Splitting Steel Trickster - Path of Exile 3.24

Splitting Steel has received massive changes in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis. Instead of relying on Call of Steel to "reload" charges, you basically just use Splitting Steel just like you would a normal projectile skill in PoE.

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!

Basics

As you can tell by the name of the build, the Splitting Steel Trickster utilizes a new and improved version of the said skill gem. As part of the balancing changes implemented in the previous league, Splitting Steel no longer requires the use of Call of Steel to reload shards. You now use the skill similar to other projectile-based attack skills like Lightning Arrow or Tornado Shot.

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

With the removal of the secondary ascendancy classes in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League, is this build still viable? Yes, it still is! Because you no longer have to rely on the Warden of the Maji's notable passive skills, you can now replace The Hungry Loop unique ring with a self-crafted ring that solves your mana issues.

On top of that, your Splitting Steel gem setup will now 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 about the gear changes in the appropriate sections of the build guide.

Admittedly, there is an overall damage decrease due to the removal of Tinctures that used to allow you to gain Rage. However, this can be addressed by replacing it with good alternatives.

Playstyle

Due to the massive changes that GGG has implemented in the previous league, 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 Patch 3.24, Grinding Gear Games decided to remove all of the secondary ascendancy classes. Although there is a noticeable blow to the build, they can be easily rectified through your gear, so that will not be an issue. 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.

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".

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.

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".

For the implicit modifiers, use one Grand Eldritch Ichor and then spam the Sadist Garb 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.

Despite the removal of the Warden of the Maji in the 3.24 Necropolis League, the self-crafted body armor is still the best one you can equip for this build. That is, of course, thanks to the Trickster's "Escape Artist" notable ascendancy passive skill.

Helmet

The Hubris 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+ Hubris 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 prefix, bench-craft "8% of Physical Damage from Hits Taken as Fire Damage". 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 Hubris 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.

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 "+1% to Maximum Elemental Resistance" If you want to, you can use a couple of Orbs of Conflict to elevate the Searing Exarch mod to 2% max lightning resistance.

With the mana changes implemented in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League, you can go the other way with the implicit modifiers. In other words, if you are running into mana issues, go for a higher tier of "% Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills" by using Orbs of Conflict.

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.

Once you are done, you can bench-craft the mod, "43% Increased Damage While Leeching"

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 Hit".

Since you no longer have access to Tinctures in Patch 3.24 due to the removal of the Warden of the Maji from the game, the "Gain 1 Rage on Hit" mod has become even more appealing, especially if you want to continue using Berserk as part of your offense.

To maximize the said implicit modifier, you will have to use several Orbs of Conflict to elevate it to a higher tier so that you gain Rage faster.

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".;

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.

Rings

Because of the mana changes that have been implemented in Patch 3.24, as well as the removal of the Wildwood Ascendancies, you are no longer forced to wear two unique rings. In fact, you can now craft a much better ring and wear it on the other ring slot.

With that said, 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.

The second ring is now different for this build, particularly because of the changes that have been made in the 3.24 Necropolis League. Get an ilvl 85+ Opal Ring (Elemental Damage) 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:

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 in Patch 3.24, there is nothing to worry about. If anything, you can substitute the mod with a much better one that can still benefit the build.

Flasks

• Sapphire Flask
• Ruby Flask
• Topaz Flask
• Quicksilver Flask
• Enduring Mana Flask/Dying Sun/Oriath's End

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.

If you have read the previous version of this build guide, the last flask slot was supposed to be for the Oakwood Tincture that enables you to gain Rage reliably and consistently. Well, the sad news is that Tinctures are gone now in the 3.24 Necropolis League, but not to worry! There are viable alternatives!

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.

Flasks Mods

• 40% Additional Elemental Resistances (of the Rainbow)
• 17% Increased Attack Speed (of the Dove)
• 14% Increased Movement Speed (of the Cheetah)
• 60% Increased Evasion Rating (of the Impala)

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 in the previous league. This particular jewel increases the effects of the corrupted magic jewels you have socketed on your passive tree. If you are going to purchase one from the trade website, be sure to get as close to 150% increased effect as possible to make the jewel slot count.

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 you 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.

With the removal of That Which Was Taken in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League, you can replace that with a corrupted magic jewel, which will be amplified by The Adorned unique jewel mentioned earlier.

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/li>

Gems

Welcome to the gems section of the build guide. Because the Warden of the Maji has been removed from Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis 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 a 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 in Patch 3.24, particularly the Warden of the Maji, you can now go back to wearing a 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.

In fact, you can actually replace the last support gem with any of the gems that you prefer. Heck, you can even use Increased Critical Damage if you want to!

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.

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. Be sure 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

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 is just a nice buff to have as it gives you more attack speed, more attack damage, and more movement speed. So, what is not to love?

Due to the removal of the Oakwood Tincture that allows you to gain Rage in Patch 3.24, the only way you can utilize Berserk is if you are wearing the self-crafted Gloves with the "Gain Rage on Hit" implicit modifier. If you do not have these gloves, you can replace Berserk with another gem like Frostblink.

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
• Enhance Support (lvl 4)

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.

Even though Sniper's Mark has been nerfed in the 3.24 Necropolis League, it still provides good value for the Splitting Steel Trickster. This is actually a good thing because you can safely swap it out with Assassin's Mark if you are unhappy with the results.

Shield

• Vaal Haste
• Divine Blessing Support
• Inspiration Support

When you have Discipline, Grace, and Purity of Lightning active at the same time, you only have a limited amount of mana to work with, which means that you will be unable to use one more aura. Well, that is until you link it to Divine Blessing Support.

Divine Blessing Support allows the aura gem it is linked with to become a buff that you can activate from time to time. Having said that, the aura you are going to use in this setup is Haste to give you more attack speed when it is active. The “Vaal” portion of the skill just makes it so that you almost always have increased attack speed while mapping.

Inspiration Support is added here as a means to reduce the mana cost required to use Haste.

Tattoos

It is sad to see the Wildwood Ascendancies being removed completely from the game. But, not to worry! The Tattoos from a couple of leagues ago have returned! Speaking of which, 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

POB

Main Setup

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 still works pretty well despite the changes that have been made in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League. We can still wholeheartedly recommend the Splitting Steel Trickster for sure!

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

+Has survived the many changes in Patch 3.24

CONS

-Quite expensive to put up

-Not a league starter like the Champion variant