Forbidden Rite is one of those skills that simply does not get old. It deals with more damage compared to other spells in the Path of Exile 3.23 at the cost of its self-damaging component. I will rebuild the best version of the Forbidden Rite builds to be made tankier, all that while maintaining it's insane damage and speed. This is the ultimate build for dealing with all end game content, a must try for anyone who is looking for a perfect build with a small amount of POE Currency.

Ascendancy

So we begin with our Ascendancy. We are an Occultist, one of the best ascendancies for supporting chaos damage.

First is Void Beacon. This node deletes 20% cold and chaos resistance from nearby enemies. This node also deletes nearby enemies’ ability to regenerate life, which is useful, especially when Maven is witnessing the fight.

Then we have the Withering Presence. This node grants a 60% chaos resistance and increases our total chaos damage by 15%. It also inflicts Wither debuff on enemies once every second. Wither makes enemies take 6% increased cast damage and stacks up to 15 times.

From here, we go for Forbidden Power. This node increases our maximum power charge count by one. It also increases both area of effect and area damage with power charges, easily the best power charge ascendancy node in the game.

Last we got Profane Bloom. This node causes all these fancy purple explosions you see on the screen. It is your bread and butter for clearing as an Occultist but only triggers if monsters are cursed before they die. We passively achieve this with an aura curse setup, which we will talk about later.

Passive Tree

Let’s take a look at our passive tree. Our tree focuses on area damage, area of effect, chaos damage, power charges, life, spell crit chance, crit multi, and cast speed. Next, we’ve got 2 large cluster jewel setups. Both add the following chaos notables: Touch of Cruelty, Unholy Grace, and Unwaveringly Evil.

Next, we branch off into 2 medium cluster jewels. These add some powerful AOE notables like Towering Threat and Vast Power. Finally, we’ve got 3 identical small cluster jewels. All of them add the following notable: Born of Chaos. This one increases our maximum chaos resistance by 3%.

With our current setup, we are capped at 90% maximum chaos resistance, and you should be pushing your uncapped chaos resistance to be equal to that. Otherwise, the spell does not work.

Mastery

For mastery choices, we have:

• +1% to maximum chaos resistance
• 12% increased Mana reservation efficiency
• 3% increased damage per charge
• Skills cost life instead of 30% of Mana
• 10% reduced Mana cost of skills
• +25% to crit multi against unique enemies
• +50 to maximum life

Items

Let’s talk about POE Items. First, we have the signature one for all power charge spellcasters, and that is Void Battery. We are using two of it. it simply increases our maximum power charge count by one and grants us increased spell damage for each one we have.

We have the Doppelganger Guise. This extremely powerful item grants us 40% less physical and chaos damage taken while equipped without activating the skill it provides. It also grants us 10% life regeneration whenever we are hit, all the time since the mere action of casting the Forbidden Rite hits us, literally better than every single mirror-tier chest out there.

Next, we have Crown of the Inward Eye with +1 to maximum power charge corruption. This is a very versatile item in Path of Exile, and it even works in this build without the corruption. However, you will be losing some damage without it. I recommend mass buying this helm and vaal implicating every single one until you get the corruption that you want. That’s like 90% cheaper than just buying it already corrupted.

Then we have Al Dhih. This amulet grants us some nice resistances and allows socketed support gems to support gems in our chest, effectively making them a 6-link. Make sure to anoint Infused on your amulet, as it is the last power charge node that we couldn’t manually afford to allocate on the passive tree. As for what support gems to socket in this amulet, we got Power Charge on Crit. Another item is a pair of gloves that have life, chaos resistance, and culling strike. The rest of the mods are optional.

We have a pair of boots that have Tailwind, Onslaught, Elusive, movement speed, life, and resistances. It is worth noting that most of these mods are considered quality of life and are not mandatory. They increase our speed, as in Tailwind and Elusive, and you can play this build without them. For our belt, we have a generic rare belt with lots of life and resistances.

As for our rings, we mostly focus on Attributes to cover our gem requirements. Aside from them, we have life, crit multi, Warlord mod, resistances, and crafted Mana prefixes. Our second ring is almost identical. I recommend buying your rings last, as they will complement whatever you are missing.

Gems

Let’s talk about the gems that go inside them. For our main 6 link, we have Forbidden Rite, Awakened Multiple Projectile Support, Awakened Void Manipulation, Awakened Spell Echo, Increased Critical Strike Support, and Increased Critical Damage.

We have a 4 link Aura setup. This one contains Determination, Awakened Blasphemy Support, Despair, and level 4 Enlighten.

Then have a defensive 4 link setup. This one contains Steel Skin, level 1 Arcane Surge, Enhance Support, and Increased Duration. Make sure to bind Steel Skin to your left mouse button to make it auto-activate whenever you move.

We also have a 3 link totem support setup. In it, we have Wither, Spell Totem and Multiple Totems Support. This setup allows us to inflict all 15 stacks of Wither in like 2 seconds, effectively doubling our chaos damage.

Last, we have some leftover gems. They are max level Clarity, max level Vitality, and level 1 Precision.

Jewels

Let’s talk about jewels. For our Watcher’s Eye, we have plus 30% to Critical Strike multiplier while affected by Precision and 15% increased life recovery rate while affected by Vitality.

Next, we have one Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel that specifically mentions Xibaqua. This Jewel will convert all nearby keystones into Divine Flesh. Divine Flesh grants us 5% to maximum chaos resistance and makes half of all elemental damage we take to be taken as chaos damage instead.

This interaction is only useful if your chaos resistance is higher than your elemental resistance, and the effect grows greater, the bigger the difference. That’s why you need to have 90% maximum chaos resistance in this build.

Any remaining jewel sockets you have left should be filled with a normal rare jewel like this one. We are looking for life, increased crit multi while Dual-Wielding, increased area damage, and any other damage mod you can find. Alternatively, you can get resistances or attributes if you still need them.

Bandits and Pantheons

For Bandits Quest, we are going to help Alira. As for pantheons, we got the soul of the Brine King and the soul of Tukohama. But with that, we are done with our best iteration of Forbidden Rite build.