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

Sitting out a few leagues but still messing around in standard from time to time and wanted to give this a shot with HoP after alot of HoA in the past. Feel like I am missing something because the survivability is 100% there but with 20 spiders, 4 HoP, using the buffs actively, I just dont feel like the damage is happening. Anyone notice where I might have missed something in setup or gear?

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Sedorian wrote:

Sitting out a few leagues but still messing around in standard from time to time and wanted to give this a shot with HoP after alot of HoA in the past. Feel like I am missing something because the survivability is 100% there but with 20 spiders, 4 HoP, using the buffs actively, I just dont feel like the damage is happening. Anyone notice where I might have missed something in setup or gear?

I don't see anything missing from your gear. Assuming your tree is set up the same as the PoB, I would bet it is a playstyle thing. Not saying you are doing it wrong, just that the...damage progression...is a bit different.

That's the biggest difference I have noticed so far between the two. A close second differences is the massive increase in survivability with CI.

Anyway, eventually I will type up a post comparing the two from a playstyle point of view instead of just looking at the PoB, but in the meantime:

One of the largest advantages I think HoA has is that you don't actually have to kill anything to summon the agony crawler. Simply inflicting poison stacks gets it up and running.

HoP, on the other hand, requires you to kill something before any Sentinels spawn; and I don't think that Worms do the trick. This makes me a bit nervous for fights without adds, like Sirus.

So I think that what this means, is that during normal play, the initial damage output is lower for HoP because it takes longer to get 4 sentinels spawned than it does a single agony crawler.

Other than that, there is certainly more "work" involved with getting the most damage out of the HoP version. Making sure that you have Rallying Cry and Spirit Offering up as much as possible is more of a chore than just the standard HoA style where you just spin to stack virulence and then face tank anything that does not melt right away.

TL;DR: All other things being equal, the DPS from HoP is higher than that from HoA. There is no question. I think the way the builds play out are just different enough to feel like it isn't as much because it takes longer to ramp up.

Just to clarify one thing, it's true that HoP sentinels spawn on kill, but they also have a 20% chance to spawn on hit against unique enemies, so they're just as easy to summon versus boss fights without adds. :)

"Cast when Damage Taken Support" does not support "Tempest Shield".

Hi, gonna try your build !

I know it's not necessary but, what cool unique would you recommand to get while leveling ? Thanks

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griba wrote:

"Cast when Damage Taken Support" does not support "Tempest Shield".

That might come from the fact that your Tempest Shield is too high level, leave it at level 1 and see if it works better. :)

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Maldice wrote:

Hi, gonna try your build !

I know it's not necessary but, what cool unique would you recommand to get while leveling ? Thanks

I'm glad to hear that! :)

Crown of Thorns is a good lvl 1 helmet that grants a lot of ES, Sihebreath is a good minion amulet, and random unique boots with movement speed, like Wanderlust, are always nice to have. :) Also, if you have the currency for it, Tabula is always a godsend, and, if you have a bit more currency, you can look for Skin of the Loyal with at least 5 correct colours. Good luck!

Thanks a lot !

While i'm at it, i'm not sure what weapons i should look for before getting Arakaali's dagger, any idea ?

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Maldice wrote:

Thanks a lot !

While i'm at it, i'm not sure what weapons i should look for before getting Arakaali's dagger, any idea ?

There's no really good unique before the Fang, so I recommend picking up sceptres and using the Garden to roll them with physical damage (attack speed is also useful before you drop Dominating Blow). The physical damage is used to scale Rallying Cry. :)

Was curious if anyone has been running a mapping version of this while they scale up to the BiS items in POB...in harvest League?

Would be super helpful for me, and greatly appreciated.

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Vatinas wrote:

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Maldice wrote:

Thanks a lot !

While i'm at it, i'm not sure what weapons i should look for before getting Arakaali's dagger, any idea ?

There's no really good unique before the Fang, so I recommend picking up sceptres and using the Garden to roll them with physical damage (attack speed is also useful before you drop Dominating Blow). The physical damage is used to scale Rallying Cry. :)

Thank you a lot !