[3.25] Looping League Starter - Heartbound Autobomber
 Introduction This is my take on a looping autobomber! The build revolves around triggering spells in Kitava's Thirst from a Heartbound Loop. League Start POB: https://pobb.in/TKLmo5qrT8ji Delirious Forge of the Phoenix League Start: https://youtu.be/yvpSGxSvgrY Endgame POB: https://pobb.in/Qxeymz3U-FHX Endgame 9-Mod t17 Wisps + Wildwood: https://youtu.be/5izuwWx4IjM ________________________________________________________________________ Pros & Cons + Fast and strong mapper + Looping Autobomber! + League starter + High scaling potential + No 6-link required + Solid defenses + Can be played as any class/ascendancy + No temporary league power is used in any of the showcases (see tab for league specific suggestions) - Not SSF viable (requires Kitava's Thirst and 2x Heartbound Loop) - Not HC viable (can be at higher investment) - Complicated to put together (need to avoid armour) - Sometimes takes a try or two to start the loop - Have to level as something else (guide included) ________________________________________________________________________ Settlers of Kalguur League Specific
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For Runesmithing you probably want increased spell damage early on before transitioning to uniques. Reflecting mist lets us get more % of mana recouped as life on amulets, which lets you change anoint before getting Forbidden Flesh/Flame.
________________________________________________________________________ Build Mechanics
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Heartbound Loop
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At the core of this build is a loop of spells constructed by Heartbound Loop. Heartbound Loop hits us with physical damage whenever one of our minion dies or expires. We use that self-inflicted physical damage to summon more minions, creating the loop.
The way we trigger minions is by linking them to Cast when Damage Taken, causing them to trigger whenever we've taken enough damage and going on a brief cooldown. To create a loop out of this, we need to make sure the minions summoned die or expire after they come off cooldown, so they can trigger themselves, but not much longer than that, since we want to maximize the frequency of the loop (see Cooldowns and Durations). Cooldowns and Durations
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Cast when Damage Taken has a cooldown of .25 seconds by default and by getting at least 9% (27% at high budget) cooldown recovery rate we can lower it to .231 seconds (since cooldowns are rounded to the .033 second tick rate). Zombies (from Raise Zombie of Falling) take ~.462 seconds to fall, which means if we get one cast followed immediately by another we can create a loop! Casting a spell in a .033 second window by hand is difficult, but we can use another minion skill triggered at the same time as the zombie which expires expires in any ~.461 second offset of that .033 second window (since the zombie will loop itself on a ~.461 cycle). Summon Raging Spirit is the easiest to use since it has the next shortest duration at 5 seconds, which lets us scale its duration more precisely. There are many offsets we can choose, but shorter is better since the spirits can fall far enough behind that their deaths no longer affect us. We scale the duration with Swift Affliction and Less Duration, which lets us use quality and gem level to precisely scale the duration. The duration used here is 2 seconds which requires Less Duration to grant 47% less duration (15/0 is probably the easiest level/quality). 1.55 is even slightly better but requires high quality and gem level(20/20), that may not be available on league start.
Starting the Loop
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We start the two loops by weapon swapping at the start of each new zone, casting a Summon Raging Spirit socketed in our offhand, weapon swapping back (which makes the spirit expire), pressing our life flask twice (it queues, see Recoup) and making sure Petrified Blood is on. Unlike other loops we only every have to start our loop after loading into a new zone, since having two loops also makes us able to withstand rare monsters with Temporal Bubble (and the flask charge draining one because we don't need to sustain flasks) and walk through doors, things that often force other looping builds to restart their loops. The downside of two loops is that sometimes they won't fully synchronize when started(happens ~20% of the time), which you can tell happened when you don't have two zombie's the majority of the time. Fortunately, we can weapon swap, enable Determination (or have a shield with lots of armor like Dawnbreaker in our off hand) from our off hand, wait for all the Spirits to die and then restart the loop. The loops don't synchronize due to the fall time of the zombies not being fixed. The loop never desychronizes once it is fully synchronized, so you would only need to do this at the start of 1 in every ~5 zone (less when you get a 20/20 Less Duration). You can also choose to not bother fully sychronizing and keep mapping, since the loop will still sustain itself (just will be missing ~1 cast per second) and will often fully synchronize all on its own once you get hit by enemies for at ~500 or more damage.
Triggering Kitava's Thirst
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Now that we have our Heartbound Loop going, we need a way to use it and that means Cast when Damage Taken. The Heartbound Loop does relatively little damage to us per hit and enhancing that self-damage with something like Forbidden Rite doesn't give our recoup enough time to ramp up (see Recoup). That limits us to triggering relatively low level spells with a significant damage penalty. Fortunately (for us anyway), low level spells can still cost a lot of mana, especially with Cast when Damage Taken's 250% mana cost multiplier combined with a few other high mana cost multiplier supports. By getting these low level spells to cost 100 mana we can use them to trigger all the spells in Kitava's Thirst without any damage penalty or level limit!
Recoup
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The Heartbound Loop deals a large amount self damage (~1200 damage every .231 seconds or ~5000 damage per second), which we need a way of sustaining. Achieving enough flat or % life regeneration to recover 5000 life per second would be difficult, so we use % of damage taken recouped as life instead (note that recoup scales with % increased life recovery rate). By taking all the available recoup nodes on the tree and getting some recoup on jewels, we can get more than 100% of damage taken recouped as life (eventually from eldritch implicits too along). Since we take so much self-damage from the Heartbound Loop, even slightly more than 100% of damage taken recouped as life is a massive amount of net life regeneration and will eventually let us sustain Righteous Fire as well. Life recoup takes a few seconds to ramp up though, so we use Petrified Blood which spreads incoming damage out over a few seconds and lets us safely start the loop. Petrified Blood is also a solid defensive layer combined with the life mastery that lets us count on low life below 55% instead of 50% as well as enabling Pain Attunement for more damage. It also lets our life flasks queue and gives us overleech, which is a nice source of extra recovery during mapping (not necessary for sustaining the loop though).
We spend a lot of mana on all the spells we trigger. Fortunately all the self-damage we take lets us use % of damage taken recouped as mana, which we get from the mana mastery, anointing Battle-Rouse and crafted on our amulet (unveil item level 60+ amulets with the "Veiled" modifier (not "of the Veil") to find the craft). Finally, at higher investment Nine Lives gives us a massive amount of recoup and is an extremely powerful capstone for this build. Pantheon
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I recommend Soul of Garuhkan before catalyzing Heartbound Loops and Soul of Gruthkul afterward for the minor pantheon and either Soul of Arakaali or Soul of the Brine King for the major pantheon.
________________________________________________________________________ Starter Gear
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Mandatory Items:
Kitava's Thirst 2x Heartbound Loop 5-link body armour Medium Minion Life Cluster Jewel with Blessed Rebirth (alteration orb re-roll on item level 68+ cluster, takes ~50 on average) 5x jewel with 6% life recouped as life Amulet anointed with Battle-Rouse (all cheap oils) Belt with crafted 9%+ cooldown recovery rate (unveil belts with "of the Veil" modifier to get craft) Recommended Items: Amulet with 6% of damage recouped as mana (unveil amulets with "Veiled" modifier to get craft) General Rares: Make sure you are resistance capped. Then look for life, spell suppression, strength, dexterity and chaos resistance in that order. Flasks: No required flasks, recommend Life Flask with Corrupted Blood/Bleed immunity, Quicksilver Flask, Jade Flask, Quartz Flask and Stibnite Flask ________________________________________________________________________ Skills
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Note: Skill order does matter, specifically make sure Raise Zombie of Falling and Summon Raging Spirit are in earlier sockets (read starting from top left) than Soulrend/Eye of Winter Kitava's Thirst Ice Spear - Creeping Frost - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Increased Critical Damage Body Armour Greater Multiple Projectiles (any level) - Returning Projectiles (any level) - Soulrend (level 5) - Eye of Winter (level 5) - Cast When Damage Taken (level 2) Curses Cast when Damage Taken (level 20) - Frostbite - Enfeeble - Sniper's Mark Auras Petrified Blood, Herald of Ice Movement Flamedash Zombie Loop Raise Zombie of Falling (level 1) - Cast when Damage Taken (level 1) - Culling Strike (any level) Spirit Loop Summon Raging Spirit (level 1) - Cast when Damage Taken (level 1) - Less Duration (level 15) - Swift Affliction (any level) ________________________________________________________________________ League Start, Leveling and Transition
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Leveling as cold DOT, which is always excellent on league start. We use Freezing Pulse into Creeping Frost before we get all the cold DOT gems. Don't forget to buy the gems from the Skills section from Lily in act 5 and leveling them in your off hand (note that most gems don't need/want to be high level)!
Leveling POB: https://pobb.in/QkR1t0pc5Xz3 ShakCentral Cold DOT Leveling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsyl3uclL6A Transition when you have enough currency to afford the mandatory items (shouldn't be more than ~20c day 1) and have hit at least level 75. Don't worry about swapping immediately on reaching maps, cold DOT is a strong build through early red maps with minimal investment. I swapped in early yellow maps and it felt smooth before and after. Recommended items should generally be your first upgrades. ________________________________________________________________________ Upgrades
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Upgrades
1. Add Eldritch Implicits (highly prioritize life recovery rate and life recoup (body armour) also look for suppress and unnerve (gloves) and brittle (boots) 2. Well rolled flasks with enchant "Used When Charges Reach Full" 3. 21/20 Creeping Frost and Ice Spear 4. Watcher's Eye with % of damage taken recouped as mana while affected by Clarity and use a level 1 Clarity 5. Get a Kitava's Thirst with +2 levels to socketed cold gems (or +1 power charges, but they tend to be much more expensive) 6. Get jewels with at least one or two other good modifiers besides life recoup (% increased life, corrupted blood immunity, % increased cold damage, % increased critical strike change/multiplier, resists, strengh, dexterity) 7. Socket a Brutal Restraint devoted to Balbala near the Instability or Fervour notables (look for ones that add some combination of onslaught on kill, % increased flask charges gained, % increased elemental damage, % increased movement speed to notables we are already taking) and drop your life flask (take recoup effects occur over 3 seconds if unable to safely start loop) 8. Path to Careful Conservationist and take the master "25% chance to gain a flask charge on critical strike" 9. Corrupt both Heartbound Loop with a + to elemental resistances implicit 10. Get a 60% Annihilating Light and cap resists (well rolled Bismuth Flask with + elemental resistances, replace Petrified Blood with Purity of Elements (drop life mastery and Pain Attunement) allocated Survivalist, Practical Application and tattoo if necessary) 11. Get a flask with the crafted modifer "15% of damage taken from hits leech as life" (craft obtained by unveiling Cinderswallow Urns) 12. Path to the leech mastery and take "25% of damage taken recouped as life if leech was removed by filling unreserved life recently". 13. Add Righteous Fire (as soon as is comfortable for sustain) 14. Body armour (can get one with very good rolls since we only need a five link which is pretty cheap to link yourself) with high life and other high tier modifiers (Resists, Spell Suppression) and eldritch implicits (recoup, life recovery rate) 15. Upgrade gloves/boots to have high tier life and a combination of suppression, resistances, strength and dexterity (movement speed on boots) and good eldritch implicits (suppress, unnerve, brittle/movement speed/action speed) 16. Catalyze corrupted Heartbound Loop with Tainted Catalyst aiming for at least 15% increased effect of physical and chaos modifiers (ideally 20%) 17. Get a small armour cluster jewel with Enduring Composure 18. Swap to a 20/20 Less Duration gem 19. Watcher's Eye with % of damage taken recouped as mana while affected by Clarity and at least one other good modifier (+ chaos resistance while affected by Purity of Elements ideally) 20. Upgrade amulet to have +1 to level of all cold gems along with life some combination of resistances, strength and dexterity 21. Swap to using curses as Kitava's Thirst triggers (Arcane Surge + Cast When Damage Taken (level 3 at most) + Empower (at least level 3) + two curses at the levels where they cost at least 100 mana and can be supported by Cast When Damage Taken) 22. Get Dying Sun (aim to get 50% increased effect of flasks from gear), Progenesis and Oriath's End and a high quality magic quicksilver flask with increased flask charges gained and "15% of damage taken from hits leech as life" (Bottled Faith is also an option for more damage) 23. Get Nine Lives from Forbidden Flesh and Flame (frees up anoint) 24. Get Light of Meaning with increased cold damage and socket it either next to Fervour or Instability (wherever the Brutal Restrain isn't) 25. Get an abyss jewel with phasing and corrupted blood immunity (+life also nice) 26. Awakened Greater Multiple Projectiles and 21/23 gems 27. Craft a Micro-distillery belt good high tier modifiers (life, flask effect, increased flask charges gained/duration, resists, strength) and craft increased cooldown recovery rate (flask effect and unveiled cooldown recovery rate are difficult to get but make later steps easier) 28. Endgame body armour with tier 1 life, additional curse (delve modifier) and spell suppression (fill out with other modifiers of choice; e.g. resists, % increased life craft/unveil, reservation efficiency, % physical damage reduction) with high tier eldritch implicits (Orb of Conflict max tier of either life recoup or flask effect and then roll % of physical damage taken as fire or increased life recovery rate) 29. Endgame gloves with tier 1 life, increased damage against chilled enemies (temple modifier) and spell suppression (fill out with other modifiers of choice; e.g. resists, hybrid life etc.) with high tier eldritch implicits (Orb of Conflict +2 pierce (frees up 3 passives on tree) and then roll unnerve) 30. Endgame boots with tier 1 life, movement speed and spell suppression (fill out with other modifiers of choice; e.g. resists, hybrid life, onslaught on kill) with high tier eldritch implicits (cooldown recovery rate and either brittle, movement speed or action speed) 31. 2x 8-Passive large cold/elemental cluster jewel with Sadist (get flat added fire damage to spells and socket Sigil of Power), Prismatic Heart and either Doryani's Lesson or Disorienting Display (don't path to this last one) 32. Get 27% increased cooldown recovery rate (some combination of belt (crafted/unveiled), boots (eldritch implicit) and abyss jewels (try and also get + life, phasing on kill and/or corrupted blood immunity) 33. Endgame amulet with as much +levels to skill/cold gems, critical strike multiplier, life and/or resists as possible (simplex or a bricked Stranglegasp probably the very best options) Optional alternative endgame setup: Mageblood, Ralakesh's Impatience,Void Batteries, Malachai's Loop and Badge of the Brotherhood (swap Increased Critical Damage to Ice Bite) and a Militant Faith devoted to Dominus for Inner Conviction ________________________________________________________________________ Other Autobomber Guides
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Detonate Dead Autobomber - A Bow Cast on Critical Strike League Starter
Holy Relic of Conviction Autobomber - Manaforged Arrows League Starter Elemental Relic Autobomber - Tukohama's Fortress League Starter Bow Attack Autobomber - A Manaforged Arrows League Starter Kitava's Thirst Autobomber - A Mana-Gating League Starter Minion Instability Autobomber - Stone Golem League Starter Last edited by Juminoh on Oct 15, 2024, 2:19:11 PM Last bumped on Oct 10, 2024, 12:57:58 PM
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I wonder if it would be worth to drop the belt mod and 4-link needed to use SRS to get .231 triggers and instead just go with raise zombie of falling loop off of itself. It theoretically halves the amount of casts that can trigger spells in kitava's thirst, but it makes starting the loop significantly simpler and you can compensate for the loss of triggers by adding two spells with a lvl 1 cwdt and archmage in place for the 4-link and probably changing to body armour to use archmage instead as well. Thoughts?
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" Dropping down to a .462 loop would halve our damage and our mana sustain, something I really wouldn't recommend. Archmage would already require significant modifications to fit into this build and losing the mana sustain would make it extra difficult. Level 1 CWDT also has a massive 65% less damage multiplier that would make it very difficult to scale the damage. I'd also be hesitant to go Archmage without Indigon/Manastorm/some other synergy with mana. It's definitely possible that some form of CWDT loop with Archmage could work, but it would be an entirely different build and likely require significantly more investment. Last edited by Juminoh on Mar 17, 2024, 7:30:59 PM
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How would you manage this with a mageblood and without recovery? I know it won't be relevant next league but I wanna play around with it this league to see if I can fry my computer.
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" Mageblood is very easy to fit into this build, it can be directly added at any stage without any changes (recommend it as one of the final upgrades). Not entirely sure what you mean by without recovery, this build relies on recoup but all other forms of recovery are optional (even life flask can be replaced if you take recoup over 3 seconds instead of 4 and slow the loop start with determination for 3 seconds or by just getting enough recoup e.g. Nine Lives). Should still be relevant next league too! Last edited by Juminoh on Mar 19, 2024, 1:35:12 PM
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about how much recoup do you need to run this? seems like a ton but definitely easier than wardloop on league start.
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Nice guide. Could you add which quality would benefit the ring in the defense section. Thanks
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" Need over 100%, 76% is available directly on the tree and the remainder we can easily get on jewels! | |
" Thanks! Will do (it's the physical/chaos quality from noxious catalysts)! | |
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Its been a while since I've played a loop build, but what would be a good way to estimate dps in POB? I see the recommended upgrade path, but having difficulty understanding how damage is scaled with investment. How far can we push this build with investment? Or is this something one would use to league start and then transition to another build?
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