[Major Damage/Mapping Improvements-Update 7.1.22 PoB/Vid] The Fortified Summoner: HoP MI Champion

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Blacksteel15 wrote:

Up to 83 with ~3 ex invested into gear and really happy with how it's playing. I'm trying to plan out the rest of my points. What are your thoughts on the Steadfast and Fearsome Force nodes?

Glad you are enjoying it! You bring up two interesting nodes. Steadfast is good, but since it's effect (and the nodes leading up to it) split their focus between defense and offense, I elected to skip them in favor of more pure defensive nodes.

Fearsome force on the other hand, all I can say is that other nodes add more damage, but the extra area of effect is undeniably nice. If you want to run it I would do a 1 for 1 sub with some other minion life/damage node. You will loose some damage, but the increased aoe might be worth it, idk. Let me know if you try it!

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Steadfast is good, but since it's effect (and the nodes leading up to it) split their focus between defense and offense, I elected to skip them in favor of more pure defensive nodes.

I'm torn; it's 4 skill points and two of them aren't very good ones, but it gives you 45% increased armor and more importantly another 5% less damage taken from hits from Fortify for an effective 6.25% less damage from all hits.

I'm also running The Stampede (uncapped on Chaos Res for now, not running Taste of Hate as I'm not a fan of it) and have the ammy anoint but not the -3 cost on my ring and I'm finding that with the 40% extra mana regen I only run out of mana if I'm Dashing while channeling Cyclone but not hitting enemies. It's a bit annoying but not much of a problem functionally, so I'm trying to decide if I want to roll -3 cost on my ring and use the anoint slot for something else and if so what that should be.

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Blacksteel15 wrote:

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Steadfast is good, but since it's effect (and the nodes leading up to it) split their focus between defense and offense, I elected to skip them in favor of more pure defensive nodes.

I'm torn; it's 4 skill points and two of them aren't very good ones, but it gives you 45% increased armor and more importantly another 5% less damage taken from hits from Fortify for an effective 6.25% less damage from all hits.

I'm also running The Stampede (uncapped on Chaos Res for now, not running Taste of Hate as I'm not a fan of it) and have the ammy anoint but not the -3 cost on my ring and I'm finding that with the 40% extra mana regen I only run out of mana if I'm Dashing while channeling Cyclone but not hitting enemies. It's a bit annoying but not much of a problem functionally, so I'm trying to decide if I want to roll -3 cost on my ring and use the anoint slot for something else and if so what that should be.

Yeah I'm in a similar boat; especially as I run a mana flask I've decided for now to forgo Lucidity annoint in favor of Silent Steps. I really miss not having the aoe blind from Flesh and Stone, but blind on hit is better than nothing.

Do you ever run into a problem where occasionally you end up with Sentinels that aren't affected by Infernal Legion unless you unsocket and resocket it?

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Blacksteel15 wrote:

Do you ever run into a problem where occasionally you end up with Sentinels that aren't affected by Infernal Legion unless you unsocket and resocket it?

I did! Take this with a pretty large grain of salt, but I had it happen decently often at lower levels, but since I hit endgame and red mapping, it's pretty much completely stopped. What character level/gem level are you at now? If you are at a lower level on either one, I'd be very interested in hearing if it goes away for you too as you level up.

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I did! Take this with a pretty large grain of salt, but I had it happen decently often at lower levels, but since I hit endgame and red mapping, it's pretty much completely stopped. What character level/gem level are you at now? If you are at a lower level on either one, I'd be very interested in hearing if it goes away for you too as you level up.

I'm afraid not. I'm at 92 and speed-clearing T15-T16 and just upgraded to a level 21 HoP. I've been experimenting with different placements for the Fortress Covenant (leaning toward swapping where you have FC and where you have Watcher's Eye in the PoB), but I don't know if that has anything to do with it or whether I'm just noticing it now because I'm paying particular attention to how many Sentinels I have out. It seems like it happens every 2-3 maps and it definitely cuts into my damage a lot when it happens.

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Blacksteel15 wrote:

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I did! Take this with a pretty large grain of salt, but I had it happen decently often at lower levels, but since I hit endgame and red mapping, it's pretty much completely stopped. What character level/gem level are you at now? If you are at a lower level on either one, I'd be very interested in hearing if it goes away for you too as you level up.

I'm afraid not. I'm at 92 and speed-clearing T15-T16 and just upgraded to a level 21 HoP. I've been experimenting with different placements for the Fortress Covenant (leaning toward swapping where you have FC and where you have Watcher's Eye in the PoB), but I don't know if that has anything to do with it or whether I'm just noticing it now because I'm paying particular attention to how many Sentinels I have out. It seems like it happens every 2-3 maps and it definitely cuts into my damage a lot when it happens.

Hmm, yeah I'm 93 with a lvl 21 HoP and I haven't had it happen to me in probably at least a couple weeks of play. It definitely happened early on though; I just don't know what changed. I agree it is frustrating when it happens though. I had a theory it was tied to the medium cluster jewel keystones as it seemed to happen more when I was using them; but it looks like you aren't using any medium clusters so that theory is out the window.

Perhaps move FC back to where I have it? Though you have probably tried them both. You might also try to swap out to flesh offering, as spirit offering does work against our goal of lowering our sentinel's resistance as much as possible.

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Peterrabbit_01 wrote:

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Blacksteel15 wrote:

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I did! Take this with a pretty large grain of salt, but I had it happen decently often at lower levels, but since I hit endgame and red mapping, it's pretty much completely stopped. What character level/gem level are you at now? If you are at a lower level on either one, I'd be very interested in hearing if it goes away for you too as you level up.

I'm afraid not. I'm at 92 and speed-clearing T15-T16 and just upgraded to a level 21 HoP. I've been experimenting with different placements for the Fortress Covenant (leaning toward swapping where you have FC and where you have Watcher's Eye in the PoB), but I don't know if that has anything to do with it or whether I'm just noticing it now because I'm paying particular attention to how many Sentinels I have out. It seems like it happens every 2-3 maps and it definitely cuts into my damage a lot when it happens.

Hmm, yeah I'm 93 with a lvl 21 HoP and I haven't had it happen to me in probably at least a couple weeks of play. It definitely happened early on though; I just don't know what changed. I agree it is frustrating when it happens though. I had a theory it was tied to the medium cluster jewel keystones as it seemed to happen more when I was using them; but it looks like you aren't using any medium clusters so that theory is out the window.

Perhaps move FC back to where I have it? Though you have probably tried them both. You might also try to swap out to flesh offering, as spirit offering does work against our goal of lowering our sentinel's resistance as much as possible.

I've tried FC in all of my jewel sockets now and it doesn't seem to make a difference. I can try Flesh Offering and see how it plays, but I don't think Spirit Offering is the problem. The Sentinels will take literally 0 damage from Infernal Legion until I resocket it. I definitely don't have an problem with my Sentinel degen rate when I don't have this issue. I submitted a bug report about it, so hopefully I'll hear something back from the dev team.

I just picked up gloves with Faster Attacks and Poison, intending to use the extra socket for Culling Strike. But looking at different options I have, it occurred to me that it might be better to use the 6th socket for Fortify and swap the Fortitude ascendancy for First to Strike, Last to Fall. Do you have any thoughts?

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Blacksteel15 wrote:

I just picked up gloves with Faster Attacks and Poison, intending to use the extra socket for Culling Strike. But looking at different options I have, it occurred to me that it might be better to use the 6th socket for Fortify and swap the Fortitude ascendancy for First to Strike, Last to Fall. Do you have any thoughts?

Yeah I've been tossing that around too. I think it could work, but I have 2 concerns. First: you pretty much need to run Lucidity annoint and -3 to ring, and even so you are going to have a cyclone mana cost of 2. With my mana pool and regen levels, this is slightly more than I regen at 10 aps (which is where we want to be for life gain and HoP generation). Not a super big deal, except when you go in to no regen maps then it's pretty annoying, but managable with a gemini claw. Just don't use the last of your mana on your dash into a monster pack; it won't go well :p.

Second, fortify on hit is almost, but not quite as safe as plain old passive Fortify. You are probably going to have an occasional death due to some unlucky aoe or such where you hadn't procced fortify. Not really a big deal, but it's still something to consider.

Other potential uses for that last slot is Culling Strike for a mana cost of 1 as you mentioned, though can just swap culling in for gmp in HoA for boss fights, or Blind which has no mana multiplier and so still gives you a free cyclone! Onslaught also brings cyclone to 1 mana, and (this might be a terrible idea) you could also use Blood Magic, and ditch both Lucidity and the -3 enchant! That's ~120 life/sec though, user discretion is advised.