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Corrupting Fever Gladiator

Lake of KalandraArchived

Last Updated:May 20, 2023|Change Log

Introduction

The Corrupting Fever Gladiator is a league start mapping specialist that excels in clearing packs of monsters in early maps on a moderate budget. You are a ranged attack specialist with a damage over time playstyle that explodes packs of monsters with the Gladiator's Gratuitous Violence Ascendancy power. In this guide we will cover step by step how to progress from Act 1 all the way to End Game Mapping and Currency Farming.

End Game Corrupting Fever Gear

Strengths And Weaknesses

DifficultyAdvanced
BudgetAverage
MappingExcellent
BossingWeak
DefenceWeak

Skills Breakdown

Keep Corrupting Fever active at all times, the initial activation should be done at the start of each encounter. In the event Corrupting Fever expires reapply it immediately in a safe area or while a Life Flask is available to mitigate the cost.

Ascendancy Breakdown

The Gladiator is our choice as it offers many speed mapping enhancements, along with modest defensive bonuses:

  • Gratuitous Violence causes all Bleeding enemies to explode bolstering, our Map clear significantly.
  • Arena Challenger grants us Challenger Charges that increase our Movement and Attack Speed significantly.
  • Blood in the Eyes as well as Outmatch and Outlast offer considerable damage increases to the Physical Damage over Time playstyle we build around.

Playstyle

When playing as the Corrupting Fever Gladiator your primary focus is to keep Corrupting Fever active at all times. Activating Corrupting Fever costs a significant portion of your Life and it should only be activated initially or refreshed when you are not in danger or have your Divine Life Flask available.

While you have Corrupting Fever active each hit from any source applies up to 10 stacks of Corrupted Blood to targets. Maintaining those stacks on all enemies is critical to dealing maximum damage.

Mapping

When mapping as the Corrupting Fever Gladiator you must rely on your range as your primary form of defense. Keep your distance from monsters and use Kinetic Blast to mow down packs. Whenever taking on weaker monsters stay in Sand Stance to generate Challenger Charges.

Bossing

When dealing with tougher enemies swap from Sand Stance to Blood Stance and maintain a safe distance from the target you're trying to take down. When dealing with tankier high threat targets always be on the move while maintaining 10 stacks of Corrupted Blood on the target. Make sure Vulnerability is maintained at all times on high Health enemies.

Build Scaling

Offense
Defense

Corrupting Fever and Exsanguinate are damage over time Skill Gems. Our offensive scaling focuses on increasing these as high as possible with the following, primary stats:

  • Increased Physical/Damage over time
  • Increase Physical/Damage over time multiplier
  • Generic Damage Increases (Frenzy Charges)
  • Auras and increased aura effect (Pride, Herald of Purity)
  • Curses Vulnerability

These damage multipliers are scarce on the Passive Skill Tree and Gear hence we mainly rely on Jewels and Cluster Jewels to increase our damage.

The Gladiator has a wide variety of defenses on its gear and passive Skill Tree to focus on:

  • Armor and Evasion from Gear, Flasks, Skill Tree and Determination
  • Capped Elemental Resistances at 75%
  • 100% Ailment Avoidance
  • Stun Immunity
  • Endurance Charges
  • Corrupted Blood Immunity
  • Life Gain On Hit Life Gain on Hit Support

These defenses grant the build solid mitigation and recovery against one shots and unavoidable ailment deaths. Remember that Corrupting Fever is still a ranged glass cannon reliant on excellent positioning and dodging.

Leveling Section by tytykiller

This build is easy to level, provided that the player understands how to create a good leveling Weapon. Pasting this line, called a regex, into the Search Bar of Vendors selling Armors and Weapons when you go back to town, substantially speeds up leveling. -[rgb]-.-|g-g-r|g-r-g|r-g-g|nne

Your Weapon is your most important upgrade! Always keep your Two-Handed Weapon up to date within ~7 levels of yourself. Make sure your Weapon either has % Physical Damage or Flat Damage. Here is an example of a good Weapon at Level 23: Double Axe

When deciding between two weapons to use for your build, you may hover your mouse over your main skill gem (Splitting Steel early on) to see which of two weapon choices provides the highest DPS. Besides picking up an Axe and identifying it, our primary way of getting a weapon is from using an Essence that adds Flat Damage on Two-Handed Weapons, whether its Physical, Fire, Cold or Lightning Damage. This method has the highest probability to create a good Weapon, especially early on.

When this method does NOT work, we use the Rustic Sash Vendor Recipe. When you sell a Rare Rustic Sash with a Blacksmith's Whetstone and a Weapon, the Recipe produces a % Physical Damage Weapon back! You may then use an Orb of Augmentation and pray that you land Attack Speed, a Resistance or a different (hopefully useful) stat.

Campaign Step By Step

Beginner players should follow Enki's Campaign Progression guide.

The levels listed below are based on speedrunning. Always be greater or equal to the levels listed.

Use slider for progression
Corrupting Fever Leveling Tree
Act 8
Step 1
  • Continue playing melee for your final act, and look forward to the following setup soon:
  • R-R-B-G: Corrupting Fever - Brutality Support - Efficacy Support - Swift Affliction Support
  • R-R-B-B: Exsanguinate - Brutality Support - Spellslinger - Controlled Destruction Support
  • R-R-B-G: Kinetic Blast - Lifetap Support - Life Gain on Hit Support - Greater Multiple Projectiles Support
  • Kill Doedre for the quest Essence of the Hag, then go to the right towards The Quay.
  • Complete the quest Love is Dead, then travel to the Grain Gate to complete The Gemling Legion.
  • Continue to the Solaris Temple and get the waypoint in Solaris Temple 1.
  • Complete the quest Solar Eclipse and return to town.
Step 2
  • Talk to Clarissa for a Passive Skillpoint.
  • Talk to Hargan for whichever Two-Stone ring reward you need the most.
  • Talk to Maramoa for a Passive Skillpoint.
Step 3: Level 54
  • Go back to Solaris Temple 1, travel to the Solaris Concourse, the Harbour Bridge, then Lunaris Concourse.
  • Go to the Lunaris Temple 2 and complete Lunar Eclipse.
  • Travel to the Lunaris Concourse and kill the Twins Solaris the Eternal Sun and Lunaris the Eternal Moon. Stand behind Solaris when she throws her Fire Spear, and get move away when Lunaris fires Cold Rain from the sky. After this, continue onwards to Act 9 and the best zone in the campaign for farming - the Blood Aqueducts!

Mapping Preparation

You're done with the Campaign and are ready to take on the Path of Exile Endgame. Priority 1 is to ensure your Elemental Resistances are capped (75%) and you have sufficient Attributes to continue leveling your Skill Gems. Use Essences you have gathered on any items that are not Magic or Rare already. Items with an open modifier slot can be crafted on. Head to the Crafting Bench and craft Life and Resistances wherever possible according to what you need.

After completing the campaign the first step is to progress through the Atlas following our Atlas Progression Guide. As a mapping character, focus on the mechanics listed below depending on what level of content your character can complete. If you're struggling in higher tier content it is always recommended to step back and farm up more Currency and Gear. Clicking the League Mechanics below takes you to either a full Explanation Guide or a detailed Currency Farming Guide based around maximising your profits from that mechanic or content.

Early Game

  • Alchemy And Go
  • Endless Heist

Mid Game

Endgame

Map Modifiers

Always re-roll or avoid running the following modifiers when they appear on your maps.

  • Monsters reflect x% of physical damage

Consider re-rolling or avoiding the following modifiers when they appear on maps:

  • x% Monster physical damage Reduction
  • Players have x% reduced effect of Non-Curse Auras from skills

Pantheon

For information on the Pantheon read our Pantheon Guide!

For Major Pantheon, select Brine King to gain Immunity to Freeze and Reduction of Chill Effect. This bonus is not baseline and needs to be acquired with a Divine Vessel.

For Minor Pantheon, select Abberath and upgrade it. This grants you defenses but most importantly Immunity to Burning Ground.

Skill Gems

Gems are a fundamental part of your build, and getting the correct link setups and levels before entering Maps is your main goal. This is how your Gem setup will look throughout the different stages of progression.

Early Game Gem Setup

In the early game having all your Gem Links correct and ensuring you are able to maintain the correct colors is your priority. The colors on your wands can be difficult to achieve through standard use of Chromatic Orbs, so it is recommended you use the crafting bench to color them more reliably.

Corrupting Fever Skill Gem Progression
Mid Game Gem Setup

In the Mid Game you'll acquire your 6 link which should be used to beef up your Kinetic Blast utility. Due to the steep cost associated with including additional links on Corrupting Fever and Exsanguinate it is our only option.

Before you can reserve Determination you will need to level your Spellslinger gem to level 16, ensure you have all aura reservation nodes listed, Charisma annointed and Conqueror's Efficiency Socketed. Use Determination in place of Herald of Purity until End Game.

End Game Gem Setup

After purchasing a Vulnerability on Hit Ring replace your Vulnerability Skill Gem with Molten Shell. Adjust your sockets to include Cast when Damage Taken Support.

In the end game after acquiring an Eldritch Helmet you can reserve Herald of Purity at the same time as Determination. This change requires re-organizing your links in order to facilitate this swap.

Skill Tree Progression

Corrupting Fever End Game Skill Trees

Levelling to Early/Mid Game Tree Swap should be performed as soon as you have been able to transition from the levelling setup supplied in the campaign walkthrough over to corrupting fever. Removing the extra points on your tree used for the melee portion of levelling allows you to re-allocate the points into more damage or defense.

Transition To Endgame Tree should be completed as soon as the last Mid Game milestone has been completed, remember to allocate the required skill points necessary for Inspired Learning to function if you purchase it.

Socketed Cluster Jewel Example

Large Stat Nodes can and should be picked up as you need them to level up your Skill Gems or equip gear, the final end game tree accounts for them so don't be afraid to spend a couple passive points picking up +30 intelligence or dexterity while progressing.

Cluster Jewel Sockets on the edge of the passive tree should only be allocated after you have acquired the jewels to socket within them. After socketing clusters ensure you allocate all points needed to fully unlock all jewel sockets and relevant notable passive nodes.

Character Progression

Mid Game
Gear Overview
Milestones

Mid Game Goal

In the mid game we focus on pushing our character’s damage to farm red map content with favorable league mechanics for our build. We need high value jewelry as well as an Inspired Learning.

After these acquisitions your character is ready to farm Legions in Yellow or Red Maps, or alternatively try its hand at Blights and Expeditions. All of these activities take your Currency earning potential to the next level.

Mid Game Gear
Milestone 1 - Wand Upgrade

In order to challenge the endgame of Path of Exile you need an upgraded wand. Unfortunately these are not easy to craft and will need to be purchased. As with earlier in the guide we are looking for similar stats, but we need more of them to boost our damage. Purchase wands with at least 2 of the following modifiers that have at least 1.5 attack speed or higher:

  • +1 to level of all spell skill gems
  • +1 to level of all physical spell skill gems
  • % Increased damage over time multiplier
  • % Increased physical damage over time multiplier

If your wand has an open suffix you can craft an end game craft that can be acquired from unveiling veiled weapons : % Increased Physical Damage over Time Multiplier. Alternatively craft Attack Speed. This step should net you a 2 damage mod wand but hopefully 3 mods after Bench crafting.

Milestone 2 - Stygian Vise

Moving forward we replace many of our existing pieces that give us a lot of our attributes and resistances. To compensate for this we are going to purchase or craft a Stygian Vise. Stygian Vises are one the most crafted items in the game, so check the trade site for one with the following stats:

  • 80+ to maximum life
  • 80+ to total elemental resistances
  • An open Suffix

If you can't find any affordable belts that fit the above description craft one yourself. Pick up a Stygian Vise belt base and use either of the following essences until you satisfy the above requirements:

  • Shrieking Essence of Hatred
  • Shrieking Essence of Anger

Next use the crafting bench to apply the hybrid Attribute craft that gives both Intelligence and dexterity. This craft comes from veiled jewelery that drops from the Betrayal mechanic. We also need an Abyssal Jewel for our Stygian Vise with a combination of the following stats prioritizing what your character needs most this must be purchased and cannot be crafted:

  • Additional Dexterity
  • Additional Intelligence
  • Additional Life
  • High Elemental Resistances

If possible and in place of 1-2 of the stats above you should look for a corrupted abyss jewel with the implicit modifier corrupted blood cannot be inflicted on you. Alternatively at the cost of a skill point this can be allocated on the Passive Tree as a Resistance and Ailment Protection Mastery.

Next we purchase a 6-Link Chest piece that we can use now and re-craft later into something even more powerful.
Purchase one of the following Chest bases (Item Level 86+ is preferred but not Mandatory) ensuring that it is not Fractured, Corrupted or Influenced (split is fine):

  • General's Brigandine
  • Triumphant Lamellar
  • Full Dragonscale

Craft this Chest in the same way you crafted your old one in the early game milestones with essences. Do not invest too much as this is only a temporary craft we will redo this later on. You now have two additional sockets for Skill Gems. Consult the Skill Gem Section on how to utilize these and how your Gem Setup should look from this point forward.

Milestone 4 - Amulet Upgrade

The next upgrade is acquiring a more powerful damage Amulet, after equipping it and socketing a Conqueror's Efficiency you can now swap Herald of Purity for Determination. The combination of mods we are looking for is quite difficult to craft, so we will purchase it. Purchase an Amulet ensuring it has the following stats:

  • +1 Physical Skills Gems OR +1 to all skill gems
  • Damage over time Multiplier OR Physical damage over time multiplier

If possible also try to pick up or craft some of the following stats on your amulet:

  • Life
  • Resistances
  • Attributes

It is also possible to acquire synthesized Amulets or other influence types to gain modifiers such as Mana Reservation Efficiency on all or specific skills. This alleviates the need for other high investment forms of this stat, but  should only be done by experienced players. After purchasing your Amulet, annoint Charisma on it using the following Oils :

Opalescent Oil

Golden Oil

Golden Oil

Milestone 5 - Large Cluster Crafting

Our next step is to recraft our large clusters so we can either save skill points or acquire additional good notables. In order to achieve our best in slot Cluster Jewels we are looking for the following exact modifiers:

Prefixes

  • Master the Fundamentals
  • Battle Hardened

Suffixes

  • Furious Assault OR Force Multiplier

To craft the above use jagged fossils in 1 socket resonators or Reforge Physical Harvest Crafts. It is easier to craft on lower Item Level Cluster Jewels for this combination, the odds for success are the following using fossils:

  • Item level 84+ Cluster 1/99
  • Item level 50 Cluster 1/28
Milestone 6 - Better Jewels and Gems

The next biggest upgrade is improving our jewels across the board, using the same logic as our earlier Jewel purchases. However now we want a minimum of 3 modifiers between the following:

  • % to Physical Damage over Time Multiplier
  • % to Damage over Time Multiplier
  • % Increased Global Physical Damage
  • % Increased Damage
  • % Increased Damage over Time

Prioritizing jewels with life alongside 2 of the above mods is certainly not a bad idea as you continue to progress into the end game and ultimately will be the best pick for best in slot Jewels.

Purchase a level 21 Corrupting Fever and Exsanguinate, these dramatically increase your single target damage potential.

Inspired Learning Socket Location

You can also pick up and Anomalous Kinetic Blast granting your Kinetic Blast pierce for free. This  allows you to remove your Poacher's Aim unique jewel and replace it with a far superior rare jewel. Beware this skill gem can be incredibly expensive and should only be purchased if it is a reasonable price compared to other purchases you've made at this point.

Finally it is recommended that you pick up an Inspired Learning jewel and socket it into your tree. This one jewel dramatically increases your survivability, clear speed and damage when tackling mapping content. If you plan to farm Legion (which is recommended) this Jewel is mandatory and makes your life far easier.

Milestone 7 - Endgame Jewelery

Purchase the unique Circle of Guilt. This ring has variable modifiers, so get one with the following modifiers:

  • % Increased Physical Damage While Affected By Herald Of Purity
  • Herald of Purity has % Increased Buff Effect

If you are unable to acquire both the mods due to high cost, you can settle for just one of the mods but it is recommended you upgrade to a 2-mod one later. Apply 20 Noxious Catalyst to your Circle of Guilt. If the mods on it are extremely poorly rolled you may use a Divine Orb on it.

Purchase a Synthesized Ring with the Vulnerability on Hit Implicit Modifier. If this is too expensive you can purchase a non-synthesised version, but it cannot be crafted further. Apply Intrinsic Catalysts or Prismatic Catalysts while your ring is white and un-crafted depending on if you need resistances or attributes. The desired stats on your vulnerability ring are the following:

  • High Intelligence or Dexterity (whichever you are missing or need)
  • High Elemental Resistances
  • High Life

This slot is similar to your belt as it is incredibly flexible. It is a perfect place to fix up your resistances or grab some much needed attributes. If you managed to acquire a Synthesized Ring, craft it using the following depending on what you need:

  • Shrieking Essence of Spite
  • Shrieking Essence of Sorrow
  • Orb of Alchemy + Orb of Scouring Spam (Resistances)

Path of Building

For users of Path of Building you can use view the build in it's finished state using the Pastebin below:

Summary

Upon completing this guide you will have an outstanding mapper capable of farming some of the most profitable mapping content in the game. This currency can be used to reroll into another even more powerful end game focused character.

Credits

Written by Grimro.
Reviewed by Raxxanterax.

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