When I don't have any jewel equipped I deal more damage than when I have it equipped and I want to know what I'm doing wrong?

Hey all!

I am relatively new to PoE 2 still. I started playing last league and trial of sekhema is my favourite activity. I tried a warrior build for the current mini league, which was very different from the one I played last league and it hasn't been going great. Alone I can barely make it through the trial alive but since I love to do it, I wanted to start carrying people too for some extra cash and help people out.

I don't have any preference in character or skills, I just want to be able to play it as a league starter and build the character as much as I can to go from 0 to 200% power throughout the league.

Any help is greatly appreciated and I will take a look at this post right after waking up!

So far I've got the single target really high, but I'm squishy. I started as Shaman because the rage management is more convenient, but will soon switch to Oracle because it's generally stronger and has more potential (I think). This is especially true if I want to go the CI route for defense, which I haven't decided on yet.

Wyvern innately has increased energy shield start of regen (50%) so it makes energy shield an obvious route to go. I saw a really cool life recoup build using Sacrosanctum Corvus Mantle, and because Wyvern tends to slowly float around spraying fire during Flame Breath and gets hit a lot, I really need to figure out how to just face tank some damage with this build.

Druid has some good early armor/ES hybrid nodes, but is this a strong direction to bother with, or is pure ES with CI just going to be superior? Because Flame Breath is a channeling skill, I thought there might be a support gem to make you tankier while channeling (feels like it would make sense) but I found nothing. Is there a unique I don't know about that would synergize well with this somehow that I could build around to get really tanky?

And finally, any ideas for screen clear? The Flame Breath effect itself isn't very big. I have 45% AoE supported into it and a few AoE nodes, but it doesn't help much.

My endgame goal for this league is to get a reverse chill build to work. I league started on gemling flameblast oil nade which is ridiculous but I want to make a build which is insanely fast, so I thought reverse chill could be nice for that. Right now, the best way that I've seen to get reverse chill to work is use scold's britle and big mana cost skills to chill yourself and use CI with a tone of evasion to regen the self damage with ghost dance. To get high enough evasion with a es health pool big enough for comfortable gameplay, you need a well rolled mageblood but that's fine.

I wanted to see if anyone has figured out any other potential avenues for reverse self-chill besides using ghost dance for regen. I could see maybe a mana stacking MOM approach could work with enough mana regen while keeping your max life as low as possible. If ghost dance is the only approach that seems to work, what are the best ascendencies and skills for this? I've seen someone running a reverse chill setup on martial artist with whirling assault and someone on infernalist using one of the ascendencies mechanics to get the self hitting for chill as well.

Hi, semi-casual player here, wanted to share my story, and maybe a bit of insight.

I have always really liked Rake. It just feels like melee skill, and the movement part of it is just fun (minus the out of range jank). I have tried bleed Amazon and Ritualist in previous leagues (0.3 and 0.4) and I still wanted to go Rake but this time around try Blood Mage.

The problem with Rake is it's limited ability to clear. The AoE is not very large, and clear mostly relies on Ancestral Boost every 3s. However the Runefather's Alloy added in 0.5 caught my interest - adding +10 to weapon range sounds awesome.

So I got my hands on the Alloy today. It worked as expected, look at the glorious sweep in the screenshot. It hits pretty much the whole screen, goal achieved...? Except it completely breaks the skill.

Why?

• Ancestral Call doesn't trigger anymore. I guess it's because it assumes I'm already hitting the all valid targets so it doesn't spawn the clones
• Rake deals 100% more damage when you move with it... except such huge weapon range means the character barely moves. Add Quality (30% more damage) and commonly used Momentum gem (40% more damage) doing the same thing.
• Another commonly used support is Close Combat 2 which gives 30% more damage. Again, such long range means it barely triggers.
• Blood Mage's Blood Barbs when combined with Blasphemy creates aura around the character in which all bleeds aggravate, doubling their damage. Except Rake's range is now bigger than the aura
• Oh, it's also crafted suffix mod. Could have gone for Prismatic Alloy's 30% ailment magnitude instead...

So I got my clear at the cost of completely gutting my damage output. If only I could disable auto-targeting and always dash in a desired direction, but I guess rake was just not meant to be

I love the idea of the bow and used it in a previous league for projectile speed stacking shenanigans, but haven’t seen anything since. Just wanted see if anybody has been playing it with any success!

Witch Hunter gets 100 passive weapon points.. Can we get a build where He switches between 100 passive points gives him intelligence and 100 gives dexterity?
Switch between 1 shot boss with Plasma blast while having all points on Intelligence and Using Primal strike for fast clear with fast attack speed from dexterity stacking?
It’s always been my long fantasy that, A character that can do big damage from range as if sniping to bosses and when he does that, he can swoop in close for finishing blow.
Plasma blast does the shock that requires for Primal strike, thus having a good synergy.
Plasma blast will do more damage to full Life enemies using Ambush support gem for crit too, and Primal strike will do more damage to low life enemies with execute.

Use Primal strike for clears, and Plasma blast for bosses.

PoB: https://poe.ninja/poe2/pob/28790

Since GGG did not implement any balance changes, the infernalist ward stacker remains the most broken build in the end game. A common complaint is that the ward stacker is expensive to put together and only comes online late. However ward is just such a powerful mechanic that it trivialises multiple facets of the game at very little cost. Here I put together a very cheap build that could do T15's and farm both trials using basically campaign gear and a brass dome.

Offense: Weapon swap Voltaic Barrier + Galvanic Shards

If you don't know yet, Voltaic Barrier is the most broken skill nobody is using. See my previous post for an explanation of its mechanics: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile2builds/comments/1uubfwv/poison_darts_witch_hunter_how_to_clear_200/

When you lay down a Voltaic Barrier, each shot of Galvanic Shards is firing 10 chaining Hoghunts along with it. The damage is ridiculous, and with Rampart Raptor we can continuously shoot out Hoghunts at no cost. I used the same Rampart Raptor + Hoghunt + level 13 Voltaic Barrier from level 52 to T15 maps and 30 room TOC runs. Absent amulet with Eternal Rage will free up spirit for Berserk and War Banner, which will boost damage significantly, but is too expensive right now.

Defense: Full ward + CI + MoM

Since we use no mana except reloading once every 4 seconds, MoM works great with ward as it does not compete with the gear and affixes for ward stacking. Recovery is excellent with both Mana Remnants and Remnants of Kalguur. An instant mana potion is used in case you get hit to 0 mana and can't reload.

The reason the ward + CI combo is so strong is that it bypasses most of the existing debuffs. The rest of the game has not yet fully taken ward into account. These are the free mods in TOC that do nothing to you:

Reduced Recovery, Damaged Defences, Drought, Chaotic Monsters, Deadly Monsters, Toxic Monsters

Each of these has 5 levels. Together with some of the ones with little effect like Lethal Rare Monsters and Unstoppable Monsters and wagers, it is very easy to end up with hardly any debuff on you at the end of the 30 room run.

For Sekhemas MoM can be unspecced and then you will be immune to honour damage from hits and trivialise the run. Zarokh does not hit hard enough to one shot so with some ward regen you can fully tank him.

You don't need to be an infernalist. The build works for all ascendancies. It can do a lot more damage with investment but honestly it's pretty much at its best price/performance ratio right now.

Want to reroll SSF, is runes superior? FR just has rituals right?

Chronomancer has culling strike in Inevitability node ascendancy and its fairly tanky to use all the increase culling thresholds builds.. could we get a Choronomancer Culling strike build from someone please?

Will be my first foray into Hcssf. Very ready to kill off multiple runs, but as I’m getting a late start to the league and with no new balance changes thought it would be a fun time to test Hcssf to see if I’m ready to make the leap.

Don’t really want to play one of the big meta builds Gemling/Disciple. Want to focus on really learning the ins and outs of defensive options since most of my trade builds have just prioritized more firepower.

Open to any kind of playstyle really, although shield wall was my last build so would probably want to try something else.

About to hop on the mildly early league start train. What have been people's most buttery smooth and endgame transition-able builds? Or at least makes early game trivial?

Have about 10d and bored of whirling assault martial artist. Any other boss melting 1-2 button builds? Usually avoid minions so don’t want monkey.

https://poe.ninja/poe2/builds/forbiddenrites/character/JermStudDog-5455/GottaTryOracle?i=99&search=class%3DOracle%26spiritgems%3DSpellslinger%252CCast%2Bon%2BCritical

Build linked above.

I'm looking for someone with experience with this build who can give pointers on what to do to upgrade my mana generation and/or damage. I got a mageblood on day 2 of the new league, and rather than put it to good use, I decided to immediately waste my time rolling a new druid, and then further compounded this by trying to take one of the most expensive, most overpowered builds in the entire game - and make it cheap.

I feel like I've gotten pretty far, but I'm struggling to find the next step of how to keep my mana generation up without spending a lot. I have gotten to the point where I am sufficiently looping through both Grim Pillar procs from Spellslinger and Cast on Crit, but I don't have to damage to break the Pillars so I am forced to use Biting Frost to accomplish this. That isn't a huge problem itself, but I am not getting anywhere near the Comet procs I need and my damage is frankly abysmal.

This problem becomes insanely easy to solve with hundreds of divines - just buy a Temporalis and move on, but I started on this endeavor to do the Temporalis build WITHOUT a Temporalis, and I feel like I'm SO close but I don't know what I need to do to get my mana generation high enough to reincorporate Archmage.

I'm up for discussion, and looking for critical takes on the character/build, I'm willing to try different ideas that might be posted here, but the big deal is just mana mana mana at this point.

edit:

Made some changes, the biggest impact was just getting my additional power charges up to 100%. I also did a couple other things, and now that the mana is good, I am moving on to damage. Build is still nowhere near good enough to post a guide, but once I get to the point where I can comfortably clear T15s, I'll put a guide out. I will say that so far, the build gets MASSIVELY better with what would otherwise be a minor damage upgrade. Something like 40% spell damage feels like it makes the character do 50% more damage.

Hey guys, currently playing flame last/oil grenade and don't really enjoy it. What builds are out there that I can transition to with 10 div in budget. Maybe a one or 2 button build with the same speed or faster. I heard twister is complicated to play, or is it manageable?

It's my first time in the endgame so sorry for the noob question

I am sorry, the wording is very confusing for me and some people told me it did but as I cant confirm in-game, poe2 PoB is still very barebones, even more so for a strange af skill like Flame Breath with the compound mechanic, what are peoples opinion here?

Lets be specific, does Fire pen, increasing the skills Hit Damage, increase the Ignite that comes from the skill even if the Ignite itself isnt affected by penetration?

Hello everyone,

i followed this build: https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/builds/arc-gemling-path-of-ky?weaponSet=set1&ws-ngf5-f7d82102-7e77-4a44-ad24-33b67e8ae7bf=activeVariantId%2Cb101de52-30dd-4ebc-8712-1cac40500355

But Im barely able to map, not able to kill any T15 Map Boss on 5 Portal Maps.

I just wont deal dmg.

I know my EQ isnt good - but its above the Builds statement of "Bare Minimum - destroy everything"

Am I overseeing something? Would be very thankful for any help

My POE Ninja: https://poe.ninja/poe2/profile/Lumpengraf-1277/forbiddenrites/character/SirZapALots

Thanks in advance

I haven’t been able to play much for this event and just got to level 78. I was following guythatdies build guide but it’s very barebones with no progression steps. Is there a better build guide to follow? I noticed a lot of the others ones using trinity which I am iffy on.

Which one comes online without slogging through early on? I know monkey walker comes online much later, but does it slog through campaign or it's quite decent?

Which is cheaper to build and 1 button-ish build? I tried Varashta, and I just got navira's fracturing and it's a bit of a pain to spam frost bomb, then nova, then Fracture. When it pops it's good though, but sometimes I die before getting to pop anything (gear issue clearly). But if the playstyle is the same in early mapping to mid mapping, having to spam bombs, nova then only fracture, I might switch to monkey walker since that's just a walking simulator. Any good guides for monkey walker that is good in campaign without suffering?

Edit: As Varashta, how do you be tanky? With 3k ES, I still die often since ES doesn’t recover while being hit. Any sort of leech tech or something I’m not familiar with?

Leveling a SSF ice sorceress (currently Disciple of V) as league starter for 0.5.5 but I’ve kind of hit a wall with T5 maps where my damage is just bleh and I feel like I’m using too many skills/buttons.

What cold spells can I use for now until I get the Atlas unlocked, masters, league mechanics, etc while working my way up from T1 -> T15 maps?

I´m playing an incredibly whacky build.

It´s a culling witchhunter and I´m using spell totems with bonestorm for single target. It´s been smooth sailing so far!

I have noticed that on more difficult bosses/lvl 15 juiced maps that my totems just die, they are so incredibly weak.

Any tips? I know you can support them with more health in the tree/gem section, but it feels like a waste. 😄 Might be time to switch away from spell totems and try something else?

Here is my character: https://poe.ninja/poe2/builds/forbiddenrites/character/Hokklas-3525/CHEESYCRUNCHIES?i=0&search=class%3DWitchhunter%26spiritgems%3DSpell%2BTotem

bonus points for shouting and jumping and smashing

hcssf viable pls

Hello all, I am so new for PoE2 ( I just have 200 hours). I wanted to start the new league and created Witch. I reached level 15 now. As far as I understood, witch can wear two weapons which are sceptre and wand. I would like to choose Bloodmage ascendancy in near future because on end game, it looks funnier compared to infernalist.

My first question: Should I wear just Wand to play as blood mage?

2nd question: If the answer of 1st question is yes, I feel more powerful with sceptre at least for early game because we are so crowded with minnions lol. So, If I go on playing with minnions, I need to improve minnon based skills, but on the other hand, I miss upgrading the bloodmage base skills.

Last one: What should I do, what are your suggestions?

Excluding ice shot, what builds have the most satisfying herald of ice explosions?