[3.9] Herald of Agony (Melee!) Necro--Get in Monsters' Faces Safely (5M Shaper DPS/8.4kLife+Fortify)

I wonder if astramentis is better than your average amu in this build. At least that way you don't really have to worry about dex or any of that stuff.

Yeah, like people are saying, the disappearance of the shaper is your chance to prepare to frostblink away the instant you see him reappear (it's actually quite a long delay from reappearance to slam). Though if you stack enough movespeed, you don't have to frostblink because you can just run away from where he appears before the slam finishes ;)

Also if you want to use Maw of Conquest, you should deallocate your Berserking cluster and just take Soul of Steel now for more tankiness. You don't need attack speed anymore if you're using poison reflection.

When I said earlier that I can tank single shaper slams in the uber elder fight, I specified the uber elder fight because shaper slams in the uber elder fight deal less damage than in the shaper fight. It's like 10k raw damage vs 17k raw damage (presumably they tuned it this way because they realize that it's WAY harder to avoid everything in the uber elder fight than the shaper fight). So my 25% flat physical damage reduction vs uber elder (2 nearby enemies with soul of lunaris--you can swap to soul of solaris during the shaper fight if you want but you still can't facetank his slams in that fight without like 55% physical damage reduction, which we can't get even with a basalt flask and a third endurance charge--we cap out at 48%).

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I wonder if astramentis is better than your average amu in this build. At least that way you don't really have to worry about dex or any of that stuff.

It's not even close (just t1 life + minimum endurance charge blows astramentis out of the water, but the fact that you can also get other resists and dex and stuff makes it Not Close), but you can do whatever you want with your own build.

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codetaku wrote:

Yeah, like people are saying, the disappearance of the shaper is your chance to prepare to frostblink away the instant you see him reappear (it's actually quite a long delay from reappearance to slam). Though if you stack enough movespeed, you don't have to frostblink because you can just run away from where he appears before the slam finishes ;)

Also if you want to use Maw of Conquest, you should deallocate your Berserking cluster and just take Soul of Steel now for more tankiness. You don't need attack speed anymore if you're using poison reflection.

Yea, I wasn't sure on the whole teleport thing. I kept trying to bounce around the room, but I'd get instantly pooched. This was my second time doing Shaper, so I was still learning. I have all the Guardian Maps on hand, so I'll redo those again.

Duly noted. I'll take those nodes instead then.

Otherwise, my gear feels solid. Only thing missing was the Golem's Blood on the amulet, but Golden Oil is too expensive for me right now. Otherwise, 6k life and resists are all maxed out.

As for the mana issues I use a jewel with 2 mana gained for each enemy hit by your attacks. So even against a single boos without minions cyclone is cheap to not run out of mana.

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OE_Fighter wrote:

As for the mana issues I use a jewel with 2 mana gained for each enemy hit by your attacks. So even against a single boos without minions cyclone is cheap to not run out of mana.

With that enchant, I had a big difference in being able to continuously Cyclone. I don't run out of mana, ever.

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Westwood1121 wrote:

Yea, I wasn't sure on the whole teleport thing. I kept trying to bounce around the room, but I'd get instantly pooched. This was my second time doing Shaper, so I was still learning. I have all the Guardian Maps on hand, so I'll redo those again.

Duly noted. I'll take those nodes instead then.

Otherwise, my gear feels solid. Only thing missing was the Golem's Blood on the amulet, but Golden Oil is too expensive for me right now. Otherwise, 6k life and resists are all maxed out.

Oh, hmm, I thought with your gear you'd have 7k by level 90.... At level 97, I'm at 8k even with Devoto's.

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OE_Fighter wrote:

As for the mana issues I use a jewel with 2 mana gained for each enemy hit by your attacks. So even against a single boos without minions cyclone is cheap to not run out of mana.

Sure, mana gained on hit is absolutely fair, you just have to watch out for not cycloning through air, as any time you run out of mana, you stop cycloning for a split second and are vulnerable to a stunlock into an instant kill (cyclone is still stun immune even now that it's a channelling skill).

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codetaku wrote:

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Westwood1121 wrote:

Yea, I wasn't sure on the whole teleport thing. I kept trying to bounce around the room, but I'd get instantly pooched. This was my second time doing Shaper, so I was still learning. I have all the Guardian Maps on hand, so I'll redo those again.

Duly noted. I'll take those nodes instead then.

Otherwise, my gear feels solid. Only thing missing was the Golem's Blood on the amulet, but Golden Oil is too expensive for me right now. Otherwise, 6k life and resists are all maxed out.

Oh, hmm, I thought with your gear you'd have 7k by level 90.... At level 97, I'm at 8k even with Devoto's.

Hrm. I'm at 6k. I did have to pull two 5% life nodes for the Dex. Going to keep an eye out for some Dex gear. Also the Golem's Blood Anointment when I get the funds to do so.

Interesting read, thank you for the detailed description.

I used a similar build for league start, but with Dominating Blow and Herald of Purity. Shield Charge for endurance and quicker delves and clearing.

Did catch a few things that I will play around with, out of your guide. Appreciate your time and effort put in to this..

Kind of funny, but something actually worked in my favor.

I was three dex short of not needing both Dex nodes. I was going to buy a ring for 30C, but got the bright idea of looking over my jewels. I only needed 3 dex. I messaged a bunch of people with poison/dex jewels with no response. Popped a jewel in the stash, 5% to poison with 8% attack speed. Laughed. "Wouldn't it be funny if I regal'd dex?"

Boom.

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Marinxar wrote:

Interesting read, thank you for the detailed description.

I used a similar build for league start, but with Dominating Blow and Herald of Purity. Shield Charge for endurance and quicker delves and clearing.

Did catch a few things that I will play around with, out of your guide. Appreciate your time and effort put in to this..

Glad to be of service, and I hope the tricks work out for you! The feedback here has also been helpful for me~ The community has some very creative ideas!

Anyway, reporting in that I finally got this upgrade....

The base was cheap (I got it corrupted for 50c! Most people are selling for 2ex+ even without 6 sockets), then after fiiiinally getting the 6L recipe thanks to a kind redditor at https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/dci4s5/offering_free_6l_recipe_in_my_mine_again_bsc/?st=k19wzryp&sh=6b0bffa8 I got the 6L recipe (I've been delving for a while with no primeval ruins), I already had the currency lying around (I had the fusings and jewellers raw, had to buy the vaal orbs with exalts but it only cost 4ex to get them all), I was able to 6L it myself with the crafting bench!

So yeah. Fun little dps boost. This took my PoB to 5 million.