I bought a shav's now and am thinking of going low life build now since I was entering red maps and felt squishy with 8.5-9k E/S running Disc+clarity and a enfeeble blasphemy setup.
If I respec to the LL tree and start using Shav's will that help a decent bit now? I don't have the Impresence amulet since I don't have much currency or is that needed for LL build to really take off?
Any opinions? Also how do you guys manage ele reflect maps? Thought they were supposed to be doable with just vortex? I'm still CI but they feel brutal usually, not sure if its from the EE procs or profane bloom procs. Also if the maps have other mods like monster dmg/crit it can be tough too just relying on vortex to clear quick enough while not taking a ton of damage?
Level 87, still can't sustain yellow maps (guess I need to upgrade watchstones first?), but loving the build, got good deals on nice shav/chayula/lethal pride rolls and now can rest a bit easy without trying to rush things and get currency on something that can get more expensive.
Looking forward to get even stronger and progress further.
EDIT: How do we deal with ele reflect mods? I've read that Vortex doesn't reflect damage back, but I still get chunked pretty hard for some reason. Thought it might be because of "Triggered a socketed spell", but no, with another wand the result was still the same.
vortex hits, so while the CDOT doesnt reflect, it's a pain in the ass to do. you could do it, killing smaller packs, placing vortex in a way that will attract mobs to come over and die while not hitting them on the cast. but honestly, not worth the effort, so I just avoid the mod altogether.
Last edited by SonsOfKorhal on Dec 21, 2019, 12:02:56 PM
If I link Elemental Focus to Vortex, that means it will never chill or freeze right? Does that apply to the Cold Damage over Time as well or the initial hit or both?
How does one deal with Spiky guys on this build, they always blow up and never shatter.
you'll never freeze. now, for chill, you will always chill. that's vortexes' effect on the ground. elemental focus applies to the hit.
so to answer your question, the vortex hit does not freeze nor chill. but you'll chill mobs because of the ground left by the vortex.
i dont see how tedious it is. cast storm brand, cast vortex. you can ignore cold snap if you want. never had a dps issue when i pick up EE. surely the huge boost in dmg is worth it? especially if people are having issues with the build because of dmg. (be it levelling or early game mapping).
like i said, it's a QoL. definitely want to have, but not having it shouldnt be making the build unplayable. OP was saying how not having it meant a loss of dps, i'm simply saying you still can have that dps boost, just that it's manually casted.
You definitely want Cold Snap and Frost Bomb in the mix for DPS, it's huge for bosses.
I agree you want cold snap and frost bomb for dps. but are you telling me that you'll forgo EE just because you have to cast storm brand?
pretty sure -50% cold res is huge too.
are you saying that if OP (or you) doesnt have a "trigger socketed spell" weapon, he should just not take EE? in fact I will go as far as to say the beauty of taking EE and using storm brand/oos is also that the hits will proc your EO (elemental overload) which is a huge dps boost as well.
lets assume OP doesnt use cold snap nor storm brand nor frostbomb. and he's complaining about dps. my argument would be that it would be a larger dps boost to just take EE and manually cast storm brand. sure, if it's really clunky and you aren't able to apply cold snap or frostbomb, you lose out on that damage. but the boost from the EE/EO is huge nonetheless. it doesn't mean he shouldnt take it just because he doesnt have a "trigger socketed spell" weapon.
I would go so far as to say that if boss dps is an issue and is taking longer than normal, you definitely have the time to apply frostbomb, and cold snap as well. not to mention even manually casting frostbite.
if you have issue with blood magic, reminder that prism guardian is OP.
It has blood magic without the gem's penalty. Meaning you can fit 2 50% auras, AND a 25% one (flesh and stone), or even a 35% one (discipline, heralds) if you have some man reservation nodes on your tree.
You should be able get it for 1c (the non corrupted version).
agree with roselan. experiment with this.
without this (and if CI), you should be able to squeeze malevolence, disc and aspect of the spider if you take some mana reservation nodes.
if you go LL with shavs, you should be able to run male, disc, hatred, clarity and aspect.
i went LL with shav's and with this prism. could run:
zealotry, male, disc, hatred, clarity, aspect.
if you have an aul's amulet, it'll also allow you to run more auras. but basically, i think you need some mana reservation nodes for this to work. (as well as a high enough blood magic). the clarity is there to proc "lowlife" status. not really required, but it'll be nice for some mana regen.
I've been able to grab myself a POC and now the build is super smooth. T16 metamorphs are no problem as well as high Conquerers. And with a Watchers eye for bleed immune and pantheon for poison immunity its very safe. Just haven been able to beat Sirius because the fight is pretty stupid with the storm phases. Sitting now at 9k ES.
What do you think of the new catalysts? they do work on unique gear too so Things like Presence can get 4% extra life to ES conversion.
Also: are there really upgrades to bated breath? The Pure value it provides is insane as well as the 50 falt ES and 30% global (which again can all be upped with Catalysts). Only Thing that could compare are Crazy Shaper Crystal belts with Delve ES form body armor.
I believe that poison is simply Chaos DOT so taking poisen pantheon if you have CI shouldn't do anything. And yeah, I agree about Bated Breath almost seems bis in most situations.
personal experience is I agree bated breath seems to be BIS. if you can, find a corruption that works for you. such as malevolence/disc/hatred effectiveness.
POC is nice, lets you take other ascendancies. consider tranquility anointment. (not too sure about this league, but it should still be a very competitive choice).
Starting to have issues with DPS in red maps. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, my POB DPS is like 630k on Vortex which is about 80% of the build's POB dps.
is this shaper dps? you'll want to try aiming for 800k to 1m shaper dps. I think that would make mapping/bossing a lot smoother. if you realise that you have over prioritized defenses and have not enough dps, you can consider LL to be a cheap way to gain quick dps at the cost of ES/survivability.
as a reference, myself and a few others whom I know, we can hit 3.5 to 4m shaper dps, and still have safe enough survivability.
but as a start, I think 1m would be a nice first major milestone. am not too sure the power creeping in this league and whether you'd need more than that.
Alright I ended up switching from CI and going LowLife.
I bought a Shav's and 5linked it and grabbed an Presence amulet. Pretty much spent all my currency and was hoping that I'd feel very tanky and have solid damage now in red maps.
Yet after setting up all my links and such I realized that I can't use Malevolence linked with Blood Magic, it says I don't have enough hp.
In the guide none of the gems have levels, so I checked the PoB and your blood magic is level 21...is that required to set this up? Because that is way more than I can afford at this moment now lol.
My blood magic is currently level 6 and figured I will at least be able to link it once I get higher, since I don't plan to even use clarity if I can't have all 3 of them linked properly without breaking the bank.
Edit: Same with my curse setup...do I need the enlighten at level 3 like you have in your PoB? I guess I can't make this work at level 1 lol.
Feel like a lot of this information should be in the guide, gem levels for the endgame setup since I'm confused if this is all required to make it work?
Had the same "surprise" as you, lol. It was a bit unexpected since otherwise the guide is very detailed. I was able to use Malevolence in conjunction with Blood Magic by BM level 16 or 17. it's level 19 now and I still can't use clarity (lvl 1), so maybe you need lv 21 to activate both of the auras. Admittedly Clarity isn't that crucial. Still leveling Enlighten to lv2, to test if I can activate two curse auras or not.
Okay glad I wasn't the only one then haha, I was just worried I was being clueless. Yeah I'm in a similar boat as you and was leveling them to see if it'd work.
Everyone's suggesting using Prism Unique shield, is that really our best option at this point? So most people are dropping their rare shield in favor of this? I'm just wondering since feel like I lose a decent bit of ES, and figured I'd fill most of my slots with better pieces since already using Bated breath due to how good it feels for how cheap too.
Everyone's suggesting using Prism Unique shield, is that really our best option at this point? So most people are dropping their rare shield in favor of this? I'm just wondering since feel like I lose a decent bit of ES, and figured I'd fill most of my slots with better pieces since already using Bated breath due to how good it feels for how cheap too.
if you get one with a good corrupt, your discipline will have +4 levels. This will grant you like 300 more total ES (Assuming lv 20-21 discipline). you can add to that a mighty 30 (:cry:) ES from the shield itself. This is the equivalent of a 200 ES shield, approximately.
2 rolls are possible: +2 aoe and +2 aura, so it's not that hard to get. I didn't check but the corrupted ones were like 2ex last league, so you can brick quite a few :D
Please note too that you don't need to link the sockets. You can use the bench to recolor it (with the add remove/socket option) for 4 jewelers and vaals per try (1 to craft "two sockets", 3 to craft "three sockets").
Last edited by roselan on Dec 21, 2019, 2:07:59 PM
Starting to have issues with DPS in red maps. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, my POB DPS is like 630k on Vortex which is about 80% of the build's POB dps.
is this shaper dps? you'll want to try aiming for 800k to 1m shaper dps. I think that would make mapping/bossing a lot smoother. if you realise that you have over prioritized defenses and have not enough dps, you can consider LL to be a cheap way to gain quick dps at the cost of ES/survivability.
as a reference, myself and a few others whom I know, we can hit 3.5 to 4m shaper dps, and still have safe enough survivability.
Really not sure how you plan on hitting 3.5-4 Million Shaper DPS with this build.
granted, I've hit that with some synthesis gear, but I wasnt using aul's/PoC (with tranquility anointment). there are many OP gear out there i've seen like some insane CDOT gloves and amulets as well.
