With this week being short, I was able to get a little more Path of Exile time, which led me to push my Blade Vortex Elementalist a bit further and starting up a Guardian Dominating Blow/Herald of Purity character. I’ll discuss both in terms of my current progress.
So I managed to hit level 71 and get the two big ascendancies for my Blade Vortex Elementalist that boost your elemental heralds and overall damage. The explosions are far more noticeable and damage much smoother than before. However, since I was trying to use Delves to push a few more levels prior to the end of Act 9, I ran into a few issues.
The biggest issue that I discovered is the sheer squishiness of the build. I did switch out the Tabula Rasa for a 5 Linked Inpulsa and just got rid of my boots with a pair that boosts my energy shield up. However, from what I read, the primary issue is that you need to rely on freezing your enemies before they can hit you.
I think the reason is that I still lack the other two ascendancies that increase your ability to freeze (among other things). Also, I can’t say how effective Inpulsa’s is at the moment without Beacon of Ruin. Although I’m certain it’s still better than a Tabula Rasa, a 6 linked rare chest just might be better, although I don’t feel the need to race out and purchase one at this stage.
Because of the squishiness issue, I had been somewhat hesitant about pushing my Blade Vortex character further in the immediate future. However, an urge to try something else made me want to give another build I had been pondering over for sometime a try: Guardian Dominating Blow with Herald of Purity.
One of the key improvements this league was to the Guardian ascendancy along with minions. I had seen a few Guardian builds out there but the two main skills I had been looking at were Smite and Herald of Purity. However, it came into my attention that Dominating Blow was the upgrade, especially if you wanted to do a minion build.
The thing about Dominating Blow is that you get it around level 28 and that it generates minions based on you killing different types. It does have one added aspect against uniques (bosses) to be able to summon a normal sentinel with a 10% chance. Similarly, with Herald of Purity, you can still summon minions with a 20% chance against rares and uniques.
Right now, my character is level 40 and I can see certain issues surface when dealing with bosses. Both Herald of Purity and Dominating Blow are great against large packs of mobs since you’re simply generating minions to do your dirty work. However, against bosses, especially those that do not spawn adds, you’re effectively going to be in a very rough situation. I’ll have to continue probing with this character to see how he’ll fare. Thus far, the build is pretty fun since I really haven’t been working with minions all league.
Beyond these two characters, I still need to return to my Toxic Rain Trickster. I’m waiting on getting a Cloak of Defiance before pushing him further. The low health pool and defense issues make me a little hesitant at the moment.
However, the build I’m examining in the near future potentially is a Golemancer Elementalist. I’m missing a few items to build one, but I have enough currency to get the last two key pieces for now. Not to mention, you can’t really utilize the golem aspect into much later. That said, it looks like quite a fun build to try if you can manage to get the right pieces. I did manage to collect 3 Primordial Harmonies and a Primordial Might this league. I was thinking to wait off until the season ended since I could just use my other Primordials from standard to give this build a shot. Nonetheless, I would still be lack the Primordial Chain and considered buying it now while the league is still going.
Something else I had been pondering is redoing my Molten Strike Chieftain. With Nebulochs being the way to create a highly tanky Juggernaut, I feel that I’m missing out. Theoretically, I could just re-do my main Juggernaut. However, I feel that it would just be easier to start from scratch.
Beyond all that, I don’t know what else to try. I’ve thought about a Glacial Cascade Miner because I have this crazy 3 socket support gem helmet that could work well with such a build. Also, I thought about re-doing my other witch and trying out a CI build. Overall, I’m at the point where I’m just messing around and waiting for the next league to start up.