[2.0] The Harvest Discharger - by Markusz - UPDATED TO 2.0
 (This picture is created by Joe Duncan http://joeduncan123.imgur.com/all/) Welcome to my Discharger build thread! I made this thread to show my recent experimenting result build. See the gameplay and boss killing capabilities in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW8E_EH68fA 2.0 notes: I updated the skill tree, the gear, and gem setup for 2.0 version. Some stuff are still subject to change, and I have to test some stuff such as: - Intuitive Leap unique Jewel for the templar area jewel socket - Fortify buff, most likely applied by flicker strike - Craft rare jewels with critchance and damage - Completely drop Atziri's Acuity from the build, and use Maligaro or defensive gloves - Cold Snap next to the high level CWDT Discharge, and other gem setups to generate the most power charges - Clear Mind unique Jewel with the mana version, without any auras Description: The build focuses on End-game map clearing with high speed and much fun for those who like this skill.
Mechanics - read how it works
- The first and most important item to use in this build is the unique Voll's Protector, which will give you one power charge for each enemy you hit with a critical strike, with all of your skills (unlikely the gem: Power charge on critical, which gives you only one charge per cast/attack, and that is a huge difference).
- Discharge need charges to be even casted, so the first thing you do is use the unique flask Doedre's Elixir, that will not only give you 1 charge of each type, but trigger your spells linked to Cast when Damage Taken (CWDT), with the second mod on the flask: You take 10% of your maximum life as Chaos Damage on use. These triggered spells are used to give you power charges in the first place by using Voll's Protector, by dealing Critical Strikes, and also by using the unique The Harvest, these hits give you back flask charges. The Cast when Damage Taken, and the spells linked to it are kept on low level, so even smalls hits from monsters will trigger them and give you power charges, and flask charges. - So, using the flask you gain a lot of charges, and when you cast Discharge, you will get as many Power Charges as many you hit with the Discharge in the monster pack, and for the next Discharge you will not need to use the flask again, beacause the chest keeps the Power Charges on. - These charges can be augmented greatly with the unique amulet: Voll's Devotion, which gives you one endurance charge for each used or expired power charge, so you will also have endurance charges on all the time, which will fuel the Immortal Call linked triggered by CWDT, boosts your dps, add burning damage, and also gives you phyiscal resistance. Gear: - My current Gear: There are 2 versions of the build, which only differ in the items used, they both use the same skill tree, mechanically the same, but resolve the mana cost of the skill differently. VERSION 1 (tankier): Use Mana Leech gem to easily solve the mana cost. Wear a rare helmet with Life, resists, and other defenses. Use one aura, my choice is Purity of Lightning, to get more survivability against Reflect. VERSION 2 (more dps): Use the Malachai's Simula unique, to get the Blood Magic Keystone, and increased spell and lightning damage. Get 1 more support to Discharge instead of Mana Leech gem. Don't use any aura, freed up gem slots are used for additional CWDT spells. Required unique items: Voll's Protector, Voll's Devotion, The Harvest, Doedre's Elixir, and for the blood magic version Malachai's Simula.
Why use the Harvest?
The Harvest is required because it grants the unique ability to recover flask charges like nothing else on a self cast spellcaster build, and by that generating power charges the easiest way, thanks to Doedre's Elixir. The 6% damage leeched is applied to all damage, allowing to drop Life Leech gem, and the Critical Strike chance bonus on high levels can be equivalent to the best rolled rare Dagger / Shield combination. Also it looks super cool : )
Atziri's Acuity is used because it adds instant manaleech for the mana based version, so you can have a lower mana pool, you can have life regeneration, and you can save some points on skill tree instead of picink Vaal Pact. With Acuity it is recommended to scale Critical Multiplier instead of other bonuses, so you keep your non-critical strike damage low and not die to reflect. I have to test without Acuity to see if it is optimal to drop it from all versions. At gear slots where uniques are not equipped the number one priority is high Life, because high life pool is needed against Reflect. Armour, or Armour based items are advised, because coloring for CWDT is easier. Gear upgrade order to get: - 5L Voll's Protector - Voll's devotion - The Harvest - 6L Voll's Protector - Atziri's Acuity - 6L Voll's Protector with +1 level of gems corrupted implicit Gems: As main gem setup you can use any combination of the following gems (yes, you probably have to include discharge): Discharge - Increased Critical Strikes - Increased Area of Effect - Increased Critical Damage - Life Leech - Empower - Mana Leech - Faster Casting - Concentrated Effect Lightning penetration is not used, because it would only affect a portion of your damage, thus other supports give more damage, and have lower mana cost. My common mapping gem setup is: Discharge - Increased Critical Strikes - Increased Area of Effect - Increased Critical Damage - Life Leech - Faster Casting For reflect maps (yes, its doable, but dangerous), I use the Version 1, mentioned above, with mana leech and more defense: Discharge - Increased Critical Strikes - Increased Area of Effect - Mana Leech - Life Leech - Faster Casting For boss fights I swap Increased Area of Effect with Concentrated Effect: Discharge - Increased Critical Strikes - Concentrated Effect - Increased Critical Damage - Life Leech - Faster Casting Other gems used: Lightning Warp with Reduced Duration for fast movement Immortal Call with Cast when Damage Taken at medium (~14) level for an automated physical immunity (endurance charges are constantly generated by Voll's Devotion). Cast when Damage Taken at level 1 (to be easy to trigger) with as many spells as you can fit in. Projectiles triggered by the flask fire at a kinda random direction, so be sure to use non-projectile spells too. Arctic Breath is used to spread chilled ground for defensive purposes, and Freezing pulse has a wide projectile, so it hits targets more often, these two are supported by Greater Multiple Projectiles. Arc always hits targets if they are near, and Ice nova has good critical strike chance and big radius. Molten shell and Enduring cry are useful gems if you have hard time coloring the Harvest or other gear pieves to have enough blue sockets, otherwise, Ice Spear, Ball Lightning, and Fireball are viable options. Assassin's Mark, fit in wherever you can, dont need supports. High level (20-21) Discharge with a fitting level CWDT, supported by Life Leech, and if you have gem slot for it Increased Area of effect. You can also try a Cold Snap in there instead of 4th support for Discahrge. This gem setup can save your life in the unexpected oh-shit situations.
Why not use Blood Rage?
Blood Rage's degeneration, and the nerfed Frenzy charge gain chance makes it completely inefficient to use and sustain in this build, since the build already gets 1 frenzy charge from the Doedre's Elixir flask, thus Blood Rage would only grant 2 more Frenzy charges, unnecessarily increasing the build's top end damage, which is dangerous against reflect, and not benefiting at boss fights where frenzy charges are not generated after killing the adds.
Passives Trees: Level 100 Tree Level 90 Tree Level 80 Tree Classes the build works best with: Witch, Templar, Shadow The passive choices in tree are pretty simple, you pick Life, Critical Strike nodes that work for spells, and damage. No mana nodes are needed because the build relies on leech.
Why not use mana regeneration?
Discharge on a 6L has a very very high mana cost, so sustaining it with mana regeneration and wearing Voll's Protector would be too big investment, and very inefficient. Using a high level mana flask can be a viable option, but I find it very annoying to do so, just to sustain mana costs, and that would also remove one or two of the flasks used for defense, offense, or clear speed.
Why not pick Infused?
It's a bit odd to not pick the last power charge node from the tree, but it doesnt make big difference in clear speed fog the 2 points it would need, because your critical strike chance with the right gear is already capped with 3-4 charges, you one shot big packs anyway, and against single monsters you wont get benefit from the 7th charge, and also increasing the top end damage makes you more vulnerable to reflect.
For lower level tree and budget version tips check the bottom of the thread. - Bandit choices: Oak (Life), Passive, Alira (Power Charge) Keystones: - Conduit: If you play in a party, it's super useful to help others with charges, since you generate all type of charges. - Vaal Pact: Instant leech is crucial, but Vaal Pact is only needed if you cant afford Atziri's Acuity, otherwise you dont take this passive. Stats and offense:  - Defence:  - Tooltip with maximum charges:  Damage Balance and Reflect: - The first question about this build that comes to most people's mind who care about dying is Reflect. This build survives reflect thanks to instant leech. On normal maps, encountering reflect monsters the 6% leech from weapon is enough, paired with 5k HP pool, ~60k damage, and instant leech from gloves I die only on very rare occasions. For reflect maps I swap in life leech, and also take out damage increase gems (Version 1), and its viable, but a bit slower. He passive tree has a decent amount of life, because I always try to avoid deaths, but if you prefer more dps you can experiment. The possible situations when encountering reflect: - Without instant leech all the damage you deal multiplied by the number of monsters you hit is reflected to you as one big hit, and your life leech starts to fill back your life after the big hit, that's why you need instant leech with this build! - Once you have instant leech via Vaal Pact, you also need to have enough leech amount: Your elemental resistance and your leech amount goes against the reflected damage. (You might have spell block but I dont like to rely on that) If you run Vaal Pact you may find that you dont leech enough, so you get more damage back than you leech per monster, so even if you dont deal high damage you can die if you hit too big reflect packs. You might need to use life leech gem besides the leech from the weapon. - Once you have instant leech via Atziri Gloves, you will most likely have enough leech amount just from The Harvest, but you will encounter the problem that you dont have (instant) leech if you dont deal critical strike. The solution to this problem is that you stack less "increased" damage such as spell damage modifier on weapon, shield, passives, and get high Critical Strike Multiplier, and also always use Topaz Flask when you hit reflect packs. This way your non-crit hits will be small enough that you dont die from reflect, I can vouch because I have never died to reflect since I use Atziri gloves. - Once you satisfy the above cases you can still die if your damage is too high for single monsters compared to your ES amount. If you calculate the reflect you take from a single monster too see if you die from it, you should think about cases when: + your hit is much higher than your average, because rng rolled a high damage hit + the monster you hit has reduced elemtal resistance because of curse, or EE + the monster you hit has shock stack + you have shock stack + you are not at maximum life before the hit Pros: - Very high clear speed - With enough care its safe and counters Reflect - Tanky due to instant leech, constant flask uptime, perma-immortal call - Works as a Power, Endurance and Frenzy charge factory for party members using conduit - Can do all map mods (except the combination of minmax and reflect, tho I did it once) - Unique mechanics of generating charges and flask charges - Relatively good single target thanks to Doedre's Elixir flasks, which generate a lot of charges even on 1 target - Can play as MF character - no need for Culling Strike - EXPLOSIONS!!! Cons: - Too many spells may cause lag - Unique gear pieces can be expensive - Not recommended for beginners (gear requirement to work properly, risky playstyle) - Melee range - have to run close to monsters for full effectiveness, requires attention and good reaction time when playing
Leveling tips and Budget version
- First of all, I do not recommend this build as a first character because you need the end game uniques and capped crit chance to make the build really enjoyable.
- From the start you can level the character as any crit spellcaster at least until level50, I can recommend Flameblast, Ice Spear, Freezing Pulse or Arc. - Take the level 80 skill tree as a base, and build it up in any order you prefer. - Your 5L gems can be: Discharge - Life Leech - Mana Leech - Increased Critical Strikes - Increased Area of Effect (or Increased Critical Damage). - If you dont have Voll's amulet you can use a rare amulet with crit chance, life, some damage. - If you dont have The Harvest wear a dagger and a sheild with the most crit chance you can find, some life, damage, resist, whatever you lack.  IGN: Márkusz My builds: thread/1600072 ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) Last edited by Márkusz#4682 on Jul 12, 2015, 5:45:24 AM
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[Reserved comment]
IGN: Márkusz
My builds: thread/1600072 ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) |
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Interesting. I am still convinced that Discharge is THE best spell mechanic currently in PoE.
Therefore this build is something to look forward to in the upcoming temp leagues with the introduction of cards as a viable way of obtaining The Harvest. cheers |
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Really nice build, most impressed by the use of the harvest + doedres elixir!! Really havent seen any other sweet harvest build, guess thats why this build stands out in my mind compared to other dischargers
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What is gonna happen in 2 weeks when life leech goes to 1.2% on Harvest? Will it still be enough?
How much do you party? I see you picked up conduit. InG: FFran Last edited by FFran#6048 on Jun 30, 2015, 4:25:01 AM
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I don't get what is new in this build ?
IGN TylordRampage
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" Should still work. The main difference is that in cb life leech can stack. That means if you discharge into a group of 7 monsters the leeches from every one of them will stack while on life you'll leech from the one with the highest value. That new mechanic actually favours aoe spells like discharge that get leech packages from big monster groups. Vaal Pact also has been moved into the shadow area (will be reachable for a witch without big investment) and will (probably) work with 100% effectiveness. @OP: Comparing this build to your CI discharger which one do you appreciate more? |
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" " Appreciate the kind words, glad you enjoyed it! " Ill probably use life leech in all versions, or even atziri belt, but I have to see the final balance changed on other things, like the main concern: reflect, which will be hopefully tuned down too. I usually play with one friend, or solo. " My build is different in many ways, if you cant see it, try playing them on high level maps. " With instant life leech, which is used and necessary against reflect the life leech stacking changes nothing. Also while Vaal pact and Acuity are bringed back to 100% effectiveness, the leech is tuned down to around 20% on all things if im corrent, so with acuity the new version is actually one third of the life leech amount of 1.3, which sounds a bit scary, but hopefully with other balance changes, including reflect, it will be fine. My CI build is way tankier, but a bit slower clear speed, since it has to self cast other spells to gather charges, which is in this build replaced by cwdt spells triggered by the flask, and that is basically instant cast speed, and also its 4-5 spells, not just one. The CI version also struggles a bit on single target, what is also resolved in this build by the flasks. So far the higher clear speed worked well, and the few deaths wasnt so painful, but I'm plan to level this characer up more, and I feel I will miss the tankyness of my CI build. IGN: Márkusz My builds: thread/1600072 ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) Last edited by Márkusz#4682 on Jun 30, 2015, 2:24:48 PM
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" more like this one: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1074861 |
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