Introduction

Hey guys. There's a lot of talk about Venom Gyre these days, especially from the streamer KobeBlackMamba, but most of the content I have seen around the build has been focused on multi-mirror strength-stacking builds.

This one is a little different, because, well, it's cheap. My end game claw is Wasp's Nest. My end game belt is Olesya's Delight. No mirror claws, no Headhunters, and the build still performs. You can probably afford my entire build for less than Replica Alberon's Warpath.

I haven't gotten around to the Feared or Simulacrum, but I have delved to depth 600 which is top 500ish on the Archnemesis ladder, which feels similar enough mechanically. I have always loved blasting and pushing delve ladders for fun, and this league and this build are no exception. Delve and Simulacrum are the sweet spots, and it performs at a top level in both.

I do think this build is the strongest I have ever played at a 30-40 ex budget, but there is one clear drawback: LAG. If you thought juiced map farming was laggy... delayed damage, double fork, and double chain add even more to the mix. I usually crash about every 15-20 minutes. I would be especially careful around Harbinger or anything in the game that has invulnerable or very tanky units.

However, delayed damage is a huge boon in the survivability department because of life gain on hit. My claw adds +40 and I get +4 from the tree, reduced by 10% from the life mastery, so it's about a flat 40 life gain per hit. And boy, does this build hit. I theoretically attack 10 times per second (with focus and totem). Each attack shoots 6 projectiles that can theoretically hit 13 times: hit, fork and two more hits, two chains, fork and four more hits, four chains. In most situations, this is not reasonable even with delayed damage, but if you count in Ricochet, I would say you get 5 hits per projectile conservatively. This doesn't count Sniper's Mark (which is splitting into 6 with 156% mark effect).

Conservative: 40x10x6x5 = 12,000 Healing per Second

Top end (I think): 40x10x6x13 = 31,200 Healing per Second

It's a minor thing, but the last boon of running an ailment Venom Gyre is skill effect duration for Vaal Molten Shell, which means you don't need Increased Duration Support. Gems are very tight when you run the Sniper's Mark on Hit setup, and this helps a lot.

The Build

I originally made a PoB based on Jungroan's Spectral Helix Deadeye and ran the numbers for Venom Gyre, and I honestly didn't think it was going to work. The tree is really tight, and it's hard to get everything you want (mixed defenses, max res, life, damage). Luckily enough, this league contains a few tricks to make things work, but one particular trick got this build off the ground: the new "Drops Brittle Ground while moving" mod is an absolute godsend for an ability that does most of its burst in a window while moving through the enemy. 5% base crit is an unreal amount for such little investment: more than an elevated chest crit mod plus a Watcher's Eye mod. Insane.

The cool thing about Venom Gyre is that it allows you to store and release projectiles by using Whirling Blades. Here's a section from KBM's Venom Gyre overview where he covers the name-locking trick, which allows you to unload your stored projectiles from Venom Gyre by going back and forth over the boss with a single click. This build doesn't run Berserk, but the concept is basically the same except you will hit your Focus instead.

This interaction takes the build from being a mediocre bosser, to pretty good, even with only 4 million DPS per projectile. With 20 million per projectile, wave 30 Kosis melts into thin air. These are numbers that are more commonly seen with the strength-stacking and trinity variants, but almost all of those builds run mirror-tier claws anyway, so I'm not sure if the damage is really better. Assassin is about double poison damage. If you add in a 100ex claw, the -12% chaos res on helm, and Bottled Faith, etc.; you get ~18.7 million dps. Here's a sample PoB to demonstrate.

Conclusion

I hate to see it when players feel like they can't enjoy a fun build because they can't afford it. Instead, you just have to afford the PC for this one ;) The core of this build is ~10 ex, with ~6ex of that being an off-color Brass Dome. On my top end, good Megalomaniacs and a well-rolled Lethal Pride will help a lot. Endurance charges are so good; they almost double my overall reduction to physical damage: from 31.5k max physical hit to 52.5k max hit.

Always happy to share more or answer questions. Let me know what you think! Thank you

References

Venom Gyre Depth Ladder

https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds?type=depthsolo&skill=Venom-Gyre

My poe.ninja profile

https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/ZarathustraXD/Archnemisexual?type=depthsolo&i=5&search=type%3Ddepthsolo%26skill%3DVenom-Gyre

Theoretical PoB (just leveling up gems and Enhance 4)

https://pastebin.com/7VsNZJqK

Juiced T16 with Deli Mirror Omniphobia

https://clips.twitch.tv/BillowingTrappedSushiGivePLZ-aD4sUvT4VryoDbFC