⛵☁️[3.25] The Arachnophobia Allstars| Chaos Guardian CI|The dirty Scorpion-tail|Herald of Agony 150M+

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KooperT wrote:

So I've been running this build as my 2nd character in Archnemesis SC. I've put in a good amount of currency - enough that I feel it should perform as well as it can, with only a few remaining large-ticket upgrades (aul neck primarily). I'm running a slightly different variation using an Ancient Skull helm instead of Eber's, and I'm testing a 4-Link Spectre for mapping instead of a CWDT/frost shield setup (either arena masters for more speed, or charge monkeys).

The build feels absolutely fine for mapclear - plows through T16 content with juice, no problems. Very tanky. The only thing that kills me instantly is the Exarch Alter "burning oil ground" which seems to kill anybody in a second anyway.

However, the single-target / bossing department for this build feels like utter trash. Honestly, for the amount of currency I've put in, it feels like terrible compared to some lower-budget starters I have played. Running 1 worm flask is fine for mapping, but on bosses (especially with immunity phases, which is like, every boss nowadays) it's absolutely miserable. I don't like the idea of having to swap to 2-3 worm flasks on bosses to feel viable.

The problem I find is, unlike Occultist/Necro variants, Guardian doesn't really get any minion duration. The spiders don't last long enough and I find myself often with 0 spiders up or only 8-10 during boss fights, relying solely on my HoAG to dish out damage.

A large majority of the time, I'll desecrate, throw down brands, be spamming ball lightning WHILE I pop worm flasks - and get no spiders, because the worms pop out BEHIND me (like 50%+ of the time) and don't get hit by me, or are sniped by the HoAG. I guess this is why many Arakaali builds use Divine Ire to trigger... the 360 degrees popping would be a godsend. So on average I'll need to use my worm flask 2-3 times to get 20 spiders. Not great.

I find I'm often running around a bossfight with 0 spiders waiting for my pantheon to restore some charges just enough to resummon spiders.

Here's my gear for reference... It's not endgame, but definitely not budget. For the currency invested, I feel like it should perform far better with less gimmicks.

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I also have a Watcher's Eye with Discipline / ES on Hit, 2 large clusters and 3 pure agonies.

Here's my PoB for those interested:
https://pastebin.com/ByrW8q1z


For the record, I have plenty of currency saved up from mapping - this build maps very well, and could easily afford Aul's necklace and a revamp of my gear now, but I don't think I'm going to minmax this any further. It's not a pleasant experience bossing on this character. Either I'm rerolling or making a 3rd character solely for bossing, and only using this HoAG/Spider character for mapping.

Hi KooperT,

when I take a closer look at your pob you deal around 4-5 M damage? You set the configurations with unholy might, and spectres-skills and minon-curses etc. a bit too high I suppose.
At your level that is low and it's easy to deal double and more, 8M damage with the allstars-build at your level.
Don't use cruelty, get the cheap awakened supports.

I guess beside, because you are using triad grips without spell-echo, that you need to generate more virulences for your HoAg damage, see spoiler "checklist damage". Check the counter in the Hoag icon, you need there optimized continuos 55 virulences singeltarget. When you stack lower numbers in your skills please visit the section gloves in "gear, skills, links".
I guess without castspeed of spellecho you don't get by far not full damage, only around half of the above counted 1/2.

I love it when gamers vary, alternate and individualize their gear and set-ups. It's great to try out all stuff!! But here in the case of your skills and gear you get 1 / 2, only 50% and less of the damage by the default allstars build. I love spectres too, but like you use them they die against bosses all the time of course.
So perhaps it's not a good choice how you miss sniper's mark, spirit offering, virulences, pure agony, auras, and some more.
Also your ehp could be trippled for 10-15 chaos with small clusters, take a look at "mapping lvl 90 before aul's uprising" in the pob. It also already deals 8M with triad grips and not 4M like your interpretation ...

For spiders check of course the spoiler "blizzard", there are some tipps more. Divine Ire is nice, but frostblink does the job faster when you have practized a bit.

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Hi KooperT,

when I take a closer look at your pob you deal 2.4M damage? At your level that is real low and it's easy to deal quintuple, 12M damage with the build at your level.
Don't use cruelty, get the cheap awakened supports.

I guess beside, because you are using triad grips without optimazations, that you need to generate more virulences for HoAg damage, see spoiler "checklist damage". Check the counter in the Hoag icon, you need there your not optimized 55 virulences singeltarget. When you stack lower numbers please visit the section gloves in "gear, skills, links".
I guess without castspeed of spellecho you don't get by far not full damage, only 1/5 and lesser, and not 2.5M because you use the wrong skills.

For spiders check of course the spoiler "blizzard", there are some tipps more.

My PoB shows 7 million DPS, with 8 million using Vile Toxins.

No idea how you are only seeing 2.4M. Even if you turn off conditionals like "on kill" buffs they shouldn't drop down that much.

PoB shows my dps higher with triad grips. I guess i could drop them for a rare glove but don't know how that would improve my DPS. Should i swap to spell echo and switch Lvl21 HoA for Lvl20 Divergent? PoB says this is a DPS loss.

How much have you spent on the build? 8 mil DPS should be plenty with the tankiness of the build to ream the bosses. You don't even need 12mil.

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KooperT wrote:

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Hi KooperT,

when I take a closer look at your pob you deal 2.4M damage? At your level that is real low and it's easy to deal quintuple, 12M damage with the build at your level.
Don't use cruelty, get the cheap awakened supports.

I guess beside, because you are using triad grips without optimazations, that you need to generate more virulences for HoAg damage, see spoiler "checklist damage". Check the counter in the Hoag icon, you need there your not optimized 55 virulences singeltarget. When you stack lower numbers please visit the section gloves in "gear, skills, links".
I guess without castspeed of spellecho you don't get by far not full damage, only 1/5 and lesser, and not 2.5M because you use the wrong skills.

For spiders check of course the spoiler "blizzard", there are some tipps more.

My PoB shows 7 million DPS, with 8 million using Vile Toxins.

No idea how you are only seeing 2.4M. Even if you turn off conditionals like "on kill" buffs they shouldn't drop down that much.

PoB shows my dps higher with triad grips. I guess i could drop them for a rare glove but don't know how that would improve my DPS. Should i swap to spell echo and switch Lvl21 HoA for Lvl20 Divergent? PoB says this is a DPS loss.

I corrected above already. Unholy might is too much to check it singletarget, and spectres buffs have less uptime. You obtain around 4-5M shaper-damage, 50-60% of the possible optimized damage at lvl 90, I would guess.
And I fear further that you by far not reach optimized full virulences singletarget. That lowers your damage much further, perhaps it halves your singletarget-damage.
In maps it will be okay, on bosses not, just exactly like you noted, because you use triad grips with the wrong choosen skills. You use total 11-12 different, in the allstars-build not recommended skills and supports and loose to much optimizations in defences and singletarget.
You need, as written above, 55 virulences singletarget. That works with the set-ups in the gloves section and 80% poisonchance. With triad gripes you use best Divergent HoA lvl 21, whispers of doom curse-mastery and serpentine spellslinger, anomalous spell-echo, gmp, stormbrands, anomalous ball-lightnings to reach damage singletarget.
Perhaps you should write that you are not satisfied with your own interpretation. There are so much changed and weaker skills in your toon that probably it's not to classify close to the allstars-set-up.

In better builded up skills you need lvl 94 for unending hunger 3 seconds, black star 4, for redeemer 6, for baran 7, for drox 12 seconds. Perhaps there are a few a bit faster necro-glascannon-builds out there with zero defences and zero recovery, probably there are also many much slower necro-builds with much lower tankyness out there.

For example "Black Star down in 4 seconds" presents an interesting surprise in the first half of the first second: it's not that difficult to let 18 spiders dance. Of course you can also instead switch in a tiggerwand or CIP when the 3 clicks are too much.

So, I am really not sure if it's the slow bosser you are mentioning. Until now I could not find any faster kill in whole youtube. Black star down:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwCXAcmUHVo

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Komagetsome wrote:

How much have you spent on the build? 8 mil DPS should be plenty with the tankiness of the build to ream the bosses. You don't even need 12mil.

I agree, even 3-4 million is typically "comfortable" for most endgame bosses, so even if my PoB numbers are inflated I feel for the investment I've put in, it should reach "several millions" in DPS. OP says I'm really only doing around 4-5M instead of 8M (since a lot of it is buffs like unholy might, feeding frenzy, etc. which you'll only have during mapping) but let me tell you when I say I've played many other builds with 2-4M DPS that aren't as aggravating to play and perform better on bosses.

Rough costs so far:

Arakaali Fang - Paid 4ex, currently 2ex
Triad Grips - Paid 3ex, currently 5ex
Ancient Skull /w HoAG Enchant - Paid 1ex, currently 2ex
Skin of Lords 2G3R1B - Paid 4ex, seem to be around 5-7 ex now
Ashes of Stars - 1Ex
Aegis - 1Ex
Watcher's Eye (Discipline ES/Hit + Grace 15% Movespeed) - 4Ex
Large Minion Cluster - 2.5Ex
Medium Agony Clusters x2, Megalomaniac, Corrupted Blood Jewel, Thread of Hope, etc. around 2-3Ex extra.
Skill Gems - EMPOWER 4Ex. Awakened Unbound/Melee Splash 1Ex each. Rest are pretty cheap but still 1-2Ex totals.

Boots, Belt, Ring were self-crafted.
Quick pricecheck shows value around 4ex for belt, 1ex for ring, and 3ex for boots - rough estimate 8ex, but you can probably craft similar for around 2-3ex.

So a rough estimate, I've spent around 30 exalts already and I'm confident I can re-sell all my gear now for around 35 exalts, just to give you an idea of how much you would need to invest "roughly" to reach similar levels on the CURRENT MARKET (prices change constantly and I'm basing the above numbers as of time of this post)

The only remaining upgrades to reach the OP's final build are:
Aul's Neck - 10Ex for Grace (Wish Ashes of Stars, you can fit in Grace using a Sublime Form). All this neck really does is allow you to reoptimize the tree to incorporate Tempest Shield for the max block/no glancing blows edition. Mostly a defensive upgrade, although Tempest Shield procs do provide some more virulence.

4G1R1B Skin of the Lords - These are around 20-30 exalts
3G2R1B Skin of the Lords - These are around 10 exalts

I'm making do by running 2G3R1B and swapping Vicious Projectiles/Void Manipulation for Damage On Full Life/Cruelty.

For reference I'm going to use OP's PoB for the "Full Block Endgame Edition", but swapping the level 5 awakened gems for 21/20 regular gems. It shows 7.8 Million DPS. Going from 4G1R1B setup to 2G3R1B shows an identical 7.8 Million DPS. So you really only want to invest in the 4G Skin if you also have 2x Level 5 Awakened Gems, which are not cheap, on top of the 20-30ex Skin of the Lords. His full buildout with awakened gems shows 9.5 Million DPS, so it's definitely an upgrade, but we're talking a total of 17% damage differential from 9.5M -> 7.8M. It's a lot of extra investment when on paper, 7.8M DPS should be plenty for all content.

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You use total 11-12 different, in the allstars-build not recommended skills and supports and loose to much optimizations in defences and singletarget.
You need, as written above, 55 virulences singletarget. That works with the set-ups in the gloves section and 80% poisonchance. With triad gripes you use bedt Divergent HoA lvl 21, whispers pof doom curse-mastery and serpentine spellslinger, anomalous spell-echo, gmp, stormbrands, anomalous ball-lightnings to reach damage singletarget.

Thank you for the response, and I want to clarify, your build is excellent and very fun to play for mapping. No offense is intended.

My posts are just so share my experience at the level of currency I have invested, and give people an understanding of what they should anticipate based on how much currency they can invest. The worst thing is for newer players to expect 4-second boss kills without understanding that 20-30ex is not enough for that to be realistic.

I want to make it clear that to achieve the same level of investment beyond what I've already spent (around 30Ex) you need at least another 30Ex to obtain 4G1R1B Skin of the Lords, Aul Necklace, and Level 5 Awakened Gems. Also, Divergent Herald of Agony Level 21 is 12-15 exalts. The Divergent HoA alone is unrealistic for many builds, when you can have a full endgame-ready build for 12Ex which is a lot for some players. I have no problem investing more as I am a veteran player, but I need to think HARD if it's worth going from 30ex to 60-70ex on just 1 build when I can try something else.

I'll try dropping my Triad Grip for rare glove with Faster Casting/Slow Proj and run your exact setup with Spell Echo, and switch Lvl21 HoA for Lvl20 Divergent HoA for poison chance instead. (I think in practice, this is going to be a DPS loss since Lvl21 vs Lvl20 is a big damage difference). But maybe more consistent Virulence stacking is what I lack.

Other than that, I don't really see what differences from your exact build I have made that results in changes to my DPS. You say I'm using 11-12 different skill gems, but realistically, I am using just 2 different gems in my chestpiece (Vicious Proj/Void Manip -> Damage on Full Life/Cruelty).

The flexible links you run are stuff like Frost Shield, Molten Shell, Sniper's Mark (does nothing without +1 curse since I use Despair/Vuln curse ring?), Spirit Offering (I run Flesh Offering instead, it shows more DPS), Clarity, Tempest Shield (Not applicable in Glancing Blows edition).

With my current setup, I also fit in Defiance Banner which is very strong defensively in maps. Requires Enlighten 3 though.

I agree losing many of these impacts the defense of the build, but I'm trying to focus only on the offense portion, and none of these really impact that, so I'm testing out a 4-Link Spectre for science. I'll probably drop them after some more testing, but the Arena Masters is mainly for the 20% Movement Speed Buff. Like I said, the build feels good for mapping, so 20% movespeed buff + 15% from my Grace watcher's eye is faster clear. More defense is not really needed for mapping. It's not 100% uptime but it's very frequent, you'll notice 3 second buffs for 20% movespeed, basically an extra mini-Quicksilver Flask during mapping. Possible that Frenzy Charge monkey is more DPS.

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KooperT wrote:

zip...

Many of your noted prices are wrong - shield costs 50 chaos, an almost b.i.s. armour often 1-2 exalts, your's one is with 3 red sockets not recommended, large clusters you get for 1 exalt and better watcher'seyes for 2, and so on. Where did you take your numbers and not optimized pieces from?

The 15M damage in the 4 seconds black-star video everybody can reach for 25-35 exalts, aul's uprising included, and you can farm easy simulacrums wave 30 with that set-up.
But you need mandatory virulences for the HoAg-singletarget damage, with castspeed and poisonchance. 1/2 the virulences results in 1/4 damage of the scorpion.
5 M damage needed for almost all poe-content you obtain with the allstars-build for 5-10 exalts, even 8M damage you can get in that range of currency. You need some experiences in poe to optimize cheap gear, and yes, you need to read the gloves-section in "gear, skills, links" to max out Herald of Agony damage.

To compare for the sciences: an almost b.i.s. witch helmet starts at 40 exalts, for that you get more than the whole gear of the allstars, a necro-wand in endgame is traded 15 exalts and more. Shield for arakaali-occultists is traded 370 exalts when you want to reach the damage of the allstars-set-up. And you really call 25 exalts expensive? Sure?

I don't want to call the gear of he allstars cheap. But I call and rank it much cheaper as the prices of many other builds. And this build focus much more into defences. It's hard to compare with glascannons.
When it would use the low defences of other builds, it also would use 30M and more damage.

I always like criticisms and they are sometimes very good to develop the build - but when the criticisms uses so much different skills, misses important core-mechanics or count different not optimized gear and wrong prices of course it's not a really high qualified criticism.


And of course you changed 11 skills and supports, sorry. It's so nice to try different set-ups, it's one of the most fun in poe, but of course also the results are quite different. Ordinary I would write only that it's nice and interesting. Your main problems is not this build, instead it's like written above: you choosed too many not optimized skills, gear and a wrong, not fitting, slow set-up for the needed generating of max virulences and HoAg damage. Your different setup is interesting, but deals low damage and is by far not optimized. When you would really concrete deal 8M damage, you would really not tell that you miss singletarget damage. Only against UE and the feared you need more. But you cannot get enough castspeed and not full damage in your setup without the castspeed of spellecho and 80% poisonchance beside.

Try out simply in your setup anomalous ball-lightnings- anomalous spell echo - faster casting - poison chance in the triad grips, so you get the result of singletarget-virulences of the default recommended build, without the added gmp/ stormbrands of the build. Or use stormburst- cwc - ball-lightnings- poisonchance instead. It's a mandatory core-mechanic to generate full virulences singletarget.

Hello Chromino
Update time! :D
currently 98
https://pastebin.com/8AP9YNUw my pob
today 4 questions - 1st, about flasks - im going to change 3rd one with eva - what would be best choice purely for bossing? ( got 75% spell block w/o rumi - any chance to optimize tree to get 75/75 w/o rumi at all? )
2n - sad to admit but i manage to die in pretty low delve (350) due to...minion block :D would like way to fix that, cuz that was pretty not cool - phasing flask with 100% uptime meaby?
and 3rd - with non legacy aurora, im getting over 500+ es - and open one slot - was wondering about adding div despair to self cast on bosses ( om maby some qol to auto cast it - dunno yet, just an idea )
4th quick one - do we keep both divine shield and ghost dance? w/o iron reflexes armor went down by 50k, for 66% of chance to dodge - any chance to push it further? ;)
Ty for reply and hard work, and as always - stay safe.

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AboveAverage wrote:

I league started with this build, it was brutal grinding out 4ex for the Arakali's. The thing I love about it, is there is always a big upgrade that costs a few ex. It's not like you're saving up 100ex for a headhunter.

Yes, in the first leaguedays the dagger and shield arre sh●●○⊙ expensive. It's a very popular and rare t1 summoner-weapon. The workarounds are for bossing great, for mapping less charming and less fast. You need the experiences in trade, farming or crafting to get the currency for the shield or dagger early or need to use the cheap alternatives. Or there are cheaper starters available too which are optimized to start cheaper.

Nonetheless TheRealXoli/ ArachnoXoli with the HoAg was this league again ranked position 1 in singleplayer guardian leaderboard on day 3. This week it's also the first guardian lvl 100 again with own mainskill, like in all last leagues. Congratulations to grassygarden! I'll edit a hommage later.

Overall it's not that much expensive as many other builds. Many gems and gearpieces are in endgame much cheaper as in the last leagues, like empowersupport, awakened gems and the b.i.s. armours.
You can get into high red maps for very low currency, around 2 exalts, or even 40 chaos to 1 exalt when you craft some stuff yourself and when you use more of the workarounds. Of course arakaali's fang remains one of the three core-item and offer more fun and speeeeed in maps. Also not b.i.s. geared you are ready for lvl 100. I personally only struggle with the feared and maven, there my own loved facetanking-playstyle and strategy don't fit best and you need to move more. Faster players did very often 40/40 and 36/40 challenges and the nightmare of the feared spawned simultan.

Later you improve with each cluster, with each awakened gem, with each alternate gem and each implicit, like you write. When other builds need headhunters, squirrels or magebloods, this build instead do all endgame-content without expensive gear. It's one of the most tanky builds on the whole tree with most damage in guardian ascendancy, more than many necros or occus also.

crafted today. implicit can change. the abyss slot gives much room for balancing gear and res.
i am playing a bit of int stacking, so i aimed for int.

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DrDurdle wrote:

crafted today. implicit can change. the abyss slot gives much room for balancing gear and res.
i am playing a bit of int stacking, so i aimed for int.

Yes, int stacks great! When you arrive, in full defences, at 6.5k es that's enough. Nice!