Decay Autobomber - Death's Oath League Starter


Introduction
This is my take on a fast autobomber with explosions! The build revolves around using Death Aura and Decay linked Abberath's Hooves to constantly deal chaos damage over time to nearby enemies!

League Start POB: https://pobb.in/zIWV-qHmHIXM
Delirious Forge of the Phoenix League Start: https://youtu.be/GCJG3uWye_g

Pre-Mageblood POB: https://pobb.in/3vC2sYogIl_A
Pre-Mageblood wisped 8-mod t17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMPLQUSq7gI
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Pros & Cons

+ Very fast mapper
+ Autobomber with explosions!
+ League starter
+ No temporary league power is used in any of the showcases (see tab for league specific suggestions)


- Not SSF viable
- Not HC viable
- Poor single target damage scaling
- Have to level as something else (guide included)

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Keeper of Flames Specific

Spoiler
For grafts I recommend going Heart of Flame and then Tender Heart or Ennervating Grasp. Taking the Aul Bloodline for Precursor's Release and having no gems socketed in boots seems like a reasonable option over Unholy Authority late in progression. Foulborn Death's Oath just got added mid-league and grants (20–40)% increased Effect of Withered instead increased attack speed, which is a major buff for the build.

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Build Mechanics

Spoiler

Death's Oath
Spoiler
Death's Oath grants Death Aura, which causes us to constantly deal chaos damage to nearby enemies. Any gems socketed into Death's Oath will support Death Aura, which means we don't need a six link! Death Aura has a limited number of support gems, but if we support it with Lifetap we can use support gems that can only support skills with a duration. To get the damage bonus from Lifetap support, we need to get the Lifetap buff from another gem though since Death Aura doesn't spend life. Fortunately, we can link Lifetap to our automation setup to constantly have the buff!

Death's Oath requires a lot of strength to initially equip it, but it grants a lot of all attributes, so you can just use an item with lots of strength to equip it and then unequip the item with lots of strength. Getting the right colored gem sockets can also be tricky if you roll it with chromatic orbs, but if you craft one blue and one green socket from the crafting bench and then repeatedly craft 2/3 (and 3/4 afterwards) sockets on the craft bench you can get 4 off colors pretty easily and then use the crafting bench to craft 6 sockets.

Abberath Hoove's Decay
Spoiler
Decay is a support gem that causes any skill it supports to inflict a chaos damage over time debuff on enemies. We can socket Decay in Abberath's Hooves to cause each of our footsteps to automatically inflict Decay on nearby enemies! Decay and Death Aura have very similar scaling methods, which lets us scale both efficiently!

Sustaining Death's Oath
Spoiler
Death's Oath causes us to take 500 chaos damage per second if we've killed an enemy recently. Fortunately, Occultist's Withering Presence grants us 60% chaos resistance and combined with some more chaos resistance from the tree and a bit of life regeneration we can easily sustain the self damage.

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Starter Gear

Spoiler
Mandatory Items:
Death's Oath(totally fine to have a 4 or 5 link early in atlas progression)
Abberath's Hooves (only need one or the other to get started)
6-link
Hrimsorrow

Recommended Items:
The Grey Spire

General Rares: Make sure you are resistance capped. Then look for life, strength, dexterity and chaos resistance in that order.

Flasks: No required flasks, recommend Life Flask with Corrupted Blood/Bleed immunity, Quicksilver Flask and Witchfire Brew

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League Start Skills

Spoiler

Death's Oath
Swift Affliction, Void Manipulation, Concentrated Effect, Efficacy, Lifetap, Less Duration (doesn't need to be linked)

Abberath's Hooves
Swift Affliction, Void Manipulation, Decay (doesn't need to be linked)

Automation
Automation - Withering Step - Phase Run - Lifetap

Self-Cast Curse
Despair

Auras
Malevolence, Summon Skitterbots, Flesh and Stone

Blasphemy
Blasphemy - Enfeeble

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League Start, Leveling and Transition

Spoiler
Leveling as chaos DOT, which is always excellent on league start. We use Soulrend and Bane. Don't forget to buy the gems from the Skills section from Lily in act 5 and leveling them in your off hand.

Leveling POB: https://pobb.in/SEPA9dxxwDaL

Chaos DOT Leveling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2h93Gp31SA

Transition when you have enough currency to afford the mandatory items (shouldn't be more than ~20c day 1) and have hit at least level 75. Don't worry about swapping immediately on reaching maps, chaos DOT is a strong build through yellow maps with minimal investment. I swapped in early white maps and it felt smooth before and after. Recommended items should generally be your first upgrades.

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Upgrades

Spoiler
Upgrades
1. Upgrade to a level 21 Decay
2. Roll flasks with good modifiers (increased movement speed on quicksilver) and use when flask charges reach full
3. Upgrade helmet to have higher tier modifiers
4. Upgrade belt to stygian vise with good modifiers and rare abyss jewel with Enemies Withered by you have -2% to all resistances and movement speed if you've killed recently
5. Equip rare gloves with auras have increased effect on enemies and other good modifiers
6. Get an amulet with damage over time multiplier and other good modifiers
7. Corrupt Abberath's Hooves with increased movement speed
8. Anoint Charisma
9. Get two large 8 passive cluster jewel with Unholy Grace, Unwaveringly Evil and Wicked Pall and drop the Hasty Demise, Asylum, Harsh Lessons and Charisma clusters (Heart of Darkness too if you need the points)
10. Get 3 small cluster jewels with Born of Chaos (and Enduring Composure if you have the points) and make sure chaos resistance is capped
11. Swap to exiting witch start left and socket a Glorious Vanity dedicated in the name of Xibaqua near Mind over Matter making sure it transforms Arcane Dominion and the small passives into something good and allocate Divine Flesh
12. Get Forbidden Taste instilled with use after taking a savage hit
13. Swap staff to a Cane of Kulemak with increased chaos damage and chaos damage over time multiplier (preferably chaos explosions as well)
14. Socket Flame Dash and Automation - Steelskin - Lifetap
15. Equip a Sundered Will with 15% of chaos damage as increased chaos aura effect and minimal reduced mana reservation efficiency
16. Swap Blasphemy - Enfeeble for Blasphemy - Despair - Temporal Chains and drop Summon Skitterbots
17. Swap to rare boots with onslaught on kill and other good modifiers
18. Upgrade rare ring to an Iolite Ring with increased chaos damage and other good modifiers
19. Upgrade amulet to have increased damage over time multiplier, increased chaos damage and other good modifiers
20. Tattoo small intelligence jewels with increased chaos damage
21. Unallocate everything to the right of Written in Blood, anoint Charisma and use the points to path to the gem sockets to the left and below scion start, socketing an Unnatural Instinct to the left of scion start and a chaos damage Light of Meaning below scion start
22. Get a Watcher's Eye with damage over time multiplier while affected by Malevolence
23. Upgrade relevant gems without awakened variants to 21/20
24. Upgrade to high level/quality Awakened Swift Affliction and Awakened Void Manipulation
25. Swap Less Duration for Awakened Increased Area of Effect in Death's Oath
26. Upgrade to Awakened Blasphemy, path to Whispers of Doom (through mana reservation efficiency of curse skills) and six link Cane of Kulemak with Malevolence - Awakened Blasphemy - Enfeeble - Despair - Temporal Chains - Enlighten (level 3+)
27. Upgrade helmet to nearby enemies have -9% to chaos resistance, 10% of physical damage taken as chaos and other good modifiers
28. Add Hunter influence to amulet and get chaos damage over time multiplier and increased movement speed
29. Corruption hunt on Death's Oath (can use tainted chromatic orbs to color)
30. Add Hunter influence to amulet and get chaos damage over time multiplier and increased movement speed
31. Mageblood with good flasks (at least 1 with high tier avoid shock and increased effect) and drop Enduring Composure Cluster for Stormshroud
32. Double corruption hunt on uniques

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Other Autobomber Guides

Editado por útlima vez por Juminoh#0785 en 12 nov. 2025 20:59:02
Reflotado por última vez en 16 nov. 2025 18:34:29
How does this autobomber guide compare to your others in terms of expense and accessibility to gear upgrades?


Last league is when I started exploring different variants of DOs besides CA, and I wanted to find one that primarily scaled DOs. Would this one fit that description best?


Side note,
Appreciate the reddit post and following through about posting the guide!
"
How does this autobomber guide compare to your others in terms of expense and accessibility to gear upgrades?


Last league is when I started exploring different variants of DOs besides CA, and I wanted to find one that primarily scaled DOs. Would this one fit that description best?


Side note,
Appreciate the reddit post and following through about posting the guide!


The gear accessibility is pretty similar to all the other builds I took into t17s before getting a mageblood (BV/Tornado, Fireburst, DD/VD, Loop) where all the upgrades before mageblood (or headhunter) are individually relatively cheap and together <~150 divines.

Yes it would, mostly because this league introduced Sundered Will which means any guide before this league will be outdated at high budgets.
"
How does this autobomber guide compare to your others in terms of expense and accessibility to gear upgrades?


Last league is when I started exploring different variants of DOs besides CA, and I wanted to find one that primarily scaled DOs. Would this one fit that description best?


Side note,
Appreciate the reddit post and following through about posting the guide!


I didn't try taking it in to t17 but i got all items except explosion weapon for under 50d and have very similiar dps as the video showcase.
How did u reserve flesh and stone , i got lvl 3 enlight ,runegraft its should be enought right ?. did i do smthing wrong, you can see it on my profile.Thanks in advance
Looking forward to giving this a shot. Which map mods would you avoid?
Looks great.

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