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

For anyone struggling farming for the dagger - this is what worked for me:

5L Holy Relic (MinionDmg, Predator, ControlledDestruction, Meat Shield)
2L Summon Stone Golem (Feeding Frenzy)
4L Herald of Purity (Ruthless, Minion Damage, Predator)
4L Cyclone (Main, Fortify, Culling)
3L Auras (Pride, War Banner, Generosity)

I dropped Zombies since they died every single ritual and didn't offer much. Need to occasionally resummon the Stone Golem and the Holy Relic, but it's enough for white maps and low Heist especially. The latter was decent money just by virtue of raw currency drops from the small chests, even.

is this build tank good? after glancing blow nerf (3.12) 65% damage taken from blocked hit,
is it viable now,.

hardcore league have zero fangs and aegis is about 10ex :(

this build can do:

simulacrum wave 20?
t16 100% delirious?

I also started to struggle at maps with dominating blow. Not tanky enough to stand still and hit often enough to keep HoP up. I don't have any of the uniques yet and I'd done a lot of the tree like the guide. I did this to fix it:

5L Holy Relic (MinionDmg, Predator, Brutality, Meat Shield)
4L Raise Zombie (MinionLife, Meat Shield, Ruthless)
2L Herald of Purity (Feeding Frenzy)
4L Cyclone (Fortify, Culling Strike, Life Gain on Hit)
3L CWDT (L7) (Immortal Call (L5), Increased Duration)
Stone Golem, Discipline, Determination

The gems might not be the optimal ones - just chosen based on what I had and the colours in my armour. DLimited's post above might be more dmg.

The cyclone hits way more often, meaning the sentinels of purity are up all the time. LGoH starts to be a real help with sustain as it levels up - doesn't help ES but it's useful for the life pool. With the sentinels and juiced relic, I'm finding the zombies sustain just fine (and I preferred to keep them just because I already levelled the gems and was looking for a quick fix).

I'm also running granite and phasing flasks for more sustain/manouverability (useful in rituals).

For the cyclone setup, I just grabbed an armour/evasion helm, so colouring was simple. More attack speed on gloves also useful.

For shield, I took glancing blows and am using a daresso's courage I dropped, but I'll probably switch to Aegis Aurora shortly because they're more like 15C now.

I also grabbed some chaos resist on gear, -60% is nasty given half my eHP is ES.

Vatinas - thanks for the build guide, played it in a previous league and loved the tankiness, enjoying playing from league start :D

"

DLimited wrote:

For anyone struggling farming for the dagger - this is what worked for me:

5L Holy Relic (MinionDmg, Predator, ControlledDestruction, Meat Shield)
2L Summon Stone Golem (Feeding Frenzy)
4L Herald of Purity (Ruthless, Minion Damage, Predator)
4L Cyclone (Main, Fortify, Culling)
3L Auras (Pride, War Banner, Generosity)

I dropped Zombies since they died every single ritual and didn't offer much. Need to occasionally resummon the Stone Golem and the Holy Relic, but it's enough for white maps and low Heist especially. The latter was decent money just by virtue of raw currency drops from the small chests, even.

Oh good lord! Thank you for your advice. Now I can prog till fang will be mine. Anyway, it's fun gameplay and probably extremely fun full-gear endgame but in my opinion definitely not an optimal league starter.

Got my Fang and Aegis, could take CI soon.

However, I'm finding it really annoying to keep my spiders up. I play with a friend and I keep having to say 'Hold on, I need to recast my spiders'.

I don't have culling strike on my cyclone yet (yay off colors), but build is feeling super clunky and finicky right now. I mean its alright when the spiders are up, but maintaining them feels like a huge chore.

Should I press on or scrap for something else at this point?

What exactly is the purpose of putting all the links on Holy Relic, of all the gems?

this build is awesome.

fun addition. VAAL cyclone lol. especially in rituals or breachs. helps clear stuff faster and almost seems like it makes me more tanky cus blocks.


keeping spiders up is easy if you have culling strike. usually on maps i dont even use writhing jar after the start. keep in mind the need corpses to summon not just kills


Also vaal cyclone is easy way to garuntee you kill the worms if you have minions up. just need to desecrate first.



I'm using a medium jewel with "uncomprimising" for less determination reservation.
Frees up 20% reserve req on circle of guilt. and lets me role with 5r/1b loyal (all cheaper) plus i can use multi strike / meele phys / maim support gems no bleeding needed.
Lets us use infused channeling support on cyclone for even more tankyness.

for maps swap incr duration in glove with CWDT so i have like 2 button maps. cyclone and rally cry.

fun times.


I think If I had tried this build earlier in my poe experience it would not be as fun though and I would have struggled. This build is probably not ideal for those still learning the game.

"

iskalla1 wrote:

Got my Fang and Aegis, could take CI soon.

However, I'm finding it really annoying to keep my spiders up. I play with a friend and I keep having to say 'Hold on, I need to recast my spiders'.

I don't have culling strike on my cyclone yet (yay off colors), but build is feeling super clunky and finicky right now. I mean its alright when the spiders are up, but maintaining them feels like a huge chore.

Should I press on or scrap for something else at this point?

You need culling strike. This will steal the kills from your spiders so you keep refreshing them and HoP.