[3.9] Cyclone Summoner - Heralds of Agony and Purity, Summon Holy Relic - League starter

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KäptnSharky wrote:

Close to Optimal Gear Pt. 1

CIPs with 7% atkspeed corruption. As this is local atkspeed, having this corruption on both daggers gives 7% more atkspeed, so slightly faster virulence buildup and slightly more life gain from lgoh.


Price / How to obtain?
One month into the league, the market price is 1 ex for 5% corruption and 3 ex for 7% corruption. Notably, CIPs with an "increased damage over time" corruption are even more expensive. This leads to a good supply of CIPs with atkspeed corruption and can make vaaling CIPs quite profitable.

A 6L +1 corrupted The Coming Calamity. If you already have an amulet with +2 levels to HoAg, the +1 corruption "only" gives 4% more dps from pushing the HoAg level from 31 to 32 and a few more percent from support gem levels.


Price / How to obtain?
Thanks to deathmark support we "only" need 4 off-colors. And getting 4 off colors is literally an order of magnitude easier than 5 off-colors. This combined with the historically low price of vaal orbs makes 6Ling a +1 corrupted calamity somewhat affordable. One month into Metamorph league the cost to make one (any +1 corrupted calamity, 1850 vaal, 1500 fuses, 350 jewellers + on average 400 vaal/chrome to color using 1G recipe) is around 15 ex, provided you get the +1 corruption yourself or find a cheap one. Earlier in the league when vaal orbs were even cheaper, it was only about 10 ex, only twice the cost of a regular 6L calamity.


Alternative gems:

While Vile Toxins is the best single target option, Awakened Chain (10 ex) is the best general clear option (maps, blighted maps, delve <600). When sheer DPS really matters (deep delve), Pierce is still recommended.

Crafted Helmet with +2 projectiles for crawler. Compared to Starkonja's Head, this Helmet triples the DPS of HoP and gives a ~10% dps increase to HoAg. The reduced Mana reservation mod has no effect. "Nearby enemies take 9% increased physical damage" is more desirable than the alternative "Nearby enemies have -9% chaos resistance". Under ideal conditions with spirit offering triggered and 10 wither stacks on an enemy, HoAg deals slightly more chaos damage than physical damage. Without spirit offering but with wither stacks, which is the standard scenario vs bosses if you do NOT get hit, HoAg physical damage is about twice as high as chaos damage.


Price / How to obtain?
An ilvl 86+ elder bone helmet base with +2 projectiles enchantment is minimum 15 ex. Hitting all three desired prefixes and the nearby enemies suffix using pristine/bound/jagged is very rare. I got lucky after about 60 attempts (~8 ex) with t1 life, +2 levels, lvl 16 minion damage and nearby enemies inc phys. For an earlier comparable craft, I needed about 200 attempts (25 ex) to hit t3 life, +1 level, lvl 20 minion dmg and nearby enemies red chaos res.

Amulet with +2 to HoAg levels and life. This amulet also gives a nice amount of regen (good vs bosses), some nice dex (you need it somewhere) and nice minion movement speed (good for clear).

Price / How to obtain?
In short: You craft a guaranteed +1 dex / +1 phys amulet with an awakener's orb and hope for an open prefix to be able to craft life on it.

Detailed explanation with current (1 month into Metamorph) prices

For one attempt, you need any hunter amulet with +1 to dex skill gems as the only hunter mod (~ 50c, either buy or alt craft yourself) and an ilvl 82+ (ideally 85+) warlord marble amulet with +1 to phys skill gems as the only warlord mod (~2.5 ex, currently cheapest to buy a normal ilvl 85+ marble amulet, use warlord's ex and alts to get +1 to phys skill gems). In addition, you need an awakener's orb (230c). In total, this is around 5 ex on average.

Very likely (If my assumption of how awakener's orbs work is correct), the chance to get an open prefix after using an awakener's orb with two fixed prefixes is 25% (1/6 to get an open prefix and an open suffix, 1/12 to get only an open prefix). Of course there is also the very small chance to hit a high tier life mod. Each failed attempt without an open prefix can either be sold at a small loss (currently the cheapest amulet with +1 dex and +1 phys is 3.5 ex) or annulled. By using annuls until either the bad prefix or a +1 gem mod is removed, you would have a 33% chance to still get the open prefix (and a 67% chance to destroy it) At the current prices (5 ex for an attempt, 3.5 ex back for no open prefix) annulling could be a good option.

Provided there is an open prefix, there are several options how to proceed:
- 1. 3 good suffixes: craft life (done)
- 2. 2 good suffixes + either bad or open suffix: craft life (done)
- 3. 1 good suffix, 1 bad suffix, 1 open suffix: craft "prefixes cannot be changed" (2ex) and try to annul the bad one. If you hit the bad one, remove craft, add multimod, craft life + good suffix (done). If you hit the good one, scour suffixes. If you hit "prefixes cannot be changed", recraft it and try again.
- 4. 1 good suffix, 2 bad suffixes: either live with it and craft life (done) or risky annul and proceed as in 3. if successful, restart if bricked or 6. if you hit the good one
- 5. 3 bad suffixes: risky annul, restart if bricked or 6. if you annul a suffix
- 6. 2 bad suffixes, 1 open suffix: craft prefixes can't be changed and scour.

If suffixes were scoured: craft any cheap prefix mod, slam a random suffix. If it is good, multimod, craft life + good suffix (done). If it is bad, either live with it, multimod, craft life + good suffix (done) or, IF you are rich: craft prefixes can't be changed, scour, slam again, repeat until you get a good suffix, multimod, craft life + good suffix (done).

Once you are (done), use 20 fertile catalysts for more life and regen and annoint.
In conclusion, to obtain a comparable amulet you need anywhere between 7 ex and 50 ex depending on your luck. Personally, I got open prefix+suffix from my first awakener orb (lucky), crafted prefixes can't be changed and annulled an epic suffix (6% less phys dmg taken), scoured the bad suffix, used 16 ex to get a decent suffix and then multimodded etc.

Ring with a lot of life, maximum lgoh and two great craft only mods. -3 channeling cost is one part of my strategy to sustain cyclone, together with +4 mana gain on hit from jewels. Reducing the mna cost of cyclone is more desirable than solely relying on mana gain on hit, because it allows for more freedom to use cyclone without necessarily hitting enemies. The shock craft is a huge dps boost. On using focus, you apply a shock debuff to enemies around you for 4s that increases damage taken by 20% (default for "other" sources of shock) and lasts 2s (default). Focus has a 12s cooldown, so you deal 20% more dmg for 6s and then have 10s downtime. For many bosses with phases or not enough life to live very long this is de facto constant 20% more dps.

Price / How to obtain?
Get an elder vermillion (hunter is also possibly, but likely more expensive) ring ilvl 80+, scour it, use 4 fertile catalysts for 20% life quality, use pristine fossils until you hit t1 life and t1 lgoh. Thanks to the higher chance for these mods from both fossil and quality, this should take maybe 25 rolls on average. IF you necessarily want both crafted mods, you can continue as explained for the amulet (get open prefix and 2 open suffixes). However, it might be a good idea consider other options before starting to annul something, especially if there is no open prefix. Vermillion rings with t1 life + t1 lgoh are very good for other builds as well, so it might be better to just sell and start again if you don't get both open prefix and open suffix to safely annul one suffix and then multimod.

Circle of Nostalgia with life implicit and dmg / chaos res mods. Without the %life implicit, I would not even consider using a Circle of Nostalgia. And even then, I dont like losing 24 lgoh and t1 life which i could get from a second crafted ring. However, it has its perks. 75% chaos resistance is a lot, and 100% increased dmg for HoAg, resulting in about 10% more damage, is also really nice. Importantly, at medium virulence stacks, which often occurs while mapping when no enemies are near you, the damage buff is much more significant. Still, neither the chaos res not the increased damage is "necessary". Even at -40% chaos res this build is doing just fine. It may be a valid option to go for increased HoAg buff effect just for the 20% increased poison chance. This way you would not need any jewels with poison chance to reach 100%. Instead of poison chance on jewels, you could get more res or atkspeed or use more abyss jewels with minion atkspeed and life regen while moving.

Price / How to obtain?
Currently 3 ex for chaos res / crawler damage with 8% increased life implicit + a lot of divines.

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Ozzie1111 wrote:

So... How dead is our most beloved build?

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Herald of Agony
Agony Crawler now deals 5% increased physical damage per Virulence you have at gem level 1 (from 6%), up to 9% at gem level 20 (from 12%).