[3.5] Pure Uniques Molten Strike HOWA. 4 Mill Shaper DPS, Good Defences

Guardian Update (standard softcore):

I'm at level 93 with 12,526 ES and 3.007 mil shaper dps (no helm enchant).

If you want to know why it's 12,526 ES and not the 12,449 ES it says in PoB, it's because PoB doesn't know how to handle the corrupted glove implicit, and treats it as a local modifier, rather than a global modifier.

Dps Calculation:

29,812.1 average ball dmg x 10.53 attacks/sec x 0.47 (average chance for balls to hit) x 18 (number of balls without helm enchant, but Dying Sun, and only one proc with Ancestral Call) = 2,665,775.2 dps

plus melee hit dmg: 351,757.6 dps = 3.007 mil dps

I haven't attempted uber elder yet, but my elder influence is 16 and my shaper influence covers all 4 shaper guardians and shaper, so I could quickly force that fight if I want. I've actually been looking to avoid the fight doing maps on other people's atlas, mostly because I'm afraid to screw up.

I'm guessing my character can beat uber elder. The videos I'm seeing are with people with 9k ES, but I don't know their dps at the time of the fight. I doubt I beat him deathless though, because I've seen a lot of people die on him lots of times. It wasn't with this build though, but I still doubt my skill to pull it off without practice.

I do recommend my talent tree for a guardian, especially if you have a clarity watcher's eye.

https://pastebin.com/TWWcv0Qf

As far as the above discussion goes, I consider:

Elemental Damage with Attacks> Damage on Full Life > Elemental Focus > Lightning Penetration

Multistrike, Ancestral Call, and Concentrated Effect are in different categories and the actual value on the depends on the person.

Multistrike gives the greatest attack speed increase but some people don't like it because it forces you to attack 3x before you move. Also, some say that ancestral call will proc the first time but not always on subsequent times. With +ES on hit, this gem is more valuable.

Ancestral call increases damage by a lot if there are multiple enemies and synergizes with molten strike in that the balls fly back and strike the original target as well. It also has value with ES gain on hit, if you are lucky enough to have it.

Concentrated effect is nice for several reasons, but I do not use it as part of my normal attack as I have plenty of damage for normal trash, and I like range. Compared to a 1.49 multiplier with damage on full life or elemental focus, concentrated effect has a 1.69 multiplier for a level 20 gem. Now, it doesn't work with the melee hit. But you can see that without me using it, almost 90% of my damage is caused by magma balls, and not the melee hit. That is with the Dying Sun flask up, but not the helmet enchant. The more magma balls you have, the better concentrated effect becomes. Also, there is a likelihood that more magma balls strike the original target with concentrated effect. Point Blank will also have a larger effect with concentrated effect I believe, but I'm not positive.

So, you CAN swap on bosses if you are so inclined. If you have the +ES on hit watchers eye, you probably like multistrike and ancestral call and would like to swap elemental focus for concentrated effect.

If you think ancestral call or multistrike is situationally less valuable, and clear speed isn't an issue, you probably prefer concentrated effect and elemental focus, with the decision to swap ancestral call or multistrike with damage on full life.

It's also an option to say that molten strike is a boss only skill that should be used with concentrated effect, and you really should be using another skill for clear speed, when that is preferable. It's not necessarily my perspective, but it is quite possibly the reason why this skill did not receive a nerf. This aint a Windripper build.

Anyway, back to my original point, I think the choices I made in this build are quite possibly more optimal if you got a clarity watcher's eye and are using the Guardian Variant. Reserved mana converting to flat ES scales well with an int HoWA build.

I'm warming up on using damage on full life over concentrated effect. The difference is small. Lightning pen I don't think is worth though.

Zindax you prefer to take more ES (through mana) then I did. Understandable I just find it hard to cut the good damage stuff.

Speaking of taking damage over defense I just finished a write up on my Brutus lead Sprinkler character

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2172248

It doesn't have the evasion or block of the guardian but has a higher damage ceiling and can get really solid ES. Full stun immunity too

Interesting write-up on the Brutus Lead Sprinkler build.

How much damage would you say that you need for uber elder based on the amount of ES I have (with this HoWA build)? Do you think you need a helm enchant to beat him?

I agree that lightning pen doesn't make sense. The gem isn't powerful to begin with in a non-PvP situation, and they give you a lot damage pen in the tree.

I still think its strange that lightning strike and vaal lightning strike are so weak. All you need to do is look at the price difference for a helm enchant with lightning strike and molten strike. You could compare it to spectral throw too or any other build that would use this tree and The Vertex. It just goes to show you how much more respected Molten Strike is. I like that you give us options, WaffleT. I think its about time for the developers to introduce a jewel for Lightning Strike/Vaal Lightning Strike.

"

Zindax wrote:

Interesting write-up on the Brutus Lead Sprinkler build.

How much damage would you say that you need for uber elder based on the amount of ES I have (with this HoWA build)? Do you think you need a helm enchant to beat him?

I agree that lightning pen doesn't make sense. The gem isn't powerful to begin with in a non-PvP situation, and they give you a lot damage pen in the tree.

I still think its strange that lightning strike and vaal lightning strike are so weak. All you need to do is look at the price difference for a helm enchant with lightning strike and molten strike. You could compare it to spectral throw too or any other build that would use this tree and The Vertex. It just goes to show you how much more respected Molten Strike is. I like that you give us options, WaffleT. I think its about time for the developers to introduce a jewel for Lightning Strike/Vaal Lightning Strike.

Hi.
Are you happy with you'r cwdt links? I want to make the same one for summon gollem QOL,but I'l have less ES becouse of scion and Es on hit wather"s eye. Wold it be safe for me to use lvl20 CWDT?
On boots you have vaal disc and clarity.You use vall disc manualy,and clarity permanent? If so,do thise build rly have enough mana reserve to use 4 auras?
Thx.

"

Zindax wrote:

Interesting write-up on the Brutus Lead Sprinkler build.

How much damage would you say that you need for uber elder based on the amount of ES I have (with this HoWA build)? Do you think you need a helm enchant to beat him?

I agree that lightning pen doesn't make sense. The gem isn't powerful to begin with in a non-PvP situation, and they give you a lot damage pen in the tree.

I still think its strange that lightning strike and vaal lightning strike are so weak. All you need to do is look at the price difference for a helm enchant with lightning strike and molten strike. You could compare it to spectral throw too or any other build that would use this tree and The Vertex. It just goes to show you how much more respected Molten Strike is. I like that you give us options, WaffleT. I think its about time for the developers to introduce a jewel for Lightning Strike/Vaal Lightning Strike.

Uber elder is about sustain and survivability. Evasion and block is near useless as its 90% spells which is a shame. You have focused on ES which is a good choice for that boss. From there its about practice and knowing the mechanics. I would probably take out multistrike for more responsive shield charging. That is one benifit of using concentrated effect instead of damage on full life normally, you can swap multi into full life without recolouring.

I do not think you need the helm enchant to take him down. He has been downed with builds that have much less damage. The more damage you do the less well you need to play is all

Attack skills being versatile feels better for player choice and means that you have something like 5 choices but has the downside that ultimately everything comes down to numbers and one number is going to be bigger then the others, its inevitable

I do think that molten strike has been king too long. They will knock it down a bit eventually and hopefully buff some of the other options, lightning strike is certainly showing its age

Vaal doublestrike is pretty darn good now but thats more for builds that scale off added physical damage.

I was looking for some HOWA CI build and got lucky finding this thread. The build looks very strong and fun, mostly because of only unique gear and crazy synergies, will try it soon.
I like scion version, as for me movement speed seems a lot higher comparable to guardian, but I'm worry about spell damage sustain. Does energy shield can keep me alive as scion? I'm planning to do challenges this league and I decided to do 20 uber elder kills, so it's important for me.

Usually I look at other builds and try to come up with a variation of my own. But this one looked so interesting with it's large amount of synergy that I just had to try it. Leveling as a character that wants to go CI later is always a bit sqishy so I will not say anything bad about it, it is how it is. However I followed the advice of someone in this thread here and went CI + Ghost Reaver as soon as I was able to put on Zahndethu's Cassock, from this point onward it was really smooth sailing.

The build has amazing damage as soon as you hit the level for Hands of Thought and Motion, but as soon as you hit 68 it really kicks off with the synergy between the items and the upgrade to HOWA. It melts bosses and its clearspeed is actually fine as well.

Thank you for this well written build and have a radiant day.

Any Items upgrades and bether ascendancy class options for 3.3?

Guardian update, dual wield version:

Level 94: 12,734 ES, 3,177,255 dps (no helm enchant)

1,518 int, 416 str, 408 dex...so just got immunity to ignite, which is much harder to do when you play dual wield

I also have an additional HoWA and Atziri's Mirror as my back-up/weapon swap in case I need to have significantly more elemental resistance above the cap.

I think I'm going to try uber elder this level. I'm hearing my character is good enough to beat it.

https://pastebin.com/1SZmdN4X

Here's my atlas:

https://postimg.cc/image/v6sr48fvb/

Nevermind, I spread the elder to the Phoenix area, but he wouldn't spread to either to Hydra area, nor the shaper area. Not sure why. Maybe i need to do red elder one more time. Any ideas?

Figured it out. I must have bought an old Hydra map that didn't count on the atlas. It worked with a good map. Looks like this now:

https://postimg.cc/image/ythej3u3r/afc8b3c3/

Minotaur is next?

Did Minotaur and Chimera. Ready for uber elder:

https://postimg.cc/image/uuose7abr/

Why i still can't run the 3 aura's even though I already have 2 nodes of reduced mana reserved?