I just had the pleasure of finding out you can't use essences on items with metamods. After getting frustrated with looking for options for rolling +strength on my amulet with +1 gems, I annulled the mod on a 1 in 4, and decided to just give up on it and start essence spamming.
4 essences later I hit it.
Would love to hear any advice on how to ACTUALLY craft an amulet like this, and if there are any clever methods that don't just involve exalt/annul spam or slamming a fracturing orb on the +1.
This is the first league I've ever put a substantial amount of time into. I started with chronic_painless' cold conversion blade vortex build and it served me well all the way through endgame. However outside of movement abilities the build doesn't really have many buttons to press besides casting blade vortex every couple of seconds. When I made my lightning arrow deadeye I followed a guide that opted to make use of quite a few buttons and I actually enjoyed it a lot more. I think I've found that having the option of a chill auto bomber style character is nice when you're looking to turn your brain off, but having buttons to press like guard skills can feel very rewarding to play.