[3.4] The MagicBlaster 2.0 - Chaos & Poison based Wander (MF or normal setup)
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Hellooo Exiles!
I've been playing wanders a lot in the past and they are easily my most favourite characters, both MF and boss-killer setups, but always following the elemental approach, which is by far the most common one (if you are interested, I also wrote a guide long time ago The MagicBlaster, but it's not gettin updated at this moment). After few months of "detoxing" from that playstyle, I decided to see how badly Kinetic Blast was hit by the "nerf" (which has not touched the clearspeed capabilities at all) and try something a bit different, which means I decided to follow the chaos/poison trend and make use of the revamped pathfinder. Since this build doesn't perform really well in the darkness, you can use another character for that specific purpose (if you want, check out my DarknRunner guide). As always, english is not my native language, so I already apologise for possible errors and/or unclarity. I try to keep the guide updated almost daily, adding new stuff and enhancing older ones.
Main Updates
- October 5th 2018: added two new videos in the delves and added few new items I bough for the normal setup, updated also the PoB links Table of Contents: - Why would you play this build? - Pros & Cons - Mechanics Breakdown - Bandits - Levelling, Passive tree progression & PoB - Ascendency & Pantheon - Gear - Gems & Links - Videos - FAQs (work in progress)
Why would you play this build?
This build is designed to be a fast clearing build, allowing the player to sprint through maps, enchancing the drops with a MF setup. This build offers a smooth playstyle both in solo and in party play, and provides the player good opportunities to customize the build depending on the budget and the goals you want to achieve. I offer you both a MF-based setup, which is the one I prefer, and a "normal" one. The MF build is made to farm maps and run delves at a low/medium depth (depth 200-300), it's not meant to be a great boss-killer or to facetank stuff. This is the approach I personally prefer and it reflects the playstyle I usually follow. The normal build is more well rounded, has higher survivability and higher damage potential, it's also more suited to run deep delves and do harder contents in general. I haven't fully tested the power of this version though.
Pros & Cons
Pros: - Fast clearspeed and smooth gameplay - Able to run full MF gear - Not too expensive for the power it offers, but scales well with investment - Flexible buildpaths and customization options - Can run almost all map mods (no-leech is a no-go) - Not reliant on Point Blank for single target (can stay at range) - Great for farming maps and medium depth delves (depth 200-300) - Not a FotM build, kinda hipster but still effective - Nice for delving - With the normal setup can clear almost any content in the game (only Uber Elder was unsuccesful so far) Cons: - Requires some investment to start with (as most MF builds) - Not the best boss killer - Very low defensive capabilities with the MF setup, a bit better otherwise - Not really suited for hardcore - No-leech maps are a no-go and %chance to avoid poison is a bit annoying sometimes - Doesn't scale as hard as elemental wanders with aurabots - Uber Elder hasn't been killed yet, maybe killable with few tweaks - No shattering/corpse removal options - Not really good to explore the Delve's darkness
Mechanics Breakdown
In this section I'm gonna talk about the mechanics of the build, which are quite simple overall. Damage: Our main damage option is Kinetic Blast, which is a skill that can only be performed with wands. Mechanically speaking, this is one of the most interesting skills in the game; it shoots an initial projectile in a straight line in front of you, when it collides with something (either an enemy or a wall/obstacle) it creates 4 additional explosions, each of them dealing a fraction of the initial damage. Let's start by saying that this looks really cool, but the main consequence is that when you have multiple projectiles and enough AOE scaling, it destroys the whole screen in a single hit. It's also worth mentioning that, if the initial projectile is able to pierce enemies (or it chains/forks off of it), the explosions are repeated for each and every monster that gets hit. It's also important to note that while projectiles cannot "shotgun" (i.e. a single monster can be damaged only by one projectile every cast, even if you shoot multiple projectile with a single skill), all explosions can overlap, since they gain the "Area" tag. To deal with tough enemies we also have the option of using Barrage. This is one the the strongest single target attacks in the game (along with Molten Strike and Blade Flurry), since you can scale its damage over the roof by adding additional projectiles. This setup is not mandatory and not even needed in most istances, but it's something worth considering. We are scaling pure Chaos damage and Poison damage, which is very effective against most enemies (since chaos resistance is usually the lowest one) and allows us to split our damage into two components: we have the frontloaded portion which is enough to kill most white packs in 1 hit, and then we have the poison degen which is very strong when we are able to stack it up against hard encounters. We are also supported by our friendly toxic friend, the Agony Crawler, a minion provided by the Herald of Agony skill, which is very helpful for clearing stragglers and boost our single target actions. Defense: LoL. Never heard of this kind of stuff, I don't know any defence other than killing things fast. Next topic. Allright, joking aside.. That wasn't a joke! The sheer amount of damage and offscreening potential of the build offers a good first layer of defence. We are also picking up the Acrobatics cluster for some dodge chance for both spells and attacks. That's pretty much it. Our life pool is barely reaching 4k HP and we are forced to physically avoid the most dangerous things, luckily we are quite fast. Utility & stuff: We move around using our high movement speed and sometimes we also use Flame Dash to jump over obstacles if necessary. We use a pair of corrupted gloves to apply Despair on hit, which increases our damage even further. We make good use of the two new heralds, Herald of Agony and Herald of Purity; they both allow us to spawn some minions which can provide the Wither effect with their hits, for increasing the chaos damage taken by enemies (which is a more multiplier for our damage). Those minions are also quite effective at distracting and taking the monsters' aggro away from us.
Bandits
I suggest to kill them all to gain those two additional skill points; Kraityn is ok too, if you want some extra stats "for free".
Levelling, Passive tree progression & PoB
I highly suggest you to level using bows and the new chaos-based attacks (specifically Toxic Rain) until level 70 or so, since wanders usually start to shine at higher levels, when you can equip most of the good items required; a simple setup like Goldrim, Wanderlust, Tabula Rasa, Lochtonial Caress, Thief's Torment, Karui Ward, Hirry's Bite and a Quill Rain can carry you to low tier maps in few hours with a few chaos investment. If you want a more detailed guide about it, I suggest you to check Angry_Roleplayer's guide or any other well done guide you can find in the forum. Here I'm gonna post the tree progression, don't feel forced to follow it point by point. If you feel like you need more life or more damage, adjust it to your needs. Skill tree progression Path of Building - MF version: https://pastebin.com/EufH92Mu (900k Shaper DPS with Coralito's) Path of Building - Normal version: https://pastebin.com/cBWHGSKp (1.5kk Shaper DPS with Coralito's) Note: keep in mind that the "% chance for Poisons inflicted with this Weapon to deal 100% more Damage" mod on the wand is not actually considered by PoB for damage calculation, therefore I've put a 60% more poison damage on a jewel to mimic that effect.
Ascendency & Pantheon
Ascendency: Being a Pathfinder is almost mandatory for this kind of build, it offers massive QoL stuff and damage options for chaos/poison based builds. Normal Lab - Nature's Reprisal, nothing crazy over here, some QoL in the Poison proliferation and a bit of damage Cruel Lab - Master Toxicist, this is a nice passive, damage and QoL for everything we care about Merciless Lab - Endless Munitions, nice QoL for moving faster when we start to clear our first maps Uber Lab - Nature's Boon, this is the final QoL this build needs, allowing us to have pretty much perma flask sustain even when we are not killing enemies I suggest you to find someone carrying you through the final lab (Uber lab), since this build doesn't really like that environment. Pantheon: Not many options here in my opinion. Major god - Soul of the Brine King (you should unlock all the sub-objectives too), being able to not get stunlocked/freezelocked is mandatory Minor god - Soul of Ryslatha, nothing crazy but a bit more sustain for our life flask's charges is nice to have
Gear
Let's start showcasing my gear, this should give you a good idea about what you should aim for. I'm running the MF gear at this moment, in the detailed description I'm gonna discuss other options too. MF Gear: Normal Gear: I'm going to discuss the items, slot by slot, later in this section. Jewels: Conqueror's Potency is a must have for a flask based build, you can try to hit some good corruptions too (immune to silence, immune to corrupted blood). The other jewels can be rare ones with life, damage and resistances you may need. Flasks: The flask you should always have are: - Quicksilver flask (juicy movement speed) - Quartz Flask (permanent phasing is almost mandatory in my opinion) The last three slots are more of a personal taste, you have some good unique options: Dying Sun is crazy good for this kind of build (it gives us 3 projectiles with all the flask effectivness we have), but it's a bit expensive, Coralito's Signature is really strong for very though enemies (like Shaper & friends), otherwise is not that useful. You can also use general utility flask, like stibnite, basalt or silver flasks. Having a life flask is also quite useful in delves and against bosses, during easy mapping it's not really needed though. You should always be immune to bleeding, curses and chill/freeze.
Piece by Piece description
Weapon
You kinda want to have something like this, which can be crafter by yourself with some luck. I have a section for this specific topic (crafting the wand), but you need at least the flat chaos damage mod, which can be obtained with just some alteration spamming. There are mostly two other good mods we can get: the best one is the "60% chance for Poisons inflicted with this Weapon to deal 100% more" (prefix from a Corroded Fossil), the other good one is "Curse Enemies with Level # Despair on Hit" (suffix from and Aberrant fossil). You can then mastercraft attack speed and you are done.
Shield
Lycosidae is not super cheap, but it's so important for our build (for any attack based build in general) to be able to hit 100% of the times that you cannot really use anything else. It also offers some life, which is not bad.
Body Armour
Here you have some options, two of which are purely damage-based and then you have the usual Qotf to run like a mad man or the Lorewave (which is good for all builds anyway). I personally do not find mandatory to use the QotF in this setup, I'm already almost reaching 200% movement speed, which is quite smooth to play with, and that body armour forces you to heavily invest into evasion, which can make the whole setup a bit unconfortable to build around. Loreweave is always a good choice, a good compromise between damage and survivability. The two damage options are either a Cherrubin Maleficence or a Dendrobate, they have some pros and cons, let's talk about them briefly. They both offer pretty much the same upfront damage (one has up to 80% chaos damage, the other has some added flat chaos damage implicit, thanks to Lesse Poison), but the Dendrobate gives you a little more Poison damage (actual DPS and longer duration). Cherrubin has a lot of life, which is helpful to gain a larger pool; Dendrobate has a lot of resistances, which help us reach the cap without having crazy good rings/jewel/amulet (therefore you can buy cheaper options). Dendrobate gives 40% chance to poison to the supported skill (Lesse Poison), which frees up some passive points and allow us to drop the Coralito's Signature flask (otherwise mandatory to reach 100% chance to poison). A 6-linked Cherrubin is twice more expensive than the Dendrobate (or even more). TLDR: I suggest to use the Dendrobate; cheaper, easier to build around (resistances) and to reach the 100% chance to poison. Note: If you do not use the Dendrobate, you need to find other ways to cap you poison chance at 100%. Therefore you need to take 2 additional passives (10% each) and use the Coralito's Signature flask.
Helmet
Devoto's Devotion is very good for this build, it offer a lot of movement speed and attack speed, both vital stats for this build. They are pretty cheap and it's quite easy to find good enchants for those.
Gloves
Sadima's Touch are mandatory for a MF build, since we are stacking IIQ; try to get a pair with 16% roll. If you are not interested in running a MF setup, you definitely should use a pair of Embalmer; they offer a lot of damage and a good amount of life. Even better, because they also have Vile Toxins implicit, which can support our otherwise-4-linked Kinetic Blast, making it even stronger. You can also easily find good corruptions on the gloves, like the Despair on hit (if you do not have it on the wand).
Boots
Goldwyrm are mandatory for MF too; try to get a pair with 20% roll. They also comes with high fire resistance, which is really good. Otherwise you can use some rare boots with high movement speed (30% or 35%), life and resistance. Atziri's Step are also really good and quite cheap, they have lots of evasion and movement speed, good life and 16% spell dodge, all good stuff.
Amulet
The amulet slot is more flexible. For MF you either use a Shaper's rare amulet like mine (ilvl 85+) with 10% IIQ, which can provide other good additional stats (life, res, etc), you can use the usual Bisco's Collar, or even some fancy Talisman with IIQ implicit (like a Spinefuse talisman). If you use a shaper's rare amulet you can also craft with Elreon some added Chaos damage to attacks for 13c (it's a prefix), which can give you a lot of damage. If you are not interested into the MF playstyle you have few other options; a rare amulet with the stats you need is always a safe choice, they can also roll increased chaos damage and ailments damage (with Essences of Envy and Corroded Fossils respectively). For uniques, you have three really good options (both expensive though): - Zerphi's Heart is ridiculous for any build, but fir this build is just on another level. Very, very expensive option. - Aul's uprising with the Envy aura is crazy strong for our build, it gives us a lot of damage for free. - Impresence amulet (chaos version) is also quite nice and cheaper than the other options, it allows us to run a free Blasphemy+Despair too.
Rings
Ventor's Gamble are the most balanced option for a MF setup; try to get rings with 10% IIQ or as close as possible to that value, while mantaining positive resistances. If they also have good life and positive IIR, you hit the jackpot. If you somehow manage to cap your resistances anyway, you can use a pair of Pariah with white sockets, they provide a lot more IIQ. If you are not using a MF setup I suggest you to just use rare rings with a lot of life, resistances, a good damage suffix (chaos damage from Essence of Envy or ailments damage from Corroded Fossil) and a master-crafted added chaos damage to attacks prefix.
Belt
Best in slot is always Heahunter (that's true for 99% of builds), but the cheap and almost as effective option is the Bisco's Leash, which gives you the Rampage effect; if you manage to keep your rampage counter going, the additional damage and movement speed is pretty nice, all the effects going on are fancy and useful too. Bisco's also gives you some strenght and cold resistance, both needed stats. Otherwise you can use a rare belt with high life, resistances, chaos damage and master-crafted movement speed. Let me give some advices on how to craft a wand like the one I'm using. The two main mods we want are the added chaos damage to attacks (which is a normal prefix requiring ilvl83) and the "60% chance for Poisons inflicted with this Weapon to deal 100% more Damage" (which is another prefix obtainable only thanks to a Corroded Fossil). We can increase our chances to hit the chaos mod using a Aberrant Fossil, which also gives us a chance to hit the "Despair on hit" suffix. Therefore I suggest you to craft an imbued wand (highest attack speed) with an item level of 83+. You have essentially two options: - 2-sockets resonator with a Corroded and an Aberrant fossil: this is the cheapest option, but you can still roll all the physical mods, lowering your chance of hitting the added chaos damage prefix (which is kinda rare) - 3-sockets resonator with a Corroded, and Aberrant and a Metallic fossil: with this option you remove also all the physical mods, increasing your chance of hitting the added chaos mod. I personally used this method. The good thing is that both Aberrant and Metallic fossils are super cheap, and even the Corroded ones are going for 2chaos each at this moment, so it's not even that expensive. Resonators are also dirty cheap, you can use the alchemical ones if you want. If you do not get an attack speed roll, you can master-craft it easily. Talking about enchants: Helm - They are not really needed. Barrage +1 projectile is the best damage option for pure single target, otherwise you can get either 40% increased KB damage or the 75% chance for an additional explosion. Gloves - Doesn't really matter, play with whatever you have available. Good corruptions are better for this build. Boots - They are not really needed, but there are multiple good options. Attack/cast speed if you've killed recently, life/mana leech if you've killed recently, movement speed if you haven't been hit recently, stun avoidance if you have killed recently are all useful options.
Gems & Links
The sheer power of Kinetic Blast allows us to clear easily with just a 4link setup, as long as we are playing solo, in low tier maps or with a small parties. If you want to farm high red tier maps or carry full parties without a support, you need to move your KB into a 5/6link setup, otherwise you won't be able to consistently 1/2-shot screens of monsters. On the other side, since you will be using a 4link setup for the clearing skill, you can either use the 5/6 available links of the chest to have a dedicated single target setup (barrage), to deal with bosses or tough enemies. I also tried and forced myself to play for many levels with Power Siphon and his Vaal version, they are actually pretty nice and can clear just fine, but they are not even close to the power offered by Kinetic Blast. Anyway you can alternate them, since they share the same colour of gems. The main gem setups I'm using are (gems in order of importance): 6-link (Barrage): Barrage, Added Chaos damage, Void Manipulation, Unbound Ailments, Vile Toxins, Deadly Ailments 4-link (Kinetic Blast): Kinetic Blast, Added Chaos damage, Greater Multiple Projectiles, Lesser Poison 4link (heralds): Herald of Agony, Withering Touch, Culling Strike, Herald of Purity 4-link (utlity): Cast when Damage Taken, Immortal Call, Increased Duration, Phase Run 3-link (utlity): Cast when Damage Taken, Flame Golem, Frost Wall 2-link (movement): Flame Dash, Faster Casting Don't feel forced to use the same utility setups I'm running, there are many other good choices too. The KB setup should be place in the gloves if you are using the Embalmer, since it provides a free Vile toxins. Note: If you wanna use Power Siphon instead of Kinetic Blast (they use the same colours, so it's an easy swap): 4-link (Power Siphon): Power Siphon, Added Chaos damage, Void Manipulation, Lesser Poison
Videos
These first three videos are a showcase in some middle tier content using the MF setup. T10 Shaped Toxic Sewer run A simple delve run (1) A simple delve run (2) Gonna update more videos in the future, this is just to give a rough idea of the build.
FAQs
Work in progress I hope you may give a chance to this build, trying it out yourself and enjoy it as much as I did. I will try to answer any question, so feel free to ask and make objections. I also wanna thanks all the players that will give their feedback and answers to this thread, helping myself and others to enjoy this build. I invite you to read the guide and/or the FAQs before asking something already discussed. I prefer if you write your questions here in the forum. If you need suggestions on your character, try to post your gear and/or a PoB link. If you wanna check the character, it's called WandNaeH. Have a nice day and stay safe, Exiles. Abyssal Volatile Poet: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2057243 MagicBlaster Deadeye: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2115343 Fortifier Aurabot: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2084465 Last edited by lallalaus#3590 on Jan 3, 2019, 1:13:32 PM Last bumped on Oct 22, 2018, 5:52:18 AM
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can i use thief torment? i need some budget options for the mf build
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" Yeah, Thief's Torment is a really good option to start. The only problem is the low amount of resistances, but you can work around it. It's also nice if you wanna run no-leech maps. Abyssal Volatile Poet: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2057243
MagicBlaster Deadeye: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2115343 Fortifier Aurabot: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2084465 |
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