[3.10] Death's Oath CI Occultist QUARANTINE EDITION

Introduction:
This is a build for the lazy and self-isolated. I love DO builds, and think that with the introduction of cluster jewels, they can be end-game viable with some prudent choices on the skill tree. It's still in progress, and my first build sharing, so updates coming along the way.

Playstyle:
- For standard mobs; just walk through them. They die.
- For rare mobs, be more like Adrian Peterson and find a gap to run through. Face tanking runs the risk of getting stunned or frozen, then you're bone-zoned. If you keep moving, you stay alive.
- Bosses; We have three skills to stack DOT on a single target before we ever have to right click. First is our DO aura, then hit them with Withering Step to stack a debuff, and finish it with a Vaal Blight. By the time you move your cursor over to the boss to target for your right click Blight/Soulrend, half their HP should be gone, and rapidly run out.

Pros/Cons:
PROS:
- Never use your keyboard again! Not flask/hotkey dependent.
- Reflect enemies and maps mean nothing.
- Don't need a 6 linked anything.
- Decent clear speed with minimal clicks.

CONS:
- min/max is expensive-ish
- Facetanking isn't a recipe for survival
- Takes a while to scale up and get fun (about lvl 69 just to use skills)
- you might get bored with the passive playstyle.

Gear Breakdown:
Helm:
- Rare circlet with max ES and resists. Aim for over 300 ES and take it from there. Helpful enchants for either Essence Drain or Soulrend help our single-target. My current helm includes "Soulrend hinders enemies" which between Temporal Chains and Aspect of the Spider, slow bosses to a crawl.

(Budget option: Eber's)

Shield:
- Rare shield, max ES and resists. Aim for something over 300 ES.

Wand:
- Rare wand with a combination of the following affixes:
- +% damage over time
- +% Chaos damage
- +% Chaos damage over time multiplier (most important)

(Budget option: Breath of the Council)

Armour:
- Death's Oath Astral Plate
The only required piece of equipment, since it's our main skill, and only way to get it. The trick is socket colors (listed below). The strength requirement is going to be tricky, so I recommend grabbing an Astramentis Amulet at some point to make swapping gear around a bit easier.

- 3B, 2G, 1R sockets. None have to be linked.

Amulet:
- Solstice Vigil
The most expensive part of my build so far (at least this league), but great for the added damage, attributes, and giving us a free Temporal Chains curse aura.

(Alternate: Impresence, not that it's any cheaper)

Rings:
- Rare rings that include:
- + Strength
- + Maximum energy shield
- Faster start of energy shield recharge (highly important)
- Resists (if you can manage them)

Belt:
- Rare crystal belt that Grants Aspect of the Spider, as well as:
- + Max ES (aim for over 100)
- Any resists we can grab

Boots:
- Rare ES boots. Same story; max ES, any resists you need, +30% movement

Gloves:
- Allelopathy: Gives us a lvl 22 blight, and thereby a CwC with Essence Drain or Soulrend. Aim for maximum +% Damage over Time.

Jewels:
There's only 2 spots for standard jewels in the current tree:
- Energy From Within (placed next to the Melding group)
- Rare jewel with any/all of the following:
- +% Damage over time
- +% Chaos Damage
- +% Faster start of energy shield recharge

Cluster Jewels:
There are just so damn many, but the passives we like for this build:
- Unholy Grace
- Wicked Pall
- Flow of Life
- Student of Decay
- Vile Reinvigoration

In the current tree, the shortest path to the cluster forces us to waste two skill points on elemental damage nodes. With higher levels, the cluster can be repositioned to just north of the Hex Master group, on our way to grab the Essence Surge group, which should complete shortly after lvl 90.

Flasks:
I hate flasks, just in general. A couple Witchfire Brews can be helpful, and popping a Soul Catcher right before your Vaal Blight will give you some oomph. But I'm lazy, and hate piano builds.

Gem Links:

Body Armour:
NOTE* Don't need to be linked. Arcane Surge included to give Death's Oath a duration tag, which lets us use Less Duration.

Swift Affliction > Arcane Surge > Concentrated Effect > Void Manipulation > Efficacy > Less Duration

Gloves:
Cast While Channeling > Soulrend (or Essence Drain) > Infused Channeling > Efficacy

Where Ever:

Withering Step > Increased Duration > Increased Area
- WS is our movement skill, and gets us out of jams. We get phasing, faster movement, and the aura itself withers enemies and drops their chaos resistance with 6 stacks of withered instantly. I rebind it to a thumb on my mouse and just hold it.

Despair > Temporal Chains > Blasphemy
- Despair proves considerably more damaging than Malevolence, and Temporal Chains keeps enemies slow and away from us.

Vaal Blight > Swift Affliction > Efficacy
- For big mobs and bosses. Stacks up damage over time while letting us stay moving.

POB Link:
https://pastebin.com/mZYkuxbx

Ascendancy:

Vile Bastion > Void Beacon > Withering Presence > Profane Bloom

Bandits:
- Help Alira to make things cheaper down the road
OR
- Kill all for final tree ease

[space reserved]

I’m always concerned with bossing with dot builds. Can you share your experience with some of the end game bosses? Is this HC viable?

I would like to see some game play video and boss fight

Okay I think I've done pretty well with this. It's amazing for Delve, I walk through most maps without ever having to use active skills aside from flasks and against bosses. I can go through 19 waves of Simulacrum without a problem except for Kosis.

My only question is how can this do endgame content like Sirius, Elder, Uber Atziri, Kosis (who absolutely pwns me every time), and so forth? My problem is I just don't do enough damage to kill them, and eventually they nail me with a one-shot kill.

https://tinyurl.com/yczl5y9u

I improved my total DPS by about 30%, but it cost me over 60 exalts. What I did was I duplicated all of the skill gems in my wand/shield slots into dual wielding wands with similar mods but also +level to skill gems. Despite this huge investment, I'm still only doing around 1.2million DPS if I'm doing my math correctly. More than 2000 less ES, too. For 60ex, I could have just built a separate boss-killing specialist (which I did, with my 80 million+ dps Flicker Strike Raider).

Overall, fun build and great for clearing. Gets pretty tanky because of all the damage reductions, action speed modifiers, etc. like Aspect of the Spider, Temporal Chains, and Enfeeble (I got rid of Enfeeble and un-specced Whispers of Doom because I needed an extra slot of my Vaal Blight)

Not great for bossing. Almost impossible to do Sirus, Uber Elder, Cortex, etc unless you're perfect with positioning. Maze of the Minotaur is super frustrating.

Really easy to do Uber Atziri, though, because you negate her reflect. Super easy to do Delve, because you can pretty much AFK through most of the encounters and never have to actively cast anything while running.