Dear exiles, the Path of Exile 3.22 expansion: Trial of the Ancestors is coming. Today the best PoE shop MmoGah will come up with a list of 10 excellent builds to start the new league.
1. Righteous Fire Inquisitor
The number one build is Pohx's Righteous Fire Inquisitor Build. Righteous Fire is a spell that makes you burn yourself for fire damage to deal big fire damage in an area around you. So you're hurting yourself. To survive with this build, you want to stack a ton of life regeneration, maximum fire resistance, life, and energy shield. Righteous Fire's damage scales your life and energy Shield. So stacking these will not only help keep you alive but will also kill enemies.
On top of that, while using Righteous Fire, your spell damage is increased. Since it deals area damage, Righteous Fire is great at dealing with groups of enemies. But it is weak against single targets like bosses. To compensate, you want to work Fire Trap into the build, which lets you throw Exploding Traps that leave burning patches on the ground. This brings in the necessary damage to deal with bosses.
To run this build, you start by taking the Templar class, which is a hybrid strength intelligence class similar to a cleric in other games. Then you take The Inquisitor ascendancy class, which focuses on enhancing Elemental damage, perfect for buffing our fire damage.
This has been a really popular build in PoE for years now. This is a great option if you're looking for simple gameplay with few buttons to press. You activate Righteous Fire once at the start of the map, then run around with Shield charge, and everything burns to death. However, because of its weaker single-target ability compared to some other builds on this list, killing bosses will take a while until you're well-geared. Pohx is highly regarded as an expert on Righteous Fire.
2. Boneshatter Juggernaut
The number two build is Bear's Boneshatter Juggernaut build. This build revolves around the Boneshatter skill. It's a melee attack that hits enemies so hard that some damage splashes back onto you. If you stun an enemy with this attack, a damaging pulse will shoot at them, dealing area damage to monsters around you. The longer the stun duration on that enemy, the bigger the area of the damaging pulse. So this build is great at fighting packs of monsters.
Now let's talk about the damage that splashes back onto you. Every time you hit an enemy with Boneshatter, you gain a stack of trauma. At the same time, each stack of trauma you have gives you a small damage buff. Every stack also deals physical damage to you as well. This means you want to focus on things that reduce the physical damage you take, like armor. You also want to stack life recovery to counteract the damage you're inflicting upon yourself. That's why the Juggernaut ascendancy is a great choice. It gives you a ton of armor, and makes a portion of your armor apply to your Elemental damage. So you take the marauder class, and then you move into Juggernaut.
If you're looking for a melee build, this is the best melee League starter in the game. However, while it does create area damage, it struggles against bosses, and you also need a decent understanding of the game's crafting system to upgrade your weapons as you level up.
3. Explosive Arrow Ballista Elementalist
The number three build is the Explosive Arrow Ballista Elementalist. With this build, you lay down Ballista turrets. Those turrets shoot volleys of Explosive Arrows at enemies. And then, after a dramatic pause while their fuses burn down, those arrows explode. The more arrows you get sticking out of an enemy, the bigger the damage and radius of the explosion. While you don't need to run Explosive Arrow with Ballista, the Ballista allows us to stack way more arrows onto an enemy and therefore get bigger explosions.
That's not even the best part. The best part is the ignite proliferation mechanic, which means that even when an enemy dies, its corpse will stay on Fire, and other enemies walking over those burning corpses will also catch Fire. To run this build, you start by picking the witch class, the basic spellcaster. Then you take the Elementalist ascendancy, which turbo charges your Elemental damage, the size of your explosions, and gives you a protective shield against incoming Elemental damage.
This build is very easy to gear. You are making it a painless League starter and an excellent choice if you don't want to get into trading. But also, if you do want to get into trading and you can invest heavily into your gear, this builds damage can ramp up to ridiculous numbers. The playstyle is safe because you just lay down your ballistas and then duck for cover. It isn't the tankiest build out there. So if you want to play a hardcore safe version of this build, you can check out Zizerin's Champion version instead.
4. Lightning Arrow Deadeye
The number four build is the Lightning Arrow Deadeye. With Lightning Arrow, when you shoot an enemy with an arrow, a bolt of lightning strikes that enemy and some other nearby enemies giving great area damage. Then to help with single target damage, the build also works in the artillery ballista skill, which summons ballistas that rain fire arrows down onto enemies. To run this ability, start by taking the dexterous Ranger class, the bow expert. And then, you take the Deadeye ascendancy, which focuses on enhancing the power of projectile skills.
This build can clear maps incredibly quickly. You'll have a hard time replicating this build's clear speed on any other build or on equivalent item budget. This build specializes in clearing maps. It also scales well with gear investment and into the endgame. Also, since it's using the Deadeye ascendancy, it can easily transition into an endgame bow build later on without creating a new character. Sometimes, your league starter is used to farm the gear you want for your main character, or you need to spend a ton of currency on Respec—one warning though this build is squishy, especially if you are not geared properly. If you're going hardcore, this probably isn't the build for you. Also, bosses can be a real pain to deal with the artillery ballistas. The single Target damage is lackluster. It's all a sacrifice in the name of having such a high clear speed.
5. Corrupting Fever Champion
The number five build is Corrupting Fever Champion. Corrupting fever is a spell that gives you a buff; instead of costing mana, it costs life. This buff lets you inflict corrupting blood onto enemies that you hit. That debuff inflicts physical damage over time, like Bleed but not Bleed. Corrupting blood can stack up to 10 times on an enemy. Still, you need to deliver that corrupting blood with another skill. A great option is the Kinetic Blast, which fires projectiles from your wand that explode upon impact, damaging enemies in an area. So you can stack corrupting blood efficiently because the splash damage from a kinetic blast will inflict corrupting blood onto all enemies hit in the radius. This lets this build have great map clear potential.
To run this build, start by picking the Duelist, which is a hybrid strength and dexterity class. It's created both dealing and avoiding damage. Then you take the Champion ascendancy, which is a great mixture of offense and defense and makes this build incredibly tanky. Thanks to the damage reduction granted by Fortify and the bonuses it grants to auras. This build has great clear speed and defenses that can scale deal well with gear investment. It is weak against bosses because you can only stack corrupting blood 10 times. So you'll have situations where you've maxed out your stacks and can't do anything else to damage the boss further.
6. Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder
The number six build is the Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder. This is the build for you if you want to rain chaos down on your enemies. Toxic Rain is a skill that shoots arrows into the air, which then rain down as chaos damages pods that explode on enemies. These pods linger for a while dealing damage over time, so you can stack them to deal massive boss damage. This build is a great all-rounder.
To run this build, you start with the Ranger glass and then move into the Pathfinder ascendancy class, whose focus is on enhancing your flasks. It'll turn your life flask into a massive life regeneration buff, drastically increasing the effect of your defensive flasks, which can be impressive when you work in certain unique flasks.
There are two main ways to run the Toxic Rain build: the Ballista and the non-ballista version. We will talk about the Ballista version. It results in many more overlapping damage spots and thus the ability to deal much more damage. It is perfect for taking down bosses. This build also has really easy gear upgrades. You will use the same level 5 unique bow Quill Rain into the late endgame. Quill rains increase projectile speed, making the toxic Rain fall faster, which helps speed runs.
7. Cold DoT Elementalist
The number seven build is the Cold DoT Elementalist. This build uses various cold skills to stack various damage over time or dot effects leading to massive damage. You even have the flexibility to choose what cold skills you want to use, though there are some optimal recommended setups: Vortex, Creeping Frost, and Cold Snap.
To run this build, you can pick the Witch class, and then you take the Elementalist ascendancy, which specializes in inflicting Elemental ailments and increases your area of effects.
One thing that'll be very useful for us: regardless of what skills you're picking. You don't need to pick the Elementalist to run this build, but this is the best setup for mapping. This build is a great all-rounder that scales well without needing high gear. It's versatile. You have options on how you want to build it and what skills you take. It applies massive crowd control, slowing enemies, which helps in boss fights.
It's also a hardcore viable build. You can build it up to be tankier if needed, and the chill effects help keep you alive by keeping enemies slowed and away from you. One thing to remember with this build: it can be button-intensive. You're using many different skills, which means you're pressing many buttons often. Also, if you want to scale this build into the endgame, you need good knowledge of gearing.
8. Hexblast Mines Saboteur
The number eight build is the Hexblast Mines Saboteur. Hexblast is a chaos spell that targets an enemy for a big hit of chaos damage. If the damage enemy was cursed, it'll then remove the curse and deal double damage plus a massive air of effect explosion around the target.
This build involves reapplying curses to enemies frequently. This build is also unique in its ability to apply Elemental ailments like ignite shock and freeze even though it's dealing chaos damage. Now the problem with Hexblast is it has a casting time of one second. That's extremely long. However, we can get around this by applying Hexblast via Mines instead.
Mines have their throwing speed which will overwrite the Hexblast casting time. So to run this build, you start by picking the Shadow class. It's a hybrid intelligence dexterity class that fights with claws and daggers. Then you move into The Saboteur ascendancy class, which specializes in laying traps and mines.
This build excels at boss killing. If you're looking for a build that deals high damage at every game stage, especially against bosses, you can choose this build. And when you know your boss fights, you can also lay down the Mines before the boss faces so that they become targetable and go boom the moment they become targetable. The build is also decent at mapping because it deals big area damage.
Now this build is on the squishier side. It's not a glass cannon, and not quiet but still not recommended for hardcore because you don't have enough defense options to focus on. This build also depends on getting specific gear, so you must play the trade game for this one.
9. Detonate Dead Elementalist
The number nine build is Detonate Dead Elementalist. Everyone loves corpse explosion, while Detonate Dead is Path of Exile's version of this classic. You explode a corpse, damaging enemies in an area. To not rely on enemies to spawn corpses, you take Desecrate, a spell that summons corpses.
To run this build, you pick the Witch class and then take the Elementalist ascendancy to buff that fire damage because this builds damage scales off of a corpse's max life. You get to deal awesome damage with basically no gear. You're not relying on a better weapon to scale your damage, just better corpses. This makes the build an ideal choice if you don't want to bother with trading or crafting.
Also, this build is a two-button playstyle. You desecrate to spawn your corpses then you detonate to deal damage. So you're constantly spamming these two buttons, which can be painful on the wrist for some folks. I hate this build, but it's really good.
10. Impending Doom Pathfinder
The last build is Impending Doom Pathfinder. Impending Doom is a support skill that supports hex curses. A curse expires and triggers a chaos explosion in a nice area around the cursed Target. But you will be forcing curses to expire prematurely because there's a limit to how many curses you can have on an enemy. When you exceed that limit by applying another curse, you cause the oldest curse to expire, making a boom.
To quickly exceed that limit, you'll need the Vixen's Entrapment unique gloves, which make you trigger additional curses. You'll also use the spell Cascade support gem to trigger two additional explosions that can overlap. This gives the build excellent area of effect clear speed. However, you need some specific gear to make this build work, so players are not recommended for SSF players. And you need to invest quite a bit into your year before you're dealing good boss damage.
Conclusion
I hope these top 10 builds can help you exiles a lot in the new league. Please stay tuned on mmogah.com to view more news and builds about Path of Exile.