New POE 1 league and new expansion! I thought single target DPS would be key to kill these mercenaries. I hadn’t played a miner in a long time, at least since the introduction of Automation Support. I wanted to try a new buffed skill. I wanted an ascendancy that could provide mercenaries some defenses. So here is my Crackling Lance of Disintegration Miner Inquisitor. Spoiler alert, he did the job but my build was not that great!

So why a miner? When it comes to league starter, it is well known that a miner is good at providing good single target DPS to kill mini boss and pinnacles bosses. You can pre-load a bunch of mines during the boss introduction animation to fastrack your DPS. When automation support was introduced, we could detonate mines automatically which I hadn’t tried. It plays now like a caster that auto-target.

Why an inquisitor? A good passive life and/or ES regen is my favourite defensive layer. The ascendancies Sanctuary and Pious Path provides Consecrated Grounds for me and my mercenary to regen our life and ES. Then Righteous Providence and Inevitable Judgement are great offensive ascendancies to help crit and bypass any res curses, penetration, exposure, etc. (less buttons ).

Why Crackling Lance of Disintegration? I had never tried this transfigured version and it was buffed. High flat damage, high effectiveness of increased damage. Only problem, slow cast speed and aiming, not an issue as I’m playing miner. Also, I had tried the regular Crackling Lance and I like the kamehameha style!

So, how did it go? I levelled up with the classic combo Holy Flame Totem, Rolling Magma and Flame Wall. Works great! I started with mines after buying Detonate Mines and other gems to Siosa and levelled them up a bit. if I remember correctly, around the middle of Act 4. I chose Arc as the regular Crackling Lance didn’t feel strong enough and Arc can chain. I think DPS felt slightly better than my original levelling skills. Later in the acts, I found my first chaos orb and bought Cracklink Lance of Disintegration. DPS felt way stronger but clear was worse. Anyway, I completed the campaign in 9h20, completing all quests and 3 ascendancies, lvl 66, only dying twice; which, for me, is pretty good. I didn’t interacted much with mercenaries during the campaign.

Mapping went well, not amazing, just well! My POB is below to see what kind of gear, gems and tree I used. To summarise, went with life+ES health pool. I didn’t use a Glorious Vanity with Corrupted Soul as the last time I used it, I felt it wasn’t that helpful. I tried to spec with Mind Over Matter and Eldritch Battery on the tree but it didn’t feel that much helpful neither so I unspecced. I thought about the The Arkhon’s Tools Cloth Belt but id doesn’t synergize well with my approach as I don’t care about Scorch and my gear is built to rely on ailment immunity.

I stopped playing this build at lvl 92, after getting my first 2 voidstones, killing a bunch of influenced T16, T16.5, completing a T17 map, and unfortunately dying on the Maven fight. I had 49 deaths, most of them to mercenaries but also rushing to higher tiered maps without being chaos res capped. Failing the Maven fight really highlighted what is bothering me with this build. On one end, mines help your spells to auto-target which is great for me who can not aim properly; on the other end, the Crackling Lance beam is sometimes targeted toward useless adds monsters instead of the boss. I could DPS the Maven super fast during the first phase, but with every brain phases, it would be hard to hit the brain as the beams would taget all the other mobs. Also, the character didn’t feel elegantly built. I had some leftover life reservation making it annoying to get to low life, not enough mana leftover to pre-load the maximum amount of mines, and my defences felt lacking.

I quickly tried to swap back to Arc Mines, Clear is so much better, single DPS is lacking but with the new +2 chain gloves, it wasn’t that bad. Anyway, playing mines stop being fun for now, so I reroll, I might go back to this buid later trying to fit the belt, remembering about the life reservation mastery to fit another aura, remembering about Bear Trap and many other mistakes I have made…

If you want to play a more meta miner from actual content creator, check out:

• Goratha‘s Rolling Magma Saboteur
• Jungroan‘s Frostblink of Wintry Blast Trickster
• FearlessDumbO‘s Exsanguinate / Reap Trickster

Path Of Building and stats

https://pobb.in/YjhUkyrGO0kg

Not in POB, my mercenary who gives me Wrath and some aura effect from the staff. Lucky damage with Perquil’s Toe. Sapped enemies with Thundersight Solaris Circlet​. 25% phys taken as fire with Kaom’s Binding Heavy Belt

Please visit this Google Sheet to see the main information and POB data I kept track of. You can more easily compare with other builds.

My experience in video