ELE LIGHTNING STRIKE - ALL T16s, Shaper, Uber Atziri, HOGM, Chayula, Elder

- With VP looks like we are capped at approx 2k life per sec for leech: health pool x default leech cap rate x Vaal Pact boost

- This is a good amount of leech, but the problem is it takes time to ramp up. This 2k life per sec leech will not happen instantly, rather we get to 2k life leech per sec over approx 1 second (with Multistrike) or approx 1.5-2s without Multistrike, because leech is done per instance of damage and we need to ramp and accumulate enough instances of leech to get to the max rate

- Increasing attack speed significantly will lower the time it takes to get to maximum life leech rate
- Increasing life pool will increase the maximum life leech rate, but I think this is difficult to get substantial gains
- Hitting more mobs will also get you instances faster, but of this is not reliable or relevant for 1v1 bosses
- Adding more % leech (e.g. Atziri flask, non-legacy VoV) will help increase teh duration of each instance allowing more leech instances to overlap, however this does NOT help us because with our attack damage already so high we hit the cap even with Blooddrinker 0.4%. So, unlike the old Vaal Pact where we needed to have VoV high % leech on for VP to really shine, this new Vaal Pact gives us good leech without needing flask uptime

- However, like flasks, life leech is removed when we get to full health (unless ofc you can get Slayer or Ascendant Slayer), so you will always have this issue of your life leech starting off slow and then getting faster and faster until you hit the cap - which I really don't like. When I take damage I want to recover fast and not have to keep attacking to get my leech to ramp up. Overall I think getting Vaal Pact doesn't hurt though on the new tree we lose about 70k DPS on the projectiles (mostly because I had to take out some crit chance nodes) in exchange for more life.

- I think complementing Vaal Pact with a life flask with Bubbling or Catalyzed is probably the best. And if you have access to a Belly of the Beast you will get even faster life recovery from flasks (and ofc higher HP too)

- Regarding Blood Rage - I tried dropping Damage on Full Life for Blood Rage, but I felt Blood Rage's degen detracted too much from your life leech that it wasn't worth it if you are tryign to get good leech going

- Overall for me I think I prefer the old tree and keep the same setup and just use life flasks (I'll probably change from Cautious Eternal life flask to a Catalyzed Eternal life flask), the old setup relied on VoV which was only good for 1 sip to get the instant leech which really only worked well on Atziri maps with lots of mobs to reload VoV, so I feel comfortable just skipping VP. If you REALLY want Vaal Pact for peace of mind and not to rely on flasks then please use the alternative tree I've posted under the "Tree" section. And you may also want to consider building as Slayer or Ascendant-Slayer with Ranger start.

Core

Diamond:
- This is the highest damage flask you can use on this build. Significantly raises our effective crit chance


Wise Oak:
-Very high damage flask with lightning penetration


Life Flasks:
- 1 or 2 Life Flasks:
- Please use Divine flask with instant recovery prefix (Seething) and Eternal life flask for life recovery over time (particularly Catalyzed or Cautious prefix). Reason I recommend this is because the base differences:
Divine: 2,400 life over 7s = 343 life/s
Eternal: 2,080 life over 4s = 520 life/s
So you roll Divines with instant life recovery since it has bigger lfie amount (2,400 vs. 2,080), but for regaining life over time Eternal gives you faster life per sec
- Blood of Karui is absolutely awesome life flask with very fast regen and then instant recovery at end of flask effect, but downsides are that is only has 2 uses per fill and you cannot roll mods i.e. Staunching on it ofc, so you will have to put the mod on another flask.


Other Options - Damage Flasks

Silver
Onslaught is a good damage boost, so if you are Avatar of Veil (instead of Chase), this could be a good option to use. If you are Avatar of Chase you don't need Silver ofc.


Vinktar's
- Added lightning to attacks
- Light pen version
- Very good damage flask, but remember i) it has only 1 use now per fill, ii) you need shock immunity (i.e. from Raider Avatar of Veil) or unaffected by shock (i.e. from Inpulsa) to use Vinktar's otherwise you will be shocking yourself for 50% more damage taken
- Overall, given the changes to VP now and because Vinktar only has 1 use per fill I prefer not to use this flask


Atziri's Promise
- Very high damage flask with nice bonus of chaos res
- Cheap unique
- 2 uses per fill which I like vs. VoV


Sulphur
- Nice damage flask with 40% inc. damage
- 20 out of 60 charges is very nice as well

For your particular setups / preferences - I recommend playing around in PoB with different flask and Onslaught options so you can see which setup you like.


Other Options - Defense Flasks:

Quartz
- Really good flask to get some spell defense since defense vs. spells is the weakest part of this build. This is what I used for HOGM, but ofc is also a good defensive option for PVE


Basalt
- Great flask if you are struggling against phys damage
- Is good to combine wiht Fortify in your setup, or if you are using Arctic Armor (if you are having trouble kiting and want to lower damage when you are stationary), or Kintsugi


Jade
- High EV flask. Use if you are having a lot of trouble vs. attacks (particularly ranged attacks)


Stibnite
- Blind is also very powerful vs attacks, but this flask only gives blind in an AOE around you, so it is not completely necessary since we try and stay at range vs. attacks. Use this if there is a boss you want to fight in melee range


Topaz, Aquamarine, Ruby
- Very good if you need to raise ele res vs. certain bosses during Act progression or in maps


General Rolls:

- Reduced charges used or +max charges
- And then defensive options like immunity to Bleed, Hexproof, EV %, freeze/shock immunity (if you are not specc'd Avatar of Veil), movement speed are all good.

Please do not try this map with -60% chaos res as you will struggle with Chayula as she can do a lot of chaos damage. I managed to find 2 breach rings with some chaos res and life for about 10 chaos each which I used on this map. Atziri's flask ofc adds a lot of chaos res too. I am also using a Catalyzed Eternal Life flask rather than Cautious

This map is a bit of a pain because the angles of the pathways are not that great for LS. Probably can go even faster by swapping in Frost Blades for the AOE clearing and then put in LS when you get to Chayula so you can kite her from range easily.

95% of the exiles are not a problem but there are a few exiles where a lot relies on how well you can position and react, and not all of these exiles spawn all the time.

- CWDT/aegis block guys - you can quickly kill yourself if you are not careful. Good thing is most have low/zero damage and so using scorching ray or another degen skill will easily kill them. The problem is recognizing very fast that you are hitting these guys and to immediately stop and switch to your degen skill. Zami, gubben brothers, kezzBlox etc.

- There is a caustic arrow girl using purple tentacle caustic arrow - you need to get out of her degen pools very fast as not even my life flask made a dent vs. her degen

- Danziggg girl - LA archer. Not much you can do against her except kill her first

- Dyness - this is the guy with firestorm in my vid - very tanky and does a lot of damage, I believe he has insane regen as well so you would need to use Frost Bomb if you'd like to kill him faster

Danzigg and the caustic arrow girl are not a problem if you position your angle with LS to cover the whole wall before triggering the wall as they will die very fast- Gubben brothers (Aegis/tempest shield)

Aegis tempest shield guys are the worst because you can kill yourself before you realize it. A lot of them do no actual damage though (e.g. Zami). After reading some tips I decided to carry alt weapon with a 3L Scorching Ray for these guys - the worst being the Gubben brothers.

Other changes I made was to swap to Avatar of Veil for ele status immunity and then put bleed and curse prevention on my flasks, and to add in a Quartz flask. So an example flask setup could be:
- Wise Oak
- Diamond with Hexproof
- Quartz with Staunching
- 2 Life flasks. Or 1 Life flask adn another damage flask

- Hardest part of this map I would say are the 2 Vaal bosses at the start, you need to be careful so you DPS them evenly so that the last one standing who becomes enraged can be killed quite quickly.
- Do not get close to the regular mobs - they can hit extremely hard - just stay at range adn DPS them down
- Trio: easy fight just kite in a circle and kill A'alai first, then focus on the fire guy, then kill the cycloner
- Atziri: here I like to spec Arrow Dancing because all her spells I can dodge easily manually so the only thing left to worry about is her spears. With Arrow Dancing and my EV and Raider buffs - that will take the spears out of the equation, making the whole fight quite easy. So I don't mind spending 2 regrets (spec then unspec) to have a very easy Uber Atziri fight. The clone split phase should be straightforward if you have enough DPS to kill them right at the start - pop a Vaal Haste, place ancestral totem, and hold shift and direct projectiles away from the other clones.

- Exciting and fun gameplay: true melee up front, close and personal
- Engaging: constantly trying to maximizing AOE damage and remove key threats. Use of various fun skills including Culling Strike and Leap Slam / Flicker Strike
- Flexible build: passive tree is highly flexible and can be used with axes, swords or daggers. Very easy to grab close nodes for: more survivability, or more DPS, or more resistance nodes that are close along the path as you see fit
- Very strong DPS to quickly remove threats (18K+ AOE DPS, if needed - single target variant up to 25K+ by swapping one gem)
- High survivability: unique defenses focused on avoiding damage rather than tanking damage. This becomes particularly important vs. high-end bosses that can deal fatal damage to you regardless of your defense type (i.e. armor)
- Has moderate damage mitigation + moderate health pool to soak any damage that manages to get through
- Handles reflect and lightning thorns extremely well: minimizes crits, maximizes instant life gain through high attack speed and Life Gain on Hit gem, high evasion gives good chance to evade your own reflected damage

- Mana intensive - very high mana costs due to fast attack speed. Countered through mana leech on gear, passive points, and use of Clarity aura
- Need specific gear, so can be a bit expensive. However, use of 4-link in Bringer of Rain (which gives a total of 7-links) is cost efficient - easy to roll colors on a 4-link, and also means you do not have to buy an expensive 6-link chest-piece and try and roll its colors. If you cannot use Bringer of Rain - please see FAQ for workable alternatives (includes standalone Smoke Mine and Flame Totem with a Blind support).

- Initiate with Flicker Strike / Leaping Slam -> cast Enduring Cry if need be -> Double Strike attack
- If necessary: i) use Frenzy to gain some frenzy charges for enhanced attack speed, ii) use Enfeeble / Temporal Chains on boss to reduce their DPS and lower their chance to hit, iii) cast Immortal Call for physical immortality
- Extremely high HP boss? -> reduce to <10% health and then Cull !
- Desyncing? -> cast Flicker Strike again to help force correction and move you to a targeted mob

For incoming physical attacks, the first stage is A) chance to EVADE, and then chance to DODGE (OPTIONAL in this build), and then B) chance to BLOCK.

A. Evasion:
- High evasion from tree and gear can give ~50% chance to evade (before Blind)

The chance for an attacker to hit you is calculated as follows:

Chance to Hit = Attacker's Accuracy / ( Attacker's Accuracy + (Defender's Evasion / 4) ^ 0.8 )

We can drastically reduce this Chance of Hit by i) increasing our evasion rating (gear and passives), and ii) reducing the Attacker's Accuracy (can use Enfeeble).
- Our tree and gear will focus on a lot of evasion
- The Enfeeble gem provides a 20% reduction to monster accuracy at level 1, and up to 39% at level 20. Each % of quality on this gem adds 1.5% reduced accuracy: thus a level 20, 20% Enfeeble inflicts 69% total reduced accuracy (i.e. Attacker's Accuracy in the above formula is now only 30% of what it was before). I hardly ever need to use Enfeeble and only reserve it for high-end, hard-hitting bosses.

With our high evasion (and if necessary use of Enfeeble) - we become extremely evasive to attacks.

Now if Blind is applied: the total Chance to Hit is reduced by 75%!! Thus the new chance for the enemy to hit is:

Chance to Hit while Blinded = 0.25 x Chance to Hit while not Blinded.

Even if you had almost no evasion and an enemy had a 95% Chance to Hit you - applying Blind to them would reduce that Chance to Hit to only 24%!

This is why Blind is an amazing skill, and makes a high evasion build incredibly powerful.

Entropy: evasion is entropy based - this is great for high-evasion builds because it guarantees that you will not get hit for consecutive attacks according to your evade chance. The initial entropy value is random however, and so there is a chance you make take a hit at the start of a fight, however the consecutive attacks after that are guaranteed to miss in accordance with your chance to evade. You can read more about the mechanics of evasion here: (http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Evasion and here http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707/page/1). Eventually, however, a hit may get through - in this case you still have your chance to block it (75%), as well as ways to mitigate the damage (see Damage Mitigation below).

Furthermore Ondar's Guile is a powerful keystone that adds to our defenses against projectiles. It DOUBLES your chance to evade against projectiles (especially helpful against archers, chaos projectiles, and ice spears). With a good chunk of evasion and Ondar's Guile, the chances that projectiles hit you become incredibly slim.

Another benefit of evasion is that it gives you even greater chance to avoid critical hits. Critical hits themselves are rolled separately against your evasion. If a regular hit has a critical strike attached to it: first the regular hit must pass your evasion, if it does then the critical strike part of the hit is also rolled against your evasion to see if the critical hit passes your evasion. If the critical strike is evaded - you will only get hit for the regular damage, and will not take crit damage.

Aim for ~50% chance to evade throughout your leveling. You can run Grace to give a huge boost to your evasion if necessary. At the high level 60s you will need ~7000 evasion to have a 50% chance to evade, in the 80s level you will need about 10,000 evasion to have 50% chance to evade. Keep in mind that this "chance to evade" displayed on the tooltip is an estimate based on accuracy of monsters at your level, and so it will go down slightly each time you level higher. You can also use a Jade flask to temporarily increase your evasion.

B. Block: 75%. This is the maximum amount of block (unless you use the Anvil which adds 3% to maximum Block). Gear gives ~43% (+~30% from shield, +15% from Bringer of Rain) + 28% from tree + 4% from Tempest Shield = ~75% block chance. Your block %

Block scales well throughout the game because it is a fixed % against all monsters at all levels.

- 56% total chance to Block spells can be obtained by using the Stone of Lazhwar amulet + Rainbowstride boots that can apply 50% and 25% of our regular Block chance to spells respectively. This gives a total of 50%+25% = 75% of our regular Block chance being applied to block spells. With a max regular Block chance of 75% - this results in 75% x 75% = 56% Block chance against Spells. This implies 44% chance of taking spell damage.

- With Spell Dodge incorporated (optional Phase Acrobatics keystone) - spell avoidance chance will reach 65% - i.e. 31% chance of taking spell damage - based on 30% spell dodge chance.

- Maximum spell block of 75% can be obtained by getting max regular block and then combining Stone of Lazhwar + Rathpith Globe.

Elemental resistances are extremely important and should be number 1 priority for your spell defense (before block) as they provide the spell damage reduction. Aim for as close to 75% of each (Fire, Lightning, Cold), unbuffed. Running a Purity aura will add up to 27% to each as well as +2% to your resistance maximum - capping your resistances at 77%. You can also use elemental flasks (Topaz, Ruby, Sapphire) if you need to improve your resistances.

With high Spell Block and high Elemental Resistances - the amount of spell damage we take is drastically reduced.

**Please see the Rathpith Globe section under Items and Gearing for how to attain MAX spell block + MAX regular block**.

In the rare case that damage gets through our defenses, or when facing an extremely hard hitting boss:

- Use Enfeeble curse - this drastically reduces enemy chance to hit and also reduces their total damage significantly. Can be linked to a low level Cast on Damage Take if you prefer this to be automatically cast
- Use Temporal Chains for heavy spell bosses - this reduces their rate of spell casting and gives you more time to recover. Can also be linked to a low level Cast on Damage Taken

- Keep Endurance Charges. The damage mitigation from Endurance Charges scales excellently throughout the game. Cast Enduring Cry to generate these charges. Each Endurance Charge reduces all incoming physical damage by 4%, regardless of the size of the damage, and also gives +4% to all elemental resistances.
3 Endurance Charges = 12% physical damage reduction and +12% to all your resistances. There is a + Endurance Charge node right near the path of this tree at the Duelist start that can increase max Endurance Charges to 4, you can also help Oak in Merciless to get another + Endurance Charge giving a possible total of 5 Endurance Charges = 20% damage mitigation to all physical damage throughout the game.

- Bringer of Rain also provides a 10% chance to gain an Endurance Charge from a block.

- Cast Immortal Call - consume your Endurance Charges to grant invulnerability to all physical damage. With just 3 Endurance Charges, and with Immortal Call linked to Increased Duration - you can get 4 seconds of immortality.

- Granite Flasks - these provide +3000 to your armor.

- Health pool - you will want your life pool to be as high as possible. I have found health of ~3k+ life for end game sufficient to soak up the rare high damage hits that get through my defenses.

I've tested both Life Gain on Hit and Life Leech gems in this build - and found Life Gain on Hit to give much better survivability.
- Life Gain on Hit scales very well with our high attack speed and also provides INSTANT life regen that helps counter reflect mobs as well as chaos damage/puncture which are fast life degeneration-over-time (DOT) effects that can be hard to counter with life leech.
- Life leech has a downside in that the life leech rate is capped at 20% of maximum life per second which is ~600 health max over each second (based on a 3000 life pool). This can be dangerous when fighting reflect/chaos/puncture as you may not be able to recover to your full life quick enough with just your life leech. There is no cap on life gain from Life Gain on Hit.
- Try both Life Leech or Life Gain on Hit and see which you prefer.

This build mitigates damage from physical reflect such that reflect mob packs/maps are a non-issue.

a) This build is not focused on crits - having a high crit chance and high crit damage is very dangerous against reflect, and will kill you. I have also found crits unnecessary as this build already provides very high DPS. With minimal crits in this build your DPS will be very smooth (not spikey) and thus reflect will be easy to handle.

b) Life Gain on Hit helps against reflect and thorns by providing instant life regen to counteract those effects.

c) Additionally - the high evasion in this build is a key advantage: reflected damage can be evaded (against your own accuracy rating).

If you feel that you are taking damage for some reason, drink a Granite flask for armor or keep Endurance Charges.

Lightning Thorns is also a non-issue. Thorns on a target will reflect a fixed amount of lightning damage to you per your melee attack on that target. However the thorn damage is spell damage and so can be blocked with our spell block. Further - the instant life gain per every hit we deal from Life Gain on Hit also helps counteract thorns.

Freeze is easy to handle and rarely happens with this build. Usually freeze results from a cold projectile or spell - which is countered well with the high evasion (especially vs. projectiles with Ondar's Guile), max attack block and strong spell block.

You can also carry a flask that has the "Dispels Frozen" mod. It is still wise to have high cold resistance when facing freeze potential.

Also note - you can still evade and block while frozen.

I have found Flicker Strike to help a lot against desync as it forces your character to lock onto a targeted monster.

1. Extreme attack speed and high damage. Smooth DPS (does not spike). Gained from tree and gear.

2. The mana cost is very high. In Bringer of Rain - our Double Strike also uses the mana cost multipliers of the inherent Melee Physical Damage and Faster Attacks supports. With 8+ attacks per second, mana gets burned very quickly. This can be countered by investing in Mind Drinker node (2% mana leech) in the Shadow area near the top of our tree, using a Mana Flask with a +% Mana Leech mod, getting mana leech on gear, or running a low level Clarity gem for mana regen.

Note: Mana leech is based off your physical damage - if you are having a lot of mana trouble try getting a slower attack speed weapon, or higher physical damage weapon, and try getting more of the physical damage nodes on the tree first before you get attack speed nodes. With enough physical damage - 2% mana leech will be sufficient.

3. Frenzy charges - each Frenzy charge gives a nice +5% attack speed. Use Frenzy attack to gain a Frenzy charge. With up to 6 Frenzy charges in this build you gain +30% attack speed (as well as 24% increased total evasion, from tree).

4. Crowd control - having added cold damage (Hatred aura, Soul Taker chill effect) on your attacks allows chilling and sometimes freezing and shattering of mobs.

5. Culling - linking Flicker Strike / Leap Slam to the Cull support gem helps to quickly execute a high HP boss with <10% of health left. This works well on unique bosses too (i.e. Vaal, Piety, Oak) with very high HP, and scales throughout the game. You can also run some nice IIR/IIQ linked to it.
Note: Leap Slam has flexibility to help you get in and out of fights quickly, as well as leap obstacles for shortcuts.

Start at the Ranger and begin improving your life, damage and shield as you head towards the right edge. From here, grab Ondar's Guile. Keep heading up to the Shadow to improve your evasion and shield defenses, and to get some close intelligence nodes and the mana leech from Mind Drinker if necessary. Finally expand across the Duelist to get more shield defenses, physical damage and life. If you upgrade to Soul Taker you can unspec from Mind Drinker as you no longer need mana leech; there are also several axe clusters you can spec into (Duelist area) at this stage that are right along the path of this tree.

Invest less points in Shadow and more points in the Duelist to get more +Life, +Endurance Charge, and more elemental resistance (Diamond Flesh) nodes - these are all very close to the original tree. Or invest more points in the Shadow side to get more Int., damage, and mana leech (Mind Drinker node).

Please note that this guide is not a TANK build. It is focused on avoiding damage (priority), mitigating any damage as best as possible, and rapidly regenerating life.
The evasion/max block combo is extremely strong and gives you very high survivability. As long as you play smart with this build you will be fine.

However, here are some additional pointers that could be helpful to boost survivability:
- Remove some DPS nodes and get i) the extra endurance node by Duelist, ii) health nodes
- Get the extra endurance charge from Oak in Merciless
- Use Enduring Cry in battle and keep your Endurance charges up - with 5 endurance charges you have 20% physical damage mitigation against all enemies (i.e. Vaal)
- Case Enfeeble / Temporal Chains - even on regular mobs if you want to play super safe
- Blind is the key to a strong evasion build - prioritize linking Blind to your attack early on, or use a Flame totem with Blind / using Smoke Mine
- Be careful of Vulnerability maps and make liberal use of Enfeeble on such maps/use Eye of Chayula
- Look for a high evasion shield that gives you +life. Hardly anyone uses these types of shields - so you can find one for very cheap

Alternative tree with Duelist / Ranger start (credits: mvm199 for the original version): http://goo.gl/Wt3CdE. This tree sacrifices damage, but has a lot of life. You may wish to spec into more/less damage as you see fit.

Normal: Get 8% all resistances from Kraityn or +40 Life from Oak. I prefer the 8% all resistances as it is generally hard to get a good balance of resistances from gear.
Cruel: Get 8% attack speed from Kraityn or the +18% physical damage from Oak (recommended if you are having mana issues) . The 8% attack speed is preferred as it scales well by benefiting everything that adds to our attack (i.e. elemental damage from auras etc, life gain on hit, etc).
Merciless: Kill all for 1 passive point; if you like using Enduring Cry and Immortal Call - get the +1 Endurance Charge from Oak.

A. 1H Weapon: damage nodes in this build are all general melee damage nodes and so you can begin using any weapon that can use Double Strike.

I recommend starting with 2 types of daggers for your leveling: Ungil's Gauche and Mightflay Flaying knife - these daggers are very cost effective: easy to buy, and give great DPS throughout your leveling up until level 60. Then you can switch to a high-end axe such as Soul Taker for end game. Early weapons to use:
- Level 20 - 35: Ungil's Gauche. Very common dagger with nice DPS, easy to find (cost: ~1 chaos)
- Level 35 - 60: Mightflay. Another common dagger, strong DPS all the way to high levels. Easy to find (cost: ~2 - 3 chaos)
- Level 60+: Try and find a axe/dagger/sword with ~250+ dps, preferably 300+ (this is calculated by taking the average of the low and high damage of the weapon and multiplying by the weapon attack speed). Weapon's with fast attack speed of 1.5+ and low crits are more desirable for this build. Axes are preferred for the lower crit chance. Price can range from a few GCPs and up. Try and find a weapon that gives resistances as well. An example is this dagger which I bought for 2GCP:

Soul Taker axe: This is a superb axe with very high attack speed. Note: it is not required for this build, but it allows you to continuously maintain your DPS even if you have no mana - directly benefiting our survivability as continuously attacking keeps Blind applied and gives instant life gains from Life Gain on Hit. Very expensive axe. The main roll you want is the Increased Physical Damage to be as high as possible (180%+). You can further refine your damage by getting the very close axe DPS nodes along the way to the Duelist area on the tree. Please note however that there are quite a few rare axes that give higher DPS than even legacy Soul Taker. If your physical damage is high enough and with a decent mana pool size - mana leech should not be a problem.


B. Helm/Chest: look for high evasion, +life, and +resistances on your helm/chest.

- One cheap and very useful helm you can use early on is Fairgrave's Tricorne (cost ~1chaos) which gives shock immunity, evasion, and high lightning resistance.

- Another great unique that can be used for leveling up is this chest piece: Briskwarp is a great chest giving a ton of evasion that can be used starting at level 9! It will continue to give high evasion into the early 30 levels. It also has other nice stats: movement speed, attack speed, cold res, mana recovery from flasks. Cost ~2 chaos.


- Around level 67 - switch to Bringer of Rain (costs ~7ex depending on rolls) to amplify your DPS and to add Blind to your attacks. Bringer of Rain also gives a nice 15% Block chance.
Note: when you switch to Bringer of Rain you will no longer be able to wear a chest piece.
Please see FAQ for alternatives for getting Blind if you cannot use Bringer of Rain.


C. Amulet: the best choice here is Stone of Lazhwar (cost ~1alc - 1chaos). This is a very nice amulet and a critical part to the build that you can start using at level 5. It applies 50% of your Block chance to spells. This is great for avoiding spell damage. Since the regular Block chance of this build gets very high - we want to use as much of that as we can to apply to Spell blocking. It also gives you a lot of intelligence, mana, and cast speed (great for speeding up casting of curses/enduring cry/immortal call)

Another option for amulet is Eye of Chayula (10+ chaos) - which prevents stuns and allows you to maintain your DPS and life gain on hit without being interrupted by stuns. However given the high evasion and block of this build, stuns are not frequent at all. Please note the amulet will also reduce your life by a bit. You can use Chayula in your leveling if you are having some trouble with stuns. I usually use it only when in a very difficult Vulnerability map.


D. Shield: early on use the Crest of Perandus shield (cost ~1 chaos) which can be used from level 8 until early 50s. This shield is great as it gives a lot of block chance, a lot of life, life leech, and a lot of lightning resistance.

After that look for any shield that can give you a lot of evasion (1000+ evasion) and life/intelligence and resistances. An example would be:

One option is Atziri's Mirror - this is a very underrated and underused shield that you can buy very cheap (~2-3 chaos). It is a great shield in combination with Bringer of Rain - since you cannot use a chest piece and therefore you will need to try and get as much evasion, life and resistances from your other gear as you can - as such you may fall short on Intelligence requirements. This gives a good amount of evasion, 20%-30% to all res, as well as a large amount of intelligence which helps improve your mana pool and enables the use of high levels of int. gems such as Enfeeble and Tempest Shield.


If you are seeking maximum spell block: Rathpith's Globe (cost: ~3GCP) is a good choice:

This applies 40-60% of your Block chance to spells (which if added on top of the 50% from Stone of Lazhwar easily gets you to maximum spell block). So key mod you want on Rathpith is high spell block, and you do not really need the spell damage or ES mods which can make the shield expensive.
Please note that the Lazhwar Stone + Rainbowstrides combo already gives you very high spell block of 56% with Tempest Shield. I have found 56% to be very high, giving great survivability in the majority of maps. However if you are running against a very hard spell boss: Piety or Mageara, having max spell block will help significantly.

Using Rathpith Globe + Stone of Lazhwar (no Rainbowstrides) - will easily get you to maximum spell block while keeping maximum regular block. However you will need to solve for the following constraints:
- Intelligence required to use Rathpith (very high) - I use Sin Trek boots and a ring that give some int
- Resistances - without Atziri's Mirror and Rainbowstrides - you will need to balance your resistances carefully from your other items (belt, gloves, rings)
- Missing evasion - Rathpith gives no evasion, as such you may need to run Grace to maintain high evasion

The above constraints may be tricky to solve, and so I recommend staying with the Atziri Mirror + Rainbowstride for the shield + boots combination. You can swap to Saffell's Frame for heavy spell bosses - however be careful with Saffell as you cannot block regular attacks at all when using that shield.


E. Shoes: use high evasion and high movement speed boots (high movement speed increases your survivability by getting in and out of fights quickly, as well as improving your clearing speed of levels). Priority mods on boots should be +life and +resistances.

Early on, you can use Wanderlust boots (very cheap ~1alc). They prevent you from getting frozen so they are great to use for Hailrake and Merveil boss fights early on:


The Blood Dance boots (cost 2-3GCP) are not really necessary, but are a good pair to use from level 44 until you can get to your Rainbowstrides. They give a good amount of life regen per frenzy charge you have. However they are lacking in life and resistances. Use these if you already have high resistances from your other gear and need some life regen. You can use Blood Rage to generate the frenzy charges to get up to 6% life regen with 6 frenzy charges.

At level 53 - you can switch to Rainbowstride boots (cost <2ex). These are the core boots for this build as they will increase your Spell Block chance significantly, give +Mana, a nice +20% to all resistances, and good movement speed.

Another pair of end game boots that are very cheap and effective are Sin Trek boots (cost ~1 chaos). These shoes give a lot of intelligence, evasion, and energy shield (which is great if you combine this with Rathpith Globe for maximum spell block). Additionally, enemies cannot leech from you when you wear these shoes.



F. Belt: ideal belt to use is Meginord's Girdle (cost: ~15+ chaos depending on rolls). This is an amazing belt which can be used from level 8 all the way into end game, and can be used on many physical builds. Gives nice benefits: +Strength, +Physical Damage, +Life, +Cold Resistance.

One cheap belt, that is very effective for leveling is Wurm's Molt (cost ~1alc). This belt gives great benefits: life, strength, int, cold resistance, as well as life leech and mana leech.



G. Gloves:
For gloves look for the following benefits: high evasion, life, resistances. An example would be these gloves:


Cost-effective gloves you can use while leveling that will help significantly with mana upkeep (credits: phenonymous) are the Slitherpinch Gloves (cost ~1chaos), which gives strong life leech and mana leech:


H. Rings:
Priority mods on rings should be: resistances, life, physical damage. If you are having a lot of trouble with mana leech, Thief's Torment (oost ~10 chaos) is a solution, however you cannot use other rings when you use Torment (credits: oligartoon, Zyglrox43). It gives +15 mana to you for each hit which is quite a lot of mana with Double Strike + Multistrike.


I. Alternatives: if you are having a lot of trouble with heavy spell bosses (Piety, map Kuduku etc.) - try using Saffell's Frame (cost: 3+ GCP). This shield converts 100-120% of your Block Chance to Spell block, and increases your resistances and max resistances. However you will no longer be able to block attacks.

Key skill is Double Strike linked to Blind. Core supports in order of priority of linking: Melee Splash -> Multistrike -> Life Gain on Hit. Then link these in a Bringer of Rain to make it a 7-Link supported by Bringer of Rain's Blind, Melee Physical Damage, and Faster Attacks. If you cannot get Bringer of Rain - at least use the above 4 Link and add in Blind (5-Link), and Melee Physical Damage (6-Link). You can also use Blind separately and do not have to link to your attack (see FAQ).


- The above gives a lot of DPS in AOE which is more than enough even as a single target attack against bosses.
- Single Target: if for some reason you need more single-target DPS - simply swap out Melee Splash for Added Fire Damage to boost DPS (this gem will add 20%+ of your physical damage as fire damage). However I have never needed to do this as the AOE DPS in this build is already so strong and enough for single target.

- Blind is crucial and significantly improves our chance to avoid hits. It synergizes very well with our high attack speed. With a high level Blind gem there is a 12% chance to apply Blind per hit. This build reaches ~8-10 attacks per sec., and so the Blind is usually applied within 1 second of starting a fight. With Melee splash, entire mob packs will be blinded very quickly.


Flicker Strike / Leap Slam: used for initiating, jumping to the next enemy quickly, and also for Culling a really high HP boss when they are on less than 10% of health. It is sufficient to have Flicker Strike / Leap Slam in a 3-link with just Culling Strike and Faster Attacks (for Leap Slam)/IIR/IIQ supports.


Tempest Shield: run this at the start of levels to add a nice 4% to your shield block chance. This would also indirectly add to your spell block chance due to the bonuses from Stone of Lazhwar and Rainbowstride.

Cast on Damage Taken: have this linked to a curse such as Enfeeble or Temporal Chains, as well as either Increased Duration and/or even Increased AOE.
Note: Cast on Damage Taken requires no mana to activate the curse and it is automatic once a certain damage threshold is reached - you can keep your Cast on Damage gem at a low level so that it remains sensitive and readily casts on the slightest damage!


Enduring Cry and Frenzy: no links necessary. Use these to generate Endurance charges and Frenzy charges as need be.


Auras: You can run 1 or 2 of the following auras (I usually just run Grace and Hatred):
Hatred (improves DPS by adding a lot of cold damage and giving some chill/chance to freeze to your attacks - the freeze helps with crowd control and the shatter helps against Necromancers raising the dead).
Grace (improves survivability by giving a large bonus to evasion).
Purity (provides large bonus to spell resistances).

Curses: - ideal curses to use are Enfeeble or Temporal Chains.

Enfeeble is great because it lowers enemy chance to hit and drastically reduces their total damage - which is perfect for an evasion based build. Temporal Chains reduces attack, cast, and movement speed of enemies - thus you will get hit less frequently / be able to safely recover between hits, and also safely block/stun recover.

Quality on Gems - the key gems for quality are:
Melee Splash - quality increases AOE range. This vastly improves clear speed and survivability as our DPS, Life Gain on Hit and Blind are all spreading across a broader area of enemies.
Enfeeble (this is not critical and a no/low quality gem is fine - Enfeeble is rarely used in gameplay except for high-end bosses). Quality adds to the amount of % reduction to enemy accuracy - drastically lowering their chance to hit and improving your survivability.

- Use the Reduced Mana gem to help reduce the mana reserve of these auras (the Reduced Mana gem gives a 75%+ reduction in mana cost at level 16+): Purity for elemental resistances (can be reduced from 40% reserve cost -> ~30% reserve), Hatred for DPS increase (60% reserve -> ~45% reserve), Tempest Shield for block (25% reserve -> ~19%).

Good mods to have on flasks include: instant life recovery, mana leech, % increased evasion, and removal of ailments such as freeze, burn, and bleeding. It is also ideal to have a flask that removes curses and gives you curse immunity (i.e. for PVP or vs. Academy boss). For Jade flasks you want to have a mod to increase % evasion so that it further boosts your evasion on top of the +3000 evasion rating it gives. At the moment Jade flask is in Domination/Nemesis leagues only - a quick way to get this flask is to make a Nemesis character, get the flask super cheap and then die to go to Standard. You can also just buy it straight in Standard of course.

Some examples of the flasks I use are below. You can make various combinations. One combo I used was a Ruby flask with knockback vs. Mageara - the knockback helps move you out of the burning areas.

- This build is very strong in maps and can easily solo. Your Blind is also great when grouping as everyone benefits from this being applied. Blind is a status ailment and does not interfere with other status ailments or curses.

Map Mods to Consider:
Physical reflect map - and double physical reflect mobs: easy to handle due to the low crits of this build, multiple small hits with Double Strike, instant life gains on hit, and high evasion (can evade your own reflected damage). If for some reason you are taking too much damage from reflect use a Granite Flask or keep some Endurance Charges up.

Vulnerability (increases your chance of getting stunned and the amount of physical damage taken): with your high evasion & block - this will not be a big issue, but still requires caution. If you want to play super safe - use Enfeeble on mobs to reduce their accuracy or swap in Eye of Chayula (prevents stuns) for your Lazhwar stone.

-Max Resistances / Elemental Weakness / Increased Elemental Damage - requires caution and maxed resistances as you will be taking more damage from elements.

Map Bosses: (Please also see section "Further Map Boss Strategies" in the 2nd post on this page)
High physical damage, high HP bosses - map Oak, Brutus, Vaal, etc. are handled well. You will rarely get hit by these bosses. Use Enfeeble (and Granite Flasks and Enduring Cry if necessary), and Cull them at <10% HP. Be careful with Vaal's smash and play smart by moving out of the way. Do not try and tank Vaal's smash - there is a chance it will miss, but if it gets through it will kill you.

High spell damage bosses (Pietys, Kudukus, Magaera etc) - our high Spell Block works very well against these bosses. Make sure your resistances are high (run Purity if necessary). If you are really having trouble - swap in Rathpith / Saffell's to maximize your spell block. Use Temporal Chains to slow down their casting.

Chaos and Puncture damage over time (i.e. Canyon Sniper boss) - his puncture and chaos damage are easily countered with the rapid instant life gains from your attacks. It is extremely rare to get hit by his arrows due to your high evasion and Ondar's Guile. Use Flicker Strike to lock onto him, and DPS him down - his puncture will have little effect as we gain instant life rapidly and are in melee range and hardly moving. Use an Amethyst flask if you feel you are taking chaos damage.