[3.9] Cyclone Summoner - Heralds of Agony and Purity, Summon Holy Relic - League starter

currently leveling some 20% gems but that is where I am at now, I am going to replace the gems in my Boots.

Currently I am thinking Tempest Shield, Blind or Withering Touch, Curse on Hit and either Poacher's Mark, Temporal Chains or Projectile Weakness. This could free up blind on cyclone for withering touch or another support but I might wait until I can get a claw with chance to blind since minions and block might not do enough for packs.

Currently lvl 89 on Hardcore. Just an update, I couldn't stand using Lioneye's Remorse and no Coming Calamity for chest. The HP was great was almost 9k but the damage was absolute garbage. As soon as I got the ES on hit Watcher's Eye I went back to Coming Calamity and Essence Worm, also got a Bisco's Leash Belt. Down to 6.5k hp now but with the ES on hit Watcher's Eye still seems very tanky.

Maybe someone can gimme some hints about some gems?

- Summon Holy Relic: The gem itself says nothing about dmg only something about an nova ... is it really worth to use minion damage linked to it?
- Herald of Agony/Herald of Purity: While i am leveling, which is more important = which gives me more damage? So which one to link first if i have to choose?

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Mydgard6 wrote:

Maybe someone can gimme some hints about some gems?

- Summon Holy Relic: The gem itself says nothing about dmg only something about an nova ... is it really worth to use minion damage linked to it?
- Herald of Agony/Herald of Purity: While i am leveling, which is more important = which gives me more damage? So which one to link first if i have to choose?

The nova does damage (I have a video in the playlist which is clearing a t16 with just Holy Relics). Prioritise Herald of Agony.

Great guide! despite me not being a fan of doing Templar on an Agony build, this one's well written and I'd recommend for new players to at least try out!

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systemplayerlost wrote:

I would not recommend starting a league with the Occultist options unless you plan a tree to start as life or hybrid then transition to CI and/or LL as the items are simply too expensive/rare to rely on having access to for your first character.

As someone who's a big fan of Agony Crawler, I'd have to strongly disagree with this statement. And please don't take this the wrong way (your guide is great), but Occultist is by far the best ascendancy to start with for an Agony build because of the free access to life-based damage scaling (Profane Bloom) which allows you to run literally any map tier without worrying about lacking in dps and free triple curse and Enhanced Curse effects which allows a higher flexibility very early on in the league / when you're short on currency; lack in damage? put in Vuln/Despair? everything hurts a lot? put in TC/Enfeeble.

I'd even go as far as saying that Occultist Agony Summoner as being one of the best league starter build, period. Since early on, you only need a +2 to minion gems helmet and a claw (mortem morsu is a decent choice), that's it, you don't even need tabula. I literally farmed red maps using nothing more than 4L first day this league with an occultist.

I'll elaborate why and how below in the hope that it (may) contribute (or not) to this guide, and since you asked for one.

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systemplayerlost wrote:

If you make one of these build options, please post a reply with a link to your character or PoB with your progress (or PM me)!


This guide is a work in progress. Please comment any questions you may have!

This is what I used to farm red maps first two to three days in the league, killed all guardians with it, elders and shaper, even carried along a few people just fine. I could've even gone for full MF route without losing any clear speed / dps if I wanted, but I farmed enough to make my next build so I didn't bother.



Minus the ring (I got one on the third day I believe), I started with +2 to socketed minion gem helmet and gone straight through red maps, skipping farming / buying a tabula (it's completely unnecessary). As you can see, it's dirt cheap, no expensive uniques necessary, nothing will cost you anything more than a few chaos very early on in the league.

This is the build tree that I made for league starter purposes (which I share internally with my guild), since it's about the cheapest build I could think of that can go straight to shaper farming without much investment, might be useful to you or someone idk : https://pastebin.com/uJTugrjs

The key here (for me at least), is the use of Static Strike + Chain + Poison to help with stacks. I've never been a fan of Cyclone for Virulence stacking purposes because of the movement speed penalty and animation locking, and I can stack both Lgoh hits with Static Strike and Molten Strike / Cyclone procs if necessary. And being an Occultist, I can make use of Poacher's Mark for frenzy generation, and other curses as need be.

Hope this is helpful in some way, and thanks for sharing the guide!

I have done up to t16 elder maps with thhis build...i actually got my self a 3 helm with minion life and minion damage!! the thing is that why no multistrike on heral of purity for crusade slam spam? and why not added fire on herald of agony

Ty a lot for the build tho.

Actually got myself (together with Uberness, who suggested it on page 35 of this thread) the most disgusting claw ever for this build.

With this, you run Haste to make up for the lost attack speed and you can run an offering spell with a CWDT setup in your boots. Also you can perma run Withering Touch in your gloves :D. It's amazing.

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Klausdawg wrote:

Really liking this build! Figured I would give an update of my progress again for anyone worried about the power of this build. Hit 91 last night and started unlocking t15 and one guardian map. Current gear progress is at least passable life in all slots and 6L chest. Gems hit 20, releveling them with quality except for HoA.

All content right now is a breeze. Damage and defense are both really good. All t15 bosses so far have been not only doable, but easy. Pit of the Chimera fight was trivial. Clearspeed is very solid, I can pretty much just hit onslaught flask/quicksilver and twirl through the map killing as I go even in t15s.

A++ so far. Alas, work calls.

Great build!

Doing T16 Guardians the first three were very easy. Phoenix Guardian keeps wiping me out with his fire blast thing. I'm a retired old fart and my reflexes aren't as good as they used to be. It seems to work best to stay far away from the guardian but at the beginning of the fight there aren't enough of the fire bird phoenixes running around to get the Agony Crawler charged up. The Holy Relics keep dying also. Any tips would be much appreciated (a video of a kill with this build might also help?)



Note when trying Phoenix I've tried using Ruby Flasks but they don't seem to help much?

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Turtledove wrote:

Great build!

Doing T16 Guardians the first three were very easy. Phoenix Guardian keeps wiping me out with his fire blast thing. I'm a retired old fart and my reflexes aren't as good as they used to be. It seems to work best to stay far away from the guardian but at the beginning of the fight there aren't enough of the fire bird phoenixes running around to get the Agony Crawler charged up. The Holy Relics keep dying also. Any tips would be much appreciated (a video of a kill with this build might also help?)

Phoenix is one of those fights where you don't end up resummoning Relics much. My best advice for doing the fight is to use Cyclone on Phoenix with your mouse cursor directly on top of yourself, as this shortens the animation lock, then shield charge away as soon as you see the charge up animation. This is really the only way to do the fight.

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systemplayerlost wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

Great build!

Doing T16 Guardians the first three were very easy. Phoenix Guardian keeps wiping me out with his fire blast thing. I'm a retired old fart and my reflexes aren't as good as they used to be. It seems to work best to stay far away from the guardian but at the beginning of the fight there aren't enough of the fire bird phoenixes running around to get the Agony Crawler charged up. The Holy Relics keep dying also. Any tips would be much appreciated (a video of a kill with this build might also help?)

Phoenix is one of those fights where you don't end up resummoning Relics much. My best advice for doing the fight is to use Cyclone on Phoenix with your mouse cursor directly on top of yourself, as this shortens the animation lock, then shield charge away as soon as you see the charge up animation. This is really the only way to do the fight.

Thank you!!!