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

Re Maloney's:

I have decided that I like Maloneys for the combination of attack speed, blind on hit, (life) and the ability to socket toxic rain>Maim, which slows mobs down significantly. When combined with knockback, this provides solid additinal mechanical defense. I can also use the third socket to have a place for convocation after I take on Kaom's. This has allowed me to keep war banner>generosity in the setup without sacrificing anything else. This saves a bunch of nodes, as the build appears to function just fine on war banner+generosity with ZERO minion nodes. This experiment is still underway, which is why I have not yet posted about it, but preliminary results are good.

Re delving: The build, as is, is the strongest delve build I have played. It is my favorite part of the game. Go get em!

-O

Yeah, the original build is proven at the highest levels, will have to see how my variant holds up. So far so good though, on 5l Kintsugi and +2 minion helm took down t15 red elder with one careless death.

For darkness farming specifically, might experiment with claw + cyclone to get around quicker.

Sry to ask but as a new player many things are quite unfamiliar..
Why do we use generosity with war banner?

Thx in advance:D

Edit: Its for the extra accuracy for the crawler so we dont need the minion accuracy nodes from tree.:) I thought it messed up with hero's accuracy but it was a stupid thought as we take resolute technique so we dont need any of it:DD

Re Generosity+War Banner:

Correct. I am finding in my current experiment that even in ilvl 83+ areas the crawler functions fine on these with 0 minion nodes. This means we free up those nodes for additional life (or attack speed at the very end), making the build even more tanky.

-O

Few things I wanted to mention:

1) Frenzy vs Inc duration for the last gem slot. These both provide phase run QOL and survivability in different ways so I was curious about your decision between them. They both provide more duration to phase run, though duration is more consistent in this regard if you are chaining phase runs for periods of time without being able to attack. Frenzy provides another (though infrequent) source of life gain but mainly a moderate survivability increase through attack speed. Duration increases your grace duration but also increases the soul gain prevention. Do you find more use in the longer Grace? I will say I haven't tested Grace at all as I play in softcore and also haven't progressed to any difficult content yet.

2) I didn't see anything in this thread about it, but I actually found myself playing this build as a Deadeye this league lol. I tried out your build on my jugg during the last few days of Betrayal and had some fun with it, though I didn't get to play it much. This league I was actually planning to play some kind of traditional Deadeye attack-based build but I leveled with Herald of Agony/Toxic Rain because the progression feels so smooth without really needing any gear. I went to respec some points around after getting a bit into maps, and I realized I actually just wanted to keep playing agony lol. After debating if I should just reroll to a more meta build (glad/occ) or even push your build further, I didn't want to lose my progress so early in the league and figured I would just continue building up gear and switch if I felt like I was struggling and would already have a headstart on a new char. Turns out I feel like deadeye is not a bad choice at all for this build. All 4 passives provide a decent benefit - Tailwind and Fast&Deadly's Blink Arrow cooldown are amazing for mobility and clearspeed - especially in the decaying memory maps so far. Tailwind provides a nice dps boost to the crawler and obviously evasion to me. Rupture provides 30 additional LGOH which isn't really necessary at the moment but like you mentioned earlier, I believe there is potential in dropping Thief's Torment and running Circle of Nostalgia + X. On that note, do you have another ring in mind for the 2nd slot? The LGOH from rupture and a couple mana on hit jewels and/or Revelry should help cover the loss of thief’s. I've started working on getting Max HP/Resist/MGOH gems in preparation. Fast and Deadly provides some attack speed and a ton of accuracy rating as well, which should help in situations like you've mentioned where mobs have periods of increased evasion. Lastly, powerful precision provides more piercing than I could ever need, which is a nice way to make up the loss of a +1-2 pierce quiver when using the new Maloney one. Lastly, through some of the smaller passives and Powerful Precision + Rupture, I will have a substantial crit chance with no gear investment, and I believe I can actually make use of this. Currently thinking about 1-2 survival flasks with charges gained on crit for reliable uptime on boss fights, and maybe trying to squeeze in some kind of lightning skill to shock + proc EE when using hatred, though I'm not sure if I will have the damage to do a decent enough shock. Overall really enjoying the faster playstyle compared to jugg, though I do miss my endurance charges and the other various defensive aspects of jugg. Again though I do play on SC so this ascendancy seems to suit my playstyle more while still being fairly durable (pretty fun to be the highest HP deadeye by quite a bit lol).

3) I'm curious what you think about the potential evolution of the build using the new ring. I was thinking with the ring and a lab enchant, herald has a total reduction of 60-70%, meaning we could potentially even run a 7L vicious +3 gems bow like occultist run and really push the damage (probably more of a softcore experiment). In addition, my idea for an aura setup was a +4 gems shadowstich (2 aoe 2 aura) with Empower/Enlighten/War Banner/Generosity/Haste/Hatred. I believe this will line up perfectly with the reduced herald. With a few corrupted pieces like gluttony, maloneys, etc. It'll provide a decent boost to HP to help offset the loss of Kaoms a bit, though it would still be substantial. I think this should provide more DPS than the 6L coming calamity approach from before. The setup would be either 7L bow + 4 utility helm (phase/blink etc) or 6 utility quill + 5.5L minion helm. I have a feeling crafting the bow and being able to use any generic helm with agony enchant is more reliable then a strong minion helm that also has the enchant, which would be absurdly expensive or require self lab runs.

4) Speaking of auras, is there a way to calc if your pet is reliably hitting mobs outside of watching if he misses or not? You say you are finding that war banner generosity has been sufficient (I am using the same setup) but are there ways to check this in POB, etc? Also on that note I am trying to +chain support -arctic armor and it has felt fairly similar so far to pierce but I need to try it more.

5) Lastly, how are you handling sulphite this league? It seems like it will be a lot more scarce with scarabs nerfed on top of rarer safehouses (though 3 nikos guaranteed is nice).

Sorry for wall of text haha, been playing whenever I’ve had the chance since launch so I piled up a lot of thoughts. Thanks for engaging in so much discussion with your build!

Re Snowstorms wall of text:
Whew! OK, I am actually delighted that you are this engaged with a variation and will attempt to address at least most of your questions/comments

1. Franzy vs. Inc Dur. As you delve deeper, there are moments where inc duration on grace is very comforting, at least to me. Also, I personally don't have the bandwith to manage another separate attack for generating frenzy charges. Usually I am finding the 3 seeconds of phase run are enough to get from pack to pack. So my personal pref. is Inc. duration.

2. Deadeye: For SC there is absolutely nothing wrong with Deadeye, and the deadeye ascendancies provide some definite QOL and easier gearing. But (at least the way I play) there will come a moment where the deadeye version of the build will die from physical damage that the jugg version would have been able to laugh at. And because I play HC, I choose the jugg.

3. Second ring slot if using nostalgia: Elder ring with as close to 20 LGOH as possible, flat life, and resses.

4. Possibilities using Nostalgia: TBH I haven't given it a great deal of thought. I got sidetracked working on the maloney's quiver variant and decided to keep everything else the same while I test. Would love to hear back about your results if you test some of the ideas you set out. They look like they may have significant potential, particularly in SC.

4. Use of crit for charges etc: I build as resolute technique, so this is not available for the jugg version. It sounds conceptually interesting and I will be curious to see feedback once you try it.

5. Calculation of how often the pet is hitting: POB doesn't really do this in a direct way. I evaluate largely by the feel of the build. But you can get some information from POB by playing with adding in minion nodes that provide both damage and accuracy and comparing to adding minion nodes that provide only damage. Watching where the bonus to POB's calculation from accuracy flattens out will give you a sense of when the minion has enough accuracy. But tbh, I use this only as a tool to verify my sense of how well the minion is operating.

6. Chain vs. pierce: Chain has more impact in maps or delves where the mobs are not lining up in any convenient way. Particularly in some of the Azurite encounters in the mines, where mobs will cluster around in a circle, chain seems more effective at cutting them down quickly.

7. Sulphite . . . : I almost don't want to answer this question because it will drive up the price of my solution. But I 'spose I decided long ago not to play that way. There is a prophecy "A Master seeks help" that has a Niko variation. People have been selling it for 6-8c. I've bought an awful lot of those . . . .

-O

P.S. Depending on what actually goes through in Thursdays patch, I might have some exciting new crafting tech to share related to this build. Bonus points to anyone following along who figures it out between now and then. It's subtle, but all the necessary info is already public. We'll have to wait and see.

-O

Pierce vs. Chain:

Testing is ongoing and has me waffling again. The biggest downside of chain is the extra mana reserve that makes AA or a beast mod more difficult. Possibly pierce is the superior choice for that reason, as the incremental benefit from chain may be very mild at the endgame.

One thing I am certain of is that, either way, subbing in vile toxins for tougher bosses is now absolute for me. The dps difference there is dramatic.

-O

Yeah I've been using it tonight and there are some points where the chains have been nice but overall it doesn't feel impactful enough to give up arctic.

For frenzy I meant in the quiver like you had the other day. It automatically stacks to 3 super fast.

Hey Orion, thanks for keeping this thread up to date with your findings.

How has delve been for you with Agony? I'm looking to push this build to 1000+ depth -- have you or anyone else made attempts at this?

Last league I delved a bit below 500 before stalling out.
If you are more patient and careful than i was, there is no theoretical reason the build couldn't continue down that low.

In other news, I have died again of a combination of impatience and not yet being good enough at the Shaper fight. So time for a break for me.
Given that, here's the spoiler on that potential tech.



I have verified that this type of helm is perfectly viable for our endgame in a delightful rolling across T16 maps kind of way. Right now it is crafted with insanity essence on an elder helm, hoping to roll -either- supported by minion damage or +2 minion gems. This can take several essences, but it's actually better odds of a good result than a bound fossil.

HOWEVER

The devs posted that, although it doesnt work right now, fractured gear is meant to be craftable with essences. This may be fixed in tomorrows patch or it may take a little longer. And I have found several fractured helms for sale (cheap for the moment, because apparently no one is thinking about this) with the +2 to level of minion gems mod -locked-.

Buy one of those for around 5c (at the moment) add an insanity essence for around 10c (at the moment) and for around 15c (once the devs fix the issue around crafting fractured gear with essences) you have an endgame helm that does roughly the same damage as one you can buy for around 5ex right now, if there are any for sale.

You're welcome. :>

-O

P.S. For you players with infinite currency, take an ilvl 86 elder helm, a large number of insanity essences, and spam until you get +3 to lvl of minion gems and supported by minion damage with the insanity mod for the ultimate helm for this build I can currently imagine.

-O