Overview
This Gemling Legionnaire spear build combines Whirling Slash and Flameblast into a self-sustaining ignite loop. A channelled Flameblast lays down ignited ground, Whirling Slash picks the ignite up, and Cast on Elemental Ailment spreads it through packs with Contagion. With the right timing, the ignite stays up indefinitely. This “tank update” keeps the damage engine and moves defences to an evasion + energy shield setup built around deflection.
What stands out is how little the build needs to handle heavy juice. Running 200% Delirium, eight-mod maps, and T16 Grand Expeditions with 13 remnants and 12 map mods doesn’t take Mageblood, a +2 amulet, a +6 staff or top-end jewels. The creator puts the full setup at under the price of a Mageblood, and their stated goal is a build that works defensively before chase uniques.
The defence relies on hitting hard breakpoints, not stacking a little of everything. Deflection, a large ES pool, curse immunity and mana-before-life together let the character stand in explosions and spin around remnants with little risk. That only holds if the thresholds below are met.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Handles heavily juiced Expeditions and 200% Delirium maps on a budget below a Mageblood
- Very tanky once deflection is capped: curse immune, 25% of damage taken from mana, fast movement
- Contagion-based ignite spread clears packs without much aiming
- Low affix pressure: no movement speed or flat damage needed on gear, so prefixes can go to defences
- Clear upgrade path (Mageblood, then a Cast on Elemental Ailment spirit amulet, then sceptre companion stacking)
Cons
- Breakpoints are strict. Below roughly 85% deflection or about 4.5k ES, one-shots come back
- Keeping the ignite infinite takes manual Despair timing or an automated setup that can lag the screen
- Mana-hungry. The automated version needs several sources of mana on kill
- Needs a fast spear (~5.7 Whirling Slash attacks per second or more) to feel good
Key Skills
- Whirling Slash: carries and refreshes the ignite as you move
- Flameblast: channelled for the big snapshotted ignite that starts the loop
- Cast on Elemental Ailment with Contagion: spreads the damage across packs automatically
- Despair / Temporal Chains (via Blasphemy and double-curse from Whispers of Doom): curses, plus Despair’s burning ground re-applies the second ignite
- Ghost Dance & Wind Dancer: required defensive auras
Gear & Anointments
Build targets before gearing up: 85%+ deflection in hideout (90% feels best), ~4.5–5k ES with ~1,400 life, around 5.7+ Whirling Slash attacks per second, and equal red/blue support gem counts.
- Body armour: Forgotten Warden, prized for extra damage reduction from deflected hits on evasion/ES. Socket Great Wolf, Wolf Power and Rune of Warding for curse immunity.
- Boots: Atziri’s Step with low “damage prevented by deflection” reduction and high deflection rating. Movement speed isn’t needed.
- Belt: Darkness Enthroned with Rune of the Blossom (boosted by Fox Idol) for ~200 spirit. It’s a mid-tier piece; save toward Mageblood rather than overpaying.
- Staff: two “increased” damage lines (spell + fire or chaos) and only one “extra damage” line. Ignite magnitude from the 10-stage channel is already huge, so scaling the base hit is worth more.
- Gloves / helmet: as much ES and deflection rating as possible.
- Jewels: spell or chaos damage prefix with “ailments deal damage faster”, anointed with a spell/chaos/ES emotion.
- Passive tree: a Controlled Metamorphosis jewel reaches Spaghettification, Event Horizon and a mana-before-life node cheaply. A Burnout megajewel is preferred over the creator’s placeholder.
Other specific uniques in the video are to be confirmed against the source video.
Endgame Notes
For hands-off play, socket Despair and Burning Inscription into Cast on Elemental Ailment so the second ignite re-applies itself. Adding a slow energy-gain gem such as Skyfall raises the trigger threshold and cuts the screen spam. When casting manually, cast Despair at about 80% of Flameblast’s cooldown and leave the first ignited ground right away, so the Whirling Slash ignite starts counting down before you pick up the new one.
Credits & Source
Build credited to josiahyeet. See the source video for the full build’s gameplay footage + voice commentary: EASY Juiced Expeditions (No MB) - Flameblast + Whirling Slash Tank Update - PoE 2 Gemling Build.