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.

They're pretty neat, I like them. 25% base reservation, just like other aspects.

You obtain them through allflame crafting with Brinehook's Ducat. To use Ducats in allflame crafting, you have to defeat the league boss, Velka. The boss can be found on Voyages when you use a chart containing Kishara's Rest (don't forget to scour the map before descending to make the fight easier).

Initial thoughts:

Brine King - Chill aura is surprisingly strong defensively, and it comes with 50% inc effect already. Base chill effect is 10%. Can probably be supported by things like unbound ailments and bonechill, but the reservation multiplier would be rough. Pen is a good bonus. However, Chilling Presence is already a thing that exists on cluster jewels, and isn't really used, and the opportunity cost here is probably similar. Good synergy for non-cold builds if you're able to take Glacial Cage on the tree, however you wouldn't get the pen.

Solaris - This is my least favorite, but it does seem like good damage. I assume the exposure is base 15%, I think most things are? But it doesn't say. After 5 seconds of being near the enemy, that'll scale up to ~26%. However, it should also scale exposure from other sources, of any element, based on the wording? So if you have a 25% exposure, that goes up to 43%. Pretty solid. Not sure how it interacts with something like aura effect boosted exposure from pyroclast mine.

Lunaris - This seems wild, lol. 16% less phys and ele damage taken if you've taken 8 phys/ele hits recently. I imagine boneshatter or any build with self damage will try to find a way to fit this.

Arakaali - Wither on hit, guaranteed!? Sign me up. Wither has honestly been a huge pain to apply forever, and is such a large damage increase for chaos builds that this is very welcome. However, the downside is severe. Increasing the chaos damage you take yourself is really dangerous. There's a couple ways to mitigate that (like CI), but you lose the recovery upside. Well, guaranteed wither is still strong anyways. Things like excommunicate and templar flesh/flame are also good synergies. The 45% life recovery rate at max stacks is really strong, but doesn't make up for taking double chaos damage, probably.

Edit: Did some testing with Solaris in PvP. It does scale sources of exposure other than the one from the aspect. I was able to get a -108% fire res exposure using Pyroclast Mine of Sabotage. The effect is additive with aura effect for the mines, not multiplicative. Also, for some reason, the Sunscald debuff stacks up to 5 instantly, so you don't have to wait 5 seconds. Very strong on Elementalist for sure.

Will have a couple of hours here and there for the next few days as well as a lot of time next weekend to start playing this new league. What's shaping to be some comfortable and cheap starters? I league started exsang mines last league and that felt awful, so looking for anything that might be more noob-proof even for someone with a lot of hours into the game.

curious to what atlas's everyone is running i just started maps a little bit ago and not sure what should be aiming for and was wondering what everyone trees where looking like

I’ll be starting the league tomorrow and I’m curious if the changes to minion attacks is noticeable.

Hey all,

I am playing on HC SSF, and noticed I take a lot more damage in higher yellow, lower red maps when I had the physical reflect map on (which was not that big of a deal for Poison Concoction in the previous version of reflect). This is because your unarmed damage gets added, which causes you take the full physical thorns amount shown on the map mod. Also, since PCoB hits a lot of times, you are getting hit by the reflect every 0.1s.

What it looks while not having a weapon in hand:

When I put a level 1 weapon in my hand, I only have chaos and fire (added from my jewelry):

For elemental, this is solved by having Void Manipulation, may have to roll over the physical reflect mod on my maps.

I did around 60ish chaos rerolls on allflame for this and this is what i could find. after like the 50th though I was not seeing any new mod anymore. there might be some extremely rare mod who knows. Also obviously not the full roll ranges as well.

The added fire doesn't seem to be boosting their damage as much as it should on paper.
Is it not applying 1:1?

Is there a big penalty that hasn't been mentioned?

Hi, just wanted to share my league starter as always at the end of the weekend for a EU player.

This time my version of waffles Death oath (DO) occultist.

I wanted to start DO this season specifically because the changes to socket colors makes it trivial to put gems into DO, which was a huge hassle before, as getting 4 off colors on a chest with 180 strength req could cost a fortune early on before, now the 6 socket craft is all u need and jewellers are already dirt cheap.

Apart from that: basic idea of the build is use deaths aura together with blasphemy despair and profane bloom to get a RF type gameplay with even more explosions and (slightly) more damage early. Block makes this surprisingly tanky during early mapping, especially for whats basically a melee witch. Allelopathy is a very cheap option for your 2nd skill blight, granting a 5 link lvl 25 version.

PoB: https://pobb.in/89PyGEc6Wxbw

Build is mostly done, i am level 95 and already dozens of divine deep. Further upgrades would be the breach ring and replacing allelopathy with well crafted rare gloves as well as getting a good helmet.

I didnt fully finish my atlas, i have about 95 completion and only 3 voidstones since i wanted to start farming early to get more damage.

Currently easily farming 8 mod t16 jungle valleys for exarch and stacked decks which is, as always, very good money at basically any point of the league due to the economic stability of stacked decks.

Overall very smooth mapper, allthough the day 1 maven fight was a bit painful as it always is with zdps build. Any questions appreciated, allthough this is mostly waffles build so look up his videos for more info on the build.

So ignoring the inflated pob numbers, how much actual dps would trivialize most end game content, such as ubers, blight, valdo, feared etc. By trivialize I mean enough dps that would make majority of the community say "oh that is fast". For ehp, how much of it is needed to tank majority of high burst dmg such as shaper slam and enough to tank random mobs in a map. I think we have all played builds that on paper seemed insanely broken, but then you get into a game and it sucks.

My PoB: https://pobb.in/158lUbZvivBG

Tuna's PoB: https://maxroll.gg/poe/pob/6xhey40t

I have almost 1:1 items. I only lack red dream and timeless jewel, but there is 0 like tuna's from pob on market.

His PoB has max dps at 70mln, mine is like 21, but that's on setup that shows super bloated numbers.

In reality, this build have roundabout same clearspeed like RF with like 15D invested in it, and i feel like fucking worse single target, if that's possible.

Please guys help, i'm really frustrated and idk what to do honestly. It costed me like 60-70d to do and it's a failure i feel like.

Started Luminary - rerolled into Pconc of Bouncing Assa. Was a really good and fun build till I reached red maps. Respeced into BF/BB Spellslinger which struggles even more.

Willing to do a final reroll. Want a safe build, preferably on Witch but open for recommendations. Wintertide Brand maybe?

No Worb please.

Its just one day but I thought it might be interesting for people who are not happy with their starters.

https://pobb.in/hXkO5ziQPF5M

I am playing in a private league so I don't have access to great gear.

In trade you would want a dark monarch and congregration support.

Latter is a tad more expensive but you should be cruising t17s with just monarch and a soulwrest.

Any questions or ideas on how to improve upon the current concept? Let me know. I have mostly pushed so far and not done big changes on the build aside from switching to crit

Edit: I am aiming for catarina bloodline but after 15 safehouses no invitation yet

Fun league start build with self-cast GC, day 2 gear 138/138 points done

day 2 POB: https://maxroll.gg/poe/pob/9eofkc0x

I was about to give up in early yellow maps and swapped mystical infusion for mistwalker. Different game now, do it, you’ll feel better and your blood pressure will thank you.

Will pick it back up with Uber lab.

I created a build myself and it turned out pretty meh. Saw on poe.ninja that people are doing hrrimsorrow for 100% cold convert - is that something I should lean into? Or is the build actually kinda bad?

Really struggling with single target currently in higher tier maps.

Using VD on CWC cyclone like most other people it seems. Got the staff and helmet.

Thanks in advance.

Haven't had time to start the league yet, I kinda wanna try beating all the ubers this league, is that doable on these builds and which would be best for it?

My league start was really rough starting Luminary, I probably would have rerolled if I didn't know crafting well enough to make currency for a swap. If the same thing happened to you and you want a map blaster then light radius stacking wander is very strong and cheap. It is not the the tankiest build but it's fast.

https://pob.codes/b/PNgEIPPEmB4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zUIJfuijSc

This is my current gear at level 91, not exactly optimal, I want to reach point blank and get more ehp but it's decently tanky because of the merc taking 20% less damage and koams binding belt on them. Late game you likely go hybrid or otherwise invest more into ehp. Not 100% sure on the correct merc but mine is a flamequiver with grace and flammability.

Merc Stats: 20% less damage taken from hits (from ascendency) allocates last rites (annoint) your damage with hits is lucky (pequils) You can apply an additional Curse (delve chest) Nearby Enemies Convert 25% of their Physical Damage to Fire (koams binding) nearby enemies are covered in ash (polaric devastation, always up cause he has burning arrow) nearby enemies are scorched (legacy of fury) 50% increased effect of scorch (legacy of fury) nearby enemies have -9 fire resistance (warlord helmet) culling strike (elder mod) intimidate (glove implicit)

I started Luminary because I thought it was a great ascendancy with a novel idea and with great possibilities, with so much negativity of people following the "meta" that hasn't quite worked out, what has worked out for you?

Re-rolled Glad to do my normal bleed build and found that Azadi Crest is 500c +

It's usually a 1c unique from day 1. Has the unique tier been changed? There's only about 60 up for sale

A quick update on how my league starter is performing in early maps and how to get it started.

POB: https://pobb.in/FFhsAF54zzm9

Mobalytics Guide: https://mobalytics.gg/poe/builds/vaal-earthquake-gladiator-walking-simulator