[2.4] THOR'S RAINBOWNUKE: RIP to GGG Designing for Xbox One

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Hello everyone! I'm tackle70 and I want to show you how you can unlock the true potential of the unique Gavel Mjölner by combining it with Romira's Banquet, and Voll's Devotion.



Note, that Mjölner, Romira's Banquet and Voll's Devotion are required for the build to work optimally. However, Voll's Devotion is not required until T12+ maps.

Everything that is going to be mentioned has been tested and confirmed working.

Huge special thanks to Tom94 for originally creating this build way back in 1.1 when Mjölner was released. This is a continuation of his original build thread, made with permission. This build was formerly in the Scion subforum (here) but Marauder has been ideal since 2.3 and as of 2.4 is the only logical choice, so it's time for the guide to show up here!

Special thanks to goat4dinner for making the graphics used in this guide!

Thanks also to Tanakeah and iSo1id for their help testing various things in Ascendancy.

"Thor's Rainbownuke is the greatest build ever made in Path of Exile." -Tom94

"My hammer is amazing - I never thought of using it for explosions!" -Thor

"Now I see it: This is exactly what Diablo 3 lacked." -Way Jilson

"Rainbownuked my way to a pot of gold and one-shotted the leprechaun on the way." -Goat4dinner

"DPS" -Fyndel



Best Ascendancy & Class Choice: Berserker (Marauder)

• Take Pain Reaver, Aspect of Carnage, then Rite of Ruin
• This does two things this build absolutely LOVES - provides a solid amount of Life Leech (Pain Reaver) and a massive damage boost (Aspect of Carnage). Rite of Ruin is just a nice bonus.
• As of 2.4, with all the various balance changes to Mjölner, I would no longer recommend playing this build (Low Life Mjolner) on another class or Ascendancy.

Should I Care About Lab Enchantments?
The short answer is "no, not really". If you can get +Damage on your helmet for Arc or Discharge, that's a nice little bonus, as is +2 Projectiles for Molten Strike. But I don't think it makes enough difference to be worth farming for.



Why use this build?





Summary of Changes Over Time




















Core items:

Mjölner is the item, that this build is based around. Each time you land a hit, a socketed lightning spell is triggered from Mjölner. We always put the lightning spells Discharge and Arc into this item for clearing out maps, since Arc does amazing Area damage to clean up packs and Discharge does the heavy single target hits to clear rare and unique mobs. Furthermore Mjölner provides an additional chain for all our projectiles, making Arc slightly more powerful and - more importantly - making Lightning Strike generate additional hits.


The great benefit of Romira's Banquet is, that it grants a Power Charge whenever you deal a non-critical strike. Since this build is taking the Resolute Technique keystone in the passive tree we can not deal critical strikes and therefore can not lose Power Charges by using this item.


Since Discharge expends all Power Charges, Voll's Devotion effectively doubles the total amount of charges available for each consecutive Discharge by generating an equal amount of Endurance Charges. As a side-effect we always have Endurance Charges to be expended by Immortal Call and protect from Physical Damage.

NOTE: This latter defensive role is by far the most important function of Voll's Devotion in 2.0+, because Immortal Call is your only meaningful defense against physical damage. The extra Damage provided is just a bonus.


If you can acquire the necessery Strength on your passive tree and gear to not need any on your gloves, Repentance Crusader Gloves are the Best in Slot item here. They provide an OK amount of Energy Shield, but most importantly provide a MASSIVE damage boost as they give you Iron Will. Since this build has 412+ Strength, Iron Will provides a minimum of 82% increased Spell Damage.


The new unique flask Vessel of Vinktar is highly recommended for this build. It takes the build to a whole new level of power both in offense and defense. Defensively, the incredible 30% Lightning Leech enables you to become invulnerable to everything except one-shot-kills during the flask duration, as you heal to full nearly instantly every time Mjölner triggers. This is so strong defensively that you no longer need to use Life Leech in Mjölner and can instead use Lightning Penetration for a significant boost in your damage.

NOTE: The 10% Lightning Penetration roll is ideal on this flask, but not necessary. The core stats of the flask are all you really need, and Lightning Penetration is just a bonus.

Low-life:
Because we are playing a low-life build, we need either Solaris Lorica or Shavronne's Wrappings to prevent chaos damage from almost instantly killing us. You do NOT need a 6-Link for this build to work. Only a 4-Link is required.


Jewels:
At least 3-4 Crimson Jewels with Life Gain on Hit are mandatory for this build so that you can sustain your attacks without carrying a Life Flask. Attack Speed, Energy Shield, Spell Damage, Strength, and Dexterity are all desirable rolls as well.

IT IS CRUCIAL TO NOTE THAT CRIMSON JEWELS ARE WHAT PROVIDE YOUR LIFE GAIN ON HIT TO SUSTAIN YOUR ATTACKS.



The following Unique jewels are recommended for this build if you already have enough Life Gain on Hit to sustain your attacks:

Because we are using the Blood Magic Keystone, Clear Mind gives us a large amount of free Spell Damage with no downside. Energy From Within can be socketed just northeast of the Scion starting area in conjunction with the hybrid Energy Shield/Life wheel nearby to give a large boost to Energy Shield


Important stats:
Since Mjölner requires 412 Strengh and 300 Intelligence to be worn we want to get as much Strengh and Intelligence as possible on our items next to the main focus of getting a large Energy Shield pool. Elemental resistances are less important due to the usage of the 3 Purity auras while Chaos resistance is very good to have. For well geared characters which have enough Strength and Intelligence, Attack Speed on the gloves and Movement Speed on the boots are good stats to aim for.

Note that the Forsaken Masters expansion made gearing this character much easier than previously, as you can master craft up to 30 Strength or Dexterity onto a rare piece of gear which has an open suffix for crafting.


Recommended Starter/Budget Items:

The Vertex is an extremely good helmet for its price. It offers a decent amount of energy shield while also adding chaos resistance and another level to auras within its sockets.

Note that it can also be used to socket your main attack and make use of the Gems in this item have 50% reduced Mana Cost mod; this will dramatically lower the amount of Life Gain on Hit you need to sustain your attacks.


Doryani's Invitation (lightning version) provides Strength, Lightning Damage, Chance to Shock and Lightning Leech. This is exactly what we want! Note that this belt is not only inexpensive, but also more or less Best in Slot for this build.


It is advisable to use a shield with Spell Damage and additional survivability. Rathpith Globe is a cheap and great item for this purpose.


Rainbowstride are a cheap way to get a pair of boots with resistances, movement speed, and Energy Shield if you are just starting out.

What Look for on Ideal Rare Gear:






Offensive spells: Arc+Discharge+Lightning Penetration+Concentrated Effect

We have 3 gem sockets in our Mjölner and need to use them to gain optimal damage. It is clear, that Discharge is a must due to the high damage it provides if enough charges can be obtained. A second spell Arc is chosen for map clearing due to the superior damage and range compared to other possible lightning spells. Note, that using Discharge a second time is not an option, because we would only have half the amount of charges per usage of Discharge, essentially keeping our damage output the same while crippling the potential for elemental status ailments by having weaker hits. As a nice bonus, quality on Arc provides additional Chance to Shock, which again boosts our damage.

The third socket in Mjölner should be Lightning Penetration or Controlled Destruction, if you have a Vessel of Vinktar flask. If you do not have Vessel of Vinktar, you may want to use Life Leech instead.

For Bosses, we want to take out Arc and put in Concentrated Effect for a massive damage boost to Discharge.



Primary & Multi-target attack:Lightning Strike
When facing a larger amount of enemies, it pays off to use another attack than for single enemies if it can generate even more hits per second. The attack of choice for us is Lightning Strike.

The links used for Lightning Strike are:
Lightning Strike-Faster Attacks-Multistrike-Fortify




Single-target attack:Molten Strike
Mjölner triggers the socketed spells on every hit. Therefore we have to look for single-target attacks which cause the most hits per second. The best single-target attack for this build easily is Molten Strike.

The links used for Molten Strike are:
Molten Strike-Faster Attacks-Greater Multiple Projectiles-Multistrike





Recommend use of Lightning vs Molten Strike:
Simply use Lightning Strike to clear maps and then swap in Molten Strike to kill the boss if the boss has enough health to be difficult or slow to kill with Lightning Strike.


Movement Skill: Leap Slam

You should link Leap Slam with Fortify. This allows you to Leap Slaminto bosses to begin attacking with Molten Strike and have Fortify up as you do so.

Leap Slam is the ideal movement skill for this build. It has good synergy with our increased attack speed, and provides us with an additional method for getting Fortify.

Additionally, this provides you with the option of using Molten Strike as a primary attack. It is often slow and dangerous to simply walk up to an enemy - or boss - and use Molten Strike; the inclusion of Leap Slam allows you to have fast, precise control of your movement and attacks using Molten Strike. Leap Slam in, kill with Molten Strike, Leap Slam out.


Defensive skills: Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call || Fortify || Blasphemy + Warlord's Mark

This build makes use of Cast when Damage Taken in combination with Immortal Call to mitigate large amounts of physical damage. Since there always are Endurance Charges available there is no need for Enduring Cry. Link Immortal Call with Increased Duration as well. This is the primary way you mitigate physical damage with this build. If Physical Damage does not 1-shot you, it basically cannot kill you!


Fortify is included in the build, as it provides a flat 20% reduction to all incoming damage, including damage from reflect. Fortify is linked to our movement skill, Leap Slam, as well as to our primary attack, Lightning Strike.


Blasphemy is used with Warlord's Mark in order to leech life from surrounding enemies. This grants a substantial boost to our survivability, and ensures we can use Lightning Penetration or Controlled Destruction instead of Life Leech in our Mjölner.


As of 2.4, I strongly recommend including one copy of Vaal Discipline in your build as a failsafe option for difficult boss fights or degen damage. Stay safe, exiles!

Auras & Heralds:


This build takes maximum advantage of the Auras to boost offense and defense. Purity of Ice, Purity of Fire, and Purity of Lightning cover our elemental defenses and raise our maximum elemental resistance. Note that level 23 is desirable on at least Purity of Lightning to aid in defense against elemental reflect due to the additional maximum resistance reached at level 23.

Haste is used to give a much needed boost to attack speed and also provides a bonus to movement speed. Discipline boosts our Energy Shield to endgame levels. Wrath and Herald of Thunder provide an enormous boost to Damage.

Note that a level 4 Enlighten along with applying Empower to your auras is purely optional.


Being at least level 80 is STRONGLY recommended for playing this build. You can get it to work as early as level 65-70 but it's clunky. The build begins to shine at level 90+ and benefits from leveling all the way to 100. Note that Scion and Witch are no longer great options for the build due to how much better the Berserker Ascendancy is in Marauder.





Marauder, Level 100

Marauder, Level 95

Marauder, Level 90

Marauder, Level 80

Passive Tree Philosophy:
This build takes the following Keystones: Blood Magic, Pain Attunement, Ghost Reaver, Vaal Pact, Resolute Technique, and Unwavering Stance.

Following Keystones, acquiring sufficient +Strength and +Dexterity to use your gear and auras is second priority.

Once sufficient stats are acquired, (almost) all Aura nodes are taken.

Finally, Energy Shield and Spell Damage passives are taken, along with as many Jewels as possible.