The Gemling Legionnaire Ascendancy offers a unique playstyle that centers around maximizing Rapid Shot’s Heat mechanic and combining it with high burst damage from Explosive Grenade Launcher. This build leverages fire damage, skill synergy, and the Gemling Legionnaire’s ability to double the effects of support gems for an efficient and powerful gameplay experience.
Ascendancy: Gemling Legionnaire
- Crystalline Potential: +10% to Quality of all Skills.
- Implanted Gems: +1 to Level of all Skills.
- Integrated Efficiency: Grants 3 additional Skill Slots for better flexibility in build customization.
- Gem Studded: You can use two copies of the same Support Gem in different Skills, maximizing damage output through Ammo Conservation and Added Fire Damage.
Primary Skill: Rapid Shot
Reasoning: Rapid Shot utilizes the Heat mechanic, which builds up as the crossbow fires modified bolts. This Heat enhances both the bolt stream and the damage of grenades, allowing for both sustained fire damage and powerful burst explosions.
Support Gems:
- Ammo Conservation: Reduces reload frequency, maximizing sustained damage with fewer interruptions.
- Added Fire Damage: Increases fire damage from the bolts and grenades, making it a key part of the damage output.
- Faster Attacks: Boosts attack speed, enabling quicker Heat generation and a faster rate of fire for the bolts.
Secondary Skill: Explosive Grenade Launcher
Reasoning: The Explosive Grenade Launcher synergizes well with the Heat mechanic by consuming all built-up Heat to create a devastating area-of-effect fire explosion.
Support Gems:
- Ammo Conservation: Reduces reload frequency, ensuring that you can sustain burst damage without interruption.
- Added Fire Damage: Amplifies fire damage, boosting the effectiveness of both the grenades and the bolts.
- Inspiration: Reduces the mana cost of the grenade launcher, ensuring efficient mana usage for sustained attacks.
Additional Skills:
- Herald of Ash (Aura): Grants the ability to cause enemies killed with fire damage to explode, dealing additional damage to nearby enemies. This synergizes perfectly with the fire damage from Rapid Shot and Explosive Grenade Launcher.
Equipment:
- Prioritize items that provide:
- Increased fire damage
- Increased attack speed
- Increased critical strike chance and multiplier
- Life and energy shield for survivability
- Resistances to balance defense
Passive Skill Tree Suggestions
General areas and types of nodes that would benefit this build:
- Crossbow Mastery: Nodes that enhance crossbow damage, attack speed, critical strike chance, and projectile speed would directly benefit Rapid Shot.
- Fire Damage: Nodes that boost fire damage, ignite chance, ignite duration, and burning damage would amplify the build’s fire damage output.
- Projectile Damage: Nodes that increase projectile damage, pierce chance, and projectile count would benefit both Rapid Shot and Explosive Grenade Launcher.
- Area of Effect: Nodes that expand the area of effect of skills would benefit the explosive nature of the build, especially for Explosive Grenade Launcher.
- Life and Energy Shield: Nodes that increase maximum life and energy shield would enhance survivability, ensuring you can withstand intense fights.
- Resistances: Nodes that boost elemental and chaos resistances would help mitigate incoming damage, ensuring the build remains durable in various situations.
Gameplay:
- Positioning and Movement: Use roll for quick repositioning to avoid damage and maintain the optimal range for attacks.
- Primary Damage Rotation: Use Rapid Shot to consistently build Heat while firing a steady stream of fire bolts.
- Burst Damage: Once Heat is fully built up, trigger Explosive Grenade Launcher to deal massive fire damage in an area of effect.
- Sustainability: Maintain Herald of Ash to benefit from explosions that ignite enemies, allowing for extra area damage and synergy with other fire-based skills.
Strengths:
- High Synergy Between Skills: The combination of Rapid Shot’s Heat mechanic and Explosive Grenade Launcher provides both sustained and burst damage.
- Increased Fire Damage: The build excels at dealing significant fire damage, enhanced by the Gemling Legionnaire Ascendancy’s ability to double support gem effects.
- Area Damage & Ignite: With Herald of Ash, you can spread fire damage across multiple enemies, amplifying the overall damage output.
- Flexibility: The Gemling Legionnaire Ascendancy provides extra skill slots, giving you the ability to adapt to various situations and fine-tune your build.
Weaknesses:
- Reliance on Heat: To maximize damage, you must build up Heat consistently, which can be challenging in fast-paced fights or against certain enemies.
- Fire Resistance: Enemies with high fire resistance may require extra effort to overcome or adjustments to the build.
- Skill & Mana Management: With the combination of multiple support gems and skills, keeping track of your skill cooldowns and mana reserves can be challenging, requiring careful resource management.
This Mercenary Gemling Legionnaire build offers a unique mix of sustained fire damage and powerful bursts, with the Gemling Legionnaire Ascendancy allowing you to maximize the impact of support gems. This build is well-suited for players who enjoy a flexible playstyle with high area damage and a blend of offense and defense. It is ideal for tackling a wide range of content in Path of Exile 2.
