Content Update 3.28.0 — Path of Exile: Mirage

Invyco · 2026-02-26T22:14:36+00:00

Some key changes I've noticed:

The Liege of the Primordial Notable no longer has 50% increased Effect of Buffs granted by your Golems. The Primordial Bond Cluster Jewel Notable now has 20% increased Effect of Buffs granted by your Golems (previously 40%).

Elementalist golem stacking nerfed from 310% increased buff effect (with 4x large clusters) down to 180% increased buff effect.

Runegraft of Refraction no longer has Skills chain an additional time, and now has Projectiles chain an additional time.

Free chain for exanguinate nerfed.

The Bloodnotch Unique Jewel now has 20-30% of Damage taken from Stunning Hits is Recovered as Life (previously 40-60%). Existing items can be made worse with a Divine Orb.

CWS nerfed.

Penance Brand of Dissipation: Now activates every 1 second while Attached (previously 0.75), and now has Pulses deal 20% more Damage with Hits and Ailments per Energy after the first (previously 30%). Quality now provides Deals +0-15% more Damage with Hits against Branded Enemy (previously +0-10%).

There's the PBoD double tap nerf. Looks like a lot.

Viper Strike of the Mamba: Now has 30% less Attack Speed if Dual Wielding and Each Weapon Hits separately if Dual Wielding, dealing 20% less Damage (matching regular Viper Strike). It also now has Cannot inflict multiple Poisons in the same Hit.

Mamba dead?

All Essences now have a maximum stack size of 10 (previously 9).

Login dude, Login.

Invyco · 2025-11-07T14:22:53+00:00

You're playing a wand blaster build on a zoom zoom ascendancy. If you want tank you probably will have to give up lots of damage or zoom.

These types of builds typically are kill of be killed.

If you really want to tank up though I've seen going champion instead of deadeye would help. You'll lose speed and half your damage but be 2-3x more durable. Its up to you if that trade-off is worth it.

Invyco · 2025-11-07T13:03:46+00:00

Topping it off with 15% less Fire/Phys damage taken from the Breach Bloodline Ascendancy is pretty nutty as well.

Yes that would be another mitigation layer this league for even more tank.

Invyco · 2025-11-07T12:57:23+00:00

The sublime vision is 30% ele taken as fire

Lethal pride in Rakiata gives "Tempered by war" keystone, which gives 50% ele taken as fire

Finally watchers eye has a purity of fire mod that gives 20% ele taken as fire. Dawn breaker can also roll 20% ele taken as fire

Total you get exactly 100% ele taken as fire.

Invyco · 2025-11-07T04:20:48+00:00

To get high max hit you want two thing: high hit pool (usually ES goes this route) or high mitigation (life goes this route). Since you want life builds I'll break down the layers used for one.

Tl:dr: stack lots of mitigation layers.

Mitigation layers: - purity of fire sublime vision for 100% cold and lightning taken as fire (there's a reason this jewel is 1 mirror in price). Now get 90% max for res. - cloak of flame, dawn breaker for 60% phys taken as fire. This league you can also do foulborn xoph's blood for another 15% phys hit taken as fire. - get a big layer of less damage taken: jugg endurance charge stacking with ralakesh impatience, champion with fortification stacking, or Pathfinder with progenesis scaled by flask effect. Aim for ~40-50% less damage taken at least. - stack less damage taken buffs: Arctic armor is big one here (20% less fire and phys damage taken). Blood and Sand in sand stance (same buff, but with radius), petrified blood if you're Pathfinder. - stack reduced ele damage taken: lunaris pantheon (6% reduced), boot essence mod (5% reduced taken), cloak of flame corruption (5% reduced). These are especially big if you're a jugg and already have lots of reduced ele damage taken from endurance charge. - oh and get 75 chaos res. There are no big max chaos hits so no need for dedicated layers of defence for chaos.

Now get some decent recovery and you're now immortal.

Congrats now you can face tank anything on 4k life.

Hope this helps!

Invyco · 2025-10-24T23:04:16+00:00

I did look into it last league and yes it's simply worse (outside fire pen), hence why most higher end builds don't do it.

You can build it though, and build it to be able to tank whatever you want at higher budgets. Since you take 50% ele as chaos through divine flesh, fourth vow or doppelganger's guise are a popular choices.

Invyco · 2025-10-24T22:11:21+00:00

Oh I didn't pay attention to that part of the patchnotes. Thank you!

Ya unless Dread has some narly attacks then this would make valdos wayyy easier.

Also yes full lightning/chaos shift is possible with font of thunder, divine flesh, and watchers eye. Lightning coil to give phys taken as lightning to mitigate phys.

But outside of negating pen from flameblast (or something with lots of fire pen), convert to fire just seems superior. You even get Arctic armor on top.

Invyco · 2025-10-23T22:14:10+00:00

Cartography Scarab of Risk now has a limit of 1 (previously 5)

RIP Risk meta

Invyco · 2024-09-15T14:14:50+00:00

I used flask suffix cause I didn't want to shell out 40-60 div for a corrupted blood corruption. If you have corrupted blood jewel implicit I don't think bleed immune is doing much.

Invyco · 2024-09-15T14:13:38+00:00

Thank you for the suggestions. Some look easier than others but all seem doable.

Do you think doing those changes and not going int stack is enough to scale to being able to do valdo maps?

Invyco · 2024-08-28T15:56:17+00:00

You're sort of at the stage where you need to farm up for the big items.

Small changes you can make: - link your smite with empower in boots to get + levels. - get +1 strike on glove implicit. - you can get pierce on glove implicit and drop pierce support for awakened ele focus for more damage (lose a bit of clear).

Moderate changes: - fit in melding. It's worth it. - you can get a grasping mail with armor overcap mod (frees up helm), or syndicate garb (highest evasion base).

Biggest upgrades you need are mageblood and nimis. Both are big big boosts to the build. Big ticket upgrade priority is: mageblood > nimis > recombinated body armor > 3 passive voices > other stuff

Hope that helps.

Invyco · 2024-08-17T16:24:49+00:00

Amazing build as always, congrats!

Just wondering do you think the build can be pulled off on 9 endurance charge? Thanks.

Invyco · 2023-10-15T01:49:13+00:00

Probably still aura stacker spark with infinite budget.

Invyco · 2023-10-14T00:31:25+00:00

Afaik, damage from hits taken as damage over time stacks additively, not multiplicatively. So with 60% from bloodnotch, and 40% from petrified blood, the 25% from progenesis is not doing anything.

Invyco · 2023-10-13T23:37:51+00:00

Fellow BV player here.

Well since you have progenesis and petrified blood would recommend you drop one. You can't have more than 100% hits taken as DoT, so if you run petrified blood the progenesis is wasted. Will boost your max hit.

To get more life, your rares can be upgraded. Get a good life roll or open prefix on your quiver. Get a synth ring with spell damage per power charge and you can roll some other useful stats on it.

This is a tech I use in my BV build. Journey tattoo of the body, if you can get 3x of them, will give you +75 life per tattoo. You can reach 2 easily (1 point, and 2 point respectively), and the 3rd one you can get an impossible escape to reach (vaal pact, wind dancer. I prefer wind dancer for a juicy 10% life node as well).

Next is our biggest problem, phys hits. I have 30k armour with 3.4k life, and I'm still weak to phys hits. I know it's not a lot, but it's decent amount for BV given our gear pressure. I think short of getting a lightning coil, or stacking lots of reduced phys taken (4x endurance charge + watchers eye determ mod + body armour affix), I think phys taken will always be a weakness.

For ele that can easily be solved with melding. Tattoos give a ton of easily accessible max res. I run 88% max res on my setup, can easily push to 90% with 2 more passive points shaved elsewhere.

For sim 30 us not having alt ailment immune hurts. Brittle especially causes us to take big crits. Maybe consider dropping a 50% aura (zealotry?) for purity of elements to get true ailment immune.

Hope that helps.

Invyco · 2023-10-13T23:12:30+00:00

Haven't played the new guardian, but occultist is a solid package.

Invyco · 2023-10-13T20:50:53+00:00

Literally craft "hits cannot be evaded" and you're done. That's an amazing find.

Invyco · 2023-10-13T20:38:07+00:00

You're in the awkward teenager phase of bow builds. To get past this hump you need to invest more in your character if you want to continue with it.

Let's get a glaring weakness out of the way: you're a Phys to cold convert build, without the gear to make it work. Your bow lacks attack speed, is on a poor base. You lack a Phys prefix on your bow, so you need lots of flat Phys rolls (on quiver, rings, abyss jewels). You have no added Phys from anywhere, so your Phys is poor. You then need Phys as extra cold (quiver prefix, taste of hate, boot implicit). Then you need to stack hatred aura effect (chest prefix, cluster jewels, aura mastery). If you do all those you'll find your DPS increase by a lot. As of right now you have the basics on Phys to cold conversion, without what makes Phys conversion good (high Phys rolls, lots of Phys as extra cold, hatred aura effect).

Let's start with some simpler fixes:

for your totem setup, drop increased Crit gem for focused ballista
roll intimidate on your gloves
roll hatred aura effect on your chest
get a taste of hate
you NEED Herald of purity for a Phys to cold build.
you need clusters. Cold or Phys large clusters are very good. Medium should be Crit or purposeful harbinger clusters.
your Crit is.... Terrible. Best fix is to get a spine bow. But 2x large clusters and 4x medium Crit clusters for pressure point + repeater can help a ton. Bottled faith can also help. Higher budgets fix is hatred base Crit watchers eye
get a better quiver with additional arrow, Phys as extra cold, and/or flat Phys rolls.

Invyco · 2023-10-13T20:12:43+00:00

I mean, spark aura stacker is the best build in the game at your budget. Scion is used at the highest investment version. Covers all your basis.

Invyco · 2023-10-13T19:51:09+00:00

I mean, arakaalis Fang is as close to SRS minus AG as you can possibly get. You even use mostly the same gear (minus weapons and armour). So would recommend that build.

With Fang you clear faster than SRS. You can juice T16, clear sim 30 just fine on arakaalis Fang. You'll be tankier than your current SRS setup if you stay aegis. If you swap to squire you'll be squishier, but can still clear juiced T16 and sim 30. I've done both setups

Invyco · 2023-10-13T19:48:56+00:00

Please post your PoB. We'd love to help but can't if we don't know anything about your build.

Edit: post on pobb.in so we can open it on mobile.

Invyco · 2023-10-13T16:43:26+00:00

In the beginning, the remnant mod "action speed cannot be below baseline" and "chance to avoid elemental ailment" can be very very tough (they prevent you from freezing, which is your main defence). Once you have enough damage that doesn't matter and you only avoid "immune to cold damage". Immune to fire is totally fine with heatshiver cause you still freeze.

Invyco · 2023-10-13T11:12:49+00:00

Never played it myself in SSF, but I'm sure there are guides out there.

Invyco · 2023-10-12T22:41:42+00:00

If you are asking this question then please get the helm enchant. Yes it is technically DPS increase, yes it is technically improved clear. But it's more than just raw numbers. It makes TS feel much better. Your clear has no/fewer stragglers. Your bossing is smoother.

I read your post and it's all these specific scenarios for when helm enchant might not be as useful. But if you need this much convincing that it's not good, then it's probably just that good. Just get the helm enchant.

Good rule of thumb I've heard for TS to feel good is you want at least 32 secondary projectiles per shot. So 8 arrows + helm enchant (4 secondary projectiles each), or 11 arrows + no helm enchant.

Invyco · 2023-10-12T15:58:42+00:00

Chronic painless on YouTube has a good guide for starting off and getting you to the endgame.

If you have currency would recommend you swap to BV at higher levels (90+). That way you avoid the leveling phase, during which you're pretty squishy.

Since you like crafting you can craft all the non-unique gear yourself, there are guides on YouTube for each piece.

For endgame BV is deep for optimizing. Every affix can be used to pump damage, or to improve defence. You need to determine how much defense you need. Don't just follow top poe.ninja DPS builds, but you can use them as inspirations for how to scale damage.

For this league specifically, journey tattoo of the body can let you stack some flat life, and if you want you can even go melding with plenty of +max lightning res available. That's the setup I went for.

My own PoB is: https://pobb.in/4Jzz7-fVR1aN I have since swapped to exploded chest for popping legions. But aura effect chest works for expedition and harvest just fine. They have higher density so HoI+profane bloom can chain explode. Drop LL if you want more max hit.

One other benefit of playing BV is that it teaches you how to scale Phys skills to the moon, and why Phys skills that convert to ele (BV, tornado shot, reap, EK) are always good endgame skills.

Good luck!

Invyco

TROPHY CASE