Craft ALL The Gear! - Exsanguinate Ascendant Crafting Guide - Path of Exile 3.14 Ultimatum

--------------------- INTRODUCTION --------------------- Please check the build guide on my YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/c/bigducks Liking my Videos and Subscribing to my YouTube channel help me to keep bringing you more content like this, if you just grab the PoB please consider giving me a like to help me out, I appreciate all of your support! Keep in mind there may be multiple videos per build, always look for the most recent video. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Big Thanks to Dave - a member of my community - who originally made the build. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bow Based Split Arrow / Puncture -> Spellslinger Exsanguinate / Reap -> Self Cast Exsanguinate Ascendant - Gladiator / Trickster It's possible to do ALMOST all of the content on a medium-high budget. The only "boss" we were not able to do with "My Gear" was The Feared, we would have needed to focus quite a bit more on damage or I would have had to practice the fight a lot more. All on Awakener 8 -> Sirus, Uber Atziri /w Maven, Uber Elder /w Maven, Maven, Shaper /w Maven, Elder /w Maven, All Maven Invitations besides The Feared. T16 Ultimatums, T16 Delirium Maps, Simulacrum, and more. ------------ RATINGS ------------ GOOD -> Clear, Survival, Elemental Damage Taken, Chaos Damage Taken, Recovery, Playstyle With GOOD Cast Speed, Trade League, Softcore MEH -> Bossing, Physical Damage Taken, Cost, Hardcore, Movement Speed BAD -> Damage Taken Over Time, Playstyle With NOT GOOD Cast Speed, Solo Self Found DIFFICULTY OF PLAY - MEDIUM HIGH Build requires multiple different in depth mechanics to scale properly as well as Cluster Jewels, Specific Unique Jewels and relatively good game knowledge to be successful. Build benefits HEAVILY from crafting knowledge. Playstyle once geared is relatively simple. ----------------------- CONFIGURATION ----------------------- The current configuration is set to reflect the damage you would do while clearing maps and then finishing off a map boss. It does not do any "PoB warrioring" and should reflect typical boss damage you could do during a map as long as you are maintaining 3 Stacks. Keep in mind that to keep 3 stacks you must be hardcasting and have high cast speed / duration. There are two settings of note: - Pride Aura Effect - On a boss this will typically be maximum effect if you are staying near the boss. - Full Energy Shield VS Leeching Energy Shield - I went with the lower of the two options as you may not be leeching at all times. If you want to fit in Blood Rage to force your energy shield to go down so that you are always leeching feel free but I did not find it worthwhile. --------------------------------------------- FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS --------------------------------------------- Q: Bandit? A: Kill All. --- Q: Pantheon? A: Brine King + Shakari or Ryslatha + Sybil's Lament Ring for Reflect --- Q: I can't find an item with those exact stats what do I do? A: You don't need the exact stats on every single item, Jewels are a big culprit for people getting confused. Get what stats you can. --- Q: Does the Number on the Glorious Vanity matter? A: No, only that it says "Doryani". The number influences the small nodes that get corrupted and what they provide. If you are min-maxing you can attempt to get good nodes here but they are not required or expected. --- Q: The leveling skills are all level 1, do I keep them at that level? A: No, this is to signify that it is a leveling skill and you level it up as you go. --- Q: How do I stop dying? A: BOSS SLAMS WILL KILL YOU ON ALMOST ANY BUILD. YOU CANNOT TANK BOSS ATTACKS IN PATH OF EXILE WITHOUT A *VERY* SPECIFIC BUILD. That being said, Make sure you have the following: 75+ of ALL Elemental Resist (Resistances max at 75, having a bit over will help for ele weakness maps etc.) 0+ (Ideally 50+) Chaos Resist High tier Life roll on every piece that can have life Some pieces can have % Life on this build, such as Jewels, Belt, etc. Glorious Vanity - Doryani gives Energy Shield and is very important for survival as well as the Similar craftable mod on our chest. Steelskin on Left Click Keep up Fortify with Whirling Blades Keep your Flasks up at all times Dont stand still near monsters, stay away from them and MOVE Make sure you have PHYSICAL DAMAGE LEECH. It has to say ONLY Physical Damage Leech, the sources of this are VERY FEW, there is the Atziri Belt, a Synthesized Ring Implicit, a Delve Ring Mod and an Amulet Mod. This mod is VERY important due to Petrified Blood, explained below. --- Q: We are low life? What is Petrified Blood? A: Petrified Blood in the simplest terms essentially allows you to trade a small percentage of your overall healthpool for the benefits of being on low life. It prevents 40% of damage taken from the bottom half of your life globe and then you take some of that damage over time afterwards. Without Petrified Blood if you start with 1000 health and take 500 damage you will be at 500 health. With Petrified Blood if you start at 1000 health that will be capped to 500 without flasks. When you take 500 damage you will sustain 200 damage bringing you to 300 Health and then you will take between ~75%-100% of the prevented damage (300) over 4 seconds. (depending on gem level / quality etc). At first glance this seems really bad but in reality our build has a ton of recovery and the damage taken over time is not too serious. We gain a few massive benefits from being on low life as well. - The ability to use the Pain Attunement Keystone which provides us 30% MORE Damage while on Low Life. - "Overleech" if you only reserve roughly 49% of your health or less. If you allow a small buffer of health above your 50% threshold you will not be able to reach "full" health from any mechanic due to us not using a life flask. This causes leech to not be removed as we never reach maximum life, allowing it to kick in at full effect the moment that we need it. --- Q: How do I do more damage? A: This build scales damage in two major ways, + to Level of Spell Gems and Damage Over Time Multiplier (Physical or Standard) Our goal is to hit level 30 spell gem to maximize our dps. This is obtained through a few different ways. Level 21 Gem +1 Chestpiece +6 2x Cold Iron Points +2 Amulet This gives us 2449 - 3673 Base Damage as well as 3400 DoT. It also gives us 11 Tendril targets. Beyond these two stats there are multiple different important stats to take into account. In a relative order of Importance (these aren't exact) Cast Speed / Skill Effect Duration - The build feels TERRIBLE to play self cast with low cast speed. This is the main barrier to entry to play this build in my opinion. Keep in mind that there is a theoretical upper limit of how much Cast speed is "useful" for single target. Once you are consistently hitting 3 stacks on single target, more cast speed / increased duration is not great. You can find the duration of the spell in the Calcs Tab and do some math if you want to min-max. Enemies Take Increased Damage or Phys Damage (This is a MORE multiplier) Overwhelm (Physical Damage Penetration) Damage Over Time / Damage / Physical Damage / Spell Damage --- Q: This build seems really expensive, I want to play it but I can't afford a lot of the expensive stuff, can I still play it? A: The minimum gear required for self-cast is not a ridiculous amount but it also isn't cheap. The spellslinger version will work for quite a while and should be enough to farm the currency needed to swap over. Keep in mind the build really shines once you obtain closer to the "My Gear" items. --- Q: My question isn't in here, what do I do? A: Double check that you have looked through the video and this PoB. If you can't find it you can join my discord, linked in the description of all of my videos. Please remember that the people in the discord channels are very helpful but it is not their job to assist you. This is a knowledge based game and you have to put in the work to be successful. ------------------ LEVELING UP ------------------ Prioritize The Gems you need immediately, Main Links > Movement > Auras > Utility. Check the "Skills" tab for which gems to grab. Levels 1 - 23 || Bow Based Early on you will want to use Split Arrow as your main clearing ability, as well as Puncture for single target. We scale generic physical damage and damage over time so this will work for bleed damage. Gearing - Look out for Fast Attack Speed bows and make sure to pick up a Carved Wand of any rarity if you see one for later on. - Focus on getting Movement Speed boots, Gear with the Links that you need, Life and Resists as well as Sapphire Rings for the Merveil fight. - Pick up Blue/Yellow items and sell them unidentified to the vendor for Transmutation Shards and Identified for Alteration Shards. Tips - Make ample use of smoke mine if you want to move faster through the acts, you can make your life easier by putting Detonate Mine on left click. - Level Vitality as much as your mana can handle. - Make sure to "Place" War Banner for an extremely powerful but short buff that is good for killing tough enemies. Re-enable it after. - Puncture does significantly more damage to "moving" targets so if you can force the enemy to move while fighting them, do so. --- Levels 24 - Endgame || Spellslinger Exsanguinate / Reap Once you have found a fast wand and have all of the gems required you can swap to Exsanguinate which is cast through Spellslinger. The way that Spellslinger works is that you link it to the spell you want to cast as well as any supports to that spell and then enable the spellslinger aura (more supports reserves more mana) and then when you use any wand attack (default attack works as well) you automatically cast the spells (with a short cooldown). We will be using Frenzy as our spellslinger Trigger as it provides Frenzy Charges and has a very fast attack speed, link this to Lifetap to spend Life instead of Mana to attack. Exsanguinate will be our main Spellslinger Link and will provide the majority of our damage, you can supplement with Reap once you obtain the Spell. Gearing - Attack speed on wands is very important, make sure that you get as fast of a wand as you can find, the other stats are less important. - Focus on topping off your resists early on, grab as much life as you can and work on getting all of your links setup on your gear. Tips - Your Spellslinger links and gem levels will be the main sources of damage as you level up. Make sure that you attempt to optimize them as you obtain 4 links and 5 links. You will need to disable all of your other auras to accommodate the spellslinger mana reserves. - Make sure you are putting your main wand attack on Life Tap (anything else you want also) so that you can reserve all of your mana with Spellslinger Links. - Focus on using a FAST wand. 1.5 Base Attack Speed is ideal. - Steelskin on Left click will auto cast it as you walk around for an extra defensive layer. --- Making the Transition to Self Cast MAKE SURE THAT BEFORE YOU TRANSITION YOU HAVE THE FOLLOWING THINGS READY - Swap the Skill Tree to"Step 3.5..." for one cluster set OR "Step 4..." for two cluster sets and have your Item Set on "Minimum Gear for Selfcast" - Make sure you have ALL of the items listed INCLUDING the Cluster Jewels (More Info on Clusters Below) and Replica Pure Talent. (The standard "DoT Jewel"s are optional but suggested that you get something similar with Life/Damage, Thread of Hope is also optional but very good.) - Be at minimum Level 85 - Finished ALL Skill Point Quests - ALL 4 Labs Completed. - At LEAST 60 Respec Points (Quests or Regret Orbs) - All of the required Gems that you do not already have. Once you have everything ready you can follow the Skill Trees listed in order of Steps - (Step 1 -> Step 2 etc) Once your skilltree is setup start placing in your gems and getting your auras properly situated. The goal is to only reserve a maximum of 49% of your life at any given time, refer to the FAQ section above about petrified blood or the video for more info on this. The easiest way to manipulate this health total is with the level of your Vitality Aura. Gearing - After you transition your VERY FIRST GOAL should be getting adequate cast speed to make the build feel nice to play, this will be personal preference. - Sources of Cast Speed are - Replica Pure Talent - Points on the Skill Tree - Cluster Jewels (Furious Assault Phys Node) - Anomalous Exsanguinate (Level 21 Normal Exsanguinate is FAR BETTER than Level 20 Anomalous) - 20% Quality Awakened Controlled Destruction - Modifier on Gloves - Modifier on Flasks - Onslaught - Unnatural Instinct in the Node UP-LEFT of the Scion Start - The next most important thing will be getting to Gem Level 30 on your Exsanguinate which is accomplished in a few ways Level 21 Gem +1 Chestpiece +6 2x Cold Iron Points +2 Amulet - Next should be getting your defensives in order and looking into investing into Glorious Vanity (Doryani) and getting the Life Leech Rings. ------------------------------ GENERAL PLAYSTYLE ------------------------------ The video guide will be MUCH better at showing how to do this but I will give you some basics. - Whirling Blades will be your main source of movement. It also is your souce of Fortify, keep Fortify up as much as possible. - Use Flame Dash for crossing Gaps or for dodging boss abilities and such. - Exsanguinate is your main source of damage as well as healing. You need to be consistently hitting and keeping Exsanguinate stacks on enemies to stay alive. - Use your Arcanist Brand on difficult enemies or localized encounters (ultimatums, legions, etc) to massively boost your damage. ------------------------ CLUSTER JEWELS ------------------------ Cluster Jewels are VERY Important on this build and the Self Cast version does not work without at least 1 set. There is info on Crafting these in the Crafting Section as well as in the Dedicated Crafting Guide Video for this Build. - Large Clusters Physical Damage - Focus on getting "Furious Assault" over everything else, the cast speed is extremely important, next most important is "Master the Fundamentals" - Get anything else with solid damage beyond these. - Medium Clusters Curse Effect - The best DPS node is Wish for Death - The best Defensive node is Evil Eye - Both together are ideal but any other useful node and one of the above two is acceptable. Physical DoT Multiplier - Brush with Death is Ideal as it gives good damage as well as good recovery. - Blood Artist is the second best node as it gives the Highest DoT Multi with the easiest conditional (spent life recently) - Any other node with DoT Multi is acceptable as these two are hard to get together, but Brush with Death is best. - Small Clusters Chaos Resist - The main purpose of this cluster is to get 3 passives and as many useful stats as possible (chaos res, other res, dexterity, life) - Increased Effectiveness is a VERY powerful modifier here. ------------------- ASCENDANCY ------------------- Most other versions of this build are played as Ascendant - Gladiator / Necromancer to maximize Block and Offerings. This works well for a Spellslinger, but is not ideal in my opinion when it comes to Self Cast that utilizes Gem Levels to scale damage. Gladiator - An extremely easy decision, More Physical Damage over Time, Block and Spell Block as well as Maximum Block Chance make this an excellent choice offensively and defensively. Trickster - Frenzy and Power Charges while clearing gives us solid damage, increased Recovery Rate of Life/Mana/ES gives us a substantial and much needed recovery boost, and Cannot be Stunned if you haven't been hit recently adds additional stun immunity layers. Path of the Shadow - Provides us easy access to a ton of useful nodes and saves us a lot of travel distance. -------------------------------------------------- CRAFTING AND OBTAINING THE GEAR -------------------------------------------------- There is an ENTIRE video dedicated to explaining this on my YouTube channel, linked at the top. It has examples of me crafting every piece of gear with the Craft of Exile emulator. REMEMBER that you can always just buy all of the final pieces from the trade website. Crafting most of the time is cheaper. Typically leveling items or items in the "Budget" section that are just Life / Resists and that are not hard to obtain will not be included in this section. Weapons / Offhands - Cold Iron Point - This is a world drop unique, either find one, farm divination cards listed here -> https://pathofexile.fandom.com/wiki/Cold_Iron_Point or buy one from the trade site (suggested that you buy it). - The best corruption is Spell Damage. Helmet - Budget Option - Obtain an Elder influenced helmet ilvl 85 MINIMUM. - Use 2 Socket Delve Resonators with Jagged + Pristine to hopefully land "Nearby Enemies take 9% increased Physical Damage" and a Decent Life roll, anything else is a bonus. Craft any resistances or other stats you might need. - Expensive Option - Obtain an Elder influenced helmet ilvl 85 MINIMUM - Use High Tier Life Essences (Greed) until you have 3 Prefixes you're happy with. You can alternatively get 2 good Prefixes and use a remove suffix add prefix beastcraft. - Craft "Prefixes Cannot be Changed" NOTE: PREFIXES MUST BE FULL (3). - Use a "Reforge" Physical harvest craft on the helmet. Chestpiece - Budget Option - Obtain a 6 Link Warlords Chestpiece of your chosen Base type. Astral Plate is probably best for Resistances. Double check the price of Warlord's Exalts and a 6 link non-influenced base VS the price of the already influenced 6-link base. MINIMUM ilvl of 80, however 81 = t2 life, 84 = t1 resists, 86 = t1 life. Keep in mind that a higher ilvl adds more modifiers in which gives more chances to roll something you don't want. - Use 2 Socket Delve Resonators with Metallic + Pristine fossils until you obtain "+1 To Level of Socketed Active Skill Gems", a decent life roll and an open prefix. If you don't get an open prefix you can try using an Annul orb or a Prefix -> Suffix Beastcraft. - Craft "Gain #% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield" - Expensive Option - Do the above steps and then use Harvest "Reforge keeping Prefixes" until you land your desired combo of resists, life gained on kill, and life recovery rate. - Alternatively be far more picky in the Resonator stage and attempt to keep rolling until you land your desired life stats + resists. Gloves - Budget Option - Obtain Hunter Influenced gloves of your choice (Apothecary, Fingerless, Titan, etc) MINIMUM ilvl 80 - Use High Tier Life Essences (Greed) until you have 3 Prefixes you're happy with. You can alternatively get 2 good Prefixes and use a remove suffix add prefix beastcraft. - Craft "Prefixes Cannot be Changed" NOTE: PREFIXES MUST BE FULL (3). - Use a "Reforge" Physical harvest craft on the gloves. - Expensive Option - Obtain 2 Pairs of Gloves, - ilvl 85 Elder Gloves of your chosen basetype (Apothecary, Fingerless, Titan, etc) with T1 Attack and Cast Speed AND NO OTHER ELDER MODIFIERS. If they don't exist you can roll them, obtain the base and use any method of your choosing (chaos orbs, harvest, fossils, etc) until you obtain the gloves with T1 Attack and Cast Speed with NO OTHER ELDER MODIFIERS. - Hunter influenced gloves of any basetype with the T1 Physical DoT Multiplier modifier and NO OTHER HUNTER MODIFIERS. - Use an Awakener's Orb on the HUNTER gloves FIRST and then APPLY the SECOND USE to the ELDER Gloves. - From here you can do a few things. - Repeat the steps if you don't like the outcome - Craft a suffix you want (if it doesn't have full suffixes) and use Harvest Reforge Keeping Suffixes until you get what you want. (Best for Avoid Ailments) - Craft Suffixes cannot be changed (better if you got a suffix you like already) and use a Harvest Reforge of your choice (life, etc) repeating this step until you get your desired outcome. Boots - Budget Option - Nothing special for this slot. Go for resistances, life, and high movement speed. - Expensive Option - Obtain ilvl 81 MINIMUM Shaped Boots of your choice base (Two-Toned, etc). ilvl 84 allows T1 Resist, ilvl 86 allows T1 Movespeed. - Use metallic fossils or Cold/Fire/Lightning Harvest rerolls to obtain T1 "#% chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments" and any other Shaper Modifier. - You can keep rolling the boots until you get something of your liking, a good goal would be Life / Resists / Movement Speed. - Use a Maven's Orb to hopefully Elevate the Avoid Elemental Ailments mod. - Divine to Max Roll (50) for 100% Ailment avoidance with the other two crafted pieces. - An option for finishing the item would be if you have full suffixes you can use an Aisling T4 Slam and try for Movement Speed and then Craft Life. Amulet - Budget Option - Obtain a Hunter or Warlord influenced Marble Amulet (Or other base if you need stats or want to be cheaper) with either +1 Phys or +1 Strength and no other influence modifier. - Obtain the Amulet base that you did not choose in the previous step with the other modifier and no other influence modifiers, base is irrelevant. - Take the second amulet, use an Awakener's Orb on it, and then AFTER that use the second click on the FIRST BASE that you want to keep. - Craft any additional modifier you want on the base. - If you are having difficulty finding a Marble amulet with the proper mod, you can always buy the base and alt/aug until you get it. - If you do not want to use a marble base it is cheaper to buy. - Expensive Option - Continuing from the end of the budget option you will have an amulet with a variety of mods. - Your amulet is guaranteed to have 2 prefixes, your goal is to fill the other prefix slot with hopefully something good and to have an open suffix. You can accomplish this through beastcrafting suffix -> prefix or through harvest crafting "Reforge Keeping Prefixes" and then suffix -> prefix. - Once you get the amulet with full prefixes and an open suffix, craft "Prefixes cannot be changed" and Harvest craft Reforge Phys. This is not a 100% chance to land but it is common for it to land on %Physical DoT Multi. If it misses you can restart from the previous step. Rings - Delve Ring - This is simply a drop from Delve. It has the Physical Damage Leeched as Life modifier, you are best off trying to buy it. Coral Ring Base or Res Base is good. - Synthesized Implicit - This is most likely not farmable and also has to be bought. You can take this and craft it however you like. Harvest, Resonators, Chaos Orbs, whatever you prefer. Belt - Budget Option - Obtain either a Hunter or Elder belt, Stygian is fine but there are not a ton of Abyssal Jewel mods that are amazing for this build, Leather Belt is fine. - Use Life / Mana Catalysts on the Belt to 20% - Single Socket Resonators with Pristine Fossils until you have T1 Life and T1 % Life or whatever you find acceptable. - Expensive Option - Be far more picky and use harvest Reforge Keeping Prefixes to gain mods you are looking for or Meta crafting if need be. Jewels - Thread of Hope - This is a drop off of Sirus, you want Large Ring, with as good of a resist roll as you can get - Replica Pure Talent - This is a drop from Replica Blueprint Heists. I suggest buying it. - Glorious Vanity - This is a drop from the legion special zone Domain of Timeless Conflict and has a chance to drop from killing the Vaal Boss. I suggest buying it. Must be in the name of Doryani. - Corrupting Blood Immunity Jewel - This is a random corruption of any Jewel, it is rare and best that you buy a life / generic damage one with the mod once and use it the entire league. - DoT Jewel - You do not need this specific Jewel, get jewels with Life%, Some damage modifiers and any resists that your build needs. Cluster Jewels - Large Clusters - The Phys large clusters are typically rather cheap, I suggest that you buy them. If you do want to craft them, typically it is best to simply use Harvest Reforge Phys or Single Socket Resonators with a Jagged fossil. Go for Furious Assault 100% of the time and if you can get Master the Fundamentals then great, third mod can be anything that has damage. - Medium Clusters - Phys DoT Multi you are wanting to try for Brush with Death and ANY other good mod, Physical Damage Over Time Multi or Damage Over Time Multi are both solid. You are better off buying them but you can try to roll them the same way as Large Phys clusters. - Curse Effect is best off bought as well. The best option for crafting is Aetheric Fossils or Caster Reforge from Harvest. - Small Clusters - Chaos Resist can be rolled with Chaos reforges, Life Reforges, Chaos Fossils or Life Fossils, once again better off bought however. ------------------------ FINAL THOUGHTS ------------------------ I really wanted to play Exsanguinate but everything that I had seen so far did not look great. Thankfully Dave suggested a really solid version that I am very happy with. The Spellslinger Variety has potential as league start material, you could also do the typical Necromancer Tree with more block and then transition later but I think for softcore the Trickster version is perfectly fine. If you have suggestions or just want to hangout with the community make sure to join my discord linked here -> https://discord.gg/aDtqeDC Thanks for taking the time to read through all of this! If you enjoy the build make sure to let your friends know about my YouTube Channel / Twitch Stream and have them join the discord server! Thanks, have fun and stay safe out there in Wraeclast, and I'll see you all next time!!