Hi and welcome to my Ultimate Poison Pathfinder - All attack poison skills build guide!
This is my 4th build so far and prolly the best one.
First I want to say that build is very much inspired by Mathil's Viper Strike build from 3.7 league. I liked the attack poison based play style and wanted to push it to the next level in dps with totally different defenses. He did a great job by scaling that build the right way. Thanks Mathil! (no pun intended)
If you want to go fast and clear even faster, delete bosses, be safe like the Juggernaut and be in the heart of the fight, this is a build for you. Poison the Atlas! xD
Guide will cover 2 melee attack poison skills Pestilent Strike and Viper Strike. Ranged skills are discontinued as I will make guide for Assassin.
I would also like to thank everyone who contributed to making this build better with their ideas and suggestions, especially to these exiles
Please read full guide before starting the build.
You will find lots of good info in here and for anything that you need help with you can post on this thread.
Wish you many fun hours of play in 3.13 Ritual league
TorsteinTheFallen
Change log 6. Feb
Spoiler
discontinued ranged skills
added explanations for Transcendence version
Build Summary
Spoiler
Pros & Cons +high damage
+great clear speed
+all content viable (except Hall of Grandmasters), even 100% T19 Deli maps with Transcending variant of the build
+ignite, chill, freeze, shock, scorch, brittle, and sap immune
+flask regeneration (Pathfinder)
+very well rounded defenses, very tanky
+excellent delver
+flexible in itemization and passives
+good league starter
+Jack of all Trades
*dangerous map mod "Monsters have a 60% chance to avoid Poison, Blind, and Bleeding". Basically what this does is, it cuts your damage by 60%.
*like all attack builds, it really starts to shine with decent gear and higher levels. Don't expect to invest 3ex total and "poison the Atlas" no no
-vulnerable to damage over time (physical, cold and fire. Chaos can be managed with investing into Chaos res)
-can't do only no leech map mod
-not a mindless build , requires some adjustment time to be mastered (flask and Molten Shell timings) but it will keep you interested and rewarded!
☠️ Comparison between poison skills
Spoiler
Pestilent Strike
is a true melee namelocking skill that has secondary debuff similar to the Infernal Blow which explodes enemies and deals secondary chaos damage to the surrounding enemies based on the amount of poison damage that primary had on itself. This and Pathfinder's poison proliferation will result in a chain reaction that can wipe out whole lanes of monsters and bosses caught in it.
Overall for me this is best balanced skill in terms of single target damage and clear speed. Imho it's the best melee strike skill in the game atm.
Also one of the upsides of PS is that having Tribal Fury anointment removes any need for gem swapping.
Viper Strike
Is a well known poison skill. It can achieve insane poison stacks due to almost double poison duration compared to other skills and attack with both weapons at the same time (like viper fangs). It's on the top end of single target dps.
To have good clear speed with Viper Strike you will have to rely on Melee Splash support gem. Splash from the support gem also provides fantastic life gain on hit vs monster packs.
Main difference between these two skills are the clear speed and single target damage.
Pestilent Strike has natively much better clear speed than Viper Strike.
Viper Strike on the other hand will outpace the PS on single target because of the longer build it duration of the poison. That would be in any scenario that you will have to hit targets for more than 5s or with the targets that constantly blink and move around.
T19 full run, fully juiced, 575% crit 2 add. proj. you can see all map mods and the end of video https://youtu.be/l3yLHShFtag
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Wasp Nest claws demo (cheap weapons) https://youtu.be/coeOD0KTT_g
-mapping, conquerors, Sirus (*Viper Strike) all done on A8 lvl
*mind that rest of my gear is in the high tier with the exception of Wasp Nest claws. I wanted to show you that build is very much capable to complete everything even with 2 Chaos weapons if you sort out your other items.
Also i haven't played it in a while so i messed up some flask usage vs Sirus :P
Aul, The Crystal King @461 depth https://youtu.be/wOzKCTqajOI
100% increased area
28% increased damage
poison on hit
This was my first Aul ever, so needless to say i got rekt quite a few times before i figured out some mechanics, how to modify the char for the fight and tactics...
These are the templates for the build. Items are not set it stone and can be changed with various options. Different setups of items and passive tree can be made to personal preferences as long they don't break core build mechanics.
Passive trees for leveling you will find in the Leveling section below.
Venom Gyre DISCONTINUED
https://pastebin.com/QmHpFNps
*You need Piercing Shots anointment! It's mandatory or you will have get other source of Pierce (item craft, passive tree...)
Pestilent Strike
https://pastebin.com/GfmMLjAp
Viper Strike
https://pastebin.com/1qxnfksh
Ultimate Transcending Melee Poison Pathfinder
old Non-Cluster setup (lvl 95 char from the showcase video)
https://pastebin.com/jayd6QzS
Main way of dealing damage with this build is with poison ailment. Poison deals chaos damage over time and it stacks, so the more poisons you inflict to an enemy the more damage you will deal. Poison also has duration time it's affecting the enemy. Roughly speaking damage scaling goes like this:
single poison damage * attack speed * duration time of the poison = total damage
So you need to primarily scale the poison damage itself. Attack speed to hit as many times and duration time of the poison.
Duration time of the poison is a window of time in which you can stack your poisons before the first one expires. This window has to be reasonable in real world situations, so scaling it to unreasonable amounts (10-15 seconds or even more) will in Path of Building give unrealistic total damage like you were hitting all that time and disappointing results in game.
🛡️ Build defenses and defense concept
Spoiler
My primary idea for this build was to convert massive amount of evasion to armour so build can have good physical mitigation and make use of best guard skill in the game Vaal Molten Shell. (3.11 nerfed but still strong)
To make this work properly and to be easy to put together Perfect Form body armour is the BiS option.
- ~45K armour thru evasion conversion, Iron Reflexes
-30% passive attack block chance
-Phase Acrobatics (30% spell dodge)
-Arctic Armour, 13% reduced phys damage taken from hits and 12% reduced fire damage taken from hits (while stationary)
To maximize the use of free mana reservation of AA i've added Chill proliferation (max effect) and prolonged it's duration from 0.5s to 1s Chill profliferation effect from Arctic Armour
Molten Shell is a guard skill that gives a shield (buffer) around you based on the amount of armour that you have and to be worth using you need a lot of it.
To get very high amount of armour we rely primarily on flasks, so our armour isn't permanent but it's reliable because of Pathfinder's flask regeneration.
When you activate your Jade and Witchfire Brew flasks you gain massive amount of armour. Then you activate (Vaal) Molten Shell to "snapshot" armour that flasks provide. Casting MS without getting flask buff will have miniscule defensive effect.
Molten Shell and Vaal Molten Shell needs to be casted manually, because if you put it on CWDT setup and you have Vaal active, CWDT will override it with regular Molten Shell and you don't want that.
By casting Molten Shell manually you are not waiting to eat a hit that may kill you to proc it, you will be preventing damage coming to you in the first place.
In this section you will find 2 versions of the build.
Base version is the original build i modified in small increments over the leagues. Fully capable on clearing the end game. It's more suited for beginners or casual players.
Transcending Uber Melee version is the pinnacle of the build, capable to easily farm 100% Delirious maps and tackle the hardest content there is.
Best weapons for this build will be fossil crafted min item level 83 Imperial or Gemini claw (if you want mana on hit) Elder influenced claws. You can buy them or craft them.
Example of a perfect claw for the build would look something like this.
Fossil Crafting
To craft perfect claws you will use 3 fossils: Metallic, Corroded and Shuddering with the Powerful Resonators. On average those 3 mods can be aquired with 36 tries.
Mods that your are looking for on a claw are these: 1. 60% chance for Poisons inflicted with this Weapon to deal 100% more Damage
2. Adds (47–72) to (98–123) Chaos Damage
3. T1/T2 Attack speed
Claw you want will have all those 3 mods.
Ideal claw will have those 3 and a free prefix! When you get claw like that you will craft on the bench
"+(18-20)% to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier"
So the bottom line about claws:
1.Imperial/Gemini /Noble/Eye Gouger/Throat Stabber base min item level 83
2.Claw mods in order of importance: -60% chance for Poisons inflicted with this Weapon to deal 100% more Damage
-Adds (47–72) to (98–123) Chaos Damage -attack speed 4th most important is +(18-20)% to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier
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Intermediate version will have "adds Chaos damage" and "60% chance for Poisons inflicted with this Weapon to deal 100% more Damage"
Budget version of a claw is The Wasp Nest unique claw
Good thing also about Wasp Nest claws is that they provide a lot of accuracy.
Body Armour
Spoiler
6L The Perfect Form, unique body armour
This is the best in slot body armour that supports whole defensive concept of the build.
------------------------------------------------------------ Budget 6L evasion based armour
Look for these stats:
-as much "to maximum life"
-resistances
I have to add that when i say budget i don't mean get 5L Perfect Form. For 10 chaos you can get corrupted rare 6L with some stats on it and it will carry you 10x better than a 5L PF.
Helmet
Spoiler
Some examples
Rare crafted evasion based helmet, Hunter influenced (use Hunter exalted orb on normal base with enchant)!
Before crafting i suggest that you buy helmet base (min item level 85) with the enchant on it.
Good helmet enchants are (optional):
For VG
-Venom Gyre has 20% chance to inflict Withered for 2 seconds on Hit
For CL
-Cobra Lash chains 3 additional times (great for clear speed)
For PS
-40% increased Pestilent Strike damage
For VS
-40% increased Viper Strike damage
Craft helmet base that has desired enchant with Pristine,Abberant fossils and Potent resonators. Stats to look for when crafting:
- 70+ "to maximum life"
- Nearby Enemies have -9% to Chaos Resistance (Hunter mod)
- some resistance
----------------------------------
Budged version is any rare evasion based helmet with life and resistances
Gloves
Spoiler
Best damage gloves are Fenumus Weave unique gloves.
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Budget version are any rare gloves with life, resistances and attack speed or Embalmer unique gloves.
Boots
Spoiler
Rare boots with highest total life (life + strenght) you can get, resistances and free prefix.
Buy boots without movement speed (free prefix) and craft it yourself, it's cheaper
Amulet
Spoiler
Good amulet for the build will be either Elder or Hunter based amulet (ideally Agate because of stat implicit).
Mods to look for:
-chaos damage over time multiplier
-life
-res
with free suffix or prefix would be great.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Another high dps option is Aul's Uprising unique amulet with mod "Envy reservers no mana" but it has very limited availability on market.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Budget option is simple rare agate amulet
Stats to look for:
+ to maximum life (70)
adds physical damage to attacks (higher tier)
elemental resistance if needed
Pay attention for amulet to have open prefix so you can craft "Non-Channelling Skills have -(9-8) to Total Mana Cost"
Use Blessing Orbs to maximize implicit attribute value
Anointments
*Pestilent Strike/Viper Strike Tribal Fury
Rings
Spoiler
Rare rings to fill your resistances Stats to look for:
-life
-resistances
-accuracy (min +350) on one ring is a must
[/span]
Circle of Nostalgia
This ring is amazing and besides damage will give most needed Chaos resistance to the build and complete the defenses. With it you will have positive chaos resistance.
Downside of it is that you will have to adapt other items in the build to cap your elemental resistances that would be otherwise provided by rare ring.
Belt
Spoiler
Preferably Stygian Vise with high life and min 80 total resistances.
Budget one, Leather or Heavy belt with high life and min 80 total resistances.
Jewels
Spoiler
2 rare jewels, stats to look for:
- increased maximum life
- increased attack speed/attack speed with claws/ with one handed melee weapons
- increased damage with poison/with claws/with one handed weapons
examples:
One corrupted jewel like this one will get you immunity to Corrupted blood, which with 20 stacks can melt you in split second if you are not careful.
Just 5% life and the corrupted mod are worth the jewel slot.
Abyss jewel for the belt, something like this:
Watcher's Eye jewel with "+#% to Damage over Time Multiplier while affected by Malevolence"
Flasks, important!
Spoiler
-Catalyzed/Panicked Eternal Life flask of Staunching (bleed immune)
-Chemist's Silver flask of Warding (Curse immune)
-Alchemist's Jade flask of Reflexes/Iron Skin (Defense is built around this flask. Get it as soon as possible!!!)
-Witchfire Brew unique flask (look for higher increased damage over time during flask effect)
-Rumi's Concoction - to improve our block chance
Aspect of the Spider
Spoiler
In high end build version you will have it on your gloves (Fenumus Weave).
If you can't get the gloves you can beastcraft it on any rare item that has a free suffix. You won't be able to use Aspect without Enlighten level 3 gem.
Gem links
Spoiler
Pestilent Strike main setup
Spoiler
-Basic 6L for mapping is
Pestilent Strike - Deadly Ailments - Vile Toxins - Added Chaos damage - Ancestral Call - Multistrike
Ancestral Call is swappable for bossing with Melee Phys Damage, since you really want that Multistrike at all times.
-When you get Tribal Fury anointment you can ditch Ancestral and go with the
-Next, if you can acquire Awakened gems, your next setup will be
Pestilent Strike - Awakened Deadly Ailments - Vile Toxins - Awakened Added Chaos damage - Awakened Unbound Ailments - Awakened Multistrike
This will prolong Poison duration to around 7s so you can choose either to have that longer poison duration or to ditch Coralito's flask and use something better or more useful.
4L gloves Herald of Agony - Culling Strike - Malevolence - Enlighten 4
(Enlighten 4 is needed if you want Culling strike for Herald of Agony. Otherwise lvl 3 is enough.)
Ultra tanky version of the build bringing defenses to whole another level.
Summary
Spoiler
Upsides: +ultra tanky
+high dps
+reliable 100% Delirious farmer
+doesn't use Wither Totem but Withering Step instead, giving you high damage boost on tap
+complete at level 95/96
Downsides: -flask reliant! mindful flask piano is required
-vulnerable to heavy degens. Build isn't immortal and if you die this will most likely be the cause.
-expensive (relative)
-very tight on resistances and gear in general (requires top end gear and Catalysts)
-not starter viable
*In 100% Deli maps mods that should be avoided are:
1.60% chance for monsters to avoid poison
2.no leech (can't do it)
It still has some flexibility if you are not aiming for T19's.
* -9% Chaos res on helmet can be skipped.
*Watcher's eye can also be skipped by shuffling passive points to preserve dps for a cost of 4% increased life small passive node.
*chance to gain Onslaught from my claw you can get from a Abyss jewel mod
I will assume that you are not beginner and because i lack space, i will focus on important things and differences from the base build.
It uses Militant Faith Timeless jewel (Maxarius) and keystone Transcendence. Armour applies to Fire, Cold and Lightning Damage taken from Hits instead of Physical Damage
-5% to all maximum Elemental Resistances
To not just be Transcendence, build is heavily invested into defenses overall and it uses many layers of mitigation and damage avoidance. Finding the right balance was the hardest part but now Harvest crafting made things easier.
Use of Transcendence keystone makes your armour completely ineffective vs Physical damage so that hole had to be filled in another way.
What is important to mention about Militant Faith jewel.
You want 2 stats:
Maxarius
2% increased elemental resistances per 10 Devotion
It's possible to happen is that the Timeless jewel changes some notable passive. In that case you will either have to divine jewel or buy another one.
Defense layers
Spoiler
-75% attack block
-71% spell dodge (conditionally)
-Max Elemental and Chaos resistances 78% (Loreweave counters -5% ele res from Transcendence and you are also immune to -% max res map mod)
-up to 80K+ Armour
-Molten Shell (up to 10K buffer) & Vaal Molten Shell
-Fortify
-Wind Dancer Keystone
-Blind
-Aspect of the Crab (up to 20% phys damage reduction, key to prevent phys one-shots!)
-15% chance to generate Endurance charge on block
-Corrupted Blood immunity
-Elemental Ailments immunity (Ignite, chill, freeze, shock, scorch, brittle, and sap)
-6% reduced Elemental Damage taken
Withering
Spoiler
Base build uses Wither totems to apply Wither debuff on the enemies (6% increased damage taken per 1 stack). It's good for bosses but not for mapping.
This version uses instead Withering Step spell that applies debuff in area when used (lasts 4s).
You will need this helmet enchant
Base preferably should be DEX or STR or DEX/STR, min ilvl85 but if you can't find it in anyway on market buying any other base with ench won't break the build.
Ideal combination will be lvl21 (lvl 20 with +1 chaos gems) Anomalous Withering Step + lvl4 Enhance + helmet enchant which will yield 14 Wither stacks on tap!
Since you don't have to use Wither totems you will use Ancestral Protectors to boost your attack speed and cap Wither on target if you don-t have Anomalous Withering Step L20 (21).
Other key items
Spoiler
Loreweave is the best chest piece you can use with Transcendence keystone. It makes your maximum resistance cap fixed both for elemental and chaos damage.
Hunter gloves with "target 1 additional nearby enemy". This will enable you to use damage anointment like "Corruption" or "Swift Venoms".
Atziri's Step boots have the highest spell dodge value in the game. You will need to enchant them.
Flask setup is super important!
Spoiler
-Also worth noting is that this setup requires all the little pieces to fall into place so skipping things like enchants, Aspect of the Crab, pantheons etc. will make a negative impact.
old Non-Cluster setup (lvl 95)
https://pastebin.com/jayd6QzS
Damage cluster setup PS & VS (lvl 100)
https://pastebin.com/y7NdEf1y
Exact gems, gem levels and gear for guidance you will find in PoB.
Gear because of Harvest available can be much better than what i have in PoB. It's up to you to make it.
Ascendancy
Spoiler
Ranger - Pathfinder
Why Pathfinder and not Assassin? Pathfinder has great synergy with poison skills, flasks and defenses. She enables you virtually 100% flask up time, pushes further clear speed thru proliferation of the poison, scales well poison itself and provides elemental ailments immunity.
Assassin on the other hand will have more damage BUT can't reliably have these defenses (no flask regeneration, which can be crucial in boss fights with multiple stages.) and will have noticeably less clear speed (no poison proliferation).
Overall my money goes on Pathfinder because it's better balanced choice in this case.
Get ascendancy points in this order:
1/2 Depending on if you are leveling with Poison and Claws or Caustic Arrow.
If you are leveling with Poison skills get "Master Toxicist" first.
If you are leveling with Caustic Arrow get "Nature's Reprisal" first.
3. Nature's Boon
4. Master Alchemist
Bandits & Pantheons
Spoiler
Kill all bandits
UPGRADED BOTH PANTHEONS
major: Lunaris for mapping
minor: Soul of Gruthkul
Hello OP @TorsteinTheFallen, I hope you don't mind if I use this forum link on your guide as a reference for my video, wanna upload some showcase of my char that used this guide :D
Last edited by Nicolikes on Feb 27, 2021, 11:38:00 PM
So.. i have come to a long way. 1st ever level 100 reached, i can easily do 100% juiced delirious (Although my computer doesn't like them + i don't like that kind of playstyle anyway, but i have no problem doing them.) I beat maven on 1st try, done all other boss content etc. So basically build is great, would recommend to everyone.
37 challenges done too, only maven conditionals 1/4 left and that 1250 maps thingy is almost done. Basically you can beat the game with this build. I have followed this guide almost step by step because im stupid and can't really think.
Made hundreds of exalts by just mapping, playing the game, having fun, not just juice mapping, beast league ever and thanks for this build guys.
This is my current pob if anyone interested https://pastebin.com/rCtHLmhM
I'm still missing the +3 withering stacks lion pelt and i could do some minor improvements to get up to 15 withering stacks on withering steps.
Tbh only reason to post it was to thank the creator/creators and if anyone has +3 withering stacks iLvL 85 Lion pelt for sale (uninfluenced or hunter) i'd love to buy one. Not that i need more dmg lol, but got nothing else to spend the money on.
Also if u find some huge mistake in build and i could improve it more u can also let me know.
Oh and why unbound ailments instead of melee physical?? U have so much dmg that this extra duration is pretty useless, im not gonna sit there 5+ seconds hitting a boss.
Just as a reference: Before this league and this build i thought killing uber elder is pretty impossible and A5 sirius i usually died like 5 times. (Now done all A9 deathless with this build lol) PS! this was my starter build.
Last edited by brakeme123 on Feb 28, 2021, 3:11:00 AM
Oh and why unbound ailments instead of melee physical?? U have so much dmg that this extra duration is pretty useless, im not gonna sit there 5+ seconds hitting a boss.
Aw unbound ailments gives you 11% more dps. I am pretty sure it works like that:
if you do x amount, lets say, each second for 10 seconds, now you do x amount each second for 11 seconds. In my pob I lose 11mil dps swapping to aw melee phys.
Last edited by Orestiada on Feb 28, 2021, 4:50:32 AM
Oh and why unbound ailments instead of melee physical?? U have so much dmg that this extra duration is pretty useless, im not gonna sit there 5+ seconds hitting a boss.
Frankly because damage per poison doesn´t vary too much and I need the duration. With all the faster poison I have my Pestilent Strike is only at 3.7 seconds and that feeels pretty fine.
Oh and why unbound ailments instead of melee physical?? U have so much dmg that this extra duration is pretty useless, im not gonna sit there 5+ seconds hitting a boss.
Aw unbound ailments gives you 11% more dps. I am pretty sure it works like that:
if you do x amount, lets say, each second for 10 seconds, now you do x amount each second for 11 seconds. In my pob I lose 11mil dps swapping to aw melee phys.
And yeah, you gain theoretical dps because it buffs up your poison duration a lot.
I have done sirius multiple times on melee splash tho because i forgot and even that's enough dmg imo. So basically A9 sirius with 5 link isn't a problem for this build. (Viper strike)
Last edited by brakeme123 on Feb 28, 2021, 10:50:26 AM
I'm leveling this build now. I noticed that many of the players in the forum are posting their PoBs and are using viper strike, its this the preferred late game skill despite the lack of proliferation that PS has?
I'm leveling this build now. I noticed that many of the players in the forum are posting their PoBs and are using viper strike, its this the preferred late game skill despite the lack of proliferation that PS has?
Pestilent strike for mapping, Viper Strike for bossing.
