Boss Impaler - Spectral Throw Champion Build Guide (PoE Ultimatum 3.14)

Out Of Date

March 5th, 2023, 16:17

Introduction

Due to the latest balancing changes, we do not recommend playing this build anymore, as it does not meet the high standards we apply to our guides in terms of fun and performance. We are leaving it up as a reference and it might be revived in a later patch.

Spectral Throw has been in a weird spot as of late, where it still is one of the most satisfying skills to play in the entire game, but because of its playstyle has lacked damage to compete in the current PoE landscape. Now, what a lot of people don’t realize is that after The Saviour got released the skill actually got a lot stronger. Through scaling Impales and using The Saviour to create clones of ourselves, we can ramp up to incredibly high Damage numbers. Sadly, as per every Impale build, to get optimal amounts of damage you’re going to need to invest.

When talking about that investment I want to make it very clear and obvious that this is not a budget – Solo Self-Found or league-starter build. If you are not familiar with crafting your own gear or figuring out the most optimal usage of Fossils on certain bases to force certain outcomes, you will never obtain this gear unless you buy if off of trade. When bought off of trade, the price of the showcase gear, which is what I used approximately, can quite easily add up to over 150 Exalted Orbs, so be wary! I do not know how well / badly it will function on more of a budget, as Physical Damage and moreso Impale scales pretty hard off of the small adjustments left and right (which in turn end up costing a fortune). That being said though, this could be a project that helps you learn more about crafting your own pieces of gear, as I guesstimated that I spent around 45 Exalted Orbs to get all of my gear going. I’ll try to leave some tips and tricks when available in the gear page.

The rewards that you’re getting for all of your trouble are very mediocre unless you are, like many, a Spectral Throw enthusiast. Once you get it going, the skill feels so rewarding to play. Especially with the addition of The Saviour to your build, you will be seeing weapons (bananas in my case – MTX is recommended for this build as Banana Spectral Throw is the best MTX in the entire game) fill up your entire screen in no time. This makes for excellent coverage and clear speed whilst maintaining over 12 million Sirus DPS on optimized gear. Do note that no matter what we try to do on this build, you will need to gem swap your Greater Multiple Projectiles Support to Slower Projectiles Support for anything that’s called a “boss fight”. Map bosses are probably fine but once we’re talking Delirious maps, Guardians, Conquerors, Uber Elders, Sirus’ and what not, you will need Slower Projectiles to do damage.

Build Summary

Pros and Cons

Pros

+ Spectral Throw is uncontested when it comes to fun
+ Playing ST with Saviour is amazing
+ Incredible single target for a clearing build
+ Strong at all content (Delve, Boss Fights, Maps…)
+ A different take on Champion

Cons

– Requires Crafting knowledge / loads of currency
– Relies on The Saviour which is hard to find in Solo Self-Found
– Not a league-starter whatsoever
– Not a hardcore build whatsoever as it is fair squishy
– Requires a gem swap on bosses

Map Modifiers to be Avoided

Physical Reflect is obviously a no go. Otherwise, most map modifiers should be fairly doable. Obviously, be weary of very scary combinations such as double added damage and critical strike multiplier and such.

Echoes of the Atlas Expansion Updates

With the changes coming to Champion, this build lost about 9% of its total damage. However, damage was never this build’s issue! There’s plenty of that to go around and, even then, there was this rather awkward “buff” to Spectral Throw in the patch notes. From what one might expect, they made Spectral Throw’s hit rate higher – and no one currently has a clue what that might mean. Most people, myself included, reason that this guarantees at least one extra hit when the projectile decelerates, meaning that it is at least a 33 to 50% more damage buff (which obviously is a lot more than what the build lost). *

Additionally, because next league has harvest crafts, crafting the items that are present in the Path of Building (which are expensive items, usually) will now be more widely available and less obscenely high-valued overall. Therefore, I think this build is in a better state than it was pre-3.13, as I think most builds are due to the availability of gear in 3.13 and onwards! Harvest namely is the most broken mechanic that was ever added in PoE!

Playstyle, Mechanics & Strengths

While impale is a rather complicated mechanic to explain it basically comes down to this: as soon as you hit an enemy an amount of times that equals the maximum amount of Impales you can have on an enemy, he starts taking incredibly excessive amounts of More damage per successive hit. Impale is currently the strongest effective More multiplier in the game. Since you’re playing a Champion, you’re getting more Impale benefits than any other Ascendancy thanks to Master of Metal, which is the main reason why Champion was chosen in the first place.

Because you’re getting 100% chance to Impale rather easily, you’re on the lookout for more Impale effect or source of “Impale lasts # additional hits” which would make your maximum amounts of Impales go up, therefore increasing your maximum damage per hit as soon as you hit your maximum amounts of Impales. If you were a little attentive at the aforementioned things, you probably understood that getting attack speed is a very relevant thing for Impale builds since, as you might have guessed, impales don’t last infinitely. Long story short, after your ramp, you’re maximizing the extra damage you do through these Impale stacks which account for over 70% of your Total DPS in this build! Since Spectral Throw feels incredible with a lot of attack speed, that’s another advantage to using Spectral Throw over any other skills.

The playstyle has already been explained a little bit, but basically as you have ludicrous attack speed and The Saviour you’re going to fill the screen with Spectral Throws fairly instantly. This feels super rewarding and is a lot of fun to play. The entire screen will die in seconds and if you play optimally you’re even able to Whirling Blade to the next screen while your weapons follow you and kill everything! Other than that, the only thing you’re doing is watching your Spectral Throws delete screens, swap to Slower Projectiles on the boss and watch that one evaporate too all whilst whirling around at the speed of light and having a good time. All of that however falls kind of flat when you realize you’re a melee character as soon as you swap in Slower Projectiles, and you have to kill stuff faster than it eventually kills you. Usually that goes all right, though, but that’s the main reason Spectral Throw builds are very rarely played in Hardcore environments.

Passive Skill Tree, PoB, and Gem Links

You can find an optimized Path of Building here. Every build I release will use the community fork of Path of Building, which is maintained and updated in a much more regular fashion than the original one. You can find PoB’s Fork, by LocalIdentity, here.

If you are not comfortable with Path of Building, we also have a PoePlanner for you. Do note that PoE Planner does not support Cluster Jewels and some specific unique jewels and it is highly recommended you install Path of Building to follow builds most optimally.

More information about the Passive Skill Tree, as well as all the Gem Links can be found on our dedicated page.

Passive Skill Tree, PoB & Gem Links

Ascendancy, Bandits, and Pantheons

Our Ascendancy, Bandit, and Pantheon Power page goes into detail about all the choices you need to make in these regards.

Ascendancy, Bandit & Pantheon Power Page

Gear Summary / TL;DR

A lot of this is explained more in depth in the Gear Page, however we will provide you with a basic idea of what gear you’re looking for in this short summary.

Gear Page

Our recommendation:

Item Slot	Item Name
Head	Spectral Throw Deceleration Helmet with Life / Enemies take 9% Increased Phys Damage / Resistances
Amulet	Turquoise Amulet with Crit Multi, Physical Damage to Attacks, Life and -9 Mana Cost
Chest	Astral Plate with -15 Mana Cost, Attack Crit, Life and Resistances
Gloves	Gripped Gloves with Dexterity, Life and Resistances
Boots	Two-Toned Boots with Tailwind, Resistances, Movement Speed and Life
Belt	Ryslatha's Coil
Rings	Rare Rings with Physical Damage, Vulnerability on hit, Resistances, Life, Intelligence and -Mana Cost
Weapon1	High pDPS – Attack Speed – Crit Chance Sword
Weapon2	The Saviour

Questions & Support

I made it a habit to check all comments in my guides on a daily basis. Obviously, there might be occurrences where getting a reply might take longer but I really do try to get back to you as soon as possible. I prefer you making remarks, suggestions or asking questions that way as it allows others to read through the comments, providing them with a potential answer to their question, without having to wait for me again. If I have somehow missed your question, you can try reaching me on our Discord.

If you enjoy my content to such an extent that you’d like to support me and my work, I have a Patreon you can check out. At no point should you feel pressured to contribute, but if you do, your support means more to me than you will ever imagine.

Leveling

Since this build should not be played as a league-starter or in a world where you don’t have currency to buy some leveling gear, we advise you to play through the game as Smite Smite using the Unique items listed down below. In case you want some generic leveling information, we forward you to the following guides:

Our step-by-step leveling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the leveling process.
Our guide to Unique Items for leveling, which helps you gear up your characters for the leveling process.
Our beginner leveling guide, which answers many of the questions new players might have and will set you on the right path.

Required Uniques for Smite-Leveling

One With Nothing
Astramentis
Le Heup of All x2
Tabula Rasa

One With Nothing

Start as a Duelist and path to the closest Cluster Jewel spot. Socket in the One with Nothing Cluster Jewel and allocate Hollow Palm Technique. This will grant you a ton of flat added physical damage and attack speed while unencumbered. Grab Dexterity from pathing in the tree, from the Utmost Switness cluster in the tree, and from and items.

Links

Smite is the best skill to level with while using this setup. Use the following links: