Basics
Now that you’ve reached the beginning of the endgame and you’ve experienced the build quite a bit, you should take some time to understand how your damage and survivability scales in order to know what can improve your build. Since there are a lot of things to consider, I’ll focus on the pure basics to give you a general idea.
Remember: Items with strength requirements have a higher chance to roll red sockets, items with dexterity requirements have a higher chance to roll green sockets and items with intelligence requirements have a higher chance to roll blue sockets. This also applies to hybrid bases, meaning a base item with strength and intelligence has a high chance to roll red and blue sockets while the chance of getting green sockets is low.
That being said, there are two ways of getting off-color sockets on your items:
- You can use the crafting bench to add specific socket colors
- You can use the crafting bench while using this neat trick
The former is helpful if you only need one off-color socket on your item. The latter is helpful if you need multiple off-color sockets on your item.
This also applies to this build. For example, the DPS indication (white text on the top right) you get when you hover over your (G) Toxic Rain skill is completely meaningless, as it represents the physical damage of the skill. However, this build scales chaos damage, which is not even considered in this value.
To get information directly in the game about whether changes to items or gems reduce or increase your damage, you need to look at the value that is in the blue text, specifically the value ‚Deals X Chaos Damage Per Second‘.
But even this value is only an indicator. If you want to know the real damage values, you have to resort to third party tools like Path of Building.
Once you’ve completed the epilog you will gain access to the Atlas of Worlds (Atlas) and the Map Device with the help of which you can open maps. In order to progress through the Atlas, let’s give you some basic information regarding maps:
- In general, there are four types of maps: Normal (white), magic (blue), rare (rare) and unique (brown) maps.
- Just like regular items, maps can have modifiers. The more (dangerous) modifiers a map has, the more enemies will appear (=monster pack size) and the more (valuable) loot will drop.
- Just like regular items, maps can be customized by using currency (e.g. with Orb of Transmutation to transform a normal map to a magic one; or with an Orb of Alchemy to transform a normal map to a rare one). Modifiers of unique maps can’t be customized.
- Just like on regular items, map modifiers can be customized by using currency (e.g. with an Orbs of Alteration or a Chaos Orbs).
- Adding or changing modifiers to increase the monster pack size as well as the amount or value of loot is generally referred to as „juicing maps“ (there are other ways to juice maps, but for now, let’s keep it simple).
So when does this become relevant? In order to progress the Atlas and to gain Atlas skill tree points you have to complete maps by defeating the respective map boss while fulfilling explicit requirements:
- To gain an Atlas skill point for a white map (a map with tier 1 through 5), you must defeat the map boss of a magic or rare map (in order to acquire a magic map, you can use an Orb of Transmutation on a normal map).
- To gain an Atlas skill point for a yellow map (a map with tier 6 through 10), you must defeat the map boss of a rare map (in order to acquire a rare map, you can either use an Orb of Alchemy on a normal map or a Regal Orb on a magic map).
- To gain an Atlas skill point for a red map (a map with tier 11 through 16), you must defeat the map boss of a corrupted rare map (in order to acquire a corrupted rare map, you have to use a Vaal Orb on a rare map (using a Vaal Orb on a map can change the map itself to be another map and/or its modifiers. If a map becomes ‚Unidentified‘ after using a Vaal Orb, it has the same modifiers as before, but an additional item quantity bonus).
Note: If you don’t want to run specific modifiers, you can use your currency to change the modifiers (e.g. Orb of Alteration to change the modifiers of a magic map or a Chaos Orb to change the modifiers of a rare map – the latter is generally not recommended, but there are occasions where this becomes useful). By the way: This build can run all modifiers (while other builds can’t).
Additionally you want to follow this rule: If you run a yellow or red map (without the need to complete it for Atlas skill tree points), make sure it’s at least rare. Usually, this means that you should use an Orb of Alchemy on the map before running it (if it’s normal).
Last but not least, I’ve compiled the following cheat sheet which gives you a general idea of how to complete your Atlas the best way possbile (without claiming that it takes into account every little nuance of the game – but it should include most of the relevant information):
Please note: As I’ve played this build for quite a bit now, I’d like to highlight the following maps which can be quite difficult due to the fact that their bosses have defenses/mechanics which do not favor this build and therefore should be done once you’ve increased your damage:
Important: Voidstones
Once you’ve started to progress the Atlas and to follow the main endgame quest line, you will eventually get a Voidstone which you can place into your Atlas (at the bottom). By doing so, all maps on your Atlas will be upgraded (meaning their tier will become higher) and as soon as you have placed all available Voidstones – there are 4 – into your Atlas, all maps will have the maximum Tier (16). On top of that each placed Voidstone provides ‚Maps Dropped in Area Have 25% Chance to be 1 Tier Higher‘.
In order to receive Voidstones you have to defeat the following bosses (listed in recommended kill order for this specific build):
Note: Each boss drops one Voidstone at a time.