PoE Update 3.16 could be one of the best seaons ever. We present you again strong builds from the community for a strong start into the new league.
On Friday, 22 October 2021, the new league in the action role-playing game Path of Exile will start with PoE: Scourge. After the last season was labelled by many players as one of the worst leagues of all time, Scourge is hotly anticipated due to many positive changes. You can read about them in our overview:
As always, we’ve picked out the best starter builds for Path of Exile Patch 3.16 so you can hit the new league with a strong plan.
Table of Contents
What is a Starter Build anyway?
Many experienced PoE players advise starting each new season with a “League Starter Build”. These builds have the advantage that they are easy to level and work without extremely expensive items. If special unique items are needed for a build, they can be obtained relatively cheaply by trading with other players.
With our presented builds, you can reach the endgame more easily, so that you can farm strong items and currency on the maps there. These in turn finance your equipment for twink characters, which can be min-maxed even better.
Path of Building will help you
Path of Building is a programme that allows you to plan your PoE builds down to the smallest detail. In our case, however, the most important feature is that you can import builds from the linked guides, which are usually shared via Pastebin link.
To do this, download Path of Building in the Community Edition, click on “Import/Export Build” in the top left corner and then on “Import from Pastebin” in the screen that follows – then simply copy in the link, confirm, done!
You should now be able to see the distribution of skill points in the skill tree. Many builders divide the skill tree into several levels, so that you know where you should put your points first when levelling up.
The strongest starter build: Toxic Rain Champion
The strongest League Starter Build in PoE: Scourge will probably be the Toxic Rain Champion from the PoE-Streamer (Lightee).
For this build, choose the Ranger and focus on the Toxic Rain skill. With this skill, you shoot a volley of arrows into the air, which then rain down on your enemies. The right items and support gems will not only push the damage to extreme heights (4 to 8 million DPS), but also increase the radius of this area attack.
The big disadvantage, however, will be that word of the strength of this build has already spread throughout the community and accordingly many players will choose it – leading to high prices of the recommended items when trading. Fortunately, Lightee has created a guide video in which he explains in detail how you can craft a strong bow for this build yourself.
For gameplay and further explanation of this build, you can watch PoE pro Zizaran’s video:
Benefits:
- Strong defense due to auras, lots of HP and Fortify
- Even better offense
- Many needed items even without trading farm or craftbar
- Strong defence through Mind over Matter
Disadvantages:
- Mana problems, which is why at least one Mana Flask is mandatory
- Important Items will be in demand and accordingly expensive in trading
(Pastebin for Path of Bulding)
For beginners: Forbidden Rite Totems Hierophant
As always, we recommend a totem build for the Scourge League, because this is one of the easiest builds in the whole game and is especially suitable for newcomers.
After recommending the Freezing Pulse Totems Hierophant for a long time, we have been using Forbidden Rite since the Expedition League. This skill causes enormous damage, but normally also 40 percent damage to the health points and energy shield of its caster. However, you can avoid this penalty if you pair Forbidden Rite with a Totem Support Gem. They will then cast the skill fully automatically until they die – but you can always just set them up again.
Thanks to its easy playability, the build is particularly suitable for players who are trying out PoE for the first time or have no previous experience with similar action RPGs. In addition, it is extremely cheap and works very well even with rare (yellow) items.
However, the Forbidden Rite Totems Hierophant also relies on one of the most unspectacular game variants PoE has to offer: You set up your totems, they fire at all nearby enemies and all you have to do is collect the loot.
advantages:
- Very beginner friendly
- Very good “clear speed” due to high AoE damage
- Functions very well to a certain degree even with rare (yellow) items
- Strong defence through Mind over Matter
Disadvantages:
- Playing style can become boring in the long run
- Needs expensive Cluster Jewels later on
- Endgame bosses comparatively hard to do
(Go to the full build in the PoE forum)
best melee fighter: Earthshatter Berserker
He’s back: The popular Earthshatter Berserker (this time in a variant of the Streamer Quantrik]).
Just like all the other starter builds, the Earthshatter Berserker is an extremely powerful and easy-to-play build that stands out especially because of its truly absurd area damage. With one blow, you can virtually hit all enemies on your screen at the same time.
The skill works like this: First you hit the enemies with Earthshatter, then spikes shoot out of the ground when you use Leap Slam or War Cry. In this way, you clear large numbers of enemies out of the way at lightning speed, over five million DPS are said to be possible.
Add to that an absolutely powerful defence: via a large health pool and several warcries that reduce damage and increase your regeneration, the build becomes extremely tanky.
Benefits:
- Extremely hard to kill thanks to high HP, Leech, Warcrys and a whole 26 Fortify stacks
- Great AoE damage
- Needs only a few, cheap items and no expensive Cluster Jewels
- Very mobile as you can constantly bounce around with Leap Slam
Disadvantages:
- Effortful skill rotation, because you have to keep your warcries active
- Evidently needs at least one 5-link item, as all Support Gems are important
- Particularly in the early game constant mana problems
(Pastebin for Path of Building)
For Summoner: Cold Skeleton Necromancer
As always, we are once again presenting a pure Summoner build – ideal for all those who enjoyed playing the Necromancer in Diablo 2 and the remake D2: Ressurrected. This time we recommend the Cold Skeleton Necromancer. This one relies entirely on the bony helpers, who this time come to your support as warriors, archers or mages – depending on what you’re in the mood for!
Besides the Totem build, there is probably no better skill for beginners: You summon your servants and let them do the work while you only have to pick up the loot. Since the skeletons also attract the attention of enemies and take damage, this is one of the safest ways to play.
Even the boss fights in the endgame are relatively easy to master with this build, as you can focus on dodging and thus internalise the mechanics of the encounters.
After the Summoner had to lose around 30 to 40 percent of its damage in the last patch, it gets some DPS buffs again with patch 3.16.
Benefits:
- Very beginner friendly, easy to play
- Creates even red maps with cheap items worth 2 Exalted Orbs
- Many items to work towards for big strength boost
- Maximum DPS while focusing on survival
Disadvantages:
- Poor overview due to many servants
- Summoner style of play is not for everyone
(Go to the full build in the PoE forum)
For advanced users: Ball Lightning Miner Saboteur
Mine-based builds are a bit more difficult to play, which is why we have been happy to forgo them in our starter builds in the past. However, the so-called miners were extremely powerful in past leagues, so they simply belong in this list.
Miners are therefore more challenging to play because we first have to throw our mines at the enemies and then detonate them with an additional button press – in combination with consuming our potions, this can lead to quite a bit of “button mashing”.
The mines themselves don’t do any damage though, after all we have to combine another skill with them, which is then triggered by the mines – here you use the lightning spell “Ball Lightning”.
If you are confident enough to master the increased effort (and be happy with it – the constant detonating isn’t fun for everyone) you get a strong build though, which according to guide author g00fy_goober will be even stronger in 3.16 than in the last update due to the changes to passives and masteries.
Benefits:
- Incredible single-target damage against bosses
- Shocks, ignites, hypothermises and freezes enemies
- Near enemies are blinded
- Can handle all map mods
- Any content can be completed, including the hardest end-game bosses
- Strong defensive options
- Easy to equip, but also strong upgrade potential
Disadvantages:
- Equipment for the endgame can be very expensive
- Gameplay is more challenging, requiring more keys than other builds
(Go to the full build in the PoE forum)
What’s new in PoE 2?
As you surely know, developer Grinding Gear Games has been working on the official sequel Path of Exile 2 for quite some time, which was announced at ExileCon 2019. It should be ready by next year at the latest and we will finally be able to play the eagerly awaited title ourselves – at least in a beta version.
