Detonate Dead Blood Mage Build Guide
The Detonate Dead Blood Mage build is a beginner friendly endgame build that works straight out of the campaign with very little gear but scales well into endgame waystones and pinnacle bosses. You detonate your allies and enemies to fill the screen with massive explosions while being very tanky at the same time.
You use Detonate Dead to turn the corpses of your enemies into nukes. Sacrifice then allows you to do the same to your own Minions. Skeletal Brutes are the best targets as they have the most life.
The showcased gear features optimal affixes. Aim for these while maintaining 75% resistance caps and attribute requirements.
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This guide assumes you are at least level 68 and have completed Act 3 Cruel, to learn more about the leveling process check out our Minion Army Leveling Guide. Do not ascend during leveling, do your trials after you have switched to Detonate Dead.
Skills
- Detonate Dead is your primary skill. It explodes your Minions and enemy corpses.
- Sacrifice allows you to target Detonate Dead on your Minions.
- Skeletal Brutes are the highest health Minions, exploding them causes your Detonate Dead to deal a lot of damage.
- Skeletal Cleric is a support Minion that revives other fallen Skeletons, you should run 1 or 2 of them depending on your Spirit.
- Grim Feast provides recovery for your Energy Shield and overflows it, allowing you to have up to double your usual maximum Energy Shield.
- Use Soul Offering on bosses to sacrifice a Skeleton for a Spell damage buff.
- Drop Mana Tempest on bosses to get extra Lightning damage, which also allows you to Shock.
Keep your Detonate Dead at level 7 to keep Mana and Life costs low as the damage does not increase with levels.
Skill Rotation
- Cast Soul Offering on one of your Skeletal Brutes.
- Cast Mana Tempest and stand under it.
- Spam Detonate Dead.
- If you run out of Minions and the boss is still alive, wait for them to respawn and repeat the process.
For clear maintain distance from packs and fire Detonate Dead, ideally targeting enemy corpses. If there are no enemy corpses to detonate, make sure to direct your Minions to a place where you want them to be with the Direct Minions keybind.
For Pinnacle Bosses use Concentrated Effect and Considered Casting instead of Magnified Effect and Ambush.
Skill Leveling Priority
Passives
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- You can change any travel node to an Attribute you need to equip an item/gem. Otherwise, prioritize Strength.
- The Meat Recycling cluster is a must-have for the chance to not destroy corpses.
- Make sure to check the Gear section of the guide for information on what kind of Jewels to place in your Jewel Sockets.
Ascendancy
Learn how to complete the Trial of the Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos to earn your first 2 Ascensions with our Ascension Guide!
- Sanguimancy provides Life recovery on kill and on Critical Strikes by spawning Life Remnants, Life granted this way can also overflow up to double the usual maximum. It also causes all spells to cost Life as well as Mana and drain your Life and Mana while casting under Mana Tempest. The extra costs are not very noticeable for this build as Detonate Dead is kept at level 7.
- Gore Spike grants extra damage in the form of a Critical Damage Bonus based on Life, including overflowed Life.
- Sunder the Flesh almost doubles your total Critical Chance, it is the reason this build is Blood Mage.
- Blood Barbs is taken last and provides extra damage and allows the Lightning damage from Mana Tempest to contribute to Bleed damage.
Gearing
Offensive Scaling
- Minion Skill Gem levels provide the biggest single target damage increase.
- Spirit allows for more Skeletal Brutes and Skeletal Clerics increasing your damage uptime on bosses.
- % increased Critical Hit Chance and % Increased Critical Hit Chance for Spells up to 50% Critical Hit Chance on Detonate Dead.
- % increased Critical Damage Bonus.
- Minions have % increased maximum Life.
- Prioritize % Damage and % Spell Damage over % Physical Damage if they are the same value, but all increase your damage.
- Cast Speed for smoother gameplay.
Defensive Scaling
- Sufficient +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance to cap your Resistances.
- Atziri's Disdain grants % Energy Shield based on your Life.
- +# to Energy Shield
- +# to Maximum Life
- If you are still struggling, check out our Survival Guide for additional useful information!
Here's how you should gear your Detonate Dead Blood Mage. Sorted in order of importance.
The main hand weapon is Enezun's Charge. This is a cheap weapon that provides solid Spell damage and a Critical Hit Chance increase. It also provides the unique stat of a 25% chance to not destroy corpses when consuming corpses, leading to 75% total chance in combination with Corpse Conservation support gem and Meat Recycling cluster.
For your offhand Omen Sceptre is the best base.
- +# to level of all Minion Skills
- % increased Spirit
- Minions have % increased maximum Life
- +# to Strength or +# to Intelligence
Solar Amulet is the best amulet base, but the affixes are way more important than the implicit for amulets and most amulet bases are completely fine.
- +# to level of all Minion Skills
- +# to Spirit
- #% increased Maximum Energy Shield
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Energy Shield
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- The best node to instill is Barbaric Strength as it gives a lot of Critical Damage Bonus and increased Mana Cost doesn't matter for this build.
Expert Altar Robe is the best base for this slot.
- #% increased Energy Shield and +# to Energy Shield
- +# to Spirit
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Intelligence
Atziri's Disdain grants % Energy Shield based on your maximum Life, this is the most efficient source of early Energy Shield in the game currently.
Expert Intricate Gloves is the best base for this slot.
- #% increased Energy Shield and +# to Energy Shield
- +# to Maximum Life
- % increased Critical Damage Bonus
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- #% increased Rarity of Items found
- +# to Intelligence
Expert Feathered Sandals is the best base for this slot.
- +#% to Movement Speed
- #% increased Energy Shield and +# to Energy Shield
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- #% increased Rarity of Items found
- +# to Intelligence
Rings are a perfect place to pick up resistances and make the rest of your gear less reliant on good Suffixes. You should pick up one of the resistance bases (Prismatic Ring, Ruby Ring, Sapphire Ring, Topaz Ring or Amethyst Ring) and focus on resistance Suffixes.
- +# to Maximum Life
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- % increased Cast Speed
- #% increased Rarity of Items found
- +# to Strength or +# to Intelligence
- Notable unique mention: Ventor's Gamble
Utility Belt is the best base for this slot.
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# Charm Slots
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Strength
This build uses Sapphire jewels as they have the best modifiers for it. Aim to get #% increased Maximum Energy Shield and 2-3 more mods from this list (ordered by priority).
- #% increased Maximum Energy Shield
- #% increased Area of Effect
- % increased Critical Damage Bonus
- % increased Critical Spell Damage Bonus
- #% increased Damage if you have Consumed a Corpse Recently
- #% increased Spell Damage
- Gain #% of maximum Energy Shield as additional Stun Threshold
- #% increased Critical Hit Chance
- #% increased Critical Hit Chance for Spells
- +#% to Maximum Fire, Cold and Lightning Resistances
- % increased Cast Speed
Jewel search here, you can change the modifier count to 3 if you want 4 modifier jewels.
Atlas Passives
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- This build is amazing for Ritual as you hit everything that spawns at the same time and very solid for Breach, Expedition and Trial of Chaos.
- You can run any Waystone modifier although Burning Ground can be frustrating.
- It doesn't struggle in Trial of Sekhemas but the runs are not fast.
Learn about the endgame activities available to you in Path of Exile 2 with our guide!
FAQ
Make sure your Detonate Dead is level 7, that way it costs very little Life and Mana. Other spells don't cost enough Mana even for a high level skill to cause issues.
Excellent! Both of the recommended uniques for the build are very cheap and the rest of the gear provides mostly survivability. When it comes to rares, prioritize getting a solid Sceptre and otherwise the build needs next to nothing to function. However, top-tier Energy Shield gear is going to be expensive as the market for it is very competitive but remember you don't need the highest tiers to have a lot of Energy Shield on your character.
In Input Options there is a keybind called Direct Minions, make sure to rebind it to a comfortable button.
If you require Intelligence or Dexterity to equip your gems and items, simply reallocate Attributes on your Passive Skill Tree accordingly; otherwise, prioritize Strength, as it also grants Life. Despite prioritizing Strength, you should expect most of your attribute nodes to be Intelligence as the requirements are quite high.
- Relic: 30% increased Charm Charges gained
- Venom Drought: 30% increased Elemental Ailment Threshold
- Cruel Relic: 15% increased Life Recovery from Flasks
- Cruel Venom Drought: 10% to Chaos Resistance
NOTE: These bonuses are minor, if you picked something different for the Venom Draught, don't worry too much!
Video
Summary
- Detonate Dead is a ranged spellcaster that utilizes enemy corpses against them by exploding them and annihilating the screen with devastating physical damage.
- Sacrifice enables exploding Skeletal Brutes, turning this build into a solid bosser.
- The build has excellent defense due to overflowing both Life and Energy Shield.
Credits
Written by: Ventrua
Content Reviewed by: CrouchingTuna
Language Reviewed by: Tenkiei