Best Way to Level Caster Builds! - Full Spark Leveling Walkthrough

Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e11Zi5AZYd8 3.18 DD still a top 5 build, one of the best league starters, and top 2 build for HCSSF. Good dmg and survivability, no special gear required. ---------------Leveling--------------- Level with spark and orb of storm until maps AND vaal DD (if you don't get vaal dd you can still try to use DD or stick with spark until you get it, personal preference) Keep Vaal Detonate Dead at level 1 to reduce mana cost (only gains AoE with level so not worth levelling up). But level Desecrate, you NEED a lvl 19 desecrate for 81 and below zones and a lvl 20 Desecrate for anything beyond that or else your damage will be awful. ---------------Spectres--------------- The build works by casting Desecrate and Detonating the corpses that you spawn. To deal single target damage you need to detonate high life corpses which can be spawned using Desecrate with high life spectres summoned. To maximize single target we also have lots of ailment duration combined with carefully timed Vaal Detonate Dead usage to achieve large ignites that last 12+ seconds. Area + zone level will dictate your damage, you effectively deal similar damage in a 68 zone as an 84 zone because the corpse life scales with zone level. As of 3.17 you only need to raise 1 spectre, the highest life one possible, then you can unequip Raise Spectre and its supports. The raised spectre remains in your Desecrate/Unearth corpse pool even after it dies and without RS equipped. Currently the highest life spectre is Auric Champion/Colossus (Act III, Solaris Temple Level 2, giant statue). It is bugged with 516% life. As 3.17 all spectres were supposed to be normalized to 360% life, but GGG forgot these two. If Auric bug is fixed and all spectres are 360% life, then the best endgame spectre will be Arena Master, since they will also buff you. ---------------Extra tips--------------- Get these two Unveil mods on chest and helm: - Helm: "% increased Duration of Ailments you inflict while Focused" (random Helm unveil). This is EXTREMELY noticeable for longer lasting ignites, get this for endgame bossing. Use in conjunction with Vaal DD. - Chest: "Gain 9-10% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield" (Gravicius unveil). Important for Ghost Dance! Ungil's is used for proccing Elemental Overload (gives a lot of crit) but you can replace this by using a combination of the extra crit chance spell suppression mastery, crit enchant on boots and spell crit on weapon. Main difference between necromancer, inquisitor and elementalist is as follows: Necromancer has a balance of defence and damage but lacks recovery, Inquisitor has defence and recovery but lacks damage, and Elementalist lacks defence and recovery but has the most damage. (Use necromancer or you're dumb) You can ditch the Desecrate + spectre setup with an Unearth setup instead but you need Empower + Enhance + alt quality Phantasmal Unearth in a +1/+2 gems item (such as Hands of the High Templar or Viridi's Veil) and a +5 corpse unearth level enchant. The Unearth setup avoided nerfs whereas spectres did not, so the unearth setup will be optimal. ---------------Gear--------------- All of your armour is basically just rares + life + spell suppression which can be crafted with essences / harvest spam until you get a good life roll and spell supression Weapon is crafted with essences of fear until you hit fire dot multi and then you can multi mod --------------Skill Rotation-------------- Desecrate -> Vaal Detonate Dead if it's up -> Flame Surge -> keep desecrating every few seconds so there is a corpse to explode -> Focus Mod before Vaal DD ends -> desecrate -> regular detonate dead -> flame surge -> repeat --------------Spectre Info-------------- Source: https://pastebin.com/9JXQNrNL Updated for: 3.17.0 (Start of Archnemesis League) Important changes from 3.17 patch notes: Raise Spectre's most recent monster types are now saved to your character and may be Desecrated. The size of this list is capped by your Spectre limit. Desecrate and Corpse Walk now have a static 15% chance to spawn a Spectre Corpse, rather than a 2x relative weighting compared to all other possible corpse types. Lower the life of Spectre versions of monsters that have very high life totals. Their life is being brought down to match Kitava's Herald monsters. This will affect their corpse when created with Desecrate. TL;DR: Get an Auric Colossus or Auric Champion from Act 3 Solaris Temple Level 2. You can throw away your Spectre gem after you summon one. Explanation: All Spectres should be capped at 360% Life, meaning you can get any monster that is 360% Life or above. (Same as Kitava's Herald) You only need one, desecrate has a static chance to spawn Spectre corpses. The monster type will get saved to your character, your desecrate pool will not lose it. You may choose to let your Spectre die, or keep it alive to tank or provide some utility spell. Usually it's better to just let it die. (+1 gem slot since you no longer need Spectre gem) Arena Master has a speed buff for utility. You can get them from Drox influenced maps. https://poedb.tw/us/Arena_Master Or just get a Kitava's Herald. Act 5 Cathedral Rooftop / Act 10 Rooftop/Canals/Feeding Trough https://poedb.tw/us/Kitavas_Herald You can look up monsters here: https://poedb.tw/us/Monster#Monster Sort by life, look at 360% and above. For some reason some of the Spectres are below 360% Life even if the base monster is above that.