3.23 Penance Brand Hiero - Doryani's Prototype
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Hey guys,
I know Penance Brand is one of the new and powerful skills but when I returned to the new league in December, I was thinking a Brand skill is for Hierophants mostly. Turned out a Trickster is most popular now, and I might try that too, but for now I am happy with my Hierophant build and wanted to share it. Budget I would say is medium to high; I have seen insane stuff this league and you can absolutely make lots of currency! Build idea
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I wanted a Hiero or maybe if that failed an Inquisitor to play Penance Brand after I leaguestarted a Trickster that got stuck, also due to bad RNG early in the league. After that I had a farming char (Deadeye), an Occultist with Forbidden Rite and now this. So I was able to generate some funds, most importantly Mageblood. I actually didn't engage much in Endgame yet, but wanted to - I am getting there now. The build should be able to handle most Bosses quite well, even with the downside of Doryani's Prototype. I always liked that Chest and I did find one for cheap (5 Div) with 6L and +2 Duration gems. Mageblood I bought right when I had the money, but I started mapping without it and then transitioned later. The rest is interchangeable. Thoughts on gearing
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I already played a char with Power Charge stacking, Badge and Ralakesh's and it's good but I found it somewhat lazy and the gear tends to be overly expensive when you want upgrades. So I went with an Eldritch Battery setup, letting us run quite a few auras.
Starting gear
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Example gear I used for earlier to mid-tier mapping: Unavailable All in all very cheap, no Mageblood yet. However, this is not the best farming char, so keep that in mind. Chest was 5 Div, the Eyes of the Greatwolf was not anointed back then. Good gear (outdated)
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Current gear (Final Form)
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Unavailable Unavailable Unavailable -> not much to improve besides the sceptres maybe. But I hate both crafting and using +2 gem sceptres or wands. The Amulets I just switch, for bossing the crit multi is the best choice. Leveling/farming use Life/Quant. Update: 26-03-2024: Upgraded Jewels and a Charm, also the Helmet is corrupted for +2 lightning gems now. See PoB link for details. PoBB Link
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Medium budget: https://pobb.in/2pOncrPlYV-4 High Budget: https://pobb.in/3Xx-Az3dRyUK Playstyle
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Pro: The playstyle is of course rather fast if you are using mageblood. Good movement speed and very high cast speed make sure of that.
Con: Map clear is average due to limited AoE. Scaling damage
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Damage in this build is scaled through gem levels, the Doryani's and thus negative lightning resistance, crit, cast speed and shock/ shock effectiveness.
Weaknesses
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Doryani's of course affects lightning resistance, and the Eyes of the Greatwolf we use to mitigate it is not perfect as it only counts for lightning damage from hits.
There are very few sources of lightning damage that do not hit, but amongst them are the mana siphoner rare monsters mod and the Beams from Shaper and Sirus, which partly consist of lightning damage. I found the monsters annoying but not problematic if you pay attention because they die quickly. The beams though you have to dodge fully! Partial Magic Find
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Since Ventor's allows damage scaling with negative lightning resistance, we use one or two of those, and they enable the build to be somewhat of a magic find hybrid. You can get 10 quantity and 50 rarity from each ring without spending too much, and another up to 20 quantity from the talisman's second mod.
Build variants and other options
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Quite a few deviations are possible with this. I mostly wanted to try it like this and didn't change too much.
However you can use the Mana Reservation ascendancy and ditch the helmet, grabbing Eldritch battery from the tree. The tree itself can be changed a lot too, for comparison you can take a look at Zizaran's penance brand inquisitor. Altogether I am trying to understand which version is the best, and I started here because I think that Doryani's prototype is just cool and some gear pieces were easy to get or available at a rather good price. I know you can go trickster or Inquisitor too, and I think Incandescent Heart is a great choice as well for the build, maybe some other stuff like Ivory Tower could work too. Achievements so far
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I didn't play for some time and coming back I am new to the Uber variants of the bosses.
I died once to bad play and the Shaper beam catching me in the feared encounter, but anything that isn't an uber boss is a piece of cake. I did try myself at Uber Shaper and Uber Sirus so far and took them down, though Sirus was an annoying experience as it mostly is for me. I guess that someone knowing the mechanics etc. well can take down each Uber boss with 1-2 deaths maybe. To dos/Upgrades
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I am currently experimenting with a few things but obviously those sceptres need upgrading!
Update 04-04-2024: Upgraded to a +4 Chest (around 200 div, less than a +1 PC Vertex as of now...) Also upgraded one Sceptre. Left the POBB as it was because there are basically no +4 Doryani's Prototype chests available and you can use most similar sceptres. Video - Uber Maven
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25x5lk1RsCo
For damage showcase purposes. Build also achieves 65% Shock against Uber Maven. This was with the latest version though, +4 Chest and one new Sceptre. Comparison to Trickster Penance Brand
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I did gear a Trickster version as well now and leveled it to 95 as of now. It has decent gear, but I wasn't willing or even rich enough to buy the same quality of gear as I have for this Hiero version, because Trickster is Meta and expensive as hell. You can check out the Trickster on my Profile (Balthazarre), though only one of my two chars can be fully equipped at a time.
Trickster: less damage, more survivability, faster, less area clear depending on gear. Also less MF options, so I play this version here for the 40% Quantity and some Rarity. Trickster also can't shock as much, but since it doesn't invest into this, that's obvious. Real damage comparisons are tough because gem setup etc. is different as well and the Doryani's version ofc has the negative Lightning res for mobs. All things being equal Trickster should be better - however since things are not equal (price) I prefer my version so far. Haven't tried any bosses with the Trickster yet cause I ran all the Invitations etc. I had with the Dory Version. Final words I obviously kept this one short because it's as much a reminder for myself as it is a guide. This league is quite special and i know that two months in the demand for guides or ideas on the forum is low. Maybe someone wants to try himself at something similar or already has! It's been a good experience for me and especially with customizing the build more and more I was surprised how much damage I could get out of it. After the point of it feeling good I managed to gain another 75-100% more damage. After upgrading a sceptre a little and getting the +4 Chest I can say Uber Bosses melt quite easily ;) However, better sceptres alone will do that just as well. The +4 chest is rather the cherry on top. Last edited by Fitchner#2743 on Feb 26, 2024, 3:51:35 PM Last bumped on Mar 8, 2024, 2:19:33 PM
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02-02-2024: Added a few more details to the build, including damage scaling, potential variants and weaknesses.
04-02-2024: Added Uber Maven vid for showcasing purposes and added upgrades to the build. Build can be considered complete now; any further upgrades are unnecessary (3-prop Watcher's Eye e.g.) 18-02-2024: Added new gear and PoB link for Final Form/High Budget. Since the league will be going on a bit further, I might update later again. but the build is basically done, maybe I will go for level 100. 25-02-2024: Level 100 achieved :) Gear updates will follow. For mapping, use the "Wellspring of Creation" Atlas keystone - damage is very good, you barely notice 50% more monster life. But survivability goes up a lot! 26-02-2024: Added current bossing setup as PoB link (High budget). Last edited by Fitchner#2743 on Feb 26, 2024, 3:52:24 PM
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In theory you could also apply Assassin's mark, I have it socketed but NEVER use it cause I am fine with casting Zealotry as Blessing and then Focus for the inc. cast speed / activation speed for the Brand.
Don't know what else to optimize. Farmed all kinds of bosses...though Uber Uber Elder does require some attention. Those damn bosses keep playing all kinds of animations and doing attacks even though they have received enough dmg to go into next phase. Got myself a +1 PC ring for the Trickster version (Asmodeus' Trickster), but it still clears less consistent (due to Oriath's end sometimes not proccing) and has less damage. Quite a bit more survivability though! Also love this for the quant + rarity. Not an MF char, but mapping is reasonably rewarding. Anyone playing a version with Incandescent Heart? EDIT: Mostly dead/not worth it with 3.24 changes to Penance Brand of Dissipation and a few other things. Damage might be fine still, but altogether it won't be a good pick. Trickster version is even more dead I'd say (Ralakesh change, Flask Resistance mod change...) Last edited by Fitchner#2743 on Mar 22, 2024, 10:06:17 AM
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