[3.2] CI ST/BF HoWA, still ass kicking! Shaper/Guardian/Uber/Elder etc

Can't reply in detail since I'm on mobile. Wrath can be replaced by HoI and HoT if you really want to, problem would be more in getting reliable freeze for it. You would need to drop Elemental Focus for some weaker dps gem, but also transform the build into a crit version which can be tricky, and then get enough cold damage or conversion (single/dual Call of the Brotherhood maybe?). I don't think it's worth it and probably you'd be better off with just some typical ele claws and going life rather then HoWA if you really want the shatter effect.

The items you'd need to get you started might be tricky to get. Since its more about the Breach mods etc, people won't farm Shaper as fast as they do in a normal league so you'll need to find a replacement for Shapers Touch, and worry about accuracy. Astramentis/high ES gear/even HoWA itself will be quite pricey first few days in. I would say it's NOT a great build as a starter for this reason but a week into the race it should be doable.

Is there any reason you don't recommend inquisitor mini ascendancy coupled with hitting the duelist start and using pure talent for 25+ all attributes 1% leech, saving you 2 leech nodes (you can get mana leech off mind drinker) and giving you 6% elemental pen?

You can do it if you want, but you will have to run Brine King pantheon for stun protection, so you lose Arakaali bonus which is very strong even if not shown by PoB. Your leech is also 15% weaker if you chose Duelist+Mind Drinker vs taking Vitality Void (not counting in Arakaali).

Altogether it would be a 20% or 25% more damage at the cost of max leech rate (40% vs 46%/69% without/with Arakaali buff active), slightly higher level requirement to "finish" the tree and inability to generate Endurance charges with Jugg.

It's up to you what you prefer, I think Jugg stun immunity + constant charge generation is too powerful to pass up, and Raider is pretty much the best choice for dps thanks to constant Frenzy charge generation and free flask slot.

Sent you a pm bristo, hope you can help me out ;)

How do you deal with freeze? I feel like I only die when I am frozen but against that exile that uses frost bolt I get perma frozen...

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Eko13 wrote:

Sent you a pm bristo, hope you can help me out ;)

Ok, so the mana reservation problems stem from 2 sources - you are running Discipline, Wrath, Clarity lvl 20 and I see Herald of Thunder socketed somewhere.
- Your Clarity level is way too high, lvl 1 is enough for the Watchers Eye, but - you should only ever run Clarity if you have Watcher's Eye with the mod granting % of mana as extra ES.
- You can run Discipline, Wrath, Enlighten 4 and Herald of Thunder without Skyforth if you change the pathing on the bottom side of the tree. Pick up the jewel socket above Vaal Pact, connect Art of Gladiator and Finesse and unspec any spare points that you have, along with the jewel socket where you have Brute Force solution. Make it more to what I have in the guide. This will save you some more points on the tree so you can take Influence Node for extra mana reservation - that's when you won't need Skyforth anymore.
- You can run above auras and take Empower 3-4 instead of Herald of Thunder - a slightly less dps but more ES version.

- By Ranger start, you have 1 Dex node that is in range of Fertile Mind, so it will get converted to Int, but you pathed through a Dex node above Prowess and Thief's Craft - slight change but a bit more ES and dps this way.

- Without Skyforth you'll have to use Brine King pantheon, since you are a Raider and not Scion Ascendant.

- You don't need a Mana flask with previous changes, so use a Jade flask.

- Once you swap Skyforth for rare boots with ES, Int and resists, you won't need as much resistances on your ring or jewels - so get ones with more dps instead.

- It's better to path to Elemental Overload through Foresight above Scion then all the Int nodes above Witch.

Overall I think going Scion is a much better choice and my pathing choices were such to accomodate all the extra passives that Scion gets, for example as Raider you don't have enough points to get to the left side of the tree for some nice nodes there or you don't have flexibility of jewel socket with resistance passives leading to it, so unfortunately I cannot say anything else about the tree.

One thing I would test, is getting Avatar of the Chase instead of the Veil, and simply getting 1 anti-freeze flask. More dps, but more importantly with Jade flask up and Blind, you will have pretty much 95% chance to evade, which is beyond broken :)

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LafayetteIA wrote:

How do you deal with freeze? I feel like I only die when I am frozen but against that exile that uses frost bolt I get perma frozen...

You just need to roll one flask with anti-freeze prefix :)

Hi Bristoling, I made my own LS HoWA build in std (I had few uniques already, and I am not into pokemon) while I found your ST version. It is very similar, but I almost do not go into raider part of the tree. When I plugged 21/20 ST into it (I wish LS was so cheap...), it shows me up to 711k PoB dps maintaining 8700 ES on gear worth around 8 ex. While your tree is great, I think my version is slightly easier to gear with, and to level with, and one does not have to make choices between the "blue" and "red" circles. Something you might consider in your build!

Here is the pastbin:
https://pastebin.com/wqb2pJes

P.S. So far I did everything with LS including shaper. However, after reading your guide about ST mechanics I definitely will try it for bossing. I can do guardians with rippy mods on 5L, but for shaper LS feels too slow (~1 M dps). Need to look for a new helmet then....

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Bristoling wrote:

- Once you swap Skyforth for rare boots with ES, Int and resists, you won't need as much resistances on your ring or jewels - so get ones with more dps instead.

- It's better to path to Elemental Overload through Foresight above Scion then all the Int nodes above Witch.

hard to understand everything since you started as a sion and i'm a ranger...tried to apply all your changes on pob but couldn't make it...i need to figure how to apply all these changes without losing too much on ES/DPS

So I'm theorycrafting builds for 3.3, and I modified your pastebin to an Occultist version. Using Tri-Curse (Conductivity and Enfeeble blasphemy auras, with Ele Weakness on gloves), I would cause enemies to deal 53% less damage, have 50% reduce crit chance, 43% reduced base crit multi, and 68% reduced accuracy. Plus gain 61% lightning pen from conductivity and 41% from ele weakness.

Other changes are that I'd use Incandescent Heart for that effective 6% max ele resists. Now since it's using Blasphemy curses, the plan is to use new Charged Dash or the stock standard Reave/BF combo.

I know curses are drastically reduced in effectiveness vs bosses, but this quote from the Ignite Changes devblog may change things

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We would also like to look at the way curses work. Ultimately, we want to rebalance them entirely with a particular focus on their effectiveness against bosses - making them stronger against bosses while minimising the difference in their effectiveness against boss and non-boss enemies. Again, this is part of a much larger rework and not possible to do immediately but it's something that's on our radar.

I'm just not sure if this change will be shipped with 3.3 or not.

Anyways here's the pastebin:
https://pastebin.com/Fa0zCgHZ

Oh boy more movement here since my last visit :) I'll go through one at a time:

@sprawdzampoczte:
Your pastebin: https://pastebin.com/wqb2pJes
711k dps, 8739 ES

Same pastebin etc. but with my tree: https://pastebin.com/S5jy7Qtn
677k dps, 8966 ES.

I would say that your tree is around 2 points away to get my ES and mine is around 2 points away to get your dps, so in that respect, they both reach very similar (almost the same) output and same defenses.

However your tree does have much easier access to Vaal Pact and attack leech nodes, which is probably better for leveling. You do lose out a bit on projectile speed, so it might not be as great for clear but will probably end up with better dps on Slower Projectiles with Point Blank, since projectiles will start to turn around closer to you, meaning a bit more benefit from Point Blank. I practically almost always path through Ranger area when theorycrafting builds pathing to Vaal Pact so I didn't think about this possibility. I will add it to the guide. I'm not 100% sure about it since there is next to no life nodes nearby as a starter, so I'd have to level with it myself to get the general feel of it :)

@Eko13

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hard to understand everything since you started as a sion and i'm a ranger...tried to apply all your changes on pob but couldn't make it...i need to figure how to apply all these changes without losing too much on ES/DPS

Your character pastebin: https://pastebin.com/Y2tBsdNL
8693 ES + 547k dps

Changed tree, changed Clarity to level 1, changed Skyforth to a decent pair of boots: https://pastebin.com/mDNMm2UZ
10127 ES + 568k dps.

Since you can have good resistance rolls on rare boots you can get different jewels and get more ES or dps there :> Taking Influence node and dropping Clarity level will help with your mana reservation problems, as I assume you aren't running all those auras and herald at the same time.

@Impaired:
I was theorycrafting an Occultist HoWA build in Bestiary, but since I disliked the league so much I never go around to make it :) My idea was on using Fenumus chest and boots, and either Blade Flurry or Molten Strike. 10% less damage from Occultist, 10% less from chest, and around 7% from Enfeeble meant that with 8k ES you would have effectively around 11k ES (8000/0.73=10958), with decent damage as well. That idea died since Bestiary isn't going core (which I'm happy about since the league sucked but unfortunately I never got to play with the new items :D).


As a general rule I always compare builds while having Shaper/Guardian selected, since that is the only way to see how different curses and resistance penetration works against targets that we care about the most (bosses and other hard mobs).
It's also best to theorycraft for level 90, and maybe level 93-94 as end-game proof of concept.
I'd also leave Frenzy and Onslaught off if there is no way of getting them consistently on bosses (Onslaught is easy with a flask, Frenzy depends if boss has adds).
I'm a bit more familiar with Blade Flurry so that's what I'm going to default to as well :>

So, here's my interpretation of that pastebin (bit lower level, no charges etc): https://pastebin.com/HCPWJdP2
1.08 million dps, 10.4k ES (12.5k effectively including Enfeeble and Malediction).

Since we have so much Intelligence, Wrath isn't as good per mana reserved as additional curse with some Occultist's curse effectiveness, that is true and in my newest theorycraft (for Occultist) I dropped Wrath in favour of 1 Blasphemy curse and Purity of Elements. However, I don't think that spending 6 points on getting yet another +1 curse is really worth it in the end. You can run Herald of Thunder and spend those 5-6 points on getting Forces of Nature, for example. Or run Purity of X instead of Herald and have much easier time getting dps your gear/jewels, since you don't need as much res.

Here's my BF Occultist theorycraft: https://pastebin.com/2dW9bm8v
And Molten Strike Occultist theory: https://pastebin.com/G9FvY3Pu
I might make one of those next league and maybe post a guide if it's any good :)