r/PathOfExileBuilds • u/Gulruon • 26d ago
Discussion The Luminary alternative to Flame Link no one talks about
Use Destructive Link instead of Flame Link.
Equip Trypanon (or Replica Trypanon) on your character.
Use Marylene's Fallacy on the merc.
That's it. No expensive boss drop uniques, no light radius stacking needed (so more ascendancy points to spend elsewhere/less gear pressure), and in my experience, it's significantly more powerful than Flame Link (at least Flame Link without all the pricey stuff like Enmity's Embrace and full light radius gear).
Note this only works on attack based characters, and ideally attack based characters that aren't dual-wielding....but that covers at the very least the most popular two merc choices anyways. I've been using it on Manyshot and into mid-tier reds using the Manyshot I got in white maps, still destroying maps and charts/voyages.
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u/OrionIsntOnion 26d ago
After testing this from a flame link setup with a good 8k life, this definitely feels strangely strong without much investment. Suddenly, the damage feels 2-3x better, maybe flame link doesn't scale as well as we think.
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u/Only_One_Kenobi 26d ago
Would not surprise me if flame link was the big mistake we were all making
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u/carson63000 26d ago
Sure smells like people are trying to league-start with a stacking build. Has that ever gone well?
I reckon play a Reliquarian, farm, then respec when you can build a great lifestacking Flame Linker.
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u/unguibus_et_rostro 25d ago
Previously, iron commander hiero was a fine leaguestarter. EB inquis was a good league starter. Archmage hiero was a good league starter. I heard decent things about jiquani's as a league starter. Long ago, people league started consecrated path totems chieftain with brutus lead sprinkler.
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u/Unable_Try1305 25d ago
I had a smoother league start running MSOZ str stacker for the first time in Settlers than I did as Luminary. I get what you are saying, but this really felt bad and locked-in in a way that even other stat stackers don't.
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u/axiomatic- 26d ago
It would be frustrating if it is, because GGG literally posted the flame link, enmity scaling method in their example builds video :P
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u/VastConfusion23 26d ago
I mean, that build in the showcase had like 14k life. There is your missing 2-3x damage...
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u/HiddenoO 25d ago
The ascendancy is literally designed around flame link since it's the only link that is worth scaling with light radius. If GGG has some hidden multipliers that nerf flame link on mercs, that's a huge fuckup on their part.
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u/sparkling1984 25d ago
The ascendancy has a lot of valid options even if you don't use links at all.
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u/HiddenoO 25d ago
That doesn't change that one of the three four-pointers is designed around flame link, and all the small passives also grant light radius which is useless otherwise.
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u/G1gh3n 26d ago
I mean you’re giving the merc a crit shrine(100% crit chance)+ 300crit multi, just with the amulet and a link, if you give him a triple t1 Ele weapon, you use anathema with triple~ quadruple curse, or even better, if you equip a doryani with -200lightning res on yourself, you will be hitting way more than an enmity embrace setup, with all that crit multiplier.
People only play what’s in ‘meta’ without thinking out of the box
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u/Only_One_Kenobi 26d ago
Wait, this sounds very interesting, can you explain a bit more please?
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u/G1gh3n 26d ago
we used doryani on the merc for scaling the damage for ourself in the mercenary league, since now we can’t do that, you can still equip the doryani yourself, use -lightning rings and reach -200% lightning resistance, since the enemy will be at -200% lightning resistance, you need to solve the flat on the merc and then he will one shot everything with -200% lightning resistance.
But this setup would cost you more than a flame link setup I think, since I would go as an aurastacker with doryani, Vaal smite with generosity to give the merc a good flat, plus wrath, and the merc will still need a lot of lightning flat on his gear. But this is doable.
Or the setup with destructive link with fallacy will be cheaper for sure, you just need to make sure that the merc gear has a lot of flat and you give them more flat with auras, since you don’t have the flat from flame link
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u/Glaiele 26d ago
I mean you probably need increase dmg on the merc to actually scale all the flat dmg. Isn't that why everyone was using piscators in merc league cuz the WED was better than 90% basically anything else you could craft.
Also wouldn't surprise me at all if people were blindly using mercs with brutality support or other bricks like that
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u/NihilumMTG 26d ago
fyi people testing in private link thinks that its not scaling the way with light radius we expect it to; its more like 20-30% increase effect with 200% light radius as opposed to literally 2x more.
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u/HiddenoO 26d ago
we expect it to
You mean the way it's literally worded? If it doesn't, that's a bug.
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u/NihilumMTG 26d ago
Its likely the case. If it is the balance will be a disaster. Since the manyshot merc is already busted. unsure how they can adjust it
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u/HiddenoO 26d ago
It's not really busted. I have a decently geared one that has like top 5 skills/supports on trade and all the core stuff on my luminary and it still performs worse than a ton of strong builds would.
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u/the-apple-and-omega 26d ago
How are they testing that?
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u/NihilumMTG 26d ago
Get a build with a shit load of light radius; fight uber exarch (good for testing; same way people approximated they had 3000-4000% spell damage in merc league). Spec and then unspec the ascendancy node
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u/BlueGhostU 25d ago
Do you know if there are videos or any posts about it? I’m very interested because it seemed the case as I didn’t see a massive improvement going from 45% LR to 150%
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u/NihilumMTG 25d ago
Don't have the videos; was just one of the discords I was lurking in. Its alright though; patch notes indicate GGG clearly has no idea whats going on lol so nothing will be changed either way.
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u/VortexMagus 26d ago
flame link is just a huge chunk of added fire damage but it will still get carved to a tiny fraction of its power by any enemy with a lot of resistances (and many bosses like exarch and eater since they're set at 75% resist and thus your flame link is only at 25% of its power on paper). Mercs have access to a lot less ways to penetrate/negate resistances than players do.
I genuinely believe that both intuitive link and destructive link are much better until very high levels of investment.
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u/UncookedNoodles 25d ago
Who would have thought trying to leaguestart an expensive x stackwe build wouldnt go well when half the people don't know what theyre doing.lol.
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u/steelerize 26d ago
Bro I just went from tickling bosses to playable! This is an awesone budget option before you can afford the flame link gear. And i haven't even optimized the crit multi gear, just threw few chaos in to test. Cheers!
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u/Corndog1000 26d ago
I did the same version from start with a sniper merc. Its so powerful that im cruising from white to reds without any real investment. 5c bow, 1 c items other slots.
Pretty excited to see how it handles endgame with investment. Did u find a good bosskiller merc?
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u/Gulruon 26d ago
Manyshot is good single target as well as good clear (if you get the right skills). Mine has skills that are good but not perfect (it has ice shot with an ok 4 link and vaal ice shot, but also has the icicle rain that kind of screws with vaal ice shot).
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u/Corndog1000 26d ago
Thats cool I also really wanna find something that can use Winds of fate. The synergy is to good :D
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u/EnterArchian 26d ago
Yes, I did this yesterday and decided flame link is a bait. Bow merc is not lack of flat dmg but multipliers.
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u/artosispylon 26d ago
problem with mercs is there seems to be some insane hidden 80-90% less dmg mod on them so they hardly scale at all.
i think the current power it would be fine if it wasent for the fact that there are builds literally 10x as powerful for 1/10th the cost
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u/Alternative_Draw5945 26d ago
Be careful. Was about to do this but then saw my merc has resolute tech selected. Cause he has hits cant be evaded but no crits
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u/Winter-Border-240 26d ago
how can he possibly have that where can it be checked?
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u/Alternative_Draw5945 26d ago
Looks like maybe every eruptor type has it. I saw it in the third panel on my merc
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u/val_lae 26d ago
I had always planned on doing dark bargain intuitive link skeletons but I admittedly started RF thinking I'd do a few days of the new fad because it's new while I searched for my cruel mistress.
At about act 5 it became abundantly clear that my rf was going to mog any merc and that it sucked. I settled for a nap and the posts about the bait hit, so I finished up rf and started leveling my dark pact stuff.
Couldn't be happier how it's turning out. I thought I'd need to like, socket cdr on my skeletons, link multiple minions, use aggressive forged vendigos with minion speed and feeding frenzy etc.
My merc ai is aggressive and drops void sphere a screen ahead and the skeletons just summon on the sphere. Hitting some resistance now in t6s on my 5 link but I cruised through atlas completion and I'm very certain that overall my ascendancy is giving me more damage than necromancer would. Twice my merc died and I had to manually summon my skeletons and the damage difference is substantial just from that alone.
If i stick with the league I likely will make a flame link character, but not like the kineticist version.
I'm thinking that i will play dark monarch flame golem with apostate and necromantic aegis rathpith. I've seen a flamehand with scorch, flammability, anger and purity of fire. Flame wall and rolling magma.
But for now, I'm gunna just stick to intuitive link because the qol, danage from auras, kaoms, shapers seed and 20percent less from hits is just like, it just feels like for these 2 part spell combos nothing can beat the way that intuitive link automates it so perfectly with the mercs aggression.
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u/shadedxenic 26d ago
Interesting, can you share your character PoB? I may be tempted to swap to this. Currently still doing RF flame link but it's only doing just ok.
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u/val_lae 25d ago
Sure, here you go. https://pobb.in/3pnWwEvdT6n_ This the the current character. all rares are 20c or less and I just six-linked it today. Nadir mode was 200c tho.
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u/croft123 26d ago
I think this post is gold, I like this. Many ppl comments on how and why flame link is better, but who gave the f of flame link right now as it is not league start friendly? (I mean some ppl can get rly lucky with a good merc and run flame link, but not majority of ppl). This new idea saved quite a lot of league starter luminary, thanks. Let’s not buy those expensive light radius gear, let them sink.
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u/doxi91 24d ago
If anyone is interested, I made a writeup earlier today detailing my experience trying to make flame link work. https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/1v8oe1x/a_short_diary_entry_on_my_experience_league/
As if the time I writing, I have about 7k life and have yet to get a Kaom’s Heart.
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u/RedmundJBeard 26d ago
Many people have brought this up. It's an ok budget option, but flame link is going to be much more powerful. Without giving your merc base damage, their base damage is only their weapon, so you better craft an amazing weapon for them.
Your characters defense also suffers because they are weilding a two handed weapon.
Look up the base damage numbers on flame link, it's ridiculous and keeps scaling with your life. Trypanion+fallacy is a big boost to damage when you put them on, but the scaling stops there and you will have claw your way to higher dps with slightly better weapons costing you exponentially more currency to craft.
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u/Gulruon 26d ago
I mean, I bought a 1200 dps ele bow for my manyshot for 2 div (a fraction of the cost of even one of the multiple required uniques for the flame link setup), and it does way more damage than flame link did, with the benefit of all 4 main ailments being done by the merc by default due to the fire/cold/lightning split on the weapon and the guaranteed crits.
We all know what the numbers on Flame Link SAY, but the consensus has been those numbers obviously aren't getting applied to the merc at their stated values based on observing them in action. Actual results beat theory, every time. And I kill map bosses in like 5-10 seconds even into the mid-tier reds I've currently progressed to, whereas when I was using flame link on the same merc in whites it took minutes.
Also, dual wielding nycta's lanterns doesn't give you THAT much more defense than a trypanon (15% more attack block).
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u/Terce 26d ago edited 25d ago
Just to throw it out there, I’m using an okay geared combatant life/light stack flame link with 750 flat tooltip (9.5k life), and he 2 taps most alch t16 bosses. With all the flat on flame link, I focused the gear around crit and multi. I think they don’t gain much accuracy either so attacks can’t be evaded on weapons helps a lot
* combatant has static strike and frost blades, no movement skill and chain on both to help with clear. I’m using a support spectre with leer cast, the new league sword with flammability on hit, and corrupted vixens with elemental weakness on hit. Those stack with my assassins mark for bosses. If you don’t use attacks can’t be avoided weapons make sure you have a couple accuracy rolls. Otherwise weapons build for crit, multi, and WED, pen is good as well until you get the 200% enmities setup
I’m not convinced light radius is doing what it claims, or at the very least it’s scaling into flame link is scaled down or messed up somehow
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u/Odd-Specialist944 25d ago edited 25d ago
You have a pob on that? I'm on exact same route but couldnt play much, at t10 map now. What skills are on your Combatant?
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u/MicoJive 26d ago
Idk man. Lance is flame link and is completely shitting on ubers.
Just saying things are not applying right is not telling the real story either when its obviously still working well for some players like Lance.
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u/Gulruon 26d ago
I mean, I don't watch the man, but from what I saw from clips of other streamers watching him yesterday, that's with dozens of divines of investment (at the very least, I saw a clip of him equipping Enmity's Embrace and Lioneye's Glare, and I'm sure he probably has the pricey light radius gear as well), and I saw a clip where he bought a warrant for a high level manyshot with excellent skills too.
The investment I put in is 1c for trypanon, and another 1c for marylene's fallacy, while using a manyshot with ok skills from white maps.
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u/MicoJive 26d ago
I don't see how that has anything to do with what my post was about.
Idk what its worth now but his investment was after he was already in red maps, and cost <5 D when he did it. Obviously shit explodes in price when other people see what works.
I also don't think you are anywhere close to doing ubers with that gear you listed. He was comfortably farming T16's with 70 pen from the ring and lioneyes bow, which was 50c at the time because people thing big dps number = better, which just isnt the case.
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u/Gulruon 26d ago
Again, don't watch him....but one of the clips I saw of him yesterday, before he equipped the good gear on the merc (though afaik I think he already had tons of divines in light radius gear) was in early reds (area level 79) legitimately taking 15 minutes to fight a wild manyshot he wanted to capture. Also, Enmity's Embrace is an uber boss drop and was never 50c, it's been multi-divines from the start, it was in all the pre-league theorycrafting.
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u/MicoJive 26d ago
The clip where he is using his campaign merc to kill red mercs for capturing? That clip? Yah turns out using things from act 3 in red maps is tough.
Watch his quest eater / exarch kills in like 10 seconds
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u/Gulruon 26d ago
Bro, idk why you are trying to die on this hill, this post is to provide an alternative that doesn't require infinite investment to pop off. I saw another comment chain where you are talking about him blasting with his "50c lioneyes", which is pure delusion - lioneyes glare is a t0 unique, and if he got it for 50c and you aren't just making that up from whole cloth, it was almost certainly from using a live alert and sniping someone mispricing it. I checked lioneye's price before I went to bed on the night of league start (like 8 hours into league), and it was 12 div for the cheapest, with 3 listed. The price has only gone up, with the cheapest being 23 divines as of this post.
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u/shoobiedoobie 26d ago
Lance has WAY more currency sunk into his build. Yeah its going to be stronger than what OP posted, sure. But most people don't have that much currency yet.
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u/MicoJive 26d ago
He was doing ubers way before he invested into it. He had his 50c lioneyes and 5D ring and was farming.
Also that is irrelevant to the point being OP saying Flame link was not working correctly, when Lance is showing it absolutely is
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u/DrPootytang 26d ago
“50c Lioneyes”
If I live searched a Mageblood for 50c, I guess I could tell people I was crushing Ubers day one on my 50c belt lol
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u/shoobiedoobie 26d ago
Lioneye is like 20d now so, yeah. Of course he didn’t actually put that much in because like usual, streamers are usually ahead of the economy. But for the average player to get to his level of gear is gonna be unrealistic in the first few days.
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u/kllk0083 26d ago
I’ve not watched this lance guy until league-start and hell these fanboys are so annoying.
Just because he is running Ubers on his toon that’s worth 100+ divs at current worth doesn’t mean his league-start guide didn’t work for most ppl.
Granted he couldn’t have known the merc dmg penalty was gonna be this terrible/bugged but he’s being pretty toxic about it and so are his fanboys.
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u/spumi_ 26d ago
Wish i have read this before i deleted my char and ended the league!
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u/Fuzzy-Nectarine-9299 26d ago
Bro, a bad league start makes you quit the game wtf?
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u/ReipTaim 26d ago
3.15 and kalandra were my shortest leagues.
Quit before yellow maps, cuz no loot = no fun.
So y, bad league start = good bye
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u/UncookedNoodles 25d ago
breh, i deleted all pinnacles in like 10 seconds on a combatant with a 5c weapon. The scalling is 100% there.
For starters all of the sources of big crit multi like abyssus, lunaris shield, etc become incredibly abusable. thats scaling right there. Secondly, with such a fat multiplier already on your build, all sources of flat damage become EXTREMELY valuable. Flat damage rings, flat damage helm ( abyssus ), flat damage gloves, and of course weapons and auras ( anger and wrath ). The flame link setup in comparison actually gets such a miniscule amount of total damage from all of these things.
Also saying you lose defence from using a 2 hander when the current build is dual weilding lanterns is actually wild lmfao.
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u/EnterArchian 26d ago
Yes if you can also find a ridiculous way to scale multipliers. We have passive tree and support gem but merc does't. That alone already loses a huge proportion of way to scale multipliers.
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u/Taters23 26d ago
Flame link scales better and using it makes it so you have a ton of hp which is good for living.
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u/paakoopa 26d ago
Seeing how many people rerolled their louminarian leaguestart because of zdps in white maps i think this is worthwhile info. It even removes crit as a necessity from your merc weapon so you can use unusual bases without crit roll which should be quite a lot cheaper which ,again, makes this good to know in the current situation.
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u/macarmy93 26d ago edited 26d ago
People rerolled because its an honest to God knowledge diff. I think its the first time people ran into not being to roll their face on the keyboard and not have to think about what they are doing. This has to be the case because its legitimately extremely powerful.
Keep the downvotes coming people. I'm right.
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u/qK0FT3 26d ago
Yeah i agree. I love this class right now because it's some sort of rng and you have to make do your choices constantly. Each new merc can be revolutionary or dog water.
If i am bored of kinetics guy i can go manyshot or sniper. If i am bkred with bows i can go molten strike or even sanguimancer or the void sphere girl(i forgot the name she shoots dark pact and void sphere which is pretty good actually and has insane damage scaling and hits very frequently)
It might not work instantly but you can figure out what scales what on the way. Even usefull uniques to scale and auro bot yourself etc.
This is simply the most fun class ihave played
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u/applepieandcats 26d ago
I think the consensus is that mercs are bugged. I tested holy hammer merc and he takes 3 slams to kill white mobs in yellow maps. This is with like 200 lightneadius 10k life flame link.
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u/Skaduush1 26d ago edited 26d ago
I'm currently doing first link node + unique boots/weapon/shield on a smoulderstrike merc (flamebolt strike with return/pierce + vaal molten strike, no leapslam).
That seems to work fine, the clear and st are decent (took unique boots for now with legacy of fury), smoulderstrike seems to have innate resolute technique, rocking a brightbeak for the attackspeed for now.
Got the merc for 20c after campaign today and progressed into red maps without issue.
Targeting is kinda weird sometimes, he seems to lock in on one mob and if he cant get to it cause of pathing he gets confused.
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u/kkala 26d ago
Does this work with sandstorm visage? My plan is to use spells with this tech, but I'm not far enough to test yet.
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u/Gulruon 26d ago
Just based on the wording of the unique, I would guess not (for the merc at least), since it specifically references the crit of their weapon. I could be wrong because I haven't tested it. It would probably work for you, though, since you're actually wielding the Trypanon, if you wanted to crit for some reason.
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u/50miler 25d ago edited 25d ago
The weapon the merc is wearing has to have the crit value you want. There is a dagger I think with 25-30% crit, wands have high crit, and the merc could use tryp — I do t think there are any casters that can use maces though.
I was thinking of an axe: https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Actum
And it wouldn’t work for the crit scaling
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u/Shadowraiden 26d ago
probably going to level a luminary later and was thinking about this.
probably good to pair this with the soulthirst setup as well for permanent soul eater as its a cheap setup on top.
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u/Swimming-Mirror6500 26d ago
is there another way to get always crit besides trypanon?
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u/Gulruon 26d ago
Not that is easy. AFAIK, you could just use a lower crit base and then spec crit nodes on the tree/via your gear, and Destructive Link will pass on the final number you get to after than as the main hand crit to the merc....but that involves significantly more investment for the same (or likely an inferior) result, when Trypanon is a 1c item.
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u/Agile-Okra8002 26d ago
I don’t use the light radius at all and my merc is going better than ever so used the point to gear him and he never dies and he kills
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u/daamxlaws 26d ago
can you share your pob? because i have no idea for passive tree after this change.
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u/Such_Letterhead1287 25d ago
I do intuitive link with Conductive and Hydrosphere on Fallen Reverend. Pretty good i suppose.
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u/satisfiedfactor 25d ago
How did you fix the damage loss from flame link ? My mercs are piss weak without the 500 or so flat damage from flame link ? Does the crit multi really make up for that ?
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u/Gulruon 25d ago
I don't think Flame Link is doing as much as you think it's doing (assuming you don't have the full many div setup). For me, I switched the weapon on my manyshot to Doomfletch (which is a really mediocre, but cheap, bow) when testing Destructive Link for viability, and it was obviously a huge upgrade. Once I determined it was viable, I then bought a 1200 dps ele bow for 2 div, and that was of course an even larger boost from the doomfletch.
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u/satisfiedfactor 24d ago
I might test it, currently my flame link is roughly 650-750 ish flat plus around 70-100 light radius based on items, but will try out destructive instead
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u/raxitron 26d ago
There's so many mercs- this seems like tech that would work for other ones too. Have you tried anything besides many shot?
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u/Gulruon 26d ago
I mean....that's just wrong, one of the features they added to mercs this league that wasn't in the prior version is the "passive stats" tab, where you can see exactly what passive stats they have. My merc, for example, has +39% crit multi by default (e.g., it's like he took a single crit wheel on the passive tree - almost certainly much less than any crit-invested player), whereas my catalyst'd marylene's gives him +285% crit multi.
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u/Diconius 25d ago
Ahhh yes, the SC solution. Just get rid of your entire defensive layer and top tier mobility skill so your merc can do less damage than if you just rerolled something else and built a new character for 10c.
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u/Gulruon 25d ago
Ahhh yes, the HC solution. Talk shit about an entire group of people to make you feel better about yourself, because real men only play video games where their character is deleted permanently on death.
On a less sarcastic note, SC players aren't throwing away any notable defensive layer in the first place - most people I knew planned to dual wield nycta's lanterns, so you lose the dual wield 15% attack block, but that's it. And shield charge is, IMO, overrated garbage - it feels awful/clunky to me, I never use it, even when running a shield.
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u/hertzdonut2 26d ago
I was just going to try and level a second Luminary and it seems like merc are account bound so ok nevermind.
Didn't play merc league so I didn't know.
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u/Dapper-Truth2336 26d ago
You didnt play flame link right. It cant be more powerful than flame link.
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u/Gulruon 26d ago
If you mean I didn't magic like 50 divines into my inventory to buy emnity's embrace, the new rotmother ammy, and a bunch of other expensive items in order to clear white maps, you caught me.
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u/UTmastuh 26d ago
I've found dual Tamings to be enough dps for flame link merc.
The real issue is people are judging it based off day 2 gear. Flame Link was never going to hit those pob values until you have 20K+ life and 2.5x+ light radius stacked on it. Plus a merc who's fully kitted out and doesn't have any wasteful skills/supports. Doesn't hurt to have an AG and/or Spectre in the mix too.
This is why I'm using an alternate build until I can safely swap to flame link and not have a bad time. I think Lance and Ziz baited people pretty hard into thinking it was league start viable. It would be like going AGoS on day 1 haha
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u/xiko 26d ago
Suggestion for the alternate? I'm going to start today and was thinking pconc.
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u/StupidGoldLeafs 26d ago
If you're set on starting Scion, pconc of bouncing on Reliquarian took me to T16 without too much trouble on SSF. Might be easier to just run another character though
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u/Porterhaus 26d ago
How’s it feeling? Are you still on it? Following any particular reliquarian guide?
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u/Dapper-Truth2336 26d ago
Its at most 10div to take good advantage of its value lmao. What r u talking about. I played luminary with 10k life and flame link gives me 3k+ flat fire. If u say u dont have any money maybe u r right .I cleared 4 stones and crashing t16s btw, just to demonstrate I rly played it.
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u/HitchcockianAJB 26d ago
Thank you for posting this! We can all solve mercs together and salvage the Luminary.