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

I just swapped over to this build after wanting to do an Arakaali's fang forever but never finding a build that was right for me.

I am breezing through T16's right now using a Tabula.

Saving to get a skin of the loyal but so impressed by how well it's working even on my budget.

I just wanted you guys to know that I'm reading every message, and I really appreciate all the positive feedback :) I'm glad you're enjoying the build, I hope it brings you lots of fun in the future! Stay sane <3

loved this build back in (ultimatum league) i think it was, decided to go for it again this league, is there a reason why we no longer go for the crown of inward eye ?

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mad_man_moose wrote:

loved this build back in (ultimatum league) i think it was, decided to go for it again this league, is there a reason why we no longer go for the crown of inward eye ?

did you mean memory vault? between the changes to reservation efficiency and the introduction of eater of worlds/exarch with their influence, and event the masteries, there is much to be gained from a non-unique helmet nowadays

If we get an Arakaali's with (supported by level 10 predator) on the skill tree, what gem would you recommend we replace predator with?

EDIT: Scratch that. It appears to only support socketed gems and the spiders are not a socketed gem so it has no effect.

Hello, can i ask our main dps scaling shud be on
Herald of Purity which deals physical damage?
or
Raise Spider which deals chaos damage?

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RagingT wrote:

did you mean memory vault? between the changes to reservation efficiency and the introduction of eater of worlds/exarch with their influence, and event the masteries, there is much to be gained from a non-unique helmet nowadays

Exactly. On top of that, the Memory Vault's armour buff was changed from flat armour per reserved mana to increased armour, which is much weaker.

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ChaousVX wrote:

Hello, can i ask our main dps scaling shud be on
Herald of Purity which deals physical damage?
or
Raise Spider which deals chaos damage?

Most of our damage is generic minion damage, which applies to both.

That being said, we do have several damage-type-specific buffs:

Spiders apply Withered on hit, which only helps their own damage, but the increase it gives them makes it worth it. On top of that, Withering Touch support also gives them phys as extra chaos, which buffs their overall damage (including their poison).

As curse, Despair used to be on par with Vulnerability when we were using Spirit Offering to get global minion phys as extra chaos, but now, Vulnerability is better because sentinels (HoP) deals most of our single target damage; in general, spiders are better than sentinels for clearing, and sentinels are better than spiders for single target, and we want our curse to buff our single target primarly.

Hope that answers your question :)

with the addition of the 1 armour per 2 strength mastery, which stat is better now? str or int?

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RagingT wrote:

with the addition of the 1 armour per 2 strength mastery, which stat is better now? str or int?

Like shown in the PoB, we don't use that mastery.

I'm playing a variant of this. Still no HoP rings, but I'm getting there. Using vaal domination as my main link because I like big bois, currently going to transition to skin of the loyal and I have some concerns about socket colors.

Eventually I want to use both HoP and DomBlow on the chest, so I'm thinking which supports should I use - PoB isn't helping here since it doesn't calculate DomBlow dmg properly.

I looked a bit around poe.ninja and ppl usually do:
R DomBlow
R (awk) melee phys dmg (54% more dmg, 10% less speed, intimidate)
R (awk) melee splash (38% less dmg, 72% more area, +1lvl to domblow)
B (awk) minion damage (44% more dmg, 25% less life, +1lvl to domblow/hop)
R behead (or brutality, 44% more dmg, crush)
G impale (10% more dmg before reduction)

I think behead is only good for mapping, not so good with bossing, which I would like to be good at, so I'd gladly swap that for something else. Splash is kinda meh since I've allocated ancestral call on the strike mastery. In order for domblow to be usable, I need multistrike, so the 3 gems are set in stone:

R HoP
R DomBlow
R (awk) Multistrike (47% more speed maybe swap with something else later on)
plus I'm thinking:
R (awk) melee phys dmg (54% more dmg, 10% less speed, intimidate)
B (awk) minion damage (44% more dmg, 25% less life, +1lvl to domblow/hop)

Now the original are:
R HoP
R Empower
R (awk) Melee Physical Damage (54% more dmg, 10% less speed, intimidate)
B (awk) Minion Damage (44% more dmg, 25% less life, +1lvl to domblow/hop)
B Predator (36% more dmg, targeting)
B Meat Shield (29% more speed, 30% more dmg)

I've considered dropping predator, but that would make meat shield minions be near me at all times, so they always should come in pair. So I either could go with:

R HoP
R DomBlow
R (awk) Multistrike (47% more speed maybe swap with something else later on)
R (awk) melee phys dmg (54% more dmg, 10% less speed, intimidate)
B (awk) minion damage (44% more dmg, 25% less life, +1lvl to domblow/hop)
R (awk) brutality / empower

or

R HoP
R DomBlow
R (awk) melee phys dmg (54% more dmg, 10% less speed, intimidate)
B (awk) minion damage (44% more dmg, 25% less life, +1lvl to domblow/hop)
B Predator (36% more dmg, targeting)
B Meat Shield (29% more speed, 30% more dmg)

thoughts?

Also, there's other way out of this conundrum - pick the unset ring and use HoP in it only for cluster jewel bonuses, but I think it'll greatly affect dps in a negative way.