[PoE 2] 🔥 Molten Blast + Ancestral Cry Mace — Gemling Legionnaire Build Guide (Part 2/5, 0.5.4)

📌 1. Molten Blast + Ancestral Cry Mace Build Overview & Mechanics

This is the ranged-clear variant of the shared Gemling Legionnaire core covered in Part 1 — same passives, same jewels, same ascendancy, just swapped onto a Mace with Molten Blast as the main skill and Ancestral Cry as its damage/mobility partner.

1. Molten Blast + Ancestral Cry, feeding off each other

• Molten Blast is your primary clear tool — it’s a Projectile-tagged Attack (no Melee tag, despite needing a melee weapon), so gear that boosts “+# to Level of all Attack Skills” or Projectile damage applies to it, but Melee-only bonuses don’t.
• Igniting enemies builds up Glory on Ancestral Cry. Once it’s charged and you activate the buff, you get a large Fire damage boost plus a footstep effect that erupts in a Fire shockwave with every step you take — Molten Blast itself moves you forward one step per cast while you hold it down, so simply firing it also keeps triggering that shockwave.
• Because that footstep effect procs off any movement, not just Molten Blast’s own step, you can clear entire packs just by running through them with Ancestral Cry active — Molten Blast becomes optional once the buff is up, more useful for tougher single targets than for trash packs.

2. Defense: Giant’s Blood + Shield instead of the two-handed Mace

• Rather than running the Mace two-handed, this variant allocates the Giant’s Blood keystone to wield it one-handed and slot a Shield in the other hand, trading a bit of raw stats for meaningfully more survivability.
• Equipping a Shield unlocks the optional Spirit skill Magma Barrier — running it pushes Block Chance to roughly 80% (versus about 68% without it), at the cost of the Critical Hit Chance, Skill Speed, and defense-amplification you’d get from spending that Spirit elsewhere.

3. Rare-kill payoff

• Killing a rare monster procs an effect that causes all your damage to also Break Armour, and stacking that with your Power Charge-fueled cooldowns lets you keep Endurance Charges rolling while tearing through the pack — a nice damage spike on top of the Ancestral Cry window.

📊 2. Pros & Cons

Here’s the full rundown on why this Molten Blast + Ancestral Cry Mace build is worth trying — and where it falls short.

Pros:

• This Molten Blast + Ancestral Cry combo delivers explosive AoE clear that can go almost fully passive once the buff is up — just walking through packs triggers the footstep shockwaves.
• Solid, adjustable defense: Giant’s Blood + Shield gives you a real Block layer without giving up your main-hand weapon, and Magma Barrier is there if you want to push Block further.
• The rare-kill Armour Break proc adds a free damage spike against tougher packs without any extra buttons.

Cons:

• Ancestral Cry’s Glory needs to build up before the build hits its real clear speed, so the start of a fight is weaker than the middle of a pack.
• Giant’s Blood + Shield sacrifices some of the raw weapon damage a plain two-handed Mace would give.
• Want a pure ranged mapping experience instead? Check out the Bow variant (Part 4).

🎒 3. Gear & Gem Setup

Everything here — passives, ascendancy, and the Shared Jewels — is identical to the core build in Part 1. Only the weapon slot and two gear pieces change for this Molten Blast + Ancestral Cry variant.

Gear by Slot (changes from Part 1):

• Weapon: One-Handed Mace, made possible by allocating the Giant’s Blood keystone (normally requires a Two-Handed weapon).
• Off-Hand: Shield — this is what unlocks Magma Barrier if you choose to run it.
• Gloves: prioritize Projectile damage and “+# to Level of all Attack Skills” — Molten Blast has no Melee tag, so Melee-only skill-level mods won’t apply here.
• Amulet: same priority as Gloves — Projectile-focused stats over Melee-focused ones.

Passive Tree (changes from Part 1’s shared tree): allocate the Giant’s Blood keystone, plus roughly two points into nearby Block Chance nodes and one stat point. Everything else on the tree matches Part 1.

🔮 4. Full Skill List

The complete skill and support gem setup for this Molten Blast + Ancestral Cry Mace build.

• Molten Blast
  

  Molten Blast

  Attack

  AoE, Projectile, Fire

  Cost: (6–40) Mana

  Attack Speed: 75% of base

  Attack Damage: (65–265)% of base

  Projectile Speed: 16 metres/sec

  Gouge molten rock from the ground and fling it at the target. The Projectile explodes on collision, damaging enemies and scattering shrapnel in a cone behind it.

  Projectile

  Converts 60% of Physical damage to Fire damage

  Inflicts 200% more Flammability Magnitude, 100% more Ignite duration

  Fires +1 Projectiles (twice as many at 15% less Attack Speed while Dual Wielding)

  Explosion radius is 1.6 metres

  Additional Effects From Quality:(0–30)% chance to inflict Exposure on Hit, Fires +(0–2) Projectiles

  Shrapnel

  Attack Damage: (65–265)%, converts 100% of Physical damage to Fire damage

  Number of Projectiles cannot be modified — fires 8 Projectiles

  — Rapid Attacks II, Nova Projectiles I, Verglas, Rigwald’s Ferocity
  

  Rigwald’s Ferocity

  Support, Lineage

  Supports Attack skills, granting them Attack Speed at the cost of Damage, or Damage at the cost of Attack Speed, depending on which Weapon Set they’re used in.

  , and Rakiata’s Flow
  

  Rakiata’s Flow

  Support, Lineage

  Supports Skills that can cause Damaging Hits, causing those Hits to treat Enemy Elemental Resistances as inverted.

  — your main clear skill; holding it down moves you forward one step per cast, which also triggers Ancestral Cry’s footstep effect below.
• Ancestral Cry
  

  Ancestral Cry

  Warcry

  Attack, Buff, AoE, Melee, Slam, Projectile, Trigger, Fire, Duration, Nova, Conditional

  Cost: (10–44) Mana

  Use Time: 0.80 sec

  Requires: Any Melee Martial Weapon or Unarmed

  Perform a Warcry using Glory gained by Igniting enemies to turn you into an embodiment of Kaom. While embodying Kaom, you Trigger Volcanic Steps while travelling, Melee Strikes and Slams are Ancestrally Boosted, and your Melee Strikes Trigger Volcanic Eruption.

  Warcry

  Generates 100% of Monster Power as Glory on Igniting an enemy — requires 100 Glory to use

  Warcry radius 4 metres; duration 8 seconds

  Consumes all Endurance Charges to increase duration by 50% per charge

  Converts 100% of Physical Damage to Fire damage with Boosted Attacks

  Triggers Volcanic Steps every 1.2 metres travelled

  Additional Effects From Quality:+(0–20)% increased Warcry duration per Endurance Charge consumed, grants (0–10)% more Fire damage

  Volcanic Steps

  Attack Damage: (60–245)% of base — slams the ground around you, radius 1.2 metres

  Converts 100% of Physical damage to Fire damage

  Volcanic Eruption

  Cooldown 0.40s, Attack Damage: (80–211)% of base

  Fires 3 Molten Projectiles from the struck enemy, landing nearby for Attack damage (impact radius 0.8m)

  — Prolonged Duration II, Close Combat II, Elemental Armament II, Heightened Charges, and Vorana’s Siege
  

  Vorana’s Siege

  Support, Lineage

  Supports skills which Hit targets and have an area of effect, increasing the affected area and causing it to Hit Isolated targets harder.

  — normal duration runs ~40+ seconds, and stretches past a minute with Heightened Charges supporting it.
• Magma Barrier
  

  Magma Barrier

  Buff

  Attack, Persistent, AoE, Melee, Trigger, Fire

  Reservation: 30 Spirit

  Requires: Any Shield

  While active, passively increases your Block Chance and imbues your raised Shield with lava over time. Once fully imbued, your next Block triggers Magma Spray and grants an Endurance Charge.

  Fully imbues Shield in 8 seconds

  Grants 25% increased Block Chance

  Magma Spray: 5.00% Critical Hit Chance, (170–694)% of base Attack Damage, radius 2.8m

  — optional Spirit skill, no supports needed. Trade-off: running it pushes Block chance to 80% (vs. 68% without), at the cost of the Critical Hit Chance / Skill Speed / defense-amplification you’d get from freeing up that Spirit for something else.

Why it clears itself: Ancestral Cry’s footstep shockwave triggers on any movement, not just Molten Blast’s forced step — so just running through packs with Ancestral Cry active can clear them without firing a single shot.

🔗 5. Credits & Build Planner

This Molten Blast Ancestral Cry build turns the shared Gemling Legionnaire foundation into a ranged Mace clear setup. If you haven’t set up the shared core yet, start with Part 1 — the All-in-One Build guide first.

• Build Creator: 대길이겨란-게임채널 (Copy and paste the Creator’s name on YouTube)
• 대길이겨란 Youtube Channel: 대길이겨란-게임채널
• Current character ninja link: Level 98 Gemling Legionnaire – Path of Exile 2 – poe.ninja

💬 6. Author’s Notes

• Investment & Time Cost: Cheap relative to the full build — Giant’s Blood is a free passive point reallocation, so the only real added cost over the shared core is a Shield and rerolling Gloves/Amulet toward Projectile stats.
• In-Game Performance: Fast, mostly-passive clear once Ancestral Cry’s Glory is up — Molten Blast handles single targets, footstep shockwaves handle everything else nearby.
• Survivability & Room to Upgrade: Giant’s Blood + Shield already gives a real Block layer; slot in Magma Barrier for even higher Block if you want more safety, or skip it to keep the Spirit for offense instead.

This Molten Blast + Ancestral Cry Mace build guide is based on personal testing and setup of the character, closely following the build showcased by 대길이겨란-게임채널 and referencing his character profile on PoE2 Ninja.