[3.14] Viper Strike Poison Pathfinder - League Start and Endgame Guide
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[3.14] Update: Okay BIG update in 3.14 for this build! The removal of the Elder mod on the claws of "60% chance for poisons inflicted with this weapon to deal 100% more damage is massive (approx a 20-30% nerf to total damage - See new PoB and you can compare the numbers yourself). NOTE that as of 24 April 2021, Path of Build Community Fork DOES NOT properly calculate the damage of the NEW ELDER MOD (shows up red right now). As such, you can simply add the mod as "#% to Damage Over Time Multiplier"
I am currently on Awakening level 4 personally and am finding the damage to start dropping off with 2x Wasp Nests. My goal is to craft some claws with the new mod that are better but to be honest it is a bit of a challenge. I still recommend this build as a League Start as it can get you to red maps for sure. More to follow on its viability on Endgame content as I try it myself. Expect a new Youtube video guide to follow as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Welcome to my Viper Strike Pathfinder build. All feedback is appreciated and I would love some feedback on this build to make it even better / more detailed!  This build is inspired by TorsteinTheFallen's Ultimate Claw Poison Pathfinder guide which is available here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2639074. Go check that out too as he has variations for several other skills such as Pestilent Strike, Cobra Lash, and Venom Gyre. Let's get started - so, how does Viper Strike work? According to the PoE Wiki: "Viper Strike is a claw / dagger / sword melee strike attack skill. It hits the enemy, converting physical damage to chaos damage, and applies poison, dealing chaos damage over time based on the combined physical and chaos damage dealt. It uses both weapons to deal damage if you are dual wielding." Changelog
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- 21 January 2021: Build Guide Created for 3.13 Ritual League. - 28 January 2021: Updated Gem Links and PoB. Added many boss kill videos. - 17 February 2021: Added Leveling Section for League Start. - 24 April 2021: Updated PoB for 3.14 Ultimatum League. Videos
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3.13
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Regular Content: 3.13 Build Guide + Map Showcase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2-ubyns44E&t=4s&ab_channel=DelphinolPoE All Four Atlas Conquerors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6fqfeMZu_M Sirus A8 Kill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKsfSyieOkE&ab_channel=DelphinolPoE Uber Elder Kill (with Maven Present): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOG74pP_W-I&ab_channel=DelphinolPoE 3.13 NEW Endgame Content (Maven's Challenges): MAVEN KILL : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpMZUSWq2bI&ab_channel=DelphinolPoE Maven's Invitation - The Twisted (Elder Guardians): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyEeiWtwVI&ab_channel=DelphinolPoE Maven's Invitation - The Formed (Shaper Guardians): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ADFDWx-Y0U&ab_channel=DelphinolPoE 3.14
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To follow. Path of Building
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Make sure you have the PoB Community Fork installed as your DPS will not accurately show in standard PoB. Fork Link: https://pathofbuilding.community/. 3.14 Viper Strike Pathfinder Build Guide: https://pastebin.com/1mUPk7h3. This PoB includes leveling trees for from level 1-95 broken down in four sections based on when you get your Ascendancy Points as well as a Cluster Jewel Setup for Endgame. It also includes Multiple Gear Setups based on your budget from 5 chaos to 1 ex to 10 ex. Note that as of 24 April 2021 PoB does not properly calculate the new ELDER mod for "#% to Damage over Time Multiplier for Poison Inflicted with this Weapon". As such, when you are looking at DPS, simply put the following line instead: "#% to Damage over Time Multiplier" and PoB should calculate it! 3.13 Viper Strike Pathfinder Build Guide (Outdated): https://pastebin.com/bwkR3JBC. Build Summary
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Why Play Viper Strike?
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- Viper Strike has the highest single target DPS of any Poison Skill in the Game, making it excellent at nuking bosses. Conservatively, it can reach 1-2 Million Damage (not DPS) on a ~5 chaos budget and up to 6-8 Million Total Damage (not DPS) on a ~10 ex budget. - Viper Strike is a highly underrated skill in my opinion - thus making it not-meta. This is good as several of the Unique items we use are cheaper as we are not competing with other players for most of them. As of 1 week after 3.14 Ultimatum League start, there are only ~20 characters total above level 93 using this skill in Ultimatum Softcore. - Well, what are you waiting for? Try it out for yourself and see the power of Viper Strike! Poison DPS Explained (READ THIS)
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- I thought it would be worthwhile to explain how to get an accurate number for Poison DPS using PoB, as the "Total DPS inc. Poison" is not an accurate representation of how much Damage you actually do (spoiler: it's much less). Here is a screenshot of the PoB, with some key windows open to help me explain Poison DPS.  1. We see that our "Poison DPS" (left side) is 96,690. This is the damage that ONE stack of our poison does per second. If you hit the enemy only once, you are only doing 96k DPS. 2. Now, let's say for example you start a boss fight and are able to attack the boss for 3 seconds straight. With the "Attack Rate" of 3.31, and with a 100% hit chance, we would apply ~9.9 stacks (essentially 10) stacks of Poison. Now, the Poison DPS would be 9.9 * 96k = 960,000 DPS. So we almost have 1 Mil DPS if we apply 10 stacks of our Poison. 3. The last step is to look at "Poison Duration" (right side). We see that for this example it is 15.73 seconds. This is how long one stack of our poison stays on an enemy/the boss before it expires. 4. Therefore, as we know our poisons are doing 960,000 DPS total (10 stacks), so if we run around in circles and let those poisons do their work, they would do 960,000 * 15.73 seconds = 15 Million Damage over 15 seconds. 5. Thus, you can see how we want to MAXIMIZE Poison DPS, and NOT Poison Duration, as Poison Duration leads to unrealistic DPS in PoB (we see that our "Total DPS inc. Poison is 10,094,165.8", which is only the case when we apply our max stacks (104.2), which only happens if we sit still and attack for 15.73 seconds straight uninterrupted, which is highly unreasonable. - This build utilizes Viper Strike, which is the most powerful single target poison-based ability in the game, to deal massive amounts of damage to bosses, while simultaneously breezing through maps via the Pathfinder's Master Toxicist Ascendancy Notable.  - This build deals 100% Chaos Damage which makes it Immune to Physical and Elemental Reflect. - The Build is Immune to Elemental Ailments due to the Pathfinder's Master Alchemist Ascendancy Notable.  - This build has many defensive layers such as: Evasion, Spell and Attack Dodge via Acrobatics/Phase Acro on the tree, Blind, Phasing, and Movement Speed. The combination of all of these layers makes the character safe to run all content at high speeds. - The build does not require any Unique items to function, although to scale the DPS and min/max the character we will utilize several powerful Unique items which are detailed later. Pros and Cons
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Pros: - High Single Target DPS; - Great Map Clear (Can run All Map Mods); - Immune to Physical and Elemental Reflect; - Immune to Elemental Ailments (Ignite, Chill, Freeze, Shock, Scorch, Brittle, and Sap); - No Gem Swapping required for build! (personal pet peeve); - SSF Viable (does not require any specific Unique items to function). - Cheap League Starter (can get to Red Maps on a 5c budget); and - Non-Meta. Cons: - Can be One Shot from time to time in High Level Content as with most Evasion/Dodge based builds; - Relies on Flask Uptime and Good Flask Management During Boss Fights; - Melee Build, therefore more likely to die to mechanics than ranged builds; - Requires constant movement, standing still for even a few seconds can mean death in high level content; and - Not recommended for Hardcore. Gear
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Weapons
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1. This build can get started with x2 Wasp Nest Unique Claws. These can easily carry you to Late Yellow/Early Red Maps. 2. You then want to upgrade your claws to either an ilvl 83+ Elder Influenced Noble Claw or Imperial Claw (Noble is much cheaper for basically the same life gain on hit). You then can Alt/Chaos Spam it until you hit the mods of Increased Attack Speed and the new Elder mod of "To Damage Over Time Multiplier for Poison Inflicted with this Weapon". Ideally make sure it has an open Prefix to bench craft the mod "#% to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier". A decent starting Claw is seen below. 3. Alternatively to Alt/Chaos spamming, you can Fossil craft the above claws as well using the following combination: Shuddering + Metallic + Corroded. Body Armour
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1. Any Evasion Base 6-Link Body Armour is good to get you started. If it has life/resistance rolls great, but its not necessary when getting started. 2. Once you have some currency, you can buy an uncorrupted 6-Link chest and slam it with a Redeemer's Exalted Orb to add the influence to the item. Then, try to Roll the Modifier "Nearby Enemies are Blinded". This mod is huge as it allows us to drop the Flesh and Stone aura and use something else like Precision or War Banner for additional Accuracy. 3. GG Endgame Chest: a Redeemer Chest with the mod "% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit", which adds a lot of DPS to our single target as we do not usually have Frenzy Charges on bosses as we get them from Blood Rage. This pairsed with the Nearby Enemies are Blinded mod is very solid for us. Helmet
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1. Any Evasion Base Helmet with Life and Resistances is fine to start. 2. A cheap DPS Option is a Starkonja's Head which gives us life, attack speed, and reduced damage taken when on low life. Another option is Devoto's Devotion which gives us Movement Speed, Attack Speed, and Chaos Resistance. 3. One new Ritual base type is the Penitent Mask which gives 20% increased Effect of Fortify of You at the cost of being Crushed (-15% phys dmg reduction). This synergizes pretty good for our build since we are an Evasion/Dodge based character, so our Armour and Phys Dmg Reduction is very low to begin with. 4. GG Helmet: A GG BiS helmet would probably be Hunter Influenced helm with the mod "Nearby Enemies have -9% to Chaos Resistance". This paired with life and resistances is a solid choice. Helm Labyrinth Enchants: There are three options total, but only two of them really help us, which are: 1. 40% Increased Viper Strike Damage: This is a pretty solid min/maxing addition to the build. It adds about ~5% Damage. 2. 90% Increased Viper Strike Critical Strike Chance: This is a Quality of Life alternative if you have boots with Elusive on Crit to help proc the Elusive more often (see Gear Section:Boots for more information). Boots
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1. For boots, you can use any Life/Evasion boots with movement speed until you can farm normal Atziri for Atziri's Step boots or afford a pair. These are decently expensive at League start so I would recommend farming your own. Remember that you can use the Harvest craft to Exchange Fragments to try and get more Sacrifice at Midnight frags. 2. An Endgame option would be to get a pair of Redeemer Influenced ilvl 75+ pair of boots and roll the mod "Chance to Gain Elusive on Critical Strike". This allows us to respect the Passive Tree and avoid pathing up to the "No Witnesses" Notable, which saves 7 Passive Points (pretty huge). You will just need to get a bit more Critical Strike Chance from the tree to make sure you are getting crits enough to proc Elusive. Gloves
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1. Any Life/Evasion gloves are fine until level 50,then I would swap to the Embalmer Unique gloves. They give us life, chaos resistance, and poison/chaos damage for 1 alc. These are a no brainer until you can afford a pair of Fenumus Weave Gloves. 2. Fenumus Weave is very strong for our build as we do a lot more chaos and ailment damage to enemies inflicted with 3 stacks of Spider's Web, which is automatically applied to enemies when we have Aspect of the Spider active, which the gloves give us. Another mid-tier option is a pair of Hunter Influenced ilvl 80+ gloves that has the modifier "Strike Skills target 1 additional nearby Enemy". This allows us to drop "Tribal Fury" as our amulet annointment and get something more useful like "Corruption" (DPS Increase). Belt
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1. A Stygian Vise is very strong for our build as we will be using the Abyss socket to run a Phasing/Onslaught on Kill Jewel, which helps our map clear a lot and saves many passives on the tree. Amulet
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1. A rare life/resistance amulet is fine until you can afford an Astramentis. I like using an Astramentis as it lets us meet our attribute requirements without worrying about crafting Strength/Intelligence on our gear or grabbing the nodes on the passive tree. For this build you will need 155 Strength for a Level 20 Ancestral Protector Totem and 111 Strength for Level 20 Melee Physical Damage. You need 126 Intelligence for Awakened Added Chaos Damage as well. For an Annointment I use Tribal Fury to give us an Additional Strike against enemies. This is a Quality of Life node for mapping but is not 100% necessary. The best DPS node on the tree to Annoint is Corruption. Rings
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1. Rare Life/Resistance Rings are fine until endgame. However, you can swap one for a Circle of Nostalgia ring with Increased Chaos damage while affected by Herald of Agony and Herald of Agony Mana Reservation. 2. A ring with Accuracy and the -mana cost to non-channeling skills helps as well. Flasks
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1. Flask setup is pretty self-explanatory. Life flask with instant recovery and bleed immunity is key. Once you have a jewel with Corrupting Blood Immunity you can swap the bleed immunity with curse immunity. Coralito's is BiS for poison builds. Witchfire Brew gives us a free Despair Curse and is very nice. Quartz Flask is good for survivability, Jade flask also works here. And finally a Quicksilver for movement speed. 2. Another option is running an Atziri's Promise flask for extra chaos res, damage, and life leech. PoB does not show it adding very much damage for our build so that's why I prefer the defensive option of a Quartz Flask. Jewels
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1. We run a few Unique Jewels in this build. Growing Agony is a no brainer as it gives us Chance for Unholy Might on Hit and some extra damage for Viper Strike. I also have a Replica Conqueror's Efficiency for the -mana cost for non-channeling skills which helps us not go OOM. You can replace this once you get the bench craft for -mana cost for skills on your Rings if you want. 2. I run two Rare Jewels in this build. One is a Corrupting Blood Immunity Jewel and the second is the Abyss Jewel socketed in our Stygian Vise Belt. The Abyss Jewel I have gives us a chance to gain Phasing/Onslaught on Kill, which makes it good for mapping but not for bossing. 3. I also run an Intuitive Leap (bottom of Passive Tree) to give us Dirty Techniques and some Life/Resist Nodes. This placement saves six passive skill points.  4. For a higher budget, you can run a Thread of Hope Unique Jewel with a Very Large Ring to pick up a few life notables and one DPS one on the right side of the tree (see image below).  Gem Links
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Note: All Gems below should be leveled to 20 with 20% Quality unless otherwise stated. Linked gems have dash (-) between them and unlinked gems have an (x) between them. 1. Leveling 4-Link: Viper Strike - Ancestral Call - Deadly Ailments - Vile Toxins 2. 6-Link: Viper Strike - Ancestral Call - Deadly Ailments - Vile Toxins - Melee Physical Damage - Multistrike Note: Once you have anointed Tribal Fury on your amulet, replace Ancestral Call for Added Chaos Damage, you will notice a significant DPS increase when you make this switch so I would make this anointment one of the top priorities at league start. 2.a) 6-Link (Alternative Options): If you want more clear speed while mapping, you can run Melee Splash as well as Ancestral Call. If you do, you will be missing a large amount of DPS for bosses. If you don't mind the gem swapping playstyle, this is an option as well. I do not recommend running Unbound Ailments as it artifically increases our DPS in PoB but in reality it just makes the Poison Duration unrealistic and not needed. Please read the "Poison DPS Explained (READ THIS)" section under "Build Summary" for more information. 2.b) 6-Link (Awakened Gems): This is my recommended 6-Link setup for high budget players: Viper Strike - Awakened Added Chaos Damage - Awakened Deadly Ailments - Awakened Swift Affliction - Vile Toxins - Multistrike (Or Awakened Multistrike obviously if you can afford it). 3. Movement Skill 3-Link: Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify 4. CWDT 2-Link and Vaal Skills: Cast When Damage Taken (Level 7) - Steelskin (Level 13) x Vaal Grace x Vaal Haste Note: We keep Cast When Damage Taken at Level 7 and Steelskin at 13 so it is up more often (at Level 20 it rarely goes off unless we get One Shot). 5. Wither Totem 4-Link: Ancestral Protector - Multiple Totems - Divergent Withering Touch - Culling Strike Unavailable Note: We run Divergent Withering Touch as it gives our Totems an additional 20% Chance to Apply an Additional Stack of Wither onto the Enemy which is huge. 6. Auras 4-Link: Malevolence - Herald of Agony -War Banner - Enlighten (Level 3 or 4) Note on Mana Reservation: While leveling, use Malevolence and a Blasphemy+Despair setup until you get a Witchfire Brew flask. Then drop the Blasphemy setup for Herald of Agony (HoAg). Once you get one a Circle of Nostalgia Ring with reduced mana reservation for Herald of Agony you can buy Fenumus Weave gloves and add Aspect of the Spider to your auras. With Flesh and Stone being a 35% mana requirement as of 3.14 it is not worth it to run anymore as we would love better aura options (HoAg or Aspect of the Spider). For survivability I would focus on gettign a chest piece with the "Nearby Enemies are Blinded" (See Gear Section above for more details). Once you have all of these upgrades, you can use something like War Banner to boost your Accuracy as well as give the Adrenaline Buff when you place the Banner which can help for survivability and DPS. 7. Plague Bearer and Blood Rage: Plague Bearer - Increased Area of Effect x Blood Rage Leveling Guide/Ascendancies/Pantheons/Bandits
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League Start Leveling
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Act 1:
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- Equip Viper Strike. Keep your eyes peeled for a 3-Link (G-G-R). - You can use any claws you find. Look for mods like Attack Speed, flat added physical or chaos damage, or increased damage with poison mods. - Defeat Hailrake and return to town for Ancestral Call at Level 4 as well as Lesser Poison. - Use Whirling Blades and /Smoke Mine as your primary movement skills. - Link Spell Totem to Wither and drop this totem down for bosses until we can swap to our Withering Touch Totems later at level 38. Act 2:
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- Equip and start using Blood Rage at level 16 after completing the quest “Intruders in Black”. - After completing the quest “The Root of the Problem”, purchase and equip Herald of Agony at level 16 and swap in Deadly Ailments instead of Lesser Poison at level 18. - Pick up Faster Attacks and link it to Whirling Blades. - I kill all bandits for the extra 2 skill tree points. Act 3:
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- Equip the Malevolence aura at level 24 after completing “Lost in Love”. - After completing “A Fixture of Fate” Swap out Lesser Poison for regular Poison at level 31 and purchase Plague Bearer from Siosa. Also purchase Fortify Support and link it to your Whirling Blades 3-Link. - Purchase Blasphemy from Siosa and link it to the Despair Curse. Replace this for Herald of Agony for now. Blasphemy will make the Despair Curse automatically cast as an aura around you. You should now be running Malevolence and Blasphemy - Despair as your auras. Act 4:
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- I usually run my Normal Laboratory around level 35. Feel free to do it during Act 4 or wait until you complete it if you do not feel comfortable doing it that early. Once you get a 4-link for Viper Strike it should not be an issue at all. Remember that the first Ascendancy Point we take is “Nature’s Reprisal” to help with clear. - After completing the quest “The Eternal Nightmare” replace your Wither Spell Totem setup for a 4-Link setup (R-R-G-G) with Ancestral Protector Totem - Multiple Totems - Withering Touch Support - Culling Strike Support. - Also, purchase Cast When Damage Taken (CWDT) and link it to Steelskin. Keep CWDT at level 5 and Steelskin at level 12 to ensure it goes off often. - At this point I would also change our 4-Link Viper Strike setup to: Viper Strike - Ancestral Call - Deadly Ailments - Vile Toxins. Acts 5-10:
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- Not much changes from this point onwards during the story. In Act 6 after completing the quest “Fallen from Grace” from Lily Roth you can purchase all gems in the game and setup your gem links as I have detailed in the Gem Links section. - I recommend completing the Cruel Lab at level 55 (mid Act 7) and taking the “Master Toxicist” Ascendancy Point. - Do your Merciless Lab at level 68 or after completing Act 10 (whichever comes first) and grab “Nature’s Boon” as your third Ascendancy Point. Maps / Gear Priorities:
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I would recommend following this order of gear progression as I have tried to put it in order of what is the cheapest but will provide the greatest Damage/Quality of life to the build. 1. Buy 2x Wasp Nest’s weapons (usually 1-2 Chaos on League start). These weapons will carry you until Red Maps. 2. Buy Vaal Grace and Vaal Haste (1 chaos each). Buy The Embalmer Unique Gloves (also 1 chaos item). These can be your gloves for quite a while. Grab the Growing Agony unique jewel as well. If you can find one with the Corrupted Blood Immunity that would be ideal. They are usually quite cheap. 3. Buy any cheap 5-Link chest piece (corrupted or not) to add Multistrike to our Viper Strike setup. If you can go straight to a 6-Link add Melee Physical Damage as well. 4. I would prioritize purchasing the oils to anoint “Tribal Fury” ASAP so you can remove Ancestral Call from your main 6-Link setup and add Added Chaos Damage instead. This will be a significant DPS increase. If you can afford an Astramentis amulet I would buy it and anoint so you do not need to anoint another amulet later. 5. Purchase a Witchfire Brew Flask and replace the Blasphemy+Despair setup for this. Add back Herald of Agony into your aura setup. Purchase a level 1 Enlighten Gem and start leveling it for your final 4-Link aura setup. 6. Buy a Circle of Nostalgia ring with the reduced mana reservation of herald of agony and then add in Flesh and Stone into your aura setup. 7. Purchase a Coralito’s Signature Flask and start using that. 8. Replace the Wasp West’s with livl 83 Elder Influenced Claws (Noble Claw or Imperial Claw base) and try to craft on the mod “#% To Damage Over Time with Poison Inflicted with this Weapon”. Other good stats to have are: - Increased Attack Speed; - Adds # to # Chaos Damage; and - Increased Damage with Poison (Elder mod). - If you have an open prefix on the claws you can craft on the “Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier” mod from your crafting bench once you Unveil the mod from running Jun encounters. 9. You can farm Normal Atziri for Atziri’s Step boots. These are awesome on League Start and are very good for our build. 10. Purchase Fenumus Weave Unique Gloves and replace The Embalmer with them. These are our Endgame gloves. 11. Purchase an Intuitive Leap Jewel as well as a Replica Conqueror’s Efficiency Jewel and add those to your tree. Twink Gear Leveling
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Any of the following is solid for leveling this character. Other noteworthy items are a Thief's Torment ring for life and mana gain on hit. Mortem Morsu claws can carry you until you can equip x2 Wasp Nests at level 60. Ascendancies Ascendancy Order:  Pantheons: Major God - Soul of Lunaris fully ugraded is always a safe option for mapping. We get 10% chance to avoid projectiles, 5% spell and attack dodge if hit recently, and 100% chance to avoid Projectiles that have chained. The other three Major Gods are all good but not as good as Lunaris for this build in my opinion.  Minor God - I personally like Soul of Ryslatha as this coupled with the Pathfinder Ascendancy means we generate Life Flask Charges very fast (great for bosses like Sirus/Maven). Alternatively, Soul of Shakari is good for the reduced Chaos Damage taken and it limits the # of Poisons on our character.  Bandits: Kill all. Cluster Jewels
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One Cluster Jewel Hybrid (Recommended) I made a Hybrid Tree in the PoB that uses one Large Cluster Jewel, and can keep us at ~5k Life at the same time, which adding about ~4 Million Total Damage. I recommend this tree for Endgame as it is a solid tree both Defensively and Offensively. The setup is as follows: 1x Large Cluster Jewel with: Wind-Up and Disease Vector. - Disease Vector prevents Poisoned Enemies from Regenerating Life, which would be all enemies for us as we have 100% Chance to Poison. This works to prevent the Maven from healing bosses, which is huge as this is a bit part of the new Endgame. - Wind-Up allows us to generate Power Charges on Non-Critical Strike, which is a nice bonus to help proc Elusive if you decide on getting Elusive on Crit boots (See Gear: Boots). 2x Medium Cluster Jewels. The first with: Low Tolerance and Wicked Pall. The second with Wicked Pall and Wasting Affliction. Low Tolerance synergizes really well with the Pathfinder Master Toxicist Ascendancy as it makes Poisons you inflict on Non-Poisoned Enemies deal 300% increased damage. 2x Small Cluster Jewels with Fettle (or use those Jewel Sockets for your Replica Conqueror's Efficiency Jewel). Last edited by Delphinol#5494 on Apr 24, 2021, 9:46:30 AM Last bumped on Dec 12, 2021, 9:00:13 PM
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thanks for this guide, it's easy to read and understand.
one quick question: are there any interesting cluster jewel options for this build? because i didn't see them mentioned. You will never be happy if
you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. |
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" Yes! You can min/max this build even more with Cluster Jewels. I updated the PoB with two trees that utilize Cluster Jewels and I added a Section at the end of the guide that discusses Cluster Jewels in more depth. Thanks for the question! Last edited by Delphinol#5494 on Jan 22, 2021, 2:10:49 PM
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thank you for the great guide and the PoB!
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you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. |
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Good job, the guide was very well written and there are a lot of information, seems very begginer friendly indeed!
I was wondering, as I dislike the flask pianoing of PF, is there another ascendancy that would fit well in this build, maybe assassin? Also, do you think it is viable to use Shield + Sword in this build? |
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Hello there. Since I play a lot of Viper Strike/Pestilent Strike myself and wrote the Leveling-Guide for Thorsteins thread a few things:
1. Gem Links for Viper Strike are not correct. Yes, on PoB your Setup does have the highest damage possible. But it´s just for PoB-Warrioring. As Viper Strike has on its own a ridiculous duration you don´t need to use unbound ailments, you would rather have the poison to be ramped up faster. If you check the damage per poison instead of the total dps you will see that Multistrike is far superior. 2. Instead of going Crit on the boots you would rather prefer (or in terms of Double-Influence take also) faster poisons from a hunter base. 3. And maybe the biggest question: As someone who plays that build quite on a high level (I just killed Maven deathless today, got all Maven 4-Way encounters down, awk8 down, etc.) I really wonder why you would give up all the survivability Thorsteins Version brings for a complete dodge- and evasion-based variant while not getting higher damage-numbers. Why you chose this route? Aside from aforementioned points, nicely written. While I don´t agree with the concept of your build I value the work u put into it. |
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" Wow thanks for all the information and suggestions! I'll try to answer all your questions above as best as I can! 1. I am checking my PoB right now to look into this. Like I stated this is my first ever build guide so I was expecting to have some mistakes! If I look at the same 6L setup with Multistrike instead of Awakened Unbound Ailments and go to the Calcs tab, I see that the Poison DPS is 72,808 for a duration of 13.68 seconds giving a total 995,736 Dmg per Poison. If I change Multistrike for Awa Unbound Ailments the Poison DPS is 104,707 for a duration of 16.5 seconds giving a total of 1,727,172 Dmg per Poison. I don't quite see how this is worst? For a poison duration of ~3 more seconds per poison we are almost doubling the Dmg per Poison. Am I understanding this wrong? I understand the general principle that the fastest way to kill bosses is to have the highest Poison Dmg for the least amount of duration so the full effect of our poisons goes off as fast as possible, but Unbound Ailments just seems better even based off those calculations. 2. Since I am playing a Dodge/Evasion based build I personally like to have Elusive up as much as possible to give more Attack/Spell Dodge. That is why I crafted Elusive on Crit and removed those nodes from the tree (saving about 7 travel points for No Witnesses). This does require a bit of a respec to acquire some more crit nodes from the tree to ensure Elusive is proccing often, but overall I like it because it means we can have Elusive up on bosses. I agree that BiS boots would be Redeemer/Hunter mix with Faster Poisons/Tailwind, I will add that to the Boots section! 3. It was actually TorsteinTheFallen's guide which inspired me to make mine! The reason why I made this build is because I did not see any Dodge/Evasion version of a Viper Strike Pathfinder on the forums updated for 3.13 and wanted to show people an alternative option to Torstein's build. That is the beauty of Path of Exile! You can play any ability on any class and build it any way you want. If people try my build and don't like the Evasion/Dodge based playstyle they will surely run into Torstein's as his is very popular. This is meant to be an alternative way to build a melee poison Pathfinder, I never said it was the best by any means! Thanks again for the information, look forward to your reply. Last edited by Delphinol#5494 on Jan 25, 2021, 11:04:38 AM
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" Yeah okay here is my point: In the guide you have Unbound Ailments linked. When you use Awakened Unbound Ailments the story changes, since it has a Poison Dot Multi on it. In that case, I am dropping Melee Physical Damage, but thats more out of "convenience". In terms of raw max dps then your setup is the best one, multistrike has another reason behind dmg alone: Life-Gain-On hit. Then again, since you play dodge-evasion you might not need to have that kind of substain. You should add in the guide that only awk. unbound ailments pushes the dmg higher though. I am pretty sure "normal" Unbound Ailments is weaker. " All good. I didn´t want to make a "who's build is better" out of this. I was asking more out of the perspective to see if I missed something. It is totally viable to play a build differently (and besides, dodge-evasion is not that luck-based as many people think, the entropy-mechanic is very interesting as a defensive setup). So the question was more intended into the direction of why you chose that route, rather than why you did not chose the other ;-) |
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Hi there :)
Vennto is right about Unbound Ailments. If you read "how poison is scaled" section in my guide you will get better picture. Ill write later today on PM how to improve some things. Build has different flavor than mine and it should make it's unique mark. :) |
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" Oh hey Torstein! Thanks for checking out my guide :). Yes I see now that my gem links are a bit confusing as in my PoB I am using awakened unboumd ailments which gives the extra damage over time multiplier which I think is why it has better DPS. I will clarify this in the gem links section and put a note to use Multistrike before getting Awakened Unbound Ailments. I look forward to hearing more feedback! I am currently still testing lots of different gear in game right now on my character to try and min/max things right now and constantly updating the guide! |
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