[2.4.1b] Pathfinder BV VMS 300 ignite build

Lots of damage
~300% of maximum life recovered/second
Can run all but one map mod (Elemental Status Ailment Immunity)
Can safely farm Shaper, ignoring most of his mechanics

Poor game performance (not just fps drops, the build generates MASSIVE latency)
Cannot heal from or damage ignite immune monsters
Uses 3 league specific unique items in conjunction (1 is mandatory)

VMS Minotaur https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2WE5-rwF0I
VMS Shaper becomes vulnerable https://youtu.be/LUmJiUGBzD8?t=29s
No VMS Minotaur (earlier build iteration) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZhWhnu2DXA
No VMS Shaper (earlier build iteration & special surprise) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS46HFXG2uE

Flasks are the backbone of this build. Most importantly, damage poisons while Master Herbalist is active.

Some other benefits:

Elemental Status Ailment Immunity
20% chance to ignite/freeze
Extra Chaos resist
20% flask effect
10% elemental penetration
10% random elemental damage
Double flask charges
8% reduced elemental damage taken (Will show why this is important in Unique item section)
40% increased elemental damage
Flasks refill over time

Of all the bonuses, only 20% chance to shock is irrelevant for this build.

219% life + 24% life on jewels
90% skill effect duration
30% Flask Effect (+20% from Pathfinder)
Blood Magic Keystone
Elemental Overload
162 Dexterity (no dexterity required on gear)
20% Curse effectiveness

Oak, Passive, Passive

You can take frenzy if you want, but I recommend getting the extra life node from the passive point instead.

Mandatory items:
Razor of the Seventh sun is a mandatory item for this build. Using two doubles the healing effect and is strongly recommended. As this item is relatively cheap and the rolls do not matter, it is reasonable to corrupt Culling Strike and Dual Wield Block chance on them to enhance build performance. A flame burst crafted weapon with added fire will remove the need for Mantra of flames, but reduce healing for the build by half. It is a viable option for all but the hardest content and increases clear significantly.


This amulet damages you every time you land a hit with this build because of

and


which triggers as a result of the Amulet damaging the player. Fortify is another buff which is active a majority of the time during play. Together, they deal enough damage such that every hit from any attack or spell will ignite.



These rings provide all the damage required for this build. Base ignite duration is 4 seconds. To reach 300 ignites, the duration must be extended and every hit must ignite. This build utilizes rare jewels with ignite chance and duration to achieve this.


The duration is further extended by

which is also a part of the same cast when damage taken setup.

The next most important item for the build is the helmet

which is crafted using an Essence of Hysteria. Using this essence allows a supported gem inside the helmet to reach 100% ignite chance, without the use of the support gem. Combined with the pathfinder global poison, this helmet is effectively a 6 link. The colors are a pain, but I believe using an evasion or armor helmet is ideal.

The enchant can be Temporal Chains or Vulnerability curse effectiveness. If going without the optional +1 curse amulet and glove corruption (or witchfire brew), stick with temporal chains curse effectiveness. It makes content easier and increases damage by extending ignite duration.

Next are flasks, after these everything else is optional.

I use these flasks most often, only switching out Dying Sun for a remove curse flask in Hall of Grandmasters. Keep in mind with the tree and pathfinder ascendancy, most of these flasks operate at 150% base effectiveness.

Atziri's promise provides 82% chaos resistance, allowing the player to forgo most chaos resist on gear.

Rumi's concoction combined with dual wielding 15% bonus and the sword 6% block corrupt, allows the user to reach 66% block chance, while also adding 8910 armour after passives.

Basalt provides a 30% static physical damage reduction and bleed immunity.

Taste of Hate converts 30% of physical damage taken to cold, which cannot chill or freeze because of Pathfinder status ailment immunity.

Dying Sun provides a 45% increase to area of effect of skills, which applies to Blade Vortex and Vaal Molten Shell. 9% maximum fire resistance. This flask is particularly important when using The Rat Cage, which effectively removes 11% maximum resist when base resist is only 75%. When resistance is 84%, it is like having 74.8% maximum resistance. This flask, combined with Pathfinder 8% reduced elemental damage taken, effectively puts you back to default, which is extremely important.

If you are not running Rat Cage for VMS, you do not need to run Dying Sun. You can instead run Witchfire brew if you have a +1 curse amulet.

Everything after this point is optional, but still recommended.


The Rat Cage is required in order to utilize Vaal Molten Shell. It makes Eye of Innocence deal physical damage to the player, which is required to make VMS detonate. The ideal colors would be 6 off, with the green being a concentrated effect, but added cold is still very strong, as VMS has 200% damage effectiveness. Added chaos is used to allow VMS to poison while flasks are active, as well as deal damage which cannot be reflected back.

When using The Rat Cage, fire damage is dangerous. I recommend using Kaoms for -max added fire maps or bosses with huge burst fire damage.

When using The Rat Cage you can also use

to extend up time on VMS. Atziri's Reign may also be used to extend VMS duration. For now, I feel that 13.2 seconds is adequate for all content.

Kaom's Heart is used to further increase life, especially for bosses which have multiple phases and cannot be eliminated with one use of VMS. It is also the staple chest for the non-VMS alternative to this build, which can still do all the same content, including Shaper.



The Retch is used to extend flask duration. With the belt + alchemist, basalt lasts 10.44 seconds. This flask is very helpful in maintaining 100% up time for longer multi-phase boss fights, like Chimera.


Rare gloves are ideal for getting life rolls. This build is missing life on rings and amulet so getting life on the rest of the gear is required. Vulnerability is my second curse with the build. The level matters very little, as I use it for the 33% increased damage taken over time effect, which is static. This is probably the least required portion of the build.


Rare boots with life, resistances and movement speed.

Helmet - Primary Setup, 4-Link:

All damage counts towards poison provided by Pathfinder. Fire damage comes from Mantra of Flames + Blood Rage buff. The total chance to ignite is 50% from helmet, 20% from Pathfinder Ascendancy, 11% from 4 jewels, 10% from Amulet and 5% from each ring. Every hit will ignite healing the player for 2% from Dual Wielding Razors and increasing damage by 10% from The Taming. (101%) Added Chaos beats out level 4 empower in raw damage and that portion of damage is not reflected, so it is preferred.

Gloves/Boots - Secondary Cast when Damage Taken Setups, Two 4-Links:

All Cast when Damage Taken setups are fueled by Eye of Innocence, which harms the player. This harm is simultaneously negated by the two Razors. The first setup has the goal of slowing monsters attacks and providing a buff with which Mantra of Flames is activated, while also simultaneously benefiting from the buff. To this end, Molten Shell may also be used. You must level this setup with Vortex to at least level 11 CWDT or else the game will routinely crash.



The second Cast when Damage Taken setup has the goal of striking as many targets as many times as possible. Duration is taken on the tree, which not only extends poison, vaal molten shell, curses, vortex and blade vortex, but also extends the duration of firestorm, which also always ignites. Chance to ignite applies 49% at max level, so the total is 1% less than 101% in the helmet. In place of Increased Duration, a player can choose to run Ball Lightning, which provides more initial healing, at the cost of game performance. Edit: After testing ball lightning, I feel that its impact on game performance with Dying sun is WORSE than VMS. It is the laggiest, worst skill to use and permanently locks the player at 0 fps in large pack or beyond maps. Bladefall is better but Golden Bladefall has a memory problem which results in massive performance issues.

Weapons - Mobility Links / Wither Totem, Two 3-Links:

Because of the global Blood Magic keystone, only a 3-link is required for the mobility setup.


Increased duration is not required for wither, because the 90% from passives is enough to reach 20 stacks. Wither is extremely important because its damage modifier is applied the the monster, it performs like a multiplier. Most of the damage dealt to most bosses will be poison, so this totem is important. For general clearing and non-T16 bosses, you can also replace these gems with CWDT+Fireball+Magma Orb, but performance will decrease.

Lastly, the 6-Link VMS setup:

If by some miracle, you managed to get 6 off-color, use conc/aoe instead of Added Cold damage. Added chaos allows the setup to poison. Again, VMS has 200% damage effectiveness, so these added damage support gems are very helpful. Added chaos gives MORE than concentrated effect at max level, not even including the benefits of poison. Quality VMS is nice because 100% ignite chance will be maintained even if flasks are not active. So if you are not using The Retch, I recommend getting a 20Q VMS.

Default with The Rat Cage:
Default with Kaom's Heart:
The Rat Cage + Flasks:
Kaom's Heart + Flasks:

These are all misleading for many reasons, but someone will inevitably ask for them so here they are anyway.

Without Buffs:
Blade Vortex + Concentrated Effect
Blade Vortex + Echo
Vaal Molten Shell



With Buffs:
Blade Vortex + Concentrated Effect
Blade Vortex + Echo
Vaal Molten Shell

BV hits ~ 1 time/sec, max 20 stacks. 20 hits/second/target. Two razors: 40% life/target/sec.

Firestorm has 5.26 duration. Drops 10 fireballs/second. On average, 1 in 6 hits, using a player as a sample hit box size. CWDT can activate 4 times/second. Assuming 80% up time (not hard to achieve w/ amulet) the final calculation is firestormDuration*lockout*chanceToHit*upTime = approximation of hits.
This is approximately 2.8 hits/second/target, after seeing this math... I believe that running Ball Lightning instead of Increased Duration on Firestorm in gloves links will be better.

Vaal Molten Shell
Firestorm
Blade Vortex
Vortex (Deliberately not supported with Chance to Ignite)

Rare Boots + Gloves = As expensive or cheap as you want to make em, I'd say 3ex is a good starting amount. If you want to corrupt gloves randomly for vuln or tc on hit, expect to use at least 10 exalts.

The Retch is approximately 20 exalts. It will go down in value as my unique divination card for it will soon be released. It will grant any unique rustic sash, which includes the retch components and only 1 filler unique. (prismweave) A rare belt can replace this for cheap, maybe 30 chaos.

Essence of Hysteria for the helm craft is 18 chaos/attempt. I averaged about 1/10 for good helmet outputs, which is about 3 exalts. The enchantment for vuln/tc curse effect will cost about an exalt also.

Kaom's Heart is 100c.

The Taming is ~15 exalts. This is the most volatile market. I paid 3 at the time for it.

Emberwake is 10 chaos.

Eye of Innocence is 45 chaos. A vaal orb has a 1/4 odd of changing the implicit mod. There are 25 implicit modifiers for amulets. Assuming equal weighting, it is ~1/100. Which is 4500c or 64 exalts. I would leave this one for last, if you want to bother at all. I paid 10 per when it was cheap and it took me 130.

Razor of the Seventh Sun are only 5c per attempt. Expect to use 2 exalts if going for Culling Strike and probably 1 more for Dual Wield Block chance.

The Rat Cage is back 80-90 chaos. 6 Link cost is ~8 ex.

Dying Sun is 5ex.

Taste of Hate is 5ex.

Rumi's is 40 chaos.

Total Minimum Cost: 55 exalts

Total Maximum Cost: 142 exalts

Q:
Should I take Unwavering Stance?

A:
You can, but I feel that stun immunity is actually not that important, as the build heals so quickly. In place of Unwavering, I get Heart of Oak, which has stun avoidance 8% maximum life and 1% life regenerated per second.

Q:
Will VMS proc VMS because it deals a physical hit, creating an indefinite loop?

A:
No it doesn't, but technically yes it should loop until the monster dies.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1759105