[2.0] THOR'S RAINBOWNUKE: DO ALL MAPS, UBER ATZIRI, AND EXPLOSIONS!

Well, maybe even less incentive use Blood Rage now...this one really has me scratching my head as to why this was done:



I guess they didn't want endless Flicker Strker builds, or thought that Frenzy charge generation was too easy? ...I dunno, I can't seem to figure it out, but now that the chance has been lowered and appears to be static (doesn't increase when leveling) just the attack speed buff is looking less appealing. I'll still try it out, but...ehhhhhh...still not understanding why this needed a nerf.

Nerf bat strikes again! New BR is confirmed useless. Oh well.

Anyways I'm curious to hear how you guys will find this build vs the new Act 4 bosses in maps. I'll be on vacation when the patch drops and won't be able to play for a couple weeks to test

Indeed, will have to give feedback about those when I can. The new bosses look really cool from what I saw and should be fun to fight.

That said, have been doing a little more thinking about the build and came across something that I had forgotten about with the new unique update. The old shield 'Prism Guardian' is now getting changed so that it has a +2 to aura gems placed in it and everything else is remaining the same. This is quite big because now it means that you can run three level 21 corrupted purity auras in there and auto-boost them to 23 without the need for an Empower gem, AND you still get even more mana reservation taken off of them, which lowers their cost even further. Of course, you can throw other aura gems in there like Wrath, Haste, Discipline, or even Anger, but I think this shield might be a good idea for easier running of corrupted purities for those juicy max resists.

I was messing around with the aura calculator and came up with something that might work out well. Keep in mind the second group assumes a corrupted level 4 Enlighten put into 'The Vertex' helm to get it to +5. Here's what I came up with:

https://poe.mikelat.com/beta/#NCI1LOf/Cqjn8w6/FTHRNBo/PPmu4

This does include Anger instead of running Herald of Thunder/Ice, which means less gems needed overall for the setup, and putting all of those gems into 'The Vertex' gives them a +1, so even more spell damage from Anger and Wrath and a bit more ES from Discipline. I am not sure if Anger by itself is worth losing the heralds, but if both it and Wrath were corrupted to level 21, maybe it would be worth it? Will have to run the math on it later. Of course, you're also going to have to factor in that using the shield means you're losing the spell damage from a rare as well as potentially a larger amount of ES, but it might end up being worth the trade off, as it also means you can dedicate your 6L to one primary attack instead of only using a 4L.

Without the use of Blood Rage we can get the IAS from elsewhere on the tree or jewels, and that also means we can drop the Shav's Revelation ring and allow for the use of a nice rare with a master-crafted %ES roll on it. This means we could even put more flat stats on it like Dex and Strength for gear/gem requirements and maybe save some points on the tree. I was also thinking that it might be a better idea to just use the Life Leech gem in our Mjolner hammers and get it all from there. True, we would lose Lightning Pen, but you could sub in Iron Will, and more importantly, you could even free up your belt slot by not using Dory's. Or even just keep it on as it's not a terrible belt by any means, BUT...if you happen to have a Headhunter, that is a potential alternative. No resists and the life rolls aren't helping too much, but that extra damage, and more importantly the high Dex/Strength and the stealing of rare affixes are nothing to sneeze at.

...Sheesh...way too much testing is gonna be needed for all of this crap. ><

Yeah I think it will take a few weeks of testing to really figure out the sweet spot for the various alternative passive tree / gear / gem setups that we are running for this build. Too many new things in 2.0, which is awesome.

I've seen enough about 2.0 to figure that I'm going to finish off leveling to 99 on EZ mode old maps that I've got in my stash before I start testing new stuff. It just takes me so damn long to get XP at this point...

Yup this is going to be a testing nightmare, I 100% agree. As mentioned, Blood Rage is now utter garbage for this build with its static 25% frenzy charge on kill. That attack speed aint gonna be worth that constant degen. As Tanakeah states, a good rare ring will now be a more valuable option for our right ring slot. Unset rings and moonstone rings will probably be the best options.

Using the buffed Prism Guardian is not a bad suggestion at all. It allows the implementation of an effective non Blood Magic + Mortal Conviction Setup for use with Vaal Pact, hence you will no longer need any form of LGoH for skill sustain. Furthermore, Prism Guardian adds Dex, which is always nice.

Heres an example aura setup that maximizes the use of prism guardian and the vertex:
(This setup uses HoI,HoT and Artic Armour)



Im also interested in testing the viability of innervate in aiding the clear speed of this build.
Damn........so much things that need testing.

Hey everybody, I am a long time lurker that is finally going to add a few things just to keep the ball rolling about potential day 1 awakening builds.

There are a few different variations of the build I am thinking about. I really like Tanakeah's idea of prism guardian so I will be building off of that. The only thing I worry about with using that shield is not being able to swap to a saffell's for atzri runs without recoloring a good chunk of gear but she might not even be as much of a farming focus for us anymore, who knows?

This is what I believe is going to be my jumping off point when running my build:



This build is only 109 point so the possibilities of where I can go and what I can pickup is pretty large.

Some possibilities are:

1. spend 5 points for Iron Reflexes, and use grace determination for better physical defenses:


2. Spend 6 points for Intuitive leap, to get the CI ES nodes EDIT: *unable to accomplish now*

3. Spend 5 points for 3 more endurance charges
4. Spend points for +30 strength or dex nodes (if gear changes)
5. Spend 3-4 points for dual curses, maybe use poacher's mark for frenzy generation, 39% chance per
6. full lightning

The Gear I will be using will look like the following: please ignore the gems I will be adding a spot for what I feel all my gems / jewels will look like.



Gems:



I am curious if replacing shav's ring is worth it or not, the 4% regen is very nice. I have a backup ring in case the swap happens. or With this ring I can save a few points (~3 worth of str / dex) in the tree and still support all gear / gems. *haven't crafted eleron Es on the ring yet, but a spot is open for it. That will equate to another 3 points worth of stats. It's also worth noting an unset ring might be good here, if we need space for a guardian or something like that.

With the tree I have link before I will have 204 strength and 74 dex, with gear that will bring it up to 408 strength and 151 dex. I plan on using Jewels to get the rest of the stats I need (4 str and 2 dex for level 20 haste.).

The current setup can support 5 jewels. With the loss of blood rage in its current form I opt for attack speed where I can get it.

Jewels:


With my tree I get 38% reduced mana reserved and 66% aura effect. With this I can run the following aura setups:

1. prism guardian
2. prism guardian with grace / determination
3. Saffell's +5 *will need conqueror's efficiency*

If Purity gems are level 21 I should be at 207 lightning, 201 fire, and 200 cold. I can ignore 1.5 map curses (-40 ele weak and -20 other element) with this setup. Regular purity can be swapped into the rotation if -80 resist maps are common, also still have +50 from flask but I would rather not rely on their uptime.

Max resist should be sitting at 84L, 83F, 83C with prism guardian and 89L, 88F, and 88C with saffell's

Big questions will be:

1. importance of being able to farm uber atziri aka prism guardian vs saffell's
2. lvl 3 immortal call uptime with 3-6 endurances charges, lvl 22 increased duration, lvl 5 enhance giving +32 quality to make immortal call +52 EDIT: *http://cb.poedb.tw/us/gem.php?n=Immortal+Call
Quality affects cast speed. RIP IDEA*
3. LGOH sweet spot for casting LS/MS
4. importance of physical mitigation if immortal call can't be worked out with CWDT aka if grace / determination will be needed or if immortal call will have to be raised to lvl 22 and self cast
5. Dmg, can be solved by going crit, dual curse, or going full lightning
6. leech?
7. attacks per second

Does intuitive leap have sufficient radius to pick up Infused Shield from that socket northeast of the witch? The closed beta skill tree planner makes it seem like it does not.

Just checked on this, It's a small radius and I found that GGG said at least 50% of the node had to be in the radius for it to count. For some reason I thought it was a medium radius before, maybe we will get luck and they will adjust but it seems that plan is out the window. Oh well, more points to work with.

edit: a previous version of the tree had a different cluster that allowed you get to the nodes, it has since been changed

Something else to think about. If this build is no longer going to run Blood Rage, and we're not going to generate any Frenzy Charges, then that means we may not need to necessarily run a level 21 Purity of Ice in the Prism Guardian shield if that route is chosen. True, you'd lose a max resist or so because of that (you'd still run the aura regardless) but really it's our own reflected damage that causes the most problems and not necessarily any specific boss/mobs that dish out insane cold damage. A Sapphire Flask is usually more than enough to take care of that and keep us out of Frozen/Chilled danger, so it shouldn't be a problem.

With that said, it might be more beneficial to put either Haste or Anger into the last socket (possibly Discipline) as those will get a bit more boost from the +2 to auras. Wrath I think will still be sitting at around 22% more lightning damage to spells even with the boosts, but the other three will obviously scale much better than it. I'll have to mess around in the aura calculator a bit more, but it looks like that might actually be an option.

I also thought about an option that you can spend 3-4 points to get two curses and maybe generate frenzy charges with poacher's mark if we are too hurt for dmg. I don't think that is the case, I didn't even go crit and my damage is fine.

Dropping cold dmg is ok with me, we may have to pickup more charges somewhere if we are hurting too bad or I may have to consider going crit. I feel I probably have plenty of points left over to make it work. Biggest concern with me is the drop of attack speed > less procs > less damage. Discharge still kills all packs with or without frenzy charges, the bosses are the only thing that will take more than a few seconds to kill and you never really have frenzy charges for many of the discharges on the bosses.

-updated first post to add a few more thoughts and changes from earlier in beta