[On Hold] Bane Occultist - League Start/SSF Viable - All Content

Hi Thi3n awesome build and write-up as always.
I really dig the depths you go to in explaining each aspect of the build while still providing flexibility for personal preference.

One thing i did notice though is in the leveling section your act 7 progression mentions swapping a life flask for a diamond flask... i assume this was copy pasted from one of your other guides... maybe adjust it to state sulphur flask instead. Otherwise all is good. Keep up the awesome content.

I play this build in Legion and I really enjoy it. It's fun, it clears fast, it's quite tanky and has a pretty solid single target DPS. I got to almost 1kk mapping DPS (around 450k Shaper DPS) with what seems to me pretty maxed out gear. So here comes my question, what gear could I possibly upgrade besides HH/Inspired Learning to get this build even further. I tweaked a tree a bit, got a frenzy charge generation from The Green Nightmare that helped me push my DPS a bit higher. I'd like to have something to farm for, some sort of incenctive moving forward. It's my only second league playing PoE, so I might be missing on something that might be good for me. I tried ~40 timeless jewels with nothing interesting out of them. I am currently trying to get an Increased Damage corruption on Carcass Jack, no luck so far. Bisco's Leash corruption is also something I keep in mind.

what sockets would u use on 5 blue and 1 green?

damn cant color....

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what sockets would u use on 5 blue and 1 green?

damn cant color....

If you really can't get 4B 2G (should be 750 Chromatics on average with Vorici 3G), and you got 5B 1G (which is actually much harder to get), then I can see 3 options:

1. Add another curse to bane setup to increase dps through added curse which Bane benefits from.
2. I saw people using spell cascade for mapping, as it improves the AOE significantly, but hits your DPS. So bad idea if you are lacking DPS.
3. Increased Area of Effect support. 50% more AOE without giving up damage.

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Dhol91 wrote:

How are you filling out your resists?

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subiedude8 wrote:

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Dhol91 wrote:

How are you filling out your resists?

I had jewels with elemental resistances to get to caps. Though since then I have changed all my jewels to Damage/Life only and got new rings to fill the resistances. So DPS is higher and resistances are still capped.



I am only using this build to kill the bosses now. It clears nicely, but TS clears nicer.

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Dhol91 wrote:

I am only using this build to kill the bosses now. It clears nicely, but TS clears nicer.

Did you find that immortal call conflicted with steelskin? They share a CD (guard skills)

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subiedude8 wrote:

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Dhol91 wrote:

I am only using this build to kill the bosses now. It clears nicely, but TS clears nicer.

Did you find that immortal call conflicted with steelskin? They share a CD (guard skills)

Yeah I know they share a cooldown, as well as with Molten Shell that I sometimes cast manually. This is my only second league playing PoE and I'm very new to all it's mechanics, so they way I understood CWDT is that is has some kind of cooldown. And I was thinking that, what if I have 0.1s CD left on Immortal Call when I get hit but smth (it doesn't trigger), and then I get hit 0.1s later another time - my understanding is that because of CWDT cooldown it won't trigger IC this time as well. So my second CWDT with Steelskin should trigger this time, shouldn't it? Or am I not understanding it correctly and 1 guard skill is absolutely enough and it will be casted whenever I get hit and it's CD is gone?

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Dhol91 wrote:

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subiedude8 wrote:

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Dhol91 wrote:

I am only using this build to kill the bosses now. It clears nicely, but TS clears nicer.

Did you find that immortal call conflicted with steelskin? They share a CD (guard skills)

Yeah I know they share a cooldown, as well as with Molten Shell that I sometimes cast manually. This is my only second league playing PoE and I'm very new to all it's mechanics, so they way I understood CWDT is that is has some kind of cooldown. And I was thinking that, what if I have 0.1s CD left on Immortal Call when I get hit but smth (it doesn't trigger), and then I get hit 0.1s later another time - my understanding is that because of CWDT cooldown it won't trigger IC this time as well. So my second CWDT with Steelskin should trigger this time, shouldn't it? Or am I not understanding it correctly and 1 guard skill is absolutely enough and it will be casted whenever I get hit and it's CD is gone?

You cannot use guard skills at the same time since they share a 3s cd. Multiple cwdts cannot circumvent this. Skills supported by cwdt also has a .25s cd to prevent you from using multiple instances of the same skill simultaneously.

Greetings all.

First time poster, extremely casual noob here. I played a little in a previous league with a Zombie Necromancer (only got to Tier 5 maps,) and then decided to play a different character this time around. I always love playing Int based characters whenever I choose to play a game, and this one is no different.

However, one bad habit I picked up from playing too much Diablo, a love for Uniques. I know in PoE you can really get better stats on crafting Rares, but I don't play often enough to really invest into getting high quality recipes, and spending thousands of hours trying to craft godly rares. So I kinda wanted to work with Uniques simply because they're a lot easier to find via trading. If I HAVE to go to crafted rares, I will, it will just take a long time for me to get enough currency. I don't know of any commonplace farming builds, so if anyone has any insight on that, please feel free to inform me. Farming Diablo 2 for Andariel, Mephisto, Shenk, and Pindleskin for literal years has trained me to grind an MF build if it exists.

Anyway, this is what I'm doing at the moment (based on the first page of this thread.) I will be able to invest a little more time during the weeks ahead, but I need some guidance, as I am still incredibly new to the game and the endgame content.




Current Passive tree - Currently Level 74

Concerns:
- Not enough life (2.6k) at the moment, but still have lots of room to improve.
- All ES goes to Mana due to Eldritch Battery, which is bad for survivability, but actually helpful for casting, since it allows me to cast Bane more than 3 or 4 times before I run out of mana with all my Mana reservation (3 Auras.)
- Elemental resistances are REALLY low. Like 10% low. I plan on making adjustments to gear to help this as I level up some more.
- Red sockets are hard to find, so I don't have guard skills like Immortal Call or Steelskin to help me out.
- Wands are ranged, so Fortify is not an option ... sadface ....

Things I still have to do:
1- Get 2 more levels and snag Whispers of Doom on my passive tree, so that I can still have 5 curses active and replace Doedre's Damning with a Le Heup of All for the extra resistances.
2- Drop Astramentis and replace it with Star of Wraeclast for the extra resistances and the Silence immunity. Since all I do is cast Wither (Totem) and Bane, getting Silenced would be an auto-lose situation. Still have to figure out Dex requirements to keep dex based gems before I can drop the Astramentis though.
3- Possibly sacrifice the dps boost on Beast Fur Shawl in favor of a high resistance Chest piece. It really sucks to have to do that since this is my first 6link that I managed to fuse/jewel/chrome, as opposed to a "free" one like Tabula Rasa.
4- Figure out which flasks to use. I know I want to have 1 Onslaught and 1 Quicksilver for running while clearing maps, and possibly a Phasing flask to help with additional run speed from Ascent from Flesh belt, but every now and then I still get 1-2 shot by a pack in Tier 2 maps since I have bad reflexes and usually can't hit my Hybrid flask fast enough.
5- Need to upgrade boots to Windshriek for the additional AoE on Curses and increased movement speed. Not a high priority.
6- Eventually get better weapons. I did a little research on Wands, and the highest base is 42% spell damage, so I bought 2, got them to chromatic link sockets for the CwDT supports, and put the highest Crafting Bench spell damage mod I could afford. This is acceptable for now, as my damage is not a problem for low tier mapping, but I imagine this will need major upgrades in the near future once I figure out survivability. Attack speed and cast speed are not really important, since Bane is not a spammable skill. You cast it once on a mob, it usually dies within 2 seconds. Bosses take 2 or 3 casts to kill, as I have to run / Flame Dash / avoid hits while Wither Totems and Bane do work.
7- Eventually I want to get 3 jewel sockets on the passive tree, so I can wear Survival Instincts for dex and resists, Conqueror's Potentcy for the curse and aura support, and Assassin's Haste for the movement speed. I did not find any other Unique jewels that really stood out, unless I missed something.

Regarding my gem setup:
- Bane, Despair, Swift Affliction, Efficacy, Void Manipulation, Controlled Destruction on 6-link chest. Seems fine, unless I'm missing something.
- Chaos Golem on the ring since it buffs the Golem and gives me more Bane damage via Spell Damage, and I didn't think I needed other supports for the Golem.
- Auras: Malevolence for damage, Haste for movement speed, and Purity of Elements for those really low resists. I know it doesn't help enough, but it's probably going to stay for the long haul. I need all the resists I can get, and this is a cheap dirty way to get SOMETHING for now. I need to level up that Enlighten Support asap.
- Wither Multiple Totems to help against bosses, and to help me see when there are still monsters in the area that I may ave missed. I know you can turn on life bars over monsters heads, but those don't show unless you hit them. Seeing monsters before you hit them on a new map has been an issue for me ever since I started playing.
- Additional curses on the gloves means 5 curses total. Bane, Despair, Enfeeble, Temporal Chains, and Poacher's Mark. I assume Wither is not a curse since it does not list itself as a curse in the gem, but as a debuff. Let's hope I didn't mess that one up.
- Flame Dash seems fine to get me out the way if I see monsters are about to explode in lightning orbs or whatever. It seems to cast instantly, so I don't think I would need to link anything like Faster Attacks or whatever.
- I think having 2x CwDT on wands seems a little clunky. I do not have Immortal Call or Steelskin or Molten Shell, since it's a little tough finding red sockets on other gear. Most of the other gear seems kinda sorta optimized regarding gems and links, but the weapon slots are the only thing I haven't figured out yet. Additionally, Phase Run, Vortex, and Cold Snap seem ... meh? Phase Run doesn't last long, but it helps with Ascent from Flesh belt. Vortex and Cold Snap were only placed there because getting a wand with RRG sockets seems REALLY difficult to do, so I can't get Immortal Call or Steelskin for CwDT.

Anyway, thank you for reading my giant wall of text. Any help you can offer is truly appreciated. Thank you for your time, and have a nice day.