If you have this set up properly then you will not see any runic animation on the ground for despair because it's pretty much instant. In your base it will look like you just wasting mana. Try to use it on some enemies to make sure it gets applied wherever you have your cursor.

Never thought about it much but it sounds interesting!

We have Flames of Chayula, Cannabalism, Herbalism, Clarity, and Vitality for easy sustain especially while mapping. Into The Breach is currently doubling all these effects. Flasks have a ton of charges and uses compared to POE1 which also helps.

@@ImJustAnthonyTube ty vm :)

We will absolutely be making a leveling guide. Will be released after we start new characters and push back through the campaign to test optimal setups.

Feels like just a mapping build which is sad. Hexblast alone is a mapping skill now due to overlapping procs, ed contagion + totem lacks severe dps.

@GE_Photon_Lord Ya I assume chonk is going to blossom once all the skills are out. Just seemed limited compared to storm weavers etc who have their full kit out from the looks of it.

​@@Gintello9 Yep, lightning pretty much got full power out the gate. Cold is curently underperforming or used for boss nuking purposes ( chrono comet oneshot shenanigans ). Fire also looks mid due to ignite chances ( and in general without ignite ), but at least flameblast has insane aoe and makes up for it ( plus infernalist is carrying with demon form ). Chaos dot feels like a retired archetype and put in the game for poe1 nostalgia, chaos dot trickster is a classic old school build and used to be very strong. He had generic dmg which worked for dots, chaos monk only gives chaos dmg for hits so chaos dot makes 0 sense here. Only the totem gets a dps boost, but its still not a very good fit for a chonk. Like you said, he needs some pure phys converted to chaos attacks or something, because casting a squishy totem for boss dps and clear is not it.

@@GE_Photon_Lord I can see chonk doing well potentially with daggers or something that can scale the instant mana/es leech etc. Currently the ascendancy doesn't really have a direction to go in and the flames are just meme worthy imo.

@@Gintello9 It has a direction, but we dont have a lot of skills. For example reality rending is only good with a fast hitting skill ( either spell or atk ). If you choose an attack you can also leech mana. Then ofc u pick es and evasion cuz that's what trickster does. Daggers are for shadow and its like mamba playstyle, 1 strike 1 kill. Picking up flames with daggers sounds odd. The flames are ok rn, works with poison but they are still generating weird. But in any case, chaos dot doesnt work in any shape or form on this class, you need to be a mage or trickster if ggg adds him back from poe1.

We leveled this character with ED/Contagion from the start of early access but it was all over the place. We will be creating a new character soon to refine the leveling experience and make a Mobalytics leveling variation. You can totally level with this build though! The Acts are rough for all first time characters without leveling Uniques. 👍

Experience

Time investment with lots of trial and error. POE shines because it will almost always leave room for improvement or variations for builds. Remember though, make sure fun is your top priority!

Yeah I find this very odd. They should keep the same energy throughout the whole game, otherwise it feels like a poe1 campaign reskin ( which I dont mind but still ). And also it should be like a balanced difficulty, some mobs feel way more op than others.

Gear issue. If u get shit drop which most people do, u are outta luck or in some cases hitting dmg test wall.

@@GE_Photon_Lord Well, the power creep in diablo-likes is fully expected, but I feel like the curve is just not right. The beginning needs to be slightly more forgiving, and the endgame shouldn't feel like an iwin button.

@@ml_serenity Exactly, well said.

Thank you for the guide. Love the build. I just have one concern about the guide. You have 93 levels worth of passive points but as a beginning player for the build we have no idea what order to get these 93 points. I don't expect to be told point for point what order to go in but maybe a breakdown like this is Area 1 , Area 2, Area 3, Area 4, and so on. We are going to try and apply the guide from level 1 but there are probably passives we won't need until later. Like, the hinder nodes won't be necessary early but they are pretty close to the beginning of the tree. Just a thought for anyone who sees the build and wants to replicate it but didn't start out on the journey when you started the build.

I advise getting a bow from Act 1 with hardly no Dex requirements but has attack speed. Also get Vine Arrow at gem level 3. This will make it so you don't need to worry about Dex requirements. The vine arrow is just there to add an extra chaos dot to empower our totem fire rate which we are starting to stack with cast speed. Spirit is base amount currently.

@@ImJustAnthonyTube stats won't matter, other than AS? Appreciated

Try Hexblast for clear. Quickly rotate despair, contagion, then hexblast. If you feel like bosses are slow, you gotta have the totems at 100% efficiency at all times.

Because it's trash, play Ed contagion infernalist, chaos dot has no dps unless you cheese it out with demon stacks.

I leveled with ED, contagion, and effigy totem. If this is your first character then you might struggle. GGG made the current Acts a little rough especially for your first playthrough with no help from a higher level main character. Some of it comes down to items that are dropping or not dropping for your build. Keep grinding!

It's nice starting at the bottom because there is only up from here! #MoreBuffs 😂

It's because almost all of what would make the ascendency very strong is not obtainable presently. You get some cool buffs for ED/C but overall everything AoC offers, a witch does with less effort and more power. Until things like daggers are available and skills like Viper Strike or Pestilent Strike return the use of AoC is really just a niche thing to toy with sadly.

Both Witch and Monk can use this build due to their starting positions. Infernalist has some nice stuff but I also like Chayula and we are still seeing what can be done with each. 85% max chaos rezz makes me very happy recently. As long as the purple damage is going out, we can all be friends!