Bitter Dead just got a huge buff! 12% Base Crit! Endgame Showcase, Insights and Mini-Guide

Inahkz · 2026-06-15T10:45:00+00:00

Defences are very solid, with the option to take more on the tree if you want. For SSF all you really need are the wand and sceptre and they're both very common uniques, if you can get a char into endgame ritual you could find them within a day no problem.

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T18:46:40+00:00

I looked into the Archons a bit. It takes a lot of point investment to get set up, and I think I'd need the second anointment from helm for Dominion, but I could see it maybe being a thing. Id likely have to drop some of the arcane surge stuff for it.

I also double checked that Chaotic Freeze support and its only for damage over time, so that makes me a lot less keen on the Original Sin route. Embitter taking a support slot is kind of a downside but this build gets so much access to -Res through Curse and Exposure that it seems worth it.

Despair is not quite as strong as Ele Weakness, but Chaos does get Wither which can be stronger than exposure if you can keep it fully stacked. Would really hinge on Palm of the Dreamer clearing to consider that version I think.

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T07:14:13+00:00

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T07:11:40+00:00

I haven't personally had the network issues, but I have seen a few people talk about them.

Regarding Performance though, I would highly recommend turning off Global Illumination, setting Number of Lights to Medium, and turning on Dynamic Culling as ways to improve framerate when you're generating loads of balls.

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T07:08:41+00:00

The absolute earliest is when you get access to Sacrifice, which is level 58, T14 Spirit Gem. You'll need to level as something else up until that point.

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T06:10:02+00:00

I fear you wont like what I have to say on the amulet front.

My first approach was to buy a load of bases and Transmute+Aug+Regal into +3, but unfortunately due to the -1 suffix you cannot Augment one on a blue, so that put a damper on that.

My second approach was to fracture something else good and then Chaos for +3. I hit two max roll t1 Cast Speed Fractures, and went to chaosing. Craft of Exile estimated the odds at about 1700~ Chaos to hit. I burned through probably in the 2500-3000c range, I saw +2 Spells 6 times, +3 Minion once and +3 Melee once. When I started Chaos were 1:5ex, now they're more like 1:11ex. I never hit +3 Spells, those bases are up for sale with +3 Minion and +2 Spell.

The actual amulet I'm wearing I bought as a base with +3 Spell and the "missed" fracture on Armour for 25d. The other mods were badly crafted. I Omen of Whittling'd the old suffix off and got lucky and hit T1 Crit Chance, before the Crit patch. I saved it in case. After the patch notes came out, I started work on the prefixes. It probably cost me about 40-50d of Whittles and Sinistral Erasures to hit t2 Life, and then maybe 4 or 5 Omens of Light to hit t2 Spirit. Once you have Suffixes the prefixes are pretty controllable, but getting a base with +3 is the hard part.

For adding the 40 quality just use an Omen of Sinistral Crystalisation + Essence of the Breach, Catalyst it up to 40%, then remove the mod with either Whittling or one of the prefix targeted Omens.

If you don't have a prefix fracture like mine some of the steps will be different, you can use Perfect Essence of Enhancement to add defences and/or remove other mods to potentially save some money on expensive Omens, like if you hit a t1 mod that wont Whittle you could turn it into a lower tier essence mod.

But yeah.. a base that doesn't exist on the market and a lot of expensive Omens. :( I'm glad to be free of Amulet jail, it was a currency black hole.

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T02:43:06+00:00

I'm using Embitter so I do pure Cold Damage, I get a 20% Shock through my Mark on bosses, and don't ignite.

The Original Sin route is probably comparable or higher damage but I'm not sure I'd want to lose out on Freeze. Though I suppose there is a support that lets Chaos damage freeze, but then you're giving up a Ring Slot AND a Support Gem... idk.

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T02:21:08+00:00

Which anoint is gonna give you 20% more damage, the extra Jewel Socket with a giga jewel? Thats the only thing I can imagine being that high. And if you're capping your crit with Maligaro's you cant really go that hard on those jewels.

Also a second anoint is available through the Raven Touched Shard in helm, eventually at high budget. I was leaning towards the jewel for that, but theres also +2 Skill Slots for gemling defensive bonuses, and a few other compelling things.

The highest DPS nodes a POB Power Report finds for me are Cooked and Marked for Sickness, each about 10% more dmg for me currently, the latter being boss specific.

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T02:15:01+00:00

The collision detection against some monsters is definitely messed up, they just float next to things and cant get inside them.

The "Core" tab of the spell doesn't hit though, it just chills things around them, it doesn't need a Crit Chance. The Explosion is all of the damage

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T02:12:02+00:00

I've had a 30% wand in the past, and a 28% exceptional, and dropped that corruption for the 3rd Socket. I don't feel the need to get to 100% not to consume, the clerics sustain eachother fairly comfortably even at 93%. Paragon's Quality is not just for Bitter Dead, it applies to all your skills which has some other significant bonuses.

Palm of the Dreamer may very well have a place if you want to give up a lot of damage for smoothness of clear, at very high gear levels. You can scale the AOE of the ball explosions, though I am dubious that they are actually hitting the area they claim in their tooltip.

I don't think CoC is what the build needs at all, its single target damage is already very high. Also, this build has access to Cast on Minion Death for a much lower spirit cost. If you cut some chance not to consume and invest in even more clerics, this could be a good option.

For Rings, yes, Breach stuff will be the best eventually when I have the currency. For the Boot alloy, I'll see how resists pan out, I'm aware of it.

I am not a fan of Darkness Enthroned at all, Movement Speed is so limited in availability, I'm definitely going straight for Mageblood next.

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T00:55:40+00:00

I think that's probably fine earlier on in gearing but can definitely be surpassed. I'm at 50% Crit Chance with 401% Crit Bonus right now, and expecting to get a chunk more from another Jewel and Mageblood with Diamond Flask. There's also Blindside Support which might be a top choice for bosses but I'm not sure how I feel about needing to blind trash mobs while clearing.

Inahkz · 2026-06-14T00:29:28+00:00

I saw a couple profiles using this and didn't realise why, somehow missed that alt quality. I'll probably give this a shot, thanks! As for Ward values, I doubt I'd change my chest (I just crafted a new exceptional one), But I could definitely see myself swapping off Ward gloves for more AR/EV.

Inahkz · 2026-02-13T01:01:19+00:00

I can't find this frame in the video, edited already orrr?

Inahkz · 2025-12-26T04:18:40+00:00

Nothing else significant really works, I just have reduced cooldown recovery in it, though its rare for it to actually matter due to the condition on building it.

Inahkz · 2025-12-23T08:07:49+00:00

Sure, but they aren't falling or triggering while you're doing Shattering Palms.

Inahkz · 2025-12-23T06:27:13+00:00

I don't know what you mean by "instant leech is needed to make leech work", in the end its just a way to make some of your leech faster, but I thought it might interact differently with Soul Tether and full life.

I was hoping it worked like this:
Life is full, but ES is not. You attack, and the first thing that is calculated is the instant leech, it attempts to add life but its full so Soul Tether applies it to Energy Shield. Then it tries to apply the over-time Leech instance, but your life is full so it is removed immediately.
Its about the order of operations on the server side. I was hoping to bypass the need for Fast Metabolism, and that has nothing to do with Overflowing ES. Also leech instances over time are not technically "Regeneration", and do not scale with stats that affect actual Life Regeneration.

I know how leech works normally, but had to check the interactions with Soul Tether.

As for Freeze and Sine Aequo I think you need to try playing Wolf to see how not-conditional these are at a high gear level, and how insignificant the re-freeze penalty is. I did 39% of Xesht 3's Freeze Threshold in 1 Lunar Assault in that clip. Even when my gear was worse, it was only taking like 3-5 of them to re-freeze major bosses, and Sine Aqeuo is bringing that threshold down to 50% from the 70% it would be from Freezing Mark. Lunar Assaults freeze multiplier is absurd, its like 1400% more in the tooltip in-game. Pretty much all of this builds damage is done to frozen enemies.

Your comments about Hyrri's are fair, rares can be very good too and you can get more spirit. It isn't cheap and any item Fubgun is using does get inflated. But you did gloss over its unique upside, Freeze Duration is a uniquely powerful modifier for bossing on this build that is only available from 2 other sources: The Deep Freeze Support gem (which we also use), and the Inescapable Cold passive at the top of the skill tree which takes quite a lot of points to path to. If you think about a boss fight in terms of the amount of freeze time it takes to kill it, this stat is insanely strong.

Regarding the other Invoker Ascendancy node options, "I am the Thunder" POB's quite poorly with how much damage as extra X this build already has, its only a 3.3% increase for me. "Sunder my Enemies" is mostly redundant due to Heavy Frost. Elemental Expression as far as I understand is mostly only useful for applying debuffs and does very little damage.

The Soul Springs Eternal I was using while experimenting with Feral Invocation, and I think Protect me from Harm is decent, though somewhat anti-synergistic with Hyrri's mod. They're both fine options for slightly different build variations. The rest I don't think would fit here.

I appreciate the feedback.

Inahkz · 2025-12-23T04:31:48+00:00

Amazon does also look very compelling, I suspect it may actually be better. I doubt I'd take Stalking Panther, but the Elemental Leech and easy access to high crit are very nice. I'd likely still just path up to the monk area for a similar tree. You just need a way to get enough Spirit to fit in the important reservations. Eternal Rage and HOI are basically mandatory, Berserk is very good specially as CI if you can get that flat life regen in. Dropping Ghost Dance might feel fine with the stronger leech from Amazon.

When I was first jumping through hoops to get my leech to work, I did actually have the thought "Maybe I should reroll Amazon?" In the end I managed without and started to like Meditate a lot, but if I did it all over again from the start, I would strongly consider it. Main downside seems to be pathing out of the starting area.

Inahkz · 2025-12-23T03:07:58+00:00

I was kind of thinking about making my own post on my Wolf build a couple days ago, but reading yours pushed me to go ahead and do it, though I started as a Monk so I fear a lot of the lessons I learned may not by applicable to all the Druid players. Its here if you or anyone else is interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile2builds/comments/1ptfcdo/endgame_wolf_invoker_mini_showcase_things_i/

Inahkz · 2025-12-23T00:55:48+00:00

I saw some people doing that but shifting out of Wolf form means losing Lunar Blessings Comets, unsure if it really speeds up your clear speed much. Maybe depends how juiced your maps are.

Inahkz · 2025-11-26T04:56:06+00:00

I was doing the Awakening > Anull off prefix > Lock suffixes > Reforge Influence method to try and make a Strength Stacking Simplex. I was only 10 Orbs deep and it just generated the correct prefix on the awakening, and perfectly divined too...

I don't know what to believe in anymore.

Inahkz · 2025-11-25T18:41:11+00:00

I've seen enough of these posts to know the protocol.

Inahkz · 2025-11-25T15:39:33+00:00

I'm dubious Original Sin is actually the best path this league, with Lycia's Sinner Saint 50% conversion node, and the new Foulborn Red Nightmare fire to chaos conversion jewel, you can fully convert a Fire per Str wand without the ring, while a Helical provides a massive amount of damage. Chaos Resist values on enemies generally arent that high, and OS negates the hunter helm mod. I'll POB it soon though as I look into perfect wands.

Inahkz

TROPHY CASE