TbXie's Chaos DoT Soulrend Trickster Build Guide (PoE Trial of the Ancestors 3.22)

Out Of Date

November 22nd, 2023, 22:03

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.

Introduction

Despite it being incredibly hard to scale and build, Soulrend is a skill that a lot of players are naturally attracted to. Therefore, I feel putting you guys well on your way to making the build succeed is something a lot of people will appreciate. Soulrend generally is a spell that is really difficult to get to work in the very later stages of the game. That’s why it’s important to build a character that can withstand most of the incoming damage so it buys time to do its damage. Do note that Soulrend will never be able to compete with the most meta builds and therefore you should look at this guide as something to hold your hand if you want to play Soulrend regardless.

This doesn’t mean that his build will magically make Soulrend a skill that instantly does 20 Million DPS at the press of a button. However, if you build this character correctly, and invest into the right gear pieces, you will become incredibly hard to kill while your DoTs will kill bosses at an acceptable pace. With some decent gear, which I’d argue isn’t too impossible to acquire, your Soulrend will do a solid 2-ish million pinnacle DPS which definitely is enough to tackle end game non-uber bosses if you play your cards right. This means that you will have to dodge and play the fight correctly but since your DoTs last a decent amount of time, you have so much leeway to maintain a maximum DPS uptime.

This character also excels at clearing maps because of the way Soulrend works and how incredibly tanky it becomes with some gear. Trickster is a ludicrous ascendancy when it comes to survivability as soon as you have some very basic items to guarantee Ghost Shrouds, ES recovery and Suppression to come online. Additionally, because the build doesn’t focus on damage, it also acquires almost max Block and Spellblock and 5% Energy Shield recovery every time it blocks.

I’d argue this character is incredibly balanced, items for it hardly contested should you want to buy them off of trade, or not too hard to craft yourself in a SSF-environment, and it brings a really enjoyable playstyle because of how safe and automated it is and how little focus it requires to play.

Build Summary

Pros and Cons

Pros

+ Incredible defensive stats
+ Requires no Uniques to function whatsoever
+ Therefore reasonably SSF-Viable
+ Sufficiently tanky through Block, ES, Dodge, ES on Block

Cons

– Optimizing it for maximum damage can be hard in SSF
– Never reaches obscene amounts of damage

Map Modifiers to be Avoided

This build runs every single modifier in the game just fine. No Regen requires a Mana Flask to run, but you should generally always have it anyway.

Playstyle, Mechanics & Strengths

Soulrend has two damage types. It initially deals a hit-portion that inflicts a Damage over Time effect on enemies. The Damage over Time effect is what you’re scaling the most and what does most of your damage, but through scaling that you arrive at DPS numbers for the hit-portion that effectively kills most of the white / magic monsters while mapping, or at least makes them insta-die from the first tick of your DoT.

Because of the way Chaos DoT skills work, they’re really hard to scale. It only gets affected by a couple of types of modifiers in the game which means that they’re generally paired with high defenses as most of your gearslots have no potential of granting you excessive amounts of damage. Aside from using an Awakeners Orb on both your Wand and Amulet, none of the items in the gearset really are anything but some Resistances and Energy Shield pieces. It uses very few Uniques, which are either incredibly common or target-farmable in SSF, but even if you don’t obtain them you don’t really mind that much.

The strengths of the build mainly are the way you use the Trickster Ascendancy to its fullest. Because of how Trickster works, you’re running around with 9,000 Energy Shield at very acceptable levels of gear and 10,000 Evasion. Because the build is Chaos Innoculation, you’re immune to Chaos Damage. This makes it a little trickier to start though! You will have to play a life-variant of the build until you can get some random very basic pieces of ES gear so you can at least get to 5 or 6,000 Energy Shield. However, once you do, Chaos Damage immunity is something that is highly underrated.

Additionally, through Spell Suppression, you’re throwing in another layer of defense – this equates to about 40% less damage taken whenever this is up. The next layer of defense is your Block, Spell Block and % Energy Shield recovery when you block. You quite easily, only through levels, reach 72/72 Block and Spell Block chance. By getting a decent shield, with % Energy Shield when you block, you’re going to recover 450 Energy Shield every time you block, basically making you almost immune to damage. Whenever you do take a large hit, Trickster’s Ghost Shrouds will kick in, recovering even more Energy Shield. As you’re a DoT build, you also have plenty of time to move around. This further amplifies your damage reduction by a decent amount. Through all of these defensive layers, it’s incredibly hard to die on this build.

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. You can find PoB’s Fork, by LocalIdentity, here.

If you are not comfortable with Path of Building, PoePlanner’s website offers you a non-PoB alternative to import the code from the above link. 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	Crown of the Inward Eye
Amulet	Citrine Amulet with +2 to Int / Chaos Skills
Chest	Sadist Garb with as much Evasion and Energy Shield as possible
Gloves	Sorcerer Gloves with Chaos DoT Multi and as much Energy Shield as possible
Boots	Sorcerer Boots with Movement Speed and as much Energy Shield as possible
Belt	Bated Breath or a Crystal Belt
Rings	Rare rings with Energy Shield, Mana, Mana Regeneration and Attributes
Weapon	Rare Wand with +1(or2) to Spell Skills, Chaos DoT Multi and DoT Multiplier
Shield	Rare Titanium Spirit Shield with Energy Shield when you Block and as much Energy Shield as possible

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

For some general leveling guides, we recommend the following:

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.

Since we are very adamant about trying to give you a leveling experience that lies as close to your endgame playstyle as possible, we will recommend you with a setup that should bring Soulrend to maps in a fairly enjoyable fashion.

Since Soulrend requires level 28, you’re going to be playing some form of Spell Skill until that point.

Getting to Brutus & Merveil

For starters, create a Shadow in whichever league you want to start.

Pick up an Explosive Trap from the vendor to start your journey and go to kill Hailrake and clear Mud Flats. Set up the following links after Mud Flats:

Frost Bomb

Explosive Trap

After killing Brutus, you will be adding an Added Lightning Damage Support to your Frost Bomb.

Level 12 and Onwards Setup

From level 12, after killing Merveil, you’ll be setting up for your road to level 28. You should be breezing through content at this point as these skills are really strong while leveling.

At level 28, swap your Storm Brand for Soulrend as it scales better with the passives you are picking up in the skill tree. From there on out just follow the links suggested in the Gem Links page.

Questions & Support

If you enjoy my content to such an extent that you’d like to support me and my work, or you have a specific question you request my private time for, you can buy me a coffee over at Patreon. At no point should you feel pressured to contribute, but if you do, your support means more to me than you will ever imagine.

Even though we try to make our guides as complete as possible, obvioulsy it’s possible you still have questions. We have an entire mod-team readily available to support you & your questions on Discord. You can find us on the ARPG Vault Discord. Make sure to open a Guide Help thread so things stay clear in the main channels.