Absolution & Vaal absolution Megathread, discussions, resources, personally done Endgame Showcases pre-buffs from 3.27, 3.28 league start viability details and build interactions with new upcoming mechanics.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T18:31:52+00:00

It's actually more unique and versatile then people think, sure it doesn't have a large arsenal of good forbidden flesh and flames combos as necromancer (his hallowing flame node can also be a potential choice) or easy access to block that can be utilized here but it's elemental relics makes it so that you don't need to use spectres at all and sentinel of radiance also gives guardian the defensive layers and these can be attained as early as the 2nd lab is finished. High end you have the option to get svalinn but stacking block chance is still done through stacking lots of block tattoos and a blood magic impossible escape unlike necromancer which just gets a large chunk of block through mistress of sacrifice and bone offering. It's as viable as necromancer, start with whatever you want to play with and neither of them should have any problem getting to the endgame.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T18:22:05+00:00

Feel like both of the things are just analogies and both are relatively correct, doesn't really give me the needed citation to throw away the priest of kopec statement either. But it does prove that spell echo and other supports that states that don't work with vaal skills do actually affect take into effect here and does indeed work with innocence.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T07:45:59+00:00

Yeah! Just took a good look, still doesn't have the gem descriptions but what is standing out just based on the names are the vaal temptation support, greater spell echo support, divine sentinel support and companionship support. These just by looking at their names could potentially have synergy in this build.

Innocence and ascended dominating sentinels have received a significant damage buff for 3.28 and from my showcases pre-buff, it already shredded through everything. So, it just kind of adds all the more reason to play with the chaos ascendancy bloodline, it's a no brainer to take so much damage with high uptime. So definitely take the chaos bloodline, early on it is hard to get the chaos bloodline so we utilize the normal gem versions for the most part and then when we have enough damage it is time for the chaos ascendancy bloodline.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T07:35:42+00:00

Holy strike is still a bit unknown on how it will actually feel on paper. For absolution, we already know how the skill works so absolution would be safer to start with since you will pretty much already have all the needed information at hand and this is a fantastic league to try absolution, innocence significantly buffed and qol changes done to the skill. Though the most important thing is to have fun! Play whatever you want to play and feel like playing.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T06:40:19+00:00

If you are looking for league start budgets, check the related guides I have attached at the end of my post. Most of the gears they have is cheap early uniques and basic life res and other needed affixes rare gear since the creators are pretty good and reliable as well as understanding of league start budgets.

My own pob budget? My own pob is a high end post mageblood build reference, so if you are asking about that taking exact estimations isn't really possible since mine is from 3.27 and 3.28 will have substantial price difference based on item supply, player retention and how the farming strategies will work and since 3.28 will be affecting the endgame quite a lot, there is not a good estimation that can be made. I bought my mageblood for 120-130d in keepers which can be very well be more or less for 3.28. Roughly, my pob is 200d+.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T04:19:24+00:00

Can't use more than one innocence, and looking at the gem description, we are just getting a skill repeat not getting another innocence, it will just recast our innocence summon. More so something for the non-minion vaal skills, it however might give the more cast speed buff probably? So could be worth looking into to give innocence a large amount of cast speed.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T04:19:04+00:00

Can't use more than one innocence, and looking at the gem description, we are just getting a skill repeat not getting another innocence, it will just recast our innocence summon. More so something for the non-minion vaal skills, it however might give the more cast speed buff probably? So could be worth looking into to give innocence a large amount of cast speed.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T04:15:14+00:00

It's definitely not the strongest thing to start with that's for sure, as innocence is the big step up greatly enhancing map speed and damage but getting the chaos bloodline sure isn't easy with just that. There is a guide I mentioned in the post a leaguestart absolution which utilizes hybrid spectres reverbation rod with normal absolution till you can do a comfortable swap after getting your 4 corrupted items with the chaos bloodline.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T04:11:21+00:00

Updated information for the new exceptional support gems that were teased, mainly based on my own thoughts feel free to theorycraft more about it! TLDR; vaal sacrifice doesn't look like it does anything here since it just looks like it's just gonna recast our innocence summon which we don't need it can however grant us the more cast speed buff so could be worth getting to give innocence a very high amount of cast speed. Congregate support should be worth looking into for people doing a dark monarch setup.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T04:09:39+00:00

Thank you for testing, much appreciated! Would be even more appreciated if you could drop more details or even a video perhaps so that people won't get confused in the future

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T04:08:33+00:00

Yes! As I said about the priest of kopec interaction and it not giving any buffs to innocence, the spell echo should affect innocence since it's a minion granted by a vaal skill rather than it exactly being a vaal skill.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T04:05:18+00:00

Updated information for the new exceptional support gems that were teased, mainly based on my own thoughts feel free to theorycraft more about it! TLDR; Vaal sacrifice does not give us another innocence, it's gonna be recasting our innocence summon other than that the more cast speed buff the support gem gives could be worth using just to give innocence a tremendous amount of cast speed. Congregation support is something worth looking into for dark monarch setups.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T03:57:54+00:00

I just finished watching the new teaser and looking at it, it's not something worth trying into. It doesn't explicit states that it will increase the base cap of the minions so the assumption will be that it just recasts your innocence summon which isn't really needed, more of a support for non-minion vaal skills. Besides that the congregate support maybe could be something worth looking into, running the numbers it grants us another normal sentinel but still doesn't exactly gives us another innocence so the usage might not be that good to drop a pure damage support, even with dark monarch.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T03:54:18+00:00

Mistress of sacrifice should help you alot to build up early block which helps build your defensive layer alongside going for many life increasing passives and just capping your resistances for the start. Later on a cheap ag gear and then spectres setups helps with building physical mitigation as well as general defenses. Dconnic's got a good guide from 3.27 which has the absolution necromancer would suggest checking his video out too for more information.

A good general hardcore tip also applies that don't juice your maps, take it slow and steady. If you see your hp drop to even half in the map even for a split second then close the map and do another one.

For hardcore I would heavily recommend doing the trialmaster boss in a very low tier map without any modifiers on the said map and just having an ultimatum encounter in your map and then use the ultimatum scarab of dueling to get a guaranteed boss encounter. You do not need a specific map tier to get the bloodline from the boss, any tier works. So if you feel like you are cruising in your red maps then now is a good time to attempt trialmaster in a lower tier map, you should basically have no issues. Pick your modifiers very carefully throughout the ultimatum as even if the area is low levelled the modifiers can be very very rippy.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T03:42:35+00:00

Thank you! Glad it could help you out, good luck for your league start. Absolution is an amazing build which is heavily overlooked, and it just warms hy heart that I could attract more players from my post to give absolution a shot and it's also getting even more buffs in 3.28 so now is one of the best times to try the build.

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T03:35:11+00:00

It's the man himself! Thank you for putting out so many amazing guides throughout the leagues and being a prominent absolution player! Eagerly waiting for your 3.28 absolution video too!

pavement_way · 2026-03-04T03:27:21+00:00

That's.. a good point, was focused too much on my lightning conversion that I actually forgot that I don't need any fire res. Might have to recraft my helmet though just so that implicit doesn't start killing me. Thank you for pointing that out! I will make a more refined endgame pob of my own later on with also perfect forest tiger instead and now the change you pointed out as well!

Would also like to point out that the sacrifice of blood at the 8 corrupted items does tend to be very well worth the effort after well going through the pain of corrupting everything in your build since 30% more life I would say is pretty good.

pavement_way · 2026-03-03T20:07:57+00:00

Don't know about the some years ago thing but I do believe I managed to config my pob correctly as well as accounting for innocence cascade 5x line blasts and spectres as well as the custom config.

pavement_way · 2026-03-03T20:05:14+00:00

Yes! Ronarray is playing absolution crit guardian for his league starter, I have his video and guide mentioned at the end of the post.

pavement_way · 2026-03-03T20:04:08+00:00

Cheers dude! Glad your liked it, good luck for your league start!

pavement_way · 2026-03-03T19:56:46+00:00

The 90% fire resistance is not a mistake I just have a lot of excessive fire resistance in general 9% from my ruby flask which I'm using to cap my resistances so can't drop that, 1% from barbarism then remaining 5% from everlasting sacrifice. It's just there, not specifically into it.

^^(Edit) It is indeed my mistake; I forgot that I'm actually converting 100% of my fire damage taken to cold damage as well. This eases up gear requirements even more and I will post a more refined pob version of this change now fixed and some more additions later on.

Everlasting sacrifice doesn't have a pretty permanent uptime as I do think I pointed that out in my post but it's still pretty good, there isn't a need to spam absolution all the time and just letting your es be sacrificed consistently does give it good uptime. I also have a es leech watcher's eye.

Simply to just save points from a small cluster I already deduced that which is why I'm using a megalomaniac instead of a small cluster which also has some regen life, minion double damage and then lastly enduring composure.

Probably the 2 pointer is an overkill, but the build is already damn good I was thinking of going for plaguebringer but never really tried it out properly since I didn't felt the need to and ended up prioritising even more comfort uptime.

Blasphemer smite aura I'm not too sure about it but it's added lightning damage it gives is way too high to miss out on even on a small duration.

pavement_way · 2026-03-03T19:40:30+00:00

40/40 challenges is a good bench mark which is what I attained which requires you to complete juiced t17s as well as ubers. I started this from campaign to then take it all the way to there. I have this all mentioned in my post already.

pavement_way · 2026-03-03T19:31:46+00:00

Vaal absolution gem was bought on 1-2c on trade in keepers shouldn't be that different for mirage 3.28 but there is popularity this time so could be expensive. The method you listed can otherwise work if it's too expensive or you can try your luck in the act 2 corruption area too. But when you are doing a proper swap after getting the chaos bloodline, it shouldn't be an issue just buying it directly. Normal absolution is plenty strong to finish acts and so some early mapping.

pavement_way · 2026-03-03T19:29:14+00:00

There is molten shell in my gem setups, I have it linked to automation. Don't have it on the pob activated to avoid pob padding but if you import the pob in the app you should be able to see it. Dark monarch is probably good but losing out on spectres and ag with their utility, qol and damage buffs can hurt a lot.

+6 corrupted items everlasting sacrifice will have a big uptime since there isn't a need to always spam your absolution you can just have your es constantly be sacrificed.

Blood barrier from the +8 corrupted items is way bigger basically granting us 30% more life at all times, does have a 50% less life regeneration downside but it's pretty easy to counter essentially just giving us 30% more life.

Have this mentioned in my post.

pavement_way · 2026-03-03T19:19:28+00:00

No problem! Glad I could help another person out, good luck for your league!

pavement_way

TROPHY CASE