Level 99 Purity of Elements Scion^3.28

Notes

> Leveling <
We level with Spectral Throw into Sunder into Mercenary build.
The Sceptre of God has a guaranteed Mercenary spawn, so this is where you can fish for a good Mercenary, there might be other zones as well.
Flame Link has a minimum requirement of level 34, and we can't really play a Mercenary build before that(and normal lab, but I hope you have that done at level 34).

Look for any Mercenary that seems to carry you, because everything might have changed about Mercenaries it's hard to tell what's good, look out for Mercenaries using Kinetic Blast(of Clustering) or Ice Shot, those should be good enough early on.
Experimenting early on is fine though, Flame Link should provide a bunch of fire damage, so try to find a Mercenary with good coverage, but mostly one that feels good to use, we'll look for our endgame Mercenary later.
IMPORTANT: before you have Cruel Lab, if your Mercenary dies and you're linked to them, you die as well. Make sure they're resist capped and use Enduring Cry to heal them.

You might've noticed the yellow "Safer Detour" trees, this tree is a lot more playable to Cruel Lab and thus a lot less risky in case Mercenary builds only become playable later on.
The downside of this path is that your respec will be more expensive, and that the early mercenary power is lower.

> What Mercenary? <
This PoB is built around the Kineticist Mercenary, it might work with others as well, but since this Ascendancy is new this all requires experimentation we can't do right now.
In Mercenary league Kinetic Blast of Clustering was the best skill on this Mercenary. Try to find one that has good supports like Chain as well.
If you have too many other attack skills on your Mercenary the prioritization of what attacks it uses might break.

We'll likely only find out during the league itself what the best setups are though, so keep an eye on the stream.

> Ascendancy <
First 3 ascendancies are nobrainers:
1. Noble Blood
2. Oath of Fealty
3. Golden Glory
After those you can choose between having a single specific unique + weapon/shield or 2 specific uniques.
Early game you likely want to pick belt(for Soulthirst, only if you have Soulthirst and Ceinture of Benevolence, check > Soulthirst <) and weapon/shield.
If you don't have the belt but have a Taming for example you could also consider picking ring + weapon/shield. Basically: early on you use what you have.

Once you get Enmity's Embrace the gear on the Mercenary changes, you want to stack as much fire resist as possible to give your Mercenary as much fire penetration as possible.
This means you likely can't afford to use the Weapon/Shield ascendancy anymore(unless you have GG gear, see > Enmity's Embrace <).
The easiest way to get a bunch of resist is picking Amulet + Ring and using Untouched Soul with a bunch of white sockets(which is easy now).
Ideally however you just get a lot of resists on each piece of gear, so you can keep using Soulthirst.

> Pure Merc Build or Hybrid Merc/Support? <
The Pure Merc build is the more tried and tested way to build a Mercenary support. It stacks life and Light Radius to juice your Flame Link through the roof, which gives your Mercenary insane damage.

The Hybrid Merc/Support is a deviation on the build that becomes slightly more useful for supporting players as well, this might be a more useful version if it turns out that being a Merc build is only viable lategame.
With this version you can play with a friend and not be dead weight. You'll still give mostly fire damage though, so your friend might have to make small adjustments to their build because of this.
The hybrid build is definitely not the best support in the game, but it's a better support build than the pure merc version is.

> Soulthirst <
If you have Ceinture of Benevolence and Soulthirst, when you put Soulthirst on your Mercenary it should mean(we don't know if this was changed as of writing this guide) that your Mercenary gets permanent Soul Eater.

> Enmity's Embrace <
When you get Enmity's Embrace you can get a lot of extra damage on your Mercenary through Fire Penetration, but getting enough resists on your Merc can be hard.
First of all: make sure your ring has the lowest possible "reduced fire resistance" roll, 65% is the lowest by default, but you can Volatile Vaal Orb it to be even lower.

When you get your Enmity's first you likely don't have good fire resistance gear yet, this is where Untouched Soul comes in.
With the amount of white sockets on gear in 3.29 you should easily get enough resists with this amulet and a few rolls on gear, allowing you to focus on other damage stats like accuracy on other pieces of gear.

Ideally however we use Soulthirst, which means we don't have the ascendancy points to use Untouched Soul anymore.
By getting high fire resistance on every piece of gear we can still get enough fire resistance to make it worth it, especially if you use a Simplex/Focused amulet and/or a Helical ring.
Getting fire resistance on every piece of gear means you likely won't be able to get other stats like accuracy though, so only switch to this setup later on.

> I see some other PoBs use "pinnacle boss" eater/exarch implicits, what's up with that? <
In Mercenary league, using the "Pinnacle Boss" implicits on gear your Mercenary equipped always gave the effect, even when no Pinnacle Boss was nearby.
This is a bug, so I chose not to rely on it for this guide. If it does work someone will find out pretty quickly so just hop by my stream and ask whether it works.

> Won't the "your light radius is based on your energy shield" mastery mean that when your ES is gone you don't get the Link buff? <
I tested this in Standard with Wreath of Phrecia, losing your Energy Shield does not reduce your damage in this case.