[3.3] The Punisher - DEATHLESS UBER ELDER - HC & SC - Full Guide

This build is the Uber Elder Slayer you've been looking for, There is a HC version with more life and now a new softcore build strategy to really pump your damage up. Theory crafted by the community and countless number of high tier streamers, refined and polished by me.

This build is MANLY, none of that energy shield, none of those spells, none of that chaos damage.

We deal PURE physical damage.

This build can do all content and maps, with the singular exception of no leech mod.

**Disclaimer**

Any build similar to this one, is more than likely a version of this one that I shared on many different PoE streams to theory craft and refine. This is the ORIGINAL and FINAL version.

I have a guide, including Boss Killing, Uber Eder Fight, Mapping, Uber Labs, Leveling & Budget Friendly Gearing, Uber Elder Gearing, Softcore Gearing, Cost, and some Additional Thoughts



Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/YX2KxLbD

Uber Elder Gear:


Guide:


1. Boss Killing, Uber Elder Fight:

The strategy is elegantly simple.

You begin leeching from your target, then use a Puncture to Fortify yourself and Bleed the target, with Increased Duration.

While your target is bleeding and the time is right, use your Rallying Cry and pop a sip of that Lion's Roar to PUNISH.

Combined with a Leap Slam to get you out of precarious situations, you are practically invincible.

You cannot be slowed, you cannot be stunned. You can only PUNISH.


2. Mapping:

The name of the game for mapping is speed. We want to fly. Swap out your Kaom's Roots for a +35% movement speed pair of boots.

Replace your Purity of Ice for a juicy Haste.

Consider replacing your Concentrated Effect, for Increased Area of Effect. However, I am partial to damage, I never did this.


3. Uber Labs

Speed is essential here, let's fly again. Get those +35% movement speed boots, and Haste gem on.

You will want to use an Orb of Regret to remove your Vaal Pact, the life regeneration is handy when you're in messy traps.


4. Leveling & Budget Friendly Gearing

This is fun, as you are essentially a modified version of the most popular speed leveling build of the Duelist using Sunder.

Any YouTube video search with "Duelist, speed leveling, PoE" will give you all the information you need to make a modified version that fits for the Scion.

Skip the jewel passives as you level, you want to get to the keystones and stats as the jewels available in the early game are not worth it.

Grab the bonus movement speed from the bandits, to help you level faster.

Sunder everything, use Herald of Ash and Hatred, with a high physical damage 2 Handed weapon.

Complete all of the Acts using Sunder, and switch to Cyclone when you begin mapping. Switching to Cyclone will initially make you weaker, but you need to start with a base.

Go for your Ascendancy as soon as possible and go for Slayer first so you can grab the Culling and Leeching.
Then go for the Raider, to boost your movement speed and deepz.
And finally, go into the ascendancy that lets you put points into the duelist tree.

Do not be afraid to spend passive points into +# resistances on your tree, as they will help mitigate your costs until you can afford the good items.

You will be able to do mapping with only a 4 link. As you get more currency, the first thing you'll want to do is buy a decent weapon, with as high of physical damage as you can afford. Get something nice, you will use this weapon until you can get your hands on your first Starforge.

After you have your nice, budget friendly weapon, grab some rings, an amulet, and jewels that give you physical damage, attack speed, life, or resistances. Grab a Stygian Vise belt with life and resistances. Grab a Devoto's Devotion for the speed and damage boost. Get boots with movement speed, life and resistances. Get gloves that give you physical damage, attack speed, life, or resistances. Each piece of gear should be chosen depending on what your individual needs are.

You now have a solid base to map with and to grow from. Let's start scaling for PUNISHMENT.

So you have your base, now let's go for your first big piece of gear. Save up for the cheapest Starforge you can find. Even a horribly rolled Starforge will be better than almost any other weapon for you.
After you have your Starforge, its time to drop Herald of Ash and Hatred, and pick up Haste and Purity of Elements. You'll want to start converting the rest of your skill gems over to the final ones you see in the build.

Next, let's go for the cheapest Belly of the Beast you can get your hands on, this will make you beefy. I highly recommend going for a 5 link Belly over a 5 link Starforge first. Because you'll want to upgrade your Starforge for a better Starforge at some point.

Ok, so we got the best sword in the game and an awesome chest piece, now what?!

Grab a Mark of the Elder ring, with as high of % increased attack damage and increased maximum life that you can get on a budget, then find some type of budget friendly shaped ring as your other, recommend a shaped Iron Ring with life, resistances, physical damage, or attack speed.

For your amulet, a cheap Impresence (with physical damage to attacks) or Carnage Heart will do nicely.

The next piece you want is a 2 abyssal socket Tombfist, find a searching eye jewel and murderous eye jewel that give you life and resistances to socket. These will help your deepz quite a bit.

Now you're going to start feeling stronk.

From this point on, you'll want to start upgrading and scaling your gear. Maximize each piece to really push it to the top. Corrupted gear is the best, and also the most expensive. This is where this build, and all builds start to become expensive.

As for leveling, you'll want to reach level 94 to fill out your tree. You get a little boost to damage at 95, and some more HP at level 96. At 97, you'd want to grab another jewel passive and fill it with some amazing dps jewel.


5. Uber Elder Gearing:

Watcher's Eye with Immunity to Shock while affected by Purity of Lightning and the #%(6-10) of physical damage taken as cold damage. This makes a huge difference in the fight, you can survive a direct Shaper slam.

Kaom's Roots (Corrupted) with 10% chance to Dodge Spell Hits while moving.

+1 Maximum Resistances on an amulet of your choice, I liked the Carnage Heart, but an Impresence would have been nice too.

Perfect Mark of the Elder and a Shaped Steel Ring with juicy stats.

Devoto's with the 40% Cyclone Damage Enchant.

A ridiculous Starforge with corruption. Mine has 715 Physical damage top end, 6-Linked.

An Experimenter's Sapphire Flask of Iron Skin.

Purity of Ice and Purity of Lightning, combined with a Watcher's eye that gives you Shock immunity while affected by purity of lightning.

Another ridiculous item, corrupted Belly of the Beast 6-Linked, with +AoE gem, %Increased damage or life would be nice.

7. Softcore Gearing

The 6 link Bronns Lithe will boost your damage a ton, with nearly unnoticeable changes to your HP. You'll also want to grab a jewel with phys mana leech and drop your talent point so you can pick up an extra jewel socket in your tree.
Replace your Devoto's with a cyclone enchanted Royal burgonet, preferably elder base for the increased area damage.




6. Cost

I estimate that the cheapest you could do Uber Elder on as this build is roughly around 10-15ex.
If you want to become the PUNISHER, you're looking at around 50-75 ex.


7. Additional Thoughts

I attempted the Uber Elder fight at several different stages of gearing with several different skill gems. Each attempt at the fight made me stronger, even though I lost. It was on my 9th or 10th attempt, with some good gear that the fight began to feel as though I had the upper hand.

You have insane leeching, around 4,600 life/second, you have +5 max cold resistance naturally, with an additional +6 coming from the Sapphire Flask. You can easily face tank 2 direct Shaper Balls if you're leeching strong.

You cannot be slowed in the fight, you cannot be shocked, it is impossible to die if you're on your toes. Which makes this build, HC Uber Elder Viable.

I will never play HC, as the thought of losing a character you've invested heavily into is unappealing to me.

The only map mod that poses an issue is no leech. However, monsters gain endurance charges, or physical damage reduction, or no mana regeneration can be annoying, but still doable.

Finally, I want to say thank you to the countless number of streamers, and community members that helped theory craft this build with me. This is a fantastic game, they really did a tremendous job with PoE because of it's depth. The depth is everything.

See you around... Exile.

Are you sure, that this is uber elder viable? I play something similar and it isn't uber-viable. Not even close.
And why punishment? It is highly situational and curses against bosses is just... meh. Maybe free vulnearability with Impresence would be better?

The fight becomes is so easy, it's almost to easy. We want a harder boss fight now.

Punishment was a personal choice base on the gear I had at the time, I am now running with my final amulet, a corrupted Impresence with + max resistance and attack speed with the free Vulnerability curse aura.

How do you shock Shaper (saw this in PoB)?

The Pastebin has been updated, with shock removed.

But extra damage from shock is still depends on damage dealt in one hit? I suspect PoB can't correctly count shock effect and it seems it couns it like 50% shock. And you can't do it with Shaper, because for 50% Shaper shock you need to hit Shaper for 2 mil damage in one hit.

maybe I will try your build. My scion has way more damage than your build (like 1.6 mil Shaper DPS without shock), but my scion has only 5.8k HP. And even with good phys mitigation and resists - it's... meh. And your char have 8k HP.

Having life and sustainability is the source of our power, along with items that scale in damage as you spend more and more currency makes you the Uber Elder slayer.

If I correct - you can't shock him. https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Shock
As for build - swap Brutality for Damage on full life. You have Slayer with overleech - you will be on full life most of the time. And swap some flasks (I suggest to swap amethyst and sulphur) to atziri promise with high phys roll and Sin's rebirth. +55% more damage as Chaos - is not a joke.

That is an interesting idea. But the build already destroys Uber Elder, so I don't see the need to change anything.

You are constantly taking damage throughout the fight, and you are prob on full life only 50% of the time, if that, which makes the damage on full life not as valuable, with brutality providing more consistent and reliable damage.

Flasks are not a good way to give you sustained damage, you'll have a few seconds of more burst but than fall down in deepz again, which makes the more consistent damage again more valuable than the flasks.

You can't shock, as you don't reach the minimum dmg threshold (has to be dealt in one hit)

Also the main defense that is leech isn't optimized, as you can get likely double the leech rate you already have. While you can do the elder with this, some other players could have trouble cuz the low dmg.

Rallying cry does almost nothing.

This build CAN do uber elder, but really you should try optimizing it further :)