[Top 10] Path of Exile Best Endgame Builds That Are Powerful

In Path of Exile Patch 3.18, Sentinel League, with the balance changes freeze, the meta builds, the strongest ones, have already been solved for about 6 months, and as such, we see many repeated ones that dominate Wraeclast, and here is a list with the 10 strongest ones!

10 – Explosive Arrow Ballista 

EA Ballistas against Maven

Undeniably the most played build in 3.17, and a favourite league starter of 3.18, calling it a Flavor of the Month build would be a euphemism. Able to clear any content on a 5L and white weapons, this build can take you from the start to the endgame in no time and seemingly no effort!

The single most important stat you want is Attack Speed. As such, you’ll want the quickest bow possible to be able to stack 20 EA Fuses, increasing your damage exponentially.

Since our ballistae attack by themselves, we can focus on dodging and avoiding enemy damage. Unlike most attacks, EA scales extremely well with Levels, and as such, you’ll want at least a +3 bow with extra stats, preferably attack speed and fire dot multi.

Our defences come in the form of 100% Spell Suppression and lots of Evasion, as well as having our ballistas taunting and absorbing part of the damage we take instead.

What the Explosive Arrow Ballista Ignite Excels in:

• Insanely high single target Ignite Damage.
• Clears reasonably well.
• Can do all content.
• League Start, HC, SSF viable.

Pick Explosive Arrow Ballista Ignite If you Like:

• A simple build to play that doesn’t require a lot of skill to play, but allows you to move around and dodge things while your payload takes care of everything.
• Use the skill right from the start and cruise through all content with nary a care in the world.
• Having a perfect league-starting build that can deal with all Pinnacle Bosses on a budget.

Full build details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2152CGDS6d4

9 – Detonate Dead Ignite

Detonate Dead Ignite against Map Boss

In a similar vein to the previous build, this one is also ignite-based but using the life % of a monster. It was actually a FotM build in Scourge League and sustained some heavy nerfs, but it has persevered and it’s still insanely strong due to a condoned (by GGG) bug involving spectres in 3.18!

Despite the nerfs that Desecrate and Spectres received, cutting down on their maximum life as well as QoL nerfs, this build changed to incorporate the highest level of Phantasmal Unearth as possible, in order to scale corpse level as high as possible, since we deal damage based on the corpse’s life.

We achieve that by equipping a +5 Hands of the Templar together with Empower and Enhance, to further boost the Unearth’s level and quality, and with a +5 Corpse Level Unearth helmet enchant, we can reach level 90 corpses!

While this is still a great League Start build, you need to invest a lot to become a monster at deleting bosses. It can reach, however, upwards of 20 million Ignite DPS.

What the DD Ignite Excels in:

• Massive base damage without heavy investment.
• Super tanky, block capped with Aegis.
• League Start, SSF, and HC Viable.
• Good clearing with prolif.

Pick Detonate Dead Ignite If you Like:

• Have an advantage over every other league starting builds, due to a bug with Spectres and how they grant you over 60% more damage.
• 2-button playstyle, and incinerating everything in your screen, without ever having to deal with corpses again.
• Blowing up bosses in an instant.

Full build details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0J2OKBruWY

8 – Pohx’s Righteous Fire Inquisitor

Righteous Fire and Scorching Ray Celestial MTX

Pohx is a very well-known streamer and content creator and a favorite of mine, and as he is wont to do, he loves playing builds that deal damage to themselves in order to do damage, like Death’s Oath or RF. Combined with substantial buffs and nerfs, as well as massive changes to how RF works, RF became a FotM build in 3.16 and 3.17, and with the balance freeze, Pohx’s mostly responsible for heralding this build into the meta of 3.18.

Righteous Fire works by continuously sacrificing over a third of your Life and ES to deal part of that damage to enemies surrounding you as fire damage, and since the way to scale damage is by getting more Life and ES, you progressively get tankier and tankier.

In 3.17, Melding of the Flesh was added to the game, and with it, we can easily get 90/90/90 Elemental Resists, by stacking a single resistance and then mimicking it for the other resists. And our shield of choice, this time, is an Aegis Aurora, for +5% Max Cold Res, and we scale as much Max Cold res as possible, with Purity of Ice level 23 and loads of Aura Effect!

To increase your damage further, we use a secondary 6L with Fire Trap, since 3.17 buffed it, granting the highest base damage over time of all skills! With Replica Soul Tether, 50% of all damage bypasses Energy Shield and grants 15% of Max Life as ES, and this gets increased by all your % ES on gear and tree. Since RF deals more damage based on how big our Combined Life/ES is, we get even tankier whiles increasing our damage!

What Pohx’s Righteous Fire Excels In:

• Extremely Tanky (of course, it’s an Inquisitor build, it’s always tanky!
• Buttery smooth clear.
• Can League start if you know what you’re doing.
• Cheap to start with and can scale to upwards of 6 million DPS.

Pick Pohx’s RF if you Like:

• Alc n Go maps without a care in the world.
• Clear as fast as you can run/shield charge.
• Have one of your comfiest builds ever.

Full build details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_MZMwcPtIs&t=28s

7 – Vaal Lightning Strike

Vaal Lightning Strike against Maven Brain Bomb

Being able to be played by a variety of Ascendancies, most notably Berserker and Raider, VLS is a fantastically strong build that you can play right from league start, and gather enough currency to fund every expense you have. It’s a build focused mainly on pure mapping and going quick.

One of the most crucial things you’ll need is a +1 or (preferably) a +2 Strike Skills glove. Those come either from Eldritch Influence or Elevated Warlord’s Influence mod. Until you get that, allocating Tribal Fury is crucial. You’ll also need Pierce to be able to clear comfortably. Usually, you can get it from Helmet Enchants, Alt Quality Lightning Strike (you still NEED it as Vaal LS), Helmet and Gloves Crafts, and if even that fails, you can always get Piercing Shots from the Passive Tree.

What VLS Excels In:

• Super easy and enjoyable to play.
• Abuses Nightblade and Elusive Effect for ludicrous amounts of Crit Multi.
• Can clear all content with investment and can League Start.
• Each upgrade you make is impactful and you feel the difference of every investment.

Pick Vaal Lightning Strike If You Like:

• Clearing full screens of monsters.
• Deleting bosses in seconds.
• Playing a build from scratch and reaching the utmost limit of the game with it.
• Tons of damage without sacrificing Defense.

Full build details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2na0yXgDMc&ab_channel=FuzzyDuckzy

6 – TS Omniscience

Tornado Shot Crystal MTX against the Maven

Tornado Shot has always been the poster child of a good and quick farming build, but to get it high levels of damage, you’d need insane levels of crafting and money. Though it’s still expensive to get it together, TS Omniscience can take that damage so much higher than before while retaining a ton of tankiness in the form of free Resists.

Omniscience works by stacking as many Attributes as possible, and you’ll get Elemental Penetration at the same rate you get Elemental resist, making it fantastically easy to gear for both offence and defense at the same time!

What TS Omniscience Excels in:

• The fastest Mapper in the game.
• Can do all content with proper investment.
• Fairly Tanky when properly built.
• One of the best HH abusers.

Pick Tornado Shot Omniscience if you Like:

• Zooming as quick as inhumanly possible.
• Deleting packs 3 screens away from you.
• Melting Bosses.
• Gradual upgrades to your build, so you can play for a long time, where every item holds more value and you can feel its effect as soon as you equip it.

Full build details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAhqKhNTQqc

5 -  IMMORTAL Transcendence Shield Crush

Shield Crush against Elderslayers

Well, the title says it all. This build is truly immortal. It can tank anything and everything. Shaper and Uber Elder slams, Maven Brain Bomb, Sirus Meteor… you name it, it can survive under proper circumstances!

Transcendence, the Keystone that comes from the Militant Faith Timeless Jewel, when you’re using High Templar Maxarius, makes it so Armour Applies to Fire, Cold, and Lightning Hit damage instead of Physical, and you lose 15% of Maximum Resistance. We circumvent the reduction by simply using Loreweave, a unique Body Armour that locks our Maximum Resist to 78%.

We also scale our armour to insane levels, easily getting over 330k Armor through some clever mechanics with Iron Reflexes, Grace and Determination, good flasks, a ton of Armor on gear, and since we’ll be scaling so much of it, we can use Replica Dreamfeather, which boosts our attack damage at a 1% per 450. So if you have 450,000 Armor (which is more than possible to achieve), you’ll have 1000% Increased Damage!!!

And to make things work even better, we use our Shields to deal damage based on how much Armour, Evasion, or Energy Shield it has! So the tankier we are, the more damage we can deal! And with Ashes of the Star, our Divergent Shield Crush gets a massive 50% Multi per 100 ES on the shield, making it easy to scale Critical Strike Multiplier and reaching over 550% Multi!

What the IMMORTAL Transcendence Shield Crush Excels in:

• Veritably immortal!
• Great single target damage, capable of reaching 8 to 10 million Sirus DPS.
• Can do all content.
• Respectable Clearing with Asenath’s Chant Gloves for the Explosions.

Pick the IMMORTAL Transcendence If you Like:

• Literally, close your eyes and still delete anything without a care in the world.
• Enjoy a simple and easy playstyle that allows for any misplays, perfect to reach level 100
• A true sense of progression, as you get more and more armour, you get more and more invulnerable.

Full builds details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1EQVL9eU-I&t=410s&ab_channel=Jaamon

4 – Kinetic Blast/Power Siphon Intelligence Stacker Wander

Kinetic Blast Celestial MTX

Another build that has stood the test of time, and remains as strong, stronger even, as ever. With the introduction of both Forbidden Jewels and Divine Blessing, this build essentially just got a boost of anything from 30 to 60% more damage, in patch 3.18!

When we say Int stacker, what we mean by that is that there’s a special mod on Shaper or Hunter wands that gives 1-6 Lightning damage to attacks with that weapon per 10 Intelligence, and as such, the more Int we have, the more damage we get, while also getting absurdly high amounts of Energy Shield, as it scales synergistically with Int.

And now, in 3.18, there’s also a Sentinel Exclusive mod on boots that grants the exact same thing, but are extremely hard and expensive to get. However, that means you can literally double your damage with a single modifier!

This is not a cheap build, and the entry-level is at the very least 60 exalts, but contrary to most other builds, this build has nearly no ceiling, is able to scale with as much investment as you want, and can deal more damage than it’s possible to survive, instantly deleting the tankiest of bosses with the harshest of mods.

In 3.17, Divine Blessing gave us a new way to spend the mana for a temporary (around 18 to 25 seconds) extra aura, which in turn would scale our damage or defence even further. And with the Forbidden Jewels, you ‘steal’ an ascendancy node, and in this case, Swift Killer would be BiS, for free Frenzy generation, as well as giving massive amounts of damage since we also stack Power Charges.

What the KB/PS Int Stacker Excels in:

• Marvellous Clear, able to do even 100% Delirious Maps with ease.
• Can reach over 15k ES easily.
• Can do all the content in the game.

Pick KB/PS Intelligence Stacker If you Like:

• Being a Min-Maxing god.
• Spend more than a house on a single build.
• Delete all content in the game in the blink of an eye.

Full build details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9Em2w75C4&ab_channel=Empyriangaming

3 – Seismic Trap

Seismic Trap showcase

Unlike both previous builds, Seismic Trap is not focused on farming maps, but instead, on demolishing bosses in instants and farming their loot for massive profit. Especially in early league, where people don’t have their builds setup, Seismic can push a lot of damage without much of any gear, and it still has a somewhat clearing capability.

It doesn’t compete in clearing with the rest, but for bossing, it’s the second-best build by far, without investment. And to make things better, it has a few variants. You can do Spell Impale, pure Phys, Poison variant, which then lets you use certain on-kill mechanics that traps aren’t allowed to, and the most expensive and strongest of all, the Cold Variant.

What Seismic Trap Excels in:

• Instantly deleting map bosses.
• It’s super budget-friendly and can do all content without an issue, despite several nerfs in the past.
• Enjoyable playstyle where you get to run around and dodge instead of face-tanking.

Pick Seismic Trap if you Like:

• Being able to farm Pinnacle and Uber Bosses before anyone else, without good gear.
• Learning Boss mechanics for new and difficult fights.
• Screen Wide explosions.
• Having more damage than knowing what to do with it.

Full build details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO-boRgLcok

2 – Crit Mage Skeletons Necromancer

Mage Skeletons clearing

A clear favorite of past leagues, this build continued its dominance over Necromancers, due to its flexibility in gear, the ease to start playing, and how straightforward it is. It’s not for those of faint computers, however, as your Skelies can and will demolish your frame rates, but it’s a well-rounded build capable of everything!

Minions want as much Gem Level as possible since they scale mostly through base damage. So you’ll want a +2 Convoking Wand, a +1 Amulet(Ashes of the Stars being the best choice) with +1 Skeletons and, if you can, Fleshcrafter, which is what makes our Skelies ignore the enemies’ Elemental Resistances.

Our defense comes from having a substantial life pool, a good amount of ES, and having full block due to Bone Offering and Aegis, as well as a ton of armour, to boost the ES recovery from Aegis.

We also have a cast of supporting Spectres and Animate Guardian to both protect us and buff our Skelies, giving them tons of damage and Charges.

What the Crit Mage Skeletons Excels in:

• Extremely Tanky with several layers of defense.
• Can do all Content.
• Can League Start and is HC viable.
• Clears reasonably well.

Pick Crit Mage Skeletons If you Like:

• Starting from scratch and becoming a god.
• A build where each upgrade is meaningful and impactful.
• Faceroll any content you throw yourself into it.

Full build details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsTvn5MLKCY

1 – Forbidden Rite Cast on Crit

Forbidden Rite Against Veritania

Being my personal favourite build at the moment, and one I’m pushing to level 100 this league(3% per simu at 99!), after finally breaking into mirror-tier currency status, Forbidden Rite Cast on Crit is a fantastically strong build, capable of sustaining and AFK tanking Simulacrum Wave 30 Kosis and Omniphobia, without doing anything.

It’s the most expensive build I’ve ever done or played, with Mageblood being honestly not even half of the cost of my character right now. But the payoff has been glorious. It’s a build that can do literally any content, any of the Uber Bosses (which I’ve farmed Uber Maven now so much that I’ve gotten 2 Woke Enlightens!), 100% Delirious Maps, Feared with Height of Hubris and All at Once (which I’ve done multiple times, with over 200% IIQ), basically anything you want, it can do.

The biggest drawback is Damage Over Time, but since I’m 100% Spell Suppressed, have 7k ES, 90% All Res, CI, Aegis Aurora, Capped Atack/Spell Block, and over 50k Armor, there really isn’t much that can kill me. And that’s my favourite thing. I love being immortal.

But it’s still a build that can do insane amounts of damage. Though my damage is somewhat lacking at the moment, only reaching around 32 Million DPS with Dying Sun Active (Projectiles is a big thing for FR!), I can still melt anything that comes against me.

What FR CoC Excels in:

• Immortal build.
• Can do any content, even Uber Bosses with Height of Hubris and insane Mods.
• Perfect Simulacrum Farmer, can play while watching a show or a movie without needing to focus.
• More than respectable damage and clearing.

Pick FR CoC if you Like:

• Having a build that can do everything and anything, without gear swaps.
• Able to play a build without more than a button press, gliding across the screen cycloning.
• Face tanking pretty much everything without a care in the world.

Full build details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hLmwqcmbqg

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