Build of the Week, Season 2 Episode 2 Build Submission Thread

Normal Difficulty

Act 1

As far as key gems go, Act 1 in Normal Difficulty doesn’t offer too much in terms of choice, for this build.

As a reward from ‘Enemy at the Gate’, you should pick up Freezing Pulse, our primary Source of Damage, until later levels.

‘Mercy Mission’ is optional, but I usually skip it. You can pick any gem from this quest, or just do it for the Quick Silver Flask, in case you want to hasten your levelling. The Quest Reward choice from ‘Breaking Some Eggs’ is irrelevant, too, but Fire Storm, Raise Zombie and Cold Snap are solid choices.

‘The Caged Brute’ offers Lightning Trap as a quest reward, a solid levelling gem which benefits from our early choices in the Passive Skill Tree. It also complements our strategy in the later parts of the build, so it’s a must pick-up.

From ‘The Siren’s Cadence’, I personally chose Added Lightning Damage, to improve my Lightning Traps, but the choice in this quest isn’t really crucial.

When you get to Merveil, remember to equip Sapphire Rings for some extra Ice Resistance, in order to make the fight easier.





Act 2

In Act 2 our build will try to get a little bit more endurance, since we picked up very few health nodes, due to our starting path. As far as Gems go, we will pick up Gems that positively impact our levelling speed.

From ‘The Great White Beast’, we’re picking up the Leather Belt, since we are a Life Based build.

From ‘Intruders in Black’ we’re forced to pick up Conductivity (Our ‘core’ curse, later in this build). However, if you’re willing to trade for a Conductivity gem later, you can pick up Frost Bite to accelerate our levelling speed.

‘Sharp and Cruel’ offers an early Lesser Multiple Projectiles to the witch and, as such, is mandatory to nearly triple our damage per second with Freezing Pulse.

As far as Bandit choices go, we’re going to help Oak, since the 40 HP is too good to pass up.



Act 3

In Act 3, our build starts to pick on important gems like Lightning Penetration (which can be used to improve our already powerful Lightning Trap) and Frost Wall, which can be used on late levels to provide a decent escape mechanism.

‘Lost in Love’ is the first quest of the Act and, from this one, we will pick Frost Wall, due to its synergy with Cast on Damage Taken.

For the ring choice in ‘The Ribbon Spool’, you should take the ring that provides resistance to the element you’re most vulnerable in. I’d personally pick up the ‘Topaz Ring’.

From ‘A Swig of Hope’, you’re looking to take the ‘Citrine Amulet’ since it provides the stats you lack the most: Strength and Dexterity. ‘A Fixture of Fate’ presents lots of interesting choices but, in the end, ‘Curse on Hit’ and ‘Cast when Stunned’ prove to be the best choices. Curse on Hit can be particularly powerful with Freezing Pulse, in case you picked Frost Bite earlier in Act 2.

Picking up Lightning Penetration from ‘Sever the Right Hand’ is the only plausible choice, since we will be needing two of these gems, later on.

By the end of this Act, the build will start to feel a little bit to the weak side and, as such, I recommend you to party up when taking on Dominus, as the difficulty of the fight is absurd.



Cruel Difficulty

Act 1

Although Act 1, Cruel, is arguably easier than the last Act of Normal difficulty, you should be, nonetheless, careful, since you’ll be dealing with -20% Resistances.

From ‘Enemy at the Gate’, we will pick up Lightning Warp, and equip it right away. Not only will this be our primary gem, later on, but it also provides some sort of escape mechanism, when the going gets though.

‘Mercy Mission’ should be done by the end of the act, since this side area can be a bit though. However, and unlike the previous difficulty level, this quest should NOT be skipped, since it gives you another chance to grab a Lightning Penetration gem!

If your gear is lacklustre, you can use ‘Breaking Some Eggs’ as a chance to upgrade one of your weakest pieces.

After defeating Brutus, you should pick up Clarity from ‘The Caged Brute’. This serves two purposes: the first one, it can solve some of your already noticeable Mana problems (Since we failed to pick up any Mana Regeneration or Maximum Mana nodes). The second reason for this pick up, is that you can easily trade a low-level Clarity gem for some Currency, thus increasing your Stash value.

‘The Siren’s Cadence’ provides the hardest choice so far: on one side, you can opt to grab ‘Spell Totem’ right away, and begin using a double Lightning Warp Totem build, by picking up Ancestral Totem from the Skill Tree. However, if you do this, you’ll never be able to pick up a Remote Mine skill gem as a quest reward, which is one of the KEY support gems of this build. If by any chance you picked up a Remote Mine support gem earlier, by all means choose the Spell Totem as a reward, otherwise, you SHOULD pick up Remote Mine.



Act 2

Ah, Act 2. The final stop for our build.

From ‘The Great White Beast’ and ‘Intruders in Black’ we should pick up some upgrades for our gear. The Coral Ring is recommended, from the first quest.

However, when you complete ‘Sharp and Cruel’ you should pick up the Spell Totem support gem and then put your Passive Skill points in both Blood Magic (Solving our Mana Issues) and Ancestral Totem.

This build can make use of further Quest Rewards to improve its effective power. From ‘Deal with the Bandits’ in Cruel, we can either help Alira (+4% Cast Speed) or pick up an extra Passive Skill Point. ‘Lost in Love’ rewards us an additional ‘Lightning Warp’ which we can link to our unused ‘Remote Mine’ support gem. ‘A Fixture of Fate’, in Cruel, rewards an all-important ‘Elemental Proliferation’, which allow our totems to proliferate their ‘Shock’ effects. Many quests of Merciless difficulty award Faster Casting and Increased Area of Effect which are both great gems to link with our ‘Lightning Warp Totems’ and ‘Lightning Warp Mines’. A ‘Fixture of Fate’, in Merciless, awards a Cast on Damage Taken, which, when kept on low level, can be used with our previously acquired Frost Wall to protect us from harm. Trading for an Enduring Cry can increase the power of this Combo furthermore.

As far as the Passive Skill Tree goes, you have many choices:
 Grabbing Lightning Damage, Casting Speed and Totem-related nodes to increase your damage substantially.
 You can grab Health and Elemental Resistance nodes from the Marauder, Templar or Scion starting areas to further increment your fortitude.
 Increased Area nodes from the Witch and Templar starting areas can greatly increase the effectiveness of your totems.


You can also gear up with uniques like Soul Mantle, which not only frees up one Socket used by Spell Totem, but also allows you to keep 3 Totems Active at any given time. (As well as increasing your overall Totem Health!)

Here’s one possible end-game Skill Tree:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBBAcEswVCEMwUTRZvGS4ZhRo4GmwfAiSqJa8n7SlPKhMrtiycLKctHzWSNsU26TwFPC09Xz8nQZZBqkbXSsRKyEyzUlNUSVXGWOVZ81orXAxdxl5dZ71uqnKpdhF7IH6vghCDOIjxi4yMRo0Zj0aQVZeVm6Gdrp_fogCj8qcIp4SnlKxZrKqus7UEtfK3PriTud3AGsG0wxPE9sauz2XQ0NH91BXUj9gk3YzfsN-_4BLhc-Nq5CLk7OdS52PsOO0g7m_vDu988B_yL_au9zL4k_jr_gr-hw==

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAABbUIZw5IEZYYPBvgHNwelCQ8J6ko-i2oL28wcTB8MhgzeDZ7OkJFnUYrRnFHBkk7SVFLeE6bUUdTMVptW7tirG-eb7xwUXC7cNV313qqfrB_K3_GgseDCY19jb-P-pANkyeTOpitmuCdqqdcqn-quKw_sZCzA7QMtKO0xbd1t9a9J8BRwuzGospKzerUI9aK1p3YVNkT21nb59xX3ajjhOc66-7sGO4V8Xb56A==

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUBAecCcQSzBVsUIBRNFSAZLhm0Gjgn7SpNLOkt0jJ-Mok26DpSOtg8BT8nSn1KyFBHUFBUSVb6Vw1X4lhjWK9Z818_Zp5noG6qcql0QXbnd-V4DXzZfXWDOIcph3aLjIzPkFWRzp7Nn9-iAKTCpzCnhKlurKqvjbXyud27476nwBrEosbYytPNmNIh037Uj9lh3Q3exudS6mLsOO4O7w7veu989kj6sfzF_ro=http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUBAecCcQSzBVsUIBRNFSAZLhm0Gjgn7SpNLOkt0jJ-Mok26DpSOtg8BT8nSn1KyFBHUFBUSVb6Vw1X4lhjWK9Z818_Zp5noG6qcql0QXbnd-V4DXzZfXWDOIcph3aLjIzPkFWRzp7Nn9-iAKTCpzCnhKlurKqvjbXyud27476nwBrEosbYytPNmNIh037Uj9lh3Q3exudS6mLsOO4O7w7veu989kj6sfzF_ro=