[1.3] Wanderfully Balanced Kinetic Blaster

Hi! I'm in Bloodlines currently leveling (48 at the moment) with Spectral Throw LMP and a bunch of uniques. I'm wondering if anyone here has tips on how my transition from ST to KB should look like when I hit merciless (the ST damage is still decent at this point). Below is my gear and current tree, hopefully someone has some input because I'm not very confident in my ability to judge this for myself.

Current tree

I had this same concern going from ST to KB. I see you have Thief's torment, which will be a huge boon for you. I'd make sure you have all three Heralds as I was able to rely on these for dps. I did not start running Hatred until lvl 61 when I could use lvl 16 Reduced Mana gems. If I recall correctly, I made the switch right before the merciless Merveil fight and it was not a big deal. I'd also make sure you have the spell totem/frost wall set up as you'll need it for rare mobs and bosses. I will admit that when I *first* made my transition, my ST/Molten Strike set up was probably more effective, but once I got into the wand nodes it was smooth sailing.

I honestly thought about taking notes and I wish I had. I don't remember for sure when I went Vaal Pact, but I had been using KB for a while prior to making the transition. If you took the suggested nodes that provide the Life on hit and Life on kill as outlined in the leveling progression build, you should be fine with that and the Thief's Torment.

I hope those ramblings helped. As long as you have a somewhat decent wand and the above, I think you should be fine with just KB+WED+BM+LL and if it comes to it, you can always go back to ST for a while until your tree and gear get a bit better.

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Brodrick2527 wrote:

I had this same concern going from ST to KB. [. . .]

Thanks a lot for the quick and helpful answer! I will beeline towards the wand nodes at the top, currently 7 points of highway to get to it. The spell totem with frost wall is definitely something I'll get too. Which uniques would you recommend I switch out first? I can see resistances becoming a problem when I hit merciless.

I had a goldrim which that, carnage heart, and thief's torment had me almost capped even in Merciless. That being said, I should have dumped carnage heart way earlier as the -25% life was killing me (literally haha) and I didn't even realize that was the issue until several levels too late. I'd switch out the uniques that aren't providing much - ones that don't have life, resists, or phys dmg/WED. Peregrine helmet would be the obvious choice, first. In a perfect world, you'll transition into a Rat's Nest, but I'd go for a goldrim or a rare with good resists and life, first. Maybe an ammy with more resists and life as well. As the guide's creator has mentioned multiple times, honestly you don't need a ton of great gear to make this build work well. Focus on making yourself able to take a few hits (life/resists) and the skill tree will handle the rest. I hope this helps!

This build is fun, as far as Aoe/trash targets are concerned - however single target is a real issue for me.

I'm able to clear rooms with one shots for the most part, however any boss (or rare/unique mobs) are bordering on impossible to kill.

Is there any variations to be used to make this build viable for single target? - I have been using the frost wall/spell totem setup already, but it doesn't help me too much.

What level are you? Do you have the pierce passives yet? I struggled with this somewhat in my early to mid 50's, but once I got the pierce nodes and some crit, even the bosses go down relatively quickly. I also feel that for me, there was an observation bias wherein you only worry about single target against "elite" mobs with significantly higher HP than their counterparts, so when it takes longer to kill them, it seems like it takes forever. Granted, single target is one of the few downsides for this build, but now that I have decent crit and the pierce passives, it's not really an issue any longer.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAAAx4DlgW1BiMOSA-rEZYWvx9BJpUwcTY9OkI7KEqaS3hTNVVLYENh4mKsbIxtbG49bwhvnncHf8aDCYcTiFuMC4w2m7WcpJ2qogSio7TFtUi5fMHFwuzDOspK1CPdqOOE7LDxs_rv_GQ=

^ My current tree at the moment, it's a mixture between the end-game tree and the starter tree.

I'm level 46 at the moment, and although I agree that it's always perceived as slower than it is, I had to get a friend to boost me through killing Oak as I literally couldn't kill him :S

It's funny, I had that exact same issue with Oak. I had to have 5 hp flasks on my bar and still had to restart the fight several times. You're definitely in the awkward phase of the build. If you can keep with it, you'll be rewarded, I promise. It starts getting borderline OP in the mid to late 50's once the tree flushes itself out a bit more. My IGN is WandPonceDeLeon. If you need any help or wanna chat about the build, let me know. I'm by no means an expert (I think I'm only level 71 or 72) but I definitely felt the growing pains you're having at the moment.

Edit: if you've made the jump to blood magic, you can respec a couple of those mana%/Mana on kill nodes at the bottom of your tree. Definitely go for the pierce ASAP as that's huge for your overall DPS, esp the single target. I'd then go up to the big wand tree and get the left side of the ring stopping at fusillade, then picking up some more crit and life nodes.

First of all, thanks for your contribution in the thread Brodrick :).

Looking at your tree Sleedizzle, without pierce on the tree you will definitely come into issues when dealing with single target. The Frost Wall/Kinetic Blast has a bit of a learning curve as from my experience, the more I played the build, the better I got at getting really good results from it. Melee are usually a bit more tricky however, so it can explain the difficulties with Oak - ranged bosses usually fall fast for me. Sometimes I do find that the totem completely trap's melee bosses, which makes for an interesting situation altogether, you almost feel bad killing them.

When I created the video's, I chose mod's/bosses which most people avoid due to high chance of deaths (Torture Chamber/Jungle Valley bosses, Reflect etc) as I thought most people are happy to go against bosses such as Piety/Dominus. Once I get a chance to play again, I'll try throw up some video's of level 78 Palace Dominus and similar. I have taken out map Piety very easily several times - infact she dies off-screen - something that is quite funny to do with several of the ranged bosses - throw the totem up - and just spam off screen and watch them die, quite quickly from my experience. When I say quickly, I am comparing it to my end game Tornado Shot ranger which I think is a fair comparison. Won't be able to get it as fast as some of my 200k DPS melee builds, but then those melee builds can't compete with the survivability or clearspeed.

Hi Both,

Thanks for the responses - There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of pierce nodes (only 4 nodes) - is this all we're talking about? Or am I missing something? :)