[3.24] The Pestilent Viper 🐍 New video : The Viper (improved) & The Mamba (saved from nerfs !)
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Hi Exiles,
The Pestilent Viper is a melee Occultist build with Pestilent Strike for farming and Viper Strike for bosses. It uses a deadly cocktail of melee poison mixed with the chaotic power of Profane Bloom. So we poison enemies and make them explode ! Compared to a poison Assassin or Pathfinder, this build has less DPS but more tankiness. It has also easy access to maximum chaos resistance. And juicy chaosplosions ! I was quite proud when someone told me on Youtube : "Wait, the character in the video is a male character. Almost looks like a Shadow." But no, it really is a Witch. And even a Viper Latest videos : 3.24 #1: The Viper (improved) & The Mamba (saved from nerfs !)  This build has two variants : > Viper Strike or Pestilent Strike : inflict a lot of small poisons. PoB : https://pobb.in/A9deI1x5tUGb Gearing
> Viper Strike of the Mamba : inflict one big poison. PoB : https://pobb.in/vcy9ofryEoHP Gearing
 VIPER STRIKE / PESTILENT STRIKE > Inflict a lot of small poisons. > Defend with the Mahuxotl shield : you won't need any cold and lightning res, as they will be taken 50% as fire and 50% as cold. > With Cowl of the Thermophile and Cleansed Thoughts anointment, you won't need any fire resistance elsewhere and barely any chaos res ! * Endgame : https://pobb.in/A9deI1x5tUGb * Budget version : https://pobb.in/T6G-FnseNz_n * Poison Autobomber : https://pobb.in/2hsepL-2jPSf With The Hidden Blade dagger /!\ Updated from 3.14 Ultimatum league, not tested yet in 3.24 Standard. Levelling links in Standard
* Level 52, beginning act6
https://pobb.in/E4VsSWoMGArc * Level 73, beginning Atlas : https://pobb.in/G-sfyTvcfInE * Level 90, red maps : https://pobb.in/xG99rRAc1jlY Wasp Nest and Mahuxotl's shield.  VIPER STRIKE OF THE MAMBA > Inflict one big poison. > Maximize this poison with : Affliction charges, Perfect Agony and crit multi, Ambush, Low Tolerance notables... > A variant designed during Affliction league (3.23), which has been nerfed but is still viable. PoB level 95 : https://pobb.in/vcy9ofryEoHP Links in Affliction league
PoB level 95 : https://pobb.in/6Zh4fYRLBnPn PoB level 94 : https://pobb.in/CpVQj4XW6Txb PoB level 91 : https://pobb.in/Y0iAJ4givjO2 PoB level 78 : https://pobb.in/__0WwjqjGI3b PoB level 59 : https://pobb.in/2icJN_QI_-U9 PoB level 41 : https://pobb.in/nLXwslvm4dMU PoB level 27 : https://pobb.in/EO506QjXwSjv PoB level 17 : https://pobb.in/tQGpxuX8vLV5 All PoB links updated : 04/08/24 * Mamba's Malefaction : advanced mechanisms explained. * The Mamba Strike : basics of the build explained. * Build showcase on Poe Builds/Reddit.  Previous demo videos 3.23 #5 : Bye Bye, Mamba ! One last video in Affliction with the Mamba and then a short run in Standard. Without the Tincture, we lose 65% of DPS. But without the wisps, the enemies are much weaker. So there is still hope for the Mamba :) #4 : Dance Of the Vipers Who's best : the Mamba or the Viper ? You be the judge ! #3 : Mamba's Malefaction Improved version of the build with Dialla's Malefaction armour. #2 : Mamba In Ambush Advanced build in Affliction league, with Mamba, Ambush and Affliction charges. #1 : Black Mamba Lady Viper Strike of the Mamba. 3.22 #2 : Farming with Pestilent Strike. 3.23 preview. #1 : Viperpunk  Dall-E / Bing, January 2024. Second portrait, Dec '23
First portrait, Aug '22
The origins of the Pestilent Viper, as told by Chat-GPT
The Pestilent Viper was not always the feared Occultist Witch that she is now. She was once a naive and innocent girl from a small village on the outskirts of Wraeclast. Her name was Lyra, and she lived a simple life, spending her days in the nearby forest. One day, Lyra stumbled upon a hidden cave. As she explored the dark depths, she discovered an ancient tome filled with forbidden knowledge. Drawn to its dark power, Lyra began to study the tome, learning the secrets of blood magic and the dark arts. Her newfound knowledge came at a cost, however. The magic she was practicing was corrupting her body and mind, turning her into a vessel for dark energies. Lyra was no longer the innocent girl she once was... As she delved deeper into the secrets of the tome, Lyra began to experiment with poisons and venoms, fascinated by their deadly effects. She crafted a claw that dripped with venom and used it to kill her enemies with a single strike. She also acquired a Vaal shield, imbuing it with dark magic that would absorb the life force of those who attacked her. Lyra became known as the Pestilent Viper, feared by all who crossed her path. She wandered the lands of Wraeclast, leaving a trail of death and destruction in her wake. Her journey into darkness was far from over, and no one knew where it would ultimately lead her.  Older Videos > Video : 3.18 Short Guide with essential mechanics Spoiler
3.21
#3 : Unbound & Deadly. Using Unbound Ailments and Deadly Ailments supports to go full-DOT dmg, with 40% more total DPS. #2 : All Bite And No Bark. With the Covenant : doubles the DPS compared to Shadowstitch. #1 : The Dark Path of Lyra. With the Shadowstitch body. Masteries updated. 3.20 #2 : Ten Boss Fight. With Divergent Ancestral Call = +4 to melee range. #1 : Steeped In The Profane Bloom. Now using The Covenant armour = DPS has doubled ! 3.19 Caustic Alchemy. Testing Alchemist's Mark. The Venom In Your Veins 
Rahsaan's Workshop, a post to showcase a dozen of my home-made builds : https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3432443
Last edited by rahsaan on Apr 8, 2024, 7:55:17 AM
Last bumped on Apr 19, 2024, 5:30:57 PM
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 I want to pay tribute to Durimon (Bluewelkin on this forum) for his excellent Durimon's Defense. The original version of this build used a variant of it. In 3.14 Ultimatum, I've come up with the new setup based on the new Mahuxotl's shield. --> take no cold and lightning dmg : they are converted 50% fire / 50% chaos. --> passive recharge of life --> 80% fire / 85% chaos res possible --> always leeching All details about the shield. ThisIsBadger's build competition for 3.14 : https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1024457022 The build is featured at 5h28. All details. PoB links
* Level 92, won several T16 Ultimatums.
* Alternate PoB, with suggestions from other players. Thx to AntiSkid, K1yo and Yingchin ! * Level 73, beginning Atlas. * Level 52, act 6. * Ultimatum 3.14 poison autobomber : https://pastebin.com/5mNNXBku Poison autobomber setup with the Hidden Blade dagger.  Best of past videos
3.18 New Wave Monsters. Bramble Valley with Possessed Bosses + Maven. 3mn Essential Guide 3.16 Aspect of Agony. Vorana, Last To Fall, Expedition boss, at level 85. The Snake Nest. Despair on Hit gloves and Purity of Fire. The Cave Snake. Aul, the Crystal King at depth 300. 3.15 The Uncanny. The Simulacrum. Cortex/Maven. Includes tips and tricks for the fight. Bad Karma, Catarina ! The Syndicate Mastermind. 3.14 Creature of Havoc. T16 Ultimatum with just Withering Step and Plague Bearer. Machine Gun. Poison autobomber setup with the Hidden Blade dagger. Mahuxotl's Machination. Explaining the mechanisms behind the shield, in a T13 no regen map. Heart of Darkness. Ultimatum in Delirium before act 10 Kitava. Birth of a Viper. Going from acts 1 to 4 with some tough Ultimatum encounters. 3.13 Snakebite. Sirus Aw 7. Toxic Girl. Farming in Crimson Township, then a Ten Boss Fight. Pure Chayula with Maven 3.12 The Shaper. Using Vaal Breach at the end for a grand finale ! The Toxic Avenger. T16 Enslaver with a fully optimized setup. Void Sphere + Plague Bearer. 3.11 The Unholy Four - Delve 666 Delve 600, T3 azurite Unredeemable (T15 Redeemer) 3.10 T15 Purifier, Beyond map + Breach and Abyss. Max slow Plaguesplosions * You may also like my other builds : - The Nightblade Assassin - The Infused Trickster - The Hierophant Jedi  Spoiler
Why Occultist ?
From the Occultist Ascendancy, we get some nice QoL features for a poison build : - Second curse - Curses apply to hexproof enemies - Chaos explosions - 60% chaos res - Wither stacks I want to know more about Plaguesplosions
Very simple : - Withering Steps + Profane Bloom Ascendancy - Activate Plague Bearer - Run ... - BOOM ! * The following infos are for original version with Apep's shield. Some may be outdated. I'll review them for 3.16 How do you get these resistances ?
75% base resistances, including chaos (mandatory) - With Apep's shield : +3% to all res while poisoned 78% chaos res - Born of Chaos small cluster notable : +3 81% chaos res - Crystal Skin : +1 all elem res - Soul of Steel : +1 all elem res 80% elem res. With Divine Flesh, 50% of elem dmg taken as chaos, +5% to max chaos res. 86% chaos res. (80+86) / 2 = 83% elem res. I drink poison for breakfast
- With the Apep's shield, we get +3% to all max resistances (including chaos) while poisoned. - With the Golden Rule jewel, poisons we inflict are reflected back to us. - With Maw of Conquest helmet, we are unaffected by poison. Voilà ! Gems
Farming : Pestilent Strike + Unbound Ailments + Deadly Ailments + Added Chaos Damage + Multistrike + Fortify For bosses, put Viper Strike instead, same supports. - Enlighten level 3 + Blasphemy + Despair + Temporal Chains - Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks - Plague Bearer level 21, Withering Step, Vaal Blight - Aspect of the Spider - Flesh & Stone / Sand Stance - Enduring Cry - Optionally : Cold Snap + Hypothermia Detailed gearing
- Jewel : The Golden Rule is mandatory to self-poison yourself. - Weapon : A good poison dagger or claw. Uniques : Bino's Kitchen (poison prolif), Wasp Nest (fast, life gain on hit), Mortem Morsu (fast, phys to chaos conversion) - Shield : Apep's Supremacy is BiS. Budget : Apep's Slumber. Already very good. - Helmet : Mandatory to not die when you self-poison yourself. - Body armour : Nothing mandatory here. Bought it for max life and chaos res. Also, a Sacrificial Garb looks cool af for a Witch. - Gloves : Fenumus' Weave to get Aspect of the Spider, if you don't have it on another piece of gear. Atm, I rather use : Other option : rare gloves with "Strike skills target one additional nearby enemy" - Boots : Easy access to frenzy charges. I am unaffected by bleeding thanks to a Watcher's Eye/Malevolence. In 3.14, we'll need a separate source of protection against Corrupted Blood. - Amulet : Solstice Vigil is BiS Other good choice : an Impresence with no mana Despair. For the hipsters : an Aul's Uprising which grants level 15 Envy aura. But slightly inferior to the other. You can also use Witchfire to get Despair without reserving mana for it : - Belt : A Stygian Vise is BiS. - Rings : Life, elem and/or chaos res, chaos dmg to attacks - Flasks : Coralito's Signature is mandatory (and very cheap). * Just added two new videos : #4 : T16 farming and bossing #5: T17 Vaal Zone I'm planning to do a demo with the Arakaali dagger, which fits this build very well. Gl & hf :)
Rahsaan's Workshop, a post to showcase a dozen of my home-made builds : https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3432443
Last edited by rahsaan on Mar 27, 2024, 5:10:11 PM
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Advanced setup : max chaos and elemental resistances
The build still feels squishy, so I've read several Poison / Pestilent Strike builds, mainly to improve the defenses of this build. Some have great ideas and thx to them, I've found a way to further capitalize on the Occultist Ascendancy bonuses. This setup requires several uniques, so it's more expensive and not-SSF friendly. But with it, you can get 88% chaos res and (up to) 83% all elem res. PoB @lvl 92 : https://pastebin.com/qj8qTtMG * This setup is inspired by Durimon's Defense for his Pestilent Strike Assassin. I have adapted it to the Occultist like this : - Get 45% chaos res. Should be fairly easy thanks to +60% chaos res on the Ascendancy - On the amulet, anoint Cleansed Thoughts : chaos res is doubled. Now you have 75% (90%) chaos res. Anointment : golden – blue – clear. A bit expensive, I know. - Get Apep's Supremacy shield (budget: Apep's Slumber) : +3% to all max res while poisoned. The wording is precise, it includes chaos res. Now, let's poison ourselves with... - The Golden Rule jewel : Poisons you inflict are reflected back to you / +1% chaos res per poison on you. Since we poison all the time, we now have 78% to all max res. - With Maw of the Conquest helmet, we are Unaffected by poison. Not to be confused with Immune to poison from Pantheon. Unaffected = you are poisoned but take no dmg. - Let's add Soul of Steel on the tree : +1% all max elem res, that's 79% fire/cold/lightning res Then, the icing on the cake : we put a Glorious Vanity / Xibaqua timeless jewel to get Divine Flesh : all dmg penetrates ES, +10% max chaos res, 50% of elem dmg taken as chaos dmg. Now, you have 88% max chaos res and 79% elem res. So your actual elem res are : (88+79)/2 = 83% ! If you're not familiar with how the elem res works, you may think it's not much of a difference for a big investment. But here is how it works : if you have 75% res, for 100 dmg the enemy inflicts, you actually take 25. With 83, you take only 17. → 17/25 = 0.68, so that's 32% less elem dmg taken ! Nearly a third. Additional infos Spoiler
- Divine Flesh "50% elem taken as chaos" includes DoT dmg, like burning ground.
- With 88% chaos res, you won't feel Desecrated ground, even in t16 (I've tested). - With Apep's Supremacy shield, you also take bleeding as chaos dmg. In another words, with 88% chaos res, you will barely feel bleeding and corrupted blood. - Thx to Apep, poison expire 50% slower. It is further slowed by Shaper's Presence aura from Solstice Vigil : effects on you expire 20% slower. This guarantees permanent poisoned status. Maybe 2 or 3 times longer than normal, I don't know exactly how it calculated. - Since all dmg penetrates ES, we always have ES, so we have a natural 50% chance to avoid stun : " https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Stun - To reach the hard cap of 90% chaos res, you'd need the Born of Chaos notable on a small cluster jewel : +3% max chaos res.  Plus, who wouldn't look pretty with this helmet ?
Rahsaan's Workshop, a post to showcase a dozen of my home-made builds : https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3432443
Last edited by rahsaan on May 14, 2020, 12:20:48 PM
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Tbh if you want to keep the -9 res helmet you can get "unaffected by poison" from small cluster jewel "Antivenom".
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True, but the Maw helmet has this mod "20% of dmg taken gained as life over 4sec" which is awesome.
Here is a new video where I can facetank twinned bosses in a T17 vaal zone + twinned bosses in T16 Promenade : The Pestilent Viper #6 On top of that, I'm using the sextant mod "8% inc dmg and 4% movespeed / poison on you". With 72 poisons (easily sustainable), the DPS is actually doubled ! (And that was just the Simple sextant mod. The Awakened sextant mod with 100 poisons would triple it.)
Rahsaan's Workshop, a post to showcase a dozen of my home-made builds : https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3432443
Last edited by rahsaan on May 15, 2020, 5:26:38 AM
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I have looted this ring in a Synthesis map :
This was a good occasion to continue my transition to full chaos defense, with the Incandescent Heart : In conjunction with Divine Flesh, now I take 75% of elem dmg from hits as chaos dmg ! Elem res = 79% Chaos res = 88% So, my actual elem res against hits are : (88*3 + 79)/4 = 86% ! I've lost life in the process, 4.8k down from 5.1k. The build feels squishier against phys dmg. So I gotta see how to defend this weak point. Maybe a Granite or Jade Flask (I'm currently using Acrobatics). Also Enduring Cry. I can get Vigour notable in 2pts (+1 End charge). Maybe rework the skill tree by adding cluster jewels for Warcry effects and/or phys dmg reduction. But first, I need to see how the cluster jewels will work in 3.11. PoB @ level 92 : https://pastebin.com/NNy7HnRu * +10% max chaos res manually added on the Glorious Vanity jewel. * Corrected the Temp Chains mod on the Solstice amulet : removed "when cast as an aura", which isn't recognized by PoB. * Also, for some reason I can't find, my res are indicated as lower in PoB. But I can assure you they truly are 76/76/76/85 in hideout, with +4 when poisoned.   And now, I know why I'll never get a prize in Oriath next beauty contest !
Rahsaan's Workshop, a post to showcase a dozen of my home-made builds : https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3432443
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New video. This time, I'm using the Awakened sextant for the poison mod : that's 6% movespeed and 12% inc dmg / poison.
With 100% : 600% speed and 1200% inc dmg = triple damage ! (PoB numbers) I've tested it in some spicy T17 maps and here is the result : Pestilent Viper #7 Hope you like it :)
Rahsaan's Workshop, a post to showcase a dozen of my home-made builds : https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3432443
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Very cool, man. I'm thinking about this for 3.11.
How confident do you feel about Incandescent Heart? It looks good, but I'm wondering if there are better options out there than this, given the ele as chaos dmg mod is wasted. Acrobatics also looks like a mistake at this point now that you're losing block, armour and ES all to get dodge. Exceptional Performance still an ideal anoint?
Last edited by Gescom on Jun 15, 2020, 9:47:38 AM
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Now we possibly can take Elusive, would you drop some points to grab that?
Would you recommend some league starter layout or maybe rather start with toxic rain? |
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Thx guys for the questions and sry for the delay.
" Actually, I have felt that Incandescent Heart makes us too squishy. I have gone back to my Sacrificial Garb which has a good chunk of life and chaos res : Dunno about Acrobatics. I know it nukes ES and Armour but 30% dodge still feels good while mapping. For the anointment, Dirty Technique is better. Then Poisonous Fangs and Hunter's Gambit are actually good, even though they are claw and bow notables respectively. Didn't have much time to think about the new tree in 3.11 but I'll check that in details soon. " As league starter, seems to me that Venom Gyre is good. But i would quickly swap to Pestilent at level 28. For Elusive, maybe. As they've nerfed Soul of Steel, I won't go to it now, better get Crystal Skin for +1% all max res. That saves some points to grab the Elusive cluster. Also Wind Dancer is too good to pass. I'll rework the tree ASAP. * PoB [beta] 3.11 tree, 83% elem, 88% chaos res : https://pastebin.com/RU624gB6 . Wind Dancer, Dirty Techniques anointment, new Elusive cluster. 60/30 dodge. * Meanwhile, here is a new video : a juicy T15 Coral Ruins with Beyond, a Breach and an Abyss, almost all at the same time :D Then the Purifier as a boss. It shows that this naughty girl has some tankiness. Pestilent for farming, then swap to Viper for the boss. Btw, I've forgotten to put Fortify instead of Ancestral Call for the boss :D #8 : T15 Purifier Hope you like it :)
Rahsaan's Workshop, a post to showcase a dozen of my home-made builds : https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3432443
Last edited by rahsaan on Jun 19, 2020, 5:44:40 AM
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