(*added info on game mechanics, will add more showcase videos asap)

Hi Exiles!

This is my first time writing this guide/showcase since 3.20 reinvigorated my love for POE, and this build really pushed all the buttons on what I want to play. Let me know if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer - I'm also very open to feedback!

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Video Showcase and PoB:

90% Feared Invitation

Sample Mapping (Chimera Map)

Uber Shaper Kill

Uber Sirus Kill

Updated POB

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General Mechanics

• Scaling absurd amounts of elemental damage via the recently buffed Voidforge sword (from 300% to 700% extra), at the expense of dealing NO physical or chaos damage
• Leveraging several synergistic mechanics in the game to shore up both offense and defense:
  • Dissolution of Flesh allows us to entirely change how life works; once equipped, you no longer take damage from hits/DoTs, instead life is reserved corresponding to post mitigation damage. When your reserved life is 100%, you die.
  • Petrified Blood is used to further increase defense against hits; normally the 40% damage converted into life loss only affects the lower half of life. However, in conjunction with Dissolution, it works on the entirety of our life globe. This essentially makes Petrified Blood into "40% less damage taken against hits", provided you can combat the incoming life loss.
  • Here comes Eternal Youth - this keystone allows Energy Recharge to become Life Recharge. Normally recharge is disabled once you take damage, however if you remember Dissolution makes us "not take damage anymore". This means Life Recharge just happens ALL THE TIME.
  • Rage Vortex requires Rage to be sacrificed - we solve this by equipping Kaom's Spirit Gloves in order to convert life regeneration into rage regeneration.
  • This means our life regeneration is now meant to power our offensive power (via Rage), and we rely on life recovery via Eternal Youth (and Leech).
  • We are constantly leeching because Petrified Blood prevents life to be recovered beyond 50%, but does not turn off any leeching effects because of that. This means life leech when attacking provides a nice buffer for life recovery besides Eternal Youth. This also means gear mods that require "when leeching" will work reliably.
  • Because we are lowlife (due to Petrified Blood), we abuse Bloodthirst Support in order to provide LARGE amounts of base physical damage to our Voidforge. This means stacking Life has a nice bonus of providing more damage.
  • Dissolution of Flesh also provides us with a large base life (due to 30% more life mod), which synergizes with Bloodthirst as well.
  • Rage Vortex throws a spinning copy of your weapon onto an area; this means for the entire duration of the vortex it deals damage without any more input from you. Meaning you can dodge mechanics and worry about your survival until the time you want to send another vortex (similar to DoT playstyle).
  • Rage Vortex has inherent "snapshot" behavior regarding exerted attacks; mods added to exerted attacks apply to the full duration of the Rage Vortex.
  • Lastly, we use Berserker ascendancy to cover the following:
    • inherent ascendancy support for Rage
    • 40% more damage!
    • 50% more damage for exerted attacks, and Rage Vortex snapshots this multiplier for the whole duration of the vortex!
    • Add to that Intimidating Cry's 100% more damage for exerted attacks, this essentially provides absurd damage scaling to any Vortex we release.

Offense

• Rage (tripled effects due to Rite of Ruin
• 700% phys as extra random element by Voidforge
• 150-200 base physical damage added by Bloodthirst Support (not counting the base added by Rage Support as well)
• 40% more damage (Aspect of Carnage)
• 100% more damage (exerted attack through Intimidating Cry
• 50% more damage (exerted attack through War Bringer)
• Trinity penetration (100% reliable due to Voidforge)
• Scorch and Brittle effects through Interrogation jewel
• Berserk (more damage, more attack speed)
• Ancestral totems (we use both, again more damage more attack speed)
• Crit scaling
• Frenzy/Power charges through Grand Spectrum (if afforded)
• Herald of Purity for damage and more meat tanks

Defense

• Petrified Blood's effective 40% less damage taken (applied to entire unreserved life)
• Constant Life recovery via Eternal Youth, enough to combat:
  • Rite of Ruin degen
  • Life costs via Lifetap
  • Life loss via Petrified Blood
• Fortify on hit
• Sap effect through Interrogation jewel (up to 20% less damage)
• Berserk's 20% less damage taken
• Overleech
• Endurance changes through Grand Spectrum (if afforded)
• 100% elemental ailment avoidance (through boots and chest)
• More damage avoidance via Progenesis (if afforded)
• Determination aura with Vaal Molten Shell
• Ranged playstyle
• DoT playstyle (esp. for bosses)

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Pros

• Abuses Voidforge buff to deal insane amounts of damage
• DoT playstyle: land your Rage Vortex and let it kill things while you dodge/move around
• Melee benefits while not being melee at all, that means you benefit from the following:
  • Ancestral totems
  • Fortify
  • Melee passives on tree
• Berserk is addicting
• Dissolution + Petrified Blood (+ optional Progenesis) makes you able to tank very large hits
• Snapshotting nature of Rage Vortex
• Crit build (abuses Secrets of Suffering) - we reliably hit near-max/max Sap, Scorch, and Brittle everytime due to Voidforge!
• Endgame DPS of more than 100-200 million - remember this is on a "DoT" playstyle
• Breezes through Sanctum (not really melee KEKW)

Cons

• Degens/DoT - these are not mitigated by Fortify/Petrified Blood/Progenesis so more attention should be incorporated for these on this build
• Dissolution playstyle - Dissolution provides large life pool at the expense of "life reservation on damage mechanic", some people might not want it (I find it fun personally)
  • You need to not take damage (any damage) for 2 seconds before your life "resets"
  • Even annoying small consistent hits on you, or any degen, will prevent the reservation from resetting (thankfully the build has absurd levels of damage to melt everything before that happens)
• Not Wave 30 simulacrum viable (due to Dissolution playstyle)
• Cannot trivialize all Uber Bosses (due to degens) - personally I wouldnt think of fighting Uber Sirus and Maven on this.
• Lots of buttons to press
  • Totems for buffs
  • Warcry
  • Berserk (for bosses)
  • Molten Shell (and Vaal MS as well)

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General Notes

• Dissolution of Flesh combined with Bloodthirst support, as well as life nodes on tree and gear, allow you to pump insane amounts of base physical damage to Voidforge, which is then transformed to 700% EXTRA elemental, making investment to Life both an offensive and defensive decision.
• There are two routes you can take after, either:
  • Convert the wasted physical damage on Voidforge into elemental (via Fire Mastery on tree, gear, relic, etc.) - if converted fully, this would essentially mean your physical damage is now transformed to 800% elemental.
  • Use Elemental Equilibrium - this means nowhere should your build have any flat fire/cold/lightning damage on tree, gear, relic. Only flat physical damage should exist so EE will not be messed up (percent increases to elemental dmg is ok, it's the flat damage that will screw EE). That also means no other "extra" elemental damage elsewhere - no Herald of Ash, even glove lab enchants can screw EE.
• I personally opted for EE route as it's very easy to just pump physical damage on your gear.
• Regarding Blitz vs Tukohama for Forbidden jewel: I opted for Tukohama since Blitz need ramp time to be operational (whereas totems dont have). Rage Vortex is a "preptime" type of attack anyway; by preptime I mean putting down totems, activating warcry, setting up flask buffs, etc. before firing away the vortex.
• Having Fortify implicit on your Voidforge saves a lot of points on the tree (plus Fortify is a more multiplier as well). Instead of buying one for ridiculous prices, you can achieve this cheaper by turning in a set of Eternal Darkness using a lowlevel character (I used a fresh level 2 one) in order to get a low item level Voidforge, then double corrupting it myself. A low level Voidforge will remove some vaal implicit outcomes, and overall will be cheaper than buying one outright. I did mine that way. Quality, sockets, links can all be handled using tainted currency anyway.