Crucible Week 4 Meta Report
Welcome to the Crucible Week 4 Maxroll news wrap-up for Path of Exile, covering major events within the community, which hottest builds break the meta, Economy updates and what comes next!
Community Headlines
Let's dive into the Crucible Week 4 Meta Report headlines with our community event section!
Dan Does It Again!
Youtuber and Twitch streamer Uber Dan recently defeated the Uber Uber Elder encounter while flawlessly tanking every mechanic the boss threw at him! This build combines the Immortal Pathfinder setup with Mahuxotl's Machination and The Fourth Vow to provide Peerless defenses!
One important aspect of Damage Shifting is that it can be used to ignore Penetration. Normally the Shaper's Frostbolts treat your Cold Resistance as 25% lower than it is, but here Dan only takes Physical, Fire, and Chaos damage making the boss less dangerous.
Milky Discovers Gambling
Divination card Harvest Gambling is a popular past-time among exiles. If you're lucky it's a good way to make money, and if you're not it's the fast lane to broke town.
This is part of why things like Vivid Crystallised Lifeforce tend The Apothecary spike in price towards the end of a league.
It's a Matter of Luck
Sometimes though, the results aren't always so straight forward. You can spend a lot of time, and currency on this without much progress. But hey, at least it makes for entertaining content!
Traps Breaking Limits
Enterprising players have yet again discovered an...unintended interaction. You can use traps to bypass the brand attachment limit. Normally you can only have 1-2 brands (3 with Wintertide) attached to an enemy, but when rules are more of a guideline, why not all 5? This is likely to be patched so I wouldn't build around it but it's always fun to see the way in which players break the game.
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Crucible Week 3&4 Meta
Unique Mechanical Synergies
Some Uniques in Path of Exile are fairly weak on their own but when combined with another item become incredibly powerful! So for Week 3 we went into more depth on these synergies.
Immortal Pathfinder
The new Bloodnotch has gotten a lot of attention. When combined with Immutable Force and a passive like The Agnostic or Energy Shield Mastery you get massive recovery.
This helps you ignore small hits such as the damage you take while mapping. If you're looking to fully layer your defenses you can read more about how to with our Defenses and Defensive Layering guide.
Kaom's Spirit + Voll's Vision
The gloves Kaom's Spirit are popular because many builds use Rage to maximize their damage and clearspeed. Having a reliable source of Rage also lets you use the powerful Berserk buff.
Therefore many builds add Voll's Vision for Rage generation which has been especially popular on bow-based Deadeyes this league.
Fourth Vow and Divine Flesh
The Fourth Vow offers you excellent protection from Chaos damage by leveraging your Armor, which pairs perfectly with the Glorious Vanity keystone "Divine Flesh" that causes 50% of Elemental Damage to be taken as Chaos.
Provided you're able to deal with Physical Damage, this combo takes care of almost everything else and is used by many of the tankiest builds in the game including Pathfinders and RF Jugg.
If you're looking for ways to survive Physical damage when using this setup, consider Arctic Armour, or damage shifting on gear. You should have a good amount of armor when using this setup so as long as you can deal with big hits small ones aren't a concern.
Low Life Inquisitor
Originally created for deep Delving, The Ivory Tower Hierophant/Inquisitor builds also combine some unique mechanics. These builds leverage Indigon and Coruscating Elixir to be both tanky and high damage.
Zen_M recently played a very min-maxed version of the build, and there are a lot of moving parts here so check out his video for more information.
Notable Builds from SSF & HC
Hardcore, Solo Self-found and Ruthless provide a completely different Path of Exile experience, so for week 4 of Crucible we took a closer look at what some well known players are doing in these highly restrictive environments.
Currency News
Crafting for Profit
One part of the meta that's often ignored is crafting for profit. This is because you can't really follow a single guide and make tons of currency. If there's high demand for a crafted item, such as it's inclusion in popular meta builds then there's often profit to be made in crafting it. But as supply rises, price falls so it's best to find things other people aren't crafting.
Essences and Fossils
One way to craft sellable items is through Essences, and Fossils. Pick up a Fractured base or just a high level item then look for something in demand. As you're crafting, try to price check things to get an idea how much each item is worth.
When crafting these items, look for interesting or in demand combinations, T1 Life, several resists? That'll sell. Something rare like T1 Spell Suppression? Great money. It doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be an item someone is happy to wear. Be sure to craft on ilevel 85 or 86 bases (check a resource like craftofexile for more information)
The following are some examples of items players often use in their builds:
- A Stygian Vise with Life or Resistances which can be created using Perfect Fossils or Deafening Essence of Envy.
- Hydrascale Boots are another easy craft. Deafening Essence of Torment, Deafening Essence of Envy, or Deafening Essence of Loathing are commonly used to roll good suffixes like Spell Suppression. Then you combine modifiers from a Veiled Chaos Orb and the crafting bench to fix your prefixes.
- It's also pretty common to hit useful prefixes like Life and Movement Speed while rolling the suffixes.
- For an easy basic caster weapon use a damage Essence such as Deafening Essence of Torment until you hit the appropriate typed +1 Spell Skill Level modifier, or if you don't need flat damage use Deafening Essence of Fear and allocate or anoint Spiritual Aid.
- If you're an Energy Shield, Ward, or Low Life build Dense Fossils are your best friend. Use these on bases with high Perfection and you are likely to roll high Ward or Energy Shield values. From there fix the suffixes using Eldritch Currency or Veiled Chaos Orbs as appropriate.
- These are just a few examples, think about what your own build uses and how it's crafted for more ideas!
Chasing Perfection
While the goal here shouldn't be perfection, sometimes you get lucky and it happens anyway. Perfect items sell for a lot more but are exponentially harder to make, so if you happen to hit something good while on your crafting journey be sure to price check it. If the perfect rolls don't matter to your build, better to sell the item and buy several you can actually use.
If you want to know more about how to craft in Path of Exile be sure to check out our Crafting Database!
Good Luck from the Maxroll Team!
We hope you enjoyed these Meta Reports! We've discussed a wide variety of topics including starters, novel builds, mechanical synergies and what some well known players are doing in the game's most challenging modes. We also got to showcase some fun things from the community and the Crucible Currency Meta. Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more content and we'll see you next league with a new series of Meta Reports!
Written by Tenkiei
Reviewed by Palsteron