[3.21] 🌿Ultimate Claw Poison Pathfinder - Untouchable Viper - Molten Strike update by FEL

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Yalpe wrote:

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blastinMot wrote:

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Vennto wrote:

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__FEL__ wrote:

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^^These guys are the ones often helping everyone with the builds on thread and setting the bar with best possible setups this build can have.

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Viktranka wrote:

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Archernick wrote:

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Corioliss wrote:

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and many others. (list is long xD)

-added minimum ilvl for claw
-updated tree for 3.21
-added life Recoup wheel with mastery
-changed helmet enchant

Pros & Cons
+high dot Chaos damage (bypasses Energy Shield, reflect immune)
+great clear speed (poison proliferation + chaos explosions)
+all content viable (Ubers, Simulacrum wave 30, 90% quant invitations)
+flask regeneration (Pathfinder)
+very high level of defenses
+every possible map mod viable
+Jack of all Trades, superb mapper and potent bosser


-relatively expensive
-lots of buttons
-bad league starter! meaning, it's not for beginner players. Players who played this build before will do fine for league start. Start the build with dual wielding Wasps Nests.

This build requires all the pieces to function as said. It comes late to it's full potential.

Full Sanctum run by FEL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBfUrhG308w

Legacy videos

Current: https://pastebin.com/q6A2p8hj

*if you can't buy Circle of Nostalgia with Onslaught mod it's fine.
Just instead of Sulphur flask use Silver flask.

Way of dealing damage with this build is with poison ailment. Poison deals Chaos damage over time and it stacks, so the more poisons you inflict to an enemy the more damage you will deal. Poison also has duration time it's affecting the enemy. By inflicting as many poisons before the first one expires increases your DPS.
Chaos damage is the best damage type in the game because it bypasses the Energy Shield and there is no mod that reflects it back to you.

For those that are familiar with poison builds there's not much new and you can skip this part.
For those that are unfamiliar here are the explanations.

Pestilent Strike

is a true melee namelocking skill that has secondary debuff similar to the Infernal Blow which explodes enemies and deals secondary chaos damage to the surrounding enemies based on the amount of poison damage that primary had on itself. This and Pathfinder's poison proliferation will result in a chain reaction that can wipe out whole lanes of monsters and bosses caught in it (like Blight).
Overall for me this is best balanced skill in terms of single target damage and clear speed. Imho it's the best melee strike skill in the game atm.


Viper Strike

Is a well known poison skill. It can achieve insane poison stacks due to almost double poison duration compared to other skills and attack with both weapons at the same time (like viper fangs). It's on the top end of single target dps.
To have good clear speed with Viper Strike you will have to anoint Melee Splash and lose Corruption anointment.

Main difference between these two skills are the clear speed and single target damage.

-Pestilent Strike has natively much better clear speed than Viper Strike and same DPS (not total damage) in ~5 second window.

-Viper Strike on the other hand will outpace the PS on single target because of the twice as long base duration of the poison and ability to inflict 2 poisons per strike when dual wielding but this version of the build is with shield. Nevertheless, even with one claw 1/1 Viper Strike's single poison will deal twice amount of total damage for it's duration compared to Pestilent.
That would be very useful in any scenario that you will have to hit targets for more than 5s or with the targets that constantly blink and move around. Because of that we will be using Pestilent Strike for the most part of our play and doing the gem swap pretty much only on Pinnacle bosses (early endgame game for Guardians and Izaro).

Withering Step

This is a spell that when you activate it debuffs enemies in a circle around you. It applies Wither debuff on monsters(6% increased Chaos damage taken). Great thing about this spell is that it applies multiple stacks of Wither.
With Anomalous quality WS gem and linked level 4 Enhance it will apply 10 stacks instantly (60% increased damage taken) and greatly improve your damage which is especially important on bosses.
It can be used from level 10.


Plague Bearer

Spell with toggle ability. It has two states, Incubating (accumulating damage) and Infecting (dealing damage) You need to activate it first when you slot in gem.
Plague Bearer gains it's power from poisoning monsters. When enough poisons are applied it's capacity will be full and you can start infecting monsters in a circle around you like small aura.
This skill is very powerful while leveling (don't forget to use it) and is also potent even while mapping and bossing in the late game. It will improve your clear speed greatly.
It can be used from level 24.

Also worth mentioning are Ancestral Protector totem which will buff your attack speed and Focus mod. Focus mod on this build will increased your attack speed and duration of poisons.

Defense concept is completely changed from before. To revive the feel of safety build had in it's peak Transcendence version, it is heavily invested into layered defenses, primarily on avoiding damage. All used defensive layers will make you very hard to be hit and killed.

-4K Life + 2K Energy Shield
- 95% Evasion chance
Difference between 90% and 95% Evasion is massive. 95% guarantees avoiding 20 consecutive attacks while 90% "only" 10. In combination with 24% block chance it's 20+ consecutive attacks.

-24% Attack Block (Shield)
- 75% Spell Dodge chance via Acrobatics keystone

150% Spell Suppression chance is converted to 75% Spell Dodge via Acrobatics keystone. It comes at a hefty price but it's worth it.

-75% Spell Block chance (conditional)
- Ghost Dance keystone (3 Ghost Shrouds with each recovering 1K Energy Shield)
- Temporal Chains aura
slows action speed of enemies and therefore lowers the number their attempts on your life, effectively slowing decay of Evasion.

- Elemental Ailment immunity (Purity of Elements)
- separate 8-15% chance to avoid physical damage from hits
- Phasing (Quartz Flask)
- Steel Skin


Life Recoup - effectively 30% of damage taken is recouped as life!

This is probably the most important part of the guide to understand what to expect from the build in it's different stages of progress as it is not liner or easy without currency as with some other builds (spells for example). It takes off late and with currency so be patient, it will become that good.

There are some transitional key points to address:

1. To play Strike Melee build you need at least "strikes hit +1 additional targets". Before having the implicit on the gloves you will use Ancestral Call support gem in your main skill gem link setup. Without it it's just horrible to play as targeting will be bad.

2. Whitchfire Brew flask along with Wasp Nest claw is early cheap stepping stone in damage. You can get it as early as level 48.

3. With Wasp Nest unique claw you will hit dps wall when entering red map tier.

Your ticket to red maps is The Covenant body armour.
The sooner you get it the better. Despite attack based archetype characteristic where weapon (Claw, although important)is your main source of damage, in this build it's the body armour. It will more than double your damage output.

As you can see the armour is INT base and we need lots of off colors.
There are 3 efficient ways of getting desired ones:
- Vorici in Research can give white sockets, idea is to get 3 white while remaining ones are either 2R-1G or 2G-1R or 2G-1B or 3G
- corrupted chest with all white sockets
- corrupted chest and getting desired colors using Tainted Chromatic orbs

4. Defenses when do they become good?
Build will feel like sh*t without no currency to invest, mainly not having The Covenant chest for damage. But damage is only part of the equation here.
Build defenses have exponential progression, meaning they will feel like nothing special until you have all defensive pieces in place, where all of a sudden it will be amazing.

-Difference between 85% and 95% chance Evasion is massive! At 95% you will be hit 3x less often of then than on 85% chance.
To cap your Evasion chance at 95% you will need both Watcher's Eye with Grace mod and Forbidden Jewels.
*Don't spec into Acrobatics early as without enough spell suppression to convert into high spell dodge it will be worse.

5. Claw crafting by Yalpe

1 - Buy a fractured Gemini claw with damage over time multiplier (25-26%), claw must be minimum item level 83!
2 - Spam essences of Zeal (adapt tier to your budget starting at Screaming, preferably Deafening) until you hit a tier of Increased Damage with Poison that you are comfortable with
3 - Notice that you now have 3 suffixes. If you don't have an open prefix, you are on the annul train. At this step you need full suffixes and one empty prefix or the rest won't work.
4 - Buy Wild Bristle Matron beast. It will add "Suffixes cannot be changed" 100% because it is the only possible prefix meta mod.
5 - Reforge chaos with harvest for flat chaos and hope for empty prefix
6 - Bench craft hits cannot be evaded


6. Rare gear piece crafting
You will use ideally Dex/Int bases for crafting, but Dex is a must. Try to find bases with fractured mods as they will make things easier to craft better items.
You will use Eldritch crafting method.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5wfuOounq4&t=491s&ab_channel=PathofMatth


You can use either Veiled Chaos orb or buy on trade gloves with Focus attack speed mod and resistances. Fix prefixes via Eldritch crafting.


Fractured spell suppression base, fossil crafted for Movement Speed, Life and Resistances. Craft rest of the resistances on bench.


For Helmet suffix you will use.
Bench craft increased ailment duration when Focused. Prefix craft with Eldritch method. Eldritch Exalts and Annuls are probably most cost effective.

*Helmet enchant "Grace has 30% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency" is now mandatory!
To be able to reserve all auras you will need:
- Enlightened support lvl 3 gem
- Helmet with both implicit "7% increased mana reservation efficiency of skills" and suffix "9-10 increased mana reservation efficiency of skills"
- Small cluster jewel for reservation efficiency

Luxury item: Onslaught implicit. It's really a luxury and not a must have item. If you don't have Onslaught implicit just use Silver flask instead of Sulphur.

These are some key points to guide you into progressing with char. I also want to remind you to try to replicate Path Of Building gear as much as possible. Don't forget about correct flasks too, they play big part of character functioning the right way.
If I skipped anything or you need help feel free to ask on forum thread.

Ranger - Pathfinder
Pathfinder has great synergy with poison skills, flasks and defenses. She enables you high flask up time, pushes further clear speed thru proliferation of the poison, scales well poison itself.


Get ascendancy points in this order:

1. Nature's Reprisal
2. Master Toxicist
3. Nature's Adrenaline
4. Nature's Boon

Kill all bandits

UPGRADED BOTH PANTHEONS

major: Solaris/Lunaris

minor: Yugul