[Archived] Archmage Hexblast | 4M+ Ignite DPS | Budget Options League Start to Endgame

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McAKio wrote:

I don't understand one thing, why does my fortify lasts only 8 seconds? I'm using general's cry setup with Vigil crimson jewel.

Yeah, it was nerfed this league. It used to add duration from the Vigil and Vigilant Strike together resulting in 30 sec fortify. Now, you get either 8 seconds fortify (with General's Cry + the Vigil) or 12 seconds fortify (with self-casing Vigilant Strike, this option does not need the Vigil Jewel).

I still use General's Cry + the Vigil, mainly because I play in a group, and this way we both get fortify. It is also easier to hit this way.

For most people, it will be now better to self-cast Vigilant Strike (linked to Ancestral Call and Faster Attacks) and taking a normal life/mana/burning damage jewel instead of the Vigil.

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LeVendeurDeGlaces wrote:

I get some good new stuff for my chara, now i can do Trial in red map ( still hard some time but doable)
I craft a '' perfect '' stygian vise

now i'm focus on not dying so much. Love your build mate i try to push it to the max !

Nice upgrades, the belt is amazing! Don't forget to get the mana regen enchant for your boots if you use Skyforth - it gives you around 200 mana/s which is huge!

I also didn't know that the essence modifier was a prefix, it will be easier to fit in the build now. However, the essences are still pricy, so it is still a rather late endgame upgrade.

I'm glad that you like the build :D I hope you will have lots of fun with it even though ultimatums can be rough with it!

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_SystemNick_ wrote:

Nice build, thanks for the guide. Was a bit rough at the start and almost undoable in ultimatums, that's my first time playing with Hexblast and curses.

Not in T14-T16 yet, still T10-T13 for conquerors progression, but I feel I can comfortably reach requirements for lvl83 mobs and bosses, just need a bit more currency.

Need to revamp passives and clusters (quite expensive, didn't check how drastically it affects damage to invest in them right now). Gear is meh, still 5L, but it performs pretty nice for this tier of maps (was on 4L till mid-yellow maps I believe).

Currently throwing all fusings on my cloak, too lazy to craft curse immunity on flask and get jewel with corrupted blood immunity (I believe regular bleeding doesn't bother me at all, Agnostic OP). Still thinking about perfect way to get stun immunity (gear, crafted flask mod, passives?).

Also not sure if Vigilant strike is the best gem to fit here (3 gems actually and jewel slot) but have no idea what fits better, maybe some kind of CWDT and other ways to raise survivability.

After fixing current issues and revamping clusters next step I think will be a huge upgrade to mace+shield and Crown of the Inward Eye.

Gear

Spoiler

Hey, the easiest way to solve the stun issue is to get the stun avoidance enchant for your boots - that gives 80% to avoid. If you combine it with Soul of the Brine King, it should be good enough. If you want to be completely stun immune, you could invest in the flask unveil modifier (expensive though).

Another option is using Skyforth Boots or sacrificing a few passive points for Unwavering Stance.

After the nerfs to the Vigil jewel, it will be better to self-cast Vigilant Strike probably. You don't need the Vigil then, but having 3 sockets for Vigilant Strike + Ancestrall Call + Faster Attacks is still nice.

CWDT setup is not really an option, I think, because all guard skills share cooldown and we already use Arcane Cloak. What you could do is to link arcane cloak to CWDT to make sure it is cast only when taking damage. Arcane Cloak is a big damage boost though and you would be losing on that damage this way.

Looking at your gear, you could definitely upgrade the following:

- 6-link staff (even a very mediocre 6-link will be a considerable damage increase) or upgrade straight to 6-link cloak if you have the currency/fusings.

- Socket Despair in your gloves. You are missing out on one curse which is a lot of damage.

- You do not need to buy the endgame clusters straight away (still quite expensive). I have setup a link to help you find a cheap and viable cluster jewel as a budget option: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ultimatum/O6BMM8lfE All of these should be good enough for now.

- The same applies for rare jewels, simply omit life or mana for now and get something like mana/burning damage/resistances jewels.

- Anomalous flammability is quite cheap now, as well as Enhance level 3 (or level 4 if you can afford it).

- I would also get shock, bleed and curse immunity on your flasks. It will help you a lot with surviving.

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Saucette69 wrote:

I like your build, went for it this league.

Only downside i find is that i die to lagspikes (my i5 3570 seems too old for this unoptimised game).

I think it's also because cast time to make a pack of monster die is a bit too long compared to some other builds (for now, maybe with better gear it improves...)

I used to play Cyclone for this reason : you can leech even while on the lagspike frame :D

I dropped an exalt at lv75 so i bought the armor right away and it's nice !

Now Atziri amulet + need to cap resis with better helm/belt.

Does elemental damage with attack skills works ?

Thanks

Hey, you already have Dance of the Offered that gives permanent Onslsught and that is the only source of cast speed, that I used. If you want to have more, it is possible to get it on your scepter and shield once you upgrade your gear from the staff setup, but I don't think it is be necessary.

It is hard for me to judge since I haven't seen any of your gameplay but you might potentially solve the cast speed issue by changing how you play a little: cast Flammability -> move -> cast Hexblast. You do not need to cast Flammability and Hexblast immediately after. This should help you a lot, especially in ultimatums where it is very dangerous to stop moving for longer period of times. This gameplay is actually better for your damage too, as your curse is gaining doom while you are moving.

If you are worried about dying to lag spikes, you might try linking your arcane cloak to Cast When Damage Taken. This way it is cast only when you are taking damage. The downside is that you lose a lot of damage from the arcane cloak if you do not spam it off cooldown.

Getting curse immunity on your flasks would also be nice. Having poison/ignite immunity on flasks is also nice, but really only needed for maps that have poison/ignite modifiers.

You might also get the stun avoidance enchant on your boots. This build really struggles with stuns, especially in ultimatums.

Elemental damage with attacks skills does not work, unfortunately. Hexblast counts as a "spell", so attack modifiers do not affect it.

Hi I am using your build this league and it feels good I just wanted to ask if you know what my next upgrade could be in terms of damage other than the gems. thank you very much for sharing the build. I wanted to show my gear but I don't know how to do it sorry (sorry if I wrote something wrong in English) with my actually gear i do like 800k ignite dps and sim gem 20/20 i do like 1.1 mill

Those of you having a hard time on ultis - I feel your pain. I am playing a much tankier version of this build and still get wrecked sometimes (not even doing high red maps yet ).

If you do a Sigil + inc aoe + intensify support setup, you get a sigil which is literally the size of the screen lol, so that’s 20% less damage take . I’ve noticed that help me some. You can also consider dropping elem weakness or despair for a defensive curse like temp chains or enfeeble , though haven’t done that myself. could also get a curse ele on hit ring and drop vixens and 1 curse. vixens really doesnt do anything for us other than the extra curse which kinda sucks.

how do you handle 'enemies have %chance to avoid elemental ailments' mod?

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GimbO wrote:

- Socket Despair in your gloves. You are missing out on one curse which is a lot of damage.

Waaaait, did I really miss something? Where do we get 3rd curse? I thought only gloves give us 2nd curse, so we can self-cast flammability and apply automatically ele weakness.
How do we increase Curse Limit?

PS
Nvm, I forgot about Whispers of Doom notable :D
Yeah, I have Despair leveling in weapon swap, just need to socket it. Thanks for noticing!

so 1ex for cloak, ~7ex for fated connections, 3ex for awakened deadly, 1.7 ex for awakened burning, 90c for intuitive leap. no longer a budget build for me haha!

im broke now but i should be able to do a5 sirus and shaper without a problem today, my pob reading 1.9m sirus dps (thats with atziris + max sigil though so kind of fake - real sustained dps is ~1.45m assuming non-bad gamer - timing hexblast with arcane cloakm max doom etc).

Only lvl 92 and some wasted points currently as im still waiting to get athread of hope. Also no fire dot clusters yet as they are too expensive this league (thanks a lot meta)


also still no atziris - the way i do the build i'd have to allocate whispers of doom which- thats like a 4ex investment and thats what i'll be doing next

cant link items but here's my pastebin -
https://pastebin.com/5CsMF9AR

my gear is totally scuffed but the shield is really good for a block build (esp for ultimatums its a mega difference). i have a better shield cooking but need to craft the prefixes up still (it has +11% spell block damage and recover mana on block as suffixes).

As a point of comparison, if you go the standard route of chieftain/hierophant the dps is 2.4m (with sigil+flask) and 1.8m (Sustained). this would be strictly better for bossing, but with this league mechanic and mapping in general, i prefer my tanky ascendancies.

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Akiass wrote:

Hi I am using your build this league and it feels good I just wanted to ask if you know what my next upgrade could be in terms of damage other than the gems. thank you very much for sharing the build. I wanted to show my gear but I don't know how to do it sorry (sorry if I wrote something wrong in English) with my actually gear i do like 800k ignite dps and sim gem 20/20 i do like 1.1 mill

Hey, your gear is looking really good. You have almost completed the "endgame version" of the guide so you might start slowly looking at the late endgame version. For more damage (except upgrading gems), you could do the following:

- Get the "Arcane Cloak Spends an additional 15% of current Mana" helmet enchant.

- Get 6-link cloak, scepter and shield. A big upgrade would be crafting the "+2 level of socketed support gems" on your shield and socketing Anomalous Flammability + Enhance (ideally level 4) into it - that would increase your max doom up to 55.

- I would also get the boot enchant, but that is more for defense. Either for mana regen or stun avoidance.


Other than that there are only the gems left, but don't underestimate them! If you cannot afford awakened or alternative gems, just upgrade to 20/20. It will be a big damage boost! The main gems to upgrade is your 6-link Hexblast setup but then also quality on all curses used (Flammability, Despair and Elemental Weakness).

If you can afford it, then awakened gems and alternative quality gems (e.g. Divergent Arcane Cloak, Divergent Malevolence, Divergent Hexblast) are a big damage boost too.

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rozakk wrote:

so 1ex for cloak, ~7ex for fated connections, 3ex for awakened deadly, 1.7 ex for awakened burning, 90c for intuitive leap. no longer a budget build for me haha!

im broke now but i should be able to do a5 sirus and shaper without a problem today, my pob reading 1.9m sirus dps (thats with atziris + max sigil though so kind of fake - real sustained dps is ~1.45m assuming non-bad gamer - timing hexblast with arcane cloakm max doom etc).

Only lvl 92 and some wasted points currently as im still waiting to get athread of hope. Also no fire dot clusters yet as they are too expensive this league (thanks a lot meta)


also still no atziris - the way i do the build i'd have to allocate whispers of doom which- thats like a 4ex investment and thats what i'll be doing next

cant link items but here's my pastebin -
https://pastebin.com/5CsMF9AR

my gear is totally scuffed but the shield is really good for a block build (esp for ultimatums its a mega difference). i have a better shield cooking but need to craft the prefixes up still (it has +11% spell block damage and recover mana on block as suffixes).

As a point of comparison, if you go the standard route of chieftain/hierophant the dps is 2.4m (with sigil+flask) and 1.8m (Sustained). this would be strictly better for bossing, but with this league mechanic and mapping in general, i prefer my tanky ascendancies.

Elemental avoidance is annoying but can be dealt with. If you use Hexblast on a big pack of mobs and most of them avoid the direct ignite, they can still get ignited with ignite proliferation. The problem is when there is only one target, then you need to just spam your Hexblast until it ignites.

Yeah, the prices are insane. I don't remember Fated Connections costing so much. I think they also went up because of how popular archmage blade blast raider and ball lightning hiero are.