General Gameplan
Put down Chthonic Fissure, cast Bone Curse, Transplant around as needed, channel Ghostflame. If it's a weak group of enemies, Chthonic Fissure alone works well enough on its own with no other skills used.
Chthonic Fissure acts as the #1 core damage output skill for the build. It has a slew of damage multipliers we're stacking, including via crit multi with Grim Tide 1/1, via Necrotic Resistance stacking with Twisted Waves 3/3, Tombgorger 3/3, 5% more damage per curse as Warlock (we'll have 5 for larger targets), via self ailment stacking with Aspect of Death 5/5, DoT to cursed with Spiteful Decay 5/8, DoT with Vessel of Chaos 5/7 and 3 overloads (Poison, Damn, Ignite), while channeling with Doom Herald 8/8, and DoT taken on enemies with Decrepify. That's just all the more multipliers that will be drastically increasing Fissure's damage output multiplicatively, especially with 500%+ uncapped Necrotic Resistance applying one of the most powerful single %more multipliers in the game in Twisted Waves 3/3.
Everything else in the build acts as utility, defense, or complementary damage.
Bone Curse has been swapped in in favor over Spirit Plague for a few reasons. 1) kill threshold, 2) manual application of Marked For Death, 3) consistent bonus damage as each spirit from Chthonic Fissure hits. This does mean, however, that we've swapped Frailty for Chill meaning it's advised we get Frailty on Hit on our Wand if possible as that's a very potent defensive mechanic.
Aura Of Decay acts as our most consistent ailment application to ourselves for helping cap out Aspect of Death 5/5 bonus damage, poison applicator for armor and resistance stacking via Toxic Craving 1/1, extremely high poison defense with its 50% less poison damage taken and Inoculation 4/4, and automatic Soul Feast casting with Feast of Souls 3/3.
Soul Feast is a tremendous passive Ward and Mana generator. It's also our only source of Withering for additional DoT damage scaling on enemies, and potentially provides us with a large amount of poison resistance and %more armor as noted above with Toxic Craving 1/1. However, we don't have it on our actual skill bar for usage as we want to have access to Transplant for on demand traversal. If you find you're fine without using Transplant and would prefer to manually cast Soul Feast, feel free to do so.
Ghostflame is less about its potential damage and more a "I don't feel like taking damage at the moment" button. The combination of Doom Herald 8/8, Disdain 4/4, Enfeebled Prey 2/2, Wraith Form 3/4, Ethereal Blockade 1/1, and Spectral Menace 5/5 makes this skill a one stop shop for insane amounts of damage reduction, armor, and Ward generation. This is also our source of Decrepify which is a fantastic boost in damage, both with its direct effect and it being another curse to apply. This is our only main skill that we'll have any need to use regularly during fights on big enemies as Chthonic Fissure and Spirit Plague are fire and forget for seconds at a time. With it being itself a DoT with its channeling damage and a good source of applying lots of Damned and Ignite, it won't be too shabby as a complementary damage option while making us borderline unkillable.
In addition to the build's active skills, it applies the following for extra layers of damage: Ignite, Damned, Anguish + Duskbringer 3/6 (Chthonic Fissure spirits count as hits), Decrepify, Poison, and Witchfire. While our main focus is on Necrotic Damage and Damned stacking, these other sources of DoT damage are also scaling with our large number of DoT / general global damage bonuses. We're also looking to scale Witchfire's damage decently well via Grimhilde's Domain 5/5.
We're also utilizing two overloads for bonuses:
- Ignite Overload: 1% more fire damage to ignited enemies per 20% global ignite chance for fire skills. Not generally that potent as it focuses just on fire damage, but it does help Witchfire, Chthonic Fissure's rift, Ignites, and Ghostflame channeling.
- Damned Overload: 1% more damned damage to enemies per 2% missing health on you and on the target. Immense damage increase for our immense amounts of Damned stacks as we're a lowlife build. This means that on average, we'll be getting a 40-48% more multiplier to Damned just from us being constantly at low life, not to mention the passive ramping as enemies get weaker.
Core Build Aspects
This is a lowlife build that utilizes Exsanguinous, Last Steps of the Living, and Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros to generate plenty of Ward through health sacrifice. As Warlock is so very happy to overcap Necrotic Resistance, we are of course also using Boneclamor Barbute for its lovely stats and fantastic Ward per second potential. As we're always aiming to be at low life, I've slotted in Lich's Dance with Death 8/8 for a permanent global 120% increased damage. If it turns out the build does just fine on damage output, I plan to put those 8 points into Lich's Apocrypha 2/10 instead to hit the 10 point threshold for unlocking Aura of Decay.
This is also a self-ailment build that utilizes Aura Of Decay and Immolator's Oblation to poison and ignite ourselves for bonuses, namely the 45% more global damage multiplier available from Warlock's Aspect of Death 5/5 passive. Aspect of Death also applies Damn to us on kill and when we're hit, further making getting to 90 ailment stacks on us that much easier. The combination of these three provide a large amount of damage, defense, and utility; and Immolator's Oblation allows us to have an on-demand panic button to remove all ailments with a Potion if things get out of hand.
With Ward stacking comes a need for Ward Retention which we predominantly get from stacking Intelligence. Other sources include Unnatural Preservation 5/5, Ward of Malevolence 5/5, the new Ward Decay Threshold stat, and an Opulent Focus off-hand. Intelligence stacking also doubles as a source of maximum Mana via Warlock's Occultist's Mind 5/8. This better helps us generate Ward from channeling Ghostflame and just generally feeling better to play.
Cast Speed is generally a non-factor for this build as our main skills affected by them don't need them (Chthonic Fissure + Spirit Plague), and channeling skills don't benefit from Cast Speed in Last Epoch so Ghostflame couldn't care less.
