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

Blank

It's way more stress free having life on hit.
Actually thinking of gloves with Poison and Faster attack.

Playing the Build and having a blast, doing tier 15, 16 on a 5-link. Will try to get sm loh/ elder rings in for bossing.

build is pretty good, but in the new boss fights with all the AOE and on metamorps with juicy map mods the zombies tend to die. do you have the same problem? is there a way to make them tankier? also i think you really need some LOH and vaal molten shell (which i pop on those bosses and also profits from +6 levels from cold iron point daggers) until a certain point.

I switched to 6 link cyclone via faster attacks and poison on gloves and it does feel better. I'm able to use withering touch so I believe I do more damage than with the Tombfists. I lose enfeeble on hit so that is a bummer. I added enfeeble to my CWDT setup so I'll see how that works out. I do feel the survivability has been better with the life on hit gem, especially on no/low regen maps.

I did have to enchant 2x -3 to channeling and still my cyclone costs 1 so I have to swap in an enduring mana flask for no regen maps but that's not a huge cost.

I'll keep trying it out and then probably swap back to Tombfists to see how that feels. I was leveling and doing a bit higher level maps than I should have earlier so I was struggling a bit with bosses and metamorphs bursting me down. Playing a bit more mindful and utilizing the bone armor a bit better has helped a lot.

I did find my zombies getting low and occasionally dying so I annointed sacrifice on my amulet. I just did that but it does seem to be helping and its a LOT cheaper than Golem's blood. I'm at almost 6.4k life right now using a circle of nostalgia at lvl 87 so I'm assuming 7k life by 93 or so should be pretty easy, maybe 1 or 2 gear upgrades.

Fun build and I absolutely love the speed

I'm wondering, has anyone killed sirius with this build?

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sknabi wrote:

hey codetaku
I just hit lvl 62, and was able to purchase the double iron points and a coming calamity.
do you think you can link an early skill gem setup that is viable for a 4link, so I can start mapping?

Thank you very much, I am very excited to try this build!

Minion Damage + Damage on Full Life + Death Mark (+ herald of agony)

Chain is really nice quality of life for later mapping but it's not mandatory.

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gelade11 wrote:

Does this build benefit from getting 2 carnage chieftain(frenzy charge)? It's a huge dps boost for skele but am not sure about this.

I mean, obviously they'd help a bit, but we already get a ton of minion attack speed from the gem itself, which other minions don't get, so it's less of a big deal. And because we don't stack minion life, spectres die too easily. Not worth IMO but bleeding-edge dps with low quality of life would use those particular spectres, yes.

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Oarin wrote:

How this build perform in 3.9? Isn't it too squishy for fighting bosses in yellow+ maps? Im a little bit afraid about need of melee range to boss for cyclone.

I already edited my original post, but the tl;dr is that the build wasn't nerfed. Someone messaged me about how they were already doing red maps on a 5-link, and the only thing they complained about was that their 5-link with Chain wasn't high enough single-target for metamorphs and they didn't want to bother gem swapping every map. A legitimate complaint, but ultimately first world problem. (also they didn't hit gem level 31 yet, which is INCREDIBLY important, a massive dps jump for the reasons I've explained in the post)

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Morkonan wrote:

While the various "Baron Builds" are the most popular Necro/Wtich builds at the moment, this may be worth trolling in order to see what all the "cool kids" on PC are doing with this particular build:

https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds?class=Necromancer&skill=Herald-of-Agony

Still working on this build through the story, not into mapping yet. Zombies, at my low level, are pretty darn squishy compared to how they've been in previous leagues. May have to consider that when I get deep into the Atlas. (Minion resists, hp, speed AND +Poison jewels? :))

Yeah, unfortunately, Necro leveling was de-trivialized this patch and I don't plan to add a new leveling section because I'm not playing the build. Sorry.

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StkEntKhan wrote:

Playing the Build and having a blast, doing tier 15, 16 on a 5-link. Will try to get sm loh/ elder rings in for bossing.

Glad you're having fun! My new build this league is utter trash (not making a build guide for it, lol) so I'm glad my previous one is still holding up well.

Hi Codetaku! Your build post is amazing! I plan on making my own HoAG build guide (probably juggernaut) and would like to quote some of the points you made and expand them. It will not be a copy effort as I will be running an entire different class. May I be allowed to quote your post and credit you?

Yes, absolutely you can quote whatever you want with credit :)

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codetaku wrote:

...
Yeah, unfortunately, Necro leveling was de-trivialized this patch and I don't plan to add a new leveling section because I'm not playing the build. Sorry....

I don't need a leveling guide, but some new players might. They're always useful, though - They can give even veteran players a different perspective.

Necro leveling doesn't seem too problematic right now, but I'm not mapping yet. Zombie health/survivability isn't too much of a problem about halfway through the main campaign with appropriate levels. Before then, when it really doesn't matter too much, they can be a bit squishy. That's especially true with this League's mechanics... mutant-obomination-whatsits dips are pretty bursty and their ground-spawn/add crap can be nasty. But, nobody cares about the campaign, anyway. :)

I'm leveling on a skeleton/zombie combo backed up by five-link arc and a bunch of other crap I don't need... :) I use the leveling time in-game to play around with other abilities until I get to a particular build's starting point where gear/abilities/ascendancies are ready. I'm still trying to get craft at least a five-link Calamity, but I should be able to get something going in the next day or so. (I am one of the unwashed masses of XBox PoE players...) Sure, a four-link would be fine, but... And, that does raise a question that might be helpful:

Question: Would running a five-link off-chest instead of at least a four-link Calamity be fine for low-level mapping? (ie: For low maps, take advantage of the stat and link benefits if needed? Tabula or no?)

Edit: Answered by myself - Will run fine with nothing but weaps, 4Link calamity chest, and basic ascendencies/passives in low-level maps. Don't charge that big Breach Pack though...

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Question: Would running a five-link off-chest instead of at least a four-link Calamity be fine for low-level mapping? (ie: For low maps, take advantage of the stat and link benefits if needed? Tabula or no?)

Yes, 4L calamity is OK maps but I quickly found my clear speed unsatisfactory without chain. I'm still waiting on some currency to upgrade to 5 link (or skip to 6link) Calamity.

Rather than make chain one of my 4L my economy-setup is I dropped Hatred and bought a corrupted 6L chest (and Cold Iron Points before of course) dedicated to HoAg (95% reservation without calamity unique mod) just to get chain dense packs in maps. 30c corrupted chest was totally worth it for my clear speed. Metamorphs are ez mode too, I'm starting to feel the need for am upgrade as I get closer to red maps.


P.S. Thanks for the great build idea/guide codetaku. Really digging it.