[3.23 UPDATED] Bergerbrush's Beginner Friendly Death's Oath Occultist

With the introduction of Beacon of Hope, I think Stranglegrasp might be the best amulet for Death's Oath now?

You can stick Beacon of Hope, Champion of the Cause, and Leader of the Pack on it for a total of:

112% increased Area of Effect of Aura Skills
20% increased Reservation Efficiency of Skills
6% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills

and you still have one annoint leftover for something like Way of the Warrior if you need 30 more strength, or Skittering Runes for more mana wiggle room with your curses, or Whispers of Doom if you're not pathing over there for some reason

And if you're feeling lucky, you can always try to turn it into one of the other onyx amulets like Astramentis or Eye of Chayula or Replica Dragonfang's Flight

I just wanted to leave my experience on how I followed the guide despite being outdated. I have followed nearly every section of the guide up to Stage 3 in the 3.22 & 3.23 updates.
He's my current POB for reference.
https://pobb.in/sdZM0bJ_7CLk

Disclaimer
This is the farthest I have ever made it into the end game and lack vast amounts of experience compared to other individuals here.


Mapping still works and I even felt like I was rushing it while using PC up to Act 10. (I was able to get a guild mate to sell me the Gem early on, thanks Scott!)
I did end up choosing to help Alira for the +15 to all resistances. This was a personal choice as I wanted to worry less about res-stacking and more about making the build work.
I waited till I made it to maps (Stage 1) to get a cheap corrupted DO through trade. I would use this to level the gems as I would come to buy a cheaper base with better stats to craft the 6 sockets.

Now during maps, I kept PC which is where I mainly stuck to clearing and not bossing. My take on the build leaned too far away from defenses for me to survive bossing. This is where you can either have a lot of fun or have a really rough time depending on what gear you use. This is inherently not a bossing build but has the potential to complete bosses pending your boss mechanic knowledge/skill.

After farming enough currency I would buy upgrades in batches.
One batch is Glorious Vanity, Inspired Learning, and Transcendent Mind. I did this so I could feel the changes instantly instead of a slow gradual increase. Again, personal choice in how I wanted to grind this league.

I wouldn't pick up a temp bow till around LvL 78.

Around LvL 85, I jumped to the "mapping & bossing" stage. Due to NRG luck and farming, I accumulated enough currency to get my gear through trade instead of crafting (The bow is the only item I crafted).

What I can consistently do with my iteration
t16 8-10 mod corrupted maps (If phasing isn't up your deleted)
LvL 8-10 Simulacrum (Not enough damage and ground effects)
All map bosses (Any boss is possible with enough defenses and time)
Uber Atziri (if I'm paying attention)

I can comfortably farm maps to a point where I drop 2-3 t17 maps per 10 t16 maps.
Everything else I either don't have enough experience on or have never tried.

death oath is a league starter build, but no longer can be scaled to endgame, even with a budget of 400 divines. The mechanics you'd need to overcome are simply not there without a 5+ mirror budget, and with that you'd have a build that is weak comparatively to any other 5+ mirror build.

GGG nerfed AOE options, damage scaling (curse/aura) on a build that already was anemic due to the limitations of sockets. All of this done not to nerf Death oath directly, but instead each nerf implemented to control the power creep of other builds. Death oath was simply a casualty. Even with base level buff of death aura, this build is simply not T17 competitive at all due to all the map modifiers.

Someone on a reddit thread mentioned, why not either grant a chayula blessing the ability to add an additional damage multiplier on Death oath to include scaling damage based on overcapped chaos resistance?

Do not know if that would help, but at this point, anything would.