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

Read that this build is ok but not great at mapping. Made some adjustments; note endgame investment level (100div+) in this build.

This all requires your dex and gear is strong enough to give up damage and some life for some MF and quality of life.

I have a +2-3 cold dmg per 10 dex relic which is enabling the sacrifices I'm making. If they take relics away next league, this mapping variant may not be reasonably viable as it may give up too much.

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Hope this is interesting/helpful.

Key stats:

+28% quant
- 2x Ventor's
- 1x Perandus Blazon
- Can get useful corrupts -- +%dex on belt, +%move speed, +hatred aura effect. I only have corrupts on belt, but can still add on rings.

+80%+ movespeed without flasks
- Garukhan's Flight (+30%)
- Devoto's Devotion (+20%)
- Watchtowers anointment on amulet -- I get +14% for 14 totems on my mapping gear (18 on bossing setup)
- Sleepless sentries medium cluster node (20% from onslaught)
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Then with flasks, even more:
- Quicksilver Flask of the Cheetah (+40% + 14%)
- Belt corruption (+12% during flask effect)

More Clear
- Dying Sun flask for 2 extra projectiles
- [For ultra-rich] Oriath's End flask for the explosions
- Gloom Shrine sextant (and run Shrine atlas tree nodes to be efficient with your atlas points)

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Mentalmike wrote:

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Awzymandias wrote:

what are we thinking for invocations from sanctum for this build? also sanctified relics?

For me personally, only 3 viable ones:
Magebane - Saves passive point
Iron Reflexes - Saves passive point
Resolute Technique - Gain stun immunity.

All other Notables do not benefit the build.
Closest one would be Mind Over Matter but we have very little unreserved mana anyway so pretty pointless.

I really like Ancestral Bond as invocations. With that we have one additional ballista and have no problems with reflect maps anymore. You still trigger everything from the cast on crit setup but don't get any reflect damage.

Hmm but don't we get reflect immune from Awakened Elemental Dmg with Attacks gem?

Have been considering Point Blank, much cheaper invocation than the others. Debating what the downsides are though. Map clear perhaps.

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kentishtown wrote:

Hmm but don't we get reflect immune from Awakened Elemental Dmg with Attacks gem?

Wow, I just learned A. Elemental Dmg has element reflect immunity.

Not related but I crafted some half decent gloves.
It's not top end with %dex or synthesis modifiers but it is the best item I've crafted so far.

I like the added flexibility of the abyss jewel socket.

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kentishtown wrote:

Hmm but don't we get reflect immune from Awakened Elemental Dmg with Attacks gem?

Have been considering Point Blank, much cheaper invocation than the others. Debating what the downsides are though. Map clear perhaps.

Our ballista totems get refelect immune because of awakened ele damage.. But you are still making damage with your Frenzy (because we have not socketed awakened ele damage into our frenzy setup). And if you use Frenzy to debuff the mobs in the maps you can oneshot yourself with that.

Therefore I use Ancestral Bond to not make any damage and therefore can cast Frenzy without thinking about the map mods..

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Schnuedde wrote:

"

kentishtown wrote:

Hmm but don't we get reflect immune from Awakened Elemental Dmg with Attacks gem?

Have been considering Point Blank, much cheaper invocation than the others. Debating what the downsides are though. Map clear perhaps.

Our ballista totems get refelect immune because of awakened ele damage.. But you are still making damage with your Frenzy (because we have not socketed awakened ele damage into our frenzy setup). And if you use Frenzy to debuff the mobs in the maps you can oneshot yourself with that.

Therefore I use Ancestral Bond to not make any damage and therefore can cast Frenzy without thinking about the map mods..

can you still cull if your not doing damage?

"

Vanadium81 wrote:

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Schnuedde wrote:

"

kentishtown wrote:

Hmm but don't we get reflect immune from Awakened Elemental Dmg with Attacks gem?

Have been considering Point Blank, much cheaper invocation than the others. Debating what the downsides are though. Map clear perhaps.

Our ballista totems get refelect immune because of awakened ele damage.. But you are still making damage with your Frenzy (because we have not socketed awakened ele damage into our frenzy setup). And if you use Frenzy to debuff the mobs in the maps you can oneshot yourself with that.

Therefore I use Ancestral Bond to not make any damage and therefore can cast Frenzy without thinking about the map mods..

can you still cull if your not doing damage?

yes because you still hit, and culling is on hit :)

If useful for anyone, I was able to get this build to 2200 dex, 80mm dps unflasked (125mm w/ bossing flask setup) and still run a healthy 5.8k life. Probably could cross 6k no problem with more investment. Much more buffer vs. the poe ninja warriors that are pushing 3-4k life max.

Found that this helped a lot for bossing as I'm not great with mechanics.

A reminder of where you can find life besides max life rolls on your rares:

- % max life corrupt implicits, eg on Fractal Thoughts, Garukhan
- Split Personality jewels -- take dex/life or dex/int
- Skill tree -- Golem's Blood, Thick Skin, Life Mastery, Herbalism, Heart of Oak, Discipline and Training
- %life/%mana crafted mod on Body Armour (Eg if you eventually get a Grasping Mail)

I'm also a fan of Doryani's Lesson on cluster jewel to take a bit of leech instead of min-maxing for a pure damage node.

Grasping Mail (or any rare chest) can get a eldritch implict of "1% Less Damage Taken Per 180-210 dexterity" as well.

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Vanadium81 wrote:

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Schnuedde wrote:

"

kentishtown wrote:

Hmm but don't we get reflect immune from Awakened Elemental Dmg with Attacks gem?

Have been considering Point Blank, much cheaper invocation than the others. Debating what the downsides are though. Map clear perhaps.

Our ballista totems get refelect immune because of awakened ele damage.. But you are still making damage with your Frenzy (because we have not socketed awakened ele damage into our frenzy setup). And if you use Frenzy to debuff the mobs in the maps you can oneshot yourself with that.

Therefore I use Ancestral Bond to not make any damage and therefore can cast Frenzy without thinking about the map mods..

can you still cull if your not doing damage?

If you do enough damage you don't need culling anymore as everything will be dead in seconds :-)

I'm continuing to test out how to make this build A-tier in mapping (at moderate min-max level, e.g. 100div+ investment) w/out sacrificing its A-tier bossing. Think I figured it out.

Some may argue this becomes a different build, but I'd argue it's a minor variant as you can swap back in less than 60 seconds.

My solution is to run a 6-L KB setup in my chest armor, and a dex-stacking wand/shield in my swap slots. I map with KB and then weapon swap to finish bosses if necessary. For Sanctum, also weapon-swap to your 6L siege ballista barrage setup.

KB totems is SO much better than siege ballista for clear. Overall, I have 7 totems, 28% magic find, 50% move speed without flasks. I removed my dex-stacking relic, and still clear T16 no problem.

I recommend already having a grasping mail with the 1% attack speed per 10 dex mod (~60 div) or a dex-stacking relic for the most comfort/DPS, but I suspect you could easily clear T16s without either still. I'm also running ventors/perandus for MF, but you could replace with dmg-oriented / %dex synth gear.

(If I'm going to go bossing mode and farm pinnacle/ubers, then I revert my 6-L chest to the frenzy/curse gem setup and return to Wallach's build. Very quick and easy.)


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Steps (again for min-max builds, not starting out):

1. Craft a dex-stacking wand and equip in your Swap slot.


You want at least 4 good mods. Attk speed > crit chance, crit multi > flat cold, % cold dmg, ele dmg with attacks.

- Buy a synthesized imbued wand base with "Adds 2 to 4 cold dmg per 10 dex".
- Spam Essences to guarantee T1 cold, then craft from there to 4+ good mods. I used like 5-10 essences and crafted ele pen. Probably lucky.

More involved crafting could look like -- T1 cold essences until you hit high % cold dmg or elemental dmg w/ attacks. Prefixes can't be changed. T4 aisling or veiled chaos. Craft last mod or multi-mod. Try to aim for some subset of crit chance, crit multi, attk speed on suffixes.

The imbued wand cost me 20 div for the base. Sounds expensive, but keep in mind that 2 synthesized rings and a synthesized belt with % dex implicit is ~30div total for just the bases. You may want to consider prioritizing map clear first instead.

2. Buy/craft a good shield for your Swap secondary. Important stats:
- +1 to summoned totems
- T1 mana regen
- dex / resists / life

3. Replace your Frenzy->Curses 6-link in your chest to a Kinetic Blast 6-link. If your DPS is high enough, you don't need the curse setup to map.

I'm running:
- Anomalous Kinetic Blast
- Ballista Totem Support
- Awakened Elemental Damage With Attacks
- Awakened Cold Penetration
- Greater Multiple Projecties
- Anomalous Inspiration (important!)

4. Manage your totem mana cost. 6-L KB totems is expensive and we reserve most of our mana for auras. How I did it:
- Anomalous Inspiration in the KB setup (per above)
- Cut Bonechill from my Hatred-Skitterbots-Enlighten-Bonechill 4L. Replaced with a low-level Precision.
- T1 mana regen on shield

I have a 39 mana KB totem cast and ~200 flat mana unreserved with 50 mana regen/s. No issues maxing out my 7 KB totems at all times.

5. Manage your INT. Imbued wand requires 188 INT. Some pro-tips.
- Astramentis as your amulet
- You can get double-implicit corrupted ventors and perandus blazon for CHEAP. One of these mods should be a +% dex+%int mod.
- INT suffix on your shield or rings (if not running ventors)

Given that I'm running a Devoto's for movement speed and not Fractal Thoughts, it's not important to keep your strength higher than int, which should make things easier.

6. Increase your move speed
- Have a second mapping Astramentis with Watchtowers anointment
- Devoto's Helm
- Move speed implicit on your shield
- Move speed corruption on belt (e.g. if you run Perandus for MF)
- Phase run on left click

Of course when you do pinnacle/ubers/invitations, you can put your Fractal Thoughts back on.


My current gear:



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