Path of Exile 3.23 Affliction SSF - Dia 2

*If you like the detached mirage archer playstyle, take Occupying Force instead of Farshot in your 2nd lab and grab point blank while you're at it. The playstyle will be different but the damage will be similar. Do not take ricochet until you have enough power coming from your gear. Make sure you don't have any source of pierce when you go for ricochet. **Flasks are really strong on this build and they are cheap to roll with alterations. We invest multiple points in the passive tree to improve their uptime and effectiveness; Do not let those points be wasted on some crappy rolled flasks. Roll your flasks with alterations, they are a core part of the defences and speed of this build. You can and should bench enchant them with "Reused when full" or "Reused at the end of flask effect" later on when you have the currency for it. ***Do not link cast when damage taken to sniper's mark. Make 2 separate 2 links if you socket them in the same gear piece Leveling: Act 1: Copy and paste the regex characters below in the vendor window to highlight socket links, movement speed boots and flat added damage on a bow: g-g-r|g-[gr]-g|r-g-g|nne|rint|Heat|roste|Humm Try to socket your main skill and ballista setup in your helmet, body armour or gloves, so that you can upgrade your bow and boots without worrying too much about the sockets on them. PLAYSTYLE: Kill normal enemies with your main skill to gain onslaught or replenish quicksilver flask charges Drop your Ballistae on tanky enemies Make sure Blink Arrow and your main skill have "attack without moving" enabled. Keep identifying rare items, equip them if they are upgrades (life, resist, flat elemental damage, attack speed, accuracy) otherwise vendor them, this is important. You will use those transmute and alterations. You can stop identifying most rare items when you have enough alterations to roll your flasks and buy your gems. Act 2: Do the Great White Beast quest for a Quicksilver flask. Keep some alterations to buy gems and benchcraft mods. Use your spare alterations on the quicksilver until it rolls either increased effect or increased movement speed during flask effect. Bandit: Kill all Act 3: From here, if your damage ever feels bad, go buy some uniques from the leveling item sets. Prioritize prismweave, then karui ward. If you're too poor, start farming the league mechanic every zone until you can afford them. I have done many SSF run and never had an issue with the damage without these uniques so you should be fine. Keep an eye out for 4L, the colors you want are Green Green Blue Red for both of your skill setups. If you find a 4L on a base that has evasion but not the colors you need, you can use chromatic orbs on it. From here, just look for life and resistances on your gear, attack speed and flat damage is also good but not needed. AFFLICTION ASCENDANCY: Go Warden of the Maji early -> Oath of the Maji -> Detect Evil -> Coated Blade -> Nature's concoction Later on, we probably swap to Wildwood Primalist after we get some good charms. The transition From Rain of Arrow to Tornado Shot / Ice Shot / Lightning arrow: As soon as you finish Merc lab (the 3rd one) at level 69, you will have Endless Ammunition, Multishot, Master Fletcher and Piercing Shots. This will let you safely transition from Rain of Arrow to Tornado Shot, Ice Shot or Lightning Arrow. If you play Lightning Arrow or Ice shot, you can use Returning Projectile Support instead of Increased Critical Damage Support. The Transition to crit: Do not transition to crit too early. Wait until you are at least level 75 AND have these items: A decent elemental dps bow with either crit or an open suffix to craft crit. Hyrri's Truth Jade Amulet (try and get a semi decent roll if they are not too expensive) 2 Rings with Non-Channeling Skills have -7 to total mana cost A rare evasion based body armour or helmet (or both) with reservation efficiency on it. You can roll reservation efficiency with Essences of loathing for both and/or you can use Lesser Eldritch Ichor to roll reservation efficiency as an implicit on the helmet. You can craft the bow with Essences of Anger, Hatred or Wrath. Look on trade for a decent base with a fractured lightning, cold or fire modifier. Any of the following bow bases are good: Short, Grove, Thicket, Bone, Ivory, Spine, Royal, Highborn, Imperial, Maraketh and Solarine. Level 75+ Pantheon: major god: soul of arakaali with armala captured, minor god: abberath with mephod captured for burning ground immunity (useful for red altar farming) This is where you have to start making important decisions by yourself. The tree gives you accuracy, spell suppress and resistances, via entrench, inveterate, acuity, survivalist and one with nature. If you can upgrade your gear to have these important modifiers, you can refund those points in the tree and reallocate them. Refer to the mid investment item set for reference on modifiers you could want on different items to be able to refund some passives points in the tree.