[3.29] Cyclone CWC Volatile Dead Reliquarian (Engineering Eternity)

SOULWREST CAST WHILE CHANNELLING VOLATILE DEAD RELIQUARIAN - POB NOTES (3.29) ============================================================ Video guide: https://youtu.be/pbX65J7JbTI These notes are reconciled to the level 98 FINAL PoB. The file contains seven matching stages across the Tree, Skills, and Items tabs - Start, Level 18, Level 35, Level 60, SR Swap, Midgame, and Final. Switch all three dropdowns together to follow a stage: Righteous Fire and Scorching Ray through the campaign, the Soulwrest transition in SR Swap, the pre-luxury character in Midgame, and the finished character in Final. BUILD AT A GLANCE ================= This is a one-button Cyclone build running a corpse-powered feedback loop: Cyclone -> Cast while Channelling -> Desecrate -> Volatile Dead -> corpses consumed -> Soulwrest summons phantasms -> Black Cane grants Phantasmal Might -> the next Volatile Dead balls hit harder. The cheap version begins with Soulwrest, Hrimsorrow, the core gems, and ordinary life/resistance rares. Soulwrest can be equipped at level 60; I made the real swap at roughly level 62 once the gems and gear were ready. The Dark Monarch at level 84 is the major damage jump because it doubles the phantasm limit. The final setup reaches 62 level 25 phantasms and receives 2,976-4,588 added physical spell damage from Phantasmal Might before conversion and the rest of the scaling. The final level 98 snapshot in this file has: - 4,064 maximum life, with 2,046 unreserved - 2,136 energy shield - 75% attack block and 78% spell block - 75% chaos resistance - 6 maximum power charges - 100% effective critical strike chance under the saved boss configuration - 4.65 million average Volatile Dead hit - 72.84 million configured Full DPS from 10 Volatile Dead balls plus Cyclone That 72.84 million is a configured boss snapshot, not a promise that all ten balls hit one target every second. Volatile Dead has targeting, travel time, a maximum ball count, and a habit of splitting between multiple bosses. The exact conditions behind the number are listed in the PoB Configuration section. The build is fast, self-contained, and comfortable once the loop is running. Its real weaknesses are visual clutter, computer performance, damage over time, large unblocked physical hits, and occasionally arriving before your own balls. HOW THE DAMAGE LOOP WORKS ========================= Cyclone keeps us moving while Cast while Channelling triggers Desecrate and Volatile Dead at its fixed trigger rate. Desecrate creates the corpses. Volatile Dead consumes them into seeking balls. Soulwrest triggers a level 25 Summon Phantasm whenever we consume a corpse. The Reliquarian's Black Cane node grants one stack of Phantasmal Might for every summoned phantasm. Each level 25 phantasm contributes 48-74 added physical damage to spells. At 62 phantasms, that becomes 2,976-4,588 added physical damage to every Volatile Dead ball. The loop supplies its own corpses, so it works in an empty boss arena and does not need adds. Enter a new zone, lose the swarm, or come back through a portal and the build rebuilds itself after a few seconds of Cycloning. We convert the physical spell damage to cold, scale critical strikes and critical multiplier, penetrate cold resistance, and stack effects that make enemies take increased damage. Cast while Channelling's trigger interval is fixed; attack speed and cast speed do not make Desecrate or Volatile Dead trigger more often. Movement or action speed can still make Cyclone feel faster, but they do not increase the trigger frequency. Damage upgrades therefore come from adding more damage to each trigger rather than trying to create triggers faster. PROGRESSION IN ONE PAGE ======================= --- Starting version - the SR Swap stage (level 60 to 83) --- The SR Swap tree, gem, and item sets in the PoB show this stage exactly. Use: - Soulwrest - Hrimsorrow for 100% physical-to-cold conversion - the six-link as Cyclone / Inspiration / Cast while Channelling / Spell Cascade / Volatile Dead / Desecrate - ordinary rare gear for life, energy shield, attributes, elemental resistances, and chaos resistance Inspiration and a low-level Clarity carry the mana costs at this stage, before the zero-cost jewelry crafts exist. Cold Penetration replaces Inspiration in the Final stage once every skill is free. The minimum functional engine is Cyclone, Cast while Channelling, Desecrate, and Volatile Dead; add the other links as gem access allows. This is enough to begin mapping. I made the swap with about 30 chaos. --- Major transition - level 84 --- Equip The Dark Monarch. Doubling the maximum phantasms is the largest single transition in the build and is the point where my damage went through the roof. --- Incremental upgrades --- The Midgame sets in the PoB show this middle state: Congregation and Greater Spell Cascade have joined, and the build still runs Inspiration and Clarity because the free-cast crafts come later. After The Dark Monarch, improve the build in smaller pieces: 1. Level 21 Summon Phantasm Support and higher Congregation levels. 2. Make Cyclone and the triggered skills cost zero with the jewelry crafts. 3. Add a spell-critical-strike chest and use cluster jewels to patch leech, charges, damage, or resistances. 4. Get a Hatred base-critical-strike Watcher's Eye (the final jewel later trades the crit mod for life gain on hit - see Jewels). 5. Add Militant Faith, Intuitive Leap, the Forbidden Flame/Flesh pair, and the unique flasks as the budget allows. 6. Replace Hrimsorrow with rare conversion gloves and allocate the Cold Mastery only when the rare gloves are ready. My finished character is roughly 150-200 divines between purchases and crafts, helped by several lucky outcomes. That is the finished excess, not the entry price. ASCENDANCY, BLOODLINE, BANDITS, AND PANTHEON ============================================ --- Reliquarian --- The Black Cane is the build. Each summoned phantasm grants Phantasmal Might, which supplies the enormous flat physical spell damage used by Volatile Dead. Kaom's Roots gives +100 life, prevents stun and knockback, prevents action speed from being modified below its base value, and prevents evasion. Chill, freeze, Temporal Chains, tar, and similar effects can still exist on the character, but their action-speed penalty cannot push us below base speed. It also lets this character move through the water slowdown in the Voyage Depths at full speed. We invest in block instead of evasion, so losing evasion costs very little. --- Catarina bloodline --- I took Catarina because there was no jewelry-slot Reliquarian effect I wanted more. Umbral Army grants 2% increased movement speed per summoned phantasm. At 62 phantasms, that is 124% increased movement speed. --- Forbidden Flame and Forbidden Flesh --- The pair allocates Ascendant Trickster: - energy shield leech - 2% more damage for each different mastery type allocated - nearby enemies have reduced action speed - spell suppression that this version does not build around The final tree has seven ordinary mastery types - Block, Staff, Elemental, Reservation, Critical, Cold, and Charge - plus Runegraft as its own mastery type. Runegrafts do not count as the mastery they replaced, so the final setup represents eight different types and 16% more damage from the Trickster effect. I preferred Trickster because it combines damage with energy shield leech. Inquisitor is a possible alternative for consecrated ground and penetration, but that version needs another source of energy shield leech. I did not use it on the final character. --- Bandits and Pantheon --- Bandits: kill all. Major Pantheon: Soul of Lunaris for movement, physical mitigation, and protection from chained projectiles. Chain protection is useful when 62 minions are giving projectiles a crowd of possible bounce targets. Minor Pantheon: Soul of Abberath for burning ground and ignite help. Damage over time is one of the build's weakest areas. PASSIVE TREE ============ The final tree is built around staff block, spell critical strikes, power charges, cold conversion, recovery, and jewel sockets. --- Important keystones and notables --- Pain Attunement grants 30% more spell damage while on Low Life. Petrified Blood and life reservation keep this active permanently. Bitter Frost makes enemies chilled by our hits take increased cold damage equal to the chill effect, while preventing us from dealing non-cold damage. The final PoB assumes a 30% chill, so it receives 30% increased cold damage taken from this effect. Hrimsorrow provides 100% conversion in the budget version. The final rare-glove setup reaches 99% conversion; the remaining 1% physical cannot be dealt through Bitter Frost and is negligible. Glacial Cage is allocated on the final tree. It makes enemies take increased damage based on how long they have been chilled by us, up to its cap. The saved configuration uses five seconds, so the displayed boss number assumes five seconds of this ramp. Glacial Cage is not the amulet anoint; Heart of Ice is the anoint. The Agnostic is transformed by the Dominus Militant Faith into Inner Conviction. Inner Conviction grants 3% more spell damage per power charge, which is 18% more at the configured six charges. The useful explicit modifiers on my Militant Faith are 4% increased area damage and 4% increased elemental damage per 10 Devotion, but the important requirement when shopping is Dominus so the keystone becomes Inner Conviction. Undertaker is permanently active during normal play because we consume corpses constantly. It grants damage, +2 maximum Desecrate corpses, and 2% life regeneration per second after consuming a corpse. Soulwrest adds another 5% regeneration after corpse consumption, giving 7% life regeneration per second whenever regeneration is allowed. The staff block wheels - Enigmatic Defence, Whirling Barrier, Safeguard, and Serpent Stance - combine with Soulwrest's +25% attack block and Mana-Infused Staff to reach the final 75/78 block values. Some of these nodes also provide charge generation or energy shield recovery when blocking. Intuitive Leap saves pathing in the upper part of the tree and makes the Militant Faith setup affordable in passive points. --- Final masteries --- - Block: +1% spell block per 5% attack block - Staff: 12% increased life and mana if the equipped staff has at least one red and one blue socket - Elemental: 15% of hits treat enemy elemental resistances as inverted - Reservation: 20% increased life reservation efficiency - Critical: +25% critical strike multiplier against unique enemies - Cold: 40% of physical damage converted to cold - Charge: 3% increased damage per charge - Runegraft: Runegraft of the Jeweller The original draft listed a Life Mastery that made skills pay part of their mana cost as life. That is not the active final effect: the Life Mastery node is occupied by Runegraft of the Jeweller, and the Runegraft replaces the normal Life Mastery effect. --- Runegraft of the Jeweller --- Runegraft of the Jeweller grants 10% increased damage for each unlinked socket in an equipped two-handed weapon. Soulwrest has six sockets and zero links, giving 60% increased damage. --- Tattoos --- The final tree uses one Tattoo of the Tasalio Shaman for a 5% chance to Hinder enemies on spell hit. Earlier in progression, I used Hinekora chaos-resistance tattoos to patch the build until the rings, amulet, and cluster-jewel small passives supplied enough chaos resistance. They are a useful budget fix, but they are not part of the final tree. --- Stage-tree note on the Cold Mastery --- The staged trees from SR Swap onward already allocate the 40% Cold Mastery, even though those stages still wear Hrimsorrow. The mastery is redundant with Hrimsorrow's 100% conversion at that point - it is taken early so the rare-glove swap later needs no respec. If you want that point elsewhere during progression, you can defer it, but re-allocate it before equipping the rare gloves or the conversion collapses. GEM SETUP ========= --- Body Armour - final six-link --- Cyclone 20/0 Cast while Channelling 20/23 Desecrate 1/0 Volatile Dead 1/23 Cold Penetration 21/0 Greater Spell Cascade 3/20 Desecrate and Volatile Dead stay at level 1. Desecrate only needs to create corpses, while the overwhelming majority of Volatile Dead's hit comes from Phantasmal Might. Raising either gem mostly increases cost for little return in this setup. Cyclone should be levelled. Its levels improve movement while channelling. Use regular Spell Cascade before Greater Spell Cascade. Greater Spell Cascade is one of the meaningful later gem upgrades because it improves corpse and Volatile Dead coverage per trigger cycle. Volatile Dead quality matters because it improves the movement speed of the balls. This character can move fast enough to outrun its own damage, so helping the balls catch up is real quality of life. --- Soulwrest - six sockets, zero links --- Final sockets: - Summon Phantasm Support 21/0 - Congregation 4/20 - Culling Strike 10/0 - Meat Shield 20/23 - Item Rarity 18/23 - Frostblink 1/23 All six sockets must remain unlinked. Soulwrest's built-in skill is level 25. Level 21 Summon Phantasm Support is used for its higher additional phantasm limit; it does not raise the Soulwrest phantasms above level 25. Congregation multiplies the maximum, and the level 4 corruption is the final step that brings this setup to 62. Lower Congregation levels still function and are the normal progression. Culling Strike lets the phantasms finish enemies at 10% life. With 62 phantasms attacking, this is reliable boss utility. Meat Shield makes the phantasms take less damage and gives them a chance to taunt on hit. With a full swarm, enemies are frequently distracted or attacking where we used to be. Blessed Rebirth can be used as temporary training wheels if the phantasms are dying too quickly, but I eventually dropped it because the stack rebuilds so quickly. Item Rarity is optional. The culling phantasms receive many of the finishing blows, especially on bosses, so the support can apply to those kills. Ground loot was weak enough this league that I treated it as an experiment in an otherwise flexible socket. Frostblink is the movement skill. Flame Dash is a valid preference swap. --- Why the staff must remain unlinked --- Item-granted skills are supported by applicable support gems socketed in the item without needing links. The unlinked supports therefore still support Soulwrest's built-in level 25 Summon Phantasm. The links become dangerous when Summon Phantasm Support is linked to a damaging or culling skill. In that situation, phantasms can be created from the support gem's own version, allowing the support's lower cap and stats to take precedence over Soulwrest's level 25 trigger. Keeping every socket separate avoids that interaction and also activates the full 60% from Runegraft of the Jeweller. To guarantee six unlinked sockets, use the crafting bench rather than gambling with Fusings: set the staff to two sockets and confirm they are unlinked, then craft three, four, five, and six sockets in order. Each added socket arrives unlinked. Make sure the finished colors include at least one red and one blue socket for the Staff Mastery. My final colors are B B W R B R. --- Helmet --- Assassin's Mark 20/0 Mark On Hit 20/0 Petrified Blood 20/0 Hatred 21/0 Cyclone applies Assassin's Mark through Mark On Hit. The mark supplies base critical strike chance and critical multiplier, and it contributes to charge generation during mapping. The final boss configuration assumes all six power charges, but charge uptime can take a moment on a clean boss with nothing to kill or block. Hatred level 21 is a direct damage upgrade. Petrified Blood is both a defensive layer and the mechanism that keeps Pain Attunement active. --- Gloves --- Vaal Righteous Fire 20/0 Vitality 16/0 Herald of Purity 20/0 Arrogance 20/23 Arrogance reserves Vitality and Herald of Purity on life. Vitality's level is a tuning knob: the final character uses level 16 and has 2,046 unreserved life out of 4,064, or 50.34%. Keep your own unreserved life slightly above 50% after changing gear or gem levels. Vitality also earns its slot twice over in the final version - the Watcher's Eye life gain on hit only works while affected by Vitality. Herald of Purity no longer adds flat physical damage. At level 20, its player buff grants 12% more physical damage. That physical damage is then converted to cold. The Dark Monarch prevents the Sentinels of Purity from being summoned, which is fine; only the player buff is wanted. Vaal Righteous Fire is an optional burst button and is disabled in the saved PoB. It leaves the character at dangerously low life and energy shield, and I usually found the risk less useful than simply continuing to Cyclone. Treat this as a spare socket, not part of the advertised damage. --- Boots --- Mana-Infused Staff 20/0 Frost Bomb 1/23 Steelskin 20/20 Automation 20/20 Mana-Infused Staff reserves 30% mana, gives 30% less mana cost of skills, and grants 24% more chance to block attack and spell damage at level 20. It is required for the final block cap. Frost Bomb is an optional boss button for cold exposure and reduced enemy life regeneration. It is level 1 because its own damage is irrelevant. Automation uses Steelskin automatically. Quality both gems. PETRIFIED BLOOD, LIFE RESERVATION, AND OVERLEECH ================================================ Petrified Blood prevents part of the life loss from hits taken below half life and converts part of that prevented amount into delayed life loss. It smooths the hit rather than deleting it. Life recovery other than life flasks cannot recover us above the Low Life threshold. That restriction is useful here because Pain Attunement remains active. The final character deliberately leaves 50.34% of maximum life unreserved. Leech can try to recover into the small amount above 50%, but Petrified Blood stops normal recovery at the Low Life threshold. Because the leech never fills the available life pool, the leech instances do not end merely because the character appears full. This gives the build persistent Slayer-like overleech. Life leech comes from Doryani's Lesson on the large cluster. Energy shield leech comes from Ascendant Trickster. The final Watcher's Eye adds 26 life gained instantly per enemy hit while Vitality is active. The 7% corpse-consumption regeneration runs underneath all of it whenever the map allows regeneration. Do not blindly level Vitality or change reservation efficiency without rechecking the unreserved-life percentage. If you leave exactly 50% or less of your maximum life unreserved, you lose the small buffer that makes this setup work as intended. GEAR BY SLOT ============ --- Weapon - Soulwrest --- Soulwrest is the build-enabling item. Shopping priority: 1. increased spell damage 2. enough item level/sockets to finish the six-socket setup 3. nothing else is worth paying heavily for The cast-speed roll does not improve Cast while Channelling's trigger rate. The mana-regeneration roll is irrelevant once the skills cost zero. The built-in trigger, +25% attack block, and 5% life regeneration after consuming a corpse are present on every copy. Use the quality enchant that changes quality away from local physical damage and into elemental damage. The final staff has 140% increased spell damage, six unlinked sockets, and B B W R B R colors. --- Helmet - The Dark Monarch --- Required level: 84. The important line is that the maximum number of summoned phantasms is doubled. It also grants +1 to minion skill gem levels and prevents you from having minions other than phantasms. We do not need other minions, so the restriction costs nothing. Any normal copy performs the core job. The +1 maximum power charge corruption on my final helmet is a luxury that adds another Inner Conviction multiplier. I hit it on my first double corruption; do not include that luck in the starter budget. The helmet also reduces light radius by 50%, which combines with 62 phantasms and Volatile Dead to make the screen legally questionable. --- Gloves - budget --- Hrimsorrow provides 100% physical-to-cold conversion and can carry the build through endgame. I killed the endgame bosses wearing it. A useful corrupted implicit such as spell critical strike chance is a bonus, not a requirement. While using Hrimsorrow, the Cold Mastery is not required for conversion - the staged trees still take it early to avoid a respec at the glove swap (see the stage-tree note in the Passive Tree section). --- Gloves - final rare pair --- The final Titan Gauntlets have: - 25% physical damage converted to cold from the Eater implicit - 34% physical damage converted to cold from the Incursion suffix - 40% physical damage converted to cold from the final-tree Cold Mastery - 15% chance to Unnerve on hit from the other Eldritch implicit - 48% increased damage with hits against chilled enemies - 42% increased damage while leeching - strength and defensive modifiers The conversion total is 99%, not 100%. Bitter Frost prevents the remaining 1% from being dealt as physical, which is an insignificant loss. This is a late upgrade. Do not move off Hrimsorrow until the rare gloves and the Cold Mastery are both ready. If damage collapses after the glove swap, missing conversion is the first thing to check. --- Body Armour --- Use an energy-shield base. The highest-priority damage modifier is base spell critical strike chance. My final chest has: - +2% to spell critical strike chance - 745 energy shield - +158 maximum life - 10% chance to gain a frenzy charge on hit - a crafted energy-shield prefix The frenzy-charge line is useful but optional, and frenzy charges are not enabled in the saved damage configuration. Do not buy the chest based on a DPS number that secretly requires them. --- Boots --- Prioritize 35% movement speed, then life, energy shield, attributes, and resistances. The final Eldritch implicits are: - gain 4% of physical damage as extra cold damage - drop Scorched Ground while moving Scorched Ground helps lower enemy elemental resistances while we circle bosses. An action-speed implicit is a movement-quality-of-life alternative, but it does not make Cast while Channelling trigger Volatile Dead faster. --- Amulet --- The amulet is the best place to solve the build's strength and dexterity requirements. Mine supplies a large amount of both, plus life, energy shield, chaos resistance, and the -7 non-channelling mana-cost craft. Anoint Heart of Ice. The final passive tree already allocates Glacial Cage; Glacial Cage is not the alternate anoint in this version. The final amulet uses Intrinsic Catalysts for attributes. --- Rings --- The rings mainly solve life, energy shield, elemental resistances, and chaos resistance. The zero-cost setup uses: - one ring with "Non-Channelling Skills have -7 to Total Mana Cost" - the amulet with the same -7 non-channelling craft - the other ring with "Channelling Skills have -3 to Total Mana Cost" Together with Mana-Infused Staff, the final PoB reports zero cost for Cyclone and the triggered spells. This does two important things: 1. No-regeneration maps cannot turn the damage engine off through mana starvation. 2. Mana-siphoning rare monsters cannot stop Cyclone while you are standing inside the donut. Zero mana cost does not make "cannot leech" or "no regeneration" defensively irrelevant. Those modifiers still remove major recovery layers; see Map Modifiers. The final rings use Prismatic Catalysts. --- Belt --- Use a Stygian Vise. My priorities are: - increased flask effect duration - increased flask effect - maximum life - strength or other missing attributes - any needed resistance - cold damage as a luxury prefix The final belt has 33% increased flask effect duration, 11% increased flask effect, +120 maximum life, +54 strength, fire resistance, and 36% increased cold damage. Flask duration and effect are valuable because the boss burst depends on Bottled Faith, Taste of Hate, Stormblood, the Diamond Flask, and Wise Oak staying active long enough to finish the target. --- Abyss jewel --- Flat spell damage is poor value because Phantasmal Might already supplies thousands of flat damage. Prioritize: - global critical strike multiplier - maximum life or maximum energy shield - a useful defensive corruption or utility line if the price remains sensible The final jewel has global critical strike multiplier and life. Its bow damage line is dead and should not be copied. JEWELS AND CLUSTER JEWELS ========================= I PUT A BUNCH OF MY JEWELS I USED DURING LEVELING AND CHANGING THINGS AROUND IN THE BUILD. THEY ARE (UNUSED) IF YOU WANT SOME IDEAS. --- Large cluster - Spirit Creed --- Eight-passive cold-damage cluster with: - Blanketed Snow - Doryani's Lesson - Prismatic Heart - +4% chaos resistance on the small passives Doryani's Lesson is the final source of life leech. --- Medium clusters - Brood Joy and Pandemonium Star --- Both are critical-strike clusters with: - Basics of Pain - Pressure Points The notables stack, so both clusters use the same pair. One final jewel has four passives and the other has five. Useful small-passive additions include critical strike multiplier and chaos resistance. --- Watcher's Eye --- The final jewel has: - gain 26 life per enemy hit while affected by Vitality - damage penetrates 15% cold resistance while affected by Hatred The life gain is instant and applies per enemy hit. Volatile Dead is putting out balls constantly and each ball hits everything in its blast, so this returns a very large amount of life whenever we are fighting anything - and because it is neither leech nor regeneration, it keeps working under cannot-leech and no-regeneration map modifiers. That coverage is the reason for the final swap. While progressing, the first modifier to target is base critical strike chance while affected by Hatred - it is what lets the build reach the crit cap on cheap gear. I ran a Hatred-crit jewel for most of the league, first paired with life leech while affected by Vitality, then with the cold penetration. The finished gear caps critical strike chance without the jewel, which is what freed the slot for the life-gain mod. Check your own sheet before copying the final version: if dropping the crit mod pulls you under 100%, keep it. --- Militant Faith --- Use a Militant Faith carved to glorify Dominus so The Agnostic becomes Inner Conviction. My jewel has: - 4% increased area damage per 10 Devotion - 4% increased elemental damage per 10 Devotion Those are useful, but the Dominus keystone conversion is the real requirement. --- Intuitive Leap --- This saves passive points in the upper tree and supports the Militant Faith layout. Use the socket placement from the final tree rather than guessing from the item alone. --- Forbidden Flame and Forbidden Flesh --- The matching pair allocates Ascendant Trickster. This is a late upgrade, not part of the starter package. --- Rare corrupted jewel - Plague Branch --- The important final modifiers are: - Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you - +3% chance to block attack damage while wielding a staff - damage penetrates 1% cold resistance - critical strike multiplier with Fire Skills Volatile Dead retains the Fire gem tag even though its damage is converted to cold, so the Fire Skills critical multiplier is useful. The attack/cast-speed line on my jewel does not increase the Cast while Channelling trigger rate and is not a shopping target. Corrupted Blood immunity is not ordinary bleed immunity. The final character has no life flask and only partial bleed avoidance on the abyss jewel. If normal bleeds are causing problems, add a real bleed solution rather than assuming the corrupted-jewel implicit covers both. --- Cluster jewels as band-aids --- Before the final uniques, I used rare jewels and clusters to cover whatever was missing: - life leech - power-charge generation - chaos resistance - ailment help - life recovery on kill - temporary minion protection such as Blessed Rebirth The exact final clusters are optimized for the final gear. They are not the only way to make the character function. FLASKS ====== The uploaded PoB is saved in the boss flask configuration. The Quicksilver Flask remains in the item list but is not equipped in the active final set. --- Mapping set --- 1. Physician's Diamond Flask of Incision 2. Stormblood 3. Bottled Faith 4. Taste of Hate 5. Specialist's Quicksilver Flask of the Cheetah --- Boss set --- Replace the Quicksilver Flask with The Wise Oak. --- Automation and charge generation --- Magic utility flasks should have a chance to gain a flask charge when you deal a critical strike and should be enchanted to use when charges reach full. The final Diamond and Quicksilver flasks use this setup. Stormblood also has its own charge-on-crit modifier. Auto-use at full charges works well while mapping. On a boss, manually press the flasks once at the start; "use when charges reach full" does nothing until the flask has generated charges and reached full. --- Diamond Flask --- The final Diamond Flask grants 50% increased critical strike chance during effect. The saved 100% crit value assumes the configured flask and boss setup. If a different gear set reaches the cap without it, the slot can change, but I found the flask cheaper than buying the missing crit elsewhere. --- Stormblood --- Critical strikes can apply lightning ailments during effect. The saved PoB assumes a 40% shock. Treat that as a configured boss condition, not an unconditional ailment on every target; actual shock depends on the hit and target. --- Bottled Faith --- Creates Consecrated Ground, makes enemies on its ground take 10% increased damage, and grants a large amount of critical strike chance against enemies on the ground. --- Taste of Hate --- The final roll gains 13% of physical damage as extra cold and converts 23% of fire and lightning damage taken from hits to cold. It also provides partial chill and freeze avoidance. --- Quicksilver Flask --- Use this while mapping for speed. The final flask has charge-on-crit and additional movement speed during effect. --- The Wise Oak --- Use this in the boss set only if cold is your highest uncapped elemental resistance while the relevant flasks are active. Stormblood is a Topaz Flask, so it raises uncapped lightning resistance during effect. Check the actual uncapped values with Stormblood active. If lightning becomes the highest, Wise Oak will penetrate the wrong resistance and quietly stop being a cold-damage flask. DEFENSES, RECOVERY, AND WEAKNESSES ================================== --- Final defensive snapshot --- - 4,064 life - 2,046 unreserved life - 2,136 energy shield - 75% attack block - 78% spell block - 75% elemental resistances or better in the saved flask configuration - 75% chaos resistance - no spell suppression - very little armour and no meaningful evasion --- Defensive layers --- - Soulwrest's +25% attack block - staff block nodes - Mana-Infused Staff - energy shield recovery and charge generation from block nodes - Petrified Blood hit smoothing - persistent life leech - Trickster energy shield leech - 26 life gained instantly per enemy hit (Watcher's Eye with Vitality) - 7% life regeneration after consuming a corpse - Kaom's Roots action-speed floor, stun protection, and knockback protection - 62 Meat Shield phantasms taunting and absorbing attention - chill, freeze, and shatter - Cyclone movement and phasing through enemies --- What the defenses do not solve --- This is a block-and-recovery character, not an armour or suppression character. A large unblocked physical hit is one of the worst cases. Chaos damage bypasses energy shield and reaches the half-reserved life pool directly. Capped chaos resistance is mandatory for the finished character. Damage over time is the sharpest weakness. Desecrated ground, poison, ignite, bleed, and stacked recovery penalties can kill the character quickly because block does not help against damage over time. The build is not ailment immune. I chose damage and speed over a Stormshroud-style immunity setup because I was comfortable in the content I was running. That is a personal tradeoff, not a claim that immunity would be useless. The phantasms can die in extreme rooms, temporarily lowering damage. The stack rebuilds quickly as Volatile Dead consumes more corpses. The screen is extremely cluttered, The Dark Monarch reduces light radius, and the build can be hard on frame rate. Boss telegraphs, loot, and Voyage arrows become difficult to see. The movement speed can also put you ahead of the Volatile Dead balls. If a dangerous pack survives behind the front edge of the build, slow down or circle back long enough for the balls to arrive. MAP MODIFIERS ============= I run unidentified corrupted eight-mod maps, but the character is comfortable rather than immortal. No regeneration: - zero mana cost means Cyclone and the trigger loop still function - Vitality's regeneration and the 7% corpse-consumption regeneration are disabled - life and energy shield leech still function - the Watcher's Eye life gain on hit still functions Cannot leech: - the zero-cost damage loop still functions - Doryani's Lesson life leech and Trickster energy shield leech are disabled - corpse-consumption regeneration still functions unless regeneration is also disabled - the Watcher's Eye life gain on hit still functions No regeneration and cannot leech are therefore runnable, but neither is "free." When both appear with damage-over-time or reduced-recovery modifiers, the defensive cost is real. The final Watcher's Eye softens both cases considerably, because life gain on hit is neither leech nor regeneration - as long as we are hitting something, life keeps coming back. Reduced block and less recovery directly attack the build's main defenses. Temporal Chains and other action-speed reductions cannot reduce action speed below base because of Kaom's Roots. That prevents the movement/channelling slowdown from turning off the spin, but it does not mean every secondary effect of every curse is deleted. Corpse-detonation and corpse-raising effects usually have fewer corpses available because Volatile Dead consumes them rapidly, but that is mitigation rather than immunity. Chaos damage and damage-over-time modifiers are the ones I respect the most, especially when combined with reduced recovery. LEVELING ======== I levelled with Righteous Fire and Scorching Ray using twink gear and generic life, fire damage, fire resistance, and regeneration nodes. The PoB contains the full staged sets - switch the Tree, Skills, and Items dropdowns together: - Start: tree opening and campaign basics. - Level 18: Righteous Fire + Elemental Focus + Efficacy, Scorching Ray + Infused Channelling + Efficacy, Frostblink with Arcane Surge, Shield Charge with Faster Attacks and Momentum, Summon Skitterbots, and Blood Rage. - Level 35 and Level 60: the same core grown into four-links, with Purity of Elements, Haste, Elemental Weakness, Precision and Vitality under Arrogance - SR Swap: the Soulwrest transition. Soulwrest requires level 60; Id make the swap right when you can equip it. Hrimsorrow covers conversion; Inspiration and Clarity assist crit and mana. - Midgame: Congregation and Greater Spell Cascade join, still pre-free-cast. - Final: the finished character. The Dark Monarch requires level 84 and is the major damage transition. GEARING ORDER ============= 1. Cap elemental resistances and begin fixing chaos resistance. 2. Soulwrest plus Hrimsorrow. 3. Core Cyclone / Cast while Channelling / Desecrate / Volatile Dead gems. 4. The Dark Monarch at level 84. 5. Level 21 Summon Phantasm Support and Congregation progression. 6. Zero-cost jewelry crafts. 7. Spell-critical-strike chest. 8. Large cluster with Doryani's Lesson or another reliable life-leech source. 9. Watcher's Eye with Hatred base critical strike chance. Swap to the life-gain-on-hit and penetration version only once the rest of the gear caps crit without it. 10. Militant Faith and Intuitive Leap. 11. Forbidden Flame/Flesh Trickster pair, Inquistor also works. 12. Bottled Faith, Stormblood, Taste of Hate, and a correctly configured Wise Oak. 13. Rare conversion gloves plus the final Cold Mastery. At every stage, attributes, elemental resistances, chaos resistance, life, and energy shield take priority over copying a luxury damage modifier from my finished item. MY CURRENT 3.29 FARMING SETUP ============================= This is the content I used the character for, not a requirement for the build: - unidentified corrupted eight-mod maps - full eight-mod Maven invitations - Guardian rotations - T17 boss rushing - endgame bosses - the Voyage mechanic --- Atlas priorities --- I prioritized Settlers of Kalguur, map tiers, Maven, and the wheels that improve high-tier map and scarab drops. The league-mechanic half of the tree can be replaced with whatever farm you prefer. --- City Square Guardian loop --- My current loop uses: - Influencing Scarab of Interference - Trarthan Scarab of Infamy - Cartography Scarab of Corruption - Cartography Scarab of Escalation - a Kalguuran Scarab for additional ore - Templar Astrolabes on the map device I run this on an unidentified Conquerer City Square. Interference adds a Guardian-style boss alongside map bosses, City Square has multiple map bosses, and Maven captures the Guardians rather than the ordinary map boss. The resulting fragments feed the invitations and uber versions that this character also runs. This is a league- and economy-specific farm. Recheck the scarab text and profitability before copying it in a later patch. --- Nightmare map boss rush --- Use Scarab of the Sinistral and Scarab of the Dextral together to suppress both sides of the map's modifiers as I generally drop them 8 mod corrupted un-ided (which un-id adds qunatity to the map giving more fragments even with both scarabs), run to the boss, take the fragments, and leave. I juice normal maps and treat Nightmare maps as fragment vending machines. --- Voyage --- Kaom's Roots ignores the Depths water slowdown. The major practical downside is that 62 phantasms make the guiding arrows difficult to see. POB CONFIGURATION AND WHAT THE NUMBER MEANS =========================================== The final XML is saved with the boss flask set and the following conditions. --- Enemy conditions --- - chilled - 30% chill effect - shocked - 40% shock effect - Unnerved - on Consecrated Ground - on Scorched Ground - chilled by you for five seconds The five-second chill input is intentional because Glacial Cage is allocated. It represents partial ramp; the node can continue scaling to its cap if the enemy remains chilled longer. --- Player conditions --- - Low Life - Leeching - using a flask - crit recently - consumed a corpse recently - been hit recently - six power charges - Meat Shield enemy near you - channelling Cyclone Frenzy charges are not enabled even though the chest can generate them. --- Full DPS count --- The body skill is configured with a count of ten Volatile Dead balls. PoB reports: - 4.65 million average hit - 7.28 million DPS for one configured Volatile Dead skill instance - 72.80 million from ten Volatile Dead balls - approximately 35,000 Cyclone DPS - 72.84 million total Full DPS The Full DPS total does not include the phantasms' ordinary attacks. Their important contribution is Phantasmal Might, taunt, distraction, Item Rarity kills, and Culling Strike. Ten balls is a modeling choice. Real single-target damage varies with travel time, targeting, boss movement, multi-boss splitting, flask uptime, shock effect, charge ramp, and how many balls actually reach the same target. The saved 100% critical strike chance also assumes the configured flasks, charges, and ground effects. Do not compare a hideout tooltip to the configured boss number and assume something is broken. TROUBLESHOOTING =============== --- The build has no damage after entering a zone --- Cyclone for several seconds. The phantasm stack and Volatile Dead ball stack both need to rebuild. --- The phantasm count is below 62 --- Check: - The Dark Monarch is equipped - Summon Phantasm Support is level 21 - Congregation is level 4 for the final cap - the Soulwrest sockets are unlinked - no linked damaging/culling skill is creating support-gem phantasms instead of Soulwrest phantasms --- Cyclone or the triggered spells cost mana --- Check all three jewelry crafts: - two -7 non-channelling crafts - one -3 channelling craft Also confirm Mana-Infused Staff is active. Ensure any skills that dont benefit from levels stay low. (VD/Desecrate/Frostblink) --- The rare-glove version loses most of its damage --- Confirm the gloves have both conversion modifiers and that the 40% Cold Mastery is allocated. Hrimsorrow and the rare gloves do not use the same tree allocation. --- Staff Mastery is inactive --- The staff needs at least one red and one blue socket. The final colors are B B W R B R. --- Wise Oak is not adding cold penetration --- Check uncapped resistances while Stormblood is active. Cold must be the highest. --- Critical strike chance is below 100% --- The saved cap assumes the Diamond Flask, power charges, Bottled Faith ground, and the rest of the final boss configuration. The final Watcher's Eye no longer carries a crit modifier; if your gear is not at the finished level, a Hatred base-crit Watcher's Eye is the normal way to close the gap. Check those conditions before buying random crit. --- Overleech is not behaving as expected --- Check the life reservation. The final character has 50.34% unreserved life. Changing Vitality level, Arrogance, reservation efficiency, or gear can move that number. --- Damage over time is killing the character --- Check chaos resistance first, then look for no-regeneration, cannot-leech, less-recovery, poison, ignite, bleeding, and desecrated-ground combinations. Corrupted Blood immunity does not grant ordinary bleed immunity. --- The displayed block value differs --- Open and resave the build in a current Path of Building version before publishing. Mana-Infused Staff block rounding received a calculation fix immediately after the 3.29 support release, so the displayed 75/78 values should be confirmed in the current client. --- The imported build opens on a low-level character sheet --- The XML stores the character sheet for whichever stage was active when the build was last saved. If the import opens showing low life or uncapped resistances, switch the Tree, Skills, and Items dropdowns to Final. (Brian: select the Final sets and save once before generating the public pobb.in link, so viewers land on the finished character.)