ShakCentral’s Vortex Occultist: Beginner-Oriented | All Content | Budget | HC, SSF, & Console

Acronyms:
ES = Energy Shield
DoT = Damage Over Time
PoB = Path of Building
4L/5L/6L = 4,5, or 6 linked gear
WP = Waypoint
TP = Using a Portal Scroll
SSF = Solo Self-Found
HC = Hardcore Mode
CI = Chaos Innoculation
LL = Low Life (google "Pain Attunement poe")
BBG/BG/RRR etc = Skill Gem Links (Blue,Green,Red)

You need a loot filter to play PoE. Monsters drop a TON of loot, but 98% of it is complete trash. Loot filters tell the game what show on the ground.

If you’re brand new, take 2 minutes to do the following, and you’ll be set for months. Go to filterblade.xyz. Select “Regular” in the dropdown menu labeled “Strictness”. Go to the “Download” tab, rename the filter “Leveling”, and download. Go back to the overview tab, change the Strictness to “Strict”, name this filter “Maps”, and download. In PoE options, scroll to the bottom of UI. Click “Show folder” and the location for loot filters will open. Drag your two filters from your downloads folder into the folder. Close options and re-open. Go to UI and use the dropdown menu to select the appropriate loot filter.

I’m not giving a setup tutorial, but AutoHotKey is incredible. I use the following: a logout macro to save lives and time, and a /hideout macro to go there instantly from town. Macros can help with trading, partying, etc. Just educate yourself on what’s legal; don’t get yourself banned.

For nearly all skills, you should click the skill in your bar and check the orange button to use the skill without moving. This prevents your character from chasing enemies or not using a skill at all due to distance/targeting. Also, set left click to the footprint icon that says “move only”. This will stop you from using basic attacks. While some games utilize basic attacks, there is virtually no reason to ever be basic attacking in PoE after the Twilight Strand. You can sustain mana easily, and skills are so powerful that you will almost never intentionally want to basic attack. In addition, basic attacking makes you run toward the enemy if they aren't in melee range. This means a mis-click may drag you directly into your demise.

“Safe zones” for leveling start at 3 levels higher or lower than current character level. A level 5 character has no exp penalty in any zone between levels 2 and 8. The exp safe zone increases by 1 level every 16 character levels. At lvl 16, the safe zone is 12-20, and so on. This allows characters to progress faster and still retain normal experience. Hit tab to show the full map in-game. You can check zone level in the top right of the tabbed screen.

A cold damage over time Occultist is extraordinarily gear-friendly. With our ascendancy we require very little gear to get to maps, and two damage spells make up for low damage early on.This build gets started on a tiny budget. With less than 100 Alts, I self-crafted a base set of Ultra Budget gear to test this; all blue items with mid-tier resist and ES rolls. With 100-200 alts, you can be at 5500+ ES, capped resists, and have 100k+ DPS, allowing you to break into low-tier maps and begin saving for serious upgrades.

Self-crafting your gear is not only simple, it’s practical if you learn/know what you’re doing. Fossils, fractured items, and external sites like poe.db and PoE Affix make it easy to learn how to get certain mods on items.

Crafting Methods



Cheap socket coloring for 1-4 Links



Item Level

Once you kill Kitava, assess your gear. If an item has decent ES and resists, keep it! For the rest, your process is simple: Go to the Blood Aqueducts and kill monsters. Look for gear to drop with ES bases. Note: You may have to hold Alt to see white gear if you have any reasonable item filter. Once you have a decent ES base for your needed items, use Alts on gear until you roll either flat ES or a decent resist. Once you hit a mod you are looking for, go to your crafting bench and craft which ever piece is missing. In minutes you’ll have a set of gear with ES and resists. On your weapon, look for cold damage over time multiplier and/or % cold damage. If you have Alchs or Regals to spare, use them on body armour for maximum ES gains.

If you rolled decent ES, have resists capped or very near capped, and have a little bit of added damage from a weapon, you should be able to quickly go CI with 5500+ Energy Shield. This should keep you going through white tier maps as you save currency and item bases for upgrades.

NOTE: GGG has mentioned some updates to mana in their 3.8 Development Manifesto. If mana is unsustainable in 3.8, we will likely need a mana flask with the spoiled "Enduring" mod, to allow our mana to regen even after filling up. If this happens, I would drop either the Sulphur or Basalt Flask.

We use the following flasks:

Quartz for phasing and dodge, Sulphur for damage and regen, Granite for flat physical reduction,Basalt for % physical reduction, and Quicksilver of Adrenaline for max movespeed.

I recommend the "Ample" or “Chemist’s” prefix if you can roll it. The 4 non-Quicksilvers should have: Grounding, Warding, Staunching, and Dousing. You can’t be frozen due to your Uber Lab ascendancy, but until you ascend for the final time you can use “of Heat” suffix in place of Dousing.

Witchfire Brew is a great offensive option with a high DoT roll. If you run Witchfire Brew, consider adding an Evasion "package" with a Jade Flask of Reflexes and Sin Trek boots (below).



Your Jewel slots flexible. If you take the jewel node to the right of the Witch start, you can slot Intuitive Leap and gain power/endurance/frenzy charge generation, 10% ES, mana and mana regen for only 3 points. In the high-end category, you can purchase Watcher’s Eyes with “%ES regen while affected by Discipline” and “Cold Damage Over Time While Affected By Malevolence”. If you are slotting rare jewels, Cobalts and Hypnotic Eyes are the way to go. For Cobalts, you’re looking for "% cold damage", "damage over time", and ES mods. Hypnotic mods to look for are "damage over time while wearing a shield", "chance to gain phasing on kill", "increased effect of chill", "chance to hinder", and resistances.

As you work your way through white maps, one of two things will happen with your gear. Either you will feel somewhat squishy due to a low-ish ES pool and potentially slightly under-capped resists, or you will find that your damage is underwhelming. It’s time to start upgrading.

One big note on crafting: value dexterity rolls. Dexterity is a huge sticking point of this build, and having a good dex roll on jewelry or other gear can make a huge difference, saving you skill points and allowing for more diversity.

Cheap Uniques

Here are a few uniques that could be picked up in trade league for exceptionally cheap prices. These can either be a gap filler while you build currency or can remain as strong gear options for a long period of time.



Damage upgrades



Crafting Mid-Tier ES Armour Slots

If you’ve followed the upgrade paths in the guide, at this point you will likely be somewhere in the neighborhood of 8k-10k ES, easily capped resists, and enough dex to get by. Now it’s time to push the build into the final stages. This gear will allow you to take on basically anything, given enough encounter knowledge and practice. There are 2 end-game options for gearing here - Straight CI and Low-Life with Shav’s. They use nearly identical gear, with the body armour being the only difference in the normal version of the build.

Note: There is a CI version of this build that uses Atziri’s Reflection and Coward’s Legacy to achieve the Low-Life Pain Attunement while maintaining CI. This will be covered, but I have included the belt slot on its own below, assuming no Reflection.

Weapon

Your end-game weapon can be one of several bases. You can go with a spell damage wand, an elemental damage sceptre, or an attack dodge tiger sword. As you will be crafting nearly all your own mods on the weapon, it does not have to be Shaper or Elder, although you could potentially hit very nice mods for both Shaper and Elder in the Quality of Life department.

The goal here is simple: Use any crafting method to begin the craft: A temple weapon with high minion damage, alt spam for T1 Spell damage, etc. The goal is to start crafting on a weapon that has 1 or more top-tier prefixes; ensure that all prefix rolls are desirable as permanent mods.

Craft “Prefixes Cannot Be Changed”. Unless you only have 1 suffix mod and it’s desirable, Annul off all suffixes. Now craft “Can Have Multiple Crafted Modifiers”. Craft “Trigger a Socketed Spell When You Use A Skill”. Now fill out the remaining affix slots with damage mods. Spell Damage, Cold Damage, and Damage Over Time are all great. You should end up with a weapon that has the following crafts: Multimod, Trigger, and 4x damage mods.

3.6 Synthesis Note: Crazy synthesized bows with at least +3 to gems, % spell damage, and the Inpulsa explosion effect could be absolute best-in-slot for this build. This would also use the Soul Strike quiver. I’m not currently covering that in this guide.

Shield

Unless you’re going the Atziri’s Reflection or synthesized bow route, your shield is all about defenses. You want high flat ES and % ES rolls and resists if you can get them. Your end-game shield should have 450+ ES. Synthesized implicits for shields can be incredibly powerful, granting a ton of ES, curse immunity, 10% reduced mana reservation, etc.

Rings

I’m starting with the rings for a reason. Rings are vital for granting you as much resistance as possible. The main bulk of ring mods you are looking for are Energy Shield and as much resistance as you can possibly fit. The closer to capped you are after your rings, the more damage and ES you can fit into the build in other slots. You will want to ensure that there is an open prefix to craft “% Faster start of Energy Shield Recharge”. Resist bases will help with capping, but Opal rings are so good for damage and Moonstones can help reach those crazy ES levels. Finally, rings are great places to put your Aspect of the Spider if you are planning to run it.

Belt



Crafting your end-game belt is incredibly rewarding for your build, and can be done on a medium budget at a comparatively cheap cost to some other end-game items.

First, acquire either an ilvl 84 Crystal Belt base or Stygian Vise. As you can probably guess, Crystal is best for defenses, whereas a Stygian can provide a ton of damage or other QoL through the jewel slot. It does NOT need to be a Shaper/Elder base, so they are fairly cheap. Next, gather some Dense and Frigid fossils. In addition, adding Aetheric or Shuddering fossils can add a larger chance of rolling either spell damage or movement speed / Onslaught during flask effects. Combining all 4 can yield some truly sickening belts. Start slamming resonators, and stop when you hit a sick belt. Be prepared to roll cold res a LOT when trying for cold damage.

You can also wear the Baited Breath (See Cheap Uniques) if your resists do not need help. BB gives a TON of ES with a good roll.

Amulet

For your Amulet base, you can choose a Dex, Str, or hybrid base if you need the attributes, or a Marble Amulet if your attributes are ok and you have Zealot’s Oath. Mods to look for: Flat ES, %ES, Resists, cold damage over time multi, cast speed. This is another good slot fo Aspect of the Spider, and if the previously mentioned mods are on the amulet, crafted AoE or a multimod with AoE and the previous mods will turn your amulte into something great.
Alternatively, you can wear a Solstice Vigil amulet for free Temp Chains. You will likely want to add the +1 Curse on either a piece of gear or the passive tree node at the top. This gives you more damage and opens up another good helmet enchant, but will make resists harder to cap and ES lower. Your call.

Gloves

Your gloves can either be a highly defensive slot, with 225+ ES, lots of resists, etc, or they can be a damage dealing powerhouse with a Fingerless Silk base, a cold DoT mod, AoE, and +1 to AoE gems crafted on. An Essence of Delirium grants “socketed gems deal 30% more damage over time”, while Shaper gloves can have a cold DoT mod. If using fossils, socket the typical Dense + Frigid, with Aetheric being the choice for a 3 socket resonator. If your gloves have any mods that affect the damage over time or AoE of socketed gems, be sure that Vaal Cold Snap is socketed in this item. The glove slot is also a great place to pick up a chunk of dexterity if you can roll or craft it.

Boots



Firstly, Sin Trek boots (See Cheap Uniques) are very cheap and are perfectly viable as your end-game boots. Defenses, move speed, and attributes are all great. If you’re not using Sin Trek, the boots are all about defenses and as high movement speed as you can cram into them. If you can’t find boots with good resists, 135+ ES, and at LAST 30% movespeed, wear Sin Trek. There’s not a lot to say here; boot slot is simple.

Helmet


The best enchant for this build is 30% Vortex Cooldown Recovery Speed. Vortex damage is also good, as is Temp Chains Effect if running the Solstice Vigil amulet.
Once you have the base, you can either try to craft a damage helm with “Nearby Enemies Have -9% to Cold Resistance” and/or the AoE and +1 to AoE gems craft, or you can simply load up on massive ES and resists.

For the damage helm, use the Dense + Frigid fossil combo until you hit the -9% mod and decent ES. Ideally, you’re looking for 250+ ES. For the pure defensive helm, look for good resists and ideally at least 375 ES.

Body Armour



Finally we arrive at the final slot. This is where CI and Low Life differentiate themselves. For a CI build, the goal is simple: Massive Energy Shield. 550+ is a good start to end game. In 3.6 Synthesis league, people are running around with 800-900 ES like it’s just a walk in the park. The sky’s the limit. Craft Dex on the chest to finish it out and call it a day.
For low life, we obviously make use of Shavronne’s Wrappings. This requires higher ES on the other slots to keep us as safe as the CI build, but the damage gained from Shav’s is just stupendous. The transition from CI to low life in this build is stupidly simple: Equip Shav’s and spec into Pain Attunement. It’s really that simple.

Atziri’s Reflection Variant



If you have money, want chaos immunity, and can’t live without Pain Attunement, purchase an Atziri’s Reflection and Coward’s Legacy. Legacy gives a small ES boost, MS, & attributes, but also curses with Vulnerability. This grants the “low life” effect and allows us to take Pain Attunement.
Assuming you don’t want to die from Vulnerability with 50% inc effect, you need Atziri’s Reflection. This makes us unaffected by curses. We’re now CI and Low Life at the same time. Reflection also provides a large amount of ES & resists.

With balance changes and new discoveries, different leveling skills fall in and out of favor. As of 3.8, the below leveling guide is perfectly viable, but Orb of Storms is the current hotness. If you want to try this out, you just need to make a few small changes.

First, buy Lightning Tendrils early on and level it while you follow the guide below. Once you have a +1 lightning wand, socket Orb of Storms + Onslaught + Added Lightning Damage. Cast Orb of Storms, stand inside the radius, and Tendrils.

Once you hit lvl 16, buy Tempest Shield from Yeena in Act 2 (make sure to wear a shield), and replace Tendrils with Shield. Enjoy watching everything blow up. Make sure your Orb of Storms is always up or your DPS will be literal 0 with this approach.

❆ Make a Scion. I know it's weird, but the Scion gets the very important Onslaught gem early on, while the Witch does not.

Note: If you're brand new to PoE, you don't have the Scion unlocked yet. Just start two steps down at "Create a Witch", and ignore Onslaught.

Give the Scion a well-thought-out name, like “sdggjgsdglw”. Ignore the first zombie, get Onslaught from the beach chest and basic attack Hillock to death (seriously). Enter Lioneye’s Watch.

❆ Check Nessa for BBB/BBG wands (Buy BG wand if there are none). Take the GREEN gem from Tarkleigh (for later use) and check for movement boots. Stash items and log out.

❆ Create a Witch. Get Arcane Surge from the chest and keep it level 1 for now. After Hillock, get stash items and check for wands/boots. Buy Explosive Trap. Run to The Coast Waypoint (WP).

❆ Go to Mud Flats and do quest. Get Submerged Passage WP and go to Coast. Enter Tidal Island and kill Hailrake. Exit to character select and load in; don’t use your Hailrake TP scroll.

❆ Get you a Quicksilver Flask from Nessa and buy Orb of Storms. Get Frost Bomb from Tarkleigh and check wands / boots. You want 2 items with BG links now. Gems should be linked as follows: Explosive Trap with Arcane Surge, and (if you’ve hit lvl 4) Frost Bomb with Onslaught.

❆ Go to Submerged Passage and run to The Ledge. If you find The Flooded Depths while running, place the TP and keep going. When you find the narrow stair ramp, drop a portal if you haven’t already.

❆ Run the Ledge. Frost Bomb should one-shot most skeleton packs, allowing you to run and maintain Onslaught and flasks.

❆ Run The Climb and into Lower Prison. Take WP to town and enter the portal that you placed earlier.

❆ Run Flooded Depths in Submerged Passage and kill Dweller. Talk to Tarkleigh for a skill point and Nessa for Added Lightning Damage. When you’re lvl 8, link this with Explosive Trap. Buy or craft +life gear if needed. You will need Dex soon, and it will remain an issue throughout. Get a Jade Amulet when you can and upgrade to a Citrine in later Acts.

❆ Go to Lower Prison. If you find the Labyrinth Trial, run it now or wait until you have Flame Dash. Question your existence while running the indecipherable Upper Prison.

❆ Enter Warden’s Chambers and kill Brutus. You automatically get the next WP, so go town and get Flame Dash from Tarkleigh.

❆ Run Prisoner’s Gate to The Ship Graveyard WP. Find and run The Ship Graveyard Cave, grab Allflame, and run to The Cavern of Wrath WP.

❆ Go to Ship Graveyard WP, kill Fairgraves, and go to town. Buy Storm Brand from Nessa and get skill point from Bestel. If you don’t have an Iron Ring, buy one from Nessa and sell it back to her with the green skill gem from the Scion quest reward to get a Topaz Ring. Use a Transmutation Orb on your BBG wand, then trade Nessa the Topaz Ring, wand, and an Alteration Orb to get a BBG Wand with “+1 to the Level of Socketed Lightning Gems”.

❆ Link Storm Brand to Onslaught and Added Lightning, Run Cavern of Wrath to The Cavern of Anger and kill Mervail.

❆ Run The Southern Forest to The Forest Encampment.

❆ Run The Old Fields and find The Den. Complete the quest and continue through Fields to The Crossroads WP. Go to town and pick up your second Quicksilver. You will spend 2 Alteration Orbs later in Act 2 to purchase gems. Additional Alts should be used on the new flask to try for the “of Adrenaline” mod for increased movespeed.

❆ Go to Crossroads and head NW to The Chamber of Sins. In Chamber Level 2, complete Labyrinth Trial and kill Fidelitas. Get Cold Snap from Gruest.

❆ Go to Crossroads and head SE to The Fellshrine Ruins. Find The Crypt and complete the Labyrinth Trial.

❆ Go to Crossroads and head NE to The Broken Bridge. Kill Kraitlyn.

❆ Run to The Riverways WP. If you’re helping Alira, go north to The Wetlands and kill Oak. If you’re killing all bandits (recommended), continue West to The Western Forest. Get WP, kill Alira, and kill Captain Arteri. Run to Weaver’s Chambers and kill Weaver.

❆ Go to town, get Controlled Destruction from Silk and chrome your +1 Lightning Wand to B-B-B links if possible for Storm Brand, Controlled Destruction, and Added Lightning. Buy Faster Casting and Elemental Focus from Yeena.

❆ Go to Riverways, head North to The Wetlands and kill Oak. Get WP, poison the roots, and go town. Talk to Eramir for 2 skill points, then go Lioneye’s Watch and talk to Bestel for skill point.

❆ Run Vaal Ruins, Northern Forest, The Caverns, and Ancient Pyramid. Kill Oversoul.

❆ You didn’t forget to do the Lower Prison Labyrinth Trial in Act 1, did you?! Also, from this point on, 4-linked gear can drop. If you get a 4L with BBBB or BBBG colors, socket Storm Brand, Controlled Destruction, Elemental Focus, and Added Lightning / Onslaught.

❆ Run The City of Sarn and save Clarissa. Run The Slums to The Crematorium. Do the Labyrinth Trial and boss. Go to town, get Discipline from Maramoa, keys from Clarissa, and buy Enfeeble.

❆ Go to Slums and into The Sewers. Find the busts and run to The Marketplace WP.

❆ Get skill point in town, go Marketplace, and run The Catacombs for the Labyrinth Trial.

❆ Go to Marketplace to The Battlefront WP. Get Ribbon Spool from nearby cart, and run The Docks.

❆ Find Sulphite and run Battlefront to Solaris Temple. Get Talc from Dialla, go into the Eternal Laboratory, and grab the Cold Damage craft. Go to Sewers to blow up the butthole.

❆ Run The Ebony Barracks, kill Gravicius, go town. Take any gem from Maramoa and buy Vortex. You can now either swap into Vortex / Cold Snap, or remain Storm Brand for now and pick up Lightning Spire Trap for bosses.

❆ Go to Ebony Barracks and run Lunaris Temple. Kill Piety, get skill point, go Ebony Barracks.

❆ Run to Imperial Gardens WP. Head NW to The Library and complete quest. Purchase as many of these as possible: 2x Hypothermia, 2x Efficacy, Blasphemy, Increased Duration, Swift Affliction. If currency allows, go town and buy up to 6 more Vortex gems to level in weapon swap.

❆ Go to Imperial Gardens. Complete Labyrinth Trial, run The Sceptre of God, and kill Dominus.

❆ Run The Aqueduct to Highgate. If you have your main spell in a 4L, make wands with spell damage rolls. Trade a wand, a magic or rare Chain Belt (rare gives higher rolls), and 1 Blacksmith Whetstone.

❆ Run The Dried Lake. Kill Voll and run The Mines. Free Deshret in The Mines Level 2: Electric Boogaloo. Run to The Crystal Veins WP.

❆ I agree with Enki’s guide that this is a perfect time to run Normal Labyrinth. Go to The Sarn Encampment, enter The Aspirant’s Plaza, kill Izaro, ascend to Occultist, and take Wicked Ward.

❆ Buy some fire resistance rings if you’re under-capped and run Kaom’s Dream to Kaom’s Stronghold and kill Kaom. Run Daresso’s Dream to The Grand Arena and kill Daresso. Go to town and get Bonechill from Dialla. Buy Cast When Damage Taken and stash it; we want it level 1.

❆ Go to Crystal Veins and run Belly of the Beast Levels 1 and 2. Defeat Piety, run The Harvest quest, and kill Malachai. Run The Ascent and enter The Slave Pens

❆ Run The Slave Pens and enter Overseer’s Tower.

❆ Run The Control Blocks, get the Miasmeter (top left), and run to Oriath Square WP.

❆ Go to town, get skill point and a choice of Stibnite or Silver Flask. Don’t neglect your resists. You’ll need more soon!

❆ Run Oriath Square to The Templar Courts and into The Chamber of Innocence. Kill Innocence. The zone permanently changes after this fight. Go to town and take the Waypoint to a changed Chamber. Go through the door into The Torched Courts.

❆ Run to The Ruined Square. Tag WP outside The Ossuary, then run The Ossuary.

❆ Run The Reliquary and go town for skill point.

❆ Run The Ruined Square to The Cathedral Rooftop and kill Kitava.

❆ Surprise! Your resists suck now. Fix them.

❆ Run from Lioneye’s Watch to The Twilight Strand and clear the zone. Go town and buy Immortal Call, Phase Run, and Increased Duration from Lilly. If you don’t have 6 Vortex gems leveling in your weapon swap yet, get them going.

❆ Your gem links should now be as close as possible to the following:

►Vortex - Controlled Destruction - Hypothermia - Efficacy (+ Elemental Focus and Swift Affliction if you got super lucky with 5/6 links or have a Tabula Rasa)

►Immortal Call (lvl 3) - Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 1) - Increased Duration - Phase Run

►Cold Snap - Bonechill - Efficacy - Hypothermia

►Blasphemy - Enfeeble - Discipline - Anything (Enlighten will go here later)

►(In shield) Flame Dash - Faster Casting - Arcane Surge

►(In weapon) Orb of Storms, Storm Brand, Frost Bomb (No need to link)

❆ Run The Coast to The Mud Flats and kill Queen. Run The Karui Fortress, kill Tuko, and go town for skill point. Run Karui Fortress to The Ridge to The Lower Prison. Complete the Labyrinth Trial, enter Shavronne’s Tower, and kill Shav/Brutus. Grab the crafting recipe inside!

❆ I recommend doing the two skill point quests in Act 6 (Killing Abberath and The Puppet Mistress) once you reach Act 8 or 9. Go Prisoner’s Gate WP to The Western Forestto The Riverways. Grab WPs each zone and a crafting recipe from Alira’s old camp in W. Forest.

❆ Run Riverways to The Southern Forest to The Cavern of Anger. Pick up the banner inside and run to The Beacon. Complete the escort quest and light the beacon.

❆ Travel to The Brine King’s Reef and go fishing. Take Weylam’s boat to The Bridge Encampment.

❆ Run The Broken Bridge and find locket. Run to The Crossroads WP, go to town and turn in locket for your choice of flasks. If you’ve already found a Granite or Basalt flask, take the one you don’t have yet. If you have neither, take the Basalt.

❆ Go to Crossroads WP and South to The Fellshrine Ruins and into The Crypt. Complete Labyrinth Trial and run Level 2 to get Maligaro’s map.

❆ Go to Crossroads WP and North to The Chamber of Sins Level 1. Kill Maligaro in his map. Complete the Labyrinth Trial in Chamber 2 and enter The Den.

❆ Run The Den to The Ashen Fields and fight Gruest. Get The Northern Forest WP and run The Dread Thicket for Fireflies. I recommend leaving Gruthkul until Act 10.

❆ Go to town, run N. Forest WP to The Causeway. Find quest item near the end and run to The Vaal City WP. Go to town for skill point, set Yeena on fire and run The Temple of Decay Levels 1 and 2 to kill Arakaali. Enter The Sarn Ramparts.

❆ If your power level is high enough, run Cruel Labyrinth and take Vile Bastion.

❆ Go to Prisoner’s Gate WP (Act 6), find the Valley of the Fire Drinker, kill Abberath. Go to The Riverways WP (Act 6), run The Wetlands, find The Spawning Grounds, kill The Puppet Queen. Go Lioneye’s Watch for 2 skill points.

❆ Run The Sarn Ramparts to The Sarn Encampment. Run The Toxic Conduits to Doedre’s Cesspool and kill Doedre.

❆ Keep right and run The Quay. Stay South, find the Ankh, and the Resurrection Site. Kill Tolman and run The Grain Gate, killing the Legionnaires. Run to The Imperial Fields WP and go town for 2 skill points. Go to Imperial Fields WP and run The Solaris Temple 1 and 2 and get the Sun Orb.

❆ Go to Doedre’s Cesspool WP and go left. Run The Grand Promenade to The Bath House WP. Complete Labyrinth Trial and run to The Lunaris Concourse WP. Leave High Garden skill point for post-Act 10.

❆ Run The Lunaris Temple 1 and 2 and get the Moon Orb.

❆ Go to Lunaris Concourse WP, run to the center of The Harbour Bridge, and kill Solaris/Lunaris. Enter The Blood Aqueduct.

❆ Run Aqueduct to Highgate. Run Cruel Labyrinth if you haven’t yet.

❆ Run The Descent to The Vastiri Desert WP. Run to The Foothills WP, run The Boiling Lake, and kill the boss.

❆ Go to Foothills WP and run The Tunnel. Complete Labyrinth Trial and run The Quarry WP.

❆ Run The Refinery and kill boss. Bring Powder and Acid to Sin.

❆ Take Vastiri Desert WP. Find the Storm Blade and look for a sandstorm blocking an area. TP, talk to Sin and the PDA couple, TP back to Vastiri. Enter The Oasis and kill boss.

❆ Go to Quarry WP and find Shrine of the Winds. Kill boss. Go to Highgate and pick up 2 skill points.

❆ Go to Quarry WP, run The Belly of the Beast. Run The Rotting Core. Kill the 3 mini-bosses, then kill The Depraved Trinity. Travel to Oriath Docks.

❆ Go The Cathedral Rooftop and save Bannon. Run the Rooftop to The Ravaged Square and get the WP. For your flask reward, if you have either a Sulphur or Quartz flask, take the one you don’t have. If you have neither, take the Quartz.

❆ Go to The Northern Forest WP in Act 7. Enter The Dread Thicket, kill Gruthkul, TP for skill point.

❆ Go to The Bath House WP in Act 8. Enter The High Gardens, find Pools of Terror, kill Yugul, TP for skill point.

❆ Go to Ravaged Square WP in Act 10 and run to The Control Blocks. Kill Vilenta, TP for skill point. Run The Ossuary and complete Labyrinth Trial.

❆ Run The Torched Courts and into The Desecrated Chamber. Kill boss, TP, talk to Bannon

❆ Run Merciless Labyrinth if able and get Void Beacon. It will be harder after Kitava lowers your resists.

❆ Run The Canals to The Feeding Trough. Kill Kitava. Your resists suck again.

❆ Get 2 skill points in Oriath.

❆ Run Merciless Labyrinth if you haven’t.

❆ Fix resists. Check the PoB for an all-blue set of ultra budget starting gear.

❆ Farm The Blood Aqueduct if desired/needed.

❆ Pick up and I.D. every single veiled weapon that you come across, and ask your friends if you can unveil their weapons if you’re in a trade league. You want to find “Trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill” ASAP! This will be used later to automatically trigger Elemental Equilibrium for our benefit. See the weapon section in gearing for more.