[3.15 HC] Apep's Forbidden Rite Totems (Hierophant) Solid Budget Early League

after ripping lvl 60 or so yesterday, levelling new one ssfhc.
keepin u updated.
love the build

Sry to hear about the rip, very glad you are enjoying the build!

Luck to you,

-O

Has anyone managed to craft wands to replace Apeps yet?

I have done a few of those now. Best results I have found using a profane base and applying Deafening essences of Scorn (the spell crit essence), looking for at least 2 out of 4 of spell damage, cast speed, global crit multi, and mana with an open slot to craft a third. Hitting 3 or 4 of 4 is obviously better, but RNG has not granted me one of those yet, and the rolls are 9-18c a piece. (I've tried to craft some wands with ROG, but the number of available useless mods has made this a maddening process)

-O

I'm starting this build in SSF. I have all teh items now except the large chaos cluster jewel. Would another large cluster be viable as a replacement, even if not quite as effective?

Hi, Ty for build

I saw you tried a chieftain with FR totem, which one u found better? pros/cons?

Also i see u push hard the delve, arent totems bad at delving? any tips?

Ty

Chieftain was a reasonable experiment. It was quite tanky, but the damage was comparatively disappointing. Caps out at less than a third of what we get with Hiero. Then again, I wasn't using soul mantle with the chieftain--I tried out kaom's with a staff instead. So chieftain with soul mantle might have better damage, though the tree would have to be changed a lot to take MOM since we would lack enough tankiness with life alone.

Actually I love the build for delving. Key is making good use of your decoy totem, throwing your totems out well in front of your position, and having good movement to avoid ground effects and on-death effects. We also get a lot of mileage while delving also from those seething eternal mana flasks and from the maxxed out CWDT Steelskin>Frost Shield.

My current experiment using a staff instead of wands is different from the guide I wrote up (because it is still in the experimental stage) but is showing a lot of promise so far. It gains a lot both in tankiness and damage from the excellent staff nodes that our tree already passes next to. On the defensive side we end up with ~35% attack block and ~25% spell block by using the whirling barrier and enigmatic defense nodes. On the offensive side, the counterweight and serpent stance nodes provide a nice boost to our crit that is unavailable with wands. Having delved with both versions, the current one is feeling even more solid so far.

Hope that helps, happy to answer any follow up questions.

-O

Ty for answer, so guess hiero is way to go

Also with a staff u lose 1 totem from shield, does staff still comes on top without the +1 totem?

I have never been using a shield to begin with, so I am comparing to dual wielding. I think you end up with more block on the staff. That said, I just now ripped, so back to the drawing board.

-O

Sorry about your rip

Anyway to make the build tankier? or is tankiness good as it is?