[3.21 - 3.22] Sage's Poison Exsanguinate Pathfinder aka Purple Blood

For the basic setup you will want
The reason we want a Dendrobate is for the extra link you don't need a 6l to get started but it should be your end goal, that extra link provides us the last bit of chance to poison that we need to get to 100% it is used in both versions of the tree in the pob. If you want to upgrade later on I would recommend looking for the corruptions of +Gems +Duration Gems or %Damage the ideal combo being +Gems and +Duration for a massive boost.


Up next you have two options here you'll need two of either. The choices are the Cold Iron Point or a crafted rare dagger I personally recommend CIP over a rare until you feel comfortable crafting a dagger to replace it. As it stands I use a CIP and a rare for the best of both worlds, eventually you can forego CIP altogether and I'll breakdown why. The reason for CIP is the massive boost to gem levels it provides exsanguinate is one of the skills that scale immensely with gem level getting both damage and tendril targets going from 9 targets at gem level 21 to 11 targets at 29. When you are looking to replace your CIP's with rares you'll want to look for both Gem Level and for DoT multi either generic or chaos for those looking to splurge you can go for all three for massive damage that outpaces CIP by miles but you will loose out on gem levels. Corruptions to look for would be damage over time.


Next on the list of things needed is a pair of Ming's Heart don't stress finding perfect rolls on the phys as extra the goal is to hit 100% to start then catalyst them up to over 100% after these will provide us a massive amount of flat chaos damage to poison with as well as capping out chaos resist.


Last but not least on the list of items I deem essential is Asenath's this item provides us a massive amount of utility in the form of corpse removal, and application of the Temporal Chains curse. As this is a on hit DoT focused on chaos damage we have limited options and cannot really use the Herald of Ice skill which feels rather lackluster the explosions from this unique provide a boon to our pack clear to make up for it, additionally the automation of one of our curses provides us with less buttons to press, a layer of safety from the reduced action speed, and finally a boost in damage from the increased duration of other effects.

The Flexible Parts

In this section I'll break down the more flexible parts of the gear almost anything hear can be upgraded as you progress with the build.


Starting with the helmet when you start off you'll be looking for a good rare with the basic needs of life and resists later on you can look into getting your implicits and enchantment, for the previous I personally recommend duration of ailments and temporal chains effect as for enchantments your options are only limited by what you want, if you want generic damage look for temporal chains effect for boss damage despair curse effect and for clear exsanguinate chance to chain.


Boots we all know how important that juicy move speed is but don't forget to grab resists and life here. Implicits however are relatively pick and choose I thoroughly recommend poisons you inflict deal damage faster but for the other one its up in the air and is personal choice I happen to like the action speed but experiment and find what you like.


When you're looking at belts to start anything with good strength resists and life will get you started later on you can get a good stygian with similar stats, lastly Headhunter I can hear the murmurs in the crowd of why is that in a guide don't worry I'll explain. Headhunter is not the end goal the build performs the same against bosses with or without it, it's purpose is for legion farming both in 4-5 ways and in maps and it fits the bill for the stats. If you choose Headhunter keeping a CIP on the build is advised as Elemental reflect maps become a hazard but when running Domains you can forego it as it provides a boost to you hit damage and the speed/defensive buffs help you keep going to get your rewards stacked.


The neck is a very important slot for this build there are many options here but to start any rare with attributes, resistance, and life will do. When looking at upgrades there are two key stats to look for those being level of all gems and level of all physical gems much like the daggers before gem level matters greatly for this build the end goal for this is a +2 with life and regen as you can see I chose to multi-mod rather than fuss about crafting or buying something due to constraints you may or may not be able to get attributes here I chose a minimum frenzy for the boost in speed and damage that it provides but this can be anything you make of it. We have two options when it comes to anoints Cannibalistic Rite, or Acrimony early on I would recommend Cannibalistic Rite for the recovery but if you are comfortable with out it Acrimony provides greater damage.

The Flasks


Things get funky here as we don't have many options for damage in this department so instead we use them to cap our resists give us speed and a life flask for when we get chunked. We are starved for resists on the gear with the need for attributes and the number of unique's used these are what get us there.

Decorating the Tree


When it comes to you tree the last thing you should worry about is your jewels they will be the last things you put passives into as such start with rares ideally looking for Corrupting Blood immunity as you can see all this has is the CB immunity and life with a greater budget you can look into finding rares with better stats or save your hard earned loot for something more like these.
We're going to start with the watchers eye the most pressing stat to look for here is the DoT multi while affected by Malevolence anything else is just a bonus for us with that said the suppression while affected by grace is the best of the lot. Moving on to the Brutal Restraint, there are many many good options here but I'll go over what I've elected into. Chance to gain alchemists genius this provides us with flask effect aka more resists and flask charges gained aka better flask sustain, Poison damage and Speed these provide us a nice chunk of damage. I recommend looking at the timeless calculator to see what mix you can find but a word of warning you only really need one node to have Alchemists Genius on it anything more is a bit overkill and not worth the price on this build.

I'll start with the ascendancy and move outward from there. Starting off at normal lab go with either Nature's Boon or Nature's Adrenaline, for merc lab go Nature's Reprisal and when you get to uber go with Master Toxicist
the reason we go boon and adrenaline first is to ease the gearing process and give us our flask early on in the leveling process, and reprisal in merc to give us the damage we will want to help us start crushing maps fast. Lastly toxicist to cap off due to the boon to clear it provides and the chance to deal more damage.

Editors Note



When it comes to the tree I would not recommend leveling as this build but instead level into it, right now poisonous concoction is the best leveling skill for this build and it can carry us all the way to maps only needing to drop a few passives to reach for Whispers of Doom, Thick Skin, and Entrench. As far as masteries to go for when swapping to this I would suggest the life masteries of 15% more life if there are no life modifiers on body and +50 maximum life, the chaos masteries of 5% chance when you inflict withered to inflict up to 15 stacks, and lastly the poison mastery of poisons you inflict deal damage 20% faster. There are two trees in the path of building one is for when you have a Divergent Herald of Agony and one with normal Herald of Agony. The key difference is the the pathing of chance to poison nodes on the regular version vs. the pathing of DoT multi nodes due to the 20% increased chance to poison granted by the Divergent gem. Lastly the curse effect node is completely optional as I could not find a better use for the single point aside from that, surprisingly it still works out for us providing a healthy chunk of damage for the build but as stated is not mandatory.

This build was designed to crunch maps and legions its my daily driver for farming and having fun, from testing and playing it I can say that it is capable of running 5 ways solo or with a re-setter and I have tested up to 80% delirious without issues. Awakened Chain / other Awakened Gems are not needed but do provide massive leaps in damage. The alternative to chain if you are looking only at bosses would be to run void manipulation I have yet to test this though. Feel free to ask any question your heart desires I'll do my best to answer in a timely manner. I'll consider adding a FAQ if some things come up often enough. Thank you all and best of luck out there.

https://pobb.in/cMbWIhJ6CoG7
Due to common demand and desire this is my trees for leveling into this build I'll let you know how it goes with the start of the league!

League start for the build went great by the end of day one had my Mings and was zipping through maps I was able to swap to exsanguinate at act 10 and got through all the way to tier 5 before I stopped with the build. The reason for stopping was purely out of disinterest, the build worked great and cleared well its just not as entertaining going through it the second time. There has been a few questions as to how to improve the defenses of the build and I'll be honest there is not many options in that department the best being physical shifting with Dawnbreaker and Taste of Hate but even then that needs the support of armor to reduce the initial amount. Otherwise there is very little I can find as far as the tree that could be changed to improve the builds durability its its very much a zippy cannon build made to kill things before they kill it with the occasional boss being thrown in.

Changed ascendancy pathing main notes will reflect this with a drop down section.

Looking through the tattoos that are available to us some suggestions would be any of the + gems ones depending on your budget and gear this can offset some of the cost or the need for certain affixes on gear, the life tattoos as well due to the rather small amount of life we have in the build, the curse effect and aura effect ones respectively with the aura ones being a bit better due to giving defense and offense, and lastly the skill effect duration.