[3.19] Crit Hexblast | SSF | Freeze What You Can
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Intro
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This is my take on direct hit hexblast. Main damage is chaos, but the build takes advantage of the hexblast unique modifiers to apply elemental ailments (shock and freeze, chill from mastery) and make use of cold resistance instead of chaos resistance for its damage output. Cold resistance can be scaled far lower on enemies and it also enables the use of the Anomalous Frostbite to increase maximum doom.  PoB
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NOTE: dps in PoB is not correct. In order to get realistic dps, take the hexblast average hit and divide it by a number between 1 to 2 (depends on the situation). That is because we have to wait for doom from the Doomsday keystone. https://pastebin.com/KwE1yCjg Videos
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NSFW | Hillock Stuck in Perma Freeze https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOHS7nlm6Ag Baran Map https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N85AWXLiVNo Wave 30 Simulacrum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B8r45KfboU Uber Bosses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlsHTyJghgQ The Ultimate Endgame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEO0xY7xiFE Noteworthy interactions
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Doom If you cast any hex skill yourself, the skill will gain doom that increases its effectiveness. Hexblast has innate modifier that gives it 40% more hit damage per 5 doom on the target. By default, maximum doom is 30 and you gain 10 doom per second. This build increases maximum doom all the way up to 75 and it uses Doomsday keystone to reach maximum doom in one second. The downside of the Doomsday keystone is that there is a 1 second delay on your damage, but it still the fastest way to reach 75 doom. You only need to wait 1 second when fighting bigger mobs (rare or map bosses), smaller mobs can be killed without the 1 second delay. Using cold resistance instead of chaos resistance Hexblast damage is resisted by the enemy lowest resistance. Normally it would be chaos, but this build invests heavily in decreasing enemy cold resistance. This choice allows us to use best of both worlds. We can use both wither and Elemental Equilibrium at the same time, as well as maximum shock, chill and freeze. Despair also does not have alternate quality for maximum doom, but Frostbite does. This is one of the main sources of damage for the build. Low life Going low life using Petrified blood means that we can use the Pain Attunement keystone for more spell damage. It also enables over-leech for free. Normally when you hit a target and you have leech, you gain one leech instance for a few seconds but once your life reaches full, the leech instance is removed. When you use Petrified Blood, you never reach maximum life, which means that any leech instance you get is never removed until it runs for its whole duration. This makes leech much more consistent and we hit the leech cap of 20% life leeched per second very reliably. Curse stacking This build uses 5 curses in total. Enfeeble and partially Punishment are defensive, the rest are offensive curse for crit and lowering enemy resistances. Only Frostbite is self-cast. The rest is automatically triggered by the unique gloves. Gear
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Gear is listed in upgrade progression order. Use some random rares until you get the specified pieces. NOTE: You cannot have any added cold damage on your gear! It would make Elemental Equilibrium dysfunctional. Instead, we have a little bit of added fire (or lighting) damage to spell on the abyssal jewel to make use of the Elemental Equilibrium. Helmet
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We socket Hexblast in the helmet where we have crit and Hypothermia for socketed skills. We can also easily get +2 levels for socketed gems from the Jun veiled modifier. This helmet setup was mainly chosen because it is an extremely easy way how to get a very good damage increase very early on in SSF. The enchant can be anything helpfull to the build, you do not need Assassin's Mark specifically. Crafting:
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- Get a dex/int helmet base, Shaper influeced, ilvl 84+. - Spam reforge crit in harvest until you get crit and hypothermia for socketed gems (you can stop on any tier on league start, but you want to have maximum tiers for endamge content) - Check if you have a free prefix modifier. If not then risk using annulment orb. - Craft Suffixes cannot be changed. - Either do Tier 4 Aisling unveil or use Veiled chaos orb. Veiled chaos orb is more risky, because it can fill all prefixes and if you do not get +2 levels on your first try, then you will need to risk annulment orb again. - If there is another free prefix after adding the unveiled modifier, use crafting bench to craft the "+1 to maximum number of Raised Zombies +1 to maximum number of Skeletons" modifier to block it. - Unveil the modifier and hope to unveil +2 sockeded AoE gems. - If failed, then craft suffixes cannot be changed and use Veiled chaos orb (you cannot use Aisling this time because the item already has a veiled modifier). Optionally, you can risk annul orb and Aisling again. - Repeat until you hit +2 AoE. Amulet
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The modifier that increases maximum doom comes from the Essence of Delirium. It is extremely strong for the build, mainly when mirrored. I was lucky to get +1 to all gems, but you can garantee craft +1 to chaos gems instead. If you only care about two modifiers on your amulet (dooma and +1 level), then you have 50% chance to get them both doubled when mirroring in the Lake of Kalandra. If you want to have more than 2 good modifiers on your amulet, it is much more risky and your chances go from 50% down. Crafting:
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- Get a good base, 75+ ilvl amulet. - If you plan to reflect only two good mods (doom and level), then consider using the Simplex amulet base from replica heists. Thanks to @eisn for pointing that out. - Apply Imbued Catalysts to increase caster modifiers by 20% ( I skipped this step by mistake). - Spam Essence of Delirium until you get good suffixes ( if you plan to reflect an amulet with only doom and +1 level, then you want to have 2 suffixes that you do not care about if they get negatively mirrored ). - For further crafting, you want to either have all 3 suffixes filled or you want to have explicit chaos res as one of your suffixes. If you do not have it, risk Exalted orb to fill all suffixes. - Check if free prefix. If not, risk annul orb, then check is suffixes are still full (or you have explicit chaos res) - Craft Suffixes cannot be changed. - Use reforge chaos in harvest. This will garantee you to get the "+1 to Level of all Chaos Skill Gems" modifier because the only other chaos modifier is chaos resistance in suffixes and they are full (or you already have chaos res). - You can now bench craft a prefix. Craft life if you want to have more risk, more reward, or craft a useless prefix to be have better chances of getting something good. - Anoint the amulet now if you are SSF and do not want to farm reflective oil. - Mirror in the Lake of Kalandra. Body armour
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There are several extremely important modifiers on the body amour. We use it to cap crit chance, spell suppression and for the additional curse. Crafting:
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- Get dex/int, Hunter infleced, 84+ ilvl body armour. - Spam Alteration Orbs for Tier 1 spell suppression. - Use Regal Orb. If you get a prefix, then continue. If you get a suffix from the Regal Orb, then continue only if you are happy to keep the suffix in the final result. If you are not happy with it, then either risk annul orb or spam alteration orbs again. - Craft Suffixes cannot be changed. - Use reforge caster in harvest for 33% to get tier 1 spell crit, 33% to get tier 2 spell crit and 33% for additional curse. - Unfortunately, if you hit the +1 curse now, you will not be able to keep it just yet. Also, tier 2 spell crit is not that great for endgame but it might be enough on league start. - If you do not get tier 1 spell crit, then check if suffixes are not full (if they are, risk annul orb), craft suffixes cannot be changed and reforge caster again. - Repeat until tier 1 spell crit and spell suppression in suffixes. - Craft Suffixes cannot be changed again. - Use reforge caster again. This time, it will garantee to give you additional curse in prefixes. - Bench craft any useful mod and exalt slam the rest of the modifiers, if any of them are free. Boots and gloves
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Simply use these uniques. Atziri's Step can be farmed from Atziri even on SSF. Vixen gloves are random drop so they cannot be target farmed, but they are a pretty common drop. You can try getting them from Gwennen, chancing them, use Einhar beasts for unique gloves or farm the Mitts card in the Summit map for random pair of unique gloves. The glove corrupt is not important. The enchant on the boots is extremely important on the other hand. You can farm it in uber lab, but is one of the less common ones. Also, farm another set of Atzri's Step for mapping and get the stun avoidance enchant. This together with our passives gives us 100% chance to avoid stunts. Switch the pair of boots for mapping / bosses. This build can really struggle with stuns, so do not underestimate the enchant. It is a great survivability boost in maps! Rings and belt
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Use these to mainly cap your resistances and attributes. Get some chaos resistance too. The arcane surge on my ring is not required, you can get other damage modifiers instead, but only after you cap your resistances and get all the required attributes! Good damage mods are increased chaos damage and critical strike multiplier. Hunter belt with increased life is not required, you can get uninfluenced one with energy shield instead and without the increased chaos damage. Definitely craft the energy shield regen modifier on your belt though! It helps quite a lot. You can also farm a belt enchant with -6 res to withered enemeies. It is a nice dps boost. Also pay attention to the abyssal jewel in the belt. The jewel has to have addeed fire or lighting damage to spells, so that your Elemental Equilibrium works properly. Weapon
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Most of the modifiers are common for most crit builds. Note that we use the heist base that gives use the Elemental Equilibrium keystone and we also craft the +2 level for socketed support gems, because we have enhance socketed in the weapon together with alterante quality curse which gives us 15 maximum doom in total (if enhance level 4 socketed) which results in 120% more damage for hexblast. For ultimate endgame scepter, you would want to have basically the same thing, except you would get +1 to all gems instead of the added lightning damage. The easiest way to get this would be using fracture, but it would be expensive. Crafting:
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- Get the base scepter with Elemental Equilibrium from running replica heists. - Get a set of good suffixes any way you can. That is: spam essences, reforge caster or crit in harvest, spam fossils etc... - Once suffixes are looking ok (crit multi and crit chance are the most imporant), then craft suffixes cannot be changed. Make sure that suffixes are full. - Use Tier 4 Aisling to add unveiled modifier (do not use veiled chaos orb here, you would risk filling all prefixes) - Bench craft the "(86-94)% increased Physical Damage, (16-17)% chance to cause Bleeding on Hit" modifier to block it before unveiling. - Unveil the prefix. You have 3/7 chance to uveil a good prefix (any incrased spell damage or increased chaos damage) - If unveil fails, you will either need to risk annulment orb ( to remove the veiled mod) and Aisling again or risk veiled chaos orb ( can fill all prefixes). In both cases, you will need to craft suffixes cannot be changed again. - Reapeat until you get a good veiled prefix. - Craft +2 socketed support gems, socket your enhance and curse into it. - OPTIONAL: for ultra-engame scepter you would do the same thing, but you would start with fracturing the "+1 to Level of all Spell Skill Gems" modifier. Shield
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Prism guardian is the defensive option. It allows us to use more defensive auras because we do not need to use the Arrogance support gem with 200% mana multiplier. The rare version is the offensive option. If you decide to use it, you would socket petrified blood with arrogance into it and take the life reservation mastery. You would also need to drop some auras like Tempest Shield in order to fit all the reserved auras. The damage modifiers on it are very strong though. I also got unlucky while unveiling the suffix. You can get increased effect of your curses there for even more damage. Do not go low-life until you get one of these shields. It is not worth it because of the life and mana reservations. Prism guardian can be farmed in the Residence map using the Desperate Crusade div card or you can try your luck at Gwennen/Einhar/chancing. Crafting the rare shield:
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- Get two 80+ ilvl shiled, one Hunter influenced and one Redeemer influenced - One of the shields has to be a good, pure int shield. Second shield can be any base whatsoever. It does not matter which influence is which. - Use Alteration orbs (together with Augment orbs) on both shields until you get the one desired influeced modifier. You cannot have more than one influenced modifier on any of the shields for the next crafting step. You want to have +2 min frenzy charges on the Redeemer one and 30% reservation efficiency for socketed gems on the Hunter one. - Use Awakener's Orb. Pay attention to the order of shields though! First click on the Awakener's Orb, then the shield with a bad base and lastly the shield with the good intelligence base. This will destroy the 1st shield and transfer the influnced modifier to the 2nd shield. - You are guaranteed to get the two influenced modifiers, but the rest is random. If it fills your suffixes with a random suffix, then you can either leave it be if it is a good one, or risk annulment orb to remove it. If you fail the annul here though, you would basically need to start all over again. - If you have a free suffix or you annuled the bad suffix (and you still have both of the influenced ones), then you can simply craft Suffixes cannot be changed and use Tier 4 Aisling. - If you get an unveilded prefix and it did not removed the "Suffixes cannot be changed" modifier, then you can simply use scouring orb, craft Suffixes cannot be changed again and Tier 4 Aisling again. Alternatively, you can risk annulment orb to remove the veiled modifier and Aisling again (if it removed the suffixes cannot be changed modifier, then you will need to craft if again). Another option is to craft Suffixes cannot be changed again (if it was removed) and use Veiled chaos orb (you risk filling all prefixes though!). - Ideally you want to get an unveiled suffix and unveil either chance for double damage or increased effect of your curses. You also want to keep at least one free prefix. - Craft Suffixes cannot be changed again. - Use reforge chaos in harvest for guaranteed +1 level to chaos spell skill gems modifier. - If you have 2 free prefixes left, then bench craft "+(25–29) to maximum Mana" modifier to block it and use one Exalted orb for a high chance of getting some kind of energy shield or life prefix. Then bench craft the last prefix. You can get a second +2 level of socketed support gems here if you find the use for it (or if you cannot fit it on your weapon). - If you have only 1 free prefix, then simply bench craft something like maximum life (or the +2 level of socketed support gems modifier). Last edited by GimbO on Oct 20, 2022, 4:33:55 PM Last bumped on Dec 14, 2022, 12:23:13 AM
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Reserved
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You can use the nodes for Tolerance for stun avoidance. Together with Arcane Sanctuary it's 100%.
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Can you also say how to craft the shield?
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" I updated the guide with the crafting steps. " That is definitely an option. It will be much more reliable than the boot enchant which is a conditional on-kill effect. You would loose some damage nodes though so it is a trade-off. | |
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typo
Last edited by GimbO on Oct 6, 2022, 2:52:53 AM
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What pantheons do you suggest?
I'm (very very slowly) trying to make this build work. I'm missing a good sceptre (mine is ilvl 73 so I didn't bother crafting it further), a good doom amulet (btw the caster catalyst improves doom. I plan to also use a simplex amulet for more doom), the gloves, chest, and helm. Also missing the timeless jewel and anomalous frostbite. But I have the boots so I have that going for me. Also a 20% res shaper shield. I'm 92 but I'm dying too much at the moment to actually gain experience. The build is still stupidly fun so I'm pushing it. I've been extremely unlucky on the gloves. I think I spent 500 chances and no dice. Ran all my brute force and engineering contracts. Currently farming some more blueprints and trying to get more Mitts cards. | |
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How'd you level?
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" For the major pantheon, I would suggest to use the Brine King before you get stun immunity of some sorts (boot enchant or tree), then I would switch to Solaris. As for the minor pantheon, I would definitely use Ryslatha for bosses to get life flask charges and better life flask recovery on low life. I sometimes switch to Yugul for mapping because of the reduced effect of curses (Hexer is a very deadly Archnemesis modifier for this build, especially because of Punishment). " Before you get the heist scepter, you could use a good wand too if you have any good ones. Thanks for pointing out the amulet, I actually missed the fact that maximum doom has a caster tag, lol. That is actually a significant damage increase! " You might want to invest much more in defense before you get all the endgame gear. That is also what I did. I build it tanky first and then I dropped more and more defense for offense as I progressed. The final posted PoB is more on the glass-cannon side of things. Are you already low-life? Going low-life using petrified blood is good only because of the damage that it provides but defensively it is actually a disadvantage. Maybe drop petrified blood and low-life stuff for now. Before you get the gloves and the +1 curse from the body armor, you could simply not use cold resistance, but chaos resistance instead. That means that you would use Despair instead of Frostbite and Ele Weakness, then Ass Mark and Enfeeble, ... meaning one less curse is needed. Punishment is extra for endgame, not needed early on. I would also suggest to drop some of the less important auras (maybe discipline) and use Enfeeble on blasphemy and get the curse mastery for blasphemy reservation. Also get the curse mastery that blinds enemies for 4 seconds. You would then self-cast Despair only, Enfeeble would be on blasphemy and Ass Mark could be either self-cast on bosses only, or you could link it to mark on hit and use Shield charge instead of Ligthning Warp. This would automate the curses without the gloves. Blind, enfeeble and grace combined will make you quite evasive. You could also use Determination instead of Zealotry on Divine Blessing for more defence early on. Another good and easy defensive option is to get the Disciple of the Unyielding anoint for endurance charges on kill (or minimum endurance charge on rings with chance to gain them on kill from the explicit unveiled modifier) and get Immortal Call linked to Cast when damage taken, both gems level 1. Having overcapped elemental resistances can help a lot too, so one of your flasks shold have additional elemental resistances as a suffix. This solves things like exposures in maps. Also, having at least some chaos res is important for survival as well since Chaosweavers exist. Lastly, I would point out the importance of having reduced effect of curses on one of your flasks. Hexers in maps can apply random hexes, including Punishment and that is permanent 80% increased damage taken because this build is low life. The flask suffix together with the Yogul pantheon solve this problem though. | |
" I used some random spell (Spark I think) until I got Hexblast in act 3, then I switched. I also picked the spell damage nodes on the start of the tree and then go through the life nodes directly for Doomsday and Skittering Runes. If you switch to Hexblast early on, you will not have that much damage, meaning that you will have to wait that 1 second for each pack (which is not necessary with the endgame gear) because of the Doomsday delay for maximum doom. Then I continued will all the nodes, not including anything with crit or spell suppression, so Whispers of Doom and the chaos wheel at Heart of Darkness. I also use different curses for leveling: Despair, Ass Mark and Enfeeble. I had Enfeeble on blasphemy. |
