^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
GGG please remove that comment, it's not relevant anymore and the player publicly quit years ago. It's so old, there's not even a report button to get some attention to this!
I've already contacted a mod and support and still nothing :(
This is the base passive tree. There's gear choices and cluster jewels which require some changes to the passive tree, those are mentioned accordingly within Gear Section.
‣ Liege of the Primordial(Normal): Enables us to summon another Golem, raises our damage and Golem Buff Effect and makes our golems immune to elemental damage.
‣ Elemancer(Cruel): Gives us yet another golem and Golem Buff Effect, and makes us immune to elemental ailments with atleast 3x golems summoned.
‣ Paragon of Calamity(Merciless): Provides full elemental reflection immunity against all sources, all the Life Leech we need and some unreliable minor damage- and defensive buffs.
‣ Pendulum of Destruction(Eternal): Pretty unreliable buff that switches between AoE and Elemental Damage. Still the best choice we have here.
Arc is our main skill - it has high base damage, decent cast time and a more damage modifier for each remaining chain. This simply means that if for example your Arc can chain 7x and there's nothing to chain to, it will get a 105% (7*15%) more damage multiplier for that hit.
We can also use Vaal Arc, which grants both the regular Arc skill and a buffed up Vaal Arc that grants us the Lucky Buff. This buff counters our high lightning damage range by rolling each damage roll twice and taking the higher one. However, it can still happen that it rolls two low values and you end up getting a few small hits.
To help with this decision, a Lv21 Arc is always better than a Lv20 Vaal Arc. Since Vaal Arc is corrupted by default, the only reliable way to get it at Lv21 is using the Lapidary Lense on an uncorrupted Lv20 Arc gem in the Temple of Atzoatl, although it's not a guaranteed outcome.
Spell Echo* substantially boosts our cast speed and repeats each skill use without consuming mana for the repeated cast, all at the cost of a minimal damage penalty. Added Lightning Damage* adds lots of lightning damage to our base damage at 80% of its listed value due to Arcs damage effectiveness. Lightning Penetration* is a hidden damage increase - it doesn't affect our tooltip damage, but rather acts as a dynamic more multiplier by reducing the enemies lightning resistance during damage calculations, and can even drop it into negative values.
5th Link:Increased Critical Strikes* adds base crit chance and a multiplier to our crit chance. Once you reach ~50% crit chance without this gem and before Diamond Flask buff, replace it with a Lv3/4 Empower to raise Arcs level and with that its base damage, and even gain extra chains if the result is a Lv26 respectively Lv31 Arc.
6th Link:Controlled Destruction* gives a huge damage multiplier with a penalty to crit chance. The distinction between "less" and "reduced" is important, 100% less would mean we'd lose all crit chance while 100% reduced means it's additive with all our "increased crit chance" multipliers.
Orb of Storms* is a duration-based spell that we use for some extra damage during bossfights. It releases a bolt at enemies within its radius every second, plus additional bolts if we cast a lightning skill such as Arc while within its radius.
Lightning Penetration* does exactly the same as above. Power Charge on Critical* provides Power Charges for more crits during bossfights. Elemental Focus* gives a huge damage multiplier at the cost of being able to apply Elemental Ailments with the linked skill. We can still do that with Arc, so it's no issue.
5th Link:Added Lightning Damage* does exactly the same as above.
6th Link: Good news, there's no 6L needed here! You will soon find out why.
Wave of Conviction debuffs enemies with Exposure based on its highest elemental damage.
It deals base physical damage with inherent lightning- and fire-conversion, and with some of our passives specifically boosting lightning damage we pretty much always apply Lightning Exposure.
This is only useful for bosses and very tanky rare monsters, don't waste your time by casting it for every single pack of monsters.
It should in fact be kept at Lv1 to keep the unconverted physical damage as low as possible, otherwise we may kill ourselves to physical reflect!
This requires no support gems to work, so ideally we just put this in an unlinked socket alongside our Orb of Storms setup. You will learn in Gear Section why specifically there.
Our golems. We don't care about their damage, we only want their buffs.
Summon Stone Golem* gives us lots of flat life regeneration, which is directly converted to energy shield regeneration with Zealot's Oath for great Mind over Matter sustain. Summon Lightning Golem* gives us lots of cast speed. Summon Chaos Golem* gives us physical damage reduction.
The 4th link is up to preference here. You have three choices to choose from:
Summon Flame Golem* gives us some generic damage. Meat Shield* raises their survivability and enables them to taunt, which takes focus from us. Cast when Stunned adds a chance to resummon golems whenever we get stunned, but disables our ability to manually summon them.
If not using the fourth golem gem, it's still possible to summon four golems by just summoning one of them twice. This still gives us the extra buffs from Liege of the Primordial and Elemancer, but we only get the golems specific buff once.
Zealotry gives a damage multiplier, some crit chance and the ability to proc Consecrated Ground. Flesh and Stone enables two stances, only Sand Stance is useful to us. While in Sand Stance, all enemies within the auras visible radius are blinded, and attacks from outside the radius deal less damage to us. It also serves as a great visual indicator for the Pendulum of Destruction buffs. Discipline adds lots of base energy shield, which helps reaching the 43% of life as energy shield balance we want for Mind over Matter.
Once our gear is good enough to get there without Discipline, we can replace it with an Aspect of the Spider craft on any gear with an open suffix. Vaal Grace can replace the Discipline gem to gain some temporary Dodge chance, but we won't be able to run the regular Grace aura it provides.
We can fit in one more aura with a specific piece of gear, which will be covered in Gear Section.
Flame Dash* is our movement skill of choice, it has three uses and a short cooldown. Additionally, it removes Grasping Vines and prevents us from taking damage from stationary damage over time sources when dashing through. Second Wind* adds another use to Flame Dash and reduces its cooldown.
Cast when Damage taken triggers linked spells after receiving enough damage from hits to surpass the listed treshold. The spells also need to have their required level within the listed level requirement. In this case, we simply just level both to maximum and can ignore this restriction. Steelskin* temporarily extends our hitpool with a short cooldown afterwards, which works great to soak up incoming damage spikes such as the ones likely triggering this spell in the first place.
This will go into the same item as the 2L Flame Dash setup. Keep both setups seperated to be able to cast Flame Dash! Check gloves in Gear Section to figure out what I mean by that.
Gearing in Path of Exile is all about opportunity cost - sure, that unique item may look good,
but is it better than all other options? Can you make up the loss of vital stats somewhere else?
In this section I want to give you a quick rundown on what to look out for in each slot.
Basic Information about Gear
‣ Rare item names are randomly generated out of a gearslot-tied wordpool and meaningless
‣ Rare items can have up to six affixes, split into three prefixes and three suffixes
‣ Item level decides which affixes can roll, and up to which tier
‣ Socket color probability is tied to attribute requirements: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence
‣ Quality increases the probability to hit the maximum number of sockets and links
‣ Corrupted Items can't be modified outside of socket amount, -links and -colors
‣ Affixes saying "attacks" don't affect Spells, flat damage on weapons only if it's "to Spells"
‣ Unique Items aren't best in slot unless mentioned otherwise
‣ Each Unique that's not listed here is either too weak to compete with better choices,
too expensive for too little gain or simply doesn't synergize at all with this build
‣ The Crafting Bench can add powerful affixes for cheap, which is especially helpful to create
Life + ES gear and weapons. Use poedb to figure out open affix slots
How to read this Section
All relevant affixes are listed in Affix Priority and sorted by their approximate strength.
Required affixes are in bold.
The following tags mean which crafting method or influence type is required for that affix:
N = Normal, B = Crafting Bench, Es = Essence, S = Shaper, E = Elder,
C = Crusader, R = Redeemer, H = Hunter, W = Warlord
If you want to learn how to craft items, check out my Crafting Tutorial.
This build uses staves in endgame to run two 5L+ setups and make use of some decent staff passives. The Flora's Gift and The Dark Mage are easy ways to get a 5L respectively 6L staff, which together with basic Essence-, Fossil- or Alteration crafting are enough to get started.
Our first goal is a staff with some damage affixes and the veiled "Trigger a socketed Spell when you use a Skill" craft. With Orb of Storms and Wave of Conviction socketed, this will automate their casting with a 4s cooldown, which is lower than both skills duration. Another plus for this setup is that we only need a 5L6S (5-linked, 6-socketed) staff at most.
Agnerod West is a good budget staff for us. It gives decent damage, penetration, a global +2 Level modifier for our active Lightning Spell gems and some Energy Shield through Intelligence. Biggest downside is the lack of "Trigger a socketed Spell when you use a Skill", and it has a pretty high strength requirement.
The highend option is an Eclipse Staff with "+3 to Level of all Lightning Spell Skill Gems",
"Trigger a socketed Spell when you use a Skill" and other damage affixes.
Warstaves can't roll caster affixes by default when crafting!
Affix Priority
Prefix
+2/3 to Level of all Lightning Spell Skill Gems N
+2 to Level of all Spell Skill Gems N
80%+ increased Lightning Damage N B
80%+ increased Spell Damage N B Es
Gain #% of Non-Chaos Damage as extra Chaos Damage B
Gain #% of Elemental Damage as Extra Chaos Damage S
Gain #% of Lightning Damage as Extra Chaos Damage N B
Damage Penetrates #% Elemental Resistances S
Damage Penetrates #% Lightning Resistance C Es
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 10 Power Charge On Critical Strike E
Adds 1 to 80+ Lightning Damage to Spells N B Es
Suffix Trigger a socketed Spell when you use a SkillB
20%+ increased Cast Speed N B Es
Wrath/Zealotry has #% increased Aura Effect C
#% chance to Unnerve Enemies for 4 seconds on Hit H
20%+ to Global Critical Strike Multiplier N B
80%+ increased Critical Strike Chance for Spells N B Es
% increased Damage per Power Charge C
Body Armours are our main slot to get Life and Energy Shield (= ES) from. A basic one with that and some Resistances is enough to get started. Emperor of Purity gives an easy 6L in SSF.
Ambu's Charge is a pretty nice budget unique, but nothing for higher content.
There's several options for a highend choice here. High Life and Spellcrit should be on all of them and would likely allow you to replace Increased Critical Strikes with Empower in your Arc setup, the rest depends on if you want to build more offensively or defensively.
Affix Priority
Prefix 80+ to maximum LifeN B Es 100+ base Energy Shield
Gain #% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield B
+1 to Level of Socketed Support Gems E, R
+1 to Level of Socketed Active Skill Gems S, W
#% increased maximum Life E, H, B
You can apply an additional Curse H
Suffix
Spells have +#% to Critical Strike Chance S H
% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit R
Resistances N B Es
Start with a very basic Life + ES helmet. No need to go all out on it, as we aim to use..
The Devouring Diadem! This helmet grants Eldritch Battery, which saves us three passives.
It also raises the level of socketed gems and reduces their mana reservation cost, which is perfect for our auras! With a passive point invested into "4% reduced Mana reserved" that's leading to Influence, this allows us to run Wrath for another damage multiplier on top of our other auras. And it casts Feast of Flesh every 5s, which heals 400 Life & ES per corpse consumed.
Prefix 80+ to maximum LifeN B Es 50+ base Energy Shield
Suffix
Resistances N B Es
Enchantments
Enchantments are randomly rolled by the Divine Font at the end of each Labyrinth.
Arc Chains an additional time
#% increased Effect of the Buff granted by your Stone Golems
#% increased Effect of the Buff granted by your Lightning Golems
#% increased Effect of the Buff granted by your Chaos Golems
Steelskin Buff can take #% increased amount of Damage
Our focus on gloves is as much Life, ES and Resistances as possible, and that's pretty much it. Fingerless Silk Gloves add some minor damage through their implicit and have good base ES.
The highend choice is the usual together with global Culling Strike or Unnerve chance.
Hands of the High Templar are very interesting unique gloves. They're pretty solid by default, and can get insane with the right corruptions. Especially Spellcrit and Enfeeble on Hit are great for us, with the latter requiring a source of "You can apply an additional Curse" such as Whispers of Doom to work properly with the other curse we aim for. This also means that a pair with multiple Curse on Hit corruptions is bad for us as they may overwrite the curses we want to use.
As tempting as it is, it's advisable not to ruin an already good pair with more corruptions!
Once again, focus on Life, ES, Resistances and optionally some Movement Speed.
Doryani's Delusion are very solid, just make sure they're Sorcerer Boots base and have added lightning damage. They can only be obtained (and configured) in Doryani's Machinarium.
The highend choice are ES-based boots with Tailwind or Elusive, or even both.
Affix Priority
Prefix 60+ to maximum LifeN B Es 40+ total Energy ShieldN B Es
#% increased Movement Speed N B Es
#% chance to gain Elusive on Critical Strike R
Suffix
You have Tailwind if you have dealt a Critical Strike Recently H
Resistances N B Es
#% chance to Dodge Attack Hits S R Es
#% chance to Dodge Spell Hits E R Es
Enchantments
Enchantments are randomly rolled by the Divine Font at the end of each Labyrinth.
Damage Penetrates #% of Enemy Elemental Resistances if you haven't Killed Recently
Adds 1 to # Lightning Damage if you haven't Killed Recently
#% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently
#% Chance to Dodge Attack Hits if you've taken a Critical Strike Recently
#% chance to Dodge Spell Hits if you've taken Spell Damage Recently
Regenerate #% of Life per second if you were Hit Recently
#% increased Critical Strike Chance if you haven't Crit Recently
Amulets are a damage slot, so that'll be our focus here together with Life and ES.
The highend choice has high Life and atleast three well-rolled damage affixes.
Affix Priority
Prefix 40+ to maximum LifeN B
#% increased maximum Energy Shield N B Es
+1 to Level of all Lightning Skill Gems C
+1 to Level of all Intelligence Skill Gems H
Damage Penetrates #% Lightning Resistance C
Damage Penetrates #% Elemental Resistances S H
#% increased Spell Damage N
Suffix
20%+ to Global Critical Strike Multiplier N Es
+1 to Minimum Frenzy Charges B
#% increased Lightning Damage N
#% increased Cast Speed N
Regenerate #% of Energy Shield per second C
#% reduced Mana Reserved S R
Wrath/Zealotry has #% reduced Mana Reservation C
#% increased Global Critical Strike Chance N B Es
Anointments
Anointments are applied with Oils at Sister Cassia.
Soul of Steel - best defensive option, very expensive Constitution - lots of extra Life, expensive Whispers of Doom - needed if you have atleast two Curses on Hit, expensive Cleansed Thoughts - needs atleast 20% Chaos Resistance to be useful, expensive Devotion - Life, Strength and Aura Effect, affordable Counterweight - Crit Chance & Multiplier, affordable Divine Judgement - another damage option, affordable Silent Steps - reduced damage taken from enemies within Flesh and Stone, cheap Freedom of Movement - extra Dodge chance while Phasing, cheap
Your first ring should go all out on Life and Resistances, ES is also good to have.
The highend choice is still pretty basic, simply all of that on a Vermillion Ring.
Affix Priority
Prefix 40+ to maximum LifeN B
+# to maximum Energy Shield N B Es
#% increased maximum Energy Shield C
#% increased Spell Damage C
#% increased Damage B
Adds # to # Lightning Damage to Spells and Attacks S
# to # Lightning Damage per Power Charge C
Suffix ResistancesN B
Your second ring needs Assassin's Mark on Hit for better crit consistency, and of course again Life.
Mark of Submission is a cheap way to get Assassin's Mark on Hit at the cost of all other affixes. You can change its socket color, so no need to overpay for blue or white sockets.
The highend choice has Assassin's Mark on Hit, Life and other listed affixes on a Vermillion Ring.
Affix Priority
Prefix 40+ to maximum LifeN B
+# to maximum Energy Shield N B Es
#% increased maximum Energy Shield C
#% increased Spell Damage C
#% increased Damage B
Adds # to # Lightning Damage to Spells and Attacks S
# to # Lightning Damage per Power Charge C
Suffix Curse Enemies with Level # Assassin's Mark on HitS ResistancesN B
Belts are yet another basic slot for Life, ES and Resistances, and can also roll some flask related affixes to extend their uptime. Stygian Vise base gives another Abyss Jewel socket.
The highend choice has all the basic stuff and Gain a Flask Charge on Crit, optionally damage too.
Affix Priority
Prefix 80+ to maximum LifeN B
+# to maximum Energy Shield N B Es
Gain a Flask Charge when you deal a Critical Strike H
#% increased maximum Life E H
#% increased maximum Energy Shield S C
#% increased Lightning Damage C
#% increased Damage B
Suffix
Resistances N B Es
#% increased Flask Effect Duration N B
#% increased Life Recovery rate E W
#% increased Energy Shield Recovery rate S C
Jewels
Abyss Jewels are fairly easy to craft, regular Jewels have more damage potential at higher cost.
I've planned the build around having Life on Jewels, even with just one damage affix it's worth it.
Affix Priority
Abyss Jewels: +# to maximum Life
+# to maximum Energy Shield
+#% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
Adds # to # Lightning Damage to Spells (-while wielding a Two Handed Weapon)
Dexterity/all Attributes
Resistances
regular Jewels: #% increased maximum Life
#% increased maximum Energy Shield
+#% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
+#% to Critical Strike Multiplier with Lightning/Elemental Skills (or -for Spells)
#% increased Spell Damage (-while wielding a Staff)
#% increased Lightning Damage
#% increased Damage
#% increased Critical Strike Chance with Lightning/Elemental Skills (or -for Spells)
Dexterity/all Attributes
Resistances
Watcher's Eye is a highend option that gives Life, ES and two or three aura-related affixes.
They can only drop from the Elder (2-affix) or Uber Elder (3-affix).
Useful affixes for this build are:
Affix Priority
Gain Arcane Surge for 4 seconds when you create Consecrated Ground while affected by Zealotry
Damage Penetrates #% Lightning Resistance while affected by Wrath
Critical Strikes Penetrate #% of Enemy Elemental Resistances while affected by Zealotry
Consecrated Ground you create while affected by Zealotry causes enemies to take #% increased Damage
#% increased Lightning Damage while affected by Wrath
#% increased Critical Strike Chance while affected by Wrath
#% increased Energy Shield Recovery Rate while affected by Discipline
Regenerate #% of Energy Shield per Second while affected by Discipline
Cluster Jewels
These add new passives when socketed in any jewel socket on the outside of the passive tree. Because crafting them appears to be too random it's impossible to fully plan a guide around them, so instead i'll just provide a list of potentially useful notables & keystones for us.
Being regular passives, this also means we have to remove passives from the base tree to be able to pick them. Comparing those choices can be done in Path of Building, here's how to do it:
‣ Step 1: Import your character and set up everything relevant in Configuration.
‣ Step 2: Go to Items > Craft Item and choose Type > Jewel: Cluster, then choose the right base and add all affixes. You need LocalIdentity's PoB-Fork to have this option, it's linked in the Path of Building section of this guide.
‣ Step 3: Don't socket the jewel yet! Instead, write down all relevant stats like DPS, hitpool etc. and then remove all passives you need to pick the desired choices on your jewel.
‣ Step 4: Now socket the jewel and compare. Repeat Step 3 & 4 until you find a good balance.
Useful Small Cluster Passives
Maximum Life Implicit:
Adrenaline
Blessed
Fettle
Peace Amidst Chaos
Peak Vigour
Sublime Sensation
Surging Vitality
Towering Threat
Maximum Energy Shield Implicit:
Conservation of Energy
Energy from Naught
Savour the Moment
Sublime Sensation
Dodge Attack Hits Implicit:
Aerialist
No Witnesses
Untouchable
Chaos Resistance Implicit:
Antivenom
Blessed
Born of Chaos
Useful Medium Cluster Passives
Effect of non-damaging Ailments:
Chilling Presence
Cold Conduction
I've already briefly explained flasks earlier in the guide, just as a reminder they're more than just Healing Pots that you may know from other ARPG's.
There's two types: Life/Mana/Hybrid Flasks which heal the respective stat over a duration, and Utility Flasks which grant buffs during their listed duration.
Prefixes augment the flasks effect or duration, while suffixes add additional buffs that are active during the flasks duration.
Crafting Advice: Start by scouring all flasks and put 4x Glassblower Baubles on each, which can be bought for 8x Blacksmith's Whetstones each at the gear vendor in town. Transmute and use Orbs of Alteration until you hit one of the listed prefixes without a suffix, and add one of the listed suffixes through Einhar's Beastcrafting in the Menagerie. If you hit a listed prefix already together with a listed suffix, you should of course keep that.
This is the basic flask setup you should have once you start mapping.
Provides fast life recovery on demand, which gets scaled by Flask Effect, Flask Duration and Life Recovery (-from Flasks). Eternal Life Flask is the best base for that. Prefixes:Catalysed Suffixes:of Staunching
Makes our Crit Chance lucky, which provides lots of effective Crit Chance. Prefixes:Experimenter's Suffixes:of Warding, of Curing, of Quickening
Grants Onslaught for some extra speed and DPS. Prefixes:Chemist's Suffixes:of Warding, of Curing, of Quickening
Gives some extra Physical Damage Reduction. Prefixes:Chemist's Suffixes:of Warding, of Curing, of Quickening
Provides Phasing and extra Dodge chance. Prefixes:Experimenter's Suffixes:of Warding, of Curing, of Quickening
Cinderswallow Urn is an amazing flask that adds lots sustain, and if we have any fire damage added to our Arc even some damage. Increased Critical Strike Chance during Flask Effect is the best veiled mod choice. Can only drop from Catarina, Master of Undeath.
Replaces: Silver Flask
The Sorrow of the Divine grants Zealot's Oath on demand, which means we can save a passive and have our Life Regeneration back to cover Life. Can only drop from Templar Legion Encounters.
Replaces: Quartz Flask or Basalt Flask
Bottled Faith adds lots of base crit chance and damage. It's very expensive and only worth as one of the last upgrades. Can only drop from Cortex.
Replaces: Diamond Flask
Upgrade Order
This section is here to answer the everlasting "What to upgrade next?" question.
It's based on the assumption that you have no gear and have reached maps, if you haven't then you shouldn't even be reading this part of the guide yet, stick to the first part for Act progression.
This section provides trade links to very basic gear that gets you started. They're currently set to Delirium Softcore by default, change that to your current league if needed to get proper results.
If you want to learn how to look for specific gear in general, read this tutorial.
I will not provide any trade links for higher end stuff here!
Before you start mapping, make sure that you have:
"
‣ atleast 3.5k Life and 1k Energy Shield
‣ Fire, Cold and Lightning Resistance capped at 75%
‣ Arc and Flame Dash set to "attack without moving"
‣ the correct Pantheon powers activated (unlock extra powers as you map)
‣ a proper Flask setup (check the Flask section above)
Your first maps shouldn't be an issue with this, just keep on progressing through the Atlas. Two things you should read up on are monster mods and map mods to understand what everything does and how they may affect enemies or yourself.
Your character will naturally progress while mapping - your gems level up, which is especially important for the Arc gem itself, your character levels up and you will build up currency for upgrades, even if you just do Chaos Recipe. Don't focus on "what DPS should I have at this level?" or such, as long as you play and follow what the guide says, you can't do anything wrong.
Try to find a good rhytm between Arc, Flame Dash and flask usage. All enemies give you some cues and time to react. Very often, their skills also lock target on the position you're at during their animation start, so in that case simply move to avoid all damage. Sometimes you can also use the environment as defense and last but not least, don't forget that Arc is a ranged skill.
If you sense lots of incoming damage and can't get out of the way, cast Steelskin and use defensive flasks to mitigate as much as possible.
That said, there's many things in this game that aren't meant to be tanked in the first place,
and will absolutely kill you if you try. There's lots of trial and error involved to figure them out.
Porcupines are a great example. They release spikes on death and spawn in big packs, whenever you see them, try to kill them from distance and then instantly move back to avoid their spikes.
While we can run all mapmods, decide for yourself if it's a good idea in that combination or against that boss. Things that are usually harmless can really start to hurt with the wrong mods!
The following mods require special attention:
"
‣ all Curses: Counter them with your Warding Flask
‣ Projectiles chain: Can be completely ignored with Soul of Lunaris upgrade
‣ Elemental Equilibrium/Resistance/Hexproof/reduced Damage from Crits: Damage loss
‣ Less Recovery Rate: Lowers our recovery from Leech, Regeneration and Flasks
Special thanks to everyone who helped improving the guide or supported it in any other way,
and to GGG for this awesome game and their exceptional support!
Seems like some people have massive issues in higher content with the current setup, while others have none at all, and at this point I see no other solution than completely reworking everything to an unoriginal copy paste of the current Archmage meta. Not really feeling to do that so I don't know, set your expectations around this piece of information. _________________________________________________________________________does mind over matter stack??
Welcome to my Arc guide!
With this guide I want to provide a simple & balanced caster build for beginners and veterans
that is fun and easy to play, scales well into endgame and has as few restrictions as possible.
It's not the strongest caster build out there, but it perfectly fits the niche I want it to be in.
Instead of just showcasing a build, this guide is made to be a comprehensive learning experience.
There's many indepth explanations and links to various wiki pages for new players to understand.
I've tried to keep it short, but some things just can't be explained properly with only a few words.
Don't be fooled by this guides age! I'm updating it for every league and change the build if needed, in total it must've been over 20 vastly different Arc builds since creating the guide. This also means that you can ignore any comments up until Page 1440, as they won't apply to the current build setup.
If you have any questions, please ask them in this thread or my stream!
About Archmage & Arcane Cloak
This is the most repeated question right now, so I want to adress why I've decided against them:
It's always risky to plan around stuff that you couldn't test before (yes, i'm no alpha/beta tester or GGG employee), especially if people rely on the guide right at leaguestart. It was obvious to me that both gems take specific investment to be worth the opportunity cost and that Archmage isn't going to work well with spammed skills, and both turned out to be true. However, the support seems to work great with an Unleash setup and with some research you will find a guide for that.
So in the end I went with the safer option, which was to exclude both and go with an Eldritch Battery setup instead. To my surprise, both gems do work with ES spent, unlike Arcane Surge or Inspiration, but their effect is still based on your current (unreserved) mana, which in our case is 0 or close to it and with that their effect is expectedly bad.
For the next content update (3.11) I will however consider a fully manabased setup including both of these gems, if they're not nerfed too much.
Changelog
‣ 27th March 2020: Gear Section - updated Cluster Jewel Passive List
Only showing the newest change, you can find the full changelog here!
Art done by sk_gunoo! _________________________________________________________________________
Path of Building is a tool that lets you fully plan characters from scratch, check out other peoples setups or import your own character to check DPS & defenses or compare potential upgrades.
I know that some people jump straight to the PoB without ever reading the guide, which often leads to failure and is then blamed on the build. Don't be that person!
I've invested lots of time into this guide and find it very rude when people just disregard that
and ask about things that are already well explained. This unfortunately keeps happening.
+ cheap & fully SSF-capable + smooth gameplay & progression + capable to do all bosses & mapmods - no Life Regeneration with base build - not the best boss DPS potential - Golems are effing useless
Main Mechanics in this Build
‣ Chaining: Arc is a lightning-based spell with the ability to chain from monsters and destroyable objects, even around corners and out of your line of sight! Each time it chains, it will also split to
a second nearby enemy from where it can't chain further. The amount of times Arc can chain depends on its gem level and can be increased by enchantments.
‣ Crit: An effective way to increase damage which consists of two parts, Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Multiplier. The former decides if your hit crits or not, the latter decides by how much its damage is amplified. Crits also have a 100% chance to apply Elemental Status Ailments if all other conditions are met. It takes some investment to work properly however, so until reaching maps we use Elemental Overload instead.
‣ Mind over Matter: This mechanic redirects 30% of damage we take to our mana. We couple this with Eldritch Battery to redirect it to Energy Shield instead, which allows us to fully reserve our mana for auras. To make this effective, we want atleast 43% of our lifepool as Energy Shield. Same as above, we keep this for maps to keep investment low during early game content.
‣ Golems: A type of minions that grant buffs to the player while active, once per type of golem. With our Ascendancy and the Golem Commander notable we can summon a total of 4 golems.
Here's a small collection of generic advice for newer players:
‣ Information: Knowledge is a strong skill in Path of Exile, and it helps to know where to find it. First there's the ingame Help Panel, which you can reach through its icon next to your skillbar.
The Path of Exile Wiki should be your first stop for further information, poedb for plain data.
Lastly, Engineering Eternity has a youtube channel with lots of informative videos.
‣ Lootfilter: You will soon realize that there's lots of redundant loot in this game, a good Lootfilter reduces screen clutter and highlights potentially valuable or important drops. Neversink's Filter is always a good start and you can further customize it at Filterblade.
‣ Flasks: Unlike most ARPG's, this game is directly balanced around using all your flasks.
This goes beyond the typical life & mana flasks that you're probably used to from other games, during your act progression you'll gain access to various utility flasks which grant powerful buffs. Flasks can also be crafted, but it's not needed until maps so i've kept it for their own flask section. For now, focus on keeping your life & mana flasks updated, get all utility flasks from quests when mentioned and try to get a feeling for your flask usage.
‣ Crafting: Gear can be enhanced in various ways through crafting and recipes, while the latter can also create currency used for crafting. You outlevel gear pretty quickly during act progression, so it's not advised to invest too much at this point. Limit it to Orbs of Transmutation, Orbs of Augmentation, Orbs of Alteration, Chromatic Orbs and various Essences you can find for now,
use Jeweller's Orbs and Orbs of Fusing only on useful gear you've looted. Try to focus on intelligence-based gear for additional defense and an easier time to get the right colors.
‣ Crafting Bench: After unlocking your first hideout, you'll gain access to the Crafting Bench.
This can be used to craft a targeted affix on gear, if it isn't already there and has a slot available. Use it to craft any damage affixes, Life, Attributes or Elemental Resistances missing on your gear.
Recipes need to be found first, the Crafting Bench tells you all undiscovered recipe locations.
‣ Trading: You can freely trade with other players if you have a Lv25+ char and aren't in SSF. Path of Exile's own trading site is good for buying gear, currency.poe.trade and poemap are convenient for bulk currency- and map trades. If you want to sell something, you either need premium stash tabs, set up a shop in the trade subforums or use Acquisition. For pricechecks, look for similar stuff on the trade site, check poe.ninja or use the trade macro (ctrl + alt + d).
‣ Stash Tabs: The default stash space is pretty limited, if you like the game and are able to, consider buying more stash tabs. Getting a Currency- and Map Tab is highly recommended, Premium Tabs make trading easier and if you want, a Quad Tab makes a good dump tab.
Purchased tabs are account-wide, you won't lose them when temporary leagues end.
There's also a stash tab sale weekend each month, wait for that if you're not in a rush.
Full Leveling Section
Your journey through the ten acts can be seen as an extensive tutorial, slowly confronting you with the majority of game mechanics and increasingly more difficult enemies to learn to counter.
This section will help you while playing through the ten acts and shows the recommended
passive tree progression, gem setups, quest progression and exp farming zone for each act.
The passive tree goals are just a pointer, it's not a big deal if you're over- or underleveled.
Most builds don't come alive or work before reaching maps, and that's true for this build aswell. We finish the acts with a slightly different setup than what's planned for endgame, which reduces investment both gear- and passive-wise. Infact, you don't have to buy any gear until maps at all!
Keep in mind that this section includes major storyline spoilers, if you care about that.
‣ Kill the Zombie, pick up Fireball and switch left-click to move-only
‣ Get Arcane Surge (keep it Lv1 -> right-click "+") from Large Chest and kill Hillock
‣ Buy Spark from Nessa, link it with Arcane Surge and throw away Fireball
‣ Check vendors for Boots with Movement Speed and a second Wand
‣ Get the Coast Waypoint, kill Hailrake on Tidal Island and get Quicksilver Flask in town
‣ Finish your quest in Mud Flats and Enter Submerged Passage
‣ Get the Waypoint, look for Flooded Depths and kill the Dweller of the Deep
‣ Get Orb of Storms, Frostblink and Passive Skillpoint in town
‣ Orb of Storms provides extra damage while you cast Arc within its radius
‣ Set Orb of Storms to "attack without moving" (left-click icon in skillbar)
‣ Enter Prison, get Added Lightning Damage in town and link it to Spark + Arcane Surge
‣ Check vendors for any item with 3-linked blue sockets if needed for above
‣ Craft two wands with this recipe: Magic-rarity Wand + Topaz Ring + Orb of Alteration
‣ If needed, the recipe for Topaz Rings is Iron Ring + Green Skill Gem
‣ Start looking out for 2x Sapphire Rings
‣ If needed, the recipe for Sapphire Rings is Iron Ring + Blue Skill Gem
‣ Complete Trial of Ascendancy in Lower Prison
‣ Kill Brutus, then get Clarity (keep it Lv5) and Flame Dash in town
‣ Replace Frostblink with Flame Dash and set it to "attack without moving"
‣ Progress to Ship Graveyard and get the Waypoint
‣ Look for Ship Graveyard Cave, get Allflame then get Cavern of Wrath Waypoint
‣ Travel to Ship Graveyard Waypoint and kill Fairgraves
‣ Go to town to get Passive Skillpoint and Arc
‣ Replace Spark with Arc and set it to "attack without moving"
‣ Equip Sapphire Rings and kill Merveil
‣ Once in town, enter the Old Fields first
‣ Start looking out for 2x Topaz Rings
‣ If needed, the recipe for Topaz Rings is Iron Ring + Green Skill Gem
‣ Look for the Den, kill Great White Beast and get second Quicksilver in town
‣ Continue to Crossroads and get Waypoint
‣ Enter Chamber of Sins, complete Trial of Ascendancy on Level 2 and kill Fidelitas
‣ Get Herald of Thunder and Wave of Conviction (keep it Lv1)
‣ Wave of Conviction can be used to temporarily lower boss resistances
‣ Go back to Crossroads, enter Broken Bridge and kill Kraityn
‣ Back to Crossroads once more, enter Fellshrine Ruins and Crypt
‣ Complete Trial of Ascendancy in Crypt
‣ Back to town, enter Riverways and get the Waypoint
‣ Follow the path opposite of Riverways Waypoint until you reach Wetlands
‣ Kill Oak, get Wetlands Waypoint and go back to Riverways
‣ Go to Western Forest, get Waypoint, Help Alira and kill Captain Arteri
‣ Look for Weaver's Chambers and kill Weaver
‣ Get Elemental Focus and link it to Orb of Storms
‣ Go back to Lioneye's Watch and get Passive Skillpoint
‣ Make your way to the Ancient Pyramid, equip Topaz Rings and kill Vaal Oversoul
‣ Start looking out for 4-linked Intelligence-based gear
‣ Focus on having 75% Cold-, Fire- and Lightning Resistance from now on
‣ Kill the Blackguards in City of Sarn and enter town
‣ Go to Slums, enter Crematorium, finish Trial of Ascendancy and kill Piety
‣ Get Sewer Key and Zealotry in town, replace Herald of Thunder with it
‣ Go back to Slums, enter Sewers, get Waypoint, find three busts and get skillpoint in town
‣ Get Marketplace Waypoint and finish Trial of Ascendancy in Catacombs
‣ Enter Battlefront, get Waypoint and kill Captain Aurelianus
‣ Go to Docks and get Thaumetic Sulphite
‣ Back to Battlefront, enter Solaris Temple and talk to Lady Dialla
‣ Destroy the Undying Blockade in Sewers
‣ Enter Ebony Barracks, get Waypoint and kill General Gravicius
‣ Enter Lunaris Temple, kill Piety and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Get Imperial Gardens Waypoint and finish Trial of Ascendancy
‣ Go to Library and finish Siosa's quest
‣ You can now buy all unlocked gems at Siosa (currency needs to be in bag!)
‣ Get Lightning Penetration and link it to Arc
‣ Get another Lightning Penetration and link it to Orb of Storms
‣ Get Second Wind and link it to Flame Dash
‣ Get Steelskin and Flesh and Stone, run the latter in Sand Stance
‣ Enter the Sceptre of God and kill Dominus
‣ Enter the Dried Lake, kill Voll and enter the Mines
‣ Free Deshret's Spirit in Mines Level 2, progress to Crystal Veins and get Waypoint
‣ Get Passive Skillpoint, Summon Lightning Golem and Summon Stone Golem in town
‣ Hold CTRL and put your golems into the secondary skillbar
‣ Complete the first Labyrinth, you can enter it through the Sarn Encampment
‣ Read up on the Lord's Labyrinth and Izaro to get an idea what's going on
‣ After finishing the Labyrinth, ascend to Elementalist and get Liege of the Primordial
‣ Go back to Crystal Veins, enter Kaom's Dream and kill Kaom
‣ Now enter Daresso's Dream and kill Daresso
‣ Get Spell Echo in town and replace Arcane Surge in your Arc Setup with it
‣ Link Arcane Surge to Flame Dash and still keep it Lv1
‣ Get Cast when Damage taken and link it to Steelskin, this will automate its casting when needed
‣ If you don't have a 4L for your Arc Setup yet, focus on this before continuing
‣ Kill Piety in Belly of the Beast, and finally Malachai in the Harvest
‣ Kill Overseer Krow and enter town
‣ Find the Miasmeter in Control Blocks and kill Justicar Casticus
‣ Get Silver Flask and Skillpoint in town
‣ Replace a Life Flask with Silver Flask and try to roll of Staunching on it
‣ If you find a Basalt Flask from here on, keep it, we need it later
‣ Make your way to Templar Courts, kill Avarius and get any unique jewel in town
‣ Get Ruined Square Waypoint and optionally kill Utula
‣ Finish the quest in Reliquary and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Look for the Sign of Purity in Ossuary
‣ Kill Kitava on Cathedral Rooftop
‣ You will suffer a permanent -30% resistance penalty after this fight
‣ Clear the Twilight Strand to unlock Lilly as Skillgem Vendor
‣ Get to Mud Flats and kill the Dishonored Queen
‣ Enter Karui Fortress, kill Tukohama and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Use Soul of Tukohama for now
‣ Finish Trial of Ascendancy in Prison and kill Shavronne
‣ Enter Prisoner's Gate, kill Abberath and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Get Riverways Waypoint
‣ Enter Wetlands, kill Puppet Mistress and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Light the Beacon and kill the Brine King
‣ Use Soul of the Brine King for now
‣ Find the Silver Locket in Broken Bridge and get Diamond Flask in town
‣ Replace a Quicksilver Flask with Diamond Flask
‣ Enter Crossroads, get Waypoint then enter Crypt through Fellshrine Ruins
‣ Finish Trial of Ascendancy and find Maligaro's Map
‣ Go back to Crossroads and enter Chamber of Sins
‣ Kill Maligaro in Maligaro's Sanctum
‣ Finish Trial of Ascendancy in Chamber of Sins Level 2 and enter the Den
‣ Make your way to Ashen Fields and kill Greust, then get Skillpoint in town
‣ Get Northern Forest Waypoint and enter Dread Thicket
‣ Collect all Fireflies and kill Gruthkul, then get Skillpoint in town
‣ Use Soul of Gruthkul
‣ Find Kishara's Star in Causeway and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Get the Vaal City Waypoint, enter Temple of Decay and go back to town
‣ Finish the second Labyrinth and get Elemancer
‣ Go back to Act 4 and get Summon Chaos Golem
‣ Get back to the Temple of Decay and kill Arakaali
‣ Enter the Toxic Conduits and kill Doedre
‣ Go for Quay first, find Ankh of Eternity, kill Tolman and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Kill the Gemling Legionnaires in Grain Gate and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Enter Solaris Temple, get Sun Orb then enter Solaris Concourse and get Waypoint
‣ Go back to Doedre's Cesspool and go for the Grand Promenade now
‣ Get Bath House Waypoint and finish Trial of Ascendancy
‣ Enter High Gardens, kill Yugul and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Enter Lunaris Temple through Lunaris Concourse and get Moon Orb
‣ Go to Harbour Bridge and kill Solaris & Lunaris
‣ Use Soul of Lunaris
‣ Find the Storm Blade in Vastiri Desert and speak to Petarus & Vanja in town
‣ Look for a blocked entrance in Vastiri Desert
‣ Go to town, talk to Sin and then to Petarus & Vanja
‣ Kill Shakari and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Get Foothills Waypoint, enter Boiling Lake and get Basilisk Acid
‣ Enter the Tunnel and finish Trial of Ascendancy
‣ Get Quarry Waypoint, enter Refinery and get Trarthan Powder
‣ Go back to Quarry and kill Garukhan and get Sekhema Feather
‣ Go to town and give the feather to either Tasuni or Irasha, get Skillpoint
‣ Enter Belly of the Beast and kill the Depraved Trinity
‣ Go left on Cathedral Rooftop and kill Plaguewing
‣ Now go right, enter the Ravaged Square and go south
‣ Enter the Control Blocks, kill Vilenta and get Skillpoint in town
‣ Optionally find the Teardrop in Reliquary
‣ Go back to Ravaged Square and get its Waypoint in the upper part
‣ Enter Ossuary, complete Trial of Ascendancy and get Elixir of Allure
‣ Get to Desecrated Chamber through Torched Courts and kill Avarius
‣ Finish the third Labyrinth and get Paragon of Calamity
‣ Enter the Canals and make your way to the final bossfight
‣ You will suffer another permanent -30% resistance penalty after this fight
‣ Talk to Lani for two Skillpoints
‣ Find Kirac in the Templar Laboratory and finish his quest
‣ Now it's time to look at the second part of this guide!
‣ Gear up for endgame and switch to the endgame gem setup and -passive tree Don't forget to unspec Elemental Overload!
‣ If you lack currency, run Currency Delve nodes and/or start doing the Chaos Orb recipe
Hi! First of all, the best guide i've ever seen, so thanks for that..
Quick question, i remember using this guide on metamorph and instead of using flame dash you recommended leap slam, is it still viable to use leap slam? And how do i fit that into the build?
Also, where can i find the 3.9 guide? There were thing in there that fit better with my personal playstyle and that i liked more, i would like to take a look at that 3.9 guide if it is available somewhere
Hi, just crafted this staff using ~1500 alts while trying to get +3 lightning spell gem. Is my only option to just regal it and hope for +3 lightning gem or is there a much 'safer' through crafting to get a +3 lightning gem.
Hi Enki, I crafted this using the fossil method from you crafting guide. Not too sure how good it is. What would you do with this staff at this point? I haven't unlocked the autocast veiled mod yet.
Has anyone cleared simulacrum or high delerium t16 maps?
My golems die almost almost instantly even with lvl 21 meatshield, And i get oneshot by something I'm not sure what it is, through 5.6k life and 2.3k ES.
Here's my PoB : https://pastebin.com/xAehxrtZ
Only major changes are the jewel and ive added in wrath.
