[3.19] Devon's Hexblaster Occultist | Most Content Viable | Reflect Immune

My atlas tree: https://bit.ly/3sdPgkB

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3.19 relevant updates

- changed the passive tree a little
- GGG killed the 15% mana reservation efficiency mastery so now we have to annoint freakin' Charisma (lost a bunch of damage here from old annoint sadge)
- changed the ascendancy from cannot be stunned while you have ES to Profane Bloom so we can apply curses to anyone (which is imperative for this build)
- we get "Stun threshold based of off 50% of ES instead of Life"
- took Brine king and yugul pantheon for Freeze immunity, stun mitigation and even more curse resistance (80% Curse reduction in total)

Conclusion: Still good as ever, still not the best starter.
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Pros
+ Massive, CHUNKY single hit damage (I'm talking about 7M average hit)
+ Tanky
+ Reflect immune
+ Can do most if not all map mods
+ Freezes and shatters!
+ A lot of chaos res

Cons
- NOT A STARTER (not recommended to start with, beware!)
- depends on Shavs
- rare amulet is expensive (can use Presence of Chayula instead)

THE BUILD

How does it work?

Hex stuff with Anomalous Frostbite + Impending doom. Doomsday will apply max doom after 1 second. USE HEXBLAST AND EXPLODE STUFF.
Anomalous Frostbite is self-cast since Ele Weakness + Temp chains will be applied as curse auras. The reason why Ele Weakness and Temp chains are auras is if you charge into a pack with EW+TC and just Hexblast they will die most of the time just from the default HB explosion and their reduced resistances. Temporal chains and Aspect of the Spider are there to protect you from their attacks when you do it. Fairly simple but efficient.
Another thing to note is we are using "Tempest shield" + "Fire/Lightning damage to spells" on the wand to proc EQ as much as possible, applying -25% Cold exposure thus reducing enemy resistances even further.

Playstyle: You move close you Hexblast, you move close you Hexblast. If there's a tougher mob/boss just cast Anomalous Frostbite, wait 1s and Hexblast for mega damage. If there's an even tougher boss then you use Wither totems as well.

Mapping = Get close and Hexblast or Anomalous Frostbite + Hexblast
Bossing = Summon Wither totems, cast Anomalous Frostbite, wait 1s and Hexblast

Keep sand stance on Flesh and Stone at all times if you went for that instead of Tempest shield.


Videos and Gifs

GIFs



Outdated showcase (2x stronger now):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86-LSgVh6BY

Outdated showcase (2x stronger now) [Mapping + Shaper]:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJquSHKo3DQ


Path of Building - Pastabin

https://pobb.in/L2PFEcpEJFHY (updated for 3.19, 19.08.2022)

Everything is inside, use this^
Alongside Normal/Cruel/Merciless/Endgame trees, to the bottom left where it says "Endgame (95)", click on that and you can swap out the trees to see what you need to prioritize. Also here you can check out the whole tree, gear, gems, enchants, damage, etc. Basically you can see everything that I used and what you should aim for.

Leveling

General tips:


Guide:



Passive tree, Bandits and Pantheon

Passive Tree




Ascendancy

Profane bloom vs Vile Bastion

You can still apply doom to hexproof enemies. The only downside is that the curses themselves wont do their effects (e.g. -fire resist, slow from temp chains, etc.)

Took Profane Bloom this time around because we can get stun mitigation from one of the shield nodes on the tree "25% chance to aboid stuns", mastery "50% of ES as threshold for stuns" and last but not least Brine king also helps with stuns.


Bandits

Recommended: - Kill all, others give no real benefit to this build


Pantheon

BiS: Brine King + Abberath
Alternative: Brine King + Ryslatha


All Links

[from most important to least, prioritize like this]

Body Armour (6L) Hexblast(21/20) = Added Chaos Damage(20/20) + Controlled Destruction(20/20) + Void Manipulation(20/20) + Cruelty(21/20) + Empower (5) (or however high you can get it to)

Wand (3L) = Clarity(21) + Vaal Discipline (21) + Arrogance(20)

Shield (3L) = Flame Dash(20/20) + Faster Casting(20/20) + Arcane Surge(6/20)

Heretic's Veil (Helmet) (4L) = Elemental Weakness(20/20) + Temporal Chains(20/20) + Zealotry(20/20) + Enlighten(3)

Gloves (4L) = Impending Doom(21/20) + Anomalous Frostbite(20/23) + Culling strike(1/20) + Enhance(4)

Boots (4L) = Wither(20/20) + Multiple Totems(20/20) + Faster Casting(20/20) + Spell Totem(20/20)

Unset Ring (1L) = Divergent Tempest Shield(20/20)


Gear

Recommended during leveling:

TUMBLEWEED

Tabula Rasa or any decent yellow 5L with life and resists until you get Shavs is fine Also a 4L Solaris Lorica is amazing if you want to go Energy shield sooner rather than later.

Leveling Gear




My Gear (check PoB for updated everything)




Flasks


For now.

Anointment:

BIS Annoint:
Charisma


My achievements with the build:

- 18 challenges
- level 92
- killed some guardians
- killed Shaper

Check out my other guides:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2724153

Thanks for this, I hadn't been able to find a single written guide for this, just POB links.

"

Pyrok escreveu:

Thanks for this, I hadn't been able to find a single written guide for this, just POB links.

Np at all man. I've spent most of the past few days researching these skills. Hopefully it's good now.
I'm getting close to maps as well albeit a bit slower since I'm writing this and have other stuff I have to do as well.

Why no unleash? you are having to wait anyways for doomsday.

Also why dispair? isnt the point of hexblast inflicitng elemental ailments and reducing elemental resistance as much as possible (equilibirum/elemental weakness/elemental curse)?

And finally, im using tri-curse with two blassphemy setup. That way I can kill white packs without having to manually curse since hex/impending will proc albeit without the doom multiplier. I think its much more smoother however im not very far into the game so theres that.

"

rcalldz escreveu:

Why no unleash? you are having to wait anyways for doomsday.

Also why dispair? isnt the point of hexblast inflicitng elemental ailments and reducing elemental resistance as much as possible (equilibirum/elemental weakness/elemental curse)?

And finally, im using tri-curse with two blassphemy setup. That way I can kill white packs without having to manually curse since hex/impending will proc albeit without the doom multiplier. I think its much more smoother however im not very far into the game so theres that.

1.) Because your damage is insignificant without doomsday and unleashing wont change much, although it will help a little when casting without Doomsday. Tt will also lessen your hexblast damage by 11% once you actually get the Doomsday proc.
2.) I thought long and hard about this one and it's because of a couple of reasons. The main reason being that I'm also scaling Impending doom. Impending doom needs chaos reduction as well. Impending doom does not work like Hexblast but is a chaos skill as any other. Might as well make them both chaos then for the maximum damage output. We also get the 2 chaos reduction nodes at the top side of the tree for free. Yes with other elements the reduction will be greater but as I previously mentioned it wont affect impending doom as well. The only thing that you're losing are the chosen ailments and that you can decide to keep or not. It's not too hard switching Despair to Frostbite and equipping cold pen instead of Efficacy for Hexblast and slapping the elemental weakness blasphemy instead of Skitterbots.
3.) You just need one curse on your blasphemy setup to do that, two-curse does the same a one-curse. You just charge into a pack they get cursed by your aura and you right click.

tl;dr for now I'm gonna keep it like this since I'm scaling both impending doom and hexblast chaos damage, it I deem it underwhelming I'll switch to an element or make an alternative

I use
wand: despair + impending doom +1 lvl to socketed gems from item
flamability on vixens gloves
hexblast + added chaos dmg + spell echo support + void manipulation support.

everyone is dying instantly.
except bosses.

Why no Skittering Runes for +10 DOOM ?

"

Ejdzej escreveu:

Why no Skittering Runes for +10 DOOM ?

Placed it as best anointment.

How is (Despair + Imp Doom + Increased AoE) + (Hexblast + Supporting Dmg Buffs)

vs (Bane + Despair + Frostbite) + (Hexblast + Supporting Dmg Buffs)

Basically seems like two ways to play the new hexes but with PoB not having the capability for calculating the hexes on an enemy and such, has anyone done the math to compare how these to stack up?

"

How is (Despair + Imp Doom + Increased AoE) + (Hexblast + Supporting Dmg Buffs)

vs (Bane + Despair + Frostbite) + (Hexblast + Supporting Dmg Buffs)

Basically seems like two ways to play the new hexes but with PoB not having the capability for calculating the hexes on an enemy and such, has anyone done the math to compare how these to stack up?

Only self cast curses trigger the doom mechanic. So because bane is the actual casted skill that triggers linked curses, it won't trigger the doom mechanics. Which in turn makes hex blast weak. So You'd be better off doing Bane and Soulrend/Essence Drain/Blight. I believe the Blasphemy linked curse(s) are just there to provide their debuffs for a self casted Despair/Frostbite to trigger the doom mechanic to trigger Hexblast.

Now I don't know the math but at least bane feels a lot more league start friendly since its pretty much link curses and go. Hexblast really wants Doomsday to get rolling and then after that you need to decide between going chaos spam or adding in an ailment. Plus to me since Hexblast can crit and the Witch Tree and Occult has easy access to Power Charges, Hexblast wants to go with a crit set up.