[3.22] Casually Inked CI Spark Trickster

Version History

This CI [Casually Inked] Spark Trickster focuses heavily on being defensive and damage comes secondary, but even with all that it manages to clear everything in the end game with ease, outside of Ubers (because I am too smooth-brain to do them, your mileage may vary).

Perfectly transitions from animeprincess' hybrid/CI league starter to cruise through every bit of content in the game, including TOTA. Guide contains crafting section as well!



PROS/CONS

+ Permanent uptime flasks
+ Evade cap (95%)
+ Decent bit of phys mitigation
+ Rares are easily crafted
+ Plenty of projectile speed/Buff duration
+ Ailment immune

- Ashes is mandatory and can be incredibly expensive, especially if you buy it late
- Cannot be played without the belt and chest implicit
- Some gem qualities are pushing the envelope with expenses to enable the Blessing setup
- Cannot do no Leech/Regen


Balanced Tree
https://pobb.in/A0Des6X5f-bp - Last updated 12.09.2023
Zero Tattoo for 3.22 onwards
https://pobb.in/TDQfaWVoz5sg - Last updated 12.09.2023
Pure Projectile Speed /w Balbala Keystone
https://pobb.in/L0xBxj7MrlKM - Last updated 12.09.2023

3.22 VIDEOS:
Excuse the low resolution, I had the bitrate far too low.
Feared Invitation: https://bit.ly/Feared-Invitation
Shaper: https://bit.ly/Regular-Shaper
Mavened Elder: bit.ly/Mavened-Elder
Shaper/Elder: https://bit.ly/Uber-Elder
Uber Shaper: https://bit.ly/Uber-Shaper
Maven: https://bit.ly/Regular-Maven
Searing Exarch: https://bit.ly/Searing-Exarch
Eater of Worlds: bit.ly/Eater-of-Worlds
Uber Atziri: https://bit.ly/Uber-Atziri
Minotaur Map Showcase: bit.ly/Minotaur-Map-Showcase (I don't read Altar mods, really)

PERSONAL GEAR

IMPORTANT NOTES

CRAFTING SECTION


ASCENDANCY
We take One Step Ahead, Polymath, Escape Artist, Soul Drinker. One Step Ahead makes us essentially freeze immune until we're ailment immune. Polymath gives us a massive chunk of overall damage and sustain while mapping. Escape Artist makes sure all the evasion from our body armor is turned into energy shield, likewise the helmet energy shield becomes evasion as well. Soul Drinker makes sure we almost never see the ES bar deplete and if it does, it fills back up quick.


ANOINT/ENCHANT
Longshot is our anointment of choice due to how Spark projectiles constantly move and will almost always reach maximum distance, also provides a decent amount of projectile speed. (The more budget variant is Fury Bolts, also helps with strength requirements early on)
+3 Spark helmet enchant is the de facto winner in terms of enchants, there is nothing better.
Boot enchant can use either Damage Penetrates 10% Resistances or Added Lightning Damage.


MANDATORY UNIQUE GEAR

Ashes of the Stars is annoyingly the most important piece of gear because this build utilizes almost every alternate quality of gem under the Sun, by giving us more projectile speed, more projectiles. Also allows us to make use of more auras than normally possible without investing a whole lot on our passive tree.

Algor Mortis are an excellent pair of gloves that gives us non-damaging ailment effect for stronger shocks, but also provides us with an alt-ailment called Sap. Which makes enemies deal LESS damage to us. This is achieved by use of Vortex on left click. Ideally we want +1 Socketed/Enfeeble on hit, but +1/Ele Weakness on hit or just +1 Socketed work. If you have Enfeeble then you use Ele Weakness in the helmet trigger and vice versa. If you ONLY have +1 Socketed, Tornado gets swapped for Enfeeble! (If you'd much rather use Tornado, use it, but remove the +1 Power Charge notable on the tree)

Shavronne's Revelation in the left ring slot provides us with a gargantuan amount of flat ES and Mana Regeneration/s, with the caveat of no longer being able to regenerate/recharge our energy shield. Since we're a leech build by trade, this is only a downside in boss arenas where you cannot hit an enemy (Exarch ball phase).

Anathema provides us with the ability to not invest into curse limit through pathing on the passive tree or utilizing a Hunter influenced chest piece to get the same result. Equipping it by default makes our curse limit be 3, by taking a +1 Power Charge notable we bring that to 4.

Brutal Restraint timeless jewel, this jewel I feel is mandatory because it provides so much and there's many different seeds that we can use, but these are the few I've personally narrowed down:

Taste of Hate makes sure we are capped on Cold Resistance, provides us with Physical Mitigation and Less Cold Damage Taken overall. Too good of a flask to pass up.


KEYSTONES

Chaos Innoculation is essential because we don't wanna bother with Chaos Resistance, trying to get Life would also over-stretch the tree.

Ghost Dance provides us with 3 Ghost Shrouds that deplete when hit, granting us instant ES recovery based on a percentage of our Evasion.

Ghost Reaver doubles our ES leech while making us unable to leech Life and Recharge ES, which we don't do anyway so this is purely a win.

Magebane helps us cap and even overcap our Spell Suppress chance, overcapping it helps us become Ailment Immune through Ancestral Vision because we don't need to get a high tier of our boot implicit.


TATTOOS

This build heavily utilizes Projectile speed, Flask duration, Skill Effect Duration, +4 Attributes and Reservation Efficiency tattoos to achieve incredible clearspeed, hands off gameplay for flasks and buff duration for Blessing/Vaal Smite.


CLUSTERS/OTHER JEWELS

Watcher's Eyes only really interest us when it comes to Wrath and Grace, we're looking for Evade Chance /w Grace and Damage Penetrates /w Wrath.

Warrior's Tale enables us to use more Projectile Speed tattoos by doubling the effects of our Flask Duration tattoos, and a cheeky single Reservation tattoo.

Unnatural Instinct is extremely efficient, not mandatory, but it provides so much QoL that it's almost a sin to pass up on it.

Ancestral Vision along with our boot implicit/bench craft makes us Ailment Immune, which means we only have to worry about Bleed/Corrupting Blood.

Large Cluster jewel needs 3 notables, 2 of the noteworthy ones being Disorienting Display and Storm Drinker, the last notable can either be Snowstorm or Prismatic Heart. The last notable we do not care about because it won't be allocated, but it is important to make sure the first 2 notables are at the front of the cluster jewel.

Medium Cluster jewels both want Streamlined and Repeater, to increase our Projectile Speed/Damage and acquire Cast Speed.

Rare jewels you're looking for stats such as (preferably one of them has Corrupted Blood immunity as an implicit):
- Maximum ES
- Cast Speed (with or without dual wielding)
- Spell Damage/Projectile Damage/Lightning Damage
- Projectile Speed


GEM SETUPS

6-link Divergent Spark - Divergent Inspiration - Divergent Energy Leech - Awakened Added Lightning Damage - Awakened Lightning Penetration - Anomalous/Awakened Spell Echo

Gloves 4-link Divergent Haste - Grace - Anomalous Discipline - Enlighten lv3(4)

Helmet 4-link Elemental Weakness - Conductivity - Sniper's Mark - Tornado
You want your combined trigger cost to be less than your unreserved mana to make sure every single skill is sequenced, otherwise you may find that sometimes the last skill in your helmet links does nothing. Use reservation tattoos if you must.

4-link Vaal Smite - Arctic Armour - Anomalous Blood/Sand - Flame Dash

3-link Vortex - Culling Strike - Anomalous Arcane Surge lv6

3-link Anomalous Wrath - Divergent Inspiration - Divergent Divine Blessing


MASTERIES

For Trickster masteries are very important because each unique mastery provides us with 3% More Damage and 1% Life/ES/Mana Recovery on Kill.

Elemental - Exposure You Inflict Applies -18%
Duration - 10% More Skill Effect Duration
Mana- 12% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency
Energy Shield - 100% increased Energy Shield from Equipped Helmet
Evasion - 10% increased Movement Speed if Not Hit Recently
Reservation - Auras From Your Skills Have 10% increased Effect
Spell Suppression - Prevent 3% of Suppressed Spell Damage
Projectile - 15% More Projectile Speed
Evasion/Energy shield - 30% increased Evasion Rating While You Have ES
Leech - 10% of Leech Is Instant


FLASKS


Taste of Hate - already explained in the mandatory unique section.
Quicksilver Flask - Charge Recovery/Cast Speed.
Topaz Flask - Increased Duration/Evasion Rating.
Ruby Flask - Charge Recovery/Movement Speed.
Bismuth Flask - Increased Effect/Benched 25% Mana Cost Reduction.

The suffix modifiers for Quicksilver/Topaz/Ruby can be swapped around to whichever ones are cheapier on a flask, look for the best deals. Bismuth is simply mandatory with prefixes/suffixes. The Quicksilver requires as much charge recovery as possible, plus 28% Quality.

IMPORTANT! If you can't get the Body Armour implicit to elevate to 2 charges/4s, then you can keep it at 1 charge/4s, DROP Taste of Hate and use Balbala's Keystone from Brutal Restraint to get the same permanent flask uptime, that allows you to go purely Projectile Speed tattoos.

BANDITS / PANTHEON

Kill all Bandits.

Upper Pantheon - Solaris.
Lower Pantheon - Yugul

To Do List:


- Add boss videos
- Add mapping video
- Clean up the guide
- Visual sparkle
- Add personal gear for visual learners
- Add a cancerous photo of just Spark projectiles


For anyone looking to find the most up to date information, you can look me up here https://poe.ninja/builds/ancestor/character/DexBunny/NerissaRavencroftDaki?i=0&search=name%3Dnerissa!

The man, the myth, the legend delivering as always POG