As indicated in the last article I have played 10 leagues of PoE and have learned a lot. My last build is by far the best I've played; as I have a much better understanding of the game, but I have 10 builds here that have different levels of playability. With some tweaking, some of these could potentially turn into a good build for others in future leagues.
1. Blazing Salvo - Fireball - Elementalist (5/10): In my first ever PoE league (Ritual) I decided I wanted to make a fire sorc, but couldn't find a legit build at the time, so I tried to make my own. It was a harsh reality check due to my ignorance about the game and how it works. I struggled through the campaign and early mapping, before asking friends to power level me, so I could try to fix my build. I was able to somewhat salvage it as I learned how spellslinger worked, but I was so defeated that I gave up on this league. I do believe there's still a way to fix this build, but never wanted to re-visit it. Here's the PoB for those interested: https://pobb.in/Yw4Z0HlnVVYm
2. Essence Drain (ED) - Contagion - Trickster (7/10): In Ultimatum a friend highly recommended I try ED contagion. Typically you'd see this build on something like an occultist, but at the time Trickster seemed like a more survivable version. Back then occultist wasn't that great and trickster was pretty good with the ghost shrouds. I wouldn't say this exact build is still viable after the trickster re-work in 2022, but PoE-Vault recently created a viable version. Clear speed was decent but boss damage sucked. Here's the PoB I used for anyone interested: https://pobb.in/eFgYsqQXWTQI
3. Arc Miner - Saboteur (6/10): In Expedition I decided to run an arc miner. My friend and I had a competition to each make our own version of a mines/traps build to see whose was better. I think mine ended up going further, but his was an easier and smoother experience, especially during leveling. For me this miner was VERY clunky. Having to stop for a couple seconds to toss all your mines and then detonating them twice was a bit annoying. The great part about expedition was I could setup my mines around the bombs and then detonate them once the enemies spawned. Since then saboteur has been re-worked and is arguably worse. Here's the PoB: https://pobb.in/1gfxrzhoujzH
4. Toxic Rain - Champion (9/10): Toxic rain is one of the most popular skills in the game, especially for leveling any bow build. In this instance I watched Zizaran and Asmodeus play this and decided to play it. I always tweak my builds to my playstyle for the way I play, and also for the items I know I can find/afford compared to what a streamer uses or crafts. This was a fun build and an easy league to use it in. Toxic rain has very good clear, and ok boss damage; while champion is incredibly survivable. Here's the PoB: https://pobb.in/bmX6X2jvqLHh
5. Absolution - Necromancer (8/10): In Archnemesis I wanted to play a minion build and I heard GhazzyTV is the minion master of PoE so I checked out some of his builds. I landed on Absolution, which is a very good build for league start and bossing, perfect for archnemesis. I played a tweaked version of Ghazzy's build because I couldn't afford the exact items and doryani's is a weird playstyle to understand with the lightning resist. I also swapped in a vaal summon skeletons over animate guardian or raise zombie. I had no major issues with this build and played through the game just fine with it. Here's the PoB: https://pobb.in/9gc45sY-V0m_
6. Lightning Strike - Raider (8/10): In Sentinel league I wanted something tanky with good single target DPS. I decided to try a lightning strike raider build and it didn't disappoint. I was able to carry my friend through the campaign and mapping with this build. It is a bit annoying to play a melee build in PoE, but this one was probably the least annoying one I have experienced. However, it took a little bit to understand how trinity and nightblade worked at first. Fuzzy Duckzy has a decent guide and here's the PoB I used: https://pobb.in/i9MmAkcIU3kp
7. Purifying Flame - Inquisitor (5/10): For Lake of Kalandra I wanted to theory craft my own build. People kept trying to push me to a Pohx righteous fire build, but that seemed boring to me and it's just way too popular. As a result I went all in on a high life regen concept where I'd maximize my use of consecrated ground for damage and healing. Overall I could survive and tank anything in the game without taking any damage but I struggled with DPS. If you want to be unkillable and do very slow DPS then this isn't such a bad build, but you could build into a slightly less tanky build and blow through content faster. Here's the PoB if interested: https://pobb.in/u3hGGEFY-oAG
8. Herald of Agony - Juggernaut (9/10): In Forbidden Sanctum I chose an interesting combo of storm brand and herald of agony. This is a very safe, very tanky, and great DPS choice. I completely destroyed all content in the game ONCE I FIGURED IT OUT. If you do not understand how HoA works let me explain it. You need a chance to poison enemies to be able to spawn your scorpion. You also have to have your herald active, which reserves a ton of your mana. Then your damage over time (poison damage, chance to poison, and poison length) needs to be very high. This ensures you can always spawn your agony and it does max DPS. The storm brand is just an easy and safe way to apply a poison. Zizaran gave me this idea in his build guide here. Here's the PoB I used: https://pobb.in/L8mv8UvqS4k5
9. Holy Relic - Scion (4/10): For Crucible league I wanted to play a Scion. I heard it's complicated and there's not many guides for it. One build I wanted to try was a cast when damage taken ice spear build that looked awesome. However, the build was nerfed into the ground and required very expensive gear to keep it working (guess I missed it by a league). Instead I tried to make my own build based on a variation of CaptainLance9's build. The leveling experience with righteous fire actually worked great, until Scion's ability to maintain life regen hits max and then you can't maintain it and RF kills you (happened around lvl 40-50 to me). Once I swapped to the holy relic cyclone portion of the build it was clunky. The sound effects are cool but the build is slow and requires being in melee range with a class not very well suited to be in melee range. I also topped out in red maps as the damage was very good but survivability sucked. When you're stuck spinning in cycle there's not an easy time reacting to major potential damage. There's a huge budget to do well in end game. Here's the PoB for those interested: https://pobb.in/XJ2XgfnhaO37
10. Impending Doom - Occultist (10/10): In the current league, Challenge of the Ancestors, I decided to try an impending doom occultist. This was a build I almost ran during crucible but didn't. I wish I discovered this sooner because this is by far the best build I've run. It has enough survivability that you get a second to react to damage but the DPS output is huge and safe. You can spam your curses from range safely, you can flame dash everywhere, and you can allow your DoT do the work for you while you stay safe. With this build I destroyed every map in the game through T16 and killed Eater and Exarch. The only content in the entire game I struggled with was expedition because it has immune to curses as a modifier sometimes and you literally can do nothing against it. I must admit I'm still piecing together how to gear it in the end game but here's my current PoB: https://pobb.in/xKRLBCEUmGUd
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