[3.8] Corrupted Soul Hierophant - 13k+ EHP Tank and Big AoE (Uber Elder Down)

Disclaimer
This is not my build guide, I'm just sharing the build and trying my best to translate it because I found the build is quite interesting to give it a try for myself.
The original build guide: https://forum.gamer.com.tw/Co.php?bsn=18966&sn=521034
I have made some slight changes to fit my own play style, but do not worry I have covered them in as much details as I can.
I have add some extra points as I feel they can fit into this guide after playing it for a few days.

Prologue
This is a simple build yet can be very complicated in terms of mechanic, functionality and gear requirement.
This build offers high Mana, ES and EHP and still doing reasonable damage for endgame contents.
In simple words to describe it: CWC Shock Nova Hierophant (with Corrupted Soul)
This build is sincerely complicated to play with, so I'm not recommending it for any beginner/newbie that is new to PoE.

Video
Uber Elder: https://youtu.be/VSO0qF40QT8
T16 Chimera: https://youtu.be/3TqsyZUbrms
T16 Hydra: https://youtu.be/tID3m4qCi1I
T15 Mapping: https://youtu.be/w95ixvBLQmE

Pros
Tanky because damage taken are distributed evenly among Life, ES and Mana at the same time. Have up to 13k EHP or more.
Immune to Elemental Ailments & high sustain of EHP.
Good enough DPS for endgame contents.
Big AoE
Eye Cancer skill effects

Cons
Require some basic player skills to make it work
Cannot be played as league starter
Cannot do elemental reflect
The ceiling of DPS upgrade is rather limited, estimated only a million?

Build Mechanics
Hierophant ascendancy now offers high energy shield granted from huge mana pool and huge AoE increment to skills the more unreserved mana you have, then paired with Mind over Matter Keystone to allow further damage mitigation.
Survivability is accomplished, but where's the DPS?
By using Indigon unique helmet, every 200 mana spent recently gives 25% increased spell damage can be huge DPS bringer here.

Character Gears & Explanations


Weapon

Mjölner is compulsory for this build, it is great when paired with cast while channeling setup to trigger spells. The STR and INT requirements will be explained on the amulet selection.

Shield

Rare INT Shield, "+1 to Level of All Lightning Spell Skill Gems" is the best prefix to have, the rest just fill up life and resist. Flat mana and mana regen are nice to have here if you can get any.
I can't get any shield that is decent/close enough to the original guide from poe.trade, so I crafted one for myself instead. You can target spam alterations to get the +1 easily on low item level INT shields (for example item level 2 or 3) , since this mod level requirement is level 1 only.
For unique shields, you can also consider Saffell's Frame or Perepiteia.

Body Armour

Cloak of Defiance is always a solid choice to get high mana pool and mana regen, the allocated Mind over Matter keystone free up a skill point is pretty handy too.

Helm

Indigon is a must here! Spending huge mana grants huge DPS increase. With close to 5k mana unreserved, spending that much of mana within 4s grants up to 625% increased spell damage. Although in realistic it still depending on your maximum mana to allow it to be that close enough.

Boots

March of the Legion is a must. This unique boot is very underused somehow yet it has cool function that everyone feels it is too clunky to pull it off for normal builds.
The Blessing allow you to reserve an aura for 0.35 second and then turn it into a buff for 11.4 seconds. It can supported by Increased Duration support to make it last longer which is close to 20s.
So every time you reserve that much of mana (close to 5k), you gain that much of increased spell damage (625%) for 4s from Indigon effect. With enough mana recovery speed, you can alternate between 2-3 auras whenever you needed and they will last for roughly 20s each as buffs.
This build is using Zealotry and Wrath auras activation on boots, however is can be different depending on the type of watcher's eye mod you have.
For selfcast builds, player will face the mana issue after reserving that much of mana and not regaining back mana fast enough to start another spell cast because the next cast will need more than 800 mana (roughly). However with Cyclone CWC spell trigger, only 30 mana is required thus ignoring mana issue.

Gloves

Shaper's Touch is used here, since Mjölner has very high STR requirement therefore this gloves also give good amount of flat mana and extra ES.
Corrupted implicit of Elemental Weakness is highly recommended to have here if you want easier time to tackle down harder contents.

Amulet

Atziri's Foible reduced the stat requirements for Mjölner, make gearing much easier. It also gives huge mana pool and mana regen.

Rings

Life, resists, mana and mana regen first, after that either accuracy, str or dex are nice to have if you can get them. Lastly an open suffix to craft + 1 minimum frenzy charge.

Belt

Shaped Heavy Belt is the best to have, because the build needs a lot of STR for Mjölner.
It will be great to have both increased mana recovery rate and ES recovery rate. The rest is getting as much life, resists and mana as you can.

Jewels

2x Might of the Meek for extra STR, life, mana and resists. The allocations are shown in the passive skill tree near the Scion life wheel.
Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel (Doryani), this is a must as it defines the build itself for distributing damage taken evenly across life, ES and mana. By building up some high sustain on life, ES and mana this build is absolutely tanky and high sustain. It is allocated in near the Pain Attunement keystone.
3x Grand Spectrum (Cobalt Jewel) that gain mana, 3 of them grant a lot of mana to push the unreserved mana as close as 5k or even more.
Watcher's eye, now this one is a little selective on certain mods but it can be slightly flexible depending on the availability of the trade market. For clarity you want increased mana recovery rate ideally, but damage taken from mana before life or chance to gain mana are the alternatives. For Discipline, you want ES gain on hit ideally, ES regen or recovery rate are good as well. Last mod can be any.

Flasks

Eternal Life Flask: Increased recovery rate and remove burning for bad situation when you want stop the RF degen.
Enduring Mana Flask: This is the main sustain of your RF life degen, any amount of mana recovered during flask effect is recovering as life when using Indigon. Enduring prefix allow the mana recovery not being removed during flask effect even if your mana is full.
Adrenaline Quicksilver: Movement speed, that's it.
At least one flask to remove bleed, it can be any.
Last flask is flexible, up to personal choice.

Anointment
Soul Raker (to increased leech rate from spell leech)
However this is fairly optional depending on yourself, for example I anoint Utmost Might because I'm lacking a lot of STR in order to use the Mjölner.

Ascendancy: Hierophant


Passive Skill Tree
Lv92 PoB: https://pastebin.com/jWPshx01


Blue circles are Might of the Meek; Red circle is the Glorious Vanity (Doryani).
This is the skill tree I'm using right now, the original one does not take the mana flask node.

Bandits: Kill ALL
Pantheons: Major = Soul of Arakaali; Minor = Abberath.
Reduced Chaos DoT and RF degen.

Skill Gems
Weapon: Wave of Conviction - Phys to Lightning - Conc.Effect
Source damage penetration and DPS

Body Armour: Cyclone - CWC - Shock Nova - Energy Leech - Inspiration - Empower
Main DPS source, the higher the spell level the better.

Gloves: CWDT - Steelskin - Ice Golem - Tempest Shield
(I'm using immortal call + inc.duration instead of ice golem and steelskin, just a personal preference as long as it works similarly)

Helm: Clarity - Discipline - Precision - Enlighten Lv3/4
Helps mana sustain, increase es pool and recharge as well as accuracy to trigger spell socketed in weapon.

Shield: Shield Charge - Faster Att - Fortify
Movement skill, I'm using Flame Dash - Faster Casting - Enhance instead.

Boots: Zealotry - Wrath - Inc.Duration - Vaal RF
Indigon huge DPS boost shenanigan
(I'm using normal RF here instead, because I want vaal discipline for more safety purpose. Sometimes my ES is dropping low if the path is taking too much time to leech ES from next monster packs.)

How to keep Righteous Fire Activated
Glorious Vanity (Doryani) let the RF degen split to both Life and ES as 50/50.
Life sustain is paired with Indigon + Enduring mana flask. Whenever the mana flask is up, life will not drop. Hierophant ascendancy also has 0.5% spell damage leeched as life when you have arcane surge.
ES sustain is based on ES gain on hit or ES regen + Zealot Oath + Energy leech.
With Mind over Matter, Cloak of Defiance and Hierophant ascendancy, the RF degen is taking half from mana. Mana sustain is done by stacking mana regen from gears, passive skills and clarity.
Major and Minor gods that reduce damage over time.
In most situation, ES is close full whenever there are monsters to leech from.

My Thoughts after playing this build
It is very tanky, stun immune as long as you are spinning. Desync or lag is still gonna kill this build nonetheless especially in delve.
Requires some time to get used to the timing to alternate the auras activation. You have to make sure you are in a safe position before activating the auras, best safe period is at least around 0.5s because the cast animation can cost a death if you get greedy or dash into monsters mindlessly.
Less life recovery and no regen map mods are doable, just turn off the RF and be a little more careful.
This is a slow build imo, not something super fast clearing speed like meta skills. Single target damage is mediocre as compared to meta skills that instant skip phase, but it does fine.
Incursion / chaos damage from hits are very deadly since this build is lacking of chaos resist, especially on red tier maps.

Overall Build Cost (I can only remember some of them)


That's all for now, hope you will enjoy it and stay sane exile!

Good job! Build looks great. Can you add video from map cleaning? Or blight map?

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Rixxon8 wrote:

Good job! Build looks great. Can you add video from map cleaning? Or blight map?

Thanks, I have just recorded and uploaded another video showcasing the map clearing yesterday.

You can view it here: https://youtu.be/w95ixvBLQmE