[2.4 | Video Guide] The Big Dipper & Galaxy Ripper - Non-Crit & CoC Vortex Ignites

Build Guide & Uber Lab:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yj5Ikn__pU

Not at all:
Simply toss down an Orb of Storms, use Vaal Lightning Trap if it's available, then Vortex the boss.
That's all there is to it!
You can use your Dousing flask to turn RF off after you ignite the boss if you want some regen.

We're pulling around 950% increased damage total, 610% or so of which is from the tree.
A grand spectrum build with 14 jewels gets around 980% from the tree, for an extra 370% assuming similar gear.
There is extremely little non-spectrum damage taken in spectrum builds. There is some, but as you'll see it's not enough to impact the comparison in any meaningful way.

Grand Spectrum will do a total of 35.2% More double dipping damage compared to our increased damage. When double dipping these, this totals out to 83% More Damage on the ignite.
For us, we take our 10.5x damage that we deal (950% increased on the 100% base) and double dip it with Righteous Fire, for a 59-62% More Double Dip (as well as a little bit of increased damage on the jewel). This is 153% - 162% More Damage, double what Grand Spectrum can pull.

When our RF is off we do less damage than Grand Spectrum but have 1,500 regen.
When our RF is on we do much more damage than Grand Spectrum and still have a nice amount of regeneration between the Stone Golem, Ruby Flask and Overflowing Chalice.

In addition to this we have:
Two fully automated curses that allows you to pick and choose your curses as you want.
25% extra AoE from the scion and templar areas, which costs both too many points for a Spectrum build (or sacrificing a spectrum for intuitive leap in terms of scion start)
No need for a 6 Link
Lower mana cost
Higher Cast Speed
40% Curse Effectiveness (with Intuitive Leap + 20% Blasphemy)

Pretty good stuff.

==Damage==

Bosses

Versus Shaper
Immune to Shock (Damage / 1.5 / 1.5)
40% Fire Resistance

3,159,782 Fire Damage Per Second


Versus 75% Resist Boss:
1.48x Initial Hit
1.23x Ignite

4,476,085 Fire Damage Per Second


Versus 40% Resist Boss:
1.83x Initial Hit
1.58x Ignite

7,109,510 Fire Damage Per Second


Versus 15% Resist Boss:
2.08x Initial Hit
1.83x Ignite

9,359,355 Fire Damage Per Second


Versus 0% Resist Boss:
2.23x Initial Hit
1.98x Ignite

10,856,793 Fire Damage Per Second



Mobs

Versus 75% Resist Mob:
2.22x to Initial Hit
1.97x to Ignite

10,753,521 Fire Damage Per Second

Versus 0% Resist Mob:
2.97x to Initial Hit
2.72x to Ignite

19,863,549 Fire Damage Per Second

Fire Resistance: Swap Less Duration out for Fire Penetration

No Regen: Turn off Elemental Weakness (and clarity if you are still on low life while it's off) and use your Hybrid Flask to sustain your mana. Our low mana cost due to running a 4L is a huge benefit.

Vulnerability / Less Regen: Leave RF off even if it is a damage reduction map in this case. If you are a scientist, you can activate RF while igniting the boss like normal. By reading this build guide you accept that I hold no liability in the instance that death occurs in this manner. Thank for understand.

Poison / Desecrated Ground: Just keep your eye on your HP. Desecrated ground is worse.
Turning off Discipline is fine even in red maps if you need the extra safety against chaos resist to run a really good but rippy chaos map.

Elemental Weakness: You should be aiming to cap your resists against this curse, but if necessary you can run Purity of Elements.

Hexproof: If you don’t want to spend chromes or buy a 2nd beast, just turn your curses off and keep the unreserved mana.
Otherwise, swap in Arctic Armour and Vitality (keep vitality low enough level that you can equip it).
Depending on your gear setup, you may want to swap in Mokou’s Embrace.

Blood Magic: Skip

We run Flammability and Elemental Weakness.
Both of them offer massive double dipping damage, and Flammability grants us a bunch of ignite chance. The curses are linked to Blasphemy which guarantees they are always active.

We use a multi-layered stun protection in this build, however you can also use Valyrium if you want.

Our boots can be enchanted to provide an 80% chance to avoid being stunned if we have killed recently, which adds a huge level of smoothness onto the entire setup.

These sources of stun protection multiply together, meaning that we do not have to worry much about stun.

If we have killed recently, only 20% of stuns will get through our avoidance.
If we are taking damage, having any amount of energy shield gives us a 50% chance to cancel the ones that get through our avoidance.
Finally, if we are casting then 55% of the stuns that both are not avoided and not cancelled by energy shield will still not interrupt us, because of Practical Application.

To handle stuns, we use Kiara's Determination whenever we are about to engage enemies.
This prevents us from being stunned entirely, allowing us to destroy the pack.
From here, our boots are now activated: 80% Chance to Avoid Stun.

We can ride out this effect until we run into a long space between packs.
As long as you leave yourself with 1 charge of Kiara's up after you kill the last pack in the group of packs, you'll be ready to go with full stun immunity again when you encounter your next group of mobs.

If you want to overkill it, you can use both this setup and Valyrium to get near immunity to stuns.

One thing I wanted to be able to do with this build is run far more map mods than most builds that incorporate an RF that can be sustained permanently are able to. You do need a very solid ES pool to be able to sustain it, but this is not a problem.

The Beast Fur Shawl’s 40% recovery applies to all ways in which you can recovery ES: Leech, Gain on Hit, Recharge, and most importantly for us, Regeneration.

This build is similar in a way to some temporary RF builds, in that it is tuned around Righteous Fire being an Offensive/Defensive toggle. What this means is that we deal more than enough damage even when RF is turned off. However, this build is also able to sustain RF permanently without leech, making it a proper toggle rather than a temporary buff.

Your Ruby Flask, Stone Golem and Overflowing Chalice will provide very solid amounts of regen during their effect, keeping your shield topped off. We also carry a Dousing flask which allows us to instantly turn RF off and gain massive regen.

Righteous Fire is especially effective in maps with combinations of Monster Life, Resistance and Enfeeble. Righteous Fire allows you to maintain your ability to quickly wipe mobs even in the most extreme damage reduction maps, and will kill things that get too close to you.

It is also quite effective to turn RF on in general for all bosses, as you can immediately turn it off again after landing your ignite by using your Dousing flask. This gives us access to our offense and defence on the fly as needed, and since we are a DoT build we do not need our offense to be up the entire time anyway.

What I said about being tuned around not needing RF is important though: We can still oneshot the majority of mobs with RF turned off. While it is still plenty safe to run maps with RF, you can run maps far more lazily when you leave it off. This is a really nice quality of life benefit, and lets you cruise through maps mainly just making sure you flask up when you take chaos damage.

In addition to this, we have two curses on blasphemy, one of which is easily swapped out.
Elemental Weakness can be swapped out for Enfeeble in dangerous situations if you feel it is necessary.

Because of this ability to toggle between extreme offence (RF + EE) and defence (Regen + Enfeeble) as well as in between, this build handles mapping far better than others that use RF.

Kill all 3 bandits on each difficulty for 3 passive points.

For our ascendancy, we’re going with the Proliferationist Elementalist.

To start, we grab Shaper of Desolation.
This gives us a period of time where our ignite chance is 100%, as well as a period of time where we can shock. This is just a nice bonus on top of what we’ve already got in terms of mapping.
For bosses however, this can be extremely potent and provide an additional layer of safety if you time it correctly. Because so many of the new maps have arenas for bosses, you can run extremely rippy bosses by waiting for a couple seconds outside their arena to time conflux. If you’ve got your single target set up and RF going, you will generally still oneshot T15 map bosses even if you don’t get an elemental overload proc.

Second, we grab Beacon of Ruin. Getting proliferation without a damage penalty is a massive benefit. Not only does this allow us to consistently wipe out packs, but it also helps melt rares and bosses with adds. The strongest ignite takes effect on an enemy so if we proliferate a bunch of ignites around a rare (or more importantly, an essence mob), we always get the strongest ignite out of the pack onto the tankiest mob.

In addition to that, it adds a shitton of AoE.

Third, we grab Pendulum of Destruction. Getting the occasional AoE and damage boost never hurts.

Finally we grab Mastermind of Discord.
We’re using lightning skills anyway: To Proc Elemental Overload and EE, to move, and to shock.
25% Penetration is fantastic, and while on the majority of trash you face the 80% damage from Liege of the Primordial would actually be better, Mastermind is better against resistant enemies, where it counts.

Remember, you only need to proc this every 10 seconds and you don’t even need to stop to do it, lightning warp will trigger this. On bosses, we use Orb of Storms to proc Elemental Equilibrium and Elemental Overload, so that’s also taken care of. Basically automated.

The reason Vortex is in our helmet is because of the 30% More Elemental Damage suffix.
With a 6 Link, our best options are Level 4 Empower + Rapid Decay for a multiplier of 1.3 * 1.39 for a total of 1.807.

The helmet offers us 1.3 * 1.3 for a total of 1.69. This means that going from a 4L helm to a 6L only offers 6% More Damage, but also requires you to drop damage somewhere (either a suffix or passive points) to use Rapid Decay, massively increases the mana cost, and takes 2 gem slots.

Pretty badass helmet mod, eh?

Just use a 5 or 6 link until you can get ahold of a helmet like this.
(Less Duration for 5th link, Rapid Decay or Fire Penetration for 6th link depending on your stats)

Helmet - 4L
- Vortex
- Controlled Destruction
- Increased Area of Effect
- 4th Link

You have a few options for your 4th link:

Less Duration offers the most damage of the available supports, but is significantly weaker than the supports we're using.

Chance to Ignite offers safety through additional consistency on bosses, at the cost of not using a damage support. If you have enough damage, you won't even notice. This is the recommended gem for maps that have Chance To Avoid Status Ailments.

Chance to Ignite can also offer additional *real* speed. If you have enough damage to instakill a boss without Less Duration, then with Chance to Ignite you will be spending less time casting over the course of multiple maps.

You deal 70% damage with Chance to Ignite compared to Less Duration.
Something to realize is that at this point, you're oneshotting stuff on a 3L. Vortex is flameblast levels of power without having to channel.

Fire Penetration is massively devalued under most circumstances because of how much we already lower enemy resistance, but on maps with 60% or 80% to enemy fire resistance, it becomes quite powerful.

Just use a 5L or 6L chest until you have the helmet.


Body Armour - 4L + 2L or 6L
- Blasphemy
- Flammability
- Elemental Weakness
- Enlighten
--------
- Lightning Warp
- Less Duration

Gloves
- Cast When Damage Taken
- Immortal Call
- Increased Duration
- Vaal Discipline

Boots
- Blood Magic
- Clarity
- Discipline
- Enlighten

Weapon
- Purity of Fire
- Righteous Fire
- Summon Stone Golem

Shield
- Orb of Storms
- Vaal Lightning Trap
- Increased Critical Strikes

=WEAPON=



We want to get a bunch of spell damage, and +2 levels to fire gems.
Get some Fire Damage and Resistance as a suffix if possible.

Use a Doryani's Catalyst in the meantime, or if you are running a Non-RF version of the build.



=RINGS=



(I plan to craft that Opal ring with metamods)

For our rings, we're using a solid Rare ring and Pyre.
You'll want to craft Elreon's 20% Energy Shield onto your ring when you can afford it.
If you have enough chaos resistance and feel you have enough energy shield, you can use Mokou's Embrace instead of a rare ring.

Pyre converts our damage to Fire, which both lets us ignite and also causes Flammability do double dip (as opposed to using Hrimburn).



=HELMET=



We're going with a helmet with a 20% Reservation enchant on one of your auras.
In addition, when you are able to you want to get a helmet with 30% More Elemental Damage to Socketed Gems. This is nearly the same damage as a 6L, while costing as much as a 4L, saving 2 gem sockets, and letting us get more damage from suffixes /passives / jewels by not needing Dexterity.



=GLOVES=



For our gloves, we're using Southbound.
This allows us to proliferate effectively by not destroying corpses with Pyre.
It also grants a massive amount of cold resistance, and some increased life.

You can swap these for any gloves you want during bosses like Shaper, Izaro and the Guardians.


=BELT, SHIELD, BOOTS, AMULET=



We’re going with rares in these slots.
Get as much resistance as you can on your belt. Use a Heavy Belt until level 79, then switch to a Crystal Belt.

Leo's Reduced Damage Over Time taken mod allows more than offsets the 5% Increased Damage Taken on The Beast Fur Shawl.
This also allows us to get a massive boost to energy shield and any resistances you need, compared to Rise of the Phoenix.



=CHEST=



It's got the Shield.
It's got the Deeps.
It's got the AoE.
It's got the Regen.
SIXTY SIX ENDURANCE
EVERYTHIN U NEED


Jewels:

Use this on Melding and Quick Recovery.

Chance to Ignite is a very helpful mod on your jewels, I recommend searching for some jewels with 2 damage stats + ignite chance.
If you can get a third damage stat or ES, or any good 4 mod jewel, even better.
You may need a jewel or two with Chaos Resistance depending on your gear.

Spell Damage, Spell Damage with Shields, Area Damage, Fire Damage and Increased Damage fully double dip with all your damage.
Other damage types single dip.

I include up to level 96 here, but you can be running RF and have all your ES and whatnot well before then.

When you can, buy an Intuitive Leap and use it to grab Skittering Runes and the AoE at scion start. These are obviously more valuable than Explosive Impact, so leave impact for last.

Chance to Ignite Gem Tree
Use Intuitive Leap to replace the Curse Cast Speed and Strength nodes with the scion's 10% Area of Effect Radius.

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMCAAthDF8NfA5IES0RLxFQEZYYVhhdGGoabBqBGyUcpxzcH8ci9CaIKPoDdSsKK3gsnC2LNbk8KDwFHxg8LTzvPV9FnUZSDR9JsUuuTItRdFJTU1JTpVZIV8lYB1ugXGtcil3yaHRo8mt6bAttGXgve9d8DnyDfOV_xoKbgseDX4RIhTKPGo9GkPqTJ5SgzRaXlZf0mK2aO5rgm6FfBJ2un9-hL6KjppmnCKcrp1Wcvq3xr2y3MLiTvorAZsNtxq5Yd8i_1abXz9gk2VvaYt9t34rkIuha6QLr7lH7kSvtPO9L73zviEGH98H31_k3-ej8TJ7Epr5UR4w237CHZRBY

Less Duration Gem Tree
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMCABynw22YrekCS64bJdlbbRkRUJf0bAs1uVJTIvSnKz1fkye-in_G74h716EvKwr5N2ZU18-boUmxDXw871ugGoFca1fJhEhcioV7KPrsOFZIgse4k49GLpT56Bzc37BodOvujxqXhdpiGFY094NffA4abDwt5CL3wdWmGF3tPK3xmjuio5_fgpvvfDwFXfLAZmjyJojoWrcwl5X311OlkSsOSBGWES-FMpSgp1XYJFNSRZ1RdKaZDF_Grgth7FVYB3zlpwidrl8EWHcqjUkbNtia4AN1IbDxbKyYa3rIv0ZS_EyQ-t9tTIvvS3gvr2wYai2LH8ffinyDES0snCt4

Carry a staunching flask while levelling and in dangerous situations.
It is not necessary in even T16 maps due to being able to turn off RF and pop Vaal Discipline, except in circumstances of extreme bleed under vulnerability or less regen.

For the ascendancy, we're going with the Occultist

Wicked Ward and Vile Bastion provide massive amounts of defense.
Profane Bloom gives a nice chunk of extra damage, and the chaos explosion helps kill things near the edge of the pack.
Malediction saves us a bunch of passive points.

There are some key gear differences between the Big Dipper and the Galaxy Ripper:



1. You will need a 6L The Beast Fur Shawl. If you do not have a 6L, the Big Dipper will be better for you.

2. You will need a dagger with Vagan's signature mod "Hits Can't Be Evaded".
Your dagger does NOT need +2 to fire gems, thankfully.
The bare minimum here is Hits Can't Be Evaded and Critical Strike Chance.
Ideally, you want to multimod your dagger into:

P Hits Can't Be Evaded
P Spell Damage
P Lightning Damage
S Increased Critical Strike Chance
S Critical Strike Chance for Spells / Attack Speed
S Multimod



3. You will need Facebreaker (or gloves of choice) corrupted with Elemental Weakness on Hit. This frees up the space needed to run Vitality.

You also no longer need the 30% More Elemental Damage helmet mod.

Finally, try to get Lightning Damage somewhere on your gear. This will proc Elemental Equilibrium automatically on the first hit of things for you.

We run Elemental Weakness as our primary curse.
When mapping, we use Assassin's Mark to generate power charges without having to wait for Orb of Storms.
For bosses, we can swap Assassin's Mark for either Flammability or Enfeeble depending on your preference. Both are substantially stronger than Assassin's Mark.

I would not bother Curse-Swapping on anything below T15 unless you are running a map with significant amounts of damage reduction.

=Chest=
R Shield Charge
B Vortex
G Cast on Crit
B Controlled Destruction
B Increased Critical Strikes
B Increased Area of Effect / Concentrated Effect

=Weapon=
R Summon Flame Golem
R Purity of Fire
B Vaal Lightning Trap

=Shield=
B Righteous Fire
B Orb of Storms
B Power Charge on Critical

=Helmet=
B Blasphemy
B Enlighten
R Vitality
B Assassin's Mark / Flammability / Enfeeble

=Boots=
R Blood Magic
B Vitality
B Clarity
B Enlighten

=Gloves=
B Vaal Discipline
R Cast When Damage Taken
R Immortal Call
R Increased Duration