



The guide is now updated with my current version of the build in the Essence League (Patch 2.4). I've also cut down a lot of the guide to bare essentials to make it easier to read.





Theory



This build aims to maximize poison damage by using various sources of flat chaos damage and prioritizing modifiers that double-dip to greatly increase poison damage. It also has many layers of defense against both physical and elemental damage. I no longer feel the need to explain the offensive mechanics of the build in depth because they are much more widely used now (e.g. King of the Forest).





Videos



I'll start with some videos for you skeptics who need a proof of concept.



T14 Twinned Palace boss kill

T15 Dark Forest boss kill

T16 Maze of the Minotaur boss kill

T16 Twinned Vaal Temple boss kill

Full Shaper run

Endgame Labyrinth boss kills

Apex of Sacrifice boss kills

Alluring Abyss boss kills

I've also recorded myself doing twinned Colosseum and twinned Core, but the quality is so bad that it's difficult to watch. I think that with all the particles my computer can't handle rendering and encoding the video properly. So you'll just have to take my word that this build can handle them, unless you really want me to upload those crappy videos.



Finally I have a couple of bonus videos that people have asked me to record that I might as well throw in here. The first is an Atziri run with a Brightbeak, to show that the build can still do acceptable damage without a Malicious weapon. I apologize that this video isn't hosted on YouTube. The second is a short clip of my character facetanking Argus in the Uber Labyrinth, just to demonstrate that the build has strong defenses, especially against physical damage.



Brightbeak vs. Atziri

Argus facetank test



Passive Skill Tree and Leveling



Current Passive Skill Tree, level 95



If you have any Dexterity on your gear, or if you're using gear with lower Dexterity requirements than mine, I recommend pathing to the left out of the Duelist starting area instead of the right. That is, through the Strength nodes instead of the Dexterity ones. Strength gives flat maximum life, which is more valuable than increased evasion. If you're wondering why I took one +30 Strength node, it's because I didn't know what else to do with my level 95 skill point. If I were to level again (which I don't plan to do) I would respec out of that node and one life node and grab a seventh jewel socket.



You may level the character however you want to. If you choose to level it using Ancestral Warchief, beeline for Resolute Technique and Ancestral Bond. You can go with a more traditional Facebreaker build, you can use melee weapons, or you can just start with Added Chaos the moment you have access to it. The choice is yours, so just do whatever sounds like fun to you.



As for Ascendancy passives, go in the following order:



1. Unstoppable Hero

2. Fortitude

3. Conqueror

4. Worthy Foe



If you need a justification for my choice of Ascendancy class, it's mostly because of permanent Fortify. However, Conqueror's taunt on hit is fantastic, and making enemies take increased damage by casting Enduring Cry is not to be underestimated. And let's not overlook the 60% increased evasion rating from the minor nodes. You may also choose to go Chieftain for the totem leech and sustain Fortify with Shield Charge or Cyclone.





Gearing



Current Gear and Links, level 95













Body armour:



Lightning Coil is best in slot defensively, but (a) it is substantially more difficult to cap resistances with it if you're trying to use good chaos damage jewelry and (b) physical damage isn't really the bottleneck in this build's survivabilty anyway. I recommend instead using a rare evasion chest (preferably Zodiac Leather or Assassin's Garb, item level 84) crafted with an Essence of Horror. This provides some of the benefits of Lightning Coil without severely restricting your other gear choices. The other stats to prioritize are, in order of importance:





Life

Resistances

Evasion

Dexterity

Helmet:



Start with an evasion helmet (preferably Lion Pelt, item level 84) that already has an Ancestral Warchief enchantment on it, either radius for quality of life or damage for slightly faster boss kills. Alternatively, the Enfeeble curse effect enchantment is fantastic if you want to be more defensive. Craft with either chaos orbs or essences (I used an Essence of Envy on mine).





Life

Resistances

Intelligence

Evasion

Dexterity

Gloves:



Nothing special about glove choices for this build. You may want a Labyrinth enchantment on them, but I didn't find it necessary. It's not by any means necessary to get the Essence of Insanity craft that I got on mine. I just wanted to go fast.





Life

Resistances

Dexterity

Attack speed

Evasion

Boots:



Atziri's Step is probably best in slot if you can find the resists elsewhere to compensate. Otherwise I highly recommend a pair of boots with the spell dodge Labyrinth enchantment. With my current setup I would have to use some higher-resistance gloves and insanely good jewelry to get away with Atziri's Step, but if I could I absolutely would.





Movement speed

Life

Resistances

Dexterity

Evasion

Main hand:



You want a high-attack-speed weapon, preferably with the "Malicious" prefix (item level 83) that adds flat chaos damage. The best thing would be a 2.0+ APS foil or claw. Availability is generally very low for these, but provided the league hasn't just started you can easily find weapons with 1.85 to 1.90 APS. Usually these are Gemini Claws, thanks to the divination cards "The Rabid Rhoa" and "The Twins." The DoT master craft is very low priority because it adds very little to your damage, so don't go too far out of your way to make sure you get it.





Attack speed

Chaos damage

Damage over time

Resistances

Attributes

Mana regeneration

Mana

Off hand:



I highly recommend Saffell's Frame. The extra maximum resistances are invaluable, and the small amount of spell block provided is a nice bonus. A life/evasion shield would be better in certain situations but, again, elemental damage is a bigger threat to this build, so I never take off my Saffell's. If you just want to maximize DPS, use a Brightbeak in the off hand. Ancestral Warchief is bugged and averages the two weapons' attack speeds when dual wielding, making Brightbeak the best offensive weapon for the off hand.





Jewelry:



Although not absolutely essential for the build, eventually you will want jewelry crafted with Essences of Envy for global chaos damage, also preferably crafted with added chaos damage from Elreon's bench.





Life

Intelligence

Chaos damage

Resistances

Strength/Dexterity

Mana regeneration

Mana

Attack speed[li]

Flasks:



Two life flasks strongly recommended because this build has no leech, and most of its regen comes from taunting. Jade and Basalt will be your best friends for absorbing physical damage. The fifth flask is situational. Quicksilver if you're using Shield Charge. Otherwise I prefer to use a Stibnite and swap in a mana flask for less recovery and no regen maps. You may also want to use elemental flasks for some scenarios. Taste of Hate has synergy with the body armour, but it's debatable whether or not it beats a Stibnite defensively.





Jewels:



This build gets a lot of damage and a moderate amount of maximum life from its jewels. You want jewels with maximum life and at least two damage mods.





Life

Totem, area, chaos, and generic damage

Attack speed

Melee damage, damage over time

Resistances

Attributes



Gem setup details



There are two ways to deal with linking support gems for Ancestral Warchief. If you're like most people and swap single-target and multi-target gems depending on the situation, your links look like this:



5L: Ancestral Warchief + Added Chaos Damage + Poison + Void Manipulation + (Increased Area of Effect OR Concentrated Effect)

6L: Ancestral Warchief + Added Chaos Damage + Poison + Void Manipulation + (Increased Area of Effect OR Concentrated Effect) + Rapid Decay



If you're stubborn like me and refuse to swap gems situationally, they look like this:



5L: Ancestral Warchief + Added Chaos Damage + Poison + Void Manipulation + Rapid Decay

6L: Ancestral Warchief + Added Chaos Damage + Poison + Void Manipulation + Increased Area of Effect + Concentrated Effect



As for the rest of the links, here they are:



4L: Enfeeble + Blasphemy + Grace + (Flame Dash OR Lightning Warp OR Enlighten)

4L: (Whirling Blades OR Shield Charge) + Enduring Cry + Blood Magic + Faster Attacks

4L: Summon Lightning Golem + Cast When Damage Taken + Blind + (Minion Life OR Vortex OR Leap Slam)

3L: Vaal Grace + Vaal Lightning Trap + Increased Duration

3L: Wither + Reduced Mana + Faster Casting



Quality on the main links is pretty important because most of it double-dips.



Endgame Stats



[spoiler="No temporary buffs"] [/spoiler]

[spoiler="Fully buffed"] [/spoiler]

Here is a summary of all of the defensive mechanics this build utilizes:



Enfeeble + Blasphemy, reducing nearby enemies' damage by 33%, accuracy by 51%, and crit chance by 38%.

Taunts by my totems making enemies attack them and do 10% less damage to me.

Lightning Golem + Blind, giving tough bosses 50% less chance to hit.

25K evasion rating with Grace, 46K with Jade Flask active (55K with Stibnite).

40%/38% chance to dodge attacks/spells, 75%/73% for 16 seconds with Vaal Grace.

14% chance to block spells with Saffell's Frame and Acrobatics.

15% of physical damage converted to cold (additional 20% if I had Taste of Hate).

20% physical damage reduction from endurance charges, 40% with Basalt Flask.

79% to all elemental resistances in Elemental Weakness maps, and 34% to chaos resistance.

20% reduced damage taken from hits from Fortify, goes up to 26% if I've taunted recently.

6% reduced DoT taken if I've taunted recently.

2% life regeneration per second (3% if I've taunted recently) and flat regeneration on demand from Enduring Cry.

85% increased life recovery from flasks from passive nodes and the belt mod.

Coupling all of the above with a high-mobility skill like Whirling Blades, I can safely say that any deaths I incur are avoidable and 100% my fault.





Conclusion/FAQ



Here I'll summarize the build and answer any questions that arise (or that I think might arise). Let's start with a pros and cons list:



Pros:

High survivability with taunts, debuffs, avoidance, and mitigation

Effective boss killer

Can clear maps with any map mods

Uses interesting mechanics and offers a unique play style

Cons:

Expensive, requires niche gear, not recommended for a first character in a league

Double-dipping goes both ways, so Enfeeble maps slow you down quite a bit

Mediocre clear speed compared to things like Shield Charge CoC and Oro's Flicker

Is not Pathfinder Blade Vortex

Little life regeneration compared to other life-based builds

Has trouble with poison-immune Hydra and Chimera guardians



FAQs



[spoiler="How do you deal with difficult map mods?"]This build is immune to a lot of debilitating and otherwise annoying affixes, such as reflect, no leech, and Elemental Weakness if you get enough resists. High chaos resistance makes poison on hit and desecrated ground a non-issue. Damage mods, including Hexproof, and any combination thereof are dealt with by just being more careful in such maps, as most builds do. As for how I deal with...



No Regen: By swapping my Stibnite for a mana flask.

Less Recovery: The same way as with no regen.

Blood Magic: By deactivating my auras.

Temporal Chains: The same way most people do. By suffering through it. Luckily, Whirling Blades gives good mobility, and my totems aren't affected by Temporal Chains.

[/spoiler]

[spoiler="Does this out-damage pure physical AW builds like Facebreaker?"]No, probably not. At least not against a Facebreaker build that has this level of investment put into it. This build relies on continuous stacking of Wither and poison, so the damage takes a few seconds to ramp up. Against extremely high-HP bosses it probably has an edge, but otherwise I doubt it.

[/spoiler] Welcome to the guide for my dual Ancestral Warchief Chaos DoT build. I've gotten many questions about my build, both on Reddit and in-game, so here is a summary of how it works.The guide is now updated with my current version of the build in the Essence League (Patch 2.4). I've also cut down a lot of the guide to bare essentials to make it easier to read.This build aims to maximize poison damage by using various sources of flat chaos damage and prioritizing modifiers that double-dip to greatly increase poison damage. It also has many layers of defense against both physical and elemental damage. I no longer feel the need to explain the offensive mechanics of the build in depth because they are much more widely used now (e.g. King of the Forest).I'll start with some videos for you skeptics who need a proof of concept.I've also recorded myself doing twinned Colosseum and twinned Core, but the quality is so bad that it's difficult to watch. I think that with all the particles my computer can't handle rendering and encoding the video properly. So you'll just have to take my word that this build can handle them, unless you really want me to upload those crappy videos.Finally I have a couple of bonus videos that people have asked me to record that I might as well throw in here. The first is an Atziri run with a Brightbeak, to show that the build can still do acceptable damage without a Malicious weapon. I apologize that this video isn't hosted on YouTube. The second is a short clip of my character facetanking Argus in the Uber Labyrinth, just to demonstrate that the build has strong defenses, especially against physical damage.If you have any Dexterity on your gear, or if you're using gear with lower Dexterity requirements than mine, I recommend pathing to the left out of the Duelist starting area instead of the right. That is, through the Strength nodes instead of the Dexterity ones. Strength gives flat maximum life, which is more valuable than increased evasion. If you're wondering why I took one +30 Strength node, it's because I didn't know what else to do with my level 95 skill point. If I were to level again (which I don't plan to do) I would respec out of that node and one life node and grab a seventh jewel socket.You may level the character however you want to. If you choose to level it using Ancestral Warchief, beeline for Resolute Technique and Ancestral Bond. You can go with a more traditional Facebreaker build, you can use melee weapons, or you can just start with Added Chaos the moment you have access to it. The choice is yours, so just do whatever sounds like fun to you.As for Ascendancy passives, go in the following order:1. Unstoppable Hero2. Fortitude3. Conqueror4. Worthy FoeIf you need a justification for my choice of Ascendancy class, it's mostly because of permanent Fortify. However, Conqueror's taunt on hit is fantastic, and making enemies take increased damage by casting Enduring Cry is not to be underestimated. And let's not overlook the 60% increased evasion rating from the minor nodes. You may also choose to go Chieftain for the totem leech and sustain Fortify with Shield Charge or Cyclone.Lightning Coil is best in slot defensively, but (a) it is substantially more difficult to cap resistances with it if you're trying to use good chaos damage jewelry and (b) physical damage isn't really the bottleneck in this build's survivabilty anyway. I recommend instead using a rare evasion chest (preferably Zodiac Leather or Assassin's Garb, item level 84) crafted with an Essence of Horror. This provides some of the benefits of Lightning Coil without severely restricting your other gear choices. The other stats to prioritize are, in order of importance:Start with an evasion helmet (preferably Lion Pelt, item level 84) that already has an Ancestral Warchief enchantment on it, either radius for quality of life or damage for slightly faster boss kills. Alternatively, the Enfeeble curse effect enchantment is fantastic if you want to be more defensive. Craft with either chaos orbs or essences (I used an Essence of Envy on mine).Nothing special about glove choices for this build. You may want a Labyrinth enchantment on them, but I didn't find it necessary. It's not by any means necessary to get the Essence of Insanity craft that I got on mine. I just wanted to go fast.Atziri's Step is probably best in slot if you can find the resists elsewhere to compensate. Otherwise I highly recommend a pair of boots with the spell dodge Labyrinth enchantment. With my current setup I would have to use some higher-resistance gloves and insanely good jewelry to get away with Atziri's Step, but if I could I absolutely would.You want a high-attack-speed weapon, preferably with the "Malicious" prefix (item level 83) that adds flat chaos damage. The best thing would be a 2.0+ APS foil or claw. Availability is generally very low for these, but provided the league hasn't just started you can easily find weapons with 1.85 to 1.90 APS. Usually these are Gemini Claws, thanks to the divination cards "The Rabid Rhoa" and "The Twins." The DoT master craft is very low priority because it adds very little to your damage, so don't go too far out of your way to make sure you get it.I highly recommend Saffell's Frame. The extra maximum resistances are invaluable, and the small amount of spell block provided is a nice bonus. A life/evasion shield would be better in certain situations but, again, elemental damage is a bigger threat to this build, so I never take off my Saffell's. If you just want to maximize DPS, use a Brightbeak in the off hand. Ancestral Warchief is bugged and averages the two weapons' attack speeds when dual wielding, making Brightbeak the best offensive weapon for the off hand.Although not absolutely essential for the build, eventually you will want jewelry crafted with Essences of Envy for global chaos damage, also preferably crafted with added chaos damage from Elreon's bench. Domination IGN: ScratchyBitch Last edited by sergeantminor on Oct 20, 2016, 4:14:43 PM Last bumped on Oct 19, 2016, 6:45:22 AM