Immortal Chronomancer - 13k ES CI, <2s recoup, one button map clear (180% rarity) (added video)

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RestInPieces#6294 wrote:

The only thing I hate with Unearth is that minion AI is not that great for following and they disappear when they go completely off-screen. Was thinking clear with living bomb or fucilade/fireball with multiple wildshard gems even if it's slower. But if incinerate much is worse for single target it's probably not worth it.

Yep, I resorted to just following the minions around for the most part to stop them disappearing. I keep casting Unearth as I move on corpses so there is always some minions around.


It's probably better this way that they're extremely aggressive. Like during a breach they spread out and kill stuff pretty fast. If there was a way to stop them disappearing offscreen it would be great though.


If I were to try other spells with this core setup I'd try:

- Incinerate with Cast on Ailment Living Bomb. Though finding 100 spirit for the Cast on Ailment is rough and the clear speed will probably be slow.

- Ice Nova + Frost Bolt. Not sure how much damage it would do without a lot of crit investment however.

- Other trigger builds might work too but will need more spirit once again. Also might require mana and crit investment.


The recoup feels good enough that Chronomancer is not 100% required. So can try it with other builds. Any Witch or Sorceress would be best as can keep the same skill tree where all the ES and Recoup nodes are.

Lich seems best overall. Just have to skip the "ES bypass node" so can still go CI. The other stuff like 33% explodes on death, 30% more damage when sacrificing ES and 40% more damage when using a power charge, plus the jewel slot are all good. Probably will have to do a cold/freeze build to get power charges with Combat Frenzy.

anything that uses Chaos Inoculation is full trash imho

That keystone is GGG's unofficial Baby Mode

I switched to a cold spec (Cast on Ailment) to see if it would work. Mainly same setup, except switched the chaos damage wand, focus and rings to cold versions. It's kind of trash as expected. Only good thing is Arctic Armour one shots anything that hits you.

Using Frostbolt to freeze, with Cast on Ailment linked to Comet. Also have a Comet linked to Spellslinger. The mana costs are just too high to sustain and that's with barely even proccing anything. Mana runs out in like 3 casts of Frostbolt. So it doesn't feel worth trying to solve.

Cold spec will be here once poe.ninja refreshes:

https://poe.ninja/poe2/builds/abyss/character/SaiyanZ-3112/Saiyan_EZ


The final setup for the chaos version (contagion) which is infinitely better is here:

https://poe.ninja/poe2/pob/10edc

Also realized that Zenith doesn't currently work in PoB. So the Essence Drain is actually doing 30% more.

In the current state of the game for spells, it seems like mana is going to be a problem for any direct damage spell build and it will require heavy investment to solve. Or will have to cast spells with life which is the Lich/Blood Mage meta. Investing in pure mana just to play the game doesn't feel worth. DoT builds like Contagion need zero mana investment, especially with Brutus support where you rarely ever need to cast Contagion.

Been looking at other options to make use of the recoup core and solve mana issues at the same time. An Infernalist with Pyromantic Pact seems like it would solve mana issues and recoup will actually heal us with enough recoup speed.

Other than that, Infernalist has a few options. The fire nodes are decent. However cast on ailment on its own seems kind of slow to trigger things. So I'm going with the life reservation nodes for more spirit and ES (no CI). Then will have enough spirit to use both cast on crit and cast on ailment without using a sceptre. Just need to switch to a bunch of crit nodes, use maligaros and pinpoint critical with cold spells to get close to 100% crit chance.

Will take a few days to level up a new character and test. Damage potential and tankiness seems like it might be higher than Lich builds using the life recovery tech to spam spells.

Only thing that might brick the build is the self ignites. How often and how strong they are. Because have to recoup the raw fire damage and also offset the ignites.

So the Infernalist works amazingly well. Recoup is enough to easily cover the Pyromantic Pact damage taken. I just switched to the Cast on Crit + Cast on Ailment setup at lvl80 and ran a T3 Xesht. Boss died in a few seconds. Already have over 10k ES.

Will level it to lvl90 for lvl21 gems and make a new thread maybe for the build when I'm done tweaking.

I decided to do a challenge run and see if I can level up a new character without dying (twinked). Was pretty easy with this build whilst doing Delirious T15 maps with +200% rarity.

Just made a couple updates to the build:

- I optimized the weapon swap passives to boost the Despair curse massively. It now shreds 125% of chaos res. It's half that on bosses I think but that's still a huge dps bump with a full screen cursed ground.

- Upgraded the wand from +6 skills to +8 skills.

- Got a Rite of Passage (Owl) charm for 80% increased damage and 60% increased energy shield.

Got to lvl96 in 5 days deathless. Will stop here now as EXP/HR is kind of slow from lvl96+. lvl96 to lvl97 will take almost as much time as lvl1 to lvl96.

https://imgur.com/a/8LkCdvo


Leveling up through the campaign from lvl1 is fast as hell with this build and twinked items (cheapish too):

- Get a Tabula
- Get 6x jewels with chaos damage and spell damage (other two mods can be mana related or recoup, etc.) These are quite cheap too.
- Equip it and you'll have up to 165% increased damage at lvl1.
- 5 socket the Contagion and Unearth gems at lvl1 with the same setup as in the final PoB. (Brutus support for Unearth is only available at lvl65 but you can use the one that reduces damage taken for minions till then)

With this setup you'll blast through the campaign faster than ever. Just cast Contagion on the first pack, then Unearth them and run behind the minions just casting Unearth on corpses.

As you level up:

- Get Essence Drain at lvl6 and 5 socket it with the same final setup in the PoB. This will instant kill all act bosses. Even Contagion on its own is enough early on with all the damage from the Tabula.
- Level up Contagion, Unearth and Essence Drain whenever possible.
- At lvl10 equip a Goldrim helm which will solve most resistances
- At lvl11 equip Wanderlust boots for 20% movement speed
- At lvl16 equip Doedre's gloves for 100% increased spell damage
- If you want to spend more to twink, a low level Lifesprig for +3 spell skills will carry the weapon slot to lvl60+. Otherwise just get some cheap wands with +chaos spell skills and spell/chaos damage.
- On the focus slot you just want +spell skills and spell damage and/or chaos damage.
- On the amulet slot you just want +spell skills and as much life as possible.
- Use the ring slots to get as much life as possible and cap out resistances.


Final PoB: https://poe.ninja/poe2/pob/11620

The damage is more than displayed due to several things not currently working in PoB. Like Zenith support or charm buffs.

Poe ninja: https://poe.ninja/poe2/builds/abyss/character/SaiyanZ-3112/SaiyanEZZ

Taking a break from the game now unless I can think of some other build to make/play that has good defenses and damage/clear.

Edit: Recorded a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5ZKrI3DG4

I've been trying to see if the is any way to sustain Comet spam with trigger gems with any class. Nothing really can get enough mana per second.

Mana recoup gets close with Scold's Bridle and Midnight Braid plus a few efficiency nodes to make spells cost less. I've seen the mana recovery go over 3000 per second while mapping. There is a slight ramp up time if you haven't been killing anything for a couple seconds where you can run out of mana and triggers fail. However afterwards it's fine.

I don't think it's worth doing over the Contagion build but it does work to solve mana issues for spamming triggers. Loses about 4k ES (only 10k ES with good gear) and also loses about 40% increased recoup speed because we can't use Darkness Enthroned belt. Clear speed is maybe a little slower than Contagion. However dropping Comets from the sky and freezing everything is fun. Ran a few T15 maps with it and it clears so it is a viable build.

PoB: https://poe.ninja/poe2/pob/11722

Seems like there are no major changes to this build in the patch notes. So it should still be fine for the endgame.

Fewer mobs doesn't matter too much as the Unearth minions are aggressive and run around spreading Contagion. Contagion damage gets high enough to clear on its own. ED is just used for tougher mobs

40% more HP on mobs would have mattered but they also removed delirium instilling. So every map will no longer have boosted HP/toughness from adding 3x Paranoia, etc.

The recoup speed was nerfed a bit as we can't stack the same runes anymore in boots and belt. It's limited to 1. Recoup speed will be around 3 seconds instead of 2 seconds which should still be fine. Will use another belt instead of Darkness Enthroned. Maybe one of the unique ones, or just use the slot to get more resistances which will make gearing for all other slots easier. A rare belt with resistances is probably the best play for league start.

The limit to 1 rune however means we can use other runes as well like the movement speed one for boots, or just get more ES by using an Iron rune (in helm, gloves and boots). So the rune gearing remains similar, except just use an Iron rune where the runes are limited to 1.


I'm going to play this again to see if I can hit lvl100 deathless.

Final PoB: https://poe.ninja/poe2/pob/11620
For those who don't know how to use the PoB link, you need to open Path of Building and import the build using the link above.



Only major concern would really be the Sacrosanctum price as you want it before switching to CI. Sacrosanctum was buffed to give an extra 10% recoup. The buff doesn't really matter too much as this build already gets around 180% recoup. However Sacrosanctum was already a rare item so the price will likely be higher now as more players might be using it. Especially the corrupted ones.


As for leveling, it's fairly simple as you have Contagion and Unearth at lvl1. ED at lvl6. So it plays pretty much the same way as in the endgame.

Just cast Contagion on a mob and cast Unearth on the corpse when it dies. Then run behind the Unearthed minions and keep summoning more while they kill everything. Untwinked on a fresh start will likely require more use of ED until gear is better.

To survive during the campaign, I think it's just best to stack as much life as possible while leveling, and focus on chaos/spell damage, and +spell levels for damage. I only feel comfortable switching to CI once I get the Sacrosanctum at lvl68. I'd ignore all ES and recoup nodes on the passive tree until then. Just focus on damage and life.

As for ascendancy, the Quicksand Hourglass node is kind of insane at lvl25. Average of 30% increased cast speed and 30% increased AOE. Probably one of the best 2 pointers for leveling from all ascendancies. The rest doesn't matter too much until maps (recoup and slow node). So I usually will just wait until I gear up and switch to CI before getting the rest of the points.

Great build overall, served me well in .3!

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