[3.0][3.1][3.2] Death's Oath CI Occultist 96,9k chaos dps plus blight, shaper kill video

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Mortirr wrote:

Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of having Despair as a blasphemy curse and using Witchfire Brew at the same time? Wouldn't using Witchfire mean we can drop Despair as a blasphemy curse?

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digiTuum wrote:

So I started this build originally because Elder spawned on Lighthouse on my Atlas and I just wanted a build to autopilot the map over and over for the "Complete Influenced Maps" challenge. Pretty much the second I hit 62 and put on the Death's Oath I was having a good time in Blood Aqueducts, probably the fastest grind to 70 I've ever done.

After I did all the Lighthouse's I needed to do I thought to myself, "How high can I push this build?" I mean, I know it was "Shaper viable" but wasn't too sure how far I could push the build on the most basic investment. I think I was comfortably doing T10 maps before I started to really invest into the build and take it into the end game.

Only minor changes made to the skill tree, mainly dropping the Shadow start Chaos nodes for sockets because Abyss jewels are all kinds of broken. I made some changes to the gear ultimately because I wanted to enhance the defenses of the build for endgame so I went for Heretic's Veil over Eber's Unification and instead of a Rare ES amulet, I'm using the Chaos Impresence to free up enough mana to run Arctic Armour which I think really helped beef up the build on bosses because you're stationary while casting Blight; the increased damage over time from the amulet helps to offset some of the damage lost from dropping Eber's also. Currently sitting at 8.3k ES at level 92 with 3 days 12 hours played time. If I hit 93, I'll probably pick up Harrier for the move speed down near Scion Start.

Here's my current gear:

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Here's my current skill tree:

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https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMBAAFvA-4HHg18DkgRLxFQEZYTbRQJFX4XLxhWGGobJRzcHRQdTx2qHb4fGCL0JLAmiCj6Kwospiy_L28zhzQKNbk3ZjeDPV9GcUlRSbFLrkyzUftSU1KvV8lYB1xAXGtd8mZUZp5n_Gh0adhsC20ZcLtyD3WedoJ4L3zlfPB-oX_GgKSCx4RIh8uLeox2jxqPRo_6kQeSdJMnlG-VLpeVl_SboaEvpuunCKcrp5u0DLVItzC3MbiTu027_L6Kw23G98gMytPNFs8V0B_Xz9kT2VvaYt1f34rhiOL36QLquutj6-7sGO-I7-vw1ffB99f5N_no-tL-SQ==?accountName=digiTuum&characterName=digiLila

Here's my current stats in hideout:

Spoiler

And here's a small album of the kills I've managed so far. Shaper's guardians are pretty much on farm, Minotaur and Phoenix seemed easiest for this build out of the 4. Red Elder and Shaper kills included :D https://imgur.com/a/0Mvur

I can definitely recommend this build even at the low end of investment. It's super quick and satisfying map clear and not bad boss damage even before I got my Breath of the Council when I was just farming T4's. At the high end of investment, I'm now running rampant in T13-15's, regularly killing Shaper's Guardians for the end game grind this league and I'm doing so comfortably.

Thanks to SmoczyArchaniol for the build, having alot of fun with it!

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jbd007 wrote:

This looks nice but it's definitely a much more expensive version of the build. That chaos impresence cost like 15 Exalts on average! I guess if I ever get 'rich' I could try this. I already am running a 'budget' version of the original build ... though I did grab the Breath of the Council for an Exalt and that makes a huge difference damage-wise.

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digiTuum wrote:

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Mortirr wrote:

Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of having Despair as a blasphemy curse and using Witchfire Brew at the same time? Wouldn't using Witchfire mean we can drop Despair as a blasphemy curse?

It's a Stibnite flask and blind is a great defensive mechanic (with nice duration too); but it's mostly for the ~40% increased damage over time during flask effect. I personally use a level 22 Blasphemy aura in my setup so the Witchfire Brew is literally just a Stibnite Flask with Increased DoT and can never apply its Despair.

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ParaigmEnigma wrote:

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digiTuum wrote:

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Mortirr wrote:

Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of having Despair as a blasphemy curse and using Witchfire Brew at the same time? Wouldn't using Witchfire mean we can drop Despair as a blasphemy curse?

It's a Stibnite flask and blind is a great defensive mechanic (with nice duration too); but it's mostly for the ~40% increased damage over time during flask effect. I personally use a level 22 Blasphemy aura in my setup so the Witchfire Brew is literally just a Stibnite Flask with Increased DoT and can never apply its Despair.

I think that is his point though.

If you are already using Witchfire for the increased DoT damage and Stibnite effect then you are already getting the effect of a level 21 Despair Aura without the Despair Gem.

There doesn't seem to be any reason to run Despair AND Witchfire outside of maybe not wanting to worry about bothering with maintaining flask uptime all the time.

Assuming your build could support it, that Despair could be swapped out for Enfeeble if your passive/ascendancy tree could support the 3rd curse. Wouldn't really hurt your damage output much assuming your uptime with Witchfire is good, and would likely increase your tanking potential even further.

If you didn't want to go the 3 curse route, that Despair could still be swapped for something like Enlighten Support to reduce the mana reservation on Temporal Chains/Discipline/Arctic Armor, which could be useful.

If mana reservation isn't your thing that extra slot could still possibly be used for something else like Molten Shell or Tempest Shield.

Just seems like a waste to run both Despair and Witchfire at the same time, and if I had to choose between the two the obvious answer would be Witchfire.

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SmoczyArchaniol wrote:

Wanted to respond, but digiTuum wrote almost everything I wanted to.
One last thing would be that blasphemy have a much greater range than the flask.
Always glad to see more posts here and thanks for making and testing a much more expensive version of this build ^^

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digiTuum wrote:

The only context in which this conversation is relevant is in end-game bossing; for mapping it makes 0 difference so go with whatever makes you happy/your current gear allows. I did actually originally run a tri-curse setup when I was first testing out the Heretics Veil with this build, but since I'm not sure if you're referring to my slightly tweaked version or the original, I'll keep this general. Let's keep end-game general too at T11-T16 maps.

If you cannot kill a boss at end-game within 2 flask uses without a Despair aura, you might as well not be bossing with your proposed setups for this build. You might be able to scrape through T11-T12's but unfortunately that won't be the case higher up the chain. The plan should be to save the Witchfire (and Sulphur) for after you've stacked up some Wither on the target then pop your flasks for a big damage boost to your Blight. While the Wither has been stacking does that mean you haven't been Blighting the boss? No. You've been Blighting the boss without Despair up because you've been saving your flasks for the right time. Or maybe you've been Blighting with the flask up from the get go and your damage wasn't there as a result due to a lack of stacks on Wither.

Either way having the Despair aura consistency is too big a damage gain in ANY scenario of bossing to be sacrificed for pretty much anything else. Even if you were just 1 second casting Blights and kiting to learn a bosses mechanics or standing and facetanking with a full on Blight-fiesta going on in the bosses face there's no situation where even a level 20 Despair aura is outdone by a flask over the duration of a boss fight. The constant nature of Death's Aura alone is enough of a reason to use an aura over flask for Despair as far as maintaining your damage on bosses goes.

Mana reservation isn't remotely an issue for anything under T15's on this build with Eber's and it's even less of one with Heretics Veil. I run a level 3 Clarity for Shaper and co. because running out of mana in any scenario in that fight is a 100% death sentence which I experience on my first time doing Shaper this league. I was Blighting during a beam phase and 3 things happened at the same time; I stopped blighting to refresh the wither totem, Shaper went into a slam attack, and I ran out of mana for flame dash. Pretty sure my movement pots were out too or I might have made it through.

In the end it's pretty much a moot point, play how you want and build according to the content you're playing. But never drop the Despair on Blasphemy whether you use a Witchfire or not if you want to kill higher level bosses.