[3.17] Wallach's Hierophant Freezing Pulse Totems (No Further Updates)

I have been playing this build since Blight League and it really does kick arse...but...i seem to be having significant issues this league and cant figure out what why.

I can not complete the Simulacrum (its the bosses, they are just too tanky and its impossible to kill the sword fella (the one that does the beam attack).

Must be missing something in my build but have no idea what. Health wise doing really well considering so many skill points are not on health - 3.8k HP, 1.7k Shield and 2k Mana with 40% mana before health.

One thing I think it might be is my wand but having compared to Wallachs and others online its not a bad one (please say so if I am wrong, I dont really know whats great and whats not).

I do need to anoint my amulet but i don't think that alone will solve my issues.

Jewels are in the tree - they are pretty powerful if anything they detract from Life and mana but i have more than last league which owned everything including Sirus...this league even Sirus (Awaken level 5) cost me 5 portals. (2 were stupid mistakes like the keyboard double registering a single push of my flame dash key so went straight into a portal storm...smart.

If anyone could help that would be greatly appreciated.
A 6L +1 soul mantle isn't possible - don't have that kind of Ex unfortunately because I can not farm the T16 solidly.

Gear below


Controlled Destruction is in the soul mantle, not Increased Critical Strikes.
Tool tip damage with all totems up, hatred and golem is 128k. From previous leagues i found as soon as 150k tool tip is reached, all content is 'safe'.

Really appreciate any feedback.

I don't have time to import you into PoB right now Mentalmike, but at first glance my suspicion is that your effective critical strike rate is not good. You mention that Controlled Destruction is in the chest instead of Increased Critical Strikes, but it should probably be replacing Increased Critical Damage instead. Between that and the fact that you are missing a Diamond Flask (which I would consider 100% mandatory), you are missing way too much effective critical strike rate.

I'd also probably think about trying to get a bit more mana. You probably feel the pressure to run hybrid flask because your mana regen will be a little on the low side at 2k mana, and you won't be getting full eHP value out of MoM either (2k mana covers 3k life).

Consider backing up the rank of your Arcane Surge as well, and moving it into a 4 link to get Increased Duration. I'd wager at rank 19 without Increased Duration your uptime on Arcane Surge isn't 100%.

"

Philc wrote:

So far I've killed awakener lvl 8, I can farm 60% delirious t16 100% increased item quantity maps pretty easily, simulacrum obviously, Cleared T16 HoGM, I can solo farm T16 blighted maps with nearly perfect success rates, I haven't really pushed the delve much i'm probably just going to farm azurite now that i'm in monster level 83.

I've had an amazing league so far, league start was really smooth and I luckily six linked the first soul mantle in 120 fusings. From that point on it's been a roller coaster.

Pretty much my story too, including the fusings. The only thing I really have left to do is a boot enchant and maybe a better WE and bottled faith. And level my Awakened gems. Other gear slots seem expensive to improve and I'm not sure it's worth it.

How are the gloves for clear? Do the explosions help?

I did run an 80% delirious Burial Chambers map and it was rough, died 3 times (mostly in Alva missions). And Simulacrum can be annoying depending on layout and bosses (Oriath docks yuck).

I have a question for you guys, is it not useless to grab Critical Multiplier when we are taking Elemental overload or the totem are bypassing it? Anyone can help before I go too far tower this path?

"

SuperBurgers wrote:

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Philc wrote:

So far I've killed awakener lvl 8, I can farm 60% delirious t16 100% increased item quantity maps pretty easily, simulacrum obviously, Cleared T16 HoGM, I can solo farm T16 blighted maps with nearly perfect success rates, I haven't really pushed the delve much i'm probably just going to farm azurite now that i'm in monster level 83.

I've had an amazing league so far, league start was really smooth and I luckily six linked the first soul mantle in 120 fusings. From that point on it's been a roller coaster.

Pretty much my story too, including the fusings. The only thing I really have left to do is a boot enchant and maybe a better WE and bottled faith. And level my Awakened gems. Other gear slots seem expensive to improve and I'm not sure it's worth it.

How are the gloves for clear? Do the explosions help?

I did run an 80% delirious Burial Chambers map and it was rough, died 3 times (mostly in Alva missions). And Simulacrum can be annoying depending on layout and bosses (Oriath docks yuck).

The explosions are amazing, especially on the heavy delirious maps. I think messing around with awakener orbs and influence on my helmet is my next upgrade, also a watchers eye but I kinda wanna go big and get a double hatred one. I also think I'm gonna have separate gear for bossing the gloves are less amazing for that.

"

Erroroflog wrote:

I have a question for you guys, is it not useless to grab Critical Multiplier when we are taking Elemental overload or the totem are bypassing it? Anyone can help before I go too far tower this path?

I didn't get elemental overload, I don't think it's worth it.

"

Philc wrote:

The explosions are amazing, especially on the heavy delirious maps. I think messing around with awakener orbs and influence on my helmet is my next upgrade,

Oh cool. And the AwCoH setup is easy to use? Not sure I want to spend 14ex or whatever but thinking about it. Might be time for an alt that scales to infinity :)

I just went with a redeemer orb + fossils on the helmet, but if you want 2 mods Awakener's might work. Otherwise I don't think it's worth it.

"

Wallach wrote:

I don't have time to import you into PoB right now Mentalmike, but at first glance my suspicion is that your effective critical strike rate is not good. You mention that Controlled Destruction is in the chest instead of Increased Critical Strikes, but it should probably be replacing Increased Critical Damage instead. Between that and the fact that you are missing a Diamond Flask (which I would consider 100% mandatory), you are missing way too much effective critical strike rate.

I'd also probably think about trying to get a bit more mana. You probably feel the pressure to run hybrid flask because your mana regen will be a little on the low side at 2k mana, and you won't be getting full eHP value out of MoM either (2k mana covers 3k life).

Consider backing up the rank of your Arcane Surge as well, and moving it into a 4 link to get Increased Duration. I'd wager at rank 19 without Increased Duration your uptime on Arcane Surge isn't 100%.

Many thanks Wallach, really appreciate the response.
I checked my crit chance and noticed it was 27% even with 3 power charges up. I will need to investigate this. It should be around 60%

I am also going to compare the old passive tree to one with cluster jewels to see what the true difference is.

155 hours and 37 challenge goal hit, league #2 of maining this build and awesome results. Thanks again, below is my final gear





overall I really really enjoyed this build for this league, more so than I did for metamorph.

got to around ~1M shaper dps per totem non-buffed (no flasks, only 3-4 self-curses active) and without double curse (up to 2.1M shaper dps with 10 self-curses and other "burst" modifiers like flask). only upgrades I feel I have left that would be largely meaningful is changing boot enchant to be ele pen and upgrading to a +1 socketed gems soul mantle, but I likely won't bother with either due to time.

4079 HP / 1272 ES / 2706 Mana / 28% block / 18% spell block

using a hybrid flask because I took away from some of the normal mana nodes and felt I needed the ability to rapidly restore my mana when I'm getting crushed by tanky packs.

main deviation from the build was going for Arcane Guarding to gain a small bit of damage and a ton of spell block for survivability.

avoided double curse set up because I really disliked the clunkiness of having to use flame dash for arcane surge. If I farmed enough to get an awakened spell cascade so I could've put surge on frost bomb, might have returned to it but overall the DPS loss was mainly on mapping DPS, shaper DPS remained relatively similar which is what I prioritized given my mapping DPS was already absurd

A8 sirus on farm (probably 5 total deaths to him entire league? metamorph trained me well), 5 orb T16 delirium maps (incl. shaper/elder maps), T16 blighted maps with full lucky chests, uber elder w/ only 1 death, same for cortex (neither of which I was experienced at)

highlight of the league was an awakened CoC from my second A8 sirus and my irl bud getting a 6697 glorious vanity. got 1 conqueror exalted orb and a couple awakener orbs as well.

pastebin for those interested: https://pastebin.com/9JMXfzNc

Is it possible to do Uber elder and Maze of the minotaur map etc. ?