[3.23] [Leaguestarter] Exsanguinate Ascendant - a great all-rounder

We would want to use a wand/sceptre/rune dagger/shield with "+1 to all physical spell skill gems" modifier. Wands are the best in terms of implicit, but are the hardest to fit in because of the INT requirement. That being said, +1 weapons/shield is not necessary to level. You can easily level with vendor-recipe'd wands with spell damage and crafted modifier as well (all explained in the 'Notes' section in PoB).

As always, we want as much links as possible, rendering Tabula Rasa an obvious choice. You can also search for a corrupted 6-link with desired colours (3R1G2B) and any useful mods (life, resists, armour/evasion, life regen rate/life regen; whatever you will find)

As stated above, we need standard modifiers like life, resists, life regen, armour/evasion. Keep in mind that most of our gems are either red or blue, whereas our desired bases are armour/evasion. You may start with armour/ES bases early on and switch to armour/evasion bases whenever you can colour them. Also keep in mind that evasion in these too slots enables Spell Suppression Mastery.

These will fix your remaining resists and attribute issues. If you can find some with cast speed, take them.

We are playing with a physical spell and we want to use a pair of Cold Iron Points. Is anybody surprised?
You can also find useful corruption implicits later (check poedb.tw for possible outcomes)

There are two options here:
1. We can use something like Skin of the Loyal or Skin of the Lords for a boost to damage and Armour/Evasion (remember to always buy these with desired sockets; in this case, 3R1G2B). These are however really expensive since 3.21 changes to Breach uniques.
2. We can use a rare Armour/Evasion chest (best bases: Triumphant Lamellar, Full Dragonscale, General's Brigandine) with the philosophy mentioned in the disclaimer above.
Essentially, Skin of the Loyal/Lords will grant you more damage and similar amount of defences but you won't get life regen and resists, which puts more pressure on rest of your gear to fit those in, especially if you'd want enough max res and regen to fit Righteous Fire (more on that in the Gems section). The choice is yours.

We'd want Armour/Evasion bases, so Pig-Faced Bascinet or Nightmare Bascinet are our picks here. You can try to find one with a good enchant (Exsang/Reap damage, Exsang duration, +1 Blood Charges, Aura Reservation Efficiency, RF grants Spell damage or something along those lines).
We want the same sort of mods as mentioned in the disclaimer: life, resists, life regen, armour/evasion, spell suppression, eldritch implicits that are useful.
Note that having Helmet, Gloves and Boots with Evasion is essential for Spell Suppression Mastery to be active.

Essentially copy/paste from the Helmet section, minus the enchant part and the names are different (Dragonscale Gauntlets to be exact).

Essentially copy/paste from the Gloves section, plus the enchant part (although there aren't that many boot enchantments that are useful for us), we want Movement Speed and the name is different (Dragonscale Boots or Two-Toned Boots this time).
Base fact: did you know that Two-Toned boots are still better in terms of base Armour/Evasion than Dragonscale Boots, yet people are still using Dragonscale Boots with eldritch implicits? Weird.

There is only one winner here - The Eternal Struggle, an unique Onyx Amulet, which is a drop from Infinite Hunger and Black Star. We want the one that is dominated by Searing Exarch (so that we have 15% culling strike).
Increased Global Defences is great, attributes help a bit to fit, mostly the Intelligence part, and the implicit can be really good. I've bought one with +25% phys DoT Multi and 16% increased Spell Damage for 10 chaos at league-start in 3.19 - it is really hard to beat. As an anoint we'd want to take Sovereignty this time (Silver/Silver/Silver) - it is cheap, helps with damage, life cost and life recovery in maps.

Rings are the typical "let's fix our resistances" gearpiece - and there is no difference here. We want life and resistances - and that's basically it. There are maybe two or three useful prefixes for us.

There are two options here:
1. We can buy (or farm from Atziri) a Doryani's Invitation Heavy Belt, a Physical version of it. It grants us an easy access to Leech, has some damage and solid chunk of resists. This is usually a bit expensive at leaguestart though.
2. We can also use a rare Belt - Stygian Vise is an obvious choice, but it is also worth to check some synthesised belts as well.
As usual, we want life, resists, life regen, maybe armour in the prefix if you can find something like that.

These are the preferred flasks:
1. Life Flask - self-explanatory - we'll want to have bleed and CB immunity and instant recovery.
2. Granite Flask - a lot of extra armour - preferably automated with an enchant "Use when Charges reach Full" - choose mods to your liking, I prefer %inc armour.
3. Jade Flask - a lot of extra evasion - preferably automated with an enchant "Use when Charges reach Full" - choose mods to your liking, I prefer %inc evasion.
4. Quicksilver Flask goes brrrrrrr - preferably automated with an enchant "Use when Charges reach Full" - choose mods to your liking, I prefer either Cast or Movement Speed. Quartz Flask - the switch from Raider to Hierophant meant we lost some of the QoL, including Phasing. Quartz Flask makes up for that while mapping - preferably automated with an enchant "Use when Charges reach Full" - choose mods to your liking, I prefer either Cast or Movement Speed.

We want to get rare Jewels with mods like:
%inc Life, %inc Spell Damage, %inc Global Physical Damage, +#% to DoT Multi, +#% to Physical DoT Multi and so on - basically anything that increases our damage.

We can use Impossible Escape - this jewels can help with reaching some of the great points that are far away on the tree. Examples:
Glancing Blows (usually expensive) - Tireless life wheel
Imbalanced Guard (usually expensive) - Prismatic Skin and Soul of Steel notables.
Avatar of Fire - Vanquisher physical damage wheel and Hearty notable.

The endgame version uses Ancestral Vision - the jewel provides chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments based on half of your Spell Suppression. We can get 50% chance from it when our Spell Suppression is capped. The other 50% can be achieved from boots (a combination of Essence of Loathing suffix and Eater of Worlds implicit).

The endgame version also uses Unnatural instinct in a Jewel Socket near the Shaper notable. It provides a lot of QoL and decent chunk of damage.

We can also use Watcher's Eye Prismatic Jewel - in that case pick whatever mods you'll find useful for Determination/Grace, Pride, Malevolence or Vitality Auras, there's a lot of good stuff there.

We are still using Cold Iron Points, we are just upgrading to a (double) corrupted ones with good implicits. We want to get either Spell Damage or Damage over Time.

You can also try to craft better rare Rune Daggers (such as +1 all/+1 phys/DoT Multi/Phys DoT Multi/Cast Speed) or switch to different caster weapon (you can use Wands, Staves, Sceptres) altoghether if you have the currency.

You can go with well-crafted amulet (+1 all/+1 physical/DoT multi), but it will be only slightly better than Eternal Struggle.
You can also use Aul's Uprising to squeeze another 50% Aura for free. I advise this for a more defensive approach, as you can fit both Determination and Grace without sacrificing damage.

As mentioned before, we are just upgrading within the same principle.

I'd say this build should be fine as an SSF version, just stick to the +1 weapons/shield, there is also a possibility to target farm Broken Truce cards from Jorgin in Betrayal to try to farm CIPs.

The current version uses one Large Cluster Jewel for Physical Damage. These are really efficient, but the Tree is really streched to get a few crucial things, so I've managed to fit only one Cluster.

There are two options to approach Exsanguinate DoTs - one includes Unleash Support to store uses and apply three stacks at once; the other uses any viable support gem, in my version it is Efficacy Support of Empower Support. The choice between those is a choice between playstyles. Unleash lets you cast less often, but you sacrifice some damage for it. Efficacy/Empower gives you higher damage ceiling, but it requires more cast speed to compensate the slowness of Exsanguinate if you need to stack more than one DoT on enemy.
Try both and choose the one that fits your mapping playstyle better.

Hierophant provides Arcane Surge (which grants 10% increased Cast Speed and 30% Mana Regen Rate) and makes it also grant 10% more Spell Damage. This makes Hierophant a solid damage option while also getting some of the Cast Speed.

As some of you have pointed out, the "10% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Rare/Unique hit" was not enough to sustain Frenzy Charges during boss fights. The choice of going Raider is a remnant of the original, 3.19 version of the build, before nerfs to curse application. Back then I used Storm Brand with Hextouch Support, which provided enough hits to sustain Frenzy Charges. However, after changes in 3.20 I opted away from this solution, so sustaining Frenzy Charges during boss fights was hard.

Gladiator grants 20% more Physical DoT damage and 10% attack block. It is similar in power level to Champion (with 15% aura effect, Intimidate, Taunt and increased damage taken) or Trickster (2% more damage for every Mastery type, and cap to enemies' action speed. I actually am not sure which one of these is the best, I advise Gladiator because it's the simplest power increase. You can however try to switch things around.

I usually try not to give a precise pricelist of these items. As you know, prices change quite frequently. I will do that here, but please keep in mind, these things are ever-changing and the list below may not be relevant as of next league.

Campaign budget - in the PoB I literally added only wand with vendor recipe spell damage, lapis amulet and rustic sash. There's no currency there.

Leaguestart budget - the gear in the PoB is your usual Life and Resists, with some life regen her and there. Let's say, 5c a piece.
Corrupted 6link body armour usually costs about 30-35c day2.
Daggers with +1 phys are created with yet another vendor recipe.
In total, let's assume about 80c.

Day3 budget - let's start with uniques:
2x Cold Iron Point - prices of these can vary. In 3.19 I bought these for 50c a piece day 3, in 3.21 I bought these for 4c a piece day 3. It mostly depends on the meta, and if there are any physical spell or physical spell poison builds in the mix.
Eternal Struggle - historically this amulet had a high price variance, people have issues pricing these. The ones with high Physical DoT Multi may cost 10c, may cost 1div.
Watcher's Eye - it's really hard to tell, these have high variance as well. In previous leagues I was able to buy Physical Damage while Pride and a defensive modifier while Determination for 2divs. I deliberately don't include the one with DoT Multi while Malevolence, because these are expensive.
Rest of the jewels - there is a solid list of modifiers that work for us, so with clever trade searching you can find jewels with 4 useful mods for 20-30c
Rest of the gear - better rares, with eldritch implicits when possible. Let's say, 40c a piece.
In total, about 6div, depending on a few prices.

Final Budget - again, let's start with uniques:
2x corrupted Cold Iron Point - these were more consistent in price - I usually bought them for 80-100c a piece day 4-5.
Eternal Struggle - no change.
Ancestral Vision - this one I bought in 3.21 for 2divs day 4.
Unnatural Instinct - based on poe.ninja, this league's prices started at 5divs and slowly decreased to 2,5-3divs. Let's count 5divs.
Watcher's Eye - no change

Rest of the rare gear - I'm assuming that the rest of the gear is crafted from fractured bases with essences, and then with stuff like eldritch currency or prefixes/suffixes cannot be changed + veiled chaos. Let's say, 3divs per.

Also, in the final version we should take gem prices into consideration.

Enlighten lvl4 - historically about 10divs, but you can also use Enlighten lvl3 if you choose to invest a bit more into mana reservation efficiency (mana mastery, helmet craft/implicit, maybe some corrupted jewels).

Empower lvl4 - these prices vary a bit, but we should estimate about 6divs. Again, not necessary, you can be using Empower lvl3 of Efficacy Support.

Awakened Brutality - one of the cheaper Awakened supports at the moment, I bought mine for 100c last league.
Awakened Controlled Destruction - is a bit more expensive, usually about 1div.
Awakened Swift Affliction - always costs a good chunk early, like 2-2,5 divs, because a lot of people are playing DoT builds.
Awakened Chain - expensive, and not necessary, you can stick with regular Chain Support.

21/20 Exsanguinate usually costs about 100c. You can also level these yourself in the offhand and try to corrupt these yourself. You can also settle with 21/0.

Vaal Reap can be more expensive. Ideally we would like 21/20 or 21/0. Both will be expensive, so try to find 21/0, 20/0 or 20/20. The quality is not mandatory.

In total, let's count 20-25divs if one chooses not to buy unnecessary stuff, and closer to 35-40divs with lvl4 enlightens and such.

Hope that explains it.

As explained above, I believe that Exsanguinate is superior for mapping. I also believe that Reap is comfier for bosses, therefore I advise using both skills based on the content and switching gems.

1. Don't overlook armour/evasion bases and prefix mods. They really make a difference. The preferred values are 20k armour (so that physical damage on T16s doesn't hurt) and 8k evasion (so that we have about 50% chance to evade) without flasks, if you can choose to go Determination. If you go with Grace, the closer you get to 95% evade chance, the better. Note that you can use Skin of the Loyal/Lords, it should scale armour/evasion even better thanks to 100% increased Global Defences mod - but it creates even more pressure to improve your armour/evasion stats on helmet/boots/gloves (see this helmet as an example: ).
2. I really like increasing my maximum elemental resistances. It helps a lot. You can get some from Searing Exarch implicits (all resistances on chest, lightning on helmet, cold on gloves, fire on boots).
3. You may want to incorporate some attack/spell block. However, there isn't a lot of sources of it. The one that come to mind are Eater of Worlds implicits on Body Armour and Eternal Struggle. The
4. When you improve your defences, further investment in recovery will only amplify the feel of being tougher. 500-550 life regen/s is a baseline to sustain casting Exsanguinate, 1000 starts feeling comfy, over 1500 you have enough to endure many DoTs.
5. Remember that PoB includes a defensive version. Granted, it has a lot less damage, but it should be much more durable as well.

In the past I'd advise taking Precision and Dark Arts notables. However, I changed the Passive Tree a bit, so we don't have access to them anymore.
3. You can get Cast Speed as an Searing Exarch implicit on your helmet:
4. If all of that doesn't feel enough, you can get Action Speed as an Searing Exarch implicit on your boots or Cast Speed suffix on your utility flask. I found those not necessary, but your mileage may vary.

The short answer is: you have to have at least 1000-1200 life regen per second.
The long answer is: Righteous Fire deals 90% of your Life as Fire DoT per second. This is reduced by your Fire Resistance. We have 82% Fire Resistance thanks to tree, which makes us take ~17% of our life per second as Fire DoT. Let's assume we have 5k Life. Our RF will deal 850 damage per second to us. You have to have more regen to mitigate it. You also want to have excess regen so you can cast Exsanguinate freely (it is 200 life pre cast, it is substantial) and to have some regen for the actual recovery purposes.