[3.16 - RETIRING BUILD] VD Brands: S-Tier Bosser, A-Tier Map! -- MURDERED BY GGG_INTERN SOMEWHERE--

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primaeva wrote:

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sneekxy wrote:

Woke Spell Cascade or UI? Which would be the biggest upgrade first?
I'm running into Single target damage issues at AL8 T16 map bosses and I think those are the next major upgrades for me but I'm not sure which to get first

Hands down Woke Spell Cascade.

Post your PoB, I'll help you in there - even with 5ex of gear it should shut down bosses real fast due to natural corpse damage scaling.

https://pastebin.com/aaDxVwFR

I found a cortex that dropped a flask that I sold so I was able to buy both. But I feel like I'm doing something wrong. When I did cortex I destroyed the boss but I just tried The Hidden and couldn't kill a single one, even trying to zerg him down. I put down 1 of each brand and they'll activate on him with my spectres out but it just doesn't seem to do enough damage. Even with diamond flask up. I feel like sometimes I do insane dps and other times it's doing nothing

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sneekxy wrote:

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primaeva wrote:

"

sneekxy wrote:

Woke Spell Cascade or UI? Which would be the biggest upgrade first?
I'm running into Single target damage issues at AL8 T16 map bosses and I think those are the next major upgrades for me but I'm not sure which to get first

Hands down Woke Spell Cascade.

Post your PoB, I'll help you in there - even with 5ex of gear it should shut down bosses real fast due to natural corpse damage scaling.

https://pastebin.com/aaDxVwFR

I found a cortex that dropped a flask that I sold so I was able to buy both. But I feel like I'm doing something wrong. When I did cortex I destroyed the boss but I just tried The Hidden and couldn't kill a single one, even trying to zerg him down. I put down 1 of each brand and they'll activate on him with my spectres out but it just doesn't seem to do enough damage. Even with diamond flask up. I feel like sometimes I do insane dps and other times it's doing nothing

Hmm, try VODing the runs - if zero damage is being done, look for a very bright "halo" around the enemy. This means double Desecrate is on the boss. Sometimes with Holy Conquest and multiple enemies moving around, you can get 2 Desecrates hugging one boss and 2 VDs on another across the room - meaning they individually do nothing.

This is a crappy phase that is one of the cons of the build - once you get the hang on it though, it'll really be quite a chill bosser (even Maven/Sirus fights).

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primaeva wrote:

Hmm, try VODing the runs - if zero damage is being done, look for a very bright "halo" around the enemy. This means double Desecrate is on the boss. Sometimes with Holy Conquest and multiple enemies moving around, you can get 2 Desecrates hugging one boss and 2 VDs on another across the room - meaning they individually do nothing.

This is a crappy phase that is one of the cons of the build - once you get the hang on it though, it'll really be quite a chill bosser (even Maven/Sirus fights).

I'll try the VOD next time I run something with multiple bosses and see what happens. Is there anything huge missing from my POB that you could see? I know my helmet is missing enchant and I'm looking to upgrade the helmet before I start trying to run for it. I'm not sure how much more damage bottled faith would give or adding a 6th link to CWC.

In your experience, would it be worth swapping out Flammability for WoC and adding the Combustion support there? To get another link on VD and still try to have the Combust negative fire resist?

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sneekxy wrote:

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primaeva wrote:

Hmm, try VODing the runs - if zero damage is being done, look for a very bright "halo" around the enemy. This means double Desecrate is on the boss. Sometimes with Holy Conquest and multiple enemies moving around, you can get 2 Desecrates hugging one boss and 2 VDs on another across the room - meaning they individually do nothing.

This is a crappy phase that is one of the cons of the build - once you get the hang on it though, it'll really be quite a chill bosser (even Maven/Sirus fights).

I'll try the VOD next time I run something with multiple bosses and see what happens. Is there anything huge missing from my POB that you could see? I know my helmet is missing enchant and I'm looking to upgrade the helmet before I start trying to run for it. I'm not sure how much more damage bottled faith would give or adding a 6th link to CWC.

In your experience, would it be worth swapping out Flammability for WoC and adding the Combustion support there? To get another link on VD and still try to have the Combust negative fire resist?

100% you want Flammability, if anything I'd take add some fire damage to my Cyclone and drop WoC for it. One of the best supports for the build used to be Energy Leech, but now that we are almost always full, that's less useful. What link did you have in mind? (Do not recommend Ele Focus - corpse explosions can actually drop pretty big ignites)

EDIT: Your PoB looks great! Bottled Faith is a straight up 30%+ damage increase and is extremely useful in Ultimatum as it covers almost half the arena. Would highly recommend this league (previous leagues - didn't have to bother, really.)

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primaeva wrote:

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sneekxy wrote:

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primaeva wrote:

Hmm, try VODing the runs - if zero damage is being done, look for a very bright "halo" around the enemy. This means double Desecrate is on the boss. Sometimes with Holy Conquest and multiple enemies moving around, you can get 2 Desecrates hugging one boss and 2 VDs on another across the room - meaning they individually do nothing.

This is a crappy phase that is one of the cons of the build - once you get the hang on it though, it'll really be quite a chill bosser (even Maven/Sirus fights).

I'll try the VOD next time I run something with multiple bosses and see what happens. Is there anything huge missing from my POB that you could see? I know my helmet is missing enchant and I'm looking to upgrade the helmet before I start trying to run for it. I'm not sure how much more damage bottled faith would give or adding a 6th link to CWC.

In your experience, would it be worth swapping out Flammability for WoC and adding the Combustion support there? To get another link on VD and still try to have the Combust negative fire resist?

100% you want Flammability, if anything I'd take add some fire damage to my Cyclone and drop WoC for it. One of the best supports for the build used to be Energy Leech, but now that we are almost always full, that's less useful. What link did you have in mind? (Do not recommend Ele Focus - corpse explosions can actually drop pretty big ignites)

EDIT: Your PoB looks great! Bottled Faith is a straight up 30%+ damage increase and is extremely useful in Ultimatum as it covers almost half the arena. Would highly recommend this league (previous leagues - didn't have to bother, really.)

Either Immolate or Fire Pen, those seem to provide more DPS in POB. Take out Flammability on the CWC and add WoC + Combustion there (assuming the WoC crits and ignites then it'd be more DPS it looks like) And can add either Immolate or Fire Pen to the helmet link for VD. I think getting a hypo/conc/crit/essense helm would help a ton too but that's way more expensive than I can afford right now.
I was able to do Sirus but it feels like it takes too long for the cast speed to ramp up, is there a way to get it to go faster? Would swiftbrand help at all?

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sneekxy wrote:

Either Immolate or Fire Pen, those seem to provide more DPS in POB. Take out Flammability on the CWC and add WoC + Combustion there (assuming the WoC crits and ignites then it'd be more DPS it looks like) And can add either Immolate or Fire Pen to the helmet link for VD. I think getting a hypo/conc/crit/essense helm would help a ton too but that's way more expensive than I can afford right now.
I was able to do Sirus but it feels like it takes too long for the cast speed to ramp up, is there a way to get it to go faster? Would swiftbrand help at all?

Weird, Combustion still gives me the highest value (because it's a combination of more x "elemental penetration"). Did you toggle "Enemy is Burning/Ignited?" Even Awakened Fire Pen is lower for me.

> I was able to do Sirus but it feels like it takes too long for the cast speed to ramp up, is there a way to get it to go faster? Would swiftbrand help at all?

Hmm, you could actually use a manual activation to get some cast speed going (drop 4 brands, 2 of each, and recall - the recall sets them off. Second Recall onwards start popping corpses.)

I guess I sort of do this subconsciously but the key thing about Sirus is - he tends to phase randomly, so you really need to save flask cooldowns for "DPS windows". The best of these is the "Everlasting Fire" spinny parts, because when the lasers are out he doesn't go into the maze or corridor.

Here, I demonstrated it: https://streamable.com/s03n3t - most important thing is to reattach the brands to him every time he ports/phases to keep uptime high. I like to Flame Dash near him then just recall - they have a very big 'sticking range' so it does the job.

Finally, I suppose Swiftbrand could be the 'bossing'swap but I'd go nuts trying to maintain that on a target for regular mapping. Could be killer on Sirus though, I guess - just keep casting brands on him. You could cheat with swapping to Witchhunter's Judgement first, then dropping the Brands - to nullify the downside I guess.

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primaeva wrote:

Weird, Combustion still gives me the highest value (because it's a combination of more x "elemental penetration"). Did you toggle "Enemy is Burning/Ignited?" Even Awakened Fire Pen is lower for me.

It's because I would link Combustion to WoC in my Cyclone CWC setup, that way it still gets the 'elemental penetration' and stuff like fire pen/immolate have a higher multiplier when you just compare the more multipliers

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primaeva wrote:

Here, I demonstrated it: https://streamable.com/s03n3t - most important thing is to reattach the brands to him every time he ports/phases to keep uptime high. I like to Flame Dash near him then just recall - they have a very big 'sticking range' so it does the job.

Finally, I suppose Swiftbrand could be the 'bossing'swap but I'd go nuts trying to maintain that on a target for regular mapping. Could be killer on Sirus though, I guess - just keep casting brands on him. You could cheat with swapping to Witchhunter's Judgement first, then dropping the Brands - to nullify the downside I guess.

That's generally how I try to do Sirus, the part where I was missing up is when he teleports I assume the brands stay with him and wasn't recasting instantly.

I saw you make a post earlier about Witchhunter's Judgement. Is the idea to weapon swap, cast the 4 brands, cast brandsurge on them and then swap back or do you use it just for the increased duration?

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sneekxy wrote:

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primaeva wrote:

Weird, Combustion still gives me the highest value (because it's a combination of more x "elemental penetration"). Did you toggle "Enemy is Burning/Ignited?" Even Awakened Fire Pen is lower for me.

It's because I would link Combustion to WoC in my Cyclone CWC setup, that way it still gets the 'elemental penetration' and stuff like fire pen/immolate have a higher multiplier when you just compare the more multipliers

"

primaeva wrote:

Here, I demonstrated it: https://streamable.com/s03n3t - most important thing is to reattach the brands to him every time he ports/phases to keep uptime high. I like to Flame Dash near him then just recall - they have a very big 'sticking range' so it does the job.

Finally, I suppose Swiftbrand could be the 'bossing'swap but I'd go nuts trying to maintain that on a target for regular mapping. Could be killer on Sirus though, I guess - just keep casting brands on him. You could cheat with swapping to Witchhunter's Judgement first, then dropping the Brands - to nullify the downside I guess.

That's generally how I try to do Sirus, the part where I was missing up is when he teleports I assume the brands stay with him and wasn't recasting instantly.

I saw you make a post earlier about Witchhunter's Judgement. Is the idea to weapon swap, cast the 4 brands, cast brandsurge on them and then swap back or do you use it just for the increased duration?

Ah, that would work. Combustion did use to be our 6th link in the Incinerate Setup - I guess it got replaced with Fortify in this one. So you would have to pass up Fortify or Bone Offering to get that, your choice! (Bone Offering is just spell block + life gain on block, so its not too important since Duskdawn itself already supplies 70% base - then we get a little extra from nodes elsehwere.

RE: Judgement - yes, that's the 'combo' (https://streamable.com/8pgt7g) but it's too much effort to do.. manually, let's say. It was more of an experiment. The Duration modifier stays even if you swap out the staff again, so it's 'yes' to both your questions.

(https://old.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/nasep3/documentation_research_witchhunters_judgement/)

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primaeva wrote:

Ah, that would work. Combustion did use to be our 6th link in the Incinerate Setup - I guess it got replaced with Fortify in this one. So you would have to pass up Fortify or Bone Offering to get that, your choice! (Bone Offering is just spell block + life gain on block, so its not too important since Duskdawn itself already supplies 70% base - then we get a little extra from nodes elsehwere.

RE: Judgement - yes, that's the 'combo' (https://streamable.com/8pgt7g) but it's too much effort to do.. manually, let's say. It was more of an experiment. The Duration modifier stays even if you swap out the staff again, so it's 'yes' to both your questions.

(https://old.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/nasep3/documentation_research_witchhunters_judgement/)

Yeah, I got my staff 6-linked so I added WoC and will play with that and see how ST DPS feels. If feels better (I imagine it will with the exposure) I probably won't drop anything and move combustion over. That's neat with the witchhunters. It's something else I'll look into if boss DPS feels awkward. There are times I really feel the S-Tier bossing so I think when it's not clicking I'm just doing something wrong and will need to play around with it.
Thank you for the responses and the build!

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sneekxy wrote:

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primaeva wrote:

Ah, that would work. Combustion did use to be our 6th link in the Incinerate Setup - I guess it got replaced with Fortify in this one. So you would have to pass up Fortify or Bone Offering to get that, your choice! (Bone Offering is just spell block + life gain on block, so its not too important since Duskdawn itself already supplies 70% base - then we get a little extra from nodes elsehwere.

RE: Judgement - yes, that's the 'combo' (https://streamable.com/8pgt7g) but it's too much effort to do.. manually, let's say. It was more of an experiment. The Duration modifier stays even if you swap out the staff again, so it's 'yes' to both your questions.

(https://old.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/nasep3/documentation_research_witchhunters_judgement/)

Yeah, I got my staff 6-linked so I added WoC and will play with that and see how ST DPS feels. If feels better (I imagine it will with the exposure) I probably won't drop anything and move combustion over. That's neat with the witchhunters. It's something else I'll look into if boss DPS feels awkward. There are times I really feel the S-Tier bossing so I think when it's not clicking I'm just doing something wrong and will need to play around with it.
Thank you for the responses and the build!

Haha yeah, it's definitely the double-Desecrate brand issue. A quick resolution is to quickly cast 3 VD brands - this deletes the oldest Brand which is Desecrate and starts the damage up again. It's the wonky part of the build! But yeah, it goes away over time.

I tried mapping with Swiftbrand - ironically, it makes mapping feel GREAT (as it just floods the screen with balls) but somehow the boss DPS seems to have suffered (I did 4 guardians and a Shaper to test this). I'll trial it again for about a dozen more maps and see if I can identify why the boss damage feels weirdly undercut.

EDIT: Oh duh, I only put Swiftbrand on VD - forgot to put it on Desecrate. Testing again...