[2.3 SC] The Hipster Member of Pale Council (self-cast Mirror/Blink, 4 Blasphemy curses, 9 jewels)

Rationale
After having a lot of fun with ball lightning totems in Perandus, I was pretty much out of builds to try in Prophecy, so I went to my frinds for advice. One of them, Derrok (thanks!), pointed me to this build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1619735
That one seemed to be a bit too high-budget (I generally play self-found, sometimes buy some build-enabling unique once a league), and a bit too cautious in its choices.
So, I decided to go life instead of CI (easy to level, opens the left and centre of the tree), and that enabled the Necromancer Ascendancy with huge minion damage increases.
This, in turn, freed up so many points that I managed to get 145% of life, collect all skill duration there is - and grab 9 jewels at the same time.
So, at this point I have 4+ clones that deal impressive physical damage which cannot be evaded thanks to Lioneye's Glare. They cannot be sped up, as they hit their low attack speed cap easily.
They do hit hard, but how to support them? With auras, as most builds out there are doing (Anger, Wrath, etc)? I cannot boost that elemental damage properly. So... Let's add some meta to the build! Poison!
Now I have powerful clones that deal a lot of damage, physical and chaos over time. Both will be boosted with double-dipping vulnerability, projectile weakness, and poison would even benefit from temporal chains. Everything fits.
There is at least one more curse that I'd really like to have: enfeeble. Would that be possible to fit it in? Surprisingly enough, there are two ways that work. Heretic's Veil (simple and straightforward) or Victario's Influence (a bit more tricky, but allows to add Hatred to that mix).

In short, you get a fully working build with a Tabula Rasa and Lioneye's Glare (note the Atziri run in the Videos section), go to level 90 with it, and then see if you are lucky and/or rich :) If you are - you get all the crazy items and have fun. If not - well, good luck farming, friend... I was incredibly lucky this league and 6-linked both the bow and the armor, and bought the helmet with a perfect enchant.

The Videos
https://secure.twitch.tv/epicfail42/v/79978965 - Atziri run, note that catching a flameblast or two hurts and requires quaffing some flasks
https://secure.twitch.tv/epicfail42/v/79982501 - Death and Taxes run, went too far from the boss at the end, so it exited my curses
https://secure.twitch.tv/epicfail42/v/80270674 - Hall of Grandmasters attempt (first in my life, so expect nerves and mistakes). Two wings cleared, third - one blocker unkillable, fourth - a sad mistake and the last portal.
https://secure.twitch.tv/epicfail42/v/80375270 - Atziri again, this time with Tabula Rasa and Lioneye's Glare (with no gems in it), no Heretic's Veil, so 3 curses only
https://www.twitch.tv/epicfail42/v/81532296 - in the previous video GMP was accidentally not used, so each clone shoots one arrow. This is the "normal" version, with GMP.

The Good
Uber Lab - done multiple times, needs some life on jewels to farm 4+ keys without being one-shot on third phase sometimes, otherwise very easy.
Atziri - speed farmable, trivial.
Hall of Grandmasters - will take some preparation and training, but I do believe my next attempts will go farther than the one in the Videos section.
Gameplay - unique and enjoyable, relaxing.
If you're tired of all standard builds - try this.
If your party needs a cursebot - here you are.
If you want to MF - go for it.
If you want to MF without defences - well, I chained maps up to T7 in full MF for the challenges (and did a few friends' Zanas up to T11) with resists of -7, -10, 2, 5, and 3500 life. Didn't die once.
Surprisingly enough, leveling is easy (SRS works great with our passives).
All the mods are perfectly OK, no need at all to ID maps or reject them (bloodmagic is a bit slower, but still doable, no regen stops you from doing bosses like Ambrius with no adds).
AOE is huge, single-target is great.

The Bad
You need to start with Tabula Rasa.
You need to get a Lioneye's Glare ASAP.
You will want to get some multi-exalt well-linked uniques at some point.
You will want to get up to 9 jewels with %life and/or minion damage, which is, once again, a lot of exalted orbs.
Your DPS builds up over a few seconds, so no clear speed records here.

The Ugly
No CWDT.
No armor.
145% life in the tree (so you need those jewels well-rolled). 9*7=63, so above +200% maximum life is possible end-game.
No dexterity (and you need at least 212 for the bow).
No movement speed (only what you get from your boots and flasks) and slow movement skill (Blink Arrow with its cooldown cannot compare to whirling blades).
No useful Vaal skills because your clones are attack speed capped and don't move - maybe Vall Grace, Vaal Summon Skeletons, or Vaal Lightning Trap would help somewhat...

Tree
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMDAADuA-4EBwSzCPQNHw3iFScWbxcvGGoZihqPHNwdFB2qHb4i4ij6Kk0s6TLRM4c1kjpYOuE8KDwtPydBh0VHRZ1GcUfiSI5KyEyzTblRTFNSVcZV1lcrWAdZbVqRX5hfsGTnakNqrGvbbRluqm-eeC97w3zlfRh9W4CkgseDCYNfg8yD24TFhWCGs4hAiq-MsY8aj0aQEZAzmuCbipuhm7WcvqIApDmmrKcIqH2qxKxHrJi18rc-uJO9gr5PwFTAZsM6ykrMvM8y0B_Tj9P72L3fiuGI42rpAuvu7IPsiu_r8kX22vfX-ej60vsJ_gr-Sf6P_rM=

Links
Note that the links are ordered by importance (if you want my opinion on a 4-link - just take first 4).
Mirror Arrow - Minion Damage - Physical Projectile Attack Damage - Poison - Slower Projectiles - Added Chaos
Blink Arrow - Minion Damage - Physical Projectile Attack Damage - Poison - Slower Projectiles - Culling Strike
Temporal Chains - Enfeeble - Projectile Weakness - Vulnerability (if in Heretic's Veil) or Blasphemy (if in rare helmet)
Summon Stone Golem - Raise Zombie - Minion Life - Fortify
Spirit Offering - Increased Duration - Desecrate - Vaal Summon Skeletons

Stats
All numbers are at level 92, with 6 jewels.
5035 life, 671 ES. When used, Spirit Offering makes ES 1812.
Life regen - 200.6 (with golem, it never dies with its 30K life and regen).
Resists - all 75%, not capped for curses (83, 91, 76), chaos is +9%.
Evasion - 5659, so 35% chance to evade.
Movement speed - +38%.
Minion damage for clones - +415%, minion life - +90%.
Free mana - 180, so with mana costs of 64 and 79 and mana regen of 46.3 there are no mana problems.

Items


Choices
Bandits - Oak for life, kill all, kill all.
Ascendancy - Mistress of Sacrifice, then Spirit Eater, then Beacon of Corruption (chaos resist is important), and the final one is problematic. Commander of Darkness gives you resists that you need so badly with all those high-end unique items, but without Victario's Influence and Hatred - nothing else, so if you manage to get resists, then probably go to Flesh Binder instead or get two small minion damage nodes.
Leveling - well, hipster build is built in hipster ways :) Almost all gems you need are unavailable to you as a witch, ask a ranger for them.
Beeline across the tree, getting no damage, some bits and scraps of life nodes, but that's not a major problem - you get minion damage early enough, so SRS works farly well.
When you get some skill duration nodes - feel free to get some bow and try blinking and mirroring: put on your Tabula Rasa and immediately get two virtual 5links in it (both main skills and 4 supports).
Grab the second curse as you pass through that area, run Temporal Chains and, probably, Projectile Weakness - and you're set until you get your end-game bow, Lioneye's Glare. Remember that you have enough minion damage that even your zombies and golem do a lot of damage.
With Lioneye's Glare (even unlinked) and Tabula Rasa you can easily get to 90 and above, but this is the point where the build actually begins to shine.
You can get by with Doedre's Damning for a while, but it's time to get enough currency for Cospri's Will. Many of its mods don't work for us, but +1 curse, nice evasion, and Hexproof penetration definitely help. Prepare to 5link both Cospri's Will and Lioneye's Glare (unless you can get a 6link in one of them).
At this point, with three strong and huge curses on Blasphemy you start to feel the power. You can do some mid-game stuff (Atziri, Uber-lab, etc), red maps - but wait, there is more to come!

I'm mostly self-found, I do not sell the stuff I find. So, it took me quite a while to get a Heretic's Veil. I farmed, farmed and farmed double-chaos recipe while running Voll again and again for the challenge - and bought one with a nice enfeeble-related enchant.
Sadly, any reasonable +1 curse amulet was out of my league, so a Doedre's +1 curse ring found its way to my finger, I farmed rares some more to deal with all the life/resists/dexterity issues that entailed, to emerge even more powerful - with four, count them, FOUR powerful curses!

Then the Pale Council was generous enough to give me all four different uniques in four runs, so I tried my luck and 6-linked the Cospri's in 124 fuses, and the bow in 450. Farmed even more and bought two or three reasonable jewels. Farmed even more rares to find something that would cap my resists with Council gloves on. Well, I wouldn't recommend repeating my efforts, but with some trading you can get all the costly stuff you need.

You can get even MORE! ;) If you manage to overcome all the problems the Victario's Influence brings to the table (one more item will need to have +1 curse on it), then Hatred would add both damage and survivability through freezing. You will lose the potential to 6link your main skills (they will have to reside in a 6link bow, providing two virtual 5links), but extra aura would probably compensate for that.

FAQ
Q: Where are the 9 jewels? I can see only 6!
A: Yep, I'm only 92. The (theoretical) plan is to respec one more 5% life node in the Scion Rectangle and get three more jewel nodes with the 9 points on the infinite way to level 100.

Q: I've heard Blink/Mirror builds are good for Uber-Atziri?
A: I've made 49 Atziri runs this league so far, no Hope dropped. In fact, Hope never dropped for me, in any leagues or in Standard. I'll run a few more, and if nothing happens - maybe even buy one.

i have only one question why are you using poison gem istead of pierce?
with cospri's will you always poison on hit and pierce is a 30% MORE damage multiplier

Sadly, _I_ poison on hit with Cospri's, but my clones don't. I even wrote to the item's author to confirm that - and yes, it's by design.
I'm not sure if it would be better to replace some of the current gems with Pierce. It certainly could be, but how to check that?
BTW, Drillneck would have been nice, but the damage is good anyway, and any extra life and resists seem better at the moment.

oh ty for the reply, it's a shame that cospri's "free" poison doesn't work!
btw nice build!

O-o-kay, a minor bug happened, easily fixed :-) In the Atziri video with Tabula Rasa, Lioneye's Glare and a random rare helmet I've forgotten to replace a Slower Projectiles gem with a GMP, so the whole run was with a single arrow coming from each clone, and somewhat slower movement. I've recorded another one - https://www.twitch.tv/epicfail42/v/81532296 - and edited the original post. Left the original one in place, of course, for comparison.