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

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Banners:
* War banner have only two benfits: Increased accuracy + Adrenaline for 1-2 seconds when placed. It's also easier to get charges while clearing, harder at bosses. Though you should reach bosses with it charged already and ready to be used.
* Dread banner have two advantage: less enemy accuracy + Stronger version of Fortify for 1-2 seconds when placed. It's also harder to charge, as it charge only when you impale, and we do't have that big chance anyway.
* Both banners seems minor, and I'd say we have better chance using other aura/buff/stronger heralds. But should give them a try once or twice and get to you with feedback anyway.

Honestly if you use GMP it's super easy to build stages on Dread Banner - I have no issues doing it. 60% per projectile (I have 80% from Champion passives though, to be fair) is pretty good when you have 7 projectiles that then each split into what is it, 4 projectiles?

EDIT: Using Shattering Steel not Lancing Steel - but did use Lancing Steel in the past, and having 100% chance on main projectile and 60-80% on the secondary ones built them very reliably as well.

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BlademanZX wrote:

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Banners:
* War banner have only two benfits: Increased accuracy + Adrenaline for 1-2 seconds when placed. It's also easier to get charges while clearing, harder at bosses. Though you should reach bosses with it charged already and ready to be used.
* Dread banner have two advantage: less enemy accuracy + Stronger version of Fortify for 1-2 seconds when placed. It's also harder to charge, as it charge only when you impale, and we do't have that big chance anyway.
* Both banners seems minor, and I'd say we have better chance using other aura/buff/stronger heralds. But should give them a try once or twice and get to you with feedback anyway.

Honestly if you use GMP it's super easy to build stages on Dread Banner - I have no issues doing it. 60% per projectile (I have 80% from Champion passives though, to be fair) is pretty good when you have 7 projectiles that then each split into what is it, 4 projectiles?

EDIT: Using Shattering Steel not Lancing Steel - but did use Lancing Steel in the past, and having 100% chance on main projectile and 60-80% on the secondary ones built them very reliably as well.

We are running Pathfinder, not Champion, so Max chance for Lancing Steel secondary projectiles is 40% (20% accuracy + 20% Dread Banner).

If there were other ways to increase chance outside of Champion, Impale would be a good buff for Crawler's damage since it's pretty much physical.

Either way, I still prefer using the mana on supporting Herald of Agony with more powerful supports.

Edit: There's actually great crafted mod for one handed weapons to increase chance to Impale, which comes with up to 105% increased physical damage (local to the weapon) so it's almost free bonus. And we can get it on both weapons.

Maximizing the damage from gems:

That's another research I've been doing to Maximize the damage output in my current setup, especially from gems. Seeking which gems would give best result when their Quality go to 20, and/or their level go beyond level 20.

I'm running Lancing Steel on 6L as following:
Lancing Steel-Deadly Ailments-Void Manipulation-Added Chaos Damage-Vile Toxins-Unbound Ailments

Best 20 Quality support gems:


Best lvl 21 support gems:


Is "Lancing Steel" Worth Quality 20?


Is "Lancing Steel" Worth Corrupting for lvl 21?


Is "Herald of Agony" Worth Quality 20?


Is "Herald of Agony"Worth Corrupting for lvl 21?

Almost level 90, and with new stuff:


With this setup, I could do:
* Maps up to T13 with no problem, didn't try higher levels (because they don't drop) but should be fine.

* Uber Lab is a walk in the park, Pathfinder allow me to spam life flask through all the annoying spikes/lava without caring for timing. And Emperor melts in few seconds.

* Syndicate encounters can be deadly, if you have lag. Otherwise, all are easy with some strategy. Three captains could die before you realize they are three. Safehouses are easy and fun. Overall Lancing Steel is doing pretty good here.

* The Incursion temple is kinda .. boring.. For some reason the packs are stubbornly taking long time to die. Boss is fine though, if you have no lag.

* I didn't go much deep in Delve , because it feels underwhelming if you don't farm the darkness.. and farming darkness require some investment. And lag/desnyc have very bad impact on it.

Update:

My actual level 90 dual curse gear:


PoB link: https://pastebin.com/fzGF5eSg

Life: 4979 / Evasion 9731 (42%) / Dodge 40% / Block 16%
DPS: 1.2 Million normal mobs / 446K Shaper dps (at maximum poison duration ~10 seconds).
Damage is for single projectile (we shoot 7 which can shotgun, depending on boss size/hit circle).

That achieve dps target I set from start of the league. There are much more potential upon upgrading my off hand though.

Dual curses (corrupt amulet): Temporal Chains (from corrupt Golves) + Despair (From shaper weapon), plus Despair effect enchantment (from helmet). The helmet enchantment works with curse on hit effect, unlike the 'Witchfire Brew' Flask.

Both are 'curse on hit' from all attacks, meaning 100% uptime, with coverage up to 2 or 3 screens. (Lancing Steel travels quite great distance). It's beneficial offensively (greater damage, longer poison duration) and defensively (slower enemies in movement and attack/cast speed).

These are moderately expensive gear, but I pushed through them one by one:
30% quality Beltimber: 10~15c at start of league.
Shaper Off hand (with delve roll): 50c
Starkonja Head (with Despair enchantment): 20c
Additional Curse Amulet + Gloves: 90c
6L Evasion armour (perfect Life rolls): 1ex
Flask collection: 80c

Rest is almost SSF, so total cost would be around 400~430c or 2.5ex.
And you can cut half the cost, if you stick with Witchfire + moderate poison Harpy Rapier or Ahn's Might (If you can afford 213 Str)

Skills:
Since I'm NOT running Despair + Blasphemy Gems, I have two free sockets for whatever I want. I added Unset Ring to make them three, and used: Bladefall + Cwdt + PCoC for free power charges.
Added to the free Frenzy charges from cold snap. It's small good bonus while clearing. I don't count these charges in my PoB link because they are reliable only sometimes. But if I get 3 charges each, that's 300k more dps (and 100k Shaper)!

Map Progress:

So, I've been farming maps all the way to T15. Did Guardians 3 times: Phoenix once, Chimera twice

Chimera was easy enough: Between my movement speed, my Flask spam, and fast whirling blades, he couldn't catch me easily. And his "hidden phase" didn't last more than 1 second once I got the mechanism, whirling through all his smoke clouds before he does any significant damage.

Phoenix killed me couple times at his last third of life, in a map full of elemental damage mods and elemental weakness debuff. (Because I can buy these cheaper from market).

The good thing is: The boss life kept going down for 10 seconds after my death, which made short work of his dangerous last few percentage.

I'm still aiming to get other guardians down, and their Shaper. But I need to snipe morning sessions in weekends and off days to have decent enough ping (lower than my usual 200~500).

Finally got some video to demonstrate the build:

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► T12: https://youtu.be/Yu7HiMBwpV4
► T16 (Hydra): https://youtu.be/gtQ00hWslZY

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Hey, I'd like to make a case for not focussing so much on the PoB DPS number. I killed Hydra today faster then you did on my vortex/frost nova ssf character with less then half of your pob dps number. For one you don't actually reach that dps number (let's say less virulence stacks, or not clicking your flask although it has charges, which halves your dps) and other things like movement are important too. I can drop vortex while I'm moving, so I can simultaneously dodge attacks and deal dps. There are a lot of things that influence a fight, and dps is just one of them. ;)

That said your build looks great. The new unique dropped today for me and I wanted to find a build for it and I'm going to use yours as a basis and see where I come out. One question - why do you go for the mana leech nodes at the bottom right instead of the duelist ones, where you get 0.4% life leech too? Thanks in advance ;)

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Shaileen wrote:

Hey, I'd like to make a case for not focussing so much on the PoB DPS number. I killed Hydra today faster then you did on my vortex/frost nova ssf character with less then half of your pob dps number. For one you don't actually reach that dps number (let's say less virulence stacks, or not clicking your flask although it has charges, which halves your dps) and other things like movement are important too. I can drop vortex while I'm moving, so I can simultaneously dodge attacks and deal dps. There are a lot of things that influence a fight, and dps is just one of them. ;)

Agreed. And as I stated several times, this shown dps is the result of attacking non-stop for 10 seconds (just the moment before your very first poison expire). So in reality the number should be much lower if we have to dodge. On the other hand, it's the dps for single projectile, so our talent for landing so many projectiles on boss can multiply this dps.

You made me review my video frame by frame, and I can see what you mean. virulence stacks is a good indication for this build effective dps, as it count how many poisons we inflict. And during most of the Hydra fight it didn't go higher than 32, mostly around 28. Not untill 4:57 when I dared to go close and personal with the Guardian, staying in one place and shotgun her into oblivion.

You'll forgive this inconsistency though, if you learn this is my first ever Hydra fight. Actually, this character is the first one to reach 90, and do maps higher than T9. As it's merely my second character after couple years not playing PoE.

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That said your build looks great. The new unique dropped today for me and I wanted to find a build for it and I'm going to use yours as a basis and see where I come out.

That said, I believe you and many other players would do better with same build. And that would make me a happy person, that's the whole point of sharing builds/writing in forums. I'm so looking forward to see where you go with similar build, please share your progress with us :)

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One question - why do you go for the mana leech nodes at the bottom right instead of the duelist ones, where you get 0.4% life leech too? Thanks in advance ;)

It's mostly an overlook, thanks for pointing that out.

The original plan was investing one single point in mana leech, and the bottom-right node is slightly more efficient in restoring mana (Because of 10% increased mana leech per second).

However, at higher levels, I didn't feel so good with one point, and went for second one, which took mana leech per second to the cap. So you are right, the duelist one would make mana leech hit the cap all the same, while adding some life leech.

Also, do you know the exact way this "double damage" on this weapon work? Is it 100% more damage? Or does it multiply your total dps after all of "more damage" mods applied?

So I killed the 4th guardian, The Minotaur .. which was a bit harder because of his instant RIP teleport. I'm going to upload the video in a day or two, so you guys can check it out.

First Shaper Fight:

With all Guardians out of the way, I could finally get my chance testing the build against The Shaper.. And here's how the fight went:

This time, I made sure to prepared, from read Wiki, to watching video of the fight. And I got couple improvements for this fight excursively:

I woke up in the morning while my ping is lowest, closed every other application, decided to not run Fraps to have best FPS, and went through the unshaped realm of the shaper.

And long story short, I failed. My Rusty Steel build did decent job against him, going whole first phase without a flinch. Then whirling through this side area where he banish her, melting he Uncreated, and returning to the main room before he regenerate any significant life. And then .... Boom, things started to explode in her face, my poor little crow..

What killed her this time, and the next five times was the projectiles of all things, Ironically shotgunning a character who shotgun all monsters in the game.She was few seconds away from second banishment when she got her 6th death, taking the final portal away. (And yes, the golden projectiles, not the vortex that cover whole screen!)

Conclusion:



If it were another game, I'd call it game, stating that shaper is beyond the builds limit. But this is Path of Exile, where possibilities are endless, and mechanics is pretty much complicated for calling failure with one single try and one single setup.

That took me back to the drawing board.. aka .. Path of Building..

The Solution:

My setup (posted earlier in page 5) had 446k shaper dps, with Max wither stacks, all Flasks up, and continuous attacking. So a bit lower in reality. I didn't look much at it during leveling and mapping, but now after facing the reality: It's only good if I can survive the fight, otherwise, it would be wiser to melt the thing before it kill me enough times.

With that goal in mind, I started tweaking the build again:

Dual curse:


Amulet:


Weapon


Number of projectiles


Golves


This conclude my first round of tweaks for the build, bringing these changes:


Further improvements for the future:

Loreweave:

Increase Poison Duration when focused
By 121~140%