Level 92 Blight Occultist^3.20

Notes

If you like this build and are interested in PoE Tips, solid builds and step-by-step guides consider subscribing to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/PoEAcademy

Want the shopping list, ask questions or give feedback? Use the dedicated discord channel: https://discord.com/channels/827836172184584214/983065533341642892 (I will try to update the FAQ with these, too)

You can find the 3.20 starter guide here: https://youtu.be/Vx3VprzEg7M

IMPORTANT: 
Only use Defiance Banner when you have reduced mana reservation somewhere on your gear, the mana reservation efficiency node for curses now only gives 20% instead of 30% which leads to -4 mana reserved ... unfortunate! 
This only applies to the very early and early mapping setup though but shouldn't be noticable a lot. If you craft your helmet with mana reservation or have a helmet with any mana reservation enchant you can use Defiance Banner without any issues :)


--------------------------- Gear ---------------------------

Mana Reservation: 
- Small Cluster: Sublime Form with 3 passives
- Helmet Entchant: Determination / Grace Reservation Efficiency Enchant or if you have enough reservation efficiency: despair effect
- Craft Helmet with Mana Reservation Efficiency Essence 


Quality of Life: 
- Get yourself a "phasing on kill" abyss jewel!!!!!


Herald of Purity Rings:
- Get two with both "buff effect" and "chaos damage"

Helmet Craft:
- Get a dex or dex/str base with despair effect / reservation efficiency for grace or determination
- craft with essence of loathing 
- use eater of worlds ichors for "% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills" implicit




--------------------------- Pantheon ---------------------------
Major God: 
- Soul of the Brine King (Stun immunity / recovery, less chill effect on you, freeze immunity)

Minor God: 
- Soul of Abberath (ignite / burning ground) or
- Sould of Shakari (poison / chaos dmg) depending on what you're facing




--------------------------- Misc ---------------------------

Playstyle Tips
- Make sure to use Molten Shell before you run into big packs or use it as an emergency button 

FAQ
- How do I counter chill from Icefang Orbit? -> Take Soul of Brine King with reduced freeze effect, can also use one of the new jewels
- I do get body blocked by enemies -> Either get the Phasing flask or phasing on kill on an abyss jewel (preferred)




--------------------------- Skills ---------------------------
To be able to use Eldritch Battery, you need some energy shield on your gear. I prefer a hybrid chest with AR/ES or EV/ES but two smaller hybrid pieces of gear will also do. 
Divine Blessing Setup: Level your Divine Blessing accordingly to your energy shield. If you don't have enough energy shield, you might want to roll one of your flasks with "reduced mana cost of skills"

Chance to Poison: 
50% from the Tree

-> Fill at least 90% depending on gear progression
40% Poison Support Gem
15% Toxic Strikes Annointment
20% Curse Mastery
20% Herald of Agony / 40% Divergent Herald of Agony



--------------------------- Map Mods ---------------------------
Use this regex if you bulk roll maps: 
"!n,|f ph"

This excludes: 
- Monsters reflect X% of Physical Damage
- Monsters have a X% chance to avoid Poison, Impale, and Bleeding



--------------------------- Leveling ---------------------------

Leveling early on copied from Subtractem Bane Occultist Levelling guide

This guide is designed to give players an excellent league starter comfortably and smoothly. While it's not as fast as other builds out there, it's very effecient and budget friendly.
This guide is NOT a complete ACT compaign walkthrough. It is designed to take you from the beginning of the game, when it's most challenging to the endgame.
Incase you do not know, the Tree section in the Path of Building has a drop down menu on the bottom left that lets you see the stages of the passive tree as you progress.

(Much thanks to notes editor extraordinaire Khaosshinobi for this spectacular rewrite - Subtractem)

-----------------------------
Act 1
-----------------------------

>>> BUY BLADE VORTEX BEFORE MERVEIL AND LEVEL IT IN YOUR OFFHAND!!! <<<

Vendor Search String: 
b-b-g|b-g-b|g-b-b|r-b-b|b-r-b|b-b-r|b-b-b|runne

-Grab Freezing Pulse from the first quest, and buy Blight from Nessa to begin levelling it up. But don't actually use Blight, yet. Save your blue gems!
-Link Freezing Pulse with Arcane Surge (Ditch this setup once you get Holy Flame Totem and Flame Wall)

Don't level Arcane Surge too much if you notice it's uptime starts being too infrequent. *Generally level 3 is fine, but level 1 is on the safer side for uptime*

-Look for a Red+Blue+Blue or Green link item to link Holy Flame Totem + Summon Phantasm + Added Lightning
-Look for Blue+Blue+Blue for Frost Blink (until you get Flame Dash) + Arcane Surge + Flame Wall

(Can do Stormblast mine + Frostbomb + Orb of Storms if preferred over Holy Flame Totem w/ Summon Phantasms and/or Flame Wall)

-Buy Holy Flame Totem from Nessa, and take the skills Flame Wall and Frostblink from Tarkleigh, after travelling to the Submerged Passage
-Link Arcane Surge with Flame Wall early. Link Holy Flame Totem with Added Lightning Damage or Added Cold Damage based on the sockets you find

Summon Phantasms becomes available after collecting the Medicine Chest on the Coast. From the same quest, grab a Quicksilver flask. You'll want
to craft a mod onto your quicksilver using a transmute.

Look for Iron Rings. you can vendor an Iron Rings +  a Blue gem, like Fireball or Freezing Pulse, for a Sapphire Ring if needing frost resist for Merveil or future wand craft!

-Grab Void Manipulation, when you get to the prison. 
Socket it where possible to level it up, but don't prioritize this over your skills or red sockets for auras later.

For Brutus, use Holy Flame Totem to hold aggro and keep your distance and just play safe. 

-Grab Flame Dash, Vitality, and Clarity after defeating Brutus

Prioritise getting Vitality, it increases your survivability dramatically
Replace Frost Blink with Flame Dash, make sure you click on Flame Dash on your bar and turn on "always attack without moving" so it casts no matter where your cursor is.
If you have strength issues with Holy Flame Totem and/or Vitality, look for Heavy Belts, they give + Strength

-Grab Essence Drain when getting to Merveil's Lair to level it asap.
Immediately craft the wand below.

DISCLAIMER: If you are using this craft on your currently equipped wands it will make the item level requirement level 14!!
-----------------
Magic Wand (Blue quality) + Magic (Blue Quality) Ruby/Topaz/Sapphire Ring + Orb of Alteration
-----------------

If you don't have magic qualities, you can use Orbs of Transmutations to change them into magic quality items.
If you have spare red gems and Iron rings, you can do the same craft as earlier to get a ruby ring for this craft. Only worry about the ruby craft if you already have equipped Sapphire Rings!
  
Craft missing cold res on gear with Transmutes before going into Merveil's Caverns


-----------------------------
Act 2
-----------------------------
We don't really use any of the gems here, Except for Controlled Destruction, later.

-Kill all bandits for maximum skill points.
-Socket Controlled Destruction to Flame Wall and Flame Totem if you can get the links. 

IT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO START LOOKING FOR FUTURE GEAR LINKS! Check vendors often.
Since the build really shines when we are able to combine Bane + Blight + Essence Drain we want them all 3-4 linked asap. All of these skills will want G + B + B + B  link initially.

-----------------------------
Act 3
------------------------------

Vendor Search String: 
g-b-b-b|b-g-b-b|b-b-g-b|b-b-b-g|g-g-b-b|g-b-g-g|g-b-b-g|b-g-g-b|b-g-b-g|b-g-b-g|b-b-g-g

-Do the quest "Lost in Love" (find Tolman in the Crematorium) then buy gems from Clarissa.
At level 24 you will swap out Holy Flame Totem and Flame Wall entirely and commit to pure Chaos now.
Funny enough the build is essentially complete. It's just a matter of putting the rest of the pieces together towards the end product.

Whenever 5 Links start showing up toss in any other damage link.

You will be aiming for something like this:
Bane + Despair + Temporal Chains + Any Damage Link
Blight + Essence Drain + Any Damage Link + Any Damage Link

-After you do Victario's Secrets quest (the busts in the sewer) you can respec the Fire Walker points towards more Chaos points. (The fire passive points above the starting area)

-At level 30-ish do Lab. Just keep Bane + Essence Drain on Izaro and walk around the edge of the arena, it's very safe and easy. I found taking Profane Bloom first was the biggest boost to clear and comfort.

Some folks don't enjoy the "+ 1 Chaos gems, lose 10% life on cast" mastery as it does require us to hit our life flask a lot to top off early on so feel free to skip if you don't want to use it.

-----------------------------
Act 4
------------------------------

BV SWap once you reach level 38 and have killed Malachai in Act 4. 

You will have 90% chance to poison at this point: 
- 40% from Poison Gem
- 25% from top passive wheel
- 25% from right passive wheel

Swap from 2 Wands to Sceptre / Dagger + Shield to be able to use shield charge

Pick up a sulphur flask if you can it adds a lot of damage for tanky rares




-----------------------------
Act 8
------------------------------

For your aura setup: 
you will need all reservation nodes on the tree to run clarity, malevolence, despair + blasphemy, and grace 
you can leave out malevolence or grace until then; I prefer to drop the later one. If you can't dodge Izaro in lab before Act 8 bosses, make sure to allocate all reservation nodes to be able to use grace! 
If you have leveled clarity, you might have to buy a level 1 clarity now since otherwise you will not have enough free mana



-----------------------------
Act 10
------------------------------
Remember to socket another curse (enfeeble) after the 3rd lab to Bane



-----------------------------
Very early Mapping
------------------------------

Pick up Eldricht Battery to be able to run the divine blessing setup with malevolence for a nice damage boost and to permanently run determination