[3.2] CI ST/BF HoWA, still ass kicking! Shaper/Guardian/Uber/Elder etc

No, i'm not that guy, just bought this regalia today :)

Awesome build, been playing it for a week or two but moved the tree around to make it a Lightning Striker. Any inputs on the tree I'm using and if I could make it more efficient for Lightning Strike? It's still pretty much the same except I take two frenzies and start from Templar area to use pure talent - plus the projectile damage node at ranger start only works for the secondary effect.

I'm also trying to six link this:

Less ES and I'll have to get resistances on jewels but I think it's worth it.

"

roun wrote:

... to make it a Lightning Striker

do you really prefer LS over ST? you sacrifice a lot of clearspeed as long as its projectiles disappear on every single blade of grass

The tree looks fine, although if you want to include this new chest, it might be really beneficial to unspec 3 points (jewel socket with 4% mana leading to it) at the top of the tree, and take the resistance nodes at the bottom of Scion start - if you can squeeze one more point from somewhere (maybe dropping Frenzy charge or something else), you still get a jewel socket, lose some mana (pretty irrelevant), but get 18% fire and cold res, which will help you a lot with gearing.

Evasion/ES chest does look decent, and if I was to choose between the 2, I'd probably also choose it, if you can work around your resistances. That 1.5k flat evasion scales really good with what we get from Shaper's, and your overall defenses will improve despite a tiny ES loss.

I don't have any experience with LS builds. It does look like a fun skill after its FX rework, but I fell in love with ST ever since I tried playing HoWA for the first time this league, and almost 3 leagues after HoWA being "mainstream". So I cannot give you any feedback on ST vs LS and any tree/gear changes for it, but imo, even if you don't go with ST, you will be cruising through content.

"

Lawyne wrote:

"

roun wrote:

... to make it a Lightning Striker

do you really prefer LS over ST? you sacrifice a lot of clearspeed as long as its projectiles disappear on every single blade of grass

I heard/read somewhere that its alright with Ancestral Call, but again, I have zero personal experience with the skill. It might definately slow you down in places like Shore or even the middle corridor in Vault.

"

Lawyne wrote:

"

roun wrote:

... to make it a Lightning Striker

do you really prefer LS over ST? you sacrifice a lot of clearspeed as long as its projectiles disappear on every single blade of grass

It sucks on some maps but I've been doing a lot of wide open maps on this character and it's fun. I've played a lot of ST builds over the years and wanted to try something new.

LS pros are you don't have the less modifier from GMP and has 176% damage effectiveness so more upfront damage on packs because you don't have to wait for the projectiles to come back. It's also awesome for clearing and single target with Ancestral Call even though I don't use it. Cons are obviously the problem where the projectiles stop on every pebble and it's namelock unless you wanna do less damage with the projectiles. You also need the pierce enchant for QOL.

"

Bristoling wrote:

The tree looks fine, although if you want to include this new chest, it might be really beneficial to unspec 3 points (jewel socket with 4% mana leading to it) at the top of the tree, and take the resistance nodes at the bottom of Scion start - if you can squeeze one more point from somewhere (maybe dropping Frenzy charge or something else), you still get a jewel socket, lose some mana (pretty irrelevant), but get 18% fire and cold res, which will help you a lot with gearing.

Evasion/ES chest does look decent, and if I was to choose between the 2, I'd probably also choose it, if you can work around your resistances. That 1.5k flat evasion scales really good with what we get from Shaper's, and your overall defenses will improve despite a tiny ES loss.

Yeah, with the new chest and playing around with jewels I can still stay above 8k ES while going from 1k EV to about 9K EV, and up to about 28k EV with Jade and Stibnite popped.

how will this build work with the revamp? we will lose ES from the templar points..

Is Slayer instead of Templar a decent option (especially on 3.2 changes)?

Change to Hiero will definitely reduce ES amounts with more budget oriented gear, it was a great source of flat ES. We can probably reach similar dps/survivability with ES nodes by witch start, less dps on the tree but picking another offensive ascendancy. I haven't really had the time to compare all new options but Elementalist/Inquisitor and few other options looks quite decent.

Unfortunately, Slayer leecch doesn't work for CI so this one isn't really an option unless I missed something. Will update the build once 3.2 patch notes are released.

I was using Elemantilst instead of Raider beside Hierophant in 3.1 (Standard) to not rely on generating Frenzy Charges while bossing. That way I had all dps out of the box, which was a real advantage since Howa ST isn't that fast attacking.

I'm going to switch from Hierophant/Elementalist to Occultist/Inquisitor when 3.2 launches.
With a few changing passive points that results in the same DPS like before and 400 less ES, 40 less Mana, but I can run Blood Rage for free, no degen anymore (using Watcher's Eye with Wrath-Pen + Discipline-Regen). Also getting Stun immunity and instead of the second Golem I can link a second curse to CWDT - Enfeeble in my case, fair enough I think.

According to PoB, my character in Abyss has 529k Shaper dps fully buffed and 10.7k ES with Hiero/Raider.

I've tested a few different ascendancy options, and I think the closest one in terms of raw ES/dps is Raider/Champion.

Using nodes marked in blue and dropping red circles:


I'm at 522k dps and 10.5k ES, which is quite comparable. However, this is changing focus from flat ES (Hiero) to %ES (passives), which means that without good gear you will feel the hit in your ES amounts a lot more.

https://pastebin.com/t10YEnfA

"

I'm going to switch from Hierophant/Elementalist to Occultist/Inquisitor when 3.2 launches.
With a few changing passive points that results in the same DPS like before and 400 less ES, 40 less Mana, but I can run Blood Rage for free, no degen anymore (using Watcher's Eye with Wrath-Pen + Discipline-Regen). Also getting Stun immunity and instead of the second Golem I can link a second curse to CWDT - Enfeeble in my case, fair enough I think.

Definitely a viable choice, this will also free up pantheon for Arakaali with Blood Rage.

But, I think that instead of Inquisitor you might want to look at Champion - it is 20% increased damage taken by the enemy, and perma-fortify, so you gain +1 gem slot or can link Cull with your Whirling Blades. Overall I think it's a bit more dps then Inquisitor but also some nice defensive/offensive boost since you don't need to refresh your Fortify.

Jugg is also a good pick for stun protection and Endurance charges, which should more or less be on par as Enfeeble, at least against bosses with curse effectiveness reduction. It's also free chill immunity, letting you roll %evasion during flask effect instead of anti-freeze.

A lot of options, it's quite hard to choose what's best to be honest.