Offhand Talisman weaponsets are incredibly powerful and underutilized, especially on non-Shapeshift builds

It's pretty late into the league, but I wanted to make a guide on Talisman weaponswaps to give some ideas to anyone still hanging around thinking up new builds to try.  Talisman weaponswaps aren't anything new, but there's a variety of under-utilized options and details that make them incredibly powerful for scaling your damage and mobility simultaneously, even on non-Shapeshift builds.  I wanted to gather most of the significant stuff in one place, in case it can give anyone some cool ideas.  The video covers everything in depth but I'll give a quick text summary for anyone that doesn't want to watch.

1) Warcries

Ferocious Roar provides Rage generation + armour break.  Roaring Cries + Echoing Cries  + Raging Cries are great options for scaling up this up.

You can socket human warcries like Infernal Cry into Ferocious Roar to gain nearly 120% increased damage on Empowered Attacks on top of the human warcry effect. 

Talismans have a special Kurgal pre desecrate that adds up to +2 empowered attacks per warcry.  This scales with Echoing Cries, giving an additional +6 empowered attacks per warcry use even with no nearby monsters.  Optionally combining this with warcry nodes on the Talisman weaponset can allow upwards of 16 empowered attacks off a single warcry use, allowing even fast-hitting builds like spear setups to make use of Infernal Cry and the increased damage on empowered attacks, resulting in massive damage scaling.

2) Mobility

Werewolf form inherently provides 30% increased movespeed out of combat when not sprinting.

Pounce is one of the best movement skills in the game, and you can stack a ton of cooldown reduction on your Talisman weaponset to push its cooldown lower.  This cooldown reduction synergizes well with Blink, as it shares the same scaling.  If you have the spirit, you can run a hybrid Pounce-Blink setup for pretty insane uptime on your mobility skills. 

3) Marks

Predator's Mark is probably the most powerful generic mark in the game, providing increased damage taken by marked targets based on their nearby enemies - this includes you, and the wolves spawned by Predator's Mark.  You can make these wolves invincible with Brutus Brain, allowing constant access to 30%+ increased damage taken by marked enemies.  These wolves persist even if you exit your shapeshift into human form. 

If you have any constant-hit secondary skill like Thunderstorm, Mirage Archer, Mortar Cannon, or fissures, you can socket in Living Lightning II to generate minions that also count towards Predator's Mark, allowing you to max out at 15 nearby enemies for 60% increased damage taken by marked targets, which is the rough equivalent of getting 300% increased magnitude of shock without requiring any investment on gear or passive tree whatsoever.

If you're CI or a build with low maximum life, you can potentially use Minion Pact II for a fantastic 35% more damage multiplier support, by sacrificing life off of your Pounce wolves.  You can do this even if you socket a different mark like Sniper's Mark or Freezing Mark into Pounce, by first building up the wolves with Predator's Mark before socketing in your desired mark.  The wolves are permanent and will never die with Brutus Brain. 

You also, of course, have access to all the great mark supports like Mark of Siphoning II, which provides 5% attack life/mana leech. 

4) Charge Generation

Talismans are capable of rapidly or instantly building up any of the three charges.

Power Charges - Ailith's Chimes + Culmination II in Pounce, attack speed + charge generation supports in Shred.  Shred for like half a second, then Pounce and you'll have 3+ Power Charges.  If you have other means of power charge generation, you can potentially use Rend instead for the 50% gain as lightning buff from Empowered Rend.

Endurance Charges - Bear generates an endurance charge per 15 rage spent.  You can do this with Fury of the Mountain + Rageforged I + Brambleslam to spend 40 rage per slam for 2 charges.  An endurance charge soul core in your Talisman will pretty much always make this 3 charges with a single slam.  You can also use Enraged Warcry I instead of Echoing Cry in Ferocious Roar to just spam warcry, expending rage via Enraged Warcry I to quickly max out your Endurance Charges.

Frenzy Charges - Resonance on the tree, or a Flesh Crucible Resonance, will convert endurance charge gen into frenzy charge gen, allowing you to instantly max out your Frenzy Charges with a couple hits of Fury of the Mountain. 

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It's nothing incredibly novel, but hopefully gathering all this information in one place gives some ideas to anyone poking around for weaponset options, especially to anyone less familiar with Talismans.  They are super powerful and super flexible, and you do not need to be playing Shapeshifts to make use of them. 

POB for reference character in the video - https://poe.ninja/poe2/profile/Languidness-2416/character/pouncesintowalls

Comments

Lyrthos4 months ago1

Blink+pounce combo is likely getting removed next patch, it's a bug. 

Travel tagged skills with cooldowns are supposed to share their cooldown, so Blink and Pounce will likely share their cooldown next league as they're supposed to, per the Travel tag description.

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