I'm wanting to build a dot cap rf and I've seen two main routes to do it: GARF ascendant and life stacker chieftain.

For those who have played one or both, what are your thoughts on them in regard to feel, cost, hinekora pops, not having hinekora pops lol, etc

Any thoughts are appreciated!

I was looking for Builds amd found Wintertide Brand.

Is there anyone that played it in 3.29?

Can recommend it?

And can answer my questions?

The real DPS.

Wintertide is a Brand, that attachs to an enemy and starts dealing Cold DoT + start Stacking

With each Stack up to 20 its deals more Dmg.

An Enemy can have 3 Brands on him.

Each Wintertide deals its own DoT and rise and count only! their own Stack not those from the others.

If Wintertide got deattached its release an additional AoE DoT Area.

Result. For Maxium Dmg.

I want 3 Brands, those need high activation Speed and or Duration to reach those 20 Stack and hold them

+ I want Brand Recall to deattach them for the additional DoT AoE?

3 Stacked Brands + a DoT AoE

Right?

Why isnt Efficacy Support working?

Why some people use Swift Affliction its increase the DoT Dmg but lowers Duration --> less Activations --> less Stacks --> less Dmg?

About Build just follow

Witch - [3.29] ShakCentral's Cold DoT Elementalist - Forum - Path of Exile https://share.google/WOt7ea76FM4B4u2Ag ?

Hello everyone! 3.30 is coming up, so I thought I'd present you with a very early-game build you can use to clear your atlas on leaguestart. The build in question is an Absolution + SRS Guardian, and judging by PoE Ninja, this combination is rarely used. Fingers crossed that GGG doesn't kick minions in the nuts next patch, now that I'm posting this early!

**PoB:** https://pob.codes/b/fHCUjMBlgK0

**Leaguestart practice run:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRajk5C2F9A&t=41513s

Note that I don't use boat crafting in this run, since we don't know whether it'll be present in 3.30. I also don't use any of the free 5-links from the campaign. Instead, I farm my first 5-link from Breach.

---

Minions don't get a lot of love from top speedrunners, which I think is a shame. SRS Guardian, often considered the SSF staple for quick atlas progression, simply can't compete with the likes of slammers and cold dotters. I think this comes down to differences in scaling.

In a race scenario, SRS scales hard up to red maps, but then it falls off due to its poor mapping capabilities. Your scaling options rely on levels, gem levels, and expensive spectres. The latter is out of the question if you want to complete your atlas quickly, which further handicaps you.

Moreover, minion survivability becomes an issue. If you don't invest in it, your damage will be severely limited. If you want to compete as a minion player, you're forced to consider other options.

I'd like to propose one such option, based on a simple design philosophy:

**Combine a long-lasting or permanent, sturdy minion with an easy-to-summon minion.**

The synergy comes from the Minion Defence Mastery, which lets your minions recover 5% of their life when a minion dies. The playstyle then becomes a sort of ramping strategy, where you focus on summoning sturdy minions and getting them ramped up while keeping them alive with your easy-to-summon minions.

The goal is simply to move around and dodge while keeping all your minions up and letting their auto-targeting do its work.

This is hardly an original concept, but I still don't see many players using this design during their leaguestart progression. Perhaps it's because it requires a diligent playstyle, but then again, so does any playstyle if you want to be quick. Or you could, of course, play RF, hehe.

Absolution and SRS are one combination that fits this design philosophy. Absolution provides the sturdy minions, while SRS provides the machinery that keeps them alive once they've ramped up. Furthermore, Absolution and SRS complement each other well:

- Absolution is a strong mapper, while SRS is a weak mapper.

- Absolution summons a few sturdy minions, while SRS summons lots of fragile ones.

- Together, Absolution and SRS provide decent single-target damage.

From levels 1–12, we take advantage of the great synergy between the Templar's physical damage and minion damage nodes and run Spectral Throw. From level 12 onward, we simply switch to Absolution.

As soon as possible, we'll start fishing for a Vaal Absolution, so spend your Vaal Orbs on Absolution skill gems until you get one.

Initially, we'll run Absolution as a hybrid spellcaster, combining the damage we deal with our own hits with the damage dealt by our minions. We'll stick with this approach until around level 28, when we're about to finish our first lab. At that point, we'll transition to a full minion playstyle by adding SRS as well.

From here on, we cruise!

The build becomes reasonably tanky with high life and capped or near-capped block chance. Note that if you get a shield on which you can craft "increased chance to block attacks," I'd definitely do so.

I also like to complete the fourth lab before taking on any pinnacle bosses. The four-second life regen from the Guardian's ascendancy is quite strong.

Since I'm sharing this primarily as a demonstration of a trade league minion leaguestart, I haven't included any loadouts that are significantly stronger than the build at the point of atlas completion. Any new item in the "farming" loadout is either a very cheap unique or something I'll reuse for the build I'll eventually transition into.

Also, apologies for spamming my practice run across a few threads! I should have just made this post in the first place.

Hope you enjoy!

**P.S.** If you're interested in a similar build from a design perspective, here's an unpolished AW Necromancer: https://pobb.in/UhoCvdEEqgOE

It has its own strengths and weaknesses compared to the Guardian, but it can also go fast.

Hey everyone,
I started this league really late, but have been having a blast. This is the first time I even got all 4 voidstones and gained some achievements. Since the league is ending soon and I only have the hard challenges left I have been trying to run nightmare maps and memory threads. Problem is I keep getting one shotted by different enemies and losing my progress. I've been half way to 97 at least 5 times at this point and keep getting reset back to 0. I tried looking at multiple PoBs for this build, but can't seem to figure out why and what I need to upgrade next in order to actually live the harder content. All tips are appreciated! Thank you in advance!

https://poe.ninja/poe1/profile/BlightTempest-7753/allflame/character/Eksnighter

Hello all - I am going to do a Flicker build in late 3.29 and then again in 3.30.

Where can I find some good guides? And is there a consensus best builder for Flicker? Thank you!

I would like to leaguestart this but i have have my doubts.

I guess the build gets very good after getting Lost Unity but how is it without this unique in terms of:

-Clear

-Single target dps

-Fun/power/general feeling

For context, this league has been my first time through the game, I wanted to go in blind and just go with what I felt like at the time, so I have not been using any kind of build guide. I ended up stumbling my way into playing an Infernal Blow Reliquarian using an Axe + Shield combo https://pobb.in/focR8hKvb2IL

While I'm basically done with my goals for this league, I am currently clearing out the last few T15/16 maps of the atlas, I think that all things considered, I did pretty well for my first time.

But the few boss encounters I have access to right now still completely smoke me. I've been able to beat Infinite Hunger, but the Black Star still feels impossible, and while I am able to beat The neglected Flame, calling my damage output 'chip damage' would be generous. (I do still suffer some insta-kills here and there, but those are rare enough right now that I don't feel those are much of a priority at the moment.)

When I check other builds with a similar skill/weapon setup, they seem to comfortably do 2.5x the amount of damage I do, if not more. But looking at the comparisons in PoB it's pretty difficult to really pinpoint any actionable changes I could make to push it further.

In particular, I am mostly wondering whether I am missing some mechanics I could be taking advantage of, or if it really comes down to my choice of class/weapon setup.

I'm not sure yet what I am going to play next league, but any pointers which could help me understand my current power gap, as well as any info that could help in future would be greatly appreciated.

As a long time critic of ralakesh boots, mageblood, squire etc. I am ​looking to play a character with no unique pieces of gear and explore alternitives. I will likely be playing trade to help with bases.

I am looking for suggestions for skills that can leverage influenced gear skills. Since avenews of scaling are not super prevalent, I will likely be creating a 7l helm or gloves setup​. While I may get pidgenholed into a dot build I would like something with the chance to surpass dot cap.

High on the list are slams, worb, certain wander setups. If you have any interesting tech options to push scaling please let me know.

Hello

I've been playing this game for years, but I'm kinda ashamed to say, I always dropped the character on early maps (my top was tier 11 but I only rushed it for 6 socket recipe).

Because of that, I've never paid any attention to the atlas passive skill tree. But now I made a more permanent character in standard, and I have no idea on how to use this thing. It's different from looking for character builds you can just pop in PoB to see how they work.

The only thing I seem to understand is that the nodes increase the probability of map containing certain content, like delirium, or increasing probability of certain drops like maps, yes?

Also does the build I use for my character matter when making the tree? I use Arakaali's Fang/Death's Oath Occultist if it helps.

Hi. Currently running cold convert with Hrimsorrow. Curious what other people prefer

Hello, I am an extremely seasonal player (I play for 2-3 weeks and then never open the game until event or next league), and it's finally time to get back into it, so I am curious about builds that have been "cooked" throughout 3.29 (or ideas that were known before but buffed by something in 3.29).

I am not asking exclusively for league start viable builds nor am I asking for niche / fun builds, just stuff that people made with these "extensive" spell changes.

Edit: 3.29, my bad.