[2.1.0] Self Cast Crit Poisonstorm (100% Chaos Firestorm) [Atziri Viable]

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Passive Tree

Bandit Rewards:
Normal: Help Oak (+40 Life)
Cruel: Kill all (+1 Passive Point)
Merciless: Help Alira (+1 Maximum Power Charge)

Defensive Focused Passive Tree (104 points) (Higher life, Blood Magic, Mind over Matter, Eldritch Battery, Unwavering Stance). More balanced offense and defense than the below build.

My new defensive focused passive tree at Lvl 93 (or go to my profile, Kenzorz_P is my Poisonstorm character).

Defensive Tree Progress Guideline

This is just a general guideline for what you should aim for in your passive tree as you level, of course feel free to take any nearby jewel sockets or alternative routes whenever.

20 Points
41 Points
60 Points
81 Points
104 Points

Offensive Focused Passive Tree (102 points) (Higher crit chance, crit multiplier, poison damage and slightly higher cast speed). Pretty much glass cannon.

My old offense focused passive tree at Lvl 93

Offensive Tree Progress Guideline

This is just a general guideline for what you should aim for in your passive tree as you level, of course feel free to take any nearby jewel sockets or alternative routes whenever.

20 Points
40 Points
63 Points
80 Points
102 Points

Jewels

For my jewels I aim for a total of 20% Critical Strike Multiplier on each jewel. Jewels can roll global, fire skill, elemental skill and spell critical strike multiplier - global rolls lower values though. If you feel you need it you can look for increased maximum life or cast speed jewels instead.

The defensive version of the tree should have 1 Clear Mind unique jewel since we are not reserving anything on mana and it's a huge boost to damage.

I originally played the offensive version but decided to respec to the defensive version, the defensive version feels a lot more comfortable to play.

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Gear

My Gear

(I used to use a shield instead of dual wield)

Gear to look for

Must have uniques:
Weapon: The Consuming Dark (dagger) - This unique dagger converts 75% of fire damage into chaos damage.

Body Armour: Infernal Mantle (ES body armour) - This unique body armour converts 25% of fire damage into chaos damage.

These two uniques together convert a total of 100% of fire damage into chaos damage, which is the point of the build.

Rare Gear stats to look for:
Shield: Spell damage, critical strike chance, life. Resists and mana regeneration on top of that would be ideal but prioritize the former 3 stats.

Offhand weapon (alternative to shield): Spell damage, critical strike chance for spells, critical strike multiplier, added fire damage to spells.

Helmet: Life, elemental resists.

Gloves: Life, elemental resists.

Boots: Movement speed, life, elemental resists. If you can spare sockets for Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks, you don't need movement speed as much.

Amulet: Critical strike multiplier, life, spell damage/cast speed/fire damage. Chaos damage talisman with those stats would be ideal but it can be difficult to get one with the correct stats so don't worry too much about it.

Rings: Life, elemental resists.

Belt: Life, elemental or chaos resist.

If you have capped elemental resists already you should seek out gear that also has chaos resistance, having some chaos resistance can help a lot. Also it is important to get enough strength or dexterity on gear to be able to satisfy the gem and equipment requirements.

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Gems

My current setup

Firestorm: Spell Echo, Void Manipulation, Controlled Destruction, Concentrated Effect, Added Chaos Damage

Blade Vortex: Increased Area of Effect, Power Charge on Critical Strike, Increased Duration

Wither: Spell Totem, Faster Casting

Abyssal Cry: Void Manipulation, Increased Area of Effect

Whirling Blades: Faster Attacks, Fortify. Enfeeble in the same equipment slot.

Vaal Lightning Trap: Increased Duration, Greater Multiple Projectiles. Assassin's Mark in the same equipment slot.

Main skill: Firestorm
The support gems are listed in order of priority. Yes Controlled Destruction moves priority depending on which of the two below setups you use.

Supports Gems (with Blade Vortex power charge generation): Spell Echo, Void Manipulation, Concentrated Effect, Controlled Destruction, Added Chaos Damage.

Alternative support gem setup (without Blade Vortex power charge generation): Spell Echo, Void Manipulation, Concentrated Effect, Power Charge on Critical Strikes, Controlled Destruction.

Usually I use the first setup since Blade Vortex generates power charges really fast but under some circumstances where it is not safe to get close to mobs for Blade Vortex to hit, I use the second, replacing Added Chaos Damage with Power Charge on Critical Strikes, thankfully they are both blue gems so they can easily be switched.

Using Concentrated Effect will affect the AoE size of Firestorm but this is not a problem since this build uses Abyssal Cry to clear mob packs.

Blade Vortex power charge generation

Blade Vortex
Support gems: Power Charge on Critical Strike, Increased Area of Effect, Increased Duration.

Using Blade Vortex to generate power charges is similar to how Voll's Protector works, multiple crits from the same cast can generate a power charge, this makes it generate power charges much faster than if you were to put PCoC on Firestorm instead since normally skills supported by the gem only generate a maximum of 1 power charge per cast which is why I prefer using Blade Vortex for power charge generation.

Additionally since this build takes some skill effect duration from the passive tree it also affects Blade Vortex's duration on top of the Increased Duration support gem, this means you can simply cast it once and run around with it for a good 10 seconds before needing to recast it. Recasting it is not a problem since it has a pretty fast cast time.

Wither totem

Wither
Support gems: Spell Totem, Faster Casting

Wither isn't really needed for solo play since everything dies so fast but in party play it will seriously increase your damage output. It can also be used defensively since it slows enemy movement speed.

Abyssal Cry AoE clear

Abyssal Cry
Support gems: Increased Area of Effect, Void Manipulation

Abyssal Cry is really strong for any chaos build since the damage dealt from the on kill effect scales with chaos damage passives. Using Abyssal Cry in mob packs causes a chain reaction of mobs blowing up dealing massive amounts of chaos damage to each other and since we are using The Consuming Dark, which allows all chaos damage to poison, Abyssal Cry's on kill effect will poison any enemies hit by the explosions.

Utility

Clarity
A must have aura for this build (if not using the Blood Magic version), we need it to cast skills lol

Vaal Lightning Trap
Support gems: Increased Duration, Greater Multiple Projectiles

Vaal Lightning Trap is used to provide shocked ground on a large area, causing enemies to take 50% more damage. It can hold up to 3 charges and each charge requires few souls to charge up. It works even better with this build than most because the build takes some increased skill effect duration, which makes the shocked ground last longer.

Vaal Haste (alternative to Vaal Lightning Trap)
Support gems: Increased Duration

Vaal Haste is great as both an offensive and defensive tool. It allows us to drop many more Firestorms on a high life mob and allows us to move faster to dodge attacks and in general just move quickly between mob packs. Since this build takes skill effect duration the duration lasts even longer.

Whirling Blades
Support gem: Faster Attacks, Fortify

Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks is an incredible mobility tool, the only real downside being that it can't go through walls/ledges. When supported by Fortify, you gain a damage mitigation buff just by whirling through enemies.

Flame Dash (alternative to Whirling Blades)
Flame Dash is useful for prevent yourself from getting cornered or trapped inside mob packs and for jumping over walls and ledges.

Enfeeble
Optional support gem: Blasphemy.

Self cast Enfeeble is useful against mobs you do not want to get near at all. Linking it to Blasphemy gives you more safety when mobs do approach you and also lets you use Blade Vortex to generate power charges more safely.

Assassin's Mark
Being a heavily crit focused build, Assassin's Mark is pretty much a no-brainer boosting both crit chance and crit damage on cursed enemies.

Purity of Elements
If you are only using mana to reserve Clarity, Purity of Elements can fit in the build. It is useful in Elemental Weakness maps if you do not have overcapped elemental resistances.

Arctic Armour
If you are only using mana to reserve Clarity, Arctic Armour can fit in the build. It helps mitigate some burst damage from physical and fire hits, although I personally prefer using Enfeeble aura instead for this purpose.

Stat screenshots

(Probably some slight differences in stats due to me switching around a jewel or master mod since I can't be bothered to update every screenshot)

Defensive focused tree

Dual wield daggers

Life/ES/Mana

Damage with Added Chaos Damage instead of PCoC

and with Atziri Promise flask buff

Damage with PCoC instead of Added Chaos Damage

and with Atziri's Promise flask buff

Offensive focused tree

Dual wield daggers

Life/ES/Mana

Damage with Added Chaos Damage instead of PCoC

and with Atziri Promise flask buff

Damage with PCoC instead of Added Chaos Damage

and with Atziri's Promise flask buff

Using a shield

Life/ES/Mana

Damage with Added Chaos Damage instead of PCoC

and with Atziri Promise flask buff

Damage with PCoC instead of Added Chaos Damage

and with Atziri's Promise flask buff

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holy_pyro wrote:

Have you thought about running Eldritch knowledge jewel in the witch jewel slot?

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creole511 wrote:

Hi I'm interested in playing this build. But i do have some questions.

1. Can i use a spell crit dagger for this instead of the Consuming dark??
2. Does this build work with self-found?

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m0onknight wrote:

Hey!

I levelled as Essence Drain + Contagion and now I'm ready to convert my character to a chaos firestorm build. How would you say your build stacks up against it's trap cousin? (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1541692)