Passive Skill Tree and Gem Links (PoE Affliction)

January 7th, 2024, 11:08

Path of Building

All the PoBs in this build have a custom config modifier to simulate resistances you’re expected to have on gear. We do this for all our guides.
This is to avoid newer players trying to copy the exact rolls on items too specifically. Some rolls such as life, and possibly an attribute or two are still there.
If a mod is present on a rare, it is to illustrate that this stat is absolutely vital and mandatory.

Find our recommended tree from the comfort of Path of Building, available here: https://pobb.in/_5xCL-CwT0QP

We have opted to break down the progression of the build into separate PoBs to make it less confusing for newer users who are not familiar with PoB.

Leaguestart PoB: https://pobb.in/DnPbSpPYERBM
This is very bare-bone

Early Mapping PoB: https://pobb.in/Jsn1vcpX6TSZ
This is around where the build feels really comfortable.

Mid Game PoB: https://pobb.in/M6ECVFjLHT7V
This is when it starts to get good.

Leaguestarting this build is not for everyone. While it is rather tanky, it deals very little damage early on. Damage progression will be slow, and you will be slow. If you are fine with those parameters, we have attempted to give you the best possible route to success. You could also simply follow this tree and play a different skill to maps.

We use the Path of Building Community Fork for all of our builds, which is highly recommended. If you are encountering errors importing the build, please ensure you are using the Community Fork.

Passive Skill Tree

The only Keystone passive of any real value to this build is Call to Arms. In general, we pick up modifiers for life, physical damage, block and especially armour.
Be advised that the mastery for “10% of Armour also applies to Chaos Damage taken from hits” is currently bugged in PoB and is massively overperforming. Do not under any circumstance rush for this early, you will not get the performance PoB tells you that you will.

Gems

Shield Crush is our main skill and the builds only sixlink. You can manage without a six link early on, but you should really look into a corrupted rare sixlink as soon as possible due to the builds limited damage scaling.
As we’re purely physical, we run auras such as Determination to boost our armour, Pride Pride to boost our physical damage, Dread Banner to boost our Impale chance as well as effect and Precision for accuracy and crit.

Due to socket starvation this build does not have a way to cross ledges and is forced to run around them. Thankfully we can usually get around them reasonably fast due to Shield Charge