4. Hunter-influenced Rare (gloves) - Intimidate on hit. Ideally corrupted with Elemental Weakness on hit as well. Other stats aren't important. Alternatives: Any EleWeak corrupted gloves; or Southbound, for its 16% increased life (additive with minion life).
The option of Hunter influenced gloves seems "a bit" extreme just for the Guardian given their rarity, especially when we're also taking "we want the AG to curse with EleWeakness" into account.
(As of posting there is ONE result for both Hunter Intimidate Influence + Ele Weakness on otherwise crappy gloves ... for 120 EX. To have it eaten by the Guardian. I am sure you will agree this amounts to NOPE. )
Can AG make use of the Intimidate condition on Tombfist?
Tombfist + random Murderous Eye Jewel = Intimidate on Hit with Attacks
Hunter Intimidate mod random gloves ~ 35C
Tombfist 6% life + random murderous Eye jewel ~ 2c
Hunter Intimidate mod random gloves with Ele Weakness ~ 120 EX*
Tombfist life random roll (/w jewel) + Ele Weakness = ~2.2ex (300C)
Southbound with 15-16% life and Ele Weakness (no Intimidate though) = ~10-50C depending on time of day. NO intimidate though
* (Yes, a result set of ONE is not representative, but still ...)
This is assuming that an Animated Guardian can eat Tombfist with a socketed Jewel and the Jewel will proc the condition. Otherwise, this post is moot, of course.
Further:
Hunter: 7-10% chance to Intimidate Enemies for 4 seconds on Hit
Tombfist: With a Murderous Eye Jewel Socketed, Intimidate Enemies for 4 seconds on Hit with Attacks
I guess the Hunter mod will also work on non-DoT Spells, but since in either scenario the mod would be local to the Animate Guardian - the AG is an attacker, so no practical difference - if it works.
Too bad, I thought it would only get fixed during the League break.
Empower3 was giving +4 when in a Hungry Loop, thus you could build a Level27 Animate Guardian (or whatever else skill you would use as Level21 base) in the Hungry Loop.
So ~90k life before items instead of ~120k (with roughly the 3.8 passive tree)
Depending on how valuable the items are that you are gonna feed them, take a bit better care of your AG, everyone.
(Or just use Mask of the Stitched Demon and you can largely ignore anything.)
If you use Cyclone + CwC + Desecrate + Spirit Offering on your boots for the substantial tankiness, you can't have both skitterbots + bonechill and hatred + Generosity on your shield.
The best compromise is to move Hatred + Generosity setup to GGGR Triad Grips and place Skitterbots + Bonechill on the shield.
"
Can AG make use of the Intimidate condition on Tombfist?
As you later discovered, Animate Guardian cannot be cast on items with anything socketed. That includes gems and jewels.
"
Too bad, I thought [the doubled Empower bug] would only get fixed during the League break.
To think you had only just discovered and told me about it the other day. GGG sure caught and fixed that in a jiff.
"
GGGR instead of the previous GGGG Triad Grip is what purpose exactly?
As woefulwabbit mentioned, CwC Spirit Offering demands 4 linked sockets from the previous 3L for CWDT, leaving no room for one of the two 2Ls of Generosity Hatred and Bonechill Skitterbots. Sacrificing a green socket results in the least loss of damage (~5%) between dropping Generosity (~15%) or Bonechill (~16%).
This has the bonus of opening a socket of any color for us, so we can make up for the loss with a golem, remote EE skill, or preferred mobility skill.
I tried to convert my regular GoC build with the new Triad Grip variant but still use my two golems. Fuk those King maker's price. By the way, I only have empower lvl 3, should I drop that and change it to melee splash/Minion Damage/Melee phys?
"
empower lvl 3, should I drop that and change it to melee splash/Minion Damage/Melee phys?
...you don't need a L2 Empower. It's only worthwhile when it adds +3-6 levels.
To do that, you stack a +1 mod with +2 Supports craft and get a corrupted L4 Empower. That'll give +6 levels, which hits gem level 30 with a L21 gem, +2 from Necro, and +1 from the item. +6 levels is worth 76% more damage, 74% more life, 24% Slam cooldown, and +2 Zombies.
Right now, you're only getting +2 levels out of it. That's worth 21% more damage, 21% more life, and 8% Slam cooldown. You have to hit gem level 25 for +1 Zombie, and level 30 for another +1.
Until then, as long as you are not having any issues with their survival, Minion Damage Support is a solid alternative for Zombies.
Melee Splash isn't as necessary for Zombies due to their Slam. Melee Phys is almost the same as Minion Damage, but won't scale any flat ele or chaos damage they might have.
What's the benefit of whirling blades & faster attacks in the gloves?
We want three things out of our mobility skill(s):
1. Speed - To travel through and clear a map as fast as possible.
2. Dodge - Responsive and reliable enough to immediately avoid deadly boss mechanics.
3. Teleport - To surmount cliffs, gaps, and other obstacles, saving time and frustration.
In the 3.9 rework, we have two green sockets to fill, and a free socket on our shield. We can use either:
A. Phase Run, Smoke Mine, and a golem of choice or Holy Relic.
B. Whirling Blades, Faster Attacks, and Flame Dash.
Both setups have a Teleport, and are pretty good on Speed. Option A takes more management, though, and is weaker when it comes to reactionary Dodging, but has an additional support skill as compensation.
Alternatively, we can sub in Dash for Smoke Mine or Faster Attacks & Flame Dash. It's better for Dodging than Smoke Mine, but shorter range and has less utility (blind, speed buff, creative use of delayed detonation). Dash would give Option B a free socket like Option A, since we wouldn't need the teleport from Flame Dash any longer, but it'd reduce the sequential responsiveness of Whirling Blades from losing Faster Attacks, hurting its overall Speed factor.
In the 3.8 Triad build, which is squishier due to not using CwC Spirit Offering in favor of CWDT Spirit Offering, we had four green socket that needed to be filled.
1. Phase Run = 2.5-8 seconds of +45% movement speed (4 second cooldown). It excels when I have Quicksilver up and minions (with Necromantic Aegis + Victario's Charity) are earning me Frenzy Charges so Phase Run can stay constantly on. You can bind it to Left Mouse to automatically trigger it when moving. Only issue is in town, but you can still click on objects to move normally and type /hideout.
2. Smoke Mine = Teleport and 7 seconds of +29% movement speed. It is bound to E, and Detonate Mines bound to R. I push E then R in rapid succession to teleport myself across gaps or gain 29% bonus movespeed on-demand, like when Phase Run is on cooldown. Good for immediately blinding Minotaur, Izario, etc. You can also throw one before opening a Strongbox, or before you backtrack to pick up an item to immediately return to where you were. It has a lot of flexibility.
3. Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks = Dodge and reliable alternative movement. I prefer Whirling Blades to Phase Run when everything is dead (no Frenzy Charges) and Quicksilver is tapped out. It has no cooldown, so I know I can always count on WB when I need it, which is important for a dodge skill. I can also continue to use it when casting Skeletons. It ignores terrain effects, like Tar, and is not affected much by Temporal Chains.
In narrow or cluttered terrain, WB can get stuck and not feel too great. So I use Phase Run, and in the gap of its cooldown I throw Smoke Mine to stack their bonus movement speed. Basically each skill has ideal situations, so by having all three I can freely lean on one when appropriate to maximize my mobility. It's like having a Sprint, Jump, and Combat Roll.
Another reasonably cheap Animated guardian gear is a redeemer (blue) influenced chest piece.
At ilvl 75 or higher it can roll the 'nearby enemies are blinded' mod. Which provides both the AG and you with some extra safety. You can also craft the gain 10% HP as extra ES mod in there too.
Chest armour pieces with this mod looks pretty cheap to buy right now too.
Belly of the beast is also viable for a cheap budget AG.
"
redeemer (blue) influenced chest piece ... 'nearby enemies are blinded'
That's a good idea for a budget AG or getting more out of the 10% Extra ES armor. It'd be like having a mana-free 'Flesh and Stone' that can move ahead of you. Due to blind jewels for minions, this has less value against bosses, but it'd be very nice while clearing.
"
Belly of the beast is also viable for a cheap budget AG.
If you do not have a Stitched Demon helm for him, then yes. Just bear in mind the 40% life is additive with our existing 175%, and the 96% from the gem. It would come out to ~11% more life (= 4.11 / 3.71).
Personally, due to how dangerous and common Metamorphs are, I'd hesitate to use an expensive Kingmaker until I had Stitched Demon, but something cheap like Dying Breath I don't feel justifies the whole ring slot. Your idea for the blind aura, on the other hand, that'd be worth the socket (depending on radius).
I adjusted my character from my last exchange with you Hercanic, took everything into consideration and, here's the result (used a workaround for the timeless jewel)
https://pastebin.com/YsUAD2kq
Annointed Ravenous Horde over Whispers of Doom on my amulet, then I took back my 7 passives to get Eldritch Battery and the jewel socket on its way, bought a Glorious Vanity (Doryani 2156) to corrupt Eldritch Battery into Corrupted Soul, and voila : 5421 life for 5145 energy shield, HO.
Then I threw my Frostbite/Eleweakness on hit rings out to get some LGoSH rings (bad ones) to get some reliable regen tools even when I'm spinning from afar, giving me a total of 46 LGoAH + 30 LGoSH and 29 ESGoH.
Taking this build to a sweet safety level, and still dealing 4.4M Shaper dps with the 11 Skellies alone.
If you see anything wrong, or nice adjusts in your opinion, please tell me guys :)
It costs 3pts for Eldritch Battery. Chaos Innoculation would only cost 2pts, saving a point. All keystones are the same under a Timeless Jewel, so always take the closer one.
Another approach is using Pain Attunement. You'd lose the Mending cluster (15% Life, 25% ES), but gain back 11 points.
"
[passive tree]
Take the 6% life node in the Devotion cluster before a 5% node in Constitution.
"
[gear]
That's a very impressive +3 Hypothermia + Minion Damage + Minion Life helm!
"
giving me a total of 46 LGoAH + 30 LGoSH and 29 ESGoH.
The one downside is boss immunity phases with nothing to hit and degens on the field. Or Chimera's cloud phase, where Glorious Vanity allows your life to be chipped away when CWDT Spirit Offering would've otherwise made you invincible. In those cases, life flasks are your salvation.
Aside from those circumstances, though, you should feel pretty darn immortal! =oD
Thanks for the update. I have followed the build with great joy finding it to be amazing as always (3.8) and then saw the revision to the old build incorporating skitterbots and such... I sold my gear and headed in the new direction. I calculated my combined minion damage now and rounded down on every calc... I never included some of the debuffs I apply and found the modest calculation to be 11.8mil dps!!! I know this is not all on 1 target since not all melee minions fit around a single target, but WOW! My KaityKitty is public so it is available to look at if you like (https://pastebin.com/D4SbxgYy). The gloves and helmet are my pride and joy :)
"
modest calculation to be 11.8mil dps!!! I know this is not all on 1 target since not all melee minions fit around a single target, but WOW!
Here's a shot from a video I recorded, where I was testing the effects of Feeding Frenzy against an immortal Animated Guardian from a Bloodline pack.
Note the 10 Zombies and 11 Skeletons. All of them are able to surround the enemy. Look at the southwest Skeleton and northeast Skeleton. Both are swinging, even though both are behind another minion. An Animated Guardian uses an invisible Templar model, which as a player character only has a radius of 2. Bosses like Shaper, Elder, and Metamorph are much larger.
In short, all our melee minions can hit a radius 2 enemy from behind other minions, giving us at least 2 circles worth of encirclement DPS.
As for our DPS, what I've found is Zombies in our setup can deal about ~half our Skeleton DPS, and Vaal Skeletons deal more than twice that of Skeletons. So, for a rough estimate, you can take your Skeleton DPS * minion count * 3.5. Then add ~1-2M for Spectres/Phantasms.
"
My KaityKitty is public ... The gloves and helmet are my pride and joy :)
Nice EleWeak+ES double corruption on the gloves! Did you make that yourself?
Last edited by Hercanic on Jan 19, 2020, 3:29:19 PM
GGGR instead of the previous GGGG Triad Grip is what purpose exactly?
As woefulwabbit mentioned, CwC Spirit Offering demands 4 linked sockets from the previous 3L for CWDT, leaving no room for one of the two 2Ls of Generosity Hatred and Bonechill Skitterbots. Sacrificing a green socket results in the least loss of damage (~5%) between dropping Generosity (~15%) or Bonechill (~16%).
This has the bonus of opening a socket of any color for us, so we can make up for the loss with a golem, remote EE skill, or preferred mobility skill.
I was just wondering recently. How much would we get out of using Enhance + Precision + Hatred + Generosity?
Precision will probably have to be kept at L1 though
As woefulwabbit mentioned, CwC Spirit Offering demands 4 linked sockets from the previous 3L for CWDT, leaving no room for one of the two 2Ls of Generosity Hatred and Bonechill Skitterbots. Sacrificing a green socket results in the least loss of damage (~5%) between dropping Generosity (~15%) or Bonechill (~16%).
This has the bonus of opening a socket of any color for us, so we can make up for the loss with a golem, remote EE skill, or preferred mobility skill.
I was just wondering recently. How much would we get out of using Enhance + Precision + Hatred + Generosity?
Precision will probably have to be kept at L1 though
"
How much would we get out of using Enhance + Precision + Hatred + Generosity?
I don't see why you'd want to do this.
We don't need the accuracy of Precision for our minions. They only need 3k for 100% hit chance. Our L26 Skeletons have 6.9k, and L30 Zombies have 9.3k -- more than double and triple what's needed. Even at L20, our Skeletons have 4.3k.
The only thing that'd do anything from a L1 Precision is the 40% increased crit chance, which would become 56% with Generosity. Minions have a base crit multi of +30%, and Kingmaker adds +50%, for a total of +80%. A 5% crit chance * 0.556 Precision = 2.78% crit * 80% crit damage = 2.2% more damage.
Enhance grants quality to skill gems, and both Precision and Hatred just gain increased area from their quality. That's not worth the 115% mana multiplier, pushing Hatred to 57.5% reservation. Skitterbots with Bonechill already reserve 42%. You'd be left with 0.5% of your mana. That'd be between 4 mana (800 total mana) to 5 mana (1k total). You wouldn't have enough to activate a L1 Precision (25 mana w/ Enhance), let alone to cast Skeletons.
Last edited by Hercanic on Jan 19, 2020, 6:59:19 PM
Thank you for your feedback, dude, awesome at usual.
[EDIT]: Took back the 11 points as suggested, and I don't think it can get any better without any investment. Stomping the face of metamorphs in melee, and doing the Awakener without too much difficulty (only troubles I had are lag issues, mostly because of the <too many minions> I think.
Last edited by Amnexty on Jan 20, 2020, 5:36:24 PM
Thanks for the update. I have followed the build with great joy finding it to be amazing as always (3.8) and then saw the revision to the old build incorporating skitterbots and such... I sold my gear and headed in the new direction. I calculated my combined minion damage now and rounded down on every calc... I never included some of the debuffs I apply and found the modest calculation to be 11.8mil dps!!! I know this is not all on 1 target since not all melee minions fit around a single target, but WOW! My KaityKitty is public so it is available to look at if you like (https://pastebin.com/D4SbxgYy). The gloves and helmet are my pride and joy :)
I still have more to do, such as tinkering with the items and adding the leveling trees.
A couple of mistakes in here, I think:
(a) You give the minions 16% more cold damage from Bonechill and 18% more damage from shock. Aren't both of these *increased* rather than more? (In one of the POB forks, you can add in the shock effect directly in the Config. I think the Bonechill still has to be manual though.)
(b) Elemental Army only uses the *largest* hit, so the enemy doesn't get -10% Fire Resist, only -10% Cold Resist. (This is kind of a paltry damage change, though.)
----
This league I'm playing with a rather tweaked version of this (like, it's recognizably the same build, but some of my choices are quite different). Things that might be of interest to some...
Fortress Covenant: Yeah, you kinda have to hide it in a corner, but it's quite a nice boost to damage *and* that block for the AG is great.
Convoking Wand: With fossils (Corroded, Metallic, Shuddering, Jagged), cash, and luck, one can create a Convoking Wand with +1 to all Spell gems and +1 to all Minion gems... plus multicraft for minion damage and attack/cast speed. This gives us an extra Spectre at the cost of some Zombie power, but subtracting the cost of a Lvl 4 Empower.
I've been hating the Cyclone playstyle, and for the moment I've dropped EE, which means I'm actually running around without an "active" skill other than Skellies. It's kind of amusing. I may try running around with SRS in addition for the meme value. Either that or use Lightning Tendrils for EE and CWC.
POB here for the two people intereste3: https://pastebin.com/ATgCi2tY
(a) You give the minions 16% more cold damage from Bonechill and 18% more damage from shock. Aren't both of these *increased* rather than more? (In one of the POB forks, you can add in the shock effect directly in the Config. I think the Bonechill still has to be manual though.)
(b) Elemental Army only uses the *largest* hit, so the enemy doesn't get -10% Fire Resist, only -10% Cold Resist. (This is kind of a paltry damage change, though.)
----
This league I'm playing with a rather tweaked version of this (like, it's recognizably the same build, but some of my choices are quite different). Things that might be of interest to some...
Fortress Covenant: Yeah, you kinda have to hide it in a corner, but it's quite a nice boost to damage *and* that block for the AG is great.
Convoking Wand: With fossils (Corroded, Metallic, Shuddering, Jagged), cash, and luck, one can create a Convoking Wand with +1 to all Spell gems and +1 to all Minion gems... plus multicraft for minion damage and attack/cast speed. This gives us an extra Spectre at the cost of some Zombie power, but subtracting the cost of a Lvl 4 Empower.
I've been hating the Cyclone playstyle, and for the moment I've dropped EE, which means I'm actually running around without an "active" skill other than Skellies. It's kind of amusing. I may try running around with SRS in addition for the meme value. Either that or use Lightning Tendrils for EE and CWC.
POB here for the two people intereste3: https://pastebin.com/ATgCi2tY
[In PoB] You give the minions 16% more cold damage from Bonechill and 18% more damage from shock. Aren't both of these *increased* rather than more?
Increased Taken is additive with other sources of Increased Taken, but to anything else it's effectively a More multiplier. That's why I added Shock and Bonechill together as 34% More Cold Damage (= 18% + 16%).
Elemental Army only uses the *largest* hit, so the enemy doesn't get -10% Fire Resist, only -10% Cold Resist.
It's my understanding that an enemy can have one of each type of Exposure, but cannot stack the same type. "Highest Damage taken" should refer to the ratio of damage types taken from a single hit, like with Wave of Conviction. A single Solar Guard (or other Fire Spectre) would be providing the hit of high fire damage.
Skills that Reduce Resistances
We've standardised a few other skills that reduce resistances. Frost Bomb now applies -25% Cold Exposure instead of its resistance being part of the Frost Bomb debuff. Scorching Ray now applies -25% Fire Exposure when reaching eight stages on enemies.
This change was made to give you a choice in how your elemental build reduces enemy resistances, rather than providing more options that can be combined to reduce resistances to unreasonably low levels.
We'll provide more options for sources of Fire, Lightning and Cold Exposure in the future.
Meaning their intention was to stop stacking rather than hybrid damage. (Source)
Elemental Army shares similar wording with Wave of Conviction:
"
Elemental Army
Minions from Supported Skills inflict Exposure on Hit, applying -10% to the Elemental Resistance matching highest Damage type taken by Enemy
"
Wave of Conviction
Exposure applies -25% to Elemental Resistance matching highest Damage taken
I have exactly 50-50 light and fire, i do not get both exposures right away. The dmg roll is done after the conversion from phys. As such, if you have 10-20 fire and 10-20 light, you can get one ezposure if either is higher (say 11 fire and 20 light gives light exposure) oe both if the roll is equal (both roll 15 dmg for example). That being said, you can get both exposures on the same mob if you cast multiple time the spell and happen to have both damages subsequently as highest. The base duration of the debuff is 5 sec and skill has implicite %duration, as well as scaling heavily from duration, means that if you cast relatively fast, you'll always have both exposures up.
I believe in the unlikely even that the damage roll is perfectly equal (because it's rolled each time, not based on the average damage) then it picks one at random, but it's very hard to control this.
Meaning Wave of Conviction cannot grant multiple Exposures from the same cast.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a direct, solid answer to confirm. The surest way to test, then, would be to take a L1 Raise Spectre (so they do little damage), have Death Attunement (for 2 Spectres), raise two different elemental Spectres (e.g. 1 Solar Guard, 1 Frost Sentinel), link Elemental Army, remove any added damage from jewels, and then check the nameplate of a monster with 0 base resistances to see if they become vulnerable to both elements.
Convoking Wand: With fossils (Corroded, Metallic, Shuddering, Jagged), cash, and luck, one can create a Convoking Wand with +1 to all Spell gems and +1 to all Minion gems
Just as an FYI, you can also get +1 to all Spell Skill Gems on a dagger, enabling you to still use melee skills.
Last edited by Hercanic on Jan 22, 2020, 7:56:04 AM
Hey so just a quick update as I've been testing out a few different things:
As many have discovered, skellies are probably the best skill in the league, so I wanted to put as much as I could into them. Punishment is absolutely insane with skeletons so I worked it into my CwDT. That alone gives me about 150k more dps per skeleton. I also traded in my 6L chest for spectres for a Victario's influence, so now with skitterbots, hatred, vaal haste, war banner, and the free lvl 30 generosity, it effectively doubled skeletons dps and they're now over 1 million dps per skeleton....with a 4-link chest. Even with chieftains instead of a clear-spectre my clear speed is still very fast.
The only real improvement I have to look forward to from here is being able to get enough reduced mana reservation to use a pride aura as well. I might try to get a reduced discipline mana reserve neck to make that happen sooner but right now I'm not really willing to sacrifice life from my tree to make it happen.
The only thing now is I should probably find a replacement for charity, since I've got chieftains for the charges. Any suggestions?
Hey so just a quick update as I've been testing out a few different things:
As many have discovered, skellies are probably the best skill in the league, so I wanted to put as much as I could into them. Punishment is absolutely insane with skeletons so I worked it into my CwDT. That alone gives me about 150k more dps per skeleton. I also traded in my 6L chest for spectres for a Victario's influence, so now with skitterbots, hatred, vaal haste, war banner, and the free lvl 30 generosity, it effectively doubled skeletons dps and they're now over 1 million dps per skeleton....with a 4-link chest. Even with chieftains instead of a clear-spectre my clear speed is still very fast.
The only real improvement I have to look forward to from here is being able to get enough reduced mana reservation to use a pride aura as well. I might try to get a reduced discipline mana reserve neck to make that happen sooner but right now I'm not really willing to sacrifice life from my tree to make it happen.
The only thing now is I should probably find a replacement for charity, since I've got chieftains for the charges. Any suggestions?
"
Punishment is absolutely insane with skeletons so I worked it into my CwDT. That alone gives me about 150k more dps per skeleton.
If you're going off PoB numbers, Punishment is a trap. It doesn't do anything until your Skeletons are hit by a melee attack from the cursed monster. Skeletons are temporary, CWDT is unreliable, and melee hits exclude archer and spellcaster mobs/bosses.
"
replacement for charity ... Any suggestions?
If you're dropping Charity and want to focus on damage, consider a 2H mace with a Fortify mod. You can check out the 2H Triad build for some ideas.
Although the Maim mod is no longer available on 2H, L1 Fortify is still 20% more melee damage. That's comparable to ~100% increased minion damage or ~40% increased minion attack speed.
Last edited by Hercanic on Feb 26, 2020, 7:18:20 AM
