Path of Exile has had a huge range of interesting spells in the past to choose from, but with major changes every league, some go forgotten, and become less used over time. One of these glorious spells of the past was Dark Pact, but it has decreased in popularity in the past couple of years. Even though there were no direct buffs to the Dark Pact spell itself, there were several small buffs to everything that serves the unique playstyle for Dark Pact over the last few patches.
In thisDark Pact On Skeleton Wander Build Guide, we explore every way possible to automate the casting of Dark Pact, with wand attacks. We repeat small damage as many times as possible, for achieving maximum major damage. We will go through Gear choices, all Gem sockets, and the smart passive tree for maximum efficacy.
Path Of Exile Builds 3.11 - Assassin Dark Pact (Harvest League)
I wanted to call this build originally “Cast on Blinking” as a metaphor for the multiple casts of spells we do per second. In a blink of an eye your screen is full of Dark Pact casts, minions, explosions, and chain reactions, all at once. Instead I called it Dark Pact on Skeleton Wander as it utilizes skeletons and wands inPath of Exile.
Assassinis a must for Cast on Critical builds, to compensate for lower critical strike chance on The Poet’s Pen. Assassin is also a good class for Power charges scaling, so we take all three power charge nodes on the tree, in addition to the extra one from Ascendancy, and the three base charges. Making a total of 7 power charges without any investment in gear. You can corrupt your Helmet for another charge, which will scale all critical chance, critical multiplier, damage, and mana recovery.
Kinetic Blastis our attack of choice, simply because of its overlapping AOE. Also, because you can miss enemies and still proc explosions, these will hit foes, do critical hits, and cast Dark Pact nevertheless. It also benefits best from Chain support, which we will need for our Dark Pact damage.
You should play this Build if you like tons of big explosions, you like auto-summoning minions from a safe distance, and you like doing this with the click of a single button. You should also play this Build if you like completing T15 maps with less than 4k life, you want a Cast on Critical Build that’s not a Cyclone and you want to go fast (and I mean really fast).
Dark Pact Cast on Crit Wander Pros & Cons
Build Concept & Function
To clearly explain how this build works, I will break down its core concepts which includes howDark Pact,The Poet’s Pen,Cast on CriticalandSpellslingerall work. To put it plainly, by its own,
Dark Pactis a clunky spell that requires pre-summoning skeletons, or sacrificing your own life to cast. This is intended, however, and is the overall drawback for such immense power, that is provided by this spell. It’s a chaos skill that once cast, goes through a series of checks, and changes behavior depending on these checks which are as follows:
Are there any
Skeletons nearby?
How much life does the player have?
Do you have only one skeleton?
you may already see the different ways this single spell can be built, but for this guide, we only cast
Dark Pacton skeletons. We will use a
Chainsupport gem to increase the chain target by two more. So each cast makes Dark Pact proc 5 times, effectively gaining 400% “More Damage Multiplier”. Then we can invest in
Minion Lifeto increase the damage output of every single Dark Pact. To avoid a clunky build, we will automate both the casting of skeletons, and the cast of Dark Pact. Which takes us to the actual mechanics of the build and how this all works:
How does Cast on Critical work? How can Kinetic Blast fit in this build?
You can use an Attack Skill, and link that with a
Cast on Critical Strikes support, and link them with a spell. Once this is done you may use your Attack Skill, and every time your attacks perform a critical hit, you will proc the linked spell. So if you do more than one critical per second, you proc your spell more than once per second, making your attack speed, and critical chance an effective way to increase your spell damage.
The default cooldown of Cast on Critical is 0.15 seconds, allowing effectively 6.06 procs per second. In order to achieve this, we need to increase Accuracy to gain 100% hit chance, so every attack hits, and therefor has a chance to Crit. Then after Accuracy we need to increase Critical Strike Chance, and Attack Speed to proc as close as possible to 6 times per second, for maximum damage.
Our attack,
Kinetic Blasthas two damage components, initial projectile, and explosions with a delay. So even if we don’t hit 6 attacks per second, we can still deal critical hits from combining primary and secondary hits. This is more likely to happen with a
Chainsupport gem, because a single attack can hit up to five targets, and do 4 explosions, 5 additional times. You can now see just how many hits we emit with one attack to make this work.
Damage Calculation
In a best case scenario you’re able to proc Dark Pact 30 times per second (6 procs * 5 chains). And in the worst case, you will never overlap critical strikes from the same attack. The following is how you calculate your rough DPS:
Total number of hits = (Accuracy * effective critical strike chance * Attacks per second * 5)
Damage per second = (Total number of hits * average hit damage)
In reality, you do an average between maximum hits, and minimum hits. Please note that our Cast on Critical damage is only one portion of this build’s total damage, your other sources combined will do almost the same damage as our Cast on Critical setup. So for example, if your average hit reaches 50k damage, and you hit 25 times, you will gain a total damage of 1.25 million Cast on Critical DPS. You will end up doing roughly double that number when you combine every other source of damage.
How does The Poet’s Pen work?
The Poet’s Pen is even more simple than Cast on Critical. You attack once withThe Poet’s Penwand, and and the gems socketed in this particular wand proc. It alternates between spells in your main hand and off hand. So we put skeletons in one wand, and another Dark Pact on the other. This will keep summoning skeletons, and proc an additional 3 Dark Pact spells at half of our Attack Speed.
Note this doesn’t need our attacks to Hit or Critically Hit. You just attack in any direction, or empty space and your spells socketed in your wands will proc. This has a 0.15 second Cooldown, or an effective 6.06 procs per second.
How does the Spellslinger work?
Spellslingerreserves mana to proc linked spells every time you attack, with a 0.429 second cooldown, or an effective 2.33 procs per second. Be aware that going over this attack rate can make some of your spells miss the cast, because every second attack you will find spells on cooldown, so it doesn’t proc but instead waits until the third attack. Therefore, if you plan to go over 2.33 attacks per second, try to reach almost double that number to not lose damage from the missed proc.
Skill Gems and Links
Below you will find good combinations of Links and Gems that make the Build function for each Skill you’ll be using. I’ve organized them by Skill so that you can see the progression you might take with each in order to achieve an optimal setup.
Early Levels (Before lvl 34)
You can level using any chaos spell you prefer, however I prefer using dualThe Poet’s Penwands from the start for consistency. So we will be using both attacks and spell setups. You can alternate between attacking with
Kinetic Bolt
Frenzy, to keep both Power and Frenzy charges up. Then we proc all chaos spells we can fit in our sockets.
Kinetic Bolt (3B/1G)
Kinetic Bolt-
Power Charge On Critical-
Increased Critical Strikes-
Dash (1G/1B)
Arcane Surge
Withering Step (1G)
Withering Step
Vaal Blight (1B)
Vaal Blight
Contagion (On The Poet’s Pen) (2B/1G)
Contagion-
Void Manipulation-
Essence Drain (On The Poet’s Pen) (2B/1G)
Essence Drain-
Concentrated Effect-
Void Manipulation
Later Levels (Act 4 Onward)
From here our build will take shape, and our skills will start to look more the like endgame version of the build. We can now replace
Kinetic Boltwith
Kinetic Blast, which has better clearing and proccing potential. We can also now put three
Dark Pactspells in our setup. It’s highly recommended that you get six linked body armour as soon as possible to fit all these gems. But if you don’t have this yet, you can start with 5 links.
You can also add as many links to Spellslinger as much as your mana can handle:
Kinetic Blast (3B/3G)
Kinetic Blast-
Faster Attacks-
Cast On Critical Strike-
Dark Pact-
Increased Critical Strikes
Dark Pact (On The Poet’s Pen) (2B/1G)
Summon Skeletons (On The Poet’s Pen) (2B/1R)
Vaal Summon Skeletons-
Minion Life-
Spellslinger (2B): minimum mana reservation and links
Spellslinger-
Spellslinger (2B/1G): Onslaught
Spellslinger (3B): Auto Curse
Assassin’s Mark/
Spellslinger (3B/1G): Maximum Damage
Vaal Blight (With Spreading Rot jewel equipped) (1B/2R)
Vaal Blight-
Spell Totem-
Multiple totems
Thus, you will cast Vaal Blight directly, and Blight with totems. Both will inflict wither stacks.
Buffs (1B/1G)
Frenzy (1B/1G)
Faster Attacks
Attacking with Frenzy will generate frenzy charges, and also keep proccing the skeletons, plus two of our three Dark Pact spells, so we don’t suffer a damage loss.
Skill Tree Progression / Path of Building / Ascendancy / Bandits
In this section we’ll take a look at where you will need to place points into your Skill Tree to make this Build function, as well as in what order works best for maximum efficiency. Let’s begin with where to place your first 40 points or so.
First Labyrinth (44 points)
When placing points we start from the Shadow area, going through physical and chaos damage small nodes, reaching for “Coordination”. Then go up to “Blood Siphon”, then right to “Assassination”, and “Coldhearted Calculation”. Then spend two points for “Lethal Assault”, four more points to get “Blood Drinker”, and go south to grab “Acrobatic” and “Phase Acrobatic” Keystones.
From “Coldhearted Calculation” take three intelligence nodes towards the “Arcane expanse” wheel, spending another three points to get there. Spend four more points towards “Wandslinger” wheel, and take it. That’s a total of 44 points spent.
Second Labyrinth (78 points)
After placing your initial 44 points, you’ll travel a lot, and go all the way towards the Templar starting area. By now, we have many Dark Pact Procs, so we will take most of the “% Minion life” nodes available to increase its damage. Take one point left, then go down for the “Lord of the Dead”, “Minion Life”, and “Deep Wisdom”. Afterwards, go left through “Heart and Soul”, and “Arcanist Dominion”. Then, continue towards “Retribution”, “Discipline and Training” and then stop here.
From the Intelligence point before “Retribution”, we go up and left through “Minion Life”, and “Minion Attack Speed Nodes”, making sure to get “Sacrifice” and “Spiritual Command”. This will make it so Minion Attack Speed affects your attacks as well, which is perfect. Keep going past the Dexterity small node and get the entire wheel around “Purity Of Flesh”.
Go down two points, to reach the next minion wheel, and the shortest way towards “Righteous Army” and then “Spiritual Aid”. All minion damage sources increase your own damage, and you get some accuracy, minion life, and life regeneration on the way. That sums up our second phase, with a total of 78 points.
Third Labyrinth (99 points)
From here you will need to build up some life, and maximum power charges. To get life you’ll want to take the following: “Written In Blood”, “Cruel Preparation”, “Devotion”, and “Quick Recovery”. You can refund “Quick Recovery” later and get the jewel socket, but for now take it. For Power Charges you want to take “Overcharge”, “Instability”, and “Infused” for merely 6 points. Also get “Spell Damage per Power Charge” next to “Instability”. This should put you at 99 points.
Final Labyrinth (Level 90 with 113 points)
As we reach Maps, we need to push our critical strike chance and critical strike multiplier as much as possible. For maximum Dark Pact casts per second, we need something close to 100% critical chance on Kinetic Blast, which is an Attack. That’s why we look for generic “Critical Strike Chance” before “Spell Critical Strike Chance”.
The best way we can get some generic critical strike chance is to use the “Discipline of The Forbidden” Wheel, which grants us 56% critical strike chance, 35% critical strike multiplier, 56% mana regeneration, and 56% increased damage with a mere 7 power charges (we already gained this from the passive tree and Ascendancy). If we push gear for more maximum power charges, then we will get even more generic stats from these passive nodes, which is very, very good.
To get to “Discipline of The Forbidden” you have to:
After that you will get more critical modifier from the “Heartseeker” wheel, “Arcane Potency” wheel, and “Throatseeker” wheel. Once you have a good clear speed, you can either refund “Arcane Expanse” , or shave one of these critical wheels to get “No Witnesses” for more movement speed, and dodge chance.
If you are not keen on maxing critical strike chance, you can anoint “Heartseeker” from Cassia, and refund the rest of the wheel, then use these points to get “Prodigal Perfection” for nice spell damage and a maximum mana increase. This way you get more damage and unreserved mana which you can use to put more links into your Dark Pact/Spellslinger setup.
Path of Building
If you need exact specifics and the images are not good enough for you, you can copy and import this link in the offline tool “Path of Building” to see the entire character build. Or Open the POE Planner link for an online character planner.
Ascendancy & Bandits
For Ascendancy I have laid out two paths, one that you’d typically use and one if you are using the Fenumus Set. For the Normal Setup you’ll take Unstable Infusion, Mistwalker, Deadly Infusion and then Opportunistic. If you’ll be using the Fenumus Set then you’ll do essentially the same thing, but swap Opportunistic for Noxious Strike instead.
When it comes to Bandits, you’ll just kill them all in order to gain the 2 passive skill points. These are needed in order to reach all the nodes in this Build.
Early Leveling Gear
Below you will find some recommendations for weapons, armor and accessories needed for early leveling:
If you don’t make this build as your first character in league, ensure to get two ofThe Poet’s Penwands before starting. Use them from level 12 and never look back.
Get 6 Link Body Armour, no matter what is it, because Links for main skills are more important. UseTabula Rasa,Skin of the Loyal, or any corrupted body armor with(3B/3G)sockets, and get resistances on it if possible.
The typical unique armor pieces that helps any build level up faster are:Goldrim Helmet(for resistances), andWanderlust Boots(for movement speed, mana regeneration, and freeze immunity).
TheOskarmunique gloves goes well withHinekora’s Sight, as it turns the additional accuracy into much needed critical chance.Doedre’s Tenuregloves gives huge spell damage buff, but penalizes cast speed. However, we don’t cast spells, we proc them so there is no downside here. If you’re able to getMaligaro’s Virtuositygloves for early leveling it can be a good contender up until your critical strike Multiplier goes over 300% in endgame.
Accessories
Hinekora’s Sightamulet can solve all your Accuracy problems right up until endgame, and gives some nice Dodge Chance as well. An alternative amulet you could use though isAtziri’s Foible, to solve mana problems, and allows you to reserve a higher level
Precision buff early on. The best way to regenerate life and mana is using theThief’s Tormentring (which takes two ring slots). And, if you are like me and use unique items in every slot while leveling this build, your resistances will be lacking. I solved this by usingString of Servitudebelt with +% to all elemental resistances.
End-GameGear
Below you will find some recommendations for weapons, armor and accessories that will be required for endgame content.
Again you want two ofThe Poet’s Pen. Keep using the ones you leveled up with until you can get corrupted ones with “(14-18)% increased Critical Strike Chance”. This is the best single modifier to get your critical strike chance higher. Don’t worry about buying the right socket colors with the corrupted wands. You can change sockets colors with the crafting bench even on corrupted items.
Crafted body Armor is best suited for this build. Try Fossil crafting on level +84 Shaper influenced Body Armour, and aim to get two of these three modifiers:
You can also craft with “Deafening Essence of Fear” on any level +82 Body Armour. This gives you an easy “Minions have (27–30)% increased maximum Life” modifier, which equals an average of 8-10% more damage. Try a few times with a few Essences until you get some good life, resistances, and/or empty modifiers. You can further improve the Armour with Harvest craft, like adding critical modifier on Shaper influenced. And you can bench craft % increased Maximum life, or % chance to Dodge Spell Hits.
If you want Unique Body Armour, you’re able to use eitherCherrubim’s Maleficencefor good damage and life, orCarcass Jack. Both will be very easy to get the right socket colors.
Scold’s Bridleis cheap and a great DPS boost helmet if you can sustain/recover the physical damage taken with each skill you use. If you want to push your DPS with Scold’s Bridle even further, use 5L
Dark PactonThe Hungry Loopwith
Cast When Damage Taken-
Void Manipulation. You can also buy as many Scold’s Bridle helmets as you can for 1 Chaos Orb each. Keep corrupting them until you get “+1 Maximum Power Charge”.
CraftedElder Helmetis also not a bad choice with two of the following modifiers (and some resistances and/or life):
If you place your
Spellslingeron a Helmet with
Concentrated Effectsupport, you’re able to use an extra damage support gem like
Chain. You can buy any corrupted rare with the “+1 Maximum Power Charge” modifier and some life and resistances and it will do the job. TheBone Helmetfor example, is a perfect base for any crafting you want done.
Doedre’s Malevolenceprovides the best DPS in the Gloves slot, but no defense.Oskarmis another option, even at this stage, and it’s the easiest way to get Accuracy and Critical Chance.Shadows and Dustare also fun Gloves that emphasize the super fast clear speed playstyle with rampage. For better functionality, get any of these unique gloves corrupted with one of these modifiers:
Crafted Fingerless Silk Glovesis another option that you can go with as well, and you want to try to get them with high Accuracy rating, Resistances, and life. Bench craft “Minions deal #% increased Damage” or “% increased Damage during any Flask Effect” or alternatively, craft “% increased Area of Effect/+1 to Level of Socketed AoE Gems” and place your Spellslinger on your gloves.
Crafted Two Toned Bootswork well here with maximum movement speed, life, and resistances, or you can use crafted Shaper boots with “% increased Cooldown Recovery Speed”, or crafted Redeemer boots with both % chance to Dodge Attack Hits/% chance to Dodge spell Hits. The choice is up to you.
For amulets, you can keepHinekora’s Sightamulet even at endgame. Get one with additional curse corruption, % All elemental resistances, or Zealotry has (15-20)% increased Aura Effect.
Zerphi’s Heartis a strong all around offense item. Soul Eater will raise your attack speed greatly, and you suddenly can shock, ignite, and chill at same time.Impresence(with Despair preserve no mana) is the more expensive choice to turn your curse into an aura, but we are tight on links, so it’s a tough choice.
Finally,Aul’s Uprisingwith
Zealotry Aura modifier saves us 50% mana reserved, and it’s a sweet addition with some critical chance, life, and attributes. It allows us to get an additional aura, like Vitality, Haste, or put your curses on Spellslinger, all depending on your preferences. On the other hand, a crafted Hunter Amulet with +1 to Level of all Chaos Skill Gems/+1 to Level of all Intelligence Skill Gems can be superior.
TheThief’s Tormentring is still good way to recover both life and mana in endgame (which takes two ring slots), and you may use 20x Fertile Catalyst on Thief’s Torment to further increase mana and life gained on hit.
A more flexible alternative is a couple Shaper rings with “+(13–15) Life gained for each Enemy hit by your Spells” and “+(2–3) Mana gained for each Enemy Hit by your Spells”.
TheHungry Loopcan be used for another 5 Link setup, if you have the patience to feed the supports to it. Put
Dark Pacton The Hungry Loop with
Void Manipulation.
UseMark of the Shaperon one slot, and an Elder Ring on the other for a massive damage buff. Elder rings can roll “+# Life/mana gained for each Enemy hit by your Attacks” , which is less effective than life/mana gained on spell hits, but may pass. Elder rings can also roll “% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier” , and/or % increased Global Accuracy Rating.
Vermillion, and Diamond rings are good bases to craft, but you can also craft two stones rings for better resistances.
Darkness Enthronedwith twoGhastly Eye Jewelscan easily be the highest damage belt. You can get Minions have up to 42% increased maximum Life (12% on both jewels multiplied by 1.75) You can get Increased Attack Speed up to 21% (Minions have (4–6)% increased Attack Speed, on both jewels, multiplied by 1.75) , and Attack Speed can be even better if you used “Minions have (6–8)% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you or your Minions have Killed Recently”.
Darkness Enthronedwith twoHypnotic Eye Jewelis another great contender with the following possible suffixes. Pick up whichever two suffixes you prefer from below, and round up the jewels with high a Maximum life roll on both slots.
Because of the Harvest Craft, you’re able to get really good Stygian Vise with all resistances and life, then place one good jewel in it and you’re set as well.
Uber Labyrinth Enchantments
A great source to improve your character is getting enchantments on each of your three slots.
If you use a rare Helmet, you can easily get the desired enchantment. However, if you aim to get good corruption, you can skip the helmet enchantment. You’re looking for the following:
This one is important to help you gain more damage or overall better defense. So pick up one of these options:
For gloves you’ll want to take “Commandment of Blades”, which is an extra spell proc, that chains 4 times between enemies.
Quicksilver Flaskcan be used in early leveling. However when it comes to endgame, your Elusive buff will remove the necessity of this flask. You’ll want the following 5 at end game:
Make sure to get bleed immunity, and ignite immunity from Flask suffixes because all our Evasion and Dodge doesn’t help against damage over time/ground effects, in addition to freeze/chill immunity. One of the best prefixes to have on your flasks is “Surgeon’s” which gives you a chance to gain flask charge when you deal critical strike damage. You can refill your flask easily even on a single target with this Build.
For your Major Pantheon you’ll want Soul of Lunaris, which provides great evasion, dodge, and physical damage reduction. For Minor Pantheon you have two options:Soul of Garukhanso you get movement speed and more evade chance, orSoul of Shakariso you get almost poison immunity, as dodge chance doesn’t help against DoTs.
Hardcore/SSF (Solo Self Found) Viable or Not?
Solo Self Found (SSF) is not an option here. This build needs both good currency, and very specific unique items to start functioning. On the other hand, Hardcore is very doable. Instead of Spellslinger Dark Pact, you’re able to use Zombies linked with meat shield for an additional layer of protection. Use Spellslinger with Summon Holy Relic for more defenses.
For the Rich Guys
If you don’t have a budget, and are willing to spend whatever is necessary to take this build to new heights, you will find these items below a great assistance:
Frequently Asked Questions
Finally you may still have some questions about this build which I’ve taken the liberty to explain, that I’d expect you may have and will hopefully shed some clarity on how the build works.
Q:IsGloomfanggood for this build?
Q:If I can’t use Gloomfang, how I can get the additional chain?
Q:Why do we not need 100% critical strike chance? Why don’t we need 6 Attacks per second?
Q:What’s the best way to get Frenzy charges?
Q:Why Kinetic Blast, and not Frenzy as main attack? Isn’t “Frenzy” faster?
If you found this build useful and want to check out more of ourPath of Exilecontent, be sure to read/watch ourPath of Exile: Harvest Expansion Overviewto find out more about the latest update. Or if you are interested in our guides, check ourIce Crash WarZerkerbuild, andInfernal Cold Assassinbuild.
