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

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jeyzzzi wrote:

What's the next good upgrade for me?

Before the large cluster, I'd get awakened added cold & controlled destruction, and perfect my unique jewels. You may as well quality your jewellery too, it'll make other items easier to upgrade in the future.

@Wallach is your build okey without projectile speed?

I'm in a similar situation of wondering what to buy next. My large cluster is not very good (no blanketed snow), and I could swap out my gloves for the harvest gloves. I could try to upgrade my main hand scepter (I do like having socketed gems auto cast to keep coldsnap up automatically. The QOL there seems too strong to give up). It seems moving to a rare neck, or corrupted chest is outside my price range atm (about 5 ex).

Moving on to testing March of the Legion:

I was considering these since we can drop our Essence Worm and instead, run a ring with:

Life,
Resistances,
(51–55) to Dexterity
Adds (21–24) to (43–48) Cold Damage to Spells and Attacks
(22–25)% increased Spell Damage
(18–22)% increased Cold Damage
(7–10)% chance to Freeze, Adds (13–16) to (33–36) Cold Damage against Chilled or Frozen Enemies
(22–25)% increased Projectile Attack Damage
(20–23)% increased Damage
+(21–25)% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
(24–26)% increased Global Critical Strike Chance
(25–30)% increased Elemental Damage
21–25)% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments
(22–25)% increased Global Critical Strike Chance

The crucial part I was worried about is that the converted auras ("blessings") do not proc mods off Watcher's Eye (like our raw Critical Strike Chance). I tested this and thankfully, the blessings work as if they were auras.

I got greedy and tested if Arcane Surge procs off the auras when they were being converted to blessings. Unfortunately, this mana consumption did not count as "casting the aura" was not the same as "spending a total of # mana with a supported skill".

Expanding on this, we can run three auras without reservation. Great for MOM. Given how Zealotry AND Hatred can be run simultaneously, this is a potentially huge boost to our damage and significantly widens our Watcher's Eye pool.

Our opportunity cost is a good pair of boots, but as Wallach has described in his gearing page, the choices we have aren't fantastic. Before heading in this direction, I was crafting a pair of Tailwind boots since an increase in our action speed also meant the same multiplier for our totems. At this point, being able to replace the stats from the rare boots with those on the ring AND getting a lot more damage from auras through these boots seem to be a good tradeoff.

For what it's worth, these boots aren't new, nor are the changes in the league's mana reservation mechanics. I'm thankful to the big brains who have worked these into viable alternatives for us to consider.

Back to testing. Will be back with more information.


Consecrated Ground's going to be 10% from Watcher's Eye, plus
10% from Bottled Faith, plus
5% from Purifying Flame.



Total DPS increased by 24.8% on running Zealotry as well. Last aura slot is free, and I've gone with Clarity since we take ages to regenerate mana.

(last edit before bed)
Has anyone tested Flask duration Clusters over Totem ones?


Given how reliant we are getting on Wise Oak and Bottled Faith, I thought of dropping Onslaught from Sleepless Sentry and just wing it with a Cinderswallow instead.



Will update when I test tomorrow.

Thank you for the response.

Though, I feel I can't quite easily part with those just yet because I don't have the resists for it. If I remove my Rare Ring and Belt, I will lose out on capping my Resistances. I am preparing for post Kitava.

Hello, I'm following this build so far doing good, I'm sitting at 178k dps in hideout with just hatred, I'm doing good damage-wise, not great, but I'm satisfied with it.

I'm having troubles with survability tho, not with maps/ultimatums but with end-game bosses, tried maven and sirus A9 and got deleted, I only have 3,8k health wich is really low I was wondering if you could give me some suggestions to improve my defenses or improving my build in general.

I was thinking of dropping one wand and go for a shield with health/+1 to cold spells and crit what do you think?

Anyone have thoughts on what are good passives from timeless jewels?

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limevan wrote:

Moving on to testing March of the Legion:

Will update when I test tomorrow.

How blessing support work?

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NoImagination wrote:

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Jerle wrote:

Speaking of cluster jewels, can I check if you're using all 3 notables on your large cluster? or just as 5 points pathing to med clusters?

I'm using them all. Should I not be?

Haha. Just finding points very tight xD

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velaxi1 wrote:

How blessing support work?

You put any Aura gems (Blood and Sand, and other stance auras don't work. neither do banners) in the boots. Since there are 4 sockets, you can put 4 different auras. However, for quality of life, I use an Increased Duration support linked to Hatred, Zealotry and Haste.

These Auras will now appear as "skills" that you can cast in your action bar. When you cast them, they will briefly reserve some mana. There was a patch including this for 3.14:

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Reserving Mana or Life no longer involves spending anything - so you don't need any current Mana to turn on an Aura, you just need enough of your Mana orb to be unreserved that the Aura's reservation will fit.

With this, you can cast the Auras whether or not you have the mana to do it. In my case, I just tap all the three auras. After 0.35 seconds, they become something called a "Blessing". You can see the Auras on your buff bar on top like a normal Aura, but this time, they have a timer before they expire. Here, our Auras last for 20 seconds, and need to be re-cast constantly. You can cast it earlier before they expire, that's no problem.

This frees us from having to use an Essence Worm, so we can pick a nice ring up. Using 3 Auras that normally reserve 50% each feels like cheating. ^ . ^

=== Separately ===

With this change, I've moved on to a Flask Duration medium cluster to exploit the Alchemist's Genius from "Spiked Concoction". This notable makes it so that we get 20% increased Flask Charges gained, and more importantly, 20% increased effect. IMO, this is a great notable.

Losing Sleepless Sentries from our Totem medium cluster slows us down because we lose our permanent Onslaught. However, with the current changes, I'm running a Cinderswallow Flask to achieve the same Onslaught.

I mentioned that Alchemist's Genius is a great notable. Here's why:

Hybrid Flask: Restores 1,670 life and 461 mana. With Soul of Ryslatha, we get 60% increased Life Recovery. The Flask cluster gives 10% life and mana recovery from the small passive, and 25% life and mana recovery from "Distilled Perfection". Add Alchemist's Genius to this and we get 4,690 life and 896 mana per pop.



Wise Oak: If you balance your uncapped resistances, you get 12% reduced Damage from all elements. If not, it's just 12% on Cold damage. Importantly, our Cold Penetration becomes 18%.

Bottled Faith: The base effect from the Sulphur Flask now increases our damage by 48%. The raw Critical Strike Chance goes up from (1.0 - 2.0)% to (1.2 - 2.4)%. Enemies basking in the golden juice now take up to 12% increased damage.

Our newest addition - Cinderswallow Urn: Choose between Critical Strike Chance and Movement Speed + Stun avoidance on the veiled mod. (60 - 80)% increased Critical Strike Chance grows to (72 - 96)% with Alchemist's Genius. However, since we're likely to be capped on crit, I prefer the latter veiled mod. We get (9 - 14)% movespeed AND 60% stun avoidance. This stun avoidance is great and opens us up to another major God. (Lunaris for projectile avoidance, and chain avoidance is great, especially since our Totems are convenient targets for us to be hit by chained projectiles)

By adding a source of fire damage (I've rolled it on my ring, but you can get it elsewhere, like wands, boot enchants, jewels), our capped Critical Strike Chance makes it so that we ignite everything the Totems hit. Unlike stun/shock, there doesn't seem to be a threshold for ignite to be applied. Therefore, it doesn't matter how low the roll of fire damage is, as long as it is there. I'm unsure of this mod on Cinderswallow - "Enemies Ignited by you during Flask Effect take 10% increased Damage". It's likely that "by you" excludes our totems, but I'm still confirming this. I'm hopeful because enemies that are hit by Cold Snap are considered to be hit by our Hits, and fire damage from this will cause the ignite to be deemed "by you". If it works, we apply a 12% increased damage taken debuff on all enemies, which is another huge source of damage.



Putting the updates on Boots, Auras and Flasks together, our DPS is a lot more reliable now, running at more than 7M shaper DPS. Even Ultimatums on high quant maps require way less running (not looking at you, stone circles). Here's a POB in case anyone wants to review to see if there are conditions that I have configured incorrectly. Looking at the only 6 checkmarks applied, this is unlikely to be excessive.