Greetings fellow exiles! I’m finally back in Necropolis League with my super tank build. This is one of the most powerful builds in the game and can clear new Tier 17 maps and Uber Bosses with ease. This is Ephemeral Edge Molten Strike Trickster!
In this guide, we’ll focus on the gameplay of this build and how to obtain and upgrade the gear it requires. Let’s get straight to it.
Our skill of choice is Molten Strike. When you hit an enemy, it will spray Rolling Magma, and if you slow down the projectiles, all Magma Orbs can hit the same target.
We scale the projectile count to 5 and start scaling the energy shield. For this reason, we will use Ephemeral Edge with Resolute Technique corruptions. The easiest way to get this is to spend POE Currency to buy non-corrupted ones, then vaal yourself or double corrupt your weapon until you hit this.
Note that it’s not worth the price tag of 10 Divine Orbs or more, as players demand it a lot. It saves money to do it yourself.
Since our main damage type is lightning, we can use Voice of the Storm unique Amulet to get even more damage in this build.
Lightning Damage with Non-Critical Strikes is Lucky, which means that every time we deal damage to an enemy, the game rolls twice and chooses the higher number. This is very useful when your damage range is very high, especially since the damage range of our lightning build is very large compared to other builds.
Because of Voice of the Storm Amulet, we can’t scale critical hits, so we can use a very interesting Keystone Passive, Precise Technique. If Accuracy Rating is higher than Maximum Life, attack damage is increased by 40% in exchange for us being unable to deal with critical hits. Because we use Chaos Inoculation, our max life is 1, and this Keystone will take effect with zero effort.
I really like this build because we can scale damage with layers of defense. Where does the nearly 13k energy shield come from? Let’s start with the biggest source.
Because we selected Trickster, we have access to Escape Artist Ascendancy node. Equipped body armor has +1 maximum energy shield for every 6 Evasion Rating. We need to use a hybrid body armor base to benefit more from it.
In addition, we also need very high evasion and energy shield roll on the body armor. On this build I rolled 2.2k evasion and 490 energy shield. It’s worth noting that this chest armor alone gives us almost 5k of energy shield.
We also stacked Intelligence for more energy shields, reaching over 1.1k, which is pretty impressive.
We can use 3 curses in this build because using my favorite Anathema unique Ring, our curse limit is equal to our maximum energy cost. Each character can have 3 charges, so our curse limit is 3.
All 3 curses I use include Elemental Weakness, Conductivity and Sniper’s Mark.
Many people are worried that this unique Ring will not work if there is no power charge in the build. But actually, according to the wording of the ring, you don’t need to generate them, so don’t worry about that.
Additionally, Aspect of the Crab is also crucial in this build. This will give us Crab Barriers every half second, and each crab stack will reduce physical damage, so this aura alone will reduce physical damage by 20%. But please note that when we are attacked, we will lose all stack.
In Necropolis League, we get level 30 Aspect of the Crab, which adds two extra max stacks, so we’ll get 24% physical damage reduction. I know for some of you it may not be a vast difference, but it’s better than nothing.
To combat the disadvantages of this aura, we will use our very high intelligence to convert the evasion rating with an evasion and energy shield mastery. So we can free up an aura because we won’t be using Grace.
Next, I wanted to do something new with this build. As you can see, we use 4 flasks so that we can easily sustain ourselves even during boss fights.
We achieve this via Traitor Keystone, which will provide 4 flask charges every 5 seconds per empty flask slot. Additionally, I’m using Searing Exarch implicit modifiers to generate 1 flask charge every 3 seconds.
We get all the good Flask-related nodes on the passive tree and from now on we have 100% uptime. This is very cool. Because this way we can solve resistance problems and get more damage in the build.
Our key recovery comes from an energy shield leech. Doing this alone isn’t very good, as you’ll stop leeching when you reach full energy shield. But since we chose Trickster as Ascendancy, we can access an interesting node, Soul Drinker.
This allows us to leech the energy shield without the leech effect being eliminated if our energy shield is maxed out. This means that if we can hit the target, we can stay stationary on almost anything.
For Tier 17 and Uber endgame you need Elemental Ailment Immunity, so we use Ancestral Vision. Additionally, Modifiers to Chance to Suppress Spell Damage also apply to Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments, for half its value. We also get the remaining avoid% from boots.
Next, let’s move on to the gear you’ll need for this build.
For weapons, we chose Ephemeral Edge. First and most important, attacks with this weapon increase the maximum lightning damage by 20% of the maximum energy shield, while also giving us a large amount of energy shield.
Then there’s Voice of the Storm Amulet. Lightning Damage with Non-Critical Strikes is Lucky. We are also anointing on this Arcane Focus.
The most important thing is Anathema unique Ring. With this ring we can use 3 curses in our build. It also gives us intelligence and a bit of energy shield.
I made most of the other rare items in this build myself, so it’s hard to estimate the cost, but it’s not expensive at all. But in short, you need to quality up all the items around 28% if possible, and get bases with fractured intelligence tier 1 mod.
Flasks are a very important part of this build, so if you make a mistake here, you’ll end up with worse results than you’ve seen before.
I use Bismuth Flask with increased effect and additional elemental resistance. You can get higher reduction duration when you craft this flask, but be sure to check the uptime of PoB flask as it requires 100% uptime.
Next up is Ruby Flask with reduced charge and crafted to avoid being stunned.
Our damage flask is Silver Flask, which will give us Onslaught. Now I’m using the increased effect on this one, but if you only want to use this build for bossing, then you’ll need the flask charge recovery rate for better uptime.
Finally, don’t forget to use the Taste of Hate unique flask, which will give us a huge damage reduction in physical attacks.
Finally, I just want to highlight a few things required for this Molten Strike Trickster build in the passive tree.
Through Necropolis League, we got a new unique jewel, which is Perandus Pact. We get 45% energy shield from this jewel.
The most important thing is the flask effect duration. We need 4 so that our flask can have 100% uptime. All that’s left is spell suppression, which I know can be expensive, but is worth the investment.
Since we have Trickster as Ascendancy, Polymath will give us more damage with each mastery allocated.
The most important node is Escape Artist, which is our main defense layer.
Next is Soul Drinker node. This will give us Energy Shield Over-leech, where we can leech from the damage we deal.
The last node is Spellbreaker. This will help us cap our suppression. If we’re in full energy shield mode, we’ll take less damage from spell damage.
Anyway, that’s the end of this guide. I hope you enjoyed this build of Energy Shield stacking Trickster. Good luck!
In today's discussion, we'll delve into the Spectre build guide for the Path of Exile 3.24. I must advise against starting with the Spectre build guide on a low budget or as a league starter. However, in the Necropolis League, we now have access to the Moon Dancer Spectres which can enable you to embark on this build right from the start.
Once you can obtain 4 spectres, that is when you can start fully playing this build. To get 4 spectres, you need the Death Attunement node on the skill tree, as well as having a Level 25 Raise Spectre gem. This can be achieved by having a Level 21 Raise Spectre gem along with a plus level of Raise Spectre from either your Bones of Ullr or unique boots.
There is an option of getting a Replica Dragonfang's Flight that gives up the spectres to Level 3 extra. However, using the exclusive Perquil's Toe does more damage, requires very little POE Currency on gear, and is a great deal on the skill tree.
For the low-budget approach, we are going to be going in with the Ascendancy node of Mistress of Sacrifice. This is because of the low-budget build we'll be using Bone Offering to give ourselves and our minions block chances.
We'll also be running Commander of Darkness for resistances to us and our minions, Mindless Aggression for damage and life, as well as Bone Barrier to provide ourselves with some leech. I would recommend not specking into the leech nodes and simply having the generic leech, so it has less strength to it than it should be.
We are going for the tempering as Enduring Bond mods. We're going for Spiritual Command or Sovereignty, as well as the Redemption and Righteous Army on the left-hand side, Gravepact in the bottom, and then we're just picking up Blocking nodes and resistance notes. In the former Sanctuary, we're also picking up Eldritch Battery.
Eldritch Battery allows you to use the Divine Blessing setup. The problem with the Divine Blessing is that it's going to cost a lot of energy shield. Because of this, it's something you will take when your gear is supplying enough energy shield for this to work. The other auras we'll be running are Generosity Wrath, Petrified Blood, and Determination.
Petrified Blood, you don't have to be on low life all the time. You can use a life flask to get full HP. The purpose of this is to create a state of over-leeching. As our minions will leech consistently to us, we will always be covering ourselves from the damage that's coming in.
We'll have a Conductivity curse, a Frostblink, Convocation, Faster Attacks with Shield Charge, and an Animate Guardian in a separate link, which you don't really need to use if you don't want to or feel comfortable with it because the medium budget cannot use an Animate Guardian.
The weapon will be a generic trigger weapon for Bone Offering, and Desecrates will have a Feeding Frenzy setup for Stone Golem and Raise Zombie, which will not only act as buffing for our minions through making the enemy take elemental damage to the Elemental Army and giving them damage buffs to our minions through Feeding Frenzy, but also act as meat shields to cover you and make you safer.
Links for the spectres are very straightforward as well. We'll have Raise Spectre, Minion Damage, Spell Echo, Returning Projectiles, Pierce, and Faster Projectiles for single Target switch gems. You would then remove the Returning Projectile for Slower Projectile.
As far as the pantheon is concerned, for the low budget, we’re going to be running the Brine King for freeze immunity and the Arakaali for the ignite reduction of duration. Outside of that, we can utilize the unique jewel Unending Hunger, which will perform well for clear speed.
The goal for the low budget build is to prioritize getting block sorted and having life and resistance capped, along with sorting your attributes through your gear. For example, Perquil’s Toe provides a lot of dexterity, but you’ll need additional dexterity, which can be obtained through other gear pieces.
The weapon will be a trigger, preferably +2, but +1 is the cheaper option, with a minion damage modifier, and the shield should have life, with a level of minion skills. The helmet should have life and +1 level of minion skills if possible.
In later stages, the chest piece will be a Delve modifier chest, granting an extra spectre to go from 4 to 5 spectres. Before that, in the low budget setup, aim for a corrupted 6-link with life, resistances, or attributes.
Gloves will focus on life and resistances. Look for energy shield bases to ensure coverage of the energy shield. In a great low-budget state, the high-budget version will use Elder Influenced boots to obtain that level of spectre per kill. Double Bone Rings with minion damage and attack speed are beneficial. Additionally, prioritize attributes like light for the darkness and throne.
For jewels, focus on life combined with minion damage after using a minion skill recently, or consider flat lightning damage. Rumi’s Concoction is a recommended approach, and consider using a jewel that provides effects like taunt or blind.
In this guide, I’ll be sharing one of my favorite POE 3.24 League starter builds, Explosive Trap Trickster. In Necropolis League, I enhanced this build and added the features we needed most, namely leveling, gear progression, and crafting sections. This build is enough to help you destroy everything early in the league! Without further ado, let’s get started.
First, I’ll show you the skill, Explosive Trap. You will throw traps and these traps will explode many times. All explosions can hit the same enemy, which is where our DPS comes from and how many traps we have.
When you view POB, you can set the number of explosions that hit the target. As always, I set it to an average blast since most enemies have a small hit range.
Now for the buffs of this build. We can automatically cast Warcry through Enduring Cry and the new Call to Arms Support. So we don’t have to press any extra buttons when mapping or fighting enemy bosses.
In addition, Enduring Cry will solve a big problem in the build, which is recovery. Warcry will give you a lot of life regen in a short period and will give you Endurance Charges. Because we are using Immortal Call as our guard skill. The uptime of the guard skill will be much greater than 1 second, which is an excellent combination.
Some players may have noticed that in this patch, they removed the reduced mana cost mods from jewels. But this isn’t a big issue for me since we’re only using one mod, so I think this build will still be good.
I know everyone is talking about Explosive Trap of Shrapnel. This patch they increased gem damage to reduce the area of effect of the explosions. This reduces the overlap of explosions, meaning less damage than before.
From my testing so far, the base Explosive Trap and Explosive Trap of Shrapnel do almost the same damage if we talk about single target damage. However, I think it’s better to clear with Shrapnel, which you can use to kill map bosses. But when you want to challenge Ubers or harder content, you need the basic Explosive Trap.
There is also a personal issue with Explosive Trap of Shrapnel, namely that you have to farm the lab for it. I think this is not a good plan because it all depends on RNG and maybe you won’t see what you want for 3 hours. But of course, if you enjoy growing gems, then go for it!
Also, there are two issues with this build. The first is mana. Our traps are very expensive in mana, so we’ll need to use Mana Flasks until the mana costs of our rings and amulets are reduced.
If you are lucky enough, or you have a little extra POE Currency, you can buy Praxis. It will easily solve your mana problem until you get the gear.
The second problem is that when you open POB, you will see that our build does not have any physical reduction. But it doesn’t matter, because we have more than 70% chance of avoiding enemy attacks, and we have enough energy shield and life pool to withstand bigger hits.
I played this build last league and completed my Atlas, defeating all endgame bosses without armor on my character. Keep in mind that you’ll get additional physical damage reduction from Endurance Charges thanks to the new support gem and Enduring Cry.
Next, let’s walk through how to navigate in my version of Path of Building.
Passive trees are the most important to a good leveling experience. You can see at the bottom, click this button and get a drop-down menu and select the current level for the corresponding tree.
First, grab a Trap Wheel here in the level 22 tree instead of going to Written in Blood. In the next one, you can choose what to pick first, but I recommend going with Snowforged and Elemental Mastery here. This is also your first lab time.
When you do the second lab, on the level 55 tree. Most of the time, you get mastery because you get Polymath Ascendancy node. The different types of masteries you assign will do more damage. So that’s why I chose a lot of masteries this time. Here again is a single small node that will be counted on the next tree.
On level 69 of the tree, you will complete the third lab and complete the campaign. I want to draw your attention to the fact that there is a node here that gives +10 Strength. Besides, if you feel you’re lacking damage, you can also get extra Curse nodes and add a second Curse to the build.
You may also want to ask some FAQs, such as the pros and cons of this build, and learn more about Transfigured Gems, mana issues, and how to solve them.
Here, I would like to talk more about leveling. As you probably know, I don’t like using other skills to level up other than my main one, so that’s why I’m not using Rolling Magma or other methods to level up here. I know this isn’t the most efficient way to complete a campaign, but for me it’s a more enjoyable experience.
I also try to include weapon progression here, what gear you can use early on, or how I did it. Even in the early stages of the league, these weapons should be cheap. Of course, this is my personal preference, but if you have something better in your pocket, I wouldn’t stop you!
Another thing that is in outrageous demand is the crafting part. You can learn how to craft items with this build with a very high success rate. Don’t forget to always double or even triple check before embarking on expensive crafting methods.
After this part is completed, only the gem part is left, which also contains the drop-down menu next to the skill set. Click on the appropriate level your character has and try using gems. Don’t worry if you can’t find the 4-link at the moment, you will find it later.
At level 38+, this is where Herald of Ash fits in. But you cannot use this Herald unless you have one of the reservation wheels found in the level 48 tree. So please keep this in mind.
Maybe you’re curious about Bandit and Pantheon. For Bandit, Alira is a good choice. She’s great for the early and mid game because of her mana regen, resistance and crit multi.
When it comes to Pantheon, Soul of Solaris must not be missed. If you haven’t been hit recently, you can upgrade this to take 8% less elemental damage. Also, this will give you a bit of movement speed and physical damage reduction.
Overall, Explosive Trap Trickster is one of my favorite skill and Asdendancy combinations. Trickster Asdendancy is very flexible, so you can easily re-spec other skills if you wish. Regardless, I hope you’ll find this league starter useful.
Hi, builders! I have a smooth Wave of Conviction Elementalist that offers fast clearing and strong survivability, and can also transition into other endgame Elementalist builds for the Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League. I can’t wait to show you of build!
This build delivers buttery-smooth cleanup and shreds through everything in a flash. This is definitely more of a map buster and I have set this up to be very tanky. During the early stages of the game, you might feel vulnerable as you prepare yourself. It’s difficult to get suppression early on with an Elementalist.
However, in the endgame, it can actually have 40,000 points of armor before the flask, which is great. It should be able to do all the normal bosses and get you 4 Watchstones. But if you’re looking for an insane boss killer, this is not the build for you. This is just for blasting maps fast, and it’ll be a lot of fun.
It’s relatively simple to play this build. While clearing, we can actually use an Obliteration Imbued Wand so you get a good wipe out. Then we have Vaal Flameblast. We’re only using Vaal Flameblast for when there’s something really tanky or facing a boss.
When you are fighting a boss, you want to make sure that you have your Arcanist Brand down, and what that does is flammability, Elemental weakness, and Flame Surge, giving you considerable damage.
Now, on bosses in particular, we really want to take advantage of the tremendous damage we’re getting from Vaal Flameblast. That’s why we’re using this through Arcanist Brand, so the Arcanist Brand will keep cursing things and it doesn’t really count as you casting a curse spell because you’re casting Arcanist Brand. Because of that, you can basically make the Vaal Flameblast Ignite last forever.
Next up, we can go to skills. At the early stage, we can start with Rolling Magma. This is very standard for a lot of builds. And then you can have Frostblink, Flame Wall and Holy Flame Totem. With Flame Wall, you want to make the projectile go through that. Anything that goes through the Flame Wall gets more damage.
At Level 28, we switch to a very standard Armageddon Brand with the Cremation setup. So, that means that for clearing, you’re mostly using Armageddon Brand. For bosses, you’re throwing down Cremation, which you need to desecrate first to make corpses.
The gear can be very easily and quickly to set up. The focus is on life and resistance, triggering a longing to challenge suppression. You’re also going to need some dexterity in gear, but life and suppression are what you’re looking for, and early on, just focus on getting resist capped. Choose the gear that best suits you based on how much POE Currency you have.
We have a separate setup for clearing and that is because Obliteration will feel so good while clearing. On an Elementalist, all damage can ignite. That includes your chaos damage, so those explosions will be exploding and igniting.
But if you’re doing like Uber Elders or something, then you can switch out to a weapon like this for even more single target. One thing that might be a little frustrating in this build is that since we don't cast very often, we really need some critical chance. That’s why you can get a crit chance on the scepter.
You can roll crit chance on a flask, and that is to keep Elemental Overload uptime. There will be like a little diamond on the skill, so it’ll be a diamond on the Vaal Flameblast or a diamond on the Wave of Conviction, and that means that it’s on for that skill.
Now, for some extra defense, we can use the Energized Armor. What it does is these nodes have energy shield on them and it basically turns that into armor. You will have 57,000 armor with a good Granite Flask, so that’s actually pretty substantial.
If you’re feeling that you are very tanky and maybe you want a bit more damage, what you can do, especially for softcore players, is you can get rid of Bastion of Elements but you can take Shaper of Storms instead, and what that will do is that’ll give really high damage shocks so they’ll take on a lot of monsters 50% more damage.
Later on, we have a little more advanced gear. This is when you’re like moving towards Tier 16s and you’re starting to get suppression capped. The Pig-faced Bascinet helmet is crafted with the Essence of Horror and that gives you that socketed gems deal 30% more damage.
You may want to try to use the new Veiled Orb. However, we don’t know what kind of rarity or cost is going to be around that. So, you will use Essence of Horror on a helmet until you have. Then you’re doing suffixes cannot be changed in a Veiled Orb, and just hope you hit the +2 AOE gems. This is where we put our Vaal Flameblast. It basically makes it a pseudo 5 and a half link.
Obviously, we want the physical damage taken as fire because we don’t have as much armor, and this will actually make our armor more potent. Other than that, lots of Armor Innovation gear. The bases are the best in the slot ones, like Full Dragonscale.
With Jade Amulet, you can get +1 Fire gem levels would be huge or +2. That’s what we’re going to look at later, but damage over time multiplier is great. We can opt for Amethyst Rings early on for chaos. In the endgame, it’s getting a bit more advanced and you can target towards, especially like Eldritch implicit modifier with +2 amulet.
Especially you do want to focus on chaos resistance because later you do want to replace the Amethyst Rings with Unset Rings so that you can get the Divine Blessing support gem and Haste. But, in the early game, it’s going to be hard to chaos resistance cap without Amethyst Rings.
With Path of Exile 3.24 launching soon, here we’ll review everything we know so far about Necropolis League mechanics and rewards, as well as the implications of this League mechanic on what build and farming strategies you should be playing. If you want to get a head start when entering the league, be sure not to miss this guide. Let’s get started!
First, let's talk about everything we know so far about the league mechanics.
Necropolis is a crafting league that has many similarities to Bestiary, Harvest and Delve.
Before entering each area, you’ll see a UI pop-up, Lantern of Arimor. This UI will show you some Spirits, their associated monster modifiers, and each monster pack that can be spawned locally in the area.
Using this UI, you can move spirits onto any monster you want and assign modifiers to parts of those monsters. Lantern UI also displays detailed information about monster packs in the area, including key information such as pack density. It allows you to assign modifiers to monsters to diminish or reduce effects, or maximize bonuses from high-tier or beneficial modifiers.
It is worth noting that this league mechanism affects all zones, including league zones such as Heist Contracts and sub-zones such as Abyssal Depths.
What I really want to emphasize about this mechanic is that it is mandatory. You cannot opt out of this mechanism. Every area you enter has Haunted Spirits, which make monsters stronger and more dangerous. But you do want to make sure your build can handle these difficult spikes.
There are two types of Spirits you can find in Lantern: the more common Haunted Spirits and the rare Devoted Spirits.
Haunted Spirits come in various tiers. The higher the tier, the stronger the monster modifier, and provide better rewards for slain monsters haunted by those spirits. These better rewards come as increased chances for monsters to gain “Unresolved Anguish”.
This simply means that monsters will drop collectible corpses when slain, increasing the drop chance of Embers of The Allflame, and increasing the chance of getting Devoted Spirits for each haunted monster killed for future Lanterns.
It’s worth noting that all of this only applies to monsters that spawn locally in the area. Later, monsters spawned from the league mechanic will not be haunted, and in fact will not even appear on Lantern.
The second type is Devoted Spirits. Unlike Haunted Spirits, these Spirits grant modifiers with beneficial effects on the player. This can include Magic Find, increased XP, and monster spawning things like Lesser Shrines, Strongboxes, and Nameless Seers.
Your chance of gaining Devoted modifier increases based on the number and level of haunted spirits you killed in the previous area. This means that placing higher level, more difficult modifiers on a high density of monsters will result in more Devoted Spirits appearing in subsequent areas.
If you’re not interested in the crafting part of Necropolis, this could very well be a way to flesh out your map and get extra rewards. Not only are you likely to have highly profitable Devoted Spirits, but it’s worth noting that these modifiers may increase the monster’s item count and rarity. Whatever modifier you gain will allow you to expand your loot.
Next up is Ember of The Allflame. These are consumable items that drop haunted monsters, and can be used with Lantern UI to replace monster packs with different special monster packs. Most of these special monsters have additional items to drop, including some very exciting ones that drop tattoos!
It’s worth noting that these special monster packs will inherit the density of the monsters they replace, so you may want to use them on the densest monster packs available to maximize the number on the map.
The important thing about Embers of The Allflame is that at least some of them can only be dropped from specific content or even specific monsters. It’s possible these items will be linked to specific maps or content types, but that’s unclear at the moment, and it’s something we’ll have to figure out once the league goes live.
The ultimate effect of Haunted Spirits is Unresolved Anguish. A certain percentage of haunted monsters will have this modifier, which makes them collectible corpses when killed.
These corpses have a crafting modifier and inherit the monster’s name, monster type, and monster level. In addition, the developers also stated that at least some monsters from Embers of The Allflame have exclusive crafts associated with them.
If this applies to all monsters, and popular crafts only come from specific monsters or maps, then much of the league’s strategy will revolve around trying to farm those specific crafts.
Finally, it’s time to talk about the crafting part of this crafting league, Exorcism Crafting.
The corpses you collect from slain, haunted monsters can be consumed in large quantities to create single items. Each corpse has a crafting modifier that affects the items created.
How it works is that you’ll travel to Necropolis Graveyard, bury any number of corpses, and then exorcise all of them, and the items you craft will gain all of their combined effects.
It is said that there are many graves, and if you are willing to invest more POE Currency, you can craft an incredibly powerful item.
However, this design is far from deterministic. You can’t even choose the item base of the item you’re crafting, only broad categories like “Shield” or “Boots.”
In order to get the item base you want, you will need to use corpse modifiers that affect the item base. One of the new corpse modifiers is called “Modifier Tier Rate”. This is a new way to make items have higher level affixes.
While this modifier allows you to gain higher-level affixes, it doesn’t actually ensure that you actually gain that affix. This means you need to combine Modifier Tier Rate with other modifiers to increase your chances of rolling that type of affix.
Another interesting use of Modifier Tier Rate is to use it on affix types you don’t want, to reduce the chance of getting that affix in your item. Using them in this way is like using a much weaker version of Fossil that prevents certain types of affixes from rolling on items.
So what farming strategy is best for Necropolis? Since the endgame got a huge overhaul in POE 3.24, with the addition of tier 17 maps and a massive scarab rework. Compared to previous leagues, it feels difficult to make any reliable predictions this time around.
However, I do believe we can glean some important insights from all this.
For one, the rewards associated with crafting don’t match other league mechanics. Only monsters local to the map will be haunted, which means other league mechanics spawning in monsters not only won’t give you any corpses to craft, they’ll even just slow you down.
Embers, on the other hand, seem to be designed specifically for players who want to ignore crafting elements and focus solely on farming drops. Embers and their rewards will probably increase as the number of items increases. So if you decide to focus on corpse collecting, you’ll need to find ways to maximize the number of local monsters on the map.
As far as taking advantage of league mechanics, most will just slow you down. The only league mechanic that has the potential to increase the number of local monsters on a map is Shrine, but I’m not 100% sure it actually works. However, some of the new Scarabs will definitely come into play and can add additional haunted monsters to your map.
Embers farming has two parts: farming Embers themselves, or using embers to farm the monsters they spawn in the map. The details of Embers drops are currently unclear, so it’s difficult to assess whether players focused on farming Embers will do both, or just one or the other.
But the goal is to grow more Embers as you use them, and maybe even over-maintain to sell the excess Embers! Because you are replacing monster packs with Embers, you need to make sure to always replace high-density monster packs.
You may even want to consider running a map with a less efficient layout and more monster packs overall in order to maximize the value you get from your expensive Embers.
Finally, let’s talk about the factors you need to consider when creating Necropolis league builds.
What I really want to emphasize here is that this league will be more rigorous than the standard league. This league mechanic is mandatory. It makes monsters stronger, and you can’t opt out. On top of that, this patch introduces a lot of new and challenging endgame content. Therefore, I highly recommend you play with proven meta builds.
Because this is a crafting league focused on crafting powerful rare items, builds that use a lot of unique items will be at a disadvantage here. They won’t be able to take full advantage of the powerful crafting options Necropolis offers.
As for the specific type of build you should be playing, you have to take a bit of a gamble here. The fact that corpses don’t scale with the loot-increasing effect of increasing difficulty means that a clear speed build that clears the map as quickly as possible at the expense of high-end power is probably the right choice.
However, we still don’t know much about how the endgame will play out. If the best corpses come from side content like Heist or Delve, then clear speed may not be king. But a full build is probably a safe bet.
That’s all for this guide. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on Necropolis. Are you going to focus on corpses or embers? Any thoughts on all the new Scarabs we’re receiving? See you next time!
The new Necropolis expansion in the Path of Exile is upcoming! A recent announcement from GGG has disclosed that the majority of its features will not be integrated into the core. So, in this guide, we delve into the Unique items exclusive to Affliction that will now become part of the core drop pool in Path of Exile 3.24.
We have got a large number of information from the GGG Affiction post, for the only part of Affliction which is actually going core in POE 3.24 - the Necropolis League. That’s the Wildwood exclusive Unique items.
In order to prepare for the new journey in Path of Exile, it is also necessary to store some POE Currency in advance.
A lot of players anticipated the inclusion of the That Which Was Taken Crimson Jewel in the core game, but it seems that's not the case. Unless it's introduced in a different manner, like as a drop from a new boss, we might have to wait until the March 21st reveal to confirm. Based solely on this post, it appears That Which Was Taken won't be part of the core game.
However, 6 other Unique items are going core. 3 were exclusively found by enemies in the Wildwood. Those are the Trickster’s Smile Unique helmet, the Nametaker Unique sword, and the Flawed Refuge Unique shield.
The other 3 were exclusive drops from the King in the Mists boss fight. Those are the Pragmatism Unique body armor, the Untouched Soul Unique amulet, and the Burden of Shadows Unique staff.
This addition to the core game is quite intriguing - The Flawed Refuge shield highlighting its potential power in the right setup. Unique items like this one go unnoticed until someone discovers a strong use case, catapulting it into the spotlight.
A notable combo involves pairing the Flawed Refuge shield with Divine Flesh, allowing players to mitigate elemental penetration on 90% of incoming damage. If I happen to find this shield in SSF during the Necropolis league, I might explore building around it since I missed out on obtaining it during the Affliction league.
It will be fascinating to see the rarity tier assigned to this Unique item when it enters the core game. Given its potential usefulness, I anticipate it won't be overly rare, but only time will tell.
The next I want to diacuss is the Pragmatism Unique body armor. This one can be so powerful when it’s used in a smart way. I know that in the Affliction League, there were a bunch of builds using this with the new Bodyswap of Sacrifice gem to explode the Dark Marionette specters.
They were using this body armor to gain a bunch of gem levels for the Raise Spectre gem so that the Dark Marionette had a lot more maximum life. But the Dark Marionette specters will no longer be obtainable in Necropolis.
Another Unique item is the Burden of Shadows staff, purportedly the rarest drop from the King in the Mists encounter. Despite playing through the league, I didn't personally witness this staff drop, nor did I encounter many builds utilizing it.
As a two-handed weapon, the Burden of Shadows staff faces stiff competition from well-crafted weapons and shields. Its utility and effectiveness may be questioned, especially considering its drawbacks. However, once it enters the Unique core drop pool, and assuming it's not excessively rare like Tier 1 or Tier 0, players might delve into experimentation with it.
The potential of the Burden of Shadows staff could increase if Blood Magic receives buffs in upcoming leagues. This could prompt players to reassess its viability and explore new synergies, potentially unlocking hidden strengths that were previously overlooked.
I’m very happy to see the Untouched Soul amulet go core. This is a really fun one that enables a bunch of life stacking builds. And I think in the future, we’ll see a lot more builds making use of this one as well. Perhaps for some mana stacking or even accuracy stacking.
Moving on, let's discuss the Trickster’s Smile. The Trickster’s Smile, in particular, leaves me uncertain. Its functionality seems quite limited and cumbersome, occupying a crucial helmet slot. I anticipate it won't find widespread use due to its niche nature and awkward mechanics.
Regarding the Nametaker, it boasts a formidable 200% critical strike multiplier and 100% instant leech when striking Unique enemies, thanks to their 20 enemy power. While it may not currently rival other options, I anticipate it may find its niche in future builds, showcasing the unpredictable nature of Unique items transitioning into the core game.
The experiences with the Nametaker in the early stages of the Affliction League didn't provide much clarity. Despite attempting various theory crafted setups and experimenting with dual-wielding mechanics, I struggled to discern its effectiveness or potential applications in practical gameplay scenarios.
Indeed, the introduction of Unique items often brings about unforeseen synergies and strategies. These items may initially go unnoticed, lying dormant until new mechanics or interactions arise, suddenly thrusting them into the spotlight.
I'm sure many POE players are eagerly await to see the tier assignments for these Affliction Uniques. Only time will tell how these Affliction Uniques will be classified.
Today, we’re sharing a few chaos-themed powerful builds that can help you clear your screen of all enemies quickly. If you want to try any of them, don’t miss this guide. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Let’s start with this explosive build that achieves massive single target damage at a low POE Currency investment, it’s Hexblast Mines Saboteur with Shadow class.
Hexblast Mines is a very interesting skill that does a ton of extra damage if the enemy it hits is already cursed. In addition to this, it also generates a huge pulse of damage that destroys all nearby monsters. This is why it’s important that our enemies are always cursed.
To list the advantages of this version, I would mention its low budget. It allows for cheap and easy-to-find items with a low investment.
Of course, this build is also very powerful and the boss will disappear with your mine chain reaction. Part of this is because Hexblast can naturally Shock, Freeze and Ignite enemies. If that wasn’t good enough, it also considers the enemy’s lowest resistance before calculating damage.
This build is also very fast and can cause a lot of area damage, making clearing the map very satisfying. Best of all, this way you can drop mines from a distance and stay out of harm’s way.
Now coming to the cons, I’m going to start by saying that the mines gameplay isn’t for everyone. Some players just can’t get used to Detonate mechanic, but trust me, it’s worth a try. Because Mines builds have huge potential.
Another problem is that this character is not very tanky. Therefore, you need to be aware of your position at all times, otherwise you may die.
As for budget, this build is cheap and you can destroy early endgame maps for only about 70 Chaos Orbs. To easily enter Yellow Map, I recommend investing around 150 Chaos Orbs. To easily complete your Atlas, I recommend investing in about 4 Divine Orbs.
For this build, you only need one mandatory unique item, a Profane Proxy Unset Ring, which causes one of your Skitterbots to have a cursed aura. This way, enemies you hit with Hexblast Mines will always trigger large area damage, greatly increasing your clear speed.
I would give this build a 9 out of 10 for clear speed. You’re very fast, and your mines will explode in a large area, killing many monsters at the same time. Therefore, it is very comfortable to clear the map with this character.
Its boss damage is also amazing, 9 times out of 10 worth it. You can stack a lot of mines and destroy the boss with a huge explosion. Even with a lower budget, this build has incredible single target potential.
For survivability, I would give it an 8 out of 10. Even though you have armor, evasion, and spell suppression, this build is still not very tanky. Because you need to stay still from time to time to deploy mines. That’s why it was deducted two points.
Next we have a beginner’s dream build, Toxic Rain Pathfinder with Ranger class. This build uses Pathfinder’s permanent flask and chaos damage to deploy many powerful pods, draining the enemy’s life.
To list the pros of this build, I want to start with how easy it is to assemble. Because you don’t need any mandatory unique items, and upgrading is very easy.
Another great feature of this build is that your flask will always remain active, even during boss battles. And your life flask will be eternal and the damage done over time will be like a joke to you.
This build is great for beginners as you end up with great clear, boss damage, and survivability for a low investment.
Now to list the cons, the main issue with this build is mana. Since we’re dealing damage over time, we can’t leech mana or life, so we need rare rings to reduce the mana cost of the skill.
This build scores 9 points for clear speed. Because as a Pathfinder, you get a lot of attack and movement speed 100% of the time. Additionally, you only need to deploy pods once and they drain the life of surrounding enemies, providing a smooth gameplay experience.
The boss’s damage is also 9 points. Combined with your strength and Toxic Rain totems, even big bosses will melt before your eyes with ease.
This build also has a 9 rating for survivability. This is because this build has high evasion, high armor, and spell suppression, plus you can use Toxic Rain from a safe distance, which will seriously slow down enemies.
Finally, we have a surprisingly powerful endgame build, Poison Summon Raging Spirits Guardian with Templar class.
This build takes advantage of the large number of Raging Spirits you can summon to stack massive amounts of poison on our enemies. Originally I tried to build it as a Necromancer, but with Guardian we only lost a little bit of damage and nearly tripled the survivability.
To list the pros of this build, everything will start with its boss damage. Once built, you’ll be able to kill even the largest bosses in just seconds. Its survivability is also amazing, as we can have all of Guardian’s defensive layers on top of an already very safe minion build.
Now to list the cons, I will start by saying that this build is not for everyone as it is very budget demanding. Also, because the duration of its Raging Spirits is so short, you have to stop and recast them frequently.
As for budget, this build will require at least 10 Divine Orbs to put together. Additionally, it requires four mandatory unique items.
The first is United in Dream Cutlass, which gives us Envy aura, dealing massive amounts of chaos damage to our minions. This also gives them a 60% chance of being poisoned on hit.
We also need a Darkness Enthroned Belt with two Abyss Jewels so that we can apply poison to the minions.
Next we need a piece of Covenant Armor to provide level 29 Added Chaos Damage Support to our Raging Spirits. This means it does more chaos damage.
Finally, we need Ancient Skull, which gives our minions a massive damage and attack speed boost.
For clear speed, I would give this build a 9 out of 10. Although we have a lot of fast minions that can destroy everything in seconds, they are short-lived and need to be resummoned all the time. That’s why I deduct a little.
The boss damage is totally worth 10 out of 10 points. You can easily get over 30 million DPS, which is enough to take out every boss in the game.
In terms of survivability, this is definitely a 10 out of 10. As a minion build, you’re already out of danger. But with this, you can also count the many layers of defense from Guardian Ascendancy, which gives this build a staggering 250,000 effective HP.
That’s it for today. What do you guys think of these chaos builds? Have a great day.
Hi, Builders! I extend a warm welcome to explore my curated list featuring the top 3 budget builds for the Path of Exile 3.23 Affliction League. If you're interested in delving deeper into affordable and powerful builds, then come with me on this journey. Let's dive right in!
To start this topic, we have the most beginner-friendly of all, the Arc Totems Hierophant with the Templar class. On this build, we use many totems that cast the Arc skill for a fast and safe clear speed.
Budget: As for budget, you can get it by destroying early endgame maps with only around 35 chaos to comfortably advance to Yellow Maps, you need to invest around 90 chaos, and for easily completing your Atlas, I recommend investing around 3 divines. But you can totally do it. This build needs 3 mandatory unique items, but they are normally very cheap and easy to get.
Pros: The pros of this build is that this build is cheap and easy to complete. Using this build with almost no investment, you have a powerful, safe, and fast character that will be the perfect POE Currency farmer for this and future builds.
Cons: To all the cons, this build doesn’t have access to Evasion or Spell Suppression, but totem builds are very safe to play. Another issue is that some players might find this gameplay to be a little tedious.
Clear Speed: For clear speed, this build gets 9 out of 10. Arc is a good skill that chains to many enemies and easily clears big packs. This build counts with 4 totems casting this amazing skill.
Boss Damage: The boss damage deserves 9 out of 10. With the right debuffs and all 4 totems summoned, this build can take even big bosses down without any issue.
Survivability: For survivability, I’ll also give it 9 out of 10. As a totem build, you’ll always be far from the action while your totems do all the work. So if you know how to mind your position, you can easily complete high-tier maps with low-grade gear. Above all, this build still comes with high armor and high block chance.
Next, we have this incredibly tanky Melee build, the Boneshatter Juggernaut with the Marauder class. This build is perfect for the Melee enthusiasts out there. Boneshatter hits enemies so hard that it hurts your own character, accumulating Trauma stacks. For each Trauma, you’re going to deal and take more damage. That’s why it’s important to gear both attack speed and armor to stack many Traumas and sustain their damage.
Budget: As for budget, this build is cheap. You can get it destroying early endgame maps with only around 60 chaos. To comfortably advance to Yellow Maps, I recommend investing around 120 chaos. And for easily completing your Atlas, I recommend investing around 4 Divine Orbs.
Pros: To reach the pros of this build, I would start off with its survivability. Even though you do damage to yourself, this build has so much armor that you won’t feel a thing. However, this build don't need to sacrifice speed or boss damage. It’s still super fast and can kill Guardians in just a few seconds.
Cons: To all the cons, the first thing that comes to mind is that you need to keep an eye on your Accuracy. This is because the keystone Precise Technique grants 40% more damage if your Accuracy is bigger than your Life.
Clear Speed: For clear speed, I’ll give it 9 out of 10. Boneshatter also creates a big pulse of damage when stunning enemies, meaning that a single blow can kill an entire pack of monsters. Other than that, you stack a lot of attack speed that causes your Leap Slam land to almost teleport you through the map.
Boss Damage: The boss damage is also great and deserves 9 out of 10. Using Boneshatter on bosses causes you to accumulate a lot of Trauma stacks and do huge amounts of damage.
Survivability: For survivability, this build is surely 10 out of 10, and I would even like to say 20 out of 10 if I could. This build achieves almost 200,000 armor and over 83% of all Elemental Resistances. All of that combined with the Juggernaut Ascendancy grants his character over 300,000 effective HP. It’s really crazy.
The last build of our budget selection is the amazing Summon Raging Spirits Guardian also with the Templar class. As we all know, minion builds are among the best out there, and this one has the best cost-benefit. It’s a very simple and safe build for you to complete all content with little investment or effort. It's also a good choice for beginners.
Budget: As for budget, you can get it destroying by the early endgame maps with only around 60 chaos to comfortably advance to Yellow Maps. I recommend investing around 100 Chaos Orbs. And for easily completing RAS, I recommend investing around 4 divines.
Pros: When it comes to the pros of this build, it is accessibility, super cheap and easy to play, doesn’t need any mandatory unique POE Item. This build is for everyone. It also comes with great boss damage and survivability. Above all, it has 3 damage auras totally for free and a minion that takes 20% of the damage for you.
Cons: To let the cons start, saying the Raging Spirits have a short duration, and you need to keep resummoning them, which might reduce your speed a little. Other than that, this build also doesn’t have access to Evasion or Life.
Clear Speed: This build gets 8 out of 10 because you have to keep resummoning Raging Spirits. Even though the clear speed isn’t super fast, it’s perfectly fine for you to play.
Boss Damage: The boss damage is great, it’s a 9 out of 10. If you apply all the buffs and maintain the Summon Spirit, you will easily reach over 15 million DPS, more than enough to decimate all end-game bosses in seconds.
Survivability: For survivability, I’ll give it 10 out of 10. This is because we’re talking about a minion build where you just need to summon them and wait behind while they destroy and tank everything for you. You just need to mind your position, but with this build, even if they manage to reach you, you still have high armor and block chance, resting on an effective HP of over 14,000.
Occultist, as an Ascendancy class, is mainly related to Explode construction in Path of Exile. The monster actually explodes and does considerable damage to nearby enemies. In POE 3.23, however, Occultist reaches new heights, thanks to the new Transfigured Gem: Penance Brand of Dissipation!
Here I’m going to share our build guide for Penance Brand of Dissipation Occultist! If you’re interested in creating this character, don’t miss this build guide!
Our skill choice is Penance Brand of Dissipation. You create a brand, which will connect to an enemy and start collecting energy, dealing more and more damage per energy. When the maximum energy is 20, the brand will deal maximum damage until the end or the target dies and jumps to another target.
But to be honest, I don’t think the build will ever reach max stack because in Sanctum, most people will die after the first damage. Even the supreme boss will die after 2 seconds. But we can use the new Specters added to the game in this patch.
So why am I not using any Specters in Affliction League? Since I always try out some Uber Boss content, and Specters die easily on the map, it’s annoying to buy new ones every time. What’s more, if they weren’t in Sanctum, they were zero threat.
However, in Sanctum, the effect of Specters is completely different. So we use Specter, Perfect Spirit of Fortune. It will bring us Wrath Aura.
Another Specter is Perfect Hulking Miscreation. This gives us 20% of physical damage as bonus lightning damage. This is a big damage buff for this build.
To further increase our damage, we will use Animate Guardian in a basic setup, with Dying Breath as a weapon, which will give us more damage and also increase the aura effect used by Guardian.
Because we use Guardian’s Blessing, and select Haste Aura, we will move faster and cast spells faster.
We also use Leer Cast as a helmet, which also gives us more damage. Gruthkul’s Pelt acts as body armor, which will give him health regeneration. Southbound Gloves will also increase his maximum health.
To keep Specter and Animate Guardian at their best, we’ll use Convocation on left-click. This way they will transfer to us every few seconds and gain life regeneration.
Because this build is focused on critical hit damage, we’ll be using a lot of unique items that will give us more and more damage.
But I want to talk more about body armor, Dialla’s Malefaction. We need 2 red sockets because red sockets increase the gem level by 2. We insert Penance Brand and Empower here.
Other sockets need to be green. In green slots, they will gain +30% quality. This is the biggest damage increase and is much better than gem levels.
With all this, our gemstones will have 50% quality and Penance Brand will also reach level 27.
We’re going to convert all damage to lightning, and then convert it to cold with Call of the Brotherhood. This is because we can deal with cold damage better than lightning damage. And we can also freeze enemies so we can reduce the risk of getting hit in Sanctum.
Since this build has such high cold damage, we can also use Heatshiver. Based on cold damage, we take additional fire damage. We also take more damage if we hit a frozen target.
Malachai’s Loop deals with more spell damage and also grants 2 additional Power Charges. We can also use Badge of the Brotherhood to increase our maximum Frenzy Charges to 10.
Also, we cannot ignore Ralakesh’s Impatience, which will give our character Power Charges. So all 10 Power and Frenzy Charges will be activated and it will also give us Endurance Charges.
In this build we also use some unique items which will give us extra damage.
Next, let’s take a look at some of the important flasks you’ll need in this build.
Then I would like to highlight some key points from Penance Brand of Dissipation Occultist on Passive Tree, as well as some of the unique jewelry used.
Each Frenzy Charge deals with damage at 2% movement speed and penetrates elemental and all elemental resistances.
Watcher’s Eye takes additional physical damage as lightning damage while affected by Wrath. We get Wrath Aura from Specters, so it’s always active. And its movement skills have a good cooldown recovery rate when affected by Haste. This will give our Flame Dash a very short cooldown.
Militant Faith Timeless Jewel with carved to glorify a new faithful converted by high Templar Dominus. Note that we assign Inner Conviction here because it may convert the node you are using into a bad node.
Green Dream Viridian Jewel will give us extra cold damage.
We use Occultist as Ascendancy.
There is no doubt that Penance Brand of Dissipation Occultist is one of the best builds in Path of Exile 3.23 in terms of bosses and maps. While this build feels clunky at first, it gets better later on, especially if you’re already equipped with everything mentioned in this build guide!