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PoE 2 Build

Detonate Dead Blood Mage

Witch

Blood Mage

Verified

End Game

0.1 Early Access

By imexile

Updated on Apr 14, 2025

Apr 14, 2025

Build Overview

Here we are again... new Path of Exile game and Detonate Dead is good again.

***IMPORTANT PLEASE READ*** The build can be a bit clunky as you are relying on your minions being alive as well as moving them around through the map to detonate them, and you have to aim at them. You will occasionally run out and they can even get stuck sometimes, keep this in mind before you dive in. Check out the video linked to see what I mean, also ds_lily has a video on her youtube about some of the painpoints.

This is an Endgame build for people past the campaign, for leveling I would suggest utilizing Raging Spirits, Unearth, Skeletal Arsonist and using Detonate Dead on corpses your minions kill. Leveling for Blood Mage can be quite rough, I suggest skipping your first ascendancy point for quite awhile and potentially just playing minions for awhile. I personally would swap to this as a second build.

Enfolding Dawn and Oaksworn are AMAZING leveling uniques. (spirit = more minions).

My friend Jacob has been playing this and suggested it to me and I was going to play it in Hardcore but unfortunately died before getting to experiment much, however I still wanted to share it as I think its a solid build.

Build Variants

Endgame Life/ES

Endgame Heavy ES

Act 1

Act 2+

This setup is showing gear with stats you should try to aim for in every slot so you can get an idea on what items to look for.

Equipment

Endgame Life/ES

Endgame Heavy ES

Act 1

Act 2+

Set 1

Set 2

Equipment Priority

+10

You can corrupt Enezun's Charge in order to get higher chance to not consume corpses. This stat is very important in helping us maintain smooth gameplay, so try to look to get this corrupted mod when you can.

Stats to look for on sceptre:

+levels to minion gems
minion life
spirit,
Malice implicit ideally

Stats to look for on amulet:

+levels to minion gems
life,
energy shield mods
resistances
crit

Stats for rest of items:

life
resistances
energy shield
movement speed on boots
cast speed on rings
remember that STR = life if you have extra affix space

We need a lot of INT to be able to use a high level Skeletal Brute so keep that in mind.

You need enough spirit to run 3 brutes 1 cleric + auras ideally. Can move up to 4 brutes or 2 clerics if you have extra spirit. Feel free to experiment here and see whats comfortable for you, potentially running no clerics gear depending.

Skill Gems

Endgame Life/ES

Endgame Heavy ES

Act 1

Act 2+

Support Gem Requirements:

Str 25

Dex 10

Int 50

Expand all

Malice

Life Remnants

Detonate Dead

Skeletal Brute

Soul Offering

Skeletal Cleric

Mana Tempest

Grim Feast

Sacrifice

Gem Priority

+17

You can use TWO Detonate Dead setups for map + clear or just use the setup above and swap two supports for pinnacle bosses. Concentrated Effect and Considered Casting over Magnified Effect and Ambush.

Keep Detonate Dead at gem level 7 and Vulnerability also low level so it doesn't cost so much mana.

Why do we leave Detonate Dead at low level?

We are scaling the physical explosion portion of the skill, and not the flat fire damage that it deals. This part does not scale with gem level, allowing us to leave it at a low level.

When should we use Archmage?

Archmage is an additional way to scale your damage once you've reached a high level of gear. Once your gear already has many useful affixes you can go for +to maximum mana and if you are already running enough minions to have the extra spirit for this aura(A LOT OF SPIRIT, do NOT REDUCE MINION COUNT to fit this early.

Passive Tree

Endgame Life/ES

Endgame Heavy ES

Act 1

Act 2+

main:

123

set 1:

set 2:

Tree is generally just prioritizing all the %increased minion life that exists on the skill tree as well as %increased chance to not consume corpses Meat Recycling.

For other offensive points, we scale crit and physical damage as the explosion of Detonate Dead is physical damage.

For defense, we are speccing into a lot of Energy Shield, especially Melding which works well for us since our Detonate Dead costs very little mana due to it being level 7.

To help us clear we also make use of some AoE nodes on Repulsion and Reverberation.

Optional: Using two different weapon sets, one with AoE spec'd for map clear and one without it for single target. Requires having two weapon setups.