How To Craft Shaper Influenced Mace & Elder/Warlord Influenced Axe In POE 3.23? - Trauma Stacking Gear Crafting Guide
Feb 28, 2024 Source: POECURRENCY
Greetings Exile, today I will show you how to make Trauma Stacking weapons. We’ll be focusing on two key weapons, Two Handed Shaper-influenced Mace and One Handed Elder/Warlord influenced Axe that I’ve used in past builds.
Before we get into that, let’s clarify what trauma stacking weapons are. These weapons are optimized for Trauma Support introduced in POE 3.22.
Unlike traditional weapons, Trauma Stacking weapons do not require a flat physical damage prefix because Trauma Support provides flat physical damage based on the number of Trauma Stacks.
As you accumulate attack skills, the faster you attack, the more Trauma Stacks you build, resulting in higher overall damage. Let’s get started now.
Two Handed Shaper-Influenced Mace
Let’s start making our mace. We need a Shaper-influenced Piledriver, preferably at least level 83. Of course, you can also choose to spend POE Currency to purchase directly.
Step 1
Our first step involves Fossil crafting. We will be using a combination of Corroded Fossil and Metallic Fossil. This combination ensures that we don’t roll any elemental or physical modifiers, significantly improving our chances of rolling modifiers. We then add 2 to the level of the socketed melee gem, and the damage of socketed skills increases by 20%.
Step 2
Our goal is to remove all modifiers except the prefix we need. If we accidentally cancel one prefix, we will have to go back to step one.
Here’s a tip. If your item has open suffixes and only the two specific prefixes we need, you can make the prefixes unchangeable. You can use an Orb of Scouring, which will clear out all suffixes, leaving us with a clean base with only the prefix modifiers we need.
Step 3
The craft prefix cannot be changed. Use Aisling to unveil the prefix for increased physical damage and a chance of Poison, Impale, Blind, or Bleed. This happens 95% of the time if you unveil the suffix. Please use an Orb of Scouring and restart this step.
Here’s a tip: if you unveil prefixes and miss the mods you need, check all three available prefixes, look for mods that don’t have attack tags and unveil them. Since Craft cannot roll attack modifiers, you can use Orbs of Annulment to safely remove unwanted mods. If all mods have attack tags, consider venturing to YOLO.
Step 4
The crafting prefix cannot be changed, and you need to use Harvest Crafting Bench to find the 27% Tier 1 attack speed. If not implemented, it cannot be repeated by crafting a prefix, and reforge speed will be required until Tier 1 attack speed is reached.
If all suffixes are populated during reforge, the only options are YOLO or using Hinekora’s Lock.
Step 5
From now on at step five, your crafting process is deterministic and your weapon will not brick unless you have pepehands. If you removed the attack mod craft that didn’t roll, try Orbs of Annulment again and repeat slamming again until you hit the blast mod or the desired modifier.
Step 6
Using Tier 4 Hillock gains 30% weapon quality and crafting has a 10% chance of double damage from Crafting Bench. Finally, use Harvest Bench to enchant, which increases attack speed by 1% for every 8% of quality.
One Handed Elder/Warlord Influenced Axes
Continuing with our axe craft. We need two one-handed axes, one Elder influenced and one Warlord influenced. Make sure one basis is a Siege Axe and is at least item level 83.
Step 1
Our first step involves a small rolling damage overtime multiplier to bleed with this weapon on Elder influenced Axe hybrid, increasing the physical damage and attack speed prefix mode on Warlord influenced Axe.
Step 2
Use Orb of Scouring to combine them, making sure the last base is Siege Axe, and cancel all other modifiers except the specific ones we need. If you accidentally unchecked any required modifiers, go back to step one.
Also, make sure you have only one specific influenced modifier per base that we need before using Orb of Scouring. If any base has multiple influenced modifiers, there is a risk of bricking items.
Step 3
Craft cannot roll attack modifiers and slam Exalted Orbs until you fill up all the prefixes. By doing this, you can safely remove the placeholder prefix later.
Step 4
The craft prefix cannot be changed and uses Harvest Bench’s reforge speed until it reaches 27% of Tier 1 attack speed.
Step 5
Craft prefix cannot be changed. Please use Aisling Unveil. If you accidentally deleted the attack speed mod, go back to step four. Here’s a tip: you can improve your chances of unveiling the correct mod by making a trigger socketed spell mod before unveiling.
Step 6
Craft cannot roll attack modifiers and uses Orbs of Annulment to remove our placeholder prefix mod. If it fails, restart the step. Otherwise, close your eyes and slam an Exalted Orb.
Step 7
As an ultimate step, use Crafting Bench to gain 20% physical damage over time multiplier, utilize tier 4 Hillock to gain 30% weapon quality, and finally apply Harvest enchantment to increase attack speed by 3%.
This concludes this guide for making Trauma Stacking weapons. If you found this crafting guide helpful, please consider sharing it with other Exiles. Good luck.
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How To Build The Best Melee Strength Stacker In POE 3.25? - Volcanic Fissure Of Snaking Ascendant
Hello Exiles, we are back with a new build! In Path of Exile 3.25, we focus on Volcanic Fissure of Snaking skill because it works well with area effects and single targets, and can automatically snake to the target and even run off-screen.
If you are also a melee totem lover, then don’t miss this build, because this Melee Strength Stacker can not only bring you the most crazy game experience but also the best choice to complete 4 Voidstones and Tier 17 maps, that is Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Ascendant.
Build Overview
First, we link Volcanic Fissure of Snaking skill to Dawnstrider, making the totem slam for you, scaling the damage and some layers of defense by stacking very high Strength, and finally using some items that benefit from Strength to make the build work perfectly.
But when the game forces the use of Dawnstrider Unique Boots, we lose the opportunity to equip Alberon’s Warpath, which can increase our Strength by percentage. This makes us have to use other methods to find Strength increase.
On the other hand, we have an extra 6-Link that can be used instead. Here, you can choose Pyroclast Mine of Sabotage to increase fire damage to nearby enemies, especially when you encounter powerful monsters.
For Ascendancy class, we chose Ascendant, which can provide us +1 to the maximum number of totems available. For other classes, you can choose as needed.
You can also choose Champion to get Taunted and Aura effect. If you plan to play Tectonic Slam of Cataclysm, you can choose Chieftain for increased Strength, or choose Warcry or even Juggernaut. Of course, choosing Warden for Spell Suppression and Tincture is also good.
When we tried the normal map, this build got about 10 million Pinnacle DPS. When you encounter the boss while using Pyroclast Mine, you can get about 20 million Pinnacle DPS, 80% Attack Block, 100% Suppress Spell, 75% Elemental and Chaos Resistance, and 100% chance to avoid Elemental Ailments.
If you sacrifice Suppress Spell and the chance to avoid Elemental Ailments and use Versatile Combatant instead, your DPS can easily exceed 30 million. If you play Tectonic Slam of Cataclysm, your DPS numbers will soar to more than 100 million. This is crazy!
How To Scale Your DPS?
Although our main DPS comes from using Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Totems, we still have the option to scale DPS through Strength Stacking.
Among them, Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler is a very useful and low-cost Strength Stacking weapon, which can provide us with 4 to 7 Fire damage for every 10 Strength points. Even players with a low POE Currency budget can afford it.
In addition, Iron Fortress can provide Strength-based Attack Block, and a large amount of Flat Strength. Since Strength has a greater impact on melee physical damage, this mod will also be applicable to Iron Will Keystone, which will cause the melee physical attack damage bonus increased by Strength to also apply to spells.
The last piece is a Crown of Eyes, which is a unique Hubris Circlet that can cause spell damage, and also applies to attacks, with a damage value of 150% of the attack value. This makes this combination popular in Strength Stacking.
Defense
Since this is a build that uses Totems, your character doesn’t need to stay in high-risk attack areas because you have Totems working for you. This means that in the early stages of Red Map, you may not think too much about Blocking and Spell Suppression.
In terms of defense, we still need to make full use of Strength. Iron Fortress Armor can help us better resist attacks, but its negative effect will make Spell Defense unlucky, which makes it seem not worthwhile to add Spell Defense while defending against attacks.
Therefore, you need to focus more on Spell Suppression. Since we can get a lot of Dexterity from Astramentis, using Split Personality Jewel can give us enough Dexterity for Magebane to play a role. Coupled with some Skill Trees and Dex-Base Equipment that provides Spell Suppression, combined, our Spell Suppression can even reach 100%.
When the chance of Spell Suppression is equal to 100%, you can consider equipping Ancestral Vision, which will increase your chance of avoiding Elemental Ailments to 50%.
Of course, you can also add more from your Skill Tree and Shields to bring the total to 100%. But all of these may not be necessary. Because the goal of playing Totems is to let Totems handle dangerous situations for us, and use the free time of your character to study the movements of enemies around you and move to avoid danger from those monsters.
In Cluster Jewel, there is a skill called Snaring Spirits. The skill is triggered when you place a Totem in an area with a group of monsters. This will cause that group of monsters to be affected by Hinder debuff. This debuff can reduce the enemy’s movement speed by 30% for 4 seconds.
In short, your choice of defense layer depends on what you farm.
Skill Tree
For Skill Tree, since Dawnstrider Unique Boots are only available at level 62, we can’t play Slam Totem from the beginning. So it is recommended that you go left first to pick up a Strength Stacking node for Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler.
Before the end of Act 10, you can easily do Abyss farming with Spell Suppression Version. You can also try other skills that use Endurance Charges, such as Tectonic Slam. But because part of Skill Tree is based on Lethal Pride Timeless Jewel, choose the passive skill accordingly, and you can change it at will.
In short, there are many different setups in the entire build process. Each type has its pros and cons, depending on the play style. Therefore, you can definitely create the best build around Volcanic Fissure of Snaking based on your play style! After all, the right one is the best!
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What Will Be The Impact Of The Changes To Monster Damage Mechanic In Path Of Exile 2?
Hello fellow Exiles, we’re here to continue talking about the changes to the mechanics between Path of Exile 2 and 1 to help you prepare for the launch of POE 2 Early Access on November 15th. In this guide, we’ll focus on discussing Monster Damage categories, such as the removal of the distinction between spells and attacks, and take a deep dive into the enormous changes in monster damage from POE 1 to POE 2 and how damage is categorized.
Removal Of The Distinction Between Monster Spells And Attacks
In Path of Exile 2, Monster Damage will no longer be categorized as a spell or attack with character mechanics that interact with these types. A great example of this in Path of Exile 1 was Spell Suppression, which reduced the damage of incoming spells but did not interact with incoming attacks in any way.
Now, these distinctions will no longer exist, so players will no longer have to guess or learn about these types to know which mechanics interact with them. This means you can focus more on investing POE Currency in your armor to continually increase your damage reduction cap.
Monster Damage Categories Still Exist
There will still be categories for Monster Damage, similar to what already existed in POE 1. For example, if Monster Damage is an AOE ability, Monster Damage will still have tags attached to it, such as Area of Effect. This is important for mechanics that still interact with Monster Damage to determine how they will interact.
Since Monster Damage is no longer an attack or a spell, Evasion will work against any damage that is classified as a projectile or strike, but not against damage that is classified as an Area of Effect. For example, Monster Area of Effect abilities, especially those that deal significant damage during boss encounters, are usually well communicated, making it easier to understand that it is something the player should avoid getting hit by.
Deflection Stat
Since there is no longer a distinction between monster attacks and spells, and Evasion will still exist, what does this mean for Spell Suppression? At least in the current implementation of POE 1, Spell Suppression will not be present in POE 2, and this change to Monster Damage has already happened.
In fact, just 3 months ago, GGG’s Console Event in Los Angeles revealed that Spell Suppression is in POE 2, but it’s not just Spell Suppression, because there is another new stat called Deflection. It is essentially the offensive counterpart of Spell Suppression, and it works exactly the same as Spell Suppression, just against attacks instead of spells.
But since the distinction between monster attacks and spells is gone now, we can safely assume that both stats will disappear, and something else may replace them to help counter AOE abilities of those Evasion-based builds. But be aware that this is just speculation.
Blocking Mechanic Changes
Another important thing worth mentioning is that Blocking in Path of Exile 2 functions similarly to Evasion. In terms of the types of monster damage it will interact with, you will be able to block incoming Projectiles and Strikes, but larger damage effects, like Boss abilities, will be represented as unblockable.
Monster Damage Is Key To Balanced Game
Now, balancing Monster Damage is a very positive change for Path of Exile 2 from a developer’s perspective. Since Path of Exile 1 introduced Spell Suppression mechanic in patch 3.16, the core game has slowly been balanced around its presence.
This is often very noticeable when you play a character with Spell Suppression investment versus one without. But since the distinction between attacks and spells will be removed in POE 2, the developers have the opportunity to normalize Monster Damage from the start. This will ensure that there will be less variation in situations where monster damage is very dramatic, with the exception of damage from large monster abilities that should be avoided.
At the same time, mechanics like Evasion and Blocking will be easier to understand for players not only mechanically, but visually as well. If you see an incoming Arrow or Fireball, you know you can Evasion and Block it. But if you see a giant slam falling on your head, you know you should run away from the complexity of the game.
Other Differences In Monster Damage Mechanics
Of course, GGG still has many avenues to explore to create interesting mechanics and unique item modifiers without specific monster attacks or spells.
Besides that, Monster Damage in POE 2 will still have many differences from POE 1, such as the actual damage type, including Chaos, Elemental or Physical, whether it is an AOE ability or melee or ranged, whether it is a Ground Effect and Ailments it can cause and so on. In Path of Exile 2, they still have many ways to create compelling defense options for players.
In short, the above are the changes to Monster Damage mechanic that will happen in the upcoming Path of Exile 2. Knowing these new changes will help you to classify all the damage during the battle and avoid the damage as much as possible, and survive to the end! Anyway, let’s look forward to its arrival!
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How To Create Special Build Around Lacerate Skill In POE 3.25 To Experience The Game?
In POE 3.25, if you have just started to experience the game, you will definitely need some guidance to help you. Among them, how to use some special Builds to advance the game process is particularly important.
In order to experience more and richer game content faster, it means that you need to quickly and effectively Level up when you first start playing the game. In this process, you may also need to do some related exploration and combat in the game.
If you don’t want to spend some POE Currency for additional exploration, but want to play from the beginning of the game to Endgame more quickly and smoothly, you can use Lacerate Skill with Damage attached. It can help you pass the game in just a few hours without affecting the game experience.
In fact, this Lacerate Build is a special Build in the game. It can help you find ways to get Voidstones in the game, so that your Leap Slam Attack Skill is more powerful than Attack Skill of other Builds!
This Build, which can powerfully change your Bleed effect, has been overlooked because Cyclone has attracted a lot of attention that originally belonged to it. This may be because Lacerate Skill cannot be regarded as a true Melee Skill, and its function may be somewhat awkward when playing it within the radius of Range.
Based on the above content, the following will introduce you to Lacerate Build from several specific aspects:
Advantages
As a Build that can be used in the early stage of the game, it is a good choice to use it because it does not require you to have extraordinary operating Skills.
Lacerate with Damage attached is not only suitable for Solo Self-Found and Trade League Mechanic but also effective when you encounter any other League Mechanic. For example, Farming Blight, Expedition, Breach, Ritual.
In addition, when you use Long Range Melee Skills, Lacerate Build can provide you with more options when facing powerful Monsters.
Disadvantages
Despite its outstanding advantages, this Build also has certain shortcomings. As a Build related to Melee Skills, although it has some strengths in Range, it still requires you to use appropriate Positioning Skills when facing Endgame.
And Melee Skills feature of Lacerate Build also makes it have too many buttons to operate. In addition, because of some problems in the current game, it cannot be infinitely Scaled. Even if best Equipment is used on this basis, Damage it causes is difficult to exceed 5 DPS.
How To Optimize Lacerate Build?
To use this Build better, first you need to get a very critical Item, Jack, the Axe. Then integrate it with Sundering Axe. Therefore, if Class you play in the game is Juggernaut, Axe you finally get will become a very lethal Item in your hand.
Then add three Mods on this basis to cause Flat Damage, and then you can use the final Axe to start using this Build more smoothly. You can also continue to enhance your Build with other Equipment with a certain Rarity later.
In fact, this Build can also help you increase Area of Effect by 20%. Facing some challenging Monsters in the game, you can also easily defeat them. And this Build can help you improve your Focus, so that you can better concentrate on everything within your field of vision without being affected.
In addition, Lacerate Build can also ensure that your Defenses can maintain their solidity, to help you continue to lay the foundation for better use of Build in the future. Maybe you can also save some POE Currency.
In the relatively long early Level process, this Build can provide you with 7 million Bleed, allowing you to experience more fun in Endgame.
Lacerate Build provides some freshness in terms of Damage caused by Bleed that other Builds rarely give players. For example, it allows Lacerate Skill to Scale without using other Skills, including Critical Strike.
When you enter Act 3 in POE 3.25, there is a Passive Skill Tree in each Act’s Map. In Passive Skill Tree, you can keep your Blood Stance and Sand Stance effects at 100% by giving priority to Spell Suppression. After that, by Leveling your Build to the final stage, you can cause a lot of Damage in battle!
Lacerate Build is a Build that speeds up your gameplay in the game. This form of Build allows you to get a unique and smooth gaming experience, whether at the beginning or at the end of the game, so that you can experience more joy rather than torture during the long Leveling process.
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How Does Damage Conversion Mechanic Work In Path Of Exile 2?
Path of Exile 2 Early Access will be officially launched on November 15th! So here, we will focus on the changes in the mechanics between Path of Exile 2 and 1 so that you are ready on the release day! This guide aims to introduce Damage Conversion mechanic in the game, such as converting to and gaining additional modifiers.
In fact, this change is one of the biggest changes in the mechanic balance of POE 2, which not only has a great impact on a series of builds but also is equally important for GGG to balance the game in the future. So let’s get into Damage Conversion mechanic in Path of Exile 2.
Different Forms Of Damage Conversion
Typically, Damage Conversion has two forms: one is to convert a part of the damage of one type to another type, eliminating the source damage; the other is to add a part of the damage of one type to another type, keeping the source damage unchanged. These are defined as converting to modifiers and gaining as additional modifiers.
Conversion Order
Damage Conversion always follows the following conversion order: Physical → Lightning → Cold → Fire → Chaos.
Although Damage Conversion only works in one direction, you can skip damage types to reach the next direction in Damage Conversion chain. For example, Physical Damage converts to Fire Damage, but you can’t go backwards. You can’t convert Chaos Damage to Lightning Damage.
Therefore, you must invest in the correct equipment to ensure the successful and effective operation of Damage Conversion mechanism. Otherwise, you will not only waste your hard-earned POE Currency, but you may also be fatally hit by the enemy!
In POE 1, however, damage always remembers its source damage type. For example, Physical Damage converted to Fire Damage will remember its physical source, meaning that modifiers applied to Physical Damage can still be applied to damage even if it’s processed as Fire Damage. Therefore, players can use modifiers for both Physical and Fire damage to scale this damage.
Damage Conversion Priority
Damage Conversions over 100% will now be scaled back to 100%. This only affects modifiers that are converted, not additional modifiers that are gained.
However, there is a priority system for Damage Conversion, with the highest priority being any conversion that is considered a Skill Type Conversion. This is any conversion that exists on Skill Gems, such as the one on Smite Skill Gem.
This also includes any conversions from Support Skill Gems, such as Physical to Lightning Support. These types of conversions have the highest priority and will not be scaled down if possible, and any other conversion modifiers, such as those from equipment modifiers or Passive Skill Tree, will be applied afterwards.
As an example, let’s say a character is using Smite with Physical to Lightning Support, so 100% of their Physical Damage will be converted to Lightning Damage, which is all a Skill Type Conversion. If this character has Unique Gloves Hrimsorrow equipped, 100% of their Physical Damage will be converted to Cold Damage. But since 100% of the damage has already been converted via Skill Type Conversion, this modifier has no effect.
Changes To Damage Conversion Mechanic
Now in POE 2, there is a very important change to Damage Conversion mechanic, and that is that damage will no longer remember its source type.
Using our previous example as a comparison, in POE 1, Physical Damage converted to Fire, and the player could scale this damage using modifiers for both Physical and Fire. But this is not the case in POE 2.
The converted damage portion can only be scaled by the modifiers that apply to the final converted damage type, which is the damage being dealt. This is a vast change that will have a tremendous impact on build crafting. Because this will significantly change the way damage scales in a build that converts damage, and some of the vectors that were previously used to scale damage are gone in POE 2.
Does The Change To Damage Conversion Mean A Nerf?
Now the important thing to mention here is that this does not mean that Damage Conversion chains are necessarily useless in POE 2, because the modifiers that provide the additional damage are calculated before the conversion.
For example, one modifier that is still very powerful in a Damage Conversion chain is that it provides additional Chaos Damage for each non-Chaos Damage type in the chain.
Another interesting aspect of this change from a developer's perspective is balance. As mentioned before, the current Path of Exile has a strict Damage Conversion order. But we don’t know yet if this order will remain in POE 2, or how it will be enforced. They may keep the order, but simply to prevent looting in the presence of mirror conversions. They may also remove the order for general use, allowing for more possible conversions.
But we don’t know anything about this, so you can safely assume for now that it will work exactly as it did in POE 1 until further notice. That’s Damage Conversion mechanic in Path of Exile 2, and knowing more about how it works will help you deal with all the enemies in the upcoming Early Access with aplomb!
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Why Was The Unique Body Armor In Path Of Exile 3.25 Forgotten By Players? - Reasons & Effects
As always, the arrival of a new league brings with it a number of new changes, but the most notable addition to POE 3.25 is the addition of 60 new Base Types, spread across Helmets, Armor, Boots, and Gloves slots. These new Base Types were introduced primarily to balance out the fact that characters previously had mostly basic defensive stats.
The change nerfed Defensive Auras and indirectly nerfed a number of unique items and builds. This was especially true for Archetypes that lacked investment elsewhere to scale defensive stats, as these specific builds relied heavily on using Auras combined with a decent amount of Aura effect scaling to get reasonable defensive power. This meant that a lot of players would use important unique items in these situations, with a good example from previous patches being Lightning Coil.
However, the addition of these new Base Types and the subsequent nerf to Defensive Auras ended up significantly nerfing the use of these unique items. Because these PoE items are not compensated in any way by the nerfs to Auras.
It is very likely that GGG will move some unique items to the new Base Type without changing their stats, effectively buffing these items with updated base defense stats. After all, they have done this before for other unique items.
Here, we will take a look at the impact of these changes to get a better understanding of what things will be stronger in Settlers of Kalguur League.
Why Is There A Sharp Drop In The Usage Of Unique Body Armour?
The usage of unique items has dropped sharply in PoE 3.25, especially Unique Body Armour. When comparing PoE 3.24 Necropolis and PoE 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur, we can see that the gap is staggering.
In Softcore Trade League, the usage of Rare Body Armour has almost doubled, from 27% of all characters in PoE 3.24 to 48% of all characters in PoE 3.25 now. This is of course not 100% because of the new Base Types and Aura Nerfs, but is influenced by another important factor: what exactly is popular and what builds are being played?
For example, Deadeye is the most popular class in Necropolis, and across all those Deadeye builds, over 80% of builds use Unique Body Armour. Whereas for the most popular class in Settlers of Kalguur, Slayer, only 26% of builds use Unique Body Armour.
But if we isolate Deadeye for a moment, we can see that Unique Armour usage has dropped significantly across both leagues for builds with similar classes, down 26%.
The core reason for these shifts is of course the increased power level of Rare Body Armour relative to these Unique choices. More importantly, using Unique Armour in POE 3.25 means you give up a lot of Defensive stats, which you could previously make up for by using Defensive Auras, but now these nerfs are not compensated. This trend can be seen across Unique Body Armours with only a few exceptions.
Examples
Here we’ll take two specific Unique Armours as examples. These two Body Armours have been a big part of the meta for many build Archetypes for a long time before this patch, Lightning Coil and Fourth Vow.
Lightning Coil
Lightning Coil usage has dropped from 8% of Necropolis characters to 2% of Settlers of Kalguur, a 75% reduction in characters using Lightning Coil.
A big factor here is that there are half as many Pathfinder characters in Path of Exile 3.25 as there were in POE 3.24. But the reason for this is not the introduction of those new Base Types, but another change to Damage Taken As, which significantly nerfed Taste of Hate and other stats, making it impossible for characters to achieve 100% Physical Damage Taken As Elemental.
This was a very popular way to deal physical damage before. In older leagues, this, combined with the nerf to the monster Overwhelm, made traditional ways of defending against physical damage like Armor and Endurance Charges much more reliable. This is why using Lightning Coil, while not mandatory for many builds, is still very useful and still very popular.
But overall, the change in POE 3.25 from a purely damage-focused defense setup to a hybrid multi-layered defense setup has seen Lightning Coil usage decline somewhat.
Fourth Vow
This is an interesting unique for Fourth Vow. Fourth Vow has always been the go-to for defense setups, and by combining it with Divine Flesh and stacking a lot of armor, it can completely mitigate the upcoming Elemental Hit.
But from POE 3.24 to POE 3.25, the usage of Fourth Vow has dropped from 6% to 0.7%. There are some very important factors at play here that you may not immediately recognize just from the usage rate and the builds that use it.
While the percentage of Necromancers using the item as a percentage of the class usage has increased, the number of Necromancers actually using it has decreased significantly because of the nerf to Detonate Dead. Meanwhile, the nerf to Champion Ascendancy didn’t help Fourth Vow much either.
But those two factors only affected the number of builds that could use Fourth Vow. There were three other very big changes that had an enormous impact on the item.
The first and probably the biggest change is that they removed Divine Blessing Support, which had incredible synergy with Fourth Vow. Since it combined with Divine Flesh would make Energy Shield almost useless since all damage would bypass it, these builds would use Eldritch Battery to solve the mana cost and grant it Energy Shield, allowing the use of the extra Aura with Divine Blessing. But Divine Blessing is gone now, and with it these builds lose a lot of power from the extra Aura.
The second big change is of course the nerf to Determination. 99% of Fourth Vow builds in POE 3.24 used Determination, while only 91% did so in POE 3.25. While the percentage drop isn’t huge, the actual number of people using Fourth Vow is much lower. And this nerf to Determination is one of the key factors for this. It also means that these builds now need to invest more POE Currency to achieve the same level of armor as before.
The third major change is about Juggernaut Unbreakable. Unbreakable Ascendancy Passive Skill no longer provides 8% armor applied to incoming Fire, Cold, and Lightning. Now it has 15% armor applied to incoming Chaos damage as well.
Juggernaut Unbreakable has incredible synergy with Fourth Vow and Divine Flesh, allowing the character to split incoming elemental damage into multiple types to apply armor to each type to mitigate the damage. But the new Juggernaut relies more on Endurance Charges to mitigate elemental damage.
While you could argue that the new Unbreakable simply provides a new option to run a crafted Rare Body Armour and Divine Flesh to achieve similar results, the fact is that you gain an enormous benefit against physical damage by doing so. You’ll have access to more base armor and an extra PDR Suffix, not to mention the powerful Eldritch Implicit. Because of this change, the use of Fourth Vow in Juggernaut builds has dropped dramatically by over 50%.
Some Unique Body Armours Still Popular
While Unique Body Armour usage has dropped overall, not all Unique Body Armour has dropped. In fact, some Body Armour remains just as popular as they were in previous leagues, while some have even increased in popularity.
Cloak of Flame usage has remained around 8% in POE 3.25 leagues. This is thanks to the increased Chieftain play rate, which has increased the number of characters using Cloak.
Surprisingly, despite Battlemage’s Cry nerf, Iron Fortress Strength Stacking Body Armour has remained popular among Settlers of Kalguur.
One of the biggest winners, Cloak of Defiance, saw its usage increase by nearly 400% from POE 3.24 to POE 3.25.
Outro
Overall, Unique Body Armour usage has indeed dropped, which could change the focus of many players when creating builds. However, whether GGG makes any changes to these items in future leagues, whether it is buffing their unique stats, or simply moving them to a stronger Base Type, or perhaps they are also happy to make these items more niche, only time will tell.
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How To Make The Best Build Around Elemental Hit Of The Spectrum Skill In Path Of Exile 3.25? - Build Tips & Items
With the melee buff in the Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League, the ranged Ascendancies represented by Deadeye have been neglected by players. But if you need a speed-mapper that can farm Tier-17 maps, run Maven Invitations, and even fight bosses during the game, then Deadeye’s build is definitely your best choice.
Before making a build, we need to determine which skill you want to use mainly. Since Tornado Shot has been nerfed, you can choose the new Elemental Hit of the Spectrum skill. This guide will give you some suggestions around this build and introduce some items needed in this build so that you can complete this build as soon as possible.
Recommendations For The Build
As mentioned above, the most important skill for this build is Elemental Hit of the Spectrum, a new Transfigured gem added to this league that can cause three types of elemental damage to enemies - shock, ignite, and freeze, and also cause ailments to surrounding enemies.
In addition, this Transfigured gem can also be placed on Bows and Wands, so Elemental Hit of the Spectrum is the best skill in the Deadeye build. And this skill does not cause non-elemental damage, so you don’t have to use POE Currency in Physical Damage investment.
At the same time, the build equipped with Elemental Hit of the Spectrum is an extremely fast mapper, which can even allow you to complete the task of running the map in some maps with Pinnacle Bosses and get the last reward quickly.
However, the defense of this build is not very good. If you face some tanky bosses or bosses with high health, you need to pay attention to your position during the battle and avoid those boss telegraphs and deadly map modifiers, such as no leech and elemental reflect.
So you need to try to increase your Evasion to the upper limit and Spell Suppression to 100% before the battle so that you can better protect yourself. Even if you have very high HP leech, Endurance Charges, and Movement Speed, you still have to be careful to avoid getting hit.
Recommended Items
Uniques
While you can still be very powerful without Uniques in this build, your build will be even more powerful if you equip them! Here are Uniques you can choose from in each slot.
Helmet: You can use Rat’s Nest early in the build, which is everywhere. Then switch to Black Sun Crest when you do Omniscience swap.
Amulet: Similarly, you can use Hyrri’s Truth early in the build to get Culling Strike, free Precision, and a lot of Crit. Then at the endgame, you can swap it out for Crystallised Omniscience.
Body Armor: This Unique called Hyrri’s Ire can be equipped all the time without switching, as it provides you with a lot of Dexterity, Spell Suppression, Evasion, and flat Cold Damage.
Rings: This build doesn’t actually need the effects that Rings provide, but if you come across some nice and useful rings, you can use Kalandra’s Touch to copy them to the other hand. If you have a high attack speed and movement speed requirement in your build, you can choose Death Rush.
Belt: You can choose Headhunter to help you easily farm everything on the map, but if you don’t have Headhunter yet, you can take Bisco’s Leash as a short-term substitute, which is also very good.
Flasks: Here you can have two choices: Dying Sun can increase your clearing speed, and Progenesis can increase your survivability. The specific choice depends on your gaming habits and game ideas.
Jewels: You can choose Interrogation, Thread of Hope, Watcher’s Eye or a Lethal Pride.
If you get some Chaos Orbs during the leveling process, you can also use them to invest in Uniques in your build, this way your leveling process will be smoother and you will spend less. Here are Uniques you can choose from.
- Helmet: Goldrim, Rat’s Nest, Thrillsteel
- Body Armor: Tabula Rasa, Thousand Ribbons
- Gloves: Shadows and Dust
- Boots: Three-step Assault, Seven-league Step, Wanderlust
- Amule: Karui Ward
- Rings: Le Heup of All, Tasalio’s Sign
- Belt: Prismweave, Bisco’s Leash
- Weapon/Quiver: Hyrri’s Bite, Poised Prism, Silverbranch, Quill Rain
Ascendancy Order
To play this build, you need to ascend as Deadeye as it gives you a lot of fire speed, projectile damage and enhanced mark effect. But most importantly, it can fire two additional projectiles.
If you want to try Tinctures, you can also choose to play as Warden. But considering the speed of running the map and the power of the build, Deadeye is undoubtedly a better choice. So the order of your Ascendancy Nodes should be Gathering Winds, Far Shot, Endless Munitions, and then Focal Point.
The above is the build built around Elemental Hit of the Spectrum introduced in this guide. I hope it will be helpful for your exploration in this league. The items provided in this guide are for reference only. You can choose different items in specific situations. I wish you an auspicious time in the current Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League!