[2.2] RichJMoney's Chaos Bladefall Budget Build. "MingPep's Heart Rage of Defiance"

I'm RichJMoney, I generally play hardcore challenge leagues and have been streaming on and off for over a year. While I generally play fairly 'meta' builds I do like to make innovations and change things up where I see oppurtunities. While I'm generally known as a Troll; I've also been featured on the State of Exile Podcast twice, Episode 24 discussing Challenges and Trading tactics and Trading Etiquette, and Episode 36 discussing Warbands, Mapping, and Challenges.

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So, I was sitting in trade chat, and I saw "WTS Ming's Heart 6c". I was a little confused, this ring had been worth a significant amount in the past and it seemed that with all the Physical to Chaos to Poison there would be a place for it. The item only drops from maps, and is still fairly rare but is very affordable. It's important to note that "15% reduced maximum life" is an additive reduction rather than multiplicative, so this is directly counteracted by a total of 15% increased maximum life on the tree or on jewels.

I chose Bladefall as the spell, as it's powerful, physical damage, and ranged, working very well with Ming's Heart and has a high damage effectiveness. Bladefall scales particularly well with Area of Effect as it allows some overlap of the waves. One of the things I wanted to do, was to keep the build very accessible on a budget. Any player doing the chaos recipe and participating in trade via poe.trade can earn a few exalts with even fairly casual play.

Poison is the obvious mechanic to exploit when using Ming's Heart. It creates a stacking damage over time effect based a percentage of the initial hit's physical and chaos damage. This means that the Percentage Physical to Chaos scaling provided by Ming's Heart also scale the damage over time of Poison. Because we are scaling physical damage into chaos to scale our poison damage, physical scaling auras like Hatred and flat elemental auras like Anger aren't needed.

The Blood Magic keystone is an excellent choice for a build like this, as it provides a large amount of % increased life to counteract the Ming's Heart downside and enables us to cast without worrying about mana as a resource.

After choosing to go Blood Magic, Apep's Rage stood out as a good choice for a weapon. The Flat chaos damage scales well with the damage effectiveness of Bladefall as well as any increased or more spell damage multipliers we get, the cast speed lets us stack our poison more quickly, and the downside of increased spell cost can be counteracted by a high life pool with life regeneration.
Going into the Blood Magic keystone, means that getting 212 int can be a fairly big issue, while another option would be to go Iron Will with Doon Cuebiyari, I prefer the Brute Force Solution to making Apep's Rage work with our tree.

At this point our general offensive setup is determined, and it was time to think about defenses. Armour and Endurance charges are both powerful at mitigating physical damage which may come in the form of Spells, Attacks, or Reflect, and the skill tree allows us to grab all of them while still focusing on Life, Life Regeneration, and Area of Effect. With 7 total endurance charges, Daresso's Defiance become an appealing body armour. Daresso's Defiance interacts well with a Cast When Damage Taken setup with Immortal Call, giving us frequent physical immunity for relatively long periods of time, followed by onslaught buffs of up to 7 seconds. The body armour also has a good amount of Armour, Evasion, and Life, as well as the 6% chance to Dodge Attacks. This chest piece was purchase already 5-linked for a single exalted orb. With two well rolled Ming's Hearts and dual Apep's Rage, we can actually cap our chaos resistance in Merciless, so we can focus entirely on resistances and life in our other gear slots.

To round the build's basic gear out, I added Clear Mind as an amazing source of Spell damage with no downsides and Atziri's Promise as a huge temporary DPS boost as well as leech.

The Poison mechanic is interesting in the fact that it cares about two damage types done on the initial hit, and the secondary damage over time component can itself be scaled further. It's important to note, that while in full Chaos conversion builds % chaos damage scales everything and double dips, we are keeping our full physical portion and therefore are better served with overall scaling than chaos directly.

Damage types and how they scale into Poison:
%Increased Spell Damage: Initial hit.
%Increased Physical Damage: Only scales our Initial hit.
%Increased Area Damage: I believe this only scales the initial hit, I do not believe it scales the DOT portion as well.
%Increased Area of Effect: Hits more targets with both the initial hit and the poison.
Adds X-Y Chaos Damage To Spells (Flat Chaos Damage): Increases the initial hit only.
% Of Physical Damage Added as Chaos: Scales the initial hit.
%Increased Chaos Damage: Scales the Chaos portion of the intial hit, as well as the entirety of the Damage over Time portion.
%Increased Damage Over Time: Only scales the secondary portion.
%Increased Poison Damage: Only scales the secondary portion.
%Increased Duration of Skill Effects: Adds time to the Poison duration without changing the damage per tick, effectively scaleing the overall damage over time effect.
%Increased Cast Speed: Creates more frequent initial hits, and stacks poison more quickly.

Damage type that do not scale into Poison:
%Of Physical Damage added as Element: Scales the spell hit, but is not considered by the Poison mechanic at all.
%Of Physical Damage converted to Element: Converts the physical damage to elemental damage, effectively losing poison damage.
Adds X-Y Elemental to Spells: Scales the spell hit, but is not considered by the Poison mechanic at all.

Given this information, it's clear that a Physical Spell based Poison build wants to primarily focus on: Global % Damage, Spell Damage, % of Physical Damage Added as Chaos, Cast Speed, and Area of Effect. These all scale the intial hit of the spell as well as increase the damage over time portion. Anything else that adds to the initial hit as physical or chaos is still very effective as it still indirectly scales the poison damage, whereas damage scaling that only affects the Damage over Time isn't a priority.

While most sources of Elemental damage aren't worth directly including in this build, The auras Anger and Hatred being run by allies are still benefitial to us.

General Guide and Gameplay Video

My Overall goal for the gem choices was to automate as much as possible. With our cast speed, we are constantly moving from pack to pack so extra decisions and skills to manually use can be distracting.

Main Link (5-Link): Blade Fall (quality extremely helpful), Spell Echo, Poison, Life Leech, Controlled Destruction.
For a 6th link there are several options, Void Manipulation scales the Chaos portion of our Initial hit as well as our Poison damage, but Concentrated Effect is a larger damage multiplier. The Area of Effect Gem itself might be the best option for clear speed, and can also be swapped with Concentrated Effect for damage against single targets.

4-Link: CWDT (Level 1), Ball Lightning (Level 1), Curse on Hit (leveled, quality benefitial), Warlord's Mark (leveled, quality benefitial).
This setup allows us to use the highest level warlord's mark, using ball lightning helps curse groups of mobs in the direction of damage taken and synergises with AOE. I use Warlord's mark because of the Stun, Leech and Endurance Charge generation, but other defensive curses are valid choices.

4-Link: CWDT (Level 7, 1003 Damage Threshold), Increased Duration (leveled), Immortal Call (Level 9), Molten Shell (Level 13).
When I get hit for the CWDT Threshold, if Immortal Call is off cooldown it will consume the Endurance charges rather than the Daresso's Defiance, otherwise we will gain the Onslaught Buff. I generally try and keep the damage threshold to approximately 1/3rd of my life pool, these levels can be adjusted to your preferences. To get this to work, Warlord's Mark must require a higher level than able to be supported by CWDT (>38), otherwise it tries to be supported buy both Curse on Hit and CWDT and ends up working with neither.

4-Link: Vulnerability, Vaal Haste, Increased Duration, Blood Rage.
These setup can be any prefered utility spells. I do like a manual blood rage so I can enter combat with it active, as well as a curse to begin boss fights with. In dried lake I can almost keep a single Vaal Haste up continously, for mapping Vaal Lightning Trap may be a better choice.

3-Link: CWDT (Level 1), Chaos Golem (Level 4), Blood Rage (Level 7).
Automated Chaos Golem and Blood Rage maintenance. Other golems could be used, but 3 off colors is hard on a 212 Int base wand.

3-Link: Lightning Warp, Less Duration, Faster Casting.
Our Cast speed actually causes Lightnign Warp to bug out fairly often, removing Faster Casting may be an option, but Flame Dash does not keep up with this build.

The tree I chose to follow focused on Area of Effect, Increased Life, Life Regeneration, Frezny Charges, and Endurance Charges.
My tenative final tree
Intelligence is a fairly big problem on the tree, but Brute Force Solution can be placed above the Scion Life wheel or by the Marauder endurance charge for big Int bonuses. To maximize my gearing options, I have one in each slot.

My Current Tree with Jewels


Bandits:
Normal: Oak
Cruel: Kill or Oak
Merciless: Oak or Kraityn

I Personally took the Skill Point in Cruel, and the Endurance Charge from Merciless.


When you get a 6-link, you CAN adjust the build and put Blood Magic (Gem) in the main links and drop it off the tree, this would let you run a defensive setup such as Blasphemy, Grace and Arctic Armour (picking up charisma), but I haven't found a tree for this that I liked.

Key Uniques for the build:
Apep's Rage: Flat Damage and Cast Speed. Chaos damage scales well with Bladefall's damage effectiveness and scales the poison further. The Blood Magic Keystone makes this cast speed and cost sustainable. Corrupting one of these to Culling Strike would be benefitial.


Ming's Heart: 15% reduced life is equivalent to approximately 3 life nodes. Even wearing 2 of these, between the tree and jewels we are reaching 210-240% life. Between these and the Apep's we can cap ourselves on chaos resitance. A corruption for Cast Speed can be benefitial, if not overkill.


Daresso's Defiance: Interacts positively with Immortal Call on CWDT. Either Gives IC or Onslaught. Charges constantly flip between zero and seven.

Carcass Jack: Carcass Jack is another valid choice for this build, while less defensive, it would probably be my choice on a softcore league.

Clear Mind: An Obvious choice for our Blood Magic Build, up to 60% increased Spell Damage which scales both our initial hit and our secondary effect.


Brute Force Solution: A Solution to the requirement of 212 Intelligence on Apep's Rage on a Blood Magic build. The jewel sockets in Marauder, between Marauder and Templar, and within Tempar ar all fairly efficient. Ideally corrupt one of these with Immune to Silence.

Atziri's Promise: Additional Chaos Scaling into Poison, More Leech, However the chaos resistance is negligible with the other uniques already giving us cap.


Taste of Hate: Mitigates Physical Damage, Scales our physical, but not into the poison. Is a more expensive option, rather than the default budget option.

Other Slots: Capping Resistances isn't hard with a bit of hunting especially because we don't generally need damage from gear. A good Rustic Sash for this build can generally be found fairly cheap because we do not require a WED roll (or room for one) which is a primary selling point for many builds that choose a rustic sash base. My initial investment into gear apart from the uniques was a few dozen chaos to fully cap my resistances with respectable life on each piece.

So, I've taken this build up to T10 maps (my 6th link just being AOE), and I've found (with some friends testing as well) that it can do literally any map mod. This is an ideal build for the Alch and go mentality as long as you're okay with damage mods.

For Physical Reflect, Simply change out Echo or Controlled Destruction for Phys to Lightning, and the reflected damage is more than manageable with Leech, Armour, Endurance Charges, and Immortal Call.

Because leech is in our main links, No regeneration isn't a problem, though slower recovery means you might have to watch your health a bit.

The combination of Physical Reflect and No regeneration would be a bit slow, and I have yet to test this particular combination.

Elemental Weakness can be a bit hard to cap for, but a good Life and Resist ring can be swapped in for one Ming's heart for those maps in particular if you can't overcap between gear, the tree and jewels.

As a Scion, Jewel Sockets are readily available, and Jewels can make this build much easier to gear as well as adding a signifcant amount of damage.

To choose what Jewel base we want to craft, it's important to examine what mods roll on which bases. I am assuming that the previously Datamined stat weights on the wiki are accurate.

Prefix options:
Ideal Mods:
Resonant: DW Cast Speed, Cobalt Only
Sharpened: Global %Physical, All Bases
Vivid: % increased maximum Life, Higher Rate on Crimson
Sorcerer's: % increased Spell Damage while Dual Wielding, Cobalt Only

Not Ideal, but still positive:
Chaotic: %increased Chaos Damage, All Bases. This scales the Flat Chaos damage from Apep's, the converted Chaos from Ming's as well as the entirety of Poison damage.

There are only four truly benefitial prefix options, half only on Cobalt.

Suffixes:
of Any Attributes including Int: Allows you to potentially drop a Brute Force Solution, Available on all bases, but Cobalt weighed heavier with Int.
of Any Resistances: Various weights based on type. Resitances are tight, we only have Helm, Gloves, Amulet and Belt for gear slots so Jewels are real option.
of Blasting: Area Damage, All Bases
of Enchanting: Cast Speed, Cobalt Only
of Mysticism: % increased Spell Damage, Cobalt Only
of Wounding: % increased Damage, All Bases Evenly
of Zeal: % increased Attack and Cast Speed, All Bases Evenly

Cobalt Jewels are the obvious best choice given the availablity of useful mods and higher weight of Intelligence which is highly sought after in this build.

How I did it:
Vaal spark in Night's hold + Flame Totem (Aberrath's x2), started casting Bladefall with Hatred/Ash as soon as I got it, and moved Vaal Spark to Trap, Trap Damage, increased Duration 4-Link. Swapped to Poison Bladefall around 50-60 with Blood Magic, and at 62 equipped both my Apep wands

I generally like to cover most of the pathing for a build while leveling, this allows me to get more life or damage based on how well my gear meets my needs in those areas. This also lets us reach level 70 with no more useless travel nodes and every node meaning more life or damage.

My Tree around level 50 looked like:
This


Other leveling options: Flame totem in Night's Hold, Dual Totems.
Literally anything, Scion makes for easy caster leveling at the moment

Shoutout to MjtLag and Tasselhoff for helping test and develop the build.

What about Reflect?
We aren't crit with a high crit multiplier, so we aren't reflecting giant physical hits, and much of our damage comes in the form of chaos scaling which does not reflect. When we do find reflect, our Life Regeneration, Life Leech, Endurance Charges, Immortal Call, and Armour all help mitigate the reflect damage. I doubt that I can run a reflect map, but I have not had a problem with reflect found on rare monsters.

What would you do for Softcore?
Personally I would start Shadow Drop the endurance charges and Daresso's Defiance, pick up a Carcass Jack if it's affordable, you can choose to go Iron Reflexes or Acrobatics. My tree would look something like this.


What else could you do similar to this?
-Rather than self cast you could use Totems, which are inherently a bit more defensive since they can be placed while staying out of danger.
-If Apep's isn't your Jam, Iron Will can be used. With a Doon Cubeyari and a Divinarius you gain a lot of Increased Damage as well as some.
-You can go Acrobatics if you'd like, opening up the option for the Ranger Frenzy charge as well.
-If you were playing softcore, you could drop life and pick up more Chaos and Physical damage in Shadow, which is very effective.