[3.8] A CI/LL Tri-Curse Herald of Agony Occultist [Deathless Uber Elder, League Starter]

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Arkhandar wrote:

I saw this on Redit, what do you think of it ?

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Crawler focused build should still be fine since quill rain is used for stacks and not as a main damage source. Just make sure you out crawler in chest link in case the dmg reduction applies to slotted skills.

@ Arkhandar

I am pretty sure that the Quill Rain nerf of "40% less damage" is global and not local.

Otherwise, it would be silly : you wanted to play let's say Caustic Arrow with Quill Rain ? Then just socket Caustic Arrow in your chest and it's fine for damage !?!?

No, it has to be global, and again, this is just a "zero nerf" for us in this build.

Build is unchanged in 3.5 works as good as it did.

If i had to make some suggestions to diversify for diffrent scenarios and the way i am using this build this is my take on it:

For deep delves and dangerous mapping go for the original setup in RoA with Enfeeble - Temp chains - Proj weakness

For trash mapping swap Temp chains with Poachers mark. Frenzy charges on Crawler give a whopping 21% more damage pushing almost 1m Shaper dps up from 750k.

For single bosses without adds like guardians and shaper/elder/uelder swap temp chains for culling strike. Temp chains is ineffective against them and cull can push that final 10%..it Basically 10% more damage if you look at it.

Alternate movement skill Flame dash with faster casting if you find blink arrow's cd too restrictive

Phase run can be manually casted for faster mapping and getting out of cornered situations instead of autocast CWDT, you just leave CWDT lvl 1 and level Phase run so that it is no longer supported by it but still benefits from increased duration. Gem slots remain the same .

Secondary CWDT setup with spirit offering and desecrate. 11% more deeps for bossing and mapping.

Manual convocation for when your herald is stuck or needed in a diffrent position. You can put it in a CWDT setup as well if you are lazy.

Dont know if the new banner skills can be used.. Maybe if you invest on a helm enchant for HoA mana reservation you can squeeze it in for even more deeps, gotta wait for PoB to update skills to theorycraft on that.

I guess Im missing womething, but can the build kill Chimera and Hydra ? It feels like everything is based around poisoning :
- what about immune guardians ?
- how is it going in maps with bad rolls (related to poisons) ?

And at the same time, someone fought Aul with this build ?

thx for the answer ^^

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Thanarchy wrote:

I guess Im missing womething, but can the build kill Chimera and Hydra ? It feels like everything is based around poisoning :
- what about immune guardians ?
- how is it going in maps with bad rolls (related to poisons) ?

And at the same time, someone fought Aul with this build ?

thx for the answer ^^

Chimera and Hydra are a breeze no problems there they arent any diffrent than the rest of the guardians. there are no immune guardians only your curses lose their effectivenes.

Less chance to poison mod isnt anything bad, it just becomes a bit difficult to maintain full viru stacks on single boss dps, so you lose a bit of dps there but nothing to worry about, 20-30 viru stacks are enough dps to kill them. its like running a map with +unique boss monster life or temp chains.

I killed aul at 460 depth with 100 aoe mod and some other insignificant mod. Granted it took me a while to learn the fight but it was doable.

only dangerous mod is the -60 curse effectiveness in deep delves 400+, you should avoid that cause trash mobs hit hard and fast w/o your curses and sometimes not even 12k es can save you from taking 2 consecutive hard hits.

Seriously up to t15 you alch vaal and go and you dont even look at the mods you rolled.. Unid map dropped? No problem throw it on the device there is no way you find a map that you cant run.

As i said on a previous post only mod that has a minor inconvenience other than the annoying temp chains is the no mana regen where you have to be careful not to shoot blanks and deplete your mana, but even then you just autoattack once and you get you mana back thanks to Quill rain mana on hit.

Would this be a decent build to play in a group of 2 or 3 where we're not actually trying to min/max our comp? I'm assuming the tri-curse is great for that, and that the Profane Bloom explosion scale well with monster health increase while in a party?

What is the effect on elemental equilibrium in a party. Like if I have some ring giving me extra cold damage to attacks and thus reducing fire resistance (crawler with added fire gem), and then my party member is like a poets pen volatile dead fire damage caster.

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TeosMaoMao wrote:

For trash mapping swap Temp chains with Poachers mark. Frenzy charges on Crawler give a whopping 21% more damage pushing almost 1m Shaper dps up from 750k.

@ TeosMaoMao

Yeah, I have thought of this option too ("Poacher's Mark"). But one of my friends has actually tested and in practical, it is not that great : the Herald of Agony Crawler unsummons itself sometimes (with lack of Virulence charges), and therefore loose all Frenzy charges.
So he said that in the end, he still preferred to run "Temporal Chains" to avoid some random one-shots sometimes in high tier maps.

For single bosses, I also agree that Temporal Chains is nearly useless. But personaly, I do not slot "Culling Strike" instead, I slot "Lesser Poison" support gem to get the remaining 20% chance to poison. I find it better to be at high virulence charges so that the Crawler has its maximum DPS all the time. But Culling Strike works as well, that's for sure.

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Zumulus wrote:

Would this be a decent build to play in a group of 2 or 3 where we're not actually trying to min/max our comp? I'm assuming the tri-curse is great for that, and that the Profane Bloom explosion scale well with monster health increase while in a party?

@ Zumulus

Yes, it is definitely a decent build for being an active and damaging "curse bot", thanks to Herald of Agony doing a huge amount of DPS by itself and thanks to our empowered 3 curses.

Unfortunately, the Profane Bloom explosion does not scale with the monster health increase with party members. It only considers the health of a mob in solo.
In fact, it's the same for every "corpse explosion" mechanic in PoE : it does not scale with a higher number of party members.

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bonewall wrote:

What is the effect on elemental equilibrium in a party. Like if I have some ring giving me extra cold damage to attacks and thus reducing fire resistance (crawler with added fire gem), and then my party member is like a poets pen volatile dead fire damage caster.

@ bonewall

As long as only YOU have taken "Elemental Equilibrium" in your passive tree, then only the damage YOU do will change the resistances of monsters.

So your friend Poet's Pen Volatile Dead damage caster will actually benefit of the lessened fire resistance of monsters, thanks to you having "Elemental Equilibrium" and doing cold damage !!

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El_Pakito wrote:

Yes, it is definitely a decent build for being an active and damaging "curse bot", thanks to Herald of Agony doing a huge amount of DPS by itself and thanks to our empowered 3 curses.

Unfortunately, the Profane Bloom explosion does not scale with the monster health increase with party members. It only considers the health of a mob in solo.
In fact, it's the same for every "corpse explosion" mechanic in PoE : it does not scale with a higher number of party members.

Thanks.

I am thinking to use this build as a starter in the upcoming league, but I have one doubt that leveling with es gear can be pain in the ass (especially in a new league). Ofc, that is just an assumption, so I would like to learn if it is actually not a great problem or get an advice such as "yeah it is slow at the start of league". Otherwise, build seems really solid, cost efficient, it can also handle all content and being able to do almost all map modes is a bless. Thus, I want to thank the build creator, and wish all to have a blast in the league.