[3.20] Void Sphere Hierophant - Into The Void!

To keep it short
Cons: it's neither the strongest nor tankiest build.

Pros: Screenwide Black Holes that suck hordes of Enemies into the Void.
Also scaling all this AoE, Duration and Cooldown reduction makes for some great mobility and quality of life.

https://pastebin.com/AdzvRagh

Eater of Worlds: https://youtu.be/QkybY_zP4dI
T16 Map: https://youtu.be/cQEXX2OLjok

Void Sphere is a Physical and Chaos Spell with a base duration of 5 seconds and a massive cooldown of 10 seconds.

At level 20 the Spell deals 344 to 516 physical damage every 0.4 seconds to an area around it (not scalable), of which 40% is converted to chaos damage.

This chaos conversion blocks out any meaningful elemental conversion, Incandescent Heart or Eternity Shroud shenanigans you would normally do to scale physical spells.

Additionaly the spell has only 75% effect of added damage, making Forbidden Shako or Covenant less effective.

So, the best option to scale its damage is with gem levels ans % gain physical damage as extra chaos damage.

Luckily, Ming's Heart exists.

The main portion of gained Chaos Damage comes from Ming's Heart



Of which we use 2.
To circumvent the massive downsides of the rings of the reduced life and energy shield we utilize the Ivory Tower Body Armour (more later)

As we use a Spell Bow, naturally we can use a Vile Arrow Quiver for additional 15%



(The pierce mod is a throw away line in this case. I wanted to slam on movement speed with a hunter's exalted orb, but lost on the 2/3 chance :( )

The 10 second cooldown of the skill would usualy render it completly useless as a main damage skill.

So we need to bring this number down. like, a lot.



Of course we make use of the Helm Enchant, as well as the Shaper mods for the Belt and Boots, for a total of 65% increased Cooldown Recovery (of which are 35% generic and 30% specific to Void Sphere).

Thats not nearly enough.



Thats why we use the alternate quality for Void Sphere (Anomalous) and link it with a level 3 Enhance Support in a +2 Support Gem Spell Caster Bow for a total of 60% Quality.

The quality makes it so that the Void Sphere gets 120% increased Cooldown Recovery, with the downside of 120% reduced Skill Effect Duration.

This brings the Cooldown to a kinda comfortable time of 3.5 seconds.

But we need to take all the Skill Effect Duration from the Tree (and Malevolence Aura) that we can get to counteract the reduction from the quality, otherwise the Void Sphere would have a Duration of 0.

Sources of Skill Effect Duration are:

45% potency of will weel (tree)
15% Damage over Time mastery (tree)
12% Atrophy Notable (tree)
29% Malevolence (Aura)
0 - 25% Wicked Pall Cluster Notables
10% More from Duration Mastery

With this we end up with

3.5 second Cooldown
5.5 second Duration

There are several ways to get to 100% Chance to Poison in this Build:

40-60% from Divergent Herald of Agony
25% from Tree
15% from Eater of Worlds Implicit on Gloves

Wicked Pall can be replaced with Septic Spells on Medium Cluster Notables any number of times i necessary (20% each)

The Quiver can have 20% chance to Poison on hit as a suffix (Elder) if necessary (although i recommend resistances)

As noted before, the Ming's Heart Rings give us a total of 50% reduced Life and 50% reduced energy shield.

Life and Energy Shield scaling work a bit differently, in general:
Life: easy to get flat life, increases are rarer
Energy Shield: hard to get flat Energy Shield, increases are easy to get.

So our best bet is to concentrate on Energy Shield, as the 50% reduction has a lower impact here.



Using the Ivory Tower Body Armour allows us to reserve all our Life, get some flat Energy Shield in exchange and let us keep our Mana widely unreserved (for Ascendency, Blessing Aura, Arcane Cloak)

So we end up with around 4.5k - 6k ES and Mana.

We allocate Zealoth's Oath and Ghost Reaver for some 600 - 800 Energy Shield Regeneration and transforming the Life Leech from our Ascendency into roughly 1000+ Energy Shield Leech.

We add in Soul Thief and Mana Drinker for 2% ES and Mana recovery on kill.

Finaly we utilize a CWDT Setup with Arcane Cloak and Frost Shield.

Thankfully, because of all the Cooldown Recovery and Duration scaling, Arcane Cloak can have an uptime of 77% with 3s Cooldown and 10s Duration, while Frost Shield has a 3.5s Cooldown and 35s Duration.

For mobility we use Phase Run and Frostblink.
We do not use Withering Step, as it shares its Cooldown with other blink skills and doesn't start it's cooldown until after it ended, which is absolutely annoying.

Thanks to the Cooldown Reduction and increased Duration of the Build, we are able to have Phase Run with an uptime of 100%, as the now 3s Cooldown starts immediately after usage and the skill lasts for 4.3s.

Even when using other skills, which cancel phase run, the uptime feels still pretty good.

Phase Run gives as phasing and 54% increased movement speed.

Additionaly we use Frost Blink for teleportation.
I prefer Frostblink because it is Instant.
The Cooldown reduction feels pretty good on Frostlink already while there is nothing. When a Boss or multiple Enemies are around, the Cooldown is barely noticeable most of the time.
The large areas of chilled ground that stay for 7 seconds are a nice little bonus.

The Void Sphere does between 4m and 6m combined DPS against pinnacle bosses.
Around 400k are Hit DPS, the rest is Poison.
The Poison duration is with 5.5 seconds relatively high, but as the Void Sphere duration is also 5.5 seconds, it makes for a nice low maintenance combo.

The Sphere is supported by Divergent Wither CWC Setup with Despair, Temporal Chains and Infused Channeling.

With around 4 casts per second we need a total of 2 seconds to max out Wither Stacks on an Enemy, which stay for 8.5 Seconds.

For better clear we use Plague Bearer.
Plague Bearer maxes out almost immediately when entering incubation state, when you throw a void sphere into a group of enemies.

Bow 6L: Anomalous Void Sphere - Awakened Void Manipulation - Enhance - Awakened Unbound Ailments - Cruelty - Empower

(don't use Deadly Ailments, it will fuck up Cruelty and Leech)
Body 5L: Divergent Wither - Anomalous Cast While Channeling - Temporal Chains - Despair - Infused Channeling

Body 1L: Plague Bearer

Helmet 2L: Divine Blessing - Malevolence

Helmet 1L: Phase Run

Helmet 1L: Vitality

Gloves 3L: Anomalous Arrogance - Divergent Herald of Agony - Discipline

Gloves 1L: Divergent Frostblink

Boots 3L: Anomalous CWDT - Arcane Cloak - Increased Duration

Options: 4L With Divergent Frost Shield or 1L with Vaal Blight for Boss Damage

As of now:

Void Sphere:
5.5s Duration
3.5s Cooldown
5.5s Poison Duration
4m - 6m DPS (Even more if optimized)
Radius of 58


Wither:
8 Stacks per Second
8.4s Stack Duration
50s Despair Duration
36s Temp Chains Duration

Plague Bearer:
1.3M Charges
Radius of 44

Malevolence:
26s Duration
54% increased Aura Effect

Phase Run:
54% increased Movement Speed
Phasing
4.4s Duration
3s Cooldown

Frost Shield:
3.7s Cooldown
34.6s Duration
Radius of 33

Arcane Cloak:
3s Cooldown
10.3s Duration
Uptime: 77.7%

Vaal Blight:
9.7s Duration
Radius of 45

Character:
4.5-6k ES
4.5-6k Mana
130% Increased AoE
~700 ES Regen
~1000 ES Leech
Chaos res capped
70% Movement speed at all times
35% Cooldown Reduction
122% Increased Skill Effect Duration

A 30% Ashes of the Stars would give us some interesting Options in this Build.
To name a few:
We would get over 100% Chane to Poison on Hit from the Herald alone.
We could switch out the Enhance Support with Hypothermia Support, which would work pretty well in conjunction with Frostblink for bosses e.g.

It is obviously not the most effective Build around - but the goal was to create a Build that can clear most content with Void Sphere as a main Damage skill.
I'm positively surprised by the result. Investing heavily into normaly secondary things such as Skill Effect Duration, AoE and Cooldown Reduction makes for an interesting Playstyle with a lot QoL.

Also seeing the Void Sphere sucking in Enemies from all over the Screen is pretty awesome.