[2.5] Culler-Support-Tank - Full MF | +12k ES | 7 Auras + Animate guardian

Instead of a lot of details about numbers that very few people cared about, I decided this time I would go with something more user-friendly, and rate each class according to different categories. Note that the "best" version isn't necessarily the one who scores the most in total.
Some numerical explanations are shown in the 3rd post from this thread.

Main categories are
- Culling. How reliable are your culls. Note that the "reference party" I use to rate culling has a high/very high clear speed. If your party is made of snails, culling score is irrelevant, as all versions will score max. The opposite is also true: if the party is so fast that you cannot keep up with their movement skills, you won't be able to cull, doesn't matter what you play.
- Defenses. How much damage you can take without dying.
- Support. How many buffs can you bring to the party, and how strong are they.
- Transition. How early you can reallocate your points to play a "semi final" version of the build (when you get all aura and culling buffs). Note than this isn't related to being easier to level, or requiring less regrets.



Guardian is the overall strongest class.
Occultist is a bit more tanky, at the cost of some supporting abilities.
Slayer is in a whole new level for cullers, but has to make huge sacrifices to take that spot.
The other subclasses are there mostly for comparison purposes, but all of them are "playable".

Ascendancy trees

This is only for the ascendancy trees. The "normal trees" are below.
Guardian http://poeplanner.com/AAIAACBBQUlGQXdBQUNMZG83N3lTSzZVWVRsTDlBQjJaeExRPQAQQUFBQ0FBZlFBUUgwQVFBQQAA Get unwavering faith first.

Hierophant http://poeplanner.com/AAIAABRBQUlGQWdBQUJHaGFCRkU2Rm9hQwAQQUFBQ0FBZlFBUUgwQVFBQQAA
Also, skip ancestral bond in your passive tree

Ascendant http://poeplanner.com/AAIAACRBQUlBQVFBQUNsZ1hvajQ4UzNqSDRxMEoyY3BHOHRMZGtpZHoAEEFBQUNBQWZRQVFIMEFRQUEAAA== Occultist instead of necromancer is also viable.

Slayer http://poeplanner.com/AAIAABBBQUlFQVFBQUFxVTFESEE9ABBBQUFDQUFmUUFRSDBBUUFBAAA=

Occultist http://poeplanner.com/AAIAACBBQUlEQVFBQUNMdjhGWDdHOTM2aGZQQWFTSkVIUW5vPQAQQUFBQ0FBZlFBUUgwQVFBQQAA You can make your own variation with curses or forbidden power + conduit, but I don't recommend it.

Necromancer http://poeplanner.com/AAIAABRBQUlEQXdBQUJCVW5qTEdiaXI1UAAQQUFBQ0FBZlFBUUgwQVFBQQAA

This build has 2 goals: Culling and supporting.

Culling is the way to go if you want to get rich, but don't want to play pathoftrade. Also, for some reason there aren't many cullers out there, and every good party needs 1 culler.

Supporting in a 6 man endgame party is very apreciated. Previous iterations of the build focused on giving party extra dps, now that auras have been nerfed we have to focus on defensive auras. Why defensive auras? Because endgame content hasn't gained much hp, so dps isn't a issue. But they hit hard, so triple purities + discipline + vitality +grace are the best auras you can use for safe leveling. Again, for some reason there isn't much aurabots there, and every good party benefits greatly from 1.

Last goal of the build is to be as tanky as posible: a dead culler is a bad culler. Also, the build uses totems to cull, so you don't need to facetank anything and can stand at range.

Culls
180 IIQ and 391 IIR(with my standard gear).
Culling spell is flame totem. 2 totems x 7 projectiles, 10 cast per second and 69% projectile speed

Party Buffs
+14% increased movement speed (lvl 20 haste)
+28% attack and cast speed (lvl 20 haste)
+7% maximum fire, cold and lightning res (lvl 20 purity of fire, ice and lightning). If empowering purities, +8 maxres,+76 res.
+73% to fire, cold and lightning res (lvl 20 purity of fire, ice and lightning)
+4609 base evasion, multiplied by increased evasion modifiers (lvl 20 grace)
+687 base energy shield, multiplied by increased energy shield modifiers (lvl 26 discipline)
+2.95% of hp regenerated each second (lvl 20 vitality)
+18% increased curse effect (dying breath from animated guardian)
+33% increased damage (leer cast + dying breath from animated guardian)
+8% physical damage reduction (guardian ascendancy)
+1.6% hp regen (guardian ascendancy)
+3000 base armor (at lvl ~90)

Tankyness (A bit outdated, it's from 2.1, prior to ascendancy patch powercreep)
32% increased flask effect duration, 30% increased flask effect. <-- Do not overlook this, with high clearspeed is insane.
5% physical damage reduction (39% with rumi's flask)
6150 evasion
12.607 energy shield
408 energy shield regenerated per second
81% fire and cold res
82% light res
-60% chaos res
31% chance to block (75 with rumi's)
0% chance to block spells (26 with rumi's)
2105 life, 35% stun recovery
23% movement modifier

Small tips to deal with traps for people with high ping

1-Regen. Vitality aura
2-Mobility. Haste aura, mobility skills (flame dash, whirling blades, lightning warp).
3-Phys mitigation. Armor, flask, chaos golem.

Lab is also easier to run if you haven't gone blood magic yet. First because your overall ES will be higher, second because you can cast movement skills freely without having to worry about flask.

No levelling tree. Use your own leveling path, pick the dps passives you consider necessary and use a few refunds to transition to the build when you think you are ready.

Below I show some core trees that let you achieve certain breakpoints in the build, with the minimum point investment. Bear in mind that, depending on your gear, you might want to take some energy shield nodes before finishing any of the core trees.

Templar trees. Witch tree at the end.

Pre-shavs core trees
It has double totem and maximum supporting capabilities pre-shavs.
A basic skeleton tree.
http://tinyurl.com/hy76tc5

Core tree (minimum lvl 65)
http://tinyurl.com/za9lxt6

Also getting bloodmagic and the aura nodes nearby.
You can transition to this when you purchase a shavs (or solaris lorica if you are happy enough with your es pool).

Endgame tree
http://www.poeplanner.com/AAIAAVRBQUlGQXdBQWZPb1lweXZ2VGgycV9rbmhpTU02al9xRzBTY0xnN2FFU0FGdlhHdkRiWXQ2NHZjTmZGeUtXaXNxRTZQeVdPV1FWZXE2dHpHTWRwNDhtczl4VFVOamhtQU9YRVYtYXZyWHpfazM3NGhKc1RiRjJDUWFiSjJ1eWtwdm51UWlLVThFQng4Q3RBeEdjUzBmR29fMjJ2c0pROGozTWhtS3B3amZ2X2pyT2xLRENRNDhUd1NFeFp1MVg3RFpFM0M3TDItLWlzclRvUzhSVURXNUhVOU1zMHV1R3lYWlctRERKYnpiVDNLcDZRSmhVdXdZbFM1SlVmRFZCeDVvOGhSeFZkYUFwR1RuRnk4a3NKTW5mOFp0R2ZyU1pwN0J4ZmZCdFFSRlI4Qm1CTE9pQVBBZkdqaFo4M0lQcktvaTlHd0x0Mmp2dktVWWtpdE9VdjBBAAhBQUFBQVFBQQAA
Same as core tree, but with more defenses and flask nodes


Witch tree
Use the templar endgame tree, but skip the templar starting points. Use the free points on the es wheel and/or jewels.

Kill all bandits. You can choose all res in normal (depending on your gear) and +1 end. charge (if you have a closed group that consistently generates charges)

This is a bit outdated, belongs to patch 2.1 Now stats are better
Culling spell


Defense with flasks (7s duration)


Defense without flasks

Armour (culling spell)


Auras

Utilities

My gear


IIQ vs IIR


Gearing indications

Tier 1. Must have
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Energy_From_Within
Put it near the passive called Melding

Tier 2. Recommended
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Conqueror's_Efficiency
This is NOT needed at all, but it's a good quality of life improvement. I gained 100 unreserved hp, which makes casting spells and keeping flask up an easier task.

Tier 3. Rare jewels
All of them must have 8% increased maximum energy shield.
Then if you need str/dex/resistances, I recommend getting them from jewels.
After that there is a bunch of luxury mods which are IIR, int, energy shield recharge and cast speed. Just buy whatever you find that suits you, this build is not jewel dependant at all (the total price of all my jewels is less than 20c).

Tier 4. Optional
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Rain_of_Splinters
The reason I'm putting this into optional whereas some other cullers put it on essential is because I don't think it's necessary. I'll go as far as saying it's subpar.

My totems fire 7 projectiles and already covers a huge area, we don't really need more. I just tested with a friend on pvp, and the extra angle is barely noticeable.

The only situation in which more projectiles are useful is when there is a lot of trash mobs, and chances are that those aren't culled anyway. So, my opinion is that they are useful, but rare jewels are better.

I don't think I can record videos, but I can take some screenshots of loot.
As I said in the previous section, I decided to go all in in IIQ. Those screenshots were taken with 205IIQ + 283IIR.

Must have
1.
2.
3. Any flask with remove bleeding

Recommended
1.
2. Any flask with remove frozen, remove poison

Really interesting
(this is a legacy one, but new ones are also good)
Combine them with conduit passive to sustain charges to your group.

IMPORTANT
First of all, do NOT quality your distillate, 0Q is better. Higher quality increases the hp/mana recovered per second, so it becomes harder to keep flask up (when you are full hp and mana, flask effect is finished).

About culling gameplay
There are two things which I consider important:

1. Clearspeed > culls.
2. Quality of life > culls

Which basically means you shouldn't get obsessed trying to cull every single monster with distillate up.
Of course, not everyone shares my vision, but I would say this is more true the more you progress. When you have little to no gear you play very focused, trying to get the max out of it. But when you are pretty well geared and next gear upgrade takes dozens of hours, you tend to a more "disconnected" playstyle.

When I play I perma-spam a 70% movement speed quicksilver and usually walk up a bit ahead of my party, so I find a good place to cast totems in advance (at the side of packs, maximizing AoE and avoiding corners/terrain). I'm not very concerned about keeping the flask buff up on trash, only on bosses, exiles and the occasional high hp rare. I do that because of my lazyness, but also because the clearspeed of the people I play forces me to.

In a not-so-op party, you should do more or less the same. Except you probably will "down the cut" (I'm not a native speaker, so I don't know if that's correct). Basically you probably will want to keep your hp down on yellows and blues too. And you won't need to run ahead of your party because you'll have plenty of time to decide where to place totems.

Emptying life for tryhards
I don't recommend it to any sane person, but you can combine distillate with http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Blood_of_the_Karui for higher accuracy on distillate buff. Cast 2 totems, wait for enemy to be low hp, use distillate and use karui.
You trade higher distillate uptime for a flask slot (maybe even 2, because you might run into hp problems if you abuse this method)

Emptying mana for lazy guys
Ideally (if you have room for utility spells) you cast one spamable spell with fast cast speed and high mana cost. If you don't have gem room for that, you have to keep recasting totems, which is not as good because it screws totem positioning a bit, and sometimes interrupt the spells of the replaced totem. Recasting totem isn't bad (it's what I do), but having a utility spell is better.

About having enough hp to cast
Right now I have 337 hp unreserved (without conqueror's efficiency), and lvl 20 FT cost 91 mana, so I have a minimum of 3 casts per flask usage. We have 32% increased flask duration so each flask last 6.6s (20 from belt, 12 from tree). Let's suppose you don't have enlightens, and can only hold 2 usages per flask.

I said a minimum of 3 casts because on those 6.6s totems are free (unless your party is really fast and you can't afford to standstill, but if that's the case you never have flask shortage problems). Because totems lasts 8s, this leaves your party with 14.6s to gain 20 flask charges. To me, that's more than enough, but if party is too slow you have different solutions:


a. Carry more than one distillate (a life flask can be a poor-man alternative).
b. Don't use zealot
c. Play the mana version
d. Be a glass cannon and run dmg auras with generosity.
e. Keep your flame totem at a lower level. <--Not recommended, because it's hard not to get full hp, losing the whole distillate effect (which in turn can increase your hp problems). Use option a. instead

First and foremost, I don't recommend my build for starters, unless you have some old friends that you play with. Given the state of public parties, a group build when you don't have regulars can be very annoying. I also recommend reading all the other chapters before this one.

After this warning, let me say that this budget version isn't really a budget version, more like a way to get to endgame that I think can be good (but I don't have first hand experience with it). You could use anything else and then respec.
Also, prices are really variable, so if you see a good deal, buy it.

If you don't use http://poe.trade/, you are already taking too long :D

Step 1

Buy list.

1. Very high priority (very good value for less than 1c)
When buying IIQ Uniques, buy only the ones with max IIQ roll
Goldwyrm boots, sadima's touch gloves, perandus blazon, heartbreaker

2. High priority.
Near 50 IIR ES helmet.
IIQ gem (standard only)

3. Medium priority

High IIR amulet and rings
Divination distillate (aim for decent rolls)


Farm dried lake in public parties/friends. For trees, use the core trees as a skeleton. Use a 4L: flame totem, IIQ, IIR, GMP. For auras, run discipline and then, if no one else is running them, prioritise damage auras (hatred/wrath/anger/haste). At this level dying is not that important.

If the party is retarded (ie doesn't follow any pattern when clearing or they use some culling attack like power siphon ) just leave.

Keep using all the currency you get to buy upgrades. I can't help with prices here, because they are too variable, but slowly aim for legacy iiq+iir gear.

Step 2
You can keep farming dried lake forever, or jump to maps. I think that maps give less currency than lake until you have high end friends and gear. But.. it's a more diversified gameplay, and the route you must take if you want to level. You don't want to get to lvl 100 on lake, don't you? :D


Buy list
1- Shavs. No need to 6L, faster casting is only necessary on high end parties, I doubt many people has cast times lower than 0.16s.
There is always someone asking for lorica. If you feel confortable with your defenses, you can do it.

Since you also expect to level, you need some defences now. Get high energy shield, and cap resistances (you will be using 3x purities now, so capping res is easy).

After getting shavs, you can get the bloodmagic keystone to massively increase the number of auras you can use. At this point, you have pretty much the same build that me, but with less numbers.

Dedicated support build https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1702757

Old guide (pre-ascendancy, witch)
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/943897

"

2L8 wrote:

Hi, your builds looks really nice and im definitely going to try it!
but i have one question: most other guides i read had some sort of stun immunity, which i dont see here. Is it so tanky that you dont need it? for example the crematorium boss, where you have a loot screenshot from. do you just stay out of the firestorm?

Stun is a problem in a lot of energy shield based builds, but at least this one has several built-in anti-stun layers.

First of all, I must say you get stunned a lot, far more than you think you do. If you want to test, just equip a cws (cast when stunned) with some spells, and see that it's proccing a ton.
A stunned dps loses damage, but getting stunned with this build isn't a big deal because you only need to cast totems. This leads to the main point: getting stunned is only a problem if you get stunned to death

The mechanics that help against stun are:

1- High tankyness
Even if you were in a situation where you would get chain stunned, you just have to survive long enough for your party to clear all the monsters (or enough monsters so you don't get chain stunned anymore). If you have messed up, press all flask instantly.

2- Evasion
Evaded attack = 0% chance to be stunned.

3- Positioning
This summarises as being a totem build. You don't have to be in the middle of the fight if you don't want to (despite you usually can do so).
This doesn't mean you need to take free damage, definitely do not stand inside firestorms, you can walk across one, but if there are several of them stacked you will die 100%. For example, what I do against said boss is stay close to my party (so they get buffs) in a safe spot (but ready to move at any time, and avoid being cornered). Keep checking the boss hp, when it's low cast 2 totems (each one in a different place). If by any reason I must leave line of sight (me or my guardian risking death) and a totem dies, replace it when you can, then run away again.

4- innate chance (50%) to avoid stun when having some es

5-"High" HP
The passive tree implicitly contains much more hp than any other low life build. Showing some numbers, assuming we do not evade any attack
A hit of 500 has a 50% chance to stun against a 1000hp char
A hit of 500 has a 25% chance to stun against a 2000hp char
A hit of 1000 has a 50% chance to stun against a 2000hp char
A 2000hp char is immune to stun with hits lower than 200hp

6- Mitigation
Most energy shield builds rely on a high ES buffer + leech to stay alive, with little to no mitigation. This one has both a high buffer but also decent mitigation (max res from purities, evasion from grace, phys from golem + radiant faith (ascendancy point).

Mitigation works the in a similar way as having high hp, turning a hit of 1000 into one of 500.

7-Stun recovery (reduces the duration of stuns)
I currently have 35% stun recovery

In patch 2.1, you decided your build, you decided your threshold for defense/offense, and then min-max it. But now we really have a choice, no class is the "absolute best" and each of them has a trade-off. Having said that, I consider guardian-templar to be the strongest among them.

Witch has the best passive tree but scion, and especially templar have better ascendancy subclasses.

Having worse tree implies:
1-Less energy shield
2-Slightly less rarity (from jewels)
3-Core tree is delayed. You will need higher level to have the same auras and culling capacities. In exchange you get other things that are either useless or not so useful for the class.

Descriptive and comprehensive overview


Quantitative summary