Build Guides
Golden Blade Showers for Everyone!
Welcome to the guide exile. It has been widely asked of me as of late to create a ranged build, as well as a spell based build … So I figured I would get two birds with one stone and combine the two with this Poet’s Pen Bladefall Inquisitor. This build will be covering the entire screen in a Bladefall, whilst simultaneously Body Swapping around the map by simply holding down right click, making for a quick map clearing and framerate crushing character. The perfect build for playing with a party!
Now this build, as stated in its name, is based around the Poet’s Pen uniques. These weapons will provide +3 to socketed active gem level and trigger any socketed spell gems in them when you attack, being that with a default attack or a skill gem attack. When dual wielding them, spell gems will trigger from both wands on each attack, regardless of which weapon attacks. So this means we can dual wield them and get spells casting from each simultaneously!
For our setup we are using Bladefall with two supports in one Poet’s Pen for our damage and Unearth and Body Swap in the other Poet’s Pen for our movement, and some damage.
Now each time we trigger a spell gem, they will then have a 250 ms cooldown before they can be triggered again. So this means we can only trigger them 4 times per second. To get ideal DPS, we must bring the attack speed of our main trigger attack skill gem to 4 attacks per second.
For this variation, we will be using Frenzy or Barrage as our main trigger attack skill gem. Barrage is my main choice, as we hit the 4 Attacks per second without frenzy charges and Barrage can be used for Life Gain on Hit recovery methods!
Now the best part of all this is we don’t need to worry about sustaining mana, since the trigger spells do not consume mana and we will be using blood magic for our main attack skill gem!
To fully understand the build, let’s delve a bit deeper into its interactions, and what it is fully capable of!
The PP Bladefall Inquisitor is an incredibly fun mapping character and quite sufficient at bossing if you have the correct investments and play smart! It certainly cannot face tank all encounters, mainly those of endgame bosses such as red tier Elder or Shaper and his guardians, but can handle all map bosses with ease. It is also a very consistent and easy to level build, as we can begin using the Poet’s Pens at level 12 to absolutely crush content with even budget gear.
Offensively, we are dual wielding Poet’s Pen unique wands. As explained in the beginning of the guide, these wands are extremely powerful and allow us to cast numerous spells simultaneously in quick succession without concern of mana cost! We will be making use of a Bladefall with Spell Cascade in one pen to deal our damage and Unearth and Body Swap in the other for our quick movement around maps. Unearth is used as we need to create a body to swap to, as we almost always shatter enemies and cannot swap to those destroyed corpses. For bosses, we swap Unearth and Body Swap for Hypothermia and Glacial Cascade for more damage! To make the most out of the Inquisitor ascendancy, we will be fully converting our physical damage to elemental and scaling Critical Strikes, as the Inquisitor Ignores Elemental Resistances on Critical Strike! Full elemental conversion is done by means of Hrimsorrow Gloves and Physical to Lightning support gem on required skills. The Lightpoacher is our helmet of choice granting us a powerful Physical Spirit Nova Burst that is triggered whilst we are killing enemies. This is what causes the green projectiles you see on screen. With full conversion and supports, this spell greatly assists in our clear speed. Finally, we make use of Hatred and Herald of Ice for more cold damage and wonderful shatter explosions for more area coverage … which we so desperately need.
Defensively, we are making use of instant life recovery methods. From the previously mentioned Lightpoacher, we recover 5% of our maximum life on expenditure of Spirit Charges. Spirit Charges are simply used by the Lightpoacher for the Spirit Burst. We gain Spirit Charges upon kill and expend them upon use of a skill or action. With our main trigger skill Barrage, we attach Greater Multiple Projectiles and a High Quality Life Gain on Hit for instant Life recovery.
A Theif’s Torment or two Elder rings with +# Life Gained For Each Enemy Hit by Your Attacks are great supplemental recovery for more facetanking!
For mitigations we have flasks, such as Granite or Basalt and a Cast when Damage Taken with Immortal Call and Enfeeble. For serious endgame bosses, we can make use of a helmet swap for Blind and Cull applications on an Orb of Storms. Finally, we Freeze and Shatter most all enemies, making most all enemies inert!
For playstyle, we can simply hold down right click and move in the direction we wish via Unearth and Body Swap. When you get to a pack of monsters, simply activate your flasks and continue to hold down right click and watch as they immediately shatter! As stated previously, for bosses you will want to do a gem swap for Glacial Cascade for the Body Swap to do more and be in better control of your positioning. And for serious endgame bosses, I drop the Lightpoacher helmet for a Starkonja’s with an Orb of Storms setup. This is because the Lightpoacher’s effects won't trigger, since we are not killing enemies. The Starkonja’s provides more life, and utility, as we can generate power charges, apply blind and have culling strike with the Orb of Storms!
The Passive Trees and Path of Building Pastebin are included in the Description:
Pros
Cons
Our Class & Ascendancy will be the Templar & Inquisitor. The Inquisitor is one of the best ascendancies for scaling multiple elements since it ignores all elemental resistances on critical strike. This is very important for our build since we split our damage between Cold and Lightning damage. Righteous Providence is great for scaling our critical strikes, granting us critical strike chance on first hit and then multiplier on our second hit as the enemy will then be affected by an status ailment. Inevitable Judgement is the powerhouse of the Ascendancy. This node allows us to completely ignore elemental resistances on critical strike, effectively making all targets have 0% elemental resistances. This is especially useful on bosses whom have an innate elemental resistance, on top of any map modifiers. Augury of Penitence provides us with an effective 16% more damage multiplier (as we do not apply any other increased damage taken modifiers to an enemy), and defensive 8% less elemental damage taken. Finally, Instruments of Virtue greatly helps us scale our attack speed, as well as giving us some increased spell damage!
For Ascendancy Progression, I would follow this order:
Here is the complete endgame passive tree:
Defensively, we take life, life regeneration & flask nodes, as well as jewel sockets for more flat or % life.
Offensively, we are stacking elemental, area, critical strikes and attack speed nodes, as well as jewel sockets for more offensive stats!
I would follow this tree progression into the final tree:
Level 30: http://poeurl.com/bI6D
For Bandits, we will be Helping Alira for the critical strike multiplier and elemental resistances.
Level 50: http://poeurl.com/bI6E
Level 70: http://poeurl.com/bI6F
Some useful Pantheons for the build include:
Major:
Minor:
Here are the following gem links for the build. Support gem links are show in order of importance. 4 Links can go in Helmet, Gloves or Boots. 3 Links can go into weapons. Gems with set level are either due to their effect not scaling with level or requirement for cast when damage taken.
6 Link
Barrage - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Faster Attacks - Blood Magic - Life Gain on Hit - Additional Accuracy
This is the main trigger gem setup for our Poet’s Pens. We do not care for how much damage it does, we only care for its utility of triggering the Poet’s Pens and providing us with Life Gain on Hit. Barrage has an incredibly fast hit rate with added projectiles, allowing us to have an almost instant leech effect with enough Life Gain on Hit. If you do not have a 6 Link, I would make an effort to get accuracy where you can on gear, tree or jewels to help ensure you are always hitting with your Barrage. Or dropping Blood Magic in lieu of a mana sustain from some other gear, such as an elder ring with mana gain on hit or #% leech.
4 Link
Hatred - Herald of Ice - Curse on Hit - Assassin’s Mark
This is our aura and auto curse setup for mapping, and bosses that may have nearby adds.
4 Link
Cast when Damage Taken (level 8) - Immortal Call (Level 1) - Enfeeble (Level 11) - Flame Dash
A Cast when Damage Taken to help provide some more mitigation, along with a movement skill to reposition in fights when required.
3 Socket
Due to the use of the Lightpoacher unique, this link set will only be supports to enhance the Spirit Nova Burst within the helmet. It does not need to be linked, but you may link it if you wish.
Greater Multiple Projectiles - Increased Critical Strikes - Physical to Lightning
This will make your Spirit Nova Burst have better coverage and hit much harder when mapping!
3 Link - Poet’s Pen 1
This link setup should be placed in one of your Poet’s Pens
Bladefall - Physical to Lightning - Spell Cascade/Concentrated Effect
This is the main damage skill for the build. I recommend swapping to Concentrated Effect on serious or endgame bosses, otherwise Spell Cascade can be used on most all map bosses.
3 Link - Poet’s Pen 2 - Mapping
This link setup should be placed in your other Poet’s Pen
Unearth - Bodyswap - Concentrated Effect
This is the main method for movement in maps! You will cast an Unearth and Body Swap to it whilst you hold down your right click! The reason for concentrated effect is for our gem swap on bosses as seen next, as we don’t care much for the damage coverage of body swap, and it makes gem swapping quicker.
3 Link - Poet’s Pen 2 - Bosses
For bosses, I recommend swapping gems in your second Poet’s Pen with Unearth and Body Swap to the following:
Hypothermia - Glacial Cascade - Concentrated Effect
This gem setup will provide a massive damage boost on single target, while also allowing you to better focus your barrage fire for life sustain.
4 Link - Helmet Swap
Orb of Storms - Power Charge on Critical - Blind - Culling Strike
Finally, if you intend to do endgame bosses, such as Guardians or Elder, you will want to swap your Lightpoacher for another helmet for more life and utility. I chose to use a Starkonja’s for the large amount of life, critical strike chance and attack speed. With this link setup, you can maintain power charges, while gaining some defense from the blind and early cull kill.
Required unique gear to start this build includes:
Here are the other uniques that I use:
Here are other optional uniques:
For Rare Gear, we will be looking for any base gear. Here are the affixes that we want to look out for on our gear along all of the rare gear that was used on my character:
Offensive:
Defensive:
Utility:
For Jewels we want to look for the following Affixes:
For Abyss Jewels we want to look for the following Affixes:
There are only a few requirements of your rare gear:
For Recovery, you will want:
You will want this to be instant or increased recovery rate .
For Utility flasks, you will want to make use of the following:
Here are the unique flasks that I use and recommend:
Leveling this build is very straight forward, but as always, there are many leveling uniques that make the experience much faster, easier and more fun. These are the following:
Elreon -# Mana Cost jewellery is very useful until we make use of a Thief’s Torment. I highly recommend using this ring as it provides excellent life and mana sustain for your Barrage and Life Pool and allows you to reserve almost all your mana during leveling. Without either of these, you will need a mana flask.
Since we do not get to use our Poet’s Pens until level 12 and we don’t get our main skills, Bladefall and Glacial Cascade, until level 28, we will be leveling with a few different skills until then. For your gem progression, I will assume you can purchase supports from other players or you have a leveled character:
Level 1
Level 10
Level 12
Equip your Poet’s Pens and Socket:
Level 16
Level 18
Level 28
From here, just fill out supporting skill gems as you can. The Poet’s Pens really carry your character through content with no supporting gear or skills. I did not use Unearth & Bodyswap until I was in maps, since I was not originally considering using that in my main setup. You can try using it earlier if you’d like.
Well, if this build doesn’t … wet ... your fancy for a ranged spell caster build with absurd levels of golden blade coverage, body consuming clear speed and computer destroying particle effects, I don’t know what will! All in all, this build was incredibly fun to level and play through to the end game. Even though we can’t decimate bosses as fast or as easy as the Molten Struck Scion, we can effortlessly cruise through maps holding down right click whilst sipping on our flasks. As always, thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one exile.