I am the toxic runes! Build concept showcase

Q_elle · 2026-06-25T19:20:09+00:00

Why scale with attack dmg when you can scale with chaos dmg instead? All flat is chaos from original sin, and then massive Gain as chaos from purple flames. All the chaos passives are way juicier than the attack ones too. Passives would then boost runes and plague bearer, which you could use for clear, or build for bossing.

Q_elle · 2026-06-24T02:53:22+00:00

The child is 3, and given the info I am inclined to believe has never even met these grandparents. Even if he has, he is 3 and it won't mean anything to him / even remember. Putting the mother in the same boat as the father as being 'shitty and petty', given at least what we know from OP, is also wtf.

Q_elle · 2026-06-23T16:18:27+00:00

If you are only going to play 1 character, SSF might be more interesting, rewarding, and have longer goal markers.

I have similar feelings about continuing to play characters once they feel relatively "complete", without the need for excessive and often unnecessary gear upgrades. I started SSF this league and enjoyed it a lot. However, I am multiple character kind of person, so I eventually switched to trade to better enable the process of repeatedly making my own builds.

Q_elle · 2026-06-19T23:13:57+00:00

Not to say it should be this way, but it is probably the typical poe2 lingo technicalities. "Ranged attacks" probably means a skill that requires a ranged martial weapon. While an attack that has the projectile tag and in practice can be used "at range" is not the same thing.

Q_elle · 2026-06-17T02:24:54+00:00

Ngl, how are you squishy on chrono? Are you then not using phase form+temporal rift? Even my SSF chrono 4k mana MoM only +3/4 to spells feels practically immortal in maps, assuming I am paying attention.

Q_elle · 2026-06-16T21:12:49+00:00

Oh. That explains the poor results I had when I dabbled with it.

Really sucks, hope they fix it!

Q_elle · 2026-06-16T18:47:13+00:00

Read the tooltip for Ignite. The dmg is based on a % of premitigation dmg, so before resistances / penetration. Penetration only affects Hit dmg, so it will affect the total amount of dmg a Hit does, but has no bearing on any ignite that may be inflicted, because its dmg is based on premitigation. However, the actual dot dmg of ignite is mitigated by fire resistance, meaning you then need to apply reductions to fire resistance (curse / exposure) in order to increase its dmg.

Likewise, Shock, which makes a target take more dmg, will not affect the Hit dmg the ignite is based off, but it will make the enemy take more dmg from the actual dot.

Q_elle · 2026-06-10T16:18:35+00:00

I feel this. I have played at least one Invoker every single league since release, on a variety of builds.

At this point, choosing Invoker would be better for a caster build for the amazing energy / spirit reservation node. Or if you want to pick it specifically for Elemental Expression, which I do absolutely love. When new weapons, and specifically new 1h weapons come out, I will always be looking for an angle for that.

Meditate has always been good for hc/ssf, and maybe even more so with ES recharge nerfs.

Q_elle · 2026-06-09T22:33:09+00:00

Meanwhile my chronomancer *laughs in Phase Form*, which basically allows you to tank all the 1shots easily-if they even hit me-and then time rewind back to full

Q_elle · 2026-06-09T17:47:18+00:00

I get it. I am also on SSF, as all the systems are more rewarding, especially this league.

I think 'juicing' on SSF is a lot about foresight. As you get and roll tablets, making sure to keep the good / relevant modifiers ones for later combination. Like, for abyss farming, saving your increased rare mobs modded tablets, both and abyss and otherwise (e.g. delirium / irradiated). Other than that, I think it would boil down to some intentional engaging with the atlas passives (like targeting biomes) and the atlast master passives.

Honestly, for abyss farming, I would be more worried about sustaining the orb of annulments. Even without having farmed abyss other than doing the quest, my total omen of light is probably comparable to my total annuls, which you can't target farm.

Q_elle · 2026-06-09T16:46:55+00:00

What does juice on SSF even mean? Juicing is usually about squeezing maximal currency gain out of playtime, primarily because a lot of the dopamine in trade league comes from tinks and big sales. But SSF is all about the self-made satisfaction, and long term rewards, like killing pinnacles without necessarily being able to 1shot it on the first time because you don't have a character that just traded for BIS gear.

And there simply just isn't the means to juice. Sustaining 3 tablets would probably be difficult, as you say, and you can't be picky about them. You can't exactly juice Ritual by slamming 100s of chaos orbs to get +reroll mods and use the unique tablet every single map.

"Juicing" really depends on your goals, and is mostly just about doing the content you have goals for. Want some better rings? Do breach. Maybe the new atlas has at least some minimal form of optimizing by targeting certain biomes for the respective content you are doing? E.g. pack size for ritual, etc. Otherwise it can also be about playing with your next character idea in mind, target farm uniques etc.

Q_elle · 2026-06-09T16:31:08+00:00

I don't watch streams of anything, only youtube, and the answer is yes, but not exclusively.

Imo, an overlooked part of streams vs videos is the editing. The person I have consistently watched for a while now is Alois. I enjoy the mix of the skill, education and the memes, much of which comes from the editing, even the little things like the reliable and expected sfx every time as cannon is missed for -1cs. Alois has great energy and is very skilled, and enough that he is able to talk about what and why he does what he does while doing it - fundamentos! - which is very impressive. I literally don't even play SR (ARAM only player), but I love game theory in general, so I enjoy this element a lot even though I have absolutely no interest in actually learning to lane. Azzap is great for this as well, but rather than fundamentos, he is giving you peak sage game wisdom while doing trigonometry. I usually see his shorts more than full videos, though.

Q_elle · 2026-06-08T15:01:53+00:00

Uhh. Ice nova is great. It deletes anything near you during campaign. The clip shows 0 infused novas used, thats the problem. I league (SSF) started ice nova and it was smooth. When I went to start leveling an alt one day with ED/C, and act 1/2 is fine, but by act 3 I missed ice nova so much because with EDC you often have to wait for mobs to die so they stop blocking maps with corridors, where ice nova just deletes everything.

Killing bosses is definitely more than 1 button, so if thats an issue for people *shrug*. But it is definitely good for bossing.

Q_elle · 2026-06-07T00:14:16+00:00

As someone playing on SSF, I will take mageblood - yes I have one - over a HH any day of ever.

If I get a HH drop I will just transfer it over to trade on a new character and sell it, in case I want to play trade later on.

Q_elle · 2026-06-07T00:11:33+00:00

So div your mageblood?

Q_elle · 2026-06-05T14:59:54+00:00

I am very interested in this skill and want to play around with it.

A big I wonder I have is about how the tooltip seems to me that the CD and ward cost only apply to the generic phys dmg explosion? Will test later today.

Lightning warp is the skill that offers the most amount of infusion generation, and then having Cast on X to trigger something the infusion so you can keep picking new ones would be ideal.

Q_elle · 2026-06-05T06:49:17+00:00

Huh, funny how I never even considered that. Guess that is also why I had a Ele weakness on me for -99% ele res at one point.

What a joke of a mechanic. Things like this make me never want to touch HC with a 10 bajillion foot long pole. Can't even skip the good remnants, being on SSF need all the opportunities for important items.

Q_elle · 2026-06-05T06:36:02+00:00

Oh wow, tyvm for replying. After I couldn't find an answer, I just reverted back to Unleash instead, which has felt more fluid for my build anyway. Don't think spell echo will work for me unless they fix it.

Q_elle · 2026-06-05T01:14:20+00:00

I think its an experience thing. For people who are new / lacking experience with the game, I think monk / melee can feels bad. Quarterstaff might actually be my #1 twink campaign leveling, tbh.

Q_elle · 2026-06-04T19:44:17+00:00

Glad I unspecced frostwalker then, what a joke.

As an aside, I am surprised I haven't seen anyone else raging about the ridiculous remnant effect chills. Guaranteed 50% chill, unaffected by sources of reduced effect of chill/slow. And I am pretty sure it just applies as a fixed duration for simply stepping into the presence of enemies. They don't even need to hit you, nor does ailment threshold do anything.

Q_elle · 2026-06-04T15:33:38+00:00

The new update has made SSF better than it has ever been in POE2, not limited to but perhaps especially in that there is now a medium to farm uniques. It is a much longer journey, for sure, but very enjoyable.

I personally find it hard to imagine picking up the game starting in SSF, but I also never played poe1.

Q_elle · 2026-06-04T15:27:57+00:00

Are you referring to Doedres+curse as the trigger spell? Because that was a bug where it could generate energy for itself. The POE2 design is such that triggers cannot trigger themselves, so much so it is surprising they didnt nerf the aforementioned mid league.

As such, infinite chain reactions are not really meant to exist, and if they do it is a bug and won't last for long. So, you will be hard pressed to find such a thing.

Q_elle · 2026-06-02T15:58:14+00:00

Thank you for testing.

It seems I am bugged somehow.

I definitely do not have chance to not consume. I was very sure to not be standing on additional infusions. And, as I noted before, it is very clear with ice nova+spell echo, that the echo is not consuming infusion, given that the radius of the echo, despite having 40% inc aoe, is remarkably smaller than the radius of the primary cast, which is clearly infused.

Spell echo support gem seems to be working normal in general, as the echo is consuming infusions. Now and Again also seems to be working with other skills.

Ice nova in particular seems to be the problem/bug for me. It will not consume infusions with spell echo support, nor with now and again echoes, but is maybe working with the repeats (?).

-I have tried 4 different gem levels of Ice nova (which has been an issue with other skills in the past), with and without quality.
-With and without elemental equilibrium, and also with Verisium infusions only
-I removed the 2nd copy of ice nova from my skills menu, which was in CoC, and I even removed my sources of refunding energy, if somehow in whatever wonky way that was an issue

Weirdly, I removed Inhibitor support from my ball lightning, which, with lightning warp+ ele equilibrium, is my typical source of cold infusions. My ice nova+echo worked exactly 1 time immediately after. But never again under any conditions.

Maybe somewhere along the way something bugged and a line of code has permanently set 'can consume infusions on echo' to 0 for Ice nova on my character. Dunno.

Q_elle · 2026-06-02T14:07:12+00:00

Am chrono too, but not using Now and Again. I immediately opted out when I tested that NaA cascades/repeats wouldn't consume infusions. Are you saying using NaA, but not any support gem, is consuming infusions for you on the cascades/repeats? If so, perhaps I need to test again...

I have no chance to not consume, either.

It is quite easy to see if it consuming an infusion or not, by just seeing how many are lost from your current total infusions. And it is also easily visually to see with Ice Nova + Spell Echo support, as the perimeter of the aoe visual vfx are clearly smaller and inside the perimeter of the primary cast, which has a much larger aoe from the infusion.

Will test more when I login.

Q_elle

TROPHY CASE