[1.1.x] The Incandescent Striker - [no update for 1.2]

Hi everyone, welcome to my Melee Witch guide!

This build is, as the name might give away, centered around the unique "Incandescent Heart".
Right after its release i knew i had to create a build around this chest.
A good week of theorycrafting and experimenting later, this is what i came up with.

Like my previous builds, i tried to create something unconventional with huge survivability and decent killspeed. That being said, don't expect a cheap build, expect a costly, but affordable and powerful build set up around a very interesting unique.

This is my first attempt of a melee build, any constructive criticism is welcome!

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1. The Build
- Passive Tree
- Bandits
- Gems & Links
- Equipment

2. Playing Style
- General Playing Style
- Maps
- Atziri

3. Media
- Current Gear & Tree
- Videos

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1. The Build

1.1 Passive Tree

no update for 1.2!

1.2 Bandit Rewards

Kill all
Help Kraytin
Kill all


1.3 Gems & Links

Double Strike - Faster Attacks - Multistrike - Melee Splash - Melee Physical Damage - Melee Physical on Full Life
I wanted to make an "old-school Sword/Shield" Character, and Double Strike was the most fitting choice. The support gems focus on maxing both Burst Damage and Attack Speed, while also adding AoE-ability to this skill. I recommend quality on all gems.

Hatred - Discipline - Determination - Reduced Mana
Simple. Hatred for DPS, Discipline for more ES and Determination for more Armour. Reduced Mana to be able to run all three at once. No quality needed here.

Enduring Cry - Immortal Call - Increased Duration
Enduring Cry provides Endurance Charges, Immortal Call uses these to make you immortal against Physical Damage for a duration and Increased Duration increases said duration. I recommend quality on Immortal Call and Increased Duration.

Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks
Enables you to move out of nasty situations fast, or just travel through the map quickly.
I recommend quality on both gems.

Blood Rage - Vaal Discipline - Increased Duration
Blood Rage provides free leech and attack speed through Frenzy Charges with absolutely no downside. Vaal Discipline will significantly boost your ES, use it in nasty situations.
I recommend quality on Blood Rage and Increased Duration.

Vulnerability - Faster Casting - Portal
I threw them all together so all can profit from Faster Casting. Vulnerability will make enemies take significantly more damage by you and everyone in your party. Portal isn't needed, but always good to have. I recommend quality on all of them.


1.4 Equipment

Weapon: Get a fast 1H Sword with huge physical damage. Strength, Dexterity and Resistances are good additions.

Shield: Aegis Aurora, no matter if legacy or not.
Oh no, not another Aegis Aurora build! Yes, exactly, get over it.

Chest: Incandescent Heart. On first sight this doesn't seem like the most ideal chest for CI, and for sure it isn't ES-wise. But it reduces all Elemental Damage you take by 25%, which makes it extremely powerful. On top it comes with lots of Armour, free Life Leech and some Life, which despite being CI helps slightly against Status Ailments.

Helmet: ES and Resistances is all you need. Some Armour will help too, but it's hard to get a great Ar/ES Resistance helmet.

Gloves: Like Helmet, focus on ES and Resistances. Armour, Life/Mana Leech, Strength, Dexterity, Flat Damage and Attack Speed are good additions.

Boots: Rainbowstride. Those boots are great allrounders for any CI build, the added Mana helps increasing your Leech Cap and Spellblock is always a welcome addition.

Belt: Chain Belt with Armour, ES and Resistances. WED is a good DPS boost, but not mandatory. A physical Doryani's Invitation would be great too, but will leave you with considerably less ES and Armour. A second, more expensive choice would be Auxium. This would allow you to drop Dream Fragments for a better DPS ring.

Rings: Dream Fragments for first slot. This ring is a must for CI, and the mana mods once again help increasing the Leech Cap as well as Mana Regen for travelling with Whirling Blades. For the second slot, get a Ring with Flat Phys Damage, ES and Dexterity. Additional, useful mods are: Life Leech, Mana Leech, WED, Attack Speed, Strength, Resistances.
If you use Auxium, you can get two DPS rings.

Amulet: Stone of Lazhwar. If you can, get one with 4% Block corrupted.

Flasks: A Perpetual Granite Flask of Iron Skin is your life insurance against huge physical hits. I also recommend Granite Flasks with "..of Staunching", "..of Grounding" and "..of Warding". Atziri's Promise is a great flask for bossfights, or if you just need some more leech for a pack.


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2. Playing Style

2.1 General Playing Style

Not much to say. Use Blood Rage, whirlblade to your Enemies and kill them. If needed, use your curse to take enemies down faster. If you see a huge physical hit incoming, use Enduring Cry, Immortal Call and pop your Granite Flask.


2.2 Maps

This build is able to run almost all map mods solo or in a party. Choose your auras depending on map mods.

Half/No-Regen + Enfeeble: It's possible that you run into mana problems depending on your total leech. Have 1-2 Mana Flasks as backup.

Nemesis Mods: Watch out for Corrupting Blood and keep your Staunching Flask ready. Everything else shouldn't be a problem.

Blood Magic: Like all CI builds, there's no way to run this.


2.3 Atziri

Tried the Apex a few times by now, and must say it's fairly easy if you are prepared and know what to do. Unfortunately, my laptop is a complete potato and doesn't allow me to safely record such a movement-intensive fight, so i'll provide a little "How To" in textform.

Step 1: Preparation
Half of your success will come from proper preparation. You need a full set of Sacrifice Fragments (obviously), 3x Granite Flasks of Staunching, 1x Granite Flask of Grounding, 2x Ruby Flasks + 2x Topaz Flasks, Atziri's Promise, Saffell's Frame (new one works well), Purity of Fire (Lv20 if possible), Spell Totem, Temporal Chains and Weapon Elemental Damage/Added Fire Damage. Equip Atziri's Promise and the Granite Flasks right away, i'll go more into detail when the other stuff is needed.

Now it's time to mentally prepare for the Apex, no matter how silly that sounds. Don't even attempt it while being tired, this map requires lots of movement with a good reaction time!

Step 2: Main Apex + Dual Vaal
The main parts between all three bossrooms are full with Magics/Rares you shouldn't underestimate. There are four different monster types: Vaal Constructs are the least threat, they won't hurt you at all. Snakes can puncture and Skeleton mages can shock you, look out for both ailments and stop them with your flasks if needed. Vaal Fallen are the biggest threat. Being a melee build we have no chance to kill them from distance, and these guys can hurt alot, especially if you got shock stacks! Don't tank too many at once, or simply skip them if you are confident that desync won't strike again.

When reaching the first bossroom, you'll face two vaals. There's not much to say about this fight, evade Vaal Smashes and remove shock stacks with flask. The surviving Vaal gets frenzied when his partner dies, simply get both to low health simultaniously and you won't have to deal with a frenzied Vaal for a long time.

Step 3: Three Demons
The next bossroom contains three bosses, which i simply call Three Demons. One is a Tittybitch, one Cycloner and one Double Striker. Many fear this fight, but it's actually fairly easy with this build.
First of all, movement is the key to success. The Cycloner leaves a temporary degenerative ground, which you shouldn't stand on. He also provides Corrupted Blood stacks, try to kite him as much as possible and remove stacks with flask. After a demon is killed, the surviving one(s) get full healed and gain some bonus, so don't bother attacking them simultaniously.

First one to kill is the Tittybitch. Try to drag her to a corner before giving the killing blow. Her corpse will leave a huge degenerative ground, and small Tittybitches will continue spawning. These will help you recharging ES on block and can also be used to refill your flasks if needed.
Next kill the Double Striker, he can easily be facetanked. His corpse will once again spread a huge degenerative ground, keep that in mind before killing him. Last but not least get rid of the Cycloner. With your leech and Tittybitches helping you to regain ES with Aegis, you can easily facetank him.
After killing them all, switch your Granite Flasks with the Ruby and Topaz Flasks and kill trash mobs on the way to Atziri's room to fill said flasks.

Step 4: Atziri
Before entering her room, switch Aegis with Saffells, Determination with Purity of Fire and put Spell Totem + Temp Chains into your Saffells. Now you're ready to go!
Inside, keep Blood Rage up for leech and evade Storm Calls, her Flameblasts are easily tankable even if they surpass your spellblock.
When she switches into her minion phase, cast your Temp Chains Spelltotem and keep attacking Atziri, your splash damage will get rid of minions before they can reach her.
The Split Phase is the hardest part of this fight. After each quarter of her health, she will split into four copies of which one must be killed to end the phase. Switch Melee Splash with WED or Added Fire and focus damage on one copy. Avoid hitting the copy holding the mirror, she has 100% damage reflection! You'll have to eat lots of damage in this phase, use your flasks and try to end this phase as fast as possible.


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3. Media

3.1 Current Gear & Tree



3.2 Videos

GMP Dominus [Residence]
http://youtu.be/GGUBPobAavY


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Thanks for reading my guide, hope you enjoyed it! Don't hesitate to comment if you have questions, suggestions or anything else to get off your chest!

Hey the build look great! Can you post stats for the build?

That's is the funniest corrupted item I've seen yet :D

Revisited the whole tree with a friend, we found a more efficient route which provides more block, damage and US. Also tried VP and it kinda sucked. Still need to spec into the Cruel Bandit Reward. Will post screenshots later after the race.

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CantripN wrote:

That's is the funniest corrupted item I've seen yet :D

Haha yeah, best part is it even shows up in the stats, i actually got 112% chance to avoid being frozen.

Updated with screenshots as requested, sorry forgot about it yesterday.

Also changed some Phys% to Attack Speed in the tree, this seems to be overall better and leech didn't suffer much.

Further improved the tree. Can now finally run all three auras at once, gained some ES, Ele Adaption without losing any DPS.

Spent the day running several 77/78 maps. Palace Dominus is pretty easy, so is Igna Phoenix on 78 maps, got her down within 5s. Will be recording some videos this weekend.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/887007

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Stoomie wrote:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/887007

Decent gear, just wonder why you posted it here?

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Enki91 wrote:

Spent the day running several 77/78 maps. Palace Dominus is pretty easy, so is Igna Phoenix on 78 maps, got her down within 5s. Will be recording some videos this weekend.

pls do! if possible do a dominus on 78 and if you can get the midnight, atziri too :p

i was wondering if the build with that and aegis is possible when i saw the chest.
got a few questions, hope you dont mind answering

1) since you're running on mana, wouldn't melee phys on full life be a better option then melee phys damage since it has lower mana multiplier?

2) wouldnt ST be better then a sword since you can drop mana reservation nodes or get more auras after reserving entire mana? it would allow you to get more block nodes right next to ghost reaver, or more armor/dps nodes. you'd have to make up for the dps lost on weapon if switching to non-legacy ST, thou

3) have you thought about adding tempest shield to the build? you have a decent block chance so it would go off pretty often and further increase the block chance?

4) how come you went with double strike and not cyclone? any special reason?

5) grace vs determination - choice is obvious since you dont have IR, but if it were possible to take the keystone, it would add more armor then determination, right? if yes, have you tried taking IR?

6) this tree starts as a scion, it has 11% less ES, but 4% more armour, 100% increased pyhs damage and 14% more attack speed, it a version that could use ST and reserve entire mana pool
what do you think about it?

"

ogrec wrote:

pls do! if possible do a dominus on 78 and if you can get the midnight, atziri too :p

i was wondering if the build with that and aegis is possible when i saw the chest.
got a few questions, hope you dont mind answering

1) since you're running on mana, wouldn't melee phys on full life be a better option then melee phys damage since it has lower mana multiplier?

2) wouldnt ST be better then a sword since you can drop mana reservation nodes or get more auras after reserving entire mana? it would allow you to get more block nodes right next to ghost reaver, or more armor/dps nodes. you'd have to make up for the dps lost on weapon if switching to non-legacy ST, thou

3) have you thought about adding tempest shield to the build? you have a decent block chance so it would go off pretty often and further increase the block chance?

4) how come you went with double strike and not cyclone? any special reason?

5) grace vs determination - choice is obvious since you dont have IR, but if it were possible to take the keystone, it would add more armor then determination, right? if yes, have you tried taking IR?

6) this tree starts as a scion, it has 11% less ES, but 4% more armour, 100% increased pyhs damage and 14% more attack speed, it a version that could use ST and reserve entire mana pool
what do you think about it?

Spoiler

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgABOygDlm49YEODCUZxtAzqujQKN2YsplfJPI6TJxzcf8bBxSy_hq4V19eGVmPsGMNtj_rb50cGX2rC7LTFKwrBANsaEHv1S746EZZwu9kTL28o-uvuuJOnCJ2uGmzz3Y9GHRRMNSjF87760hcvhtEksICkcH2plRoyUWBmnsAaWfNZ_hfhbthOMn31PQ8ki3y7njxN2Ix2gW9xTZrPQ2O3MVj1ncSsqnKpfNn3MuoY-OsUcQ48n8sMfRB_xp46UuJhlZsm-DB3Zafa3ZMdhAw37AgIVdZCo3YIN4Om6-uf

Videos may take a while, tried to 6L my chest and am now left with a 4L :(
But now to your questions:

1. Actually, i'll be using both with a 6L. You are right about the mana multiplier, and i'd also recommend everyone to use Melee Phys on Full Life if they only have a 5L. It's just that i had this 20/20 Melee Phys, but no 20/20 Melee Phys on Full Life.
The mana management is no problem though, leech cap and phys DPS are enough to never be OOM.

2. I don't really like ST. The DPS is horrible and it costs way too much.
We need to get the mana nodes to get out of Witch area anyway, so it would only really free up Mind Drinker. Last but not least, i just always wanted to make a Sword/Shield char, and not "another ST char".

3. Thought about it, but it would leave us with pretty much no mana to attack. Would probably be possible with ST, but then again you'll be left with horrible DPS.

4. Cyclone desyncs too much for my personal taste. Someone above made a ST Cyclone build with this chest it seems, maybe check it out if you prefer Cyclone.

5. Yes it would add more, though there was just no chance to get to IR without dropping important nodes.

6. Looks good to me. Please share your experiences if you decide to run this one, especially curious about the DPS.