[3.21] The Everlasting Surgeon - Tanky Pathfinder

Pros:
Very tanky (87% ele res, 89% chaos res, 87% phys taken as ele, 100% spell supression, 3k life regen per sec)
Cheap to start (Core item is the Mahuxotl's Machination shield, currently going for 1.5 div)
Good bosser (Deathless Feared, all Uber Pinnacles except Uber Maven because I'm a bad player)




Cons:
A bit clunky (since you need to press the life flask every 8 second)
Medium clear speed

Achieve High Maximum Resistances


Mahuxotl's Machination is the core item of this build. This shield provides two keystones that we need:

1.Divine Flesh (+5% maximum chaos resistance, 50% of elemental damage taken as chaos)
2.Everlasting Sacrifice (+5% to all maximum resistances, which has a condition that I will explain later on)

This adds up to +7.5% to maximum elemental resistances and +10% to maximum chaos resistance.

Sustain Everlasting Sacrifice

Everlasting Sacrifce:

When you reach full Energy Shield, Sacrifice all Energy Shield to gain +5% to all Maximum Resistances for 4 seconds.

To sustain +5% all max res, we need to reach full energy shield every 4 seconds. This is when the new Pathfinder keystone kicks in.

Master Surgeon:

Life Flasks are not removed when Unreserved Life is Filled
Life Flasks do not Queue
50% less Life Recovery from Flasks

This keystone gives us an enduring life flask. Combined with Replica Sorrow of the Divine, we get an 'enduring engery shield flask'.

Unfortunately, I couldn't resist the temptation to play one of the most broken builds this league: explode totem. Since we are pathfinder, I played the poison version. There are a ton of build guides and videos out there, but I want to quickly show you my take on it.

Since we want to use the shield, we have to use a one-handed weapon. The best option is the Redblade, which is going for ~ 30 divs at the time of writing. For the rich, get the '70% chance to summon two totems' node would be ideal (even more expensive).



Before getting your Redblade, you can use any one-handed weapon with the explode totem mode. I used the Arakaali's Fang until I got my Redblade.



This weapon is well-known to the summoners and is often used with the Squire shield. However, this weapon is very good for poison build because it provides up to 300% increased poison damage by rasing spiders. Plus, you can link Withering Touch Support and Culling Strike Support to the spiders so that they can apply wither and cull. For mapping, the you will naturally raise spiders by killing mobs, for bossing, you need to use Desecrate + Writhing Jar.

Weapon

Self-explanatory

Shield

A good crucible tree is just the icing.I didn't bother to get an optimal one.

Helmet

Two stats matter:
% Physical damage taken as any element
% Increase during of aliment while focused

I think the best helmet enchant is the 15% Temporal Chains curse effect. But I was unlucky with the vision crafting. Love you, Chris.

How to craft:



Body Armour


Lightning Coil would be great if you can fix the resistances.



The Coil has 50% phys from hits taken as lightning. However, the Cloak has 40% phys from hits and dots taken as fire (think about bleeding and corrupted blood).The Coil is easier to color 3G3R, but the Cloak is very hard because it is intelligence based.

How to craft double-corrupted Cloak of Flame:


Gloves


'Despair on hit' corruption is ideal (2 div). I used +1 gem to boost my enlighten to level 4.

Boots


For the additional curse. You can also get it from the tree (Whispers of Doom), but that costs a lot of travel points. If you get Whispers of Doom, make sure you get the mastery '20% chance to poison on cursed enemies' to reach 100% poison chance.

Rings

Use Noxious Catalyst to increase the quality to 20%.


Any rare rings that fix life and resistances. You can also get 'despair on hit'. The reduce mana cost mod is completely irrelevant here.

Amulet

Anoint all the max res passive skill points, which gives us +5% to all elemental resistances.
I choose to anoint Spiritual Aid so that I can benefit from minion damage.The Elegant Hubris Timeless Jewel can have 80% increased minion damage nodes, and I'm using three nodes to get 240% increased damage.


Jewels



Elegant Hubris combined with Impossible Escape is a well-known combination. 240% damage and 37% Chao Resistance is sweet.

I used the Caspiro to get the Keystone 'Supreme Ostentation'. This keystone lets me ignore attribute requirements, because I don't have enough strength/intelligence. This keystone kind of synergizes with the keystone Magebane since the Dexterity provides no inherent bonus anyways (but it does increase spell supression chance).


Watcher's Eye for the 12 %phys taken as fire and 7% MOM.

If you want to be immune to physical damage and are willing to sacrifice your damage, you can replace the Elegant Hubris with the Lethal Pride to get another 10% phys as fire (each conquered node grants 5%,I think it can get up to three nodes for a total of 15%).



Belt


This belt enables the 'low-life' condition. We are abusing the low-life condition for:
Petrified Blood (for 40% damage reduction) while negating the downside that skills gain 40% life cost
Cautious life flask for 130% more life recovery
Patheon - Soul of Ryslatha for 60% increase life recovery from flask

The Vulnerability curse is not a big deal, because we convert the physical damage taken as elemental damage, and Vulnerability says 'Cursed enemies take #% increased Physical Damage'. Plus, we use the mod '% reduced effect of curses on you during effect' on our utility flask to further mitigate the downside of the belt.

Alternatively, you can use any rare belts to have an easier flask sustain.

Flasks



A regular Sorrow of the Divine would work. The reason why we use replica version, is because we get a free Eldrich Battery. This means we get an enduring mana flask as well. This synergizes well with the Mahuxotl's Machination shield, because the shield has a Corrupted Soul keystone that makes all damage bypass engery shield. We futher abuse a Watcher's Eye to get up to 10% Mind Over Matter to benefit even more from our high energy shield regen.



Taste of Hate for up to 15% physical damage from hits taken as cold. This mod is affected by 'flask effect'. We scale flask effect as a Pathfinder to get effectively 20% physical damage from hits taken as cold.



Cautious Divine Life Flask for massive regen. Say goodbye to Shaper's beam and feel free to walk on degen ground in Heist.
It is important to max the quality to 28% (Betrayal craft from Hillock research).
For QoL, I prefer to invest in 'Increased Flask Effect Duration' mods rather than 'Increased Flask Charges Gained', so that I don't need to press the life flask very often.
Note that the life flask must have a 'utility suffix' so that you can press the life flask even on full life.




You need to get the '% reduced mana cost'suffix on one of the flasks. Otherwise you can't use the Malevolence with Divine Blessing.

For mapping, swap to Quicksilver Flask for movement speed.


If you really like big DPS numbers, you can use the Sin's Rebirth as well.

Main damage skill
6-link


Auras
4-link


4-link


2-link

(Enhance support to boost the Poison Chance. Note that the totem explosion is not a spell or an attack, therefore, only generic poison chance would work. Things like Septic Spells wouldn't work, because it says '20% chance to Poison on Hit with Spell Damage'.)

2-link

(Level 1 Clarity that reserves life, so that we can use the reservation mastery for +1% max ele res)

https://pobb.in/L4sBve6_qhXh