PoE 3.25 Splitting Steel Trickster Build
05.08.2024 - 23:03:49
Game Guides , Path of Exile , POE build guides
Splitting Steel has received massive changes in Patch 3.25. To put it simply, this build is now capable of dealing huge amounts of damage, especially if you have access to endgame gear!
That said, most builds use the Champion as the preferred ascendancy class mainly because of its node “First to Strike, Last to Fall,” where it synergizes with the Perseverance unique belt. However, this version has a ceiling that severely limits the capabilities of Splitting Steel.
This is where the Trickster comes in. If the Champion variant is only meant for the early- to mid-game, the Trickster version is best for the long haul. Sure, it is expensive and requires a ton of PoE currency to put up, but you are assured that its damage pretty much makes up for the investment.
So, if you are interested in creating this particular character, then read ahead. This is our ultimate build guide for the Splitting Steel Trickster in Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur!
Basics
So, what has changed for the Splitting Steel Trickster in Patch 3.25? Well, Splitting Steel now has higher effectiveness of base and added damage. Previously, it was only able to reach up to 210% at gem level 20. But now, Splitting Steel can go as high as 330%! Although you lose its inherent flat physical damage, this can easily be rectified by wearing the right gear.
Now, you are probably asking what the main difference between the Champion and the Trickster is when it comes to utilizing Splitting Steel. Well, the Champion variant relies heavily on impales to deal considerable amounts of damage. However, as mentioned earlier, there is a damage ceiling that limits the skill gem from reaching its full potential.
In the Trickster version, the damage of Splitting Steel relies on lightning damage brought, in large part, by the Ephemeral Edge. This one-handed sword has a unique effect where attacks with this weapon have added lightning damage equal to a portion of your maximum energy shield.
For that reason, you will get energy shield mods wherever possible. To make this count, you are also going to take the Chaos Inoculation keystone passive, which essentially reduces your life to one HP but with the amazing benefit of being immune to chaos damage.
It is worth noting that the Splitting Steel Trickster is an endgame build, meaning, you can expect certain items to cost exorbitant amounts of currency. Some of the most expensive items that you will use in this build include the Nimis, Melding of the Flesh, and the Mageblood, just to name a few.
Do not worry, every piece of gear that you get for the Splitting Steel Trickster feels like a worthwhile upgrade. Seriously, the damage of this build is insane, especially when you have everything in place.
To improve the damage of this build, look for the following mods on your gear:
- Increased Lightning Damage
- Increased Elemental Damage
- Increased Energy Shield
- Increased Global Defenses
Just like in the previous league, you no longer have to rely on The Hungry Loop unique ring. It is also unlikely that you’re going to run into any issues with mana in Patch 3.25. If anything, you now have plenty of mana to work with due to the changes made to Inspiration Support!
Splitting Steel gem setup will still be placed on your body armor, enabling you to fit one more support gem in addition to the ones that were originally in The Hungry Loop. More info about the pieces of gear will be discussed further in the appropriate sections of the build guide.
Playstyle
Due to the massive changes that GGG has implemented in the past couple of leagues, Splitting Steel is now much easier to use. You no longer have to rely on Call of the Steel to gain shards. You simply just use the skill like any other projectile-based attack skill gems in Path of Exile.
The build is surprisingly tanky thanks to Immortal Call linked with Cast When Damage Taken support. For the movement skills, you can choose between Leap Slam, Shield Charge, Frostblink, or Flame Dash depending on your preference.
When you are fighting difficult monsters or pinnacle bosses in PoE, be sure to cast Conductivity to make your Splitting Steel projectiles deal even more damage.
Ascendancy
In the previous league, Grinding Gear Games decided to remove all of the secondary ascendancy classes. Although there is a noticeable blow to the build, their removal from the game can easily be rectified through your gear. Having said that, the build still performs admirably, due in part to the Trickster’s notable ascendancy passive skills.
Escape Artist grants a significant boost to your energy shield based on the evasion rating of your equipped body armor. Hence, you will use a hybrid evasion/energy shield-based armor to maximize the effect of this notable ascendancy passive.
Soul Drinker is akin to the Slayer’s Brutal Fervour notable passive. This is essentially the overleech but with energy shield instead of life. Besides the leeching mechanic, this node provides you with increased attack speed to help you finish PoE’s main campaign a lot smoother.
Polymath feels a lot better the more masteries you have on the passive tree. This is because you gain more damage, as well as recover energy shield/mana when you have each different type of mastery allocated.
One Step Ahead works in two ways. First, it increases your base action speed to at least 108% of base value, meaning, you cannot go below this threshold even when you are suffering from debuffs. Second, your enemies’ action speed is, at most, 92% of the base value. This means that they could be a lot slower, especially if you have a more effective movement-reduction curse applied to them.
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Notable Passive Skills for Splitting Steel Trickster
Gear
We are going to say this right off the bat; the gear for the Splitting Steel Trickster is expensive. Aside from self-crafted pieces of equipment that involve putting some metamods on them, you have to secure some unique items as well.
Do not worry about the crafting side of things, though. We have a dedicated crafted guide that specifically contains all the information you need to know about crafting items in Path of Exile.
If you are going to use this build as a league starter, you can craft your gear with the essences that you can find. The Horticrafting Station is also a nice way to craft your equipment, so long as you farm PoE’s harvest mechanic diligently.
When crafting gear, make sure to pay special attention to evasion and energy shield, particularly on the helmet and body armor. The rest of the mods could be anything, such as elemental resistances, attributes (most notably INT), and any damage modifiers that can fit in.
Weapon
The Ephemeral Edge is what makes the Splitting Steel Trickster work. This unique one-handed sword not only adds flat lightning damage, but also adds even more lightning damage based on your maximum energy shield.
Do not mind the “25% Reduced Maximum Life” mod because you have Chaos Inoculation allocated anyway.
To make the most out of this weapon, you can go to the Horticrafting Station and add “Quality Does Not Increase Physical Damage, 1% Increased Attack Speed per 8% Quality.”
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img2.jpg)
Ephemeral Edge
Shield
The Titanium Spirit Shield has the highest maximum energy shield value among other spirit shields in Path of Exile. Thus, you are going to use it as a crafting base. If you have enough PoE currency, you can even go for a synthesized Titanium Spirit Shield base for better results.
Anyway, you can craft the shield by using Harvest Reforge Lightning until you get T1 “Maximum Lightning Resistance” and other useful mods like more energy shield and resistances. Another alternative to crafting the shield is by using Dense Fossils until you get the same set of mods.
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img3.jpg)
Self-crafted Titanium Spirit Shield
Body Armor
Because energy shield matters a lot to this build, you have to make sure that you craft a good body armor that has tons of evasion rating and some energy shield. For this reason, you are going to get an ilvl 86 Sadist Garb and spam it with Deafening Essence of Doubt (Evasion Rating) until you get T1 spell suppression, max energy shield, and increased evasion/energy shield. Leave a suffix open so that you can bench-craft “6% Increased Attributes.”
In Patch 3.25, GGG has introduced new armor types that offer much higher base defenses. For example, you can use the new Necrotic Armour as your crafting base. Without any quality, this particular armor has a 1,228 flat evasion rating, which scales even further when you acquire the appropriate mods.
Remember, the Trickster’s Escape Artist node grants more energy shield based on the evasion rating of your equipped body armor, so the new Necrotic Armour might trump the Sadist Garb in Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur.
For the implicit modifiers, use one Grand Eldritch Ichor and then spam the body armor with Grand Eldritch Embers. Once you obtain the “+2% to Maximum Lightning Resistance” implicit modifier, use Orb of Conflict several times in the hopes of elevating that to +3%. Once you have achieved the desired result, spam the body armor with Grand Eldritch Ichors until you get an “11% Increased Maximum Energy Shield.”
If you have the PoE currency, you can even use Tailoring Orbs to increase the explicit defense modifier magnitudes by 8%, thus improving the energy shield modifiers on the crafted body armor. Just keep in mind that Tailoring Orbs can potentially change the color of the armor’s sockets, so you may have to recolor them if that happens.
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Self-crafted Body Armor
Helmet
The newly added Lich’s Circlet is the perfect crafting base to use as it has the highest energy shield value among the other INT-based helmets in PoE. That said, obtain an ilvl 85+ Lich’s Circlet and spam it with Deafening Essence of Spite (INT) until you get a couple of energy shield mods and accuracy rating. Leave one prefix and one suffix open. You might have to use an Orb of Annulment to achieve this.
For the suffix, you are actually going to put Aspect of the Crab via the Menagerie. Purchase the itemized beast, “Craiceann, First of the Deep,” from the trade website so that its recipe is added to your beastcrafting options.
Head to the Menagerie, put your crafted Lich’s Circlet at the center of the arena, then choose Craiceann from the list. After defeating the monsters, your helmet now has the Aspect of the Crab skill. If you are wondering what it does, Aspect of the Crab grants you additional physical damage reduction when active.
Since Korell’s veiled modifier: “8% of Physical Damage from Hits Taken as Fire Damage,” has been removed in the Settlers of Kalguur expansion, you can either just bench-craft any prefix that you like or use an Exalted Orb and be done with it.
Alternatively, you can put “Trigger Socketed Spells When You Focus, with a 0.25 Second Cooldown” suffix and put your curse skills in the helmet as well to have them cast automatically when you use Focus.
To sort out the implicits, use Grand Eldritch Ichors to acquire the mod, “9% Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills” and Grand Eldritch Embers for “24% Reduced Mana Cost of Attacks.”
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img5.jpg)
Self-crafted Lich's Circlet
Gloves
To craft the gloves for the Splitting Steel Trickster, get an ilvl 85+ Sorcerer Gloves, ideally with fractured T1 Intelligence. Then, spam it with Deafening Essence of Zeal (Attack Speed) until you get a resistance suffix.
Put “Suffixes Cannot Be Changed” from the Crafting Bench and use Harvest Reforge Defences to get the energy shield mod. You’ll have to do this numerous times until you achieve a Tier 1 or Tier 2 of this prefix.
From there, lock the suffixes again and use a Veiled Orb. Bench-craft “Physical Damage Converted to Lightning Damage” and then speak with Jun to unveil. You are looking for the mod, “+2 to Level of Socketed AoE Gems.” You may have to repeat the process of locking the suffixes and using a Veiled Orb until you get the desired prefix.
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img6.jpg)
Self-crafted Gloves (w/ AoE Gems)
A good alternative to the above-mentioned gloves is a pair that has two attack speed modifiers. Crafting them is a bit tedious and requires a ton of currency. However, if you are so inclined, start by getting some Warlock Gloves and spam it with Deafening Essence of Woe until you get another energy shield mod.
Put Prefixes Cannot Be Changed and use a Veiled Orb. Take note that this may populate the empty affixes on the gloves. Anyway, what you are looking for is the mod “% Increased Attack and Cast Speed While Focused.”
After that, lock the prefixes again, and then go for Harvest Augment Speed to get another attack speed suffix. Again, this is risky because it might overwrite the veiled modifier that was previously mentioned.
When you have the two attack speed mods, bench-craft “% Increased Damage While Leeching” and then use an Exalted Orb to finish the craft (assuming that you have an open suffix).
In terms of the Eldritch Implicits, spam the gloves with Grand Eldritch Ichors to get “Inflict Lightning Exposure on Hit, Applying -13% to Lightning Resistance” and Grand Eldritch Embers for “10% Increased Attack Speed” or “Gain 1 Rage on Attack Hit.”
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img7.jpg)
(Self-crafted Gloves w/ Two Attack Speed Mods)
Boots
The boots are a great source to get some elemental ailment avoidance mods. Read the “Onslaught Boots” section of our crafting guide to learn the steps to making this amazing pair of boots.
For the Eldritch implicits, use Grand Eldritch Ichors until you get “23% Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments’ and Grand Eldritch Embers to acquire “5% Increased Action Speed” or “7% Increased Movement Speed.”
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img8.jpg)
Self-crafted Boots
Amulet
The Voice of the Storm is a unique amulet that you might not have heard of before. That is because builds that utilize this are pretty rare, which means that you can save some currency when purchasing this one.
Anyway, the reason why you should wear this Lapis Amulet is due to its unique effect, where the lightning damage that you deal that is not critical strikes is lucky. To make it easier for you to understand this, the Voice of the Storm always ensures that you deal the most amount of damage possible with your Splitting Steel projectiles.
When you have your hands on the amulet, be sure to anoint it with Whispers of Doom (3x Golden Oils) so that you can apply Sniper’s Mark and Conductivity on your enemies at the same time.
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img9.jpg)
Voice of the Storm
Rings
Splitting Steel bursts into smaller projectiles that can hit multiple targets, the first ring you are going to wear is the Nimis. This has a unique effect where the Splitting Steel projectiles return to you shortly after they split. The Nimis is a core part of the build because it significantly increases your damage output thanks to the returning projectiles.
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img10.jpg)
Nimis
The second ring is now different for this build can be anything that you want. However, we suggest that you craft a good piece of jewelry using the Opal Ring as the crafting base for that elemental damage implicit mod. Get an ilvl 85+ Opal Ring and use Deafening Essence of Wrath (Increased Lightning Damage) until you get INT and an elemental resistance suffix.
After that, put “Suffixes Cannot Be Changed” from the Crafting Bench and then use a Veiled Orb. Bench-craft any added elemental damage mod before unveiling. When you unveil, look for the mod: “+ to Maximum Mana, Reduced Mana Cost of Skills.”
Head to the Crafting Bench one last time and put the non-channelling mod. The last prefix can be filled up using an Exalted Orb.
To maximize the mana modifiers, spam the ring with Fertile Catalysts. Once you are successful in crafting the ring, you should have something like this:
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img11.jpg)
Self-crafted Opal Ring
Belt
The Mageblood is just an amazing unique belt for the Splitting Steel Trickster. It helps resolve issues with the build’s elemental resistances. Although you can no longer put the “Reduced Mana Cost of Skills” on your flask, there is nothing to worry about. If anything, you can substitute the mod with a much better one that can still benefit the build.
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img12.jpg)
Mageblood
Flasks
- Sapphire Flask
- Ruby Flask
- Topaz Flask
- Quicksilver Flask
- Enduring Mana Flask/Dying Sun/Oriath’s End/Prismatic Tincture
The Sapphire, Ruby, and Topaz Flasks are needed to aid you in capping your elemental resistances, especially since you are going to use Melding of the Flesh on this build.>
Early on, if you are struggling with mana, you can use a Mana Flask with an “Enduring” prefix. This is so that mana recovery still works even if your unreserved mana is already filled.
If your mana is sorted out, you can replace that with either the Dying Sun or Oriath’s End. The former lets you fire two additional projectiles when it is active, while the latter makes enemies that you kill explode, dealing a portion of their life as damage of a random element.
Tinctures have finally come back in Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur! If you are going to use one, we suggest the Prismatic Tincture. When used, the Prismatic Tincture coats your melee weapon, empowering it to deal “% Increased Elemental Damage.”
Take note that Tinctures now have a cooldown. You could invest some of your passive skill points to improve their effects, though that won’t be necessary for the Splitting Steel Trickster in Patch 3.25.
Flasks Mods>
- 40% Additional Elemental Resistances (of the Rainbow)
- 14% Increased Movement Speed (of the Cheetah)
- 60% Increased Evasion Rating (of the Impala)
- % Increased Effect (for Prismatic Tincture)
Jewels
The Splitting Steel Trickster not only hits hard but it is also incredibly tanky due to some unique jewels that you are going to use on the build.
The Melding of the Flesh is one of the jewels that help improve your survivability manifold. This allows your capped elemental resistances to follow the highest maximum elemental resistance you have. Despite the huge advantage, this jewel has a couple of downsides that are difficult to ignore. Luckily, you can address those with the Mageblood coupled with the elemental resistance flasks mentioned earlier.
The Adorned is one of the unique items introduced a couple of leagues ago. This particular jewel increases the effects of the corrupted magic jewels you have socketed on your passive tree.
Having said that, The Adorned received a sizable nerf in Patch 3.25. If you are wondering what has changed, this unique jewel now only boosts the mods on Corrupted Magic Jewels by up to 100% (down from 150%).
It is up to you whether you want to continue using The Adorned or not. If the nerf to the said unique jewel is just too much for your liking, then you could swap it with The Light of Meaning.
The Light of Meaning has the same art as That Which Was Taken, but do not be confused. It is actually just a new item art for The Perandus Pact. Anyway, purchase this jewel with the mod: “Passive Skills in Radius Also Grant 3% Increased Energy Shield.”
As for the corrupted magic jewels, they should contain any of the following modifiers:
- % Increased Maximum Energy Shield (best)
- + to Maximum Energy Shield (2nd best)
- % Increased Attack Speed
- +% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
If you have 100% spell suppression but are not immune to elemental ailments yet, you can put the Ancestral Vision on any jewel socket on your passive tree. This essentially provides you with a “50% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage” provided that your spell suppression is capped.
Remember that part of your damage is based on your maximum energy shield. So, to improve that aspect of the build, get at least two Large Cluster Jewels (Attack Damage While Holding a Shield) and use Harvest Reforge Defence until you get these notable passive skills:
- Veteran Defender
- +15 to All Attributes
- +15% Elemental Resistances While Holding a Shield
- 60% Increased Defenses from Equipped Shield
- Feed the Fury
- 0.4% of Attack Damage While Leeched as Life
- 30% Increased Damage While Leeching
- 15% Increased Attack Speed While Leeching
The third notable passive can be anything as long as it is situated in the middle so that you can save a couple of points.
You do have the option of fitting one Medium Cluster Jewel (Projectile Damage) into the build. Use Harvest Reforge Caster until you get Eye to Eye and Repeater. They grant the following bonuses:
- Eye to Eye
- 25% Increased Projectile Damage
- Projectiles Deal 35% Increased Damage with Hits Against Nearby Enemies
- Repeater
- 30% Increased Projectile Damage
- 8% Increased Attack and Cast Speed
The Adorned provides a ton of value to the build, which makes it so that you do not have to rely on a Watcher’s Eye to improve the damage output of the Splitting Steel Trickster. However, if you do want to include it in your character, you can look for these modifiers:
- % Increased Lightning Damage While Affected by Wrath<
- Gain 10% of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum Energy Shield While Affected by Clarity
- Damage Penetrates % Lightning Resistance While Affected by Wrath
Gems
Welcome to the gems section of the build guide. Because the Warden of the Maji has been removed since the previous league, you are no longer going to wear The Hungry Loop unique ring. As a result, you can now put your Splitting Steel in the body armor, allowing you to fit one more support gem in addition to the ones that were on The Hungry Loop previously.
Body Armor
- Splitting Steel
- Awakened Lightning Penetration
- Awakened Elemental Damage with Attacks
- Energy Leech Support
- Volatility Support
- Inspiration Support/Increased Critical Damage
Splitting Steel now deals more damage because you are going to put it into six-linked body armor, thus enabling you to add more support gems into the mix.
You see, back then, the Splitting Steel gem was inserted into The Hungry Loop with four of the support gems mentioned above. However, since the removal of the Wildwood Ascendancies, particularly the Warden of the Maji, you can now go back to wearing six-linked body armor. What does this mean?
It means that you have the freedom to add any support gem that you want. In this case, we’ve included Inspiration Support in this setup not only as a means of reducing Splitting Steel’s mana cost, but also to increase its chance to critically hit enemies.
Take note that Inspiration Support now reduces the mana cost of the skills it is linked with dramatically thanks to the adjustments made by GGG in Patch 3.25.
If you do not have problems sustaining mana, you can replace Inspiration with Increased Critical Damage Support to make your attacks even more devastating.
Gloves
- Discipline
- Purity of Lightning
- Grace
- Enlighten Support (lvl 4)
This is your main aura setup. Discipline is an aura that should always be activated. That is because it gives you a significant boost to your maximum energy shield which, in turn, increases the damage of your Splitting Steel projectiles thanks to Ephemeral Edge.
Purity of Lightning also improves your survivability by giving you a hefty increase in lightning resistance. On top of that, a level 23 gem adds 5% to your max lightning resistance, thus making Melding of the Flesh a nice addition to the build. To achieve a level 23 Purity of Lightning gem, corrupt one at max level using a Vaal Orb for a chance to increase its level to 21. Then, you insert that into a pair of gloves with the veiled prefix, “+2 to Socketed AoE Gems.”
Because your other defensive layer is evasion, you can make it even better by activating Grace. It is worth noting that this particular aura has been nerfed in the Settlers of Kalguur expansion. It now only grants up to 1,545 flat evasion rating at gem level 20 as opposed to 2,575. But, do not fret! This can be addressed by increasing the quality of your equipment.
Do not forget to socket a level 4 Enlighten Gem into the gloves so that you can activate the said auras with some mana left in the tank.
Boots
- Leap Slam
- Faster Attacks Support
- Arctic Armour
- Conductivity
Conductivity is a curse spell in Path of Exile that reduces the target’s lightning resistance by 36% at gem level 20. Use this whenever you encounter bosses or tough enemies.
Arctic Armour grants you freeze immunity. This is nice if you still have not achieved full elemental ailment immunity yet. However, the main reason why you are using this is that it toughens you up, making you take less physical and fire damage while stationary.
As mentioned earlier in the build guide, you have several choices when it comes to the movement skills you can use on the Splitting Steel Trickster. We just went with Leap Slam as it helps in traversing the map faster. Shield Charge is a close second, so you can opt for this one instead, particularly when you like the feel of this skill even more than Leap Slam.
Helmet
- Precision
- Immortal Call (Lvl 2)
- Cast When Damage Taken Support (Lvl 3)
- Berserk/Enduring Cry
Precision is an aura that helps you reach a 100% hit chance. You might be wondering why Berserk is included here since the build naturally does not generate Rage. Well, Rage, in this case, comes from the Tincture mentioned earlier. Alternatively, you can go for the “Gain 1 Rage on Hit” Searing Exarch implicit mod as well.
Berserk has been tweaked in Patch 3.25 to account for the massive rework GGG has done to Rage. When activated, Berserk now only grants a hefty damage boost. This means that you cannot gain bonuses to attack speed and movement speed anymore, so you will definitely notice that.
If you are unable to put the “Rage on Hit” implicit modifier on the gloves, you can replace Berserk with Enduring Cry. Even though you cannot benefit from the life regeneration granted by this warcry, you can still gain Endurance Charges as a result.
In case you do not know, the Endurance Charge now gives you 4% elemental damage reduction per charge, which is far better than what it was previously (+4% to all elemental resistances).
Splitting Steel is an incredibly tanky build thanks to a huge energy shield pool and other defensive mechanics at play. One of those mechanics involves the use of Immortal Call, which is a guard skill in Path of Exile that makes you take significantly less elemental and physical damage.
Immortal Call is linked to Cast When Damage Taken Support so that it automatically gets activated when you receive enough damage.
Weapon
- Sniper’s Mark (lvl 21)
- Mark on Hit Support
- Inspiration Support/Enhance Support
Since the Splitting Steel Trickster relies on the projectiles produced by the said attack skill gem, this build can greatly benefit from Sniper’s Mark. This allows your Splitting Steel projectiles to split toward five additional targets when they hit a cursed enemy. Make sure to level the gem up to 21 by corrupting it with a Vaal Orb.
Mark on Hit Support triggers Sniper’s Mark automatically whenever you attack a rare or unique monster. This is just for quality-of-life purposes, especially considering that you’d have to manually cast Conductivity. Casting these two curse spells yourself is a pain, which is why Mark on Hit Support is included in the setup.
When you use Gemcutter’s Prisms to increase the quality of Sniper’s Mark, the said mark skill makes cursed enemies take more damage from projectiles as a result. Hence, you will use Enhance Support to increase the quality of the gem even further.
Since you do not have any life on this build due to the Chaos Inoculation keystone, you will use Inspiration Support to reduce the mana cost of Sniper’s Mark.
Shield
- Guardian’s Blessing
- Wrath
- Raise Spectre
Divine Blessing, the support gem that used to grant you the ability to cast an aura temporarily, has now been completely removed in Patch 3.25. That is why you see a new set of gems on the shield.
To put it simply, this combination of gems allows you to activate Wrath without spending mana. This is possible due to the minions you raise with the aptly named Raise Spectre spell.
With that said, you’re not going to use just about any minion. Instead, you should get your hands on itemized corpses, specifically the Dark Marionette.
If you do not know, the Dark Marionette was first introduced a couple of leagues ago as an itemized corpse that you can purchase from a certain NPC in the Viridian Wildwood.
In Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur, you can obtain an itemized corpse as a possible reward for completing the Ritual Altars.
That said, the thing about the Dark Marionette is that this minion can resurrect itself automatically shortly after it dies. Why is this important, you ask? Well, so long as it survives, you will always have Wrath up!
When you have a few Dark Marionettes summoned, you can expect near-permanent uptime of Wrath; all without reserving mana!
Tattoos
Even though the Wildwood Ascendancies have not returned in Patch 3.25, there is still a lot to be thankful for in this league! To further improve your damage, you could always incorporate Tattoos to your character! Here are some of the Tattoos that you can use for the Splitting Steel Trickster:
- Tattoo of the Valako Shaman
- 5% Increased Lightning Damage
- Tattoo of the Hinekora Warrior
- 3% Increased Maximum Energy Shield
- Tattoo of the Tasalio Scout
- 4% Increased Effect of Marks on You
- Tattoo of the Valako Warrior
- 5% Chance to Shock>
- Tattoo of the Valako Scout
- 10% Reduced Effect of Shock on You
- Tattoo of the Ramako Fleetfoot
- 2% Increased Movement Speed
- Tattoo of the Ramako Shaman
- +2% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage
Passive Tree
![](https://rpgstash-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/Image_2024-08-05_Splitting%20Steel%20Trickster%20-img13.jpg)
Passive Tree for Splitting Steel Trickster
POB
Final Thoughts
The Splitting Steel Trickster is the endgame version that is so much better than the Champion variant. This build is capable of taking on any content in Path of Exile without any issues.
Do you want to farm juiced-up, 100% Delirium maps? No problem! Want to take on the pinnacle bosses like Uber Maven and Uber Sirus and not have to worry about survival? Yup, the Splitting Steel Trickster can do that too!
The only downside of this build is that it requires some expensive items to pull off. However, if currency is not an issue and you like the playstyle so much, then we definitely recommend this build for sure!
This build has gotten exponentially stronger thanks to the plethora of changes GGG has implemented in Patch 3.25. If you want a competent build that can take on any type of content in Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur, then the Splitting Steel Trickster will certainly not disappoint!
With all of that said, good luck on your adventures in Wraeclast, Exile!
PROS
+Much better version than the Splitting Steel Champion
+Meant for the endgame due to the items used
+Amazing survivability thanks to a huge energy shield pool, significant amounts of evasion, and the utilization of other defensive mechanics
+Deals Lightning damage, therefore, has better damage scaling compared to the Impales in the Champion version
+Does even more damage thanks to changes in Patch 3.25
CONS
-Quite expensive to put up
-Not a league starter like the Champion variant