Level 12 Stormblast Mine Shadow^3.23

Notes

The EoW / Arcanist Brand / Returning Projectiles setup has a lot of links and passives needed to (in my opinion) make the interaction worthwhile early league.
You can't really level with it so we're going to use Armageddon Brand through most of the campaign. Be prepared to stay on Armageddon
Brand until at least yellow maps. If you'd prefer, you can follow any Shadow leveling guide (mines?) and then switch to the "budget"
version of the build a few days or weeks into the league, depending on your dedication level.

We'll start on Saboteur until Forbidden Jewels are available. No point in taking triggerbots early because 1) you can't afford the mana
costs to sustain it and 2) you don't have access to trigger weapons until maps

You're on your own to figure out your gearing; we're going to take purity of elements during leveling for help capping resistances
and to get immunity to ailments for QoL. You're looking for very basic rares; cap your resistances, get life on as many pieces of gear
as possible. Rule of thumb is 300 max life per act during the campaign. We're taking plenty of life wheels on the tree to let you do this.
You'll want a few pieces of gear on intelligence bases (so that you get max energy shield for Eldritch Battery). This remains the case through the end of the
campaign into maps and until you switch off of Eldritch Battery. Even then, we have very reliable ES recovery, so ES can be treated as an additional health pool.

---------------- ACT I ------------------

- Take Stormblast Mine as Hillock Reward
- Check Nessa for wands with at least B-G links, even better would be B-B-G 
        - When you find a chain belt (vendor can sell them) and a whetstone, use vendor recipe: Magic Chain belt + Whetstone + Wand (with your needed links) = wand with spell damage
- Swift Assembly Support as a reward from Mercy Mission (Stormblast Mine - Swift Assembly)
- Orb of Storms as a reward from Breaking Some Eggs 
- Frostblink as reward from Breaking Some Eggs; movement skill
- Buy Arcane Surge + Bear Trap from Nessa 

Level 4 links:
- Stormblast Mine + Swift Assembly Support
- Frostblink + Arcane Surge
- Orb of Storms
- Bear Trap
Put detonate mines on left click. Clear with mines; lay down bear trap and orb of storms for rares / bosses


- Take Added lightning damage support after entering the prison and link to Stormblast mine setup. If you have a transmute, can buy another and put on Orb Of Storms

- Take Flame Dash from Tarkleigh after Brutus, use it instead of Frostblink
- Buy Vitality from Nessa after Brutus and add it to your gems


---------------- ACT II ------------------

- Take Summon Skitterbots and Herald of Ash after rescuing Helena
- Kill all bandits
- Take Trap and Mine Damage after Weaver and buy Controlled Destruction from Yeena

Level 18 links:
- Stormblast Mine + Trap and Mine Damage Support + Added Lightning Damage Support
- Summon Skitterbots
- Herald of Ash
- Vitality
- Bear Trap
- Flame Dash - Arcane Surge
- Orb of Storms - Added Lightning Damage Support - Controlled Destruction Support
If / when you get a 4-link, add Swift Assembly back to the Stormblast mine links

---------------- ACT III -----------------

- Take Flammability from Maramoa as reward for finding tolman
- Purchase Purity of elements from Clarissa after finding Tolman; socket it to start leveling it, but don't activate it yet. You don't have hte MRE for it yet and don't really need the resists or ailment immunity
- Complete Siosa's quest in the library and purchase Armageddon Brand and Faster Casting Support and Elemental Focus and Brand Recall and Discipline and Steelskin from Siosa; start leveling in whatever open slots you can

- I'd recommend switching to Armageddon Brand  at level 31. Once you have allocated Eldritch Battery, you should be able to afford most of the skill uses. I switched immediately after Siosa.
- Use Armageddon Brand for clear; use Flammability and self-cast Brand Recall for bosses. Brand Recall will drop the fireballs AT YOUR CHARACTER'S LOCATION, so stand on top of the boss  before casting it
- Try to maintain max brands where possible

Links after Armageddon Brand switch:
- Armageddon Brand + Faster Casting + Elemental Focus + Controlled Destruction
- Summon Skitterbots - Herald of Ash - Discipline
- Flammabiltiy (for bosses)
- Flame Dash
- Steelskin (on left click)
- Brand Recall (for bosses, stand on top of them before using)

You want to upgrade your weapons at this point. Look for scepters or wands (2 of the same type) that have spell damage or flat fire damage to spells. Alternatively, start from a white base and use the
vendor recipe with a rare Chain Belt + Whetstone + base to get a magic base with spell damage.
Pick up the flat fire damage to spells bench craft - go to the Act III Solaris Temple Level 2 waypoint, then go to the side area by Dialla called "Eternal Laboratory" - the benchcraft is unlocked in that room.
If you have regals, make your magic weapons with spell damage mods rare, then craft the flat fire damage mod to spells on them. Those should get you most of the way through the campaign.

---------------- ACT IV -----------------
- Take Returning Projectiles Support from Dialla; we're not using it yet but will need it later. Level in an off-hand
- Take Summon Stone Golem as reward from Oyun; you can use it for some regen, but i hate recasting it so don't really bother

- When you allocate Elemental Overload on the tree, go to Siosa in the Act III Library and buy Concentrated Effect Support - swap in Concentrated Effect for  Controlled Destruction in the Arma Brand setup:
        - Armageddon Brand + Faster Casting + Elemental Focus + Concentrated Effect

---------------- ACT V  -----------------
- Drop Herald of Ash for Purity of Elements once you take the mana reservation wheel

---------------- ACT VI + -----------------
- Check your resistances at the start of act 6. Use the crafting bench to patch holes where needed.
- You're on auto-pilot through the rest of the campaign. When you find a 5-link, add in Fire Penetration Support


- After taking the Light Eater passive wheel in Act 8 and Deep Thoughts + the Mana Mastery in Act 9, you can replace Discipline with Grace
- You can run lab 2 whenever you feel like you're ready. The blind ascendancy node helps a lot with attack mitigation paired alongside grace

---------------- ACT X ---------------------
- You should pick up Holy Dominion right before/after killing Kitava to help with the -30% all res
- Consider running your final lab BEFORE Kitava to get it out of the way before the resistance penalty

---------------- MAPS ---------------------
- Roll some flasks ASAP and put "use when full" enchants on them when you can afford it. I suggest an instant life flask, Quartz, Quicksilver, Jade, and Silver. Good suffixes are cast speed, evasion rating, movement speed
- You can keep pushing the tlas on Armageddon Brand as long as you like. You can get pretty far with basic upgrades to your weapons. Don't spend a ton on weapon upgrades; they won't transfer over to EoW + Returning Projectiles.

- If you're not already, start leveling Returning Projectiles Support and Added Cold Damage Support
- I highly recommend getting Arcanist Brand and Eye of Winter ASAP and start leveling them in an offhand

--------SWITCH TO AB / EoW ----------
We need to solve the following problems to switch to AB / EoW with returning projectiles:
   1) Projectile speed; need ~100% plus the Vengeant Cascade annoint (Verdant, Indigo, Opalescent)
   2) Enable chain-triggering to make Triggerbots worth it
   3) Enough ES and ES recharge to afford triggered skill costs
   4) Really want a source of life leech for recovery
   5) Gloves with +1 pierce crafted mod (easy)
   6) Damage

Mandatory items:
   - Large cluster jewel with "Doryani's Lesson" notable. Can get it on elemental damage or cold damage cluster. Try to get 8 passive version but don't worry about having 3 notables yet. This solves #4 and gives us some damage.
   - Medium cluster jewel, 4 or 5 passive, with Aerodynamics and Streamlined notables. Don't cheap out, you can use this for the rest of the endgame. This helps solve #1
   - An amulet worth annointing for a while and the Vengeant Cascade (Verdant, Indigo, Opalescent) annoint; these oils aren't cheap but they aren't super expensive either. You're going to replace the amulet eventually, just get something good enough to make the oils worth it. This helps solve #1
   - Drop Summon Skitterbots for Discipline to help with ES pool and ES recharge for skill costs. We're also taking the Essence Infusion wheel. Craft the "-x mana cost to non-channeled skills" benchcraft on whatever jewelry you can fit it on. This takes care of skill costs.
   - At LEAST a 5-link. We're going to be using support gems to enable the mechanics of the skill, so we don't have a ton of damage scaling. We need at least one jewel socket for a damage link. Your links are Arcanist Brand -  Eye of Winter - Returning Projectiles - Cold Penetration Support - Added Cold Damage Support
   - Remember to have at least one piece of gear with a large chunk of ES on it; you need the ES pool for mana.
   - Early on, we will dual wield wands to help with damage since we need to use utility supports. Later on in the league you can swap to wand+shield once we can afford to craft one really good trigger weapon. Here's what you're looking for on wands:
		--Wand 1, trigger weapon: unveiled trigger mod (4 second cooldown, MANDATORY) + as much spell damage, added cold damage to spells, cold damage, and cast speed as you can get
        --Wand 2, projectile speed wand: Tier 1 projectile speed roll (>40%) + as much spell damage, added cold damage to spells, cold damage, and cast speed as you can get


--------AB/EoW UPGRADE PATH AND ENDGAME GEARING ----------
In the endgame, these are the requirements you need to satisfy for the build mechanics to work correctly:
  1) Triggerbots (from Sabo and then eventually via Forbidden Jewels)
  2) Returning Projectiles (either support gem or Nimis)
  3) ~100% increased projectile speed + Vengeant Cascade annointment (dual wield wands with high tier proj speed suffixes or use two medium cluster jewels)
  4) 100% reduced mana cost on Arcanist Brand and on Brand Recall (combinations of passive tree, Elreon ring bench crafts, 20/20 Inspiration Support, Militant Faith jewel, Wildwood Primalist charms from the league mechanic, eventually flasks with Mageblood)


We're just looking for basic rares with a healthy mixture of life, resistances, and suppression. If you want to cap your suppress, you're going to need to favor dex bases. Make sure you get at least one rare that has a good chunk of ES on it; it makes a noticable difference to your eHP pool
If you're going to go Eternal Damnation / Loreweave, prioritize chaos resistance rolls on your suffixes

Once you've switched to AB/EoW, these are your next upgrades, in no particular order.

a) Getting rid of Eldritch Battery:
 - Need minimum 2 copies of 20/20 inspiration, will eventually want a third
 - Need Militant Faith with "1% reduced mana cost of skills per 10 devotion" (probably get an Inner Conviction version, you'll need it later, you don't have to take the Keystone for now)
 - Swap to the No Eldritch Battery version of the tree (requires level 92, drop Instinct and Written in Blood wheels if low level)
 - You'll also need 2 rings with the crafting bench "5% reduced mana cost of skills" mod
 - Import your build into PoB and make sure you have >= 100% reduced mana cost on Brand Recall and Arcanist Brand (and that they show 0 cost on the skill bar)

b) Figure out your endgame chest / amulet. I highly recommend Loreweave / Eternal Damnation to take care of defenses, but you can use Ashes of the Stars (very good for Brand builds) plus a rare chest if you want all-in offensive.

c) Get Forbidden Jewels and swap ascendancies to Assassin for crit scaling. This will require a significant tree rework, you'll want to be in the mid-90s to get the most value out of it.

d) Craft ailment avoidance boots with essences and eldritch currency; alongside a "chance to avoid shock" abyssal jewel, get 100% shock avoid then turn that into ailment immunity with Stormshroud. This lets you drop Purity of Elements for a damage aura

e) Swapping off Returning Projectiles Support:
 - Add Nimis
 - Remove Returning Projectiles Support for a damage link; if you've swapped to Assassin with Forbidden Jewels, use Increased Critical Strike Support; if you're still on Sabo with Elemental Overload, use Hypothermia
 - You will need to make up for the 5% mana cost that you had on the rare ring.
 - Wildwood Primalist ascendancy (from the league mechanic) SHOULD have charms with large chunks of reduced mana cost (from the Heirophant Sanctuary of Thought node)

f) Craft a mana reservation efficiency helmet (both explicit essence mod and implicit eldritch mod) and get Enhance Support to fit in an additional aura

g) Mageblood is a huge upgrade to the build; with Mageblood, you can use the "25% reduced mana cost of skills during effect" flask suffix with the "70% increased effect" enchant drop all of the pathing to the Dreamer and Righteous Decree wheels
	This saves something like 14 skill points, opening up a lot of room to get critical strike multiplier, additional power charges, etc on the skill tree.  You obviously want a 4 flask version, but you could consider switching early to a corrupted 2 flask Mageblood
	but just make sure that you have made up the "chance to avoid shock" that you're getting from the abyssal jewel in your Stygian Vise.

You can continue to scale the build beyond Mageblood but I will not be covering those expensive upgrades in this video. To get some ideas, consider double-corrupted chests, +2 trigger weapons, saving skill points with Impossible Escapes, etc.
To see my approach at scaling a full investment version of the build, refer to the build guide here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osKA7fhjDnI

---------- AFFLICTION LEAGUE MECHANIC ---------------------
 - I expect that the charms from Wildwood Primalist will be VERY good on this build. In particular, any charm with "% reduced mana cost of skills" can save a significant number of passive points.
    - Getting 16% from charms will save a minimum of 4 passive points; getting 25% will save 10 passives.
- There will also probably be projectile speed charms (from Deadeye) which will significantly help ease your gearing

--------------------- THANK YOU ---------------
Thanks for your interest in my league starter brand and returning projectiles EoW build guide.

There are forum text posts with more gearing and mechanics discussions for the endgame versions of the build here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3447790
and with video versions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osKA7fhjDnI
and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLmQt1ge6HM&t=0s 

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