10/10 League Starter - SSF SRS Guardian Quick Overview - Path of Exile 3.23 Affliction League

******** BUILD STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES ******* *** PROS *** - Insanely smooth leveling - Very good damage on a budget thanks to damage auras from elemental relics - Good baseline defenses - GREAT for things like Maven influence farming early on - All-rounder build - Solid offenses and defenses, can do most or all content *** CONS *** - Can be hard to scale as well as other classes in the lategame (meaning juiced maps, Ubers, Simulacrum, etc.) - All-rounder build - Outside of leveling, doesn't really do anything better than a more specialised build. - Low clear speed ******** LEVELING ******** ~~~~~Act 1~~~~~ - Take Rolling Magma - Take Flame Wall (if you're sticking with Rolling Magma) or Holy Flame Totem - Buy a Summon Raging Spirit to start leveling - Can start to use this now, when you get melee splash support, or much later. If you're comfortable using Rolling Magma/Armageddon Brand earlier on then that'll be faster. If you want a more casual leveling experience and to get used to SRS if you haven't played it before, then leveling with it is fine. After Act 3 you'll be coasting for a while either way - Start using Leap Slam/Shield Charge and Frostblink/Flame Dash, as per your preferences ~~~~~Act 2~~~~~ - Pick up Herald of Ash if using Rolling Magma, otherwise whatever you want for reservation for now is fine - Skitterbots are a good option - Kill all bandits (as usual) ~~~~~Act 3~~~~~ - Here we have some better options for reservation - For now you're probably looking at Purity of Elements for res and ailment immunity - Eventually this will be swapped out for Determination - If you're really keen on it you can go for Haste from Library quest - I wouldn't recommend this since it puts more pressure on gear/passives early on because of the Dexterity requirement - After Labyrinth take Radiant Crusade and buy Convocation from Clarissa. - You can use Convocation on left click, but this will end up costing you single target damage because the sentinel is reaaaallly slow - I would put it on a key you're comfortable pressing after using movement skills *** Gameplay loop after this point *** 1. Charge into a pack 2. Use Convocation to summon the Sentinel to your location, watch it melt everything 3. Use other skills sparingly, it's mostly just for bosses until your Sentinel clear starts to slow down somewhere in maps ~~~~~Act 4~~~~~ - Once you get Unleash, switch to SRS if you haven't already. As noted above, this is mainly for single target right now. * At this stage you're pretty much set up for the playstyle the chracter will have forever * - You'll get more damage, speed, defense, etc. but the core loop will remain the same - Remember that the Sentinel and Relics will scale with your level, up to level 85, so you'll naturall be gaining power from them over time Fit in more reservation skills as you get the capacity to do so. Endgame setup will be reserving Determination, Skitterbots (with Unbound Ailments), and Tempest Shield - Again, you can use Purity of Elements if that's more comfortable early on ******** SCALING AFTER MAPS ******** - Once you're using SRS more, drop the convocation mastery and pick up "Minions recover life on minion death" *** You can remove this once you get a Minion Life Cluster with a Blessed Rebirth notable on it *** - Try to get a trigger craft early on to automate desecrate and flesh offering - 4 Voidstones can be gotten on as little as a 5L depending on your gear/personal skill - Get 6Ls from various league mechanics. Corrupted Strongboxes/Side Areas, The Chains that Bind divination card, etc. - Quality on gems will generally be important than before, remember that the level 20/0 quality gem -> Level 1 20 quality gem as been REMOVED for skill gems (still works for support gems) * Gems you'll want quality on: - Flesh offering (10% effect) - SRS (30% extra summon chance, mostly nice for mapping) - Carrion Golem (extra buff effect) - Feeding Frenzy (minion movement speed) ******** ENDGAME OPTIONS ******** - If you're just aiming for Voidstones and/or alch-and-go red maps, the archetype should do fine regardless - This build can do Uber bosses if you're very skilled and/or willing to grind out some upgrades - I would recommend going for 6-10m DPS, high spell block chance, Divine Flesh, and Lethe Shade for an Uber-specific setup - Damage Scaling Options: - GHASTLY EYE JEWELS - This is a big one, as a big source of both flat and % damage scaling - Awakened gems - Especially if you're farming Destructive Play/Maven invitations early - Elemental focus and minion damage are great for gem levels - Aura effect (fairly weak since Haste is our only offensive aura and it already gains a lot of effect) - Gem levels (has a bigger impact than you might think despite us being mostly flat damage based) - Amulet, weapon, shield, influenced body armour (Warlord/Shaper), or helmet - Minion Damage Cluster Jewel - Early on, an 8-passive cluster with good notables - Laaaate game (because it's potentially a really big grind) a level i84+ minion damage cluster with as many small passives as possible, 3% attack speed and 35% increased effect *** This can be a really big damage upgrade but I would suggest fishing for it in Simulacrums, which means you need to be able to handle high waves consistently *** - Defensive Scaling Options: - Divine Flesh from Xibaqua Glorious Vanity - Mostly for Uber bossing, because it's insanely good against damage that penetrates - Lethe Shade - Same as the above, mostly an Uber-specific defensive option - Spell Suppression (of course) - Can be hard to get alongside other stats you want to improve damage - Don't need to be capped. High block chance with decent spell suppression and the lucky suppression mastery will feel good - Investing more into block - Block becomes more valuable the more you invest into it, so it's often one of the better investments against hit damage - Life on block shield is also great. You'll want both high block and a life on block shield if you're running Simulacrum - Jinxed Juju if you're using spectres - Physical taken as other *** You can also swap to a Poison or Lightning SRS Necro if you get certain uniques, and probably have an easier time scaling both damage and defense *** - Covenant is the big one for Poison - Severed in Sleep is also needed but is comparatively much easier to get - Darkness Enthroned is basically needed, but so common it isn't worth worrying about - March of the Legion for Lightning - Darkness Enthroned good here too of course - This is all that's needed to make it feel good. No other uniques required. Heist sceptre not required (but is a late-game optimization).