Hardcore SSF....with Infernal Blow Warden? | Path of Exile 3.29 | HCSSF

Campaign Notes: Used Alchemist's Mark for the extra burning ground. Could have likely been better to just use Ele Weakness curse instead. Added Flat damage is the most important DPS increase through campaign. Use "Added Cold" and "Added Lightning" supports on both IB and Static Strike. Ancestral call is a must early on, but later on (Kitava and post-Kitava) it becomes less necessary as you push for more damage. Taking the "Non-Vaal Strikes Target 1 Additional Enemy" mastery point is mandatory. Strike range is quite important for the general feel of the skill, so use "Thrusting One Hand Swords" (i.e. rapiers) and potentially grab the nodes and masteries offering additional strike range. I pathed down to the Bladedancer wheel for this reason, getting +0.6 range from both the mastery and the notable. Pathing to Precise Technique and taking the nearby Weathered Hunter accuracy wheel helps a ton with early damage. Ascendancy notes: I took Mother's Teachings first for Barkskin because of hardcore. The extra phys mitigation early felt quite strong, especially for someone who is new to hardcore runs. You get more evasion as you get hit (and the Barkskin stacks are removed), too. Lesson Of The Seasons was second for the spell damage mitigation. Effectively -250 damage taken of each type (not just elemental or phys) at max Barkskin (10). When you lose it, you get more Spell Suppress PREVENTION, which is a difficult modifier to come by in POE. At 0 stacks, you prevent an additional 30% of the spell damage you suppress, so leaning into spell suppression on the tree and gear is quite strong. Most right-side builds already spec into this, usually taking the Inveterate wheel and the "Chance To Suppress Spell Damage is Lucky" mastery. I opted to take the Oath of Summer as my pre-Kitava 3rd point during campaign for the extra damage from Scorch. I was not using ignite damage or the Mastery giving extra damage against ignited enemies at that point. Once into maps, I changed to Oath of Winter for the significant benefits of freezing packs (which I've found using Ice Bite Support on Static Strike to really shine). Hoarfrost seems to build with reasonable speed on static strike hits, leaving packs frozen longer and allowing Infernal Blow charges/explosions to hit. For the fourth ascendancy I took Avatar of the Wilds for the double damage of Unbound Avatar skill. 100% more damage while always inflicting ele ailments is proving to be very strong for mapping. Static strike procs ailments constantly with our setup, so Avatar is up near constantly in mapping situations. If you wanted to go into Tinctures, it would only require a little bit of tree reconfiguration to take a Tincture wheel or two. You'd likely want the "First 6 Mana Burn Stacks Do Nothing" mastery at the very least, to help maximize tincture uptime. Defenses: Given this is my first time doing hardcore AND doing it without a guide - I don't know if I've overspecced into defenses or underspecced...or just specced appropriately. I opted to go Armour + Evasion, Block capped 65\65 with Versatile Combatant, Spell Suppress capped with Lucky Suppress, and Spell Suppress prevention with Barkskin (removal). Fortify also feels great, and you can utilize it early by adding the gem support to Static Strike until you can path to the Steadfast wheel. For Chaos Damage I'm using Excommunicate Support on Static Strike, which is a makeshift way of mitigating until I can get more good gear with chaos resistance. The Static Strike beam procs and chains go through packs and render them (and bosses) unable to deal chaos damage, which so far is working well. I don't think there are a ton of sources of chaos damage in maps, but I could be wrong there. Moving forward into late mapping and tougher maps, I'll need to focus on ailment and DOT mitigation. The Ancestral Vision gem is a clear target as we're heavily invested in Spell Suppression. DOT mitigation is something I don't have a path forward with yet, however. I do think I'll take the Armour/Evasion helmet mastery offering immunity to bleeding or poison, depending on which stat is highest on the helmet. I have considered taking the Protection wheel for Crystal Skin (Max res, avoid ailments) and the Immunity to Corrupted Blood mastery. Corrupting jewels for immunity to CB is something I also plan to do to save the mastery point.