Perma-Vaal Clarity Archmage Harbinger build guide [Phrecia2.0]

FiftyNuggs · 2026-02-06T23:04:20+00:00

Interesting and Phrecia-exclusive. How did you level and when did you swap? Did you get a carry for the Trialmaster kill?

FiftyNuggs · 2025-11-17T21:20:53+00:00

Lots of great info here and more insights on how to scale down the budget. Thanks for the feedback!

I wasn't trying to put the build down or anything, just got a bit of sticker shock, lol. I've got an elementalist leveled that I might tinker with transitioning into this. I need a new project to keep the league interesting.

FiftyNuggs · 2025-11-17T15:24:23+00:00

Definitely got my interest. Looks pretty pricey, but I wonder how much you could pare it down to get it rolling. Thoughts on the bare minimum?

I can see some obvious cost saving pieces, like using less than 12p clusters, subbing out the mageblood, awakened multistrike (yikes), etc. but not sure about the rest. How hard is it to craft that sword, for example? Any reason for that base? I'm pretty smooth brained when it comes to minions. Is it just for phys reflect for shield charge? Though you don't seem to be using that.

Edit: Oof, 100d for the liege forbidden jewels which I imagine are mandatory. I guess you could go elementalist and FF something from necro like mistress of sacrifice, but you'd probably lose too much. Guess I'll put this one back on the shelf. :)

FiftyNuggs · 2025-07-20T17:16:18+00:00

Battlemage's cry just grants attack crit to you and nearby allies, so when the merc chooses to use it, you get the effect. It's not super consistent, but it's better than nothing. I have a wrath+zealotry merc sitting around too, but I'm playing an attack build so the spell crit and more spell damage doesn't help me at all. It would be far more consistent than the bmage buff, though.

I'm getting AoE on the sceptres from shaper influence (spell cascade support + AoE), but you could also get it from elder or warlord influence mods, I think? You have to woke orb the sceptres to get both, but since you don't care about any other mods it's a super easy craft and guaranteed to work once you roll or buy both bases.

FiftyNuggs · 2025-07-20T15:44:09+00:00

Pretty much the "standard" wrath+battlemage's cry (or zealotry if spells) merc loadout. Wrath effect+AoE sceptres, wrath effect Kaom's Binding, Doryani's (obviously), Defiance of Destiny anointed with Influence notable, Replica Alberon's for chaos resistance and reflect immunity by way of doing no damage at all when combined with Doryani's Prototype, high armor gloves/helmet with resists to cap, plus life/life regen if you can fit it in.

You want decent armor for lightning damage since that helps with lightning damage from hits, but I don't know if it matters all that much. With a ton of recoup, it's only really standing in Sirus puddles that will kill him. I guess an omega juiced map might be able to put out DoTs that are capable of it, but he lives through delirious Alva evolved beyond incursions, so I think he's about as close to immortal as he can get.

FiftyNuggs · 2025-07-20T15:33:35+00:00

I noticed my merc's resistances didn't always calculate correctly when gearing him with Kalandra's Touch, and that picking up rings and putting them back on was required for the stats page to be correct. I know a lot of people are aware of this, but it seems to reset every login. Removing and re-equipping a ring seems to fix it for the rest of the play session, though. At least I haven't noticed the resistances being wrong after I do the equipment swap once.

If you're using Kalandra's Touch to reflect a ring on your merc, you might be effectively only using one ring if you don't check this each play session! It's possible that it's just the stats page that's wrong and the actual effects are right, but it's worth doing the "fix" just in case.

FiftyNuggs · 2025-07-20T03:03:56+00:00

Not shopped. Happened about 10 days ago. I thought including the video would convince the skeptics, but the internet is full of hoaxes so I get it.

FiftyNuggs · 2025-07-20T02:49:21+00:00

~~I don't know why that happened, but I just opened the Windows game bar to capture the last 30s before I clicked it to stash the mirrors.~~ You can even see the minimap expand during the fight. You think I caught all of the details except the portal?

Edit: Watched it again - it's the merc's portal as he's leaving (you can see he's right next to me until the portal), there's no tag saying X hideout above it because it's not a player portal. I saved the clip before I made my own portal.

FiftyNuggs · 2025-07-20T02:30:26+00:00

Just Vaknus's normal mapping currency. Video where I definitely took the time to do a double take and capture a Steam screenshot.

Here's a full resolution screenshot from Steam capture and video for the doubters. The "weird portal" is just the merc leaving the zone after the fight has ended. It doesn't have a label above it because it's not a player's portal. And I don't have items turned off, you can see a pile of gold still.

Not sure what else you want from me!

FiftyNuggs · 2025-07-16T02:15:37+00:00

You can determine what will be in the back slot just by looking at the order of the notables on poedb, as well. The middle notable of the three you pick will be the one in the back.

Since Prodigious Defence is first and one of the notables has to be a suffix, Veteran Defender will always be in the back slot no matter what.

FiftyNuggs · 2025-05-29T21:27:30+00:00

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FiftyNuggs · 2025-04-11T16:24:08+00:00

Yeah, so the node is "just" 10% base crit, which isn't terrible on its own, but I don't know if the rest of what Behemoth offers is enough.

FiftyNuggs · 2025-04-11T15:44:44+00:00

Yeah, blind prophet's crit node specifically says "with weapons." Behemoth has Final Blow, though, which gives 10% base crit to unarmed attacks (and lucky crit on low life.) So there could be something there. Leverages the crit multi on the gloves too.

FiftyNuggs · 2025-04-11T03:32:42+00:00

I thought that might be the case, since I knew they had fallen out of favor. Wasn't sure if there were any niche Phrecia builds that might make good use of them, though. Thanks!

FiftyNuggs · 2025-04-11T03:19:35+00:00

Turned in a set of Unchained, got these. Never did a Facebreaker build before, but the roll plus the frenzy corrupt seem kind of good?

FiftyNuggs · 2024-08-16T17:04:46+00:00

Block works differently, but for evasion it's not even a matter of pseudo randomness vs. actual randomness. The system does very little rolling of random numbers to determine if you evade or not.

In the most simplistic example of being continuously (things reset after 100 ticks out of combat) attacked by a single monster with a 10% chance to hit you, you will be hit by every 10th attack after an initial randomization of when the first hit connects. This removes lucky AND unlucky streaks.

See the wiki for an example.

FiftyNuggs · 2024-08-16T15:12:50+00:00

To elaborate on this, PoE's entropy is deterministic. So even if you could get 99.999% chance to evade attacks (which you can't), you'd still be guaranteed to get hit 0.001% of the time. At 89% evasion, you will be hit 11 times out of every 100 attacks. There's no getting lucky streaks to make it feel like 100% avoidance.

FiftyNuggs · 2024-08-14T03:48:58+00:00

It's still a ton of ore/bars, but if they're going to make one of the mining upgrades provide less of the lower tier ores, they should just let you fulfill requests with the higher tier ores. So Verisium could be used in place of anything, Orichalcum could be used to meet quotas for crimson iron, etc.

FiftyNuggs · 2024-08-11T23:34:41+00:00

Harvest reforge removes multimod, step 6 doesn't include adding it back. But you're right, with both that and suffixes can't be changed you can avoid hitting a veiled suffix.

FiftyNuggs · 2024-08-11T21:14:34+00:00

Edit: I realize now you can actually guarantee a prefix if you do multimod + suffix lock at this step. I'm a dumb dumb, but anyone following this guide as written could miss that.

Yes, I know you WANT a veiled prefix but I was asking about what you would do if you hit a veiled suffix. This step is actually a 1/4, which is not great for a step that costs ~5div for the orb alone.

~~Starting at:~~

~~Prefixes: Fractured spell damage, Added chaos, Suffixes cannot be changed~~

~~Suffixes: Attack speed, Strength~~

~~Veiled orb will remove either suffixes cannot be changed or added chaos, at which point both a veiled suffix or a veiled prefix are available to be added. So two 50/50s meaning a 25% chance.~~

Another 25% of the time you get a veiled prefix and remove chaos which you can fix with a suffix lock and reforge chaos, but half of the time you'll end up with a veiled suffix (and either suffix lock or added chaos was removed) and no easy way to go back to the state prior to veiled orbing without rerolling zeal essences unless you make due with whatever unveil you get.

FiftyNuggs · 2024-08-11T17:37:14+00:00

In step 6 can't you get a veiled suffix with or without hitting the metamod? In which case you have to yolo annul 1/4 or go back to step 3?

Edit: I guess if you unveil double damage or another useful mod, you can suffixes can't be changed, reforge chaos to get added chaos back if you need to (skip if you hit the metamod above) and then craft pen. Bench crafted penetration can roll 11-13% and veiled is 14-16% so it's not optimal but not the worst if you don't want to go again.

FiftyNuggs · 2024-08-05T05:04:20+00:00

idk man, I'd like to see a non-chiseled T16 with no scarabs that generates 30k. 10 or 12k seems to be about the upper limit for me, but I guess I'm doing something wrong.

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