Since 3.26 League launched in June 2025, Path of Exile’s new league release frequency has returned to a normal rate, with new leagues released approximately every four months.
With this in mind, PoE development team recently announced that 3.27 League will launch on October 31st.
So, now is the time to wrap up 3.26 and complete any remaining quests that offer PoE currency. Meanwhile, you should also start preparing for 3.27, such as deciding which classes or builds will be available for that league.
As you know, PoE 1 already has a number of base classes available, and with the addition of their own Ascendancy classes, the options are even greater.
If you don’t have a favorite class, or you’re looking to experiment with a chaos-focused style after the new league releases, you can try Blight of Contagion Occultist build, which POECURRENCY.com will introduce next.
Blight Of Contagion Occultist Build Overview
As the name suggests, this build is based on Witch Ascendancy class, Occultist, and with Blight of Contagion as its primary skill.
Occultist’s primary strengths are its cold and chaos damage output, as well as the power of curses. Chaos damage is particularly prominent, as it’s the primary type associated with most Ascendancy nodes. Of all Occultist skills, the following are particularly well-suited to this build:
- Void Beacon: Reduces the cold and chaos resistance of nearby enemies by 20% and reduces health regeneration by 100%.
- Withering Presence: Increases your chaos resistance and damage, and allows you to wither nearby enemies for 15 seconds (this skill requires Void Beacon to function).
- Unholy Authority: Allows you to cast additional curses, affecting enemies with curse resistance.
As for Blight of Contagion, it’s not a class-specific skill, but a skill gem that drops from Divine Font in Lord’s Labyrinth. Its spell also primarily deals chaos damage.
This build’s greatest strength is its impressive board-clearing ability, allowing you to quickly kill large numbers of enemies with a single cast. Its downside is its relatively weak damage output against single enemies, especially bosses.
Therefore, if using this build in Keepers of the Flame league, it’s best used for mapping for regular PoE currency drops, rather than killing bosses for gear or other special rare rewards.
What Items Can Enhance The Effectiveness Of This Build?
The information in the overview is just to ensure that the build is functional. If you want it to at least improve your mapping efficiency, you’ll need to first acquire gear that provides both armor and evasion.
Since this build lacks a built-in energy shield regeneration mechanism, improving your character’s defensive abilities through gear or other items is crucial. Alternatively, you can buy PoE currency to modify the affixes of armor to enhance its defensive effects.
For increased damage, a wand in your off-hand is a good option, as it’s suitable for classes that primarily rely on spell combat, such as Witch (and its Ascendancy classes).
In addition, Blight of Contagion is only the core skill of this build. You can also earn more chaos skill gems by completing quests and expeditions to increase the diversity of your attack and spell-casting methods, further enhancing the value of the build.
Which Passive Skills Should You Unlock?
Blight of Contagion Occultist Build is obviously a chaos-focused build, so when unlocking passive skills, prioritize those that increase chaos damage and resistance.
For this reason, the first skill I recommend unlocking is Arcanist’s Dominion, which increases spell damage and casting speed, and provides additional intelligence.
As you unlock passive skills, you’ll discover that the skill tree is actually composed of multiple clusters, most of which contain a special passive skill called Mastery. Once you assign a skill to a cluster, you can choose from the associated passive bonuses.
For this build, unlocking Charge Mastery increases your charge duration by 100%, granting you 20 seconds of frenzied stamina and energy charges. The stamina charge in particular reduces elemental and physical damage taken.
Notably, Cane of Kulemak and Light of Meaning also aid in charging and have significant damage themselves.
Gems Worth Adding
In addition to the core gem Blight of Contagion and other chaos damage-focused skill gems already mentioned, POECURRENCY.com recommends you farm some support gems that enhance chaos damage and damage over time to maximize the combat effectiveness of your active skills.
Strategies For Using This Build At Different League Stages
As you progress through the league, you’ll unlock more league content, and the various missions and challenges will become increasingly difficult. While testing suggests Blight of Contagion Occultist Build can handle the entire process, it requires different strategies at different stages.
In the early stages of a league, it’s recommended to focus on improving the build’s damage and mana or health regeneration. Later, you can optimize it for map clearing by pairing better gems or optimizing its gear, especially its defensive stats.
As the game becomes more challenging in the endgame, you’ll need to further focus on increasing the build’s damage and defense, and consider combining skills to increase its ability to deal with bosses.
Summary
Since 3.27 league isn’t live yet, Blight of Contagion Occultist build crafting and usage guide we’re providing is primarily based on the basic Path of Exile mechanics already in place in 3.26, which won’t undergo significant changes going forward.
Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume Blight of Contagion Occultist Build will offer a better experience in 3.27 League, helping you quickly advance in the new league and complete your farming and leveling plans.
