PoE Harvest Brands Builds for Starter

Harvest Brand Skill Brand Support Gem

Storm Brand

It creates a magical brand which can attach to a nearby enemy. It periodically activates while attached, firing beams which deal damage to nearby enemies and those around them. The brand will detach if the enemy dies.

Storm Brand Storm Brand creates a brand on the ground. While attached, the brand deals lightning damage to the attached target, chaining to nearby enemies.

Storm Brand Builds

Storm Brand Build Support Gems

  • Concentrated Effect Support Concentrated Effect Support(Blue): 88%
  • Swiftbrand Support Swiftbrand Support(Blue): 53%
  • Power Charge On Critical Support Power Charge On Critical Support(Blue): 51%
  • Awakened Controlled Destruction Support Awakened Controlled Destruction Support(Blue): 37%
  • Awakened Added Lightning Damage Support Awakened Added Lightning Damage Support(Blue): 36%
  • Awakened Lightning Penetration Support Awakened Lightning Penetration Support(Blue): 32%
  • Controlled Destruction Support Controlled Destruction Support(Blue): 30%
  • Inspiration Support Inspiration Support(Red): 28%
  • Archmage Support Archmage Support(Blue): 17%
  • Lightning Penetration Support Lightning Penetration Support(Blue): 15%
  • Energy Leech Support Energy Leech Support(Blue): 14%
  • Elemental Focus Support Elemental Focus Support(Blue): 14%

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Arcanist Brand

Arcanist Brand Arcanist Brand creates a magical brand which can attach to a nearby enemy. It periodically activates while attached, triggering linked spells. The brand will detach if the enemy dies.

Arcanist Brand Arcanist Brand is a new Brand skill that also supports any triggerable spell linked with it. Each time the Brand activates, it triggers a supported spell, allowing you to build your own Brand setup, potentially even triggering multiple different spells in succession.

As Brand mechanics naturally have great clearing capacity, the supported skills have less area, projectile range and chain range. Triggered spells have a damage penalty, to balance their ability to activate multiple times. The triggered spells also deal more damage to the branded enemy.

Projectiles will hit the branded enemy, but will aim at another nearby enemy each activation, so they often take advantage of Pierce, Chain and Fork effects.

Arcanist Brand Arcanist Brand has a shorter duration than other Brands, so isn’t something you’d use on any build to passively trigger effects, but when building for Brands it can be very powerful. Like other Brands, Cast Speed affects activation rate, so it benefits from most spellcaster investment.

Arcanist Brand Builds

Arcanist Brand Build Support Gems

Armageddon Brand

It creates a magical brand which can attach to a nearby enemy. It periodically activates while attached, causing a fiery meteor to fall from the sky. The brand will detach if the enemy dies.

Armageddon Brand Armageddon Brand creates a brand at the target position. While attached, the brands creates fiery meteors that land on the target’s location and deal fire damage in an area.

Armageddon Brand Builds

Armageddon Brand Build Support Gems

Brand Recall

It recalls your brands to you, detaching them from enemies and increasing attachment range until they next attach to an enemy. Spends a portion of each recalled brand’s mana cost to cause it to activate.

Brand Recall Brand Recall still instantly moves your Brands to you and activates them, but no longer refreshes the Brand’s duration. It now consumes mana based on the Brands recalled. This prevents Brands benefiting heavily from the Archmage Support Archmage Support without the same mana upkeep the Support usually requires.

Brand Recall Builds

Brand Recall Build Support Gems

Penance Brand

It 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.

Penance Brand Penance Brand builds up energy on the branded target with each activation, though at first the activations don’t deal any damage. Each activation also spreads energy to another enemy, and then that enemy can then spread it to another uncharged enemy the next activation, and so on. This means that with repeat activations it can rapidly spread through a group of enemies, energizing them all.

When the Brand is removed (for example, by its duration expiring, it being recalled, the target dying or being replaced), all of the energy is released. This releases an explosion around each enemy dealing physical damage with a portion converted to lightning. The more energy the enemy had on it, the greater the damage and area. You can pick and choose which mechanics to focus on to detonate your Penance Brands.

If the branded enemy becomes fully energised, they’ll start pulsing damage around them, so reaching full charge won’t waste any damage.

You can shorten the duration of the Brand to have them automatically go off after a brief time, or use Brand Recall Brand Recall to force detonations when you detach the Brand.

Penance Brand Builds

Penance Brand Build Support Gems

  • Swiftbrand Support Swiftbrand Support(Blue): 79%
  • Awakened Controlled Destruction Support Awakened Controlled Destruction Support(Blue): 42%
  • Inspiration Support Inspiration Support(Red): 38%
  • Physical to Lightning Support Physical to Lightning Support(Blue): 31%
  • Energy Leech Support Energy Leech Support(Blue): 25%
  • Faster Casting Support Faster Casting Support(Blue): 24%
  • Archmage Support Archmage Support(Blue): 23%
  • Concentrated Effect Support Concentrated Effect Support(Blue): 21%
  • Controlled Destruction Support Controlled Destruction Support(Blue): 21%
  • Awakened Lightning Penetration Support Awakened Lightning Penetration Support(Blue): 17%

Wintertide Brand

It creates a magical brand which can attach to a nearby enemy, dealing cold damage over time and chilling them. It periodically activates while attached, gaining stages that raise the damage. When removed, a short-duration debuff dealing the same damage over time and chill is applied to each nearby enemy.

Wintertide Brand Wintertide Brand applies Cold Damage over time to the branded enemy and chills them. Each activation, the Brand’s damage effect becomes more intense on that enemy.

When the Brand is removed (such as when its duration expires, it is recalled, the target dies or the Brand is replaced), the damage over time effect is released in an area. This affects both the branded enemy (if they’re still alive) and all other enemies around them. This means that if the damage effect has grown in intensity through many activations, it could apply a very potent damage over time effect in an area.

Unlike other Brands, Wintertide Brand Wintertide Brand has a base limit of two Brands per target. With the Runebinder keystone you could apply three Wintertide Brands to a single target for massive cold damage over time. This means that your character’s build will be quite different from other cold damage over time skills, but the duration based nature of Brands means you can easily cast a cold skill like Vortex Vortex, Cold Snap Cold Snap or Arctic Breath Arctic Breath in between refreshing your Brand effect.

Wintertide Brand Builds

Wintertide Brand Build Support Gems

  • Efficacy Support Efficacy Support(Blue): 100%
  • Hypothermia Support Hypothermia Support(Green): 97%
  • Elemental Focus Support Elemental Focus Support(Blue): 73%
  • Controlled Destruction Support Controlled Destruction Support(Blue): 58%
  • Swift Affliction Support Swift Affliction Support(Green): 50%
  • Awakened Controlled Destruction Support Awakened Controlled Destruction Support(Blue): 41%
  • Awakened Swift Affliction Support Awakened Swift Affliction Support(Green): 41%
  • Awakened Elemental Focus Support Awakened Elemental Focus Support(Blue): 20%

Swiftbrand Support

It supports skills which create brands.

The Swiftbrand Support Swiftbrand Support greatly lowers the active and inactive duration of a Brand, but increases its activation rate. For a single Brand being cast once, it’s not as good as other supports, but if you’re rapidly placing many Brands, it’s a huge damage increase. You can play a much more aggressive Brand playstyle with this support.

It also works very well with Penance Brand Penance Brand to rapidly detonate, as well as Armageddon Brand Armageddon Brand to make the most of its short cast time.

 Swiftbrand Support

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