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The new league in Path of Exile Trial of the Ancestors comes with a host of new support Skill Gems, the return of Sanctum to the core game, as well as new league mechanics. Most of these new support gems, however, are oriented towards advanced theorycrafting for new build ideas. These can be currency-intensive, which will require a more humble starter build after a fresh seasonal reset.
Casting aside the Ruthless mode changes, the early-game meta for Path of Exile patch 3.22 has not shifted much. The only significant change is to the Temporal Chains support skill gem, which mostly nerfs poison builds. There are a good number of league-starter budget builds you can choose for your first Trial of the Ancestors character.
5 league starter builds you can use for Path of Exile 3.22 Trial of the Ancestors
1) Explosive Arrow Champion
With a bugfix that reinstates 10% extra damage mitigation on the Champion ascendancy in this Path of Exile patch, Champion builds in general are going to be stronger and more common. Combine this with Explosive Arrow from buffed totems, and you have a character that covers all the bases.
The build provides a decent amount of DPS (Damage Per Second), durability, and even mobility depending on what tertiary skills you use after you assign your auras. The only issue with this build is the lack of instant damage, as you will be putting down the totems to dish out the arrows for you.
The endgame six-link gem for this should be: Explosive Arrow - Combustion - Ballista Totem - Lifetap - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Ignite Proliferation.
2) Detonate Dead Elementalist
If you do not like fidgeting around with crafting benches and min-maxing gears, Detonate Dead builds are the best league starter for you. Detonate Dead explodes corpses for damage that scales off the max health of the monsters, which makes it arguably the least gear-dependent skill in the game.
Newcomers who are a fan of this classic ability from Diablo titles will be delighted to know that Path of Exile makes this playstyle much easier. To take handle situations where you cannot get enemies to drop dead to benefit from their corpses, the Desecrate skill can summon corpses out of thin air.
This build is fuelled by the fire damage buffs from the Elementalist ascendancy of the Witch class. The playstyle is a one-two combo where you use Descrate and then Detonate Dead in quick succession.
The skill links for these two skills by the endgame should be: Detonate Dead (or Vaal Detonate Dead) - Ignite Proliferation - Cruelty - Combustion - Swift Affliction - Burning Damage, and Desecrate - Faster Casting - Flame Dash (or another mobility spell).
3) Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder
Toxic Rain Ballista is one of the major contenders when it comes to low-budget easy mapping builds in Path of Exile. The Toxic Rain skill itself is a great area-clear that takes a second to kick in with its damage but can absolutely demolish endgame mobs with chaos DoT (Damage over Time) effects from its spores.
This particular build is popular primarily due to its ease of use, as you put down Ballista Totems to do the damage for you. Strictly speaking, this is not necessary during mapping, as a separate Toxic Rain six-link with a Mirage archer can make quick work for even unique monsters. For bosses, stacking the totems before the fight kicks off lets you gain an upper hand.
For this build, you can have two end-game six-link builds, one with totems and one without.
- Toxic Rain - Mirage Archer - Void Manipulation - Vicious Projectiles - Efficacy - Damage on Full Life
- Toxic Rain - Ballista Totem - Multiple Totems - Efficacy - Void Manipulation - Focused Ballista
4) Hexblast Mine Saboteur
For players who want to see big damage numbers, Hexblast Mine Saboteur is arguably one of the best builds to play. At the cost of somewhat reduced defense in comparison to other meta builds, a Hexblast Mine Saboteur provides extremely high single-target DPS from early levels all the way to end-game Uber bosses.
Unlike other mine builds, Hexblast-linked Mines can also be triggered without having to be manually detonated. It is therefore possible to stack mines before you enter the fray so you can instantly deal absurd amounts of damage in challenging encounters.
For your bread-and-butter Hexblast skill, the end-game gem link build should be: Hexblast - Minefield - High-Impact Mine - Charged Mines - Increased Critical Strikes - Void Manipulation.
5) Boneshatter Juggernaut / Boneshatter Slayer
For players who like sticking to a melee playstyle, Boneshatter is a powerful skill choice. Usable with maces, axes, and staves, Boneshatter can quickly ramp up in damage thanks to the Trauma charge mechanism that deals damage to you as a tradeoff.
Boneshatter is primarily meant to deal single-target damage, but if you build for stuns, its extra pulse damage can also take care of mobs in a jiffy. All in all, this build has been a reliable league start for all melee players for several leagues now.
It can do everything from end-game mobbing to bossing, with great potential for both DPS and facetanking. The only caveat is that this is a greatly gear-dependent setup. Specifically, you will not need to gear up with Uniques for all your armor slots, but you do need to craft a good physical damage weapon to deal more damage.
The endgame gem link for your main skill should be: Boneshatter - Ruthless - Melee Physical Damage - Fortify - Brutality - Close Combat.
