[3.5-3.12 + 3,18 HC] Pure Herald of Agony Jugg. All content. Videos+Link to 3.14 & 3.15 Updates

I have been asked by a few people now to do a proper write up of this one.

First, a disclaimer--this is not an sc build. While it will level, under good conditions, at 150-200m xp/hour there are much faster clearing builds out there. This one is by and for hardcore, and is designed to have the best sustain I could figure out while still having the damage to be able to take down T16 maps and endgame bosses. [I used a similar, but not identical, build to take down Uber Elder almost deathless in standard, video of that is also linked below] It was designed out of my frustration with a rough league start in betrayal and desire to take revenge on Catarina. So far it has been living up to my hopes for it.

[edit] Several folks from sc have now provided feedback that they have, in fact, tried and enjoyed this build for taking on the content in Betrayal. Just proves how little I understand sc after all :>

Did some post-nerf testing of the build at the end of Legion. Build not nerfed nearly as badly as I had feared. Still runs over T16s with any mods. Shaper and Guardians themselves a touch slower, but still perfectly solid. Succeeded with my first deathless Uber-Elder run with this build post-nerf (video 12 below). Planning to use as my starter for HC Blight. If any of the new gems or gear appear to provide upgrades, I plan to post as they are discovered.

throughout the guide I will now also present sections on the dual wield cold iron point cyclone variation using fortify and self-cast vaal molten shell instead of dodge. Because of the way IC was nerfed when the guard skills were changed, molten shell now provides stronger defense. Dual wielding cold iron point takes the crawler back to stronger than it was before the last nerf. It's the most fun I've had in quite a while]

I plan to update for 3.9 as we go along, but for starters here is the suggested lvl 94 tree: https://pastebin.com/8pjfF0bf I have also added a detailed set of suggestions for those of you planning to use the build in the upcoming hcssf race. This is under question 6 of the FAQ.

After ripping almost a dozen times on other builds, I have gone back to basics in 3.10. With the addition of the Calamitous visions unique cluster jewel and the Pure Agony node on a medium jewel, the quill rain version is once again viable. Not the super-fast clear of some builds, but delightful for sitting in the middle of a T16 delirium. Current Pastebin is here: https://pastebin.com/8s99CPz0

Dramatic dps improvements upon adding in a second and third pure agony node. lvl 95 pastebin is here: https://pastebin.com/62LE09dv Drops to about 8.5k Life, but gains roughly 70% -more- damage over a single pure agony. (And even more when I respecced entirely to fit in a 4th while maintaining same-ish life total. POB: https://pastebin.com/JvrWQBPZ

The version I am currently running in 3.11 feels the strongest the build has ever felt. Clocks in around 8.3-8.5k life with 3 Pure agonies + Calamitous visions. Adds in Enduring cry on left click once we take the Call to arms node (1 point for instant cast warcries. Placing it on left click causes enduring cry to activate automatically anytime we walk and it is off cooldown. Good intermittent extra defense and regen exactly when we need it (when we have stopped attacking to reposition) are a notable buff to the build.

Here is the POB for my current character: https://pastebin.com/SqY8LMEb

Please note that the offensive numbers are very misleading, as follows:
1. POB won't calculate the damage from any of the cluster jewels
2. POB won't calculate damage for over 40 stacks of virulence (we get 55)
3. POB doesnt automatically count the extra level from the Hunters Amulet

To get an accurate calc, First up the HOA level to 22 to account for the amulet. Then take the number from POB (Roughly 375k map clear dps/ 267k Shaper dps) and multiply first by 2.6 to account for the 15 extra virulence and then by another 1.27 to acccount for the increased damage on the cluster jewels and then by another 1.25 to account for calamitous visions. This yields around 1.5M Map clear dps and 1.1M Shaper dps. Which sounds about right given how the build feels.

Sirus lvl 5 down, Labyrinth of Opportunity Down, Currently in first place on the HC delve ladder. Build feels good to play this league.

The changes in Gluttony and poacher's mark require a little adaptation.

Fix is to substitute Mark of submission with your favorite new hex with vulnerability or despair for the thief's torment and add a well rolled elder or hunter ring with solid LGOH for the second ring slot. The mark can later be replaced with a vuln on hit or despair on hit ring, available from delve nodes or rollable on a warlord influenced ring over ilvl 75 (vuln only). This will bring down our LGOH some, but it should remain solid enough for almost all purposes. The changes to Gluttony mean we can now rely on the belt alone to solve almost all mana problems, so setting aside thief's torment becomes viable. (Exception is situations where your only enemies are completely uncursable--some totem bosses for example. Have an enduring mana flask set aside for those in particular)

NOTE: The new gluttony can be a trap at low levels. It used to have a req lvl of 48. The req lvl is now 8, but the flat damage you take has not changed. Highly recommended to wait to equip gluttony until your life pool is comfortable. If equipping below 3k life or so, pay attention to the damage roll on the belt. There's a big difference at that level between 100 per dash and 200 per dash. This largely disappears later as your life climbs above 5-6k and you have regen to match.

Juggernaut using Quillrain-barrage to maintain Herald of Agony. At full build, most of the game is face-tankable, and all of the content can be completed with good play. [3.8 update: Can also Dual wield cold iron point with cyclone and golden rule to maintain HOA, using molten shell/vaal molten shell for excellent survivability]

Offense: Hard to calculate accurately in 3.10, but estimated at 600k/sec+ with ordinary gear, and the potential for over 1M/second with top end gear.

Defenses:

Life pool: 8k+ late endgame

Evasion: minimal from gear, but enough on the tree to give around 40-50% chance to evade with jade and stibnite flasks up. The remaining chance to hit is cut in half again for blinded enemies, either by the stibnite cloud or the on hit chance to blind, once we have it via jewel or quiver.

Dodge:
40% base dodge
30% base spell dodge
(vaal grace {not in use in current version})

Physical:
7 End charges up perpetually via gluttony and dash
Archive from 3.5, outdated

LGOH: Life gain at full build is approximately 8k/second against bosses. Significantly more against groups.

Travels via Dash>Second wind>Blood magic

3.11 General Gameplay: QR vs. well rolled T15 Tower & lvl 83 Abyss

3.10 QR Variation vs lvl 5 Sirus, deathless

Cold Iron Variant


Bow variant

A. Your sole real damage source will be herald of agony with the following links, as you level:

1. Up to level 34: HOA>Minion Damage>Damage on full Life>Pierce

2. Level 34-53: same set up, but use Wraithlord helm for a free lvl 3 empower

3. Level 54-mid-endgame: Shift to any Helm with +2 level of minion gems and useful stats

4. Mid-endgame-late endgame (T12+): Elder helm with +2 to minion levels and supported by minion damage. Links are HOA>DOFL>Pierce>Vicious Proj or lvl 3 empower.

5. Late Endgame: Same helm or +3 helm, lvl 4 empower and lvl 21 HOA (Now can also add awakened supports. Awakened Vicious proj should be superior to lvl 4 empower for most purposes.

Notes: Getting the equivalent of a 6L in the helm is important, because it allows the build to use Kaom's for the late endgame, which boosts survivability. Vicious proj and lvl 3 empower are roughly equivalent damage output. Level 4 empower is significantly superior, but very expensive. It is also possible to craft a 7L equivlaent helm using essence of insanity.

B. Your Herald of Agony will be powered by Barrage (lvl 1-3, no higher) used with Quill Rain, linked as follows:
1. Level 16-30 Barrage>LMP>Lesser poison>Life Gain on hit
2. Level 31-37 Barrage>LMP>Poison>Life Gain on hit
3. Level 38-53 Barrage>GMP>Poison>Life Gain on hit

4. Level 54-Late Endgame: Elder Gloves Supported by either Poison or faster attacks. Options for links are:
Better Defense Barrage>GMP>LGOH>whichever the gloves don't have.
Better Offense (supported by poison only) Barrage>GMP>LGOH>withering touch

5. Late Endgame: Elder Gloves supported by both Poison AND faster attacks. Link Barrage>GMP>LGOH>Withering Touch

[3.8 Edit] For the cold iron point variation, I recommend leveling to 62 using the above set ups. After 62, your HOA will be powered by cyclone dual wielding cold iron points. Links are Cyclone>LGOH>Poison>Faster attacks>Fortify>Withering touch, with faster attacks and poison ideally to come from gloves.




Notes: The set ups above are magnified defensively with a thief's torment ring and gluttony belt (More on these later). In the late endgame, you will have an attack rate of around 6/second firing 9 arrows per attack and gaining around 148 life per hit. As the build uses RT, every properly aimed arrow will hit. The result is life gain of around 8k/second, so long as you are hitting a valid target. Significantly more against groups once you have piercing on your quiver. As long as your life pool is adequate, this is sufficient to facetank 99% of the game. Specific exceptions are noted below. (Original variation had LMP in place of withering touch for over 10k/sec life gain. However it is not hard to maintain 15 stacks of withering touch via barrage, and this will boost damage against bosses by nearly 50% more--no brainer)

[3.8] edit: We drop gluttony in favor of maximizing armour for powering up molten shell/vaal molten shell] this no longer allows a completely facetank style (though this is still possible for most of the game) but requires some judgment re: where to step out of a fight until molten shell refreshes.

[3.10] edit: Resumed using gluttony with self cast steelskin for periodic extra defense

C. You will also have the following auxiliary gem setups in boots, armour and weapon:

Weapon (Either 6L or 4L/2L: Dash>Second Wind>Steelskin>Convocation>Increased duration>Blood Magic. If no 6L, make sure Dash>Second wind>convocation>Blood magic are linked and make sure steelskin>inc duration are linked.

Boots> 3L CWDT>Desecrate>Spirit offering and unlinked Arctic armour. Alternately, if you can get aspect of the spider, replace arctic armout with a linked increased duration, cold snap, or vortex, to your taste.


Archive old set up

1. Quill Rain: BIS for keeping Virulence at max and defensively for life gain. Nothing else comes close

2. Thief's torment: BIS for Life gain while also solving mana problems, solid for rezzes and useful in cutting harm done by curses. Item quant is icing. Improveable through attack mod catalysts.

3. Gluttony: lvl 30 poachers mark provides a non trivial 34 life gain and 15 mana gain per hit, and applies to hexproof enemies. Belt also adds to effective accuracy of the crawler and provides cull. Downside of the belt is well mitigated by Jugg ascendancies/CWDT>IC setup. Damage from belt allows us to self proc jugg endurance charge gain by using blink arrow or phase run so that all boss fights begin with 7 charges. This also makes it trivial to maintain 7 charges at almost all times.

4. Gloves: Level with Ondar's until your first pair of elder gloves

5. Helm: Level from 34 with wraithlord (Earliest available +2 minion gems helm by 20 levels) for easy clear. The helm pictured is overkill. If crafting with insanity essence, the insanity mod and either +2/+3 minion gem levels OR supported by minion damage is sufficient. Though the 7L helm is nice if you can get it. When bound fossils are less expensive, craft with those instead looking for supported by minion damage and +2/+3 minion gem levels.

6. Quiver: Level from 10 with Hyrri's bite until you don't need it for stats. A piercing quiver is a buff offensively since poacher's mark will apply one extra row deep, and defensively as it allows LGOH to hit one extra row deep. Bonus points if it has a chance to blind on hit mod, but you can get this on an abyss jewel. Maim on hit from a large cluster jewel with smite the weak is a fun posibility also.

7. Armour: Ambu's charge is a good budget option until you can afford something with a solid life roll. Late endgame goal is a Kaom's.

8. Ammy, boots: Life & Res. Atziri's step are a good option if you are going the dodge route once you can get adequate resists on other gear (will need significant resists on jewels to make this work.

9. Flasks:
a. Forbidden Taste is important, and provides back up for those moments when you are out of enemies or fighting a boss that has become untargetable and suffer a severe hit or DOT.

b. Stibnite and Jade together with a fair bit of evasion on the tree provide a solid base defense against attacks. I prefer warding on the stib because it almost never runs out. Staunch on the Jade.

c. Quartz: Provides some extra dodge defensively and good uptime for grounding or dousing (matter of taste/particular enemy or map)

10. Jewels (not pictured): 3-4 Cluster jewels containing Pure Agony, with at least one disciples as a secondary. Calamitous visions unique cluster jewel. Volley fire unique cluster jewel with corrupted blood cannot be inflicted once affordable (for fighting Sirus).

For other jewels, prioritize Life and filling out resists. I also recommend one abyss jewel with flat life and any chance to blind. Secondarily Bow attack speed is useful.

11. Optional: Aspect of the Spider can replace Arctic armour to good effect. stronger offensively and provides additional defense by slowing enemies via hinder. This can be magnified -significantly- if you also get maim on hit either via a crafting the mod on a warlord's penetrating quiver or by using smite the weak from a large cluster jewel. The combination of maim and hinder together is one of my favorite defensive set-ups in the game, when I can manage it.


Cold Iron Points Variation Gear List:


Not pictured is Golden Rule unique jewel


Additional notes
1. Cold Iron Points: The extreme power up from the Cold Iron Points made them BIS in 3.8 and 3.9

2. Golden Rule: Makes it possible to maintain 40 stacks of virulence easily when using melee weapons, since the reflected poisons also count toward those stacks. Make sure you have enough chaos res/regen to mitigate the effects. Use great caution is you are going to use this while leveling, before taking regen nodes and ascendancy. Recommend for this purpose a pair of fidelitas's spikes (no physical damage) and a jewel with a little added phys or chaos.

3. Use vicious proj until you can afford an empower.

Archived original gear set:

3.11 lvl 96 Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/yN3pgWBB



Cold Iron Points version

[3.10 edit]
Archived old variations:

Unstoppable (stun avoidance key to maximizing value of LGOH)
Unflinching
Unrelenting
Unbreakable

For Cold Iron Points variant, if stacking armour, swap the last two

If going QR gluttony & dodge, Lunaris/Tukohama.
If stacking armour and going CIP: Solaris Ralakesh

1. Early Leveling:
Use whatever you find easy. At league start I use smite>Ancestral call. Once I have gear, I like Ice shot>Pierce>Volley>Mirage archer. On tree, your first stop is the dodge cluster. It is a ways off, but provides a massive survivability boost.

2. Next Steps:
Don't be tempted by the minion nodes. You don't need them as long as you are running war banner. Grab life and then grab Endurance charges when you do your cruel ascendancy. You will also grab Resolute technique around this time. Then more life until you are ready to take your final helm/kaom's upgrades.

3a. If you are running Cold Iron points, you will not be using pure agony cluster jewels. Cyclone has been shown to have a difficult time getting over 40 stacks of virulence, even with golden rule and one disciples. If you become wealthy, we theorize that three Pure Agony/Disciples jewels might allow the CIP version to maintain 55 stacks of virulence, but I am unaware of anyone trying it yet. Otherwise, you will want a calamitous visions jewel as soon as one becomes available.

3b If you are running the Quill rain version, you will want one pure agony jewel slotted early, with calamitous visions as an add on. The second and third pure agony can wait until you are in your 70s and 80s respectively. I would not try to slot a 4th one sooner than 92-95 depending on your other gear /cluster jewels. As a personal preference, I would focus on having over 8k life before slotting the 4th pure agony. (And the jury is still out on whether the 4th pure agony is really necessary)

4. Late Game: When you upgrade to a 6L helm, If you are going with armour grab the minion accuracy nodes and drop war banner (since you wont be able to afford the mana anymore). Then keep improving your life pool. If you are going gluttony/dodge you may not need accuracy, depending on the final level of your HoAg due to the effects of poachers mark. Decide by feel how much you need. may be efficient to find this on jewels.

1. Atziri / Uber Atziri trio/Vaal Temple: Do -not- leave the dual striker for last. With this build, actually, a'alai is safest left for last. When the dual striker is last and enrages he has a virtually unique effect that does flat damage to anyone who attacks him, even at range, on a per hit basis. This may still be ok for regular trio, but against the Uber trio or Vaal Temple trio, you will kill yourself, as the damage, after mitigation, per a GGG representative (because i thought it might have been a bug) is around 900 per hit. At 54 hits a second . . . . As a sidenote, don't stand in the empowered flame blasts or empowered lightning circles, as these can do sufficient overlapping damage to one-shot.

2. Hall of GMs: There are GMs with enough dodge/block to reduce your number of hits per second, and hence life gain, sufficiently for them to kill you. Particularly some that use scorching ray can be extremely dangerous. There are GMs with tempest shield that will damage you with every hit from barrage. There are also GMs with sufficient regen that you won't be able to kill them with your normal set up. To get past these last two, kill all the other gms around, and then have a weapon swap ready to balefire and and a shield that replaces the resists on your quiver. For my run I used Prism Guardian, but any shield with enough res will do. You will be able to burn the GM down with balefire, then swap back to the normal set up. Hall of GMs is completable, but it is definitely not trivial content, even for this build.

3. Shaper:
a. Shaper critting on a slam can still one shot us, though a 9k life pool with 7 end charges up will tank an ordinary slam.
b. Facetanking the slow orbs is dubious as they come quickly with significant cold pen. It is also unnecessary.
c. During his teleporting orb phase, there is nothing to attack, so we can die.
d. With practice, you can use strategically placed frost walls to protect Zana long enough for the crawler to kill all the adds. I did not find this to be trivially easy, but I have managed it successfully. Without frost wall, the crawler is too slow. If Zana dies, abort the run or you will too.

4. Uber-Elder (Elder):
a. Either Elder or Shaper Slam can one-shot on a crit. Likewise Elder's slow expanding circle. Also, there is enough chaotic damage coming from various sources that you may not be at full health when the slam comes in. (this is how I died during the uber-elder video posted above)
b. Shaper's balls as above.
c. Honorable mention to the Enslaver. He can inflict a sufficiently powerful ignite that if he happens to crit with it just as you kill him, you will see your health plummet. If you are out of dousing flask charges/forbidden taste charges at such a moment, it is possible to die.

5. Any Red Map/deep delve/syndicate mob that crits hard enough with a sufficient number of added damage mods. This one is an assumption.

6. Anything that gets you with a rapid succession of hits when you are repositioning and not attacking, though dodge will help mitigate this.

1. Wouldn't rain of Arrows be Better?

2. Um . . . there isn't enough mana to run grace and Herald of Agony . . .?
3. My spirit offering isn't proccing all the time, wtf?
4. I met something that I can't seem to poison, is this a bug?
5. Could I use a wand and shield instead? I like block.

6. Can I ssf with this build?

7. What changes do I make for SC with infinite currency?


8. Is Dodge really that important? It seems like a lot of travel nodes.

9. Why sacrfice all that armour to use gluttony? Are you an idiot?


10. Are there any map mods we can't run?

11. Post 3.8: Which version is stronger, Quill rain or Cold Iron Points?

12. Can I try to change it in some way?

13. The leveling section of your guide was kinda TLDR. Can you give some step by step leveling advice?