Level 97 Smite Champion^3.22

Notes

SRS Lightning Champion

Video guide is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu0XeeBt6Ys

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/phazeplays
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PhazePlays_
Discord: https://discord.gg/DkUz2Ke6V4

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======= Leveling / Boneshatter ======
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Since Duelist is very far away from minion nodes on the tree, I'd recommend NOT leveling this as minions even with twink gear (unless you know exactly what you're doing)
Leveling this may be rough for inexperienced players due to quite a few gem/skill swaps

== Bandits ==
Softcore: Kill all
Hardcore with currency and twink gear: Kill all
Hardcore fresh start: Help Alira

== Leveling notes ==
Level as Spectral Throw into Helix at level 12 into Boneshatter in Act 6
You can stay Spectral Throw longer if you want
VERY IMPORTANT: Use the Rustic Sash recipe to keep your weapon up to date: vendor a weapon, rare (or magic) rustic sash, and a whetstone
The 30% mana cost as life mastery helps mana immensely early on

== Boneshatter Swap Act 6 ==
Must have Call to Arms and "Non-Vaal Strike Skills target 1 additional nearby enemy" mastery on Tribal Fury before swapping
Boneshatter - Fortify - Ruthless - Close Combat
Buy Ancestral Cry
Put ancestral cry on left click

== Boneshatter mapping ==
Auras entering maps: Determination, Arctic Armour, and Pride. Run without Dread Banner until you get Inspirational from Uber Lab
It's important you have Divine Shield and around 100-200 energy shield to mitigate Boneshatter self-hit damage
Wear a crystal belt if possible and/or an ES/Armour chest piece for extra ES
You may need to path to Entrench early so you can grab the single life/mana leech node on the way
Any Eldritch Embers (red implicit currency) you get, use on decent gloves to try for +1 strike
Totems, berserk, and dropping dread banner are all important for single target

Here's my level 90 boneshatter snapshot if it's helpful at all: https://poe.ninja/builds/ancestorhc/character/phazeplays/PhazeBecomeAChampion?i=0&search=name%3Dphaze&time-machine=day-4

== Adrenaline Weapon Swapping ==
This is entirely optional and kind of degenerate gameplay but if you want to zoom or are an experienced player feel free
Be careful doing this in HC it can be dangerous

Offhand links: Corrupting Fever - Lifetap ---- May need a 3rd link to trigger HP threshold: Swift Affliction / Efficacy / Increased Duration or something
Weapon Swap -> Press Corrupting Fever to drop health below 50% and trigger Adrenaline -> Weapon swap back -> Zoom

If Corrupting Fever starts chunking too much health, stop leveling it temporarily
If you want, you can start doing this after your first Lab

== Pantheon / Ailments ==
Brine King / Ralakesh
Early on, ring craft shock reduction and run a flask suffix until you solve shock immunity via darkness enthroned ghastly or stormshroud / ancestral vision
If you get complete ailment immunity, run Solaris instead of Brine King
Ralakesh never comes off on a Champion unless you're bossing


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============= S.R.S. ==============
=================================

== When can I swap to SRS? ==
If you already have Diadem, March of the Legion, and Blessed Rebirth (medium cluster jewel), you can probably swap entering maps. If not, swap once you have them

== Gem Swapping Melee Splash / Multistrike ==
I'd highly recommend always keeping Multistrike in your inventory to gem swap during guardians, conquerors, sanctums, etc.
Gem swapping is unnecessary during general mapping, however

== Divergent Melee Splash ==
This gem is enormous for mapping clear. Get it as soon as you can

== How often should I press Smite / Vaal Smite? ==
Hitting an enemy with Smite gives your minions a lightning damage aura for roughly 5.8 to 7.8 seconds depending on your reservation mastery, along with applying Lightning exposure (as long as you have Avatar of Fire and Elemental Equilibrium)
Always hit tanky rares and bosses with smite, but otherwise it's not incredibly important while mapping unless you're struggling with damage
Press Vaal Smite whenever you want extra damage, keep in mind the attack time is rather long
I'd recommend pressing Vaal Haste directly before Vaal Smite, as it mitigates Vaal Smite's unusually long attack time which is especially important in Sanctum
Wrath should always be active

== Smite accuracy ==
In your boots, run an "Additional Accuracy Support" alongside Vaal Smite, Wrath, and Generosity until you craft a "Hits Can't Be Evaded" Stabilizing Sceptre
This should give you around an ~80%+ chance to hit typically
Once you drop the Additional Accuracy Support, put in an Empower in its place

Or you can run Resolute Technique

Only Smite can miss. Vaal smite cannot miss (it's simply too powerful)

== Minion Accuracy ==
If your SRS is high enough level, 220+ minion accuracy on a jewel should put your minions at 99% hit chance even on Ubers, letting you skip the +250 accuracy minion mastery
Having a single % chance to blind on hit jewel will usually cap accuracy on single target
Always double check this in PoB though!

== March of the Legion Corruption Implicits ==
+1 to level of socketed gems
+2 to level of socketed aura gems
+2 to level of socketed aoe gems
	all of the above are very good

+2 to level of socketed duration gems only affects smite and not wrath so pretty mediocre but better than nothing

== SRS Helm Enchants ==
They're all good, if I had to rank them it'd probably be:
1. Summon Raging Spirit has 24% chance to summon an extra Minion
2. Flesh Offering grants an additional 21% increased Attack Speed
3. Summon Raging Spirit has 30% increased Duration
4. Summon Raging Spirits deals 40% increased damage

== Budget Option ==
Fortress covenant inside of a cluster is an option on a budget and is similar damage to a good jewel. No life though

== SRS Targeting ==
Mouseover targets while casting SRS and they'll only attack your mouseover target.
Very useful on Uber Uber Elder and Searching Exarc

== Tattoos (3.22) == 
(ANY) -- Honoured Tattoo of the Flock, 1% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills (these are best in slot, but they're expensive)
(DEX) -- Tattoo of the Ramako Shaman, +2% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (use these to finish capping suppress later)
(ANY) -- Honoured Tattoo of the Tuatara, +4 to all Attributes (great for just increasing total attributes with basically 0 downside)
(STR) -- Tattoo of the Tukohama Shaman, Regenerate 15 Life per second (an option early and midgame if recovery is pain, wouldn't use these endgame)


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=========== CRAFTING ============
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== Ghastly Jewels ==
Craft these using Harvest Reforge Lightning or Alt/Aug/Regal

Best mods:
	Maximum Life
	Minions deal (15-20)% increased Damage if you've used a Minion Skill Recently (usually the best damage mod, as we have a lot of flat lightning from our auras)
	Minions have (4-6)% increased Attack Speed, Minions have (4-6)% increased Cast Speed
	Minions deal # to # additional Lightning Damage (T1, T2, T3 are fine)

Having at least one of either 220+ minion accuracy or a "minions blind on hit" mod are good, it often lets you drop the minion accuracy mastery
Try to get one jewel with 46%+ shock avoid which will make you shock immune inside of a well-rolled Darkness Enthroned and Thick Skin on the passive tree
Minion movement speed is also a decent stat

== Endgame Medium Cluster ==
Get an i68-i83 Medium Minion Life Cluster Jewel base
We want Blessed Rebirth + Renewal. They aren't targetable mods so they have to be brute forced

Two different methods work (along with expected costs)
Alt/Aug/Regal = 624 alts, 325 augs, 57 regals, 56 scours, 56 transmutes
Alch/Scour = 510 alchemy, 509 scour

== Endgame Large Cluster ==
i84+ 12 Passive Minion Damage Cluster
Warning, the base is very expensive and crafting it is expensive
Generally, spam Harvest Reforge Caster or Harvest Reforge Attack
Alternatively, Alt/Aug until really good mods and imprint
Fracturing Orbs are good here too

Endgame BiS i84+ clusters always have both 3% increased attack/cast speed and 35% increased effect of passives on them

For early game clusters, use Harvest Reforge Caster until Call to the Slaughter and 2% increased minion attack cast speed or something equivalent

== Crafting Stabilizing Sceptre ==
1. Get a Stabilizing Sceptre i83+ (for the possibility of T1 cast speed)
2. Spam Shrieking or Defeaning Essences of Fear on the sceptre until you hit any of: +1 all spell gems, +1 lightning, or +1 fire. This takes ~114 fear essences on average
3. Annul or prefix cannot be changed and scour to isolate ONLY the +1 mod and increased minion damage. Your sceptre should only have +1 and % minion damage on it, nothing else
4. Craft "Can have up to 3 crafted mods", Prefixes cannot be changed, and lastly a generic mana prefix to fill prefixes
5. Tier 4 Aisling, which gives us a veiled suffix
6. Remove crafts using bench, craft any one of the three "increased Damage per Endurance Charge" to block (all are in the same mod pool), then unveil
7. Try to unveil either cast speed or minion attack speed. Should be roughly 42% chance to unveil cast speed or minion attack speed. Could also maybe use the unveiled trigger mod but im not sure what the 4 second CD does to ES sustain
8. If the unveil fails, go back to step 3
9. Craft "Can have up to 3 crafted mods", "Hits Can't Be Evaded", and "Trigger a Socketed Spell when you Use a Skill"
10. Finished!

== Minion Shield ==
- Prefixes -
1. Get a Fossilised Spirit Shield i84 or i85. If fractured, I'd generally recommend a Suffix fracture, since Prefixes are deterministic and it makes finishing Suffixes easier. If not fractured, you can Redeemer Orb a Suffix later
2. Spam Greed Essences (I'd recommend Shrieking usually) until T1, T2, or T3 "% increased Minion Damage" (depends on budget). T1 is extremely rare, settle on T2 if you hit it
3. Get an open Prefix. The only Prefixes should be Life and % Minion Damage. Annul if needed
4. Craft "Prefixes Cannot Be Changed" to FILL UP SUFFIXES. Suffixes must be full for the next step. If you only have 1 natural suffix, you can craft a Prefix, Exalt, then craft Prefixes Cannot Be Changed
5. Harvest Augment Fire for guaranteed +1 Fire. Import your shield into CraftOfExile's Emulator before doing this step to confirm everything is correct. Prefixes are done!

- Suffixes -
There's a few ways to finish Suffixes and it mostly depends on whether you have any fractures and what stats you want for your build. Suffixes are not rigid like Prefixes, do your research to figure out what you want and how to get it

If you have a Fractured Suffix: Craft "Prefixes Cannot Be Changed", T4 Aisling, craft a mod to block something (check CraftOfExile Suffix Unveil modpools), unveil, craft last mod

If you have Zero Fractures and want to Redeemer Orb: Craft "Prefix Cannot Be Changed", T4 Aisling, block a mod and then unveil, Redeemer Orb (Desired mods: Effect of Non-Curse Auras, Effect of Curses, +2 minimum frenzys = ~42% chance to hit one of these)
	If the Redeemer Orb Misses you have a few options. One is to "Prefixes Cannot Be Changed" and then Harvest Reforge Influence hoping for one of the above mods and then go from there. Keep in mind this has a ~1/12 chance of completely filling Suffixes, which would require you to Annul
	
If you have Zero Fractures: Craft "Prefix Cannot Be Changed" and either Augment Chaos or Reforge Chaos for Chaos Resistance (or another mod you want), craft "Prefix Cannot Be Changed" again, T4 Aisling for 50/50, craft final mod


=================================
============= F.A.Q. ==============
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== Why Avatar of Fire and Elemental Equilibrium?  ==
Avatar of Fire makes our Smite do zero lightning damage which in turn gives our SRS minions lightning exposure via Elemental Equilibrium (our minions do not inherit Avatar of Fire or EE)

== What's with the Stabilizing Sceptre? ==
Saves a passive point

== Why not Poison? ==
Lightning is (probably) better in 3.22 because of the new support Volatility and the Temporal Chains nerf
There's also no damage ramp up time, damage comes out at lightning speed (hehehe) in comparison

== Why Champion? ==
Massive aura effect for smite/wrath/determ, cheat death, perma fortify, tons of armour/evasion, free intimidate
0 reserve defiance banner, can skip grace, extra attack speed for shield charge / smite / vaal smite

== What about Guardian SRS? ==
Guardian is definitely better than Champ for SRS leaguestarts, but I view Guardian as more of a softcore ascendancy as it has not one but two layers of conditional defense
Probably strong in SC but I haven't tried it yet

== Can this build do Trial of the Ancestors? ==
Idk I barely entered it on this build, just lived in Sanctum instead

== Why no Vaal Molten Shell? ==
You can definitely run it if you feel the need
Vaal Haste and Vaal Smite are already heavy on vaal soul usage, adding a 3rd vaal skill will make uptime worse
I don't think VMS is really necessary at the moment as a non-melee champion with adrenaline cheat death and omen of death dancing

== Which Reservation Mastery should I take? ==
"50% increased duration of non-curse auras" is definitely comfiest to play
"30% increased area of effect of auras" is probably optimal if you are on the ball with aura uptime and have no ES sustain issues
Preference mostly

== Can I play this build without Diadem? ==
It would probably not work out in your favor

== Which harvest weapon enchant? ==
% attack speed is probably best to help with Vaal Smite's attack time
+weapon range is also viable if you want more reach with Smite
Both are fine

== How important is the Blessed Rebirth medium cluster? ==
DO NOT PLAY THIS BUILD WITHOUT IT UNLESS YOU LIKE PAIN

== Should I use the 30% minion AoE mastery while mapping? ==
Yes

== Should I drop defiance banner for a bit of extra tankiness/regen? ==
Banner dropping on a Champion is quite good when you need regen in a pinch and there's no possible line of sight issues. Just remember to turn it back on afterwards if you do
For example, dropping a 50-stack defiance banner in the middle of Maven's boss arena covers the entire circular arena and there are no possible line of sight obstacles causing you to lose the buff

== Militant Faith or Supreme Ostentation ==
Both are good, preference. Militant faith is probably slightly better on average with good mods

== Best Watcher's Eye? ==
Determ % Additional Physical Damage Reduction in HC, idk in SC

== Diadem: Stats or Resists+Chaos?  ==
I think stats have a slight edge especially early on for tattoos, get Dex / Int if you go this route
If you ever go Supreme Ostentation you'll want resist+chaos

== Are Grand Spectrums good? ==
Yes, use 1x endurance 2x maximum life if you want

== Is Loreweave / Eternal Damnation required? ==
No, but it's very good to have in HC. Probably unnecessary in SC
On this build SRS doesn't scale primarily through gem levels (though they still help) so losing +levels on amulet isn't as big of a deal for us

== Is Fourth Vow + Xibaqua good? ==
Yes, just don't have low armour