The creativity of the community in Path of Exile 2 has been one of the most remarkable things in the game's ever-expanding universe. From the many Pathfinder builds meant to help with Wraeclast's progression, some of them are a bit out of the box in terms of their mechanics. Looking at the unique systems and mechanics, this stands as a testimony to what Path of Exile 2 can offer.

• Reflect Pathfinder Build: A Very Simple Approach Combat
• Notes of Importance
• Strengths and Weaknesses
• Skill Gems
• Gear
• Jewels
• Passive Tree
• Things to Keep in Mind About Ascendancy
• Helpful Suggestions For Enhancing Gameplay
• Further Possible Enhancement and Potential Goals
• Increasing Damage Potential and Efficient Map Clearing
• Defensive Strategies: Withstanding the Attack
• Peak Performance
• Why this build stands out
• In conclusion

↖ Reflect Pathfinder Build: A Very Simple Approach Combat

No skill or dodge attempts whatsoever are required to throw these attackers off within the scope of the Reflect Pathfinder Build. The basic skills needed for this build includes Arctic Armour which passively does cold damage to attackers that use melee weapons on you and is activated constantly refreshing itself like a shield. While KallTorak considers this a rather utility defensive spell likely seen to put your life out of danger, the genius finally discovered its primary damage source that's centered around this build.

To increase the damage dealt by Arctic Armour's cold function, this build uses Plaguefinger which is a unique pair of gloves that allows cold damage to poison enemies. This synergy turns every melee hit taken into a chance to poison enemies and sets up multi-kill potential for deadly reactions.

↖ Notes of Importance

The core of this build is an enchanting skill called Arctic Armour and its particular cold damage reflection. While hitting melee enemies, cold damage is reflected back if the player is struck. This skill in conjunction with Plague Finger Gauze Wraps unique gloves which reflect cold damage while encapsulating poison turn this build into a poison-proliferation machine. Additional support from Herald of the Plague gem ensures poison spread to adjacent foes at enhanced range enabling screen-wide clear potential post 1 melee hit.

Casting the build revolves around spiral poisoning the opponents alongside high cold damage enabled with almost all support gems within the skill tree. The lack of freedom to move vertically along the game world shifts most of its appeal to freedom-limited situations which has its weaknesses against some boss mechanics and non-melee foes.

↖ Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths:

Unique Playstyle: The lack of active skills provides a new tryhand for players who want something different in combat.

Screen Wide Clearing: Clearing large packs of enemies is easy with the combination of poison spread from Herald of the Plague and Arctic Armour.

High Energy Shield Sustain: With 8,000 energy shield and Grim Feast keystone, the build is ably to sustain itself for long periods of time.

Minimal Micromanagement: Unlike many other builds, this one does not require much managing or controlling of skills.

Weaknesses:

Reliance on Melee Enemies: As only melee strikes will trigger Arctic Armour, fights against ranged enemies or spell casters get more difficult.

Bossing Limitations: There are boss battles where attack speeds are slower, or there is no melee action, as maintaining poison stacks becomes increasingly difficult.

Ascendancy Drawbacks: The Pathfinder ascendancy might not be the best for the build due to the focus on reduction of poison duration and minimal interaction with Arctic Armour.

Gear Dependency: The focuses around this build are a bit too specific, relying on unique plague finger gauze wraps or high energy shield gear.

↖ Skill Gems

The build takes advantage of the least amount of skill gems:

Arctic Armor (5-Link): Supported by Cold Mastery, Elemental Focus, Deadly Poison, Controled Destruction, and Burning Plague. No freezing occurs due to Elemental Focus, allowing the bosses to attack and get poisoned.

Herald of the Plague: Makes sure that the poison spread is better, and it has more utility than Contagious Contamination.

Grim Feast: Maintains Energy Shield and lets it be recovered consistently to offset damage coming in.

↖ Gear

Plague Finger Gauze Wraps: They are crucial in the spell for turning reflected cold damage into poison.

Energy Shield Focused Gear: All pieces of gear need to be higher in Energy Shield rolls. So all pieces should ideally provide maximum survivability.

Damage Boosting Gear: Enhancers of chaos damage along with cold or even spell damage need to be sought after. This boosts the power of Arctic Armor.

↖ Jewels

Jewels having higher chances of inflicting poison, along greater magnitude of poison, are vital. Their damage gets maximized this way.

The passive nodes nearby increase the magnitude of the poison. Hence, this jewel is the “Time-Lost Emerald.”

↖ Passive Tree

The passive tree focuses more on

Magnitude and hit chance of the poison.

Scaling of chaos and cold damage.

Recovery from Energy Shield along with the rate of recharge.

Defensive nodes such as Mind Over Matter and Chaos Inoculation.

↖ Things to Keep in Mind About Ascendancy

This build uses the Pathfinder ascendancy, but it is perhaps not the most efficient option. Consider the other options below that might offer better synergy:

Blood Mage: It grants extra defense and scaling for Arctic Armour's cripple optimization.

Infernalis: Provides raw spell power, requiring no active playstyle, and furthering the build's passive defenses.

The six additional passive skill points and additional poison magnitude Pathfinder provides helps. Still, Overwhelming Toxicity, which reduces poison duration by 35%, does lower potential when fighting bosses.

↖ Helpful Suggestions For Enhancing Gameplay

Managing Your Energy Shield: Doubling poison damage output by maintaining eight Arctic Armour stacks is the goal. Use teleportation skills to replenish and reposition during prolonged fights.

Drawing Primary Fire: Make sure to focus on trying to pull melee enemies to range or spellcasting allies to ensure that all enemies set off Arctic Armour get triggered.

Counter Combat: For slow melee attack bosses, it is best to use movement in order to get them to bite while keeping poison stacks.

↖ Further Possible Enhancement and Potential Goals

At this point, the build is certainly usable, but can use optimization.

Switching the ascendancy to Blood Mage or Infernalis is worth trying for specific performance scenarios.

The survivability of the character could be increased alongside poison duration by adding more defensive layers like Blasphemy + Temporal Chains.

Perhaps other pieces of gear as well as some unique items could be more synergistic and shift the focus of the build.

↖ Increasing Damage Potential and Efficient Map Clearing

After establishing the poison mechanic, the next step is to focus on maximizing the efficiency of spell levels, cold damage, and poison magnitude to achieve maximum output. While some builds can get away with powerful single target damage, aggressive map clearing requires damage to be able to be dealt in a more spread out fashion across groupings.

This is where Herald of Plague shines. This skill transfers the highest underlying poison damage from one enemy to others close enough to them so that entire packs can be affected. Furthermore, the Bursting Plague gem causes poisoned enemies to die in a burst of poison, adding extra aggressively dealing damage. Combining these factors allows dozens of monsters to be cleared from the screen through player input.

↖ Defensive Strategies: Withstanding the Attack

Robust defensive layers are essential since this build requires taking damage in order to deal damage. The Energy Shield skill focus is a priority step as it gives a large buffer zone for incoming attacks. Also, Mind Over Matter is activated to turn an unused mana pool into an extra life pool which improves this builds survivability. This mechanism is perfect given that this build passively uses mana.

↖ Peak Performance

What stands out is that tier 15 and 16 maps are not a challenge for the Reflect Pathfinder build. Clearing high tier content like this is proof that even the most outrageous builds stand a chance at succeeding. Despite all of this, KallTorak is eager to point out that this build is meant to be for fun rather than being efficient. Not having enough active skills means relying a lot on passives which makes this setup less flexible than norm builds.

↖ Why this build stands out

The creative possibilities within Path of Exile 2's ecosystem makes Reflect Pathfinder shine. This build directly goes against established beliefs of optimization by favoring new ideas and creativity. While not the best option for progressing endgame, it does stand out for fulfilling the need of offering an entertaining gameplay experience that depth the game mechanics.

This showcase helps to exhibit both the creativity and the experimentation which is achievable when one strays from conventional approaches, serving as a testament to the creativity involved in designing this build.

↖ In conclusion

the Reflect Pathfinder build is more than a build – it is an expression of the Path of Exile 2's Sandbox nature. It helps to provide the reminder that the magic of a game sometimes lies in what looks like through the lens of straying away from the optimal routes.