With the new league coming up right after Exilecon, GGG is trying their hand at auto-chess style mini-games. And with the introduction of 14 new support gems and 2 full ascendancy reworks, it promises some needed balance changes to the meta. However, the meta is still the way to go if you want to be successful in early league, and as such, you want builds that can tackle most of the content quickly and easily. So here are some of the best builds to League Start on Patch 3.22 The Trial of the Ancients!
10. Allie’s Death’s Oath Caustic Arrow Occultist
This lovely old build continues to be a treat to play, especially if you can afford a Headhunter and just zoom around without a care in the world. It got significantly buffed a few leagues ago, with its new Vaal Version, which has a baseline 3 times as high as regular CA!
What DO Caustic Arrow Excels in:
- Fantastic Clearing, you clear as you walk
- Good single target with investment
- Can do most content
- Perfect for League Starting
Pick DO Caustic Arrow if you Like:
- Builds that essentially play by themselves
- Play the same build right from level 1
- Purple and massive BoomBooms
Death’s Oath Caustic Arrow details:
- Death’s Oath is an Aura that degens you for 450 Chaos damage per 3 seconds after killing an Enemy. While this seems like a lot, when you’re an Occultist and have easy access to a lot of Chaos res, at 75% Chaos Res, that 450 Chaos Damage becomes a measly 133 (ish) Damage, which can easily be out-sustained. That’s not even considering if you have a Sanctified Relic that grants Max Chaos Res!
- The new Vaal Caustic Arrow has a damage ceiling that easily tops all other DoT base gems in the game, overtaking Fire Trap for the first time in over 4 leagues! It also has 2 charges, so you can have near-permanent upkeep of it during bossing, and it’s a delightful build to play.
- This type of build promotes investment and a lot of movement speed, and there’s no better movement speed belt than Headhunter. You could use a Bisco’s Leash or a Mageblood if you have it. Otherwise, a regular, strong Stygian Vise will serve you well.
For more information, check: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4zAoBSSWwU&ab_channel=Allie
9. CaptainLance’s Frost Blades Trickster
A strong league starter, Frost Blades’s power comes from the reworked Heatshiver and many melee changes to the passive tree in the last few patches.
What Frost Blades Trickster Excels in:
- Great League starter
- Insanely Fast clearer
- Strong single target
- Very comfortable mapper
Pick Frost Blades Trickster if you Like:
- Noticeable curve of progression
- Buttery smooth gameplay
- Freezing and exploding whole screens
- Projectiles flying everywhere
Frost Blades Trickster details:
- The build makes use of Heatshiver, a reworked helmet that essentially adds up to 130% of Cold damage as Fire. Since we are a full cold build, we just get massive damage boosts to our attack.
- One of the biggest issues Frost Blades had was its single target, though you could definitely get respectable numbers. Thanks to the fact that GGG hasn’t touched Nightblade yet, to the surprise of many, it was still hard to gun down bosses in a respectable manner. But with the ‘new’ anointment, that’s not the case anymore.
For more information, check here: https://youtu.be/Fbe6PUy3v6k
8. Jorgen’s Hexblast Mines Saboteur
This funky build uses some weird mechanics to get as much life as possible while also getting damage scaled off of that life. It can reach some impressive damage, and for those who enjoy mines, it’s downright OP.
What Hexblast Mines Excels in:
- Fairly Tanky
- Insane single-target damage
- Scaling life and getting damage out of it
- Can do all content
- Quite the budget option if you need it to be
Pick Hexblast Mines if you Like:
- Pre-laying all your damage and instantly exploding your enemies with a single detonation
- Smart use of niche mechanics to scale your damage
- Mines playstyle
Hexblast Mines details:
- We scale as much life as possible because Rathpith Globe, after the buffs to it in 3.19, started scaling our Spell Damage and Crit Chance for Spells in a 1:20 ratio. With a single item, you can get over 320% increased Spell Damage and Critical Strike Chance for Spells. It does come with the downside of making your mines cost life.
- To circumvent that and increase the amount of life we have, we use Dissolution of Flesh, a unique Jewel from Searing Exarch that grants up to a 30% MORE multiplier to our life, and makes it so all damage we take become reserved instead.
- This enables a different playstyle that might suffer from DoTs but is great at taking single big one-shot hits and not dying.
- Hexblast itself works by consuming a curse when it triggers, and with over 20 mines on the ground, you need a quick way of applying said curses. Thus, Profane Proxy. It makes it so the curse you put in is applied constantly by the Skitterbot of your choosing, and makes it so all triggers of your mines have the 100% more multiplier damage.
For more information, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W4lpQD2teE&ab_channel=Jorgen
7. Palstrom’s Explosive Arrow Ballista Ignite Elementalist
Obviously one of the best builds in the game, both for league starting and Uber Bossing farming, EA Ballista ignite has dominated the meta with the sheer ease to deal millions of damage while running around and dodging skillshots.
What Explosive Arrow Ballista Ignite Excels in:
- Tankyness.
- Can reach the DoT Cap (~37 million damage) easily.
- Very cheap to get started with, and can do all content
- Perfect for league start.
Pick Explosive Arrow Ballista if you Like:
- A jack of all trade build
- Clearing all content in the game without issues
- Drop your damage and run around like a headless chicken!
EA Ballista Ignite details:
- Because of how Elementalist works, any source of flat damage becomes fodder for your ignite damage. As such, you’ll want as much Flat damage, physical, chaos, elemental, doesn’t matter, as possible. In fact, you don’t want Flat Added Fire damage to attacks because that would brick Elemental Equilibrium and cost you millions of damage.
- The name of the game for EA is attack speed, combined with Faster Ignite. You must reach 20 stacks on the enemy, explode, and then do it repeatedly. The more ballistas you have, the quicker you get there, increasing your overall damage per second.
- Since the ballistas can cost a lot of mana, as EA has one of the highest base cost skills in the game, you can either use Lifetap or go with a Devouring Diadem. It also helps increase the amount of damage you deal, allowing you to fit in an extra aura and providing you with a lot of damage with a Focus button.
For more information, check here: https://youtu.be/x2U0lKR1HvQ
6. Goratha’s Lightning Arrow Champion
Goratha is famous for making strong starting builds that can do all content on a budget and SSF. This one is no exception, and his build guide is so thorough that you won’t feel lost at any point. He takes a different spin to the ‘Bow League’, and instead of going Deadeye like most did, he went with the tanky monster that is Champion.
What Goratha’s Lightning Arrow Champion Excels in:
- Fantastic Clearing
- Super Tanky
- Great single target
- Perfect for League Starting
Pick Goratha’s Lightning Arrow Champion if you Like:
- Bow playstyle
- Zooming but also taking a punch without keeling over
- So many projectiles on the screen you can barely see
Goratha’s Lightning Arrow details:
- The first thing you want, and the most important one, is a strong bow. You want a Deafening Essence of Wrath, preferably on a Fractured Bow. Thicket is the best base (you don’t care about going crit with this variant).
- As I said, we aren’t going crit, so we use the Precise Technique Keystone. As such, you want to make sure you have more Accuracy than Life values to use the 40% More Attack damage. That’s quite easy to do while levelling, and will carry on being easy as long as you pay attention to it.
- The endgame of this build uses the reworked Abyss uniques, Shroud of the Lightless and Bubonic Trail, to gain a lot of life, elemental penetration, and Mana Reservation Efficiency. This allows you to allocate a 3rd 50% aura (Anger or Wrath) for even more damage.
For more information, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jjZqVx1-KQ&t=262s&ab_channel=Goratha
5. Tripolar Bear’s Kinetic Blast Corrupting Fever Champion/Gladiator
KB CF is a fantastic build that can be played by multiple Ascendancies, though primarily Gladiator or Champion. Each specialises in different things and has variances in their ceiling and capabilities, but they are all fantastic mappers, extremely cheap and simple to play, and amazing League Starters.
What the Kinetic Blast Corrupting Fever Excels in:
- Wonderful League Starter.
- Can do most content on a budget.
- One of the quickest mappers without investment.
- Comfortable playstyle.
Pick Kinetic Blast Corrupting Fever if you Like:
- This build has a hard ceiling in its single target damage. While it is possible to clear most content, the investment required to achieve that is quite substantial. As such, most people who use this build will focus mostly on mapping, and what a fantastic mapper it is. You’ll want as many Levels to Physical Gems as possible, and to boost your single target a bit, you can use a double 5L with Exsanguinate (or Poet’s Pen to get there).
- You can get a lot of damage by using a +2 Amulet, +2 wand, Dialla’s Malefaction, after its buffs, for a +4, while using an Empower, to reach over level 30 on your CF!
- Explody is by far the best way to improve your clearing, so you either want a Haemophilia or Asenath’s Gentle Touch (if you’re doing Champion), or spec into Gratuitous Violence from Gladiator.
For more information, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMFwMxY_4pg&ab_channel=TripolarBear
4. MuchoM’s Absolution Necromancer
Despite all the nerfs and changes to minions, Absolution is still king in single target and for levelling. While it suffers in clearing speed compared to other Minion builds, it more than makes it up with bossing and sheer damage potential.
What Absolution Excels in:
- Can get extremely tanky
- Active gameplay, despite being a minion build
- Reach hundreds of millions of damage
Pick Absolution if you Like:
- Leveling with your endgame skill
- Controlling Innocence! (Vaal Absolution)
- Strong and unique minion playstyle.
Absolution details:
- Absolution is unique because how you can scale its damage makes you tankier as you do it. It also requires active gameplay to summon your Sentinels, as you need to kill enemies to proc a summoning.
- A lot of our damage comes from using Doryani’s Prototype, which creates an aura around us that equals our enemies’ lightning resistance (and we deal 100% Lightning damage with Phys to Lightning Support) to ours. As such, you want to have a little Lightning Res as possible, trying to reach negative 200%, as this will multiply the damage we do. The caveat here is that you’ll need a lot of armour to overcome the lack of lightning resistance and other blanket mitigation and avoidance forms, like Block, Spell Block, Divine Flesh, etc.
- We can reduce our resistances through Melding of the Flesh, Ventor’s Gamble Rings, Threads of Hope, and we can also become a lot tankier; on top of all that, by using Divine Flesh, which makes 50% of elemental damage, we would take be considered Chaos. This is particularly strong against elemental Penetration and larger hits, as it halves the amount of damage we take that is directly reduced by Armor (for the Lightning portion only.)
For more details, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJQspJxAQIY&pp=ygUPYWJzb2x1dGlvbiBwb2Ug&ab_channel=MuchoM
3. Goratha’s Boneshatter Juggernaut
One of the last bastions of “true melee”, Boneshatter is a fairly notorious skill for the previous abuse cases with duration, immortality, and Mantra of Flames stacking indefinitely. Though most of it got removed or tuned down, the skill remains a staple for STRONK melee satisfaction that is sorely lacking in PoE nowadays.
What Boneshatter Excels in:
- Unbelievably tanky
- Ridiculously high damage for a melee, chonky character
- Respectable clearing, though click intense
- True melee
Pick Boneshatter if you Like:
- Going back to the true Melee Roots
- Hit and stun enemies on the head multiple times, traumatizing them, and yourself
- Self-damaging builds that deal more damage the more they hurt themselves.
Boneshatter details:
- Boneshatter works because it gets increasingly more damage based on your Trauma Stacks. And with Divergent Boneshatter, you also gain 1% attack speed per Trauma. Which then gets scaled by Ashes of the Stars, doubling that effect. And when you can easily reach over 200 stacks of Trauma, this is a massive amount of damage.
- It doesn’t come without a cost, though, and it’s why almost entirely, Boneshatter builds are relegated to being Juggernauts, with a few exceptions. For each Trauma stack you have, you take increasingly more damage, reaching over 300 Trauma damage per Trauma each time you gain a Trauma Stack.
- As such, you need insane levels of Physical damage mitigation through armour, generic PDR, or even Transcendence. And that’s why Jugg is so great at dealing with that because it is by far the tankiest class in the game for Physical damage.
For more information, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u86_1qW8AZQ&t=1s&ab_channel=Goratha
2. Von Vikton’s Ice Spear Totems Hierophant
Now this a build made for low budget that can scale insanely high with some minor-ish investment and almost plays by itself. It’s not the best fit for everyone since Totem playstyle is an acquired taste, but it can do all content easily if you know what you’re doing.
What Ice Spear Totems Excels in:
- Great to League Start
- Insane single Target damage
- Simple to play, but not for everyone
- Clears rather well
- Can do all content in the game, including Uber bosses.
Pick Ice Spear Totems if you Like:
- Totem playstyle
- Dealing dozens and dozens of millions of damage
- Hiding in a corner while your totems do your dirty work
Ice Spear Totems Hierophant details:
- This build makes excellent use of one of the new uniques added in patch 3.20, the Anathema ring, so your curse limit equals your maximum Power Charges. And because we’re a Hierophant, we quickly get 4 Power Charges, which is a simple and elegant fix to stacking as many curses as possible.
- And that is quite impactful because of the changes GGG made surrounding curses and how they are no longer reduced in effect against bosses, even if numerically, they’ve been mostly ‘nerfed’. So Anathema allows us to use Frostbite, Elemental Weakness, Sniper’s Mark and a long-forgotten curse that rose in popularity, Punishment, for massive extra damage against enemies at low life.
- We’re also making use of both Coward’s Legacy (the biggest bulk of single expense, besides the helmet with Ice Spear Enchant, which is massive for DPS) in combination with Self-Flagelation and Soul Mantle, which not only grants us an extra totem and a 7th link to our primary skill but also grants over 160% increased damage(up to 20% per curse on us), as well as enabling Pain Attunement for ‘free’. All you need to do is get curse effect reduction on yourself.
For more information, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR_WXjmfeb4
1. Pohx’s Righteous Fire/ Fire Trap Juggernaut
After the nerfs to Inquisitor, though still a strong choice for RF, Juggernaut gained massive popularity thanks to Pohx, especially if you enjoy being immortal and still killing enemies by attrition, this build is for you!
What the RF/Fire Trap Jugg Excels in:
- Safe Bossing
- Insanely Tanky
- Can clear quite quickly with Maven Boots
- League Starter, HC, SSF Viable
Pick Righteous Fire/Fire Trap if you Like:
- Cruise through maps without a care in the world, and nothing hurt you
- Ignore all downsides and survivability issues most people suffer with degens and ground dots
- Clear as quickly as you Shield Charge, with everything exploding around you.
RF/Fire Trap details:
- RF works by dealing damage based on our ES and Life pool. We scale as much HP as possible to increase the base value, which in turn gets increased by our supports. We aim to use a Pseudo 6/7-Link helmet, with Concentrated AoE, Burning Damage, and 30% more elemental multiplier from Essence of Horror. Which is absurdly expensive to craft, but it’s BiS.
- Our defenses come from Brass Dome, which grants us a whopping 5% max all res, scaling max res in the passive tree as well as using a Saffel’s Frame for another +4%, to reach 88% max fire res and 87% cold and lightning resistance.
- As a secondary source of damage, we use Fire Trap. You can either slot it in the 6L Brass Dome (look for good corruptions, like +2 Duration or +1 all), or in the helmet, with the Pseudo 6~7 Link.
For more information, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcOko1AHznc&ab_channel=PohxKappa
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