[3.10] Herald Power Siphon Guardian | OP as heck | Money making guide and Scion version included

BUILD IS OUTDATED AND IS NERFED TO THE GROUND, PLEASE USE ANOTHER BUILD

POB LINK: https://pastebin.com/vdRcynS9
Note: Some of my gear is not optimized. Follow the "Gear" Section.

Change Log
Spoiler
04/27 - Added more community videos, especially budget ones
04/26 - Added "Why is my DPS low?" section, because you guys don't know how to scale your damage lol
04/25 - Made the best amulet in DSC for this build, check it out below for mirror service
04/23 - Added money making guide
04/22 - Added section on starting the build with a 60 ex budget. Updated Split Personalities to be Int/ES instead of Int/Mana, changed this in the POBs as well. Updated gear and gem sections with more detail. Added Scion version. Updated leveling section. Added crafting guide for shield. Plugged in my own for sale/mirror service section.

I will no longer be updating this guide or responding to messages/comments. Unfortunately my life has been overwhelming with full-time work, school, and family concerns, so I will be taking a break until next league at least.

Introduction

Hit lvl 100 on my Herald Power Siphon Guardian and retired this league. I noticed there isn't a good guide for this build right now, which is weird because IMO it's the best build in the current meta (better than EK and Arc because the clear speed is way smoother, and has equivalent survivability and single target).

This is the strongest version of Power Siphon Guardian out right now - just a tiny bit weaker than Empyrian's, but I didn't spend 2500 ex.

I got a lot of inspiration from poe.ninja power siphon builds, and POBs I found on Youtube. I tweaked them, and this is better than all of them, with the same amount of spending.

Can't record any videos myself, but included a few community-provided demonstrations.

If you want to spend money to make money, this is your build.

Pros:
Spoiler
- Zoom zoom clear, impenetrable survivability, amazing single target DPS. What's left?
- Currency printer. Can start the build with around 60 ex, then use it to farm 1000 ex faster than any other build
- Approx. 17m single target DPS, 4m clear DPS
- Full screen and off screen satisfying 1-tap clears with awakened chain
- Easily attainable 8.8k ES
- CI, 90% all res, ridiculous ES regen, 75% phys reduction, 64% evade, 15% attack/spell dodge, 35% attack block, 10% spell block, additional 50% attack block (40% uptime), freeze immunity
- All content brainlessly, facetank everything (Sirus meteor, Uber Elder hits, wave 20 Simulacrum, etc.)
- Easily speed farm fully delirious t16s without ever dying
- Permanent 3 frenzy and 3 power charges
- Culling strike built into your attack skill
- No 3 or 1 slot voices required
- No leech mod is fine
- No regen mod is fine

Cons:
Spoiler
- NOT a noob friendly build - basically one huge puzzle to reach max potential
- Can't do either phys or elemental reflect
- Swap to barrage support for single target
- Expensive, even to get started (recommended minimum 60 ex to even function). I spent 400 ex, but you can achieve very similar results with around 200 ex.
- Build doesn't really work until lvl 70-75
- This build will be absolutely gutted next patch


Gear
Spoiler
Note: need 113 strength on gear/jewels total to use 21 Vitality or Dread Banner. Up to 75 on chest, some on ring, some on amulet of needed, some on jewels if needed, some on headhunter. I acquired all strength solely from chest and 1 ring

Because of the popularity of this build, the gear has gotten a lot more expensive. Sorry!

Wand
- Rare
- Medium budget: 350+ PDPS without ele penetration, or 250+ PDPS with ele penetration
- High budgetL 350+ PDPS AND ele penetration
- Attacks with this weapon penetrate ELEMENTAL resistances, or Damage penetrates ELEMENTAL resistances (highest you can get)
- 8.5+% base crit
- Do NOT get pierce, this completely ruins Chain mechanic
- Wrath and Anger don't scale off physical damage, but Hatred does, and it's huge. Elemental penetration scales all 3
- You can also just go for a higher pdps wand if you can't get any penetration
- If you're SUPER budget, get a Piscator's and drop Hatred (because you have no phys damage for it to scale). This is a good decision if you have less than 100 ex budget

Wands like these will cover all your needs, but you can go better if you have the money



Shield
- DO NOT BUY ONE OF THESE, CRAFT IT YOURSELF. THEY ARE GROSSLY OVERPRICED, AND COST LESS THAN 5 EX TO MAKE.
- Socketed gems have 15% reduced mana reservation
- High ES
- 2 minimum frenzy charges (not necessary but having permanent capped frenzies is HUGE dps and movement speed - highly recommend you shell the money to buy this)
- Other good mods: Lightning as Extra Chaos, +1 to level of Fire/Cold/Lightning gems, max mana, intelligence, attack speed, chance for double damage, etc.

To craft:
1x Awakener's orb
1x Any trash shield with only 1 influence + either 2 minimum frenzies or 15% socketed gems reduced mana reservation, and NO OTHER INFLUENCED MODS
1x ilvl 82-85 Titanium Spirit Shield base with only 1 influence, and the other mod (or the other way around, whichever has the cheapest bases), and NO OTHER INFLUENCED MODS

1. Right-click Awakener Orb
2. Click the shitty shield
3. Click the Titanium Spirit Shield
4. Annul, multimod, craft, divine, whatever you need to do. Rinse and repeat if needed. Congrats, you have a sick shield for the build!

You can Perfect Fossil a Titanium Spirit Shield influenced base to 30% first, then craft your own Frenzy or Reduced Mana Reservation mod on it, but this is a little more expensive and time consuming.

Examples:


Helm
- Alpha's Howl
- Power siphon fires 2 additional projectiles enchant
- Best corruptions: Socketed Aura/AOE/Duration gems, increased shock effect
- Note: Alpha's Howl gives you Freeze immunity, so all you need is Chill immunity, which you can get on boots with the hybrid Movement Speed + Immune to Chill craft

Something like this is GG as fuck, huge dps boost and around 500 ES


Chest
- Saqawal's Nest
- 10% reduced mana reserved
- Highest attributes you can get
- Colours for build are easy to get, so don't worry about this

Gloves
- Breathstealer w/ highest attack speed and mana roll + Disintegration anointment
OR
- Shadows and Dust w/ a good corruption (attack base crit, ele weakness on hit)
OR
- Hands of the high templar w/ attack base crit, +aura/aoe/duration gems, ele weakness on hit, maximum ES

Boots
- Rare
- Elusive mod
- Tailwind mod
- (crafted) Movement speed and chill immunity
- Aspect of the Avian if not on jewellery
- Enchant: Elemental penetration, stun immunity, flat elemental damage, movement speed, whatever works for you
- You can get ES here if you're a rich boi but it's really expensive for just a little ES

Amulet
- Rare
- 5% reduced mana reserved w/ 20% life and mana quality to hit 6%
- Max % ES
- Crit multi
Other decent mods: Movement speed, Flat ES, Elemental damage with attacks, phys as elemental, elemental as chaos, etc.
- You can squeeze in Vitality here, but that's some serious min/max shit for this build, because you'd need more mana reserved jewels to fit in another aura, which is extremely expensive

The best amulet in the game right now for this build:


Unset Ring 1
- Max % ES
- Ele weakness on hit if not on gloves
- (crafted) Minimum frenzy charge
- (crafted) Non-channeling mana cost -9
- Aspect of the Avian if not anywhere else
- Flat ES (low priority)

Unset Ring 2
- Strength if needed
- Max % ES
- (crafted) Non-channeling mana cost -9
- Aspect of the Avian if not anywhere else
- Attack speed and Flat ES (low priority)

Belt
2 options:
- Survivability and easy 2% mana reserved: Darkness Enthroned w/ 2 jewels (see Jewel section)
OR
- Headhunter if you meet your mana reserved goals on tree, or willing to drop some Split Personalities and lose survivability for more clear.

Flasks
1. Diamond flask - Remove curse/bleeding, and increased duration/maximum charges/reduced charges
2. Atziri's Promise
3. Cinderswallow, preferably with Movement Speed or Crit Chance
4. Dying sun
5. Quicksilver flask - Remove curse/bleeding, and your preferred movement speed modifier (I used increased effect)
OR
Bottled faith (I literally never swapped to my Bottled Faith, even for Sirus. You really don't need it, and it's not reliable damage)

Gems
Spoiler
Note: Gem levels on auras are VERY important, and min/maxing your Power Siphon links are a lot more dps

6L Body:
1. Power Siphon (21/23)
2. Awakened Chain OR Barrage Support for single target (6/23)
3. Awakened Elemental Damage with Attacks (6/23)
4. Damage on Full Life (21/23)
5. Inspiration (21/20)
6. Increased Critical Damage (21/23) OR Energy Leech (21/23) - Energy Leech gives more survivability/utility, slightly less DPS
4L Helm: Discipline (21/0), Wrath (21/0), Hatred (21/0), Enlighten (4)
4S Gloves: Herald of Ice (21/23) / Thunder (21/23) / Ash (21/23) / Purity (21/20)
Ring: Herald of Agony (20/20)
Ring: Vitality (21/0) OR Dread banner (21/23) if you don't have the mana reserved for Vitality OR nothing if you're struggling with mana reserved
4L Boots: Purity of Ice (20/0) / Lightning (20/0) / Fire (20/0), Enlighten (4)
3S Shield: Vaal Grace (21/0), Vaal Haste (21/0), Anger (21/0) - important to have 50% mana cost auras here because of -15% reduced reservation of socketed gems mod
3S Wand: Precision (21/0), Flame Dash (21/23), Clarity (1/0)

Jewels
Spoiler
Note: Reduced mana reserved corruption on as many as you can, except for Split Personalities because they can't get it. Also, try to get Corrupted Blood corruption on something as well - pretty cheap to get this on a cluster jewel

To run Vitality: 9 corruptions on jewels
To run Dread Banner instead: 8 corruptions on jewels
To run neither: 7 corruptions on jewels
Look up prices on pathofexile.com/trade or poe.trade on the cheapest jewels to get these corruptions

Cluster jewels:
3x Voices - Recommended 5 slots each. Can go 7 slots to save money but you lose ES on tree. Can get 3 or even 1 slot if you're a rich boi.
9x Medium cluster jewels
- 6x:
10% increased damage while affected by a Herald
4 or 5 passive skills (no difference between 4 or 5)
ENDBRINGER + Purposeful Harbinger + Jewel Socket
- 3x:
10% increased damage while affected by a Herald
4 or 5 passive skills (no difference between 4 or 5)
HERLADRY + Purposeful Harbinger + Jewel Socket

3x Split personality w/ Intelligence and Energy Shield (see POB for placement). You can drop these for more cheap mana reserved jewels but you lose a lot of ES

Other unique jewels:
- Watchers Eye (you're running so many auras that literally anything goes. Preferably Hatred base crit, Anger/Precision crit multi, Discipline stuff, Hatred conversion to cold (Anger and Wrath conversions are NOT a dps increase, Hatred is), the list goes on. Use POB to see DPS increases for different watcher's eye variants
- Intuitive Leap (see POB for placement)
- Unnatural Instinct (see POB for placement)
- Conqueror's Efficiency
- Mantra of Flames

2 Abyss jewels on belt if using Darkness Enthroned (NOTE: mana reserved is NOT increased with Darkness Enthroned's bonus. 1% on each jewel will still only get you 1% for each jewel)
- Global crit multi
- Max ES
- Max Mana
- 4th stat whatever

4 jewels with anything, but these MUST have reserved mana, because these are the cheapest jewels to get it on
- Max % ES
- Global crit multi
- Attack speed with wands
- Flat ES
- Flat mana
- Increased damage
- Movement speed if killed recently
- Note: flat damage doesn't really do much

Ascendancy, Bandits, Pantheon
Spoiler
Radiant Faith > Radiant Crusade > Unwavering Faith > Bastion of Hope
2 passives
Brine King OR Solaris OR Lunaris, Tukohama

Leveling
Spoiler
Since this build is so heavily reliant on cluster jewels, it doesn't come online until around 70-75.

I recommend leveling as a generic Blade Vortex/Arc life-based character, or VD Poet's Pen/Spellslinger

Videos
Spoiler
DawnOfDusk_'s Sirus A8, conqueror, and map clear demonstration:
https://youtu.be/CaMMxAd94mQ

Teslabear's 19-20 sim w/ Omni+Kosis, A8 Sirus, T16 twinned Malformation:
https://youtu.be/OEcVcyfuQhY
https://youtu.be/rnms9IeVNBQ
https://youtu.be/SykXueMJlZc

Redguin's 130 ex budget A8 Sirus:
https://youtu.be/X15AexuLJAE

Griiod's 80 ex A8 Sirus
https://youtu.be/i18vYytpF0g

laststraw9's map clear (Scion version, level 91):
https://youtu.be/Nof11Ctsp1o


Why is my DPS low?
Spoiler
1. Do you have 3 minimum frenzy charges (2 on shield, 1 on ring)?
2. Do you have a lot of crit multi and increased damage mods on gear/jewels?
3. Do you have a high damage-boosting watcher's eye?
4. Is your wand higher than 350pdps, have more than 8.5% base crit, and have penetration?
5.1. Are your damage aura gems + Inspiration lvl 21?
5.2. Are your Power Siphon + support gems 21/23 (except Inspiration)?
5.3. Are your awakened gems 5/20?
6. Are you using Vaal Haste on higher hp monsters?
7. Are you using a 21/23 Barrage Support on big bosses?
8. Do you have Elemental Weakness on Hit?
9. Do you have Tailwind AND Elusive on boots?
10. Do you have gloves that give good DPS?
11. Do you have the Power Siphon has 2 Additional Projectiles helmet enchant?
12. Do you have elemental penetration on amulet?
13. Do you have 9 Purposeful Harbingers and 6 Endbringers on your clusters?


Money Making Guide
Spoiler
THE HIDEOUT IS LAVA. Do not spend more time in your hideout than you have to. Play the fucking game and you will make money.

All maps are run with 20% quality, alc, vaal, prime sextants, and Domination/Ambush zana mod. Use Alva or Einhar missions until you run out.

Your ultimate mission is to race the fog - you make a fuckton of money from Simulacrum splinters alone. You get more splinters for the more monsters you kill far from the mirror, and closer to the initial edge of the fog (the one ahead of you, not the one behind you).

Also do your conquerors and Sirus efficiently with the number of maps you have. Kill every conqueror and Sirus you get.

1. Get 154/154 atlas, and 150/154 awakener bonus
2. Do a 4-way Legion encounter to unlock the 5-way map device
3. 3xFavourite T14 Burial Chambers, T14 Tropical Island, T15 Lair, T16 Malformation. Don't favourite anything else
4. Buy a shit ton of scarabs (any tier, whatever is cheapest) - Strongbox, Legion, Breach
5. Stock up on a fuckton of sacrifice fragments
6. Run Tropical Islands with Strongbox sca, Legion sca, Breach sca, and sac frag
7. When out of Tropical islands, run Lair with Strongbox sca and 3 sac frags
8. When out of Lairs, run Malformation with Strongbox sca and 3 sac frags
9. Repeat from step 6
10. Sell Burial Chambers in bulk
11. Run Simulacrums as you get them, or sell in bulk. I ran them because they were a nice break from mapping.
12. You'll accumulate a shitton of other T14, T15, and T16 maps. I couldn't be asked to deal with this shit, so I vendored them in 3s to upgrade, until they were all T16. I then Horizon Orbed them all to T16 Promenades, then sold the Promenades in bulk

If you do this, you will make fucking bank

There's an alternative method to manipulate your atlas to permanently sustain T14 Burials. I don't like doing this, because there's no variety, but it's definitely a good money making strategy as well

Scion/Ascendant version
Spoiler
The Scion version has noticeably more damage, but less survivability. Both are good. I like being unkillable, so I opted for Guardian.

Almost everything remains the same except you get 1 additional jewel socket, a lot more passives skills to play with, less ES/block chance/regen, but you gain a fuckton of attack speed and damage overall.

Clip from Empyrian explaining the difference: Skip to 7:00
https://youtu.be/xxLdX6iDlUY?t=420

POB with similar gear as my Guardian:
https://pastebin.com/NNfwzJq8
Note: Swapped out one Endbringer with Replenishing Presence, and added in Might of the Meek at Scion start

Playing the build with a 60+ex budget
Spoiler
- 3x 7 passive voices
- Piscator's, and drop Hatred, or just a 300~ PDPS wand with high crit
- No need to get frenzies on shield
- Don't need Unnatural Instinct
- Use Darkness Enthroned for 2 more easy mana reserved jewels
- Get an ele weakness ring and the other covers your strength needs
- Use regular Chain instead of Awakened Chain
- Watcher's Eye can be Crit Multi while affected by Anger (super cheap)

It's a lot easier to hit 9x reserved mana jewels than you think, Especially if you just take out some Split personalities.

You have:
- 6 rare jewels if you use a Darkness Enthroned
- 3 Split Personalities
and the cheaper uniques to get reserved mana on are:
- Mantra of Flames
- Watcher's Eye with mediocre mods (or skip the Watcher's eye in general for another reserved mana jewel)

All else remains the same, should be able to cover the build with 60 ex
Last edited by moldycondom#2363 on Jun 20, 2020, 11:21:26 PM
Last bumped on Jun 10, 2020, 10:53:12 AM
Go for it, please :D
I would be interested aswell, got a headhunter char for deleting maps and a boss killer so far this league but want to combine those 2 into one char, and wanding + herald sounds alluring :D

So yes, if you don´t mind, I´d love a guide
Guide is basically done for now, shame I can't add any videos. Hope y'all enjoy
Also sorry to all that I won't be posting videos of the build - I just don't have the gear anymore. I'd be happy to take community videos of the build and showcase

Please feel free to share your success with the build and I can provide feedback as well
Can we remove the minimum frenzy crafts on gear for more budget and go harmony of purpose instead of radiant crusade?
"
Can we remove the minimum frenzy crafts on gear for more budget and go harmony of purpose instead of radiant crusade?


If you want to save money, just drop the minimum frenzies altogether. I don't recommend changing ascendancies for 10% charge generation on hit - the other ascendancy stats are just better.

If you're using the Unnatural Instinct jewel where I have it set, you have a small chance to generate charges on kill, which is sufficient while clearing. For single target, minimum frenzies is just some nice added damage.
Are there any changes you can make to handle reflect?

Elementalist instead of guardian?
"
Are there any changes you can make to handle reflect?

Elementalist instead of guardian?


I don’t recommend any changes to handle reflect. It’s not worth the trouble - just reroll or wait for reflect sextant mods.

The build doesn’t convert physical to elemental, so it still does quite a bit of phys damage, which means it can’t do phys or elemental reflect. If we swapped to elementalist, we would lose a shit ton of survivability and ES for ele reflect immunity and almost no dps increase, and the immunity is not very relevant because we still can’t do phys reflect.

Overall, not worth breaking your head over, just don’t do reflect maps with this build.
Fair enough. Thank you for the wonderful guide. I've played poe in and out for several years and after returning recently, there seems to be a rather steep learning curve this time around.

Do you have a preferred leveling setup or guide?

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info