[Build of the Week][0.3] Grape Soda Powerwasher - Acolyte of Chayula Incinerate/Living Bomb

Current Character - https://poe.ninja/poe2/profile/SirToasti-5004/character/HotChalupa

Path of Building - https://pobb.in/_3rKwRD_o_wG

Build Showcase - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tco5Y-1HxmI

Why Acolyte of Chayula?
This was mostly an experiment with the volatility mechanic to see how well it could work. The result? It can be a pretty massive power spike, especially when paired with Catharsis Support and Ember Fusilade to consume volatility on demand.

Ascendancy Order
1- Waking Dream
2- Inner Turmoil
3- Unravelling
4- Chayula's Gift

Incinerate stacks volatility really fast, and monkey brain like purple fire with purple class. So here we are.

Why Incinerate?
Incinerate stacks volatility quickly by spamming ignites from both the beam and the burning ground created when consuming a fire remnant. The damage is also quite high with relatively low investment.

That said, it does have some drawbacks. Without burning ground, the damage feels a bit underwhelming and needs ramp-up time to reach its full potential.

Pros

• It's very purple.
• Ghost Shrouds, evasion, energy shield, and deflection make this a pretty tanky build. (As shown in my showcase, where I tank hits like a noob.)
• No uniques required. It made for a solid league starter once I figured out the pieces. That said, having 160 Spirit is a big QoL boost.
• It's super hipster, and that makes me feel cool.

Cons

• The start of each map takes a moment to get going. You need to get your fire remnant and fuel before you can really start blasting.
• You're constantly casting Incinerate, so movement is slow. You can improve this a bit with the Reduced Movement Speed Penalty rune (Farrul’s Rune of Grace) on boots.
• Not many good unique item options.
• First-World problem but, Headhunter stealing Shadowstep is kind of a pain if it teleports you while you’re not casting Incinerate.

Offense
First off: yes, it’s Incinerate. No, it doesn’t hit. So why crit?
((APPARENTLY)), crit still scales your ignite damage. PoB says it helps, and it feels stronger in-game too. With patch 0.3, Gas Grenade also works with crit now from what i hear, so it seems like skills that scale ailments "as though dealing X damage" now benefit from crit stats.

We also use a weapon swap setup with Ball Lightning to apply Despair and Critical Weakness via Effigy of Cruelty. There's also a bit of Wither stacking using Wicked Quill.

What we scale:

• Ailment magnitude
• Ignite magnitude
• Crit chance and crit multi
• Increased chaos damage (not fire)
• Any +X to spell skill level mods we can find

Defense
Running an Energy Shield / Evasion setup, which already performs well. Adding Deflection on gear gives a noticeable EHP boost.

Worth noting: Ghost Shrouds are consumed whenever volatility pops, even though you don’t take actual damage. This can be both good and bad, it means you can get ES back by popping with Ember Fusilade, but also means you might lose the shrouds when you actually need them.

Gems & Links
(Listed roughly in order of importance)

Living Bomb

• Overabundance 2
• Harmonic Remnants 2
• Withering Touch
• Zenith 2
• Magnified Area

Incinerate

• Burgeon 2
• Considered Casting
• Mobility
• Fire Mastery (Edit- Replace this with ignite 3 its so much nicer to play)
• Flex: Fiery Death / Persistent Ground / Ignite 3

Cast on Elemental Ailment

• Living Bomb
• Zenith 2
• Boundless Energy
• Flex: Overabundance 2 / Withering Touch / Energy Retention / Considered Casting / another Living Bomb

Ember Fusilade

• Catharsis
• Wildshards 2 or Sione’s Temper
• Fork
• Fourth slot is flexible — mainly used to trigger volatility

Ball Lightning (Weapon Swap 2)

• Pinpoint Critical
• Multishot 2
• Unleash
• Projectile Deceleration 2

Into the Breach / Mana Remnants

• Harmonic Remnants 2
• Remnant Potency 3

Uniques
Not many that are must haves, but a few are worth considering:

• Blackheart – Intimidate grants 10% more damage and 10% less damage taken.
• CrackleCreep – Hard to judge on paper, but it feels strong during juiced Abysses.
• Headhunter – It’s Headhunter. Still my favorite unique in PoE 1/2.
• Palm of the Dreamer – Probably very strong for this build, but it’s expensive and I don’t own one.
• Icefang Orbit – Tried it for a while. Chills and more poison chance felt good, but effectiveness is hard to quantify.
• Prism of Belief – +3 to Incinerate. Theoretically cheap, though 27d is still 27d.
• Heart of the Well – Some cheap rolls here but then again so are Ignite magnitude and crit damage jewels.

Anything I Should Know?

• This build can be a bit of a GPU melter, especially when spinning burning ground with Persistent Ground Support.
• If mobs jump you before you’ve ramped, you're in trouble. Simulacrum is especially rough for that reason, you need to keep the momentum going between rounds to maintain remnants and fuel.
• The audio can get a bit weird. Kind of sounds like someone playing Chubby Bunny with grapes in your ear. Whether that’s a pro or a con is up to you.

Final Thoughts
All in all, this is a decently strong hipster build that’s genuinely fun to play, if you enjoy spraying purple fire like you're powerwashing demons off the map.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I’m 95% sure a mirror will drop in your next map.

– Toastji