[2.0] Null's Inclination - SRS/AW Summoner Archer
 ! Currently this build is on hold until Ascendancy release, since depending on the subclass system a Scion wouldn't be the optimal class choice anymore, which will make levelling my Scion further pointless. ! The idea of this build isn't mine, I just post a particular version that I run. Most well-known video guides on it were made by theuberelite (a lot of things outdated as of now) and Zeno (still relevant) Main focus of the build is on the use of Null's Inclination bow, which allows automatic summoning of minions (Raging Spirits and Animated Weapons) on kill. This build is possible to play on HC, but I won't recommend doing so - one small mistake can lead to an instant rip in a wide variety of scenarios, which more tanky builds can live through.  Eventually I plan to release videos on all t10+ maps, with boss kills (or boss kill fails ;), and some videos of clearing with trash gear (total cost < 1ex) setup. Solo [T8] Orchard - curse-immune, LMP [T10] Necropolis [T11] Precinct With support char [T12] Village Ruin Pros & Cons First of all, what this build cannot do: - kill Core Malachai, since it is a multi-stage fight with tons of damage, weapons will time out or be killed even before that - map Daresso - similar problem - Atziri - similar problem Everything else should be doable.
Pros
- very fun to play! it is just so satisfying to overwhelm enemies with lots of minions - higher clearspeed than pure SRS or AW builds - you don't need to wait for minions to reach enemies, you start dealing damage instantly with SA. - can do most RIP mods, and Blood Magic/No Regen maps - almost all bosses, except aforementioned ones, usually die in 1-10 seconds if you have enough weapons - automatic summoning of AW, doesn't need to click weapon names to summon them, HUGE QoL improvement. Also, very easy to start a map compared to a pure AW build, since you can actually kill enemies yourself. - phys reflect doesn't matter, ele reflect can be painful on -max, other than that it is not dangerous (except ele refl maps) - high survivability - Animated Weapons tank almost all the damage, and even if you do get hit, you have a phys reduction from Coil (ideally) & chaos golem - generally you have enough free suffixes on gear to get a positive chaos resist - cannot be frozen due to Alpha's Howl - auto-clears corpses
Cons
- momentum-based build - you MUST clear maps efficiently to prevent weapons from timing out, you cannot waste time on non-efficient activities like picking up low-value loot, you cannot use portals in maps other than in life-threatening situations or when you finished clearing it - maps with bad layouts annoy you to no end (DON'T run the Mine map), due to having to backtrack a lot and your weapons timing out - build is not well-suited for full parties, it only shines either solo or with 1 other player max, preferably him playing curse support. Basically, it is not fun to play in a full party at all. - doesn't kill bosses as fast as pure SRS or AW builds (still pretty damn fast though) - minions aren't as tough as pure SRS or AW builds, can be mowed down by a lot of AoE damage sometimes - if the boss manages to kill all your weapons - you are screwed. On open maps you can gather a new set of weapons and return, however if the boss is in the separate room this is not an option. You might try to kill it yourself though, using something like TS-GMP instead of Split-Chian, but this also requires a BM gem for sustaining skillcost, and a differently coloured chest with 2 red sockets for WED+BM. - you will animate ALL identified weapons, even if they are 6S/5L/6L. Really the only noticeable impact of this is that you lose 6s weapons, so less jewelers for you. 5L weapons don't cost anything, and 6L you don't ever find anyway. Build Mechanics Everything is fairly simple - you kill things with SA, and on each kill you spawn an SRS and AW (if there is a weapon available), which further increase your killspeed. Animated Weapons follow you (until they time out and disappear), so the faster you move between packs - the more weapons you have at the time - the faster you kill - the faster you can move between packs - etc. Damage is mainly provided by 3 auras - Wrath, Anger and Haste, which benefit both you and all your minions. Animated Guardian is also used for the damage boost, using Leer Cast+Dying Breath. Defense is provided by Lightning Coil (ideally) + Chaos Golem. This might not seem much, but considering that you rarely get hit because of minions, this is usually far safer than any melee build will ever be. Skill mana cost is covered by using one mana gained on hit jewel - SA+Chain generate a huge amount of hits, so against packs you never run out of mana, and single target threats are mostly taken cared of by minions. In order to reduce skill cost to reasonable amounts, 2 pieces of Elreon jewellery (with -8 mana cost) are needed, ideally an amulet+ring (rings can have more resists so sacrificing an amulet slot can be better)  Main links: Null's Inclination 4L+1S: AW - SRS - Multistrike - Minion Damage | Flesh Offering (unlinked socket) 5L+1S: + Minion Speed This is the lazy setup for automatic casting of Flesh Offering. You can use a 6L bow, adding something like Increased Duration, but then you have to cast FO manually, which is annoying. Alpha's Howl 4L: Anger - Wrath - Haste - Enlighten lvl 2+ If you don't have lvl 2 Enlighten, remove Haste, use a Herald of Ice or Thunder instead. Body armour 4L: SA - Chain - Culling Strike - WED 5L: FA 6L: Added Lightning Gloves 4L: Increased Duration - Blink Arrow - Vaal Haste - Rallying Cry (dmg buff) or Convocation (minion mover) Boots 4L: Chaos Golem - Animate Guardian - Fortify - Minion Life  Required: Bow - Null's Inclanation - build enabler Note - dps of the bow is not important! What important is the increased attack speed mod, the higher the better. I did a test comparison between two bows - one with base 224dps & 8% inc. asp, while the other had 239dps but 7% inc. asp. And what do you know, the bow with lower base dps but higher asp actually gave slightly higher tooltip, simply because of how much dps you gain from auras. Helm - Alpha's Howl - needed to run 3 auras Jewellery - 2 pieces of Elreon jewellery with -8 skill mana cost. Just regal them and mastercraft an ele resist or life. Consider multimodding them with Elreon mod if you have too much ex on your hands and don't know what to do with them. Recommended: Lightning Coil - OP OP phys damage reduction, especially when paired with Taste of Hate Budget gear: Tabula Rasa - quick 6L Thunderfist - you can use these gloves to get a ghetto-5L for you SA, allowing you to use a 4L Lightning Coil or any other body armour Belly of the Beast - more life Jewels 1 x Brute Force Solution, socketed in Templar area, to meet INT requirements for the bow 1 x +2 mana gained on hit, other useful mods: max life, increased (bow) attack speed, increased (bow) damage 3 x minions have +all resists, other useful mods: increased minion damage, increased minion life Advanced upgrades 6L Lightning Coil Corrupted gloves with "Curse Enemies with level X Elemental Weakness on Hit" Corrupted body armour with "+1 to Level of Socketed Skill Gems" Multimodded Elreon jewellery Headhunter
Example gear
Still not sure about flask setup. One thing for certain is that "of Animation" suffix on HP flasks and at least one Quicksilver of Adrenaline are mandatory. Up to lvl 85 or so I played without corrupted gloves using a 5L Split Arrow. I had zero issues with any content with that setup, so you don't necessarily need the gear that I have to run such build.  Scion is the best class, because of jewel sockets and access to different portions of tree without wasting points on evasion. 115 pt 117 pt - respeccing Ranger life nodes to Templar life nodes with reduced skillcost, and getting 1 more Jewel socket instead of 8% ASP Levelling Storm Cloud bow up to lvl 60. Goldrim to patch resists, until you can get a helm with life and 70-80%+ total resists. Tabula Rasa can be used if you don't have a good 5L armour for levelling. 2-3 x Elreon jewellery to bring down the mana cost. Heralds of Ice and thunder for more damage. Static Electricity jewel socketed in the area between Ranger and Shadow. Attack: Split Arrow + WED + FA (replace with Chain later) + Added Lightning At lvl 60 you can start using Null's Inclination, so switch to the main setup then. Bandits Norm - Krait (more resists = easier to be overcapped) Cruel - Krait (more attack speed) Merc - skillpoint  How should I play? - either solo or 2 players with curse/aura support. I do not recommend playing in a full party for several reasons: a) If there is even one CoC char you can enjoy the 5-20 fps slideshows and drops to 0 on strongboxes b) More effects on screen = more lag = much higher chance to RIP c) Usually there are so much effects that you can't see stuff like ground bombs or dangerous enemies, which again dramatically increases your chances to die Stuff to watch out for: - Detonate Dead boxes. Normally this isn't a problem since you clear all corpses. However, when an Allies Cannot Die rare spawns from the box... - Additional Projectiles mod. Some enemies can greatly damage your weapons with this, so be careful and use instahel flask whenever you can to keep weapons alive. - Double bosses with AoE attacks. I don't recommend attempting to kill them if you have less than 25-30 weapons. Note - this is only true for - Volatile blood and ground bombs. This stuff is more dangerous than most of the map bosses. Volatile blood suicide rares are especially nasty on added ele damage maps, can easily hit for 4k+ hp. Dangerous bosses: - Academy - too much lag from his tornadoes - don't recommend killing him if you have a weak PC Increasing Field of View in PoE: /1236921 Last edited by Shajirr on Nov 23, 2015, 2:08:34 PM
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Edit:
You don't really need charisma, and you could get more damage by getting influence. SA can be sustained by bloodmagic or MGOH when your pool is small. Maybe gluttony of elements for killing bosses? All my builds /view-thread/1430399 T14 'real' clearspeed challenge /1642265 Last edited by MatrixFactor on Nov 2, 2015, 11:28:34 AM
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/removed
Increasing Field of View in PoE: /1236921 Last edited by Shajirr on Nov 2, 2015, 4:15:51 PM
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" 99% mana reserved, not possible to sustain. So no Influence. BM gem is not an option since it means removing a damage support. Gluttony of Elements - probably not possible to equip without rolling stats on jewels and using skilltree nodes. Certainly useful though. Increasing Field of View in PoE: /1236921 Last edited by Shajirr on Nov 2, 2015, 4:24:28 PM
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" Blood magic was just a budget suggestion. You do post a 5L setup, so I don't see why all of a sudden blood magic isn't an option... You could also go enlighten 4 (or 3 in a +1item) with Conqueror's Efficiency for around 70 mana unreserved to avoid blood magic and charisma. Overall I still don't like building a regular character around this bow. I feel like it might be better to build a support character around it, especially since a SRS/AW tree is pretty much the same as a pure support tree. SA - Chain - CoH - Enfeeble - Culling - IIR Asthenas gloves with Vuln or EW In bow AW - Min Speed - Culling - Duration - IIR Then you can go low life to get 2 purities, or life+es hybrid to just get wrath, and anger. All my builds /view-thread/1430399
T14 'real' clearspeed challenge /1642265 |
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" As I said BM gem means using one less damage support on SA, which in turn means that it nullifies other damage increases you get in its place. And it you need higher cost gear to do so, why would you ever bother? Tree which you posted previously, with 8 jewel sockets, also requires very significant currency investments just to get to the same efficiency as original 5 jewel tree, since it has much less life and has to roll it on jewels, and life+other useful mods are very expensive. Not even talking about Enlighten 4, most people don't have it. There is no space for +1 skill item, unless you get a corruption, which again most people don't have. The idea of a support build is not a good one - you don't have a lot of space for MF gear, so if a party wants to have a real MF culler - you're out, you are less efficient than an aurabot let alone a curser, and you don't really provide the damage since in a full party the weapons are much less impressive than solo, even if you use Victarios chest Empowered Generosity lvl 20 auras. Increasing Field of View in PoE: /1236921 Last edited by Shajirr on Nov 3, 2015, 2:19:34 PM
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" Well duh, but this isn't an optimal solo build either. It would be fun as a support because you get tons of meatshields, which no other support build does. Sure AW aren't high dmg in a party but they are tanky, and the single target is still good. And you get a bit of everything: 3-4 curses, 2-3 auras, 30-50 meatshields, and some MF. All my builds /view-thread/1430399
T14 'real' clearspeed challenge /1642265 |
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Played with a curse/aura support char yesterday.
I believe this is the best party composition, better than soloing. He literally doubled my dps, 11k -> 22k Split chain unbuffed, same is probably for minions, while enemies gain only 60% increased hp with 2 players. So far the highest boss we managed to kill was Village Ruin (I don't have any higher maps), although it took 2 sets of weapons - 1st set got destroyed after killing the chicken and getting the dog to about 30% hp. I'll upload the vids for this + some other runs. Also tried Academy boss - sadly the weapons spawn so much tornadoes that support char lagged out and died... boss died too though. If you have a weak PC - skip this boss for sure. Increasing Field of View in PoE: /1236921
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why not run melee splash?
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" Because it doesn't increase the damage against single targets, which is the primary purpose of weapons and spirits. Splash will increase overall clearspeed, but against tougher bosses you will be at a disadvantage unless you swap it for WED each time. If I had a 6L I might try to use it instead of FO and start casting that manually instead. I'll check if swapping Minion Speed for Melee Splash will give better results. _____________________________ Update: after running with Melee Splash instead of Minion Speed for a few maps, I can conclude that Minion Speed is as important for clearspeed as other gems, and removing it in favour of other support is not a good idea at all. Sure, Splash allows minions to damage multiple enemies... but your weapons move so fucking slowly without Minion Speed, even under Vaal Haste, they spend much more time on movement, which reduces their effectiveness a lot. Removing minion damage is not an option, it is a huge damage multiplier. Same story with multistrike, it basically acts as a damage multiplier too, regardless of how many targets there are, while Splash only does so if there are many targets in range, and does nothing if there is only one target which you need to take out as soon as possible (boss/exile/etc) Increasing Field of View in PoE: /1236921 Last edited by Shajirr on Nov 14, 2015, 5:05:48 PM
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