A long time ago, I came across a beautiful build. Bodyswap when linked with summon phantasm on kill gained the minion tag and could then be used with Null's Inclination, and for a brief, glorious window there was a flicker-esque build. I cannot for the life of me find any footage of this build or even evidence the build existed and I didn't simply dream it, but I distinctly remember seeing a ranger blast through Underground Sea with a dozen bodyswaps every second. And then another Null's Inclination build appeared: Wormblaster. Null's was hit with a hefty nerf, gaining a significant trigger cooldown. Flicker Bodyswap was killed before I ever had a chance to try it.
When the new Bodyswap of Sacrifice gem was revealed, I saw the 'minion' tag on the gem and immediately tried to recreate the build. The numbers, sadly, weren't there. Without targeting a minion, it just didn't do any damage, and I eventually gave up on using Null's altogether. The idea went on the backburner for a while, but it was still there, itching at the back of my mind. This league I resolved to make it work, and eventually struck upon the idea of Cast on Critical Strike to replace clunky on-kill triggers.
After many, many failed PoB's, I came up with something that looked viable, and a week later, I had this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4StIXUy-yw - epilepsy warning. Just a plain unjuiced T16 for demonstration purposes.
PoB: https://pobb.in/NfNRRksoikSO
Build breakdown:
This is a cast on crit Bodyswap of Sacrifice elementalist built costing approximately 120 divines, including the Mageblood. I did, however, craft many of the pieces of gear myself - in fact, the only gear piece I didn't craft is the helmet. As a result, some of the gear is a bit wonky, but this is probably my last build of the league and I'm getting the itch to play other games.
Pros:
- Good damage. PoB doesn't calculate the damage very well, because it doesn't support triggered attacks/spells triggering other attacks/spells, but with 11.5m average damage per explosion at the maximum trigger rate of 6.06 per second I believe this build has 70m pinnacle DPS, and from experience with other builds with that much damage that feels about right.
- Decently fast and low-effort one-button mapper.
- Lots of pretty explosions.
- Flicker.
Cons:
- Mediocre defenses. Not a glass cannon, but it just doesn't have the lifepool to be properly tanky.
- Quite clunky mechanically. You can see in the example video that I have almost no control over when I stop bodyswapping, and sometimes I will frostblink out of a dangerous situation only to be bodyswapped straight back in.
- Bad at some mechanics. You would think it would be good at strongboxes, but aukuna's will makes zombies count as corpses and detonate dead exists. Divine Shrines are... problematic to say the least. And good luck ever standing in Ultimatum stone circles. It is, however, superb at essences and rituals.
- Not beginner or budget friendly to gear. I've had to jump through quite a few hoops to make this work.
- Flicker.
- The build uses two separate CoC setups, one Rain of Arrows of Saturation for Raise Zombie, the other another RoAoS triggered by Manaforged Arrows for Bodyswap of Sacrifice.
- Mark on Hit Assassin's Mark gives a bit of (unreliable) power charge generation and more consistency, and self-cast Flammability gives a nice chunk of extra damage.
- Precision is mandatory as I am already pushing the limit of how little accuracy I can get away with.
- I run Determination, Purity of Elements and Purity of Fire with Enlighten in gloves with a +1 level, +2 auras double corrupt, which gives just enough mana to run Herald of Ash for mapping and War Banner for bossing.
- CWDT Molten Shell smooths out the defences a little bit.
- I wouldn't play this build without Frostblink. Being able to instantly blink out of an awkward spot is almost mandatory.
Uniques:
- Aukuna's Will is necessary to raise zombies without a corpse.
- Dialla's Malefaction and Ashes of the Stars aren't strictly necessary, but the extra gem levels and quality in the right places give a lot of extra damage.
- I wouldn't try and build this without Mageblood as resistances and crit chance are very tight as is.
- Polaric Devastation gives a bit of extra crit and the very powerful Covered in Ash debuff.
- Melding of the Flesh, with a Ruby Flask in the Mageblood and Purity of Fire, gives - in my case - 87% max resistances. This should really be 88% but I've been too lazy to get a properly rolled one.
- I run a very specialised Elegant Hubris that cost me a bank-breaking 50 chaos. Impossible Escape is doing a lot of work here.
- Lastly, a Mindless Aggression Forbidden Flesh and Flame duo for 20% more minion life.
Passive Tree/Ascendancy:
As I cannot run golems, there's pretty much only one way to build elementalist. Mastermind of Discord/Heart of Destruction/Shaper of Storms for lots of damage, Bastion of Elements for some much-needed EHP and reflect immunity.
The passive tree is pretty basic, with one very important exception. See the note at the end.
The cluster jewels are pretty important here, there's no easy way to get enough global critical strike chance. Make sure one of the elemental damage large cluster jewels has Doryani's Lesson, and Corrosive Elements if (like me) you don't have a level 5 Awakened Fire Penetration. A 3-passive reservation cluster with Uncompromising gives just enough reservation to run everything. Clusters are a good place to pick up enough dexterity to run everything, as I take hardly any on the rest of the tree.
A note on mana:
Raise Zombie costs a lot of mana. Getting it to a reasonable mana cost to trigger repeatedly without turning off manaforged arrows was a puzzle that took a while to solve. I take a total of 56% reduced mana cost of skills on the tree, another 6% on my gear, and a level 16 (I think this could be 20, but it doesn't make any difference, really) 0 quality inspiration giving another 32% supporting RoAoS+Raise Zombie for a total of 94% reduced mana cost. The Bodyswap setup, however, runs a 20/20 inspiration which gives 39% reduced mana cost for a total of 101% reduced. This is the only way I could find to sustain mana while still have Rain of Arrows cost any amount of mana, and importantly have the bodyswap rain of arrows cost so little that it triggers with every single attack.
Conclusion:
On the whole, I built this because I could, not because I should. There's much better ways to spend 150 divines. It is, however, fun and unique. I haven't - yet - tried in in T17s or against ubers, and I don't expect it will fair well, but neither did I build it with aspirational content in mind. If anyone does choose to build this, please temper your expectations.
