The Herald Build

Another funny build I came up with:

The idea is to kill enemies solely with Herald of Thunder. We will proc it by using Writhing Jar unique flasks (the worm flasks) and killing the worms with Arc that has a high shock chance. Although I have some nice items for this build, this can be done rather cheaply too since the weapons are dirt uniques.

The build is extremely tanky (9,5k hp, immune to status ailments, phase acro, atziri's steps, strong double curse, strong life potions). Pathfinder is the obvious choice for this build since it gives some extra penetration, flask regeneration, a lot of elemental damage and increased flask effect.

So far it has performed really well and after some optimization (and proper jewels) I think it can actually compete against all the tier1 builds at least to an extent.

Nice thing about the herald is that it does formidable damage even in a 4link and the best part is that it goes through block and dodge.

Passives: http://tinyurl.com/z79j97u

Items:

another option:

Funny build. I like d2 lightning sorc.

That helm enchant! I knew it was more than enhance and 10 from tree! ;) you rascal

Great job, inventive!

What is the damage range of the procs from your herald of storm?

After warbands and before torment I had a multi curse ice nova herald of ice+lightning build with double doryani and boosted heralds. In voidbringer gloves with 21/20 herald of lightning, the herald procs had an average damage of 5 to 6k, with max damage near 10k per hit. I'm not certain whether or not I used empower in sarn arena, but I probably did swap a level 3 with lifeleech. Since then the added damage of the heralds was nerfed, but I think the damage of the procs was left unchanged. My build mostly sucked in pvp cause it was too squishy, but when I did get a shocked kill, the procs could kill guys I normally couldn't even touch :)

isnt that what VA_killingfloor uses?

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RunawayFixer wrote:

What is the damage range of the procs from your herald of storm?

After warbands and before torment I had a multi curse ice nova herald of ice+lightning build with double doryani and boosted heralds. In voidbringer gloves with 21/20 herald of lightning, the herald procs had an average damage of 5 to 6k, with max damage near 10k per hit. I'm not certain whether or not I used empower in sarn arena, but I probably did swap a level 3 with lifeleech. Since then the added damage of the heralds was nerfed, but I think the damage of the procs was left unchanged. My build mostly sucked in pvp cause it was too squishy, but when I did get a shocked kill, the procs could kill guys I normally couldn't even touch :)

avg dmg in tooltip is 11k with my setup

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Rupenus wrote:

isnt that what VA_killingfloor uses?

herald of thunder? i think so? no idea what his setup looks like

I've seen a reddit post about a pve build using Hot/HoI and pathfinder and found it pretty cool, is that you guys inspiration ?

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IceDeal wrote:

I've seen a reddit post about a pve build using Hot/HoI and pathfinder and found it pretty cool, is that you guys inspiration ?

To be honest there has been pure herald builds for pve as long as the skills have been in the game. I played one a long time ago too.

The story behind this particular build (and frankly all of my builds) is that I just wanted to find a skill that would deal actual damage in a 4link so I could use kaoms. This is because the current poe pvp pretty much requires you to have 9k+ life or have tempestshield&12k+ ES to survive.

The first build I tried was the barrage bow char which is still decent but you get flamed by everyone for being a retarded noob if you use bows.

Keeping the above in mind the 2nd build I tried was the noncrit staff bladefaller which was a very good char until ascendancy fucked that one up completely (there are actually no good asc classes for such a character).

Then I tried 4l firetrap with GG blasphemy on inquisitor but that char doesnt get enough survivability to perform against top builds (although the damage definitely is there even with 4link)

Then I remembered my herald of thunder doing crazy damage without links on my barrage bower after trap/golem kills and I decided to try that out in similar fashion.

I did duel VA_killingfloor 2 times a ~week ago but was noob/tired enough to not notice he was actually using herald to deal damage (instead I thought he was some random flicker yolo melee char that gets frenzy charges from worms). Only after dueling a few times with my own herald setup I realised VA_killingfloor was actually doing the majority of his dmg with the herald alone -.-

So yeah. In the end it seems he did the build for pvp first. This is just my version of it.

I was pretty bored those days (and for some reason my Smash 4 ban is still not lifted) and this stuff was stupid enought to convinceme to try it with a few ajustements (because I obviously don't own Legacy Kaom). So far it's pretty hilarious in the arena (half the people don't even realize what's killing them).

I experimented with 5L/6L setup as well but compared to a 4L+1, the difference is not much (still need to get a lvl21HoT and Lvl4 Empower but they are getting cheaper those days).
I also tried to integrate Blasphemy but the range is still too low in my oponion and you REALLY want those curses to stick.
Otherwise this thing is pretty damn tanky thanks to the great buff of pathfinder. Build is lvl81 for now and I plan to reach at least lvl90. It's quite horrible to level with so I'm using a 5L Marohi EQ to map (only problem is I have to respec the 3 increase duration nods every time I want to grind some xp).

Obviously this can't do shit against SRS and High ES character are quite a big problem because you have no way to apply DoT and stop the regen if they go too far (I may add some chaos spell on cwdt for those). I also had a few streak of bad luck getting my shock kill to start HoT and you really have only 10 sec to do stuff (trying to reload it mid-fight usually end as HoT targeting the worms).

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IceDeal wrote:

I was pretty bored those days (and for some reason my Smash 4 ban is still not lifted) and this stuff was stupid enought to convinceme to try it with a few ajustements (because I obviously don't own Legacy Kaom). So far it's pretty hilarious in the arena (half the people don't even realize what's killing them).

I experimented with 5L/6L setup as well but compared to a 4L+1, the difference is not much (still need to get a lvl21HoT and Lvl4 Empower but they are getting cheaper those days).
I also tried to integrate Blasphemy but the range is still too low in my oponion and you REALLY want those curses to stick.
Otherwise this thing is pretty damn tanky thanks to the great buff of pathfinder. Build is lvl81 for now and I plan to reach at least lvl90. It's quite horrible to level with so I'm using a 5L Marohi EQ to map (only problem is I have to respec the 3 increase duration nods every time I want to grind some xp).

Obviously this can't do shit against SRS and High ES character are quite a big problem because you have no way to apply DoT and stop the regen if they go too far (I may add some chaos spell on cwdt for those). I also had a few streak of bad luck getting my shock kill to start HoT and you really have only 10 sec to do stuff (trying to reload it mid-fight usually end as HoT targeting the worms).

6link +1 gems setup is better against high HP and high ES chars for sure. If someone was to perfect this build both 4link+kaoms and 6link setup would be required. The kaom version is most likely better against inq casters and bowers.

For an example I was able to kill the ES tank of markuszz when I swapped to 5link +1 setup instead of using 4link (albeit he didnt have the perfect setup at that time). Also the build seemed to have enough damage to kill ahfacks life tank in a bo7. With 6link there should be plenty of damage I feel.

I dont think there is room for blasphemies in this build unfortunately.

I'm sure there is something you could do against SRS too but I can't come up with anything atm -.-