3.7 Rusty Poisonous Steel (Lancing Steel Pathfinder Poison build) 2.6 M shaper dps

PoB doesn't account for Three things:

First: Number of projectiles hitting same target (shotgunning):
All these numbers are for single projectile. Evidence is: adding Greater Multiple Projectiles support only decrease damage and don't count for more than 1 projectile hitting same target.

The Shotgun effect is the key to this build (that's why I really hoped Volley would support it, because volley would stack even more projectile towards the center of the aim). But even without volley or any extra projectiles, we still hit main target 3-5 times with each hit, and each of these hits apply an instance of poison at same time. Total damage is multiplied, even before poison duration comes to calculation.

Second: The number of poisons applied when killing a poisoned enemy nearby:
It comes from "Nature's Reprisal" in Pathfinder. The larger the pack is, the greater number of poisons applied to them as they start dying. It can help against bosses if they have some adds/totems/summons, but mostly it's for clear speed.

Third: Impale damage
Normally, this build minimize physical damage in favor of insane chaos/poison damage. But since it count physical damage before any mitigation, and we have some physical damage nodes along with Ailment nodes, it might be small but still significant?

I mean PoB still not showing its damage at all, so that's a factor not accounted for. It might not push dps, but could alter our choices for optimization when fully revealed in the future.

Though for now, I totally ignore its existence. That's one of reasons I go for Lancing Steel rather than Shattering steel, as shattering is more geared towards Impale

Further: Unexplored Paths:
* Dual curse with Temporal Chains and the the new Unique "Solstice Vigil" Temporal Chains slow time for the target, so 1 second pass in 1.67 second. Meaning poisons would last much longer, and many more stacks could be applied before older ones expire. Plus allowing wither to last longer, and getting more stacks of it will Skyrocket the damage. Also adding great defensive layer.

That's quick example of 1.4 million dps with Temp chains + despair : https://pastebin.com/bk0dWeS9
Another version closer to your tree with same dps: https://pastebin.com/iY9KHXF4

*New unique sword Paradoxica! There are so much potential for this weapon, with double total damage, and 2-4 crafted/unveiled mods. One could be "Attacks with this Weapon Penetrate 5-15% Chaos Resistance" , Attack Speed, and quality ...

I have no numbers here, but this thing can be insane in the right hands! Stack added flat damage and it will shine.

Thank you for the very detailed explanation. It really feels excellent now. I crafted this lovely piece of work tonight, and recrafted my body armor

Another Update:

Pantheon:
Major: Soul of Lunaris
Minor: Soul of Gruthkul

Alternative:
Minor: Soul of Yugul (If you still do significant portion of your damage as physical in early/mid game)

Reasons are obvious, move speed and general stacking of our main defense (dodge/evade). It make up for lack of big move speed in the tree.

"

It really feels excellent now. I crafted this lovely piece of work tonight, and recrafted my body armor

That's very good Rapier you got there, perfect base, perfect mods, and medium rolls. You will probably make it better with couple divine orbs (get by selling a cheap six-linked corrupt item to vendor is easier way than directly buying from players).

The big chance to get 100% more poison damage stacking with all "more poison" from various resources is nice. And it might tip the scale of priorities of next mods to seek towards poison duration, attack speed, or Crit multiplier. Meaning after this weapon you might get better results from increasing "duration" than finding even more "More poison damage". That's generally true for Pathfinder since it have less duration than Assassin, but more specifically as we get huge of "more" modifier.

For example (General support discussion)

* If 'Swift Affliction' was an option before, it become less and less likely. Only 44% more at this stage is not worth having poison duration reduced.

* 'Unbound Ailment' become absolute necessity if you haven't switch to it before. because of the duration bonus.

* 'Vicious Projectiles' is typically better damage than 'Void manipulation'. 49% More for both: hits and DoTs is better than 39% more chaos. But as we get increase the "more" stacking, the difference become less significant compared to the lose of 10% attack speed from 'Vicious Projectiles'. Ending up with 'Void Manipulation' being more effective dps.

* 'Efficacy' will still be bad at all scenarios, due to the fact that Lancing Steel have no duration modifier, and taking no benefit from "skill effect duration", nor spell damage. Leaving us only with 24% more DoT, which is worse than many other supports.

* 'Damage on full life' is usually a good option for hit and run builds like this one. between life regeneration, life leech, and flask recovery, you can stay on full life most of the time. However, it become less appealing towards end game, being inconsistent, and having other alternatives with poison/Ailment duration.

* 'Faster Attack' is an interesting option. While not meta, it can push dps a bit further by applying more poisons before others expire. However, our tree have very easy attack speed at hand, and one handed swords are generally fast compared to say bows. We can maintain same Attack speed as 'Quill Rain' build, without sacrificing any damage or having "Less" modifier, plus the Dual wield bonus. So I prefer to maintain balance and not go out of my way to grab even more attack speed. That's not factoring Mana problems, because Theif's Torment is always an option with such build, so it's not an excuse to neglect attack speed.

* 'Increased Crit Strikes' and 'Increased Crit damage' are both up for debate. There's a point where we will start adding crit nodes, and using Coralito's signature for perfect Agony. But even then, PoB still show both supports adding too little bonus to damage. Whether our crit chance is too low or too high, these gems are not adding much. Meanwhile, the crit nodes are adding some serious damage. I speculate it's because this tree have access to huge crit nodes, and nodes with extra modifiers not exclusively crit. Either way, I still can't find good use for the crit gems. But maybe someone proves me wrong in the future. Who knows.

* 'Vile Toxins' is absolute perfect support at end game, but I'd put it on shelf till I get 6L. That's because it affect poison only, and you do good portion of damage with initial hits early game. And it don't truly shine until you are able to stack many poisons on enemies. Even if you get duration and attack speed to good levels early on, you are still limited by gem level (the bonus 5% more per poison scale with gem level). So it's wise to level it in secondary weapon socket until you are able to get full benefits from it later.

* 'Deadly Ailment' might come in priority before 'Vile Toxin' or after it, depending on gear. Because it reduce hits damage, the choice to equip it must come in the right time, or it will be less useful. For me, I needed to get to lvl 65 and have Lancing Steel on 6L with Void Manipulation-Vile Toxin-Damage on Full life-Added Chaos damage before deadly Ailment become a possible replacement for 'Vicious Projectiles' . My 6L is 4G1B1R corrupt and it's not allowing me to get Unbound Ailment in the formula, so that must be the reason fitting Deadly Ailment is not as smooth as it should. It will be different for everybody.

To sum it up:
This transition from one type of damage to another is very important and very delicate, so many people quit playing similar builds around 65-70 because of wrong order or priorities. They put some gems supposed for endgame earlier than they should, struggle, call the build a bad choice, and leave.

It happened in "Shatter Steel Pure phy Deadeye" build. Build creator even put it in the title (This is a bad build) after he quit, while some other patient players reported the build working for them in end game. I'm not expert in pure physical builds, but i can make an educated guess that the reason is using a good support too early before the skill tree/items are good enough to counter disadvantages. Probably the suspect will be "Brutality" because it eliminate all elemental and chaos damage from skill entirely, while elemental could be a huge bonus during leveling, in the same way projectile damage is good bonus for leveling a poison build until we get our poison on its feet.

This concept is not true for certain skills (like Toxic Rain) where damage scale well from start to finish because of several mechanisms in the skill. But lancing/Shattering Steel have so few modifiers and tags, and they need careful planning to become good league starter. And yes, I believe they are good league starter!

Thank for even more detailed analysis. I... have no idea how to feel about the build yet.

Everything dies so fast, most things before they even get on screen (including some map bosses. I don't even have Maim on Purity yet.

I need to go deeper into maps since I seem to be 81 and still running T2 maps.

I have gotten knocked to low life a few times, but the thing was dead before it was a worry.

I picked up this Rat's Nest, but I have mixed feelings about it no resists or life but the rest is lovely. I'm getting close to being able to fit another reserve in there. Picked up The Flow Untethered but I lose too much strength to go try it out.

So far this build has been devastating once I got to LS, thanks a ton for it.

== Updated OP to reflect the current build properly ==

== Added +1 million damage updated tree to OP ==

The tree: https://pastebin.com/67pf16dP

* This increased damage comes from removing "Herald of Purity" in favor of replacing the head enchantment to "30% Increased Despair Curse Effect" .. We will lose some utility and boss distraction for greater debuff.

* Fixed resistances with items, reduced resistance from tree, and changed small pathing to "Art of the gladiator"

* Fixed attributes to be able to afford Ahn's Might 213 Str requirement, and Dendrobate 150 int requirement for bonus poison duration.

* Tree still entertain very high level, which might be very hard to obtain. Though it works from much earlier point. Crit nodes shall be the very last thing we take, build works fine without most of them.

Very Nice improvements, are you OK with me posting additional options? I've come up with an axe version, an axe and shield version, and a variant on your new plan.

I really appreciate the wonderful build and I'm following yours almost exactly (I deviated for a little more resists and move speed without regard for damage)

I'm up to 84 now and while it is still only up to T3 maps, I feel strong.

"

DevelopersDevelopersDevelopers wrote:

Very Nice improvements, are you OK with me posting additional options? I've come up with an axe version, an axe and shield version, and a variant on your new plan.

I really appreciate the wonderful build and I'm following yours almost exactly (I deviated for a little more resists and move speed without regard for damage)

Everyone is encouraged to post their variations of the build, also with gear and videos and everything they see fit. I'll be happy to see more people adapt this theory into their own, and improve upon it.

Axe version would require more STR, more traveling to the left side of the tree, and have less chance to poison. what advantage there are to counter all of this?

Also, I've been changing and evolving my theory over time, so some earlier concepts are no longer that appealing. And some are still hot for debate

For example:
Herald of Purity: I really love how they hold bottle neck points for me to attack with maximum speed without worrying about positioning. But I still feel it takes so much Mana reserved.

War banner: I had to turn it off to put 4th support to HoA, though I miss the accuracy. The debuff don't give me benfit, but gives Crawler more damage, so it's still effective. I still can't decide, but I didn't get the Reduced mana reserved enchantment yet..

4th support for HoA (Crawler): Withering touch is really good, but as I don't have enough mana, I use good old Faster attack. (115% v.s 140% reserved mana) and it just feels right.

Multiple Totems v.s Faster casting (Wither): Having three totems casting wither is a huge QoL improvement. The tactical options they give me is huge compared to anything else, as I can hide behind them, force mobs/bosses into bottle neck points, or just get the use of higher stacks of great debuff.

I didn't look for faster casting again since getting Multiplie Totems,
though I'd think about bringging it back if I can put Wither on 4L for even more insane debuff. That or Increased Duration, gotta see which is better!

"

DevelopersDevelopersDevelopers wrote:

I'm up to 84 now and while it is still only up to T3 maps, I feel strong.

I've hit 79 and have this gear:

https://pastebin.com/aW2nTiUn



and doing T5-7 with ease. But, well, there's some things to take note of:

* "Monsters have #% chance to avoid being poisoned"
It's a mod that somewhat hinder this build. It make clearing huge packs slower, and more dangerous. My solution is: Using Wither Totem with packs, not Only bosses. Added with Multiple Totem support, I have 3 Totems which all put stacks of Wither in larger area. Staying behind them is safer if mobs don't die quick enough (Versus the usual whirling into monsters we do after attack for 1 second).

Over all, this mod seems to slow down the farming, and you can skip it if you care about having super fast clear speed.

* "Monsters reflect #% of physical damage"
This one surprised me, because tooltip show small physical damage, but in reality, the reflect can be painful. I don't know if this comes from Impale unmitigated damage, or something I fail to notice.

Either way, the reflect damage will never one hit you, because of the mechanics of the skill. Leech and life gain on hit make up for most of it, unless you are damaging huge pack with Max attack speed. Solution is: Attack couple times, then flask, then attack, then flask, .. etc. We can have infinite flask charges, so it totally solve this minor problem.

It don't slow down clearing, but just be watchful.

Edit: I just realized I don't use Coralito's Signature yet, and that could be one of the reasons phy damage is still a thing. Gotta check it again after having it.

* "Monster have + #% Chaos resistance"
Not a big deal honestly, clear speed is still smooth, and bosses are no different. We have good debuffs already.

* "Magic monsters packs have a bloodline mods"
All are usually fine, but if you encounter these packs who leave unkillable obelisks untill whole pack dies, make sure to whirl through them to the other side and nuke rear mobs without having to pierce the entire line. Having a modifier for projectiles to pierce additional target (3rd one) is also cool. But nothing big here.

* "Player have no life, mana, or energy shield regeneration"
Just keep leeching and using flasks. A Mana Flask with "reduced charges used" or "increased charges" is a must here.

* "Player have reduced life flask recovery"
If your life Flask is "instant on low life" you have nothing to worry about

* Other mods I encountered seems all harmless, unless you get stacks of positive mobs modifiers of same type. (Like you have less elemental res, and mobs do bonus elemental, and increased chance to do elemental ailments, and boss is elemental caster) This can be RIP if you don't have good Loreweave to counter.

* The only map boss which gave me real nightmare is "Precinct T6" in one of Zana quests, I got 3 rogue exiles with one constantly leap slam with stun, one cast magic, and one archer. All not giving me a chance to stop and attack for 1 second. Took me 2 or 3 deaths to bring one down so I can kite the other 2 more safely and finish them.

Spent ~ 100c and picked up the following



ideas to think around

Updates to OP:
* Added section for how Lancing Steel work,
* Some details about the spread, and timing of projectiles. With graph.
* Notes on how its damage scale in general.

Updates on my current progress:
* Hit 83, replaced Innsbury for Dreamfeather in off hand, which helped smooth mapping very much.

* Doing T8-9 maps is no problem, some uniques maps, and Atziri

* Got this maximized piece But still need to fix my resistances before switching to it!

* Still switching between Coralito's Signature and my Mana Flask. Can't fully transition to Coralito yet.

My Maximized Coralito:

--- Mana leech/gain is super fine, as long as I hit something, I'll never run out of mana.

--- Problem is: When I lag or 'overdo' it, attacking couple seconds longer. Things die fast and I keep hitting the empty air, making my mana goes down.

--- It's still not bad, but adds a feel of having to be conservative, and attacking less and thinking more. Meanwhile, even with no Coralito, monsters melt easily, I don't want to add more fuss until I get into real endgame/hardest content. Just personal feeling though, feel free to use it once you feel comfortable.