[3.21] Vatinas' Spiders + HoP Guardian - CI, 70K armour, 1400 ES on block, millions of DPS

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gergmt wrote:

So i have been using animate guardian for the past day, did shaper, elder and simulacrum and he didn't die, however when spirit offering wasn't up he got hit for half his hp (he regenerated it back completely in less than a second tho) in simulacrum wave 19.

Gear that i'm using on him:
Weapon: Kingmaker (perma fortify+culling strike for all allies nearby, he will stay nearby because of meat shield support)
Helmet: Mask of the stitched demon (10% max hp regen/second for the guardian)
Armour: Grutkhul's pelt (lot of HP and 5% max hp regen/second)
Gloves: Southbound (16% increased maximum life)
Boots: Kaom's roots (lot of HP)

Links:
Animate Guardian(20/20) - Minion Life(20/20) - Meat Shield(20/20)

In passive tree i allocated grave intentions, it's only 5 point away and i think it's a must have. For the 5 points i unallocated ravenous horde until the small node north of arcane will.

I think adding elemental army support as a 4th link would make him unkillable even without spirit offering, but currently i dont have an empty socket for that.

If you are not min-maxing your build i don't think it's worth the investment, but it's definitely a damage upgrade.

I'm sorry, I forgot to answer you in my previous message (and I don't want to edit it much further, it's already long enough as it is)!

I'm usually a huge fan of Animate Guardian, but I have to say I'm still not convinced it's such a good idea here. The items you used are really good, I would have used the same; but due to the fact that the only "support" item the guardian uses is Kingmaker, that means the only buffs it grants nearby allies is Fortify (which we would already have otherwise, and which other minions don't need since spiders and HoA are invincible and HoP sentinels have their life regularly refreshed), Culling Strike (which we would already have otherwise), crit multi (which doesn't really benefit minions) and item rarity (which is useless).

Also, remember that we are frequently very mobile, and that while I assume our AG will be quick as well, he will probably not be near us 100% of the time, even with Meat Shield, and one moment of not having Fortify could mean death in some situations. Plus the range of the aura of Kingmaker was heavily nerfed; see this reddit post to get an idea of it.

In a nutshell, I feel like AG is just taking the benefits we have permanently (Fortify & Culling Strike) and making them depend on a mortal minion that might not be always near us and will cost money to gear up, so it doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I'm sorry, I don't mean to completely break your plans, it was a really nice idea that was definitely worth experimenting with, but I don't think it turns out well. Thanks a lot for going through the trouble of trying it out though! :)

Quick questions Vatinas

1.) On the POB the tree you have listed says lv 93. I, too am level 93 but I seem to be short a passive point somewhere!

I'm pretty sure I checked everywhere, am I going crazy and it is somewhere to be found (and I have to look closer in my tree!) or is your tree for lv 94?

2.) What is the use of Spirit Offering? We spam it around from time to time?


Thanks!

1. Is there a big single target difference between HoP and HoAg? I just switched to using HoP and I find it somewhat a little better in boss fights but a lot worse when clearing.

2. I know that spiders is our main damage dealer but on T13, I feel kinda weak on rare bosses. It felt slow to kill but I guess this is the price to pay for being so tanky. (I only died at least 3x due to being an idiot :D)

3. Is there a way to push more damage for the heralds?

4. Lastly, any tips regarding spawning Spiders on bosses? Spawning them before bosses is easy thanks to culling strike.



Thanks again for this build. I wanna complete as much challenges I can with this character.

I just beat my first Sirus at A4, 1 death, which is an avoidable silly mistake as I stood underneath him while he is launching the doom sphere. I ran out of worms (bought 2 jars) during the last phase and had to make do with 5 sentinels. Took me a while for the sentinels to chip down Sirus's health. But my char took the (thrill of the) void beams like a champ. So tanky!

Fast question. What budget i need to start play this build comfortable? :)

what watchers eye would you guys suggest?

Someone plays on HoA?, becouse everyone plays on HoP, I just have very little damage on HoA, t15 very low damage, what a problem? (sry, iam russian)

unsuccessful build selection (, against the a4 sirus, I was completely powerless, delete the character

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DefBeat wrote:

unsuccessful build selection (, against the a4 sirus, I was completely powerless, delete the character

I did A4 sirus for the first time ever yesterday and I felt like it's one of the better builds to do him. Facetanked most of the things except the one-shot meteor and the chaos ball in between phases (obv :P). Spell echoed beam hurt but did not kill me.

Also did Simulacrum all 20 levels with Kosis and 3 bosses in total, and destroy all tier 16 map bosses.

The only thing that I failed is Uber Atziri but I feel like it's my mistake, the split phase kills me everytime but everything else is a breeze.

Even with HoA instead of HoP, I feel that the build relies on spiders and defense mechanisms mostly for end-game bosses.

Have you updated your build from the new POB provided by the creator?

Can you link your gear?

5800 ES, 4200 mana why so few?