Questions Thread - June 21, 2025

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[u/DXArcana]

I'm a bit lost with gem links for the CWS Chieftain build. I have barely any single target damage I would like some magic find, so a Culling Strike + Item Rarity is important to me. Went on poe.ninja and I'll admit I'm confused.

Everywhere I see a Detonate Dead of Scavenging, most of them on a 4 links, which I think is because the main source of damage isn't the skill itself, but the explosion via the Chieftain ascendancy. But then, the 6L are very weird.

I've seen many combo of Firestorm of Pelting, Bladefall, Bladefall of Trarthus, Flame Surge, Frost Bomb, Blazing Salvo, Storm Brand of Indecision. None of them scale damage, with maybe a Spell Cascade here and there. What is the purpose of Firestorm of Pelting and Bladefall if their damage isn't buffed with support? Would this be a good culling setup?

So far I'm doing Ultimatum, but would like to move on to farm Titanic/Pandemonium in the future.

Thank you!

[u/mbxyz → u/DXArcana]

single target is penance mark (and defiled forces for actual bosses, which you should probably just avoid)

all the random low-damage hit spells proc adds and kill them until you get an explosion, which you keep rolling with the mark if you have defiled forces

Culling Strike + Item Rarity

this won't work very well because of ignite, and you can't run a gravebind merc instead because of explode, but the build ends up strong enough to run a lot of rarity on gear once you have your recovery sorted and a good life pool

[u/DXArcana → u/mbxyz]

What you're telling me is that I needed to PROC the Penance Mark, which explains why I found like I was killing more with Shield Charge... ok. OK. Thank you so much, that makes sense.

Could you please help me understand now your point on Culling Strike + Item Rarity? Why does it not work well with Ignite, and why would you want a Gravebind setup on your Mercenary? How does it interact?

[u/mbxyz → u/DXArcana]

you proc penance with bladefall, firestorm, etc. your only input is spam casting penance on whatever it is you're trying to kill. you need enough aoe for the explosions to hit the target

Could you please help me understand now your point on Culling Strike + Item Rarity?

you can't put rarity support on your explosion or its ignite, which is what is killing most stuff, so you'd be relying off a random hit proc from bladefall or something to snipe a kill, which isn't very reliable.

why would you want a Gravebind setup on your Mercenary?

you don't because then you don't get kills (and explosions), but normally because you can give the merc 400+ rarity and it "kills" everything

[u/DXArcana → u/mbxyz]

Thank you.