dealt.

In a raid or dungeon situation, Warlock can easily top the damage charts with Shadow Bolt Volley. While your single target damage may suffer as a result, Warlock still has plenty of other damage options, including pet damage and DOT spells. I highly recommend this rune to anyone running a burst damage Warlock build.

To get Shadow Bolt Volley Rune, travel to Beren’s Peril in the southeastern Silverpine Forest. The entrance to this cave is around coordinates [60, 74], which is a bit hidden. We can find it by following the road south and then northeast into the mountains below Ambermill.

You will then need to kill Ravenclaw Guardians and Ravenclaw Drudgers until one of them drops a Tortured Soul.

To use this item, you must lose some health. Use Life Tap or Health Funnel if needed. Then right-click the item to summon a level 20 elite ghost of the same name. Kill it to Shadow Bolt Volley Rune.

Metamorphosis

Finally, Metamorphosis offers the biggest overhaul to traditional Warlock gameplay by transforming spellcasters into melee tanks. This Rune increases Warlock’s armor by 5x, reduces their critical chance, increases their overall Threat generation by 50%, and doubles Life Tap’s mana regeneration.

For such a powerful, class-changing Rune, Warlock must undergo one of the most complex missions of the season. There are four quests in Metamorphosis quest chain, starting with Orb of Soran’ruk.

Orb Of Soran’ruk

To us by Doan Karhan brought this assignment to us. Doan Karhan is a neutral NPC east of Camp Taurajo in Barrens.

Karhan requires players to collect three Soran’ruk Fragments and one Large Soran’ruk Fragment. Small fragments drop from Twilight Acolytes inside and outside Blackfathom Deeps, while large fragments drop from Shadowfang Darksoul enemies inside Shadowfang Keep. Collect both, then return to Karhan.

Rumors Abound

Karhan will then ask players to collect Orb of Des and Bough of Altek, two new unique quest items.

We can find Orb of Des in Tower of Ilgalar in the eastern Redridge Mountains. Bough of Altek, on the other hand, is located at the top of Tower of Althalaxx in Darkshore. Once you’ve collected these two items, return to Karhan to complete the third part of the quest.

Conjuring

He then asks the player to collect ten Blood of the Legion. These can only be obtained from demonic enemies southeast of Ashenvale. Waves of demonic enemies will spawn here. Warlock must stand among Purple Runes that appear on the ground near the obelisk and use Drain Soul ability to kill these enemies. Survive here and Mysterious Traveler will appear.

Raszel Ander

Speak with Mysterious Traveler to complete Conjuring and begin the last steps of Metamorphosis quest. When Mysterious Traveler appears, he will give the quest Raszel Ander. After picking it up, return to Karhan one last time to complete the quest and get the Metamorphosis Rune.

That’s it for all the major Warlock Runes. These five Runes will make your Warlock even more powerful in WOW Classic Season of Discovery. Remember, patience is crucial when dealing with these challenges.

Path of Exile 2 has revealed new gameplay, a boss fight, and a new class called the Mercenary.

Additionally, new features of the game include changes and new additions to the combat. This is really looking like a straight-up improvement to the isometric genre.

Let's go through the cool new things coming in Path of Exile 2.

New Controls

Firstly, let's go over the confirmation of the new changes to how you can control your character and this applies to any class and any weapon type.

You can now use WASD movement to control and move your character, allowing you to move separately while aiming. You can still use traditional click-to-move if you want to.

On top of this, there are changes to many character skills whereby you can move while casting, increasing the pace and intensity of combat.

Honestly, these changes together are great news to me, and it really does impact how the game will feel to play.

Mercenary Class

Regarding the Mercenary class, then we got a really good look at the new Mercenary class, which is a new crossbow-wielding character.

This class comes with unique crossbow options, mimicking a variety of different firearm types but in crossbow form.

They wanted this class to feel both responsive and snappy when firing the crossbow, similar to how shooting in first-person shooter games feels. So, they've gone deep into making different crossbows that function kind of like a sniper rifle, a shotgun, and even assault rifles.

These crossbows are layered on top with different elemental ammo types and even attachments that all synergize together in different ways.

New Weapon Types

For your character's equipment, you can only equip 2 crossbows at a time, and there are 3 different types to pick from:

Burst Crossbow: Functions like a shotgun, firing a burst of arrows dealing little damage individually but packing a punch if they all connect to a single target. Power Shot Crossbow: Functions like a sniper rifle, dealing high damaging slow lower hits. Rapid Shot Crossbow: Very fast shooting with a high magazine capacity, allowing for chasing and evading enemies while keeping up the damage.

All Ammo Abilities

There are also ammo skills, which add another layer of depth on top of how these different types of crossbows function. There are slight differences in how they work across the different types, so let's go through them all.

Ammo abilities include Armor-Piercing Ammo, which makes your hits pierce through enemies, good for taking on a group at once.

However, for the Rapid Shot crossbow, each hit will erode an enemy's armor, eventually breaking it, negating the Burst Shot crossbows' drawback against armored enemies.

Meanwhile, for the Power Shot crossbow, if an enemy's armor is broken, you can then pull out your power crossbow to shoot them, triggering a special weak spot hit dealing massive extra damage and high stun on the enemy.

Then, you have Incendiary Ammo. This is good against single targets as it ignites them. With the Burst Shot crossbow, the more projectiles that connect to a target, the more damage it deals per hit, making it great for super close-range situations.

For the Rapid Shot crossbow, the incendiary ammo charges up before firing. As you continue to shoot, it heats up, dealing more damage per shot. Moreover, it boosts the fire damage of any grenades you launch and automatically ignites oil grenades.

Moving on to the Power Shot crossbow, this ammo transforms into a pseudo-rocket launcher, creating an explosive blast on impact for AOE damage. It synergizes with grenades, causing any fired on the ground to instantly explode.

Permafrost Ammo slows enemies by chilling them and has a chance to freeze them in place. Frozen enemies are vulnerable to a special effect of the armor-piercing ammo, making them explode for huge AOE damage nearby.

The rapid-fire crossbow can also shoot the ground with this ammo type to create ice crystals. These crystals act like mines, exploding when enemies touch them and applying chilling to slow them down. It helps set traps and establish a safe area before engaging in a fight.

The Power Shot crossbow creates ice walls on impact, blocking off areas in corridors and alleys to control enemies. These walls explode when broken by enemies, synergizing with Burst Shot crossbows' armor-piercing ammo for extra damage on Frozen targets.

New Grenade Gear Slots & Types

Additionally, there are new grenade gear slots and types.

The attachment slot in your crossbow is where grenades come from. It functions as a grenade launcher. It allows you to fire different grenade types with varied effects upon explosion.

These attachments function as skill gems, providing extra skill slots for your character and can be augmented with support gems. Grenades are fired separately from your crossbow's primary shooting and explode after a short delay, based on the type chosen.

There are 3 known types of grenades:

Explosive Grenades deal massive damage with a delayed explosion. Flash Grenades deal slight damage but cause massive stun on enemies. Oil Grenades slow enemies by covering them with oil, leaving patches on the floor.

These combinations allow for interesting build potentials. The different crossbow types, ammo types, and grenade varieties synergize in unique ways. Witnessing a character utilizing these synergies against a boss was impressive. The boss fight showcased these strategies in action.

This is a build guide that can help you gain infinite heals and stamina PVP in New World Season 4. I’m going to keep it short for you.

Weapon Artifacts

For weapon artifacts, I’m running Finisher Rapier mainly because of its 15% permanent damage buff, which affects both of your weapons, and you can keep it up with the Keenly Jagged on your bow. I’m still using Refreshing Move on it.

I’m also using Energy Aura as the third perk on my bow, but you can use Enchanted if you really want to. This is a stamina surplus build, as you’ll see in a second, so it’s all up to personal preference. I just end up preferring the stamina.

For gems, I’m choosing to split my damage 50/50, as it’s the best of both worlds and has the least amount of counters. The 8% damage over time (DOT) is mandatory, but make sure the element of that DOT is different on both your weapons because they don’t stack.

Armor And Jewelry Artifacts

Regarding armor artifacts, I like Tumblers because it’s a 600 heal on no cooldown. The reason I prefer it over Featherweight is that of the potential it has. Featherweight offers around a 5% extra effective hitpoints (EHP) difference, which is around 900 health. So if I proc Tumblers at least twice in a fight, it’s automatically better than Featherweight, and any proc behind that just makes the gap bigger.

For accessories, Endless sounds good on paper, but you can’t put Healthy Toast on it, which is really, really bad. Ankh is nice, but it makes you pick between protection or stamina recovery, and obviously, you have to pick stamina recovery, so you’re going to miss protection. I like the universality of having different protections, so I’d rather not use Ankh.

Armor And Jewelry Perks

The actual perks on my ring and earring are the exact same as they usually are. Everything here is pretty self-explanatory. Gear we’re looking at 5 Shirking Heals. The buff to 7 seconds turned it from a good perk to an almost mandatory perk, but you’ll find a lot of people don’t agree with that because they’re stubborn and invested a lot of their money in a build that’s not good.

For my secondary perk, I’m running Fortify, and the rest is just normal stuff: one skill perk (Siphoning Energy), and then the random perk that Tumblers have. In whatever leftover slots I have, I put Health on, which in this case amounts to two health.

For armor gems, I’m running 4 Opal and one Onyx with full Energizing Runes. The Rune choice is a bit up to personal preference, but I highly recommend using at least one Energizing Rune, mainly because there are lots of clutch scenarios where you’re one stamina away from stamina-ing yourself out. The rest you can put range damage, but I would definitely not recommend Leeching Damage unless you’re using Boltcaster. The Leeching version is a flat 18% damage reduction against Boltcaster, Fire Staff, and other fully Elemental range weapons, and it’s a 9% damage reduction against bows, muskets, and B-buses who use a split gem. My Opals additionally cover 8% less damage from all Elemental sources.

Damage Resistance

Regardless if it’s melee or ranged, that’s 8% less damage from weapons like Abyss, Boltcaster, Firestaff, and 4% less damage from weapons that have split gems. The 3 Onyx I have covered some additional defense against melee players. This is purely optional and up to your playstyle. If you’re fine with playing super defensive and ratty, you can drop the Onyx for some thrust and lightning resist instead.

For the necklace, I’m obviously going with fire resist because that’s the easiest range weapon to get hit by. You can do movement tech or whatever movement cancels you want against other bows and muskets, and they’ll end up missing 90% of their shots. But it’s hard to do movement tech against Firestaff when they have a hitbox of a Boeing 747. Plus, the fire resist also reduces explosive shot damage from bows.

My completely honest recommendation is to have a set of amulets and maybe even some accessories that you can easily swap in and out. This way, you have the freedom to swap to another resist if you’re ever when there is no Firestaff. For example, let’s say you’re getting hunted by a melee assassin squad. Then, you should obviously switch to your slash necklace. Let’s say the enemy team has 10 Boltcaster players. Obviously, switch to a lightning or thrust necklace.

If your build is threatened by a simple swap of a necklace and maybe a ring or accessory, then maybe you should reevaluate your build.

Attributes

Moving on to attributes, this does get a little interesting. 25 and 50 strength are still bugged but no longer in a good way. 50 strength doesn't do anything, and 25 strength, on the other hand, previously boosted heavy damage by 10% and light damage by 5%. Now it only boosts both damages by 2%. Classic AGS, honestly. But anyways, because of that, I'm dropping 25 strength and then also dropping 35 con to get 50 focus. This 10% extra healing affects all the pots I use and even tumblers, and I can justify the 900 Health loss from going to 240 to 2115 con with that 10% extra Health. As long as a fight lasts long enough where you go through two rotations of pots, then this 10% prevails, not even accounting for any sharing or tumbler procs.

This build shines in fights that last long, which is pretty much any fight against good players. It's also a very solo-centric build. The second you involve a pocket healer that lets these micro heals matter in the long term, at that point, you're better off running Featherweight and more pure damage reductions.

If you're investing in dex after 350, then I would still get 25 strength first. Simply because the 25 points here end up doing more damage than 25 dex after 350. So if your build is 400 dex and zero strength.

Toxic Rain Pathfinder was my starter build for League and it didn’t disappoint me at all. You can easily scale into the late game while remaining tanky. You can also easily farm tier 16 empowered Legion and Expedition. Without further ado, let’s get started.

Skill Itself And Area Solution

Our skill choice is Toxic Rain. Fire a projectile with your bow, which will spawn Spore Pods where it lands. Over time, this will start to cause chaos damage in an area, and they can overlap each other.

We’ve gained huge buffs in this league, but we’ve lost gems that increase area quality. Therefore, we need a new method to reach the area threshold of 39% increase.

I’ve seen others use Searing Exarch Helmet Implicit, which increases the area. But I think giving up 15% or more of Despair Curse effect is bad.

So I came up with a simple solution, which is to exchange for a Medium Cluster Jewel. In this way, only 1% of damage is lost in exchange for 10% Area of effect and 8% life.

Clear Skill

To increase the speed of clearing, we use Caustic Arrow. When you fire a projectile, it creates Caustic Ground where the projectile lands. Over time, this can cause chaotic damage.

But it is difficult to pass the level using this skill alone. Therefore, we added Arrow Nova Support. With this combination, our clearing speed will be much faster.

Secondary Source Of Damage And Damage Scaling

Our biggest and best multipliers come from secondary sources using Ballista. We can have 5 of these and they will help stack Wither on the boss. By default increases Chaos damage by 90%.

In addition, we also get an Ascendancy node, which will increase the Wither effect and give us the chance to cause a Wither.

The other really big damage increase is skill effect duration. Because Pods will stay in the fight longer and deal damage for longer.

We can keep all the mana because we use Eldritch Battery for the build. We’ll spend our Energy Shield just like we have mana, but we can use our skills more freely because we don’t have to worry about mana.

You need at least 400 Energy Shield as I think that’s a good breakpoint for Divine Blessing to set. Even after you use Divine Blessing, you have enough Energy Shield to send Toxic Rain and still not deplete Energy Shield.

Which New Ascendancy?

We can use Charm because we selected Wildwood Primalist as our secondary Ascendancy. I also used 2 Spell Suppression Charm and a Mana Reservation Charm, so we didn’t have to use Enlighten.

Also, because I’m using a clear setup rather than a single target setup, this means the damage we take will be much higher. And POE currency cost of running the map is very high. Therefore, this build will need to continue to be updated. Of course, you can adjust it to suit your play style.

Defensives

On the defensive side, we convert 63% of physical damage into elemental damage. Of these, 50% were achieved just by using Lightning Coil. The rest comes from the helmet.

Because we treat so much damage as elemental damage, we can use all elemental damage reduction flasks to reduce converted elemental damage, such as Ruby, Sapphire, and Topaz Flasks.

In addition, we can also use Grace Aura to increase the evasion rating, so that we will almost never die from the monster’s normal attacks or projectiles.

Now that we are almost untouchable by physical attacks, the remaining danger is spell damage. Skill Tree, Gear and Charm can achieve 100% Spell Suppression.

Items

Since we’re using Eldritch Battery, you’ll need Energy Shield and Evasion Bases and the pure Energy Base Helmet.

Weapon: Our weapon is a standard crafted bow with +1 socketed bow gems that increase attack speed and cause chaos damage over time. Quiver’s life and damage overtime are mostly related to attack skills and bow damage. Quiver: Now we use Penetrating Arrow Quiver because I also use Caustic Arrow for clearing, which is why I say this is not the best setup for a single target. Amulet: Amulet is also a crafted one. You just buy an amulet with Fractured Chaos Resistance and reforge Chaos through Harvest until you deal damage over time and get +1 for all Chaos skill gems. Gloves: High life chaos resistance and attack speed. Suppression and chaos damage multi as implicit. Boots: Suppress movement speed avoids Elemental Ailments and avoids Elemental Ailments and action speed by implicit. Helmet: Life and large Energy Shield rolls, for Eldritch Battery crafting physical damage treated as fire. And improve implicit physical damage, such as Cold or Lightning and Despair Curse effects. Ring: Life and attributes and resistance and crafting lowest Frenzy Charges. Belt: Life and strength also increase Flask Charge buff and increase the effect of flasks on you.

Flask

So the flasks we use are Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz, Quicksilver and Divine Life flask. All flasks require this mod: increased effect and reduced duration.

Be careful when you roll your flask, as there are many mod combinations of the two, but it will reduce the duration even more. So your flask won’t have 100% uptime.

The sub-mod reduces mana cost, chance to avoid being frozen, and all elemental resistances. When you get into a boss fight, change your Quicksilver flask to a Silver flask with attack speed.

That’s it for my Toxic Rain Pathfinder build guide. Ready to dive into Affliction League with Toxic Rain Pathfinder build? Looking forward to seeing you in the game!