THOR'S RAINBOWNUKE: off to the Marauder forum

For this build we're obviously going to have some required pieces, so here they are:




**NOTE** Gem setups will be covered later so please do not comment on what you see in this section as it's meant for gear showcasing.

Those are the required pieces, but how about everything else? Well, in case you are curious, here is what I currently have equipped and do note that this gear can change, but you'll get the general idea of what I am doing:



You'll see that I am using a mixture of Evasion and Armour gear, and that's because this variant I have found is most successful when you are stacking armour. But then why do I have Evasion gear, you ask? That's because this build makes use of the 'Iron Reflexes' keystone, which converts all of your 'Evasion Rating' on gear into 'Armour Rating', your base evade chance becomes 5%, and you gain no extra ER from Dexterity. This will be covered more in-depth when it comes to the skill tree section,but suffice to say here are the major points my gearing aims to accomplish:

1. Required uniques for generating PCs and ECs to fuel Discharge damage as well as regen life via Kingsguard.

2. Using Alpha's Howl for both aura reservation reduction (more on that later) and to give us the extremely valuable 'Cannot Be Frozen' mod.

3. Getting enough resists to ensure that I am overcapped for maps and Elemental Weakness map mod.

4. Using a mix of Armour/Evasion gear to have a high Armour rating so I can reduce physical damage as much as possible since I can't rely on long Immortal Call times like before. Goes very well with a Granite Flask, too, but that's a bit later for more details.

5. The rare ring slot is used mostly for life and fulfilling attribute requirements for Intellect as this variant does run a little short on it. Headhunter belt IS NOT REQUIRED, as you can use a very good rare leather belt or heavy belt to meet Strength requirements. Dex is usually not an issue with this build given how the passive tree is designed.

6. Repentance gloves are the hot thing for the LL build, and this build as well. Though they offer no life or resists or IAS, they offer a free 'Iron Will' gem for our Arc and Discharge, which then allows us to slot in something like 'Controlled Destruction' in our Mjolner Gavel. Again, more on gems later.

7. I should also mention that there is one piece of switch gear that I use along with flasks, but I will showcase the flasks in their own section. The one gear piece that I do use is this:



This is the shield that I use to handle elemental reflect maps as without it the damage I do is far too great for even Kingsguard to keep up with. Hitting a massive blue or white pack of mobs, even with elemental flasks popped is sheer suicide and the shield is needed to reduce the damage to manageable levels. Again, will go over more of that later, but for now, I strongly suggest you get one of these shields...even a non-legacy version will suffice, but if you can nab a legacy one, then go for it!

Level 95 Passive Tree

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwAAAdwB5wSzBS0LYRZvFy8YXRmKGjgajx2qIWAnCycvKaUtqC3SL281kjboPAU8LUCgRJ5GcUa3R35KyFO7VdZYr1nzXhNfsGFSZOdlTWZUZp5o8m6qbztvnnC7cg9yqXTtdPF343gNeu97w3zZf8aApILkgwmDX4O2g8yExYTZhX2GYIbRiq-MdpARkFWTJ5Rvm7Wfy6EvogCnMKlurKqt8a9ssZC0DLXytz631r02voC-ir6nvrzAGsBmwcXDOsT2xq7KSsrT02_YvdkT21nhiONq7BjvTu988B_22vcy-tL7Cf4K_kk=?accountName=Tanakeah&characterName=SummerJewel

Now, you might be wondering why I only have 113 points in the tree even though I'm saying it's level 95. Let me explain...two of those points are going towards bandit rewards, which are:

Normal = Oak
Cruel = Passive Point
Merciless = Passive Point

Since we're life that means the 40 Life from Oak is a no-brainer and we want an extra Power Charge for offense via Discharge. I tried getting an extra EC from Oak to have 5, but I could never get 5 to come up with only 4 PCs, so I opted for a passive point instead, and it helped me grab another nice notable in the Templar area. That all said, that means some other points aren't allocated, and the reason for that is because this passive tree is assuming that you have the 'Intuitive Leap' jewel. The jewel is to be placed in the jewel socket in the Templar area, allowing you get the EC, PC, and Faith and Steel notables without having to directly path to them. Again, more PCs and ECs equal to more offense and defense, and since we're stacking armour, the FaS notable is very nice...the extra all resist doesn't hurt either.

For the rest of the tree I pathed around taking what life nodes I could and some of you might notice that I only have ~140% max life, and that might be setting off red flags. Normally, you'd be right, but this tree has something else in mind...it gets EIGHT...yes, EIGHT JEWEL SOCKETS that are not out of the way. You may not need to get life% on all of the sockets, and even accounting for the IL jewel to leave you with 7 useable sockets, that's potentially an extra 49% life. You can likely get around 40% extra life from jewels alone and get around 5,000 life, which is a very respectable total and combined with your other defenses and smart play, you'll be plenty fine.

The only other major note I want to make on the tree is that this build gets 38% aura reservation reduction and 63% aura effectiveness. Those numbers are very important and I will go over them further when it comes to the gem setups, but keep them in mind. Otherwise, I think the rest of the tree should make sense to those who analyze it a bit...oh...and the life regen nodes are obviously taken to counteract Blood Rage as much as possible since the life variant CAN use the gem. Here is a level 100 version of the tree for those of you who may want to see what it looks like in the end:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwAAAdwB5wSzBS0LYRZvFr8XLxhdGYoaOBqPHaohYCaVJwsnLymlLagt0i9vNZI26DwFPC1AoESeRnFGt0d-SshQQlM1U7tVS1XWWK9Z814TX7BhUmHiZOdlTWZUZp5o8m6qbztvnnC7cg9yqXTtdPF343gNeu97w3zZf8aApILkgwmDX4O2g8yExYTZhX2GYIbRiq-MNox2kBGQVZMnlG-btZ_LoS-iAKcwqW6sqq3xr2yxkLQMtfK3PrfWvTa-gL6Kvqe-vMAawGbBxcM6xPbGrspKytPTb9i92RPbWeGI42rsGO9O73zwH_ba9zL60vsJ_gr-SQ==?accountName=Tanakeah&characterName=SummerJewel

For this one, I grabbed the nodes in the updated Shadow tree as the extra life and IAS are nice, as well as a little more elemental damage to boot. You CAN change this around if you want to go dual-cursing and pick up 'Whispers of Doom' in the Templar area, though for this sort of setup you'll need a curse on Blasphemy as well as one in a CoH setup within your Kingsguard chest piece. Possibly even do a swap-out with another Kingsguard chest armour if you want to switch between single and AOE targeting LS/MS main skills, but that will be covered later. Otherwise, the tree is a bit flexible with the last points on how you want to spend them so take these as suggestions and get what you need.

1. Mjolner = Arc -> Discharge -> Controlled Destruction

2. Alpha's Howl = Lvl. 3/4 Enlighten -> Lvl. 21 PoF -> Lvl. 21 PoL -> Lvl. 21 Grace

3. Shield = Blood Magic -> Increased Duration/Lvl. 3-4 Enhance -> Blood Rage

4. Gloves = Lvl. 4 Enlighten -> Wrath -> Blasphemy -> Poacher's Mark/Elemental Weakness/Enfeeble

5. Boots = Increased Duration -> Lvl. 14-20 Cast When Damage Taken -> Lvl. 16-20 Immortal Call -> Lvl. 17-20 Enfeeble

6. Chest = Lvl. 20 Lightning Strike -> Lvl. 20/20 Fortify -> Lvl. 20/20 Multistrike -> level 20/(20) Blood Magic -> Lvl. 20/20 Faster Attacks -> ?????

Aura Setup

Wrath -> Grace -> Purity of Fire -> Purity of Lightning -> Blasphmey + Paocher's Mark/Elemental Weakness/Enfeeble

Most of these are pretty self-explanatory, but I'll go into detail about some of them, starting with the aura setup. Alpha's Howl is used here for the 8% mana reservation reduction that it offers. Combine that with the 38% percent reservation reduction from the tree and the Lvl. 3 Enlighten gems and we can run a total of 4 auras on nothing but mana. Wrath, Grace, and both purities are pretty much the mandatory auras we'll be running here, though to get the Blasphemy setup you're either going to need Corrupted Lvl. 4 Enlightens, or sacrifice a jewel slot for 'Conqueror's Efficiency' and you'll have just enough to run everything. Remember, we're running everything else on Blood Magic gems, so we'll never use our mana for anything but aura reservation and thus don't need to worry about the mana globe.

Alpha's Howl is also used for its +2 to aura gems, which is why we put our level 21 corrupted purities in there and Grace. We get level 23 purities in the end, which bumps up their base +Max Resists to +5 instead of +4, and that's why the 63% aura increase from the tree is so important. If we only had +4 resists, then we'd get +6 Max Resists when all is said and done, but +5 gets bumped up to +8, and those extra 2% max resists make a HUGE difference. Grace is put in the helm simply to boost how much flat evasion it gives, and if you can afford a corrupted level 21 Grace, then put that in the helm. Wrath isn't needed there as it gains no substantial benefits from the +2 affix.

Here's an aura calculation for those curious about the mana reservation:

With Conqueror's Efficiency -> https://poe.mikelat.com/#FJetVfKd/jU53tsc/5=9Byg0h

With the Lvl. 4 Enlighten Gems -> https://poe.mikelat.com/#JrxkaSh/fdu7tsc/1jyFyg0h

If you don't want to run a Blasphemy enhanced curse, then simply swap those two out for Herald of Thunder and Arctic Armour. You can only run one of them at a time, but you can pick and choose whichever you want depending on map mods.

The CWDT setup used to have specific numbers, but check above for the range I give. This is what I found the minimum threshold to be for a comfy activation rate, but you can tweak these around as you like. Some prefer maxing out all of the gems, and others prefer them a few levels lower like myself, but it is all up to you. Obviously there is no perfect setup, mind you, but it helps. Enfeeble is there to obviously decrease enemy damage, but if you're running a map that doesn't need the extra damage reduction, then chuck in either Conductivity or Elemental Weakness for a little power boost now and then. You can also consider Warlord's Mark if you want some leech. Be aware, however, that if you're running Blasphemy then your aura will automatically overwrite whatever CWDT casts, so this is more for if you're wanting to run HoT/AA as a 5th Aura and not a curse aura.

The last major setup is obviously the chest piece and I chose this setup because it not only provides Fortify for a near-constant 20% damage reduction to all damage, but since we're reserving pretty much our entire mana globe, the Blood Magic gem allows us to run our main skill without worry. The coloring on the chest piece can be a bit of a pain to get, and I'd honestly suggest trying to single Chrome the color combo a bit before going to the "At least two green sockets" from the Vorici crafting table. More often than not you're gonna get 3R2G1B and pull your hair out in frustration at how much it dances around 4R2G, but such is the RNG and life at times.

Now, given that Lightning Strike got updated it is actually much better to use it over Molten Strike for AOE, though Molten Strike is the better choice for single target killing...bosses in particular. As I showed above with the LS setup you have a free gem socket to use with whatever you want, or you could even just slot in Molten Strike and have everything in one piece instead of switching around. Then, simply swap out LS for GMP and you're good to go. However, if you're wanting to go the double curse route then you'll have to do some recoloring to get what you need and then you're likely going to want to have a second chest piece to swap out for that. Sadly, for optimal usage, you'll likely have to drop the 'Fortify' gem as we need the BM gem to fuel our attacks, and you may not want to do that, but it is up to you in the end. Experiment and try stuff out if you can and see what feels good to you...these are only suggestions, not gospel truth.

Mjolner has undergone some changes thanks to the Repentance gloves now giving us Iron Will, which means we can drop the gem from the Gavel's setup. Make sure you are running Arc first, then Discharge (you want Arc to proc PCs before Discharge fires them off for max damage), and finally you can use Controlled Destruction. Since we don't crit the penalty from the gem doesn't apply to us and that big More Spell% multiplier will go nicely with everything we do. You can also run Lightning Penetration if you so desire as we deal a lot of lightning damage, but I find LP or CD to be a matter of taste and I am sure someone else can do the math to see which is really better. However, I think for the most part they're fairly even.

Let me start off with some of the Unique flasks in the game and where I find them best to be used.



1. Vessel of Vinktar - It should come as no surprise that this thing is pretty much BiS for not only the LL variant of this build, but also for this particular variant as well. Really don't need to say a ton here other than just make sure you have another flask with the 'Dispels Shock' suffix on it and you're good to go. If you want, go for either the flat Spell Damage or Lightning Penetration affixes on this one, but if you're looking to save some currency then any flask will do. We're more interested in the +Max Resists and the huge amount of leech the flask provides more so than the other stuff. You can't go wrong with whatever variant of the flask you get.

2. Rumi's Concoction - While not providing as much armour as a Granite Flask of Iron Skin, that's not what this is used for. This baby comes out for those maps that have bosses that just pour out damage via spells like Shrine Piety, Crematorium firestormer, first phase of Palace Dominus, etc, etc. Combine this with the Saffel's Frame shield, and you're either capping or getting very close to 75% spell block, while still getting a little extra armour to boot. Of course, the spell block is what you're after, so consider porting out of the map right before these bosses to equip the flask and get full charges, or switch in earlier if you can kill enough remaining monsters safely to get to full charges.

Those out of the way, here is my standard, non-super-hard map running setup:



Some things to take away from this setup (and please note that it is NOT 100% super-optimized...still workin' on it):

1. Two life flasks that have curse removal on them and also the 'Sapping' prefix. Since we don't run on mana we can get away with using 'Sapping' and take advantage of the big life boost it gives. You're getting roughly 950 life per second, and I find that this build works better with heal over time instead of the more commonly used 'Seething' variant. We already has 'instant heals' via Kingsguard and thus we can stretch our charges out more via the heals, especially for degen ground effects or even bleeds. Speaking of bleeds...

2. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AT LEAST ONE BLEED REMOVAL FLASK! I cannot stress this enough, and I'd honestly put it on either a Quicksilver Flask, or even a Ruby Flask and an 'emergency' one on a life flask. Corrupting Blood is a huge issue with this build as we hit so many times per second, you can get to 20 stacks so fast and your life can drain so quickly that you're going to want bleed protection. Corrupting Bloodline is also a thing for blue packs, so even more reason to pack bleed removal.

3. Curse removal is also what I would consider mandatory for maps like Academy and other places where curses get thrown around a lot. Again, best on a Quicksilver or Ruby Flask, though on a life flask is perfectly fine if you just need a quick removal and not the full duration that some flasks can provide.

4. Make sure you roll some Topaz and Ruby Flasks for this build as you're going to use them on Elemental Reflect mod maps. Rubies are the wild card as I've sort of alluded to and are great for Bleed/Curse removal, though Topaz should have shock immunity/removal on them. You don't want to be taking 50% MORE DAMAGE in higher end maps, especially around lightning damage as that's just asking for trouble. Also, have a Sapphire Flask handy if you're going against bosses like Necropolis Merveil. Even with Alpha's Howl protecting you against Frozen (means you don't need it the mod on flasks at all) you're still going to want to get extra frost resist and whatever else you might need on the flask. Or roll it anyway if you want to just bypass chilled ground at times, but at the very least know the bosses and damage you're facing on maps and bring flasks accordingly.

5. For your Granite and even your elemental flasks, try to roll the 'Perpetual' mod as close to 40% as you can. We can't take advantage of the 'Surgeon's' affix on a RT build so we need as much charge recovery gained as possible. Belt mods can help here as well, but that's for other gear...if you get really unlucky with rolling 'Perpetual' then +Charges is not bad at all. At the very least you should be able to get 3 uses out of your flasks instead of the standard 2. Back to the Granite...Iron Skin as close to 100% as you can as that's going to affect all of the Armour Rating you get not only from the flask, but from your gear as well. With solid gear, you're looking at 35,000-40,000+ Armour when your Granite is up. Combine that with Fortify and ECs...you're getting some powerful physical defense for when you need it.

**NOTE** You can still roll one of these things as such, but if you do then make sure one of your life flasks has a 'Dispels Shock' affix on it to take care of Vinktar's 'penalty' of it shocking you on use.

6. Again, mods you should be looking for: Iron Skin on Granite, Shock removal on Topaz, Curse/Bleed removal on Ruby, Curse/Bleed on Life, Curse/Bleed on Quicksilver, potential Frozen/Chilled on Sapphire, but remember that last one isn't required.

7. STUDY THE MAP MODS AND BOSSES OF MAPS! I can't stress this enough...flasks give you a huge amount of defense and flexibility. Learn how to use them and adapt to the situations you are given and don't stick to just one setup. Carry extra flasks in your inventory if you're partying and can't use a portal before a boss to change your setup a bit, change it up before your enter an E.Reflect modded map, etc, etc. Practice and experiment and you'll learn which flask setups are best for the situation.

1. Elemental Reflect = You're going to be using a Topaz flask, Ruby Flask, and Saffel's Frame here to ensure that you do not kill yourself. Make sure you have your Granite Flask here as well because YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BLOCK ATTACKS WITH SAFFEL'S EQUIPPED! That means you're relying on Armour, Fortify, and ECs for your physical protection, but that should be the least of your worries here. Take it slow, preemptively flask before big packs and only use 'bursts' of attacks instead of just holding down the button and spamming Molten Strike. Be extremely careful of 'Allies are Immune' auras from rares or totems as well. Otherwise, portal out if you run out of charges and don't want to risk your experience, and play it safe...should do fine otherwise.

**NOTE** With the 'Vessel of Vinktar' flask you get the Topaz +Max Resists and huge Life Leech it provides, so this mod isn't as dangerous as before. HOWEVER, do be aware that you can still die very easily if you don't time your flasks properly, so watch that. I would also recommend you run Molten Strike here and not Lightning Strike so you can stay in range of groups more easily and thus get more hits on them while they're not out of range. If you do run LS, then consider using the LGoH gem in you 6L setup to help out some, but still make sure you have elemental protection going.

2. -Max Resists = You can run Saffel's here, but honestly you should be all right without it. Keep it around just in case you come across a rare E.Reflect mob and want to play it extra safe, but otherwise it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Equip your Elemental flasks if you want, and I suggest keeping them in your inventory. If you're doing a map like Shrine or Crematorium then DEFINITELY have the appropriate Elemental flasks, put on Saffel's, and have Rumi's at the ready.

3. Double Extra Damage = Again, keep the appropriate elemental flasks around and equipped if you feel you need them, but you shouldn't need Saffel's here, save for maybe a boss fight. Otherwise, don't go rushing into battle and make sure you use your flasks well...shouldn't be too bad with a little practice.

4. Reduced Regen/No Regen = Blood Rage is going to start eating into your life pool on the first one, and you may find it not able to be sustained with the latter. You can of course use two life flasks to help out, but you'll likely find your life pool dropping like a stone otherwise. BR is doable in the first one, but I would recommend no running it in a No Regen map, and for these BE VERY WARY OF CORRUPTING BLOOD!

5. Vulnerability = With the armour you have the regular physical damage isn't an issue. It's that Blood Rage will once again be doing more damage to you AN CORRUPTING BLOOD IS NASTY HERE! Bleed removal flasks are 100% mandatory or you will die insanely fast if you don't pot quickly enough. BE EXTREMELY WARY IF YOU GET THIS MOD + REDUCED/NO REGEN thanks once again to Corrupting Blood and Blood Rage will likely be draining life too fast for it to be useful.

6. New map mods in patch 2.0.1b = Obviously be careful around these, but note that with Kingsguard you get around the life leech immunity provided by the 'Congealment' affix. You aren't leeching life, but instead gaining it via using/removing ECs so you can generate your life back no problem, and since this build doesn't run on mana, that's no problem either. Again, just use caution around those mods especially when combined with any of the above.

I am sure there are others, but those are the big ones, and you can use your own skill and knowledge to plan for the remainder of the mods.