League-Start Boss Killer - Ancestral Warchief Champion Build Guide (PoE Expedition 3.15)

Out Of Date

March 5th, 2023, 15:55

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.

Since we recently got a statement from GGG Offices that only 1% of all players in Path of Exile completes the last Labyrinth, I felt the necessity to write this guide that will beat the Uber Labyrinth on Day 1, 6 hours into a League, on a 5 Chaos Budget. It literally requires no more than a weapon that will almost be 1 Orb of Alchemy (and this is something you can even forego in SSF) and some random items that are made by picking up a base & using an Essence of Greed on it.

Be wary though, it brings just about enough damage to kill Izaro adequately and just enough effective Health Pool to not die to any of his mechanics. This means that this is not an AFK Tank build that stands still and tanks whatever is coming at him. You will, however, rarely have him hit you whatsoever and when he does you will not randomly die. So, as long as you’re not sleep deprived it is incredibly hard to die on this build fighting bosses in general. However, since it packs just about enough punch to kill Izaro (who honestly doesn’t have too much HP when you look at it phase per phase), and brings just enough tankiness for you to survive any of his one-shot mechanics, that means that you will also cap out on map tiers at some point. I personally would say this build tackles anything up to tier 10 maps on the 5 Chaos budget, but probably hits a pretty significant wall beyond that.

It’s important for you to realize that you should most likely not play this build unless you plan on farming a decent amount of Labyrinth early in a league to fund your next builds. Uber Labbing is incredibly profitable early on and can definitely give you a significant currency boost at the start of a League. If you’re looking to complete Atlas, Sirus’ or anything of that nature this build lacks scaling to get to that point! If you’re looking to Lab, clear some T3 maps while at it, and want to laugh at Izaro doing nothing because he’s too occupied getting taunted by your Ancestral Warchiefs, this is the build for you!

Build Summary

Pros and Cons

Pros

+ Best Day 1 Uber Labyrinth build
+ Requires nothing – unlike other Lab Builds
+ Really fast at completing Labs and low tier maps
+ Incredibly easy to level with
+ Champion’s Taunt with Totems is a ridiculous defensive mechanic
+ Great moneymaker

Cons

– Has no scaling whatsoever
– Caps at around 800K Shaper DPS
– Hard to push to tank levels to tank higher content
– Requires you to weapon swap

Map Modifiers to be Avoided

Physical Reflect is obviously a no go as your totems will kill themselves. Honestly though, at the levels of maps you’re playing that, nothing else should really matter!

Playstyle, Mechanics & Strengths

This build focuses on abusing Champion’s Taunt and the nature of Totems to be able to kill bosses on a very low budget. What effectively happens is if you position the boss in between yourself and your Ancestral Warchiefs the boss will completely ignore you and only focus on dealing with your Totems. Since you’re running 4 of these bad boys, a boss will rarely actually kill all of them at the same time, so if you just respawn them while he’s busy trying to murder them, he will never actually pay attention to you.

Through permanent Fortify, enough Life and Armour this build actually reaches a point where bosses like Izaro, which is the main point of the build, or most lower tiered map bosses are just unable to one-shot you at all. Since you’re rarely in a position where a boss cares about you instead of focusing the Totems he’s being taunted by, you’ll have plenty of reaction time to Regenerate Life either through your innate regeneration or pressing a Life Flask. That’s why dealing with bosses generally is not an issue. Now, when it comes to mapping, since you’re playing a Crimson Dance build, your Totems will sometimes not even one-shot easy packs of monsters, which makes mapping kind of slow to some players. When I play-tested it before writing this guide, I cleared a yellow tier map in under 3 minutes though, so by no means is it unable to complete those. It just isn’t the fastest at doing so.

This is even moreso emphasized by the fact that all of its mobility is gated behind a weapon swap. Because you’re running a Prismatic Eclipse and a Brightbeak in your off-hand you’ll have ridiculous Leap Slam attack speed which is only useful in Lab because you literally will not be wanting to kill any of the monsters that you encounter that aren’t Argus or Izaro. You’re just Leap Slamming through the entire Lab from Start to Darkshrine and from Argus to Izaro. Killing monsters honestly is more dangerous than just ignoring them and leaping through. This also means you’re not going to get much Experience while doing Labyrinth. While this build could get in there at level 73, I do recommend trying to get to level 80-ish before “completely forgetting” about maps and becoming a Lab-farmer. This just gets you more life, skill points, and damage which pushes you over the “sketchy parts”. Getting to level 80 in maps shouldn’t delay your farming by too much.

When you eventually get there, as mentioned before, you’re going to want to place your totems two by two on each side of Izaro while putting your character on the other side. If you do that, and dodge the occasional thing that comes your way, it’s incredibly hard to die to him. Be very wary though of Elemental Damage modifiers in the Labyrinth, as that is something no Lab build deals with very well. On days where he has added Elemental Damage, you’re going to want to dodge more actively as things like his Slash / Slam might still be able to one-shot you but unless you are really unlucky and this happens on day 1, you’ll be able to grab upgrades worth a couple of Chaos that will just make him die faster and push your HP up high enough to no longer care.

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	Royal Burgonet- Life – Armour & Resistances
Amulet	Bloodgrip
Chest	Glorious Plate- Life – Armour & Resistances
Gloves	Titan Gauntlets- Life – Armour & Resistances
Boots	Titan Greaves- Life – Armour & Resistances & Movement Speed
Belt	Perseverance
Rings	Resistance Ring Bases with Life and additional Resistances
Weapon1	Kondo's Pride

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

Because we are very adamant on trying to get you leveled up with the skill you’re going to use in the Endgame, we’ll provide with leveling information for Ancestral Warchief Totems. Do note that for optimal leveling, we refer 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.

Since Ancestral Warchief requires L28 you’re going to be playing some form of Melee Skill until that point. Do note that this might be rather annoying as you do not want to pick up much damage or life nodes. This is because at level 28 you want to have arrived at the Ancestral Bond keystone which requires quite a bit of pathing. Therefore, we recommend you level up with the strongest skills out there. If you find any sort of early currency a Shiversting helps a lot

Getting to level 28

Perforate I think is the strongest leveling skill at the moment. It provides some decent single target and clear while leveling. If you can’t afford a unique sword (or axe for that matter) try to upgrade your weapons to higher leveled ones as frequent as possible.

Perforate
Chance to Bleed Support
Melee Physical Damage Support
Ruthless Support

Warchief Totems

From here on out you’re going to have a breeze leveling. These do absolute bonkers damage at this point, and you’re only gonna get stronger as you finally get to pick up skill points now that you’ve made it to Ancestral Bond. We recommend running the following gems/links at this point:

Ancestral Warchief
Multiple Totems Support (Unlocks at L38)
Melee Physical Damage Support
Ruthless Support
Brutality Support (Unlocks at L38)

Vulnerability