Moiraine: Life-based SRS specialized for uber

There are a couple of things that kinda bother me about this build, in particular the amount of pathing that you take to get to Champion of the Cause/Unwavering Stance. My instinct was that there might be a more efficient way to achieve the same effects. I spoke with Moraine for a while in game and we theorycrafted some alternatives, but I think that the current build is probably still the best option. That said, Moiraine asked me to post here about some of the ideas that we discussed.


Unwavering Stance is necessary to avoid getting stunned to death by Uber's spears, particularly during split phase. However, it takes a ton of points to get there. One could potentially save these points in one of two ways:

1. Eye of Chayula - this option seems pretty bad as it reduces your life and blocks you from getting mana regen on your amulet.

2. Kaom's Roots - This option is much more appealing as it should give you a big chunk of extra life. The problem is that you lose movespeed and have to sacrifice one of your gem setups. The latter problem is likely solvable as you can easily replace your CWDT setup for the Uber fight without losing much. Movespeed, however, needs to be tested. If you can still avoid Atziri's spells without the movespeed bonus from boots then this might actually be a good option. Obviously you would swap in a normal pair of boots for everything except the actual Uber fight.


Either of these options would allow you to path through the Shadow area to get the Charisma cluster along with Blood Siphon and Coordination (extra life and cast speed). Charisma Cluster over Champion of the Cause will improve your mana reservation by 8% at the cost of 6% aura effect, which in turn allows you to drop Alpha's Howl.


The impact of these decisions are fairly extensive, and we need to look into the math behind Purity of Fire.



Moiraine's Build gives you 80% aura/buff effect.

Switching out Champion for Charisma reduces that by 6%.

Dropping Devotion reduces it by 5%.

Dropping Inner Force reduces it by 21%.


If you switch Champion for Charisma and don't swap out Alpha's Howl you will lose 1% max fire res, but you can also afford to drop Devotion if you want.

If you switch Champion for Charisma and drop Alpha's Howl, you will lose 3% max fire res and you can afford to drop either Devotion OR Inner Force without losing any more.



So overall, I think this presents us with two option:

1. Keep the build as it is.

2. Switch Champion of the Cause for Charisma, drop Alpha's Howl and switch to an ES helm with lots of life, and use a gearswap to Kaom's Roots on your boots in order to deal with the stun problem on Atziri.


Benefits of this change: Much more flexibility in the tree which will allow you to pick up a lot of extra life and a little cast speed. You'll get more mana from your gear and even more life there. You'll also get a lot of extra Dex from the tree. A guess based on some cursory theorycrafting is: +24% increased max life, +200 flat extra life (base) at level 91 based on the witch tree. You will also have an easier time with mana degen from AA.

Negatives of this change: you lose 3% max fire resist and movespeed from your boots. You also lose a bit of cast/movement speed from your haste aura and some damage mitigation from your AA.


My instinct is that this change is really sketchy as max fire resist and movespeed are both super important, but I think that it's attractive enough that testing might be worthwhile.


________________________


SIDE NOTE:

One major thing that I realized from doing this analysis is that you almost certainly want to make this change if you are just doing regular Atziri and/or don't have the full setup that Moiraine suggests. If you don't have level 21 PoF then you don't get any real benefit from Alpha's other than the mana reserve. Similarly, you probably don't need that extra 3% fire res to handle regular Atziri and the extra HP would be more useful for general content. Thus I would suggest that the build as Moiraine presented it is an ideal endpoint, but that until you have the entire setup in place you should probably spec into Charisma instead of Champion of the Cause/Unwavering Stance and use an ES helm with whatever stats you need instead of Alpha's Howl. You also might consider using an ES/Eva helm with Dex.

Moiraine's only mistake was not saying beforehand that you didn't need unwavering stance to do NORMAL atziri. When i realized that i was able to switch to a better tree and do her perfectly well.

Also, if you check this thread history you will see a post from me asking if kaom's roots might be viable with a tree posted. I believe that is the best way to do this build with roots (getting harrier/leadership reduced mana nodes and dreamer) as it would have the same reduced reservation plus mana and some movespeed/cast speed, but with way more life.
After moving around a lot i decided the tree right now is just better.
4links are actually huge in this build (i am actually using the other guy gem setup instead of moiraine's, the one who posted a couple back with 2 unset rings), and the mana turns out to be practically the same in the end, so why not just keep the movespeed.
In the end i got tired of looking for micromaxing, 91 is easy to achieve and i don't think you can do uber without the requirements he set anyways, so might as well just do it how he teaches us to do.

Again, if your plans are to play simple SRS/normal atziri, i would advice to follow my current tree: follow his tree down scion life ball up to "Sentinel" and skill duration nodes, then pick "Harrier", "Dreamer" and the reduced mana node trough the scion ES nodes (6%-14%-6%). It's much more efficient and you will require much lower end gear. You could prob start atziri at 71 with this tree:

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMA6QLfim0ZakPAVAj0vOp9GGvb7IpVxoPbBAdMszpYXyrr5P6zVyu9gvfXrJiFYKrEzLxNufrSHRSPRpuh42oWb4CkVdZk5xcvQqMksAPuM4cdvjwt2L3-Crc-xq6Cx_noQYfGnhB_DH1qrFqRqH3T-5itKPpTUkWdmuDr7tsLgh7B85UgL2_ZE3C77BjBxYhCZp7AGpBVGjgnL7iTpwgtH1fJDXwqU2KVsnC0DOq6HarhiEZxgwk=

Thanks guys, I will link to your posts in OP for visibility.

I actually decided to try quit PoE again, so I won't have more time to test. If you guys come up with good new setups, it would be worth creating your own threads for visibility.

Can someone explain why haste is needed? Why PoF is needed?

I want to build SRS as maru cos I think I get more life and more IAS even without haste i get 190% life on my tree and 30% cast speed. I will use 7L PoH which is 15%% less DPS than +3 staff setup but solves all mana problem associated with taking no mana node.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAxthYYz38jM_2SF8_FCDvDsEEeA2pbrXybqpfmFltzzJ5aAthSsg1kti9_gq3PsauPC0dvjOHA-5Bh_nogsfT-6h9WpFqrAx9EH_Gnij6V8kNfOq6tAxGcYMJ4Yjr7prgRZ1TUtWBhW0k2MAaGjiQVScvZp64k6cIj0YdFPrSFm_japuh99fMvE25qsSFYKyYOlhVxoPbBAdMs0V-Dlxq-mvb7IqCHtsLiELBxewYcLvZEy9vj_rw1UlRlS4HHiSqNun-j03jplc64fJFkycc3H_GL50W8yY8PycqTRUgIuJH4tCBpDk=

"

Aim_Deep wrote:

Can someone explain why haste is needed? Why PoF is needed?

I want to build SRS as maru cos I think I get more life and more IAS even without haste i get 190% life on my tree and 30% cast speed. I will use 7L PoH which is 15%% less DPS than +3 staff setup but solves all mana problem associated with taking no mana node.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAxthYYz38jM_2SF8_FCDvDsEEeA2pbrXybqpfmFltzzJ5aAthSsg1kti9_gq3PsauPC0dvjOHA-5Bh_nogsfT-6h9WpFqrAx9EH_Gnij6V8kNfOq6tAxGcYMJ4Yjr7prgRZ1TUtWBhW0k2MAaGjiQVScvZp64k6cIj0YdFPrSFm_japuh99fMvE25qsSFYKyYOlhVxoPbBAdMs0V-Dlxq-mvb7IqCHtsLiELBxewYcLvZEy9vj_rw1UlRlS4HHiSqNun-j03jplc64fJFkycc3H_GL50W8yY8PycqTRUgIuJH4tCBpDk=

It increases your Maximum Fire Resist which is really important for Uber Atziri. It isn't really necessary for other content.

If I'm using a +2 fire gem staff, what's the best 6th link? Is there a final word? 20/20 minion damage or level 3 Empower (uncorrupted)?

"

Vulpix0r wrote:

If I'm using a +2 fire gem staff, what's the best 6th link? Is there a final word? 20/20 minion damage or level 3 Empower (uncorrupted)?

I spent hours creating updating a DPS tool that is linked to in the first post. It can be used to answer this question and many others.

"

Aim_Deep wrote:

Can someone explain why haste is needed? Why PoF is needed?

I want to build SRS as maru cos I think I get more life and more IAS even without haste i get 190% life on my tree and 30% cast speed. I will use 7L PoH which is 15%% less DPS than +3 staff setup but solves all mana problem associated with taking no mana node.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAxthYYz38jM_2SF8_FCDvDsEEeA2pbrXybqpfmFltzzJ5aAthSsg1kti9_gq3PsauPC0dvjOHA-5Bh_nogsfT-6h9WpFqrAx9EH_Gnij6V8kNfOq6tAxGcYMJ4Yjr7prgRZ1TUtWBhW0k2MAaGjiQVScvZp64k6cIj0YdFPrSFm_japuh99fMvE25qsSFYKyYOlhVxoPbBAdMs0V-Dlxq-mvb7IqCHtsLiELBxewYcLvZEy9vj_rw1UlRlS4HHiSqNun-j03jplc64fJFkycc3H_GL50W8yY8PycqTRUgIuJH4tCBpDk=

SRS isn't a strong build because it has good survivability, it is a strong build because it does lots of damage. We don't leech, we don't block, and we don't dodge. Our main defense is killing enemies fast and stunlocking most of them.

Your tree ignores aura nodes. We scale SRS by boosting aura effect, base minion damage, increased minion damage %, melee physical damage %, attack speed and curses. We can also use shock for maps. If you disregard auras you're making your build multiplicatively weaker. Haste is a strong aura because it double dips. The cast speed lets us summon more spirits, and the increased attack and movement speed make the spirits themselves do more damage in their lifetime. Use my DPS tool to convince yourself that it's the best aura after hatred.

With my tree I was getting 153% life, which results in 5.1k with belly and good gear. With your tree you would probably end up with 6.5k life at most. Without armor you would still be getting permastunned by uber atziri's spear since at 4k dmg/spear they do over 50% of your max HP per hit. In essence the extra life is nice, but not as useful as having unwavering stance or more damage. Having more than 4.7k life is not necessary for doing uber, as long as you have good healing, which we do with our catalysed pots.

hi which are the best support gems for 5link setup for srs?

"

avstrolopitek1 wrote:

hi which are the best support gems for 5link setup for srs?

for mapclears and added fire for single target.