[3.25] Hierophant - Zero Mana Cost - Budget - Starter

Why? (You can skip this)

Full Guide Updated for 3.25!!!
Notes for 3.25:
Build is still working, got a little bit nerfed, but also got some buffs:
Grace and Determination base Evasion and Armor halved. Armour down from 36K to 24K, still 90% Phys DMG Reduction. Evasion down from 66% to 54%
Divine Blessing is gone.
Defiance Banner and Enduring Cry no longer valid.
Expensiver ring to get Bleed prevention corruption.
Shadowstich no longer recommended due to less Resistances
On the other hand:
Nothing was changed in regards of mana cost reduction mechanic, so the build is safe :)
We overcapped Armour, so impact is not too high. Quality is now multiplicative, so base Armour/ES/Evasion of items is higher. Added an Automation + Molten Shell setup to compensate (May use Cast When Damage Taken if you preffer).
Replaced boots with March of the Legion to get Divine Blessing back, with a +1 Maximum Endurance Charges corruption. May not be easy to find, but these boots are very cheap. Added another source of Bleed prevention (Corrupted Ring).
Blocking improved, Spell block up from 27% to 62%, more than DOUBLED!
Increased Duration support gem buffed.
Endurance charges no longer provide 6% Resist All (4 base + 2 from Cry), so 36% missing, but now we get 6 * 4% = 24% Elemental Damage Reduction. This is a Buff. Truly, Max EHP for elemental hits doubled from ~30K to ~60K

The Gist
We combine some passives and a couple items to reduce our mana cost of skills to 0, so we can spam whatever we want without needing to worry about mana. Want to reserve 100% mana? You can, and you should. Want to use Divine Blessing to cast a 50% reserve aura which would cost you about 1900 mana per cast for free? We surely do. We depend only on a couple cheap items (Helmet, Gloves, 1 or 2 weapon slots, 1 ring, and a couple anointment oils), so it gives you plenty of liberty to gear yourself up, and also it is not tied to a single specific skill, so you can chose how you want to roll if you don't like Essence Drain. Being only dependent on cheap items (you can build it with less than 100C) and that the items are easy to obtain, you can do it as a starter build. The build will be getting better as you level up, and by the time it is "completed" (around level 68-70) you should have earned enough currency to fully equip with the basic setup.

Pros (Numbers of my current build with Shield variant):
No mana issues, no mana potions required :P
High damage, Very High damage potential with some investment (10M DPS with some 10/15 Divine).
Good clear speed with 5/6 always piercing projectiles, 3.61 casts per second. Can switch multiple projectile for another gem for single target damage boost (i.e. Bosses).
Many auras, 2 curses.
Constant charges (6 endurance, 4 Power/Absorption).
Solid defenses: Infinite EHP (except for bosses), CI, 75% Fire res, 80% Cold res, 76% Light res, 24K+ armour, 90% Phys reduction, 48% block, 62% spell block, 10% spell suppression. Can switch Haste for Grace to get 58% evasion if you need more survivability at the expense of some damage.
100% pure chaos damage = No risk of Reflected damage.
Immune to all elemental ailments (chill, freeze, sap, shock, brittle, scorch, ignite).
Bleed and corrupted blood can't be inflicted on you.
Consecrated ground.
50% reduced curse effect (100% reduced in Consecrated Ground).
Lots of Energy shield regen (1175 per second), leech (790 per hit), recovery per block (739 per block), 1% Essence drain regen of debuff damage (675 per hit), ES gain on kill (365 per kill). With all that you won't need recharge, but its rate would be 4488 per second. Add 4 absorption charges if you want, just in case.
Constant Rampage.
+68% speed without any flask.
Near enemies hindered (25%) and wither hindered (36%), and have a 40% reduced Critical Chance.
10-20% increased rarity of items.
No need for cluster jewels (but feel free to use one if you can get high ES from it with other useful stats to replace other nodes).

Cons:
Could enjoy some more Energy shield total (currently about ~6600).
You need to manually recast one of the auras every 25 seconds (not a big deal).
A basic 6L with ES may be 25C, but a good one may set you back 70C/100C. A very good one with double corruption may give you 50% more DPS for 8/10 Divine Orbs.
I don't have 35/40 divine orbs (yet) to add a basic Mageblood. :P

Build Tree
Kindly notice that I have modified the tree to be used with a shield. Feel free to replace those nodes with the matching Dual Wield ones if you are dual wielding Singularity (Details in leveling section).

Tree Updated for 3.25. Also added leveling tree: PoB Tree



Build explanation
The whole build depends on getting a mana cost reduction of 100%. To achieve this we need to combine a couple tree nodes and some specific items:

For the tree nodes, we will need the Righteous Decree node (totaling 16% reduction) and the Dreamer node + Mana Mastery (another 25% reduction). That will set us at 41% mana cost reduction.

On the item side (Details in items section), we need to get:

Honourhome helmet with a 20% roll on reduced mana cost of skills (1C to 5C, depending on the other stats)


2 x Singularity with an 8% roll on reduced mana cost of skills (about 2C each)


Wyrmsign gloves. Try to get close to 160% increased armor and evasion (1C or less)


Vivinsect ring with +1 to Minimum Endurance Charges (5C) or, if your budget allows for it, a rare ring with +1 Minimum Endurance Charges and 7% Reduced mana Cost of Skills (5C to 10C, can be crafted but you need to have the veiled recipes for it). The rare ring may not sound as powerful as the Vivinsect, but allows you to drop a Singularity and use a shield or whatever you want in the second Weapon slot.

Anointment oils: Violet (1C), Crimson (3C) and Opalescent (10C). This allows us to anoint an amulet with Disciple of the Unyielding.

The math: Wyrmsign gloves gives you 4% reduction of mana cost per endurance charge. As a Hierophant, you get 4 minimum for free, one in the ring, and one from the Disciple of the Unyielding anoint, so you always have 6 endurance charges (you also need +2 max endurance charges, we get them from the tree or other items). This gives you 24% mana cost reduction.
We also have 20% from the helmet, and we have either 16% from dual singularity or 8% + 7% from single singularity and rare ring.
That's 24% + 20% + (16% or 15%) = 60% or 59%.

If we add the 41% reduction from the tree and 59% or 60% from items, we get 100% or 101% Mana cost reduction for skills.

In my case, I started with dual singularity, but then moved to rare ring + shield to get better survivability. You may lose an aura slot in the ring and some damage, but you get plenty more options on equipment.


Full equipment list with gems setup (basic and possible upgrades)

Helmet:
Honourhome (Required) with 20% Reduced Mana Cost.

Sockets: 4 linked (3B 1R) (Discipline, Purity of Elements, Enlighten and Determination,)

This is one of our biggest mana cost reduction sources with the required 20%.
In here we socket 3 of our auras, Determination, Discipline and Purity of Elements, together with an Enlighten gem. All of them benefit from the +2 to all socketed gems, so even a level 1 Enlighten will start at level 3 and reduce auras reservation, able to reach level 5 without an expensive corruption. No need for quality in any of the gems, but some quality in Enlighten may help to level it up faster.
Armour and ES are very low, so even with a perfect roll on % increased armour and ES, it won't amount too much. Not much we can do here.
The 10-20% Magic find is a nice plus.
The added lightning damage is very low and later on we drop it by preventing elemental damage, but may be nice to have while you are leveling.
A very good thing of this helmet is that it only requires level 12, so you can start using it right away to level up. For that, I socketed it with a summon zombies gem and some damage buff for them. The +2 levels to gems make them useful without needing to invest in minion nodes in the tree. They may die easily at first until you start popping auras (Vitality is cheap to cast and grants them life regen), but just re-cast them when needed.

Possible upgrades:
Simple or double corruption, while budget allows it. Look for "Socketed Skill Gems get a 90% Cost & Reservation Multiplier", which may allow you to free two Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency nodes from the tree so you can re-assign them. You can also benefit from "+2 to Level of Socketed AoE Gems", "+2 to Level of Socketed Aura Gems" and/or "(10-15)% Increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills". Next in priority order may be "(4-6)% increased maximum Energy Shield", and last and less useful "+1 to Maximum Power Charges". Everything else may be a waste.


Gloves:
Wyrmsign (Required)

Sockets: 4 linked (2R 2B) (Molten Shell, More Duration, Automation, Increased Area of Effect)

Another big source of our mana cost reduction with the 4% reduction per Endurance Charge, as we will have 6 endurance charges constantly. That totals out 24% Mana cost reduction.
These gloves include a level 5 Concentrated effect, and we don't want it messing up with the mana reservation of auras, so we socket here the Automation + Molten Shell setup, to increase our armor a little bit, have some damage absortion and a little extra damage. Automation can be replaced with Cast When Damage taken if you prefer.
As we have 6 min/max endurance charges, we are always at Maximum Endurance charges, so we always gain Rampage. Using multiple projectiles that always pierce with high damage, it is easy to sustain it while running through the maps. As we have 6 minimum Endurance Charges, we don't lose any charge when Rampage ends.
The % increased Armour and Evasion is nice to have maximized (160%) to get a little extra defense, but not mandatory.
The +X to maximum life is irrelevant as we go CI.

Possible upgrades:
Simple or double corruption. Look "+2 to Level of Socketed Duration Gems", "+1 to Level of Socketed Gems", "(8-10)% increased Cast Speed", "(4-6)% increased maximum Energy Shield", or some curse on hit, provided you modify the tree to get a "You can apply an additional curse" (Whispers of Doom will take 4 points to get from current tree). You should aim for Enfeeble. Despair we already have it in the ring, and replacing it may involve further changes (more details in ring item). Temporal chains may be partially useful as we are already hindering enemies. Vulnerability and Elemental Weakness are useless for this build.


Weapon:
Dual Singularity with a total of at least 15% Mana Cost Reduction between both (8% + 7% or 8% + 8%). (Both Required, or just one with 8% and an upgraded ring, details below)

Sockets: 3 Linked (2B 1R) (Wither, Faster Casting, Spell Totem) and 3 Linked or unlinked (3B) (Zealotry, Tempest Shield, Frostblink)

and

Besides the Mana Cost reduction, you should aim for the highest Increased Cast Speed possible (18%).
Singularity will also Hinder nearby enemies and do 100% Increased Damage to Hindered enemies. We also Hinder enemies with Wither, so the increased damage not only applies to close enemies but also to whitered ones.
We use Void Manipulation, which causes your skills to deal no elemental damage, so the added Lightning damage is ignored. The same applies to the Increased Elemental Damage implicit, so we can freely change it for a Corrupted one.
On Weapon 1 we socket our Wither Totem setup. This is our damage booster for thought enemies. Wither causes enemies to take 6% increased Chaos Damage per stack, up to 15 stacks (90% Increased Damage). It also Hinders them. With the 3 linked setup our totem should have 6.39 casts per second, and a Wither duration of 3.201 seconds, so we go past the 15 stacks limit (more than 20, actually), ensuring the enemy gets weakened soon and hard.
On Weapon 2 we will socket Tempest Shield once you switch from dual wielding, to highly boost Spell Block. We will also socket here Zealotry once you migrate to a Rare ring. Last, but not least, we use the third socket for a movement skill. I prefer Frostblink, but you can use any other travel skill of your liking. If you are still Dual Wielding, you can socket any other skill you like (Keep the Zombies, maybe?).

Possible Upgrades:
You can start with corruption. Being a cheap weapon, you can get a good corruption for a couple Chaos. There are just a couple corruption implicits that may be useful for us, "(12-15)% increased Cast Speed" and "(10-15)% chance to gain Onslaught for 4 seconds on Kill". The other options are for charges, which we already have maximized, melee hits which we don't use, or elemental damage that we zero out with Void Manipulation.
The second option is if you manage to get a ring with +1 Minimum Endurance Charges and 7% Reduced Mana Cost, either buying it or Veil crafting it, you can get rid of one of the weapons (leaving one with 8% Reduced Mana Cost). You can then replace it with another weapon of your liking, or a good shield. My personal choice is Aegis Aurora, with good Armour and ES, high block chance, +10% All Elemental Resistances, +5% Maximum Cold Resistance, and 2% of Armour recovered as ES on block (~739 ES per block).



Rings:
Vivinsect with "+1 Minimum Endurance Charges" (Required)

Sockets: (1B)(Zealotry)

The main reason to use this ring is to gain that +1 Minimum Endurance Charges, and a big plus for an aura.
This is where we socket Zealotry, for which we have an amulet that gives it No Reservation (more details in Amulet section). Zealotry will improve our damage and will allow us to create Consecrated Ground on hitting a Rare or Unique enemy. Vivinsect will raise the gem level by 5, which will make it way more powerful, at the expense of a penalty on its reservation of 20% REDUCED Reservation Efficiency, but we already have it with No Reservation, and so the penalty doesn't apply to us. Why Zealotry and no other aura? Check the amulet section for the answer.
Vivinsect also provides a nice +(15-25) to All Attributes, with a good roll you may be able to save one or two Tree points.
This ring only requires level 45, so you can start using it early, and will grant some life regeneration at first for each uncorrupted item equipped, and later ES with Zealoth's Oath, once we transition to CI and full ES.
The other two stats of the ring are useless for us. -2 Total cost of skills per corrupted item has no point for us as we have no mana cost. The chance of gaining Endurance Charges will do nothing for us as we are constantly at full charges.

Possible Upgrades:
Get a Bleeding Cannot be Inflicted on You corruption as soon as possible.
We can replace this ring with any Rare one with a "+1 Minimum Endurance Charges", but it may be hard to compensate for the bonus to the Aura and the stats. What may add real value is if we can additionally get "7% Reduced Mana Cost" on that ring. With those 2 stats, we can drop a Singularity, freeing the second hand slot to use with another weapon or a shield. That more than justifies losing the Vivinsect extra bonuses. Both modifiers are Veiled ones, so it is not easy to come by. You can either buy one, or grind (or buy) Veiled rings until you uncover those modifiers to craft your own. Crafting may be expensive, but you will have more control on any other stat you want on that ring. You can also use an unset ring as base to avoid losing the socket. If you can't get a socket on this ring, move Zealotry to the Weapon 2.


Rotblood Promise (Not required but desirable)

Sockets: (1B) (Despair)

This one is a very cheap ring, and has a lot of benefits for us. It transforms a curse into an aura with a level 20 Blasphemy, so we get 2 sockets for the price of one. This aura will also have an 80% Increased Reservation Efficiency, and added to the other bonuses to Reservation we have, it will be very cheap to use. As a downside, the curse will also affect you, and that is usually a bad thing unless mitigated, but here we take advantage of CI, and socket a Despair on it. Despair will lower resistances to Chaos ~24% (Blasphemy lowers the effect), but we are immune to Chaos, so it will increase our damage output without any impact to us. This ring also gives us 20% Reduced Effect of Curses on You, which added to the reductions from the tree leaves us at 50% reduction. We will also be triggering Consecrated Ground with Zealotry, and it reduces curses effect by another 50%, so in consecrated ground we will have 100% Reduced Curse Effect.
And this ring keeps on giving, as it will also sport a nice +(20-30) to Intelligence and an additional (15-25)% Increased Damage with Hits and Ailments Against Cursed Enemies, increasing again our damage output.

Possible Upgrades:
If you are not a fan of curses, you can change this ring for whatever you like. You can also go for a second rare +1 Minimum Endurance Charges and 7% Reduced Mana Cost, and if you get another +1 to Maximum Endurance Charges from another item or altering the tree to get it from there, you can totally skip Singularity and go for the weapon combination of your choice (dual hand, dual wield, one hand and shield). If you feel like it, you could even use a Darkscorn and get 25% of Physical Damage from Hits Taken as Chaos Damage (nullified by CI), and a Rearguard quiver for some blocking chance (Not actually recommended, but to exemplify the liberty you can have).


Amulet:
Aul's Uprising with "Zealotry has no Reservation" (Not required but highly desirable)

Aul's Uprising can make one of your auras free, and comes in different flavors. We need the Intelligence based one, as it provides a boost to our ES, which we really need. There we need to choose our Int based aura to maximize its value, so ideally we would like a 50% reservation aura. That leaves our build with too options, Zealotry and Purity of Elements. Both are the same, except for the price. One with Zealotry can be bought for 10C. One with Purity of Elements starts at 1 Divine. If you have one or can afford it, just switch the sockets for Zealotry and Purity of Elements and you are done, no other change required.
This amulet will give you also +(10-16) to All Attributes, +(20-30) to Intelligence, (15-20)% Increased Maximum Energy Shield, +(50-70) Maximum Life (Useless for this build), and 50% Increased Critical Chance against Nearby Enemies.
On this amulet we are going to anoint "Disciple of the Unyielding". It's a relatively cheap anoint, requiring Violet oil (1C), Crimson oil (3C) and Opalescent oil (10C). This will give us "+1 to Minimum Endurance Charges" and "8% Increased Damage per Endurance Charge" (8% by 6 Endurance charges = 48% Increased Damage). It also grants a chance to gain Endurance Charges, but we should always be at maximum charges. This node is in the opposite side of the tree, and if not anointed, would cost us 18 points just to get there, and there are no other nodes that grant Minimum Endurance Charges.

Possible Upgrades:
The bonus to All Attributes is very nice, but you are free to replace it with the corruption modifier that better suits you. If you can afford it, that's it. If you get a corrupted amulet with the stats you want, you need a Tainted Oil to anoint it, currently sitting at 3 Divine in the market. The other option is to anoint and then corrupt it, with the involved risk and random results, so it may take many tries to get the corruption modifier you want.
You can also avoid the anointment, or go for a different one, if you spend a point on the tree for a jewel socket, socketing in it a Grand Spectrum with "+1 to Minimum Endurance Charges per Grand Spectrum". They used to be 120C each a couple weeks ago, but inflation hit them hard and they are now starting at 5-6 Divine. Not worthy in my opinion, but do with your budget as you please.


Boots:
March of the Legion Corrupted with +1 Maximum Endurance Charges (Almost required)

Sockets: 4 Linked (2G 2R) (Haste, Grace, Empower, More Duration).

You can cast Haste or Grace, not both at the same time, depending if you need speed or survivability. They are supported by Divine Blessing from the boots, to make them temporary and replace their Reservation with a fixed mana cost per cast. They also get +(3-5) Aura levels. We add Empower to make them more powerful, without worrying about the 130% cost multiplier, as we will not be paying it. Being 50% auras, normally it would cost us about 1900 mana per cast. Fortunately, we have a 100% Mana Cost Reduction, so feel free to spam it as fast as the 1.22 seconds cooldown allows you. It should be up for 25 seconds, so you have enough time between casts to do plenty. And if you are thinking of it, no, you can't use Automation gem to autocast this, as Divine Blessing adds a small cast time to the Aura, making it non-instant :(.
We need to get them Corrupted with +1 Maximum Endurance Charges. If you don't get it from here, you need another item to compensate or spend some additional points in the tree.
They also provide nice Armour and ES, +(12-18)% to All Elemental Resistances and (20-30)% Increased Movement Speed.

Possible Upgrades:
You can try to get double corruption, but that may be expensive. Besides the +X to (All/AoE/Duration) socketed gems, you can try to get some +(6-9)% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage or (4-6)% Increased Maximum ES. There is another interesting corruption which Grants Level 21 Haste Skill. If you can get that, you can save a socket on the boots.
Replacing these boots will mean you lose Divine Blessing, as these boots are the only source after the support gem was removed in 3.25. Not recommended as you will lose the powerful boot of Haste or Grace.


Belt:
There is total freedom of choice here, but I would recommend trying to maximize ES and defenses.
A cheap and low level option that will help you level up is Ascent from Flesh, which will give you +(84-100) to Maximum ES, +300 Evasion, +(10-15)% All Elemental Resistances, Phasing if ES Recharge started recently, 30% Increased Evasion and 10% Increased Movement Speed while Phasing. Once we level up, the ES Regen will refill the ES before Recharge even starts, so Phasing will start to trigger less every time as you level up.


A better option for later may be Graven's Secret. It grants +(60-70) to Maximum ES, (16-20)% Increased Maximum Mana (Gives you a small boost to ES per Hierophant Ascendancy), +(40-60)% Lightning Resist, +1 Maximum Power Charges, and (15-25)% increased Stun and Block Recovery. The real deal of this belt is that it replaces your Power Charges with Absorption Charges, which make you Recoup 12% of Elemental Damage taken as Energy Shield per Absorption Charge. We have 4 charges constantly, so we Recoup 48% of Elemental Damage taken as ES. Basically half the Elemental damage you receive, will heal your ES during a couple seconds.


If price is not an issue for you, go Mageblood. If you can afford one, I don't need to tell you why. If you don't know what Mageblood is, check the wiki and start dreaming with it. I don't have one myself, so donations are accepted if you want me to test it with the build :P


Body Armour:
Total freedom here too, but you need to try to maximize ES and defenses.
Sockets: 6 Linked (4B 2G) (Essence Drain of Wickedness, Greater Multiple Projectiles, Void Manipulation, Controlled Destruction, Added Chaos Damage and Arcane Surge) or 6 Linked (3B 2G 1R) (Same as before but Cruelty instead of Arcane Surge)

or

This is our main skill and our damage dealer. You can use a normal Essence Drain if you can't get a hold on a ED of Wickedness, even for leveling up, but ED of Wickedness has a higher damage output. It sacrifices Damage over Time to increase hit damage, with an added damage effectiveness of 310% instead of 140%, and, best of all, projectiles pierce all targets, hitting several enemies at once. You must get this gem to 20% quality to double the ES Regeneration (originally, life regen, but we use Zealoth's Oath).
Greater Multiple Projectiles hit us with a penalty on damage, but allows us to fire 5 projectiles at once. That is five high damage chaos projectiles that pierce everything and stop at nothing. A single shot of this can clear a whole pack of enemies, and we will be spamming this 3.6 times per second, non-stop. That's a LOT of screen cleaning and Rampage charges, as long as you can keep up running and shooting through the map. Greater Multiple Projectiles requires level 38, and the damage penalty is bigger at the beginning, so you may want to use a Lesser Multiple Projectiles gem until you can switch it. Later on you should change it for an Awakened Greater Multiple Projectiles gem, which has a lower damage penalty and grants an additional projectile (basically, 20% extra damage + the penalty reduction). In case you need to face a thought boss, you can switch this gem with another damage boosting one. You will lose the extra cleaning of the screen, but will remove the damage penalty and add the additional support gem damage.
Void Manipulation has a big damage multiplier and prevent us from doing any other damage but Chaos. This works as a protection to reflected damage, as only Chaos damage will be dealt and we are immune to it through CI. Be careful thought of Chaos and Whiter resistant enemies, as they will take a lot longer to die (but will die, eventually). Upgrade to an Awakened Void Manipulation later on for increased damage bonus and +1 Level to Supported Chaos Skill Gems.
Controlled Destruction will drastically reduce our Critical chances, but giving us a big damage multiplier that more than compensates for it. Later on you can upgrade to an Awakened Controlled Destruction, for an extra 5% More Damage and 10% chance to Unnerve enemies on hit (Unnerve causes affected targets to take 10% increased spell damage).
Added Chaos Damage is pretty straight forward and looks very basic, but with a 310% Added Damage Effectiveness, it provides a bigger damage boost than Void Manipulation or Controlled Destruction. Upgrade to an Awakened Added Chaos Damage for extra damage and a nice +1 Level to Supported Skill Gem.
Last but not least we have Arcane Surge or Cruelty. I know this may require changing socket colors, but I recommend using Cruelty early on and not change to Arcane Surge until late in the game. Thing is, Arcane Surge support grants a slightly bigger damage boost than Cruelty, but requires Arcane surge to be triggered. As we have no mana cost, we don't trigger it normally. Hierophant Ascendancy, Arcane Blessing, will do that for us every time we hit an enemy, boosting our supported skill in the meantime. I recommend taking Arcane Blessing as the last ascendancy, so you will only benefit from this support gem late in the game. In the meantime, Cruelty will give a nice damage boost to your hits, and will grant more damage over time to supported skill based on damage done with the hit to the enemy. Just be aware that our hits do plenty more damage than the DoT, and we hit several times before the DoT can make significant damage, so the boost to DoT is not as big as it sounds in paper.

That being said, there are no restrictions on what Body Armour you want to choose. Again, I will recommend you to pick one that helps you survive and improve ES.
Some examples and a quick summary of each (full detail may be too long):

The Beast Fur Shawl:

Very cheap. You can get a 6 linked for 20-25C. Big ES boost and a nice 40% Increased Spell Damage. It's cheap because it has a DEBUFF for you, causing you to take 10% increased damage. May be nice to start with, but that 10% extra damage received may be bad for you while mapping.

Geofri's Sanctuary:
You can get a 6 linked for about 40C, so it is on the cheap side. You will get some Armour, some ES, some Elemental Resistances and Zealoth's Oath (saves you 1 point on the tree). Another good one to start with until you can move to something better.

Skin of the Loyal: You can get a very cheap one for 15C. It will boost your damage with the +1 to socketed gems, but you will have a lot less ES, despite the +100% Increased Global Defenses. May be good to level up as it has no level requirement. Skin of the Lords is way more expensive than the Skin of the Loyal, requires you to use corrupted gems, just for a +2 to socketed gems and a passive in the tree, which you need to be lucky to find a useful one that doesn't make it dirty expensive. Not recommended, just stick to the cheaper one until you find something better.

The Queen's Hunger:

Now we are getting serious. This one may be as low as 70C, but this is a double Veiled item, with one Chosen prefix and one Of the Order suffix. Getting the most useful stats may prove difficult/expensive. For prefix we ideally want (24-28)% Increased ES. If not, chance to block attack or spell damage may be good too. For the suffix, you may want to pick one of the dual stats (INT-DEX, INT-STR or DEX-STR), as it may save you one or two tree points. There are others that grant only one stat and chance to avoid an Elemental Ailment, which we are already immune to, but DEX or STR may save you a point in the tree. If all those suffix fail, you can go for "Regenerate 200 ES per second while a Rare or Unique Enemy is Nearby". Apart from the veiled stats, you get some boost to cast speed. Where this gets interesting is the Level 20 random Offering skill triggered every 5 seconds that affect you. May not be consistent, but all of them offer nice boosts, either to block, to cast and movement speed, or to Critical Strike chance and multiplier.

Incandescent Heart: a 6 linked one starts at 1 Divine, so it is not on the cheap side. Most of its stats are useless for us, besides having decent Armour and ES. What makes this one stand out is that 25% of Elemental Damage from Hits is Taken as Chaos Damage. For a CI build, that's plainly 25% less Elemental Damage. Be careful thought as your light radius will be based in your ES, so if you are hit hardly, light may go out for a split second until regen/leech/recovery kicks in.

Shadowstitch:

No longer recommended as Resistances will get too low after 3.25 Endurance Charges changes.
Granted 6 linked, but be careful with socket colors. They all come corrupted, so changing socket colors may cost you a little bit more than usual. They are all dual corrupted, so you will need to look for the corruptions of your liking/budget. Ideally, +X Levels to socketed gems that will increase your damage output, (4-6)% Increased Maximum ES, and/or (40-50)% Increased Damage. Comes with +(20-30) to all Attributes, Recover (3-5)% of Energy Shield on Kill, 8% increased Maximum Energy Shield for each Corrupted Item Equipped, but also -(6-4)% to all Resistances for each Corrupted Item Equipped

Death's Oath: This one is more of a meme build than other thing, but the Death Aura will benefit with some of the socketed gems and aura boosts, causing almost 13K damage per second to anything near you. Not cheap either, 1 Divine for a basic 6 linked, try and get 5 or 6 off color sockets... but hey, if you have the cash and the will...


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Flasks:

Anything you like, except Mana flasks :P
I would recommend a Quicksilver for Move Speed (Rotgut?), a Silver for Onslaught (Cinderswallow Urn?), a Granite for extra defenses (Rumi's Concoction also adds Attack and Spell Block), and some Sulphur Flask (Bottled Faith, The Sorrow of the Divine, and/or The Overflowing Chalice)
That until you get your Mageblood, but by then you should know what flasks to use.



Bandits:

Choose Alira for the resistances boost. Kraityn may boost your damage and speed a little bit, but may not be worthy compared to the skill point of Killing All. Oak is not recommended, we already overcap Phys Reduction and we have plenty of Regen.


Pantheon:

Major:
Solaris (+ Forest of Flames and Lord of the Ashen Arrow) or Lunaris (+ Captain Clayborne and Sebbert) for damage reduction, based on your preference. Soul of the Brine King if you notice you are getting stunned a lot. You shouldn't due to reductions and ES bonus, but if you are hit a lot and are being stun locked, consider it. Arakaali is useless for us. We don't care about Chaos damage (CI) or damage over time due to regen/leech/etc.

Minor:
Soul of Garukhan with Drought-Maddened Rhoa. The reduction of Shock on us is useless as we are immune to it, but once we add the soul of Drought-Maddened Rhoa, which can be obtained in a lower level map, we get Cannot be Blinded and Cannot be Maimed. Until you can get the Rhoa's soul, choose any other minor god you like.


How to level the build until completed (around level 70):

Start with any damage spell until you get Essence Drain, and put some Zombies in the mix. At the beginning, the zombies will die easily, just keep recasting them when needed. By level 12, you can start using the Honourhome helmet with its +2 levels to socketed gems. Socket the zombies and some support like Minion Damage, Minion Speed, etc. to boost their killing time. Don't worry about life. If they die, recast. As you level up and begin using auras, they will stop dying (mostly). Once you start to do decent damage with ED, you can start to fade out the zombies and replace them with more auras.

Tree:

Tree Updated for 3.25. Includes leveling tree: PoB Tree

First points near the Templar will not be very specific, but will grant you some general bonuses that will help you level. You can take Righteous Decree early on to help with mana management and be able to cast more without depending on too many potions.



Continue moving to the right, over the Witch starting point, getting some more general bonuses, but moving the structure of your tree towards some other nodes we do want to get.



After that, you move all the way up ignoring node ramifications for now (Arcane Focus, Essence Surge and Light Eater) to get Utmost Intellect and that node Mastery, “+5 to Dexterity per Allocated Mastery Passive Skill”. This will be one of the main Dex sources that we need to level all our green gems.



Then, continue to the left side of the tree, reaching towards Zealot's Oath. Don't take it until you have enough ES to justify moving the regen from life to ES, but you will need it ready to grab. If you are short on Chaos defense you can get Asylum. We later are immune to chaos, but this node will reduce curse effect on you by 30% and is the easiest way to get "Corrupted blood cannot be inflicted on you" (Taking the Mastery). You can later on replace this node with a corrupted jewel and free some points, at the expense of losing the curse effect reduction.
Arcane Guarding may be taken later to improve defenses. If you are not using shield, go Dark Arts for dual wielding.



From there, you go down to the left. First to the Faith and Steel node. This node will give you armor, ES and some elemental resistances.
Second node, you should go for the +1 Maximum Endurance Charges. This is a must for the build. If you don't have yet the Endurance charges ready, you can take the jewel node to temporarily get some other boosts, and reassign later on.
Third one you can grab here is Sovereignty node. Leave Aura Effect node and the Mastery out for later. Focus at first on Reservation Efficiency to be able to cast more auras sooner. Later on you will come back and grab those, being the Mastery "8% increased Damage for each of your Aura or Herald Skills affecting you".
Avoid the nodes for Arcane Surge bonus for now. They will be used after your last mastery when you get Arcane Blessing, giving you a huge damage boost. At this point, they are useless.



Now you should be going to the center of the tree to grab some other critical nodes. You are also left close to another jewel socket if you so please.
First you should go for Dreamer node and the Mastery "10% reduced Mana Cost of Skills". This is a must for the build.
Then you move to Potency of Will node with Mastery "10% more Skill Effect Duration", which will help sustain 100% uptime on Endurance Cry and increase the uptime of the Aura you cast with Divine Blessing.
The ES nodes are for later.



You now have your tree backbone almost completed. Go right towards the Chaos Inoculation node, but don't grab it unless you have a comfortable ES amount. Start with Light Eater node for ES leech (Mastery: "40% increased Armour and Evasion Rating while Leeching") and Influence for more Aura power (Mastery: "Auras from your Skills have 10% increased Effect on you").
Arcane Sanctuary and Whispers of Doom nodes are for later, and mostly add damage. Go Mysticism if you are dual wielding and not using shield.
If you feel your ES is not good enough yet to get CI, start grabbing all the ES nodes marked for this tree until you are comfortable. Once you are ready, grab CI, Zealoth's Oath if you haven't yet, and don't forget Faith and Steel Mastery to get 10% Physical Damage from hits avoided.



From here, is up to you to complete the tree grabbing the additional nodes. If for some reason, whether your play style or equipment limitations, you need to grab more damage or more defenses early on, feel free to do so. As long as you cover all the bases by around level 70, you will be fine. Kindly notice also that depending on the items you choose to use, you may lack a little bit of Str or Dex. You can easily solve this by picking Might or Agility nodes for +30 attribute each.

Tree Updated for 3.25. Includes leveling tree: PoB Tree

In regard of the Ascendancies, you must begin with Conviction of Power. It gives you a huge bonus with constant 4 Endurance and 4 Power charges, and it is required for the build to work.
Second, Divine Guidance, mostly for Transfiguration of Mind, and because it is required for the next node, Sanctuary of Thought, which will give us a very nice 20% of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum ES, and the 25% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills. We don't care about the increased area of effect, and the 50% less mana cost of skills is useless for us. Many versions ago it used to be Reduced Mana Cost of Skills, which made the build possible with fewer items, but they changed it to Less and now it is more useful the less Reduced Mana Cost you have. For more details, check the Wiki about Additive and Multiplicative bonuses.
Last but not least you get Arcane Blessing for a huge damage boost.




Q&A:

Is this a Starter build?
Required items are very cheap, so it can definitively be a starter build.

Can I go Hardcore?
I won't recommend it. You may need to be extra careful as you may be nimble at the beginning. Once the build is done you will have lots of ES regen and defenses, but a couple big shots may take you down. It's not common, but may happen, as the ES pool is not very big.

Is Solo Self Found possible?
Even though the items are cheap, they may not be easy to find. Not recommended.

What about Ruthless?
Item scarcity may make getting the required items way harder, but if you dare...

Why not Soulrend instead of Essence Drain of Wickedness?
Soulrend also pierces all targets, but it Leechs life instead of providing Regen. Regen has no cap. We can get ES leech from tree cheaply, and with 1.1% spell leech, we overcap by almost 10x the leech limit. Soulrend also focuses more on the DoT, while ED of Wickedness has more focus on hit damage and a bigger added damage bonus (310% vs 170%). So basically I chose ED of W. to get more ES per second, more hit damage and damage total. That being said, you do you...

Why not XXX instead of Essence Drain of Wickedness?
As mentioned early, the gist of the build is having no mana cost, and this is totally unrelated to your main skill of choice. I have my personal preference for ED, but that doesn't prevent you from using whatever you like. You can go Arc for example, provided you change the skill points and auras from Chaos to Lightning, and get some reflect damage prevention. Arc totem is a possibility. If you can imagine it, you can do it, and let me know if you get better results than with ED.

Why don't you use XXX jewel?
If you have a good one, or can afford it, go for it. The idea of the build is for it to not depend on costly, hard to find specific items. Anyone can make a build work with a Mageblood belt and top tier godlike items, but we are not anyone. A Watcher's Eye may add a lot of benefits. A good cluster jewel may help you with ES or Damage. Feel free to modify the build, experiment with it, and let me know if you find something that really makes the build shine.

Why Hierophant?
Conviction of Power is critical due to the min/max 4 Endurance charges. However, if you have budget to get two Grand Spectrum jewels with +1 Minimum Endurance Charges per Grand Spectrum, and an additional source of +1 Maximum Endurance Charges (Boots corruption, Tree point may be expensive) you can easily adapt the tree for any Templar, Witch or even Scion. The other classes may be a little bit too far from the tree, so even if they are viable, you will lose some tree points just to reach the needed nodes.

Cons: You will lose Arcane Surge and its boost. No free Power/Absorption charges. No Transfiguration of Mind. No 20% Mana as Extra ES. No 25% Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency.

Pros of Inquisitor: Good Consecrated ground. May be good if you plan to replace Essence Drain with an Elemental Spell.

Pros of Guardian: Improved Auras, be loved at parties. More armor and almost the same ES than Hierophant. Sentinel of Radiance absorbing 20% damage from hits may be good for survivability. The block chance from Bastion of Hope will also help a lot. Relic summons may also be good, if you like those auras.

Pros of Occultist: Extra Chaos Damage and free Wither if you go Void Beacon/Withering Presence. Vile Bastion grants lots of ES Regen. Profane Bloom may add some extra damage, or Unholy Authority may give you an extra curse (you can save some tree points) and the ability to affect Hexproof enemies.

Pros of Elementalist: Hope you are changing Essence Drain for an Elemental Spell, otherwise, you can have a nice couple Golems.

Pros of Necromancer: Some Aura bonuses, nice interaction with bodies and Offering skills.

Pros of Scion: You can brag of having a Scion build that may actually be playable. Mix and match some minor benefits from other classes: Guardian/Hierophant, Occultist/Necromancer, or some flavor like Juggernaut for extra damage per Endurance charge and Cannot be stunned, Deadeye for Tailwind and some extra damage, Trickster for extra damage and leech, etc.


Hope you like the ideas behind this build and give it a try sometime!
Let me know what you think of it, share ideas for improvements, or ask questions!

Thanks for the build, im trying it.
Next time I recommend you to make a levelling tree in pob

hey. you have showcase ?

I have to say, of all the guides I've read through, this is the most detailed and easy to understand one that I've seen. You did an awesome job! Thanks for all the detail and explanations, it's really helpful to a relative newbie :)

"

Fabiofun1986 wrote:

Thanks for the build, im trying it.
Next time I recommend you to make a levelling tree in pob

Hi, no problem, hope you like it!
I will try to update it in PoB with the leveling tree, I also have pending adding the build comments in it.

"

daneelahuila wrote:

hey. you have showcase ?

Hi, I'm planning on creating a couple vids for YouTube, will update with link in the future.

"

inisfree1952 wrote:

I have to say, of all the guides I've read through, this is the most detailed and easy to understand one that I've seen. You did an awesome job! Thanks for all the detail and explanations, it's really helpful to a relative newbie :)

Thanks! Hope you give this build a try and enjoy it!

Updated with 3.25 comments. Will update full build details later, once PoB is updated.