Milestones

Atlas skill tree

In terms of the Atlas skill tree, you have plenty of options to design it to your needs and preferences. But assuming you are a new player, you most likely won’t have any idea what you need or what your preferences are. Therefore, I recommend following this Atlas skill tree which is very basic and focuses on helping you to progress the Atlas by increasing the drop rate of maps and the amount of Kirac missions you get which will help you to complete your Atlas a lot.

Once you have progressed your Atlas to the point where you can invest more points, the best way to spend these is highly dependend on which endgame milestone you are aiming for at that very moment (the only mistake you really can make is to not invest points).

If you want to see some options in regards to the Atlas tree, I also recommend checking out this reddit post.

By the way: In order to unskill Atlas skills, you can use Orbs of Unmaking which you can loot or buy from Kirac (you will then be able to immediately invest the skill point again).

Note: The recommended Atlas skill tree setup isn’t the best option in terms of making currency. If you are looking for setups which provide bonuses for other things than your Atlas progression, check out the setups from known streamers / YouTubers.

Replace Molten Shell with Vaal Molten Shell

If you’ve followed this build guide closesly, your current CWDT setup should consist of (R) Cast When Damage Taken Support, (R) Increased Duration Support and (R) Lifetap and (R) Molten Shell. Now that you have reached the endgame, you can make this setup even stronger by using (R) Vaal Molten Shell.

Vaal skills like Vaal Molten Shell are a special type of skill gems which grant BOTH an alternative version of the skill AND the regular version of the skill. In your setup, which should look like this …

… means that you have access to both Molten Shell and Vaal Molten Shell whereby the regular version is triggered by your CWDT and the alternate version can actively be used in emergency cases to get a big shield.

Please note:

  • Vaal skills can be used once you’ve collected enough souls. You obtain souls by killings enemies or damaging rare or unique enemies.
  • Vaal skills can’t be triggered by CWDT
  • Vaal skills override the effect of the normal version (meaning the shields are not additive)
  • Vaal skills can have quality (in this specific case, quality increases the duration of Molten Shell by 1% per 1% gem quality)

The most reliable way to get Vaal skills is to use a Vaal Orb on the regular version of the respective skill gem (in your case Molten Shell). Therefore, head to your hideout, talk to Lilly Roth and buy Molten Shell. Then, use a Vaal Orb on that skill gem and repeat this until you get the Vaal version (this has a random chance). On top of that, Vaal skills can also drop randomly, especially in Vaal side areas.

Level important gems in your second weapon set

In order to be prepared for the moment you will sell your level 20 support gems together with a Gemcutter’s Prism to receive level 1 support gems with 20% quality, you want to buy your main skill setup once more and put it in your second weapon set to level it. The gems – which you can buy from Lilly in your hideout – are:

Note: Once you’ve sold your level 20 gems to get their respective counterpart at level 1 with 20% quality, you will put the level 1 gems into your second weapon set so they can gain experience. In the meantime, you will use the other set of gems to continue mapping (swap them back if your 20% gems have level 19+)

Increase the quality of your flasks

There are multiple ways to increase the quality of your flasks in order to enhance their effect and duration:

Additionally, you can use the crafting bench to enchant your flasks, allowing you to automate them if certain conditions are met. For this build, I recommend using the following enchantment for any Utility flask:

  • Used When Charges reach Full (default)
  • Reused at the end of this Flask’s effect (if it fits better with your playstyle)

Notes:

Complete the Eternal Labyrinth as soon as possible

In order to be able to access The Eternal Labyrinth, you have to be level 75 and you have to acquire an Offering to the Goddess which is a guaranteed drop if you successfully complete a Trial of Ascendancy in maps (random spawn). Once you’ve completed The Eternal Labyrinth you can invest 2 additional Ascendancy skill points. Here, you want to go for Conqueror next.

Note: The layout of The Eternal Labyrinth changes on a daily basis. You can find the optimal pathing for the current day here.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned items by using the trade website:

Get a 6-link bow and a 6-link body armour

There are multiple ways to get 6-link items and it’s highly rng-based:

1. Divination Card: Humility (9x)

2. Divination Card: The Porcupine (6x)

  • Divination Cards called ‘The Porcupine’ can be farmed in specific maps as well as in The High Gardens (Act 8). 6 of these cards will provide you with a 6-link Short Bow. Please note: You can only roll ‘+1 to Socketed Bow Gems’ naturally on this Short Bow since its itemlevel is 50 and the minimum itemlevel requirement for ‘+2 to Socketed Bow Gems’ is 64. That being said, you can either use Shrieking Essence of Dread or a Deafening Essence of Dread – if available – to force the ‘+2 to Socketed Bow Gems’ on the bow.

3. Divination Card: Imperial Legacy (22x)

4. Vaal Side Areas

  • Vaal Side Areas can drop Corrupted 6-link items which can be useful from time to time. If you encounter them during mapping, it’s recommended to clear them. Additionally, you can open a Vaal Side Area from your hideout by putting a Sacrifice at Dusk, Sacrifice at Dawn, Sacrifice at Noon or Sacrifice at Midnight in your Map Device. While this isn’t quite the best way to acquire a 6-link, especially given that the item is corrupted (which means you cannot change the modifiers), it can be a nice alternation to the other farm methods from time to time. By the way: Even though socket colors cannot be changed on Corrupted items with the default method of using Chromatic Orbs, you can change the colors of Corrupted items by using your Crafting Bench (with the cost of additional Vaal Orbs for each craft).

5. Using currency

  • As you already know, you can use your currency to create 6 sockets (Jeweller’s Orb) and 6 links (Orb of Fusing). Nevertheless, I would only recommend this method if you already have found a decent enough item. In terms of the body armour this would be one with at least 4 useful modifiers (check the ‘Increase of Survivability’ to see which modifiers are decent) and in terms of a bow this would be a bow with ‘+2 Level of Socketed Bow gems’ and a free suffix (see below: “Get a 6-link bow with ‘+2 to Socketed Bow Gems’ and “‘+#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier’ modifiers”).

Additionally, 6-linked items can drop randomly, of course.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned items and cards by using the trade website:

Cap your Chaos Resistance

As already mentioned multiple times before, resistances are the most important defensive layers. During the course of the campaign, emphasis should be placed on elemental resistances. However, once you start playing maps, you should gradually increase your chaos resistance until you ultimately reach the cap of 75% here as well.

A very good way to obtain additional Chaos Resistance relatively easily is to craft the following modifiers onto your items using the crafting bench:

  • +#% to Cold and Chaos Resistances
  • +#% to Fire and Chaos Resistances
  • +#% to Lightning and Chaos Resistances

Get Viridian Jewels

Viridian Jewels are the best base jewel type for this build because they can roll a decent amount of useful stats and their bases are very craft-friendly. The stats you are looking for on your jewels are (in order of importance):

  • +#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier
  • #% increased Maximum Life
  • #% increased Attack Speed
  • #% increased Attack Speed with Bows

Additionally, corrupted Viridian Jewels can provide very helpful passives via implicit modifiers, such as:

  • Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you
  • You cannot be Hindered
  • You cannot be Maimed
  • You cannot be Cursed with Silence

You can get the mentioned above Corruptions by using a Vaal Orb on any jewel, but be aware of the fact that the jewel modifiers can change during this process, eventually making it useless for your build. So it’s recommended to only use this method if you can risk losing the jewel you want to corrupt.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned  items by using the trade website to buy veiled items:

Get Cluster Jewels

Cluster Jewels play a very important role when it comes to scaling damage and they occasionally drop from Delirium encounters (which spawn randomly in maps). They are a class of jewels that can be socketed in the outermost sockets of the passive skill tree and they extend the skill tree by creating new clusters of nodes, which can contain basic nodes, notable skills and even keystones. This build utilizes the cluster jewel node above the ‘Piercing Shots’ node at the right of the skill tree and after you’ve equipped all you cluster jewels your skill tree should look something like this.

There are 3 types of Cluster Jewels (large, medium & small). This build uses one large and two medium Cluster Jewels which should have the following modifiers:

  • Large Cluster Jewel
    • Adds 8 Passive Skills
    • 2 Added Passive Skills are Jewel Sockets
    • Added Small Passive Skills grant: 12% increased Chaos Damage
      +
    • 1 Added Passive Skill is Unwavering Evil
    • 1 Added Passive Skill is Unholy Grace
    • 1 Added Passive Skill is Wicked Pall
  • Medium Cluster Jewel (2x)
    • Adds 4 or 5 Passive Skills
    • 1 Added Passive Skill is aJewel socket
    • Added Small Passive Skills grant: 10% increased Projectile Damage
      +
    • 1 Added Passive Skill is Repeater
    • 1 Added Passive Skill is Shrieking Bolts

The amount of added passive skills per jewel is random (Large Cluster Jewels can have 8 to 12 added passive skills, Medium Cluster Jewels can have 4 to 6 added passive skills). Therefore, you should work with what you get, but don’t invest to much currency onto bad Cluster Jewel bases when it comes to crafting (see next section).

The chances that these cluster jewels drop with having the exact modifiers needed is pretty low, but there are ways to change the modifiers. So once you have a fitting cluster jewel base (meaning the first 3 modifiers of the list above) check out the Endgame Crafting section below, to get more details on this topic.

Once you’ve acquired one or more cluster jewels, you most likely have to change your skill tree in order to have enough points to invest into the added passive skills. You can do this by unskilling a part of the of the left skill tree. Your endgame skill tree with cluster jewels should look something like this.

Important note, especially for Solo Self-Found (SSF) players: There currently exists a strategy which helps you to efficiently farm cluster jewels with 8 passive skills and the modifiers you need in The Foothills in Act 9. Here, the strategy is to open a new instance to The Foothills, run a few seconds into the area and check if there is a Delirium Mirror like this one (normally, it is very close to the waypoint of The Foothills, so you should recognize it fast). If there is one, clear the area with Delirium activated as fast as possible and get the rewards. If you don’t see a Delirium Mirror, run back to the waypoint immediately and open a new instance. Repeat.

By the way: If you’ve already used this strategy when you first did Act 9, you might already have some of the needed cluster jewels bases in your Stash, so check them out.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned items by using the trade website:

Unlock important endgame crafts by unveiling Betrayal items

You can unlock important crafts by playing the ‘Betrayal’ league mechanic, also known as Immortal Syndicate, When encountering the Immortal Syndicate you have to fight its members who – if defeated – have a chance to drop veiled items. These items can be unveiled by talking to Jun in your hideout. When unveiled, the unveiled modifier will also be available for your Crafting Bench (some of them need more than one unveil to be unlocked).

The crafts you you’re looking for are:

  • +#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier
  • +# to Level to Socketed Support Gems

You can get the ‘+#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier’ from any veiled weapon and ‚+# to Level to Socketed Support Gems‘ from the Syndicate endboss.

Note: As long as you don’t know what you are doing, I recommend the following:

  • Increasing the ranks of Syndicate members or destroying their items is always a decent choice.
  • Never ever choose the option to remove all rivalries.

Immortal Syndicate encounters can appear randomly in maps. Additional, there are two ways to enforce encounters:

  • Atlas Missions
    If you put a map into your Map Device you can add ‘Area will contain Immortal Syndicate activity’ by activating the respective option at the bottom (Immortal Syndicate is the second option from right). By the way: Each time you kill a map boss, there’s a chance you get a random Atlas Mission.
  • Immortal Syndicate Safehouses
    Each time you encounter Immortal Syndicate members, their respective Safehouses gain progress. Once the progress reaches 100%, you can enter the Safehouse and defeat Immortal Syndicate members that are assigned to it. Once you’ve cleared enough Safehouses, you can face the Syndicate endboss by entering the Safehouse at the top of the Syndciate board.

By the way: Once you’ve acquired all crafts you can unskill the Betrayal-related nodes on the Atlas skill tree and invest them elsewhere.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned crafts by using the trade website to buy veiled items:

Craft you mid-endgame bow

Your mid-endgame bow is supposed to be a 6-link and should at least have the following modifiers:

  • +2 to Level of Socketed Bow Gems
  • +#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier (Craft)

In order to acquire/craft your mid-endgame bow, you have to follow these steps:

1. Acquire a 5-6-link bow (item level 64+)

  • This can be a random drop or you can farm specific content.

2. Add ‘+2 to Level of Socketed Bow Gem’ modifier to the bow

  • Besides looting a bow with this modifier, there are 2 ways to get it:
    1. Use Orbs of Alteration on a magic bow until you hit ‘+2 to Level of Socketed Bow Gem’ (you can transform a normal item to a magic one by using an Orb of Transmutation). Then, use a Regal Orb to make the bow rare and hope that it has a free suffix (The reason why you need a free suffix is that you want to be able to craft ‘+#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier’ modifier which is a suffix – see below)
    2. Use a Shrieking Essence of Dread or Deafening Essence of Dread on your bow and hope that it has a free suffix. The reason why you need a free suffix is that you want to be able to craft ‘+#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier’ modifier which is a suffix (see below). If the bow doesn’t have a free suffix after you’ve used an Essence, you can use an Orb of Annulment to remove a random modifier from it, but there’s also a chance that you will remove the ‚+2 to Level of Socketed Bow Gems’ modifier – if that’s the case, you have to use another Essence

3. Craft ‚‘+#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier’ on the bow

  • Use your Crafting Bench to craft ‘+#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier’ (check two tasks before to see how to unlock this modifier for your Crafting Bench)

Pleaso note:  There’s a chance to simultaneously roll the ‚+1 to Level of Socketed Gems‘ modifier in addition to the ‘+2 to Level of Socketed Bow Gem’ modifier, but it’s heavily rng-based. SSF players can give it a shot, but for Trade League players I’d recommend to either buy one or to go directly for the late endgame bow.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the mentioned items by using the trade website:

Anoint your amulet

Once you’ve acquired a decent amulet with ~4-6 useful modifiers, you can anoint it. Anointments on amulets basically allow you to gain one node of the skill tree as a modifier on your amulet. There are two recommendations regarding anointments:

  • Mid and late endgame
  • Very late endgame (if you want to use Grace as an extra aura – optional)
    • Anointment: Sovereignty
    • Effect: 12% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills / 10% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills
    • Costs: 3x Silver Oil
    • Note: This is a significant loss of damage if you’ve used the ‚Corruption‚ anointment before, namely around 13% less damage and should only be used if you want to switch to a more defensive setup  and as long as you can’t afford the helmet that is needed to use (G) Grace (more information can be found here)

You can anoint items by talking to Sister Cassia in your hideout and you can get oils by completing Blight encounters in maps or Blighted Maps. By the way: You can sell 3 oils of the same type to get one oil of the next higher tier.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the mentioned items by using the trade website:

Anoint your rings

Once you’ve acquired decent rings with ~4-6 useful modifiers, you can anoint them. Anointments on rings increase specific powers of specific Blight towers, making it easier to deal with the Blight mechanic. There are two recommendations regarding Anointments:

  • Early endgame
    • Anointment: Empowering Tower Effect
    • Effect: Your Empowering Towers have 25% increased Effect
    • Costs: 1x Azure Oil, 1x Sepia Oil
  • Mid and late endgame
    • Anointment: Empowering Tower Range
    • Effect: Your Empowering Towers Have 25% Increased Range
    • Costs: 1x Black Oil, 1x Verdant Oil

As a result, you want to build Empowering Towers, when dealing with Blight encounters. Additionally you can go with a mix of both minion towers (purple), but don’t hesitate to test what suits you the most.

You can anoint items by talking to Sister Cassia in your hideout and you can get oils by completing Blight encounters in maps or Blighted Maps. By the way: You can sell 3 oils of the same type to get one oil of the next higher tier.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the mentioned items by using the trade website:

Upgrade your major and minor Pantheon as soon as possible

As already mentioned before, you can upgrade your Pantheons to become more powerful. In order to do so, you have to put a specific map (see below) and an empty Divine Vessel into your Map Device, defeat the respective map boss and then deliver the filled Divine Vessel to Sin. In order to know which map you have to complete to get the Pantheon you want, put its name in the search bar on top of your Atlas. Then the respective maps will be highlighted accordingly.

Your Pantheon upgrade paths are as follows:

  • Major Pantheon: Soul of the Brine King
    1. Upgrade: 30% increased Stun and Block Recovery
    2. Upgrade: Cannot be Frozen – once acquired, you don’t need to have Freeze immunity anymore on your flask. Instead, get Ignite Immunity if you don’t have it yet)
    3. Upgrade: 50% reduced Effect of Chill on you
  • Minor Pantheon: Soul of Garukhan
    • Upgrade: Cannot be Blinded & You cannot be Maimed (you can get 100% reduced effect of shock on you with a combination of this Pantheon and the craftable modifier ‘X % Reduced Effect of Chill and Shock on You’ on boots or gloves as well as 90% reduced effect of chill on you if you have upgraded your major Pantheon)

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the Pantheons by using the trade website:

Get a Curse on Hit Ring

In the endgame, you can get a ring with the modifier ‚Curse Enemies with Despair on Hit, with #% increased Effect“. Once you’ve acquired this ring, you no longer have to use (B) Despair manually – in fact, you don’t have to use the Despair gem anymore at all. Instead, all enemies will be cursed when you hit them. Check the ‚Late-Endgame Items‘ section (Ring 1) to see how you can aquire this ring.

And: Once you have the ring, you can link (R) Defiance Banner with (R) Increased Duration Support (which can be used instead of the Despair gem).

Try to get level 21/20 gems

As mentioned above, gem levels gain quite a substantial amount of power with increased levels and quality. Once you’ve leveled your quality gems to level 20 (usually referred to as “20/20 gems”), you can try to get level 21 gems. There are two ways to do that.

1. Option: Use a Vaal Orb

  • Using a Vaal Orb on a level 20/20 gem has a chance to transform the gem into a level 21/20 gem. But there’s also a chance that the gem loses levels and/or quality, so you might have to repeat this process quite a few times.*

2. Option: Use the Incursion league mechanic

  • After completing 12 incursions in maps (which can either be encountered randomly or are guaranteed to appear when the respective Atlas Mission is chosen) you gain access to The Temple of Atzoatl, which can contain Doryani’s Institute (Tier 3) that allows you to double-corrupt a gem with a potential outcome of the gem being level 21 and having 23% quality.*

The moment you use a Vaal Orb (or the double-corrupt option from the The Temple of Atzoatl) on a gem, the gem becomes Corrupted which means you won’t be able to modify it anymore (e.g. adding quality). As a result, there’s a chance to have to level multiple gems to level 20 and add 20% quality to then finally receive a level 21/20 or better gem. But also note: A Corrupted gem which has lost a level can still gain experience and level up so you will always be able to have the maximum default gem level, even if it’s Corrupted.

By the way: There’s no need to add quality to (R) Vitality, (G) Determination, (B) Malevolence or (R) Lifetap Support due to the fact that they don’t provide anything beneficial (if you play solo), so going for a level 21/0 gem here is enough.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned gems and items by using the trade website to buy veiled items:

Get Immunity to Corrupted Blood (on one of your jewels)

Corrupted Blood is a debuff that inflicts physical damage over time to you and can hurt a lot. Therefore, this guide has recommended you to use a flask ‚of Staunching‘ which removes the Corrupted Blood until now since it was the most reliable way to do so. But while progressing the endgame, you have two other options:

  • Option A (recommended)
    • Get a jewel with the implicit modifier ‚Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you‘ (preferably one with useful modifiers, but having Corrupted Blood immunity is way more beneficial than having a bit more damage or a bit more survivabilty from other mods on a jewel)
  • Option B (only if absolutely needed)
    • Pick the  ‚Protection Mastery‘ near the ‚One with Evil‚ node (you have to invest 4 skill points to do so)
  • Please note the following:
    • ‚Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you‘ is an implicit modifier which can only roll on corrupted jewels (there are exceptions, but let’s focus on jewels). You can corrupt a jewel by using a Vaal Orb (but keep in mind that using this orb can also brick the item by changing its modifiers).
    • You will frequently fight mobs in maps who can apply Corrupted Blood so having Corrupted Blood immunity is very beneficial, especially if you are not used to recognize/react if it’s applied to you.
    • In terms of pinnacle endbosses you absolutely want to have Corrupted Blood immunity if you fight Sirus, Awakener of Worlds since his Beam always applies Corrupted Blood.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned  items by using the trade website to buy veiled items:

Get a total of 39% increased Area of Effect from all sources

To get the maximum damage out of (G) Toxic Rain, you want to have 39% increased Area of Effect from all sources. You can achieve this by …

  • picking the ‚Bow Mastery‘ near the ‚Hunter’s Gambit‚ node on the skill tree (+20% increased Area of Effect)
  • having a ‚+9-10% increased Area of Effect‘ modifier on one of your items (e.g. amulet, gloves or helmet)
  • having a ‚+9-10% increased Area of Effect‘ modifier on one of your other items (e.g. amulet, gloves or helmet)

That being said, keep in mind that 39% is the sweetspot. As long as you are below or above this value, you won’t get the maximum damage out of your (G) Toxic Rain. If you want to learn about the theorycrafting regarding this specific stat, check out this video.

Get 100% chance to Suppress Spell Damage

Spell Suppression is a layer of defense that gives you a chance to halve spell damage, meaning 50% of damage from suppressed spell hits is prevented and damaging ailments they inflict deal that much less damage.

Since you are playing a Champion there are several ways to get 100% chance to Suppress Spell Damage through your skill tree:

  • ‚Inveterate‚ node
    • +15% chance to Suppress Spell Damage
  • Small nodes near the ‚Inveterate‚ node
    • 3x +8% chance to Suppress Spell Damage
  • ‚Quickstep‚ node
    • +10% chance to Suppress Spell Damage
  • Small nodes near the ‚Quickstep‚ node
    • 2x +3% chance to Suppress Spell Damage
  • ‚Intuition‚ node
    • +8% chance to Suppress Spell Damage
  • ‚Reflexes‚ node
    • +10% chance to Suppress Spell Damage
  • Small nodes near the ‚Reflexes‚ node
    • 6x +4% chance to Suppress Spell Damage
  • ‚Revenge of the Hunted‚ node
    • +10% chance to Suppress Spell Damage while on Full Life
  • ‚Evasion Mastery‘ near the ‚Revenge of the Hunted‚ or ‚Reflexes‚ node
    • +15% chance to Suppress Spell Damage if Equipped Helmet, Body Armour, Gloves, and Boots all have Evasion Rating
  • ‚Magebane‚ keystone
    • +1% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage per 15 Dexterity

On top of that you can roll the ‚+% chance to Suppress Spell Damage‘ modifier on several items, such as Boots, Helmet, Body Armour or Gloves.

Get Awakened Support Gems

Awakened support gems are a subtype of support gems that are better versions of existing support gems which at level one are more powerful than the level 20 versions of the ones they replace.

While there are a lot of builds that can benfit from quite amount of awakened support gems, this build only benefits from the following ones:

Awakened support gems are a random drop from the Elderslayers (known as Conquerors). There is an atlas passive skill (Thaumaturgical Awakening) that increases the drop chance from Sirus. In addition, there is a harvest crafting recipe that gambles a base support gem to change it to an awakened support gem. However, it is not guaranteed to succeed.

Important: Awakened Gems mainly gain their bonus power by having quality, so make sure they have at least 20% quality, for example by using Gemcutter’s Prism.

Note: Unlike regular gems, the quality 20 recipe vendor will not work on them, as a result using Gemcutter’s Prism will be far more important. Corruption works the same as for regular support gems, sometimes adding or removing a level or up to 10 quality. Quality is hardcapped at 23%.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned gems by using the trade website:

Get a Transfigured Toxic Rain Skill Gem for Your Ballista Totem Setup

Transfigured skill gems are alternate versions of existing skill gems, denoted by having „of X“ as a suffix that alters its function and balance.

For this build, (G) Toxic Rain of Withering is beneficial since it increases your Withered stacks uptime on enemies due to having the following effect: „Each Spore Pod inflicts 1 Withered Debuff on nearby Enemies“. As a consequence, you should replace the normal version of Toxic Rain in your Ballista Totem setup with the transfigured version making it look like this:

Acquisition

The only way to get transfigured gems is to complete The Lord’s Labyrinth (lab). There, once completed, you eventually get the option to transform a normal skill gem into random transfigured skill gem. Since there is no deterministic way to obtain (G) Toxic Rain of Withering you might have to run the labyrinth a few times in order to actually get it.

Notes:

  • DO NOT use the transfigured gem (G) Toxic Rain of Sporeburst. Due to the fact that this alternate version does not provide any Damage Over Time effect, it would absolutely brick the build.
  • You might wonder if it’s worth to use (G) Toxic Rain of Withering in your primary skill setup. Given that the uptime of Withered stacks is already pretty high thanks to your Ballista Totem setup, I don’t think it’s worth. You’d rather want to have the additional duration and slow on enemies provided by the default skill gem version.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned gems by using the trade website:

Improve your jewellery with the help of Catalysts

Catalysts allow you to add quality to jewellery (ring, amulet or belt) which increases the value of specific modifiers on the respective item. Which modifiers are increased when using a Catalysts depends on the type of Catalyst you are using. For this build, the following ones are recommended:

Please note: The quality of jewellery items can only be enhanced by one type of catalyst. Using a different type of catalyst on an item removes the existing one  and adds a new one (starting at 0% quality).

Note: As long as you don’t have a lot of them, you shouldn’t use Catalysts on medicore items since they are quite rare, especially the good ones.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned items by using the trade website:

Optional skill tree changes for more damage

As mentioned many times before, this build guide is designed for new players and thus focuses more on suvivability and utility than damage. However, depending on your playstyle, gear, preferences, goals, it may be beneficial to focus more on the damage aspect. Therefore, I would like to show you a few simple ways which nodes on the skill tree can be removed in order to reinvest them in damage-oriented nodes:

Skill tree nodes that can (but not necessarily must) be removed from the skill tree:

  • The 4 small nodes at the Duelist starting point (you gain 2 skill points)
  • The 5 nodes leading to (and including) the Life Mastery next to ‚Herbalism‚ (you gain up to 5 skill points)
    • Note: How many nodes you actually remove is up to you. Just remember that some of these nodes give you ‚+# chance to Suppress Spell Damage‘. Make sure you still have 100% chance to Suppress Spell Damage when removing the respecitve nodes.
  • The 4 nodes leading to (and including) the Flask mastery next to ‚Replenishing Remedies‚ (you gain up to 4 skill points)
    • Note: Removing these nodes will decrease how many Mana Flask and Life Flask charges you gain, but depending on your gear, this might not be an issue and it’s worth a try.
  • The 2 nodes leading to (and including) ‚Blood Drinker‚ (you gain 2 skill points)

Skill tree nodes that can be taken instead in order to increase your damage (in order of skill point efficiency):

Taking all these damage nodes instead of the ones that provide utility and/or survivabilty would increase the damage of the build by roughly 23%.

Optional changes for more survivability

 There is an option to get a bit more survivability by using (R) Flesh and Stone as an additional aura before you switch to (G) Grace (see next task). In order to to so, you have to do the following:

1. Get at least ‚10% increased Mana Reservation Efficency of Skills‘ on your helmet

You can get this buy buying one (see below) or by crafting one with one of the following methods:

  • Use a Deafening Essence of Loathing on a Pig-Faced Bascinet until you hit a good one with the ‚x% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency for Skills‘ suffix modifier (at least 10%).
  • Use Eldritch Ichor currencies (e.g. Lesser Eldritch Ichor or higher) until you hit ‚x% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency for Skills‘ as an Eater of Worlds implicit modifier (at least 10%).

2. Take ‚Charisma‚ on your skill tree (costs 1 skill point)

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned items by using the trade website:

Use an Empower Support once you've crafted your late endgame bow

Once you have crafted your very endgame bow which has both „+1 to Level of Socketed Gems“ and  ‚+2 to level of Socketed Support Gem‘, you can significantly increase your (single target) damage by using an (R) Empower Support level 3 or higher instead of a (G) Faster Attacks Support.

Note: The difference between an Empower Support level 3 and level 4 is extremely high. In order to get an Empower level 4, you have to use a Vaal Orb on an Empower Level 3 gem and hope for an upgrade. But be aware of the fact that using a Vaal Orb can also result in downgrading the Empower Support to level 2. If that’s the case, you have to level up the gem to level 3 again.

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the above mentioned items by using the trade website:

Use Grace as an additional aura (costly minmax improvement of your defenses)

In the late endgame, you have the option to increase your defense by using (G) Grace as an additional aura by giving up some damage. Due to the fact that you already use a bunch of auras, you currently don’t have enough mana reservation to use Grace, but you can fix that by following these steps:

1. Get at least ‚10% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency for Skill‘ on your helmet

  • There are two ways to get this:
    1. Use Eldritch Ichor currencies (e.g. Lesser Eldritch Ichor or higher) until you hit ‚x% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency for Skills‘
    2. Use a Deafening Essence of Loathing Essence on an armour/evasion base helmet and repeat this until you have 4-6 decent modifiers.
    3. Remember: You need at least 10% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency for Skills.

Important information: If you care more about survivability than about damage, you can also choose to anoint ‚Sovereignity‚ on your amulet which gives you 12% increased mana reservation efficiency and thus you only need one of the above mentioned mana efficiency modifiers on the helmet. But note that this is a significant loss of damage if you’ve used the ‚Corruption‚ anointment before, namely around 13% less damage.

2. Get an Enlighten Support Level 3 or 4

  • An Enlighten Support at level 3 provides 8% reduced Mana Reservation of Skills. At level 2 it provides 4%. At level 1, it’s absolutely useless because it does nothing. So if you get a level 1, you have to level it first to level 3 first in your second weapon set since you need at least 8%. This might take a while since Enlighten Support needs way more experience to level up than regular gems.
  • The higher the quality of an Enlighten Support is, the more experience it gains and there are 2 ways how you can increase the quality of the gem:
    • Add quality to the gem by using Gemcutter’s Prisms.
    • Put the gem in an item that has the modifier ‘+#% to Quality of Socketed Support Gems’ (you can also craft this modifier on weapons with the help of the Crafting Bench)
  • The drop rate of an Enlighten Support is pretty low, so for an SSF this might not be your best option. Nevertheless, you can farm the Divination Card ‘The Enlightened’ in specific maps to get it (these maps change every league, so make sure to check the Wiki).
  • Don’t worry about socket shortage; you can make it work by replacing either (R) Increased Duration Support or (R) Lifetap Support in your CWDT setup with (R) Defiance Banner (but make sure Defiance Banner is level 20 or 21).
  • By the way: There are also options to increase the level of the Enlighten Support (and thus the mana reservation efficiency for skills) by having the aura setup in an item which provides additional (support) gem levels, e.g. Viridi’s Veil (which has a chance to drop when defeating The Maven).

3. Pick ‚x% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency for Skills‘ nodes on your skill tree

  • These nodes are:
    • ‚Charisma‚ (1 skill point)
    • Mana Mastery with ‚x% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency for Skills‘ next to ‚Mind Drinker‚ (4 skill points)
    • Note: In order to be able to pick these nodes, you have to unskill damage-related nodes on your tree. There are some scenarios where other options are more reasonable (e.g. if you have more than 100% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage you can eventually unskill nodes who give you Chance to Suppress Spell Damage), but I recommend unskilling ‚Path of the Hunter‚ (1 skill point) Trickery + small node next to it (2 skill points) and ‚Blood Siphon‚ + small node next to it (2 skill points) by default.

4. Get your new aura setup including Grace

  • As soon as you you have a helmet that provides the modifier ‘8% reduced Mana Reservation of Skills’ and an Enlighten Support Level 3, you can use the following gem setup:

Trade players can speed up the acquisition process of the mentioned items by using the trade website: