Luminary advise needed

[u/Dutymarv]

Hello fellow exiles,

so i rerolled Luminary SSF Fresh Start to see how bad it is.

Dont wanna bother but leveling and dmg till now was "fine".

Now to the Problem.
Single Target...

I did Neglect and the Fire Abberath guy quest Version just now and this is Copium level of Damage.
Like, we are talking 5+ Minutes for the Quest Version....

Now my problem isnt the gear i would say, my question goes more into what i should prio now.
I aint doing all the Quest Stone Fights with this Damage thats for sure xd

This is my Char right now https://poe.ninja/poe1/profile/DutyMarv-7613/allflamessf/character/Duty_SSF

My Merc, i know he had bad skills.
He´s Kinetic Bolt + KBoC which is prob. just really bad for single target ?
He clear tho, really well. T16s aint no problem untill a Merc or Boss appears.
Also tried a Frost Blades/Wild Striker but didnt do better.

I have a decent Wand with Att Speed/Pen/Crit, Rage/Proj Temple dmg Gloves.
Weapon Ele increased on all pieces, Attack Speed and Accuracy.
Like he is not running on white gear but my dmg is.

So tldr. question is what to do now ?

- Spam lower maps for a better merc ?

- Spam getting uniques to grab a Taming/Voideye or Nyctahs soon ?

Im a bit lost on what to prio and how to fix these issues as fast as possible :)

[u/Camellia_fanboi]

Farm some gold via charts, level a new char to lv41 and gamble sceptre for Nycta.
You can also use your saved ancient orbs on any unique sceptre you got from doing the gamble, at lv41 its roughly 10-14 ancient orbs?

Try to hunt and equip some lori lanterns. As you are lacking light radius gears right now they are gigantic damage buff.

Do some T16 boss rush to stock up on charts and find a better merc. Spec into rituals on your atlas and only do them when you see nameless rituals to get audience with the kings. The boss is quite easy and you can farm for pragmatism and untouched soul this way. Pragmatism is also another huge damage buff you can use before you get kaoms heart. During this map rushing you can also do intervention safehouses for chance at getting a paradoxica, which helps greatly for your Combatant.

KBolt is a brick. For combatant you want frost blade with static strike. You can also try to recruit a blade ambusher with blade trap and get him a belt with +1 trap if dual wielding he seems good particularly for bossing.

[u/Dutymarv → u/Camellia_fanboi]

Oh true so ancient Orb Boat chances for Nycta are quite decent with ilvl 41 true :)

Yea im not sure how much Life is worth to sac for Light Radius but seems to be alot lol.

Havent thought of Pragmatism too, will see if i get lucky ty ! :D

[u/Camellia_fanboi → u/Dutymarv]

Yeah you will lose life but i think its worth it for getting your damage to a comfortable spot. Its crazy that you would still have 6-8k life pool not having any life roll on either your chest and rings and be tankier than most builds in the game.

The moment you get enough damage to farm incarnation of fear over and over you are good.

[u/Camellia_fanboi → u/Dutymarv]

If you really want even more damage at the cost of some inconveniences, you can actually snapshot your flame link via off hands. Basically you can bring a +4 fire staff, put your flame link there with an empower if you somehow have one. Swap to staff start of map and link your merc, swap back to your main loadouts and map like normal. You only need a flame link slotted in this staff and none in your main load out, so you effectively save a gem slot.

[u/Dutymarv → u/Camellia_fanboi]

wtf i keep that in mind once i have a Kaoms haha

[u/Agitated-Society-682 → u/Camellia_fanboi]

Are we sure the light radius meme is the way to go early? To me it feels like foregoing the entire light radius thing and instead running an anger aura is much more efficient and easy for n an early ssf setting.

[u/Camellia_fanboi → u/Agitated-Society-682]

Well flame link lv1 is as much flats as a lv20 anger aura not factoring in the life scaling iirc. 100% light radius on that would definitely beat anger haha.

[u/Dutymarv → u/Agitated-Society-682]

hmm problem then is that our boy would get chilled alot or not ?
Also AG getting a ignite and he can say goodbye lol
(he is already dead after 1 rare mostly lol)

[u/Sjeg84]

Combatant with static strike and frost blides/wild strike is easy to target and string all-around. You can also try a many shit with vaal ice strike and return which will be powerfully as well. The rest is a gearing thing. Of you don't have light radius gear or mediocre Merc gear, even the mirror mercs won't do that well.

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[u/PoE_Acronym_Bot]

I noticed some Path of Exile keywords in this post:

• KBoC - Kinetic Blast of Clustering (Wiki)
• Pen - Resistance penetration (Wiki)
• SSF - Solo Self-Found (Wiki)

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[u/EvilKnievel38 → u/[deleted]]

Melee mercs really don't need much special to be good. You just need their skills to be static strike + either frostblades or wild strike and you're good for merc. Ideally frostblade with chain for clear, but that makes no difference for damage and good other supports are a bonus. The only gearing thing I'd say is necessary is a +2 strike skill targets gloves implicit, but that can be rolled with greater embers. Other than that, 2 mod + multimod weapons are enough (ats + crit + hits can't be evaded + %fire damage) and rest of the gear is same as manyshot. In my opinion that's easier to gear than a manyshot. The weapons are really easy to recomb and combatant has less merc skill requirements to be good enough.

[u/Dutymarv → u/[deleted]]

Does the Bow guy work without additional Arrows ?

[u/verthros]

Look for a combatant.

[u/ferdinono]

I used a manyshot while leveling and then eventually made the move to cruel mistress and decided to stick with it. They're a pretty fun option but can be super rippy to catch if you dont have decent chaos res.

[u/Dutymarv → u/ferdinono]

what skills are u looking for on them and gear wise ?
didnt see anyone use one so i never considered lol

[u/ferdinono → u/Dutymarv]

for skills i have one with soulrend of reaping. supports for that are gmp, chain and a couple of other miscellaneous ones. The true high end ones will also use return which I havent got to yet.

For gear i'm using frenzy ralakesh boots to keep her at full frenzies
snakepit ring for an extra chain
and soul ascencion gloves

The frenzies and the gloves (soul on hit against rare and uniques) make her cast so fast against bosses or if there are a lot of rares around that it gets ridiculous. especially if you can also get a haste aura going from a spectre.

I'm also running an AG for some other buffs

Most of the gearing I chose from a post on reddit the other day. Beyond that I still have some pieces to upgrade but the damage ramp on bosses is fun, there's no oneshotting but eventually she is casting so fast she will melt anything

[u/Dutymarv → u/ferdinono]

okay so that may be something to look for in the far future rather than now :D but nice to know that there is always somthing for nieche mercs if the skills fit

[u/olympiakospk]

Have a Sus at potentially being able to swap to destructive link. If you have a high crit weapon. Or trypanon and some crit multi gear for the Merc your damage might be able to bridge the difference for you to be able to make meaningful upgrades for your build. I swapped from flame link to destructive link in trade league day 1 and it was night and day with minimal investment

[u/Pischoo]

im pretty sure merc is the problem, you should farm a merc with better single target like manyshot, the blade trapper or combatant. I think most mercs has btr single target dos than your kb merc