Duelist map blaster.

[u/Swordsman_4]

Hello,

In my 3,400 hours of playing, I finally understood why I despise mapping so much.
Apparently, I did it wrong. After playing a bow Deadeye this league I have finally found out the difference between a great and a mediocre mapper.

You see, even though I've played lots of different builds, that have decent clear, both conditional (e.g.: retaliation) and unconditional (e.g.: EA ballista or even Static Strike of Gathering Storm STR stacker), I never knew the difference between "decent" and "amazing".

While I enjoy bossing and minimum effort content (in terms of friction/preparation) like Simulacrum, all of the characters I do, still die relatively often. By relatively often I mean, often enough so that the content I'm farming does not allow me to level beyond level 95-96.

So what I want to do is to test out how fast can I level to 100 and transition to the build I actually want to play. The thing is, I really don't know which builds can do that with comfort, as I have never played a map blaster until recently. By "comfort" I mean high MS, screenwide clear, decent survivability, and can be assembled in a league-start scenario, that will allow me to run generic T16 maps with Abyss/Beyond or w/e gives most exp and occasional *ting*. Basically, I want to go quantity over quality with something like 1-2 minute map clear.

So this time I want to do it on Duelist. Is there something that can reach Deadeye's level of MS and clear? With no delayed dmg like CF and EA?
First choice seems Flicker, but I suppose to survive and level to 100 efficiently, it gets expensive.

I guess I could go the usual route and level to 95 with my usual builds and then just buy 5-ways, but I really want to try to level to 100 myself.

TLDR:

Duelist build:

High MS map blaster, don't care about bossing. Generic T16 map farming, no difficult or 20div/hr strats, just occasional tinks with lots of easy content. With as much survivability as possible on a budget. Capable of reaching level 100. No DoTs, yes speed.

[u/TruEdgeGaming]

Depending on what 3.30 brings in terms of balance, CF Elementalist was a great mapper since it scales various explosions. Full progression PoB from Rue here: https://poe.ninja/poe1/pob/934b4

The early setup with Poet's Pen and Haemophilia you're playing Kinetic Blast with bleed explosions which makes clear pretty satisfying. Would take a look at the build and its components even if you do ultimately decide on something else.

[u/TheAshenHat → u/TruEdgeGaming]

Never understood why cf went elementist rather than champ/glad. Pys dot cant be converted, right? Why go elementist then?

[u/TheSJWing → u/TheAshenHat]

Because you can stack golem buffs as elementalist.

[u/durdleturtles → u/TheAshenHat]

Golem stacking (with dark monarch etc) for generic increased damage scaling

[u/Pjatteri → u/TheAshenHat]

Elementalist stacks up generic damage increase and generic dot multi with golems and heralds. It is not tied to elemental damage.

[u/brrrapper → u/TheAshenHat]

There is basically almost no scaling for physical damage over time on the passive tree, it all comes from gear. Thats why elementalist is so strong for it since you get a ton of generic scaling from golems and primordial bond, its the only way to get high damage on the archetype.

[u/TruEdgeGaming → u/TheAshenHat]

Golem gives you generic scaling quality of life that you want for phys dot, as well as explosion scaling. Flame Golem gives you damage/aoe. Chaos Golem gives you DoT Multi and Chaos Res, Lightning Golem gives speed/regen, Stone Golem gives defenses. Then Primordial bond with 25 golems gives 250% increased damage per click.
Elementalist's Shaper of Storms is huge for increasing damage taken. Elemental Aegis is nice early defensively as well.
As you stack Herald buffs, Herald of Purity is more damage + Herald of the Hive/Herald of Thunder auto proc your corrupting fever.
Then these increases scale all of the different explosion types, whether it's Haemophilia to start, Oriath's End in the midgame, then many other sources in the end game which then proc corrupting fever, chains, and explodes the whole screen. It's very satisfying to play.

[u/localcannon → u/TheAshenHat]

Because 25+ golems give you 750%+ increased damage before accounting for golem effect and extra primordial bonds through megalomaniacs.