A Recap of the Best PoE Builds for 3.2

By | June 24th, 2018 | Categories: Path of Exile

Each league that comes out has its own patch number. Bestiary (and the Flashback one month race) was the league classified as 3.2. It was also the league that saw all the ascendancy reworks, meaning there was quite a bit of build diversity. But which ones came out on top? These are the Best PoE Builds for 3.2.

The Meta Builds

Because of the Ascendancy reworks, the meta builds weren’t necessarily the most powerful ones. Rather they were the most interesting ones, since people wanted to try all the new ascendancies out for themselves. It stands to reason that the ascendancies with the biggest changes were the most popular ones. With a few exceptions, this is exactly how it played out.

Juggernaut Techonic Slam

The Juggernaut was the most popular ascendancy in Bestiary, stemming from the fact that it had some of the biggest buffs, as well as being an incredibly strong league starter. The builds played varied, but many were using the new Tectonic Slam skill, alongside the people playing the always popular Blade Flurry builds. These builds were so popular because Juggernaut is an incredibly safe class, perfect for starting off a league, particularly if you want to farm bosses or the labyrinth.

Hierophant

The next meta build was Hierophant. They had undergone a massive number of buffs as well, and similar to Juggernaut they are an extremely strong class with minimal funding, making them perfect league starters. Despite the ascendancy going through a ton of buffs, the playstyle was unchanged, with the vast majority of them simply going for the tried and true Frostbolt Totems. It was an extremely safe and cheap build, the map farmer to Juggernaut’s boss farmer.

Necromancer

The Necromancer also took a piece of the pie due to the fact that its ascendancy was changed to finally have support for minions other than Specters. With the addition of ascendancy nodes for both Zombies and Skeletons, minion lovers everywhere rejoiced and picked up the Necromancer class to see what it had to offer. That being said, it is impossible to overlook the fact that Specters remained one of the most popular builds as well, due to their blatant strength, despite not receiving many buffs, if any.

Deadeye

However, the true winner from the meta builds was Deadeye. Deadeye was a completely unplayed class prior to 3.2, but the changes it received made it on par with Raider, if not better. Bow and Wand based builds are some of the most popular in Path of Exile, and having a new ascendancy to choose from had many of the most hardcore farmers switching over to see what it offered. The numbers may not have represented how strong Deadeye was in that first league, but since then its popularity has only grown as people have gotten on board with the fact that Deadeye is better than Raider in many cases. Nowadays most Wanders and Windrippers – two of the most popular builds in the game – end up going Deadeye due to the changes from the 3.2 patch.

Strongest Builds

Tornado Shot, Aila’s Righteous Fire Occultist

We’ve already discussed how strong Deadeye is – managing to overthrow Raider from its thrown is no small feat. But that doesn’t mean it was the strongest build available. Around 3.2 a new face appeared on the Path of Exile scene: Aila. Aila is a racer who managed to blow all the well-known names out of the water and reach level 100 before them, several races in a row. He did this using his own patented Righteous Fire build. Typically, Righteous Fire builds go the Juggernaut ascendancy after the buffs, but not Aila. He goes with the Occultist ascendancy, which means he is constantly degenerating but moves incredibly fast at all times. If you’re going for pure speed without the investment to go Kinetic Blast or Tornado Shot, Aila’s Righteous Fire Occultist may be the fastest build in the game.

Triple Herald Blade Vortex

Another incredibly fast build with low investment was the new Triple Herald Blade Vortex. This build was created due to the Elementalist reworks which allowed a player to run all three Heralds and receive rather large buffs from having them on. It also added in Inpulsa’s Broken Heart, a new chest piece that allowed players to explode minions incredibly far away from them. Blade-Vortex happened to be one of the faster builds that could make use of these mechanics on a budget. Instead of having to walk through an entire pack, you’d just touch an edge minion and your Heralds and Inpulsa would explode them, causing a chain reaction of explosions that wiped out the entire pack. Due to the scaling based on gems and Inpulsa – which at this point was quite cheap – this build was a great speed farmer with little currency investment.

When it comes to bossing most people look at Juggernaut, with all the endurance charges and other survivability mechanics they employ. However, 3.2 brought with it an entirely new type of bosser – one much stronger than Juggernaut. 3.2 was the patch that saw the release of Poet’s Pen.

Poet’s Pen

Basically, it’s a wand that says “Trigger a socketed spell when you attack.” By dual wielding them, you can cast two spells each time you use an attack. The Pens also give bonus levels to the gems, so the fact that they are on a three-link isn’t detrimental. This build figured out a way to abuse several existing game mechanics and become essentially immortal, while still pumping out considerable damage.  Zerphi’s Last Breath is a flask that restores the mana you spend to you as health over a few seconds. So you make use of Zerphi’s with an incredibly buffed mana costed Frenzy, which activates the spells in your Poet’s Pens. The spells in one Pen are Unearth and Bodyswap, meaning you are bouncing forward every two attacks, and the spell in the other is Volatile Dead, creating fireballs from all the remaining corpses. Since the build doesn’t have to actually walk around, all its time can be spent casting spells to do the most damage and get the most healing. This build quickly became the strongest bosser in the game, able to do even the hardest content without even moving. The only downside to this build is that the Zerphi’s Last Breath flask alone costs well over ten exalted orbs! But if you can afford to make the build, you’ll never need another one.

For more, check this out: Path of Exile Builds for 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3.

11 Comments

  1. WildMiklos August 7, 2018 at 3:03 am - Reply

    Nice.

  2. Mirvonn August 2, 2018 at 12:45 am - Reply

    Great to know

  3. UndeadxAssassin July 31, 2018 at 10:43 pm - Reply

    Poet’s Pen low life, volatile dead was a great build, too that patch

  4. Sas July 31, 2018 at 3:27 am - Reply

    Thanks

  5. Wi11ow July 27, 2018 at 4:34 pm - Reply

    good article, wish i played this game more to be good at it

  6. mf22 July 27, 2018 at 10:52 am - Reply

    a+

  7. Juan Carlos July 27, 2018 at 4:22 am - Reply

    Amazing!

  8. Atahan July 27, 2018 at 1:33 am - Reply

    Beast!

  9. Berkay July 27, 2018 at 1:31 am - Reply

    good

  10. Baseplate July 27, 2018 at 1:06 am - Reply

    cool

  11. Rocky45 July 26, 2018 at 10:53 pm - Reply

    Thanks for the recap & updated information.

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