3.26 Builds in Review

I had a blast playing 3.26, and essentially spent all of my free time over the last 3+ months trying out new builds. For anyone curious, I’ve listed my 3.26 builds in the order I played them – including POBs and thoughts – in a sort of blog style. I play softcore SSF, and most of the builds very much reflect this lol.

1.      Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Berserker
As good as advertised. Absolutely incredible league starter. I had played a ton of slam builds in 3.25, but had focused on the chieftain approach of stacking warcry buffs and endurance charges. I can now say confidently, however, that Berserker autoexert is simply the better way to play slams. Vfos in particular is such a great skill, as you can triple dip on damage (3 fissure hits per attack), in addition to built in AI targeting. I eventually switched away from the standard rare 2h axe phys->fire Vfos. Instead, I used the Brain Rattler 2h unique mace and converted phys->lightning. This variation is almost certainly worse than a well-crafted 2h axe, but I had an absolute blast abusing the Doryani mercenary interaction with it. Overall, 9/10

2.      Admiral Elemental Hit of the spectrum Warden
Speaking of abusing Doryani mercenary interactions, the second build I tried out was an ele hit of the spectrum deadeye (and later warden) using the unique body The Admiral. I hadn’t played a bow character since Vengeant Cascade League, and was excited to try out the new (to me) ele hit of the spectrum skill. Ultimately, this build did not turn out well, and was quickly abandoned. An 850 ele dps bow was probably not enough to get the build rolling. For this build to work, I think it would have needed “fuck you” damage that is hard to come by early in the league on SSF. Not to say the build was horrible, it still excelled at the content that bow builds usually excel at. I tried switching between deadeye and warden, and both seemed about the same. Warden is an interesting ascendancy, but has felt pretty underwhelming the two times I’ve tried it now. Overall: 5/10

3.      Arakaki’s Fang Necromancer
I dropped a Squire, and was very excited to try out some new architypes. First on the docket was spiders. I had always heard good things about Arakali’s Fang , and I figured they would get even stronger with the new Dark Monarch unique helm that doubles the amount of spiders. Ultimately, this turned out to be a very powerful build, that let me clear t17s and all uber boss except Maven. With that being said, this build was NOT fun. Spawning and maintaining the spiders sucks. Mapping with this build is a pain. I didn’t have the Corpsewalker unique boots at the time, so maybe that would drastically improve the QOL of this build. The build did its job, but I would not recommend the annoyances that come with it. Overall: 6/10

4.      Flicker Strike Slayer
The build of the league for me. If flicker strike is a cult, I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. Flicker simply feels exceptional at 80% of the content in the game. I converted all of my damage to lightning to once again take advantage of Doryani’s Prototype (I wonder if we are seeing a theme here?). I crafted a good, if not quite great, 1h sword for my squire. I bricked the first two crafts, so this is ultimately what settled on. I also got pretty lucky with a Replica Farrul’s Fur in Heist. Probably about 50% of my playtime this league was spent on this build, and I cannot say enough good things. It’s fun. It’s more-or-less one button. It’s brain-off in the best possible way. Cannot recommend highly enough. Overall: 11/10

5.      Manastorm Kinetic Bolt Trickster
There is a fun, and likely unintended, interaction with the Runegraft of Recompense that essentially gives you infinite mana sustain when using skills with multiple projectiles and multiple chains. PissDicks22 does a better job than me explaining the interaction if you are curious. The combined interactions between the runegraft, Manastorm, and Indigon gives a massive amount of added lightning damage (~+3500), and a massive amount of increased damage (~2600%). With numbers like these, what could go wrong? Turns out a lot. This build is JANKY. The build fluctuates between 12m dps and 12k dps within seconds (no exaggeration!). Its hard to explain how weird sustaining the damage on this build feels. This was more of a ‘proof of concept’ build, and I genuinely do not know how I feel about it. If they don’t ‘fix’ the way the Runegraft of Recompense interacts, there is probably something here – But I think it will take someone smarter than me to figure it out. Overall: 4/10

6.      Mjolner Autobomber Hierophant
Once again, I decided to play a lightning skills with a Doryani’s Merc. Once again, I decided to play a Squire build. Much like the previous build, this character got most of its power from stacking mana and Indigon. Unlike the previous build, however, this one was actually fun and quite tanky. I followed a pretty standard buildpath for Mjolner autobombers. The one major difference is that I substituted shock nova for spark of the nova. Same dps, but this again takes advantage of the Runegraft of Recompense to completely fix mana regen. I feel pretty strongly that my version is better, for whatever its worth. Very chill build, good dps, and surprisingly tanky. Not sure how good the build would feel without a squire. Overall: 8/10

Self cast version:
Also worth noting, I tried converting this build into a self-cast version so to open abyss hoard chests. It turned out okay, but definitely worse than the automated version.

7.       Smite Trickster
You know the deal. You stack lots of ES, get lots of damage, and become unkillable. ES stacking deserves another nerf in 3.27. I played a ton of LS trickster in 3.25, so I wasn’t too keen on essentially rehashing the same build. That being said, I wanted a build that could regularly the super juiced content that ES tricksters excel at. I decided to run energy blade instead of Ephemeral Edge. POB said that damage was better, but I don’t think the massively sacrificed hit pool is worth it. Ultimately, this was a very powerful, well-rounded build, but I got bored of it pretty quickly. Overall: 7/10

8.      Crystalized Omniscience Tornado Shot Deadeye
Now that I had a lot of currency to play with, I was determined to give bows another shot. 2094 omniscience stacks. 1120 ele dps bow. And it still felt bad. As a bow build, it exceled at breach, legion, expedition, etc. However, whenever I tried to really juice anything, the build crumbled. While I could get a few upgrades on trade, this is probably about as good of an SSF bow build as one can get without a Mageblood… I think bows could really use some love in 3.27. Overall: 6/10.

9.      Fross Occultist
I finally gave in and played the “build of the league” in forbidden rite of soul sacrifice. It’s really, really good. The Whispers of Infinity interaction with Fross is broken. The Coiling Whisper curse interaction is essentially free soul eater stacks. The build does incredible damage, is incredibly tanky (18k ES!), and is very SSF friendly. Also, most importantly, it can auto open the abyss hoard chests. I would have been a lot richer if I had chosen to build this second lol. Not the most fun build in the world, but perhaps the most well rounded. Overall: 10/10.

Ralakesh version
After finally finding a power charge Ralakesh Impatience, I played around with the boots and landed on this build. It does more damage and has a near infinite elemental hit pool. Only downside is that it is weaker to physical damage. Ultimately, Fross is fantastic with or without Ralakesh.

Other builds I played with this league:

Another VFos berserker for a BPL private league event.

Power Siphon Mine Trickster for the second BPL private league event (was big fan of this build)

Unearth Deadeye whose only purpose was to quickly open abyss hoard chests after the Smite trickster had cleared the map.

Cast when Stunned Firestorm Chieftain. First version didn’t turn out great, so I stopped working on it.

 Overall /Kill total per class:

Duelist: 2207k

Witch: 512k

Marauder: 1074k

Ranger: 237k

Shadow: 533k

Templar: 537k

Total: ~5.1m

Please also forgive me if a few of the POBs have missing flasks, jewels, etc. I took the builds from Poe.ninja's weekly snapshots. Some of the equipment may have been moved to another character when the snapshot was taken.

I had a ton of fun this league. I think I might be in the minority in that I LOVED the mercenaries. Obviously, some of the unique equipment were broken on them, but I think the mechanic still worked extremely well. I will be very sad playing without them in 3.27 lol.