[0.9.11] Show us your interesting characters and be featured on our YouTube channel!

Though I haven't gotten it to high level and tested it there, I've had great success playing my caster shadow, Derelicte, in the HC race so far (at least until he died to an enemy crit and burn damage :( )

When making this character I decided I wanted two things: One, I wanted lightning damage, as it isn't a common sight and I want to find a way to make it work, and two, I want high crit. For this reason I chose Shadow because he has a lot of crit nodes right near the beginning of his skill tree.

As anyone who has played a cold witch knows, freeze is a very powerful tool. Since I'm already planning on critting a lot, I decided I want to put some cold damage on my lightning spell. Fortunately, an early reward for the Shadow is the green Added Cold Damage support, which I link to my main spell Spark. This means that when Spark crits, it will both shock and freeze the enemy, causing them to take increased damage and deal no damage of their own as they are unable to fight back. I also have the blue support Increased Critical Damage linked to Spark, so that when the enemy gets shocked, they take even more damage from it and subsequent crits will do insane amounts of damage.

Though I am still at a low level with this character, my planned build (59 points for Level 50 + 9 quest reward points) is here:


The points choice alternates between offense and defense as it moves along the tree. Early on we take Mental Acuity and Shock to achieve a high chance of shocking the enemy with Spark even at a very low level. Taking Spell Power and Assassination makes Spark an even more dangerous spell very quickly.
Then, we move down to the defensive end and grab Finesse to pick up the energy shield and evasion nodes along with Nullification. After that, the build heads up toward Fitness in between the Witch and Shadow area. This helps satisfy any strength requirements that may be needed for any gear or gems and also gives a decent chunk of life to add on to the energy shield.
Then, we move on to the Energy Shield Delay nodes just below Chaos Innoculation (which we will not take, because we're mixing evasion in with our energy shield and won't have as much as a pure shield build). After that, it's back to offense as we move up to Doom Cast to greatly improve our crit chance. We then move on to Bloodthirst as well as the other crit damage/chance modifiers in the immediate area.
Grabbing the crit damage mods near Fitness has left us 2 points away from Unnatural Calm, so next we head there to beef up defenses once more. After Unnatural Calm we go to Deep Wisdom and Arcane Focus to increase energy shield.

82 point build (Level 70 + 12 quest reward points):


Our defenses should be sufficient now to handle Merciless with enough care. We move on to Storm Cast and the nodes around it to increase lightning damage and shock duration. Then, we go to Hex Master and Whispers of Doom so that we can use both Elemental Weakness and Critical Weakness on monsters at the same time. Finally, we go for Static Blows and the Chance to Shock node next to it in order to make sure that every hit causes a shock. By this point, between crit chance and shock chance from skills, every hit should easily shock the enemy, causing them to take tons more damage.

Planned skills for this build:

Spark (linked: Increased Critical Chance, Increased Critical Damage, Added Cold Damage, Faster Casting)

This is the bread and butter spell for the build. It is built in a way where it should have a VERY high crit chance, and it should almost always be able to shock and possibly freeze the enemies.
If used at point-blank range, the enemy will take all 3 hits from Spark and take much more damage. This is similar to a trick I used in Diablo 2 on a Charged Bolt Sorceress (the equivalent of Spark). I believe the current term for this is "shotgunning" so that's what I've been calling it. Shotgunning Spark with a shocked and frozen enemy will make very short work of it.
If used at a distance, Spark will serve as both a crowd control due to freezes and chills and as an AoE damage dealer.
If using a 6 link armour, you could potentially also link Lesser/Greater Multiple Projectiles for more sparks, though it doesn't seem necessary.

Shock Nova (linked: Totem, Added Cold Damage)

The purpose of this is to create a totem to also generate shocks and freezes on enemies that are near it. An Onyx Amulet will likely be needed in this build to support the higher level Totem and Cold Damage gems.

Elemental Weakness/Critical Weakness

Prior to using Whispers of Doom, the primary curse will usually be Critical Weakness, however, if enemies are encountered who are highly resistant to elemental damage, Elemental Weakness will be used to cut severely into that resistance and make short work of them.

Detonate Dead

Because really, who LIKES fighting the same room twice? Thanks, Necromancers!

Whirling Blades

Really only used as a method to move around enemies easier and get out of bad situations.

Cold Snap

For when Spark just won't seem to chill/freeze those enemies. Always a good defensive fallback.

Clarity (linked: Reduced Mana Cost)

This build is pretty mana hungry, so it's a good idea to try and make sure you can actually support that.

Other potential abilities to use for utility:
Flicker Strike
Fire Trap
Ice Nova Totem
Lightning Warp
Discipline


Note again that I don't have the character in question leveled up all the way so I haven't actually been able to test how well this works in end-game. However, I'm definitely going to get it there :)
I'm sure if Chris does choose to use this for a video he could just use his super-dev powers to create a character like the one I've got here anyway :P

I have a hybrid lightning arrow and lightning strike shadow i've been playing and seems to be mowing through Ruthless pretty easily atm. I'm not sure what end game problems it will have but I wrote up a guide on reddit. http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/x5cmg/lightning_strikelightning_arrow_shadow_build/

Basically the build focuses on high lightning damage. It's not specific to a type of weapon, and now that gear swapping is in the game you can start with your bow out and switch to lightning strike when they get closer. This way you gain energy shield etc. It's alot of fun, requires more gear than usual though.

I want to show you my dual-wield, physical damage claw shadow "ClawMasterTwoThousand", but writing every single thought behind my build down right here would take pages, so I amateurishly made a video about him:

http://de.twitch.tv/victolol/b/326344321

Yes, my microphone is bad, I have an accent and I am using the word "basically" way too often :-). I hope I get my idea through nonetheless. For more info and questions you can always PM me.

E:

I forgot one important thing: Whirling Blades is connected to another Life on Hit gem for high instant life recovery.

One of the flasks is a crit flask and the lifeflask is optional as well, I am keeping it for urgent cases or when i cant find new enemies while on blood rage.

might not be 'uber' but it very fun and i like a ton.

TheyCallMeMrFreeze

remote skils:

Totem - ice spear greater mult
Totem - summons skellies
fire trap

non-remote skills
Ice Spear lesser mult
Ice pulse lesser mult
Ice nova

----
I took extra totem so i can lay down 2. It allows me to choose for the circumstance.

skelly totem and ice totem to push into a full room

double Ice spear totems to empty the room.

My primary attacks supplement where needed with my own ice spear/ice nova/ice pulse.

I also throw down 3 fire trap in from of totems for added protection.

auras,curses:

clarity
discipline
elemental weakness

No uber gear but i built it all myself. Max sockets and links on every pieces except for chest. +damage support gems used all over. Dual Weld wands for extra spell bonuses.

taken virtually every cold damage and spell increase passives.

Heading for frozen to chill and chill duration increase passives now.

2 totems and me ... i'm my own party of ICE. :D

thanks

my character grokalock



no mana/high regen/leech

also do not attempt to play this character without a healthy dose heavy metal

TheBurner - Shadow-Build
Wrath of the Leech King

1. General Information
Weapon: Claw + Shield
Main Attack: Double Strike
Armour: Evasion only
Important Keystones: Acrobatics, many life nodes (up to 140%)

2. Strategy

2.1 Life on Hit + Double Strike
This build utilizes “on-hit-effects”, which are doubled due to the two hits of Double Strike. With support gem and a sparkling claw (+15 life on hit), I have 43 life on hit at the moment. With two attacks per second you get 4 hits thanks to Double Strike. This means you regenerate 172 life per second in fight (not counting life leech from claw specializations), making you impossible to kill up to act 2 in ruthless. Here, the difficulty took a sudden jump and my Shadow often has to retreat against larger enemy armies :(

2.2 Shock spamming
Witch approx. 15% crit chance and a support gem with a 4% chance to shock you have 4 chances to shock an enemy with each Double Strike. This increases damage numbers, since dps output is a bit low. An additional 5% shock chance can be found in the passive tree in the starting area of the Shadow, but it is not easily accessible for a melee Shadow.

2.3 Critical strikes + Surgeons mana flasks
With this build you can get a lot of critical strikes even with a low crit chance. Surgeons flasks refill as you deal critical strikes, giving you a lot of mana even when an enemy refuses to die (endurance charges + regeneration).

2.4 Pure evasion + lots of life
Life leech is useless with energy shield and high armor ratings are difficult to get as Shadow. So I concentrated on pure evasion, shield block and acrobatics. Fortunately, you can find a lot of life nodes in the Shadow area of the passive tree. Up to 140% increase is possible. This makes it very hard for the enemies to hit you often enough to counteract your life regeneration while Double Striking.

3. Used Skills

3.1 Double Strike + Life on Hit + Added Lightning Damage + Mana Leech
Main attack skill for reasons described above, mana leech because I have serious mana issues. For really large crowds of enemies, Whirling Blades is used.

3.2 Whirling Blades + Increased Critical Strike Chance + Mana Leech
For large crowds of enemies or to get into a better position. Just try to hit as many enemies as possible. I would like to add a Life on Hit support gem but I have problems getting red sockets.

3.3 Conversion Trap
Very effective against small and medium sized groups. The converted enemy will be butchered by his former friends and draw their attention from you. Try to aim at powerful monsters for humorous side effects.
- Converted monsters with auras give you ridiculous buffs (100% movespeed and 100% attackspeed, anyone?)
- the suicide spawns in Merveils lair will readily explode on your converted monster
- converted Merveils sirens sometimes produce spawns that will fight permanently for you

3.4 Enfeeble
With the beginning of act 2 on ruthless enemies hit too often and deal too much damage (probably gear issue). Use Enfeeble when approaching more than 3 enemies, blue or gold monsters. Enfeeble makes enemies miss more often and also reduces their damage, giving you double advantage.

3.5 Blood Rage
The life loss is negligible due to your life leech, and increased attack speeds means more hits and therefore more life. Still, I don´t like it that much because after a battle I take my time to inspect all drops and lose all charges.

3.6 Lightning damage aura
Well, lightning damage. Not much to say. I would like to have a Reduced Mana Cost support gem...

4. Passive skills

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQYADfBgBREO6MsakGuPG9O4vywu0Ycs18ILL6MMgzDpZhI1tSrrNrhKMDnagDJCJVkLQkzWvEq2TItM-2JBT0NZfU9pLUVTSrmcWrEOw16y-Nxfm7mIY_J6j2WlMhFtBxL5cKt4knC8oL6AzTfQiAlmJYwqiHaWOqa0nWUYpbCmEey2s_Htt0CturuM9OfAiJLJxCX6OMXbVULHQaqWyDkwAdz3e7DgwRcg6EB07ehtrxfrgAcC65jvTPcjILn3xWYx-NIybfs-I6j_c6fz

After leaving the Shadow starting area, I went straight for acrobatics and the claw specializations. There are some big strength and life nodes on the way which are essential because a pure evasion Shadow is very frail without it. However, claws require intelligence and you get 0 intelligence on the way to the claw specializations. I had to temporarily spec into the “Savant” node in order to use claws.

I plan on getting more shield block but this is a low priority.

Afterwards I went upwards from the Shadow starting area. There are a lot of big life nodes up there. I would have aimed at the life and regeneration nodes in the center of the tree, but they appear to be very costly in the current iteration of the passive tree.

Other interesting choices:
“Shock” (in Shadow starting area), a 5% chance to shock. A bit misplaced for a melee shadow.
“Nullification” (in Shadow starting area) The energy shield part is worthless, but 10% evasion per passive point is still good
“Claws of the Pride” Big increase in claw damage, but I am a bit short on passive points.
“Improved Acrobatics” and “Phase Acrobatics” Tempting, but I think shield block is more important and casters are very weak against this build as long as you have high resistances.

5. Life on Hit vs. Life Leech from physical Attacks
In my opinion, Life Leech is very underwhelming. To be competitive to 20 Life on Hit, I would need to deal 500 physical damage per hit with claws (4% Life Leech). Also, because after “Sparkling Claw”, all other claws lose the Life on Hit component, I am forced to use a rare sparkling claw with high physical damage modifiers.

Horde Incinerator Witch


Aims

Send minions to front lines to keep the mob groups together, ignite all enemies as quickly as possible then rain down devastation with firestorm as they helplessly while burn fighting expendable minions. Hit diamond flask in the middle of firestorm for absolute room-clearing devastation. Feel like a masterful devastating elemental conjurer – tick. Meet Westica (with a v, accent on e).

Build

Aiming to pick up all easily available fire and burning passives with added casting speed and crits as needed. Some minion upgrades, but nothing too special – the minions are not there to kill.

I pick up a fair amount of mana regen passives as highly supported foreball and firestorm with faster casting are [v]very[/b] expensive.

I’ve gone near chaos inoculation as an option and picked up doomcast for extra burns off the fireball. If I feel the need for CO I will pick it up (the idea of 4 diamond and 1 granite flasks is VERY tempting).

Over the next few levels I will probably try and pick up some extra energy shield passives to make sure I’m safe from stray projectiles and more elemental dmg and casting speed passives.
I may invest in some Dex/str to use some interesting support gems .


Skills


Firestorm – most people discard this skill as useless, but it’s working for me in this build and I think the supports added to it and the way I use it make it quite devastating.
Attached at the moment are increased crit damage (absolute devastation with diamond flasks) faster casting, increased duration and increased crits (recent addition as I have nothing else).

It is important to get firestorm to cast as quickly as possible to stack more meteors at any given time, increased duration and reduced casting time help this greatly. Mana must be able to regenerate fast enough to allow continuous spamming of this spell. Might get concentrated effect when Clarity spreads this skill too widely.

Fireball – my first, but not main attack. High chance to ignite and high crit chance with elemental proliferation means I’ve set an entire group aflame within 2-3 fireballs at most. Strong burning and flame passives give me very decent burn damage.Due to burning damage not stacking, once the mobs are aflame fireball is not as damaging, so I switch to firestorm.

(Update: I found greater multiple projectiles last night and attached it here, but I’m not sure it’s the perfect support – the crits are quite weak and the spell is very costly. I may trade for LMP/piercing).


Zombies and skeletons – fairly standard minions attached to life and damage modifiers. I don’t need them to move fast – just to keep the groups busy and survive long enough for me to rain down hell. Mana regen must support occasional skeleton casts midfight.

Auras/curses – Clarity for mana regen, I keep this at a level that satisfies my mana needs without diluting the Area of effect for firestorm too much. Wrath for obvious damage modifier and I’ve used this skill since Act 1 normal, so it’s a habit ? Elemental weakness with increased area of effect means I can curse a large group of enemies quickly then proceed with my normal attacks – this helps both me and my skeletons in dealing damage.

Utilities - I used to have ice nova with item rarity for running easier levels for some gear, but I hardly use it now as it shatters the bodies I need for minions quite often and I have't got any cold dmg boosts. One use I have befitted from is dumping a diamond flask, freezing enemies that have surrounded me in order to get away.

Conversion trap - I use this on hard yellow mobs, especially if they have good auras. It's also great fun when you get two rare mobs and get them to fight each other!


Strengths – hordes of slow moving melee mobs are just too easy to even be funny – they are gone before my minions even get to them!

Bosses and yellow mobs are also surprisingly easy with this build as I can rain down damage from afar without meeting the issues of fireballs missing etc. I killed Merciless Merveil 4 levels ahead of me without batting an eyelid. Boss support champion packs are also a piece of cake by hitting a diamond flask (it recharges on crits so I have one for most packs).

The build is fairly safe, apart from water spirits (see weaknesses) I hardly ever die and am tackling content 5 levels ahead of me right now.

Weaknesses – dispersed ranged mobs. In act 2 Kraytlin’s archers tend to stand around far away from each other and don’t want to move around too much. My firestorm is not large enough to take them out and proliferation doesn’t reach inbetween them, so I find it tricky to set them all aflame in time. For the moment I’m spamming multiple fireballs, but they only take 2-3 and the fireballs don’t do enough damage now, so I need a better solution – faster casting and faster travelling/piercing maybe.

Water spirits – these guys rise out of the ground without any warning, freeze lock me and prevent me from getting away whilst slowing down my casting (an important part of the build). At the moment I chalk this down to my equipment rather than build. Even with 2 defrosting flasks I find it tricky to get away from an ambush group and I can’t cast minions in time to survive – it would help if zombies followed you more closely at all times outside of combat. When I’m lucky and see them from far away my normal routine dispatches them rapidly.

Speed – the build is quite slow to progress. Playing with a decent ranger I kept getting left behind as they rushed along and zapped everything out of the way ignoring insignificant mobs. If I kept up I ended up dying from being too close to the fray. I have to clear the entire room before moving on as I’m on my own away from the action and it’s not always easy to get packs to stay together so clearing stray mobs is a little clumsy and slow – an different fireball might help with this.


Future plans/hopes

Most of my gear is mediocre to poor at the moment. I got lucky with a main attack dagger early on and have stuck with it for a long time. My armour is also pretty decent, though I might re-roll the stats in a few levels.

Fireball upgrade – I attached fireball to greater multiple projectiles last night and thought it would be absolutely devastating, but I find the spell now drains mana rapidly, doesn’t have strong enough crits and the chance to ignite is still the same as either all 5 fireballs ignite or none, I will try trading some of my unused skills for LMP and see if this improves things.

Otherwise I will start looking into piercing or faster travelling single fireballs. Alternatively I might place the fireball in a totem altogether and just rain down firestorm and take care of casting minions and cursing in the right places – I feel this might make the build a little boring and slower, but I haven’t tried! I am also considering ditching chance to ignite and relying on crit hits for igniting groups as they will deal far more burning damage during firestorm.

After taking exploding minions (fire damage) I will slowly make my way towards the ranger/shadow crit chance powerhub for an extra 200% crits by level 70 or so.

In passives I will probably pick up some more casting speed and use all those minion ‘hubs’ I’ve bypassed until now to make my minions more formidable. I will also look around the skilltree for some interesting possibilities to diversify/alter the build. For example I might get elemental equilibrium and find a way to hit groups with a very slow casting cold/lightning damage ( a totem perhaps ) while rapidly raining down fire with minute amounts of cold+lightning, but this may make the build a little bit too micro-management intensive (not sure this is at all viable after asking around the forums about the skill).

I need to get some better utility skills, maybe teleport (as I already have it) instead of ice nova for getting out of sticky situations.


Overall I set out to make a pure fire witch, but the initial convenience of minions eventually became a necessity as I found the caster survivability skills hubs were often quite far from fire and elemental damage hubs, but fire hubs nicely brought me close to a lot of minion hubs. I’m pretty happy with this build and I think it’s quite impressive what my little witch can do with such (relatively) poor gear in areas several levels above her in Merciless.
If anyone read through that – I salute you !

My build still needs a few levels (and is missing quite some support gems ;) - i respeced an old character in legacy leygue to get a kick start into the build, but sadly all his supports are wrong...)

I will gove a more detailed post after i get him to the point where i want him.
Its a critical fire build, where i will try to get the most of Elemental equilibrium, since i haven't seen that keystone taken often, i wanted to make something where it can really shine.

What does/will make it special:
- using EE all the time to maximise his damage output
- the caster is quite durable (for a caster build) and is meant to go close and personal

Name: RupertSciamenna

Currently level 49, Act 1 Merciless

Current Passive Layout

Possible Final Layout

Core Build: Elemental Damage Bow Templar

Defense & Support

Hi, i want to propose my witch summoner build:

CHARACTER:
class: witch
name: Morganam

SKILLS:
Q: raise zombie: minion life, minion damage, minion speed
W: summon skeletons: minion life, minion speed, minion damage as soon as i find a 4 blue slot item
E: curse of vulnerability
R: temporal chains
T: ice spear: totem, increased crit (i'm looking for a 6 links vest so i can further improve the damage)

middle click: clarity
right click: frost wall

PASSIVE TREE:


RELEVANT KEYSTONES:
-minion instability: because sometimes minions are more useful when they die
-hex master: to keep whole waves of enemies cursed with just one cast
-whispers of doom: pretty straightforward, one more curse on enemies
-necromantic aegis: they need it more than me

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is pretty straightforward: when i enter in a zone my first move is activating clarity, then i summon some skeletons around me near the screen border, so they take the aggro from mobs.
After i find a group of mobs i curse them so they are slowed and take additional damage from attacks, allowing my zombies to dispatch them quickly.
I'm still trying some combinations, temporal chains is just the last trial i'm making, before that i was using enfeeble to reduce the damage received (and because it requires just INT) but i find that slowing is better to reduce both dps and move speed so they can't run away. The ice spear totem is just for fun i don't really need it, is just a good addition, more feedback when i'll have the multiple projectiles socketed.
The only downside of this build is that you are pretty squishy and you get killed in about 4 hits in merciless, that's why i'm using frost wall: block the enemies' path, deploy some skeletons in their face and heal from behind.
Also, somebody could find this game style boring, but my point of view is "better safe than sorry", and trust me, positioning is crucial with this build, and is much harder to recognize enemies in the fray of the battle (here curses helps because of the graphical effects on enemies' head).

EQUIPMENT
right now i don't have a specific equipment, i'm looking for a sidhebreath paua amulet and 6 link vest to maximize the performance (pm me if you want to trade). I wear a lot of mana/health bonuses, and keep looking for this stats instead of extra damage on attacks, wich i never use.

FINAL WORDS
So this is my build, nothing that special but it works pretty well and you'll rarely die unsless surrounded. If you are wondering why i don't use spectres too, well, i find them a waste of corpses because they are weaker than zombies, and despite a spectre can use special skills they have reduced stats so the damage is always lower.
Also somebody suggested to totemize the skeletons as well for a steady flow, but i prefer to choose the exact place to summon them, as i said positioning very important.
I'm open to suggestions and critics, feel free to comment.