PoE Penance Brand

Ah, Penance Brand, a unique and potent skill in Path of Exile! Here's a breakdown:

What is Penance Brand?

Penance Brand is a spell gem that summons a glowing mark, called a brand, onto your target. This brand attaches to the enemy and deals chaos damage over time. Additionally, the brand stacks "Energy" on the enemy with each activation. When Energy reaches 20, the brand explodes, dealing significant chaos damage to the enemy and nearby foes.

What makes Penance Brand special?

  • Delayed damage: Dealing damage over time and on an eventual explosion allows for strategic usage, especially against bosses.
  • Scaling potential: Penance Brand can scale incredibly well with various supports and gear, reaching high damage outputs.
  • Unique interactions: It synergizes with specific mechanics like Brand Recall and Elementalist Ascendancy for diverse playstyles.

How to play Penance Brand?

Building around Penance Brand requires careful consideration of various aspects:

  • Skill gems: Link Penance Brand with support gems that boost damage, duration, area of effect, etc. Popular choices include Concentrated Area of Effect, Cold Snap, Increased Critical Strikes, and Void Manipulation.
  • Passive skills: Invest in passives that enhance chaos damage, skill duration, energy shield, and mana regeneration.
  • Gear: Find items with chaos damage modifiers, increased brand attachment duration, and energy shield or mana regeneration. Unique items like Voidwalker and Malachai's Loop offer specific Penance Brand bonuses.
  • Ascendancy: Several Ascendancies suit Penance Brand, including Occultist for curses and energy shield, Elementalist for damage boosts and brand manipulation, and Trickster for survival and mana sustain.

Resources for further exploration:

Remember, the beauty of Path of Exile lies in experimentation. Don't be afraid to explore different combinations of skills, passives, and gear to find your optimal Penance Brand build!


Penance Brand Penance Brand is a spell gem.

Creates a magical brand which can attach to a nearby enemy. It periodically activates while attached, adding energy to the branded enemy. Each activation, energy spreads from each energised enemy to an enemy in range which is not energised by the brand. If the branded enemy has 20 energy, each activation will instead deal a pulse of area damage. Energy explodes when the energised enemy dies or the brand is removed, dealing damage in an area.You are Branded. and will gain energy over time. When the brand is removed, the energy will explode.

Spell, AoE, Physical, Lightning, Duration, Brand. Level: 1–20. Cost: 15–27 Mana. Cast Time: 0.75 sec. Critical Strike Chance: 6.00%. Effectiveness of Added Damage: 40%. AoE Radius: 8+1/energy. Requires Level 28.

  • Deals (18–170) to (27–254) Physical Damage
  • 50% of Physical Damage Converted to Lightning Damage
  • Activates every 0.5 seconds while Attached
  • Increases and Reductions to Cast Speed also apply to this Skill"s Activation frequency
  • Explosions deal 90% more Damage with Ailments per Energy after the first
  • Explosions deal 150% more Damage with Hits per Energy after the first
  • +1 to Explosion Radius per Energy
    Pulse deals 50% more Damage with Hits and Ailments
  • Up to +(0–9) to Energy spread radius, scaled by distance from Brand
  • Can be Detached for a total Duration of 6 seconds
  • Can be Attached for a total Duration of 2.5 seconds

Place into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket.

NameAdditional Effects From QualityWeight
Penance Brand(0–10)% increased Area of Effect50

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Related Gems

Penance Brand Support Gems

Weapons Build

  • Wand / Shield: 48%
  • Staff: 25%
  • Wand / Wand: 18%
  • Mace / Shield: 5%
  • Mace / Mace: 3%
  • Dagger / Shield: 2%

Level Effect

LevelRequires LevelStrengthIntelligenceCostDeals 18 to 27 Physical DamageUp to # to Energy spread radius, scaled by distance from BrandExperience
12829421518, 270199,345
23132461522, 330285,815
33435501626, 391401,344
43737541731, 461554,379
54040581837, 552477,437
64242601941, 612583,786
74444631945, 683710,359
84646662051, 7631,355,511
94848682156, 8441,138,877
105049712163, 9441,368,233
115251742269, 10451,638,338
125453762277, 11551,956,648
135655792385, 12863,655,184
145857822494, 14163,017,327
1560598424104, 15677,759,995
1662608725115, 172715,138,193
1764629025127, 190826,083,825
1866649226140, 210862,620,247
1968669527154, 2319211,708,088
2070689827170, 2549
217228187, 28010
227428205, 30810
237629226, 33811
247830248, 37211
258030272, 40812
268231299, 44812
278431327, 49113
288632359, 53913
298832393, 59014
309033431, 64714
319133451, 67715
329234472, 70815
339334494, 74115
349434517, 77515
359535540, 81116
369635565, 84816
379735591, 88716
389835618, 92816
399936647, 97017
4010036676, 101417

Penance Brand is a spell that creates a brand at the target location. While attached to an enemy, the brand adds "energy" stacks onto the target, which can also spread to a nearby enemy that hasn't been yet energized. When released, the stored energy detonates and deals area of effect damage. When energy stacks reach their cap on the primary target, the brand releases damaging pulses around it instead.

Skill functions and interactions

  • Damage conversion: Penance Brand's base damage type is physical, but it also has innate 50% conversion to lightning, thus by default it deals half of its damage in physical, and half in lightning.
  • Energy: Energy stacks have a cap of 20, and for each stack past the first one, the brand will deal significantly more damage in an increasingly larger area upon release. If an enemy has been energized to the maximum amount of stacks, the brand will instead release damaging pulses in an area around it (at the same frequency). Energy stacks are released in three circumstances:
    • An enemy with any Penance Brand attached to it dies.
    • Any Penance Brand gets removed from an enemy via the usage of Brand Recall, or utilizing the Brand Passive Mastery "Brands Attach to a new Enemy each time they Activate, no more than once every 0.3 seconds"
    • The duration of any attached Penance Brand ends.
  • Multiple brands: If multiple Penance Brands are attached to an enemy simultaneously, they will all add energy stacks at a rate equal to their individual activation frequency. Energy stacks are accumulated per enemy and not per brand. In other words; if only one Penance Brand gets removed from an enemy, it will release all the currently stored energy, and the second brand will continue to generate energy stacks back from zero, if it still remains attached to that enemy.
  • Limited duration and damage scaling: Penance Brand has a very low base duration of 2.5 seconds, and by default activates every half a second.
    • Swiftbrand Support is a good support gem choice for general mapping, where the long delay between casting a skill and actually killing enemies may lead into dangerous situations. However, depending on the build setup, it might not be the optimal choice when fighting tough bosses, for which stacking high amount of energy often outweighs more frequent but smaller explosions. This matters even more when elemental ailments are taken into account.
    • Casting speed of the brand itself, as well as its activation frequency, can be increased by cast speed modifiers. Getting a hefty amount of cast speed is recommended in order to maximize the amount of energy stacks generation before the brand expires. This improves its overall "damage per cast" efficacy.
    • Due to relatively low effectiveness of flat added damage at 40%, Penance Brand's damage is best scaled via modifiers that add damage based on another damage type (non-chaos added as extra chaos, physical added as extra lightning, etc.) and modifiers to skill levels (like Empower Support, various weapon prefixes, or corrupted body armour implicits).
    • Physical to Lightning Support allows easy conversion of the damage type entirely into lightning. Penance Brand is a popular skill choice in multi-conversion builds, utilizing two Call of the Brotherhood and either The Eternity Shroud or Incandescent Heart.

Item acquisition

Penance Brand can drop anywhere. Drop level: 28.

Recipes

Penance Brand can be created from the following recipes:

Amount Part Description
13 The Cataclysm Random corrupted level 21 Spell gem
6 The Fox Random level 20 gem
8 Dying Anguish Random level 19 gem with 19% alternative quality
8 The Hook Random corrupted level 21 gem with 23% alternative quality
3 Gemcutter's Promise Random gem with 20% quality
1 Gemcutter's Incubator Random gem with 1–20% quality
1 The Void Random divination card set exchange

Quest reward

This item is given as a quest reward for the following quests:

Class → Witch Shadow Ranger Duelist Marauder Templar Scion
Quest ↓
Sever the Right Hand
Act 3

Vendor reward

This item can be bought at the listed NPC vendors, after completing the following quests:

Class → Witch Shadow Ranger Duelist Marauder Templar Scion
Quest ↓
A Fixture of Fate
Act 3
Siosa
Sever the Right Hand
Act 3
Clarissa
Fallen from Grace
Act 6
Lilly Roth

Threshold jewels

The following threshold jewels augment Penance Brand:

Item Limit Radius Stats

Related helmet enchantments

The following helmet enchantments affect Penance Brand.

Name Level Labyrinth Stats Spawn Weighting
Enchantment Penance Brand Cast Speed 1 66 Merciless Labyrinth Penance Brand has 8% increased Cast Speed helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Penance Brand Cast Speed 2 75 Eternal Labyrinth Penance Brand has 12% increased Cast Speed helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Penance Brand Damage 1 66 Merciless Labyrinth Penance Brand deals 25% increased Damage helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Penance Brand Damage 2 75 Eternal Labyrinth Penance Brand deals 40% increased Damage helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Penance Brand Radius 1 66 Merciless Labyrinth Penance Brand has 16% increased Area of Effect helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Penance Brand Radius 2 75 Eternal Labyrinth Penance Brand has 24% increased Area of Effect helmet 100
default 0

Alternate skill effects

Penance Brand has the following alternate skill effects:

Item Effect(s)
Celestial Brand Effect Your Brand becomes a Celestial Effect.

Penance Brand Build Guide

Every time a Penance Brand Penance Brand is activated, it builds energy on the brand’s goals, although at first, these activations do no harm. Each activation will also spread energy to another enemy, and then that enemy can spread energy to another enemy that is not attacked at the next activation, and so on. This means that by reactivating, it can quickly spread to a group of enemies, thus making everyone energetic.

When the Brand is removed (for example, due to its expiration, recall, target death, or replacement), all energy is released. This will unleash explosions around each enemy, causing physical damage, part of which will turn into lightning. The more energy the enemy exerts on it, the greater the damage and range. You can choose the mechanism you want to focus on to ignite your Penance Brands.

If the branded enemies are full of energy, they will start to inflict damage on the enemies around them, so the full charge will not waste any damage.

You can shorten the duration of the Brand so that they automatically extinguish after a short period of time, or use the Brand Recall Brand Recall to force the detonation when the Brand is separated.

Penance Brand Penance Brand attaches to nearby enemies and then quickly spreads to additional enemies whenever it activates. If you use Brand Recall Brand Recall or if the enemy dies, the built-up energy in each enemy is released in a massive explosion.

PoE Penance Brand Build 3.11 Example

1. Character: 91 Hierophant

Life: 3737 Strength: 176
Energy Shield: 938 Dexterity: 83
Mana: 4497 Intelligence: 326
Evasion Rating: 2775 Charges: E: 3 / F: 3 / P: 3
Armour: 3387

Main skill: Penance Brand Penance Brand. AVERAGE HIT: 18k.

Damage types:

  • Lightning: 99%
  • Fire: 1%

2. Skill Gems Build

Body Armour: Penance Brand Penance Brand (Blue) (20 / 10), Arcane Surge Support Arcane Surge Support (Blue) (17 / 20), Archmage Support Archmage Support (Blue) (18 / 20), Controlled Destruction Support Controlled Destruction Support (Blue) (17 / 20), Concentrated Effect Support Concentrated Effect Support (Blue) (17 / 20),

Gloves: Brand Recall Brand Recall (Blue) (7), Swiftbrand Support Swiftbrand Support (Blue) (18 / 20), Penance Brand Penance Brand (Blue) (18), Increased Area of Effect Support Increased Area of Effect Support (Blue) (17),

Helmet: Steelskin Steelskin (Red) (19), Faster Casting Support Faster Casting Support (Blue) (17 / 20), Second Wind Support Second Wind Support (Green) (8), Flame Dash Flame Dash (Blue) (17 / 20),

Boots: Tempest Shield Tempest Shield (Blue) (9), Cast when Damage Taken Support Cast when Damage Taken Support (Red) (4), Empower Support Empower Support (Red) (2 / 20), Wave of Conviction Wave of Conviction (Blue) (5),

Weapon: Raise Spectre Raise Spectre (Blue) (18), Efficacy Support Efficacy Support (Blue) (1 / 10), Vaal Clarity Vaal Clarity (Blue) (20),

Offhand: Orb of Storms Orb of Storms (Blue) (20), Curse On Hit Support Curse On Hit Support (Blue) (20), Conductivity Conductivity (Blue) (19),

3. Passive Skill Build

Keystones / Ascendency:

  • Runebinder: 100%
  • Illuminated Devotion: 100%
  • Sign of Purpose: 100%
  • Elemental Overload: 89%
  • Divine Guidance: 78%
  • Mind Over Matter: 56%
  • Glancing Blows: 56%
  • Arcane Blessing: 56%
  • The Agnostic: 22%
  • Conviction of Power: 22%
  • Call to Arms: 11%
  • Imbalanced Guard: 11%
  • Pursuit of Faith: 11%
  • Sanctuary of Thought: 11%
Penance Brand Build

4. Equipment Build

Body Armour: Carcass Jack Carcass Jack Varnished Coat

Weapon: Soul Bite Opal Wand, Perepiteia Perepiteia Synthesised Ezomyte Spiked Shield

Helmet: Ghoul Guardian Magistrate Crown

Gloves: Plague Mitts Zealot Gloves

Boots: Woe Spark Spark Two-Toned Boots

Belt: Gale Cord Heavy Belt

Amulet: Atziri’s Foible Atziri’s Foible Paua Amulet

Ring: Miracle Gyre Amethyst Ring, Essence Worm Essence Worm Unset Ring

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