Overview
This Martial Artist build turns Oil Barrage into one of the hardest-hitting single-target skills in the 0.5 endgame. Power charges empower the skill to fire a cascade of lightning projectiles, and Nova Projectile support bends that stream into a ring so a single target can eat multiple overlapping explosions at once — a shotgun effect that stacks with Fork and Salvo to blanket a boss in hits from one cast.
The engine behind it is a self-sustaining power-charge loop. Devour eats corpses and Hollow Focus bells, while a Blasphemy-Repulsion aura feeds Ailith’s Chimes with Culmination and Living Lightning to generate charges more or less passively. The result is a build that leans hard into concentrated damage rather than clear speed, making it a specialist boss-killer that scales to millions of DPS with a medium-to-high investment.
Defensively it runs a mixed Evasion/Energy Shield shell with Deflection, eventually transitioning into Chaos Inoculation once gear allows, with At Series Communion or Pain Attunement as budget alternatives.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Among the highest single-target damage in the game via the Oil Barrage shotgun mechanic
- Power-charge generation is largely automated through Devour, Hollow Focus and the chime combo
- Flexible defensive path — mixed Evasion/ES scaling into Chaos Inoculation
- Works on a budget while still being able to scale into millions of DPS
Cons
- Clear speed is admitted to be mediocre — this is not a mapper
- Spirit-hungry: without At Series Communion you need ~200 spirit, which is hard to reach
- Reaching 100% crit and the full charge loop takes a medium-to-high investment
- Many moving parts (charges, bells, curses, companion) raise the skill floor
Key Skills
- Oil Barrage — primary damage; applies exposure, shotguns and forks off the ground for boss deletion
- Rend — Wyvern-form default attack for weak packs so Salvo isn’t wasted
- Devour / Hollow Focus — corpse and bell consumption to bank power charges before a fight
- Blasphemy + Repulsion — curse aura feeding passive power-charge generation
- Pounce + Sniper’s Mark — boss setup for bonus crit damage and frenzy charges
Gear & Anointments
The build is built around rare gear rather than uniques, since good gloves and rings leave little room for resistances that uniques usually lack. Forgotten Warden is the standout unique — high defensive stats plus a companion skill via Spirit Vessel. Gloves are transformed by Way of the Stone Fist, so prioritise added-damage-as-extra-elemental prefixes with attack speed and power-charge-on-crit suffixes. Seek gem levels for projectile skills and critical modifiers across weapon, amulet and talisman, and use a Spiny Talisman for the highest crit chance. Specific unique choices should be confirmed against the source video.
Endgame Notes
Chaos Inoculation is the divisive keystone payoff once gear is good enough to sustain it without At Series Communion or Pain Attunement. On the tree, mind the Fork cluster in the bottom-right for Split Shot and Trick Shot to enhance the projectile behaviour, and lean into critical, action-speed and lightning penetration nodes.
Credits & Source
Build credited to Odealo. See the source video for the full build’s gameplay footage and commentary: Oil Barrage Martial Artist 0.5 Update — Path of Exile 2 Build.