[3.16 - RETIRING BUILD] VD Brands: S-Tier Bosser, A-Tier Map! -- MURDERED BY GGG_INTERN SOMEWHERE--

Well gents - the nerf hammer has come round and here is the usual no-nonsense of how it will affect us:

1) Harvest creatures health % nerf - Explosion damage goes down. Crushclaws may still be worth using, but Stoneskin Flayers are back on the menu over Primal Blisterlord. This build found success before using Harvest bois so it'll still work. However -


2) Immortal Ambition nerf - this is the big one.

This nerf alone may make this build extremely unpleasant to play, reason being Immortal Ambition was a huge part of mitigating the Shimmeron self-damage. The change means Vaal Pact and the necklace mod no longer boosts the ES portion of recovery as well, ON TOP of reducing the leech to 10% of the ES pool (it used to take 20% of the life pool instead.) The ES recovery has basically been more than halved.

The only viable way out of this is to drop Shimmerons altogether, or drop one and run Light of Lunaris - or pray that some unique or Brand Buff comes back to pull the build back together. Until I find a good solution, I'd advise you not to pour currency in this build - although it will still perform decently, it is no longer as niche and stellar as it once was.

(Then again, it has decent clear without Explodey AND strong bossing and a lot of other shit got nerfed.)

A way around this is to use Dual Void Batteries - which delivered about 80% of Shimmeron's damage - so the startup cost of the build has gone up. On the bright side, you'll have 40% increased cast speed which will ramp the skill very nicely and be huge QoL for new players who hate getting stuck in animation.

You do lose the spell block from Shimmerons, though. All in all - the build was hit hard by this.


3) Corrupted Soul nerf

For those of you who used a Replica Soul Tether on top of the Timeless Jewel, you will lose some tHP - probably about 800 on a 10k~ build.

Upon deeper analysis, here's my verdict for the build.


1) Shimmerons are out of the question, and you may as well just index very heavily on life now instead of bothering with ES, as even with a very solid attempt to build ES, you'll be leeching about 700-800 back instead of the previous baseline of 2k (from Vaal Pact + 20% of Life Pool). Shimmeron Degen used to be 500.

2) Void Batteries deliver about 77% of the DPS with a very nice 40% cast speed which could shift it closer to 100% on boss fights.

3) You'll be basically much less effective at taking multiple hits now since, no matter what, your regen got gutted, and have to build defences like blind.



It's entirely possible Inquisitor with Battlemage and Pious Path could become the tankier, albeit weaker version of this build. Suffice to say, an era is over.

I will STILL play a Necro and post how the build does now. It's dropped from a sleeper A+-tier to B+ at best.

Can you post a PoB For league start?

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PathOfChip wrote:

Can you post a PoB For league start?

Hey mate, this is one of the most league-start unfriendly builds I have ever made. Combined with the latest nerfs, I can't say I would recommend it as an early-game char.

I will rebuild it with ES on-hit and stuff, and play with the new, buffed Witchhunter's Judgement to see if we can get some comic boss deaths, but until I do, best not to come near this build unless you are very experienced from previous leagues :)

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primaeva wrote:

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PathOfChip wrote:

Can you post a PoB For league start?

Hey mate, this is one of the most league-start unfriendly builds I have ever made. Combined with the latest nerfs, I can't say I would recommend it as an early-game char.

I will rebuild it with ES on-hit and stuff, and play with the new, buffed Witchhunter's Judgement to see if we can get some comic boss deaths, but until I do, best not to come near this build unless you are very experienced from previous leagues :)

Saddest thing I've heard yet. Thanks for the update, I'll have to check back in a week or so then. I won't be able to play much until then anyways

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PathOfChip wrote:

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primaeva wrote:

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PathOfChip wrote:

Can you post a PoB For league start?

Hey mate, this is one of the most league-start unfriendly builds I have ever made. Combined with the latest nerfs, I can't say I would recommend it as an early-game char.

I will rebuild it with ES on-hit and stuff, and play with the new, buffed Witchhunter's Judgement to see if we can get some comic boss deaths, but until I do, best not to come near this build unless you are very experienced from previous leagues :)

Saddest thing I've heard yet. Thanks for the update, I'll have to check back in a week or so then. I won't be able to play much until then anyways

Hiya! I've started the char and rebuilt it with the following wands:



As well as using for sustain.

It does T15 Ultimatums very well but if you play on anything less than a killer rig, don't try it, the game goes absolutely laggy and I had to disable sound. I'm thinking Aspect of the Spider is causing this so once I get an ES on-hit jewel instead that should smooth out.

For T16s to feel comfortable, well, I've just bought Awakened Spell Cascade.

I advise you to wait on my first update video before judging for yourself if you find it satisfactory. The killspeed and sustain is insane but the Spider debuff may need to go (I have a RTX2070 and it's choking.)

So this is looking like good news. The build isn't dead afterall? I can't wait for a video of how it's going!

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Subxeno wrote:

So this is looking like good news. The build isn't dead afterall? I can't wait for a video of how it's going!

Haha don't hold your breath yet. I think it does well still because it was silly strong previously, but for such an expensive and niche build (20ex+) it SHOULD be delivering.

On the bright side, I will be trying to innovate hard this patch to bring a few "variants" to it. For example, we lost so much power from Shimmerons that it could be time to do an Elemental Overload version - but that frees up a TON of points for QoL stuff like second Clusters and AoE/brand duration. So it will feel a shit ton more fun to play, but only carry 60% of its old offensive power, for example. (Imagine your brands being able to jump on crap from 3/4 a screen away).

That should solve a lot of the pain points people are having and make the build accessible. And then the hard-core players can go the higher damage route. With ES on hit, we could even bring Shimmerons back!

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Subxeno wrote:

So this is looking like good news. The build isn't dead afterall? I can't wait for a video of how it's going!

Hey! Looks like ES on hit is a really insane tool for recovery, too.

https://streamable.com/yzgwv5

T16 Ultimatum! It's cooking my computer - but then again, so did it last league, haha.

Hey !

What about this set up to counter shimmeron degen :

Watchers eyes ES on hit + glorious vanity doryani + shaper ring with Life on spell hit

A CwC loop with : Ball lightning, gmp, slower proj, WoC or Bone offering


Maybe the self ignite setup and 6L CWDT (BL + GMP + slower proj + combustion + anything)
You Can even add antoher CWDT setup with anything you like.

Currently crafting a helmet, when i'm done i'll try to make and self ignite version and see if it Can work !