[3.18] Wallach's Siege Ballista Hierophant (Enjoy Consistent Character Balance)

Hi wallach! Just wanted to say thank you for the amazing build. I started in on it around the time you released your level 100 youtube video. This is my first char that I've leveled past 95 (am 97). Pretty sure the only things I'm missing are attack speed on gloves (none for sale) and a double hatred affix watchers eye (too much EX atm). But I still have 800k (900k with culling) dps per totem vs sirus, with 16 totems. Everything just melts!

Been farming Maven for profit with this build since I hit 97 and it's smooth except for when I mess up the memory game (who knew simon says would be in PoE). One thing this build is NOT is a "survive supercharged 1-shots", like failing maven memory game.

One change I made was to allocate the jewel socket above Ballistics on the tree, it takes 5 points (3 are +10 dex) and then I socketed a split personality with 5dex/5life (only 10c!). This is what pushed me over 1600 dex for my 16th balista.

Cheers!

Great build! Took some liberties to make it a little more tanky: Determination with crit damage reduction Watcher's Eye instead of Bonechill, crafted rare chest for life & swapping the Critical Mastery to crit damage reduction as well. Having a blast so far!

Leveling this build now, just wanted to note that Holy flame totems + flame wall just felt weak and slow. I was just sitting there waiting for bosses to die, so around level 27 or so I bought a one with nothing jewel and an astramentis amulet, then just specced all the dex nodes I could. I switched to using smite, but dominating blow, cyclone, or any unarmed skill would work well also. The leveling speed increased greatly. If you have the currency to level this way (70c for both amulet and jewel) then I highly recommend it over the holy flame totems.

Hey Wallach,
Just wanted to add to the thread, after having a bad time playing traps (don't like the playstyle) I swapped over to this on day 3, and I'm having a blast ever since then in this league. I probably even prefer this over the old FP-totems as the bossing is insane on this build.
Thanks for the great build!

do you have a skill tree for passing acts?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Ceveth wrote:

Great build! Took some liberties to make it a little more tanky: Determination with crit damage reduction Watcher's Eye instead of Bonechill, crafted rare chest for life & swapping the Critical Mastery to crit damage reduction as well. Having a blast so far!

Yeah, there's definitely room to make the build tankier if desired. I may expand the guide for next league on some of these options, but I want to see what actually survives 3.17.

Hello Wallach. Been playing this build for the past 2.5 weeks already and was recommended to me in reddit by other players to follow your SB build. Really enjoying it and think you have done a great job with it.

Currently lvl 96 and I tend to die often (could be my reckless playstyle). Im wondering where and how I could improve my defensives. I got 100% spell supression and 22k armor but occasional 1 shots are occuring. I am satisfied with my DPS as my next upgrade would just be double modded watchers eye and HH.

My pob - https://pastebin.com/cnv11gw6

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Weatherboy420 wrote:

Hello Wallach. Been playing this build for the past 2.5 weeks already and was recommended to me in reddit by other players to follow your SB build. Really enjoying it and think you have done a great job with it.

Currently lvl 96 and I tend to die often (could be my reckless playstyle). Im wondering where and how I could improve my defensives. I got 100% spell supression and 22k armor but occasional 1 shots are occuring. I am satisfied with my DPS as my next upgrade would just be double modded watchers eye and HH.

My pob - https://pastebin.com/cnv11gw6

Well, your PoB looks fine, and while you probably could start sacking damage for further defense, you'll may get more mileage out of adjusting your playstyle or just checking your map rolls more carefully.

This league in particular I think may be the rippiest league ever, but it does so in a way that makes it easy to fall into the trap in the first place. You really need to mind map affixes relative to your build's defenses this league if you are trying to protect your XP bar. For this build, since our biggest vulnerability is generally elemental damage from attacks, you want to be mindful of -% maximum resistance affixes and gain extra % physical as (element) affixes. Either one becomes a much larger multiplier whenever you're in nightmare because of the stacks, and pairing them together or with other damage mods can really open the door to huge spike damage. There's also just some really dumb monsters in scourge league like the golems or the on-death explode guys that can be hard to see coming.

How is this at Simulacrum? Anyone run it up to wave 30?

I'm guessing that the damage is fine, but that the low tankiness means it might not make it all the way W30.

What about new delve?

I played Wallach's FP totems back in ritual and it was the only build I've played that has managed to do all end-game content (and it was a blast to level and upgrade). Hoping that this build would do the same

I'm swapping to it from HoP/Spiders Guardian, so don't need to worry about leveling.

Hi! Nice guide!

Long time FP totem player here, just switched to ballista and rly enjoying it!
For faster clearing I found this skill setup pretty convenient for me:

Frenzy - GMP - Chain - Hextouch - Frostbite - Culling.

Could drop culling for Assassin/Sniper Mark/Ele weakness if switch annoint to Whispers of Doom. And running Ensnaring setup like this:

Ensnaring - Mirage Archer - Cast on Crit - Frost Bomb.

Also found a little tweaking around alternate gems and watchers eye before bigger investments. Since we can't fully utilize Awaken Added Cold dmg supports +1 cold gems bonus, I went with divergent one for cold conversion paired with cold conversion watchers eye and switched glove enchant to Increased Dmg during Flask Effect.

I know above lvl95 many things considered as personal preference. I very much like your Thread of Hope approach, but we lost the mastery there. So I dropped Graceful Assault and Profane Chemistry to get Avatar of the Hunt with mastery again and took Life mastery at Golem's Blood. Little trade off for +2.5M dps for those who want to minmax.

Thanks for the guide! Hope this build gonna melt 3.17 too cuz i wanna stick with it and play around :)
Cheers!