I've been playing much more casually than I usually play (started late and all, around Christmas) but I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey of this build.
I originally started as a cheap hybridised version of this and Woolfio's version, using dual +1 spell skill gems daggers (for pseudo Empower 3) and a Rotting Legion 5 link (for the pseudo 6 link). This took me easily into Tier 8-10 maps. Total cost at the time of the character was literally 1-5c per slot.
I'm going to try and generally answer some questions floating around.
Survivability of the relics is directly relation to the gem level, there's good reason for the lengths being taken to raise that level as high as possible (obviously damage too lol). Beyond that you can also pick up some survival nodes on the tree (minion life/phys reduction/leech/regen. Worth noting relics have 75% resists, tree resists are not useful and wasting a gem link on Elemental Army isn't acceptable in a full phys spell build).
I will say I've tried both Cyclone and Static Strike, and I'd like to point out for anyone reading the guide or the comments, try both and see which you prefer. I personally like Static Strike since I can actively avoid mechanics without halting the dps of my Holy Relics. I also like pianoing my flasks, hitting a Static Strike and running non-stop for 8-ish seconds. Cyclone with some form of LGoH is also a solid layer of defense to add to the already solid list of defensive layers and to some player might be a preferable play style to stop and hit and run. Try it out for yourself and see. I will say on the note of Guardian conditional block/spell block, Static Strike will not refresh the timer with beams. Worth a note if you're paying attention to your defenses while bossing that you'll need to use the initial hit to refresh the block chance buff.
Level 1 Cyclone likely for dex requirements, not sure since I didn't use it for very long.
Alternative support structures have been proposed here, I'd like to share mine which is a simple 4 link Zombies for defensive purposes (the damage of Holy Relics is way more than enough to me to justify Spectres personally), and a little minion life/phys mit on the tree + Elemental Army (lucky corrupt took Zombies to 80% resist) and these guys haven't died to Sirus in a long time:
Spoiler
(for mapping and most if not all map bosses)
(for Conquerors/Sirus/Fully juiced Metamorphs.
My defenses being 7.2k life and 1k ES for an 8k EHP pool, ele weakness in awakener-8-red-maps over capped (it's 112% now not 109% anymore, and I have a couple of max res floating about so my lowest res is at 114%), maxed chaos res, approx 40% phys mit with no flasks, approx 75% with flasks up not counting mit from Molten Shell + Enfeeble on CwdT and finally Aspect of the Spider (on top of all the block/regen/ascendancy gubbins). I cannot stress enough how nice Aspect of the Spider is if you're a bad player like me, it slows down the boss fights to a much more comfortable level for me (and a little damage boost too, not far away from banner which I dropped).
The majority of things here were done by me (levelling/flipping gems/corrupting for 21/slamming hunter for %life on belt/Spider craft/30% corrupt) selling 21/20 holy relics that I lucked out on funded quite a bit of my additions lol. I bought the 21 zombies after mine went 19 D: I chanced the helm recently (approx 900 scour chance, probably more but I forget), the inc AoE is superb QoL but entirely uneeded (for example on metamorphs, relics can clear the adds all over spawning while sitting on the metamorph which wasn't really possible before getting the enchant). I corrupted the chest for 30% before learning about what catalysts were/do, ah well missed a bit of life or armour. Empower 4 was a gift from a guildie (shout outs to Klip).
Currently saving towards another hunter exalted to slam that juicy +1 on ammy and hope for int, what's the worst that can happen :D
Thanks very much to Mooselini for the guide and Geraki2019 for giving me the inspiration to use a life chest es as % of life craft to replace Kaoms, I was personally struggling with the lack of sockets (portal is life).
For anyone new/struggling, feel free to ping me in game, if I'm online, I'm happy to help out.
What is the purpose of using zombies and wasting so much sockets to make them stronger? I understand, that they give onslaught, but I don't believe they can live during boss fights because of the low level of the gem itself and they can't deal any good damage.
Also, what do you thing about the aspect of the Avian instead of your aspect? It seems that double damage from minions should be great.
I've been playing much more casually than I usually play (started late and all, around Christmas) but I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey of this build.
I originally started as a cheap hybridised version of this and Woolfio's version, using dual +1 spell skill gems daggers (for pseudo Empower 3) and a Rotting Legion 5 link (for the pseudo 6 link). This took me easily into Tier 8-10 maps. Total cost at the time of the character was literally 1-5c per slot.
I'm going to try and generally answer some questions floating around.
Survivability of the relics is directly relation to the gem level, there's good reason for the lengths being taken to raise that level as high as possible (obviously damage too lol). Beyond that you can also pick up some survival nodes on the tree (minion life/phys reduction/leech/regen. Worth noting relics have 75% resists, tree resists are not useful and wasting a gem link on Elemental Army isn't acceptable in a full phys spell build).
I will say I've tried both Cyclone and Static Strike, and I'd like to point out for anyone reading the guide or the comments, try both and see which you prefer. I personally like Static Strike since I can actively avoid mechanics without halting the dps of my Holy Relics. I also like pianoing my flasks, hitting a Static Strike and running non-stop for 8-ish seconds. Cyclone with some form of LGoH is also a solid layer of defense to add to the already solid list of defensive layers and to some player might be a preferable play style to stop and hit and run. Try it out for yourself and see. I will say on the note of Guardian conditional block/spell block, Static Strike will not refresh the timer with beams. Worth a note if you're paying attention to your defenses while bossing that you'll need to use the initial hit to refresh the block chance buff.
Level 1 Cyclone likely for dex requirements, not sure since I didn't use it for very long.
Alternative support structures have been proposed here, I'd like to share mine which is a simple 4 link Zombies for defensive purposes (the damage of Holy Relics is way more than enough to me to justify Spectres personally), and a little minion life/phys mit on the tree + Elemental Army (lucky corrupt took Zombies to 80% resist) and these guys haven't died to Sirus in a long time:
Spoiler
(for mapping and most if not all map bosses)
(for Conquerors/Sirus/Fully juiced Metamorphs.
My defenses being 7.2k life and 1k ES for an 8k EHP pool, ele weakness in awakener-8-red-maps over capped (it's 112% now not 109% anymore, and I have a couple of max res floating about so my lowest res is at 114%), maxed chaos res, approx 40% phys mit with no flasks, approx 75% with flasks up not counting mit from Molten Shell + Enfeeble on CwdT and finally Aspect of the Spider (on top of all the block/regen/ascendancy gubbins). I cannot stress enough how nice Aspect of the Spider is if you're a bad player like me, it slows down the boss fights to a much more comfortable level for me (and a little damage boost too, not far away from banner which I dropped).
The majority of things here were done by me (levelling/flipping gems/corrupting for 21/slamming hunter for %life on belt/Spider craft/30% corrupt) selling 21/20 holy relics that I lucked out on funded quite a bit of my additions lol. I bought the 21 zombies after mine went 19 D: I chanced the helm recently (approx 900 scour chance, probably more but I forget), the inc AoE is superb QoL but entirely uneeded (for example on metamorphs, relics can clear the adds all over spawning while sitting on the metamorph which wasn't really possible before getting the enchant). I corrupted the chest for 30% before learning about what catalysts were/do, ah well missed a bit of life or armour. Empower 4 was a gift from a guildie (shout outs to Klip).
Currently saving towards another hunter exalted to slam that juicy +1 on ammy and hope for int, what's the worst that can happen :D
Thanks very much to Mooselini for the guide and Geraki2019 for giving me the inspiration to use a life chest es as % of life craft to replace Kaoms, I was personally struggling with the lack of sockets (portal is life).
For anyone new/struggling, feel free to ping me in game, if I'm online, I'm happy to help out.
What is the purpose of using zombies and wasting so much sockets to make them stronger? I understand, that they give onslaught, but I don't believe they can live during boss fights because of the low level of the gem itself and they can't deal any good damage.
Also, what do you thing about the aspect of the Avian instead of your aspect? It seems that double damage from minions should be great.
Zombies are a defensive layer for me, the onslaught is definitely a nice perk but not what I was going for. They blind regularly due to 1 4% chance to blind jewel on my tree (you'll see the blind spinning thing on bosses heads alot in these videos), they taunt meaning I take less damage when hit, and they intimidate/unnerve on hit (ascendancy) to boost my holy relics damage (not 100% convinced this works from holy relic spell). Worried about their survivability in boss fights? Well lets test zombie survivability in boss fights :D
I made these just now after reading your post so I played reckless to put zombies in danger (standing in shaper pools with beam on top, deathmark during bullet hell, standing in tentacles etc) 1 zombie died in uber elder this time lol, hasn't happened before :D. I died once to uber elder recording this but I've done him very comfortably deathless when not trying to play like a putz (didn't even use rumi's I had my movespeed granite on lol). To be clear also, I'm a bad player lol. A decent example of clear speed in the shaper transition phases.
For the 2nd question about aspect, personal preference again, as obvious at this point, I like tankiness and utility, so I went zombies instead of spectres, spider instead of avian, maxed chaos res instead of trying to fit in +1 on my amulet (I tried with slamming but got ele pen instead x_x). In my honest opinion, the damage I have is already incredibly high even without the +1 or awakened gems or curse on hit ring, soul of steel instead of ravenous horde anointment, aoe enchant instead of damage for smoothness etc etc (honestly, going for ele weakness overcap was a bit much xD), so I just went for the survivability route, it's as you like tbh, both ways aren't wrong :D
Last edited by digiTuum#6950 on Feb 19, 2020, 1:25:28 PM
I've been playing much more casually than I usually play (started late and all, around Christmas) but I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey of this build.
I originally started as a cheap hybridised version of this and Woolfio's version, using dual +1 spell skill gems daggers (for pseudo Empower 3) and a Rotting Legion 5 link (for the pseudo 6 link). This took me easily into Tier 8-10 maps. Total cost at the time of the character was literally 1-5c per slot.
I'm going to try and generally answer some questions floating around.
Survivability of the relics is directly relation to the gem level, there's good reason for the lengths being taken to raise that level as high as possible (obviously damage too lol). Beyond that you can also pick up some survival nodes on the tree (minion life/phys reduction/leech/regen. Worth noting relics have 75% resists, tree resists are not useful and wasting a gem link on Elemental Army isn't acceptable in a full phys spell build).
I will say I've tried both Cyclone and Static Strike, and I'd like to point out for anyone reading the guide or the comments, try both and see which you prefer. I personally like Static Strike since I can actively avoid mechanics without halting the dps of my Holy Relics. I also like pianoing my flasks, hitting a Static Strike and running non-stop for 8-ish seconds. Cyclone with some form of LGoH is also a solid layer of defense to add to the already solid list of defensive layers and to some player might be a preferable play style to stop and hit and run. Try it out for yourself and see. I will say on the note of Guardian conditional block/spell block, Static Strike will not refresh the timer with beams. Worth a note if you're paying attention to your defenses while bossing that you'll need to use the initial hit to refresh the block chance buff.
Level 1 Cyclone likely for dex requirements, not sure since I didn't use it for very long.
Alternative support structures have been proposed here, I'd like to share mine which is a simple 4 link Zombies for defensive purposes (the damage of Holy Relics is way more than enough to me to justify Spectres personally), and a little minion life/phys mit on the tree + Elemental Army (lucky corrupt took Zombies to 80% resist) and these guys haven't died to Sirus in a long time:
Spoiler
(for mapping and most if not all map bosses)
(for Conquerors/Sirus/Fully juiced Metamorphs.
My defenses being 7.2k life and 1k ES for an 8k EHP pool, ele weakness in awakener-8-red-maps over capped (it's 112% now not 109% anymore, and I have a couple of max res floating about so my lowest res is at 114%), maxed chaos res, approx 40% phys mit with no flasks, approx 75% with flasks up not counting mit from Molten Shell + Enfeeble on CwdT and finally Aspect of the Spider (on top of all the block/regen/ascendancy gubbins). I cannot stress enough how nice Aspect of the Spider is if you're a bad player like me, it slows down the boss fights to a much more comfortable level for me (and a little damage boost too, not far away from banner which I dropped).
The majority of things here were done by me (levelling/flipping gems/corrupting for 21/slamming hunter for %life on belt/Spider craft/30% corrupt) selling 21/20 holy relics that I lucked out on funded quite a bit of my additions lol. I bought the 21 zombies after mine went 19 D: I chanced the helm recently (approx 900 scour chance, probably more but I forget), the inc AoE is superb QoL but entirely uneeded (for example on metamorphs, relics can clear the adds all over spawning while sitting on the metamorph which wasn't really possible before getting the enchant). I corrupted the chest for 30% before learning about what catalysts were/do, ah well missed a bit of life or armour. Empower 4 was a gift from a guildie (shout outs to Klip).
Currently saving towards another hunter exalted to slam that juicy +1 on ammy and hope for int, what's the worst that can happen :D
Thanks very much to Mooselini for the guide and Geraki2019 for giving me the inspiration to use a life chest es as % of life craft to replace Kaoms, I was personally struggling with the lack of sockets (portal is life).
For anyone new/struggling, feel free to ping me in game, if I'm online, I'm happy to help out.
What is the purpose of using zombies and wasting so much sockets to make them stronger? I understand, that they give onslaught, but I don't believe they can live during boss fights because of the low level of the gem itself and they can't deal any good damage.
Also, what do you thing about the aspect of the Avian instead of your aspect? It seems that double damage from minions should be great.
They die a lot at least with my build.
That is why I removed zompies.
For same reason I removed carnage chieftains. Frenzy charges are really a huge damage boost but they couldn’t survive end game bosses and
no chieftains = no damage boost.
Now I have 2 specters, stoneskin flyers.
I linked them with feeding frenzy and maim.
With 277k HP and 5.5k HP regeneration are nearly immortal. In fact, they haven’t die a single time a week now in fights that my relics couldn’t survive (like phoenix or some metamorph bosses).
They constantly provide feeding frenzy (almost all the time is up adding a 10% more damage to holy relics) and maim bosses, which is a nice defensive layer.
Another change I had is body armor.
With the new one I can apply 1 more curse (enfeeble) as one more defensive layer.
Also crafted aspect of the spider gloves but don’t know if it works.
I can’t see any animation or spiders or cobwebs or anything indicating that it works.
I've been playing much more casually than I usually play (started late and all, around Christmas) but I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey of this build.
I originally started as a cheap hybridised version of this and Woolfio's version, using dual +1 spell skill gems daggers (for pseudo Empower 3) and a Rotting Legion 5 link (for the pseudo 6 link). This took me easily into Tier 8-10 maps. Total cost at the time of the character was literally 1-5c per slot.
I'm going to try and generally answer some questions floating around.
Survivability of the relics is directly relation to the gem level, there's good reason for the lengths being taken to raise that level as high as possible (obviously damage too lol). Beyond that you can also pick up some survival nodes on the tree (minion life/phys reduction/leech/regen. Worth noting relics have 75% resists, tree resists are not useful and wasting a gem link on Elemental Army isn't acceptable in a full phys spell build).
I will say I've tried both Cyclone and Static Strike, and I'd like to point out for anyone reading the guide or the comments, try both and see which you prefer. I personally like Static Strike since I can actively avoid mechanics without halting the dps of my Holy Relics. I also like pianoing my flasks, hitting a Static Strike and running non-stop for 8-ish seconds. Cyclone with some form of LGoH is also a solid layer of defense to add to the already solid list of defensive layers and to some player might be a preferable play style to stop and hit and run. Try it out for yourself and see. I will say on the note of Guardian conditional block/spell block, Static Strike will not refresh the timer with beams. Worth a note if you're paying attention to your defenses while bossing that you'll need to use the initial hit to refresh the block chance buff.
Level 1 Cyclone likely for dex requirements, not sure since I didn't use it for very long.
Alternative support structures have been proposed here, I'd like to share mine which is a simple 4 link Zombies for defensive purposes (the damage of Holy Relics is way more than enough to me to justify Spectres personally), and a little minion life/phys mit on the tree + Elemental Army (lucky corrupt took Zombies to 80% resist) and these guys haven't died to Sirus in a long time:
Spoiler
(for mapping and most if not all map bosses)
(for Conquerors/Sirus/Fully juiced Metamorphs.
My defenses being 7.2k life and 1k ES for an 8k EHP pool, ele weakness in awakener-8-red-maps over capped (it's 112% now not 109% anymore, and I have a couple of max res floating about so my lowest res is at 114%), maxed chaos res, approx 40% phys mit with no flasks, approx 75% with flasks up not counting mit from Molten Shell + Enfeeble on CwdT and finally Aspect of the Spider (on top of all the block/regen/ascendancy gubbins). I cannot stress enough how nice Aspect of the Spider is if you're a bad player like me, it slows down the boss fights to a much more comfortable level for me (and a little damage boost too, not far away from banner which I dropped).
The majority of things here were done by me (levelling/flipping gems/corrupting for 21/slamming hunter for %life on belt/Spider craft/30% corrupt) selling 21/20 holy relics that I lucked out on funded quite a bit of my additions lol. I bought the 21 zombies after mine went 19 D: I chanced the helm recently (approx 900 scour chance, probably more but I forget), the inc AoE is superb QoL but entirely uneeded (for example on metamorphs, relics can clear the adds all over spawning while sitting on the metamorph which wasn't really possible before getting the enchant). I corrupted the chest for 30% before learning about what catalysts were/do, ah well missed a bit of life or armour. Empower 4 was a gift from a guildie (shout outs to Klip).
Currently saving towards another hunter exalted to slam that juicy +1 on ammy and hope for int, what's the worst that can happen :D
Thanks very much to Mooselini for the guide and Geraki2019 for giving me the inspiration to use a life chest es as % of life craft to replace Kaoms, I was personally struggling with the lack of sockets (portal is life).
For anyone new/struggling, feel free to ping me in game, if I'm online, I'm happy to help out.
What is the purpose of using zombies and wasting so much sockets to make them stronger? I understand, that they give onslaught, but I don't believe they can live during boss fights because of the low level of the gem itself and they can't deal any good damage.
Also, what do you thing about the aspect of the Avian instead of your aspect? It seems that double damage from minions should be great.
They die a lot at least with my build.
That is why I removed zompies.
For same reason I removed carnage chieftains. Frenzy charges are really a huge damage boost but they couldn’t survive end game bosses and
no chieftains = no damage boost.
Now I have 2 specters, stoneskin flyers.
I linked them with feeding frenzy and maim.
With 277k HP and 5.5k HP regeneration are nearly immortal. In fact, they haven’t die a single time a week now in fights that my relics couldn’t survive (like phoenix or some metamorph bosses).
They constantly provide feeding frenzy (almost all the time is up adding a 10% more damage to holy relics) and maim bosses, which is a nice defensive layer.
Another change I had is body armor.
With the new one I can apply 1 more curse (enfeeble) as one more defensive layer.
Also crafted aspect of the spider gloves but don’t know if it works.
I can’t see any animation or spiders or cobwebs or anything indicating that it works.
Need to cast the aura for spider, no reason it wouldn't work. Honestly looking at your gear/tree I have no idea why your relics would die to anything at all? Also you could save a point on your tree by taking the int next to ele overload and dropping the dex and int nodes under sacrifice.
- Holy relics don't die often. After 5 lvl 8 sirus fights only 1 holy relic died and killed him with the second one.
Some random holy relic deaths when fighting metamorphs or big amount of influenced mobs don't worry me.
The big problem is when I fight phoenix. I don't know how but every time he manage to kill at least 1 of my holy relics.
- Aspect of the spider is up (had to quit war banner and add enlighten support) but cant see any visual indication that it works. I'll try to video my next sirus fight and see it again and again.
Edit: unfortunately I cant have this 1 skill point.
Last edited by Geraki2019#1615 on Feb 19, 2020, 11:03:14 AM
- Holy relics don't die often. After 5 lvl 8 sirus fights only 1 holy relic died and killed him with the second one.
Some random holy relic deaths when fighting metamorphs or big amount of influenced mobs don't worry me.
The big problem is when I fight phoenix. I don't know how but every time he manage to kill at least 1 of my holy relics.
- Aspect of the spider is up (had to quit war banner and add enlighten support) but cant see any visual indication that it works. I'll try to video my next sirus fight and see it again and again.
Edit: unfortunately I cant have this 1 skill point.
Ah, dex requirement I assume. Ah well. Yeah I have no idea why your holy relics are dying at all vs anything, even phoenix. re: spider, maybe you have some texture turned off? If the aura is there on aura bar at top (might need to turn that on in settings also) then no reason to assume it's not working.
Well league over for me, I did 36 and added a stretch goal of all the awakening bonus on atlas (missing 3 because of 3 unique maps that can't be t14+ vinktar, doryani and perandus idk bug I guess?)
Did everything in the game new and old, alot of stuff I didn't do before such as monster level 83 delve bosses:
Skipped blight league, really regret that because blighted maps are so much fun, Shrine T14 Blighted, all the juice, 120% quant 50% pack size, beyond and 15 lucky chests: https://youtu.be/3vqKRS0sML0
Did a few Synthesis maps, got some nice drops but didn't screen. Didn't get to try Cortex itself though, sure I will at some point.
Final gear at my league end:
Spoiler
Reached 8.7k total ehp in the end with all the stuff mentioned in my last post of gear. Still have no clue which life flask is better, but I have been using Forbidden Taste more lately. Ending PoB: https://pastebin.com/RHKTHgz8
Ty for inspiration @mooselini, really enjoyed myself this league, hit my highest level ever, sure this build could go to 100 if I had time, see you guys in the next one \o
Last edited by digiTuum#6950 on Feb 19, 2020, 1:22:20 PM
I did try a build like this with my now retired mana guardian on around 8k ES,
and the damage was very nice indeed.
One problem i found that's not really adressed in the life version as well, how do we sustain our EHP?
Just Flasks? (Forbidden taste?)
Defense is very nice, no question asked.. but there's no leech, life regen is low, and it lacks any other form of sustain, so i found myself just running when i got low from a T16 Metamorph or whatever.
I did try a build like this with my now retired mana guardian on around 8k ES,
and the damage was very nice indeed.
One problem i found that's not really adressed in the life version as well, how do we sustain our EHP?
Just Flasks? (Forbidden taste?)
Defense is very nice, no question asked.. but there's no leech, life regen is low, and it lacks any other form of sustain, so i found myself just running when i got low from a T16 Metamorph or whatever.
Time of Need is pretty good at recharging the health pool if it gets low. Forbidden taste is a pretty good panic button too (instant life flasks are not bad either). We have some passive regeneration from life regen but it's not massive.
If anyone is able to figure out how to get the relics to leech life to the character, that would be a huge survivability spike for this build.
I feel like currently Necro is better than Guardian in every minion aspect, just taking the +2 node equals the whole guardian ascendancy.
With Necros +minion life, +2gems etc etc you should be able to fit in carnage cheftains overall giving this about 30% more dmg overall.
Also I feel like the defensive argument is completely countered by using bone offering .. maxing block and spellblock + getting 500ish hp on block should equal the life recharge of guardian.
Adding tons of spellblock.
And you get the the on-click shield of necro.
But I guess we're in for harsh necro nerfs. Theyll prolly scim like 10% off the top of str stacking / necro / minions equally for good measure.
I feel like currently Necro is better than Guardian in every minion aspect, just taking the +2 node equals the whole guardian ascendancy.
With Necros +minion life, +2gems etc etc you should be able to fit in carnage cheftains overall giving this about 30% more dmg overall.
Also I feel like the defensive argument is completely countered by using bone offering .. maxing block and spellblock + getting 500ish hp on block should equal the life recharge of guardian.
Adding tons of spellblock.
And you get the the on-click shield of necro.
But I guess we're in for harsh necro nerfs. Theyll prolly scim like 10% off the top of str stacking / necro / minions equally for good measure.
It was alot simpler for me, I thematically liked the idea of playing a templar with a holy spell, searched around for something that fit that and found this amazing build :D
