Pure Phys Staggering Palm Vaal Pact Martial Artist

Focus on getting as big of a pure physical damage staff as possible, since the Rune of Culmination does not work for non-physical damage (including physical to elemental conversion or damage gained as extra elemental/chaos). We use the Dreaming Quarterstaff base because it has higher physical damage and attack speed at the cost of not having any base crit chance. Since we use Resolute Technique we don't care about crit anyways.

You can use Astrid's Creativity to have 2 crafted modifiers on the staff, allowing you to add both Perfect Essence of Battle and Perfect Essence of Abrasion modifiers. If you can afford it, use Aldur's Legacy + The Blood Thorn to create the Legacy of The Blood Thorn rune for 100% chance to bleed and some extra flat physical damage.

Try to get a corrupted Ryslatha's Coil with as high of a more maximum physical damage roll as possible (it goes up to 49%). The less minimum physical damage roll is much less important since we have a 75% chance to high roll our damage.

For the Way of the Stonefist gloves, you want the following modifiers:

• Maximum mana --> More attack damage while on low mana
• Added physical damage to attacks --> Attacks gain damage as extra physical damage
• Life Leech --> Life Leech + Leech life slower
• Increased Attack Speed --> Gain onslaught on hit
• Dexterity --> Surpassing chance to fire an additional projectile
• Flat Armour/Evasion/ES (depending on your item base) --> Evasion/ES per level

Note that you can use any glove base, since they are all converted to the same Fists of Stone gloves. If crafting the gloves yourself, use the cheapest 2 socket exceptional base you can find.

Craft your body armour using Medved's Tending to enable additional soul modifiers. This allows you to roll up to 20% increased maximum life, as well as reduced effect of curses on you and hybrid elemental + chaos res modifiers. The Dastard Armour base grants extra life as the implicit, but you can use any armour or evasion base you want as long as you have the stats to use it. A budget option is to use Couture of Crimson.

Make sure you get a jewel with the corrupted modifier "Corrupted blood cannot be inflicted on you". There is an expedition rune that makes enemies apply corrupted blood on hit and also completely disables life leech, which is our only form of life recovery with Vaal Pact. It's very important to be immune to corrupted blood so you don't degen and die from this fairly common expedition rune. You can also annoint Sanguine Tolerance if needed.

We use Split Personality to start from the mercenary area of the tree. From Nothing with Resolute Technique allows us to pick up some powerful nodes in the area. Look for a Heart of the Well with >15% increased cooldown recovery rate and other relevant mods like attack speed, rage on hit, or chance to aggravate bleeding on hit. Look for a Megalomaniac with Dangerous Blossom, Material Solidification, Bestial Rage, or any other relevant nodes.