The Easiest of the Easy Beginner Build Guides [1.1 SotV UPDATED]

How many beginner's do you know with a 20% Lightning Arrow gem? This is a BEGINNER's guide, meant to get new players through the game. If his build required a 20% quality gem, it wouldn't be much of a beginner's guide.

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Radagastt wrote:

How many beginner's do you know with a 20% Lightning Arrow gem? This is a BEGINNER's guide, meant to get new players through the game. If his build required a 20% quality gem, it wouldn't be much of a beginner's guide.

As the 9 skill points are being wasted running up to Static Discharge satrting around point number 70, are you telling me a person can't already have a quality LA gem if they wanted to buy one? And a 20% gem provides 30% shock duration, so you don't need 20% quality, you only need about 13-15% quality to get 20% shock duration. That should cost about 4-10C depending on how good a shopper you are.

Just because it's a beginning build doesn't mean a person should throw skill points away instead of spending a few Chaos.

SKywalker I understand what you're saying, but I also see why Ziggy built it the way he did for beginners.

Someone new to the game isn't going to have the chaos to trade for a quality gem. They probably won't even understand the trading ratios in the game initially. Getting Static Blows isn't for the shock duration, it is for the % chance to shock so a quality LA doesn't help there at all. The increased duration is just a bonus. Since you cannot crit, you have to find some way to get shock stacks and this takes care of that. Plus you can grab a couple nice life nodes on the way. Add in Conductivity curse and now your chance to shock is at a decent level. Even without Conductivity, 20% isn't bad with just the passives.

The use of BM and Resolute Technique are two fold. Besides the obvious benefits of them, it makes it easier for the new player when looking at gear and deciding what to use. Through these two keystones, you remove the need to worry about mana, mana leech, mana regen, crit chance/multipliers, and accuracy. It simplifies things for new players who probably don't really understand the mechanics of the game and may be daunted by the myriad of affixes to be found on gear.

These builds are for beginners. They are to help them get through the learning curve while giving them a decent build and allowing them to learn and enjoy the game. The builds also help them acquire some wealth and an item pool from which they can then grow. That's all the builds are for.

Any build containing 2 6 links should not have the right be be called "for beginner".
If it can't be bought from a vendor reliably, it's for intermidiate / advanced players.

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Skywalkerfx wrote:

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Radagastt wrote:

How many beginner's do you know with a 20% Lightning Arrow gem? This is a BEGINNER's guide, meant to get new players through the game. If his build required a 20% quality gem, it wouldn't be much of a beginner's guide.

As the 9 skill points are being wasted running up to Static Discharge satrting around point number 70, are you telling me a person can't already have a quality LA gem if they wanted to buy one? And a 20% gem provides 30% shock duration, so you don't need 20% quality, you only need about 13-15% quality to get 20% shock duration. That should cost about 4-10C depending on how good a shopper you are.

Just because it's a beginning build doesn't mean a person should throw skill points away instead of spending a few Chaos.

Would you be willing to fill out a tree for an LA Ranger? A lot of us are close to or past the point that Ziggy has filled out, so it would be interesting to see how you'd fill out a tree.

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Radagastt wrote:

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Skywalkerfx wrote:

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Radagastt wrote:

How many beginner's do you know with a 20% Lightning Arrow gem? This is a BEGINNER's guide, meant to get new players through the game. If his build required a 20% quality gem, it wouldn't be much of a beginner's guide.

As the 9 skill points are being wasted running up to Static Discharge satrting around point number 70, are you telling me a person can't already have a quality LA gem if they wanted to buy one? And a 20% gem provides 30% shock duration, so you don't need 20% quality, you only need about 13-15% quality to get 20% shock duration. That should cost about 4-10C depending on how good a shopper you are.

Just because it's a beginning build doesn't mean a person should throw skill points away instead of spending a few Chaos.

Would you be willing to fill out a tree for an LA Ranger? A lot of us are close to or past the point that Ziggy has filled out, so it would be interesting to see how you'd fill out a tree.

I've decided that rather than hijacking this thread I'm just going to do my own LA Ranger Guide. I'll post it here and in the Ranger section when I'm done.

Ok cool

Hi, I haven't read all 39 pages, so sorry if some of these have already been said, but I have some suggestions/questions concerning your higher damage LA variant of the build Ziggy:

1. I find the lvl 9 decoy totem rather useless after testing it out, since it pretty much dies in one hit, spawns right beside you and replaces a potentially manually cast totem of a higher level. Maybe this is due to my playstyle (I like to facetank whatever I can, which is most mobs of my level, keeping me alive with LGOH on lightning arrow), but I much prefer running a max level decoy totem manually and casting it far away from me (wherever i want the mobs to run) or betwenn me and, say, brutus to get in a few free hits and then recast. I put in detonate dead as the spare link, since it is basically max power at lvl 1 already, means a fair bit of extra damage, especially with elemental weakness, and it helps to get rid of corpses so these annoying necros cannot resummon them. This has to be switched out if partying with a summomner, obviously.

2. Why are you recommending weapon elemental damage on frenzy instead of Physical Projectile Attack damage?
PPAD is basically 34% ((1-0,1)x 0,49) more dps on frenzy at lvl 20 (not considering + ele damage mods on gear), whereas WED only affects the elemental part of it (added fire and ele mods on gear) which is the minority of the damage I'd say, especially since your core build doesnt use wrath. Thus PPAD is more effective. Even on lightning arrow, PPAD might be superior, though I didnt test calc that yet. Plus, because of the way armor works in POE, sacrificing attack speed for damage is a good thing.

3. Why do you duck into the templar start area for catalyse this early? While I agree that 24% increased ele damage is a nice node, to get there you take 4 suboptimal nodes. Since this damage stacks additively with any increased damage mods on gear and from the tree, the actual dps increase will be very low, and 5 points are a lot, considering we need every point we can get, especially when taking auras or possibly respeccing to crit with Lioneye's in the late game. Also, this only buffs the elemental damage and we're dealing quite some phys damage too, so 24% phys damage would be far superior.
The "discipline and training" node is nice too, but I think it just costs too many points. I will consider them if I ever get past ~lvl 80 on this char, provided I don't pick up a Lioneye's glare and change this to a crit build, because then I won't have these spare points. But for now, I think the Heart of the Gladiator and diamond skin in the marauder start area are superior choices.

4. Why dont you take the shock duration node? It's only a single point and might be quite a big dps increase as it indirectly decreases the threashold at which a shock will occur.

5. The Heavy draw cluster is a little lackluster in my opinion. I'm too tired to math this out here, but on average, the nodes are worse than standard damage and standard life nodes. This frees up a lot of points.

6. Why are you taking the 3 8% life nodes near the ranger starting area? Those are average and leading nowhere, there are better nodes accesible along the path.

7. Why are you taking fury bolts? It's 3 points for little damage, especially since we will have much increased dmg on gear and in the tree already, so I'd prefer spending the points elsewhere.

8. Why do you take the Life and chaos node? 6% life + 4% resist isnt too good imo.

9. Why not take the remaining 2 endurance charge-, and the elemental adaptation node(s)? The more resists you already have, the better additional resists get, so those 4% reduced phys damage and the 2% max ele resists are really strong! This costs quite a few points, but i think they are worth it. check out my skill tree below to see how i go about the points.

10. Since I couldnt get my hands on one of these yet, would you recommend using GMP instead of LMP on LA? I didnt do any math about that, but I think the damage might be higher while also getting more Lgoh, though the damage might fall below the shocking threshold...

Lastly, with an alphas howl, blood magic support gems and the top left aura node cluster you can run hatred, grace AND determination on your mana, meaning a huge defensive buff while having similar dps (trading out a support on frenzy and LA for hatred) and also being a nice buff for your possible parties. I highly recommend this.

Here is my current build at lvl 69:

and my planned build for auras at lvl : 79

The Aura nodes, endurance charges and max resists are most important here. I'll probably also take the 2nd diamond skin node and the heart of the gladiator node.

I suggest these support gems:

Frenzy: 1. Life Leech 2. Physical projectile attack damage 3. blood magic 4. added fire damage 5. faster attacks / weapon elemental damage

Which 6L to choose depends on your attack speed, and if you are using wrath or not. Another option might be added lightning as long as your dps isn't too great, to let frenzy benefit from static blows.

LA: 1. LMP/(GMP?) 2. Chain 3. Life gain on hit/(Life leech if very high dps) 4. blood magic 5. Faster attacks/Weapon elemental damage/Physical projectile attack damage/added fire damage

I'm not quite sure yet which one of the options for the 6L will mean the most damage in the end, since there are quite a few factors to be considered and it will depend on the current gear, skill setup and passive points. If you already have a lot of attack speed, PPAD or added fire (esp. with ele weakness) will probably be best.

/e: If going for Auras, keep in mind that you need bm support on every single spell that isn't linked to cast when damage taken, so your curse(s)/lightning warp/decoy totem too, or whatever you are using beyond that. Thus, running Auras is only a good choice once you have all your links sorted out.

If you don't want to use auras then you can swap out the bm gems for one of the 6L options on both skills.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far, feedback is welcome :). Hope this is readable, if not i might edit it soon.

To be fair to Ziggy, this build was initially made almost a year ago and hasn't been updated since 1.0.2, which was about 3 months ago. Skywalkerfx is supposed to write an LA guide that will obviously be current.

G'day man! I'll do my best to answer within your quote after each point!

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Lame4Fame wrote:

Hi, I haven't read all 39 pages, so sorry if some of these have already been said, but I have some suggestions/questions concerning your higher damage LA variant of the build Ziggy:

1. I find the lvl 9 decoy totem rather useless after testing it out, since it pretty much dies in one hit, spawns right beside you and replaces a potentially manually cast totem of a higher level. Maybe this is due to my playstyle (I like to facetank whatever I can, which is most mobs of my level, keeping me alive with LGOH on lightning arrow), but I much prefer running a max level decoy totem manually and casting it far away from me (wherever i want the mobs to run) or betwenn me and, say, brutus to get in a few free hits and then recast. I put in detonate dead as the spare link, since it is basically max power at lvl 1 already, means a fair bit of extra damage, especially with elemental weakness, and it helps to get rid of corpses so these annoying necros cannot resummon them. This has to be switched out if partying with a summomner, obviously.

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The decoy totem does indeed die in one hit but the idea is you step back and it'll mess with the AI targetting. I find it reasonably helpful but it's not mandatory at all. Another really good option is enfeeble as it gives a huge damage reduction to later hits. Detonate dead sounds okay but it does cause elemental reflect - 99 times out of 100 that wont be an issue but it could finish you off one day ;)

2. Why are you recommending weapon elemental damage on frenzy instead of Physical Projectile Attack damage?
PPAD is basically 34% ((1-0,1)x 0,49) more dps on frenzy at lvl 20 (not considering + ele damage mods on gear), whereas WED only affects the elemental part of it (added fire and ele mods on gear) which is the minority of the damage I'd say, especially since your core build doesnt use wrath. Thus PPAD is more effective. Even on lightning arrow, PPAD might be superior, though I didnt test calc that yet. Plus, because of the way armor works in POE, sacrificing attack speed for damage is a good thing.

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The build was made before Phys Proj Attack Damage, it's a pretty darn good choice for Frenzy now that it exists!

3. Why do you duck into the templar start area for catalyse this early? While I agree that 24% increased ele damage is a nice node, to get there you take 4 suboptimal nodes. Since this damage stacks additively with any increased damage mods on gear and from the tree, the actual dps increase will be very low, and 5 points are a lot, considering we need every point we can get, especially when taking auras or possibly respeccing to crit with Lioneye's in the late game. Also, this only buffs the elemental damage and we're dealing quite some phys damage too, so 24% phys damage would be far superior.
The "discipline and training" node is nice too, but I think it just costs too many points. I will consider them if I ever get past ~lvl 80 on this char, provided I don't pick up a Lioneye's glare and change this to a crit build, because then I won't have these spare points. But for now, I think the Heart of the Gladiator and diamond skin in the marauder start area are superior choices.

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Fair points, I do think Templar would could be best left to last!

4. Why dont you take the shock duration node? It's only a single point and might be quite a big dps increase as it indirectly decreases the threashold at which a shock will occur.

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The shock duration node is not bad certainly but I don't think it's necessary. It's only a marginal increase in length - you get much more just from the multi-stacking nature of chain lightning arrow. (the first stack is super short but each subsequent hit deals more damage and the 3rd stack will last quite a while). Also shock stacking in LA is more for the damage benefit of your attacks as they go off - the duration isn't too big a deal I think.

That said, for one point you could certainly pick it up and see what you think.

5. The Heavy draw cluster is a little lackluster in my opinion. I'm too tired to math this out here, but on average, the nodes are worse than standard damage and standard life nodes. This frees up a lot of points.

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What standard damage nodes would you pick up instead of the heavy draw cluster? I don't think there is anything better to be done with those points except spec into auras.

6. Why are you taking the 3 8% life nodes near the ranger starting area? Those are average and leading nowhere, there are better nodes accesible along the path.

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The only life nodes near ranger are 8+8+12 and 8+8+10+20STR. These are all fantastic life nodes and take no extra points to spec. I think you probably just missed that the last node in the 8+8+12 is larger.

7. Why are you taking fury bolts? It's 3 points for little damage, especially since we will have much increased dmg on gear and in the tree already, so I'd prefer spending the points elsewhere.

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yeah fury bolts isn't great but they are OK and I don't know where else you'd put those points. It's something I'd pick up late late game.

8. Why do you take the Life and chaos node? 6% life + 4% resist isnt too good imo.

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I think it's a pretty darn good node! Chaos res is the hardest to get at endgame and very helpful for life base characters in maps.

9. Why not take the remaining 2 endurance charge-, and the elemental adaptation node(s)? The more resists you already have, the better additional resists get, so those 4% reduced phys damage and the 2% max ele resists are really strong! This costs quite a few points, but i think they are worth it. check out my skill tree below to see how i go about the points.

"

You can certainly route past Elemental Adaptation after you respec out of blood magic. I don't bother with self casting enduring cry in this build so I think anything beyond 4 charges is wasted. From testing CwDT enduring cry I find your rarely sustain above 4 (if that). If you want to self cast as well though you are free to pick them up.

10. Since I couldnt get my hands on one of these yet, would you recommend using GMP instead of LMP on LA? I didnt do any math about that, but I think the damage might be higher while also getting more Lgoh, though the damage might fall below the shocking threshold...

Spoiler

LMP is far better than GMP in a physical damage-based build. GMP splits up the phys damage which makes Armor more powerful at mitigating it. GMP is only useful for pure ele builds or culling/support.

Lastly, with an alphas howl, blood magic support gems and the top left aura node cluster you can run hatred, grace AND determination on your mana, meaning a huge defensive buff while having similar dps (trading out a support on frenzy and LA for hatred) and also being a nice buff for your possible parties. I highly recommend this.

"

I didn't want to plan the build with Alpha's Howl in mind as it is a beginner's build. However, I will do up a "post speccing out of blood magic" passive tree that reserves 100% of mana for Grace+hatred. It probably wont use the aura cluster though as this can be achieved just Reduced Mana. The aura cluster is good if you do happen to move into an alpha's howl.

Here is my current build at lvl 69:

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAm42v6wgu7YMZjgBe037veu4OVvoa2_zF-WNnoN0NFfC95od2kApbrzpYBflKfU4qBH4bASmltkGHGRn-QzFqk1oa_sgbyNXtXhPAD4Tv0k1hIXTtvqcaVRLheu9ko2BLNugFLQHnOlJAoJ_LpzAyfp65974UIBRxUEdBqvjr37_3MnKprKp82SftWfPz3RkuwBrZYZBVZp5XDfrSHRSPRtDQm6HPZWe9Vcbubw==

and my planned build for auras at lvl : 79

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAm42v6wgu7YMZjgBe037veu4OVvoa2_zF-WNnoN0NFfC95od2W68F-Up9TiobASmltkEZ_kMxapNaGv7IG8jV7V4TwA-E79JNYSF07b6nGlUS4XrvZKNgSzboBS0B5zpSQKCfy6cwMn6euZ7N974UINIhUEdXDdlhkc4ZLift892sqnKpWfN82cAakFVmnqeE-tIaOBcvHRTsOGTnj0Y62FXW0NAt0oCkm6HPZWe9VcbubzpYBH6HGYbRJLCQCvTp

The Aura nodes, endurance charges and max resists are most important here. I'll probably also take the 2nd diamond skin node and the heart of the gladiator node.

I suggest these support gems:

Frenzy: 1. Life Leech 2. Physical projectile attack damage 3. blood magic 4. added fire damage 5. faster attacks / weapon elemental damage

Which 6L to choose depends on your attack speed, and if you are using wrath or not. Another option might be added lightning as long as your dps isn't too great, to let frenzy benefit from static blows.

LA: 1. LMP/(GMP?) 2. Chain 3. Life gain on hit/(Life leech if very high dps) 4. blood magic 5. Faster attacks/Weapon elemental damage/Physical projectile attack damage/added fire damage

I'm not quite sure yet which one of the options for the 6L will mean the most damage in the end, since there are quite a few factors to be considered and it will depend on the current gear, skill setup and passive points. If you already have a lot of attack speed, PPAD or added fire (esp. with ele weakness) will probably be best.

If you don't want to use auras then you can swap out the bm gems for one of the 6L options on both skills.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far, feedback is welcome :). Hope this is readable, if not i might edit it soon.

All in all man great feedback and questions that I'm sure will help people out. You've discovered the #1 thing I think - builds should be flexible and after you learn what makes them tick you should customize them to your liking! I set out to create a build for beginners to get them through the game and I don't know if this was your first build or not but if it was you took that, used it and then applied what you had learned to change things for yourself - and that is rockin my friend!