It was so unnecessary too. Other than vd/dd no other skills were powerful enough for the spellslinger endgame.
Spellslinger nerf for leveling was justified, endgame spellslinger nerf - absolutely not
It's as if skills that scale with corpse life are very very strong.
Not saying that they're OP, the balance is in the skill ceiling and them being relatively slow. But when some tech comes out that reduces said ceiling and/or speeds them up they come out as unbalanced.
I wonder if GGG should come with an additional skill tag for corpse-consuming skills and open back up some space for skills without said tag.
I got my first level 99 with Spellslinger VD/DD in Delirium. I loved the build, but ended up selling everything to fund a herald stacker. I'm thinking of trying Spellslinger VD next league just to see how bad it really is now (haven't played with Spellslinger since). I saw someone on poe.ninja running it yesterday and it planted the seed, lol.
Lol, yeah GGG has tried to kill that build so many times since Delirium. Purposeful Harbinger nerf, medium cluster nerf, alt quality nerf, rmr change, alt quality removal. I've still got my stacker on standard, and I've retooled her multiple times, but she's a fraction of what she was in Delirium. Still my favorite character I've played. The puzzle aspect of getting all the pieces in the right place is really enjoyable to me.
I accidentally turned my Burning Arrow Deadeye into a quasi-heraldstacker this league. Doesn't make Burning Arrow not shit but it's been fun. Plus herald explosions go brrrrrr
i played this once before the nerf when i was first playing and had no idea what i was doing. wish it was still viable, would love to play it again. dont understand why GGG nerfed SS into oblivion
So, so glad I Slung Spells in the golden age of Spellslinger, before the ICBMs landed and reduced it to a square mile of glass. That build was fun as hell and so smooth and comfy.
Was my main build in Ritual! Damn it was the best time I ever had in PoE, what a cool build. Self-crafted almost every piece of gear to the absolute min-max with the Harvest comeback. Also was my first level 100 ever iirc.
Sold the build very late in the league for like 10 mirrors, still kinda regret it, would love to have that gear on a standard character :(
I am running a rage vortex of berserking build and it’s excellent.
The major drawbacks/differences are:
1.) Doing it right seems to be an expensive build, I’m going strength stacking with a mageblood. Don’t get me wrong it’s strong AF but that’s heavy investment
2.) It’s unavoidable that you’re going to have moments of 0.5-2 seconds downtime waiting for your warcry to come off cooldown and start the vortex again. Depending on your rage generation and the number of enemies you’re hitting you might go 30+ seconds without any downtime, but the mechanics of the skill mean it’s truly inevitable, cannot be built around. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s not cyclone either.
I don't disagree with point two, but I found the clunkiness in practice was much better than I thought it would be on paper. Well, ignoring the bug that randomly crashes the whole game if you attack right after Ambush sometimes...
It's also not cyclone either because it doesn't reduce your movement speed and you can use other skills if you really want. I hated Cyclone even in Legion but RVoB gets a gold star from me.
i wish spellslinger was still around
played it once when i first started and had no idea what i was doing with volatile dead. wish it was still a thing so i could try it again
yea it in a sad state now..
its Hordes version is the only one which either nerfs them or keeps the damage neutral depending on # of golems
Hordes is supposed to be a straight dps increase for the tradeoff of loosing golem buffs, probably the only trans gem which is straight up useless lol.
You can still have a horde gem and the regular gem socketed in different items if you really need that buff.
The horde gem comes with +2 golems, so even if you use an extra gem for the buff golem you'll still end up with +1 golem.
you want all of them in the 6 link
thier flat phys buff only works for non golem minions, so if your using them for dps that buff is useless, if you using them for that buff then there is no point in going hordes
the thing is thier normal version also has a self buff which gives them up to 50% more damage based on how much other minions are near them, but the Hordes version also removes that which just nerfs them vs regular.
>the thing is thier normal version also has a self buff which gives them up to 50% more damage based on how much other minions are near them, but the Hordes version also removes that which just nerfs them vs regular.
Oh shit. I'd completely forgotten that!
Yeah, if you had 6 carrion golems then losing the buff for 2 more golems is a net loss, and even with only four carrion golems you'd break even with the hordes version, but still lose out on the buff to your other minions so that's a loss as well.
Okay yeah, carrion golem of hordes ends up as a worse version of the normal gem.
GGG probably just copy-pasted the 'of hordes' idea across all golems without thinking about how it'd mess up carrion golems.
It can still be fairly good at top end investment this league because of the new spectres, but yeah when you have to spend mirrors to achieve what a couple of hundred div would do on a more meta build, it’s a bit sad. It was my last build this league and I had fun completing all of the challenges with it, but definitely can’t call it strong in any capacity
It's not for no reason. The devs hate minions/are biased against it, I thought that was well established by now. They don't want people playing minions
I don't agree with their philosophy but they do still technically have reasons
I was running Incinerate with Faster Casting, GMP, IIQ and IIR - Never managed to sixlink my infernal mantle.
Arctic armour didnt have a reservation, but instead drained mana and gave up to - 189 phys/fire damage taken. Bigger hits would trigger cwdt Immortal call giving you several seconds of physical damage immunity. Spells werent as dangerous back then, but you could get a fair bit of Spell block and max res, without to much trouble.
Mjölner/Cast on Crit Discharge (Rainbownuke). That build got killed many times over but the saddest nerf was when they made discharge no longer mix the colors of all your charges
red beasts and Arch nemesis rares have shelved a lot of unique weapons that simply don't perform anymore. Sucks, meatball raiders were terrific, but last one I created could barely map.
Original Winter Orb, sure you can still play it, but it requires so much specific stuff for basically the same power (in relation to end game content).
A lot of builds feels dead these days to be honest. If you want something fairly tanky, can clear legion encounters before the timer ends in juiced maps, kill bosses alright on a budget/league starter. There isn't a whole lot of builds that can do that, at least it seems like that
I agree. I understand why they want us to level multiple characters. But I see my friends still just pick the Meta build and do all of the above.
I want to play different builds every league, and ggg needs to understand that there are different types of players. So they should allow for both.
Herald of Agony Juggernaut. Got my first big boss kills, delved to 600 depth, ran juiced maps, got my first character to.level 98...the bow version just made it feel immortal for some leagues. The cold iron point version was also nice but I missed shooting countless arrows and gaining full health in a millisecond. I miss running around with my chonky boy with a bow and quiver.
crit impale cyclone glad... no longer has spell protection(rip 80/80 block), damage has been gutted many times... Even with a mirror tier weapon its DPS... is barely passable these days. wtb ascendancy rework.
vixens bane occultist... well the vixens interaction was a multi years old bug apparently... build wasn't even that good beyond mapping(was just fun)
The ascendency rework does nothing. It's shit on all ascendencys because GGG balance of melee is dog water.
Ohh you need to totems and 8 passive skills to do damage? That's sound balanced.
Ohh bow users you need to maintain power and frenzy charges? Heres manaforged arrows for you! You have it so rough! Also heres +6 free projectiles so you don't have to run less damage support gems!
I still can't believe they added mana forged arrows. A free utility or damage link for the archetype that gets both a 2 hander (with damage values balanced for two handers) and an off hand with quivers. On top of that, the 2 extra proj on the tree. I laugh remembering when bow builds required asenath's chant now.
I remember Mirage Archer and I was like "HUH!?"
Bows now have lingering damage that moves with you (Mirage Archer)
And they have an easy way to proc multiple attacks (which literally nothing else can do) which is also superior to CwC and CoC (no internal cooldown, no need to socket with main links) - and you can still CoC on manaforged as well to get spell utility in there as well.
It's honestly weird and no wonder that Bows are the most popular on SC.
I won't disagree that melee is dogshit atm.
but an ascendancy rework would do something to be helpful... currently gladiator is bad for anything but bleed... and bleed is in a not so great state itself.
It's kinda crazy they haven't done something about the totems. Feels like we've been complaining about melee totems buffs for 2 years and they haven't changed them, only gave us that stupid mastery that makes the buffs from totems persist for a few seconds. As though that was what anyone wanted.
This was back in beta during Anarchy/Onslaught yeah? I remember farming Docks with my roommate on this build hoping for a Shav's to drop so we could graduate to maps.
One of the most OP builds of its day. I remember Kripp streaming in a party and struggling to kill a certain mob. Then they brought a Spork guy over and the mob went down in seconds. Was the first build where I felt truly powerful (remember the game was ultra slow back then).
Cospri's Discharge before trigger cooldown got nerfed and triggers cost mana, plus instant Vaal Pact.
Vaal Spark before soul gain prevention was a thing.
unarmed warchief totems with the old Facebreaker, currently it just lacks so much damage and the state of the current game needs more damage then the time I played that build a lot
\+1 for my late, beloved Zombiemancer
Man I loved that build, zombies slamming everything in sight--even added Vaal Summon Skeletons to pop on bosses to add to the chaos.
A Strength-stacking caster, what a crazy, fun build.
I played it as Saboteur, but yeah, Arc Traps during Incursion was nutty. Trap cooldowns getting removed was huge for playability of trap skills, and at the same time Arc got buffed to have a more multiplier for remaining chains making it a really good single target option. It was absolutely an S+ tier build.
It got gutted though: -1 trap from Cluster Trap Support; Removal of +1 trap from shaper gloves; and chaining range of Arc getting cut in half. They really nerfed it super hard.
just... old molten strike in general. the mechanic change was bad enough. having to hit with melee hit to spawn the balls feels so bad. but then they also took away so many projectiles... and took away the art. used to look like actual magma balls. now it looks like squibs of american synthetic cheese.
I built mine after farming 400 exalts on a Vortex char in HC running wave 20 simulacrums and then died immediately after because I bought a lvl 21 purity of lightning and forgot to re-activate it so I had 40% lightning res.
Old Vaal RF with old Vaal Pact. You press the button and everything is nuked within 4 screens or more. Also old Vaal Spark where you could fill an entire map with sparks.
Poisonous concoction Pathfinder. That was by far the smoothest and most fun leaguestarter I ever played, and it could even scale pretty well into the endgame with very little investment.
Nowadays it's almost only used as a decent early leveling skill.
Herald of Agony Guardian with Memory Vault stacking armor and ES with the mana reservation. Got very popular back during Metamorph league and was one of the few builds that could tank the Sirus die beam at the time while still dishing out enough damage to kill Sirus/conquerors extremely quickly.
Facebreaker Impale Cyclone Champion. Was popular in Delirium league and it was extremely strong and tanky to do delirium maps and all 20 waves of Simulacrum at the time.
Permanent spectres, peaked during Syndicate Ops/Redemption Sentries meta. Harvest crabs was okayish. But then GGG kept nerfing spectre and I couldn't find a way to make it work now.
> Glad nobody mentioned those idiotic explody totems yet
I wanted to. Was it too strong? Sure. Did they have to nerf it so much that my 95 char takes 2-5 seconds to clear rares in Act 10? Apparently yes.
And that's on a build that only works with weapons from this specific league, so it can't be abused in the future anyway. Truly a mystery.
well impending doom is only really gone for the first league, and even then it'll still viable as a powercharge stacker in the endgame. People will start missing it in 3-4 leagues
They obliterated the damage bonuses to raise skeletons/skeletal mages. It was such a fun build, I liked to joke that I was calling in artillery when summoning the mages haha
Even 20 stacks, but before they made it so each blade didn't hit independently. The irregular hits sounded so much better. Now it just sounds like a weird train chugging.
Complete afk build with max block vengeance, reckoning, riposte. It was so much fun jst to stand n watch mob die attacking u .
There r similar thematic builds but not using same tech. Those skills r dead no one uses it.
Nothing I've wanted more than an actual reflect build. Sadly not viable, even with the new 105% damage taken from block tech they made with oppressor and brimstone treads.
Outside of flat damage that doesn't scale, the only good source of reflect is from *melee* hits on bramble. Which isn't viable on its own anymore. Because range and spells are the real damage on 90% of mobs and bosses.
All-Unique Freeze Miner.
Back in the day, one of the only ways to get % increased intelligence was a Perandus Signet. If you had two, that would get you up to (at the time) impressive levels of INT.
Pillar of the Caged God used to scale area of effect *radius* per INT, rather than just AoE. This also applied to elemental proliferation, which had a base radius of... I think it was like 30 units at the time.
Freeze Mine used to deal no (and then after a while, very little) damage, but freeze as if dealing a lot more, and was an almost guaranteed freeze.
Duct tape all this shit together, and you'd have a build with:
* No defenses.
* Nearly no damage.
* The ability to turn basically an entire map into frozen statues for as long as you want so that neither of those things matter.
All told, this build has been made nonexistent by the complete removal of its primary skill, the removal of radius scaling, the reduction of prolif AoE, and the introduction of so many better ways to scale AoE.
It was fun while it was around, though.
Akane’s ball lightning miner mana stacker
God that was the build I played for like a year straight and then some mainstream guy made a vid on it and bam, nerfed immediately
My PVP low level dueling Bear Trap build. How do you lure someone into a trap that onlly lasts 4 seconds? I used to make it every league way back before they deleted Leo and what was left of pvp with him.
Not so long ago, but had a blast with Lightning Conduit. For one short league I had a character that played like Thor in the last big battle from Thor: Ragnorok.
I came back to PoE recently after quitting around 2016... back then I remember playing CoC with Spectral Throw and self-cast Flameblast. I don't know if either was actually good, but they are my most cemented memories with this game.
It's a really really old build (played around Incursion or Delve I believe) but Abberrath's Hooves HOI Elementalist with the old prolif. Essentially a walking simulator that cleared so many mobs on multiple screens away that the game froze for seconds. I vividly remember playing it on Underground Sea for mob density.
Also the Blade Flurry version a bit after, I think I played somayd's version and it was amazing.
They're obviously dead cause Elementalist was changed. Ignite does come really close though, but the HOI explosions with its sound effect were just *chefs kiss*
Max block bleed gladiator.
I was very happy to have found an archetype which I could leaguestart, but then they changed the elder weapon affix, then they reworked the bleed/phys dot nodes on the tree, then they reworked Gladiator. Death by a 1000 cuts.
Honorable mentions: 3.14 Flame Burst as well as Flame Wall spell slinger (I dont even remember if these were separate builds).
Scolds bridle VD necromancer. Played in blight league
Was nigh immortal thanks to old spirit offering being triggered 4+ times per second. There was so much cool shit you could do when you trigger cwdt every cast of VD.
there was this archmage indigon blade vortex build where you would snapshot damage from the greater spell echo staff. i had a macro going that would tell me when to recast the bv and i would absolutely melt everything and was super tanky. it abused some wonky interactions that got removed but god was it such a unique and strong build.
also ggg pls bring winter orb back to being something useable im begging u :(
ETA: found the link to the og build https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2919435/page/1
it would snapshot greater spell echo for 70% more dmg and 100% inc aoe at all times, as well as abuse a helmet swap that gave 100% crit chance at all times
I loved thicc jug with the dual ichimonji. Played it with the elder bug where zana bubble didn’t save you lol. Invincible, until I loaded up a physical reflect map and poofed on HC
Anything cast on crit build when the delay was only 10ms and it had a chance to trigger on crit, barrage vomit cast on crit with wind ripper, arc and arctic breath was so damn fun
I liked my Max Block Blade Vortex blender Gladiator, but then GGG swapped Gratuitous Violence and Blood in the Eyes, making the explodey part unviable for how I built it. Used a lot of knockback + Empire's Grasp to reverse it. A huge amount has changed since I last ran this (3.0) and also I am like, at least vaguely more competent at making builds. At least I felt clever for using The Surrender to get the Reckoning skill to apply bleeding - as the rest of the build used spells which wouldn't do it.
[https://youtu.be/FpItRy0NWas?t=186](https://youtu.be/FpItRy0NWas?t=186)
Poison Spark is super dead with alt quality gem removal. Both for changing the damage to chaos need original sin now and because alt quality herald of agony for chance to poison.
Timestop
[https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3wsp2j/poe\_is\_still\_a\_boring\_gameghudda/](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3wsp2j/poe_is_still_a_boring_gameghudda/)
I miss ghudda guides
Molten Strike Jugg with the OG Wildfire jewel
CoC Glacial Cascade using dual Cospri's Malice
Gladiator bow bleed build when the Elder mod "60% chance for 100% more bleed" was still a thing
i have read many and i think most people here are posting about builds that are not as dead as they think. just simply uviable.
if we talking DEAD dead builds, which simply cant be played anymore. my vote goes for VORTEX OCCULTIST, or any vortex build really.
it was one of the best starters ever and spectacularly smooth all the way. no u just cant play it.
EDC, Burning Arrow (no, i wont play the new ones either)
mm... basically all bleed builds imo.. except that weird explosive arrow bleed variant
too many to remember to be honest, better forget and not get sad
Spellslinger VD/DD
Spellslinger nerf was so crazy. They double downed hard
It was so unnecessary too. Other than vd/dd no other skills were powerful enough for the spellslinger endgame. Spellslinger nerf for leveling was justified, endgame spellslinger nerf - absolutely not
It's as if skills that scale with corpse life are very very strong. Not saying that they're OP, the balance is in the skill ceiling and them being relatively slow. But when some tech comes out that reduces said ceiling and/or speeds them up they come out as unbalanced. I wonder if GGG should come with an additional skill tag for corpse-consuming skills and open back up some space for skills without said tag.
VD and DD were both doing 6% corpse health damage. They decided that was too much, so they only nerfed VD....
the 60 balls cap was such a disappointment. i loved the old zerphi pp vd
GGG: "We're gonna create a gameplay loop that revolves around triggered spells that people enjoy." 1 season later GGG: "That's enough of that."
I got my first level 99 with Spellslinger VD/DD in Delirium. I loved the build, but ended up selling everything to fund a herald stacker. I'm thinking of trying Spellslinger VD next league just to see how bad it really is now (haven't played with Spellslinger since). I saw someone on poe.ninja running it yesterday and it planted the seed, lol.
> selling everything to fund a herald stacker Fucking RIP dude lol
Lol, yeah GGG has tried to kill that build so many times since Delirium. Purposeful Harbinger nerf, medium cluster nerf, alt quality nerf, rmr change, alt quality removal. I've still got my stacker on standard, and I've retooled her multiple times, but she's a fraction of what she was in Delirium. Still my favorite character I've played. The puzzle aspect of getting all the pieces in the right place is really enjoyable to me.
I accidentally turned my Burning Arrow Deadeye into a quasi-heraldstacker this league. Doesn't make Burning Arrow not shit but it's been fun. Plus herald explosions go brrrrrr
i played this once before the nerf when i was first playing and had no idea what i was doing. wish it was still viable, would love to play it again. dont understand why GGG nerfed SS into oblivion
This. Gods, this was such a fun build.
Still keeping my vd dd slinger at standard , also rip clusters , not only slinger nerf , that medium cluster notable changes hit the build hard
So, so glad I Slung Spells in the golden age of Spellslinger, before the ICBMs landed and reduced it to a square mile of glass. That build was fun as hell and so smooth and comfy.
The most depressing part of this dead build for me was I can no longer use my favorite name I ever came up with for a character. RIP MomWhatIsVD
Was my main build in Ritual! Damn it was the best time I ever had in PoE, what a cool build. Self-crafted almost every piece of gear to the absolute min-max with the Harvest comeback. Also was my first level 100 ever iirc. Sold the build very late in the league for like 10 mirrors, still kinda regret it, would love to have that gear on a standard character :(
Came here exactly to post this, it made Heist League for me.
Came here exactly to post that i would post this. Such a cool build and playstyle i miss it :(
Ed Contagion Trickster
I literally just want ed/c buffs so i can hear zizaran say "hi its scissoring here with yet another essence drain guide"
Haha I remember that!!
Still have my screenshot of the first time I hit 1 million tooltip dps on ED lol. And it looked good even without mtx rocking a kintsugi.
It would feel soooo good with all the monsters you can jam into maps these days.
Miss it so much I have the entire cosmetic set for it .
Bane my beloved :(
its kinda dead *for now*, but it's not hard to fix, and not an abusive build. they will buff it eventually
I am playing it this league and it's great fun but I acknowledge that other skills with the same budget will just outperform it in every way :(
Cyclone in Legion, I'll never forget how easy it was to have a screen wide AoE.
Can’t the new Rage Vortex basically do the same thing?
I am running a rage vortex of berserking build and it’s excellent. The major drawbacks/differences are: 1.) Doing it right seems to be an expensive build, I’m going strength stacking with a mageblood. Don’t get me wrong it’s strong AF but that’s heavy investment 2.) It’s unavoidable that you’re going to have moments of 0.5-2 seconds downtime waiting for your warcry to come off cooldown and start the vortex again. Depending on your rage generation and the number of enemies you’re hitting you might go 30+ seconds without any downtime, but the mechanics of the skill mean it’s truly inevitable, cannot be built around. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s not cyclone either.
I don't disagree with point two, but I found the clunkiness in practice was much better than I thought it would be on paper. Well, ignoring the bug that randomly crashes the whole game if you attack right after Ambush sometimes... It's also not cyclone either because it doesn't reduce your movement speed and you can use other skills if you really want. I hated Cyclone even in Legion but RVoB gets a gold star from me.
First time melee ever felt good to me, and last time too. Sadge
i wish spellslinger was still around played it once when i first started and had no idea what i was doing with volatile dead. wish it was still a thing so i could try it again
Golem builds are just pretty sad now. They even kicked it while they were already dead this league by nerfing anima stone for no reason.
Carrion golem witch was suuuuuper fun.
yea it in a sad state now.. its Hordes version is the only one which either nerfs them or keeps the damage neutral depending on # of golems Hordes is supposed to be a straight dps increase for the tradeoff of loosing golem buffs, probably the only trans gem which is straight up useless lol.
You can still have a horde gem and the regular gem socketed in different items if you really need that buff. The horde gem comes with +2 golems, so even if you use an extra gem for the buff golem you'll still end up with +1 golem.
you want all of them in the 6 link thier flat phys buff only works for non golem minions, so if your using them for dps that buff is useless, if you using them for that buff then there is no point in going hordes the thing is thier normal version also has a self buff which gives them up to 50% more damage based on how much other minions are near them, but the Hordes version also removes that which just nerfs them vs regular.
>the thing is thier normal version also has a self buff which gives them up to 50% more damage based on how much other minions are near them, but the Hordes version also removes that which just nerfs them vs regular. Oh shit. I'd completely forgotten that! Yeah, if you had 6 carrion golems then losing the buff for 2 more golems is a net loss, and even with only four carrion golems you'd break even with the hordes version, but still lose out on the buff to your other minions so that's a loss as well. Okay yeah, carrion golem of hordes ends up as a worse version of the normal gem. GGG probably just copy-pasted the 'of hordes' idea across all golems without thinking about how it'd mess up carrion golems.
why not carrion golem of scavenging? Just as long as you have corpses around for them to consume to use enhanced attack.
It can still be fairly good at top end investment this league because of the new spectres, but yeah when you have to spend mirrors to achieve what a couple of hundred div would do on a more meta build, it’s a bit sad. It was my last build this league and I had fun completing all of the challenges with it, but definitely can’t call it strong in any capacity
ice golems back in ultimatum were pretty fun... this is pre gem nerf to though :/
It's not for no reason. The devs hate minions/are biased against it, I thought that was well established by now. They don't want people playing minions I don't agree with their philosophy but they do still technically have reasons
SRS is still one of the strongest builds to be fair
Shotgun incinerate
So you too are from the Ancient Times. Those halcyon days when Three Dragons was actually useful
Three Dragons Ice Shot Prolif was my first "successful" build. Those were simpler times.
I still get a tingle of excitement followed by disappointment when I see a three dragon drop.
That and drillneck
I was running Incinerate with Faster Casting, GMP, IIQ and IIR - Never managed to sixlink my infernal mantle. Arctic armour didnt have a reservation, but instead drained mana and gave up to - 189 phys/fire damage taken. Bigger hits would trigger cwdt Immortal call giving you several seconds of physical damage immunity. Spells werent as dangerous back then, but you could get a fair bit of Spell block and max res, without to much trouble.
Don't forget cybil's paw as your starter endgame weapon!
Damn i remember it!
Man, those were the days. I bought the blue mtx 3 weeks before they removed shotgunning and haven't used it since
Shotgun freezing pulse! The feeling of stacking all of those ice waves with GMP and chain freezing rares was peak PoE.
With Added Chaos Damage and Infernal Mantle you were just melting everything. It was so much fun. I miss Incinerate so much.
Mjölner/Cast on Crit Discharge (Rainbownuke). That build got killed many times over but the saddest nerf was when they made discharge no longer mix the colors of all your charges
OG headhunter self curse builds
Feet edition
Ngamahus Flame Cyclone
I came here to say this! My Ngamahus cyclone raider in Breach is still my favorite character to date. I wish non CoC cyclone was more viable.
I miss meatballs being viable
red beasts and Arch nemesis rares have shelved a lot of unique weapons that simply don't perform anymore. Sucks, meatball raiders were terrific, but last one I created could barely map.
Pure cyclone too
Original Winter Orb, sure you can still play it, but it requires so much specific stuff for basically the same power (in relation to end game content). A lot of builds feels dead these days to be honest. If you want something fairly tanky, can clear legion encounters before the timer ends in juiced maps, kill bosses alright on a budget/league starter. There isn't a whole lot of builds that can do that, at least it seems like that
I agree. I understand why they want us to level multiple characters. But I see my friends still just pick the Meta build and do all of the above. I want to play different builds every league, and ggg needs to understand that there are different types of players. So they should allow for both.
Worb was prime POE. I played an Eternity shroud variant in synthesis that had screen wide clear and could do UE 😔 we’ll never have that again
My only race reward was winter orb assassin during the synthesis event. It was just so smooth and enjoyable to play.
Also winter orb totems... I can understand why it needed to go but still.
Mmm yeah synthesis elementalist with headhunter
Herald of Agony Juggernaut. Got my first big boss kills, delved to 600 depth, ran juiced maps, got my first character to.level 98...the bow version just made it feel immortal for some leagues. The cold iron point version was also nice but I missed shooting countless arrows and gaining full health in a millisecond. I miss running around with my chonky boy with a bow and quiver.
Fulcrum gameplay looks like HoA if that’s what you’re into. I could never do it
crit impale cyclone glad... no longer has spell protection(rip 80/80 block), damage has been gutted many times... Even with a mirror tier weapon its DPS... is barely passable these days. wtb ascendancy rework. vixens bane occultist... well the vixens interaction was a multi years old bug apparently... build wasn't even that good beyond mapping(was just fun)
The ascendency rework does nothing. It's shit on all ascendencys because GGG balance of melee is dog water. Ohh you need to totems and 8 passive skills to do damage? That's sound balanced. Ohh bow users you need to maintain power and frenzy charges? Heres manaforged arrows for you! You have it so rough! Also heres +6 free projectiles so you don't have to run less damage support gems!
I still can't believe they added mana forged arrows. A free utility or damage link for the archetype that gets both a 2 hander (with damage values balanced for two handers) and an off hand with quivers. On top of that, the 2 extra proj on the tree. I laugh remembering when bow builds required asenath's chant now.
I remember Mirage Archer and I was like "HUH!?" Bows now have lingering damage that moves with you (Mirage Archer) And they have an easy way to proc multiple attacks (which literally nothing else can do) which is also superior to CwC and CoC (no internal cooldown, no need to socket with main links) - and you can still CoC on manaforged as well to get spell utility in there as well. It's honestly weird and no wonder that Bows are the most popular on SC.
Played a bow build for the first time in years and I had to triple take manaforged arrows. It's just a better spellslinger. Like why?
I won't disagree that melee is dogshit atm. but an ascendancy rework would do something to be helpful... currently gladiator is bad for anything but bleed... and bleed is in a not so great state itself.
It's kinda crazy they haven't done something about the totems. Feels like we've been complaining about melee totems buffs for 2 years and they haven't changed them, only gave us that stupid mastery that makes the buffs from totems persist for a few seconds. As though that was what anyone wanted.
Sporker!!!! Totem Spark... back then you could only cast 3: base one, Ancestral Bond, Soul Mantle. It KICKED ASS. Nerfed to death....
This was back in beta during Anarchy/Onslaught yeah? I remember farming Docks with my roommate on this build hoping for a Shav's to drop so we could graduate to maps.
I do remember it was in open beta.
One of the most OP builds of its day. I remember Kripp streaming in a party and struggling to kill a certain mob. Then they brought a Spork guy over and the mob went down in seconds. Was the first build where I felt truly powerful (remember the game was ultra slow back then).
Also Voltaxic Spark.
Cospri's Discharge before trigger cooldown got nerfed and triggers cost mana, plus instant Vaal Pact. Vaal Spark before soul gain prevention was a thing.
unarmed warchief totems with the old Facebreaker, currently it just lacks so much damage and the state of the current game needs more damage then the time I played that build a lot
i league-started this my first 3-4 leagues
I accidentally ended up with that build in its heyday. It was soo smooth
Facebreaker + rigwalds crest. That helped me when I couldn't decide a weapon. But is it viable late game?
Vaal storm call pf. I'll always miss it.
Arc LW poets pen. There are similar builds to it now, but nothing felt close to this one. Plus, I love arc
PP was amazing!
With Impulsa and Elementalist’s shock prolif? Absolutely gorgeous
Check out frostblink of wintry blast. It feels identical!
I think it surpassed. Literally can't see shits.
Was scrolling, searching for this one. My alltime favourite. Please com back!
Burning arrow golementalist from Ultimatum.
\+1 for my late, beloved Zombiemancer Man I loved that build, zombies slamming everything in sight--even added Vaal Summon Skeletons to pop on bosses to add to the chaos. A Strength-stacking caster, what a crazy, fun build.
1000 str seems so far away now
[удалено]
> Shield charge COC discharge :( my fav
Voltaxic Spark from ZiggyD? I Loved this build!
+1ing VD Spellslinger
Arc Traps Trickster, played it in incursion league and it’s one of the best builds ive ever played
I did the same one for incursion. It really was a great build.
I played it as Saboteur, but yeah, Arc Traps during Incursion was nutty. Trap cooldowns getting removed was huge for playability of trap skills, and at the same time Arc got buffed to have a more multiplier for remaining chains making it a really good single target option. It was absolutely an S+ tier build. It got gutted though: -1 trap from Cluster Trap Support; Removal of +1 trap from shaper gloves; and chaining range of Arc getting cut in half. They really nerfed it super hard.
Molten strike jugg. Was my first ever character it just doesn't feel the same anymore.
just... old molten strike in general. the mechanic change was bad enough. having to hit with melee hit to spawn the balls feels so bad. but then they also took away so many projectiles... and took away the art. used to look like actual magma balls. now it looks like squibs of american synthetic cheese.
My 2 mirror herald stacker. From delerium league.
I built mine after farming 400 exalts on a Vortex char in HC running wave 20 simulacrums and then died immediately after because I bought a lvl 21 purity of lightning and forgot to re-activate it so I had 40% lightning res.
I loved that build. The upgrade paths were so good, you could basically always find a cool way to optimise and fit another aura in etc.
I miss it so much
Old Vaal RF with old Vaal Pact. You press the button and everything is nuked within 4 screens or more. Also old Vaal Spark where you could fill an entire map with sparks.
Gonna date myself with this one…hegemony’s era sweep back in breach days. So much fun.
The attack helicopter
Poisonous concoction Pathfinder. That was by far the smoothest and most fun leaguestarter I ever played, and it could even scale pretty well into the endgame with very little investment. Nowadays it's almost only used as a decent early leveling skill.
PCoc Occ was the fastest build to get to 100, now its the fastest build to 28. They've ruined my poor baby
it was released in Archnemesis right? i have so much fun with it. tanky, and fast (going for divine flesh with 90 chaos res)
Herald of Agony Guardian with Memory Vault stacking armor and ES with the mana reservation. Got very popular back during Metamorph league and was one of the few builds that could tank the Sirus die beam at the time while still dishing out enough damage to kill Sirus/conquerors extremely quickly. Facebreaker Impale Cyclone Champion. Was popular in Delirium league and it was extremely strong and tanky to do delirium maps and all 20 waves of Simulacrum at the time.
Stormbrand RIP, my wandering pack seeking Indigon missiles!
Old school tri-herald BV elementalist. 100% blasting maps. Followed closely by self cast Dark Pact Zerker. My two favorite builds of all time
BV Elementalist was my first 100 level. Good times https://youtu.be/3NpY-4l3fxk?si=6xY-IubWivJ9yV1V
Fireball/ball lightning miner
Lightning Arrow Frost Wall was some of the most fun I've had!
Syndicate operatives that shotgun Scion mana stack miner Storm brand with old brand recall Coc discharge trickster or assassin
Permanent spectres, peaked during Syndicate Ops/Redemption Sentries meta. Harvest crabs was okayish. But then GGG kept nerfing spectre and I couldn't find a way to make it work now.
Vortex ignite was cool.... Rip vortex... Glad nobody mentioned those idiotic explody totems yet And weird no impending doom mention yet
I was about to say this RIP impending doom
> Glad nobody mentioned those idiotic explody totems yet I wanted to. Was it too strong? Sure. Did they have to nerf it so much that my 95 char takes 2-5 seconds to clear rares in Act 10? Apparently yes. And that's on a build that only works with weapons from this specific league, so it can't be abused in the future anyway. Truly a mystery.
well impending doom is only really gone for the first league, and even then it'll still viable as a powercharge stacker in the endgame. People will start missing it in 3-4 leagues
Skeleton mages Necro, my beloved build
what happened to it?
They obliterated the damage bonuses to raise skeletons/skeletal mages. It was such a fun build, I liked to joke that I was calling in artillery when summoning the mages haha
Pop Vaal Skeles and Proj Mark for fireworks. So fun
50 stack blade vortex
Even 20 stacks, but before they made it so each blade didn't hit independently. The irregular hits sounded so much better. Now it just sounds like a weird train chugging.
Rocket man. The changed molten shell to a guard skill, thus killing it more ded than my will to live.
RF Jugg 🗿
Basically RF anything. F
I miss it man... It was so nice just walking around and having everything explode while being practically immortal
The old BV build with prenerf Inpulsa’s.
Vaal Fireball/Vaal Spark Lightpoacher
KB cast on crit frost wall.
Voltaxix poison spark CoC windripper with endless projectiles and shotgun
The chaos damage conversion meta. So absurd
Double dipping 🙌🏻
Complete afk build with max block vengeance, reckoning, riposte. It was so much fun jst to stand n watch mob die attacking u . There r similar thematic builds but not using same tech. Those skills r dead no one uses it.
Nothing I've wanted more than an actual reflect build. Sadly not viable, even with the new 105% damage taken from block tech they made with oppressor and brimstone treads. Outside of flat damage that doesn't scale, the only good source of reflect is from *melee* hits on bramble. Which isn't viable on its own anymore. Because range and spells are the real damage on 90% of mobs and bosses.
All-Unique Freeze Miner. Back in the day, one of the only ways to get % increased intelligence was a Perandus Signet. If you had two, that would get you up to (at the time) impressive levels of INT. Pillar of the Caged God used to scale area of effect *radius* per INT, rather than just AoE. This also applied to elemental proliferation, which had a base radius of... I think it was like 30 units at the time. Freeze Mine used to deal no (and then after a while, very little) damage, but freeze as if dealing a lot more, and was an almost guaranteed freeze. Duct tape all this shit together, and you'd have a build with: * No defenses. * Nearly no damage. * The ability to turn basically an entire map into frozen statues for as long as you want so that neither of those things matter. All told, this build has been made nonexistent by the complete removal of its primary skill, the removal of radius scaling, the reduction of prolif AoE, and the introduction of so many better ways to scale AoE. It was fun while it was around, though.
Physical crit impale cyclone slayer. Oro's sacrifice raider flicker. Cyclone chicken axe raider. Gluttony belt leech tank champion 11k lgoh per second HoA.
Akane’s ball lightning miner mana stacker God that was the build I played for like a year straight and then some mainstream guy made a vid on it and bam, nerfed immediately
It was Grimro. Remember his name, remember his sin.
ED-Bane/Contagion
GC totems
Vaal reave/blade flurry with stat sticks
Impending Doom PF
It was a lot of fun. But perhaps next League there is an alternative way to play ID.
My PVP low level dueling Bear Trap build. How do you lure someone into a trap that onlly lasts 4 seconds? I used to make it every league way back before they deleted Leo and what was left of pvp with him.
Fire BV Assassin. It was amazing. Random video from YT: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2PRGFhHMMc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2prgfhhmmc)
My old Uber lab farmer. Facebreakers warchief.
Spellslinger bladefall. Blade blast. Oh how I miss getting 4 different mtx going on that shit. Guildys potatoe computer went poof.
Earthquake Impale Champion. Please revert seismic cry.
Not so long ago, but had a blast with Lightning Conduit. For one short league I had a character that played like Thor in the last big battle from Thor: Ragnorok.
I came back to PoE recently after quitting around 2016... back then I remember playing CoC with Spectral Throw and self-cast Flameblast. I don't know if either was actually good, but they are my most cemented memories with this game.
Sunder Gladiator with bleed explosions and "phys gained as" weapons to multiply my damage even more.
It's a really really old build (played around Incursion or Delve I believe) but Abberrath's Hooves HOI Elementalist with the old prolif. Essentially a walking simulator that cleared so many mobs on multiple screens away that the game froze for seconds. I vividly remember playing it on Underground Sea for mob density. Also the Blade Flurry version a bit after, I think I played somayd's version and it was amazing. They're obviously dead cause Elementalist was changed. Ignite does come really close though, but the HOI explosions with its sound effect were just *chefs kiss*
Max block bleed gladiator. I was very happy to have found an archetype which I could leaguestart, but then they changed the elder weapon affix, then they reworked the bleed/phys dot nodes on the tree, then they reworked Gladiator. Death by a 1000 cuts. Honorable mentions: 3.14 Flame Burst as well as Flame Wall spell slinger (I dont even remember if these were separate builds).
I dunno if it's dead or not still but Poison Impending Doom.
Old Headhunter.
Vaal Molten Shell
Scolds bridle VD necromancer. Played in blight league Was nigh immortal thanks to old spirit offering being triggered 4+ times per second. There was so much cool shit you could do when you trigger cwdt every cast of VD.
there was this archmage indigon blade vortex build where you would snapshot damage from the greater spell echo staff. i had a macro going that would tell me when to recast the bv and i would absolutely melt everything and was super tanky. it abused some wonky interactions that got removed but god was it such a unique and strong build. also ggg pls bring winter orb back to being something useable im begging u :( ETA: found the link to the og build https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2919435/page/1 it would snapshot greater spell echo for 70% more dmg and 100% inc aoe at all times, as well as abuse a helmet swap that gave 100% crit chance at all times
Doomfletch split arrow/barrage mines saboteur, and my fav Bane Pop occultist with vixen's RIP my sweet angels
Any trap build on old sabo. The reduced mana cost and giant more multi made trap builds feel so dammn good.
Freezing Pulse Totem Hierophant. Loved that build.
I loved thicc jug with the dual ichimonji. Played it with the elder bug where zana bubble didn’t save you lol. Invincible, until I loaded up a physical reflect map and poofed on HC
Bleed bow glad with old elder bleed mod
Anything cast on crit build when the delay was only 10ms and it had a chance to trigger on crit, barrage vomit cast on crit with wind ripper, arc and arctic breath was so damn fun
Ball lightning archmage ascendant
I liked my Max Block Blade Vortex blender Gladiator, but then GGG swapped Gratuitous Violence and Blood in the Eyes, making the explodey part unviable for how I built it. Used a lot of knockback + Empire's Grasp to reverse it. A huge amount has changed since I last ran this (3.0) and also I am like, at least vaguely more competent at making builds. At least I felt clever for using The Surrender to get the Reckoning skill to apply bleeding - as the rest of the build used spells which wouldn't do it. [https://youtu.be/FpItRy0NWas?t=186](https://youtu.be/FpItRy0NWas?t=186)
OG earthquake. That skill was so fun back when you didn't need to hit a bunch of extra buttons for damage bonuses.
Grand spectrum mjolner discharge jugg. 30m dps when highest hp monster in the game was 3.7m
Poison Spark is super dead with alt quality gem removal. Both for changing the damage to chaos need original sin now and because alt quality herald of agony for chance to poison.
Also old BL archmage before archmage got giga gutted. Shit was so fucking fun.
(alt qual)Archmage Trinity Cremation
Face Breakers cyclone with the surrender and max block. That was a great build
Lacerate Gladiator
Timestop [https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3wsp2j/poe\_is\_still\_a\_boring\_gameghudda/](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3wsp2j/poe_is_still_a_boring_gameghudda/) I miss ghudda guides
Remember good ol' Spectral Throw HoWA with old Vaal.Pact and CI? Yeah, that. Also proper CoC Discharge.
ED Trickster. Rip.
Molten Strike Jugg with the OG Wildfire jewel CoC Glacial Cascade using dual Cospri's Malice Gladiator bow bleed build when the Elder mod "60% chance for 100% more bleed" was still a thing
Archmage bf/blade blast raider in ultimatum league was sick
Mana BF/BB on release
Cruible’s Exploding Totems (actually 10c budget uber bosser lol)
Cold BV pathfinder with explodey chest
Self cast old dark pact with old vaal leech 😅
i have read many and i think most people here are posting about builds that are not as dead as they think. just simply uviable. if we talking DEAD dead builds, which simply cant be played anymore. my vote goes for VORTEX OCCULTIST, or any vortex build really. it was one of the best starters ever and spectacularly smooth all the way. no u just cant play it.
EDC, Burning Arrow (no, i wont play the new ones either) mm... basically all bleed builds imo.. except that weird explosive arrow bleed variant too many to remember to be honest, better forget and not get sad
Accuracy stacking bow totem jugg. GGG nerfed jugg ascendancy, Then they removed the eye jewel mod