PoE: Best league start build for delve & simulacrum on a budget?

Navigating the Early Game: Delve & Simulacrum on a Budget

Starting a new league in Path of Exile with the ambitious goal of conquering both Delve and Simulacrum on a tight budget can seem daunting. These two endgame mechanics demand robust defenses, high damage output, and excellent clear speed, making build selection critical. While many powerful builds exist, finding one that scales efficiently from minimal investment to tackle these challenges without breaking the bank requires careful planning. This guide explores the best league start options that excel in both content types, providing a clear path to success.

The Core Challenges: What Makes a Good Build?

Before diving into specific builds, it’s essential to understand the unique demands of Delve and Simulacrum. Delve requires sustained survivability against constant darkness damage and hordes of monsters, alongside high mobility to keep up with the Crawler. Simulacrum, on the other hand, throws waves of increasingly difficult enemies, including powerful bosses, demanding strong area of effect (AoE) clear, single-target damage, and often layered defenses to withstand incoming bursts.

A successful budget league start build for both activities must possess a few key attributes: excellent clear speed for efficiency, reliable single-target damage for bosses and unique encounters, robust defensive layers to prevent one-shots, and most importantly, the ability to scale significantly with minimal investment, primarily through skill tree progression and easily acquired unique items or basic rare gear.

Top League Start Build Recommendations

1. Toxic Rain / Caustic Arrow Pathfinder/Trickster

The Toxic Rain / Caustic Arrow combo remains a perennial favorite for league start for good reason. It offers phenomenal clear speed with Caustic Arrow and potent single-target damage with Toxic Rain, both of which scale incredibly well with gem levels and attack speed. As a Pathfinder, you gain immense flask utility, turning budget flasks into powerful defensive and offensive buffs. The Trickster variant offers excellent damage over time scaling, survivability through Ghost Shrouds, and comfortable quality of life.

On a budget, you can easily get started with just a 5-link bow (often a short bow with attack speed crafted on). Progressing involves upgrading to a better base bow, potentially adding damage over time multipliers or chaos damage to attacks. The build naturally provides plenty of evasion and spell suppression, making it durable for both Delve and Simulacrum. Its ranged playstyle keeps you safe while dishing out consistent damage.

2. Detonate Dead Necromancer

Detonate Dead (DD) Necromancer is an absolute powerhouse, especially for Simulacrum. The build leverages the corpse explosion mechanic to deal massive fire damage, scaling incredibly well with gem levels and minion life on the corpses you detonate. It boasts exceptional clear and single-target damage, making it capable of farming high-wave Simulacrum on a very modest budget. Necromancer ascendancy provides strong minion support, spell suppression, and overall survivability.

For Delve, DD can be a bit slower due to its reliance on corpses, but its high damage and tankiness still make it a viable option for deeper delves, especially if you prioritize defensive nodes. The budget version typically involves a simple shield, a +1 or +2 to all fire spell skill gems scepter, and focuses on stacking life and resistances. The raw power of the skill alone carries a lot of the build’s weight.

3. Ice Trap / Lightning Trap Saboteur

Trap builds, particularly Ice Trap or Lightning Trap Saboteur, excel at burst damage and safety. Both skills offer incredible damage with minimal investment, primarily scaling through gem levels and trap throwing speed. The Saboteur ascendancy provides excellent utility with blind, immune to elemental ailments while stationary, and increased trap throwing speed, making for a very smooth and responsive playstyle.

Ice Trap offers superior area coverage and chilling effects, while Lightning Trap provides incredibly high single-target burst and shock application. Either can be swapped depending on preference or specific challenges. For a budget league start, a 5-link chest is sufficient, along with wands or daggers prioritizing spell damage, critical strike chance, and added lightning/cold damage. The ability to pre-plant traps before engaging makes both Delve and Simulacrum encounters safer and more manageable.

Budget Gearing & Progression Strategies

Regardless of the chosen build, effective budget gearing is key. Early game uniques like Tabula Rasa (for a 6-link body armour), Goldrim (resistances and movement speed), and Wanderlust (movement speed and freeze immunity) are incredibly powerful and cheap. Focus on maximizing your main skill’s gem level, often through +1 or +2 to skill gem level modifiers on weapons or amulets, which are usually affordable early on.

For rare gear, prioritize life, elemental resistances, and attributes to cap your requirements. Use Essences for targeted crafting on specific gear slots (e.g., Essence of Delirium for poison damage on a bow, Essence of Woe for spell damage on a weapon). Don’t be afraid to use basic crafting recipes or just scour and alchemy orbs on good bases. Remember that a well-balanced defensive profile (capped resistances, some physical damage mitigation, and recovery) is often more valuable than raw damage in the early stages, especially for Delve and Simulacrum.

Mastering Delve & Simulacrum on a Budget

Delve Specific Tips:

• Light Radius & Darkness Resistance: Prioritize increased light radius on your Sulphite rotator and darkness resistance on your gear if going very deep.
• Flares & Dynamite: Always carry plenty. Flares illuminate safe zones in the darkness, and dynamite helps clear collapsed passages or break walls to secret areas.
• Prioritize Azurite: Early delves should focus on collecting Azurite to upgrade your Crawler’s light radius, darkness resistance, and flare/dynamite capacity.
• Mobility: Builds with high movement speed or movement skills will find Delve significantly smoother.

Simulacrum Specific Tips:

• Positioning: Understand where enemies spawn and position yourself to maximize AoE clear while staying safe.
• Wave Modifiers: Pay close attention to wave modifiers. Some can drastically increase enemy damage or defenses, requiring you to adapt your playstyle or even skip certain waves if you’re undergeared.
• Flask Management: Flasks are crucial. Ensure you have instant recovery life flasks and utility flasks that provide defensive buffs (e.g., Jade Flask for evasion, Granite Flask for armour).
• Mob Priority: Focus on dangerous enemies first (e.g., Exiles, strong rare monsters, or anything that applies curses/ailments) to reduce incoming damage.

Conclusion: Empowering Your Budget League Start

While Delve and Simulacrum are challenging endgame encounters, they are by no means exclusive to high-budget builds. With careful planning and smart build choices like Toxic Rain/Caustic Arrow Pathfinder/Trickster, Detonate Dead Necromancer, or Ice/Lightning Trap Saboteur, you can successfully navigate these mechanics even on a tight league start budget. Focus on gem levels, balanced defenses, and smart progression, and you’ll be well on your way to accumulating wealth and conquering the most formidable challenges Path of Exile has to offer.