Build Pros and Cons:
Pros
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S-tier mapping, exceptional clear
Scales well as a Physical Skill
Freeze is insanely good for safety
Fast
Reap has higher damage upside if you are willing to boss swap gems and push an extra button
Very high damage ceiling, 100-400m dps with investment
If you DONT want to use Reap, you can skip it entirely and still boss after a certain investment level
Cons
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Gem swapping for bossing (if you don't care about bossing, ignore this)
Reap requires additional sockets to acquire Blood charges with a second copy of Reap
Reap requires an extra button
Reap has a large life cost
Leveling
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Leveling from 1-31 will be Rolling Magma with Fire Trap for additional single target. Or level with whatever you prefer. We'll be transitioning
to Power Siphon Locus Mines at level 31 as soon as we acquire Charged Mines.
Off-hand gems
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Level Exsanguinate in every offhand socket you have. You will want to corrupt them for a level 21 the moment you can, as every gem level
is an important power jump. If you remember to do this early you won't have to wait as long later. Quality on the gem doesn't matter as
we are scaling the hit and not the DoT, don't feel obligated to quality them before corrupting for 21.
Reap, however, we DO want quality for as the additional damage per blood charge is substantial.
Vendor Search Strings
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Movement speed boots + BBB / GGG / GGB + gem levels
"b-b-b|g-g-b|g-[gb]-g|b-g-g|nne|rint|ll g|Earn"
Pre-Mine Gem Progression
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Level 4: Buy Rolling Magma + Elemental Proliferation after Tidal Island. Buy Flame Wall. Shoot your Magma balls through the flame wall to get additional flat fire dmg.
Level 8: Get an added damage support for whichever links you are able to find, either Added Cold Damage or Added Lightning Damage, then once you kill Brutus grab Combustion from vendor
Level 12: Pick up Fire Trap for single target. Link it with Trap and Mine Damage as soon as you complete Yeena's quest in A2
Act 2:
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Your links at this point should be Rolling Magma + Elemental Proliferation + Combustion for clear and Fire Trap + Trap and Mine Damage + Swift Assembly
Bandits
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I personally will be taking the 8% movement speed buff from Kraityn, but there isn't a wrong choice here in my opinion. If you'd like to be tankier,
take +40 life from Oak. If you find gearing up resistances more difficult, Alira is still a fine choice. Choose the one most likely to make your campaign
experience more enjoyable. If you are a new player, I'd recommend taking Oak and the +40 life.
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Transition to Power Siphon Locus Mines at level 31 when you acquire Charged Mines
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Act 4:
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Make sure you grab Grace and equip one from here on out. You'll feel too squishy as you make progress into late campaign without it. Periodically you'll want
to fish for better EVASION and/or ENERGY SHIELD bases as you can off the ground, prioritizing your Chest Piece. This will keep you comfortably alive during the
remainder of the campaign.
UPGRADE YOUR WEAPON REGULARLY FOR POWER SIPHON TO FEEL GOOD
Look for:
- Flat Lightning Damage
- Any other Flat Damage
- Crit Multi
- Spell Damage
- Accuracy becomes noticeable around the middle of the campaign
Doedre's Tenure is amazing and will be cheaper this league
White / Early Maps
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1) Fix your flasks, they are probably terrible. You probably want Ignite immunity from a flask as I find this the most annoying damaging ailment. Get a Jade flask,
this is crucially important, and ideally find one more flask with Increased Evasion During Effect.
2) Look for better bases. The gear you had in campaign is almost certainly really bad. T1/T2 bases have a lot of Evasion/ES since they reworked them.
3) Wrath essence a decent wand so you can progress, or grab one off trade
4) Zeal essence a good belt. Crystal's are awesome until you can find a Stygian Vise
Endurance Charges
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These are a really excellent defensive layer and will be important, particularly because we don't have Trickster's Spellbreaker/Escape Artist. Get them from
either an Enduring Composure small cluster (probably what I will do) or from the Endurance Charge implicit on chests. Enduring Cry is also an option
but I personally hate additional buttons. Swift Killer will ensure that Enduring Composure keeps your charges up all the time, even on an evasion base.
ASCENDENCY ORDER
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1. One Step Ahead
2. Swift Killer
3. Escape Artist
4. Polymath -OR- Spellbreaker. If not suppress capped through gear I would recommend Spellbreaker then decide if you want the extra damage later. For Uber
bossing Spellbreaker is insanely good.
Possible uniques to wear
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Kintsugi is amazing defensively
Restless Ward is common and can be found with good corruptions for reasonably cheap
Critical Strike Chance
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Crit will be crucially important as it will gate your ability to Freeze and deal damage. I wouldn't transition over to Exsanguinate unless you have Pob'd
that you will be getting at least 70% crit chance or you just won't be freezing enough. Early on take Winter's Embrace to make this more comfy. There
are excellent Critical Strike medium clusters available for cheap to help, and you can take or annoint really strong Crit nodes like High Voltage, bench or
get gear with Increased Critical Strike Chance for Spells (shield / caster weapons), Diamond flasks for conditional crit chance, Hatred Watcher's eye mods
with base critical strike chance, Assassin's Mark, and so on.
If you are having a hard time crit capping, use Hrimsorrow gloves and Increased Critical Strikes support to ease the transition.
IMPORTANT
Transitioning from Power Siphon to Exsanguinate
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Before transitioning you want to have acquired:
- a 5-Link minimum
- at minimum level 18 Exsanguinate, ideally 20 or 21. gem levels are a massive amount of damage for spells. Quality doesnt matter
- Ideally the correct spell modifiers on gear (+1 gem on weapon, +1 gem or high spell dmg on shield, spell crit chance)
- Kikazaru -OR- enough life regen that you don't kill yourself (250-300+)
- 100% Physical Conversion to Cold. Hrimsorrow is great for this. Other options (more expensive) are Watcher's Eye,
Betrayal gloves, glove implicit, and 40% from the Cold mastery. If you don't convert your damage to
elemental Exsanguinate will do very little damage.
Heatshiver is nice but might be expensive, not required.
MAKE SURE YOU POB THIS TRANSITION FIRST. It's not a straight forward swap since you are going from Attack based to Spell based and you don't
want to drop from 100% -> 50% crit strike chance with exsanguinate because you are trying to make it work with attack based gear that doesn't
help out a spell.
IMPORTANT
Skill Tree Transition to Exsanguinate [88-93]
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You need Freeze Duration in order for Freeze to be an effective damage mitigation layer, particularly when
you get to late maps. I've allocated Winter's Embrace and Physical Conversion as part of the transition
to Exsanguinate becuase YOU WANT 100% conversion to Cold for Cold damage to be effective. At lower damage
levels, particularly right when you transition, you will want Freeze Duration.
For example, to get the minimum 0.3s freeze on a mob you have to deal 5% of its health pool in a single hit. With 100% increased
freeze duration (or ailment duration), you only have to deal 2.5% of its health pool to get the 0.3s freeze which is enough to
proc Heatshiver for the next hit,
FREEZE - IMPORTANT
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Freeze is a critical thing to get right here or it will feel like dogshit to play. Freeze duration is calculated based on the size of the hit relative to the
target's ailment threshhold, and as long as you are critting you will get Freezes guaranteed. You need a 0.3s Freeze for it not to be discarded,
however you can get Freeze Duration from the tree (Winter's Embrace and Elemental Focus) or from cluster jewels. If you aren't reliably freezing
mobs path up to Winter's Embrace and take the whole wheel.
For example, to get the minimum 0.3s freeze on a mob you have to deal 5% of its health pool in a single hit. With 100% increased
freeze duration (or ailment duration), you only have to deal 2.5% of its health pool to get the 0.3s freeze which is enough to
proc Heatshiver for the next hit,