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

Hi i was wondering in your 3.16 updates, looking at your gear and wondering How you are triggering shock on everything around you reliably enough to support the explosion, i see no shock generation really anywhere other than wave of conviction which you cant be spamming out in all directions while you move so im a little confused

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Malanon wrote:

Couple of things here. I would suggest moving both raise spectre and animate guardian into a 3 link with minion life and / or meat shield, moving the 4-link arcanist setup out of the main weapon and moving the CWDT setup into the weapon + this new 3-link (dropping ball lightning in CWDT). I'd also suggest taking the three passive points to grave intentions, since that's a very important node for our animate guardian if we're using stitched demon.

All good pointers, I'll do point by point to discuss all this great input!

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(Note, base life of animate guardian is really, really high, with minion life linked + grave intentions + stitched demon, we're looking at something like 5-10% life regen per second). Divergent animate guardian is super cheap at the moment and will hopefully go further down and is pretty big for survivability.

Yep, definitely worth it putting up the AG to push into ultra endgame - plus bone offering actually gives them a chance to get 2% life regen now (RIP us of course, but great for minions).

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(dropping ball lightning in CWDT).

This is an absolute no-no, Ball Lightning CWDT may actually do more for your survivability than a lot of these other things put together, it is the absolute failsafe of the build and will carry us through the density of Scourge. Here's a vid of it and purely it in action in a T16 100%+ quant map: https://streamable.com/aegb8x

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Now this where it gets tricky for me. We have the open cyclone slot, so instead of infused channelling we could use convocation to keep the animate guardian close to us, ensuring better uptime on the fortify and survivability of both our spectres and the AG.

Note with garb of the ephemeral and kingmaker, especially in boss fights, we will never take critical hits which is nuts, so paying 3 passives points for 50% crit multi, fortify, culling strike, no crit hits taken and movement speed reduction can't be below normal is worth it imo.

Great idea here too, will definitely try that.

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Also, since we're atm attempting to mitigate phy damage, we could replace frenzy charge on hit with endurance charge when hit recently on our chest (ensuring max endurance charges all the time due to getting hit often in this build) for constant 12% phys mit (we're also 2 points from a max endurance charge node, so potentially 16% phys mit). If we really miss the frenzy charges, we could consider blood rage but without leech to counter it could feel pretty bad. We have the option of just keeping the cyclone setup as a 5-link, running vitality as an extra aura (which additionally allows the option of a vitality damage leech + disc es on hit watcher's eye later on), + blood rage for frenzy gen. However finding the gem slots for this will be quite challenging and probably require unset ring schenanigans.

Seems like the right play for very defensive setups. Sweeping Strikes (2 pointer up from Counterweight) also gives reliable charge gen, but only in Scourge I must say, it won't proc on bosses. I guess Frenzies can come from somewhere else. Or aren't there clusters which grant that effect, too? (End Charge when hit Recently). There's even a weapon swap that can generate Frenzy charges instantly if it comes to that, and they last a good 10s anyway, but too clunky for non-bossing I reckon. Then again, bossing is the only place we need that big Onslaught + Frenzy gen.

The sum of this though, is that we can maintain our 20% less damage taken with fortify, + 12-16% phys mit from endurance charges + 8% phys mit from infused channeling (when spinning) + more phys mit when immortal call procs + 10% less damage taken (from bosses) if using meat shield support on ag / spectres since from taunt.

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Also side note, with elemental mastery I would look into 40% increased effect on non-damaging ailments instead of -18% exposure. Scorch shred should be better than -18% guaranteed exposure shred (is it 10% default?), since 1.4 * 30 = 42% (42 + 10 > 30 + 18), + stronger sap and brittle. Not sure honestly. Discipline should definitely be Vaal Discipline at some point (sorry if that's already implied).

Ah, as recommended earlier, 40% increased effect is recommended for early game- once you enter 7L territory, no Ailment Effect is required to push even A9 Sirus to 15% any more (tested last patch.) So you can have your cake and eat it too late game. (Exposure is 15% WoC and 10% from Cluster/automated sources.)

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Also, is Holy Conquest effect (re-attach every 0.3s) really necessary for our build, especially with all the increased attachment range? We could potentially drop the upper brand cluster (bold I know), exchange the Holy Conquest effect with + 2 brands (or leave as is with 3 max), and use those points elsewhere.

This largely depends on pack size. Early game levelling etc, Holy Conquest isn't necesssary. Late however, it saves you "GCDs" by chaining through the pack instead of dropping back to its OG spawn position once it's killed the front runners, and it makes the difference between having to cast 2 brands a pack (or 1 recall) and 4 brands, one at the tail end and one at the end. You can try it for yourself! It's an unfortunate consquence of the Brand nerfs.

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Final question. Thoughts on speccing into Death Attunement (via minion damage side) to add additional spectre to pool for more corpse explosion damage? No idea how the maths works out here but it's 4 passive points for + 1 spectre, might be worth it.

Someone did the math - Badger - not worth it for 4 points!

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Apologies for the brain dump. I love this build and appreciate the effort you put into getting it out there for us.

No mate, this build is legit the confluence of all our brain dumps. This AG tech is going to make or break the Scourge performance, thank you for all your expertise. I'll try it out probably next week - have had a very slow week 1 as I was away, but am breaking into the 10ex territory now and the build is starting to deliver on those heavy Scourges, and of course already trashing all other endgame content. :)

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mrdeath21 wrote:

Hi i was wondering in your 3.16 updates, looking at your gear and wondering How you are triggering shock on everything around you reliably enough to support the explosion, i see no shock generation really anywhere other than wave of conviction which you cant be spamming out in all directions while you move so im a little confused

Corpse Pact chills and shocks corpses near your Desecrates!

Leadership's Price removes this effect so we switch to an explodey chest later. Alternatively, keep the Inpulsa on and run Skitterbots - which you want anyway for Shock effect on the boss and Chill for Hypothermia on the late game helm.

Explodey chests just have the option to grant up to 2k extra HP + ES, at the cost of reduced clear. Pick your poison! Inpulsa + Corpse Pact is really good at what it does early on in the build when you're pushing to farm T16 content.

First off, thanks for the feedback!

Seems like (if we want a support gem linked to our animate guardian that is) we're funneled into either dropping a link in the cyclone setup (which honestly isn't the worst, 8% phys mit or convocation lost), or adding an unset ring as a requirement since every other gem is pretty much required.

Notably, smashing strikes (which you called sweeping strikes) isn't within the thread of hope radius, many points to go out to grab.

Given that we can get almost max spell block with just three passive points (or go the 16 all res route for four points) at the safeguard cluster, and we now have pressure to get grave intentions, we're a little point starved even in the 5-point flex version.

Also, check the most recent hotfix. Duskdawn was making people deal no critical strike damage, instead of buffing spell damage if recently crit. Get the feeling that might be why people weren't enjoying the duskdawn version.

Hi!

I've been reading through the last few pages to see what new ideas everyone has had and just wanted to add that convocation is instant cast. You can simply put it on left click and hold it down while you cyclone and it will cast during cyclone. No need to put it on the cwc link.

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Zenzen wrote:

Hi!

I've been reading through the last few pages to see what new ideas everyone has had and just wanted to add that convocation is instant cast. You can simply put it on left click and hold it down while you cyclone and it will cast during cyclone. No need to put it on the cwc link.

True, although some people run with brand recall on lmb as well. Only one slot available. Hopefully though, convocation won't be necessary as there are options that benefit us personally more.

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Malanon wrote:

First off, thanks for the feedback!

Seems like (if we want a support gem linked to our animate guardian that is) we're funneled into either dropping a link in the cyclone setup (which honestly isn't the worst, 8% phys mit or convocation lost), or adding an unset ring as a requirement since every other gem is pretty much required.

Notably, smashing strikes (which you called sweeping strikes) isn't within the thread of hope radius, many points to go out to grab.

Given that we can get almost max spell block with just three passive points (or go the 16 all res route for four points) at the safeguard cluster, and we now have pressure to get grave intentions, we're a little point starved even in the 5-point flex version.

Also, check the most recent hotfix. Duskdawn was making people deal no critical strike damage, instead of buffing spell damage if recently crit. Get the feeling that might be why people weren't enjoying the duskdawn version.

Oh rip, I am manually pathing to Counterweight right now but it wouldn't be worth later yeah.

Re: Duskdawn - WHAT. It was bugged day 2 but I thought it was a visual thing on the item - the visual cue was fixed within HOURS (on Day 3) but you're telling me they ONLY NOW fixed the ACTUAL damage?? That's hugely irresponsible.

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primaeva wrote:

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Malanon wrote:

First off, thanks for the feedback!

Seems like (if we want a support gem linked to our animate guardian that is) we're funneled into either dropping a link in the cyclone setup (which honestly isn't the worst, 8% phys mit or convocation lost), or adding an unset ring as a requirement since every other gem is pretty much required.

Notably, smashing strikes (which you called sweeping strikes) isn't within the thread of hope radius, many points to go out to grab.

Given that we can get almost max spell block with just three passive points (or go the 16 all res route for four points) at the safeguard cluster, and we now have pressure to get grave intentions, we're a little point starved even in the 5-point flex version.

Also, check the most recent hotfix. Duskdawn was making people deal no critical strike damage, instead of buffing spell damage if recently crit. Get the feeling that might be why people weren't enjoying the duskdawn version.

Oh rip, I am manually pathing to Counterweight right now but it wouldn't be worth later yeah.

Re: Duskdawn - WHAT. It was bugged day 2 but I thought it was a visual thing on the item - the visual cue was fixed within HOURS (on Day 3) but you're telling me they ONLY NOW fixed the ACTUAL damage?? That's hugely irresponsible.

I think I might be wrong on the duskdawn thing, looking at it again it seems to be one of the earlier hotfixes, not later. However reading the hotfix also implies is was not only a visual bug but code bug as well, whenever it existed.

On endurance charge gen, there is a small cluster notable Rote Reinforcement for life clusters which gives endurance charge on block. That's two passive points and a lost normal jewel (the small cluster could be really juicy though, if we want it (could make it 3 point as well)), but yeah, that's the only end gen I can find on clusters.

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Malanon wrote:

Now this where it gets tricky for me. We have the open cyclone slot, so instead of infused channelling we could use convocation to keep the animate guardian close to us, ensuring better uptime on the fortify and survivability of both our spectres and the AG.

Silly idea but... intuitive link->convocation on the golem so it automatically recalls itself to us when it strays away?

EDIT: actually disregard, forgot it's not a toggle.

Hey i am running your 2ex version with doryani ,EO, and explody chest. I think im low on dmg, having a bit of problem on bossing and couldnt kill veritania AL6.

Can you look at my PoB and point out what am i missing or some tips and stuff please
Pob :- https://pastebin.com/67mvd9TP