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

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BrooCnW wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKYC38RJR5Q boom

That looks very nice.
PoB code if you can please, since profile is privte.

Looked through what info we have for the build, some preliminary findings!

Overall, no nerfs announced and passive tree changes look really good for the build!

1) Bone Offering life gain per block has been replaced by Life Regen when Blocked Recently.. will affect tankiness by about 10%, trending towards almost NIL at high gear levels. Most of our recovery is from ES/Life on Hit.

2) Holy Conquest being on the skill tree as a mastery is SUPER nice. At high gear levels (and once you set up clusters), 50% Brand Recall cooldown recovery will feel INSANE.

3) Runebinder coming out to the main tree has just given us 3 passive points back and increasing point efficiency to Glancing Blows.

4) Our build has enough tHP (8-9k) to fully make use of Temporal Rift as a full heal after very big hits. Stoked.

5) More auras to fit in - I would use Purity of Elements to negate all the Scourge-d gear downsides, especially at league start. Between Commander of Darkness and Purity of Elements, you will have insane early gear purchase efficiency and scale into T16 power very early, taking all the Scourge downsides without breaking a sweat.

6) EO hurts all new levelling builds, but with these brand changes, I would officially still recommend levelling as an Armageddon Brander.

7) Fortify Nerf = definitely the biggest hit here. Will have to see gem specifics but it may not be worth the link any more - which means an additional socket to do stuff with. Dual Curse + Enfeeble instead of Fortify could be the new defensive play.

8) Mageblood Belt - Well, this is going to be a hot favourite, but our build has always had the belt as a 'flex' slot and this will pump it up WAY more than HH. Perma Onslaught, stack cast speed suffixes, etc.. I am floored by the fun this belt is going to bring to all builds, not just this one.

Man this looks fun. Thoughts on this for HC or any changes needed or is it just too risky?

Hey bro, will u be updating this for 3.16 ? It looks super fun and I was going for DD league start, then switch to this later on :D

Yeah I was also looking at this for a transition build at some point in the league. Would love to know your thoughts on the buffs/nerfs

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BigWood1e wrote:

Man this looks fun. Thoughts on this for HC or any changes needed or is it just too risky?

Hey mate!

I stand by the disclaimer - you definitely need to practice this in Softcore first, because stuffing up the brands is going to get you killed. The good news is, my tutorial video is 80% done!! (Well. I've been sitting on it because I returned to work and lost all PoE momentum).

Any delayed damage build is a higher risk in HC, but at least in this build, the reward is there. There are people who have built this in HC however - for them, they simply drop Staff offense for the defense of a gain-on-block shield (build is capped, especially after 3.16 buffs).

Do stick around to check out our 3.16 conclusions to see if the overall defense looks better.

The most major change would be us being able to fit in Purity of Elements. Combined with Commander of Darkness 30 allres, you'll be able to overcome a bunch of Scourge mods and derive power from there.

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Hey bro, will u be updating this for 3.16 ? It looks super fun and I was going for DD league start, then switch to this later on :D

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Spiralyo wrote:

Yeah I was also looking at this for a transition build at some point in the league. Would love to know your thoughts on the buffs/nerfs

Hey guys, yep. I am sniffing around the PoB right now.

Preliminary thoughts - it's going to be extremely powerful. The main loss was from fortify, but we got a ton of passive points back from Thread of Hope hitting Glancing Blows AND Runebinder, still hitting Counterweight, etc.

It's going to take me a better part of today and tomorrow (work day after all, and gf coming over... what timing ugh! xD) to spit out a finished tree, but in general, the masteries really make the build pop - it's a lot of QoL and that was the only thing this build was short of in 3.15.

Also woah a CB player :D


EDIT - MAJOR INTERESTING CHANGES.

Big news, we drop Unnatural Instinct and this also frees up neck anoint for literally anything else. Assassination / True Strike / Spiritual Aid are the big DPS boosts - and Spiritual Aid helps chest pops a ton.

Through Fire Mastery we can actually sandbag into bosses to cover them in Ash (20% fire damage taken LOL). This is massive. You used to have to wear a Xoph's Heart for that.

Of course, losing the option of Malachai's Artifice will make min-maxers sad, but most of us would prefer the added tankiness of a ring slot anyway.

Free 50% increased effect of Ailments through Critical Mastery :) Meaning build will pop off earlier against endgame bosses (you used to need a 6L to hit max Brittle/Sap/Scorch on a unique boss. Now you need 50% less damage. Or is it 66%? Someone math me)

In general, all these changes add up to a VERY early power spike (early Ash, early Ailment scaling, no need for Unnatural Instinct any more.)

So I took the tree and gear from my build last league and have been tweaking it with the new tree. Not well versed in PoB, and definitely not an expert on this build, but managed to get fairly close. I invested pretty heavily in the build, but still a ways off from min-max. Here's the new PoB I came up with: https://pastebin.com/DuW0rnKb

I managed to get the following masteries in:

25% to crit multi vs uniques
20% increased effect of offerings
10% reduced mana cost of skills
Brands attach to a new enemy every time they activate
Recover 2% of ES/Life when you block Spell/Attack damage
50% increased effect of non-damaging ailments on crit
20% chance to cover enemies in ash when they hit you
+50 to maximum life
10% increased life/10% reduced life recovery

I should probably start off with the disclaimer that this is a level 98 tree, vs the level 96 tree that I had last league. Overall I lost ~7.5% damage on the corpse explosion, gained 2% on the spell, and gained 14% spell block. Mana costs are also slightly higher (1-2 mana across the board), and unreserved mana pool went from 272 to 166, which might be problematic as the build was fairly mana hungry as I recall. EHP is roughly the same, 300 life lost and 300 ES gained. Haven't really messed with the skills much, just dropped the banner and Fortify, threw in Purity of Elements.

Looking forward to playing this build again, and seeing what others come up with for the tree. I'm sure if I can get it this close to the original, then others can definitely improve it beyond last leagues numbers.

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Justiis wrote:

So I took the tree and gear from my build last league and have been tweaking it with the new tree. Not well versed in PoB, and definitely not an expert on this build, but managed to get fairly close. I invested pretty heavily in the build, but still a ways off from min-max. Here's the new PoB I came up with: https://pastebin.com/DuW0rnKb

I managed to get the following masteries in:

25% to crit multi vs uniques
20% increased effect of offerings
10% reduced mana cost of skills
Brands attach to a new enemy every time they activate
Recover 2% of ES/Life when you block Spell/Attack damage
50% increased effect of non-damaging ailments on crit
20% chance to cover enemies in ash when they hit you
+50 to maximum life
10% increased life/10% reduced life recovery

I should probably start off with the disclaimer that this is a level 98 tree, vs the level 96 tree that I had last league. Overall I lost ~7.5% damage on the corpse explosion, gained 2% on the spell, and gained 14% spell block. Mana costs are also slightly higher (1-2 mana across the board), and unreserved mana pool went from 272 to 166, which might be problematic as the build was fairly mana hungry as I recall. EHP is roughly the same, 300 life lost and 300 ES gained. Haven't really messed with the skills much, just dropped the banner and Fortify, threw in Purity of Elements.

Looking forward to playing this build again, and seeing what others come up with for the tree. I'm sure if I can get it this close to the original, then others can definitely improve it beyond last leagues numbers.

Haha, almost identical conclusion on my masteries! (I dropped a tentative PoB on page 1).

Did you check off Covered in Ash on the config? That alone should float your ultimate DPS up (on beefy bosses anyway).

Also, try out the 30% increased defenses on Staff - it gave me ~400 ES just like that!

I am SERIOUSLY considering dropping Cluster #2 and picking up Brand Equity. There's so much QoL and another TWO Brand Masteries (because you no longer need the "You can Cast Two Additional Brands" as a mastery go to 50% Recall CD and permanent 40% Brand Attachment Range.

As for Reserved mana, I actually managed to fit in all that PLUS Purity of Elements - need to absolutely take:

1) Energy Shield Mastery - Discipline has x% increased RMR
2) Sovereignity and one more node via Thread of Hope left.

You can even fit in a Watcher's Eye Vitality early on if they're cheap since we have the extra 35% slot now.

Max block so easy to get this league. You can even reach glancing blows with a large thread of hope instead of pathing to it