[3.24] Bane/Blight Occultist Starter

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Xayazi wrote:

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FoxStorm_ wrote:

I know its a bit different, but have you tested a low life setup with Petrified blood and Lethe Shade keystone?

Just wondering if it could work well as an alternative to ES.

Are you dying a lot to chaos dmg hits/degens? having chaos bypass energy shield hurts.

Thanks!

I was experimenting with Petrified Blood when it was introduced. I couldn't use it efficiently because I was lacking damage reduction and recovery but I haven't made a modern attempt. CaptainLance was recently trying out a high-investment life-stacker using Blight. I haven't looked into it closely. I believe resigning from ES pulls many strings though.

As for chaos damage - usually no, but there are special cases. The modifier from Exarch's altars surely can be deadly, I prefer to avoid it. Choking Miasma from Ultimatum doesn't kill me instantly and I'm not all set yet but I want to see if I can be more comfortable with it. Options include manipulating the reserved pool (looking at the mastery allowing you to be on Low Life at 55%), life regeneration on gear and max. chaos resistance.

Thanks! Another question, Blight of contagion is lower dps right?

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FoxStorm_ wrote:

Thanks! Another question, Blight of contagion is lower dps right?

Maybe during the campaign it can be better when you can't get too many stacks of the regular Blight due to cast speed/duration limitations, but I doubt it's better than using Allelopathy. Later on, yes, it has much lower ceiling.

I was wondering how you feel about using the profane wand base for the 14% cast speed implicit. If it is worth using would it be a 1 off or is 2 good?

Second question is what version would you recommend aiming for if I am crafting my own wands? Duoing with a friend and we are restricting trade to just uniques and crafting our own rares so I won't be buying any fractured bases and whatnot.

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Azunite wrote:

I was wondering how you feel about using the profane wand base for the 14% cast speed implicit. If it is worth using would it be a 1 off or is 2 good?

Second question is what version would you recommend aiming for if I am crafting my own wands? Duoing with a friend and we are restricting trade to just uniques and crafting our own rares so I won't be buying any fractured bases and whatnot.

I generally wouldn't use/craft profane wands. The basic thing to do when you have Allelopathy is to farm Harvest for reforges with a guaranteed chaos modifier. This is how you can get T2 chaos DoT multiplayer on ilvl 64+ wands. Then, farm Betrayal to unlock the craft with increased chaos damage and skill effect duration. Maybe run some Merciless Labyrinths to add quality to your Bane. Use the caster mastery for some additional cast speed when you start channeling.

If you insist on using profane wands, you could
a) Use the same crafting method, which means a trade-off between your time to reach the max. damage and the max. damage itself. Assuming the lvl 70 PoB from the guide and the steps above, it's cutting about 7% of time for 7-7.5% of damage per wand. It can be justified by the general feeling of being more snappy, I'm not sure if I'd recommend it though.
b) Focus on spell damage essences (as high as T1) and then use the crafted version of chaos DoT multiplier. This doesn't drop the cap as much - but still does (4-4.5% per wand) and if you needed to kite a boss, it would be damaged for a shorter duration. Spell damage also doesn't scale Profane Bloom.

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Xayazi wrote:

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Azunite wrote:

I was wondering how you feel about using the profane wand base for the 14% cast speed implicit. If it is worth using would it be a 1 off or is 2 good?

Second question is what version would you recommend aiming for if I am crafting my own wands? Duoing with a friend and we are restricting trade to just uniques and crafting our own rares so I won't be buying any fractured bases and whatnot.

I generally wouldn't use/craft profane wands. The basic thing to do when you have Allelopathy is to farm Harvest for reforges with a guaranteed chaos modifier. This is how you can get T2 chaos DoT multiplayer on ilvl 64+ wands. Then, farm Betrayal to unlock the craft with increased chaos damage and skill effect duration. Maybe run some Merciless Labyrinths to add quality to your Bane. Use the caster mastery for some additional cast speed when you start channeling.

If you insist on using profane wands, you could
a) Use the same crafting method, which means a trade-off between your time to reach the max. damage and the max. damage itself. Assuming the lvl 70 PoB from the guide and the steps above, it's cutting about 7% of time for 7-7.5% of damage per wand. It can be justified by the general feeling of being more snappy, I'm not sure if I'd recommend it though.
b) Focus on spell damage essences (as high as T1) and then use the crafted version of chaos DoT multiplier. This doesn't drop the cap as much - but still does (4-4.5% per wand) and if you needed to kite a boss, it would be damaged for a shorter duration. Spell damage also doesn't scale Profane Bloom.

Guess I'll keep identifying profanes but I'll focus my crafting on spell damage wands. Thanks for the info.

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Xayazi wrote:

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FoxStorm_ wrote:

Thanks! Another question, Blight of contagion is lower dps right?

Maybe during the campaign it can be better when you can't get too many stacks of the regular Blight due to cast speed/duration limitations, but I doubt it's better than using Allelopathy. Later on, yes, it has much lower ceiling.

hi, can you tell me what you can strengthen? I started playing according to your build
on T11 map, it hurts a lot

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snot1rod wrote:

hi, can you tell me what you can strengthen? I started playing according to your build
on T11 map, it hurts a lot

There are multiple issues:
- It looks like you're missing 2 passive points from the campaign quests.
- You linked Arrogance with Discipline instead of Clarity and Vitality. Sometimes it can be preferred because it ensures you're on low life but this is too low. Change it but make sure you reserve slightly more than 50% of your life by adjusting your passive points with increased maximum life.
- You need to keep your chaos resistance at least at 75%. I recommended allocating Tolerance to help with it.
- Your body armour's energy shield is too low. Getting something with at least 550 points would help.
- Your fire resistance is uncapped, while your lightning resistance is overcapped a lot. Consider using the harvest crafting bench to swap resistance types if needed.
- I recommend using Temporal Chains instead of Void Manipulation in the Bane links, this is important both for survivability and Blight's damage.
- You don't use Grace, which means you get hit a lot more and can't benefit from Ghost Dance. In general I stop using Malevolence after the campaign, auras improving survivability are more important to me.
- The playstyle of ES/evasion builds is that you often disengage to get your ES recharged. With Wicked Ward you wouldn't have to disengage as much.
- I suggested using a cluster jewel only later, see section 4.3. Now you need these passive points for Inveterate in order to reach 100% chance to suppress spell damage.
- It's important that you use a Blight skill gem with 20% quality, even if it means giving up on the Vaal Blight option.

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Xayazi wrote:

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snot1rod wrote:

hi, can you tell me what you can strengthen? I started playing according to your build
on T11 map, it hurts a lot

There are multiple issues:
- It looks like you're missing 2 passive points from the campaign quests.
- You linked Arrogance with Discipline instead of Clarity and Vitality. Sometimes it can be preferred because it ensures you're on low life but this is too low. Change it but make sure you reserve slightly more than 50% of your life by adjusting your passive points with increased maximum life.
- You need to keep your chaos resistance at least at 75%. I recommended allocating Tolerance to help with it.
- Your body armour's energy shield is too low. Getting something with at least 550 points would help.
- Your fire resistance is uncapped, while your lightning resistance is overcapped a lot. Consider using the harvest crafting bench to swap resistance types if needed.
- I recommend using Temporal Chains instead of Void Manipulation in the Bane links, this is important both for survivability and Blight's damage.
- You don't use Grace, which means you get hit a lot more and can't benefit from Ghost Dance. In general I stop using Malevolence after the campaign, auras improving survivability are more important to me.
- The playstyle of ES/evasion builds is that you often disengage to get your ES recharged. With Wicked Ward you wouldn't have to disengage as much.
- I suggested using a cluster jewel only later, see section 4.3. Now you need these passive points for Inveterate in order to reach 100% chance to suppress spell damage.
- It's important that you use a Blight skill gem with 20% quality, even if it means giving up on the Vaal Blight option.

2 skill points, I’m still wondering where to invest them.

The problem now is that I have 2183 HP, after pressing the buffs I am 1196. I don’t know what to do, how to reduce HP so that the damage enhancement works

https://poeplanner.com/b/BdL
Hey newish player here, been having a blast with this build. So thank you! I just got my 2 void stones but I feel like I'm struggling a bit on single target. Was wondering if you could point out anything obvious I'm missing or just need to keep generally upgrading.

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snot1rod wrote:

The problem now is that I have 2183 HP, after pressing the buffs I am 1196. I don’t know what to do, how to reduce HP so that the damage enhancement works

You can use level 1 Arrogance, respec one of the "Life and Energy Shield" nodes nearby Written in Blood, and allocate Energy Shield above Arcane Focus instead. You have to remember to check if you need to make similar adjustments when you level up or change gear, etc. There's also life mastery which makes you count as on low life at 55% of your life or lower instead of 50%.

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CasualMuggle wrote:

Was wondering if you could point out anything obvious I'm missing or just need to keep generally upgrading.

Glad it's been working out so far :) One thing is to use level 21 Blight with 20% quality - that quality improves the base duration, which significantly helps to reach the max. amount of Blight stacks.

Not a lot but not to miss on: you could improve your weapon in the left slot a bit (Cataclysm Branch). You can buy an Imbued or Prophecy wand with fractured at least +29% to chaos damage over time multiplier that has at most item level 82. Here's the search link. Then you can take it to the Harvest crafting bench and reforge with a guaranteed chaos modifier. This modifier will be either chaos resistance or +1 to level of all chaos spell skill gems. Keep reforging it until you get a wand with +1 on which you can craft increased chaos damage & skill effect duration (it can't already have increased spell/fire/cold/lightning damage except it can have a hybrid spell damage/mana modifier). If you stumble upon a high spell damage modifier, that works too instead of adding the last one. Or you can just try to buy something like that but I think crafting will be cheaper.

The next main step is adding a cluster jewel but I do that by respeccing some points allocated for spell suppression, so I suggest making sure that you don't need them anymore (details in section 4.3 of the guide).