This is a follow up to the league start idea I posted before the start of sanctum:3.20 Elemental Hit Raider League Start : PathOfExileBuilds (reddit.com)
I played the build from league start and absolutely loved it and stuck with it the whole league and continued to min/max it as much as possible.
Video showcase:
https://youtu.be/JHVyioxz7g0
Here's the PoB upfront if you just want to check it out without reading the rest:
https://pobb.in/viXti_8V7H1U
My criteria for the build were:
- Level/play elemental hit as soon as possible (level 12 baby)
- Utilize all the elemental ailments to maximize damage with Trinity support also
- Evasion based - aiming for evade cap or close to it since I went Raider over Deadeye
What went well:
- Leveling went way better than I thought - I was concerned about not having the 2 extra projectiles or chain that Deadeye gets from ascendancy. Being able to rush to EE and Point Blank by normal lab was a massive damage boost, and due to the AoE effect from elemental hit I cleared packs easily while shooting a single arrow.
- Damage got absolutely nutty as I continued to min/max. I initially thought I might cap out around 12-15m DPS, mostly due to the fact that I'm scaling damage by gem levels instead of weapon damage. I have a couple of endgame trees I'm deciding on but they both end up around 26m DPS single target without flasks, and possible of bursting at 38m DPS.
- I've really begun to enjoy crafting items and every non-jewel item is something I made. Additionally since I'm not using Omni or a lot of uniques that AoF ele hit builds use, I had a lot more life and evasion. It's really fun to just run up to packs that can't hit you and you shoot them in the face and the whole pack explodes.
What didn't go well:
- It was the first time I've needed to get The Interrogation at league start and I really needed the non-damaging ailments to make the damage pop. The jewel was more expensive than I thought it would be and I should've adjusted by either running Heist to get Leadership's Price or used eldritch currency on boots for brittle ground.
- MANA COST - I was really stubborn about not wanting to use Inspiration support. The combination of crazy attack speed with high level EHit and the dual curse in Asenath's meant I was spending 80-90 mana every 0.3-0.5 seconds. I definitely had some deaths where I missed a pack and had to wait a second for mana to regen and couldn't fire. The build really felt nice once I combined Inspiration, the -mana cost craft, and a flask with the reduced mana cost suffix.
- Ended up deviating from the planned skill tree by about 10-12 points. I thought I would need more leech so I routed to Vaal Pact and picked up the mastery for evasion as armour to try and make the build more well-rounded. As my gear got better, these points weren't needed as my evade chance+elusive basically meant I never got hit and the points were more useful for life/DPS.