[3.10] Toxic Rain Trickster 30 Mil Shaper DPS (the best one)

First things first, I will not be maintaining this guide after 3.10. I don't have the time or energy to keep a build updated. One of the best things about PoE is its constant evolution, and I treat my build guides as being specific to a time and place. That said, I read the patch notes and have a few reflections:

- Cluster jewels got nerfed, but they're still better than anything on the normal tree. Wicked Pall had its skill effect duration halved and Eternal Suffering had it removed completely. Wicked Pall is still the strongest notable for medium clusters, but couple it with one of the other notables I suggest in the budget section below. Rolling a perfect 3 notable, 2 jewel socket large cluster jewel is now much harder. Taking the bow cluster jewel instead of chaos and alt-aug-regal spam into a 2 notable, 2 socket jewel with Tempered Arrowheads and Broadside is probably a better budget route until you have enough currency to try and roll a perfect large.
- Routing on the tree is a little more awkward with No Witnesses moved to the tree. This will be a buff for some but a nerf for others. It is a buff while you're leveling, but probably a minor nerf to the final form of the build, since it costs 4 skill points on a tree that was already super stretched. Getting a nice 3-mod megalomaniac with it was more efficient if you had one. My first crack at a level 100 tree
- For leveling, Cutedog and tyty did a video showing how to level as a chaos spellslinger. For the first two acts though, they use caustic arrow and toxic rain. For a league start, this video is great to watch and it will get you into the flow. Just don't switch out of the bow when he does at the 1:45:00 mark and keep going with CA/TR.
- Harvest crafting looks insane. This is the entire point of the league. It's quite likely that everything else had to get nerfed a bit to make up for this fact. Every single player (casual, semi, no-life) is likely to have gear this league above anything they've ever had. Synthesis +1 gem implicit bows are back on the table, as are onslaught boots. Target crafting a +1 dex, +1 chaos, +16 dot multi amulet is deterministically achievable. We're likely to be able to create quivers with both t1 dot multi and t1 chaos dot multi suffixes.

Overall, I think the crafting potential will make it so that the build is stronger in 3.11 than 3.10 given a similar currency investment. I wouldn't bet on it being the broken build of 3.11 though. I will probably still start with it just because I love the playstyle, and there's no chance it backfires. TR was amazing back in 3.9 before clusters or Harvest items, so I'm not worried in the least.

For anyone who feels like the cluster jewel nerf completely gutted the build, here's how literally unplayable it is now.

Pros:
- Screenwide AoE clear without even needing to aim.
- Capable of running all map mods.
- Extremely scalable budget. You can get started with literally nothing and see consistent growth as you invest up to your heart’s content.
- Very survivable (70+% evade, 40% hit/spell dodge that caps at 75% with 15 second vaal grace, over 6k ehp, Trickster recovery via Patient Reaper, Ghost Dance, and Escape Artist).
- Chaos explosions from Unspeakable Gifts give you that satisfying Profane Bloom feel.
- Long pod duration means you don’t have to backtrack to kill Delirium mobs that spawn in slowly in phases.
- You can front-load your ramp like a miner before proc’ing bosses like Conquerors.
- Stacking skill effect duration means 10+ second vaal haste, 15+ second vaal grace, and 3+ second Immortal Call.
- Toxic Rain, Aspect of the Spider, Wither, and Touch of Cruelty provide several sources of enemy slow/hinder.
- Versatility. Bossing, mapping, Simulacrum, delving, all content done conveniently without gear/gem swaps.
- The Lotus mtx for Toxic Rain is sweet, if you're into that sort of thing.

Cons:
- Even with the incredible DPS we have, there’s still a delay between firing and killing. You can’t off-screen clear enemies in front of you like an Ice Shot Deadeye for instance.
- Life recovery is limited on long, phased bosses that don’t spawn additional mobs. In the rare event that you get hit multiple times and exhaust all of your life flask charges, it will feel awkward since we don’t leech or regen life that quickly. Pantheon swapping for life flask charge recovery can mitigate this somewhat, but things are just easier when there are lots of mobs around.

All videos done on Awakener 8

Veritania
T16 Malformation - 8 mods, influencer proc.
Simulacrum 15-20 - Includes double boss on level 20.
Red Elder - probably the most boring 2 minutes ever.
Uber Elder
Shaper
Sirus
Drox
T14 juiced Tropical Island

Toxic Rain fires projectiles in the air (5 by default) which land in an area. Once they land, they will sprout a “pod” which deals chaos damage over time in an area around it for a duration (1 second by default) before exploding. We will be scaling the dot damage. Importantly, the pods can stack endlessly with each other. Thus, the way we scale damage include:

- Chaos Damage
- Chaos damage over time multiplier
- Attack speed
- Skill effect duration
- Additional projectiles
- Area of effect
- Projectile damage (this is stated in the gem itself)
- Damage over time
- Gem levels on Toxic Rain
- Area damage

Additional Projectiles and Area of Effect deserve specific explanation. The pods themselves will land at a relatively fixed distance from each other no matter what. When you add additional projectiles, it will actually widen the total area in which the pods can land so as to maintain the pod-to-pod spacing. Increasing the area of effect will increase the size of each individual pod. That means, somewhat counterintuitively, additional projectiles help your clear, but not your single target. Increasing area of effect allows more pods to overlap with each other, helping your clear a bit, but dramatically improving single target.

Ultimately, your DPS is the multiplication of:
- DoT dps listed on the gem
- Number of projectiles
- Percentage of projectiles that actually hit the target
- Attacks per second (include Mirage Archer here)
- Duration of each pod
- All sources of increased damage (additive with each other)
- Chaos damage over time multiplier
- Sources of increased damage taken by enemies (Wither, Aspect of the Spider, Touch of Cruelty additive with each other)
- Enemy chaos resistance

The arrows are capable of “hitting” when they land and the pods can also “hit” when they explode, but the pod’s dot damage can better be thought of as a ground degen for enemies (think Righteous Fire or the Death aura from Death’s Oath). That means we don’t need accuracy at all to do damage, but it’s still possible to make use of various “on hit” mechanics like cursing enemies on hit, life gain on hit, or the Frenzy gem’s gain frenzy charges on hit. This also means that Temporal Chains is NOT a DPS boost for Toxic Rain. While Temporal Chains normally makes debuffs expire slower, benefiting other chaos dot skills, Toxic Rain’s dot comes from the pod. When the pod’s gone, the dot is gone.

There is a ton going on here, and it’s a bit of a mess in PoB as well. Your PoB number will display the DPS of a single pod. You’ll still have to adjust for duration, attacks per second, and number of pods overlapping.

The first version of this guide relied heavily on this link that some guys put on reddit last year regarding how the pod size and landing area scale. However, thanks to the very reputable Remi:

"

Remicaster1 a écrit :

Also my point is about the reddit post and the aoe overlap shenanigans as being incorrect.

I decided to scrap it and try some testing directly.

Here is a video of me playing around with various levels of AoE and additional arrows.

For those geometry lovers, the TLDR is that toxic rain arrows seem to be distributed at approximately uniformly spaced radii from you. So one pod will land x units away from where you click, another 2x, another 3x, 4x, etc. Again, these are approximates. Adding more arrows just adds more "orbits" along the outside. Increased AoE makes each pod's area larger. Thus, the degree of pod overlap is not constant. You will get more pod overlap near the point you click and less as you move out.

So, to increase boss DPS, you want to get some AoE to get more of the close orbit pods be able to reach the point you click. However, this becomes exponentially harder to do the higher you go. Doubling a pod's radius requires quadrupling its area. Tripling a pod's radius requires you to have 9 times the amount of area. More AoE and more arrows will both help clear, as you'll cover more of the ground with dot. More arrows will basically not affect your boss DPS, while AoE will with rapidly diminishing effect.

As a result, we will basically take the easy sources of large AoE and additional arrows when the tradeoffs are basically nothing (Carcass Jack, Dying Sun). But, since I have close to 100% inc AoE from those two items and the tree, I don't go for any other sources like Broadside where we'd have to give up tremendous value that we get from the Chaos Large Cluster jewels.

6-link bow:

Toxic Rain - Awakened Vicious Projectiles - Mirage Archer - Awakened Void Manipulation - Awakened Swift Affliction - Empower

Damage on Full Life can be used before you have an Empower 4. If you have white sockets in your bow, you can experiment replacing Mirage Archer with Damage on Full Life instead. The DPS is determined at the moment you fire the arrow, so Damage on Full Life will be better than Mirage Archer if you have full life about 50% of the time you shoot. It will be a massive boost for front-loading boss damage, since Mirage Archer won’t do anything while you’re ramping up before starting the encounter, and you’ll be on full life obviously.

3-link:

Malevolence - Enlighten - Flesh and Stone

Clarity can be added to make it a 4th link for a little extra mana sustain.

5-link chest:

Cast When Damage Taken - Immortal Call - Increased Duration - Vaal Haste - Vaal Grace

We only use the Vaal parts of Grace/Haste, and linked to increased duration is a convenience. The level of your CwDT is personal preference. I don’t keep mine at level 1 since I want to make sure it’s only triggering when I’m taking non-negligible damage. Just make sure your Immortal Call doesn’t surpass it.

4-link:

Spell Totem - Multiple Totems - Wither - Faster Casting

Faster Casting is optional

4-link:

Flame Dash - Second Wind - Despair - Faster Casting

Despair is here to make sure we can always use it on bosses in case we run out of Witchfire Brew charges.

Miscellaneous:

I toss a Portal gem in, and I also have Blood Rage unlinked in my build. I only use Blood Rage in Simulacrum or delirious maps with massive density. With our huge skill effect duration, the buff will last 30 seconds, and that degen will bring you all the way down to 0 if there are no mobs around for you to kill and recover. Lightning Golem can also provide some minor DPS through attack speed, but it’s such a pain I barely bother.

PoE Planner

The tree only has 115% increased life. However, we have 6 open jewel sockets (7 total, but one is Intuitive Leap) which all should have % increased life on them. Additionally, we use Vermillion rings with life catalysts for additional life. At level 98, I have 5500 life and 900 ES for a very respectable eHP.

We use 7+4+4 = 15 skill points for each of the Large+Medium+Medium cluster jewel arrangements, so I only allocated 91/123 points to give a representative level 98 skill tree.

Trickster. Patient Reaper -> Ghost Dance -> Escape Artist -> Prolonged Pain.

If you’re playing softcore, you can go Prolonged Pain second for a full DPS leveling experience. It doesn’t really matter.

For bandits, kill all for the 2 points.

Major Pantheon:

- Lunaris is an amazing "set it and forget it" choice here. Physical damage reduction, movement speed, and some extra dodge/avoidance are all spectacular. Avoiding chained projectiles also makes your golem less dangerous to you if you have one.
- Solaris can get special consideration for specific boss fights. Specifically, if the boss you're fighting is solo and doesn't spawn a lot of adds.
- Arakaali is nice for Sirus. The reduced damage over time taken and chaos resistance against damage over time are helpful for storms and ground degens.

Minor Pantheon:

- Yugul for Elder/Shaper. They do a lot of cold damage.
- Garukhan for mapping. More evading and move speed.
- Ryslatha can be useful for Sirus or other long boss fights to get you life flask charges.
- Shakari and Abberath are useful switches for poison/burning ground map mods.

You’ll need to get Aspect of the Spider somewhere. It doesn’t matter where, but just make sure you don’t put it on a piece of gear that you have support gems. The mana multipliers for supports will increase the reserved amount. Enlighten won’t reduce the reserved amount though unfortunately.

Bow:

Base attack speed is important! Choose a bow that is item level 82 and has a base attack time of 1.50. The realistic ideal bow would be:

- +1 to level of Socketed Gems prefix
- t1 increased Attack Speed suffix
- t1 Damage over Time Multiplier suffix
- Can have up to 3 crafted modifiers
- Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier craft
- +2 to level of Socketed Support Gems craft

Note, attack speed is a local modifier. This means that it affects your base bow speed. All other sources of increased attack speed, from the tree/jewels/etc. all scale off of this base bow speed. Thus, your bow attack speed is multiplicative, not additive, with other increased attack speed and quite important. These 2 suffix mods are crazy tough to hit, but you can get a bow with 5 of the 6 mods (just dropping one of the two natural suffixes) for 6-8 ex. If you hit the natural +2 to Socketed Bow Gems prefix, you can craft attack speed instead of the +2 to socketed support gems.

Budget Gear Alternative = buy a 6-link short bow or collect porcupine div cards and trade them in. Hit it with a Shrieking Essence of Dread for +2 to bow skills. Craft chaos dot multi prefix and you're done. This alone will be good enough to get into red maps and costs maybe 30c total. For a mid-tier upgrade, grab a 6-link bow with ilvl 64+ (imperial legacy div cards make this cheap) and hit it with corroded + prismatic + metallic fossil combo. You're aiming for +2 to socketed bow gems, +1 to socketed gems, and an empty third prefix. It shouldn't take many tries, and then you can craft chaos dot multi as the final prefix. This should still cost under 1 ex unless you're very unlucky with the fossils.

Quiver:

Lots of good mods to choose from:
- Damage over time multiplier
- Chaos damage over time multiplier
- Life
- Attack speed
- Movement speed
- Resistances
- Bow attacks fire an additional arrow
- Increased area of effect

I included mods from a variety of influences here, so it’s not possible to get all of these things. Just get what you prefer.

Budget Gear Alternative = just settle for fewer good affixes. You can buy a 20+ chaos dot multi, 80 life, 30 resist quiver for under 20c now that we're this far into the league.

Helmet:

Hunter Influenced i85 Hubris Circlet with Toxic Rain fires 1 additional arrow enchant. We’re aiming for the “nearby enemies have -9% to chaos resistance” mod here with as much energy shield as possible to synergize with our ascendancy. Fossil spamming is your best bet to hit this. Despair curse is the only source of chaos resistance penetration available to us, and bosses have reduced effect of curses. That means bosses like Shaper have 30% base chaos resistance which gets reduced to 21% from a level 20 Despair. Decreasing it from 21% to 12% with this mod is effectively an 11% more damage multiplier for bosses. For a single mod, that’s tough to beat.

Budget Gear Alternative = The Vertex. Tons of ES and EV for good synergy with the Ascendancy. Put your auras here for an extra level on your Enlighten. Costs 5c now.

Amulet:

Lots of good mods here to choose from:
- +1 to level of chaos/dexterity/strength gems
- Chaos damage over time multiplier
- Life
- Attributes (strength if you need it)
- Increased movement speed
- Chance to gain a power/frenzy/endurance charge on kill
- Resistances
- Open prefix for non-channeling skills have -9 to total mana cost craft

You need an open prefix for the mana craft, which is mandatory. Additionally, the gem levels are more important than the chaos damage over time multiplier mod if you have to prioritize them. Try to get a high life roll too, since you’ll be using life and mana catalysts to boost your craft.

Budget Gear Alternative = Settle for fewer affixes. There are some +1 to strength or dex gems, 70 life, 20 res, open prefix amulets listed for under 50c.

Rings:

Vermillion bases. Mods to look for:
- High life roll
- Resistances
- Chaos damage (if using deafening essence of envy)
- Attributes if needed
- Open prefix for non-channeling skills have -9 to total mana cost craft

Again, you’ll be using life and mana catalysts here to boost the vermillion implicit, life roll, and minus mana craft.

Budget Gear Alternative = Settle for lower rolls or go with a different base. There are vermillion rings with 60 life, 60 resistance, and an open prefix listed for under 20c though, so this item is already budget friendly.

Belt:

Stygian Vise is best. Mods to look for:
- High life
- Resistances
- Strength
- Flask stuff (reduced charge use, flask duration, lower priority here)
- Energy shield
- Increased % max life if you’re looking to spend a lot on an influenced stygian base

Budget Gear Alternative = Settle for lower rolls. High life + resistance + strength on a stygian isn't that pricey though. I see 80+ life, 45+ strength, 60+ resistance belts for under 50c.

Chest:

Carcass Jack is best in slot purely for the increased area of effect stat. Prioritize this one in the rolls. The fact that it’s an EV/ES base also synergizes nicely with our build. The math gets a bit strange, and you can check out this link to see more about it, but if we assume:
- You have roughly 40% increased area of effect from the tree plus Dying Sun flask
- You are firing 8 arrows due to having the helmet enchant plus Dying Sun

Then putting on a Carcass Jack with 50% increased AoE will be close to a 40% more damage multiplier due to the improved pod overlap. PoB and the in-game tooltip can’t catch this, but you will instantly feel the difference.

Queen of the Forest is the only other armor I’d ever consider, but it necessitates a lot of flask/aura swapping to make it work. Only consider it if the rest of your gear is so OP that you have enough damage overkill to afford the sacrifice.

Budget Gear Alternative = none. Carcass Jack is mandatory, but they are super cheap as is. Plus, you don't need a 6-link.

Gloves:

Useful mods to look for:
- Attack speed
- Chaos damage over time multiplier
- Life
- Resistances
- Attributes

Budget Gear Alternative = Settle for lower rolls. Attack speed is almost equally valuable compared to chaos dot multi and much cheaper. I can find 70+ life, 14+ attack speed, 60+ resistance gloves for under 40c.

Boots:

Useful mods to look for:
- Movement speed (preferably an incursion mod with additional dodge or move speed if you haven’t been hit)
- Life
- Resistances
- Attributes

Tailwind/Elusive boots are luxury items, but keeping them up is a challenge. The arrows and pods do “hit”, but our base crit chance is likely around 6% and we don’t invest in accuracy, so it will only work in the densest of maps. It would be literally the last thing I invested in once every other piece is done.

Budget Gear Alternative = Atziri Step. You get spell dodge and a high evasion roll at the cost of not having any resistances or attributes.

Flasks:
- Life flask with bleed immunity. I prefer the “Panicked” prefix to the more traditional “Seething”. You’re likely only using flasks when you’re low, and with additional life granted from the tree, it often feels like an instant full heal when I hit the button
- Witchfire Brew
- Quicksilver. Alchemist’s, Chemist’s, and Experimenter’s are all good prefixes. Either curse or chill immunity as the suffix.
- Quartz. Alchemist’s, Chemist’s, and Experimenter’s are all good prefixes. Either curse or chill immunity as the suffix (whichever you didn’t get on Quicksilver).
- Dying Sun. Aim for big AoE roll here.

If you ever run into a map with “players cannot regen mana” you’ll need to swap one of your flasks for a mana flask with “Enduring” prefix.

Enchants:

Helmet = Toxic Rain fires 1 additional arrow
Boots = Attack and cast speed if you’ve killed recently or movement speed if you haven’t been hit recently

Cluster Jewels:

The moment you’ve been waiting for! We use two outer jewel sockets on the tree. Each will have a large cluster jewel with 3 notables and 2 jewel sockets, meaning we use 4 medium cluster jewels each with 2 notables and 1 jewel socket.

For our Large Cluster Jewels we will use 12% chaos damage bases with 8 passive skills and ilvl 75+. This allows for 3 notables and 2 jewel sockets with the minimum number of points. Since the jewel sockets are suffixes, your notables must consist of 2 prefix notables and 1 suffix notable. Useful notables are:

Prefix
- Wicked Pall (get on both)
- Touch of Cruelty (get on one)
- Unwaveringly Evil (get on the other)
Suffix
- Unholy Grace (get on one)
- Unspeakable Gifts (get on the other)

You can mix and match this combo to make it work. The rest of the notables don’t do much for us. Even though we largely have stun immunity due to our Ascendancy, Unwaveringly Evil is nice to have as a backup. Plus, it still provides damage. Stacking 2x Touch of Cruelty isn’t necessary since Aspect of the Spider already hinders everything around us.

The 12% damage over time with bows cluster has two incredible notables, Tempered Arrowheads and Broadside. Unfortunately, they are both prefixes, and the suffix notables left to choose from are horrible. Martial Prowess is the only one that grants a single thing that is not worthless, 6% attack speed. Because of the placement of the bow jewel notables, you'll have to spend 7 points to pick up both notables and both jewel sockets, same as in the chaos ones, but you only get 2 useful notables instead of 3.

Budget Gear Alternative = Just get 2 notables and 2 sockets instead of 3 notables. A full 3 notable + 2 socket large jewel will cost about 4-5 ex to craft. You can probably buy them for 3 if you're diligent with live searches. Another viable option is to just use one cluster setup instead of two to start. Instead of taking the mana outer socket up top, use those 15ish points to path down and pick up Aspect of the Eagle, Heart of Oak, Finesse, and the life + evasion nodes next to the Ranger start. Then you'd just refund those points when you're ready to put the second cluster in.

For our Medium Cluster Jewels we will use +5% to chaos damage over time multiplier bases with either 4 or 5 passives. Here we stack the exact same two notables on every single one:

- Wicked Pall
- Eternal Suffering

Toxic Rain was balanced against other chaos skills with the assumption that each pod would only last 1 second. With considerable investment, you used to be able to bump it up to almost 2 seconds (a duration cluster by the Scion wheel, Prolonged Pain, and Malevolence). Now, we can basically double it to lasting almost 4 seconds by stacking these notables, save all the travel nodes, and pick up TONS of chaos and chaos dot multi at the same time. Absolutely mandatory in my mind.

If you find yourself with more DPS than you know what to do with and want a viable place to trade a bit of damage for quality of life, substitute out Eternal Suffering for Flow of Life on a couple jewels. The extra HP and regen are quite nice. The 24% increased damage is also more valuable than the +5% dot multi in terms of per pod DPS. You'll only end up losing DPS when you get to the top of your ramp.

Budget Gear Alternative = Widen the range of nodes you're willing to accept. There are 17 notables you can roll on these medium cluster jewels, so hitting this exact combo is not cheap. Trying to craft it yourself is probably an ex or two each depending on rng. To make it cheaper, drop Eternal Suffering and go for Wicked Pall plus one of these other notables:
- Circling Oblivion (skill effect duration and dot)
- Flow of Life (dot and life)
- Eldritch Inspiration (dot multi, mana, mana regen)
- Brush With Death (dot multi, more recovery)
- Exposure Therapy (dot multi, chaos dot resistance)

Eldritch Inspiration is useful if you don't have any other mana regen on gear. Our Toxic Rain only costs 7 mana if you craft on all 3 jewelry pieces, but you'll still need some regen in order to spam.

Regular Jewels:

For your belt, an abyss jewel with max life and onslaught on kill is the priority.

For the remaining slots, go for viridian jewels and prioritize roughly this order:
- % increased max life
- Increased attack speed with bows
- Chaos dot multi
- Increased attack speed
- Increased attack and cast speed
- Chaos damage
- Projectile damage
- Damage over time
- Area damage
- Resistances or attributes if needed for gear

If you’ve followed the gear and tree up to this point, you’ll likely find yourself in the neighborhood of 800% total sources of increased damage, 200% total chaos dot multi, and 120% total increased attack speed excluding the bow (gets closer to 200% IAS when buffed with onslaught, frenzy charges, vaal haste). When choosing mods above, it’s important to keep these quantities in mind, and be specific with your gear. Additional sources of each are additive with what you already have, but multiplicative with each other. Therefore, getting more of whichever source you have the least of should be a priority. This makes increased attack speed with bows (which can roll up to 8%) likely much better than chaos dot multi (which can only roll up to 4%) for almost everyone. These jewels are also much cheaper than simple life + chaos multi, so win-win. Since you have so much increased damage at this point, only take the chaos/projectile/damage over time/area damage mods as a last resort if you can’t get any others.

Budget Gear Alternative = Jewels with just life and attack speed with bows are 5c each. Adding attributes or resistances as a third affix here won't raise the price much either, so use these as utility slots to fill in any holes from your gear.

Small Cluster Jewels & Megalomaniac:

I really don't like small cluster jewels generally. If you wanted to build up your HP pool with something like Fettle, you could get it on a 2-point small jewel. Considering you'd have to take out a regular jewel and spend travel points to get there, the tradeoff becomes stats on jewel plus 2 skill points vs. 14% hp and 20 flat life. Assuming the jewel has life on it, you're only net gaining 7% life and you have to give up potentially 3 damage stats from the regular jewel and then find somewhere else on the tree to refund the points. It's just really hard to justify.

As pointed out by Hedrock01 on the other hand, Megalomaniac can be a much better route to fit in some otherwise unattainable nodes, such as No Witnesses. You can customize your search to your own personal preferences as far as which notables you're willing to accept. In the end, Megalomaniac just subs out the jewel socket for a third notable from a normal medium cluster jewel, making the tradeoff much more acceptable.

Watcher’s Eye:

Chaos Dot Multi while affected by Malevolence is the best in slot mod. For other mods:
- Unaffected by bleeding with Malevolence
- Attack speed with Precision (need to wear Precision)
- Minus mana cost with Clarity (need to wear Clarity)

Updated 5/8 - https://pastebin.com/3NhhHLA3

Unbuffed Shaper DPS:
- No flasks
- No charges
- No vaal skills
- No wither stacks
- No ghost shrouds
- Shaper/Guardian selected
- Only auras, 3 spider stacks, -9% enemy chaos resistance, and Despair enabled

DoT DPS of one pod = 156k.
Attack Rate = 3.33

From hideout testing, it seems most of the time that 4 out of my 6 pods touch the click target most of the time with no flasks. Mirage Archer attacks with 60% less speed and deals 30% less damage, so in effect it’s a 0.4 * 0.7 = 28% more multiplier. So my unbuffed Shaper DPS would be:

156k * 3.33 APS * 4 Pod/Attack * 3.7s duration per pod * 1.28 mirage archer = 9.8 million

”Kosis” DPS:
- Flasks
- Frenzy Charges
- Vaal Haste & Bloodrage
- Max Wither Stacks
- Ghost Shroud attack speed accounted for
- Onslaught
- Shaper/Guardian selected

Again, from standing in my hideout, it seems that most of the time 5 out of 8 pods touch the target when I'm buffed with Dying Sun AoE. So DPS becomes:

304k * 4.9 APS * 5 Pod/Attack * 3.7s duration per pod * 1.28 mirage archer = 35 million

Since cluster notables carry the build, why not go for another? I'm basically just testing stuff now, so this is not a full endorsement yet. By using a third notable, I can get the pod DPS to stay roughly constant, but now have a full 1.15 extra second duration (3.4 to 4.55) and about 10% more attack speed. I lose the charge generation, some evasion, and a tiny amount of life hp/es though. So basically, instead of trading some damage for survivability, I went the opposite direction. Since even conquerors already die in under 3.4 seconds though, I'm not sure this is actually better in practice. Might end up swapping some of the Wicked Pall/Eternal Suffering medium nodes to the higher dot multi ones like Brush With Death/Exposure Therapy on this third cluster to actually pump the per pod dot or chase some wild megalomaniacs.

https://pastebin.com/uf83gpwa - first attempt.

https://pastebin.com/fSr7YRxd - final version, done with the league.

5/1/20 - Added budget gear alternatives.
5/1/20 - Added Simulacrum, Conqueror, T16 map videos.
5/8/20 - Updated PoB with some jewel changes. Added Megalomaniac notes.
5/8/20 - Added AoE breakpoints
5/10/20 - Added triple cluster experimental variation
5/30/20 - Scrapped old AoE breakpoints chart, replaced with video test demo