Stress-Free PoE! SLOW-MO GUNSLINGER (AW): No Required Items|1-Button Play|SSF League Start-End|3.13

Like OinkOfDoom, I too am finding Victario's Charity a good addition - the charges are up nearly all the time.

I also think Holy Relic is a must for this build's survivability. Mine's not linked with anything, but I have only lost it once during a particularly nasty Ritual.

I've been lucky with my unique finds (I only play SSF):

A Perquil's Toe from a Ritual - this makes minion damage Lucky - around a 33% boost, and the added dex is a bonus too!


A Darkness Enthroned from an Abyss Boss, and am using this with a Ghastly eye to make my minions have 8% Blind-on-Hit (5%*1.75).

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Wrecker_of_Days wrote:

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huoc wrote:

Spoiler

Hi Wrecker_of_Days!
thanks for the build. I really appreciate Your guide. My condition is being old :) -not THAT old, mind you, but 40+, so my reflexes are not what they used to be 20 years ago :D. Also, having two children I do not have much free time, so my very limited playtime needs to be efficient. So thanks again, I believe this build will suit me fine!
I am a total noob, and I have 2 questions:
1. You chose the Unwavering stance. Based on this I assume being unable to be stunned is worth the tradeoff for being unable to evade. However Your character has a couple of evasion armour pieces equipped (shield, body armour and gloves). Do You wear these for the other affixes only?
2. You did not go for the 3 minion +8% damage nodes SE of Retribution. Are not there 3 nodes worth sacrificing for these 3?

Thanks again!

Hey huoc!

I feel your "condition" ;). Ya, it's nice to be efficient with the time you have so hopefully this works out for you the way you wish. Thanks for your kind words :).

Unwavering Stance is massive for survivability later in the game...ESPECIALLY for one node. Evasion ONLY evades Attacks, not spells. And for it to have value, it requires a big investment...which is normally done incidentally anyway. Being Stun immune is so strong that it's only available a few remote ways in the game. So the gear that I'm wearing that is evasion based is simply chance. I'm only wearing them because it's easy to socket the gem colours on those bases and for the mods that rolled on them. (Armour gear is more likely to roll red sockets, Evasion gear is more likely to roll green sockets, etc.)

The 24% minion damage that you speak of is really good. But I had to pick and choose. There were only so many nodes to go around, and those were some that got the cut.

Does that help? Ask whatever you like anytime.

Thanks for the answers.
I am having problems keeping up with dexterity requirements for Bladefall. I had to pick a +30 Dex passive to keep leveling BF. Is there a way to augment my gear with dexterity? I am lvl 60, so this is far from my end-game gear. Or should I just wait for better gear and refund the +30dex later on?

And another question regarding filters: Your (Starting Off) filters do not show quality weapons and armor (except if they have other good properties). Is it not worth collecting these for blacksmith's and armourer's stones?

Thank You!

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rjwwrx wrote:

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Hey Wrecker, thanks for the awesome guide and inspiration!

I'm not one to be actually good at min/maxing in this game but the based of this build was great and I had a lot of fun putting my own spin on it.

I definitely made some adjustments that took it away from the stress-free play, but not by much. The only extra button is for Convocation, which massively helps keep the clear speed up. Otherwise, I have a wand with "Trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill" so that Desecrate and Spirit Offering are automated. Steelskin is also used in the LMB so it's up as much as possible.

I also tried to build in some more defensive layers. I decided that I would rather be harder to kill than have a third curse so went for Glancing Blows with Aegis Aurora for some ES gained on block. Instead of Chaos Golem I did Raise Spectre with Jinxed Juju so the Spectres take 10% of damage. Finally, I used Elegant Hubris Timeless Jewel for Supreme Decadence keystone that allows Instant life flasks to apply to energy shield.

Otherwise just tried to get a few extra levels into Animate weapon with +1 to all minion skill gems on wand, and +1 to all gems with Skin of the Lords. Triad Grip gloves with 2 white sockets to change 50% phys to chaos is all I could afford to help with a bit more damage too. Eventually I will try to get a 4W Triad Grip.

Survivability has been going fairly good so far and I just dinged 90 tonight!

My PoB - https://pastebin.com/qJ85vVdC

Awesome rjwwrx!

I'm glad you're liking the build and having a good time. I'm glad your changes and preferences are working out for you and good job on hitting 90! Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. Nice set-up!

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kendo3 wrote:

Spoiler

up to lvl 83 and running lower level maps. all was going really well until I ran Baran's map with all his lightning throwing minions. especially in the rituals, where there is little room to run, the animated weapons and golem got shredded, couldn't replace them fast enough and ended up being just me against them and that didn't end well :)

any suggestions, other than skipping rituals in areas like that? does it help to find things to boost minion life and resists? haven't worried much about doing that as generally, I am replacing AW so quickly they are always at 14

appreciate any suggestions

Dang. That sucks kendo3!

Profane Bloom is a major part of us surviving in close groups while Temporal Chains is to give us the time and space to raise a few minions. In terms of gear, I'd start prioritizing life rolls on you gear. Obviously it's a game of grinding and you can only equip what you find, but having some life rolls on gear will be a huge factor for you. So once they drop, try and find a way to make them work. Even try a 4link with life instead of a Tabula and see how that goes.

Right. None of those linked items work for minions. WE don't kill, or are very unlikely to kill. Our wand attack and Lingering Blade spell deal very little damage. The only reason Blind works for us is because Blind only needs a Hit to debuff the enemy, not a kill. Otherwise, if the item doesn't say, "Minion" or "Ally", it won't us...for the most part.

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Geleh wrote:

Spoiler

Hi, playing your build rn, been wondering, can you use decay and void manipulation support instead of poison? When I put those in PoB it shows me better damage numbers, but maybe I'm missing something?

Hi Geleh!

Decay's damage doesn't stack as it's a DOT. So even though the damage may look to be more per minion, the global damage would be a decrease because once one minion applies Decay, all the other minions' Decays are useless. In terms of Void Manipulation vs Vile Toxins, I'm showing much higher damage for Vile Toxin than I am for Void. What changes did you make from the provided PoB? Keep in mind that though Lesser Poison has a low chance to poison, we have 14 minions with that low chance and will mostly likely always have poison on the enemy at some point. So with only a small amount of poisons on a boss, we'll be doing more damage with Vile...as far as I can see.

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Cubittus wrote:

Spoiler

Like OinkOfDoom, I too am finding Victario's Charity a good addition - the charges are up nearly all the time.

I also think Holy Relic is a must for this build's survivability. Mine's not linked with anything, but I have only lost it once during a particularly nasty Ritual.

I've been lucky with my unique finds (I only play SSF):

A Perquil's Toe from a Ritual - this makes minion damage Lucky - around a 33% boost, and the added dex is a bonus too!

A Darkness Enthroned from an Abyss Boss, and am using this with a Ghastly eye to make my minions have 8% Blind-on-Hit (5%*1.75).

Good to know. Thanks Cubittus! I'll play around more with Holy Relic.

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huoc wrote:

Spoiler

Thanks for the answers.
I am having problems keeping up with dexterity requirements for Bladefall. I had to pick a +30 Dex passive to keep leveling BF. Is there a way to augment my gear with dexterity? I am lvl 60, so this is far from my end-game gear. Or should I just wait for better gear and refund the +30dex later on?

And another question regarding filters: Your (Starting Off) filters do not show quality weapons and armor (except if they have other good properties). Is it not worth collecting these for blacksmith's and armourer's stones?

Thank You!

Hey huoc!

There's no reason to have Bladefall at a high level for this build. So feel free to stop levelling the gem at the 111 Dex mark (which is when other supports requirements cap). Or get a new Bladefall and just stop levelling it whenever. It's not worth getting more Dex than we already need, just for it. But Dex is a craftable Suffix on your crafting bench. Try and get all of your remaining Attribute requirements on your amulet if you can.

Blacksmith and Armourer stones will drop plenty throughout the game. You'll have more than enough of them to use for whatever min/maxing you'll do later on. But keep in mind that Armour, Evasion, and ES aren't a focus on this build and therefore won't have too much value worth investing in. We went a different route for damage mitigation.

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Geleh wrote:

Hi, playing your build rn, been wondering, can you use decay and void manipulation support instead of poison? When I put those in PoB it shows me better damage numbers, but maybe I'm missing something?

My understanding of Decay is that it doesn't stack, unfortunately. So if your minions wail on a single enemy, that enemy only gets one instance of Decay (this is still scaled by multipliers for chaos, but still only one instance). Poison, on the other hand, has no theoretical cap on the amount of stacks on an enemy (given Vile Toxins and a lot of attack speed, does pile up).

I haven't tried using Void Manipulation though between Vile Toxins vs VM, I think given the really high AS of AW, Vile Toxins wins out.

I've tried using Withering Touch but ran out of mana reserve so Added Chaos got subbed for Phys-to-Lightning (of all things) -- didn't go as smoothly as previous setup. Ditto for using Swift Affliction. The final Occultist ascendancy (Withering Presence) does better than Withering Touch anyway. Am still not getting enough Uber Lab trials so not quite there yet.

I'd even tried respeccing the Ascendancy to go Bloom-->Void Beacon-->Withering Presence instead of Malediction second, but the squishiness bothered me so I went back to usual.

I'm not a build expert by any means, but I have been trying to squeak out some improved deeps and survivability. My profile is public if anyone would like to check the gem links I'm using. Gear is still complete trash, but leveling to this point has still been a breeze. I'd be interested in suggestions to push this further, with really no regard for the 1-button playstyle.

I see a lot of people making some of the same complaints, so I'll detail a few alterations I've made here -

I've skipped the tri-curse aspect, and run bladefall with hextouch, despair, and increased AoE in a 4 link. Could try faster casting or spell echo in place of the AoE, but this feels good so I haven't changed it up. Anyway, I've not had a need to temp chains because most bosses phase instantly and rituals/mob packs die in a huge curse pop anyway. Saves a handful of passives on the tree and the extra link to augment bladefall.

So for my second curse, I run enfeeble in a Rotblood Promise ring. It applies a self Curse in addition to applying a 50% Mana reduced blasphemy to the socketed curse gem. Since we're not worried about our own personal damage, the self enfeeble changes nothing. Curse uptime is huge for this build, and not having to stop every few seconds to apply curse on hit is a great QoL. Curse pops and general gameplay became crazy smooth, and it's a 1c unique in softcore trade. Well worth it if you can spare a ring slot and get the resists elsewhere.

I run vitality and stone golem. I'm not using spell slinger, so have no attacks to trigger Holy Relic. Vitality seems to keep me and the minions alive well enough.

I run Desecrate and Spirit Offering with Arcanist Brand. I get nearly 10% more DPS leveling them to 20, and it's still auto enough during boss fights or long rituals. Just recast the brand every now and again or skip it altogether for general mapping.

Again, check my profile for all the variations, and I'm interested in hearing other min/max ideas. Hopefully what I've found to work helps someone.