Aura Stacker ft. Coruscating Elixir + The Traitor for LL without Shavs

pob: https://pastebin.com/V5V8XtzY

sirus al9: https://youtu.be/VYPyk5HCVEQ

maven: https://youtu.be/9vFtiRJ8mUs

#Introduction

This build showcases what I think is one of the most underused 'new' combos this league: coruscating elixir + the traitor. This allows you to go LL without shavs, which is huge as the chest slot is one of the most valuable slots in a build. Other than that, if you are familiar with my older posts this league/last league, the core of this build as an aura stacker using march of the legion remains mostly unchanged. You can see the tankiness is very high... which was necessary as my mechanics are god awful.

#Mechanics/Core choices

##Coruscating Elixir + The Traitor

This is the main new interaction I have added to the build. While this was technically possible ever since the introduction of the traitor keystone, I do not believe it was really viable/worth it until this league for the following reasons:

• Massively lower opportunity cost; you are missing out on far less by not running normal flasks.

• Flask automation. This is huge, as you obviously really do not want coruscating elixir to EVER drop off as you are a low life character.

• The traitor mechanic change. Not sure about this one, but I previously remember the traitor distributing flask charges to all the flasks you have, which means if you have 2 flasks, it would distribute the 12 charges between them, basically only generating 6 for each. Maybe I just am mistakenly remembering that, but at the very least, it no longer works that way.

###Flask choices

Coruscating elixir is obviously a must. For 2nd, I like having an auto-used anti-freeze flask, but you could use anything here. I chose bismuth for maximum uptime, but quicksilver or quartz would be other good options. I have experimented with running an overflowing chalice as my third flask, and while this will still keep coruscating elixir up 99% of the time, it will extremely rarely drop off. This will probably only happen once every few hours or so, but overflowing chalice wasn't really gaining me much so I decided to drop it.

###Chest choices

While saqawal's was my immediate thought, you actually end up with a bit too much rsr which is pretty funny. Obviously, you could use this extra rsr to help swap from march of the legion, but I like march of the legion so I thought about other options. A rare chest with some nice influenced mods or high ES would be good, but since I use a 7l helm, I would very much like +level corruptions on my chest which basically restricts me to unique chest pieces. Ultimately, I decided on Skin of the lords, as it is a pretty easy +6 aura gem levels. This lets you get a super juicy rf/smite/discipline without a +6 gem levels hands of the high templar which would set you back at least 30 ex (more considering you have to fix your multi when dropping maligaros). You also wouldn't get to boost your spectres/ag which actually helps their survivability a ton (even with all these +gem levels I've lost my spectres before and seen AG drop to half hp).

##Immunities

Since ailments are based off of your life pool, it is very important for ES based characters to get ailment immunity. I get freeze immune as mentioned above from an auto-used flask, and shock immunity comes from my watcher's eye. I also get 115% reduced effect of curses from ascendancy + shaper ring mod, so I am unaffected by map mod curses and other curses have their effects significantly reduced. If you don't get the shaper mod (assassin's mark + hot are higher priority mods), then you can just use yugul upgraded pantheon.

While I don't have poison/ignite immunity, you can technically get these on CotB. However, I don't think they are particularly problematic as for poison I took pantheon (+chaos res vs dot, limited poison stack count/duration). For ignite, we take only 8% of fire damage and have insane regen, so I have not had any issue with them.

##Arakaali + Coruscating

This is a pretty old combo, though I have not seen much mention of it in recent times. Basically, coruscating drops you to 1 life, which turns off your rf, which stops a degen. This means you basically have at a bare minimum ~35% up time on the 50% increased recovery rate buff from arakaali upgraded pantheon, and you can also use your coruscating elixir as a pseudo life flask/vaal discipline at any time (since with only 2 flasks it will be oversustaining charges).

##Animate Guardian

The kingmaker is obvious, but a 'new' addition this league is galesight. I also have a painseeker on, though I'm not positive how much it helps. As you can see, the AG manages to apply brittle on all the end game bosses, so hes doing work. For chest I use belly (gets enough regen from guardian ascendancy), and for boots I just grabbed a pair with chaos + fire + lightning res and crafted on movespeed. This way the AG will be at least res capped even when not touched by my purities (which have no quality). Garb of the ephemeral would also be really good here. As you can see even without chill/freeze there are plenty of mechanics that fuck with your action speed, but it is not a budget friendly option. If my AG stays alive for another week I may consider upgrading him.

##Aura Stacking

See previous posts here and here.

##Only 1x CotB + Trinity

Adding in an unset ring is basically just a cost-saving measure. It gives us 2 gem slots and automates cursing. Since we only run 1x CotB, we can go ahead and use Trinity as well. It did get nerfed harder than other support gems unfortunately, so it isn't as far ahead of the pack as it used to be.

##Spectres

Arena masters are my favorite. They have really good life and their buff gives ms/cast speed which is great.

Some other good options would be they of tul, curse specialists, and the bubble spectre, but they're squishy.

##Gem Swaps

You could swap out faster projectiles for bossing... but honestly spark without faster proj is just way less satisfying to me. You can see my archdemon has a white socket expressly so I can gem swap if I want to, but I end up never really using it.

Other than that, phase run is a nice slot in for heisting/logbooks. I usually replace either precision or defiance banner.

###Upgrades and their cost from last update

Helmet: 10 ex. Got lucky; was prepared to spend 20+ ex.

I loosely followed elesshars guide here.

Basically, main difference is you don't need shaper/elder so you can redeemer orb slam the archdemon crown. You also don't need to bother doing prefixes or elevating everything (though obviously if you have the currency, you can go ahead and try). If I wanted the rmr no matter what, I would've gotten elevated rsr on the helm and imprinted it, but I was fine with having any 3 of spell crit/30% more ele dmg/rsr/hypothermia. If the awakener orb turned out bad, I planned to just started rolling it with essences.

I'll finish prefixes eventually using veiled chaos to get +2 lvl projectile gems, but that would probably cost me another 10 ex and just isn't worth it yet imo.

Ring: 10c. Bought off trade. Don't bother trying to self-craft something like this, there are plenty on trade last I checked with mark + herald. The curse reduction is nice but not required.

Belt: 3 ex. I crafted a rare belt with essences before slamming with crusader. If the slam was bad, I was planning to just spam dense fossils until I hit something decent.

Skin of the Loyal: 8 ex. Colors have a little bit of wiggle... you technically don't need spectres/ag in there, though if you can't fit in ag, I just wouldn't run him (he'd probably die way more without the huge + levels and I don't want to constantly regear him). Core is smite/discipline/empower/rf. Unfortunately this might be slightly difficult to find as theres only a few on trade last I checked with good colors.

Prism Guardian: 6 ex. This one is actually cheaper now as the supply of corrupted prism guardian is going up a lot!

Clusters: 10 ex. Bought all off trade, not really worth self-crafting these more specific ones (with decent suffixes).

March of the Legion: 70c. Nobody really wants haste corrupt (though +2 aura/aoe is getting picked up also by deadeye exsanguinate players). Try to get good ms roll.

Rare jewels: <10c each, they are all super basic ES + int/dmg jewels

Nebulis: 50c. Here is my long ass livesearch if anyone cares to use it themselves.

CotB: 1 ex

#Potential Upgrades

I think ultimate min-max is unfortunately just 2x cotb + saqawals + hands of the high templar with a shit ton of rsr multi jewels, which is extremely expensive and not particularly innovative.

For sticking with the basic outline within this build:

• Craft a better helm (with elevated mods and good prefixes)

• Jewels are as mentioned very cheap/beginner level. The 6 node medium clusters are also really scuffed but go a long way to helping out my chaos res as is. Adding on + intelligence and flat energy shield can cost you over 100 ex per cluster. Honestly I'm pretty sure an all t1 medium cluster would be mirror-tier, though it doesn't even exist in this league so that is a moot point.

• Good corrupt on maligaros

• double damage nebulis

• empower lvl 4

• alt quality auras

• awakened gems

If you have questions feel free to just leave a comment. I kinda just sat down and typed this wall of text, so I probably missed some stuff. If theres some interest, I can put together a pob using saqawals instead of skin of the lords which should be easier to follow as theres only a few usable skin of the lords on trade available.