The Jack of All Trades - Penance Brand Trickster Passive Skill Tree & Gem Links

Out Of Date

March 5th, 2023, 14:47

Passive Skill Tree

You can find an optimized Path of Building here. Every build I release will use the community fork of Path of Building, which is maintained and updated in a much more regular fashion than the original one. You can find PoB’s Fork, by LocalIdentity, here.

If you are not comfortable with Path of Building, we also have a PoePlanner for you. Do note that PoE Planner does not support Cluster Jewels and some specific unique jewels and it is highly recommended you install Path of Building to follow builds most optimally.

Gear Page

Progression Advice

Since this build works as soon as you swap to it after the storyline, you’ll be completely fine regardless but I’ll leave you with this Path of Building to give you an idea as to what I would suggest your tree looks like at the beginning of maps. (You will have to drop Flesh and Stone for the time being until you can pick up the Herald Reservation Reductions).

If you’re not comfortable with Path of Building, here’s a PoePlanner to give you an idea of how your tree should look like whenever you’re at about that level.

Gem Links

Penance Brand – Main Link (6-Link)

Penance Brand’s base damage scales fairly hard with gem levels! Try to pick up a 21/20 as soon as possible. For the Awakened Controlled Destruction, it’s a really big upgrade as it adds Cast Speed. Since it probably isn’t accessible early league, it’s fine to forego it, but as soon as they drop to around an affordable amount is a really convenient source of extra cast speed.

Mobility Set-up

Because of Trickster’s Weave the Arcane, the Flame Dash you’ll be using will be free of cost. Since Mana is quite the struggle, you’re going to want to Dash at least once every 4-5 Seconds. This is not only to keep up Arcane Surge, but also to proc Weave the Arcane’s Mana recovery as much as possible and keep your Mana Pool healthy. Additionally, you want to optimize your Cast Speed & Durations around the 20% Increased Cast Speed you get if you’ve used a Movement Skill Recently so you’re really using Flame Dash as a “Cooldown” to “Optimize Buff Uptime”! For more convenience, Flame Dash quality is really big as it gets your more Flame Dash charges quicker!

Flame Dash
Second Wind Support
Arcane Surge Support (level 7 when Vortex is level 20)

Since you’ll most likely have a free socket here, this is where you get to socket Vaal Righteous Fire. Pop Vaal RF whenever you face a tough enemy, as it gets you a surprising amount of burst!

Aura Set-up #1

For your Aura setups you’re going to need to run at least 1, but preferably 2 Level 4 Enlighten Supports. If you don’t have access to them you might have to drop Flesh and Stone all together. If you have 1 Enlighten Level 4 and 1 Enlighten Level 3, this is where your Level 4 goes.

Aura Set-up #2

After you’ve acquired the Skill Tree nodes that decrease your Heralds’ Mana Reservation and a couple of Enlightens, you’re going to add in a Flesh and Stone into the build. Flesh and Stone, in Sand Stance, is going to blind all enemies in your vicinity, effectively increasing your tankiness by a lot. Because of how Trickster’s Mana works, you’ll have to get used to using your Brands at the correct timings so you maximize Mana uptime from Weave the Arcane and Base Regen but at the highest levels if you feel uncomfortable you can add a level 1-3 Clarity. Do note that it might make things a little bit awkward to play and you might need some maximum mana rolls on gear to make it feel smooth.

Flesh and Stone
Enlighten Support (level 3 or 4)

Cast when Damage Taken Setup

As for the last sockets of the build, I chose to include a Cast when Damage Taken setup. I initially played around with Hypothermia support & Chilling monsters with Vortex because I wanted another button to press to generate Weave the Arcane’s Mana Recovery but after I swapped Inspiration Support into my Penance Brand to reduce its Mana cost, I honestly felt like I no longer needed it, introducing the sockets to use a defensive setup! We’re linking Steelskin for that juicy extra HP buff as well as an Enfeeble to make monsters hit less hard. Again, if you feel the need to get more mana regeneration, you can socket some spell here to “abuse” Weave the Arcane harder.

Wither Totems

Because you’re dealing mostly Chaos Damage, Wither stacks get extremely valuable. If these totems get the time to apply maximum Wither stacks on an enemy, they increase your damage throughput by about 35%. Definitely something you need to drop on map bosses, conquerors, end-game bosses and so on! Because you have a ludicrous amount of Cast Speed and some Skill Effect Duration, these totems will almost instantaneously apply max stacks and keep them up throughout the fight. Make sure they don’t die & refresh them though!

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