[3.6] Speedy Melee Herald of Agony Occultist | ALL MAPS | ALL MODS | SHAPER VIABLE | LEAGUE STARTER

I used this guide as a league starter for Betrayal, planning to re-roll something else after getting some currency but I can't stop tinkering with it. I love this build.

That said, I can understand why people have issues with the Agony Crawler; it's AI leaves a LOT to be desired. It really can't be stressed enough how important +% Minion Movement Speed and Profane Bloom are in making mapping feel smooth.

AI issues aside, Vesuvius has made an incredible build that can league start comfortably, map smoothly, and tackle bosses on a budget.

HOWEVER...
A few things I've found:
'Ancestral Call' isn't necessary on Static Strike; 1 stack is more than enough to keep 40 virulence while shield charging through maps. Putting a 'Poison' support gem in it's place means not needing Elder 'Poison Support' gloves. Opens up potential for 'Tombfist' or 'Grip of the Council'

Grip of the Council; It's PROBABLY good? Still testing. On paper it's more DPS than 'Tombfists' Intimidate and the chill compounded with 75% temp chains feels pretty nice while mapping.

Curses r gud + wreck The Syndicate; I ran Asenath's Gentle Touch corrupted with Enfeeble on hit for ages and would still got one shot frequently; Non-quality low-level curses feel weak and under-utilized as Occultist. Switching to Enfeeble+Temporal Chains+Blapshemy+Enhance feels very safe (Requires Solstice Vigil).

Getting Dex is terrible; and it wastes a perfectly good suffix that could be a resist. It's better to take Precision on the tree and craft resistance on gear than take Iron Skin on the tree and craft dex. (Precision has a little bit of extra attack speed)

Here's my current POB for anyone interested; (https://pastebin.com/Rz2SusSB)

Would it be worth to add in a soulwrest setup? The virulence could be stacked with a ball lightning or winter orb with poison and lesser poison or maybe volkuurs guidance. I think this would greatly boost the clearspeed and single target. The ball lightning could be supplemented with mana gained on hit for spells ring to boost survivalibility and I think he overall tree would be the same.

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Ancestral Call' isn't necessary on Static Strike; 1 stack is more than enough to keep 40 virulence while shield charging through maps. Putting a 'Poison' support gem in it's place means not needing Elder 'Poison Support' gloves. Opens up potential for 'Tombfist' or 'Grip of the Council'

The reason for ancestral call wasn’t actually the stacks, it’s for QoL. With ancestral call it is much easier to land static strike because you can just check attack in place and not have to aim it.

I am using Molten Strike on my 5 link chest and Shield Charge on my claw. This way i can use a cheap poison claw (without Multistrike).
Now i found out that it is even better to use a cheap fortify claw instead.

I bought a very nice claw for just 1 alch.
It gives a lvl20 Fortify, has more than 1.9 att speed, 20% poison on hit and 46 life gained.
I just needed to replace my Fortify gem with a Poison gem to make it work.
The most expensive part was the crafted 27% increased minion damage on it. :)

This build is just great for experimentation!!

I was thinking to improve the life gained on hit by replacing the shield with an Advanced Fortress claw. This would basically double the life gained. The claw is a nice pseudo shield which gives some life, even better block and some evasion.

The biggest issue is that Shield Charge has to be replaced with Whirling Blades.
And Whirling Blades has no AoE part which does generate some extra life and Virulence.

I have not tested it yet, but maybe someone already has?!
Do you think the massive life gain is all worth it?!?

I did both the Advanced Fortress and Solstice Vigil w/ Temp Chains suggestions above, and the difference is night and day if you're having problems staying alive like I was. I was sitting at 7000 hp, maxed resists, and I died to a few bosses in T10, and didn't have a chance against the syndicate.

I made the switches above, and I haven't died all day - even to t12 syndicate (but it was close). That's with my hp down to 6000 now too. I like it.

Hey guys, I ran HoA as my league starter and it was a blast. Time to move to a new build now, so I'm selling a bunch of pretty gg gear for it (uber elder down in under 2 minutes deathless).

Hit me up in-game if interested: FrontPorchStep

I did a bit of testing with the Advanced Fortress claw instead of a shield. Whirling Blade isnt that bad, it feels even a bit quicker than Shield Charge. The difference in life gained is less important than expected since even the normal 46 life gained on hit is huge when you have 3 stacks of static strike and doing some molten strikes in between.

I am back at using a shield, it gives me 300 extra life and alot more regen.

To me the biggest issue are the oneshots, therefore i went for maximum life and good life regen to keep life at max. I finally could buy a +3 helmet with some crafted life.

Now i am having 8.3k life (still without Kaom's) and 800 life regen.

A very good lifesaver against nasty 2 shots is the quartz flask Forbidden Taste. It gives up to 100% life back in an instant. The only downside is the chaos damage taken afterwards. But thanks to 71% chaos resist and high life regen, my life not even drops.

I dont think that a max level Temp Chain is really needed, it is way more important to use a max quality one. Even at low level with CwDT it still slows mobs down by 33% (instead of 40% at max level).

Another thing i would not invest too much in is minion speed. You can make the crawler as fast as you want but when it is too stupid to move around a corner, all the speed doesent help. Movement speed is here to compensate for the bad AI but it can only compensate for so much. At this point i would rather have less or no cooldown on Convocation. I love to see the Crawler hitting all the energy shield mobs far away for next to no damage and you are standing next to the mob while Convocation is still on cooldown.

Now my question is:
I have 27% increased minion damage crafted on my claw.
Instead i could craft 17% chance to blind enemies on hit.
I am not sure which one is better.
Once you have high virulence stacks the damage increase is hardly doing anything, but blind on hit could be nice to have.


@fragme11
The best way to fight the syndicate is to be quick, move constantly, keep static strike running and the rest of the time use molten strike.
It is probably the best thing you can do in this build at any fight.

When you are too hesitant, you often not generate enough LgoH and Virulence stacks which you need constantly. This is probably the most agressive build ive ever played. I am constantly running into huge formations of mobs which would kill me easily in a different build.
Here attack is the best defence, combined with movement.

What me kills is usually bad luck, like a 75% increased aoe mod on a Core map, where the oneshot aoe of the boss is getting so big that you need 2 shield charges to get out of it. Or when the Elder decides to do his oneshot aoe where you have to hide in the bubble after he died and dropped his items. :)

FYI: claw LGoH implicits are local. If you dual wield you only get the benefits of the claw currently delivering the hit so there’s no benefit.

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Vesuvius079 wrote:

FYI: claw LGoH implicits are local. If you dual wield you only get the benefits of the claw currently delivering the hit so there’s no benefit.

Thank you, this is the reason why i couldnt see much of a difference when using 2 claws.

Instead of increasing LGoH, i now went for the blinded approach. With a crafted 17% to blind, you basically blind bosses nonstop with this build. That is a huge evasion bonus for non caster bosses and i think it works quite well.

I am level 94 now and could improve life regen to 900. :)

For my very first time i fought Chimera and the Minotaur.
Lucky me, i got Temp Chain on both corrupted maps. :(
Being so slow i couldnt do much but facetanking. I was expecting to die quite alot, but Minotaur went well til 10% where i realized i should have moved me out of something.

Chimera was crazy, i thought i wouldnt survive the Smoke Phase, since you have to eat most of the hits thanks to Temp Chain.
But Chimera went deathless and the only time i needed pots was in the smoke phase. I could facetank all his attacks.

I knew how extremly good this build is, but didnt expect that.
I guess that blinding the bosses is helping alot, since it gives good extra evasion.

The only issue i have right now is the huge RNG in game, Shaper doesent move to high tier areas, Riker doesent move to Research (since 2 weeks) and other things which keep me from solving challenges.

So if I switch back to shield and a minion movement speed amulet, what other upgrades should I be looking for?

I've got 6-7ex I can spend (if it ever sells!) and I'm not really sure where to go next. What about enchants?