[3.12] DemiVFX's Anti-Cold Res Penta-Curse LL Hexblast Occultist | Satisfying Clear | ✅ 2m Avg Hit ✅

UPDATE: I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS BUILD. After a lot of work, this build is just too slow and clunky and requires far too many expensive pieces to work. Do NOT league start with this build, it really struggles and is really lackluster with single target until you have obscene amounts of currency to throw at it. It's clear is satisfying sure, but it's not enough to redeem Hexblast at all. If you wanna play this build, do so late in the league when you've accumulated significant amounts of wealth to throw at it. Also, Skitterbots are currently bugged and make running Hypothermia impossible until their AI is fixed, which might not even be this league.

Hello gamers,

This is gonna be a quick little guide on my 5 curse Hexblast Occultist. I spent a week and a half before heist league perfecting it. I'll update with a more thorough review of how it actually turned out in a few days!

PoB: https://pastebin.com/gTsXwmau
^ Updated 9/30/2020 @ 6:30pm

Check the bottom of this post for PoB edit notes.

Videos


Pros:
1) Tanky-ish
2) SATISFYING POPS
3) Clear is half decent
4) Reflect Immune (Kinda, just keep Anger at a low level)
5) BIG HITS

Cons:
1) Requires more than 1 button
2) VERY expensive. Falls off hard without a LOT of investment
3) Frenzy/Endurance charge generation requires semi-expensive jewels
4) Needs a mana flask (YUCK)
5) Clunky to play. Requires 2 buttons and a waiting period between them.
6) NOT SSF FRIENDLY

Alright so here's the basic rundown:

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU READ THE GUIDE BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS BUILD. You might get confused if you try to just copy the PoB from the beginning.

I chose Occultist for a few reasons. First being Hexproof enemies just take a dump all over this build because without Doom stacks Hexblast hits like a wet noodle. Second, Maldection. With any high curse limit build, it just makes sense. We're also targeting cold res instead of fire because of Void Beacon synergy and Anger for free added fire dmg to proc EE every hit. Last 2 points are up to you, I went with Withering Presence because free wither stacks and chaos res but either of the other 2 nodes are fine as well if you prefer them.

We're running 5 curse because ever since my self concocted 5 curse Bane build in synthesis league that squashed all content like bugs, I fell in love with high curse limit builds. To achieve all 5 curses, we take Maledection and Whispers of Doom, along with Vixen's Entrapment and Windscream. Only ONE of our curses are self cast, the rest are triggered via Vixen's and therefore do not gain Doom stacks. The reason we're self casting Frostbite as opposed to Ele Weakness is because Frosbite has an alt quality that gives +5 to maximum Doom, for a grand total of 45 as a Doom cap. That's a 450% MORE multiplier with hits and ailments. It's also linked to Empower for even more cold res reduction and Impending Doom for more explody. The last link there is your choice.

Also, we were able to confirm that Cold Pen works with Hexblast!

Curse Explanation:
We're using 2 curses (Ele Weakness and Frosbite) offensively to reduce enemy cold res, the other 3 for defensive layers and clear. You can curse a pack and stand in it worry free with this build. If they manage to get near you despite temp chains, they then have to pass an enfeeble check, your own dodge check, and if they do manage to hit you, whether it's blocked or not, they are debilitated. Good luck dying late game LMAO.

Charge Generation:
Due to the Mark reworks, we're using jewels for charge generation. Specifically Green Nightmare for frenzies and Red Nightmare for endurance charges. You can absolutely just use the unevolved versions of these jewels, the nightmare versions are far more expensive and just add survivability QoL.

We are going LL for that juicy damage boost, and we're utilizing Prism Guardian for reservation management. In total we're gonna have these auras/heralds:

Post-LL, Rare Wand Auras:
(IMPORTANT NOTE: Before you go LL, assuming you're using Apep's Rage, just go Anger and Herald of Ash, once you get a rare wand with proper mods, swap Anger for Discipline)

In Shield
1) Discipline for ES
2) Zealotry for Damage and Consecrated Ground
3) Herald of Agony*

In Helmet:
1) Herald of Ash
2) Skitterbots for free shock and chill

On Ring or Belt:
Aspect of the Spider

We're left over with about 15% unreserved mana and 16% unreserved HP.

(*) The reason we're using Herald of Agony is to properly utilize the stats on Circle of Nostalgia, also alt quality Herald of Agony Crawler gives free wither stacks. Not much, but I mean it's nice because otherwise our wither stacks are limited to the 15 stacks Withering Presence gives us. Do NOT use Herald of Agony before you get an alt quality version or a Circle of Nostalgia, stick with Herald of Ash for clear before that point.

We do NOT have to stick to anger forever. Anger does have a high reservation cost and will be better utilized later by Aspect of the Spider and your second Herald (likely Agony). You can swap anger for Discipline if you have a rare item (even an abyss jewel or wand!) with added fire/lightning damage to spells.

Main Links:
For main Hexblast links we're using Controlled Destruction, Void Manipulation, Added Chaos Damage, Hypothermia and Cold Penetration. We're NOT running Conc Effect because it turns out the only benefit Hexblast gains from it is on the shockwave, which doesn't affect the target being hit originally. See the reply from Nostrademous on page 4 for details. Gaining a benefit from Hypothermia is currently IMPOSSIBLE because Skitterbot AI is bugged. I highly recommend using Energy Leech, Unleash or Efficacy in the meantime.


Guard Skill:
We're using Immortal Call on CWDT as a guard skill because in this particular build it honestly just feels a bit more useful than the ~800ehp steelskin would give us.

Movement:
Flame Dash + Second Wind for movement. Faster Casting has an alt quality that gives +1 charge so if you'd prefer that I guess that works too. Flame Dash has the added benefit of proccing EE for free, without having to hit with Hexblast first. If you prefer normal Dash, then go for it!

GEAR:

Required pre-LL:

1) Vixen's Entrapment for +1 curse and trigger
2) Windscream for +1 curse

Required post-LL:

1) Shavs (obviously)
2) Prism Guardian for aura management and resistances
3) Presence of Chayula for anti-stun and beefy ehp/chaos res

Not required but strongly recommended:

1) Eye of Malice for BEEFY cold res reduction on enemies and bosses
2) The Red Dream/Nigntmare for endurance charge generation
3) The Green Dream/Nightmare for Frenzy charge generation
4) Energy from Within for massive ES boost

I recommend using Windscream as early as possible, and upgrading to Windshriek when you can. The QoL that the upgraded version gives is immense.

If you'd prefer to, you can use Eye of Chayula to stop getting stunned early and upgrade it to a Presence of Chayula later.

Here's the gear I'm currently using for white maps. Build is doing splendidly with just this so far:


Wand:
I'm using Apep's Rage for added chaos damage but honestly a well crafted rare wand is infinitely better. Once you get a rare wand with some added chaos damage, +#%inc spell damage and flat fire OR lightning damage to spells, ditch the Apep's Rage and replace Anger for Discipline. The mana cost with Apep's Rage is obscene and makes the build feel clunky, even with an Enduring mana flask.

CLUSTER JEWELS:

For a large cluster we wanna stack +%inc chaos damage, as there's a limited amount of it on the tree to begin with. Wicked Pall, Unholy Grace and Dark Ideation seem like a good choice rn. Remember that chaos dot multi does nothing for us, as this is not a chaos dot skill.

For medium clusters we want Frostbite or Ele Weakness curse effect. We stack a lot of curse effect in this build to help make bossing easier. Blizzard Caller and Evil Eye or Whispers of Death are solid choices.

For small cluster jewels, Energy from Naught for the huge ES boosts.

ANOINTMENT:

Tranquility for a nice chunk of +#inc spell damage and some extra ES. Before that, Sanctity works and is cheap!

BANDITS:

Kill all.

NOTES:

Make ABSOLUTELY SURE you don't have any added cold damage to spells ANYWHERE, otherwise EE will fuck you over rather than help you.

When levelling, use ele weakness over frostbite as your starter curse, otherwise you might encounter an enemy with much higher cold res and ele weakness would give you more juice there. Later on when you get 2 curses and void beacon swap to Frosbite for the self cast curse.

The reason 4 of our curses are triggered is that we do not actually need them to gain Doom. The playstyle is this; cast your curse > wait a second for Doom stacks > cast your Hexblast.

The reason we're using unleash is Hexblast sometimes chooses to hit an enemy that slipped into a pack without being cursed. Unleash makes it more consistent for clearing by increasing the likelihood of cursed enemies being hit.

We are NOT using the Doomsday keystone as it feels clunky and inconsistent as hell. You're free to take it if you prefer it though.

Make sure you're using the PoB Community fork. Also note that as of 9/20/2020 PoB Community fork is incomplete with the new skills and does not properly calculate Hexblast damage, viable support gems or even include Doom stacks (the main source of damage here). Consider the PoB damage numbers irrelevant until it updates. PoB is also currently having a bug when displaying EE properly. If you hover over the calc it shows +25% cold res as if we hit with cold damage. Don't worry about this, the calc is done properly and it's just a display bug.

It's important to note that you should NOT attempt to use Wave of Conviction, Frost Bomb or another skill that applies exposure that would hit with cold damage, as you end up hurting your damage a LOT because of EE. Avoid hitting with cold damage at all!

Thanks for reading! If you try this, let me know how it goes! I'm gonna try to improve it as much as I can but I'd love your feedback for that as well.

Good luck gamers!

PoB Edits:
9/20/2020 @ 6:07am; Respecced tree a tiny bit for mana recovery via Mind Drinker. Helps out with clear a lot, especially before we get an enduring flask.

9/21/2020 @ 7pm; Reorganized gem setups to better account for color weighting (less chrome waste!). Moved IC Trigger from wand 3L to 2L in boots and removed inc duration so we could fit a juicier flame dash w/ arcane surge in helmet. Self cast Frostbite is now in wand in a 3L, and we removed Enhance because it doesn't actually do anything meaningful for Frostbite as far as I'm aware. Not sure if it'll actually push the Doom cap over 45 with alt quality Frostbite or not yet. Also added Hypothermia as an optional 6th link for Hexblast, seeing as with Skitterbots it gives us 40% more multiplier. It would probably be best to replace Unleash with Hypothermia if you wanted to use it.

9/22/2020 @ 1:05am; Replaced Conc Effect with Hypothermia as it turns out Conc Effect doesn't actually benefit the initial Hexblast hit in a meaningful way, it only affects the shockwave, which in itself doesn't deal damage to the target the shockwave initiated from. Mapping with a 5L confirmed working smoothly!

2/22/2020 @ 5:30am; We confirmed via Mark_GGG that cold penetration works for Hexblast! I'm slapping it on in place of Unleash for the moment for pure damage. Feel free to keep using Unleash, especially in place of Hypothermia pre-skitterbots.

9/22/2020 @ 9:00am; Changed PoB to a post-Apep's Rage, post-LL setup. Apep's Rage is optional but the additional mana cost was not worth the added chaos damage in my experience. Swapping to a rare wand enables us to throw out Anger and replace it with Herald of Agony and Aspect of the Spider.

9/23/2020 @ 9:00pm; Reallocated the passives leading to Malicious Intent for some more block/spell damage nodes.

9/30/2020 @ 6:30pm; Reconfigured gem links in PoB to use awakened gems and alt quality Frostbite. This is NOT reflective of an early version of the build and requires HIGH INVESTMENT.

Reserved.

Sick build! I love it

is PoB version Release 1.4.170?
because I tried to update it. and it says it's newest one but when I try to import build it shows errors

"

nevidonas wrote:

is PoB version Release 1.4.170?
because I tried to update it. and it says it's newest one but when I try to import build it shows errors

I'm using PoB Community Fork version 1.4.170.11. Are you using the Community Fork? If so, click the Check for Update version at the bottom. If that doesn't work I'm not sure how to help you out.

I have some serious questions. :D
Currently lvl 51 occultist hexblast myself.

-whats the point of unleash in hexblast?
-Does elemental weakness stacks with frostbite?
-why anger aura with frostbite curse?
-does spell dmg to ES works better at later levels? because at lvl 51 it feels like it does nothing
-why everyoen is using elemental equilibrium?

"

nevidonas wrote:

I have some serious questions. :D
Currently lvl 51 occultist hexblast myself.

-whats the point of unleash in hexblast?
-Does elemental weakness stacks with frostbite?
-why anger aura with frostbite curse?
-does spell dmg to ES works better at later levels? because at lvl 51 it feels like it does nothing
-why everyoen is using elemental equilibrium?

I use unleash because sometimes Hexblast targeting is weird and will hit an enemy that's out of the cursed pack, or that slips into the cursed pack. When it does so it hits like a wet noodle and doesn't trigger any explosions, so it's a waste of a cast. Unleash increases the likelyhood of hitting an enemy that's cursed. Also, because there's naturally a wait time between cursing and using hexblast, you'll almost always have full seals anyway.

Elemental weakness does stack with frostbite, just keep in mind that curses are a lot less effective on bosses, so it's not enough to just use those two curses.

I use Anger because it adds flat fire damage to spells. Hexblast only deals chaos damage unless you specifically have something that adds damage of another element to spells. The reason we want added fire damage (or lightning damage) via Anger or a mod on a rare item/jewel is so that when we hit an enemy with Hexblast it procs elemental equilibrium, increasing their fire resist and lowering their cold resist even further.

Early levels you're gonna wanna focus on just getting a bigger ehp pool and damage. Don't worry about any nodes that give #% of mana as extra es or anything until later.

Hey there! Sick build you've put out here, I've always wanted to try a curesbot, but which deals damage.

Nonetheless, there's been an active discussion, that conc effect doesn't work with Hexblast. Have you heard of it or tested it?

Why no Doomsday?

Have you done any tests on PoB with Elementalist? For some reason I want to play this forgotten ascendancy and I can't figure out if it's gonna be good to do ignite version with 7-8 golems to buff up your dmg.