Level 98 Crit Splitting Steel Champion^3.21

Notes

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As always with any build you will need to cover your bases with your gear / skill tree. You cannot rely 100% on this PoB to account for your
exact personal needs.

You will need to make sure that you maintain:

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100% Chance to Impale
 - Nodes on the Tree, %chance on jewels, %chance from Dread Banner (alt quality for more + this is affected by aura effect), crucible trees

Enough Accuracy for 100% Chance to hit (A little more doesn't hurt for enfeeble/blind/evasive)
- Nodes on the Tree, stats on gear, blind, jewels, crucible trees

75+ All Elemental Resistance (A little more doesn't hurt for ele weakness maps or altar mods)
- Nodes on the Tree, stats on gear, jewels, Purity of Elements, Flasks

0+ Chaos Resistance (Get as much as you reasonably can but 0 + an Amethyst flask is enough)
- Stats on Gear, Flasks

100% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage
- Stats on Gear, Nodes on the Tree, Evasion Mastery, Quartz Flask,

Enough Strength and Intelligence to use your gear / skills
- Nodes on the Tree, stats on rings / gloves / boots, jewels, attribute nodes on crucible trees

Enough Mana Reservation Efficiency to use all of your auras
- Nodes on the Tree, Eldritch helmet enchant, Jewels, Banner Ascendancy, % from Essence Crafted Gear

Enough -mana cost to be able to cast your abilities
- Crafted on Rings, you can also take the life mastery for 30% of cost goes to life

Properly rolled and enchanted flasks, they are VERY important for mapping survival.
- Check the Trade website or roll with alterations / augments on 20% qual ilvl 84 base flasks 

Enough pierce(4 is good) for Clear if you are not using Awakened Fork
- Support Gem, Nodes on the Tree, Glove Craft

A level 21 Sniper's Mark for +5 projectiles and every 20% of Mark effect will add +1 proj.

Adjust how much Crit chance you scale by the base crit of your Sword, depending on how high it manages to get with Crucible Mods and
base chance, you could need more or less.

Manage your Evasion and Armour levels to be relatively even to maximize the damage output from Perseverance


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Frequently Asked Questions

	- If you have questions that aren't answered here join my stream at https://twitch.tv/bigducks and ask me when I'm live.

  	Or join my Discord linked under all of my videos and ask in the designated thread for this build. Keep questions about builds specifically to that thread
	  as we don't want to clutter the discord general chats with tons of questions. It is meant to mainly be a hangout spot for people playing Path of Exile or
	  other ARPGs.

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	Q: My ability is only shooting out a single projectile and doing no damage, what gives?

	A: You need to maintain Steel Shards with the Call of Steel ability, you should be using it every few attacks to do a large aoe and replenish these shards.

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	Q: We only use Splitting Steel now? What happened to Lancing Steel?

	A: The change to the way projectiles interact with return mechanics has made the Vengeant Cascade notable extremely powerful for this build,
		as ALL of the split projectiles from Splitting Steel now return to our character and then explode in an AoE. This lets us overlap ALL of the projectiles
		on a single large enemy if we stand on top of them.

		That being said, Lancing Steel is still very strong, it also works with Vengeant Cascade, it is just not needed.

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	Q: We start leveling with Splitting Steel and then swap to Shattering Steel, but endgame we use Splitting Steel again, when do we swap back?

	A: When you get the Vengeant Cascade anoint. You can stay with Shattering Steel for quite a while and follow the guide mostly the same.

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	Q: Wasn't this originally a Dual Wield build using The Saviour / Paradoxica combo? I also see a lot of people using Beltimber Blades.

	A: I've done a bunch of testing and simply feel that Two-Handed from start to finish is simply the superior build. Less annoying, more damage
		and cheaper at every level of gear besides giga crafted 2h sword.

		The Dual Wield version is mostly unchanged, however the issue stems from how Vengeant Cascade and The Saviour interacts. The problem
		is that the projectiles from your clones return to your clones and not yourself, meaning that the vast majority of your projectiles will not overlap on the
		boss as the clones kind of do their own thing.

		As for Beltimber Blades, I tried them out, they do good damage and are fine. The issue is that the playstyle is very annoying as you have to keep
		using a movement skill every 4 seconds to justify using them.

		Notably the Dual-Wield version with The Saviour is slightly better for clear. But keep in mind that good Crucible mods are significantly harder to get on uniques.

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	Q: Call of Steel feels way too slow, should I take the use speed impale mastery?

	A: You can! It isn't ideal for damage or defenses but if the playstyle bothers you, drop a few damage nodes and path to Merciless Skewering. RIP Lord of Steel...

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	Q: Why are my Splitting Steel AoE's not hitting the boss? (Why am I not doing damage?)

	A: You must stand on top of whatever enemy you want to do damage to, Vengeant Cascade causes your projectiles to return to you, so they explode in front of you.
		If you have issues overlapping the enemy you're fighting, try scaling a little bit of AoE through things like the helmet enchant.

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	Q: Why do you have 2 of the same Splitting Steel in the Skills section, and why does one of them have so many projectiles?

	A: This is the only way to properly display the actual damage of Splitting Steel in PoB in the Full Damage section at the bottom on the left. We use one
		set for the Main Projectile, and then the other set for the Split Projectiles. We get 5 projectiles from the main gem, 5+ from our mark (this is 5 from level
		21 Sniper's Mark and and additional projectile for every 20% Mark Effect, +1 from the Multishot notable, and 2 if using Fury Valve.

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	Q: You have Awakened Fork listed in the links section but not ticked, what do you use it for?

	A: So Awakened Fork is quite an upgrade for clear when you are in dense packs, but otherwise doesn't do very much. If you want to focus on farming very dense maps such
		as delirium zones or such, get a white socket in your body armor from Vorici so you can swap Cruelty for Awakened Fork and remove ALL pierce from your gloves / tree.
		NOTE: The fork ONLY works while the projectile is travelling OUT as Vengeant Cascade will cause them to pierce on the way back, allowing you to double dip for some
		pretty solid clear in VERY dense packs only. You can also get "Projectiles have x% chance for an additional Projectile when Forking" on your Crucible tree + passive tree
		for an extra boost at 100%


Gearing

NOTE: This gearing section is VERY DIFFERENT depending on which level of investment you're at PoB wise (Bugdet, Mid, Expensive)

	Weapons:
		
		Crafted Rare	 -  Obtain an ilvl 83 Ezomyte Blade with as high of a Fractured Mod as you can manage (Physical Damage% or Hybrid Phys% / Acc) and use
									 Deafening Essence of Contempt on it until you land the other Phys% mod of an acceptable Tier (4+ is good, 2+ is great) and at least 1 open suffix.
									 Craft Prefixes cannot be changed, scour the item to clear suffixes, and then craft Can have 3 Crafted Modifiers, Attack Speed, Crit Chance / Str + Int

									 If you can't get either of the prefixes Fractured you can grab Crit% or Attack Speed fractured and continue with Deafening Essence of Contempt until you
									 land Hybrid Phys%, no other prefix, and one open suffix. Craft Prefixes cannot be changed, scour, craft Can have 3 Crafted Modifiers, AS or Crit depending on your
									 fractured mod, and then %Phys.

									 If you can't get ANY fractured mod for some reason and you hate yourself enough to not be okay with a good Terminus Est /w a solid Crucible Tree. You can Grab any
									 ilvl83 Ezomyte Blade and either spam any of the relevant essences until you get something worth continuing with, or if you REALLY hate yourself you can attempt to
									 alt / augment / regal until you have a decent base you can multimod. I suggest using plenty of imprints to accomplish this.
									

			Crucible Trees - Looking for any sources of Attack Speed (Not the one that gives Less Global DMG), Crit Chance, Allocate Sword Nodes, Explicit Modifier Buffs, Raw Damage, Mark Effect,
									  Support Gems (List Below).
								
										Support Gems Worth Taking in no particular order:
									
											Additional Accuracy, Fork, Increased Area of Effect, Blind, Life Gain on Hit, Culling Strike, Iron Grip, Slower Projectiles, Enhance, Chance to Bleed,
											Maim, Momentum, Pierce, Impale, Lifetap.


	Helmet:
		
		Crafted Rare		 - Ideally you would grab a fractured Spell Suppression Arm/Eva and use Deafening Essence of Loathing until you land Life + any resist or other mods you need. Then
										either use an Enchant Service or Enchant it yourself with Sniper's Mark Effect or Splitting Steel AoE.

										Alternatively you can take more Suppression on the Tree and settle for a base with the Enchant already on it, or forego the enchant completely, and simply roll essences
										until you get Life and the Resists / Open slots you need.

										Remember that you can use Eldritch currency to make this process easier.

			Eldritch Implicits - Reduced Mana Cost of Attacks(Important!), Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency(Important!)
			
			Enchants 		  - In Order of Importance - Sniper's Mark Effect (You will need to be able to hit 60 total% to make this one worth it for +1 Proj), Splitting Steel Aoe,
							 		   Ancestral Protector Attack Speed, Any Aura Mana Efficiency.


	Body Armour:

		Crafted Rare		  - Grab a Fractured Spell Suppression Arm/Eva Base, Quality to 28+% with Hillock, 6 Link, and then hit with Deafening Essence of Loathing until you get a T1 Resist roll.
										 Use Eldritch Currency to force open a prefix if you don't have one and craft Suffixes cannot be changed and use a Veiled Chaos Orb, before unveiling craft either
										 attack or spell block and then unveil for Elemental Ailment avoidance, craft Phys taken as fire/light. If you hit any life roll on the Veiled Chaos orb that isn't essentially t1 or t2, 
										 or don't land Ele Ailment avoidance, restart from Suffixes cannot be changed + Veiled Chaos Orb Step. If there is an open prefix you can exalt orb.

			Eldritch Implicits - All Non-Curse Aura Effect(Important!), Determination Aura Effect OR Grace Aura Effect (Balance your Arm/Eva for Perseverance)


	Gloves:

		Crafted Rare	- Grab a fractured Life Arm/Eva base and use Deafening Essence of Zeal until you land the stats you need + an open prefix for +1 Pierce.

								   Remember that you can use Eldritch currency to make this process easier by rerolling prefixes or removing them.
			
			Eldritch Implicits - Chance to Intimidate on Hit, Increased Effect of Marks - If you get an Intimidate on Hit Pride Watcher's Eye you can replace this mod with any other good one.


	Boots:
		
		Crafted Rare			- Grab Fractured Life Arm/Eva boots and use Deafening Essence of Loathing until you land Movement Speed and a solid resists. You can also just go for
										   resist rolls and use Eldritch currency to obtain movement speed.

										 - NOTE: You will need 55% total Elemental Ailment avoidance(45-50% with the big chest) on these boots unless you have crafted the big chest, meaning you will need 
										   to balance that with the roll from the essence and the roll from the Eldritch implicit.

			Eldritch Implicits - Action Speed, Avoid Elemental Ailment(Important!)


	Amulet:

		Fury Valve 			    - +2 Projectiles synergizes well with our Splitting Steel overlaps and the rest of the stats are useful.

		The Eternal Struggle - Provides significant stats to help overcome strength / int issues. Global Defenses helps scale our defenses, and damage significantly due to our belt. Just
											make sure that Searing Exarch is dominant if you don't have another source of cull. Take whatever good implicits you can get, really good ones are 
											EXPENSIVE and the supply is basically nothing.

		Ashes of the Stars	 - Very powerful overall amulet for the build but is not as good as a VERY good The Eternal Struggle, that said good luck getting a VERY good one. Scales 
											INCREDIBLY well with alt qualities, and provides us a ton of Reservation Efficiency. I suggest going for at least 18 / 28 on the rolls.


			Anoint - Vengeant Cascade is the only anoint for this build as it enables the Splitting Steel overlap to function.


	Rings: 

		Crafted Rare 	 - Buy Amethyst rings with a good resist or stat you need fractured and use Deafening Essence of Scorn / Contempt until you hit Life and any other stats you need
									 as well as an open Prefix to craft -mana cost.


	Belt:

		Perseverance - The only belt worth using on an attack Champion. Enables us to scale insane damage from our defenses and provides us perma Onslaught.

			Enchant - Accuracy during Onslaught


	Flasks:

		Enchant all utility flasks with Use on Reaching Full Charges, you only have to press them every once in a while for bosses or hard mobs.


		We use (4) Utility Flasks and (1) Life Flask

		Non-negotiable flasks					    - Jade, Granite
		Other Flasks in Order of Importance - Amethyst (Until Chaos Res Cap), Diamond (Until Crit Cap), Stibnite, Basalt, Sulphur, Quicksilver (We move mostly through movement abilities).

		All Utility Flasks should use the Gained Charges on being Hit Prefix, +3 ideally but +2 is okay, you need ilvl80 base to hit +3 on hit and ilvl84 to hit max on most suffixes. 

		Suffixes can go on any of the flasks, you should look for in order of importance, %Armour, %Evasion, %Reduced Effect of Curse, %Attack Speed, %Crit (unless capped),
		%Movement Speed.

		Your life Flask should be an Instant flask, ideally one that is Instant while on low life. Use an anti-bleed / corrupting blood suffix until you can become immune to those effects
		through a jewel corruption or masteries.

		You can use Bottled Faith and/or Dying Sun if you have enough chaos res and such, just keep in mind it is VERY hard to maintain these flasks for long periods of time if you
		are not clearing maps or insta killing bosses. That being said they are VERY powerful for the build, I just prefer to not use them for defensive reasons.


	Jewels:

		Watcher's Eye 				- You need to have Elemental Ailments accounted for before dropping Purity of Elements for Pride. Getting ANY other positive mod will make this significantly more expensive.

												  Good 2nd or 3rd Mods are: 
												  Pride - Intimidate(Replace Glove Implicit) / Phys Damage
												  Precision - AS / Crit Multi / Attack Damage
												  Determination - Phys Dmg / Armour / Reduced Phys Dmg Taken
												  Grace - Evade / Spell Suppression

		Forbidden Flesh / Flame - These can be GIGA expensive, get what you can afford.
						
												  List in order of Importance - Arena Challenger (Run Flesh & Stone), Headsman (If you don't have another source of cull), Bane of Legends (Overall Best choice
												  IMO because good damage and Phys Reflect Immunity), First to Strike, Last to Fall (You can take Fortitude, Master of Metal, or Inspirational and just allocate the
												  other one, get whichever is cheapest), Outmatch & Outlast (2 Hander is considered Main Hand). Nothing else is worth taking over 2 rare jewels.

												  Fatal Flourish is technically the most damage but feels very bad to play because of the repeats, I don't suggest it and its giga expensive anyways.

		Timeless Jewels 			  - Can go ideally Brutal Restraint for Aura Effect or Lethal Pride for Double Damage, get as many of those and other positive nodes as you can, goes in the
												   Wind Dancer Jewel slot or the Duelist Jewel Slot.

		Impossible Escape		   - We go for Perfect Agony as this allows us to grab Pierce to help clear, Mark the Prey and Multishot for Damage, and Careful Conservationist for Flask Generation.

		Rare								 - Grab Life% and then ANY other 2 damage modifiers, they are all extremely similar. In general Crit Multi Performs highest followed closely by attack speed, followed
													by everything else.

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Leveling

	Gameplay:

		Make sure that once you have Precise Technique that you are keeping track of your Accuracy and keeping it higher than your Max Life, level up Precision just enough to maintain this. Also
		grab nodes on the tree. A lot of the sword bases have Accuracy implicits as well.

		Point Blank makes you do significantly more damage when close, get up in their faces!

	Auras:

		For Auras you want to keep Precision just leveled enough to have more accuracy than life, after that enable Dread Banner to cap Impale chance, and then you have a choice.
		You have 3, 50% Auras, and realistically early on you can only run one at most. Personally I would run Purity of Elements as I hate elemental ailments and getting ele res while leveling.
		Realistically the best option is probably Grace as it will keep you alive on average most often.

		As for running Auras on your life, only do so if you feel extremely confident in not dying, as typically this will be a bad move since your life total will be small.

	General Tips:

		Make sure that if you are dying you check your Life, Resistances, Flasks, and Links. Update these frequently and keep on top of things.

		Use the bench in your hideout frequently to craft resistances or life on rare pieces.

		Use essences you find on gear as you level.

		Check vendors occasionally for links you need.

		Remember to grab your gems as you level and level up gems for endgame in your offhands.

	Skill Swapping:

		Splitting Steel will work until you obtain Shattering Steel at level 12 and then that is your main ability until you get the Vengeant Cascade anoint. I HIGHLY suggest you do not swap until you
		obtain it as your build will feel VERY BAD. You can follow the PoB almost exactly the same with just using Shattering Steel instead of Splitting Steel in the endgame section until you get the
		anoint.

		The tree section called "Crit Swap" is when you will swap to the Crit focused Links for your main ability. Terminus Est has crazy high crit and enables you to go crit quite early with very
		little investment besides the tree nodes, the links, and a Diamond Flask.

		The tree section called "Spell Suppression" is around when I would suggest attempting to cap Spell Suppression as you will be reaching yellow and red maps. It is VERY important for
		consistent defenses that you max your Spell Suppression. Until you are able to, make sure to take extra nodes around the tree and use the Lucky mastery to get as close to cap as you can.
		Un-spec the Spell Suppression nodes on the tree as you obtain more on gear.


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Thanks for reading, if you try the build and enjoy it be sure to let me know! If you have any improvement ideas feel free to talk about them in the designated channel on my discord for this build.

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