Been quite a lot of interest in Simulacrum Wave 30 builds on here and I've been posting comments but thought I would just post a video people can search for easier.

CI Phantasmal Cremation, it absolutely slaps all hard encounters in the game. This is a bossing focused character than can easily do Simulacrum 30 on a 15-20ex budget (depending on gem prices). I've cleared everything in the game with this character including an 85% quantity The Feared. The linked gear budget is pretty high but that's almost entirely the gloves + empower/enlighten 4. You'll have about half the single target DPS without them (8-10m) but it's still easily more than enough to clear everything in the game, especially since you can ignore almost all boss and monster mechanics since you're nearly unkillable.

There are lots of adjustments you can make depending on what you like and my character is nowhere near completely min-maxed. You can invest in more damage, go melding of flesh for around 87/87/87 resists (even though I'm already basically immortal), invest into cluster jewels..etc.

Do not play this unless you can afford Aegis + Phantasmal Cremation + Phantasmal Unearth. But if you can just get those 3 items that's enough to do basically everything in the game. I recommend throwing up a live-search on the Phantasmal Gems as there is a good chance you can get one at a lower price.

Do not pay more than 9ex or so for the gems unless you really don't want to risk any RNG. You can use Prime Regrading Lens for a 1/8.5 chance for Unearth (with any alt quality of that gem, don't use normal quality) of hitting Phantasmal. It's about 1/11 for Cremation.

Pros:

• Almost immortal, huge EHP with huge recovery
• Huge single target damage
• Can run all map mods
• Can do all content in the game on a relatively small budget
• Price to performance is very good
• Can learn boss mechanics if you want since almost nothing kills you

Cons:

• Clearspeed is just mediocre. For faster mapping I use +4 Wyrmsign gloves or Sinvicta weapon swap + Obliteration to speed things up.
• Relatively high entry price point (15ex or so probably).
• Unlearn boss mechanics unless you try to pay attention since almost nothing can kill you
• 2-button build. Requires a decent amount of clicking on and off to keep your Cremations up (8s duration each).

PoB: https://pobb.in/bjDAyWLM1Vy4

Edit: Glove crafting = Crafting with Faceted Fossils to get +1 Dex and +1 Str gems -- which are suffixes. Faceted - corroded - dense - pristine yields about a 1/11 chance to hit the same thing. Then you lock suffixes and either aisling or veiled chaos until you unveil +2 Aoe or proj, then craft the other.

T16 map clear with the budget setup (+4 gloves, obliteration, lv3 empower/enhance, no aspect of the spider) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwv7eZdO124