Barrier Invocation + Pact + Demon Form

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I've seen a few different builds floating around with different aspects of this build so I wanted to throw my hat into the ring and share what I've been working on. This build is using recoup + pyromantic pact to fuel large demon form stacks (in the showcase I built up to 380 stacks without using the stitched demon cheese).

Showcase (just a random t15 with a breach, nothing special):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNpsgKNuxt8

Maxroll build:

https://maxroll.gg/poe2/planner/eeq740vs

I don't think this is better than the established low life + high passive life regen build or anything, but I do think its cooler. Its also nice to never have to drop out of demon form even during long maps. I've not stress tested this vs any really hard content, but I imagine it could be "fine" if you're willing to just sit and build huge stacks before going into the boss fight.

Some random things I learned while working on this build that my or may not be common knowledge and/or useful:

  • Player ailment threshold is based on maximum life; this is real problem for low life + pyromantic pact because you basically ignite yourself 100% of the time when proccing pact. Stacking ailment threshold + insulated treads seemed like a possible way to get around this but I could never get it to work consistently enough.
  • Ignite damage is based off the pre-mitigated hit. For pyromantic pact that means you're taking 20% of your total life + energy shield as damage over the ignite duration. This is why I take reduced ignite effect on the tree; it essentially increases our effective flask regen by 55% (by reducing the amount of damage the ignite is doing to us). This is also why I convert comet to lightning damage and use shocking siphon support; its one of the few percentage based healing effects available to use as we cannot use the unique shield commonly used in other barrier invocation + pact builds.

Comments

agustin1661

Nice take! How is this for bossing where you don't benefit from shock siphon?

512alive1

This is a very neat version

Recoup in addition to the regen jewels have been the winning combo for demon form, at least in my experience. I tried both, one stacked almost 400 demon form stacks using just regen while the other was able to passively get to 240ish and then relied on recoup to sustain from there.

Both used pact + cast on ignite and both felt strong, but the one that used recoup was able to take stuff like energy nodes, wither nodes while maintaining demon form for basically as long as I needed so I have been preferring it. The other build circled all the way around the tree to hale heart

BudgetReturn62791

Ah nice work friend, I wasn't sure if demon form could work with this. I've been using against the darkness with reduced ignite + max fr to totally stop ignites for my set up. My versions weaker than the other life set up too, but same as you I just like the playstyle

I also wasn't sure how the ailment threshold was going off, so this is good to know. I thought I was just critting myself like 10% of the time lol