[3.4] 97% Fire & Cold Resis - Zerphi Poet's Pen VD - Tankiest Uber Elder Build - Infinite Flasks

25.10.2018
Added Pantheon: Soul of Yugul
Updated Ascendancy Section
26.10.2018 removed Herbalism skilltree node as a suggested node at high character level
22.11.2018 updated Skilltrees, Path of Building, Gem Section, Gear details

My First Uber Elder in IHC (sorry for the follow thingy)

more video soon (hopefully)

Zerphi's Last Breath

Zerphi's heals us based of the mana cost of skills we used and lasts 4 seconds. This effect stacks when using more mana within 4 seconds. Which means that after attacking for 4 seconds we ramped up the healing to a maximum. The more mana/life we used to attack and cast the more regen we get.


Zerphi's Last Breath is a mana flask, which stops when either the duration is over or when you reach full mana. Mind over Matter + Blood Rage + Righteous Fire degen our mana to prevent Divination Distillate and Zerphi's Last Breath from filling our mana and therefore would stop beeing active. This way we have them up all the time.

How much regen does Zerphi's heal?

You can calculate that by multiplying your attacks per second, your mana cost per use, zerphi's heal - 100 (Mana cost), your increased flask effect and life recovery rate.

In my case it is: (564 mana cost * 5,99 times our mana gained as life * 1,67 increased flask effect * 1,14 life recovery from my belt minus 564 blood magic cost) * 3.79 attacks per second = 22238 Life regen per Second

How to get 97% Fire and Cold Resistances

+6% Level 23 Purity of Fire and Ice (5% + 1% from 20%+ Aura Effect)
+6% Divination Distillate (50%+ Flask effect)
+10% Ruby/Sapphire Flasks (67%+ Flask effect)

= 22% extra maximum fire and cold resistances which adds up to 97% in total.

What about Lightning Resistance?

+6% Level 23 Purity of Lightning
+6% Divination Distillate (50%+ Flask effect)
(+10% Topaz Flask (67%+ Flask effect))

For most bosses we replace our Topaz flask with Overflowing Challice, but against high lightning damage based encounters we switch to topaz as a replacement for our Ruby Flask (in rare occassion Taste of Hate).

Physical Damage Mitgation:

High physical mitigation due to stacking physical damage from hits taken as X elemental damage.
Which means that all converted damage to fire and cold damage is reduced by 97% down to 3% remaining damage taken and all damage taken as lightning damage is reduced by 87-97%.

+30% Lightning Coil
+33% Taste of Hate
+10% Incursion Helmet/Redblade Helmet

=73% of physical damage from hits taken as X elemental damage

+10-12% single stat Watcher's Eye

=83-85% of physical damage from hits taken as X elemental damage

+10-12% double stat Watcher's Eye

=93-97% of physical damage from hits taken as X elemental damage

Permanent Flask uptime:

The Pathfinder ascendancy node Nature's Boon got buffed in 3.2.0 and it now generates 3 flask charges for every 3 seconds. This combined with increased flask charges gained, increased flask duration and reduced flask charges used as well as The Overflowing Chalice keeps all flasks up all the time without having to kill anything.

We pick up all flask nodes on the skilltree which help sustaining flask charges: Reduced Flask Charges used, Increased Flask charges gained, Increased Flask Effect Duration and Increased Effect of Flasks (applies to The Overflowing Chalice).

Switching between different flasks for specific bosses and mapping to further increase survivability.

Pros:
+ Completly facetank Uber Elder
+ Permanent Flask uptime against Bosses
+ High elemental resistances 97/97/85% Fire/Cold/Lightning
+ 20k+ Life regen
+ Solid clearspeed
+ Volatile Dead is satisfying too look at and it got a MTX recently: Stygian VD
+ Permanent up to 30% IIQ and 100% IIR with Divination Distillate

Cons:
- Expensive in the current meta
- Not Party friendly when Party Members use Clarity or Wardlords/Poachers Mark/ Assassins Mark or any other way which would give you mana
- Nullifier nemesis mod on rares removes all active flask buffs and blood rage -> dangerous
- Flask management is important, if you spam your flasks during a boss fight you will run out of charges and no charges means playing without Ascendancy and therefor much less defense.
- For some people map clear and damage is too slow, imo it's enjoyable to map with in T16. Deeper delve and high HP Incursion Architects can take quite some time...

Level 90

IMPORTANT: You need the extra 4% Reduced Mana Reserved node on the skilltree or you have to drop Immortal Call

I usually feel safe against Uber Elder with 6500 life, so keep that in mind when picking up damage nodes. The amount of life needed becomes lower with a double mod Watcher's Eye

Beyond level 90 There are multiple options:

For Damage
2 Points Blast Radius (aoe, damage)
3 Points Exceptional Perfomance for Higher Blood Rage, Vaal RF and Vaal Impurity of Fire duration, this can mess up Immortal Call tho. So test it out before jumping back into higher content
3 Points Jewel socket above Elemental Overload

For Defense
2 Points Heart Of Oak (Life, Regen)
3 Points Profane Chemistry (Life)
5 Points Spiritual Aid for Minion Damage applying to player damage
6 Points Heart of Flame (Fire damage and Pen)

Do NOT pick up Herbalism in the ranger part of the skilltree, this node will make your distallite duration shorter and then messes with your flask rotation a lot.

Example higher level skilltrees:
Level 100 more Defense
Level 100 more Damage

In order of Importance:
1. Nature's Boon (passive flask charge generation)
2. Master Alchemist (immunity to elemental ailments and some ele damage)
3. Nature's Adrenaline (attack and movement speed)
4. WITH T1 8-10% Flask Effect Belt: 2x small pathing nodes another +1 Fire/Cold Resis from Ruby and Sapphire flask.
4. WITHOUT Flask Effect Belt: Veteran Bowyer for 10% Elemental Penetration.

Kill them all for 2 skill points!

Major God Powers:

Soul of Lunaris - Mostly for Mapping.

Capture at least: Thraxia (T5 Spider Lair map) and Sebbert, Crescent's Point (T9 Moon Temple map).
This will give you 10% chance to avoid projectiles and 5% chance to Dodge attack and spell hits if you've been hit recently. Physical damage reduction up to 8% per nearby enemy doesnt do much up it helps.

Soul of Solaris - Mostly for Bossing.

Capture at least: Jorus, Sky's Edge (T9 Temple map)
It's a great way against multiple crits taken within a short time span and we will get hit a lot during while standing still in uber elder. 6% physical damage reduction and 20% Chance to take 50% less area damage from hits is nice to have.

Minor God Powers:

Soul of Shakari - Mostly for Mapping.

Capture: Terror of the Infinite Drifts (T13 Desert Spring map).
This pantheon upgrade gives Poison Immunity and makes us tankier against chaos damage.

Soul of Tukohama - Mostly for Bossing.

Capture: Tahsin, Warmaker (T10 Siege map)
Unlock pantheon upgrade for more regen while standing still and physical damage reduction. You are not stationary while using Bodyswap which makes this pantheon not usuably while mapping with Bodyswap.

Soul of Yugul - Only for Uber Elder & Aul.

Capture: Varhesh, Shimmering Aberration (T13 Terrace map)
This Pantheon power is only used for Uber Elder/Shaper and other heavy cold damage bosses like Aul. Wheny ou are facetanking bosses it will be up pretty much all the time. Most impact for Shaper Balls to lower their damage.

Level 90
Level 100 more defense
Level 100 more damage
IMPORTANT: You need the extra 4% Reduced Mana Reserved node on the skilltree or you have to drop Immortal Call

I usually feel safe against Uber Elder with 6500 life, so keep that in mind when picking up damage nodes. The amount of life needed becomes lower with a double mod Watcher's Eye

Try to avoid any unnecessary Intelligence, %mana regen and flat mana regen on your gear. Otherwise Blood Rage + RF might not be enough to degen your mana.

Weapons

Armour - IMPORTANT: Lightning Coil works just fine. With the downside of having a harder time with fixing resistances. Crafting an Elder Body armour costs a lot currency and I would NOT recommend it.

Jewellery

Flasks

Jewels

Extra Items for Mapping and certain Bosses

Weapons

In this build it is important to have the lowest attack speed Poet's Pen possible (8% Attack Speed).

Why?

Otherwise we will attack too fast for Poet's to proc on every pack and it will miss casts.
When you check your tooltip in the skillbar you should aim for 0,26 Attack time on Frenzy while you have all your buffs up (Frenzy Charges, Blood Rage and at least 1 Flask). If it says 0,25 attack time you'll attack too fast. The best way to notice if you are attacking to fast is by using unearth + bodyswap and volatile dead. If you then jump in a straight then shouldnt be any (or barely any) skipped bodyswaps.

Good Corruptions:
iLvl 1: Damage Penetrates (8–10)% Elemental Resistances
iLvl 1: (15–20)% increased Area of Effect

Avoid Corruption:
iLvl 1: (3–5)% increased Attack Speed

Body Armour

(ignore colors, check the astral body amour or the gem section below)
Lightning Coil's 30% of physical damage from hits taken as lightning is makes it the go to item for pretty much all boss fights.

Super High Budget (I would NOT recommend trying to craft it, it can be really expensive):
Essence of Horror Shaper/Elder Body Armor as an alternative to Lightning Coil

11-15% of physical damage taken as Cold (T1, Shaper mod, prefix) or 5-10% of physical damage taken as Cold (T2, Shaper mod, prefix)
11-15% of physical damage taken as Lightning (T1, Shaper mod, prefix) or 5-10% of physical damage taken as Lightning (T2, Shaper mod, prefix)
11-15% of physical damage taken as Fire (T1, Elder mod, prefix) or 5-10% of physical damage taken as Fire (T2, Elder mod, prefix)

Why is that really good?

Same amount of phys taken as Ele as Lightning Coil without the downsides of -60% Lightning Resis. On top of that you could get good shaper/elder mods or even higher resistances. Higher life rolls than Lightning Coil is possible as well, but that would be really rare to have in combination with both phys taken as ele mods. I would recommend crafting on an Astral Body Armor for another 36% resistances advantage over Lightning Coil.

For Uber Elder we want high Fire and Cold Resistances and at the same time we miss out on lightning resis. Which puts 25% Physical damage from hits taken as Fire/Cold damage closer Lightning Coil's 30% Physical damage damage from hits taken as Lightning. If you manage to get T1 Phys taken as Fire or Cold it actually becomes better than Lightning Coil.

Helmets

Redblade Helmet give us another 10% of physical damage taken from hits as fire. With 3.5 we will have access to Incursions again, so it will be possible to get helmets with either 9-10% of phys taken as cold/fire/lightning as a suffix in combination with one T1 resistance.

Another option is going for normal helmet with the enchant and crafting it with Scorched + Pristine Fossils to get Nearby Enemies have -9% to Fire Resistance.

Best Enchant by far: Volatile Dead destroys up to 1 additional corpse

Enchants worth mentioning (for example if you get them on an incursion helmet): Reduced Mana Reservation for Purity of X, Volatile Dead Damage, Righteous Fire grants %increased Spell damage, Enfeeble/Flammability/Elemental Weakness Curse Effect.

For Bosses and deeper delves I would recommend a phys taken as X element helmet over the enchant + fossil crafted helmet. If you have a double mod watchers eye you could go for the higher damage option. For Bosses like Vaal Temple/Uber Trio and Aul in deeper delves you want to go full defense even with double mod watchers eye to be safer. In Softcore you are probably fine with more damage over defense.

Physical damage taken as X Element Helmets with Volatile Dead Encahant are hard to acquire and therefor really expensive or not buyable at all.

Here is the thing with Redblade/Incursion Helmets + Enchant...

They are strong on their own and really strong combined. 10% phys taken as X Element vs. ~40% More Damage. I would prefer the defense over offense for Uber Elder and other high phys damage bosses assume a single mod watchers eye.


Gloves

We want to socket Frenzy in gloves because we can have a pseudo 5-8 Link which increases our Mana Cost to get more regen out of Zerphi's last Breath.

The following Support gems can appear on Elder Gloves and have a mana multiplier in order of importance:
1. Faster Attacks
2. Poison (130%)
4. Chance to Bleed (110%)
4. Faster Projectiles (110%)

Most important is having Faster attacks because then we don't have to link it in the actual Frenzy setup and make room for Multistrike (180%). It is also important that you only have lvl 16 or 18 faster attacks as a build in support because level 20 grants too much attack speed for our Poet's Pen setup.
The more supported gems you have the better.

Best Enchant:
Word of Light when you take a critical strike
This enchant places consecrated ground (6% life regen)whenever you take a critical strike. It has a 5 seconds duration and 5 seconds cooldown. You can farm this enchant in normal lab as the lab tier don't matter for it.

Best Corruption:
Curse Enemies with Level (10–12) Elemental Weakness on Hit
Other good Corruptions:
(4–6)% increased maximum Life
Curse Enemies with Level (10–12) Enfeeble on Hit
Curse Enemies with Level (10–12) Temporal Chains on Hit

I would prefer a good corruption over a good enchant, BUT it is much harder to get a good corruption on decent/good gloves. So I wouldn't recommend going for it unless you want to invest a lot.

Boots

Kaom's Roots are required for Uber Elder. Elder puts a movespeed and more importantly attack speed slow on us. Which is really bad because we rely on attacking for Zerphi's Last Breath. Stun Immunity is good to keep attacking even while taking damage.

Best Enchant:
Damage Penetrates 10% of Enemy Elemenal Resistances if you haven't killed recently (Keep in mind ouf of all Boots enchants there are 2 which are rarer then the rest and this is one of them).

Good Corruptions:
4–6% increased maximum Life
8–10% increased Movement Speed

Don't use:
1. Life and mana regen if you've been hit recently. As well as
2. Life/mana leech if you've killed recently. Which would give you to much mana regen for blood rage to mitigate and therefor Divination Distillate and Zerphi's Last Breath would end.
3. % reduced Mana Cost of Skills if you've been Hit Recently. We want to gain mana cost and not lose.

Talismans/Amulets

They are not required for Uber Elder, but they make things work for character with lower defense. In Delve I didnt bother with buying one because they were too high priced and due to new mods there are more reason to not use a Talisman. Talismans will be a bit more common in 3.5 through Incursions again.

Why are they really good?
Damage taken as another damage type is applied before resistance calculation which includes Penetration. This is important as it lets us bypass penetration when we convert the damage we take. Shaper's Balls have 25% Cold Pen and Atziri's double flameblast has 10% fire pen. For example Shapers Balls with 100% Cold resistance deal damage as if we only have 75% cold resistance. With the talisman 50% of that damage is converted to fire which is 97% and therefor mitigated. In the end the damage each ball deals is almost cut in half.

Non Talisman Amulets

A big selling point of not going with Talismans are the Purity corruptions. This way you can have all 3 Purities level 23 when you put the 2 remaining Purities in +2/3 Unset Rings without having to use any Enlightens/Empowers.

Corruptions:
Grants Level 23 Purity of Fire Skill
Grants Level 23 Purity of Ice Skill
Grants Level 23 Purity of Lightning Skill

Besides that focus on getting life, resis and damage.

Aul's Uprising Onyx Amulet

Having this amulet with any Purity enables use to run all 4 Purities (Ice, Fire, Lightning and Elements) which makes getting resistances easier, but most importantly enables all phys taken as elemental mods on watchers eyes. More information in the Jewel section below.

This item is expensive because it only drops from the delve boss Aul.

Rings

Here we want to put Purity of Fire and Ice in.
It is important to have Purity of Fire/Ice level 23 which gives us another 2% max fire resistance (+1 from lvl 23 compared to lvl 20 and another +1 from 22% aura effect)
If you have level 20 Purities you'll need +3 to level of socketed gems to push them to level 23.
If you have level 21 Purities you'll only need +2 levels.

Belt
Reduced Flask charges used is the most important mod on belt. Yes, more important than T1 Flask effect!!!

Try to get a belt with a good roll on reduced charges used (10-20%) and craftable increased flask effect duration.

This is more expensive and harder to craft:

T1 8-10% increased effect of flasks on You (itemlevel:81, prefix)
T1 flask effect pushes our total flask effect to 67-69% which gives us another +1 max resis from resis flasks. Ruby and Taste of Hate Sapphire Flask will grant 10% max resis of their respective element.

If it comes down to having T1 flask effect and no other flask mods vs. no T1 flask effect , but instead have reduced charges used and crafted flask duration. Pick the option which grants reduced charges used.

There is a Leo prefix mod: 20-30% chance for flasks to gain acharge when you take a critical strike. This doesn't do much, but it will give us some charges occasionally.

Having more flask mods is huge for easier sustain (in order of importance):

10-20% Reduced Flask charges used (suffix)
10-20% Increased Flask charges gained (suffix)
21-30% Increased Flask charges gained (Ilvl: 85, suffix)
5-15% Flask effect duration (craftable suffix)
6-10% Chance for your Flasks to not consume Charges (Ilvl: 82, elder, prefix)

Another good elder mod is %increased Life Recovery rate but it is not as important as Reduced Flask charges used.

This character has up to 69% increased flask effect. Which is important to keep in mind when looking at the flask stats because they dont take the flask effect into account.

The best prefix on flask's is 20-25% reduced Flask charges used (Chemist's). Try to get this mod on all non-unique flasks. This way all flasks besides Overflowing Chalice and Zerphi's have roughly the same duration which makes it easier to manage your flasks.

Core Items which you always want to use:

Zerphi's Last Breath
***** DON'T PUT QUALITY on this flasks ***** (You can use Zerphi's with quality because even with quality it will regen less mana than Distillate. Just don't put quality on it because it can devalue the flask if you decide to sell it).

Divination Distillate
***** DON'T PUT QUALITY on this flasks *****

Divination Distillate is quite amazing because we can keep it up all the time:
6% max ele res
up to 30% increased Item Quantity
up to 100% increased Item Rarity

This flask ends before it's duration runs out when both your life and mana are full at any moment.
Our life is full most of the time with Zerphi's up.

We use Mind over Matter, Blood Rage and Righteous to lose mana and therefor negate our mana regen and the mana recovery for the flask. Because we never reach full mana this flask is up for the full duration. Which is why you dont want to put quality on this flask. Quality would increase the amount of mana gained.

Taste of Hate

Taste of Hate is like a Lightning Coil in a bottle. It provides 30-33% of physical damage from hits taken as cold damage while also giving us 9-10% maximum cold resistance. It is most the expensive unique in this build besides Zerphi's and a watchers eye.

Ruby Flask/Dying Sun

Ruby flasks give 9-10% maximum fire resistances (10% with an elder belt). I usually put bleed immunity instead of curse immunity on this flask because curses dont matter for most endgame bosses and curse immunity is a bit more common among boss fights.

Dying Sun is a great Flask for mapping if you can get your hands on a corrupting blood immunity jewel. Combined with Bloodgrips: take no extra bleed damage while moving, you can drop your bleed immunity flask. Dying Sun becomes even better if you have the +1 VD helmet enchant.

Poet's Pen alternates between Unearth and Bodyswap. So after a full spell rotation you casted volatile dead twice and unearth/bodyswap once each. So you end up with 5 corpses and volatile dead using 6 or 8 depending on enchant as well as bodyswap will take 1 corpse too.
Basically if you have the VD enchant dying sun is ~50% more damage while mapping. It doesn't do much for boss farming.

Core Item for all Boss fights:
Overflowing Challice

The Overflowing Chalice enables permanent flask uptime during boss fights. It takes some time to get used to it. Basically while this flask it active it doesnt generate flask charges for itself, but increased flask charges gained for all other flasks.
That means that it won't be up all the time and while the flask isn't active it will generate charges for itself again and should be up again soon.

Optional flasks which should be used in certain situations.
Amethyst Flask/Atziri's Promise

A Chaos resis flask can be used against Constrictor, Chayula or any other heavy chaos damage encounter. An Amethyst flask provides up tp 58% chaos resistance.
In terms of flask mods go for bleed, poison or curse immunity. Atziri's Promise can be used if you don't use dying sun.
Note for Incursion League: Incursions have quite a lot chaos damage and I highly recommend using an Amethyst flask. Use it at least for mapping.

Topaz Flask

A Topaz flask can be used example against Atziri and Eradicator.

Granite Flask

Granite flasks are quite amazing for physical mitigation in this build. Why?
The way that Armour works and how it works combined with physical taken as ele.

Any Damage taken conversion is taken into account before armour. Which means that 73%-83% of the physical that we take is already 0 or close to 0 with 100% ele resistances. The remaining physical damage is much smaller than before and armour becomes even stronger relative as it works better against smaller hits. If you have 93% or higher physical damage taken as ele it becomes not so impactful and should replaced with something else. Because the amount of damage taken is so small that it can simply be outregened.

Depending on the mods a granite grants:
over 20k armour with Iron Skin mod
8-9k armour with any non Iron Skin mod
For mapping get curse immunity and replace Overflowing Chalice with it. For Bosses with a lot of physical use a granite of Iron Skin instead of Vessel of Vinktar (for example Minotaur, Shaper, Uber Atziri Trio).

Core item: Fevered Mind

Depending on which and how many support gems you've linked with frenzy you want have 3-5 Fevered Mind Jewel. From my experience having 450+ Mana Cost on Frenzy feels safe for most content.
Keep in mind that pushing the mana cost too high might make things more risky against one shots because at the moment when you attack you have your life minus the amount used for blood magic frenzy. The furthest I went in terms of mana cost was ~620.

20-30% Spell damage per Jewel is pretty good as well.

Core item: Conqueror's Potency

This jewel provides Flask effect and Aura effectiveness which are important.
This jewel is very easy to acquire as it a quest reward (The Wings of Vastiri in Act 8).

Useful Corruptions: 4-5% increased Damage

Not a core item but really good if you can get afford it: Watcher's Eye

10% of Physical damage taken from Hits taken as X elemental damage while affected by purity of X element. (X = Fire/Ice/Lightning)
Those are usually not super hard to get. I paid about 100-200c for a single stat Watcher's Eye in IHC.

Double Stat Watcher's Eye

Any combination of:
10% of Physical damage taken from Hits taken as X elemental damage while affected by purity of X element
12% of physical damage taken from hits taken as X elemental damage while affected by Purity of Elements

To use a purity of elements Watcher's Eye would recommend having Aul's Uprising Onyx Amulet for any Purity.
This way you can use 4 Purities at the same time and don't have to sacrifice any maximum resistances from other Purities.

Rare Jewels

Priority of stats order: %maximum Life, %Fire Damage, %Spell damage while dual wielding, %Area Damage, %Spell Damage, %Damage

Combustion support gem only works with Unearth if Unearth does at least 1 fire damage. So you want to have a single mod whichs adds fire damage to spell, fire damage to spells while dual wielding.

Another option is picking up Avatar of Fire on the skilltree for 1 skillpoint.

If you want to use Dying Sun get a jewel with Corrupting Blood Immunity. Usually I would search for a few good stats and as long one is on the corrupted jewel it seems good enough to use.
Don't hesitage having resistances on your jewels if you need it.

Any Gem quality bonus that gives Frenzy increased attack should not have any quality on. Which means that: Frenzy, Blood Rage, Greater Multiple Projectiles and Faster Attacks (if you linking it with frenzy) should've 0% Quality! This is important for Frenzy to not attack too fast for Poet's Pen.

1. Poet's Pen 3 Link


Volatile Dead - Elemental Focus - Concentraded Effect / Controlled Destruction

Switch to Controlled Destruction instead of Concentrated Effect for Mapping.

2. Poet's Pen 3 Link


Combustion - Unearth - Greater Multiple Projectiles / Bodyswap

Gem order does matter with Poet's Pen. From top to botton you always want Bodyswap first before Unearth this way Poet's Pen will skip Bodyswap when there are no corpses around and instead casts another unearth making mapping smoother. The gem order doesn't matter in the Volatile Dead setup because there will only be one gem.

It is important to have at least 1 fire damage to spells on a jewel, so that unearth can ignite and proccing Combustion to help Volatile Dead Damage.

4 Link in Gloves (Pseudo 5-8 Link)

Frenzy - Blood Magic - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Multistrike

If your gloves don't have "Socketed Gems are supported by level X Faster Attacks" you may want to link Faster Attacks instead of Life gain on Hit. Just keep in mind that with all attack speed buffs we are looking for 0,26 attack time.

Why Multistrike instead of Life Gain on Hit?
Multistrike has one of the highest mana multipliers and we can link it with frenzy. When frenzy is used by a ranged weapon (like Poet's Pen) it will ignore all effects of Multistrike but we still use more mana. Life gain on hit also falls off against bosses and even in maps considering how much regen we have through Zerphi's.

4 Link

Blood Rage - Blood Magic - Vaal Righteous Fire - Increased Duration

Unset Rings with +2 or +3 level to socketed gems and Amulets with 23 Purity of X Corruption

Level 23 Vaal Impurity of Fire | Level 23 Purity of Ice | Purity of Lightning

Level 23 is a important level because at grants 5% max resistances and therefor having 20% aura effect is enough to get a total of 6% max resistances.

Vaal Impurity of Fire sets enemy fire resistances to 0 which works great against Bosses and Maps with extra resistances. This also means that during that duration you can't lower their fire resistance below 0. Since we any or either pretty low amounts of penetration Vaal Impurity stays relevant.

Overall I find having Vaal Righteous Fire and Vaal Impurity really good, especially for Incursions to burst architects down quickly. But it would be hard to get a lvl 21 Vaal Impurity of Fire. So you probably end up with lvl 20 Vaal Impurity of Fire in a +3 Ring.

2+ Link

Cast When Damage Taken - Immortal call

The remaining are optional, so here are some things you could fill them with:

Link Blood Rage, Enfeeble with Cast When Damage Taken

Any Purity if you dont have a corruption on your amulet and/or have auls uprising
or you can level Gems in the remaining slots

Important for ALL BOSS FIGHTS: Make sure to keep your Blood Rage up. Without it your mana will fill up and Divination Distillate and Zerphi's will end.

Use the following 4 flasks for all Boss fights


Optional Flask

Most of the time you want to use a Ruby Flask but for some bosses you want to switch it for Topaz or Amethyst Flask.

You If you dont have 90%+ Physical taken as Elemental consider using a Granite Flask of Iron Skin against high physical damage encounters.

Uber Elder

Stand in the middle of the arena facetank and keep your flasks up. Keep attacking for Zerphi's regen and to deal damage.

Elder
Nothing to worry about here and you can just stand in the middle and tank. At the end stand in Zana's Bubble.

Constrictor

Use Soul of Shakari (Pantheon) with the upgrade for Poison Immunity and better chaos defense. You can switch Ruby into Amethys flask. Once you got that just face tank.

Eradicator

Switch Ruby into Topaz Flask. Nothing else to keep in mind here.

Purifier

Nothing to keep in mind here. Just face tank.

Enslaver
Nothing to keep in mind here. Just face tank.

Shaper
Use Cold damage taken as Fire Talismans against Shaper's Balls

You can facetank everything here besides the Bullet Hell phase (just stand in Zana's bubble). I haven't tried to facetank the bullet hell phase yet, so be careful if you want to try it out.

The mini boss is cold and physical damage, so just face tank.

Minotaur

Lure Minotaur in the Lightning Pillars in the top (those activate first) and make sure that you don't stand in them. Those Lightning Pillars put a debuff on everything they touch which makes the enemy take more damage. Either way you can facetank Minotaur with 83%+ phys taken as ele.

Chimera

Use Amethyst Flask instead of Ruby until the Snake phase is over. After that you can switch back to ruby or granite. Be careful during the Snake minion phase because they deal a lot of chaos damage. Best way is standing on the bottom right side of the arena and kill them as they come close. Then try to get the Unique Snake down quickly. Whenever Chimera goes into Smoke phase where you have to find him don't forget that you still want to attack in between to get regen from Zerphi's Last Breath.

Hydra
Nothing worry about with 83%+ phys taken as Ele.

Phoenix
Phoenix reduces maximum fire resistance by 1% per 10% hp he has lost. Towards the end you might not want to tank his everything and then dodge a bit. Avoid damage mods which make the fight too harder especially extra damage as fire or min max.

Sometime you want to kill the small phoenixes to make things safer in harder maps.

Use Talismans with Fire Damage taken as Cold Damage if they are available

Avoid this Sextant mod: "Players life and mana recovery from flask are instant" It will make Divination Distillate and Zerphi's useless.

for Shaper Guardians avoid:
minus maximum resistances
reduced flask charges gained (you might be able to run this mod, but you have to time your flasks better)
too much lightning damage because we only have up to 85% Lightning resis.

for normal mapping avoid:
minus maximum resistances

a bit annoying, but doable map mods:
less regen
reduced flask charges gained

all other map mods are more of less easy. All extra damage as Fire/Cold barely or doesn't matter at all with really high resistances.

Level from 1-12 with Molten Strike, Frost Blades or any skill you'd like to use.

There are multiple gem setup you can use with Poet's Pen. I'm just showing what felt nice to level with.

Helpful Uniques While Leveling
Level 12
1. Poets Pen: Bodyswap - Unearth - Lesser Multiple Projectiles

2. Poets Pen: Arc - Volatile Dead - Added Lightning

Power Siphon (- you can link damage supports if you want)

Level 16
Heral of Ash - Heral of Ice - Herald of Lightning

Blood Rage

Frenzy - Power Siphon

Level 18
Frenzy - Power Siphon - Faster Attacks (- you can link damage supports if you want)

Poets Pen: Arc - Volatile Dead - Controlled Destruction

Level 28
For Bosses you can switch between Bodyswap and skills like Glacial Cascade, Ball Lightning or what ever you'd like to use

Level 31
Blood Rage - Increased Duration

Level 34
Lightning Golem

Level 38
Cast When Damage Taken - Immortal Call

Bodyswap - Unearth - Greater Multiple Projectiles

Frenzy - Power Siphon - Faster Attacks - Curse on Hit - Elemental Weakness or Warlords Mark (I leveled without Curse on Hit, but it helps)

Why do Zerphi's and Divination Distillate keep turning off?

Both flasks are mana flasks which means whenever we reach full mana they stop beeing active.
Thats why we want to make sure that mana doesn't regen while Righteous and Blood Rage are active.
Also make sure that you have enough unreserved Mana so that you don't reach full mana when Immortal Call activate and Blood Rage regen stops for a short time.

If your mana is regening while Blood Rage and RF are active:
Get more life and/or remove mana/int/%mana regen from your gear as much as possible.

If that is still not enough you probably need more character levels or better gear.

Temporary fix: Use a lower level Purity of Fire so that RF will degen your life/mana more.

Can we play this build without Zerphi's Last Breath?

I would NOT recommend it since I haven't tried it out and it seems pretty bad in theory.

In theory you lose way too much by not using Zerphi's -> Fk ton of regen.
So you'd have to drop Righteous Fire (big damage boost).
To have any kind of regen you'd want leech and the only reasonably way to get that is by having curse on hit Warlord's Mark.
But then you cant use Divination Distillate anymore because your mana would be full due to mana leech.