[3.0] Dark Pact self-cast Ascendant (Beginner, SSF and low-budget friendly)

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Baraqel wrote:

wow thanks for the very detailed guide. Trying it out right now!


In your full guide for beginners, in act 1 when you say to link "Blight > Contagion > Void Manipolation" you can maybe suggest also to keep an eye for B-B-G wands and do the vendor recipe "magic wand + chaos gem" because all three gems (and later essence drain) benefit from the +1 level to chaos gem and it's quite a boost to .

Thanks! I'll add something about that soon.

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justjaken wrote:

Hey. I am starting on maps now and I'm saving up for 2 big purchases: void battery and a 6L chest. Since I'm poor those are the two main things I don't have yet.

I have about 40 chaos right now, should I spend it all on a 4L chest and the best wand I can get (and maybe an amulet with more life) or should I save up until I can get one of those two items? I already have Apeps.

Definitely a 6L chest over a Void Battery. You won't see any returns on the VB in terms of DPS until your average gear level is far beyond where you are at right now. The best options I'd say would be a 6L chest first, then to get a good rare wand to pair with Apep's (as a second Apep's is not as good as running one Apep's with a rare wand). See this link on wands to get. Anything with a spare prefix on it so you can craft spell damage on it from Catarina will do just fine (higher rolls the better of course).

Thanks for the reply, I'll do that.

Another question - I feel like I'm rather easy to kill, I'm having trouble on some maps where there's a hallway full of ranged mobs and I die before I can dash or sprint close enough to get in range.

I feel like all my gear is good, I know that basically everything is worse than yours but it doesn't feel like I'm off by that much (aside from the chest piece and the voidbringer sockets).

https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/justjaken/characters

If you have the time can you take a quick look? I'm Paretops. I'm thinking of leveling an enfeeble gem now, but I'm not sure it will make a big difference.

Your profile is private unfortunately, but if you aren't using Enfeeble by now I would definitely use it as it'll make a huge difference, but only if you have the Assassin Ascendancy as you'll need a source of Power Charges when you drop Assassin's Mark for Enfeeble. When I was testing out the build before I posted the guide, Enfeeble was the difference between being squishy in a Tier 10 to comfortable doing Tier 14-15s. Of course gear upgrades a long the way did help, but the difference that Enfeeble makes for us is huge when we have little in the way of physical mitigation outside of Endurance charges. For example, in the higher tier videos I posted I would have died a few times without Enfeeble. I would also make sure you are keeping Endurance charges up where possible and try not to let them drop off.

Make sure you are using an Armour/ES helm and try to get a good armour roll on your belt. Both help in the long run and you can reach 10% extra physical mitigation by having 1k armour from just those two slots (with modifiers to Armour from the tree).

I've been toying with the idea of switching to a Sainty Chainmail or Saint's Hauberk base. It'll give us an extra 9%-12% physical mitigation, but we'd lose some ES... however I think I'd rather have that extra phys mitigation over 400 ES so I'll be buying a 6L Saintly or Saint's later on and trying it out when I get a decent roll on it. Item level 84 6L Saintly and Saint's body armour's are also drastically cheaper than a 84 Vaal Regalia (currently in Harbinger it's around 95c+ for a Saintly and 205c+ for a 84 Vaal Regalia).

Hi! I am level 26 atm and have just bought a Tabula. What gems should I put in the Tabula?

I'm enjoying so much this build!

Currently, I'm not so far at the game, I'm still level 83 and cleaning Tier 8~9 pretty fast and without much probems (didn't try higher tiers yet), except for the bosses, some times they're to tough and the life leech is not able to supply me even with Atziri's Flask.
So, about it, what am I missing? My DP is showing 29k DPS, I think it's nice, since it's just 4L (still saving currency for a nice 6L chest, isntead of buying a budget one, so I'm looking for around 300c).
I know I'm lacking in life amount, but is that all?

HpDplack is the character, feel free to take a look and, if possible, show me my mistake.

Thanks!

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H5N1OG wrote:

Hi! I am level 26 atm and have just bought a Tabula. What gems should I put in the Tabula?

Hey, at that level you should still be using an Essence Drain set-up. See the guide for more information in the levelling section.

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lagrino wrote:

I'm enjoying so much this build!

Currently, I'm not so far at the game, I'm still level 83 and cleaning Tier 8~9 pretty fast and without much probems (didn't try higher tiers yet), except for the bosses, some times they're to tough and the life leech is not able to supply me even with Atziri's Flask.
So, about it, what am I missing? My DP is showing 29k DPS, I think it's nice, since it's just 4L (still saving currency for a nice 6L chest, isntead of buying a budget one, so I'm looking for around 300c).
I know I'm lacking in life amount, but is that all?

HpDplack is the character, feel free to take a look and, if possible, show me my mistake.

Thanks!

Hey, glad you're enjoying the build. Your profile has the characters set to private, although I'd say it's most likely due to the 4-link which is stopping you from pushing further. If you aren't already, then make sure you are using your Wither totem on bosses - it'll nearly double your damage when it achieve max stacks of the debuff. You can also pick up a cheap 5-link chest piece for only a few chaos (see this poe.trade link for options). You can also drop in Conc. Effect to your links as well to add a bit more damage on bosses.

Hello again zarasi, Since i posted last I have progressed much farther and am still loving the build. I have made it to T15 maps and completed uber lab multiple times solo. so a huge improvement from only about a week ago. The problem I am having now is the T14-T15 bosses are very difficult much of the time. I am dying 3-4 times per boss just to complete the map. could you check my profile again and see where I can improve now? Appreciate the help dude, this is my first ever league and I am having so much with this build. Also are there any changed I can make to make farming uber lab easier? traps are really bad with vaal pact. also do you think this build is capable of guardians or shaper?

profile link : https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/forkheals/characters

Hey there! Sorry for the slow reply; I've been trying out some new bits-and-bobs for the build to make us more tanky. The issues we have is that physical damage just nails us. This a large issue for bosses specifically because, outside of the Energy Shield leech on kill from Voidbringer's, we can basically ignore any Energy Shield we have on a boss as it's nearly always going to be gone. This means we're relying on just our life pool to keep us alive.

To help get around this I've been looking at the following:

1) Getting rid of the wand set-up and using a shield with "The Rippling Thoughts". This sword is fantastic for us as: a) Free arcane surge, b) It has lightning damage so it applies Shock, c) It has +area radius, and most important d) It let's us use Shield Charge. Because we can use Shield Charge we can pair it with Fortify and get 20% damage reduction.

2) I've also been looking at The Brine Crown - I've yet to try this properly yet though. The +800 boost to Armour for us, along with the innate armour roll, will give us around 10% - 11% extra physical mitigation when standing still. The downside is this is not a cheap unique, and currently is going for 45 - 50 chaos on Harbinger.

3) I've been looking at shifting points around also getting the "-mana reserved" cluster right under Vaal Pact to also run Arctic Armour. This initially gave me mana issues on bosses, although with the change to The Rippling Thoughts I'm going to try it again as I don't have the added mana cost from Apep's.

4) I've also been looking at Mind of Matter. It would help, however realistically we cannot get enough unreserved Mana to make it worthwhile (you usually want a 67% ratio of health:mana) as we are using two Blasphemy curses. Moving them to manual cast would be too cumbersome. I'm still looking at options for this though.

5) Using the Tukohama minor God pantheon for an extra 8% Physical Mitigation when stationary.

Right now using The Rippling Thoughts with a shield I'm sitting at just shy of 110,000 DPS with 3 Power Charges, Arcane Surge and a terrible roll on Spell Damage on my sword (78%). You'll notice I said 3 Power Charges, not 4, as with the loss of Apep's Cast Speed boost I've dropped the Power Charge nodes near the Witch area temporarily and picked up the Cast Speed cluster at "Nimbleness" to compensate.

You think the Rippling Thoughts is worth going into now? I love the build, but one of my biggest gripes with it is Flame Dash's charge system, so swapping to shield charge would be great for me.

Also, would you have any recommendations for what gear to get next for me? I sold a jewel for a big payday, and got a (I think) decent 6L Chest, but I still have like ~240 Chaos or so. Last I checked my tooltip dps was ~40k, which is obviously way lower than yours.

Thanks for any help!