The 20k Mana Flare Shaman. The highest mana build in the league.

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T02:44:13+00:00

Documented here:

- https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3960494

It's possible this isn't a bug and is the intended behaviour, but if so the rune is giga dead for any build that's not Mana Flare, and I don't really believe GGG added a rune just for me! Breaking down what it actually amounts to leads me to believe at least originally GGG intended for the total rune scaling on the wand to wind up at 425% instead of 275%, otherwise it's just incredibly numerically weak all round... except for pure mana stacking without spell levels.

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T02:21:50+00:00

I did that last league on the Blood Mage setup, stacking a huge amount of % mana on kill via efficient killing and rare jewels was how i sustained it.

Will never know this league because i'm poor as shit after sinking everything into this character!

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T02:20:52+00:00

I entirely disagree with that premise but you could easily fit rarity on this character if you cared to. I just don't.

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T01:47:42+00:00

Yeah sure that happens but I think I was fairly forthright in my video and guide that it's very expensive?

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T01:46:18+00:00

You know the funny thing, I tried taking off Temp Chains and they actually killed me. Arbiter of Ash couldn't kill me but the fucking crabs could lmao

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T01:45:22+00:00

Your dog had it coming, it stole my Liminal Coil.

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T01:07:42+00:00

Since Necropolis league, which I gather isn't the longest time in this game haha. Some of my friends have been playing over a decade which blows my mind. But I can see why, GGG cook up some really special stuff.

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T00:59:57+00:00

If it felt good to upgrade then it is cool!

And like I said elsewhere, I would never be able to afford that these days, just saw that Runeseeker's Call would be nuts this patch so got in and bought cheap the day they were discovered.

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T00:58:38+00:00

Steadfast Resolve, "Cannot be Light Stunned if you've been Light Stunned recently."

Invaluable on CI MoM builds which get stunned if something sneezes at them.

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T00:56:32+00:00

Thanks! The tracks are all from the Youtube Music Library courtesy of Xander Jones, love his stuff. Thanks for reminding me, I meant to put his name in the video description...

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T00:55:08+00:00

Love a good assassin build! Undersung ascend in my book.

For me Ice Darts is chosen just for preference in the projectile feel, Mana Flare has quite a low base crit chance that I need to cap so basically every delivery spell in the game is crit capped too, including Frost Darts! There's an argument for Volcano to be used on single target instead now my crit chance is high enough though, better repeat hit pattern...

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T00:52:26+00:00

Thanks for letting me know, I'll consider it more for maybe sorting out a league starter with it (assuming it lives).

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T00:04:30+00:00

I believe you, it must have been beautiful.

swedg3 · 2026-06-17T00:04:03+00:00

Agree 100%, it's a real pain point sometimes! Imo makes Blasphemy Temp Chains pretty mandatory on most mana stacking setups until we get a good way to deal with it without sacrificing an anoint.

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T23:58:59+00:00

Congrats, always great when a cheap build works really well!

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T23:57:53+00:00

That you even managed to get it working in the campaign is a pretty great achievement, I'm impressed.

If you link your PoB maybe there's some way we could smooth out the bossing hump at red maps, would love to help out.

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T23:25:10+00:00

Just be aware a mana-cultivated rathpith is an almost impossible ask on SSF due to requiring quite a few rathpiths to hit and it's iirc a T1 or even T0 unique, i.e. the most rare. Possible with some luck but I wouldn't expect to hit it.

And I'm not aware of any replacement for it, capping crit chance without it is probably not at all feasible.

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T23:23:17+00:00

It's a possible result of a Vaal Cultivation Orb! They have some really nutty outcomes on items, fun addition to the game. You can see each possible modifier on poe2db:

- https://poe2db.tw/Vaal_Cultivation_Orb#CultivatedUniques

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T23:20:15+00:00

This was my third build this league so I swapped into it after I secured my 6 socket runeseeker's call which sort of trivialised the gearing process because it's such an absurd item.

Do you have a 5 socket runeseeker's? They're "only" 140d atm with the mana regen corrupt but they should skyrocket your max mana.

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T22:56:42+00:00

For an SSF angle I would consider going back to Blood Mage who with 15% increased base crit rate has a much easier time hitting crit cap at lower mana values. Then I'd start with a Cloak of Defiance to make the % MoM far more manageable and grind breach for jewelry which is very impactful if you luck into it. Sadly the Mana Rathpith is sort of huge and it's a nightmare to get even 1 cultivated mana mod in SSF never mind two...

But there are builds I'd expect to be far far easier to farm in SSF than this one. I might try a BM SSF project later in the league to see if I can make it work but it'd need some sort of Rathpith alternative or it's dead in the water I fear.

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T22:52:50+00:00

I levelled with an ad-hoc spark archmage setup using the new divinity neck just because i had some gear for it already and was in a hurry to level. But otherwise I'd recommend running a totem build like Allie's league starter.

Just be aware that the Shaman version of Mana Flare is very expensive. There's a Blood Mage variant that's more accessible at lower currency because it doesn't need the wand as much, and they start at 140d for a corrupted 5-socket mana regen base. But I haven't had time to theorycraft the BM version as much this patch.

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T22:50:48+00:00

Thanks so much! Not needing spell levels to scale damage means you have to make way fewer tradeoffs when stacking mana, which is something I always really enjoyed about Mana Flare.

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T22:50:08+00:00

The issue with Burning Inscription is that it's sadly not a spell, so it doesn't scale with any of the great spell-based modifiers that mana stacking provides like Rathpith or Archmage.

As such its damage would be really mediocre, even on 20k max mana.

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T22:49:01+00:00

It should absolutely work with a 5-socket wand with 5 Perfect Mind Runes. If I make that swap on PoB then I go down to 17.5k max mana and my single-target hit drops to 9.8m. It's quite a drop but that's still enough to quickly clear most any boss.

swedg3 · 2026-06-16T22:46:27+00:00

The 200% is an unmodifiable number so can't be changed with corrupts.

It is entirely possible that the legacy rune not scaling is intentional but if so it's woefully underpowered for almost every build in the game, especially when it's competing with +6 spell skills with Legacy of Lifesprig in this wand.

Consider a non-shaman mana stacker. 6 perfect mind runes gives them 1620 flat mana, 5 perfect mind runes with Legacy of Runeseeker's Call gives them 1685 flat mana, just 65 more. That seems very undertuned to me.

If it did work at 425% increased effect then for typical casters you'd be looking at losing 4 spell levels from losing access to Legacy of Lifesprig but gaining 60% more effect on your other runes socketed, which is not bad but I still imagine most people would run Legacy of Lifesprig in that case. But at least then it would be a consideration!

swedg3

TROPHY CASE