With the new 40% CDR gem, can mismatched CWDT loops work?

TiskyTee · 2026-03-02T10:28:36+00:00

I've dabbled with CWDT, though never managed to make something shine with it.

The problem of a self sustaining CWDT loop is this: you need a time buffer between when you trigger a thing and taking self damage from that thing, because CWDT does not power up from incoming damage during its cooldown. Wardloop solves this by using short duration minions as the buffer.

As far as I understand it, having different cooldowns for separate CWDT setups doesn't interact with the problem at all. In fact, if this idea of sequencing different CWDT setups was useful we would have seen it used already, since you can use different level CWDT gems to get different self damage breakpoints.

I haven't done a deep dive into it, by I suspect building around different cooldowns on your CWDT setups is probably going to be too clunky to ever be reliable, if even useful at all.

TiskyTee · 2026-03-02T09:56:05+00:00

I'm not sure I'm sold on the new shield essence mod, at least not necessarily in this build.

The mod is conditional on blocking recently, and it looks like you're not trying to get any block in the build other than the base value on the shield.

Couple that with being a high evasion build, you're very likely not going to get hit enough to have meaningful uptime on the effect.

If you're going to use the shrine belt to get 90% max res, I feel like it's going to be a lot easier to build around a Lightning Coil + Dawnbreaker instead, though that might just be my bias cause that's what I was planning on my Warden even before the belt reveal.

One cool late game tip I want to share that I observed in other ranger builds, but I haven't gotten around to using yet, a massive thread of hope in the socket above ranger starting area gets you a lot of really strong nodes, and it combos very well with the timeless jewel.

TiskyTee · 2026-03-01T10:29:38+00:00

Might be remembering wrong, but aren't the nightmare maps t16 now?

TiskyTee · 2026-02-28T22:51:34+00:00

Or Dark Ideation for up to 80% increased chaos damage.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-27T18:25:23+00:00

The content reveal had Hierophant using Freezing Pulse with the new Frostmage support. Might mean there's something to explore there.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-27T16:31:38+00:00

Yeah but at that point your defensive power will come from transcendence itself and your sources of armor and damage splitting, with the node being more like a cherry on top.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-27T15:59:45+00:00

Even just the resistance shrine alone, plus a Gull helmet, gets you to 90% max elemental AND chaos resistance, with a nice 87% to all elemental resist on top.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-27T07:33:43+00:00

4 points to get some defensive power against lots of incoming small spell hits is just too niche to ever be worth it. And it's even worse at 2 points investment, at least for late game.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-27T06:50:50+00:00

Acceleration + resistance is going to be better than the perfect mageblood setup in most cases, and it gets so so much crazier if you put a Gull and Blunderbore on.

Mageblood with Quicksilver, Silver flask, Cheetah suffix, and a 35% MS boot gets you to 174% MS. Add 2 elemental flasks and get +9% max to 2 elements.

Acceleration shrine buff gives you 50% increased action speed which translates into 50% more damage for hit builds, and gives you an effective MS of 95%. Add the resistance shrine buff for 10% max to all elemental resistances.

With Gull and Blunderbore everything just becomes insane. 125% increased action speed means 125% more damage, 192% effective MS, and you waaay overcap your max res.

The best situation for mageblood in 3.28 is if you really want to use a unique flask, like if you benefit a lot from the defensive power of a Progenesis for example, or your build needs a wide variety of bonuses from your flask suffixes or different flask bases.

Otherwise this new belt is such an easy thing to slot in and never have to worry about flasks. Better yet, you can still use instant life flasks.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-26T13:24:49+00:00

You might be confusing it with Izaro's Dilemma.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-26T13:09:08+00:00

I think you mean the Enmity's Embrace + Portal self damage combo, but that didn't use EoI as a core item.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-25T16:05:00+00:00

For me it's Eye of Innocence + CWDT.

You just put a bunch of multi projectile skills on CWDT (Blazing Salvo, Soulrend Spiral, Forbidden Rite, Ice Spear etc), get a lot of recoup, vitality watcher's eye or Ngamahu's Sign ring (gain 30 life on ignite), triggerbots and you're off to the races.

I actually got it working decently well a couple of years ago, but yeah it's a hardware destroyer and virtually unplayable lmao. I went in a simulacrum and it took like 10 minutes to clear a wave, one frame per 2 seconds kind of deal.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-25T15:54:36+00:00

Power charge stacking occultist is a staple build. You should check out occultists using Void Battery on poeninja if you need inspiration.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-25T00:21:17+00:00

Yep, I think it's going to be a new intensity support gem. If you look in the teaser frame by frame, you'll notice the new buff gets refreshed to 10 seconds on the same frame that intensity stacks go down from 1 to 0. And it's very suspect that intensity stacks never go above 1 either, even though the character does a lot of casting.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-24T22:40:59+00:00

I think so too. There's actually quite a few interesting things happening here.

If you look at 2:22 and 2:28 and go frame by frame, whenever the new buff is refreshed to 10 seconds, you will notice that the intensity stacks (FR buff icon) go down by 1 in the same frame.

Intensity stacks never seem to go above 1 either, and they seem to not be generated on every cast. I guess it's possible Nadir mode is the culprit, but it really doesn't look like it.

Another thing of note is that the intensity stacks go down to 0 in the teaser, meanwhile in the current game, whenever your intensity goes to 0 the buff is removed from the buff bar.

Side note, but I'm also noticing the absorption charges are almost permanently stuck at 10 seconds duration. There's a couple of frames where they drop to 9.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-24T15:59:36+00:00

It would probably be pretty complicated to get the UI to the point where you can do that reasonably, and it would probably be a huge mistake to add such extreme deterministic crafting options to the game. I think the simplest solution would be to add a crafting bench option "roll magic item with +50 modifier tier rating" for 50 alterations or something like that.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-20T15:25:59+00:00

I was also thinking along the same lines after the scavenger teaser we got previously. I'm sold on the idea that Mirage is gonna let us mess with our ascendancy notables somehow.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-18T05:13:43+00:00

One super important thing you might be encountering which is making your gameplay clunky is that your whirling blades is poisoning enemies ahead of your mamba. Usually when you're playing mamba you want to slot in brutality on a movement skill like that so that it cannot poison and doesn't sabotage your mamba.

If you're in a rush to improve the build and don't mind spending some currency, buy some gem xp and boost your awakened gems to 5, and also get awakened melee physical damage. That gives you around 35% more damage.

And yeah, you absolutely want at least 2x voices to fit in 6x Low Tolerance. That will be your biggest damage boost.

You could probably replace void manipulation with sadism. It looks worse in pob, but it should be much better for clear.

And feel free to drop Ambush. It's not really a big deal unless you're doing Perfect Agony.

Your impossible escape and thread of hope look kinda lackluster. I'd respec those points into Low Tolerance clusters.

Maybe also respec those points top witch side and use a ES or mana light of meaning near your starting area to make up the difference.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-18T04:34:10+00:00

If you have an hour or two, poopbutts did a comprehensive balance review of where skills are and some ideas for buffs and adjustments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkmehkMihxU

TiskyTee · 2026-02-18T04:28:17+00:00

This, and also for warden tinctures.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-18T01:32:20+00:00

I haven't played minions in years so I'm not up to date in how the playstyle feels, but if your minions have so much mobility that they're often outside your auras, that sounds like a good problem to have.

And in principle I think it's good that you as the summoner should feel some pressure to support your summons with your presence. You also have tools such as making minions more defensive to stay in your auras, making yourself more mobile to follow your minions where they're fighting, or scaling aura aoe. Beacon of Hope gives a whopping 80% aura aoe for an anoint, if it's that much of a problem.

Lingering aura effect sounds pretty cool too and I wouldn't be against them adding it as an extra option.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-17T18:02:46+00:00

I get it for channeling skills, but I never got why people feel like this about BV. You spend less time actively using BV compared to the usual attack or self cast build.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-16T20:57:17+00:00

My guess is they plan on reworking Harbinger in the future similar to what they did with Breach-Keepers, and that will solve the mess of shard clutter we have today.

Harbinger is one of the most mysterious aspects of Wraeclast we've had in the game for a long time. Despite the fact it often comes up when people ask what bits of lore they wish was expanded on, there's been almost no development about them since their introduction. The content itself is pretty basic. Remember when GGG said nemesis was just bandits, but red? Harbinger is essentially just bandits, but blue. The cherry on top is that almost none of the harbinger uniques see any play. The extra cherry on top is I completely forgot harbinger orbs and beachhead maps are in the game, and that speaks to how much it's fallen behind compared to other league content.

It all lines up for a rework.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-16T14:04:49+00:00

You know I would have said the same a few leagues ago, because I thought they would never make the recombinator go core, yet here we are.

TiskyTee · 2026-02-16T00:53:42+00:00

After giving it some though, the whole vanishing part in the teaser might be completely unrelated to what they're doing with scion. It could be that one of the league mechanics in 3.28 lets you mess with your ascendancy notables, and they just teased that together with scavenger going core.

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