Velyna's Explosive Concoction Ascendant (PoE Settlers of Kalguur 3.25)
Introduction
Turn your flasks into explosive grenades and blaze a path of destruction, Explosive Concoction will consume charges from your topaz and sapphire flasks to deal big chunks AoE elemental damage. This is one of the few remaining skills that can shotgun so we push that AoE as big as we can! Playable at leaguestart very cheaply this build becomes capable of deathless Feared when it is fully built out. Defensively no slouch either, it has a nice amount of evasion/armour with spell suppression and overleech. Nearly ailment immune as well.
Below is a video guide I made for Youtube. This is a good place to start and goes over gearing as well as Pros/Cons. The PoB’s and guide may be more current so make sure to check!
Overview
Pros
✔️ Damage AND Clear: Because our damage overlaps, we stack a LOT of AoE resulting in nice clearspeed without any hit to boss DPS.
✔️ Easy Leaguestart: Very few required uniques, just running Carcass Jack and Atziri's Step for early league.
✔️ Infinite Flasks: The charge generation is insane, if you are like me and just spam flasks constantly it still keeps them full most of the time.
Cons
❌ Charges Required: Until you have adequate flask crafts and talents, you will run out on bosses and DPS will drop.
❌ Uncommon Gear: With a small market for the gear we use, it’s sometimes hard to find. This can be fixed by crafting it yourself.
How Does it Play?
Explosive Concoction feels like firing 6 grenade launchers at the same time. Mapping is an absolute breeze thanks to free rage generation, 30% increased AoE and overleech from our ascends.
Damage and Defensive Scaling
Explosive Concoction uses no weapon, and instead gives large amounts of flat elemental damage per gem level. This means the absolute best way to get DPS is through level bonuses such as Skin of the Loyal and Empower Support. Next in line are penetrate, attack speed, and exposure. Certain generic damage sources like AoE damage, attack damage or elemental damage will also work.
For defense we have defiance banner + Determination and Grace with spell suppression cap. stun immune from ascend. Ailment immune with crafting, and overleech with our Slayer ascendancy that we get through forbidden jewels.
Resources
Crafting and Upgrading for Beginners
Using this Guide
For build imports head to the PoB and Skills page.
The build is designed to work through stages, explained next to the imports. The same page contains leaguestart tips and gem setups for leaguestart and endgame.
The gear page contains info about the endgame setup, links to help you search for items, and sometimes crafting tips as well.
Leaguestart
- My Leaguestart PoBs go step-by-step to place your talents during act 1-10.
- There is also an act-by-act guide for which gems to use, you can find it on the Skills page.
After the campaign get your lightning/cold/fire resistances to 75 and get life on every slot. You can wear a blue ring if it has life and resistance, that’s fine. Also start shopping for uniques.
The leaguestart is meant to grind out immediate upgrades in early maps, some builds can push into reds immediately and some not. Grind where you are cozy while upgrading.
When you can easily farm low maps, start looking to buy items for the next stage.
Midrange/Transition
Some builds require a transition stage because levelling with our desired skill is not viable. If transitioning is required there will be a list of items to gather before doing it, and then you build towards the next PoB like always.
You will probably unlock most of your atlas while gearing out this stage, so don’t be afraid to spend on incremental upgrades. The faster you kill monsters the faster you make money.
Midrange will add more expensive uniques and any build-defining items. Usually not much crafting yet, but all rares should have the required life/resists/attributes plus good other mods. Flasks should also be decently rolled.
Check the gem setup in PoB, it usually changes slightly from leaguestart.
Endgame
Pushing past the final atlas bosses and into the post-campaign content, this is where you add those final millions of DPS to finish off the build.
Upgrades will become more expensive overall, and may require some basic to intermediate crafting. If a difficult craft is required, instructions will be given on the Gear page of the guide.
The cost of this stage is different for every build and changes with every patch. If a build is generally very cheap or very expensive I will mention it in the Pros/Cons section.