[3.21] Vatinas' Spiders + HoP Guardian - CI, 70K armour, 1400 ES on block, millions of DPS

Mana reservation masteries for Determination / Discipline have been removed, but a generic mana reservation mastery has been added to the mana masteries, so we'll be able to still use all our auras, we might just need a bit better rolls on our rings to be able to cast our spells.

The new Armour & ES masteries are huge for our build: "Recover 5% of ES over one second when you take physical damage from a hit" will give us an effective 5% of max ES regenerated per second since we're always getting hit, and "10% of phys damage taken as chaos damage" is an effective "10% less phys damage taken" since we're CI.

Some other new masteries are pretty useful, but not as impactful as the two listed above.

Although this isn't new, it might not be the best idea to league start with this build. Aegis Aurora was already very expensive at last league start, so it's most likely going to be just as expensive this league start.

Overall, pretty good league for us!

This build is created to be rather defense-oriented; it has good clear, great survivability, and good single target.

Our first source of damage is Herald of Purity, which summons four (or five) minions when we hit or kill, and we use Cyclone to continuously summon them. Since we're incredibly tanky, we can afford to do that all the time without taking any risk.

On top of that, we use the dagger Arakaali’s Fang, which lets you raise spiders on kill. Using the Writhing Jar to summon them, they are effectively always up, even in boss fights, and have a very aggressive AI, which makes them great both for clearing and for bosses.

Small disclaimer: I know the quality of some of the videos (well, those I recorded myself, that is) is really poor, and that the lag is annoying to watch. I'm really sorry about that, but my old computer was nearing the end of its life, and was doing its best :') I hope you enjoy the videos anyway!


The Maven (3.13)

Awakening level 9 Sirus (3.13)

The Feared (3.13)

The Hidden (3.13)

The Forgotten (3.13)

The Formed (3.13)

Maven-witnessed Uber Elder (3.13)


The Simulacrum, waves 18 to 20 (3.13)

Lvl 83 Mastermind fight (3.11)

Awakening level 8 Sirus carry (3.11)




Short helpful video: Colouring your helmet/boots to have many off-colours





Bonus: Facetanking Abaxoth in a T16, without molten shell



If you want to contribute to the guide, you can record a video of you killing an end-game boss, and I will add it! :)

+ Good clear
+ Good single target (Uber Elder and A8 Sirus down on a 5L)
+ Great survivability with multiple defensive layers: over 7K ES, over 80K armour, 75% chance to block attacks and spells, 1600 ES gained on block, huge ES regen every five seconds, uninterruptible fast ES recharge, 10K damage shield with Molten Shell, 80% reduced effect of curses
+ Can do all map mods (although no regen is more comfortable with a mana flask and less armour/chance to block can be rippy versus strong physical bosses like the Minotaur)
+ The minions we use are immortal, or automatically (re)summoned, so there’s no need to worry about them dying
+ Since this build uses almost only unique items, it’s relatively cheap to min-max
+ I don't play hardcore, but I would assume that this build is definitely HC viable, even though leveling will require some classic HC measures

+/- It's a minion build, which feels clunky to some people and relaxing to some others


- This build requires some budget to start, including some uniques that have been getting more and more expensive each league. As such, it’s a terrible league starter, and should only be started once you have around 10 to 20ex (this value can change league to league)
- This build isn't great at killing Uber bosses, since the damage is quite low compared to most boss killers, which means the fights are long, and things like Maven/Shaper ground degen stacks up a lot. That being said, it might be possible for someone mechanically better than me to take them down; I just wouldn't recommend this build if your goal was to farm Uber bosses. (The build can easily handle all non-Uber bosses)
- This build is quite bad at handling Blighted maps and Legions, since it doesn't have screen covering AoE.

We use two kinds of minions: the Herald of Purity sentinels, and Akaraali’s Fang spiders.

The Sentinels spawn when we kill enemies or hit bosses, so we Cyclone into packs and rely on our Culling Strike Cyclone (among other things) to spawn them during clear, and just Cyclone on bosses to spawn them during boss fights.

Arakaali’s Fang lets you raise spiders from nearby corpses when you kill an enemy. So in order to summon them, the easiest way is to use Desecrate to create corpses (cast it twice to have enough corpses), then use one of your Writing Jars to spawn writhing worms, and kill them to raise the spiders. They will then follow you around killing everything in a one screen radius. Their AI is already very aggressive, so there is no need to support them with Feeding Frenzy.

Finally, we use a Holy Relic supported by Feeding Frenzy support to grant us the Feeding Frenzy buff, giving us more minion damage, and increased minion movement and attack speed. The Relic dies quite frequently, which is why we also support it with Cast when Stunned, allowing it to be automatically (re)summoned even more frequently than it dies (see Defensive Mechanics for more info on the stun).

This build stacks up many defensive layers, so there’s a lot to cover, but once again, I promise I’ll try my best to keep it short.

First, we use Skin of the Loyal, which has two main uses: 1) "+1 to level of socketed gems", granting our HoP sentinels a huge damage boost; and 2) "100% increased global defenses", which means 100% increased global ES and armour. This can be upgraded to Skin of the Lords, which, on top of giving us a random keystone, grants "+2 to level of socketed gems", making our HoP sentinels even stronger.

We get a lot of mana, both from the skill tree and gear, which grants us flat ES thanks to the Guardian Ascendancy.

On top of this high ES pool, we get a lot of block chance, enough to reach 38% chance to block both attacks and spells. We use the Aegis Aurora shield, which grants a lot of armour and energy shield, and refills our ES by 2% of our armour on block.

We then use the Glancing Blows keystone, which doubles our chance to block attacks and spells, bringing us to 75% chance to block. The downside is that we take 65% of damage from blocked hits, but that is completely countered by the Aegis Aurora’s ES refill, making us virtually unkillable by hits.

With Anointed Flesh, the small nodes leading to it, the upgraded Soul of the Brine King, and Tempest Shield, we are unaffected by chill, cannot be frozen or shocked, and have increased stun and block recovery and can't be chain stunned. We can still be stunned, but for a very short time and once every 2 seconds only, and the build is tanky enough to take it without dying. We use this frequent, short stun to automatically summon a Holy Relic through Cast when Stunned, which grants us life regen and the Feeding Frenzy buff (see Offensive Mechanics for more info on the Relic).

Finally, we use Molten Shell, which, with the amount of armour we have, can tank 10000 damage in our place, making the Shaper's and Elder's slams and A8 Sirus' meteor so weak they actually heal you. Just activate it before a hit that could get you low, and your ES will be full before you even know it.

General playstyle

First, remember you're practically unkillable, so don't be afraid to walk into whole packs of monsters. You might get the occasional one-shot if you're unlucky, but this is really rare.

Walking into whole packs of mobs is not just for style, though. You should cyclone into whatever you want your minions to kill, whether it's trash mobs or a boss. Doing so has 3 uses: 1) Summoning your minions (see next paragraph), 2) Debuffing the enemies (with maim, which increases physical damage taken, for instance), and 3) Buffing yourself (with Feeding Frenzy, for instance).


Summoning your minions

In practice, the HoP (Herald of Purity) sentinels are basically self-summoning: first, they are summoned on kill, which naturally occurs when you're cycloning among packs of monsters since Cyclone is supported by Culling Strike. On top of that, for some reason, enemies that die from damage over time inflicted by your minions count as your kills, which can then summon sentinels. Second, they have a chance to be summoned whenever you hit a unique enemy, which also also occurs a lot if you're playing as you should, i.e. cycloning the boss as much as you can.

As for the spiders, it's a bit more tricky. Spiders are summoned from nearby corpses, when you kill an enemy, and have a duration of around 50 seconds in our case. Therefore, summoning them typically looks like this: 1) Desecrate near you (twice, so you have enough corpses for the max of 20 spiders). 2) Use one (or two) Writhing Jar(s) to spawn worms, harmless entities that count as enemies. 3) Kill at least one worm with Cyclone, which will spawn the spiders.
While clearing maps, you should barely even have to resummon them, as they will most often resummon themselves, similarly to the HoP sentinels. For bosses, however, you will have to resummon them every minute or so - which is not a problem, since you are tanky enough to tank the boss while you resummon them, and you regenerate Writhing Jar charges with your Pantheon.


Key bindings

This build uses quite a lot of different skills that you need to use yourself. Most are only used rarely, so it's not too confusing in practice, but it can get a bit tedious at first. Rebinding your last skill from "T" to another, easier key, like "Space", can help a lot. You can then bind Signal Prey, for instance, to space, which makes gameplay a lot smoother. As an example, here are the key bindings I use:
Left click: Desecrate (press shift + left click to use the skill)
Middle mouse button: [Unused]
Right click: Cyclone
Q: Molten Shell
W: Spirit Offering
E: Frostblink / Flame Dash
R: Vaal Discipline
T (rebound to Space): Mark Prey


Clearing maps

Apart from the fact that you need to summon your spiders at the beginning of a map, there isn't much to say that is specific to clearing. Spiders and sentinels will mostly resummon themselves, as long as you cyclone into the monsters. You can pop your Offering now and then to buff them if you meet a tough rare/map boss, but it's rarely needed in random maps.


Bossing

First, keep in mind that you will need to resummon your spiders every minute or so. It's really no big deal, you get used to it very quickly, but still. A thing that is very important, but might be counterintuitive at first for a minion build, is that you need to keep cycloning - even versus bosses. Like I said before, this will keep the enemy debuffed, and you, buffed. Besides, you can still dodge while cycloning, and you most often don't even need to dodge because you can facetank most everything.
Another important thing is to Desecrate > Spirit Offering every now and then, since it is a massive damage boost; with all our duration increases, Spirit Offering lasts around 20 seconds.
The only thing that you should be a bit careful about is to be conservative with Writhing Jar charges when resummoning spiders - if you miss your summoning too many times and run out of jars, you'll need to wait for your pantheon to regenerate flask charges.

Latest PoB: 3.21 - https://pastebin.com/7QWvHaqD


Requires the PoB community fork. A download link can be found in the next subsection, "Installing & using Path of Building".

If there are discrepancies between the PoB and the guide, always follow the PoB!

Read the guide and the FAQ (beginning of second post) before asking questions!

I spent a very long time writing and perfecting this guide over the leagues, and while it's understandable to want to skip it, it's rude and inconsiderate to ask questions that have been clearly answered here. I tried my best to make the guide clear, complete, and easy to navigate, so check the section related to your question, and the FAQ. That being said, if you have a question that's not answered in the guide, or a suggestion, I would be glad to help you out. :)

The PoB community fork is available for download here. Just follow the link, and the instruction there.

The "Community Fork" is an alternative version to the base PoB program, where a lot of community developers have contributed to add very useful features. I very strongly recommend using it for every build.

If you've never used Path of Building, here is a very short tutorial (there are other, way more detailed tutorials you can find on the internet):

On the top of the screen, click "New" to create a new build. Then, on the top left, click "Import/Export build", then "Import from website". This will prompt a pop-up. There, paste the pastebin link that can be found in the "Path of Building code" subsection, and click "Import". There you go, you now have the build!

From there, it's very intuitive - the menu in the top left allows you to switch between the Tree, the Skills (gems), and the Items. On top of that, you have a Calcs tab, which run calculations for you, for things like DPS, minion duration, armour, block... and lots more. If you want to use it, remember to enter your build buffs in Config; I already did for this build, so no need to worry about it here, but keep this in mind if you import another build, or make your own.

Note: This section is only about the items, not the gems. The gems socketed in the shown items might have been changed since the item was linked, so don't pay attention to them. If you want information about the gems, please check the next section.






Off-colouring your items

Check the FAQ if you need some help with off-colouring your items.

N.B.:
* "AWK." means the gem has an Awakened variant that you should use once you get the currency for it.
* "-" means the gems should be linked, "|" means they don't need to.
* For the three groups of four gems, the item I list them as being socketed in is just a suggestion based on the ease to get the required colours. If you want to socket the gems I suggest socketing in our boots in your helmet instead, it's perfectly fine.


> Body armour: Herald of Purity

Herald of Purity - Empower - (AWK.) Melee Physical Damage - (AWK.) Minion Damage - Predator - Meat Shield

Not much to say here, just HoP and whatever gems give it the most damage for an acceptable mana multiplier. Note, though, that HoP scales very well with gem level, which means that going from a lvl 3 Empower to a lvl 4 is a very large damage increase. You can use Ruthless instead of Empower before you get a level 4.




> Weapon: Spider supports

Predator | Withering Touch | (AWK.) Melee Splash

Note: for pinnacle bosses, you should swap (AWK.) Melee Splash for (AWK.) Melee Physical Damage if you don't have a white socket for melee splash, and (AWK.) Minion Damage if you do (you can get that by having Vorici in Research in the syndicate, in Jun missions).




> Shield: Holy Relic

Summon Holy Relic - Feeding Frenzy - Cast when Stunned

Cast when Damage Taken has a 250% mana multiplier, making the Relic cost over 70 mana, which is why we opt for Cast when Stunned instead. Since we are CI, we get stunned easily, allowing us to automatically resummon the relic this way. Note that the frequent stuns are not a problem for us; we have a lot of block recovery, making them really short, and the Soul of the Brine King prevents it from happening more than once ever 2 seconds.




> Boots: Cyclone & Reckoning

Cyclone - Culling Strike - Maim - Reckoning

Fortify was sadly dropped, due to it requiring a certain amount of damage dealt to be effective. Reckoning allows us to debilitate enemies, reducing their damage and movement speed, thanks to a block mastery in the passive tree and the Anomalous quality on Reckoning.




> Helmet: Auras & Utility

Tempest Shield | Determination | Frostblink | Desecrate

Tempest Shield allows us to reach 75% spell block, and makes us immune to shock. Note that a level 21 Tempest Shield is needed to reach 75%, but you can just use a level 20 until you can afford, you most likely won’t notice the difference. Also note that you want to socket those gems in your Helmet, where you can try to get a “+1 to level of socketed AoE gems” crafted / unveiled mod.




> Gloves: Duration gems

Flesh Offering | Molten Shell | Vaal Discipline | Increased Duration

Spirit Offering was sadly dropped due to it being changed into a crit gem in 3.19, and we turned to Flesh Offering, which is still a large damage increase. Molten Shell can offer short, but very strong bursts of defense when needed. Vaal Discipline can make us recover our ES very quickly for a duration (on top of Discipline itself, obviously). We use Increased Duration to significantly... well, increase the duration of all these very useful gems.

I recommend using Path of Building to see the passive tree. However, if you're unable to use it at this time, here is a link for a quick reference (which doesn't include the cluster jewels).

For the bandits, we kill them all. No bandit bonus is worth two passive points for us.

We use Soul of the Brine King to avoid freeze and chain stuns, and drastically reduce the chill effect, allowing us to be unaffected by chill (along with the Anointed Flesh nodes).

The Minor god you should use (nearly) at all times is Soul of Ryslatha. Since Writhing Jars count as life flasks, this will allow you to regenerate their charges if you're out, even in long boss fights like Sirus.

If you're comfortable with managing your flasks while clearing, I like Soul of Abberath to reduce the ignite duration, and ignore burning ground - notably, this can be very useful in Delve or Searing Exarch maps. Also, if you plan to run one of those lvl 83 labs, Soul of Ralakesh is useful to avoid bleeding and reduce the damage over time taken from traps.

I strongly advise against league starting with this build. The gear has been getting more and more expensive, especially at league start, and at this point it’s better to farm with another build, and save up for this one. A (very rough) estimate of the budget necessary to start this build is around 10 div in early league (note that this will probably change league to league). That being said, here is a guide for levelling this build.

It's possible to level and start maps with Absolution, but I've never tried it myself, so I won't be exploring that in this levelling section.

In the passive tree, there is no best way to go about this, but I recommend going for Gravepact, then Sanctuary very early on. That will give you consistent damage and good resistances from the get go. You can also grab Discipline and Training to get some life while levelling, and refund it once you transition to CI.

After that, grab Resolute Technique, then go for Faith and Steel for a bit of ES and resistances, and Righteous Army for minion damage and life regen.

After that comes a bit of boring part, where you have to travel a lot in the skill tree. However, it's really no big deal since you'll easily have the damage and resistances to progress. Go right from near Faith and Steel, and grab Unnatural Calm for more ES if you have some ES gear already. Then, go for Discord Artisan to be able to use more supports on your herald. If you feel squishy, you can grab Cruel Preparation for some life and resists and refund it later. You can also go for Enduring Bond for some minion damage and duration, which can be nice for HoP sentinels or some other minions you might be using.

After that, it's pretty much up to your personal preference. If you need to reserve less mana, grab Sovereignty; if you want more ES, go for Insightfulness, etc.

Remember to go near CI before you actually transition, so you can just allocate it when you want to!

As you might have noticed, every piece of gear in this build has a unique purpose; we have no slot where we just go "eh just get mana or ES or something". As a result, it's perfectly normal if you feel a bit lost as to what to buy first. Here I'll help you get a roadmap of how to go about things. :)

* I get an error message when I try to import the PoB. How do I fix that?

You most likely are using the standard PoB, and not the community fork. Read the PoB section carefully, a link is in there.

* I don't have enough mana to reserve my 6L HoP, Discipline and Determination yet. Should I drop Determination and only use it when I do?

No! Never drop Determination :p It's the key to our survivability. I'd even argue it's even more crucial than Discipline. What you should do is use Discipline from level 24, when you get it, and Determination as soon as you get your Aegis Aurora. By then, make sure you've grabbed the two mana reservation clusters in the skill tree (Sovereignty and Influence), and use HoP along with whatever support gems allow you to use HoP.

Remember that 1) HoP sentinels aren't our only damage source, so having them on a 2/3/4/5L isn't too big of a deal, and 2) more armour = more ES block = more effective survivability!

* Even with the complete build, I can't use all auras, I don't have enough mana. Why?

Make sure that:
* You have all the mana reservation nodes that I have
* Your rings have as much reduced herald reservation as mine (including catalysts!)
* There are no "accidental" support gems on Discipline
* You linked an Enlighten to your auras if the current version of the build uses one
* You have the exact same support gems on HoP as I do, as the mana multiplier of the support gems changes the mana reservation.

If you did all this and still can't use all auras, post on a message on this thread with your PoB, and I'll take a look!

* Is the build viable without the high-end gear featured in PoB?

Yes! The PoB has the gear you should ideally aim for, like lvl 21 gems, lvl 4 empower, and a really good helmet. But you can play, and even do pinnacle bosses, with gear not as good as that. As long as you have the core items of the build, you should be able to do all pinnacle bosses.

* My minions kill my worms before I can. How do I deal with this?

There are easy ways to deal with this, don't worry.

First, remember that your Relic won't attack if you don't, and your Spiders and Sentinels will attack enemies, so if you're killing trash mobs, just run close to them so your minions go beat them up, and summon your worms easily.

If you're starting a boss fight and need to refresh your spiders before the fight, the way I socketed the gems means that you can weapon swap twice, and all spiders will despawn, leaving you with only the sentinels, which die out very quickly. You're then free to resummon fresh spiders, and a Relic will be summoned as soon as you start getting hit (which, if you've played this build before, you already know is always very soon)

Finally, if you're too lazy to do any of that and there are still minions (or annoying party members) killing your worms, it helps to desecrate under your minions, stand on them, start Cycloning, pop two flasks at once and cyclone in a random direction. In 75% of the cases, you'll still get your spiders this way - but it costs at least 2 flask uses, so don't do that too much against bosses!

* Isn't it useless to stack that much armour?

No, it's not! :) Remember that raw ES does not grant survivability, sustain does, and we replenish our ES by 2% of our armour on block. Which means that stacking armour = stacking ES on block, and that's how we survive. So yes, we could get higher ES, but we'd be much less tanky with, for instance, 9K ES and 30K armour.

* How do I get off-colours on my items?

There's a trick to do that easily, but it requires the following crafting recipes: two, three and four sockets, and two guaranteed colours. I recorded a video showing how to do that, check the Videos section if you want to see how it's done first hand.
First, set your item to 2 sockets, and guarantee two off-colours. Then, set your item to three sockets. The first two sockets will remain the same, so you will keep your 2 off-colours, only the third socket will be random. If the third socket is not an off-colour, go back to two sockets and try again. When you get an off-colour on your third socket, you do the same for the fourth socket until you get it. It's important to get the off-colours first since it costs less jewellers to go between 2-3-2-3-... sockets than between 3-4-3-4-...

* The spiders' PoB dps seems low, is that normal?

Remember there are 20 spiders, so you have to multiply the dps by 20, and add 5 times the DPS of sentinels. Or, way easier: refer to the full DPS in PoB (all the way down the section on the left of the screen)

* Where does our block chance come from exactly?

Remember that we only need to reach 38% chance to block attacks and spelld, since Glancing Blows doubles it. That being said, you can go to the "Calc" tab in PoB to see a breakdown of all our sources of attack & spell block.

* Why aren't you using the Bastion of Hope ascendancy?

We are already capped in block chance, so we don't profit from the additional chance to block if we've attacked/casted a spell recently. The only benefit of this ascendancy is the stun immunity, and we use the Soul of the Brine King to avoid chain stuns. Since this build is very tanky, we can afford to get stunned once in a while without immediately dying because of it, even in end game fights like Uber Elder.

* Why aren't you using the Harmony of Purpose ascendancy?

The charges are only shared with party members, so our minions don't get them. The only benefit is the attack speed that frenzy charges grant us, and it's not worth it compared to other ascendancy nodes.

I would like to thank everyone who helped me with the guide and with the build itself, especially the following people:

* Crylios, who pointed out some good ideas ever since I first made this build. (And also he's kinda cool I guess)
* livejamie, who created a CI version that inspired me to create the one featured in the guide.
* Jekallz, who had the great idea to use HoP instead of HoA in the first place, which is now also featured in the guide.
* onlyjust5, who beat an A8 Awakener fight and allowed me to use the video for the guide.
* cence, for funding some of my items in order to allow me to update the guide more quickly every league (and for being a very good friend).
* Dobarn, who brought up the idea of using Stalwart Commander as an alternative to Will Shaper.
* TheScalpel, who thought of a good Watcher's Eye mod to add to the list.
* Pathdegilpaf, who recorded an Uber Elder guardian video and allowed me to add it to the guide.

06/04/23: Made several small improvements to the build, both in the PoB and in the guide.

03/04/23: Updated the guide for 3.21.

09/12/22: Updated the guide for 3.20, although there are no changes to itemisation, gems, or tree.

11/08/22: Removed Melding of the Flesh following its nerf, and adapted the build to the changes announced in the 3.19 balance manifesto.

14/06/22: Added a Melding of the Flesh to the main guide, and added a separate, cheaper version in the PoB section (that is not described to the main guide, it’s only used as a stepping stone to the full version).

07/11/21: Changed the guide to include Frostblink instead of Flame Dash, The Stampede instead of Rainbowstride, and Reckoning instead of Rallying Cry.

19/10/21: Revamped the guide aesthetically, and added some new, useful sections, as well as removing obsolete ones.

06/10/21: Added a temporary 3.16 PoB, mainly for the passive tree.

07/09/21: The mana multiplier of many gems was changed after the 3.15 launch. The PoB was (finally) updated with those new mana modifiers.

15/01/21: Updated the guide with new gems, alternate qualities, skill tree, a new flask, and some smaller improvements. All of this is included in the PoB as well.

14/01/21: Updated the Pantheon section.

18/09/20: It's Heist time bois and gurls! Updated the PoB with levelling skill trees.

16/09/20: Added the notes for the 3.12 update; small Glancing Blows nerf and two interesting curses. Will update the PoB, the skill tree, and maybe add some levelling skill trees in PoB when the PoB update comes out, if I have the time.

10/09/20: Added a "gear progression" section, which details how you should go about setting up the build bit by bit (what to buy first, how to handle mana reserved, etc.)

08/07/20: Retired the LL and HoA versions, since the CI and HoP versions are overall better and smoother to play. Further improved the build with the use of Vulnerability, Influence, and a Stalwart Commander cluster jewel.

03/07/20: Added several end game videos, including an Awakening 8 Sirus carry for a friend and the Elder fight.

02/07/20: Added an Awakening level 5 Sirus fight video.

01/07/20: Recorded three 3.11 videos: a Cortex fight, a lvl 83 Mastermind fight, and a short crafting tutorial for off-colouring the helmet.

28/06/20: Updated the guide with a few improvements, including a better skill tree pathing, capped spell block without tempest shield, better cluster notable, a golem, and better gems for HoP. From now on, the LL version is to be considered deprecated, and I am planning to retire it in the coming weeks.

18/06/20: Updated the guide for 3.11, and added a new CI version.

(Pre-3.10 changelog has been discarded)