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

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Kemmotar1 wrote:

Playing a lot this build over the last two leagues, I was frozen and didn't die (not being auto removed but expiring), been shocked and dmg wasn't so high that I die cause of that really (I've die sometimes but never cause being shocked :P). But ignite was always a little of a problem that probably now will have to have a flask for it instead of freeze. Bleeding is a must "Corrupted blood cannot be inflicted on you" doesn't mean you can't be affected by bleed, and I haven't seen a corruption that you cannot be inflicted with bleed.

One thing I don't get from previous post: How does Unwavering Stance helps with elemental ailments? Also Soul of Arakali is only 30% reduced effect of shock.

I see, thought Corrupted Blood was the ingame name for bleed, but guess I was wrong.
But still, with 2 writhing jars there are three spots for removal, so could be bleed, ignite and then maybe shock as option.

Btw at Anointed Flesh there is also a passive that reduces effect on shock, so the ailments effects are halved already.

Too bad that indeed you still need a bleed flask even with a corrupted blood jewel. So bleed and ignite are must haves and the choice is between freeze and shock. 100% reduced effect of curses is nice but be aware that this does not mean we are always immune to curses!

80% reduced effect because of Time of Need and 20% reduced effect from Sanctum of Thought = 100% reduced effect and means you are not affected by any curses. However, there are map mods that curse you with Curse X with 40% or 60% increased curse effect so when doing that map your are still cursed by that mod but then with either 100-40 = 60% reduced effect of that curse or 100-60 = 40% reduced effect of that curse.

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JohnnyV76 wrote:

Hi Vatinas,

I have 2 remarks about your 3.13 update.


You mention:
For Unwavering Crusade, our minions lost 30% increased damage and gained 5% attack, cast, and move speed. This should result in a net small damage loss, but nothing too consequent. However, the increased attack and move speed should make the build feel smoother, both while killing things and moving.

Indeed, the 5% extra attack and movement speed on the spiders and sentinels will outweigh a good portion of the 30% increased damage lost but I don't understand about the build feeling smoother while killing things and moving.

The 20% increased movement, cast and attack speed only applies to nearby allies and do not affect us, the player. So all in all the change to unwavering crusade is a slight nerf to net damage.

Also, you are not mentioning the elimination of the automatic elemental ailment removal every 5sec in Time of Need. This is a big thing! Before, you often did not have to use flasks to remove an ignite, freeze or shock because you could survive until all got automatically removed.

With the elemental ailment removal gone we are short one manual removal. You need 2 worm flasks so 3 other flasks left. You need a normal bleed removal flask so that leaves 2 flasks to remove 3 possible (perhaps even more if you also count scorch, brittle, and sap) elemental ailments.

Since last league I initially died a lot to ignites, a dousing flask is mandatory. The choice is then to leave out a freeze removal or shock removal. I am thinking we should keep the freeze removal and leave the shock removal. If we take the Shock Resistance node near Annointed Flesh it should hopefully be manageable. In a heist I had some narrow escapes while being shocked and bursted as the incoming damage was more than what we could heal back. This probably requires real life testing in the new league as it could turn out that freezes are better manageable because of the Pantheon anyway.

Hi,

Thank you for those remarks! It's always great to have such detailed feedback. :)

When I said it would make the build feel smoother while clearing and killing things, I meant that 1) the 5% extra minion move speed will make it feel a bit quicker for minions to go from one pack to the other, and 2) the 5% extra attack speed will help make clearing things a bit quicker by landing large hits quicker, e.g. sentinels' hits or even spider hits versus very squishy enemies, as well as helping minions land more hits versus bosses that teleport a lot (like last phase A8 Sirus) before they do teleport. It probably won't be that noticeable, as 5% attack speed isn't gamechanging, but it might be a nice subtle quality of life improvement.

As for the ailment removal being (ironically) removed, I don't think it's such a big thing. Sure, it was nice to have, but we can do without, at least in my opinion.

First, freeze and chill: we're unaffected by chill, and have multiple defences versus freeze. Anointed Flesh, and the small nodes taken behind it, means we have 50% reduced duration of freeze, and the upgraded Soul of the Brine King means we can't be frozen for 4 seconds after being frozen. That means that 1) the freezes will be very short, and 2) once we're out of the icecube, we have (nearly) 4 seconds of immunity.

In more practical terms, I have played the last 3 leagues without an anti freeze flask, and not once did I feel like I would have needed one. I got to level 100 two leagues ago, and 99 last league, and that was completely fine.

As for shock, like someone else mentioned, we have 20% reduced duration and effect of shock from Anointed Flesh and the first small node. However, I believe shock has indeed been responsible for the few random one shots I have had the past few leagues (but I have no way of being sure since I don't record my gameplay at all times). I had been considering grabbing the shock small node before Anointed Flesh, and will most likely be doing this this league, for a total of 50% reduced effect. I feel like this is more reliable than a flask, given how unpredictable shock is (and also, that you tend not to notice it until you're dead).

About ignite: I have to say the ignite removal was nice versus the Enslaver, but I have been playing with an anti ignite flask. Since last league, I have been playing with only two worm jars, since someone in the thread made me learn that the Soul of Ryslatha can sustain the worm flasks versus bosses, and that allowed me to get an anti ignite flask. That being said, apart from the Enslaver, ignite basically never bothered me, and we now get the ES regen every 4 seconds, so it will be even less of an issue; but, if it still is, grabbing the extra small node before Anointed Flesh is also a possibility, for a total of 50% reduced ignite duration. Combined with the regen every 4 seconds, it would be really nice.

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JohnnyV76 wrote:

Too bad that indeed you still need a bleed flask even with a corrupted blood jewel. So bleed and ignite are must haves and the choice is between freeze and shock. 100% reduced effect of curses is nice but be aware that this does not mean we are always immune to curses!

80% reduced effect because of Time of Need and 20% reduced effect from Sanctum of Thought = 100% reduced effect and means you are not affected by any curses. However, there are map mods that curse you with Curse X with 40% or 60% increased curse effect so when doing that map your are still cursed by that mod but then with either 100-40 = 60% reduced effect of that curse or 100-60 = 40% reduced effect of that curse.

Ooh, I had no idea that was how it worked! The curse mod rework makes a lot more sense now. Thanks a lot for telling me :)

So indeed, we won't be unaffected by map mods curses; that being said, even with the old 45% reduced effect (from the ascendancy + the passive tree), I barely felt temp chains, so with 100%, it should be even smoother. From a theorycrafting point of view, having 40% reduced effect of a level 1 curse should be just fine!

Thank you as well Vatinas for your continuous feedback and discussions :)

I think you are right about freeze being easy to counter so I will go with a shock removal. Good thing is that you can very easily get an anti-freeze flask if you get the feeling it's needed. Freezes will not easily kill us but if there are a lot of sources that can freeze you in a map it can be a bit annoying being interrupted by a brief freeze now and then... at least not faster than once every 4sec :)

And... even though we are not 100% immune to curses all the time I fully agree that the 80% reduced curse effect will be great and most of the time curses will hardly affect us. If you roll a curse mod on a map you can consider being a bit more careful.

Hey, very interesting build. I want to use it in 3.13, but I usually only make 1 character for whole league. Is it good enough as league starter?

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siewak wrote:

Hey, very interesting build. I want to use it in 3.13, but I usually only make 1 character for whole league. Is it good enough as league starter?

I played it last league from lvl1 tot lvl100 but I remember that levelling was a bit slower than I hoped. I even died quite some times haha. Inititally I was disappointed that I died when using a tanky build but man if you get some of the key items dying only happens very rarely or if you really mess up manually.

If I remember correctly someone mentioned somewhere in the topic that levelling with skellies is faster but haven't tried that. You will get there by sticking to the topic start but I'd love it if there was a really good levelling alternative. Perhaps flame totems could be an option as you can easily swap out later but not sure if that will do enough damage either.

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JohnnyV76 wrote:

I played it last league from lvl1 tot lvl100 but I remember that levelling was a bit slower than I hoped. I even died quite some times haha. Inititally I was disappointed that I died when using a tanky build but man if you get some of the key items dying only happens very rarely or if you really mess up manually.

If I remember correctly someone mentioned somewhere in the topic that levelling with skellies is faster but haven't tried that. You will get there by sticking to the topic start but I'd love it if there was a really good levelling alternative. Perhaps flame totems could be an option as you can easily swap out later but not sure if that will do enough damage either.

If it's reasonably possible, that's good enough for me. I don't enjoy leveling until mapping and end game content so, I don't want to make second character in a league. Thanks for info ;)

I will use this build for the third league, and after 7 years of poe, this has been the best build in the low budget aspect to make the end game, congratulations Vetinas!
Will we have the release of pob 3.13?

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radius540 wrote:

I will use this build for the third league, and after 7 years of poe, this has been the best build in the low budget aspect to make the end game, congratulations Vetinas!
Will we have the release of pob 3.13?

Thank you so much! ^_^ I'm so glad you're enjoying it this much.

Of course! I'll be updating the PoB, the levelling trees, and (hopefully) the guide itself with the Holy Relic instead of the Golem, as well as the alternate qualities. But, in any case, the PoB will be updated at least a few hours before league start. :)

Any feedback on how to make the levelling a little smoother?
I found using Smite to be quite slow to use, even getting dom blow seemed to be a bit better but I feel underpowered.