Level 96 LL Soul Link Ascendant^3.19

Notes

Hello! Welcome to our aurabot guide for 3.19. 

If you're looking for someone to group with or just want a bunch of people to talk about the build with then you should check out our Discord server. 
It's a friendly and helpful place and is a great place to ask questions.     https://discord.gg/gcZKtz7

We'll also be streaming on league start, so if you want to see these builds in action come say hi!      https://twitch.tv/haloplasm

There are detailed video guides explaining how these builds work in detail if you want more information.
Carry guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq1c2lI4hrE
Aurabot guide: https://youtu.be/3by90wAKrKA
Atlas passive and currency making guide: LINK
Third party member mini-guide: https://youtu.be/ONZfgjkZ6Gc

--Leveling--
(This will be focused on gem/item acquisition/progression and tips on how to play the aurabot. Generic duo leveling and zone-by-zone pathing guides can be found in the Useful Resources channel of the Discord server.
-Act 1-
Considerations:
Whenever you enter town, check Nessa and Tarkleigh for links (and movespeed boots) using the following paste: b-b-g|b-g-b|g-b-b|g-g-b|g-b-g|hand|b-b-b|runner
To squeeze out more damage against bosses, be sure to place down Orb of Storms before throwing your Stormblast Mines, and stack as many mines as you can get away with before detonating, as each mine applies inc. damage taken.
(Bonus points for making sure you have arcane surge up while they detonate.)	
Kill any essence monsters you find, as you'll need them for the spell damage crafts in act 2.
Since we're using sceptres to leap slam, you'll want to try and pick up 2 Driftwood Sceptres as they have the best base AS.
Try and pick up a jade amulet and heavy belt. These two items will fulfill any attribute requirements over the next 2 acts.

Gem Acquisition:
Level 2:
Stormblast Mine, Nessa, 1 wisdom
Pierce support, Nessa, 1 wisdom (for the sparky carry)
Arcane Surge support, Nessa, quest reward (tidal island)
Flame Wall, Nessa, 1 wisdom			(This is only to buff the damage of a spark carry, and to roast marshmallows The Coast) 
level 4:
Frostblink + Frost Bomb Tarkleigh, quest reward
Orb of Storms, Nessa, 1 wisdom
Level 8:
Added Lightning Damage, Nessa, quest reward
Level 10:
Leap slam, Tarkleigh, quest reward

~While your OoS and Stormblast Mines are initially linked to the same Added Lightning support, you'll eventually want to buy another, to get your OoS its own link so that it can replace Frost Bomb for generating onslaught.

-Act 2-
Considerations:
Act 2 is where you'll do your added spell damage crafts on your sceptres. The recipe is as follows:
Magic weapon + magic resist ring or rare resist ring + 1 alteration. 
Using a magic ring will result in an item with a 14 level requirement, whereas a rare ring will give the weapon a level requirement of 20 and a higher tier of added damage to spells.
I recommend doing your first craft with a magic ring as soon as you're level 14, and then doing a rare ring craft later on. 
Because we have such pathetic damage nodes on the tree, waiting until level 20 to get double rare ring crafts is a luxury you don't have.
When fighting the act 2 boss, and early act 3 unique enemies such as piety, you may have to turn off your herald of thunder to get enough open mana to comfortably reserve both stormblast mine and Skitterbots.
Don't forget to finish the Golden Handjob quest for Survival Instincts.

Gem Acquisition:
Level 16:
Herald of Thunder, Greust, quest reward
Level 18:
Concentrated effect, Silk, quest reward
Faster Attacks support, Yeena, 1 alt
Summon Skitterbots, Yeena, 1 alt

-Act 3-
Considerations:
Once you're level 24, vendors have the potential to offer a 4-link, so always check your vendors.
The best bases to chrome are Str/Dex, or Str/Int for the act 4 transition to full aurabot, but if something like a 3b1g or 4b shows up, you can of course grab it and throw another support gem on your current setup.
Also be on the lookout for your duo's ideal 4-link (for spark this is 2b1g1r, or any 4-linked base with an Int requirement.
Be sure to farm docks instances while your duo progresses onward if you're even slightly in need of the extra xp.
If you need extra chance orbs to buy gems from Siosa, you can trade 1 fusing for a chance orb at Clarissa.
If you happen to have 3 augs at this point, you can craft 10-14% increased movement speed on any boots you find with life/res and an open prefix.

Gem Acquisition:
Level 24:
Wrath, Maramoa, quest reward      note: stick with HoT + Skitterbots until you have enough reservation to replace HoT with wrath.
Sniper's Mark, Clarissa, 1 alt
Level 28:
Lightning Penetration or Ice Bite support, Siosa, quest reward	(for carry)

-Act 4-
Considerations:
If you're strong enough, you should run Kaom's while your duo does Daresso. 
If your damage has fallen off at this point, you can stop at the waypoint at the start of the second Kaom zone and farm the dried lake while your duo completes Daresso.
Again, remember to keep looking for those 4 links!

--THE GREAT AURABOT SWAP--
This is where you swap to being a full aurabot with no damage capabilities. It's important not to undertake this swap until you've collected all the requisite pieces; it's totally fine to delay this swap until act 5 or even 6.

Gems needed:
Smite, Nessa, 1 wisdom
Vitality, Nessa, 1 wisdom
Faster Attacks support, Yeena, 1 alt
Generosity support, Clarissa, 1 chance
Discipline, Clarissa, 1 alt
LEVEL 1 Stormblast Mine, Siosa, 1 wisdom 		(level 1 stormblast mine has lower rerservation than the level ~12 that you had previously; discard your higher level one. Act 3 Siosa and act 6 Lilly offer all gems at level 1)

Items needed:
1) 4L: you'll want a 2r1b1g, though if you haven't managed to find a 4 link, a 2b1r works, dropping Faster Attacks.
2) A melee weapon, preferably a cutlass, which you should be looking for from the act 4 vendor throughout the act. (Cutlass grants accuracy for smite and has 1.55 base attack speed.)
3) sufficient properly colored sockets to socket everything else, though the only other link is between Leap Slam and Faster Attacks.

Drop Summon Skitterbots, throw in Vitality and Discipline.
Take the Discipline reservation mastery (You'll respec it in an act or two, then re-allocate it again later on).
Feel free to unbind your detonate mines button, since you'll always be leaving the mines undetonated on the ground for their offensive aura.
From here on out, your order of priority for damage buffs skills is Smite > Sniper's Mark > Stormblast Mines

End GREAT AURABOT SWAP
--

Gem Acquisition:
Level 34:
Soul Link, Oyun, quest reward		(Just level this gem, you won't be using it before mid tier maps; you're typically much squishier than your duo and pressing soul link only exacerbates that).
Level 38:
Minefield support, Petarus & Vanja, 1 alch

-Act 5-
Considerations:
Take a granite flask as a reward from Lani; despite the fact that we run grace far earlier than determination, an early granite flask is too good to pass up.
If you missed a cutlass from the act 4 vendor, they can still be found from the act 5 weapons vendor early on.
Chamber of Innocence is a great zone to run 2 or 3 times for experience and loot, along with the potential for a delirium mirror.

From this point onward, the only gems you'll be picking up are ones you skipped earlier, e.g. Grace, so most of these acts won't have a Gem Acuisition section.

-Act 6-
Considerations:
The moment you get into act 6, open the character sheet to check your ele res; you'll want to craft transmute tier resists on each piece of grear until you've reached around +40%. 
If you can't get this much Ele res, just craft what you can and carry on.
This is one of your squisihest points relative to monster damage. While, as an aurabot, you'll typically want to stay directly on your carry, for few acts here you can try to position a bit behind them to avoid getting blown up by monsters.
When you've attained both the Vitality and Grace reservation masteries, you'll replace Discipline with Grace. Feel free to respec the discipline mastery for a free skill point; you won't be reallocating it for a while.
From here to attaining Pathfinder ascendancy, you might have to tell your carry to slow down slightly so that you stay within xp and flask range, though Leap Slam can help mitigate this issue.
There are several rewards in act 6 through 10 that give 4-linked pieces of rare gear. Be sure to pick the item base with attribute requirements that allow you to easily recolor them according to your current needs.

-Act 7-
Considerations:
Check the first zone for the silver locket for Weylam's quest; flasks are very valuable since you're going to acquire your Pathfinder ascendancy before the end of the act. Take a jade flask.
Don't take Greust's necklace from Helena; the quest takes some time and is useless. Also, as a quest item, you can't delete it in town and have to drop it on the ground somewhere.
Here you can look to pick up a Vaal Haste off trade if it's less than 2 chaos and your carry already has their cheap leveling uniques. 
While you normally only use the vaal aura, if you notice your carry has enough damage to oneshot everything, you can turn off Wrath and run Haste in its stead for a few acts.
Before pathing to the Influence cluster, you can start floating passive points; once you have 4 passive points available, allocate all of the attack speed nodes off scion start. 
After allocating those, you can then respec those now useless damage nodes, and continue on your way to the Influence and Charisma wheels.

-Act 8-
Considerations:
As you're accquiring your reservation nodes through the later acts, you'll probably want to add auras in the order of Defiance Banner -> Discipline -> Clarity. Remember, the carry should be running clarity until that point.
Take Conqueror's Efficiency from Hargan and have your carry take Conqueror's Potency, you'll be using each of them. DON'T VAAL.
Reallocate the Discipline mastery to allow you to run the aura.

Gem Acquisition:
Defiance Banner, Act 2, Yeena, 1 alt
Arrogance support, Act 6, Lilly, 1 chance (not used until late maps but you might as well start leveling it)
Clarity, Act 1, Nessa, 1 transmute (start leveling it and equip it after attaining the clarity mastery in act 9 or 10)
Determination, act 3, 1 alt (again, just leveling the gem)

-Act 9-
Considerations:
The Trial of Ascendancy in The Tunnels is always the first left off the main path
Though you now have a large chunk of ES from Discipline, continue to prioritize res > life > strength on gear, don't worry about ES on gear.
At this point you can start aiming to overcap your resists to 105% so that you can get straight into mapping after being cursed by a10 kitava.

-Act 10-
Considerations:
I typically like to take a silver flask from Lani for the quest reward, as the speed is always appreciated, and you should have already acquired the 2 best defensive flasks, jade and granite.
Don't expect to get any fortify from your champion ascendancy node, since your smite will be hitting for miniscule damage amounts. You take this node for that juicy 15% aura effect.
Kill Kitava.


--Maps--

Immediately upon finishing campaign:
Type /passives to check that you acquired all skillpoints available from quests (24 passive points).
Look to cap your elemental resistances
Make sure to run the first map from Kirac in Oriath Shores for both players, so that you both have access to Kirac's map inventory and both receieve atlas missions by completing maps.
Pick up Vaal Grace and Vaal Discipline from trade, so that they're already high leveled when the time comes to socket them into your Vaal Caress
Swap in an Additional Accuracy Support (buy from act 1 Nessa so that it's mostly leveled) in your smite links in place of Faster Attacks Support

Gear priority/advancing through maps
When you get your two uberlab points, be sure to allocate the 3 passive points on Champion, Rather than Pathfinder. If you ever respec Pathfinder for Necro, this will save you 10 regret orbs.
#1 priority is getting your Sign of the Sin Eater, the item pushes your damage to ludicrous levels, the moment you equip it you probably have enough damage for red maps.
Vaal Caress should be the second upgrade, but there's no way to entirely predict the price of the reworked item. Go for it before a tabula if it's less than 10c, after a tabula if it's more than that. Don't buy the item if it's incredibly expensive, it's nice but far from necessary.
Before switching switching to the late mapping version, be sure to have the triple ele flasks up and ready to go, as they're absolutely crucial to capping your res in that version. You'll also want "reused at the end of flask effect" on your Coruscating Elixir.
When upgrading to the next level of investment, you generally want acquire all the items before transitioning, but if you want to upgrade in a piecemeal fashion (not recommended if you're new) be sure to prioritize any reservation items before ES and finally aura effect ones.
In very scary content where Vaal Discipline will be your lifeline, you should make sure that it's the only vaal skill you're running, so that other skills don't steal any souls from it and it maintains as high uptime as possible (even with vaal caress).
A Discipline effect String of Servitude outcompetes both Bated Breath and most crystal belts while you're using Vaal Caress, and will provide an even larger survivability increase to the carry.
While level 20 elemental purities grant you an additional 1% maximum ele res per 25% increased aura effect, level 23 purities grant 1% additional max ele res per 20% increased aura effect.
Because two of these purities are socketed in your +2 prism guardian, you can buy level 21 gems at any time for an additional 2% max ele res of that element.
Specifically, you'll probably want to prioritize Purity of Fire, as maximum fire res is quite important for allowing your carry to comfortably run Righteous Fire

Finally, you may eventually want to drop the Pathfinder ascendancy for necromancer, due to the huge attack and cast speed boost it provides. This is entirely optional, and I only recommend doing it if you're comfortable with having to kill things to maintain uptime on coruscating elixir.
After dropping pathfinder, you'll want to keep Survival Secrets and the Essence Extraction wheel, which combined should give you around a minute of coruscating uptime before you need to kill anything. In one test, over 6 feared rotations with 40% PoB flask uptime, coruscating turned off only one time.