[3.8] Guide to Min-Maxing Physical Wanders (Standard League)

This ring will give the most dps unless you run a Hexproof/reduced curse effect map. You can have at most 1 copy in your setup

Instructions:
1) Alteration spam an ilvl 80+ Shaper Opal Ring until you hit T1 Assassin's Mark on Hit suffix (~1/532 rerolls). If the mod came with a garbage prefix, yolo annul.

2) Yolo regal. If the added mod is garbage, remove w/ annul. If you brick the base, start over from step 1.

3) Apply Multimod, M1 flat cold, M1 WED, M1 flat life, and M1 all %resists.

This is the best multimodded dps ring, you can use two of these or replace one with the curse ring.

Instructions:
1) Get as high an ilvl Opal Ring as possible; roll using Deafening essence of Scorn on it.

2) Once you end up with a ring that has an open prefix and no suffixes other than the +21-25% global crit multi, apply the following mastercrafts: Multimod + Suffixes Cannot be Changed IN THAT ORDER.

3) Apply a scour orb, and then mastercraft the following: M1 flat life, M1 flat cold, M1 WED, and M1 all %resists.

There are currently three mirror-worthy phys wands, but only two of them I would recommend buying. For this build, you must use two to take advantage of the significant dual wield bonus and the dual wield crit cluster. Since your mainhand and offhand alternate attacks for kinetic blast/barrage, both wands must be high pdps. Using a budget shield such as lycosidae or a mediocre offhand wand can reduce your dps by 35% or more.


#1: Blood Thirst - Victheslik
- currently the best phys wand in the game and will probably remain so for a long time. This wand comes with a hefty price tag, and should probably be the last mirrored piece to fully upgrade. If you haven’t fully upgraded all your other gear slots yet, I would suggest a pair of Foe Bites instead.



#2: Foe Bite - Rayamn (crafted by JakeAlmighty)
- the difference in dps between this wand and Blood Thirst is about 9-10%, but since it's an old item, you can find a lot of them on the secondhand market for relatively cheap. Note that there's three different versions: an old 428 pdps with legacy implicit, a 428 pdps current implicit, and 432 pdps newly divined version. Go with the 428 pdps one, since it's usually much cheaper than the newer version. The spell implicit doesn’t matter


#3: Rift Weaver - Clicky
- this ridiculous wand was IDed off the ground during Incursion League. The wand itself has nearly identical pdps compared to Foe Bite, but overall the wand is slightly worse (~2%). Although the 10% phys as extra chaos looks impressive, we have no chaos scaling and not much phys scaling, which means the contribution of this mod is negligible. In all other departments Foe Bite wins: crit chance, crit multi, attack speed, accuracy, and of course, overall dps. Plus, this item hasn’t been around for that long, so there's not too many on the secondhand market, and with Foe Bites costing much less than a mirror, there's really no reason to mirror this.

Mirrored Options:



Farrul's Fur
- this is the "budget" option. You get permanent power AND frenzy charge generation in all bossing situations. Power and frenzy charges account for around 40% of your dps which is why this chest is the best unique option. On top of this you get free mana reservation for aspect of the cat (great dps boost), which is mandatory for this chest.

*If you're interested in a corrupted version, the order from best to worse damage corruptions are: %increased damage > +1 to socketed gems/+2 to socketed projectile gems. For defensive options, my personal preferences are: 50% reduced crit damage taken > 1% max res > %increased life.

Mirrored Options:


Non-mirrored Rare Amulet

Mirrored Options:

Non-mirrored Ring:

Getting a helmet with legacy barrage enchant should be one of the first upgrades to your build. Each projectile will give ~10% more damage and slightly reduces the time between each projectile, which helps maintain full life while using vinktar.

Mirrored Option:


Rare Non-Mirrored Tri Res + Life Helm
I highly recommend a rare tri res + high life helm if you plan on taking this build to the min-maxing limits. Damage will not be lacking, but survivability can be if you focus entirely on former. This slot is the best place to get your resists and some extra life. Ideally you want to be resist-capped relying only on Wise Oak. If you need both Wise Oak + your other 3 resist flasks to be resist-capped, it'll be much rippier unless you are a very skilled player because there will inevitably be times when not every flask is up. If you rely only on Wise Oak for res capping it'll be much safer because Wise Oak has the longest uptime.

But what if you don't want to pay 300 ex+ for a mirrored tri res helm?

Aside from the cost of mirroring the helm, there is also the drawback of not having socket color flexibility. Luckily crafting a similar rare helm yourself will most likely be much cheaper than mirroring although a bit more time-consuming. Read below for detailed breakdown on how to create one.

Crafting Your Own Helm:



Rat’s Nest
This is definitely the best dps option for the helmet slot, and if you prefer damage over safety, then this is undoubtedly BIS and also a more budget option.


Starkonja’s Head
A more balanced option than Rat’s nest and costs roughly the same. In a fully optimized tree, you won’t be able to reach same dps as Rat’s Nest even if you give up equivalent life nodes, but the 100 flat life is really nice.

Enchants:
From a theoretical dps standpoint the 10% pen enchant is by far the best. However, if you want faster clearspeed, go with “16% attack speed if you’ve killed recently”. “Flat cold if you’ve been hit recently” helps you for the longer duration, multi-phase boss fights like uber elder.



Bubonic Trails (2 abyssal sockets)

The BIS damage option, and also provides more life than rare boots if socketed with 2x T1 flat life searching eye jewels. No other pair of boots comes close to providing this much dps. The drawback is less gem sockets, which can be a problem if your wands don’t have the right colors, or if you want more gem setups.

Crafted rare boots

Not recommended, unless you can balance your resists for wise oak. May as well use bubonics or fossil craft %life/flat life + 1 abyssal socket etc. for more damage/tankiness.

Legacy Tombfist (2 abyssal sockets)

- pretty much the best pair of gloves. It’s cheaper than good rare gloves and gives an unrivaled amount of dps + life. Make sure to socket a murderous eye (see jewel section) to get the 10% more damage from intimidate.

Glove Corruptions:



Atziri’s Acuity (Legacy)

- the only reason I recommend these gloves is for the instant leech on crit. If you’re not good with flask management, these gloves could save you. But with pathfinder, your flasks are always up anyway unless you fall asleep while playing.


Rare Elder Gloves (map clearing)

- elder glove mods improve KB clearspeed for a smoother mapping experience.
Look for gloves with at least life + socketed gems supported by faster attacks + faster projectiles. Supported by additional accuracy is also nice too. Other than those 3 mods, socketed gem is supported by Chance to Bleed/ +50% crit multi/flat phys are also decent, especially since KB damage was nerfed significantly in 3.4

- if you’re running T15 maps or below, may as well put these on for faster mapping. You should have enough single target dps to melt T15 bosses even in 6 man parties without the DPS boost from Tombfists.

Mirrored Option:

Mirrored Options:



Headhunter
Best belt for clearspeed/farming. The strength roll lets us drop 2 str nodes on the tree and spec into more damage. Make sure to use a Conqueror’s Potency jewel to make up for the lack of % flask effect, that way you still get +3 from Dying Sun.

Conversion Vessel of Vinktar (double legacy)

This is the single most important item in the build. Despite the new leech nerfs that cap our leech to only 10% of our max life per projectile (compared to instant full life before), barrage's rapid firing rate will let you heal back to full life approximately 4 times per second (compared to 40 times per second before 3.6). This is still plenty to facetank any boss in the game. This flask also allows you to take advantage of the more multiplier from Damage on Full Life support gem and accounts for 99% of your survivability. The 10% more damage from shock (not factored into POB) is substantial, the 20% phys to light conversion allows you to run phys reflect. The instant mana leech is also OP and trivializes problems with mana sustain. Pathfinder negates the only drawback to this flask. If you don’t have a double legacy vinktar, you should play the budget version instead.

* A flat attacks vinktar needs to be max roll to give the same dps as a conversion vinktar, and those can be several times more expensive. A pen vinktar gives less damage than both, and a spell vinktar gives no damage aside from shock, but if that’s the only one you have, you should still use it because the instant leech is essential. These 3 versions will not let you safely run phys reflect however, since 20% of your damage is not converted to ele.


Dying Sun (legacy or current)

This flask gives you +3 projectiles and is the best dps flask for wanders. The AOE helps with KB clear.


Taste of Hate (double legacy)

This flask gives a ton of damage since we scale cold most effectively, but it’s phys damage taken as cold mod is arguably more important, because it scales up to 45% with Pathfinder and makes you a lot tankier for bosses that deal phys damage, which is the majority of them. Without this flask, having 5.3k life as a wander would be very painful.


Alchemist’s Quicksilver of Adrenaline

You need to use this for clearspeed since wanders have no real movement skill and can only run. I would suggest an Alchemist prefix for the extra ms boost.



Wise Oak (legacy) or Diamond Flask of the Order (80% crit chance)

Since sources of crit are so easy to get (ex: base crit on gloves, base crit from watcher’s, dual wield crit nodes, etc.), diamond flask is no longer the optimal choice for dps.

For maximum damage you want to pair Wise Oak with a Hatred Crit + Conversion Eye. Diamond Flask of the Order with a Hatred Pen + Conversion Eye is not a bad “budget” option. However, the main advantage of Wise Oak is that you get the added benefits of capping resists more easily and 15% reduced ele damage taken is a significant defensive boost.

The drawback of not using a staunching flask is of course, lack of bleed immunity, so make sure to vaal or buy a decent abyss/rare jewel with “Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you”. KB’s offscreen clear will pretty much ensure you never die to a normal bleed. You can also take Soul of Ralakesh as an extra layer of safety.

Even if you can’t afford a Hatred crit + convert eye, I’d still sacrifice some dps and use a Wise Oak mainly for its defensive advantages.


Bottled Faith or Atziri’s Promise

Swap out Quicksilver of Adrenaline for either of these two flasks for the maximum dps possible during hardcore e-peen stroking sessions. Bottled Faith will most likely give more dps than Atziri's Promise.

Watcher’s Eye

Murderous Eye Jewel (Intimidate)

Rare Jewels:

Corrupted Blood Immunity Jewel: